‘Crater’ Review: Diverting Disney+ Adventure Takes Its Young Heroes on a Trip to the Moon

For years, the Disney Channel has been a breeding ground for young talent, churning out stars that have gone on to make their mark in the entertainment industry. From the likes of Shia LaBeouf and Demi Lovato to Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus, the network has provided a platform for some of the biggest names in music and acting.

Quentin Tarantino was at the Cannes Film Festival this week to present a screening of John Flynn‘s 1977 film “Rolling Thunder,” which features prevalently in his book “Cinema Speculations.” And with QT on la Croisette, Deadline sat the director down to talk about his next (and final) film, “The Movie Critic,” his thoughts on the streaming zeitgeist, and other details about his career.

Bonjour, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here to guide you through a whirlwind week in film and television. Cannes is nearly over, while we’ve got the latest twist in the ongoing U.S. labor disputes, which could have worldwide ramifications. Read on and don’t forget to subscribe here.

Still into you! Ariana Grande and husband Dalton Gomez’s relationship flame is still burning red hot two years into their marriage.

They grow up so fast! Sister Wives star Janelle Brown took to social media to celebrate her eldest son Logan Brown’s 29th birthday.

Disney’s attempts to reinvent their animated classics as live action versions has proven to be largely a smart boxoffice play, but one with a mixed creative result. Certainly some were huge hits likeBill Condon’s Beauty And The Beast and Guy Ritchie’s less enchanting Aladdin. Others effectively created photo real animals in The Lion King and The Jungle Book . Older Disney staples have gotten the treatment by focusing on the villains in Cruella and Maleficent and their sequels, even an unforunate Disney + attempt on the untouchable (if you ask me) Lady And The Tramp. But even approaching an animated masterpiece, 1989’s The Little Mermaid and essentially trying to make a splashy (sorry) big screen live action musical that works above and under the water seems dicey on paper. So what do you do? Bring in Rob Marshall , and as it turns out that is all the new live action The Little Mermaid needed.

Manuel Betancourt Hundreds of fish lie dead on a riverbed. A lone (lonely?) cow ambles around late at night in a forest. A flock of birds fly in discordant unison up above. The arresting images of nature gone awry in Francisca Alegría’s “The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future” are but the first clues that this rural-set Chilean feature has a distinct ecological interest. This hypnotic tale about how hard it can be to heal earthly and familial wounds marks a singular feature debut from the director of 2016 short “And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye.” Aptly matching its dizzying and obfuscating title, the film opens with a premise that owes much to Latin America’s most treasured literary genre: magical realism. A young woman, with a motorcycle helmet in tow, emerges from the river where she presumably committed suicide decades ago. She washes ashore only slightly disoriented, caring little for the muddied state she’s in. Audiences, who have been offered an extended view of the verdant landscape around this mystery woman, including of the many fish who will soon be found dead in her wake, have heard a choral song that elucidates (though doesn’t quite clarify) what’s happened: “We’ve lived in agony since she passed away,” the voices sing, “but a drowned woman will come back soaked with life. And like her, we will return one day.” Alegría puts us immediately in a world where spirituality and ecology co-exist, where haunting presences have tangible connections with the physical realm.

Catherine Bray Festival reviews just love to hype a breakout performance, to the extent that one worries about becoming the little critic that cried breakout. But here goes: Talia Ryder, lead actor in “The Sweet East,” is a star. There’s something of Kristen Stewart about her, not merely in terms of physical resemblance, but more in her gift for not just acting but reacting. That’s fortunate, because her character is generally surrounded by extremely chatty blowhards, most of them interested only in the role she might play for them in their own lives. She lies constantly about her identity and where she’s from, and these lies go down easy because nobody is particularly invested in who she might actually be — they’re too keen to fit her into their own mythology.

Last March, Disney launched Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, an interactive, highly immersive 3-day, 2-night experience adjacent to the Walt Disney World resort in Florida.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Every time two cowboys point their guns at one another on screen, there’s something homoerotic at play. Hollywood Westerns may be loath to admit as much, but not so Pedro Almodóvar, who casts Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as lonesome cowboys reunited after 25 years in “Strange Way of Life.” Commissioned by Saint Laurent Productions (which is also premiering a Jean-Luc Godard short at Cannes), this half-baked half-hour serves as a sexy showcase for creative director Anthony Vaccarello’s latest designs, while barely delivering on the promise that an Almodóvar-made “gay cowboy” movie conjures in the imagination. At the Cannes premiere, the Spanish director described “Strange” as his response to a question posed by “Brokeback Mountain”: What can two men do on a ranch? Silva (Pascal) gives Jake (Hawke) his answer in the final seconds of the short, and it’s sweet, though it turns out Almodóvar is misremembering Ang Lee’s 2005 Western. The scene he’s thinking of is probably the one where Heath Ledger’s character tells Jake Gyllenhaal how his father made a point of showing him an old rancher’s corpse, gay-bashed with a tire iron and then “drug … around by his dick.” With an image like that in their minds, no wonder the couple decide to keep their forbidden love on the down low.

Instagram with a photo of a baby grow which had "coming soon" written on it. The Mean Girls star then confirmed her pregnancy in the caption as she told her 13 million followers: "We are blessed and beyond excited. "As Lindsay prepares for labour she is said to be feeling "over the moon", with the prospects of motherhood.

Ethan Shanfeld Andy Grammer, Walk the Moon, Moby, Mike Shinoda and Grace VanderWaal are among 150 artists and songwriters participating in New York City’s Anti Social Camp, taking place June 12-17. The biggest songwriting camp in the world, Anti Social Camp is free of charge and will feature 100 recording sessions, as well as a calendar of shows and parties. The goal is for artists, songwriters and producers to gather and create hit songs in a limited timeframe. Select songs will be curated for the inaugural Anti Social Camp compilation album, which will be distributed exclusively through music company Amuse.

In cinematic form, how do you tell history without archive footage? Occupied City shows how it can be done, and to what effect.

The family of a murdered mom from Georgia is finally getting some measure of justice.

Naman Ramachandran The late Oscar-winning thespian Christopher Plummer delivers his final performance in animated feature “Heroes of the Golden Masks,” also starring Patton Oswalt and Ron Perlman. Inspired by the ancient bronze masks of Sanxingdui discovered on the archaeological site of Guanghan in the Sichuan Province in the late 1980s, the film centers on Charlie, a wise-cracking, homeless, American orphan who is magically transported to the ancient Chinese kingdom of Sanxingdui, where a colorful team of superheroes need his help to defend the city from a brutal conqueror. Charlie joins the heroes and secretly schemes to steal the priceless golden masks that grant them their powers.

A bunch of nosy kids get into trouble looking for things they shouldn’t be in Disney’s latest sci-fi adventure film Crater. Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez and written by John Griffin, the film follows five friends as they travel to a moon crater to find treasure  in the 23rd century. 

The wonders are small but mighty enough in “Crater,” a sincere Disney+ adventure from “Stranger Things” producer Shawn Levy, featuring some of that Netflix series’ pains about coming-of-age. For all that’s knowingly familiar in this crowd-pleaser, “Crater” wins out with craftiness and a mature heart, as director Kyle Patrick Alvarez guides a young cast of rising stars through that great unknown that’s getting older.

EXCLUSIVE: Lucy J. Mukerjee has joined Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith’s media company Firelight Media, geared toward nonfiction cinema by and about communities of color, as the new director of its flagship Documentary Lab.

Tori Spelling is opening up about her family’s latest health struggles.

Pete Wicks has said he's "over the moon" to be "linked" with Carol Vorderman, following his proposal to be one of the star's "special friends" last month.The 35 year old TOWIE star cleared up the subject while he was taking part in a podcast with pal and Made in Chelsea favourite, Sam Thompson. Appearing on his Staying Relevant podcast, Pete explained that there's been lots of "hoopla" about him potentially having a "romance" with the former Countdown icon, who is now 62. It all began when Pete admitted he'd like to get closer to Carol, which the latter then discovered during a filmed segment with This Morning's Holly Jay-Smith.