Kid Cudi’s ‘Entergalactic’ Blends Edgy Adult Animation With Conventional Romantic Comedy: TV Review

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic “Harry Potter” has had many imitators, but none so blatant or irredeemably over-the-top as Netflix franchise starter “The School for Good and Evil,” an extravagant YA costume show from “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig that follows two friends to an elite academy where the heroes and villains of future fairy tales are trained. The whole idea derives from a book series by Soman Chainani, though it’s obvious where it really comes from: the imagination of J.K. Rowling, who must be positively livid watching what looks like the most expensive episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” ever produced. Feig goes full camp here, casting Kerry Washington and Charlize Theron to play the decked-out divas who oversee the enchanted institution’s two sides. The former embodies Professor Dovey, a prissy headmistress in Tweety Bird-yellow threads, who’s always going on about the rules, while Theron’s evil-minded Lady Lesso takes her fashion cues from Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Joined by Laurence Fishburne (as the Morpheus-like School Master), Michelle Yeoh (largely wasted as some kind of beauty instructor) and Cate Blanchett (in voice only, as the film’s self-aware narrator), these stars have been given carte blanche to chew the scenery.

A judge dismissed Monday one of the legal claims Kevin Spacey faces from actor Anthony Rapp, who says Spacey made a sexual advance on him in his apartment in the 1980s when he was 14 years old.

One of Netflix’s most anticipated projects in recent months ois Guillermo del Toro’s edgy new take on “Pinocchio”.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If Kid Cudi is indeed retiring his rapper persona, as strongly indicated in recent interviews, Monday night might have served as an early farewell party of sorts.  At a special screening at the Netflix Tudum Theater in Hollywood, the star was all smiles as he answered questions and celebrated the release of “Entergalactic,” the new animated Netflix special that serves as a kind of filmic companion piece to Cudi’s new album of the same name.  “I’m just overwhelmed, you know?” Cudi, who created, starred in, and executive-produced the project, said immediately after the screening, sitting next to the film’s director, Fletcher Moules. “The past week has been really exciting to see the reviews, see the response. We’ve been working on this thing for three years, man.” 

Netflix has found Mike Moon’s replacement on the adult animation side.

2 min read The online fandom world is awash with angst after Kit Connor from the Netflix breakout hit Heartstopper appeared to quit social media platform Twitter overnight. The 18-year-old played Nick Nelson in the coming-of-age comedy about Charlie Spring (played by Joe Locke), who falls in love with his classmate Nick while attending secondary school.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Mike Flanagan has, of late, distinguished himself as one of Netflix’s signature creators and as a generational figure in the horror genre; though his past series for the streamer, including “Midnight Mass” and “The Haunting of Hill House,” have been of various quality overall and from episode to episode, they’re consistently interesting. His willingness to engage ideas with his scares sets him apart, perhaps more than it should. So it is with “The Midnight Club,” which Flanagan and Leah Fong co-created based on the work of YA novelist Christopher Pike. Here, Iman Benson plays Ilonka, a college-bound high school salutatorian who receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Ilonka is both a star student and an idealist; she researches Brightcliffe, a facility to which her foster father can take her to be placed into hospice, and holds in reserve a secret hope that there will, there, be a miracle cure for her. What she finds, first, is a circle of ill teens who gather when the clock strikes twelve to share scary stories; it’s a mordant nihilism they share, and a sense of indulgent pleasure in the knowledge that things could be worse: They could be fighting against cosmic forces of evil.

EXCLUSIVE: Ireland’s Lighthouse Studios is developing its first original series, Savage Town.

experience has kicked off! Kid Cudi debuted his long-awaited masterpiece on Friday, releasing the  animated series on Netflix and dropping an album of the same name simultaneously. On Friday, the 38-year-old musician took to social media to share his excitement over fans' reaction to the premieres and dedicate the series to the late Virgil Abloh, whose birthday was Sept. 30. Abloh, the artistic director for Louis Vuitton and the founder of Off-White, died on Nov.

EJ Panaligan editor When Scott Mescudi, better known as musician Kid Cudi to most of the world, released his debut studio record “Man on the Moon: The End of Day” in 2009, the latter half of the album included a groovy love anthem called “Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part I).” And though a sequel to the song never came out, Mescudi figured out an innovative way to dive back into the track’s affection-drenched world 13 years later. “Entergalactic” is both a new animated Netflix program — the streamer is calling it an “event” — as well as the title of his 10th studio album. They’re both being released on Sept. 30. “It’s exciting, like, never in my wildest dreams did I feel like I would revisit that song in any type of way,” Mescudi tells Variety over Zoom alongside co-star Jessica Williams. “It was something that I recorded years ago — sort of as a simple love song — but it was nice to expand upon its ideas and take it to other places, adding in characters and other storylines to see where it could go.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tim Burton’s “Wednesday” series starring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams will have its European premiere in Italy at Lucca Comics & Games with Burton attending the launch at Europe’s biggest geek meet.  Lucca Comics – which is an immersive cross-media event dedicated to pop culture, cosplay and comics held in the medieval Tuscan town of Lucca – has been chosen by Netflix as the venue for the European unveiling of the first “Wednesday” episode on Oct. 31.  Burton has executive produced and directed four of the show’s eight episodes, with Gandja Monteiro and James Marshall serving as additional directors. “Wednesday” is produced by MGM Television for Netflix.

Kid Cudi hits the red carpet for the premiere of his upcoming animated series, Entergalactic, at the Paris Theater in New York City on Wednesday (September 28).

In a world where major animation releases start to look very similar with their Pixar-esque visuals, projects like “My Father’s Dragon” really do stand out.  READ MORE: ‘Maya And The Wave’ Review: An Uplifting Sports Doc About Maya Gabeira’s Quest To Surf One Of The World’s Biggest Waves As seen in the trailer for “My Father’s Dragon,” the Netflix animated feature has stunning visuals and a unique style as it tells the story of a young boy and the dragon he befriends.

Lookism.On September 25, the streaming platform premiered the trailer on its YouTube channel, at the same time revealing that Lookism will begin streaming on November 4.The trailer follows an overweight high school student named Park Hyeong-seok, who is frequently bullied and harassed by his peers who consider him unattractive. One day, Hyeong-seok wakes up and discovers that he has received a new, conventionally attractive body, which he can use while his original body is asleep.With his days spent split between the two different bodies, Hyeong-seok begins to realise just how differently the world treats him based on his physical appearance.The trailer is soundtracked by a snippet of an original song performed by K-pop boyband ATEEZ.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has been making a home for himself and his various projects at Netflix with a string of CGI animated shows such as “Trollhunters,” “3Below,” and “Wizards.” Continuing that passion for animation, del Toro has teamed with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” animation director Mark Gustafson for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” by bringing to life these classic fairy tale characters via stop-motion animation and will separate itself from the Disney incarnations with a darker tone/look.

Kid Cudi has shared another preview of his imminent ‘Entergalactic’ album, a chilled-out joint with Ty Dolla $ign titled ‘Willing To Trust’.READ MORE: Kid Cudi – ‘Man On The Moon III: The Chosen’ review – an art piece of epic highs and honest lowsIt marks the second track to drop from Cudi’s eighth studio album, following the June release of lead single ‘Do What I Want’. It’s also the second time he and Ty have linked up for a song, with Cudi having a guest spot on Ty’s 2020 track ‘Temptations’.‘Entergalactic’ itself will arrive on September 30, the same day that an accompanying animated film will be released on Netflix.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Illumination, the studio behind the “Despicable Me” franchise, has tapped Mike Moon to form a new label, Moonlight. The goal is to broaden the range of films that Illumination makes beyond the kid-friendly fare that’s been its stock in trade. Moon most recently served as the head of adult animation at Netflix, a post he stepped down from in July to “pursue other opportunities.” His exit came as the streamer, battered by a swooning stock price, was laying off animators and dialing back its ambitions in the space. In addition to his new role as president of Moonlight, the company said that Moon will serve as a senior creative advisor to Illumination. Moonlight’s films will be distributed under Illumination’s distribution partnership with Universal Pictures. Illumination said the goal is for Moonlight to “produce animated films that push beyond the family genre.”

The “Despicable Me” animation studio Illumination is launching a new label that will help it expand beyond family films and into more adult animated fare, and they’ve tapped Mike Moon, previously the head of Adult Animation at Netflix, to lead the new label.Moon will serve as the president of the label titled Moonlight, and he will also come aboard as a creative advisor to Illumination. His role will at Moonlight will be to augment Illumination’s existing slate and produce animated films that push beyond the family genre.

Michaela Zee editor The U.S. premiere of Jordan Peele and Henry Selick’s “Wendell & Wild” will kick off the fifth edition of Animation Is Film (AIF) on Oct. 21. The screening of the forthcoming Netflix feature will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Selick. “I’m delighted my new film ‘Wendell & Wild’ — co-written and produced with Jordan Peele — will have its U.S. premiere at Animation Is Film, a festival that celebrates the non-traditional and ground-breaking in animated movies,” Selick said in a statement. “Our made-in-the-USA stop-motion feature is many things: scary, funny, creepy, sad, and empowering, but most of all, it’s very very original so I can’t think of a better place for its U.S. premiere than Animation Is Film. Hope you enjoy the show.

Wendell & Wild, the upcoming Netflix movie directed by Henry Selick that features the voices of Jordan Peele, Angela Bassett, Keegan-Michael Key and Lyric Ross, has been selected as the opening-night film for Animation Is Film, the growing animation festival that will run October 21-23 and October 29 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood.