Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone Board Doc ‘Relighting Candles’ as Executive Producers (EXCLUSIVE)

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Unabashed pop groups with fervid teenage followings tend to get trivialized, at least in the media. They’re dismissed as being slick and calculated and superficial. But there’s a story in “Wham!,” the new Netflix documentary about the quintessential pop duo of the 1980s, that testifies to what a chancy and audacious artist George Michael was even back in his teen-idol days. The year is 1983. Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, coming off their first album, “Fantastic” (which had a few hits, though none of them were great), have established Wham! as an effective lightweight pop machine, with its two young stars prancing around the stage in sexy sportswear. The time has come to record “Careless Whisper,” a song they’ve had in their back pocket for several years (we hear the super-early demo version of it that they recorded in 1981 in Ridgeley’s living room on a TEAC 4-track Portastudio). Michael has become enough of a powerhouse to hook up with Jerry Wexler, the legendary producer of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. He heads down to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio to record the track, with Wexler producing. What more could a 20-year-old budding pop star want?

Associated Press.“This can be settled any time, on the steps, halfway through trial,” he said. “And hopefully it will be.

Babyface is a legend in the recording booth.As a producer and songwriter, he’s developed some of the world’s greatest musicians across genres, including the likes of Whitney Houston, Beyoncé and Usher, just to name a few.This week on “Renaissance Man,” Babyface – born Kenneth Brian Edmonds – took me down memory lane and dished on the moments when he realized that these young talents would become undisputed global sensations.Specifically, Babyface remembers developing his own “language” while recording with Houston, who, he said, was all business.“She didn’t necessarily like to spend a lot of time singing. She liked to get in there and get it done,” Babyface told me.

Thania Garcia Spirit Music Group has signed Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Autumn Rowe to a worldwide publishing administration deal that encompasses a select catalog as well as a go-forward publishing deal. Rowe’s songwriting real estate includes co-writing credits on Jon Batiste’s “We Are,” which was nominated as record of the year and won in the album of the year category at the 2022 Grammys. She’s also worked alongside such celebrated acts as Dua Lipa, Pitbull, Diana Ross, Zendaya, Ava Max, FKA Twigs and Leona Lewis. Rowe is also a prominent figure in the fight for songwriters’ rights, serving as a member of the Songwriters of North America (SONA) board. She also co-founded and became co-director of the Songwriter Fund, a nonprofit enterprise that has raised and distributed more than $500,000 in an effort to support songwriters affected by COVID.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Lisa Vanderpump has left the building, as the reality show matriarch’s iconic West Hollywood restaurant Pump closed its doors after 10 years on July 5. “It was purely a business decision,” Vanderpump told me in May, shortly after announcing Pump was closing. “With rents being $80,000 a month now, there’s just no way. That’s why we walked away from Villa Blanca and didn’t renew that lease, too.” She also said that she’s not looking to relocate and open Pump somewhere else in Los Angeles. “I’m opening two more with Caesars Place [in Las Vegas], so that’s very exciting,” Vanderpump said. “I have two already that are going gangbusters. I have TomTom. I have Sur.”

What to watch: 7 movies and shows to stream this week - June 16What to watch: 7 movies and shows to stream this week - June 23“The Witcher” is back for a third season. The beloved fantasy series led by Henry Cavill is in an interesting place, with the show announcing that Cavill would be moving on from the roll and that Liam Hemsworth would be taking over for the fourth season. Season three has a lot of expectations for fans, who wonder how Hemsworth will be introduced.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Recently engaged couple Ben Platt and Noah Galvin are reacting to Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that favors a Colorado web designer refusing to make a wedding website for LGBTQ couples because she is against same-sex marriage. “I think it’s a distraction from things that are actually important, like the planet melting,” Platt told me Friday morning during an interview for on an upcoming episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “I also think it’s the people who are losing clout, it’s like the last rageful fiery, ‘This is not how it should be!’ before they go away forever. “It’s my only hope. That’s the only way to stay any kind of optimistic about it because otherwise it’s just fully going back in time and harming people for no reason,” he continued. “It feels so backwards, so directly backwards.”

McKinley Franklin editor Jim Gaffigan will debut his next Amazon Original comedy special, “Dark Pale,” on Prime Video on July 25. “Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale” is Gaffigan’s 10th comedy special, which will be available to stream in over 240 countries and territories. “Sometimes when people find out I have five kids, they think I’m good at parenting,” Gaffigan quips in the trailer for “Dark Pale. “Which is kind of like assuming people with lots of cats are not crazy.” Gaffigan is a seven-time Grammy-nominated comedian, actor, writer and producer who is known for his stand-up specials and roles in movies such as “Chappaquiddick,” “American Dreamer” and “Troop Zero.” As recently announced, he is set to embark on a five-city arena tour with Jerry Seinfeld this fall ahead of his Barely Alive Tour, which kicks off on Aug. 25 in Las Vegas.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jennifer Lawrence may be an Oscar-winning actor, but she hasn’t let all that fame and fortune go to her head. “You immediately forget she’s a movie star when you meet her,” says Laura Benanti, who appears opposite Lawrence in the new R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings.” “She’s so down to earth.” Lawrence stars in “No Hard Feelings” as an Uber driver who agrees to date a wealthy couple’s (Benanti and Matthew Broderick) socially awkward 19-year-old son (Andrew Barth Feldman) in exchange for a car. “Sure, at first I was nervous because it’s like, ‘How are you so beautiful?’” Benanti said of Lawrence. “But then I was immediately laughing with her. She’s so funny, silly and a hard worker. She’s not a princess. She is comfortable being uncomfortable.”

McKinley Franklin editor Veteran film producer Divya D’Souza has joined Invention Studios as senior VP of development and production. D’Souza will report to Invention CEO Nicholas Weinstock and oversee the company’s slate of TV series and features. She joins the company after seven years as an executive at Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone’s On the Day Productions. There, she served as a producer on projects including “Bob Ross: Happy Accidents,” “Betrayal & Greed,” “Thunder Force,” “God’s Favorite Idiot,” “Little Big Shots,” “Superintelligence,” “Happytime Murders,” “Nobodies” and “Life of the Party.” “Divya is a kind and creative superstar of an executive,” stated Weinstock, announcing D’Souza’s hiring. “I’m thrilled to have her big brain and big heart onboard as we welcome all kinds of writers, directors, and actors and help them to do the coolest things they possibly can.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor As if Pride Month couldn’t get any gayer, “And Just Like That” Season 2 and Kim Cattrall’s new Netflix series, “Glamorous,” are premiering on the same day, June 22. “Isn’t that incredible?” says Cattrall’s co-star, actor and musician Miss Benny. “That is the gay stuff that I love. I’m excited for our show. I’m excited for that show. I’m excited for the spectacle of it all.” In “Glamorous,” Miss Benny plays Marco, a gender-nonconforming wannabe influencer who lands a job working for a beauty mogul (Cattrall). Miss Benny says Cattrall signed on to “Glamorous” after watching a clip of them playing a “sexual, raunchy and queer” character on “American Horror Stories.” “That blows my mind because I did that whole part saying, ‘What if I do it with a little bit of Samantha?’” they say. “I mimic her portrayal of Samantha a lot in my campier work.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Rose Byrne is getting ready to say goodbye to “Physical,” as the series ends with its upcoming third season. “It’s all very bittersweet,” she says on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. Byrne stars on the Apple TV+ show as Sheila Rubin, an aerobics entrepreneur in the 1980s whose business is booming just as her marriage is falling apart and she secretly suffers from an eating disorder. “It’s challenging,” Byrne said in depicting the illness on a dark comedy. “I did a lot of research. I spoke to people in recovery. I spoke to a wonderful young woman who worked in an ED recovery center who was every day with people in recovery and all of the behaviors.”

Melissa McCarthy and the rest of the cast of Gilmore Girls felt the heat when they were filming the show.

Stars Hollow may have been picturesque on the screen, but it was a nightmare for Melissa McCarthy and the rest of the cast IRL!

Melissa McCarthy, who played lovable chef Sookie St. James on all seven seasons, recently opened up about one big downside to filming the mother-daughter dramedy starring Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore and Alexis Bledel as her daughter, Rory Gilmore.Though the show takes place in the fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, it was actually filmed at the Warner Bros.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Amy Pascal will never forget the world premiere of the first “Spider-Man” movie in 2002. She was the head of Sony at the time, and was so worried that the film wouldn’t succeed she “spent the entire time in the ladies’ room crying,” Pascal recalled at the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” premiere in Los Angeles. “I sure did,” she continued. “I was terrified. “How do you know? You never know!” But, she said, her fears disappeared on opening day: “It was one of the greatest days of my life.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor I’m on the phone with J. Harrison Ghee when they walk into their dressing room at the Shubert Theatre before Tuesday night’s performance of “Some Like It Hot.” It’s their first show since winning the Tony about 48 hours earlier, taking home the prize for leading actor in a musical for their work as Jerry/Daphne.  “Oh, my God,” Ghee says. “There are a lot of flowers here.” Then they sigh and choke up. “I can’t believe this,” says Ghee, who identifies as nonbinary. “Flowers from Billy Porter!” The card reads, “Welcome to the club, bitch.”

Melissa McCarthy would love to work with Octavia Spencer at some point and that includes in a potential Ma sequel.

in the hilarious 2011 “Saturday Night Live” sketch, the “Spy” star actually chugged a probiotic drink called Kefir.“When I think about it, I kinda really love ranch,” said “The Heat” star to Entertainment Weekly’s “3 Rounds” host Alexis Wilson. “So I don’t know that I couldn’t have just [drank ranch dressing] … but there’s a lot of logistics to that.”McCarthy revealed that is an attempt to find a substitute for the condiment, she discovered Kefir. The “Tammy” star joked that the diary drink isn’t that different from ranch “when you’re shotgunning it down your throat.”According to “The Little Mermaid” star, the entire “SNL” sketch was a version of something she wrote and performed while a part of the L.A.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Leslie Grace has a very personal reason for deciding to become what she calls an “ambassador” for “Translators,” a new documentary short about bilingual Latino children in the U.S. who become translators for their Spanish-speaking parents. “I’m first generation Dominican American,” the “In the Heights” star tells me. “My grandmother relied on her kids — my mom and her siblings — and then her grandkids. It’s a very common thing when I see my grandmother that my sister or I or my cousins, we take turns sharing the mail and translating for her.” The doc, directed by Emmy winner Rudy Valdez, highlights several families in which the children help navigate their parents’ lives, from explaining bills that need to be paid to the tremendous worry of having to translate proper medical care for their siblings. “I’m really excited for people that haven’t had this experience to be able to witness it through the doc,” Grace says. “Also there may be some assumptions and misconceptions that you might have about someone who doesn’t speak a language or even speaks English with an accent.”