‘Mr. Harrigan’s Phone’ Review: Cell Service From the Afterlife

Now, in an interview with Esquire, they have revealed what they had planned.Through a quirk of Starfleet technology, Kirk’s father, George, would have found himself hurtling forward through time and coming face-to-face with his fully grown son, played by Chris Pine, who, of course, is now the beloved captain of the Enterprise. “It was going to be a grand father-son space adventure—think ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ in space,” McKay said.

The TransPennine Express service in Irlam will continue running two trains per hour with plans to upgrade a platform set to go ahead this winter. Back in August, fury was caused after it was announced that TransPennine Express (TPE) will no longer be picking up the second train per hour during off peak times at Irlam Train Station from December 2022.

A Maryland appeals court refused on Wednesday to intervene in a lower court’s decision to free a man who served over 20 years in prison for the killing of a high school student, a case chronicled by the groundbreaking "Serial" podcast. The state Court of Special Appeals issued its order a day after prosecutors dropped charges against Adnan Syed in the 1999 killing of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee.

“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” produced by Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum, straddles both sectors – it’s the tale of a young boy (“It” alum Jaeden Martell) who befriends an elderly billionaire (Donald Sutherland). After the billionaire dies, he still communicates with the boy through the iPhone he was gifted shortly before his death.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent On the second day of jury selection in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial, the former movie producer was wheeled into the courtroom, having changed from his jail attire into a suit. “Hi everyone,” he said, greeting jurors from the defense table where he had climbed into a seat from his wheelchair. But before Weinstein faced a group of 71 potential jurors in his rape and sexual assault trial, his attorneys had another issue to raise with the court: the “unsanitary” and “fetid” conditions of Weinstein’s holding cell. “It’s almost medieval, the conditions. I’m concerned about his health and his ability to survive this ordeal,” one of Weinstein’s lawyers, Mark Werksman, told Judge Lisa B. Lench. “I’m worried about him surviving this ordeal without a heart attack or stroke.”

Michael Callan, the versatile actor who appeared in everything from broad comedies such as Cat Ballou to the original Broadway production of West Side Story to frothy romances like Gidget Goes Hawaiian and virtually every hit TV show of the ’70s and ’80s has died, according to a Deadline source. He was 86.

The organizers of Lollapalooza have announced the headliners for the festival's 2023 lineup in South America. Drake, Billie Eilish and the newly reunited Blink-182 will all perform in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in March of next year.

Ryan Murphy’s true crime limited series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been a massive hit for Netflix, a dominant #1 series globally since its Sept. 21 release and on track to become the streamer’s second most popular English-language show only behind Season 4 of Stranger Things. Released Wednesday, Oct. 5, horror film Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, which Murphy produced, also quickly shot up to the top spot, giving the prolific writer-producer-director the #1 Film and #1 TV Series in the U.S. on Friday. It is believed to be the first time a producer has held the two top spots simultaneously.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Class divisions that assume macrocosmic significance in Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness” remain microcosmically scaled in “Pretty Problems,” another cleverly discomfiting, festival-blessed comedy hitting theaters on Oct. 13. Kestrin Pantera’s third directorial feature, which won the Audience Award at SXSW, also places a less-advantaged young couple in an enclave of the very rich. Here, however, the upscale slumming is not free, but rather at their expense — a cruel-gamesmanship setup that (as our hero duly notes) suggests the usual horror-movie agenda of “They’re gonna kill us.” That teased direction is not where the film eventually goes, and indeed the script (hatched by several lead performers here) manages to keep upending expectations to the end. The result is a fresh mix of social satire and relationship dissection with a saving dollop of heart. IFC is opening it on about 30 U.S. theater screens, simultaneous with on-demand platforms. 

President Biden met with Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday in Florida as the political rivals came together to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Ian. Biden, with first lady Jill Biden, is visiting hard-hit Fort Myers to "reaffirm his commitment to supporting the people of Florida as they recover and rebuild from the devastating storm," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday.

Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter whose frank songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia pulled her out of poverty and made her a pillar of country music, has died. She was 90.

Chris Morris Music Reporter Loretta Lynn, who rose from an impoverished childhood in Kentucky’s coal fields to become a pioneering female star of country music, has died. She was 90. According to a statement from her family shared with Variety, Lynn died Tuesday in her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Memorably portrayed in an Oscar-winning turn by Sissy Spacek in the 1980 biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (drawn from Lynn’s bestselling 1976 autobiography, co-authored by George Vecsey), Lynn was one of the first women to rise to stardom as a country vocalist. She dominated the charts in the 1960s (when she was the top-charting femme country singer) and ’70s (when she was second only to Dolly Parton), ringing up 11 No. 1 country hits in her own right and another five chart-toppers with Conway Twitty, her regular duet partner of the ’70s. In all, she charted 51 top-10 country singles.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chile’s hottest writer Julio Rojas (“The Life of Fish”) and Spain’s Goya-winning Belen Cuesta, who stars in “The Endless Trench” and the “Balenciaga” series, are attached to “La Torca del Diablo,” a sci-fi thriller from Chile’s Canal 13 and Spanish producer Miguel Asensio of Tiki Group. A client of former CinemaChile head Constanza Arena’s new talent agency and project incubator, Agencia La Luz, Rojas created and wrote “Case 63,” Spotify’s leading scripted original podcast in Latin America, with an English-language version in development, starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. He also co-wrote Pablo Fendrik’s Latino sci-fi series “The Shelter,” among other notable credits.  

Naman Ramachandran Mani Ratnam’s Tamil-language epic “Ponniyin Selvan: 1” has scored a worldwide opening weekend of INR2 billion ($24.5 million), according to numbers released by co-producers Madras Talkies. In the process, the film has rewritten some records for Tamil-language cinema. The film released on Sept. 30 and collected $9.8 million on that day, making it the highest all-time opening day for a Tamil-language film. In the U.S., the film opened in sixth position with $4.01 million, making it the highest opening for a Tamil-language film in the territory. It also had the highest per screen average of $8,036 among films in the top 10.

Sarigama Cinemas’ Ponniyin Selvan: Part One crashed the weekend box office at no. 6, looking at $4+ million on 500 screens for a per theater average of $8,260, the biggest of the top ten.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Jalmari Helander hasn’t made a feature since 2014’s “Big Game,” then the most expensive Finnish film to date. It was an unabashed, bombastic, good-humored action crowd-pleaser that indeed pleased crowds — at festivals, while mysteriously failing to catch on with general audiences. Presumably his concept was just too “high” for mainstream viewers to swallow: Though they don’t have any problem with Gerard Butler or Will Smith doing similar honors, it seemed too much to accept a 13-year-old Finn boy singlehandedly rescuing the president of the United States from an obstacle course of assassination peril.  That failure must have hurt; Helander has spent the interim on episodic work. His new “Sisu” is, in many ways, cut from the same cloth as “Big Game” as a splashy popcorn action piece unconcerned with credibility, pushing well-worn ideas to outlandish, and outrageously entertaining, ends. But the writer-director has hedged his bets by moving one key piece in the game to the opposite end of the board. This time, instead of a juvenile protagonist that made viewers wonder whether they were watching a movie for kids or for grown-ups (the answer “both” apparently confused them), we get a crusty coot quite spry enough to take on all foes. Which bad guys might pretty much be termed “the entire Third Reich.” 

Michaela Zee editor Although Jaeden Martell was terrorized by Pennywise in 2017’s “It,” Martell revealed that he was more anxious about his first scene with Donald Sutherland in his latest Stephen King feature, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” than shooting with Bill Skarsgard’s horrific clown. “I had known Bill [Skarsgard] before, and he’s very sweet. And then with the [Pennywise] makeup on, I was terrified, don’t get me wrong,” Martell told Variety at the “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” premiere Wednesday night at Netflix’s Tudum theater. “But there’s something about Donald — he’s the real deal.” On Sutherland’s last day on set, Martell recalled the advice he received from the 87-year-old screen veteran.

Tributes have been pouring in from celebrities following the announcement of the death of rapper Coolio.

Naman Ramachandran The release of revered Indian filmmaker Mani Ratnam’s hugely anticipated epic adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s classic Tamil-language novel “Ponniyin Selvan” is the realization of his childhood dream. One of India’s most celebrated filmmakers whose films include “Nayakan,” “Bombay” and “Iruvar,” Ratnam read the novel when he was in high school and wanted to make it ever since. Post the tremendous critical and commercial success of “Nayakan” (1987), when that film’s lead Kamal Haasan wanted to make another film with Ratnam, the filmmaker considered “Ponniyin Selvan,” but the stars did not align at that time. Ratnam’s last film, “Chekka Chivantha Vaanam” (2018), was co-produced by his Madras Talkies and Subaskaran’s Lyca Productions (“2.0”).