Todd Gilchrist Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Todd Gilchrist editor In “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut,” absolute power corrupts absolutely, but even using absolutely all of the footage shot for the notorious production back in 1976 does not necessarily result in a better film. The most expensive independent film ever produced until that time, “Caligula” was conceived by late Penthouse founder Bob Guccione as a sexually explicit film that also featured real actors and high production values; hiring bestselling author Gore Vidal to write a script for Italian avant-garde director Tinto Brass (“Salon Kitty”), Guccione subsequently attracted such respected thespians as Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud and Helen Mirren to star.

Todd Gilchrist editor As costs spiral upward for production infrastructure, visual effects and good old fashioned star wattage, blockbuster budgets tend to be one of the closely guarded secrets in Hollywood. Yet in the weeks and months leading to the release of “The Creator,” due Sept.

Todd Gilchrist editor James Cameron appeared Wednesday at Los Angeles genre festival Beyond Fest for a Q&A about “The Abyss” after a screening of the film’s seldom-seen two-hour and 51-minute Special Edition. Unbeknownst to attendees (but later confirmed by festival programmers), the DCP presentation turned out to be the 4K transfer Cameron announced last year, physical and streaming versions of which he said were “out of his hands” but all work has long been completed.

Todd Gilchrist editor As the platonic ideal of a pop star aging gracefully in her career, Kylie Minogue knows what kind of artist she is and for 35 years has stuck to that identity — and better than that, embraced it. “Tension” is her sixteenth album, and it’s not only as good as the ones she released 10 or 20 or more years ago, it’s just like them: full of shiny, irresistible, easily digestible songs whose sole purpose is to make listeners fall in love and dance, if not always in that order.

Todd Gilchrist editor An adult-oriented crowd pleaser of the sort that seldom gets made any longer without superheroes being involved, and better than that, is quite entertaining, “A Haunting in Venice” extends 2023’s streak as the Year That Hollywood Lured Grown-Ups Back To Theaters. Less prestigious than practiced in spotlighting the star wattage of its pedigreed cast, Kenneth Branagh’s third Agatha Christie adaptation offers a nimble stopgap between drier art-house fare, traditional studio tentpoles and scrappy genre material leaching ticket sales from their pricier competitors — while satisfying all three potential audiences.

Todd Gilchrist editor After helming a series of based-on-a-true-story projects including “Million Dollar Arm,” “The Finest Hours,” “I, Tonya” and “Pam & Tommy,” Craig Gillespie was the natural candidate to direct “Dumb Money,” Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum’s chronicle of the January 2021 GameStop stock short squeeze and its reverberations throughout Wall Street. But Gillespie tells Variety it wasn’t his developing pedigree in this eclectic subgenre but an experience closer to home that prompted him to take on the story of Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, and the scrappy bunch of investors who rattled two hedge funds and changed investment culture forever.

Todd Gilchrist editor “I’ve never really had a marketing plan ever in my career,” says Gerald Maxwell Rivera, better known as Maxwell. Though he acknowledges “I’m sure someone was doing one in the building somewhere,” the reason why a more concerted effort wasn’t made may be because the R&B singer, songwriter and producer seemed to arrive fully-formed upon the release of “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,” his lush, libidinous 1996 debut album.

Todd Gilchrist editor To capture the breadth and depth of the musical career of Japanese composer and recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto seems impossible, but somehow “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” almost accomplishes this herculean challenge. A document of Sakamoto’s final performance before his death from cancer last march, the film provides no commentary or context for the enormity of his body of work, yet somehow encompasses it all as he performs a curated set list in a Japanese recording studio for an audience of one — himself.

Todd Gilchrist editor A scrappy urban tale of misspent young adulthood, Olmo Schnabel’s “Pet Shop Days” evokes the blown-out, stolen-shot 16mm character studies of 1990s independent cinema, as well as the bohemian oeuvre of painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, his father. This isn’t attributable merely to the fact that the younger Schnabel includes a scene in which his characters watch Julian’s 1996 “Basquiat,” whose themes and aloof tone — not to mention the events of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s actual life — would seem an obvious inspiration for his first feature.

Todd Gilchrist editor Los Angeles was severely depleted of its rhinestones, sequins and spandex Friday night when Beyoncé fans descended upon SoFi Stadium for the first night (of three) of her Renaissance Tour appearances at the venue. Dutifully attired in their “most fabulous silver fashions” per the singer’s Aug.

Todd Gilchrist editor In the 20 years since “Ghetto Pop Life,” the acclaimed debut album from producer-rapper team Danger Mouse & Jemini, much has happened — to them and to hip-hop, much less to the world. You wouldn’t know it listening to their overdue follow-up, “Born Again,” but that’s a good thing, especially against the backdrop of all of that change.

Todd Gilchrist editor Before it became a movie — but after first launching as a series of racing simulation games — “Gran Turismo” was the platform that in 2011 allowed Jann Mardenborough to become a professional driver. At 20, and even from behind a virtual console, the Cardiff, Wales native was so skilled at navigating the complexities of the sport — not just the races themselves but the assembly of his vehicles’ literal nuts and bolts — that he earned a chance to attend Nissan and PlayStation’s GT Academy, and later to compete against real professionals on the same world-class tracks recreated in the game.

Todd Gilchrist editor From the wah-wah guitar that opens the title track to the operatic closer “Just to Keep You Satisfied,” Marvin Gaye’s 1973 album “Let’s Get It On” expressed the joy — and complexity — of human sexuality like virtually none in popular music before it. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of its release, Motown/ UMe is holding an event Wednesday featuring fellow R&B luminaries Smokey Robinson and Jimmy Jam, Gaye biographer David Ritz and moderated by UMe A&R vice president Harry Weinger, in advance of a new deluxe edition of the album.

Todd Gilchrist editor The new film “Strays” may enlist Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher and Randall Park to “fill in” the personality of its four canine lead characters, but it’s real-life dogs — and an army of trainers — who work hard to deliver a convincing performance on screen that matches their voice work. Director Josh Greenbaum not only cast the pups with as much thought and detail as when he recruited their human counterparts, but worked closely with head animal trainer Mark Forbes to make sure that they learned the various activities, and behaviors to believably tell the story written by Dan Perrault about a discarded pet who travels cross country with three pals to exact revenge on his owner.

Todd Gilchrist editor “Strays” follows in the hallowed tradition of stories of animals separated from their loved ones — from “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” to “Finding Nemo” — with a few new twists, and a lot of four-letter words. Even more than offering an uncensored window into the perspective of humankind’s four-legged pals, director Josh Greenbaum and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller wanted to examine how a closer look at dogs could shed light on some truths about the people who love (and in the case of the movie, loathe) them.

Todd Gilchrist editor Pet owners spend an inordinate amount of time imagining, ascribing, even acting out the behaviors of their animals. “Strays” feels like the natural — if comically exaggerated — extension of that impulse, chronicling the personality of a border terrier named Reggie as he and three canine pals make an arduous trek back to Reggie’s owner, along with all of the attendant misunderstandings and misinterpretations about the human world around them.

Todd Gilchrist editor Composer, singer and producer Arthur Verocai just might be the best Brazilian artist you never heard — though if you’re a hip-hop fan, you probably already have: sampled by MF Doom, Ludacris, Common, Schoolboy Q, Your Old Droog, Little Brother, Action Bronson and many more, his self-titled 1972 album is a crate-digger’s paradise, full of irresistible and idiosyncratic melodies just waiting to be slapped beneath a blistering rap verse. “Those breaks that help to deliver a kind of emotion that you’re looking for just turn out to be the perfect find,” producer and composer Adrian Younge tells Variety.

Todd Gilchrist editor Anytime Aphex Twin releases new music under any of his many monikers, I’m reminded of the tag line for the Beastie Boys’ 2004 album, “To the 5 Boroughs:” “The hiatus is back off, again.” In an even more extreme disappearing act than the one the hip-hop trio would perform in between projects, artist and electronic pioneer Richard D. James always seemed to stop existing altogether, vanishing for years into a Glaswegian cavern, surrounded by devices fabricated or reinvented by himself — only to emerge with something new and big as a proof of life.

Todd Gilchrist editor At 90, Quincy Jones has accomplished enough for a dozen lifetimes. As a songwriter, composer, performer and producer, he’s collaborated with (and created) some of the biggest acts of all time, from Ray Charles to Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson.

Todd Gilchrist editor When Julee Cruise died last year on June 9, David Lynch fans lost another of the essential, even inextricable collaborators who became a part of their lives as a result of being part of his art. Her ethereal singing is synonymous with both “Blue Velvet” and the many incarnations of “Twin Peaks,” the latter of whose title theme she performed. If Cruise’s absence from the physical plane runs the risk of dimming her star in our collective memories, Sacred Bones’ vinyl reissue of her 1989 album “Floating Into the Night” offers a welcome opportunity to restore it to its full luster by letting listeners experience her work anew — carrying the legacy of her and Lynch’s historic collaboration, but unencumbered by the images he paired with her music.

Todd Gilchrist editor The panorama of bedfellows depicted in erotica, and erotic cinema (or “sexploitation”), is vast; even if it’s somebody else’s yuck, there’s likely at least one scene or movie that captures your particular yum. But capital-A art, and especially academia, doesn’t always take this work as seriously at it deserves — as part of film history, much less as sociopolitical commentary on the people, places and times in which stories are told. Severin Films hopes to remedy that in a big way with its new 15-disc, 24-film box set, “The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle.” Enlisting as producer and curator Canadian filmmaker and programmer Kier-La Janisse, who directed the documentary “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror” and founded the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Severin produced the most ambitious and comprehensive chronicle ever assembled about the work of Laura Gemser, whose legacy in cinema as “Black Emanuelle” has heretofore existed largely as a footnote to the French film series starring the late Sylvia Kristel. To examine Gemser’s actual impact in this rarified (and often reductively-viewed) corner of cinema, Janisse worked with Severin to create more than 40 hours of special features including commentaries, video essays and documentaries, as well as a 356-page book, “The Black Emanuelle Bible,” featuring archival interviews with the actress and contemporaneous essays from film experts and scholars.

Todd Gilchrist editor Named after a word that sounds similar in Korean to both “spring” and “tiger,” Pom Klementieff has appropriately showcased ebullience and viciousness throughout her career — and especially in the past few months. In May, she reprised her role as Mantis in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” empathetically shepherding her fellow outcasts through an adventure to save Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) from unapologetic MCU villain the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). She also appears in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” as Paris, a ruthless assassin who will stop at nothing to kill Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and anyone else who gets in her way. Ahead of “Dead Reckoning Part One,” Klementieff spoke to Variety about her character in the film, whose backstory she worked closely with Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie to develop. In addition to talking about how she “manifested” the opportunity to be a part of the franchise, she revealed the panorama of influences — from Jean-Paul Belmondo to animal videos on YouTube — she enlisted to ensure that audiences never forget Paris.

Todd Gilchrist editor Since “Mission: Impossible III” in 2006, Simon Pegg has been part of the core ensemble of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, playing hacker and sometime field agent Benji Dunn opposite its stalwart star Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Pegg was never going to be the actor risking life and limb on screen — “it’s Benji’s job to be the one that actually says, ‘what the fuck are we doing here?’,” he observes. But over five installments of the indefatigable series, his character has shifted from questioning what Ethan is doing in the moment to believing absolutely in why he’s doing it, thanks in no small part to the writing and directing of Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie came onto “Ghost Protocol” as “a sort of master plumber to re-wriggle the pipes,” as Pegg characterizes it, and since became the series’ ongoing co-architect with Cruise. Their partnership reaches its peak, even if by all indications it’s far from over, with “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” half of an operatic culmination of narrative seeds planted since Cruise first played Hunt back in 1996. In a conversation with Variety, Pegg discusses what makes McQuarrie’s creativity so special, and his collaboration with Cruise et al so unique; he also talks about new details he discovered about Benji, explored the challenges of being self-referential in a franchise like this without undermining emotional stakes, and hinted at what is yet to come as he and the rest of the filmmaking team move on to “Dead Reckoning — Part Two.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Nestled into a cozy corner of a shopping center high in the Hollywood hills, Herb Alpert’s jazz club Vibrato Grill was the site of a coronation Sunday for not one but three musical luminaries. The Jazz Foundation of America honored 10-time Grammy-winning composer and pianist Dave Grusin, saxophonist Charles Lloyd and trailblazing music executive Clarence Avant at a benefit to raise proceeds for jazz, blues and R&B musicians facing financial hardship due to unemployment, illness or old age. Though host Quincy Jones was unable to attend due to unspecified health issues of his own, he and the JFA assembled a program of speakers and performers for an evening of celebration and song that the phrase “star-studded” barely does adequate justice.

Todd Gilchrist editor Chuck D was one of hip hop’s elder statesmen even before the genre was old enough to have them: born in 1960, he witnessed its birth in the boroughs of New York in 1973, released his first album as a founding member of incendiary group Public Enemy at age 27, and has presided over its evolution with a perspective and erudition shared by few in rap, before or since. His insights and attitudes both shaped hip hop on wax and commented upon it in popular culture, burnishing the legitimacy of an art form driven by people of color even as it became commercially supported, even co-opted by mainstream, majority-white consumers. His impact, and his importance, is reiterated in “Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World,” a four-part documentary he developed and executive produced for PBS which bears the name of one of Public Enemy’s biggest and most influential hit singles. On June 21, Chuck D appeared on a panel in Los Angeles to discuss the creation of the documentary alongside Gil Vazquez, President of the Keith Haring Foundation; Jean-Michel Basquiat’s sister Lisane, appearing on behalf of his King Pleasure exhibit at the Broad Museum; and “Fight the Power” coproducer Lorrie Boula. Before the panel, he spoke to Variety about the four elements — DJing, MCing, break dancing and graffiti — that for 50 years now have formed hip hop’s foundational pillars, the changing tastes and techniques artists use to create work (and get it seen), and the advantages for him of getting old in a genre steadily supported by youth.

Todd Gilchrist editor While it’s been around for decades, the New Orleans-spawned genre of bounce music is bigger than ever, thanks to Big Freedia: the self-appointed Queen Diva’s appearances on Beyonce’s singles “Formation” and “Break My Soul” have given her, her music and her community a visibility previously unimaginable outside their shared New Orleans hometown. But A-list collaborations — which also include Drake, Lizzo and Kesha — are simply a reflection of her increasing profile, not the reason for it; since releasing her first album in 2003, she’s not only worked steadily as a recording and touring musician, but starred in two TV shows (“Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce” and “Big Freedia Means Business,” both on Fuse), produced a documentary about gun violence (“Freedia Got a Gun”) and made dozens of appearances as a spokesperson and advocate for LGBTQ+ issues.

Todd Gilchrist editor On Showtime’s documentary series “Couples Therapy,” clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Orna Guralnik has served in many roles for her clients: sounding board, support system, referee, reality check and sometimes, an uncomfortable mirror. And she shares her insights in each capacity with plainspoken simplicity and with empathy. It’s what has made the show such a revelatory watch for her patients as well as viewers — it exemplifies the virtues of the therapeutic experience.  “As a psychoanalyst, you want to really have the same distance from all the inner voices in the patient,” says Guralnik. “Otherwise, I try to really keep going back to a place of what we call neutrality. Now, that’s not always possible, but that’s the North Star. That’s where I try to go to.” 

Todd Gilchrist editor “For Khadija” is billed as a documentary about French Montana, but there’s a reason that it’s named not after the hip-hop alter ego of Moroccan expatriate Karim Kharbouch, but his mother. “I felt like my mother’s story, the beginning to the end, the closure of her going back to Morocco, is when I was like, okay, now the story has a meaning,” French tells Variety. “This goes out to all the mothers that struggle, that have kids, that was forced to sacrifice.” Given the other films made about rappers and their families — including “Dear Mama,” about Afeni and Tupac Shakur and “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” which heavily features Notorious B.I.G.’s mother Violetta Wallace — it’s not necessarily an unexpected place to start. But the documentary, which premieres June 16 at the Tribeca film Festival, uses the relationship between Karim and Khadija to highlight the unpredictable path that led a scrappy Moroccan child to become a worldwide rap star, while charting the financial struggles and familial strife that threatened to derail his meteoric rise.

Todd Gilchrist editor If an endless array of variations, alternatives and opportunities is a foundational concept of the animated superhero series “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” it also seems like one for the career of Metro Boomin. St. Louis native Leland Tyler Wayne’s musical alter ego is not only the producer of the soundtrack for its sequel, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” but also plays a small role in the film as one of its Spider-people, Metro Spider, and collaborated with Nike on an elaborate, patchwork “Spider-Verse”-themed Air Jordan that sold out almost immediately after he and his siblings modeled for its advertising campaign.A post shared by Jordan (@jumpman23) In just the past few months, he also partnered with Major League Baseball to be the opening-day voice of its 2023 season, starred in a Budweiser Super Bowl commercial, and celebrated the release of “Heroes & Villains (Villains Version),” a remix edition of his second studio album, with a digital comic book and a debut performance at Coachella 2023 assisted by The Weeknd, Young Thug, 21 Savage, Diddy and more performers. This web (excuse the pun) of projects exemplifies the scale of his creative ambition, but even a cursory scan of their results highlights how much effort he puts into each one. After shepherding the sprawling “Across the Spider-Verse” soundtrack to completion, he spent a week on Instagram premiering Spider-person iterations of his collaborators, including Coi Leray, Future, Offset, James Blake and A$AP Rocky; it’s clear he’s not content to sit behind the boards and simply let his indefatigable collection of beats speak for him.

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Dave,” titled “Looking for Love,” now streaming on Hulu. The already guest-star-studded Season 3 of FX’s “Dave” ends with not one but three of the biggest guests any show could hope to have in their cast: Rachel McAdams, completing a three-episode arc by appearing in the music video for rapper Lil Dicky’s (Dave Burd) tribute to idealized love, “Mr. McAdams;” superstar rapper Drake, Lil Dicky’s personal hero, and now, his mentor; and none other than Brad Pitt, who after making a cameo in the “Mr. McAdams” video shows up at Dicky’s door looking for a musical mentor of his own.

Todd Gilchrist editor Twenty-five years have passed since the release of Rufus Wainwright’s self-titled debut album, a rhapsodic collection of 12 songs celebrating his open homosexuality and given suitably cabaret-inspired flair by producer Jon Brion. In addition to commemorating the occasion with an expanded, remastered, digital-only re-release featuring ten extra songs from its three-year, 56-song recording process, Wainwright will on June 2 also premiere “Folkocracy,” an anthology of covers produced by Mitchell Froom. It’s a full-circle moment for the singer-songwriter after decades of sidelining his family’s pedigreed genre: though he’s collaborated many times with his folk-singer father Loudon Wainwright III, late mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna McGarrigle, the album marks the first official folk/ Americana recordings of his career.

Todd Gilchrist editor In a Season 9 episode of “Seinfeld,” Kramer reconstructs the remnants of the “The Merv Griffin Show” in his apartment so he can host his own talk show. As far as “hipster doofus” fantasies go, it’s a pretty good one — what TV lover hasn’t fantasized about sitting down behind Johnny Carson’s desk from “The Tonight Show,” or wished they could post up for a pint next to Norm and Cliff at the bar from “Cheers”? Thanks to James Comisar, curator of the Comisar Collection, you can now do just that — and unlike Kramer, you don’t have to fish it out of a dumpster to do it. Starting on June 2, Comisar is selling almost 1,000 items from his personal collection of television memorabilia, from the 1050s to present day, that fans and collectors can win for as little as a dollar, if they’re lucky.

Todd Gilchrist editor Long before she guest starred as the love interest of rapper Lil Dicky aka Dave Burd’s on FX’s comedy series “Dave,” Chloe Bennet was a television mainstay — first on seven episodes of “Nashville,” then another 136 of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..” Those experiences taught her a lot that she applied to Robyn, a photographer who ventures tentatively into a romantic relationship with Burd, a musician and performer who frequently blurs the lines between his professional ambitions and personal instincts. In “Dream Girl,” the penultimate episode of Season 3, those dueling impulses come to head after Robyn announces plans to move to Los Angeles, forcing them to confront the prospect of a more substantial commitment as Dave’s options — in his career, and his life — seem to be more open than ever before.

Todd Gilchrist editor There are few fears more universal than one of a monster under the bed or in our closet, and few filmmaking techniques more viscerally effective than the jump scare. These tropes collide — effectively, if without much originality — in “The Boogeyman,” a loose adaptation of Stephen King’s 1973 short story of the same name. Featuring an eponymous threat seemingly drafted from the same biological blueprint as the extraterrestrials in their breakthrough film “A Quiet Place,” writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods graft the psychological and thematic shorthand of unresolved trauma onto a creature feature, while director Rob Savage (“Dashcam”) papers over the seams between the two with copious style and a bold, clear-eyed lead performance coaxed from “Yellowjackets” star Sophie Thatcher.

Todd Gilchrist editor On “Dave,” a show co-created by and starring Dave Burd that dramatizes his exploits as terminally navel-gazing hip-hop star Lil Dicky, there can be little room to explore the lives of others in his orbit. But since the 2020 pilot, Davionte “GaTa” Ganter has not-so-quietly been stealing scenes as Burd’s hype man and closest confidante. Not only has GaTa become the sounding board and best friend that everyone wishes they had (whether they’re a famous rapper or not), he has offered an intimate window into his own mental health struggles, reenacting them on screen with devastating vulnerability. As tough as his journey has often been to watch throughout the series, GaTa says that performing heavy scenes comes naturally. This is despite the fact he has no prior acting experience. “It’s easy for me to get emotional,” he says. “And I’m also a Cancer, and they say we’re emotional people.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Following a handful of supporting roles in “Tag,” “Green Book” and “The Irishman,” Sebastian Maniscalco makes his first bid for leading-man status with “About My Father,” a family comedy sourced from the same semi-autobiographical material that made his stand-up a commercial and cultural phenomenon. To say it’s better than all three “Meet the Parents” films may be a dubious compliment, but it’s one made more significant because it co-stars Robert De Niro — and more importantly, actually features recognizable human behavior amidst its suitably outlandish set pieces. Whether or not Maniscalco has a legitimate future as a movie star, he proves a likeable presence as a romantic lead, while director Laura Terruso skillfully delivers comedic payoffs that tap into his wheelhouse while introducing him to a wider audience.