‘Supreme,’ ‘Terry Schiavo’s Story’ To Premiere At DC/DOX Festival, ‘Anthem’ And ‘The Body Politic’ Among Special Screenings On Slate For June Event

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic More than ever, rock stars were TV stars in 2023 — in the form of subjects for television documentaries — and so were their brethren in pop, hip-hop, K-pop and Latin music. Some of these TV films or docuseries were vanity projects used to promote new albums, of course; others started off as “making of” projects and ended up catching a star in a moment of real psychological crisis. It wasn’t all cinema verité; historical overviews capturing the full breadth of an artist’s career or even a genre still had their place in the pop-doc landscape. Four films or limited series stand out in the subgenre of docs that were initially commissioned to capture an album or tour and, through circumstances, evolved into something deeper or darker. “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me” (Apple TV+) was going to be a tour documentary, but then, when an emotional breakdown caused her to pull off the road, it became a portrait of a singer coming to terms with mental illness.

Theo James has been asked ad nauseam about his prosthetic penis in “The White Lotus,” and Meghann Fahy is starting to feel left out. “Nobody ever asks me about my prosthetic,” she says with a laugh. When the two reunite over Zoom to discuss their roles, they’re perfectly in sync and often answer questions in unison, evoking their characters’ deliciously duplicitous cat-and- mouse relationship. In the second season of Mike White’s hit HBO drama, they star as cunning finance businessman Cameron and chipper stay-at-home-mom Daphne, who are vacationing with strait-laced couple Ethan and Harper (Will Sharpe and Aubrey Plaza, respectively). After engaging in the world’s most elaborate “Wife Swap” plot, they depart Sicily as loved-up as ever — and perhaps rubbing off on their friends.

There’s been a lot of intrigue surrounding Dance Brothers, the first original Finnish series ordered at Netflix.

Exciting news for Samantha fans. Kim Cattrall, the 66-year-old actress, will be making a return to the Sex and the City universe. She is set to appear as her beloved character Samantha Jones in the second season of And Just Like That...

As one of Reality TV’s royal family crossed the line, striking film and television writers joined forces on Wednesday in New York City with another group of culture workers involved in a pay dispute: musicians. 

Get ready for a new batch of mindf**ks.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Nearly every mainstream animated feature (and just about every comic-book movie too) sets a tone and visual design that the audience plugs into; the movie, bold and shiny and clever as it may be, won’t deviate much from that. But the images in “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” have an intoxicating unpredictability. The film makes you feel like you’re dropping through the floors of a modern art museum on acid, yet there’s a thrilling moment-to-moment logic to it all. The madly eclectic images express something — an eyeball-tickling explosion of quantum physics, or a subliminal nod to some comic-book style from decades ago that’s so retro it’s new, not to mention bedazzling. This feels like it could have been the first movie designed to earn a thumbs up from Andy Warhol and Stephen Hawking.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The inaugural edition of the Pattaya Film Festival will be held June 15-19 in the Thai seaside town that is usually better known for other forms of entertainment. The event is hosted by Pattaya City and Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (DASTA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the Thai Film Archive, the latter of which doubles up as festival programmer. The event will feature over 20 film titles from around the world, including contemporary and classic films as well as a program for children. All films will be screened free of charge at SF Cinema Marina, Mahatai Pattaya Convention Center, and at the outdoor screen on the beach of North Pattaya.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Family animated movie “Pirate Mo and the Legend of the Red Ruby” proved to be a smash hit with international distributors during the Cannes Film Market, with sales agency The Playmaker Munich delivering the film to multiple buyers. During the market, The Playmaker announced first presales to Benelux (Just4Kids), Turkey (Filmarti), Baltics (GPI), Greece (Rosebud) and Bulgaria (Pro Films). The company has now revealed further sales to Poland (M2 Films), Scandinavia (Njuta Films), Hungary and Romania (ADS), Portugal (Outsider Pictures), and Yugoslavia (Blitz Film).

Two films by Arab women directors are sharing the L’Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) prize for the best documentary in Cannes. Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa) by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania and The Mother of All Lies (La Mère de tous les mensonges) by Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir were announced as the winners at a joint ceremony this morning at the Palais in Cannes.

Only nine directors have ever won the Palme d’Or twice. Francis Ford Coppola did it in the ’70s with The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Ruben Östlund joined the club last year after following The Square with Triangle of Sadness. But this year, there is a very real possibility that, at 86, Ken Loach may go above and beyond that by winning a third Palme for his new film, The Old Oak. Loach first won in 2006 with the historical Irish drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley, then doubled up in 2016 with I, Daniel Blake, a caustic study of Britain’s healthcare crisis. After that came Sorry, We Missed You, a no-less withering look at the punitive gig economy. Like the latter two films, The Old Oak is set in the North East of England and completes an unofficial trilogy, this time with a slightly more optimistic bent. Like all of Loach’s output since 1996, it was written by Paul Laverty, and the pair sat down with Damon Wise to discuss the film’s themes of humanity and social responsibility.

died Wednesday at the age of 83.Mourners were seen leaving flowers and lighting candles at the gates of the Grammy winner’s estate, located on Lake Zurich in the tranquil town of Küsnacht. Turner first moved into the home, known as Villa Algonquin, with her longtime love, Erwin Bach, in 1998. Due to strict Swiss laws prohibiting foreign homeownership, Turner and Bach rented the property until the singer became a citizen of the country in 2013.

Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin and was the father of Spike Lee, has died aged 94.The musician died at his Brooklyn home yesterday (May 24), according to a publicist for Spike Lee, confirmed to The New York Times.

Scots band The Vintage Explosion performed on This Morning after Sir Rod Stewart's endorsement skyrocketed their career.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Tina Turner, who died Wednesday at 83, rarely failed to electrify, not just in person but with cameras as her conduit to the audience, too. Longtime Grammys executive producer Ken Ehrlich worked with Turner on programs from the late ’70s through the late ’90s, and he shared his memories with Variety of three particularly memorable TV performances. The first of these was in 1985, when she sang “What’s Love Got to Do With It” on the Grammys, the same year she won record of the year for that song — arguably the peak of her career, though she’d been revered for a quarter-century before that and would become a bigger superstar still in the next 25 years to follow. The second appearance he singles out is a duet between Turner and Elton John for a 1999 “VH1 Divas” special that got more fiery behind the scenes than necessary, albeit possibly to its benefit. Finally, he was an integral part of one of Turner’s last great TV spots, a highly copacetic duet with Beyoncé on the 2008 Grammys telecast.

The Warehouse Project will be back in September, with the likes of Bicep, Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna and Jamie Jones on the bill for its 2023 season. It’s also revealed that it will be opening up two new areas of its Depot Mayfield home, including the roof.

Actor Ray Stevenson – known for films including King Arthur and Punisher – has died at the age of 58, his representatives have confirmed.The Northern Irish actor died on Sunday (21 May), though no further details were immediately made available. He starred in multiple television shows including as soldier Titus Pullo in the BBC/HBO series Rome from 2005-2007, and will be appearing in upcoming Star Wars spin-off Ahsoka.

The Manchester International Festival has announced its music and food line-up for the all-new Festival Square. Where it’s previously taken over Albert Square, this year it will be happening at Factory International’s new riverside location.

APPOINTMENTSUniversal Music’s label services division Virgin Music has announced three promotions in the US. Leslie Cooper is now SVP Artist Development & Special Projects, Marisa Di Frisco becomes VP National Promotion, and Lauren Holman moves up to VP Streaming Marketing.Warner Chappell has promoted Amber Davis to the role of Senior Vice President. “I’m honoured to be stepping into this wider role at Warner Chappell Music”, she says.

EXCLUSIVE: As all of the Cannes packages start to trickle through ahead of the big event on the Croisette next week, an early frontrunner in the hot package game is Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Negga starrer Night Boat to Tangier. Oscar-winning director James Marsh is directing the project, based on the novel of the same name from Kevin Barry’s New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year.