‘The Color Purple’ Review: Purple Reigns

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic On the first episode of Jennifer Hudson’s new talk show, guest Simon Cowell was very gently criticizing the series “American Idol,” on which he had been a judge and Hudson had been a contestant. Remarking how he found the producers’ assignment for her to sing a Barry Manilow song (which she did the week she was sent home) to be unfair to her and outdated, Cowell generated the first semblance of real heat on the episode. Here was something, perhaps, with the frisson and excitement of real conversation. Hudson let it sit there, allowing a couple moments of silence before remarking “Simon being Simon,” then trailing off. This first episode began with a run-through of Hudson’s career achievements: From the sorrow of her “Idol” elimination during Barry Manilow Week to her casting in “Dreamgirls,” for which she would win an acting Oscar, to her successful recording career. Hudson has won all four major entertainment awards — an EGOT, which speaks to the somewhat mythic place she occupies in the celebrity landscape: The recipient of a second chance whose unabashedly showy voice couldn’t be constrained by a reality-show loss.

Finding her inner strength. Clare Crawley opened up about her mental health following her exit from The Bachelorette in 2020.

Fox’s Monarch, originally slated to debut last spring, launched last night at 7:45 PM ET behind an NFL doubleheader. With a title that could’ve been easily mistaken for another special about the late Queen Elizabeth II, the country music drama averaged a 0.8 adults 18-49 Live+Same Day ratings and 3.8 million total viewers, with an the encore immediately following drawing an additional a 0.2 rating and 1.5 million viewers for a combined 1.0 rating and 5.3 million viewers on premiere night, per Nielsen fast nationals. Both telecasts faced the mammoth Sunday Night Football Cowboys-Buccaneers match-up featuring un-retired super star Tom Brady.

Sift through some of his best work, and you will find that Steven Spielberg has always been a filmmaker charged by notions of love and ache for families, both those we are born into and those we select for ourselves. Though his tender devotion to domestic, often suburban bonds and rhythms—a well-documented and endlessly discussed through-line in his filmography—has perhaps never been as evident as in the soul-baring “The Fabelmans.” It’s Spielberg’s most personal film, one that gorgeously revives the memories of his childhood and youth with a lavish sense of wistfulness and an aptly Hollywood-ized, fable-like touch.  That beautiful Hollywood sheen is fitting for the on-screen autobiography of an escapist filmmaker, one whose name we came to pronounce synonymously with the magic of movies.

Toronto International Film Festival, has been shrouded in secrecy for months. About all we knew going in was that the movie is based on the famed director’s own life, and stars Williams, Paul Dano and Seth Rogen. Running time: 151 minutes.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic No director has done more to deconstruct the myth of the suburban American family than Steven Spielberg. Dissertations have been written and documentaries made on the subject. And now, at the spry young age of 75, Spielberg himself weighs in on where his preoccupations come from in “The Fabelmans,” a personal account of his upbringing that feels like listening to two and a half hours’ worth of well-polished cocktail-party anecdotes, only better, since he’s gone to the trouble of staging them all for our benefit. Spielberg’s a born storyteller, and these are arguably his most precious stories. From the first movie he saw (“The Greatest Show on Earth”) to memories of meeting filmmaker John Ford on the Paramount lot, this endearing, broadly appealing account of how Spielberg was smitten by the medium — and why the prodigy nearly abandoned picture-making before his career even started — holds the keys to so much of the master’s filmography. More similar to Woody Allen’s autobiographical “Radio Days” than it is to European art films such as “The 400 Blows” and “Amistad” (the more highbrow models other directors typically point to when re-creating their childhoods), “The Fabelmans” invites audiences into the home and headspace of the world’s most beloved living director, an oddly sanitized zone where even the trauma — which includes anti-Semitism, financial disadvantage and divorce — seems to go better with fresh-buttered popcorn.

There is definitely a trend of late for film directors to take a look in thinly disguised cinematic memoirs of their early influences that shaped the artist and person they have become. Kenneth Branagh with Belfast and Paolo Sorrentino with The Hand Of God did it last year. Of course there is Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, others over the years. Sam Mendes, while not drawing a portrait of his younger self revisits the movie palaces of his youth in another 2022 offering, Empire Of Light, which premiered last weekend at Telluride and will also hit the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF is also where the man I recently described as the GOAT, Steven Spielberg, has chosen to debut his own story where the names have been changed but the story is  clearly his. The Fabelmans basically chronicling his early Jewish family life and infatuation with making movies  had its World Premiere Saturday night, the first of Spielberg’s directed movies ever to premiere at a film festival. This one seems entirely appropriate, and it has been gestating in the director’s head ever since he and his co-writer Tony Kushner started kicking it around during the making of Lincoln over a decade ago. He says he finally made it primarily as a way to bring his late parents Leah and Arnold (to whom the film is dedicated) somehow back to his life. Movies can do that, and no one knows it better than Steven Spielberg.

Every director, it seems, has a deeply personal coming-of-age story to tell, from Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” to Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” to Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.” And lately every Toronto International Film Festival has made one of those films a centerpiece of its lineup. Last year, it was Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” which won TIFF’s audience award and went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture; this year, it’s Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” which had its world premiere on Saturday night in the Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre.Based on Spielberg’s childhood in New Jersey (briefly), Phoenix (longer) and Northern California (for a stormy stretch in high school), “The Fabelmans” is a sweet look back at a boy who was transfixed by the movies from the moment he saw “The Greatest Show on Earth” in 1952, and who started his own adventures in filmmaking with the help of his dad’s camera and a Lionel train set in the basement.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent With “Chiara,” Susanna Nicchiarelli’s portrait of Saint Clare of Assisi – the 13th century saint born into a wealthy family who at age 18 became a nun after hearing St. Francis preach – the Italian director completes her trilogy of female biopics, segueing from “Nico, 1988” and “Miss Marx,” which both launched from Venice’s Horizons section. With “Chiara,” she makes the leap into the main Venice competition. Nicchiarelli spoke to Variety about what drew her to portraying this prototypical feminist and directing “My Brilliant Friend” star Margherita Mazzucco in the pic’s titular role. Excerpts. What drove you to want to tell us this story about St. Clare?Well, first of all, I was always passionate about Saint Francis. I have a very strong memory when I first saw Franco Zeffirelli’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” I was at school when they showed it to us and this boy, this man, taking his clothes off in front of the Bishop. That was a very strong image. Francis’ battle speaks to us just as much today because it’s a battle for poverty, against social injustice. It’s about being on the side of the poor, of those who are different, and the injustices of a society in which very few have everything and then most have nothing. So, this was their battle. The medieval society was like that. It’s not so different from the way it is now.

Here’s one hell of a way to remember just how strange “Pinocchio” (1940) was: watch Robert Zemeckis’ hallucinatory live-action remake of it, now playing on Disney+. Some of the kooky parts here are not from the script by Simon Farnaby and Chris Weitz—to their credit, they didn’t invent the hedonistic sugary kid-hell of Pleasure Island, or the concept of an innocent boy whose wooden appendage grows, or a lonely man’s fixation on having a manic pixie dream son (Italian author Carlo Collodi did).

Love is in the air! Clare Crawley has a new man in her life following her split from ex-fiancé Dale Moss.

Clare Crawley has found a love she can trust with Ryan Dawkins — something the former Bachelorette can appreciate after her rocky romance with ex-fiancé Dale Moss.

Has Clare Crawley found The One? The former Bachelorette confirmed she is off the market after navigating her rocky relationship with ex-fiancé Dale Moss.

Gerard Piqué and his Shakira lookalike 23-year-old girlfriend Clara Chía attended a wedding a little over a week ago as a dates. They were photographed looking smitten with each other, laughing hysterically.Piqué has not commented on the cheating allegations or his new relationship, but he clearly doesn’t care who sees him now.

has started to look unsustainable, and it was widely reported in June that the days of blank cheques had come to an end. Do the streamer’s offerings at Venice this year represent that era’s last, loopy hurrah? White Noise, which opened the 78th edition of the festival this evening, certainly has a “last days of Rome” feel about it.

Plus-one status! Gerard Piqué and Clara Chia’s romance has continued to heat up, even attending a wedding together.

Still adjusting. Shakira‘s ex-partner Gerard Piqué already seems to be moving on with someone else after their split — and the singer isn’t happy about it.