Anderson Cooper has another cutie! The CNN anchor announced the arrival of his second baby boy via surrogate on Thursday, February 10.
25.01.2022 - 02:07 / variety.com
Dennis Harvey Film CriticThough not mandatory, a stint of missionary service is common among young Mormons, with men and (to a lesser extent) women mostly between 18 and 21 sent to LDS outposts around the world for evangelical work by the thousands each year. They comprise the most public face of a church still regarded by many outsiders as secretive and strange, and thus are an object of natural curiosity, if also some popular ridicule.
During the Sundance Film Festival, even the streets of Park City itself have paid testament to the ubiquity of their cheerful accosting of strangers with the word of the Lord. It is disappointing, then, that this year’s virtual Sundance premiere title “The Mission” should promise a peek behind this particular holy curtain, only to reveal so little.
Tania Anderson’s documentary charts the voluntary missionary stints for four (presumably Utah-based, though such details are scant here) youths assigned 18-to-24-month proselytizing stints in Finland. Sending all these sheltered, squeaky-clean, mostly blond Americans to a polite, prosperous Nordic nation does not feel like a huge challenge.
Nor does this innocuous debut feature manage to convey even a small sense of personal discovery or evolution, let alone spiritual engagement. If one might reasonably expect a film on this subject to primarily interest non-Mormons, it turns out the only viewers likely to find it rewarding are LDS members either considering sign-up or nostalgic for their own mission year.
Exposure prospects outside Mormon communities are probably modest.Brief opening text notes that missionary programs date almost from the start of the Church of Latter-Day Saints nearly 200 years ago. While it’s hinted that volunteers have
.Anderson Cooper has another cutie! The CNN anchor announced the arrival of his second baby boy via surrogate on Thursday, February 10.
luxury California home is reported to have been overtaken by a foul smell. The Sussexes' neighbours have been left "disgusted" by a stench across their house in Los Angeles. Harry and Meghan, aged 37 and 40 respectively, moved to the United States from United Kingdom two years ago.
Maren Morris is the friend you’d want in your corner. The 31-year-old country star posted a loving message of support for pal Mickey Guyton, 38, after the fellow singer revealed she was receiving nasty messages about her upcoming Super Bowl performance pertaining to her race.
The 2022 Razzie Awards nominations are here.
Meghan McCain has slammed the 2022 Winter Olympics, branding them the "Genocide Games" over China's human rights abuses.MORE: Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie share disappointment over 2022 Winter Olympics newsThe 37-year-old took to social media to share an image designed by Chinese artist badiucao, which was created in protest of the host country. It showed an ice hockey player wearing the Chinese flag with blood on their stick and mask as they knocked over a Tibetan monk.WATCH: Meghan McCain announces departure from The View"I will not watch one minute of the @Beijing2022," she captioned her post, adding the hashtag, "#GenocideGames."On Twitter, she expanded on her opinion, writing: "There is no reason to watch a Winter Olympics that is holding up and spreading propaganda for a regime that is committing actual genocide and ethnic cleansing - on top of poisoning the world and killing 6 million people.
Meghan McCain has decried Whoopi Goldberg's recent comments on The View about the Holocaust, sharing that she is "heartbroken about what was said".MORE: Meghan McCain praised by fans for inspiring words about importance of 'listening to each other'The former TV star took to social media to share her thoughts in the hours after Whoopi apologized for the shocking remarks that have been branded "antisemitic". "I hate commenting on my old employer because I have moved in every way a person can move on," Meghan wrote.WATCH: The View star Whoopi Goldberg alleges the Holocaust wasn't about race"That being said I am an activist against antisemitism and it is a big part of my life.
Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Mayor of Kingstown” has been renewed for Season 2 at Paramount Plus.The first season of the drama series debuted in November, with the season finale airing on Jan. 9. The first two episodes of the series also aired on Paramount Network immediately after “Yellowstone.” The series premiere drew 2.6 million viewers on the linear network, with the second episode drawing 2.1 million.The series follows the McLusky family – power brokers in Kingstown, Mich., where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry.
EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to the public health documentary The End of Medicine, executive produced by two-time Oscar nominee Rooney Mara and Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital and VOD platforms this summer.
A heartbreaking loss. Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst was found dead in New York City on Sunday, January 30. She was 30 years old.
Manori Ravindran International EditorOne of the most controversial movies to emerge from this year’s Sundance Film Festival is a documentary called “Jihad Rehab,” which follows a group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees.Directed by American filmmaker Megan Smaker — a former California firefighter who spent five years in Yemen — the film follows several Yemeni men who were unlawfully detained for 15 years in the U.S.-run detention camp, before being relocated to Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care — a so-called “rehabilitation center” for extremists who must graduate the program before they’re allowed to rejoin society.The film tracks Ali, Nadir and Mohammed’s turbulent journey over three years as they try to come to grips with their trauma and navigate an uneasy future in Saudi Arabia, where it’s illegal for them, as Yemenis, to leave. (A Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states infiltrated Yemen’s civil war in 2015, carrying out air raids that have devastated the nation.) While “Jihad Rehab” isn’t the first film in the grisly orbit of Guantanamo, its Sundance premiere has received heavy criticism from human rights advocates and other documentarians, many of them from Arab or Muslim backgrounds, who are concerned that the doc’s subjects are being framed as criminals (despite never standing trial in the U.S.
Lia Maiuri, who handled publicity for NBC’s daytime drama Days Of Our Lives in her previous position at NBCU, has been named Director of Communications for the show’s producer, Corday.
EXCLUSIVE: Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill, Blackadder) has signed on to star alongside Murray McArthur (Wonka, The Northman), Cameron Ashplant (Gentleman Jack), Tilly Keeper (EastEnders), Jenet Le Lacheur (Cinderella) and Brian Webster in the thriller Marooned Awakening, which is in production on the island of Guernsey.
Josh Duhamel is opening up about how he proposed to now fiancée, Audra Mari.
The 72nd Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its various juries, including who will be joining M. Night Shyamalan to award the International Competition prizes.
Guy Lodge Film CriticIf the Jane Collective has gone under-credited in American women’s rights history over the last half-century, independent cinema is doing its best to make up for lost time. Right on the heels of Phyllis Nagy’s colorful fictionalized drama “Call Jane,” “The Janes” is the second film at this year’s Sundance festival dedicated to the female-staffed, Chicago-based underground service that provided over 11,000 illegal abortions to women in need between 1968 and 1973, at which point Roe v.
Whoopi Goldberg fired back at Bill Maher over comments he made in his Real Time monologue Friday evening, including, “I don’t want to live in your paranoid world anymore — your masked, paranoid world.”
Bari Weiss revved up a fierce debate about our return to normalcy in a COVID-19 world.On Friday’s episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” Weiss articulated what many Americans are feeling: a searing fatigue with the seemingly endless COVID restrictions that have led to an alarming mental health crisis among our youth, saying that pandemic-related rules will be “remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.”“I’m done. I’m done with COVID,” she said, noting that early in the pandemic she complied with every recommendation. “I sprayed the Pringles cans that I bought at the grocery store, stripped my clothes off because I thought COVID would be on my clothes.