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Pete Davidson and Jason Orley are reuniting for “I Slept with Joey Ramone,” Netflix’s upcoming biopic about the life of the frontman for iconic punk band The Ramones. Netflix announced on Thursday that Orley, who made his directorial debut with 2019’s Davidson-led “Big Time Adolescence,” will direct the upcoming film. The duo serve as writers on the project, which is based on the Mickey Leigh memoir of the same name. The film is a collaboration between Netflix and STXfilms, both of which will develop and produce the biopic. “When you share a bed with someone — and not just a bed, but a childhood, a family, and a lifetime — you know that person better than anybody else. Mickey Leigh not only collaborated with his big brother’s band – he...

“Love and Monsters,” the post-apocalyptic, sci-fi comedy about giant mutants, has become the surprise dark horse in the Visual Effects Oscar race. That’s because it was a standout at the virtual bake-off. “The spirit of the award should go to ‘Love and Monsters,'” said one anonymous voter. “It was fun, entertaining, well done, and relied on VFX to sell and create the experience.” It certainly helped that “Love and Monsters” evoked the spirit of legendary Ray Harryhausen in the design of the giant creatures (created by Mr. X Adelaide and Bangalore, with practical work from MillFilm). “We had broad stroke personality traits for each creature [from director Michael Matthews], and that’s where the animation team went to work,” said...

Damon Lindelof and Justin Theroux collaborated on three seasons of HBO’s “The Leftovers,” but that was not the first opportunity they had to work with each other. In a new Esquire cover story, Lindelof revealed that his casting list for “Lost” main character Jack Shepard had Theroux’s name on it. When contacted about “Lost,” Theroux apparently told Lindelof he wasn’t interested. Little did Theroux or Lindelof know at the time that “Lost” would go on to become one of the defining network dramas of the 21st century. Ultimately, Matthew Fox was cast as Jack and played the character for all six seasons. “Justin looking and sounding the way that he does, instantly the town decides, ‘We’re going to groom this guy to be the star of a Marvel...

The 18 Arclight and Pacific Theaters represented about one percent of the North American box-office gross, but the April 13 announcement of their permanent closure by parent company Decurion inspired front-page stories and social-media outpourings of grief. What other industry would generate that response? In sheer numbers, it’s the equivalent of McDonald’s closing 153 outlets, or Apple closing maybe three of its stores — items that would generate notice and, depending on the day, a lead business story in the New York Times. It certainly wouldn’t inspire director Edgar Wright to say, “My first thought was, what can be done to help?” or, as Barry Jenkins put it more succinctly, “FUCK.” Of course, these theaters meant much more than...

After collaborating on nearly 20 movies for more than 30 decades, it’s easy to see why composer Terence Blanchard calls his creative rapport with Spike Lee “more like a no-hand” than a short-hand. That could explain why, on the morning of March 15, the jazz musician and the iconic filmmaker didn’t have to say much at all about the fact that their latest effort, “Da 5 Bloods,” received just a single Academy Award nomination: Blanchard for Best Original Score. “[Spike] called me up to congratulate me and I said, ‘Well, man, I’m feeling bad because I thought for sure you guys would get nominated,'” Blanchard told IndieWire, calling from his home in New Orleans. “His response to me was, ‘Onward and upward. You’ve got to represent.’ And he...

“Mare of Easttown” contains at least two complementary shows, both deeply satisfying. One is an absorbing character drama about Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) and the denizens of Easttown, Pennsylvania. Mare, an exquisitely Irish name for a woman who’s stubborn, guarded, and nonetheless charming, is a former town patron who’s on the verge of becoming a pariah. Decades removed from her high school basketball heroics, she’s a divorced detective who been unable to close a missing person’s case. One friend has already turned against her, and the locals’ agitation only grows when another young girl turns up dead. These local mysteries are the other story, but writer Brad Ingelsby (“The Way Back”), director Craig Zobel (“The Leftovers”), and an...

Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Western drama “Killers of the Flower Moon” is finally going into production next month with a cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, and Lily Gladstone. Plemons’ casting announcement in February generated buzz for the project as the “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” actor stepped into the role originally written for DiCaprio. The casting change led to questions around who is the actual lead of Scorsese’s new film, but “Flower Moon” screenwriter Eric Roth recently told Collider that just because Plemons took over DiCaprio’s original role does not mean DiCaprio has shifted into a supporting space a la his “Django Unchained” performance. “I wouldn’t say [Plemons is] the lead,”...

One of the biggest stories to emerge out of Oscar nominations morning in March was Steven Yeun becoming the first Asian-American actor to land an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Yeun is nominated for his performance in Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari.” While the performer is honored to break down barriers, he’s also wary that being defined only as an “Asian American actor” comes with its own burdens. As Yeun discussed in a new cover story on “Minari” published by The Hollywood Reporter, he doesn’t so readily accept he’s an “Asian American actor” and not simply “an actor.” As THR writes: “Yeun doesn’t seem particularly thrilled about his status as the first Asian American nominee for the best actor Oscar. ‘If I step out of myself and...

One of the quickest ways to get to know someone is to see how they fill their days. What separates “My Love: Six Stories of True Love” from most other single-subject documentary projects is the way it zeroes in on what makes up a typical day in the life of a stranger. Told across the globe and concentrating on a half-dozen couples, “My Love” offers more than just a collection of anecdotes. It’s a living history; a celebration of an emotion that exists in more forms that any one set of stories could possibly hold. These couples — located in the United States, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and India — have all been together for more than 40 years. The connective familiarity that’s common to all of them is also present in Moyoung...

The video above was produced by IndieWire’s Creative Producer Leonardo Adrian Garcia. The review below relates to HBO’s documentary film “Our Towns,” a portrait of America’s small cities and towns that chronicles the rise of civic and economic reinvention across six chosen communities. Based on the book “Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America” by James and Deborah Fallows, the documentary is available now from HBO. Ben Travers, TV Critic: Libby, small towns hold a dear place in my heart, as I know they do yours. We’re both from towns off the beaten path (though I’m technically from a village, as my tiny rural home has less than 1000 citizens). We’ve both since moved to “the big city” (Los Angeles, though plenty of...

Oscar-nominated Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg is set to make his television drama debut with six-part family saga “Families Like Ours.” (Via Variety.) The Dane’s profile skyrocketed recently after he nabbed a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Director for his latest film “Another Round,” which is also nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. “Families Like Ours” will continue Vinterberg’s collaboration with “Another Round” producer Zentropa, the Danish company founded by Lars Von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen. “Families Like Ours” has been commissioned by Danish broadcaster TV2 and will be supported by Danish Public Service funds. In addition to directing, Vinterberg will co-write the...

It’s been ages since Morgan Freeman gave a performance that wasn’t more appealing than his own persona. His new thriller, “Vanquish,” gets at the essence of the challenge: Left to his own devices in a cheesy, half-baked thriller that finds him playing a disabled cop with a criminal past, he surrenders the knowing grin and cocked eyebrow routine that has solidified into a punchline, and this pulpy B-movie could use exactly that. “Vanquish” stands in striking contrast to other recent Freeman credits where he plays himself just right. Released in the aftermath of his hilarious celebrity narration to the funeral sequence of “Coming 2 America” and his request that Americans get vaccinated in a widely circulated PSA (“For some reason, people...

BBC diversity chief Miranda Wayland has stirred up controversy on social media due to a discussion at the digital MIPTV conference (via Entertainment Tonight) in which she said Idris Elba’s popular crime series “Luther” is not “authentic” when it comes to Black storytelling. As Wayland explained, “When [‘Luther’] first came out everybody loved the fact that Idris Elba was in there — a really strong, Black character lead. We all fell in love with him. Who didn’t, right? But after you got into about the second series you got kind of like, ‘OK, he doesn’t have any Black friends, he doesn’t eat any Caribbean food, this doesn’t feel authentic.” Wayland continued, “It’s great having those big landmark shows with those key characters, but...