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“Sweet Dreams” the new R-rated comedy feature, written and directed by Lije Sarki, stars Johnny Knoxville, Mo Amer, GaTa, Bobby Lee, Theo Von, Brian Van Holt, Jonnie Park, Shakewell, Adam Faison, Erik Anthony Gonzalez and Beth Grant, with Jay Mohr and Kate Upton, opening April 12, 2024 in theaters:

“…forced into rehab at the ‘Sweet Dreams’ recovery center, ‘Morris’ (Knoxville) struggles to confront the wreckage of his life.

‘But when their house goes up for auction, he reluctantly agrees to coach their misfit softball team of recovering addicts to win a cash prize and prove that everyone, despite their past, can hit a home run…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

"You got 10 guys that need this place." Paramount has revealed an official trailer for a sports comedy called Sweet Dreams, a new film directed by the producer of sleeper hit The Peanut Butter Falcon previously. Opening in theaters in April this spring to enjoy. This fresh new comedy is a wild journey of second chances. Forced into rehab, Morris agrees to coach a misfit softball team of recovering addicts from his own house to prove that everyone, despite their past, can hit a home run. And maybe he will get his own life back on track, too. Johnny Knoxville stars as Morris, with an ensemble cast featuring Mo Amer, GaTa, Bobby Lee, Theo Von, Brian Van Holt, Jonnie Park, Shakewell, Adam Faison, plus Jay Mohr & Kate Upton. This doesn't look like it has the most original script, but it still does seem quite wholesome and amusing in an obnoxiously entertaining way.

Dubai-based sales agency Cercamon has acquired worldwide rights for Indonesian film “Crocodile Tears,” it was revealed at Hong Kong rights market FilMart.

The film is a co-production between Indonesia’s Talamedia (producer Mandy Marahimin), Singapore’s Giraffe Pictures (producers Anthony Chen and Teoh Yi Peng), France’s Acrobates Films (producer Claire Lajoumard) and Poetik Film (producer Christophe Lafont) and Germany’s 2Pilots Filmproduction (producers Harry Flöter and Jörg Siepmann).

The deal was negotiated by Sebastien Chesneau at Cercamon, Chen at Giraffe Pictures and Marahimin at Talamedia.

The film, Tumpal Tampubolon’s feature debut, follows Johan, who lives alone with his mother on a crocodile farm in West Java. Mother and son live in voluntary exile with only a white crocodile as their confidant. Their life of isolation is disrupted when Johan falls for a girl in town, Arumi, setting off a chain of events that threatens the delicate balance of their lives.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Exclusive: Toby Kebbell (Servant), Shia Labeouf (Fury) and James Cosmo (Game of Thrones) have been set to star in boxing-world crime-drama Salvable, which Metro International is launching ahead of the EFM next week.

Carl Froch, former Boxing World Champion and 2023 International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, will be training Kebbell and Labeouf with work due to get underway in New York next week. The plan is for the filmmakers to shoot a documentary tracking their progress as they prepare for the film.

Filming for Salvable is slated to begin in April.

The movie will follow Sal “The Bull,” a washed-up boxer on the brink of 40, who is fighting more than just his opponents. With a life of regrets and fading dreams, Sal’s chance at redemption comes knocking in the form of illegal boxing, introduced by the sudden return of his old friend, Vince. Sal faces the ultimate dilemma: seize...

Exclusive: Sex Education and Living star Aimee Lou Wood, recently announced for series three of The White Lotus, is joining Nick Frost (Fighting with My Family), Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Billy Howle (Under the Banner of Heaven) in crime-thriller Sweet Dreams.

Ahead of the EFM, Metro International Entertainment has boarded worldwide sales on the ensemble project from writer-director Carl Tibbetts (Black Mirror). The team is looking to shoot in October this year with additional casting underway.

Pitched as “a British Fargo“, the story begins when a local property developer is swindled out of a million pounds, triggering a chain of grisly and murderous events that rupture the fabric of the decaying English seaside town of Claypole. As the bodies pile up and the lies unravel, the promise of a brighter future conspires to bring the lives and ambitions of a few misguided...

Plot: An 11-year-old boy with an active imagination confronts his fears when a giant, smiling creature of the night, Dark, invites him on a transformative journey through the hours of darkness.

Review: During a time when mental health awareness in young people is more important than ever, we must address the fragility of the mind in as many arenas as possible. Most children don’t respond well to an adult who isn’t their parent telling them what to do. You must circumvent the awkward exchange and introduce them to something unique to get through to them. One way to do this is through the power of storytelling. The right story can create a sense of comfort, regardless of how far-fetched the plot or characters appear. In Orion and the Dark, director Sean Charmatz and writer Charlie Kaufman present a powerful tale about confronting fear and how the right story...

Heretic has acquired world sales right to Iranian director Aliyar Rasti’s “The Great Yawn of History,” a debut feature that premieres this month in the competitive Encounters strand of the Berlin Film Festival.

The film tells the story of a man who dreams of a box of gold waiting for him at the end of a cave. Curbed by his religious belief that it’s not permissible to go after it himself, he employs the assistance of a non-believer. Together they embark on a long journey across the Iranian landscape in pursuit of a miracle. But their treasure hunt soon turns tempting also for those they meet along the way.

Heretic’s head of sales and acquisitions, Ioanna Stais, praised the first-time director’s film for how it deftly transforms into an intricate game of hide-and-seek between faith and human frailty.

“From road trip to allegory, Aliyar’s poetic...

Tanaka Toshihiko’s “Rei” was awarded the Tiger Award, the top prize of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, on Friday. Toshihiko’s feature debut chronicles a woman in her early 30s employed in a corporate job in Tokyo who meets a deaf landscape photographer living deep in the mountains of Hokkaido.

Toshihiko worked with a cast and crew of mostly-non professionals and students and not only directed “Rei,” but also produced, edited and acted in the film. He takes home a prize worth €40,000 given by a jury comprised of “Sweet Dreams” director Ena Sendijarević, producer and historian Marco Müller, “Ebola Syndrome” director and screenwriter Herman Yau, pioneering “Bless Their Little Hearts” filmmaker Billy Woodberry and producer Nadia Turincev.

The jury called Toshihiko a “burgeoning film director who chose to develop his debut film in a loose and unbounded environment,” and whose strength lies in “a collaborative environment centered on the actors.

It’s easy for children to be feel apprehensive and overwhelmed by the world. (To be fair, it’s also easy for a lot of adults to feel apprehensive and overwhelmed by the world, which, you know — thank god for therapists!) You could do a lot worse than to show a fretful youngster Orion and the Dark, a Dreamworks/Netflix animated movie that mounts a full-frontal attack on the notion of fear as a default state of mind. Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) is an 11-year-old who’s afraid of a lot of things: cancer,...

DreamWorks Animation’s latest feature, “Orion and the Dark,” is all but guaranteed to surprise you. It’s skipping theaters and going straight to Netflix, for starters. On a story level, it reveals the little-known fact that every time humans fall asleep, they’re being bludgeoned or smothered into unconsciousness by a little blue gremlin. But the biggest shock may be the name that appears on the screenplay.

An adult-friendly kids movie about dealing with your anxieties — first and foremost, fear of the dark — the computer-animated feature was written by Charlie Kaufman, the intellect behind “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Adaptation.” The project is itself a miles-outside-the-box adaptation of an inventive and fairly straightforward picture book by Emma Yarlett, which Kaufman complicates as only a galaxy brain like his can.

Taking a page from Pete Docter over at Pixar, Kaufman has hatched a creative (if frequently cumbersome) solution...

Orion And The DarkImage: DreamWorks Animation

The notion of an animated feature for children written by Charlie Kaufman, the anxiety-riddled scribe of metaphysical nesting-doll movies like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, sounds about as unlikely as a G-rated Disney movie directed by David Lynch, or Nine Inch Nails frontman...

The Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich screenwriter has adapted a picture book for his debut family film about being afraid of the dark

A mainstream children’s movie from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, creator of Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche, New York? It has to be worth a look, if only for the pleasure of wondering how much of his own adult neurosis has crept in. For this DreamWorks/Netflix family animation, Kaufman has adapted a picture book by Falmouth-based British author Emma Yarlett, and Sean Charmatz makes his feature directing debut, having worked chiefly on storyboarding films such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Lego Movie 2.

It is about an unhappy little kid called Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), who is afraid of pretty much everything: putting his hand up in class, being bullied, causing the toilet to overflow with an immoderate bowel movement, talking to the girl he...

Of the 272 films that have earned lone acting Oscar nominations – meaning they were each recognized in one performance category and nowhere else – a whopping 101 (or 37.1%) accomplished the feat thanks to lead actresses. Whereas just 60 examples have occurred in the Best Actor category, the corresponding female one reached that benchmark in 1991 and is on track to double it less than two decades from now. Its triple digit total has now been intact for one full year, having directly resulted from the simultaneous nominations of Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”).

Although an Oscar bid was generally expected to follow de Armas’s 2023 BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations, Riseborough very memorably came out of nowhere, having defied precedent by benefiting from an enthusiastic grassroots campaign. While most of the earlier lone Best Actress contenders belong in de Armas’s camp, many align with Riseborough in having pulled off major surprises.

Critical Zone, an Iranian drama shot in secret by dissident director Ali Ahmadzadeh, has won the Golden Leopard honor for best film at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival.

Ahmadzadeh, who has been banned from leaving Iran, was unable to attend the awards ceremony, held at the Swiss city Saturday night. The Iranian government pressured the director to pull the film from competition. Through its story of a man and his dog, who navigate Tehran’s underworld, selling drugs and talking to troubled souls, Critical Zone depicts a nation rebelling against an oppressive regime in any way it can. Produced by Germany’s Counter Intuitive Film, Critical Zone is being sold worldwide by Luxbox.

Another proudly political filmmaker, British legend Ken Loach, won the audience award, the Ubs Prix du Public, at Locarno’s 76th annual festival for his latest (and perhaps last) feature film: The Old Oak. The drama, which premiered in Cannes,...

Idina Menzel didn’t always love the idea of playing Lea Michele’s TV mom.

In a new interview recounting her time on Glee, the Tony Award winner reveals that she was conflicted when she got the call to play Shelby.

More from TVLineTVLine Items: Robert Carlyle's Toxic Role, Wrexham Season 2 Trailer and MoreSpecial Forces: World's Toughest Test: Tom Sandoval, JoJo Siwa, Blac Chyna and a Chrisley Among Season 2 RecruitsEmmys Scrap September Date Amid Hollywood Strikes - Next Stop, January 2024?

“You’re worried you’re not going to work again, and then people hire you to be someone’s...

Critical Zone took Golden Leopard Photo: Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival Ali Ahmadzadeh's Critical Zone has taken the top prize Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.

The film, which was secretly shot on the streets of Tehran without government permission, is described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran”. The director was summoned last month to Iran's Ministry of Security where he came under pressure to withdraw the film from the competition. He is currently banned from leaving the country.

In a statement the director said: "Making this film was a big rebellion. Showing it means an even bigger victory for us."

A special jury prize was awarded to Radu Jude for Do Not Expect To Much From The End Of The World while this year’s newly introduced gender-neutral acting awards went to Dimitra Vlagopoulou for Animal, directed by Sofia Exarchou and Renée Soutendijk...

Critical Zone.International Competition(Jury: Lambert Wilson, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lesli Klainberg, Charlotte Wells, Matthijs Wouter Knol)Golden Leopard: Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Special Jury Prize: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude)Best Direction: Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Best Performance: Dimitra Vlagopoulou (Animal)Best Performance: Renée Soutendijk (Sweet Dreams)Special Mention: Nuit Obscure - Au Revoir Ici, N'importe Où (Sylvain George)Filmmakers Of The PresentGolden Leopard: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Best Emerging Director: Katharina Huber (A Good Place)Special Jury Prize: Camping Du Lac (Éléonore Saintagnan)Best Performance: Clara Schwinning (A Good Place)Best Performance: Isold Halldórudóttir and Stavros Zafeiris (Touched)Special Mentions: Excursions (Una Gunjak), Negu Hurbilak (Colective Negu)First Feature(Jury: Omar El Zohairy, Devika Girish, Isabel Sandoval)First Feature Award: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Ewa Puszczyńska, Matthew Rankin, Amos Sussigan)Best...

Director was prevented from travelling to the festival in person by Iranian authorities.

Iranian director Ali Ahmadzadeh‘s Critical Zone has won the Locarno Film Festival top prize, the Golden Leopard.

The Iranian-German co-production, secretly shot on the streets of Tehran without official permission, follows a man driving through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs, healing troubled souls and discovering seeds of resistance.

Director Ahmadezadeh, who was prevented from travelling to Locarno to present his film in person, had faced pressure from the Iranian authorities ahead of the festival to withdraw his film from the competition and was...

Iranian filmmaker Ali Ahmadzadeh clinched the Golden Leopard in the main international competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival with his latest feature Critical Zone (Mantagheye Bohrani).

Ahmadzadeh was not in attendance to receive the award as he is currently banned from leaving his native Iran. Last month, the country’s authorities summoned Ahmadzadeh to the Ministry of Security, where he was pressured to pull Critical Zone from Locarno’s official competition. The film’s international sales agent Luxbox Paris and the producer, Sina Ataeian Dena, also said they had received threatening emails and messages demanding the film be pulled from the fest.

The pic, described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran,” was shot without permission from authorities before recent protests started. The plot follows a man who drives through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs and healing troubled souls. Born in Tehran in 1986, Critical Zone...

Auteurs Agnieszka Holland, Wim Wenders, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Aki Kaurismaki are among the filmmakers featured in the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Centrepiece program.

The strand, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema, which honors and celebrates global cinematic achievements, features 47 titles from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

TIFF has also revealed the additional lineup of galas, special presentations and documentaries, which feature star wattage from around the world including Tommy Lee Jones and Anil Kapoor.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece program, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF chief programming officer. “The rebranding of the TIFF program, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.

Ahead of Toronto International Film Festival kicking off in less than a month, the festival announced more additions, including Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, Close Your Eyes by Víctor Erice, Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki, Green Border by Agnieszka Holland, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and more.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece programme, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. “The rebranding of the TIFF programme, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the Festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.”

See the lineup below.

Centrepiece Programme 2023

100 Yards Xu Haofeng, Xu Junfeng | China

International Premiere

About...

The programme comprises 47 films from 45 countries.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the line-up for its Centrepiece programme, with 47 titles screening from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

Included in the programme (previously known as Contemporary World Cinema) are Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, getting its North American premiere; Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, receiving its Canadian premiere; and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a North American premiere.

Scroll down for the full list of Centrepiece titles

TIFF also announced additional titles for its Galas, Special Presentations and Documentaries programmes, among them the world premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Finestkind.

Locarno — Switzerland’s Locarno Fest hit its final straits on Wednesday evening with “Spring Breakers” director Harmony Korine, among a slim roster of on-site stars, set to arrive to accept in person an Honorary Golden Pard.

Otherwise, the dust is settling on activities at the festival’s vibrant industry arm, Locarno Pro, which broke all-time attendance records with 1,530 delegates, and on a market which, however relaxed, says much about larger forces rocking the arthouse and crossover business worldwide:

Arthouse Crunch

Over the last decade, theatrical arthouse markets have imploded soufflé-like. “We used to make 5,000 admissions per title, now the target audience is 500,” Peter Bognar, at Hungary’s CinefilCo, told Variety at Locarno. So, to close the gap and move hopefully into a little upside, having tapped subsidies and local TV pre-buys, producers are looking ever more to overseas public-sector coin, channelled via international co-producer partners. Tapping that not by chance...

Writer-director Ena Sendijarević’s second feature, Sweet Dreams, follows a recent trend of arthouse films — including Zama, The Settlers and The Tale of King Crab — that explore Europe’s troubled colonial history through a postmodern mix of satire, surrealism and cinematic lyricism.

All of these elements are present in a story set in 1900 in the Dutch East Indies, where a family running a prosperous sugar plantation finds its status quo upended when their patriarch suddenly passes away. Left to deal with the fallout, the landowner’s wife and children are quickly exposed to the limits, as well as the terrors, of colonialism, in the face of Indigenous people who refuse to keep bowing down.

Shot in the 1.33:1 Academy ratio and divided into chapters like a novella, Sendijarević’s movie maintains a certain distance from its subject, gazing at it through a contemporary prism that critiques the racism and exploitation of the epoch.

As Leo Tolstoy wrote, all happy families are alike, while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The rich cry too and there is something universal about the rivalries between the loved and the unloved wives, sons and heirs, regardless of their social status. So, why would the family of the sugar plantation owners in the Dutch East Indies in Ena Sendijarević's sophomore feature “Sweet Dreams” be any different? The film has just world-premiered at Locarno, where we also caught it.

Sweet Dreams is screening in Locarno Film Festival

Somewhere in Indonesia in the early 1900s, Jan (Hans Dagelet) owns the plantation and the sugar processing plant and rules it with an iron fist. He is no softer even at home, where he commands over his seemingly blasée European wife Agathe (Renée Soutendijk) and his Indonesian housekeeper-lover-concubine Siti (Hayati Azis), while the two battle one another, each...

Once upon a time there was a sweet little child named Brian Hugh Warner. Brian would attend his Christian School while dreaming of working as a music journalist. Later in life Brian would use some of the wholesome images he learned in his religious upbringing to spread joy to his legion of fans. He would even grow up to be a reverend! This Brian Hugh Warner sure sounds like one upstanding citizen! Of course, Brian Hugh Warner would not be what the world would soon know him as, and the Reverend he would one day become was not in the Church of Christ but rather the Church of Satan. How did a Christian School boy grow up to be the Antichrist Superstar? Find out as we ask just Wtf Happened to Marilyn Manson!

But as always we must begin at the beginning and the beginning began on January 5, 1969 in Canton,...

Beyoncé’s world tour isn’t even halfway over, but the singer is already reflecting on one of her favorite moments from the trek. On Monday, the singer gave her daughter Blue Ivy a sweet shout-out on social media following the 11-year-old’s surprise cameo during her mom’s “Renaissance” tour Paris stop Friday.

“My beautiful first born,” the “Break My Soul” singer captioned a series of photos of Blue Ivy onstage in Paris. “I’m so proud and thankful to be your mama. You bring us so much joy,...

Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour, a stadium-shaking dance party built around last year’s album of the same name, won’t begin its U.S. run until a July 12 show in Philadelphia, but thanks to TikTok and YouTube, stateside fans already have a decent sense of the show. It begins with Beyoncé essentially serving as her own opening act via a mini set of ballads before exploding into a show built around the Renaissance album, with songs from her previous albums worked in among the new hits (or in some cases,...

Any tour is a massive undertaking that requires an unbelievable amount of planning and logistics. That goes for a band in a van pulling double (or triple, or quadruple) duty as performers, drivers, merch salespeople, and backline technicians, or the biggest pop stars on the planet, who need hundreds of people to make their treks possible.

Despite that reality, it’s rare to see a major artist share the full production and services credits for their tours, so that everyone involved gets a chance to shine. It does happen every...

The moment Beyoncé fans have been impatiently waiting for finally arrived on Wednesday: The superstar kicked off her highly anticipated Renaissance World Tour in Sweden, filling up Stockholm’s 50,000-seat Friends Arena with excited spectators, many who had flown from all corners of the world to witness the surprises what Beyoncé had in store. Hundreds of thousands more people at home scrambled to find livestreams on TikTok and Instagram and watch the event for themselves.

And surprises there were. The pop icon dropped Renaissance last summer and then largely went dark,...

Another minute, another few early highlights from Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour opener in Stockholm, Sweden, today, May 10. This time, dancing robot arms and brilliant era-bending mash-ups.

During her performance of “Cozy,” Beyoncé showed off some of the tour’s outrageous and elaborate stagecraft and props. This bit involved two swinging robot arms outfitted with two big rectangles that perfectly framed and moved with Beyoncé as she sauntered through the Renaissance highlight.

Beyoncé performing ‘Cozy’ with two robot arms at the Renaissance World Tour.

pic.twitter.com/936GC5WkYj

— Pop Base (@PopBase) May 10, 2023

Later,...

The Renaissance world tour kicked off today in Stockholm, Sweden, with Beyoncé billed as the opening act, main act, and encore act. To be fair, she has two decades’ worth of ground to cover, which she fittingly acknowledged by opening the show with “Dangerously in Love,” the title track from her debut solo album released 20 years ago. It also marked her first live performance of the song in over a decade.

| Beyoncé opens the #Renaissance World Tour with Dangerously In Love pic.twitter.com/2yO7MC7SR9

— Beyoncé Press. | Fan...

Beyoncé has officially kicked off her "Renaissance" World Tour. The megastar launched the highly anticipated event on May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden, kicking off a three-hour set without an opening act. She's set to travel through Europe through June before coming to North America over the summer, completing over 40 dates by the time the tour is through.

The tour is Beyoncé's first since 2018's "On the Run" tour with Jay-Z. Her last solo tour was in support of 2016's "Lemonade," so needless to say, the "Renaissance" tour is a major event - and Forbes has predicted that it could gross up to $2.6 billion by the time it's complete, making it one of the most profitable tours ever. It also marks Beyoncé's first live performance since 2018 other than a one-off appearance in Dubai in January, where she appeared alongside her oldest daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.

Ahead, check out the full set list...

Many of the defining hits of the past 25 years have been Beyoncé songs. She’s reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 a total of eight times as a solo artist. Despite this, some of her No. 1 singles have been much more impressive than others.

Beyoncé | Kevin Winter / Staff 8. ‘Check On It’

“Check on It” is a song about sexual teasing. That’s not really a subject matter that flies today, but the tune might be more tolerable if it had a better beat. The production here sounds like nothing and Slim Thug’s verses don’t add any extra spice to the track. Regardless, Queen B’s star power brought this to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

7. ‘Savage’

Beyoncé and Meghan Thee Stallion is a wining combination in theory. In practice, the beat of “Savage” sounds like an unfinished demo so all the effort both artists bring to the lyrics feels a little wasted.

Beyoncé‘s “Halo” was co-written by a rock star. He penned lyrics for the bridge of the song. Subsequently, Queen B decided to take the song in another direction.

Beyoncé | Kevin Winter / Staff Beyoncé’s ‘Halo’ was written because Queen B was a huge fan of a OneRepublic song

Ryan Tedder is the lead singer of the pop-rock band OneRepublic. He wrote songs for other artists, including Lil Nas X’s “Thats What I Want,” the Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker,” and Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love.”

During a 2020 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tedder discussed the origin of “Halo.” Beyoncé was a fan of OneRepublic’s song “Come Home” and she asked Tedder to write a similar song for her. Subsequently, he hurt his heel and had to get surgery to fix it.

“I had not written a song in probably two months at this point, I called my friend Evan Bogart and said,...

There were hearts aflame both nights that Colombian popetón star Karol G played New York City as part of her trip Love Tour — literally. The Colombian singer, who recently kicked off her second headlining tour across North America, took the stage at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 13, marking her debut show at the hallowed venue, and then went on to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Sept. 15. Both shows started with flames igniting the upper rungs of the heart-shaped stage and the audience cheering “Bi-cho-ta!” The woman of the hour appeared...

Movie musical biopics are a beloved Hollywood tradition and one that — unlike erotic thrillers — shows no signs of slowing down.

Over the years we’ve seen Sissy Spacek win an Oscar as Loretta Lynn in “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Jessica Lange earn a nomination as Patsy Cline in “Sweet Dreams,” and Reese Witherspoon win Best Supporting Actress as June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line.” And that’s just the country music biopics.

Portraying a musical icon is just the next step in an evolving way to showcase triple-threat talent. Jamie Foxx took home the Best Actor Oscar for his transformation into Ray Charles for the 2004 film “Ray.” Joaquin Phoenix showed a new facet to his talent as Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line.” Marion Cotillard burst onto the international scene (and won a Best Actress Oscar) as Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose,” and more recently Rami Malek and...

Three fiction features and two documentary films were presented to an industry audience at the Cannes Film Market as part of its Thessaloniki Goes to Cannes, the Cannes Film Market’s Works-in-Progress showcase, on May 23.

“Panellinion”

Described as a movie about obsession, madness and loneliness, “Panellinion” is the debut documentary feature of Spyros Mantzavinos and Kostas Antarachas.

The film is named after a coffee-house for passionate chess players in the heart of Athens, which has become a refuge for those who suffocate in modern life. Giannis, the owner, hates chess, but has a fatherly affection for his regulars. Through footage shot in Super8 and black and white, an eclectic crowd that includes scientists, artists and pensioners tell the story of the place which will soon be a memory of the past as Giannis prepares to retire.

Producer Leonidas Konstantarakos of Athens-based Alaska Films told Variety: “We want to use the...

There are nine new musical acts entering the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, and eight of them are active in one form or another. The only exception is Eurythmics. The synth-pop duo of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox haven’t released a new album since their 1999 reunion project Peace, and they haven’t toured in more than two decades.

But unlike many dormant duos, Stewart and Lennox have remained close friends and they occasionally re-form Eurythmics for special one-off events. They played “Fool on the Hill” during the...

For a one-hit-wonder, Tommy McLain admits he has few complaints.

Back in 1966, he’d climbed into the top 15 with a swamp-lounge version of Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams,” which showcased the Louisiana native’s tremulous voice. Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe were fans of his work; Joe Strummer cut a cover of “Before I Grow Too Old,” a Fats Domino B-side associated with McLain (Strummer’s version was called “Silver and Gold”). The drugs and alcohol were behind him, and decades later, McLain was gigging regularly in his home state.

America has officially celebrated Women’s History month since the 1980s when a feminist surge for equal job opportunities and education blossomed out of local celebrations and the International Women’s Day holiday, as well as Women’s History Week. And for the entire month of March, the streaming service HBO Max is celebrating Women’s History Month with programming devoted entirely to stories about women.

HBO Max is stacked with movies and shows that show complex female leads, and along with their spotlight page offerings, HBO is offering a first ever in-app trivia experience to celebrate the event. The HBO Max Women’s History Month Trivia tray allows fans to discover entertainment milestones that all involve women. To reveal the answer, viewers can simply click or tap the tile.

HBO Max has curated a list of films, TV shows and documentaries that reflect empowering and challenging female characters, overlooked and underrated performances,...

Siblings Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Ashley Williams and Jay Williams hosted the fourth annual Dance Party to End Alz on Sunday, November 14 at Nashville’s Wildhorse Saloon.

Apple Music’s Beats 1 “Today’s Country” radio host Kelleigh Bannen emceed the lively event, which raised nearly $300,000 for the Alzheimer's Association research grant program.

Donned in iconic fashion from the ‘80s, country artists took to the stage performing throwback hits from the decade. Accompanied by Wildhorse Saloon’s Three Lane, performances included:

Brad Paisley's renditions of “Hot for Teacher,” “Boys of Summer” and “Walk of Life,” Darius Rucker's powerful take on “Purple Rain,” Kelleigh Bannen’s electric rendition of “9 to 5,” Ashley Campbell’s spin on “Faith,” Melinda Doolittle’s rocking version of “Old Time Rock ’n Roll,”

Charles Esten's energetic adaptations of “Love Shack” and “You Give Love a Bad Name,” Jamie O’Neal’s powerhouse rendition of “Don’t Stop Believing,...

MGM has offered another peek at “House of Gucci,” releasing a new trailer for its upcoming star-studded drama.

Set to the alluring beat of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by the British pop duo Eurythmics, the new trailer features the first meeting between socialite Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), accompanied by her husband Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), and the lavishly wealthy Italian family. “House of Gucci” will tell the true story of the assassination of Maurizio and the collapse of the Gucci family’s fashion dynasty. Reggiani was tried and convicted of orchestrating her ex-husband’s murder in 1998.

The trailer offers a further look at the opulence and menace of the Gucci family’s world of high fashion, showcasing wild disco sequences, a blindingly white ski trip and the deadly conclusion of its story.

The production is directed by Ridley Scott, whose medieval epic “The Last Duel” hit theaters less than two weeks ago.

The latest trailer for MGM’s anticipated House of Gucci movie teases even more of the dramatic saga that gave way to Maurizio Gucci’s death in 1995.

With “Sweet Dreams” serving as the soundtrack, the new trailer plots how Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) made her way into the powerful family before ultimately conspiring against her former partner and fashion trailblazer Maurizio (Adam Driver).

Following the first trailer, this more than two-minute new look at the movie opens with Reggiani’s introduction to the family by her husband and eventual hit Maurizio. Entranced by their “wealth, style, power” Reggiani ...

The latest trailer for MGM’s anticipated House of Gucci movie teases even more of the dramatic saga that gave way to Maurizio Gucci’s death in 1995.

With “Sweet Dreams” serving as the soundtrack, the new trailer plots how Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) made her way into the powerful family before ultimately conspiring against her former partner and fashion trailblazer Maurizio (Adam Driver).

Following the first trailer, this more than two-minute new look at the movie opens with Reggiani’s introduction to the family by her husband and eventual hit, Maurizio. Entranced by their “wealth, style, power,”...

There was a moment after intermission at Cynthia Erivo’s Hollywood Bowl show when she returned to the stage with no shoes on. She wanted her feet to touch the ground. She was taking everything in, and that called for her heels to come off. Until last week, Erivo had never even set foot in the iconic Los Angeles venue, let alone performed in it.

Friday night changed that, as the Emmy-nominated and multi-hyphenate singer, actress, songwriter and author took to the stage for the first time and belted out a plethora of tunes accompanied by the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra. Despite worries about the increased cases of the Delta variant In L.A. County, fans, press and a lot of Emmy voters came out to see Erivo in her Bowl debut. Very few concert-goers wore masks, social distancing was not required and per the Bowl, proof of vaccination was not required for entry.

Dutch outfit Lemming Film embarks on joint venture with Belgium’s A Private View.

Leading Dutch production outfit Lemming Film has teamed with Belgium’s A Private View to launch a new joint venture and has lined-up its first three projects.

Lemming Film Belgium will aim to attract international co-productions and broaden the offer of high-quality series and films made in Belgium. The company, based in Ghent, will be run by Lemming CEO Leontine Petit and producer Erik Glijnis alongside Flemish producer Dries Phlypo of A Private View.

It marks a collaboration between two of the region’s leading production...

Italian director set to receive an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s festival.

The Match Factory has secured international rights to documentary Marx Can Wait by Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio, who will receive an honorary Palme d’Or after presenting the feature at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival (July 6-17).

The documentary was added to festival’s Official Selection this week, in the new Cannes Premiere strand, and the veteran director will receive his honorary award at the closing ceremony of the 74th edition.

The film will be released in Italy by 01 Distribuzione during Cannes and follows the 81-year-old...

A group of Afghan child musicians who go by the names Miraculous Love Kids and Girl With a Guitar have recorded a cover of Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle” with special guests Sammy Hagar and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. A video shows the girls playing guitar and singing the lyrics with Hagar joining them remotely.

The girls have dedicated the recording to the memory of the nearly 100 Afghan girls who died in a bomb attack on a school in Kabul earlier this month. The girls, actor Kiefer Sutherland,...