A lot of things might have changed in Laurie Metcalf’s life over the past three decades, but her character on The Conners is still the same old Jackie, with a lot of the same old issues. That’s OK, though, because people have always loved the character … and given three decades to figure out the answer, Metcalf finally thinks she understands why. (Click on the media bar below to hear Laurie Metcalf)
On The Flash, Iris West-Allen has been through a lot over the past six seasons. She’s fallen in love with a superhero, gotten married, met and lost her future daughter, and flitted through a variety of timelines and tragedies. Through all the different storylines, though, Candice Patton said she had the most fun when she got to try out the superhero lifestyle herself. (Click on the media bar below to hear Candice Patton)
Millions of Americans knew Fred Rogers. After all, many of them grew up with him being one of their best friends, even if it was just on TV. But nobody knew Fred Rogers better than Joanne Rogers, his wife. Watching Tom Hanks play her late husband in the new movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Rogers told us that Hanks shares a lot of traits with the man he’s portraying. (Click on the media bar below to hear Joanne Rogers)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood opens in theaters on Friday.
As we’ve learned over the past four seasons, This Is Us has about a million ways of touching our hearts. The ones that Susan Kelechi Watson enjoys, though, are the ones that lift her heart and make it smile. She told us she feels like it’s important to the show that they balance the heavy stuff with the light stuff, and she especially loves watching Justin Hartley when he does his scenes. (Click on the media bar below to hear Susan Kelechi Watson)
Revered filmmaker Fritz Lang is best known for his work in Germany (M, Metropolis), and ultimately the U.S. (The Big Heat, The Woman in the Window). What is often overlooked is Lang’s return to Germany to direct The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. Both films, which underwent a 4K Restoration, hits Blu-ray on December 10 as Fritz Lang’s Indian Epic.
The Tiger of Eschnapur centers on Harold Berger (Paul Hubschmid), an architect who falls in love with a temple dancer named Seetha (Debra Paget) during his journey to India. Their romance leads to the wrath by Chandra (who originally commissioned Berger to India). In The Indian Tomb, the lovers are rescued by villagers in the desert, but ultimately they are given up for ransom and must find a way to survive the social and political turmoil of their environment.
Special features include audio commentaries by film historian David Kalat, The Indian Epic documentary, filmmaker Mark Rappaport’s video essay “Debra Paget, For Example,” and a 20 page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Tom Gunning.
Directed and penned by Frank Sabetella, The Shedcenters on Stan (Jay Jay Warren) a teenager who discovers a vampire (Frank Whaley) who’s living in the backyard of his grandfather’s (Timothy Bottoms). Having a creature trapped inside the shed becomes a nightmare experience for Stan, but his bullied best friend Dommer (Cody Kostro) sees the vampire as an opportunity to exact vengeance on his abusive colleagues.
Sabatella could have turned The Shed into a blood fest filled with a soaring body count, but instead The Shed is a refreshingly nuanced tale of revenge and the toxic effects of bullying.
“It actually took quite a while,” said Sabatella on writing the final draft of his script. “The core of the story, the vampire trapped inside the shed, was an idea that my film school friend Jason Rice had come up with in a short story. I took his short concept and I expanded it to this present story that we have about the abuse and neglected teenagers and the revenge aspect and all that . . . tt really took time and rewriting of the elements to really bring all that forward and get those striking story elements out.
Click on the media bar to hear Sabatella talk about the advantages of adding such first rate veteran actors like Bottoms, Whaley, and Siobhan Fallon Hogan (she plays a deputy) in his feature:
The Shedis now playing in theaters and is available on Digital HD and VOD.
Of course, Frozen 2 brings back a lot of the same characters you know and love from the first Frozen movie, but since it’s a sequel that picks up the story a few years later, they may not be exactly the way you remember them. And it’s not just the characters — Kristen Bell told us that the Frozen world has also expanded and become a different place, changing in ways that reflect the way the films fans have been changing these last few years. (Click on the media bar below to hear Kristen Bell)
Racing to a decisive box office win this past weekend, Ford v. Ferrari has been hailed by critics and audiences alike as a triumph. (Wait, sorry, that’s a completely different brand of automobile.) There have also been a lot of rumblings about the film becoming a major awards season contender, along with its stars, Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Damon, of course, has been through plenty of awards seasons, but that’s not what matters to him. He says that no matter whether the movie was a blockbuster or a bomb, he just loves that he gets to make movies for a living. (Click on the media bar below to hear Matt Damon)
When Nick Jonas put on a military uniform for his role in the new film Midway, it was more powerful than he even imagined it would be. Why? Because his father Paul, he told us, served in the Navy himself. And so, when we caught up to Nick Jonas at the Midway premiere, he said he felt honored to bring such a powerful moment in military history to life for his father, his family, and all of the servicemen and women who attended that night. (Click on the media bar below to hear Nick Jonas)
Playing a superhero, whether it’s on television or on the big screen, can automatically turn you into a role model. When your character embodies the virtues of justice, strength, and compassion, people will naturally gravitate toward wanting to idolize and emulate you. For some actors, that can create a lot of pressure, since they know they’re playing a fictional role and that, off the screen, they’re just human beings, flawed like anybody else. For others, they use it as inspiration, knowing that they can change people’s lives just by doing their job. Cress Williams, the star of Black Lightning, clearly falls into that second group. He gets a lot of letters, emails, and feedback from fans who tell him how Black Lightning has affected their lives, and Williams says he turns those words into motivation. (Click on the media bar below to hear Cress Williams)
A lot of things might have changed in Laurie Metcalf’s life over the past three decades, but her character on The Conners is still the same old Jackie, with a lot of the same old issues. That’s OK, though, because people have always loved the character … and given three decades to figure out the answer, Metcalf finally thinks she understands why. (Click on the media bar below to hear Laurie Metcalf)
