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Renowned opera director Yuval Sharon returns to The Industry, the company where he began his career, for The Comet / Poppea. The new piece is quite the mashup, weaving together Monteverdi’s 1643 opera The Coronation of Poppea and W.E.B. Du Bois’ short story The Comet. The work — composed by George Lewis with a libretto by Douglas Kearney — opens Friday and runs through June 23 at Los Angeles’ Geffen Contemporary at Moca.

“The juxtaposition of these two pieces allows us to create a kind of constantly shifting relational field between this baroque opera and a contemporary aesthetic,” Sharon says of his latest collaboration. “We’ve created a space for these worlds to bleed into each other, to somehow contradict each other and contrast with each other, sometimes resonate with each other, to rhyme with each other.”

Monteverdi’s Poppea focuses on the titular character’s efforts to become queen by convincing...

Who’s up for some swashbuckling and swooning? Disney Branded Television announced Games of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman is writing, showrunning, and executive producing the latest Zorro reboot for Disney+. The reimagined adventure stars Wilmer Valderrama as Don Diego de la Vega and his suave alter ego, the masked horseman known as Zorro. Valderrama will also executive produce.

According to Deadline‘s exclusive report, Cogman and Valderrama’s Zorro reboot finds “Diego De La Vega, who returns to his hometown of El Pueblo de Los Angeles following a family tragedy. There, he discovers a culture of corruption and injustice that will lead him to take on the mantle of the masked vigilante Zorro — America’s first true superhero.”

Disney’s Zorro reboot reimagines the Disney-abc Zorro series of the 1950s. Zorro starred Guy Williams, Gene Sheldon, George J. Lewis, and Henry Calvin. Viewers swooned over Zorror for 78 episodes between 1957 and 1959, including my grandmother,...

Bryan Cogman has signed on to serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer on the new “Zorro” series starring Wilmer Valderrama at Disney+, Variety has confirmed.

The series was originally reported as being in development at the streamer in December 2021. Per the official logline, “When tragedy strikes his family, privileged caballero Diego de la Vega (Valderrama) returns to his hometown of El Pueblo de Los Angeles and discovers a culture of corruption and injustice that will lead him to take on the mantle of the masked vigilante Zorro — America’s first true superhero.”

Cogman joins fellow executive producers Gary Marsh, Valderrama, and John Gertz on the series. Disney Branded Television will produce.

Cogman is best known for his long tenure on the megahit HBO series “Game of Thrones,” on which he ultimately served as writer and co-executive producer. He ultimately penned 11 episodes of the series, including the Season 8 episode “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Wilmer Valderrama is attached to star in and executive produce a live-action “Zorro” series that is in development at Disney Branded Television.

In “Zorro,” Valderrama would star as Don Diego de la Vega and his swashbuckling alter ego, the masked horseman known as Zorro, in the days of Spanish California.

The show is a reimagining of the Disney-abc “Zorro” series starring Guy Williams that aired in the 1950s. That show also starred Gene Sheldon, George J. Lewis, and Henry Calvin. It aired for 78 episodes between 1957 and 1959, with four hour-long episodes airing in the early 1960s.

“We’re reimagining this Disney classic as a compelling period piece, set in Pueblo de Los Angeles, but told in a very modern telenovela style — with richly drawn contemporary characters and relationships set against the action, drama, suspense and humor of the original, iconic Zorro,” said Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded Television. “Wilmer shares...

Did you ever think Lucy Liu and Snoop Dogg would be in a movie together? What if you add in Milla Jovovich and Method Man? And what if I told you the story was by James Franco? Welcome to Future World. I think James Franco is a good actor; it's just that he's become a parody of himself (sometimes, as in the case of the Veronica Mars movie, literally). So I'm not sure what to make of his new project Future World. Franco came up with the story, will act in the film, and also direct along with Bruce Thierry Cheung. Here's how Variety describes it: Set in the barren landscape of a dystopian world, where a young prince from the Oasis (one of the last known safe havens) and a robot named Ash go on a daring journey of self-discovery through the violent and desolate world of the Wastelands.

'7 Faces of Dr. Lao' with Tony Randall. '7 Faces of Dr. Lao' movie: 'Things are not as they seem' Director George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao surprises on multiple levels: its witty screenplay by Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, an odd assortment of well-defined characters, a bravura performance by Tony Randall, and some of the best special effects of that time. In the film, a strange traveling magician drifts into a small western American town, announcing that he is bringing with him a “Magic Circus.” Calling himself Dr. Lao, the eccentric Chinese character places an ad in the local newspaper and makes friends with the editor. But things are not as they seem. When the Magic Circus magically appears, Dr. Lao changes appearances and personalities, interfering in the lives of everyone in the community. Love with the properly repressed widow John Ericson plays the handsome newspaperman who rebels...

Zoë Kravitz and her boyfriend, musician Twin Shadow, hit the beach together in Miami on Thursday. The couple took a dip in the ocean and held hands as they made their way across the sand. Zoë and her man (whose real name is George Lewis, Jr.), began dating earlier this year, and we couldn't help but notice how much he resembled the actress's famous dad, Lenny Kravitz. Most recently, Zoë and George stepped out for a double date with her mom, Lisa Bonet, and stepfather Jason Momoa at the InStyle Awards, and it was definitely one of the most attractive foursomes we've seen in a while. Zoë has been no stranger to Miami Beach this year, as she was spotted there in a barely there black bikini back in March and again in July. See Zoë and her man looking hot on the beach.

It may fiddle with the facts, but this documentary on the hunt for a long-lost 70s music legend offers a brilliant insight into the nature of fame

It's one thing to discover a new talent, quite another to rediscover an old talent. The two experiences offer different satisfactions. The former involves the capacity to recognise and create fashion. The latter offers the pleasures of defying changing fashions, of restoring and confirming old hopes, beliefs and enthusiasms, of seeing justice done and traditions confirmed. One thinks of Bill Russell in the 1940s tracking down the New Orleans jazz men Bunk Johnson and George Lewis working in Louisiana cane fields, getting their instruments out of hock and recording new versions of their work. Of the novelists Jean Rhys in England and Henry Roth in the Us, whom many thought dead, being found in rural retreats and brought back into print. There is...

Coachella may have expanded its lineup more and more over the years, but the desert is still an awfully good place to go dance and/or freak out. Much of the emphasis at the Indio, Calif.-fest is still on electronic music, sometimes put through the filter of rock, hip-hop, pop, new wave and even folk. We've got a little mix of all of that, seven new songs and some new artists you should check out, even if you're not going to the three-day event this weekend (April 15-17). First up is Twin Shadow, who's really just one dude: Dominican-born George Lewis Jr.'s...

Last month Twin Shadow, the nom de guerre of George Lewis Jr., released a video to accompany the eminently danceable song "At My Heels". While the song was one of the highlights off of last year's awesomely 80s inflected album, "Forget", the video was a bit ...odd. Especially so because you couldn't actually hear the music. Which, when it comes to Twin Shadow's retro romantic Flock-of-Seagulls-in-a-good-way sound, is a shame. Turns out that the video was a bit of a good-natured ribbing of the film commentary industry. Now we are pleased to premiere the actual video for "At My Heels":

Stick around so you can watch the other video with Twin Shadows floating in space while The Directors add their very elucidating commentary over the music. It's not every day you get to see a disembodied head in space!

Even on repeated viewings, the video is remarkably funny.

In spite of being lumped in with bedroom-bound ’80s obsessives like Toro y Moi and Washed Out, Dominican-born George Lewis Jr., a.k.a. Twin Shadow, distinguishes himself on his debut album, Forget, with pungent synthesizer and crooning vocals that ride atop his songs instead of settling, shoegaze-like, below the instrumentation. Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear handled production in addition to signing Twin Shadow to his Terrible Records label, so he’s due some credit for the record’s gloomy, idiosyncratic soundbank and new-wave charms. Whether with the rumble-strip drone and steam-pipe hiss of the standout track “Castles In The ...

Greenwich, Connecticut (X17online) - Mel Gibson has reportedly sold his Greenwich, Connecticut home for $24 million. The estate went on the market back in 2007 for $39.5 and according to town property records, the price dropped significantly. The 75-acre estate includes a 16,000-square-foot Tudor-style mansion that was built in 1926 for financier George Lewis Ohstrom. It also has a log cabin, five-horse stable, 60-foot swimming pool and a pond. Gibson bought the home back in 1994 for $9.3 million.

Not long ago, I sort of chastised Disney for a series of DVD releases of older material on the basis that they did not have a clear idea of who the set was intended for. I felt a little bad about it, but that was before I took a look at their new Disney Treasures collection of the new season of Zorro. It’s become somewhat vogue to criticize the Disney company (Lord knows how many times Family Guy has held up their product as an object of ridicule), but there’s really no two ways around it: when they set their mind to it, they really have no serious competition, and this new Zorro set speaks to that tradition of excellence. It’s really, really cool.

For many Americans (particularly those of the ‘television generation’, as Leonard Maltin repeatedly refers to it in his introduction), the Disney primetime television...