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Watching G. Aravindan’s “Pokkuveyil,” released in 1982, is like reading a Sylvia Plath poem, full of restrained sorrow, inner turbulence, and the kind of sadness that doesn’t leave but lingers. It’s very precise, poetic, and quietly devastating. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that the despair is haunting.

On the Deeply Personal Nature of Balu’s Distress

The movie revolves around Balu, a college-going student who is both a poet and an artist, seemingly disinterested, yet deeply caring in his relationships, whether with friends, parents, or his lover. He is portrayed beautifully and with striking realism by Balachandran Chullikkad, who is also a well-known poet in Kerala in real life.

The opening scene takes us to the stark, realistic setting of a mental hospital, where we see Balu’s mother and uncle visibly worried about him. He appears withdrawn, frightened, and sad. There is an unsettling...

Rose Leiman Goldemberg, the playwright and Emmy-nominated TV writer who was behind the telefilms The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett, and Stone Pillow, starring Lucille Ball, died Monday in Cape May, New Jersey, a publicist announced. She was 97.

The Staten Island native also penned Letters Home, a 1980 play about famed poet Sylvia Plath that has been translated and produced all over the world and was filmed for television in 1986.

Her telefilm résumé included 1976’s The Land of Hope; 1980’s Mother and Daughter: The Loving War, starring Tuesday Weld and Frances Sternhagen; 1982’s Born Beautiful, starring Erin Gray and Polly Bergen; 1985’s Florence Nightingale, starring Jaclyn Smith, and The Booth, starring Teri Garr; and 1989’s Dark Holiday, starring Lee Remick.

Goldemberg adapted The Burning Bed, which aired in October 1984 on NBC, from the 1980 book written by battered housewife Francine Hughes, who wound up on trial for the murder of her abusive ex-husband,...

When Gabby Windey was first offered a spot on Season 3 of “The Traitors” in summer 2023, she turned it down. She meant no offense to the reality competition series — Windey reflexively says no to everything. “Notoriously, I don’t want to do anything ever,” she says over lunch in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Eventually, though, Windey changed her mind, which was really for the best. Because not only was she one of the season’s four winners — along with fellow Faithfuls Dylan Efron, Dolores Catania and Lord Ivar Mountbatten — but Windey truly won “The Traitors,” becoming this year’s breakout star. The former “Bachelor”/”Bachelorette”/”Dancing With the Stars” contestant was an ICU nurse in Denver when she first joined the ABC dating competition in 2022, where she charmed audiences with atypical remarks, such as, “I’m here to find my person, not teach men how to act.”

But those shows follow a formula,...

Laika’S Paranorman Returns To The Big Screen In Remastered Reald 3D For Exclusive Halloween Run Featuring A Brand-new CG Short Film Starring Anna Kendrick And Finn Wolfhard: "Laika’s award-winning stop-motion animated film ParaNorman returns this Halloween for a one-week theatrical engagement.

As with the record-breaking 15th Anniversary 2024 re-release of Coraline in 2D and RealD 3D, Laika will bring the gloriously remastered ParaNorman (originally released in 2012) to global audiences in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing in international markets premiering Thursday, October 23 and Fathom Entertainment in the US premiering Saturday, October 25.

Laika’s delightful second film, which garnered multiple awards including Oscar®, BAFTA® and Golden Globe nominations, as well as multiple Annie Awards®, was written by Chris Butler and directed by Butler and Sam Fell (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget). Offered in stunning, newly remastered RealD 3D and 2D formats, ParaNorman’s return launches a year-long 20th Anniversary celebration of Laika,...

“Am I the Skinniest Person You’ve Ever Seen?” seems like an ultra-long title for a short film. However, the viewer may later realise that it makes perfect sense, considering that the it functions as an evocative equivalent of a confessional poem—something readers of Sylvia Plath or writers like Katherine Mansfield would recognise. It is also an actual line spoken by the protagonist. The film is deeply confessional, revealing the subject’s body insecurity and her constant re-examining of how she is perceived by those around her. Ironically, this very fixation is what has led to the dire situation in the first place.

Am I the skinniest person you’ve ever seen is screening at Indian Film Festival Los Angeles

It becomes even more intimate when we realise that the protagonist is the director herself—Eisha Marjara, a Punjabi-born Canadian citizen—grappling with the aftermath of immigrating during her...

Natalie Portman has booked her next movie role!

On Thursday (May 8), it was announced that the 43-year-old Oscar-winning actress will be playing pioneering DNA scientist Rosalind Franklin in the new movie Photograph 51 from Oscar-winning filmmaker Tom Hooper.

Inspired by a true story, Photograph 51 “will uncover the story behind the brilliant scientist whose pioneering work in x-ray crystallography captured the image that revealed DNA’s double-helix structure, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all known life. The movie poses the question how could Watson and Crick, scientists working on the same conundrum in a competing lab, have been awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery without even a mention of her name?” according to Deadline.

Keep reading to find out more…“Franklin has come to be known variously as as the ‘wronged heroine’, the ‘dark lady of DNA’, the ‘forgotten heroine’, a ‘feminist icon’, and the ‘Sylvia Plath of...

Exclusive: In what is lining up to be one of hotter packages at this year’s Cannes market, we can reveal that Oscar winner Natalie Portman is set to star in Photograph 51 for The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper.

Oscar winner Hooper is directing the pic which is inspired by the true story of Rosalind Franklin, the groundbreaking British scientist who first unveiled the hidden structure of DNA but whose legacy has been overshadowed. Anna Ziegler is adapting the script, which is based on her play of the same title.

Photograph 51 will uncover the story behind the brilliant scientist whose pioneering work in x-ray crystallography captured the image that revealed DNA’s double-helix structure, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all known life. The movie poses the question how could Watson and Crick, scientists working on the same conundrum in a competing lab, have been awarded the Nobel...

Spoiler Alert !!!Major Spoilers For You Season 5

You Season 5 is finally here — and Joe Goldberg? He’s getting exactly what he deserves. Yep, the charming bookworm-turned-serial killer is back, and this time, the reckoning isn’t just coming — it’s personal.

After stalking, seducing, and straight-up slaying his way through New York, LA, Silicon Valley, and London, Netflix is finally delivering what You have been craving: Joe Goldberg’s karma, served cold.

Since Season 1, You has had us side-eyeing every “nice guy” who recommends a book and makes intense eye contact. Joe (played to eerie perfection by Penn Badgley) started out as Mooney’s bookstore manager — smart, soft-spoken, maybe a little too interested in women who like Sylvia Plath. And then… bam. He’s lurking behind bushes, stealing phones, and racking up a body count faster than you can say “Hey, you.”

But now? Tables are turning. And You are not ready.

As a cinema enthusiast, it really pains me to criticize an indie film that I know for a fact was made with a lot of blood and sweat over so many years. But occupational hazard compels me to address the unnecessary haphazardness of director Jane Spencer’s sci-fi flick, South of Hope Street. Clearly made on a shoestring budget, the movie does come up with very interesting visuals as well as an idea—rebelling against fascist oppression—that is more relevant than ever. The movie gets the mood right as well, by being both whimsical and frantic. What it lacks, however, is a certain conviction in the basics—writing and editing. Those are the foundation of practically any movie, and the screenplay of South of Hope Street really lets itself down. What further scuppers the ship is the choppy editing. Had those been alright, the amateurish acting from most of the cast—except Tanna Frederick,...

Alcoholism. Fetishism. Death. Aardman this certainly ain’t, but Adam Elliot’s film-festival-storming stop-motion animation proves more than capable of summoning big emotions through its clay creations. The characters of Memoir Of A Snail are more scuffed and visibly weighed down by the world, but the earnestness and vulnerability they carry throughout this sombre and occasionally darkly funny saga implores you to stick with them through the pain of it all.

Grace (Sarah Snook) — a collector of snails and owner of a cosy snail hat — is both the protagonist and narrator of the film, which, in biopic fashion, begins at the graveside of a beloved friend, before leaping right back to her birth in the ’70s. It’s an adroit vocal performance from Snook, who plays Grace with empathy that never crosses into over-sentimentality throughout a life marred by loss and loneliness. Grace’s mother dies while delivering her and...

While many films have conjured terrifying physical manifestations of grief, one that set a notably high bar for hand-crafted horror exploring that fecund strand was Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. The specter of that brutally effective 2014 shocker proves inescapable for writer-director Dylan Southern in The Thing With Feathers, right down to a malevolent figure haunting the main characters that looks like something out of Edward Gorey. The main salvation is the staggering commitment of Benedict Cumberbatch, hurling himself into the role of a bereaved husband in a performance touched by madness that holds nothing back. His wounds are gashes continually being reopened.

The source material is Max Porter’s prize-winning 2015 novella Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, which yielded a solo stage piece three years later seen on both sides of the Atlantic, adapted and directed by Irish playwright Enda Walsh and starring a protean Cillian Murphy. The book is...

Some incredibly inspirational movies focus on writers and their writing in a variety of different ways. The creative process can be fascinating, though audiences usually only see the result. Though there are many movies based on bestselling novels, these are not always as well-received as their source material, with some successful books failing as movies. Though some movies have changed the book and made something better, some filmmakers have taken a different approach when telling the story of a writer, by focusing less on the book and more on the writer behind it.

The story of how a writer creates their works can be just as fascinating or inspiring than their books, and sometimes even more so. Writers like Sylvia Plath and Iris Murdoch had tumultuous lives that affected their creative process, and the struggle of losing inspiration will be familiar to almost any writer. Even The Far Side comics have addressed writer's block,...

With the UK streaming release of South of Hope Street this week, writer/director Jane Spencer talks about exploring ‘the big questions’, working with Michael Madsen, black shoes and shunning the Hollywood system.

Your latest film, the visually arresting dystopian drama South of Hope Street, depicts an oppressed society surrounded by wars. As Writer. Director what inspired you to make it?

I have always been very much interested in ‘the Big Questions’: Why do we exist? What, exactly, Are we? Why are we here? A great way to pose these questions is to place us against the forces that do not allow free thought, and to think about these questions.

I wanted t to explore this in an allegory, a sci-film film, with all the characters representing forces in our world: forces of repression, forces of peace, mystery, poetry. Films like this are films that are inspiring to me,...

Dad used to say that childhood was like being drunk. Everyone remembers what you did except you, muses the introspective Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook of Succession) in filmmaker Adam Elliots stunning new stop-motion film, Memoir of a Snail. But Grace remembers her childhood all too well and acts as our narrator in a flashback chronicling how one young girl locked herself up in a protective shell yet somehow wound up living a heart-rich life full of wonder and imagination.

Grab a tissue. Youll need one here. Memoir of a Snail isnt out to make you cry, but chances are you just might. Led by Snook and the voice talents of Eric Bana, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Nick Cave, and Luke Elliot, the film is an astounding achievement. Eight years in the making, it so perfectly captures issues of loneliness, depression, hope, triumph, and curiosity. Its a rare adult-themed stop-motion film in that respect,...

Plum tells the story of Peter “Plum” Lum, a legendary retired rugby league player from Cronulla, Australia. Plum was once a local hero, winning championships with the local Cronulla Sharks team. But years have passed since then, and now Plum is struggling with troubling symptoms. He experiences memory loss, blurred vision, and disturbing hallucinations—all potential results of the head injuries he sustained during his playing career.

Plum seems to be suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or Cte, a degenerative brain condition linked to repeated blows to the head. Like many athletes before him, Plum must now face the unwelcome realization that the very sport he excelled at may be causing his current struggles. To make matters worse, Plum’s symptoms are straining his relationships and challenging his sense of identity. Who is he if not a proud rugby champion?

Through it all, Plum leans on those close to him,...

Snails can’t move backwards. The muscles in their foot can only wave in one direction. They could make long and gradual u-turns, I suppose, but they can’t reverse over the slime trails behind them, which they use for communicating with each other and finding their way back home. In that sense, these slow-motion gastropods are the living, oozing embodiment of what Søren Kierkegaard once wrote about the world as we experience it: “Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.” What a shame the father of existentialism is a hair too dead to hear those words cited at a crucial moment in Adam Elliot’s wise and wistful “Memoir of a Snail,” as Kierkegaard — so fascinated with the anxiety and despair of the human condition — would’ve admired the obsessive toil of stop-motion animation, particularly in the service of such a poignant tribute...

Twenty-five years before the release of DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, The Iron Giant charged into theaters.

Brad Bird, who worked on The Simpsons and later helmed Ratatouille and The Incredibles, made his feature directorial debut with the 1950s-set movie boasting a voice cast that included Vin Diesel, Jennifer Aniston and Harry Connick Jr.; it centered on a boy befriending an alien robot (Diesel) that the U.S. government sought to destroy.

Bird and Tim McCanlies’ script was based on Ted Hughes’ 1968 novel, originally published as The Iron Man. Hughes, who was married to novelist and poet Sylvia Plath until her death by suicide in 1963, wrote it as a bedtime story for their kids to help them grieve.

The Who’s Pete Townshend adapted Hughes’ book as his 1989 concept album The Iron Man: A Musical and was helping to develop a feature musical adaptation. Once the movie landed at Warner Bros. Animation with Bird attached,...

Following 2017’s You Were Never Really Here, we recently learned Lynne Ramsay would finally be embarking on her next feature in Canada in just a few weeks. An adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2019 novel Die, My Love, the film follows a mother who struggles to maintain her sanity as she battles with psychosis in a remote rural area.

With Jennifer Lawrence set to lead the project, marking her first since last summer’s comedy No Hard Feelings, she now has a co-star. Robert Pattinson is in talks to join the film, according to Deadline, as his schedule has freed up with The Batman Part II shoot delayed to January.

Ramsay is prepping a shoot in Alberta, Canada from August through October, with cinematography courtesy of Seamus McGarvey, reteaming after We Need to Talk About Kevin, according to Ioncinema.

First photo from the set of Die my Love… I can't believe this is actually happening.

Considering she’s only directed four features in the last quarter-century, any new film from Lynne Ramsay comes with quite the anticipation. Following 2017’s You Were Never Really Here, the director has circled no fewer than five potential projects. Now, one finally seems to be moving forward as a summer production has been confirmed in Canada.

An adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2019 novel Die, My Love, which follows a mother who struggles to maintain her sanity as she battles with psychosis in a remote rural area, is eying a shoot in Alberta, Canada from August through October, as confirmed by Calgary Herald and the Director’s Guild of Canada. Thus far, only Jennifer Lawrence is attached to lead the project but expect more casting news soon. Die, My Love will mark Lawrence’s first project since last year’s summer comedy No Hard Feelings.

“It’s about mental health and the breakdown of a marriage,...

Lynne Ramsay’s next film, Die, My Love, is said to be a Sylvia Plath-style tale of grief that will go before cameras later this year.

Lynne Ramsay’s career as a director spans a quarter of a century, yet she only has four films to her name. Still, when those four films are Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin and 2017’s You Were Never Really Here, you have the kind of filmography that would make many a filmmaker envious.

Despite not being especially prolific, Ramsay is said to have several projects bubbling away at the minute. We’ve heard in the past that she’s planning to work with Joaquin Phoenix again (following their memorable collaboration in You Were Never Really Here) in Polaris, although its been a couple of years this that story first appeared. Then there’s Stone Mattress, a project featuring Julianne Moore,...

BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Sounds have announced a new eight-part series called Courtney Love’s Women. The audio program will find the Hole singer discussing the women who’ve influenced her while also reflecting on several aspects of her life and career.

Love will be joined by writer Rob Harvilla throughout the series. Per a press release, the Hole frontwoman will take “listeners on an intimate and unfiltered, era by era journey through her life and the music that made her.”

Among the various events in her life that Love will touch upon are the time she recited Sylvia Plath poetry for a Mickey Mouse Club audition; her drug abuse struggles; her role in The People vs. Larry Flynt; an attempt to play matchmaker with Stevie Nicks and Billy Corgan; hanging out at the Playboy Mansion with Debbie Harry during a Limp Bizkit album launch party; her relationship with Kurt Cobain; and more.

UK actors Kate Phillips, Amber Anderson and Rosie Day have launched Just John Films, a London-based film and TV production company.

The company will option, develop and produce projects independently as well as teaming up with third parties.

Projects on Just John’s initial slate include a feature adaptation of Annie Garthwaite’s 2021 novel Cecily, which tells the story of Cecily Neville, matriarch of the House of York and political player during the 15th century War of the Roses.

Just John is also working on an untitled Sylvia Plath project with Helen Jones and Naomi Wright’s Silver Salt Films,...

Actors Kate Phillips, Amber Anderson and Rosie Day have joined forces to launch a new female-led, London-based production outfit called Just John Films.

Just John will option, develop and produce projects, both independently and in partnership with third parties. The company’s artist-led viewpoint will give it a unique eye to focus on diverse and compelling stories while ensuring a welcoming and joyful environment to enhance creativity and quality throughout the filmmaking process.

The company has already set its first slate, which includes an adaptation of Annie Garthwaite’s acclaimed historical novel “Cecily,” about royal Tudor matriarch Cecily Neville, and an untitled Sylvia Plath project in collaboration with Silver Salt Films. More projects will be unveiled in due course.

Phillips is an actor and producer who’s appeared in “Hijack,” “Peaky Blinders” and “The Crown” among other titles. She is currently reprising her role as Jane Seymour in the final...

“Weird Science” for lonely goth chicks who spend all of their free time reading sad poetry in the graveyard behind their evil step-mother’s house, the admirably deranged if frustratingly undead “Lisa Frankenstein” might be one of the more irreverent riffs on Mary Shelley’s immortal horror novel, but there’s also something full circle about bringing that story back around to the kind of teenage girl who wrote it in the first place.

In other words, Zelda Williams’ directorial debut — a bloody rom-com about a grieving outcast who accidentally wishes her favorite Victorian era corpse back to “life,” and then starts killing people in order to replace her Bff’s rotted parts — isn’t just a cute pun in search of an ’80s throwback to go along with it.

The fatal undoing of “Lisa Frankenstein” has nothing to do with the weirdo wish fulfillment behind Diablo Cody’s very Diablo Cody screenplay,...

Around halfway through the fifth episode of Marvel’s Echo, viewers are dropped into the experience of a Choctaw Nation powwow. It’s a first-of-its-kind moment for the MCU, featuring dancers in regalia singing to the drum-driven music. In a poorly lit nearby barn stands Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez, in a face-off alongside the women of her family against a notorious New York crime kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).

Director Sydney Freeland pitched the moment to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige by recalling how she grew up reading Marvel Comics and attending powwows.

“I’ve read comic books at powwows, for sure — I’ve probably fallen asleep reading comic books at powwows — but those two things never overlapped,” Freeland tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So to have those things come together, to have Kingpin at a powwow, it is a very surreal experience.”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has wooed Oscar-winning...

Exclusive: Banijay is ramping up efforts to find new properties for its array of scripted labels, appointing experienced industry exec Hannah Griffiths as its first ever Head of Adaptations.

Griffiths is already up and running at Banijay. She has had a long career in publishing and TV and prior to taking her new role was at All3Media, where she was Head of Literary Acquisitions.

Her brief at production and distribution giant Banijay is to support the company’s scripted labels, working with rights holders to source IP across books, podcasts, and other media.

Based in the firm’s London office and reporting to Banijay UK CEO and Executive Chairman, Patrick Holland, Griffiths will work with the company’s roster of UK labels, which includes Kudos, Mam Tor, Tiger Aspect and recent acquisition The Forge. Her IP advice will also be available to producers across Banijay’s international footprint.

“With our...

Exclusive: After bringing Searchlight Pictures its strongest limited opening since 2019 Oscar winner Jojo Rabbit with the acclaimed musical comedy Theater Camp, Topic Studios has announced an expansion of its creative ranks with the appointment of Jasmine Daghighian to the newly created role of Vice President of Film.

Daghighian comes to Topic from 500 Blows, the production company of Frankie Shaw and Zach Strauss fka Our Lady Productions, and in her new position will help build out the studio’s slate on the film side, shepherding projects from development through completion. She’ll be based out of the company’s NYC headquarters, reporting to Executive Vice President, Film and Documentary, Ryan Heller.

Topic’s hiring of Daghighian follows its appointment of Jennifer Westin to the role of Senior Vice President, Physical Production. An executive formerly overseeing production management for the Original Independent Film division at Netflix, Westin now oversees production for Topic...

Judy has found a finger using her sniffing skills in Bob’s backyard. But Peggy and Denny have to get it analyzed and find out whether it belongs to Donatella Scarborough. If it does, they are in for the reward. If not, they will have to investigate further. They have Bob for that, at least for the time being. But is Bob fit to help them in the investigation? Episode 6 of High Desert shows how Peggy makes use of her skills to save Bruce’s company and Bob simultaneously.

Spoilers Ahead

DNA With Love

Arman and his linebacker daughter, Heather, are back at Bob’s place to take their money back. But this time, he gives them two names: James Kachel, the buyer, and Peggy, Kachel’s associate. So maybe they need to speak to Peggy. Meanwhile, Peggy shows Bruce the finger that is supposedly Donatella Scarborough’s. The finger...

Visit Heptonstall graveyard in West Yorkshire and you can expect to see four things: Happy Valley fans, tourists, pens and coins. The former are there to visit the fictional gravesite of Catherine Cawood’s daughter Becky from the BBC thriller, while the tourists are in the habit of leaving the latter – pens on the grave of American poet Sylvia Plath, and coins on the grave of legendary local figure “King” David Hartley.

“There’s never usually more than 20p on David Hartley’s grave,” says Jennifer Reid, a ballad historian who plays pub landlady Barb in a new BBC drama about the famed Yorkshireman. “But when I visited during filming I knew people from London had been up, because there was about £4.50 on there!”

Coins and the London/Yorkshire wealth divide are fundamental to The Gallows Pole, a three-part historical series from filmmaker Shane Meadows. It’s the real-life story...

It was excitedly announced in 2016 that The Bell Jar, the only novel by writer and poet Sylvia Plath, was to be adapted into a movie directed by Kirsten Dunst, in what would have been her directorial debut. It was also announced that Dakota Fanning would star in the film. The project had progressed to the extent that Dunst had co-written a screenplay with Nellie Kim, but since then, we've seen drastic changes to this promising line-up. So what has happened to Kirsten Dunst's The Bell Jar movie, and what are we to expect?...

Lawrence Pitkethly, who produced and directed multiple documentary series shown on PBS and other broadcasters, died Feb. 24 at Albany Medical Center near his home in Hudson, N.Y., of cardiopulmonary arrest linked to complications from Parkinson’s. He was 79.

Pitkethly is best known for “American Cinema” (1995), a 10-part, $7 million series for PBS, BBC and Canal Plus covering U.S. filmmaking that he produced, co-wrote and co-directed. It examined film genres, the rise and fall of the studio system, the creation of stars and other aspects of American movies through interviews with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Sydney Pollack, George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Joel Coen and other major players. John Lithgow served as host; Matthew Modine, Kathleen Turner and Cliff Robertson narrated.

Earlier, Pitkethly co-wrote and co-directed “Voices and Visions” (1988), a 13-part series on American poets, which profiled artists like Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath.

Much...

Gilmore Girls focused on the hectic relationship between mother and daughter, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, but it also showed Rory's relationship with literature and every book she reads. According to Book Riot, the characters read and refer to just shy of 410 books once the Netflix revival, A Year in the Life, came out in 2016. But there’s a big difference between books and authors that were referenced, and the books Rory was seen reading.

At the beginning of Gilmore Girls, Rory was just 16 years old and would rather spend her time reading. She said it best at her high school graduation in season 3, episode 22, “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio”: “I live in two worlds; one is a world of books.” Reading not only gave Rory a sense of peace but also took her out of dramatic realities. Unironically, some books Rory read paralleled her own life as a young woman...

Composer Gerald Fried, who won an Emmy for the landmark miniseries “Roots” and whose 1960s scores, from “Star Trek” to “Gilligan’s Island,” left an indelible impression on a generation of TV watchers, died of pneumonia Friday at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Ct. He was 95.

His wide-ranging career included scoring five early Stanley Kubrick films, including “Paths of Glory” and “The Killing”; receiving the only Oscar nomination ever given for a documentary score, 1975’s “Birds Do It, Bees Do It”; and earning five other Emmy nominations for music in specials, TV movies and miniseries.

The prolific Fried scored approximately 40 films, some three dozen TV-movies and miniseries, and episodes of another 40 TV series during a career that spanned more than six decades.

Among his most famous TV series music was from the original “Star Trek.” He scored five episodes of the series, most famously the Spock-in-heat episode “Amok Time,” which...

In the ‘90s teen romcom 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles), the film’s Riot Grrrl rebel who listens to Letters to Cleo and idolizes Sylvia Plath, wants nothing more than to attend Sarah Lawrence College. The choice tracks. A liberal arts college with less than 2,000 students nestled on 44 wooded acres in the suburb of Yonkers, New York, Sarah Lawrence not only boasts a certain sylvan-secluded charm, but also caters to artists and creatives, counting J.J. Abrams, Julianna Margulies, Carly Simon and Vera Wang among its notable alumni.

By Isha Anand

Qala marks the second collaboration between Anvita Dutt, Tripti Dimri and Anushka Sharma’s Clean Slate Filmz after “Bulbbul”. Both a melancholic social tragedy, while “Bulbbul” explores the themes of the sexual violence that wreaks horror in the lives of women, “Qala” sheds light on the plight of women in the Hindi music industry- predominantly a man’s world. But there is more to this movie than what meets the eye. A visually striking film with moths, metaphors and music encapsulates the plummeting mental health of the titular woman

Set back and forth in Calcutta and exquisite snow-capped Himachal, “Qala” is the story of an aspiring singer who yearns for the affection and validation of her formidable mother Urmila (Swastika Mukherjee), a thumri singer past her prime. It starts with Qala receiving the “Golden Vinyl” for her exemplary voice and contribution to Hindi music. The rest of...

For viewers wondering how many of Jane's alters are there in Doom Patrol so far, here are all of Jane's Doom Patrol alters explained. First appearing in Doom Patrol #19 in 1989, Jane was originally a woman named Kay Challis. Sexually abused by her father when she was five, Kay withdrew and developed a new alter named Miranda. The memories of her troubled childhood returned after Miranda was attacked in a church on Easter Sunday, destroying her new alter and fracturing her psyche into 64 distinct alters. She was committed shortly thereafter and held in a psychiatric hospital for several years, until all of her alters gained superpowers after the Invasion! crossover event. All Jane alters in Doom Patrol are distinct in personality and superpower, making Jane is one of the most intriguing Doom characters in both comics and the show.

Diane Guerrero's portrayal of Jane and all Jane alters so far...

It’s a cliché to say that a TV show has a “killer premise”, and it’s doubly clichéd to make that observation of a serial killer drama. And yet, it’s also the only way to describe The Patient, Disney Plus’s new 10-part serial, which has the Black Death of killer premises. A psychopathic murderer wants to fight the instinct to kill, and so enters therapy – but he can’t open up his tortured id without risking his freedom, so he kidnaps his therapist to keep him on hand for one long session.

Domhnall Gleeson is Sam, known to the police as the John Doe killer. He starts attending psychotherapy with the recently widowed Dr Alan Strauss (Steve Carell), wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. But however much Sam might want to talk, his fear of capture holds him up – that is, until Alan wakes up in Sam...

Jennifer Lawrence has joined the cast of ‘You Were Never Really Here’ filmmaker Lynne Ramsay’s ‘Die, My Love.’

The adaptation is based on Ariana Harwicz’s novel of the same name. Based in the French countryside. The story follows a woman who is battling her demons: embracing exclusion yet wanting to belong, craving freedom whilst feeling trapped, and yearning for family life but wanting to burn the entire house down.

Given surprising leeway by her family for her increasingly erratic behaviour, she nevertheless feels ever more stifled and repressed.

Also in news – Lupita Nyong’o cast in ‘A Quiet Place’ Spinoff ‘Day One’

“It reads like Sylvia Plath, especially because it’s about a woman suffering from postpartum and cycling into madness. And Martin Scorsese is producing” Lawrence stated in an interview with the New York Times.

Martin Scorsese is on board to produce the project.

Lawrence also teased her...

The New York Times just published a Jennifer Lawrence profile anchored in the actress’ stated desire to no longer play in a studio-sized, franchise-shaped mold, which is of course what actors say when promoting smaller, more independent fare. (The fare in this case being Causeway—a work we found underwhelming as dramatic material but a reminder of how gifted she actually is.) Though in the put-up-or-shut-up divide this is a pretty good case of putting up: there’s quick notice she and Lynne Ramsay are planning to collaborate on an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s Die, My Love.

If there’s temptation to note Ramsay’s hardly moved the needle since You Were Never Really Here, regularly attaching herself to projects that never materialize—the last few years alone have brought word of a Margaret Atwood adaptation, a Stephen King adaptation, and a Rooney Mara / Joaquin Phoenix project—a star...

Take That have announced that they will headline the BST Hyde park show next summer.

The performance will take place on Saturday 1 July 2023 with support from The Script and Sugababes.

Take That originally formed back in 1990 with five members: Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange and Mark Owen.

Now, Barlow, Owen and Donald will reunite to perform the British group’s only show of next year.

“We’re so excited to be back together and that BST Hyde Park will be the first stage we perform on in almost four years,” the band said about the news.

“We have incredible memories of playing there in 2016, and we can’t wait to see everyone in July.”

The announcement follows the news that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Billy Joel, P!nk and Blackpink will also play dates across the BST Hyde Park 2023.

How to get tickets:

American Express...

Peter Capaldi has said that his Catholic upbringing meant he “saw something familiar” in horror films.

The Scottish actor was discussing his latest role in Amazon Prime horror series The Devil’s Hour when he said that he found watching horrors “comforting”.

“I’ve always liked a good horror film,” Capaldi told The Telegraph in a recent interview. “I find them comforting, rather than disturbing,” he said.

Capaldi explained that he watched the films to relax, turning to classics like Dracula: “Those films remind me of my childhood,” he said. “I was brought up Catholic, so when I watched horror I think I saw something familiar – gore.”

Elsewhere in the interview Capaldi discussed his disillusionment with British politics, saying that if given the opportunity again, he would vote for Scottish independence.

The ex Doctor Who actor also said he would not be interested in appearing as a Doctor again.

“In...

Millie Bobby Brown has said that a collaboration with Mariah Carey could be in the works.

The 18-year-old actor was chatting to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, when she explained that the pair had recently become friends.

Brown met Carey’s children, and as a result Carey herself, after finding out that they were fans of her Stranger Thingscharacter Eleven.

Brown explained to Fallon how the pair often sing together, and even admitted to having recorded in the studio with her: “I’ll just go over and we’ll sing together!”

“We have sung together, yeah,” Brown said This prompted Fallon to ask if something could be in the works.

“Potentially, I don’t know!” Brown said in response, before adding that she thought Carey was “the most talented singer ever”

This is the biggest scoop I’ve ever gotten on The Tonight Show,” Fallon said, “I would buy that in two seconds!

A devastating couplet is every pop star’s secret weapon. Whether it’s Morrissey grumbling about having to go to bed with nothing but a Sylvia Plath anthology for warmth or Kate Bush crooning sweet nothings-that-are-actually-dark-somethings lyrics illuminate and elevate a song. Words bring clarity and drama, opening a secret passage to an artist’s internal life.

Or that is at least the case when they transcend mere bubble-gum and strain for grandeur. The power of a musician’s words has been acknowledged of late in surprising places. Bob Dylan, who once wrote “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a gypsy queen/Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle all dressed in green”, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, while rapper Kendrick Lamar won a 2018 Pulitzer prize for his supremely literate Damn album.

Here, then, is a thoroughly unscientific but completely from the heart list of the greatest lyrics ever. They run from the clever to the overblown,...

Dir: Olivia Wilde. Starring: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, Kate Berlant. 122 mins

Do worry darling. Olivia Wilde’s new film has generated large amounts of negative buzz in advance of its world premiere in Venice today. Its star Florence Pugh appears to be distancing herself from the project amid rumours of a “falling out” between herself and Wilde. Shia Labeouf has disputed Wilde’s claims that he was fired from the production and released a video of the director that seemingly proves his story. The gossip columnists have been in a frenzy about Wilde’s relationship with pop idol Harry Styles, who took over Labeouf’s role. On top of all that are the allegations that Styles was paid three times more than Pugh despite the fact she plays the main character. Morbid anticipation has therefore been building that Don’t Worry Darling...

It would be easy to kick off a review of Olivia Wilde’s sophomore feature, “Don’t Worry Darling,” by toe-dipping into the world Wilde created — one that boasts some of the year’s most gorgeous craft work, from Arianne Phillips’ costumes to Katie Bryon’s production design to John Powell’s score — by tossing off something like, “In Olivia Wilde’s glittering ’50s fairy tale, set in the fictional desert idyll of Victory, all is not what it seems,” because that’s the entire point of this transparently designed cinematic nightmare.

It also would be incorrect, because everything actually is what it seems in Victory. “Don’t Worry Darling” is so clearly, so obviously not set in an idyllic ’50s community that to say the film packs a twist is not at twist at all. It’s disingenuous, easy, cheeky — much like the film itself, which starts off strong before crumbling...

The songwriting of Taylor Swift will be the subject of a new literature course at a Texas university this autumn, it has been announced.

The Grammy-winning artist’s songs will be studied at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) alongside British and American literary giants such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Keats and Sylvia Plath.

Titled The Taylor Swift Songbook, the course will be on offer later this year, with preliminary texts including the artist’s albums Red (Taylor’s Version), her sister albums Folklore and Evermore, and her 2019 record Lover.

According to its description on the UTA website, the course “uses the songwriting of pop music icon Taylor Swift to introduce literary critical reading and research methods-basic skills for work in English literature and other humanities disciplines.

“Focusing on Swift‘s music and the cultural contexts in which it and her career are situated, we’ll consider frameworks for understanding her work,...

Tulapop Saenjaroen's Squish! is showing exclusively on Mubi starting August 8, 2022, in the series Brief Encounters.Abstract Notes On Squish!1.I had a chance to read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath many years ago. As I remember, I was immensely touched by it emotionally. Though I cannot recall the details and plot so well, there is one monologue that is still stuck in my mind ’til this day. Plath writes, "The only reason I remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out."Everything else is missing but the subject. The initial idea of Squish! is derived from my personal urge to question how depression is usually represented on screen and how it could possibly be done otherwise. It is often ironic when contemporary representations utilize depression as a “subject” while,...

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It was 1972, and I was a student at Northwestern University when I found myself pregnant. I had lost both my parents very young, and I was not equipped to be a mother at all. I knew then that I couldn’t let this unwanted pregnancy affect the rest of my life; that I had to write my own story. Although the ability to choose an abortion was a year away from being federally protected by Roe v. Wade, I was able to get one illegally. It was through a chance meeting, it was not easy, and it’s a situation that I’ve since hoped no one else would ever have to experience once the laws changed. Nearly fifty years later, I can’t believe we’re back here.

I’m a longtime movie producer and a board member of Wif, and as...

A devastating couplet is every pop star’s secret weapon. Whether it’s Morrissey grumbling about having to go to bed with nothing but a Sylvia Plath anthology for warmth or Kate Bush crooning sweet nothings-that-are-actually-dark-somethings lyrics illuminate and elevate a song. Words bring clarity and drama, opening a secret passage to an artist’s internal life.

Or that is at least the case when they transcend mere bubble-gum and strain for grandeur. The power of a musician’s words has been acknowledged of late in surprising places. Bob Dylan, who once wrote “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a gypsy queen/Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle all dressed in green”, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, while rapper Kendrick Lamar won a 2018 Pulitzer prize for his supremely literate Damn album.

Here, then, is a thoroughly unscientific but completely from the heart list of the greatest lyrics ever. They run from the clever to the overblown,...

Zendaya made history in 2020 when, at age 24, the “Euphoria” star became the youngest actor to win the Emmy for lead actress in a drama for her role on the first season of the HBO show. The victory was a highly celebrated upset that proved acclaim for a show centered on teens is possible when on the rare occasion it breaks through with older audiences.

While “Euphoria” is still in the game, Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” has also buzzed its way into the awards conversation, and roughly 50 of that is thanks to the show’s younger stars.

“‘Yellowjackets’ is so unique in showing just how complicated and messy humans are, never mind teenagers,” says Samantha Hanratty, who plays teen Misty vs. Christina Ricci’s present-day version of the character in the survivalist thriller. “We have so much going on already, and then you add a plane crash element to it and survival and then it becomes,...