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The documentary Television Event revisits a singular moment when the specter of nuclear apocalypse was beamed directly into the American living room. It chronicles the creation and broadcast of the 1983 ABC movie The Day After, a project born into a world defined by its anxieties.

The political air of the early 1980s was thick with Cold War hostility and the rhetoric of an “evil empire,” stoking a public fear that the end of the world was not a matter of science fiction, but of geopolitical inevitability. In this climate, the “TV movie” was a familiar, often disposable, form of entertainment, hardly the medium for a grim cautionary tale about atomic obliteration.

ABC’s decision to pursue such a bleak story was an exceptional risk. The result was a broadcast that shattered expectations, drawing an audience of 100 million people. This congregation of viewers, united in front of their screens for a shared nightmare,...

George Lucas is the visionary behind the Star Wars franchise, a globally renowned and beloved space opera saga that remains popular to this day. Over the years, Lucas directed several installments in the franchise and oversaw most of its creative direction until selling its rights to Disney in 2012.

Given Lucas’ involvement with the franchise, he rarely directed movies outside the space opera saga, which is such a shame, given the director’s unique visual style and filmmaking abilities. Here are five movies I wish Lucas directed outside Star Wars that could’ve become glowing additions to his filmography, and here’s why.

5. Contact (1997) A still from Contact (Credit: Warner Bros).

Contact is a sci-fi movie directed by Robert Zemeckis and based on the 1985 novel of the same name, written by Carl Sagan. It follows Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, who is chosen to make first contact after discovering evidence of extraterrestrial life.

It's unfortunate, but it doesn't look like Pixar's "Elio" will be another "Elemental" and surprise everyone with a shockingly great box office run. No, "Elio" is a flop, which sucks because the movie is actually rather fun. It's got great alien designs, an entertaining story, and a Carl Sagan quote designed that will make you quite emotional about the possibilities and power of science while also just reminding you of one of the most fascinating minds to walk this planet in the last century.

Sure, it's easy (and not unfair) to blame the marketing for the failure of "Elio" at the box office, combined with the competition from other, higher-profile films. Still, that doesn't change the fact that this simply wasn't Pixar's best. What's more, reports have surface that the movie suffered heavily behind-the-scenes, undergoing creative changes that resulted in a vastly different film hitting theaters than the one...

For moviegoers of a certain vintage, Elio, Pixar’s latest addition to its stellar-level animated output, will feel comfortably, nostalgically familiar. Centering as it does on a starry-eyed preteen dreamer, Elio pays respectful homage to family-oriented 70s and 80s Amblin or Amblin-inspired science-fiction films, among them Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, The Last Starfighter, Explorers, and Flight of the Navigator. Throw in semi-explicit nods to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Galaxy Quest, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, not to mention Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking PBS miniseries, Cosmos, and the wholesomely endearing result will all but bring a tear to the eye and a tug of the heart for nostalgists of a certain age and inclination. Elio, however, is more...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Pixar has a knack for coming up with good opening salvos, and Elio, the animation company’s latest movie, kicks off with a strong one. When we meet the 11-year-old kid, voiced by Yonas Kibreab, who gives this sci-fi dramedy its title, he’s nestled under a commissary table and in state of mourning. His parents have died. His aunt, Olga (Zoe Saldaña), has taken over the role of caretaker for the boy. She’s a career military woman who’s given up dreams of training to become an astronaut...

The latest feature from Pixar, entitled Elio, is the story of a young boy (Yonas Kibreab) who is obsessed with space and travelling to distant worlds. Elio lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), following the death of his parents some years earlier. Olga was a rising star in the space program until she had to put her career on hold to care for Elio. Now, Elio and Olga feel simultaneously frustrated with what each of their lives have become. Elio, for his part, dreams of getting away to somehow live life on his own terms. So, when the opportunity to leave the confines of Earth to travel the stars presents itself, he is all too eager to leave the only family he has left behind and head for the stars.

What follows is a heart-warming tale of someone coming to the realization that what they have may not be...

Pixar has had a few creative wobbles over the past few years. Its biggest successes recently have been sequels: Inside Out 2 broke box-office records while their last original film, Elemental, hardly set the world alight. Thank goodness, then, for Elio. Helmed by a trio of co-directors — Domee Shi (Turning Red), Madeline Sharafian and Adrian Molina (Coco) — it’s a vivid, sweet but not saccharine voyage of discovery that proves Pixar is still capable of imagination, even if it still has plenty more sequels in the pipeline.

We actually start with some formulaic narrative beats, with 11-year-old Elio Solis (newcomer Yonas Kibreab) grieving the loss of his parents and now living with his well-meaning but overworked aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) on an Air Force base. Of course, many of the very best children’s stories follow orphans’ search for belonging, but another of Pixar’s blatant attempts to yank on...

With Elio, Pixar once again launches audiences into an emotional rollercoaster—this time with a sci-fi adventure that’s as visually dazzling as it is thematically rich. Directed by Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi, this intergalactic coming-of-age story feels like a love letter to childhood outsiders, classic science fiction, and the enduring human need for connection

The film follows Elio Solis, an imaginative 11-year-old boy who’s accidentally beamed into space and mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador by a pan-galactic organisation known as the “Communiverse.” Voiced with warmth and humour by Yonas Kibreab, Elio is the perfect Pixar protagonist—vulnerable, curious, and wise beyond his years. After losing both parents in an car crash, Elio feels as though he no longer fits in at home or at school.

Zoe Saldaña brings grounded emotion and strength to the role of Olga, Elio’s aunt and caregiver. A dedicated military scientist,...

Thirty years ago, Pixar rocketed into the popular imagination with Buzz Lightyear’s much-quoted motto, “To infinity and beyond!” Twenty-eight hit animated movies later, infinity comes for Elio Solís, an emotionally complicated 11-year-old orphan who feels so alone on Earth that he looks to the cosmos for company. The story of a kid who wants to be abducted by aliens — and what happens when he gets his wish — “Elio” is right at home in the Pixar catalog, but lacks those undeniable signs of intelligent life that set the studio’s best work apart.

Perhaps that’s asking too much, considering that “Elio” is a mature work of family entertainment, engineered to impart a lesson that any child who feels unloved, mistreated or out of place would surely benefit from hearing — namely, you are not alone. To make absolutely certain that no one misses that point, the script circles around to...

As horror has solidified itself as one of the last remaining bankable bastions of cinema, Stephen King’s vast trove of writing has become a juggernaut of intellectual property. The author is to the genre what Marvel is to action. And few filmmakers understand the literary giant’s enduring appeal better than Mike Flanagan, who previously brought King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep to the screen. (He also has a Carrie series in the works.)

But with The Life of Chuck, based on King’s novella of the same name from the 2020 collection If It Bleeds, Flanagan has a more expansive aim. This isn’t an act of adaptation so much as a bow in adoration. His goal with this filmic translation is to tout King’s bona fides as the humanist behind Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile—that is, as more than...

Buyers are finally wise to the fact that Cannes is driving the Oscar race and even the specialized box office. Everyone wants to find the next “Anora,” “The Substance,” “Emilia Perez,” or “Anatomy of a Fall.” And more buyers like Mubi, Metrograph, Sideshow, and other upstarts have emerged to take on the likes of Neon and A24, who come to Cannes armed with several titles already set to debut.

Below, we’ve identified 13 movies looking for homes that could be the next awards breakout, including new films from Lynne Ramsay and Richard Linklater and the debuts of Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson.

All titles presented alphabetically.

“The Chronology of Water” (Un Certain Regard)

Director: Kristen Stewart

Stars: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge

Buzz: Even if it’s in a sidebar for a first-time director, Kristen Stewart’s debut should be a hot ticket with a lot of...

Science fiction is one of the most popular genres out there, but it takes a lot of effort and thought to get right. Sci-fi is not just about aliens and spaceships; it is about what science can do to address the current problems of the world, and whether it will solve those issues or worsen them. There is a reason speculative fiction like that always stands apart.

While ‘80s films like Blade Runner and Terminator wondered about the future of humanity, Hollywood seemed to pivot to a more blockbuster-y treatment for these films. Some of them asked profound questions, but also had fun with it. There is a reason the following list of films is extremely popular and influential, as their inspirations can be seen even today.

Here are the ten most influential sci-fi films of the 1990s.

10. Stargate

Roland Emmerich is known for his disaster films that have increasingly become sillier.

Is Andrew Garfield shutting the door on reprising his Spider-Man role? (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Andrew Garfield isn’t shutting the door on Spider-Man, but he’s not exactly swinging back in either, not unless things get weird. And not the kind of world that’s just alternate timelines or multiverse cameos. He’s talking offbeat, unexpected, creatively strange. The type of returns that flips the script instead of just revisiting it.

From Controversial Reboot to Cult Favorite

Garfield stepped into the red-and-blue suit for The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2012, which was a reboot that had big shoes to fill after fans had grown fond of Tobey Maguire’s web-slinging charm.

Despite the initial resistance, the film turned out to be a commercial win, pulling in $758 million worldwide, and critics and audiences gave it a respectable nod. He returned for a second round, but it wasn’t until No Way Home...

Andrew Garfield has finally addressed his potential return as Spider-Man. Garfield first suited up as the character in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, which was controversial upon release as fans had grown attached to Tobey Maguire’s portrayal of the character. Still, the film was a financial hit — it grossed $758 million against a $230 million budget — and it earned solid scores of 71% from critics and 77% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Garfield suited up in the sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, before reprising the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home alongside Maguire and new Spider-Man actor, Tom Holland. During a recent interview at the Abu Dhabi Comic Con, Garfield was asked what it would take to get him to return as Spider-Man, and he proved his one condition to all fans in attendance:

"I would love to play the character again in some capacity, but I think it would have to be very weird.

This story appears in Issue 02 of Esses, a new media company that covers the culture, art, and characters of Formula 1. Subscribe to Esses to reserve your copy of Issue 02 here.

Talking about the Beatles is fucking exhausting. Everything a person can say about them has already been said, in every possible configuration. Every question has been asked and answered. They’re one of those topics that, like God, you can spend your entire life trying to decipher. The best you can do is get a little bit closer. And just to begin,...

Daisy Edgar-Jones had her breakout role in the Hulu series Normal People, and has since starred in a series of critically acclaimed films, alongside many popular male stars. In a new interview, she praised them for being supportive of her being the top-billed star.

Edgar-Jones had several nominations for her role in Normal People, including one at BAFTA, Critics' Choice, and Golden Globes. She later went on to star in other popular projects, including 2022's Where the Crawdads Sing and Fresh, as well as Twisters. In a new interview with Elle, Daisy Edgar-Jones praised her A-list male co-stars who were never upset about her being the lead star over them.

Since her breakout role, she starred with many famous stars. She and her Normal People co-star Paul Mescal, went on to become internationally famous, which led to Mescal gaining the lead role in 2024's Gladiator II. She also starred alongside...

Daisy Edgar-Jones is aware that many of her co-stars have been men the internet has swooned over.

Over the past few years, the actress has starred alongside Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, including Paul Mescal (Normal People), Harris Dickinson (Where the Crawdads Sing), Andrew Garfield (Under the Banner of Heaven), Sebastian Stan (Fresh), Glen Powell (Twisters) and Jacob Elordi (On Swift Horses).

In an interview with Elle magazine published on Tuesday, Edgar-Jones spoke about working alongside such high-demand and crush-worthy actors.

“I have worked with basically all of the internet’s boyfriends. And I’m lucky that every actor I’ve worked with has been incredibly supportive of me being the lead. Glen, Sebastian, Paul — all of them. I think that’s why they’re so successful and so loved and so good: that they are so generous and they really serve the story and are not serving themselves,” Edgar-Jones said.

In Dan Farah’s The Age of Disclosure, one of the buzziest documentaries to premiere at SXSW this year, it takes interviews with 34 people from all levels of government and military to make the case that we’re not alone in the universe, and that we should all be paranoid about the vast conspiracy keeping civilians from finding out.

In Robert Stone’s Starman, premiering at SXSW to generally less buzz, only one person is interviewed, but he makes his own case for why we’re not alone, using this conviction to reflect on several decades of human progress and the fact that, no matter what else is happening out in the stars, we only have one Earth.

I’m not really valorizing one philosophical mindset over the other, nor exactly stating a preference for one filmmaking approach or the other. I’m just noting that while The Age of Disclosure...

The Cold War may have ended in 1991, but its effects are still felt today. The constant anxiety left an impact on people, and it made itself known in countless films. Today, some of the most famous “retro” movies are obvious reflections of this troublesome period. Everyone knows about Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy, Doctor Strangelove, but there are so many more time capsules to be found. After all, the Cold War spanned almost fifty years, from 1947 to 1991. One of the hidden gems of the era is a BBC “documentary” named Threads.

As a 1984 release, it fell near the tail end of the Cold War. Its debut came 21 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it retains the same sense of creeping dread. Its almost two-hour runtime is permeated by an underlying anxiety. The feeling manifests as an unpleasant buzzing sensation that could easily classify Threads as a thriller film. That said,...

When I was four, my parents took me to a planetarium for the first time. It was a huge one, in Chicago; it seemed as big as space itself. I enjoyed many more visits to planetariums over the years, but none could ever match the experience I had when I was four. I looked up at that epic black domed sky and thought the stars and planets were real. I felt in sync with them, almost part of them, enthralled, immersed, and wonderstruck.

That’s the sensation I had watching “Starman.” It’s a documentary about space exploration that puts you in touch with your inner wide-eyed child. It’s the intergalactic meditation as blissed-out mind-bender. The film’s director, Robert Stone, made what I consider to be the single greatest documentary about the American space program — the six-hour-long “Chasing the Moon,” which was shown on PBS in 2019. It was a film that explored,...

From the moment Jean-Luc Godard returned to commercial cinema with his self-proclaimed “second first film” Every Man for Himself, he devoted himself to crafting a kind of holistic film, one rebuilt from the supposed “end of cinema” represented by his caustic 1967 feature Weekend. It was a goal he pursued until the end of his life, constantly revising his methods with new editing and video technology while finding new ways to illustrate the intersections of moviemaking, artistic representation, and the political histories that art both reveals and obscures. His first major summary of this method was 1987’s King Lear, a nominal treatment of Shakespeare’s tragedy that’s a total deconstruction of the prospect of adaptation.

Godard’s avant-garde approach and totalizing ambitions are obvious from the outset. The first thing we hear is a taped phone call from producer Menahem Colan berating Godard for taking too long with the project...

The existence of life on Earth was a cosmic accident, and someday in future a similar phenomenon will become the reason for its undoing—unless manmade catastrophes don’t spell doom before that already. How will humanity respond to such a crisis? This draws several philosophical questions, which Director Marcos Efron’s Last Night on Earth tries to answer. The question of survival, the acceptance of fate in the face of the inevitability of death, and coping with one’s own mortality are a few of the themes the movie addresses, as is expected from a doomsday drama such as this. However, in my personal opinion, the thriller element added to the plotline might serve a distinct purpose, as we will discuss later, but it doesn’t sit well with the narrative as a whole.

Spoilers Ahead

What Caused the Doomsday Scenario?

Last Night on Earth opens with Carl Sagan...

In an era where global upheaval dominates headlines, Indian filmmaker Girish Malik is stepping forward with an ambitious docu-drama that aims to offer ancient solutions to modern problems. “Mahamantra,” his latest directorial venture, is being presented at the European Film Market, and weaves together Vedic philosophy, contemporary science and urgent social commentary in what he describes as “a cry from the soul.”

“The genesis of ‘Mahamantra’ was born from the ashes of personal struggle and a world seemingly teetering on the brink,” Malik says. “Recent years have felt like a relentless assault — wars, environmental collapse, pandemics … a constant barrage of chaos.”

The film, produced by Malik’s Clapstem Prods., marks a bold departure from Malik’s previous works, including his Netflix hit “Torbaaz” (2021) and the politically leaning musical “Band of Maharajas” (2024). This time, he’s tackling weightier themes, drawing parallels between Shiva’s cosmic dance and modern scientific theories, while...

What’s the best time-travel movie of all time? According to astrophysicist Carl Sagan, it’s not the thoughtful sci-fi approaches of Time After Time, Looper or Edge of Tomorrow. The best compliment Robert Zemeckis ever got was when the famed cosmologist bestowed that honor on his comedy, Back to the Future.

Sagan told Zemeckis that the Michael J. Fox movie featured the best time-travel scientific theory he’d seen in a movie. “I didn’t tell him I took it from H.G. Wells,” the director confessed to Bill Maher on a recent Club Random podcast.

“It’s funny to watch a movie about time travel when you are now 40 years past when the movie was made,” Maher observed about jokes that were funny in 1985 about traveling to 1955. “You know, ‘If you know everything about the future, who is president in 1985?’ Ronald Reagan. ‘Yeah, right. And I’ll bet Jerry Lewis is vice president.

Contact is a tremendous movie. 27 years after its release, Robert Zemeckis' film remains awe-inspiring. The Carl Sagan adaptation is emotionally, intellectually, and viscerally engaging science-fiction. It's the full-package. For cinematographer Don Burgess, it is the most challenging film he's shot. Which is saying a lot considering he just made Here with Zemeckis, in which the two explore the passage of time from one angle.

Updated with more tributes: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Will Smith, Kamala Harris, Dr. Dre and more are among the latest industry heavyweights to pay tribute to Quincy Jones, the music giant who died Sunday at 91.

Steven Spielberg, who directed 1985’s The Color Purple, which Jones produced and composed the music for, said: “For all of us who value what Quincy Jones contributed to art, society and the human race, he was the World, we are his children. Never to be forgotten for his inimitable talent and legendary contribution to music and culture, and the goal of healing the world, Q was also a profoundly wonderful mentor, a doer and a uniter. Most of all, he was our friend. All of us who were lucky enough to be in his circle were given nicknames by Q. Mine was ‘Carl,’ because in 1980 when we met, my answering machine had a voice message...

Andrew Garfield is hungry. Sitting down at a restaurant in the heart of TriBeCa around the same time that commuters are rushing off to work, the actor immediately fires off an order for a Capital-b Breakfast: scrambled eggs “with all the stuff,” very crispy bacon, home fries, toast, jam, an oat milk latte with a side of honey. When the food arrives, Garfield enthusiastically digs in, as if he’s fortifying himself for a long day of press duties. Unlike most starving eaters suddenly presented with a full plate, however,...

Jennifer Lawrence is one of Hollywood’s leading actresses and has starred in quite a few major films lately. She is one of the top actors of her generation and has won several awards, including an Academy Award, 3 Golden Globes, and a BAFTA.

Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games | Credits: Lionsgate

Lawrence received critical acclaim for her bold performances in every role she embarked upon. Many people fell in love with her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games movies which earned her a large fan base.

With that in mind, however, if you claim to be a real Jennifer Lawrence fan, you cannot miss these five must-watch Jennifer Lawrence movies!

1. Silver Lining’s Playbook (2012)

The story of Silver Lining’s Playbook centers on the unpredictable relationship that forms between Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow played by Lawrence, and Pat Solitano Jr., portrayed by Bradley Cooper. Pat is a...

As far as imagination goes, Piece by Piece is visually and creatively spectacular. It marries documentary filmmaking which is very traditional here with a remarkable Lego animation style. When I saw this was a documentary about Pharrell Williams, I was initially surprised. Turning the renowned producers life story into a Lego animated film was ambitious, to say the least. But director Morgan Neville, the team of animators, and writers Neville, Oscar Vazquez, Aaron Wickenden, and Jason Zeldes do a phenomenal job creating something fun with the pieces of Williams life, even if some of those pieces dont all work.

Piece by Piece

Director Morgan NevilleRelease Date October 11, 2024Studio(s) I Am Other, Tremolo Productions, The Lego GroupDistributor(s) Focus FeaturesCast Timbaland, Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Morgan Neville, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Pharrell WilliamsRating PGRuntime 94 MinutesGenres Biography, Animation, Musical Piece By Piece Employs Color & An Energetic Animation Style...

Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger has become a hero to Democrats for turning on Donald Trump, but it’s come at great personal and political cost.

In a new interview for Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, Kinzinger reveals he, his wife, and their toddler have become the target of constant death threats from Trump supporters after he had the audacity to join the January 6th select congressional committee investigating the former president’s role in the capital insurrection. He says even his parents were subjected to abuse from family members and friends angered by Kinzinger’s principled actions.

We recorded our interview with Kinzinger at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he headed for the world premiere of The Last Republican, the documentary directed by Steve Pink that explores Kinzinger’s evolution from rising GOP star to party pariah. The duo – one a Hollywood liberal, the other a proud conservative...

Mike Flanagan has always undertaken cinematic confrontations with mortality, but none have ever been quite as magnificent and moving as “The Life of Chuck.”

The Tom Hiddleston-starring feature is less of a horror film than it is an existential grappling with the end — while also being a jubilant celebration of the moments that make life worth living along the way. It’s Flanagan’s vibrant equivalent of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” that finds hope and meaning in his own way just as it is one of the best modern Stephen King adaptations one could hope for.

Building off King’s novella, the feature bursts outward like the creation of a vast galaxy while holding you close as the stars begin to fade away. It’s as frequently darkly funny as it is emotionally shattering, gently yet firmly pushing us to confront the prospect of the end along with Flanagan.

Daisy Edgar-Jones rose to fame thanks to her role as Marianne in Normal People. The limited series was a big hit, and Edgar-Jones admitted she would love to revisit the role in the future.

Speaking to BBC News to promote her latest role in Twisters, Daisy Edgar-Jones also addressed Normal People. The actress had several other projects before the hit series, including a role in the series Cold Feet, but it was Normal People that put her and Paul Mescal on the map. The actress has taken on some interesting roles since, while Mescal is set to headline Ridley Scott's highly-anticipated Gladiator II.

Related Twister Director Reveals the Reason He Dismissed Sequel Pitches

Director Jan de Bont says he never wanted to make a sequel to Twister despite its breakout success at the box office.

"I love those characters," the British actress admitted. "It would be wonderful to explore them again.

Daisy Edgar-Jones has twisted out of the upcoming Carole King biopic.

After previously being announced as cast in the lead role in 2022, “Twisters” star Edgar-Jones told Variety that she is “no longer” set to portray singer/songwriter King onscreen.

“That’s no longer happening,” Edgar-Jones said. “I love Carole and I love that story, but it was a year ago that they decided [to no longer pursue it].”

“I did learn a lot of piano. I think it’s a gorgeous story, and the script probably needs a little more time in the oven. But I did meet Carole King on Zoom, and I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever,'” she added. “She really enjoyed ‘Normal People,’ so she was a fan of that and I was a fan of hers. I get so starstruck by musicians, much more than actors, and Carole was one where it was quite hard to keep my cool.

Stars: Leven Rambin, Jake McLaughlin, Dee Wallace, Shane West, Sohvi Rodriguez | Written and Directed by Marcos Efron

Opening with a quote from Carl Sagan, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is made bearable only through love” Last Night on Earth then shows us a brief glimpse of a couple and their young son camping. The man seems troubled, the woman so obviously upset that the boy asks his father about it. “She’s just tired” he replies unconvincingly.

Nearby, Holly and Ryan are staying in a trailer. They seem happy, although there are hints to the contrary scattered through their conversations and actions. A flashback to a party only heightens the feeling.

Writer/director Marcos Efron teases the viewer, making it clear that something is very wrong with the world we are seeing, but not giving any clues as to what that is. And if you actually did...

One of the longest-running shows, Family Guy is known for multiple things, along with fearlessly addressing different topics including politics, social issues, and everything in between, regardless of their potentially controversial nature.

Family Guy | Credit: Fox

However, there remained one topic of discussion that even caused Fox to hesitate from airing after the showrunner pitched it as the season 8 finale.

Fox Was Hesitant to Air Family Guy Season 8 Finale

Family Guy Season 8 finale Partial Terms of Endearment revolves around Louis Griffin dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, prompting a challenging decision about whether to proceed with the pregnancy or opt for an abortion. Ultimately, she chooses to have an abortion.

A still from Partial Terms of Endearment | Credit: Fox

Seth MacFarlane, the showrunner of the animated series, discussed how the episode came around while revealing that Fox refused to air the episode due to its controversial subject matter in an interview with The New York Times.

Even the biggest stars in the world have bad days. This is something erstwhile Spider-Man Andrew Garfield has been open about, whether he's speaking openly about grieving his mother or admitting that he still has the occasional crisis of confidence, even during the height of his success. The actor spoke to BBC Radio 1 about the latter situation in an interview in 2022, and admitted that he had a rather unorthodox comfort show when he was performing as Prior Walter in the towering, intimidating stage masterpiece "Angels in America."

"I'm doing 'Angels in America' in London and I'm staying in my apartment and 'BoJack' was my kind of comfort show during that time," Garfield told interviewer Ali Plumb, referencing Raphael Bob-Waksberg's incredible, now-ended animated series "BoJack Horseman," which centers on a washed-up celebrity horse. A version of Garfield actually appeared on the Hollywood-skewering show as an ex...

Robert Zemeckis has always loved his toys, but the "Back to the Future" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" director's fondness for tinkering with the latest filmmaking technology has eclipsed his passion for storytelling for a long time. However, between his love-it-or-hate-it Best Picture winner "Forrest Gump" and his motion-capture phase in the aughts, there was a period where Zemeckis found a string of projects that eloquently married his love of tech with his maturing sensibilities as a storyteller. This began with 1997's "Contact," a film adaptation of the late Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name and possibly the unofficial start of the "Matthew McConaughey Takes Off His Shirt in All His Movies" era (but feel free to fact-check me on that).

McConaughey, as it were, plays Palmer Joss, a successful Christian philosopher, and the love interest for the film's protagonist, the scientist Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway (Jodie Foster...

Garfield's potential role in Scorsese's A Life of Jesus movie would continue his trend of playing Christian characters onscreen. Though his casting has not been confirmed, Garfield could end up portraying Jesus himself in A Life of Jesus. Garfield's fascination with the finitude of existence through spirituality explains his tendency to take on religious film roles.

Andrew Garfield's role in Martin Scorsese's A Life of Jesus movie would continue a trend in the actor's career that began in 2016. Ever since his feature film debut in 2007's Boy A, Garfield has had a prolific film career playing a variety of different roles. After his unreal three-movie run in 2021, Garfield took a few years off from film work, but he's getting back in the game with multiple movies lined up. Garfield will play astronomer Carl Sagan in Sebastián Lelio's Voyagers and star in Boy A director John...

Sebastián Lelio is setting the soundtrack of a feminist revolution with musical film “The Wave (La Ola)” — it just wrapped production.

The Academy Award-winning director helms the film that follows music student Julia (Daniela López) who gets involved in the growing feminist #MeToo movement on her university campus. Amid the excitement of protest marches, per the official synopsis, Julia joins her friends in dancing and singing, revisiting her own experiences of mistreatment. As she gathers the courage to share her own abuse story, she unexpectedly becomes a central figure in the movement — a role she didn’t foresee, which forces her to address her identity as a survivor in a society that promises change but remains resistant to it.

Avril Aurora, Lola Bravo, and Paulina Cortés also star. See below for first-look images.

Lelio co-wrote the screenplay with Manuela Infante, Josefina Fernández, and Paloma Salas. The writer/director/producer was...

Quick Links How Scooby-Doo Gave Kids A Procedural Scooby-Doo Spawned Decades Of Copycats The X-Cops Formula Became A TV Favorite Carl Sagan Praised Scooby-Doo For Encouraging Skepticism Scooby-Doo Has One Of TV's Strongest Legacies

In 1969, Hanna-Barbera struck TV gold through the success of their latest Saturday-morning cartoon, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?. Revolving around the weekly adventures of a talking dog and his mystery-solving friends, the series emphasized detective work, intriguing monsters, and skepticism. Successfully blending horror and mysteries with a dose of science fiction, the series helped create one of TV's greatest formulas.

Scooby-Doo was released in 1969 and quickly proved to be a hit, so much so that it became the face of Hanna-Barbera, which was no stranger to Saturday morning cartoons. It wasn't long before the Scooby formula dominated kids' entertainment, with the 1970s and '80s seeing a plethora of copycat shows. However, in the 1990s, the formula...

The Signal on Netflix includes the Voyager's golden record and its message to potential extraterrestrial beings. The end of the Signal briefly touches on the history of the Voyager probes and the effort to introduce Earth's culture to alien civilizations. Carl Sagan's son, Nick, voices the iconic "hello" message on the golden record, hoping for a future connection with extraterrestrial life.

The golden record aboard the Voyager, shown in Netflix's The Signal, includes a fascinating true story and meaning. In The Signal, Paula keeps hearing a message saying "hello," convincing herself that it was aliens trying to contact them and mimic their voices. However, the major twist at the end of The Signal is that the aliens use the Voyager's golden record to send the "hello" message rather than mimicking the English language and inflection with their voices. Additionally, they send back the probe and message as a way...

Eric Roth wanted Robert Zemeckis to make a sequel to 1997’s Contact – but the conversation didn’t get very far.

In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, I’ve had the enormous pleasure of chatting at length to Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth. You can find the episode right here…

Early on in the conversation, he talks about working with director Robert Zemeckis, the pair of whom both took home Oscars for Forrest Gump. They’ve reteamed on another movie that’s due later this year by the name of Here, but Eric Roth told me he’d originally approached Zemeckis with an idea for something else.

“I called Bob actually to see if he’d be interested in me writing Contact 2 for him, because I really liked that. I really like that whole arena”.

Zemeckis, in Roth’s words, quickly declined the idea, with difficulties surrounding getting...

Just over forty years ago, on November 20th, 1983, ABC aired the most influential TV movie ever made. The Day After, which starred Jason Robards, John Lithgow, JoBeth Williams and Steve Guttenberg, was a riveting dramatization of the aftermath of a nuclear war, focusing on the residents of a small town dealing with the most terrifying outcome of all – surviving. Along with other movies of the era, such as Testament and the UK’s Threads, it was seen as a cry for disarmament, as no one could ever possibly “win” a nuclear war.

This week, PBS is airing a documentary on the film called Television Event, and in it, they put forward the notion that the movie may have helped prevent a nuclear war. In it, director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) relates the following intriguing anecdote (excerpted by THR):

“The movie may have indeed helped prevent a nuclear war.

Young Sheldon has sidelined its titular character on several occasions, which is a missed opportunity for the show to explore Sheldon Cooper's development. Season 2's Halloween episode barely features Sheldon, instead focusing on his brother's romantic pursuits and his mother's concerns. Young Sheldon should revisit Halloween to explore the origins of Sheldon's love for the holiday, as costumes were a significant part of his character in The Big Bang Theory.

While Young Sheldon does have one Halloween episode, The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff wasted its eponymous hero in this outing. Although Sheldon Cooper is the title character of Young Sheldon, he isn’t always the focus of the show’s main storylines. This made sense in the early seasons of The Big Bang Theory’s spinoff since the character was still a child and, as such, the show needed to focus on his family members to increase the sitcom’s stakes.

Christopher Nolan will be honored by the Federation of American Scientists for his cinematic portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Universal’s Oppenheimer this November. The five-time Oscar nominee will be bestowed with the org’s Public Service Award which recognizes outstanding work in science policy and culture.

The awards ceremony, which will take place in Washington D.C next month, revives a decades-long tradition that began in 1971, which honors the contributions of a diverse group of scientists, policymakers, and tastemakers in pursuit of advancements in science and technology.

“Nolan’s film depicts the scientists who formed Fas in the fall of 1945 as the ‘Federation of Atomic Scientists’ to communicate the dangers of nuclear weapons to the public. We continue to pursue their vision of a safer world, especially as current events remind us that those dangers are real and resurgent,” Fas CEO Daniel Correa said.

Nolan tells Deadline, “I...

Interstellar is a timeless, emotional space epic that combines science-heavy themes with a father-daughter narrative, earning its place among the finest works of philosophical sci-fi. The film's emphasis on scientific accuracy, guided by renowned physicist Kip Thorne, has garnered respect from both critics and the scientific community, including astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Interstellar's depiction of black holes and their surrounding features closely resemble real photographs procured by the Event Horizon Telescope years later, although its color tone differs slightly from reality for aesthetic reasons.

Before Christopher Nolan dabbled in atomic physics for Oppenheimer, he tapped into the depths of black holes and astrophysics for Interstellar. Nolan’s timeless space epic delves into a space crew’s efforts at finding a new planet as Earth becomes uninhabitable. Interstellar doesn’t shy away from its science-heavy themes, but the narrative also makes room for a genuinely emotional tale between a father-daughter...

Not so long back, I had no idea what For All Mankind was really about. I’d heard that Star Trek veteran and Battlestar Galactica and Outlander creator Ronald D. Moore had co-created a new show that was streaming on Apple TV+, but since I didn’t have the service, it wasn’t in my orbit. That all changed this year when I got access to Apple TV+ and decided to catch up on their big offerings.

What’s been clear from my experience with the streamer thus far is that Apple doesn’t just heavily invest in “content”. They don’t seem to greenlight a series, briefly check some numbers from an algorithm, then cancel it (cough Netflix). They don’t give creators the chance to make something fascinating and then bury it somewhere under a terrible interface (cough Prime). And they don’t typically delete an entire series...

Minx is making that money, honey!

And everyone was reaping the rewards on Minx Season 2 Episode 3. Though you know what they say about getting everything you ever wanted, don't you?

Yeah, me either. But maybe one day, we'll be lucky enough to find out.

It's been six months since Constance bought Bottom Dollar, and Minx returned home, and everyone was figuring out their new normal. Because suddenly, they were not a struggling magazine trying to find themselves but a bonafide hit.

For Joyce, she found everything a little bit fragile and hard to fully embrace. And that makes a ton of sense when you think about history and how it treats women.

Naturally, Joyce had her hackles up, and she didn't want to be seen as aggressive or difficult, so she refrained from pushing back against Doug and generally just avoided being alone with Simon until she realized that it wasn't doing her any favors.

Ever since movies began, filmmakers have depicted the end of the world of the world on screen whether it be from floods, asteroids, comets, alien invasion and even Zombies. But cinema went nuclear after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. The arrival of the nuclear age heralded the introduction of a new sub-genre: destruction by atomic bomb. And with the release July 21 of Christopher Nolan’s lauded “Oppenheimer,” which domestically earned some $70 million in its opening weekend, let’s look at some of the vintage flicks of the genre.

Nuclear destruction of London is stopped at the last moment in the taut 1950 British film “Seven Days to Noon,” directed by John and Roy Boulting and winners of the original story Oscar, stars veteran character actor Barry Jones as a brilliant scientist working at an atomic research center in London who steals an A-bomb that...

Space for Humanity, (S4H) a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to space for all of humanity and creators of the planet’s first Citizen Astronaut Program, and Legion M, the world’s first fan-owned entertainment company and producers of an upcoming William Shatner documentary “You Can Call Me Bill,” are thrilled to announce a groundbreaking partnership.

Together, S4H and Legion M will collaborate on the production of a music video for William “Bill” Shatner’s emotionally powerful song, “So Fragile, So Blue,” which chronicles his transformative journey to space. The song, performed only once at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. with the National Symphony Orchestra during the “Declassified®: Ben Folds Presents With William Shatner” event, received an astounding 4.5-minute standing ovation, leaving an indelible mark on all who witnessed it.

The partnership between S4H and Legion M aims to capture the essence of...