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Blue Eye Samurai took the Netflix streaming service by storm, with the beautifully animated television series receiving rave reviews for its story, action, and, of course, breathtaking visuals. Season 1 ended with the promise of the main character, Mizu, leaving the Japanese countryside for London, opening up the animated series to a whole new realm of storytelling possibilities through its animation. Now, the creative team behind the series has teased that fans can expect a much more ambitious second season despite its lower episode count.

In the "Netflix Series Animation: Get Ready for What’s Next!" presentation panel at the Annecy Animation Film Festival, Dylan Thomas, director of Adult Animation for Netflix, remained cryptic about specific story details, but was sure to talk about the highly anticipated second season, saying:

“While I can’t say much, I will say that somehow the scripts and the storyboards are crazier, they’re bigger,...

At the end of 2023, Netflix released Season 1 of Blue Eye Samurai, an adult animated series with an original story of revenge which had audiences hooked from the very start. In the animated series, Mizu, voiced by Maya Erskine (PEN15), is a half-Japanese, half-white woman who lives in Edo-period Japan. It is a time period when the borders of the nation are closed to the outside world, meaning her whiteness is a sign and source of disgrace. The show was created by Michael Green and Amber Noizumi, with Jane Wu serving as executive producer. Production on the second season is already underway and Netflix’s Annecy Animation Film Festival slate offered an opportunity for some insight into what comes next.

Co-creators Green and Noizumi, alongside executive producer Wu, were all in attendance, albeit virtually. Dylan Thomas, director of Adult Animation for Netflix, made the introductions before going on to tease the scripts.

Having pitched its high-profile animated titles to a packed Bonliue in Annecy on Wednesday, Netflix shifted over to Annecy’s Imperial Palace for a studio focus panel where the streamer teased its upcoming animation slate, including early looks at new shows from the “Minecraft,” “Clash of Clans,” Magic the Gathering” and “Ghostbusters” franchises, as well as its returning series “Blue Eye Samurai.”

A jam-packed panel also included early looks at three preschool Dr. Seuss shows, an adaptation of the French comic “Samuel,” sneak peeks of “Bojack Horseman” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s follow-up series “Long Story Short,” Dan Harmon’s “Haunted Hotel” and an R-rated pencil test for the “Big Mouth” teams new series “Mating Season.”

The company also shared much briefer looks at the upcoming series “Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85” and “Splinter Cell: Deathwatch,” having presented both in more bespoke sessions earlier in the week.

Below, a breakdown of...

Exclusive: Aisling Walsh’s upcoming bio-pic Lucia, starring Maya Hawke as the titular Lucia Joyce, has sold into two major European territories within hours of being announced by sales company The Veterans.

Arp Sélection, which is in Cannes with Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, has acquired French rights, while Vertigo Films has taken Spain. Its Cannes titles this year include Exit 8 and Young Mothers.

Walsh’s psychological drama biopic Lucia, stars Hawke as the troubled figure of Lucia Joyce opposite Rhys Ifans as her father, the celebrated Irish writer James Joyce.

Born in Trieste in 1907, as the second child of Ulysses writer Joyce and Nora Barnacle (later Nora Joyce), Lucia Joyce spent her early childhood in the cosmopolitan port city as well as Zurich, before the family moved to Paris in 1920, where she pursued her dream of becoming a dancer.

With a screenplay written by Michael Kinirons, the film...

Exclusive: Maya Hawke is set to play Lucia Joyce opposite Rhys Ifans as her father, the Irish writer James Joyce, in Aisling Walsh’s psychological drama biopic Lucia, which was written by Michael Kinirons.

The Veterans have boarded sales on the feature for a Cannes market launch.

The biopic is based on the life of Lucia Joyce, the talented but troubled daughter of James Joyce, who was briefly the lover of Samuel Beckett.

Hawke has amassed a veteran’s resume as an actor in less than a decade, working with auteurs such as Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, and Gia Coppola, while also starring in Netflix’s TV show Stranger Things. Her other credits include Inside Out 2 (as the voice of Anxiety), Wildcat, which she starred in and co-produced, Maestro, The Good Lord Bird, Little Women, and more.

Ifans was seen most recently in Inheritance and House of the Dragon...

After releasing stand-out animations like Nimona, Ultraman Rising, Spellbound, and Wallace & Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl, Netflix is ready to take this year’s Annecy International Animation Festival by storm with exciting new releases planned for 2025 and beyond. Netflix Animation returns to the Théâtre Bonlieu on Wednesday, June 11, for the fest, with exclusive previews for the animated fantasy adventure In Your Dreams and Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.

Executive producer Eric Robles will present a world-exclusive first look at the Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 series, while director Alex Woo, production designer Steven Pilcher, and VFX supervisor Nicola Lavender will debut never-before-seen footage from their upcoming film In Your Dreams during a special panel. Additionally, Netflix will bring Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed to the Annecy stage for its world premiere on Wednesday, June 11.

Other must-see events include A masterclass with Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of BoJack Horseman, which follows on Thursday, June...

To Be Hero X has proved that animation quality is often a tell-tale sign of the success of a series. While good animation quality can make an underdog of a series popular, bad animation can ruin the adaptation of an amazing series. This is the case with To Be Hero X and The Beginning After the End, respectively.

While To Be Hero X captivated viewers with its amazing blend of 2D and 3D animation right from its first episode, The Beginning After the End has stayed consistent in disappointing fans with its still frames.

Nice, Treeman Corporation’s perfect hero | Credits: Lan Studio

With To Be Hero X entering the scene, the chances of The Beginning After the End being successful are starting to look bleak with every passing day.

To Be Hero X and The Beginning After the End: A tale of two adaptations Arthur reads a book...

The nominations for the 2025 BAFTA TV Awards have been announced!

The annual awards event recognizes the excellence in British television of 2024.

Baby Reindeer and Mr Bates vs The Post Office led the nominations this year with four each followed by Say Nothing, Rivals, Slow Horses, Mr Loverman, and The Traitors, all with three each.

The 2025 BAFTA TV Awards are scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 11 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England and will air live on BBC.

Keep reading to find out more…Keep scrolling to read the full list of nominations…

Best Drama Series

Blue Lights (BBC One)

Sherwood (BBC One)

Supacell (Netflix)

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BBC One)

Best Scripted Comedy

Alma’s Not Normal (BBC Two)

Brassic (Sky Max)

G’wed (ITV2)

Ludwig (BBC One)

Best Limited Drama

Baby Reindeer (Netflix)

Lost Boys and Fairies (BBC One)

Mr Bates vs The Post Office...

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Bob Dylan is one of the most important figures in all of rock music. And now, over 60 years into his career, he’s the subject of the new biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet.

Timothée’s performance is already getting buzz, and it seems likely that the movie will be a hit! The James Mangold-directed film is set in the first half of the 60s, chronicling Bob’s arrival in New York up until his 1965 Newport Folk Festival appearance.

The movie is set to hit theaters on Christmas Day 2024, and critics are already starting to praise Timothée’s portrayal of Bob. The trailer for the film gave fans a sneak peak in October 2024.

Before going to see Timothée bring Bob’s early days to the big screen, there are lots of things to know about the Blonde on Blonde singer. Keep reading to learn more about Bob.

The banquet’s destination? Blenheim Palace. The culinary inspiration? None other than the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. “Great British Menu” returns to BBC Two with the Welsh chefs halfway through their heat, the pressure cooker officially whistling. This week, they’re tasked with creating main courses and desserts that would make even the famously hard-living Thomas […]

Great British Menu: Wales: Mains and Dessert...

John Krasinski and Matthew Rhys are set to executive produce and star in “Silent River,” a new psychological thriller ordered by Amazon MGM Studios for Prime Video.

According to the official logline, the project, which is seen through the lens of two men whose lives are far more more connected than they realize, explores the cracks of small-town America in the wake of discovering a serial killer among them.

“Silent River” is created by Aaron Rabin, who serves as an executive producer. In addition to Krasinski, Rhys and Rabin, Allyson Seeger and Alexa Ginsburg will executive produce for Sunday Night. Krasinski is set to direct the show’s pilot and some additional episodes. Andrew Bernstein is also set to direct and executive produce.

In addition to the series order, Sunday Night has renewed its first-look television deal with Amazon MGM Studios.

“We are thrilled to continue our work with John Krasinski,...

Patti Smith recently kicked off her 2024 European tour, and at her shows this week in Brighton, England and Dublin, Ireland, she treated fans to a show-stopping cross-generational surprise: a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness.”

Delivering a relatively faithful rendition of the 2012 hit, Smith poured her years of wisdom into Rey’s solemn lyrics, illuminating them with a fresh perspective. Introducing the song, Smith told the crowds that it reminded her of her late husband, MC5’s Fred Smith, and their “wild youth” together.

Get Patti Smith Tickets Here

In clips of the performance, Smith can be seen leaning into the song’s pondering mood, with some reports even alleging that she was in tears while singing. Watch videos of the performance below.

Additionally, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine was in attendance at the Dublin show, according to a post from Smith herself, attributing him as the person who took the video.

British electronic music band Kosheen had its big breakthrough hit in 2001 with “Hide U,” which expresses a desire to keep a loved one safe from harm and still feels topical in the age of social media trolling. Its blend of drum and bass, trip-hop and other electronic music genres found a fan base in different parts of the world. The band’s five studio albums range from Resist in 2001 to Solitude in 2013.

Then, the Welsh lead singer and songwriter Sian Evans and her two bandmates decided they had to go separate ways and a dispute over the Kosheen name and songs ensued. However, Evans started touring again in 2019 and has been traveling to events in various countries with new collaborators.

Earlier this year, Kosheen played live with a full orchestra for the first time ever in the U.K. at London’s Koko, performing such hits as “Catch, “Hungry,” and “All In My Head.

Jerry Herman’s musical “Hello, Dolly!” dominated the 18th Tony Awards which took place at the New York Hilton on May 24, 1964. “Hello, Dolly!” entered the ceremony with 11 nominations and walked out with ten awards including best musical, best actress for Carol Channing, original score for Herman and for Gower Champion’s choreography and direction.

Other musicals in contention for multiple awards that year were “High Spirits,” based on Noel Coward’s classic comedy “Blithe Spirit,” “Funny Girl,” which transformed Barbra Streisand into a Broadway superstar, and “110 in the Shade,” based on the straight play “The Rainmaker.”

Bert Lahr, best known as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz,” won lead actor in a musical for “Foxy,” based on Ben Jonson’s “Volpone.” The musical was not a hit closed after 72 performances. Also nominated in the category was Bob Fosse for a short-lived revival of Rodgers and Hart’s “Pal Joey.

Welsh actor, writer and director Celyn Jones has set “Madfabulous” as his next directorial venture.

The British indie is based on the true story of Henry Cyril Paget, fifth Marquess of Anglesey, who was once one of the richest men in Britain but died penniless and forgotten at the age of 29 in France.

“It’s full of pathos and humanity, it’s very much a character who wants to get the attention of his family who don’t want him and he keeps upping the ante with his spending, his flamboyance and his dancing,” Jones told Variety about the 1890s-set film. “What happens if you are a theatrical, and you are very gender fluid at a time when when people didn’t even know what that was? And you’ve got all the money in the world to do that. Well, of course, you buy a theater company, you buy...

Patti Smith responded Saturday to Taylor Swift’s recent mention of her in the title track of her album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Swift name-drops Smith, a rock poet and artist, alongside poet Dylan Thomas in the chorus of her song “The Tortured Poets Department,” released along with its namesake album Friday. She sings, “I laughed in your face and said / ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots.’”

On Instagram, Smith posted a photo of herself reading a Dylan Thomas collection on Instagram, writing: “This is / saying I was / moved to be / mentioned in / the company / of the great / Welsh poet / Dylan Thomas. / Thank you, Taylor.”

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Thomas, a 20th century writer, was famous for his poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,...

Patti Smith is reacting to a mention!

If you didn’t know, Taylor Swift name-checks the music legend on her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.

On Friday (April 19), the 77-year-old icon shared a photos on Instagram of herself reading a book by Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, a nod to the mention on the title track “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Taylor sings: “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots.’”

Keep reading to find out more…

“This is saying I was moved to be mentioned in the company of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas,” she captioned the post. “Thank you, Taylor.”

In 2019, Patti also commented on Taylor to the Nyt, saying: “She’s a pop star who’s under tremendous scrutiny all the time, and one can’t imagine what that’s like.

We were already prepared for the devastation Taylor Swift’s eleventh album The Tortured Poets Department might yield but no one could have imagined that she had two albums’ worth of material for everyone to sift through. Her latest is mix of Midnights synths and Folklore/Evermore indie-folk, giving insight into the romantic chaos behind one of her biggest career years yet. Here’s what we learned from all 31 new songs.

The Tortured Poet In Question Is Matty Healy

For the past couple months, fans had been anticipating a tell-all...

Poets only want love if it’s torture. And when the poet is Taylor Swift, you always have to figure love and torture are never more than a few verses apart. Taylor became a legend as the poet laureate of teen romance. But that was kid stuff compared to the adult heartbreak of her stunning new album, The Tortured Poets Department. A year after getting out of a six-year relationship, Taylor’s got bad men on the brain. But they’ve always been her specialty. As she notes here, in...

Lucy Boynton and Justin H. Min shine in The Greatest Hits, leaving you rooting for their characters. The film boasts a standout soundtrack, showcasing a diverse range of songs that set the perfect tone. Despite underdeveloped characters, the allegory of synesthesia is a clever narrative hook that helps the great actors delve into grief and love.

Music has been an essential part of romance in cinema and in real-life; frankly, few relationships can withstand a total aural disparity. We see it with Tom Waits and Nina Simone of Bad Timing, Coldplay and The Shins in Garden State, and "As Time Goes By" in Casablanca. We see it with, well, everything in High Fidelity. Maybe it's because music speaks the emotions so that we don't have to; the unseen singer can lament or worship without embarrassment, and we can relate. Whatever the case may be, The Greatest Hits is obsessed with the idea.

Legendary musician Bob Dylan, a recipient of 10 Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Peace Prize, remains an unstoppable force in his remarkable 65-year career. At 82 years old, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee recently announced plans for yet another tour, Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour.

Scheduled to take place from March 1-18, Dylan will play 12 concerts in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. While it is uncertain if these shows will mark the conclusion of the tour—as the announcement poster hints at its continuation from 2021 to 2024—no additional dates have been revealed at this time.

Dylan’s tour initially began in November 2021.

>Get Bob Dylan Rowdy Ways Concert Tickets Now!

Bob Dylan Rowdy Ways Concert Tour Setlist

Here’s the setlist for Dylan’s last concert in 2023:

“Watching the River Flow” “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” “I Contain Multitudes” “False...

Quick Links The Ending Of The Human Race Starts The Expedition Of A Lifetime In Interstellar Betrayal And Faith Propel Interstellar Further Into Space What's The Deeper Meaning Behind Interstellar? The Significance Of Mann In Interstellar The Importance Of Murphy's Watch In Interstellar The Meaning Behind "Do Not Go Gentle" By Dylan Thomas In Interstellar Who Are "They" in Interstellar? Interstellar is Christopher Nolan's most ambitious work that showcases scientific real-life theories. Interstellar explores the existential question of what humans are willing to do to preserve life. Love and taking a leap of faith are central themes in Interstellar.

2014's Interstellar is a sci-fi masterpiece by Christopher Nolan. Thus far, it's been his most ambitious work, as it displays heavily researched scientific theories for the intricacies of space, time, wormholes, black holes, and everything in between. With the help of Physicist Kip Thorne, the two were able to create a thought-provoking,...

Celebration of the legendary New York hotel and haven for actors, artists and musicians that spills secrets of squalor, celebrity and death

Earlier this year saw the release of Dreaming Walls, an interesting if meanderingly vague film about New York’s legendary Hotel Chelsea; the place which is actually an apartment building and artist colony, famous for residents and habitués including Andy Warhol, Sid Vicious, Isadora Duncan, Dylan Thomas and Arthur Miller. That rather downbeat film emphasised the efforts of longterm residents to stay in the building after it was bought by new owners who allegedly wanted to sanitise and gentrify it. Here is a second documentary which is far more celebratory, with far more interviewees, far more sexy name-dropping and more uproarious anecdotes, especially about the friendly ghosts who allegedly roam its corridors.

Again, this film pays tribute to the building’s manager Stanley Bard, who cultivated its reputation...

Michael Imperioli may be best known for playing Christopher Moltisanti on the TV series The Sopranos, but he has over 100 other screen acting credits and several writing credits (including multiple episodes of The Sopranos). His first writing credit came on 1999 crime drama Summer of Sam (watch it Here), which was directed by Spike Lee… and during an interview for the documentary Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel (and Other Rock & Roll Stories), Imperioli revealed that he visited a witch and used otherworldly means in an effort to get Summer of Sam into production!

Scripted by Imperioli, Lee, and Victor Colicchio, Summer of Sam has the following synopsis: During the summer of 1977, a killer known as the Son of Sam keeps all of New York City on edge with a series of brutal murders. The philandering Vinny unwittingly almost becomes a victim of the psychopath, and soon he and numerous people in his orbit — including his wife,...

Michael Imperioli says he took supernatural steps to help him materialize his 1999 movie “Summer of Sam.”

The “Sopranos” and “White Lotus” actor was living at the Chelsea Hotel at the time and, in a new documentary about the notoriously haunted locale, recalls meeting with a witch in order to push the crime thriller “through the studio system” in Hollywood.

“I had just begun writing ‘Summer of Sam’ with Victor Colicchio — we wrote that script together,” Imperioli says in an exclusive clip from “Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel.” “I really wanted to get it made. So I met somebody who was living here who was a witch, who said she could help me get it made, but it wasn’t going to happen the way I thought it would. I was very ambitious at the time and wanted to get that made, so resorted to tapping into otherworldly means to get it through the studio system....

Featuring Cedric Smith And Others

8th August 2023 – On Sunday Dec. 10th, Juno Award-winning Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt will be bringing her Under A Winter’s Moon concert to Toronto’s Koerner Hall in a seasonal miscellany of music and spoken word that features Gemini Award-winning actor Cedric Smith performing A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Held in one of North America’s premiere concert venues known for its exceptional acoustics, the concert is a unique mixture of carols and tales and the oral traditions found in many cultures, interwoven with strands of the natural world revealed through Indigenous stories.

There will be a matinee at 2 p.m. and an evening performance at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 11 at 10 a.m.

“It’s really a love letter to the season,” says McKennitt. “We’re delighted to be bringing our eclectic blend of Christmas, nature, Indigenous and Celtic culture to...

Are you tired of the same old vacation spots? Looking for something a little more… spine-chilling? Pack your bags and your courage, because we've compiled a list of 13 ghostly getaways that offer more than just a comfortable bed and complimentary breakfast. These haunted hotels are brimming with spectral guests who have never checked out. From tragic love stories to mischievous jesters, each location offers a unique glimpse into the otherworldly.

Ready to make a reservation? Read on, if you dare!

Monte Cristo Homestead in Junee, New South Wales. | Bidgee

1. Monte Cristo Homestead – New South Wales, Australia

Known as Australia's most haunted house, the Monte Cristo Homestead has seen its share of tragedy. Seven deaths have occurred on the property, including a young child who was dropped down the stairs by a nanny. Guests have reported seeing apparitions and hearing mysterious footsteps. If you're looking for a truly haunting experience, this is the place to be.

Amsterdam, June 29 (Ians) The Netherlands men’s team thrashed the already relegated New Zealand as they continued their quest for the Fih Hockey Pro League title on the final day of the mini-tournament here.

The Dutch claimed a comfortable 4-1 victory on Thursday to take a step closer to overtaking Great Britain at the top of the standings, with two matches remaining. Both Spain and Belgium also remain in the running for the men’s title, making for a thrilling final mini-tournament in Antwerp, starting on Friday.

The Dutch maintained their chances on Wednesday with a comfortable win against the Black Sticks.

Some sensationally speedy teamwork saw Teun Beins and Thijs van Dam combining to feed the ball through to Bijen Koen who lifted it into the roof of the net for the Netherlands’s opening goal.

Just three minutes later, an attack down the left-hand side finished with Tjep...

Director William Nunez describes why he focused on a time when the poet Robert Graves – best known for a memoir Goodbye to All That and historical novel I, Claudius – left his wife and family in pursuit of creativity at any cost

How do you make the life of a poet work on screen? It helps if they had scandalous personal lives. Robert Graves was last seen on the sidelines of Terence Davies’s biopic as the friend of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon (Benediction). Now the tables are turned, with a cameo of Sassoon in a film about the early career of the man who would go on to become professor of poetry at Oxford and to win the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.

Graves is an unfashionable figure today, known chiefly through I, Claudius, the TV serialisation of two of his novels, starring Derek Jacobi as the Roman emperor.

This year, John Cale will turn 81. In the decades since he co-founded the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed in the mid-1960s, the adventurous Welsh singer-songwriter, producer, and composer has had a historic, if at times intentionally errant, run. Along with his own albums (which include high points like 1973’s Paris 1919 and 1974’s Fear), he’s also been one of music’s most avid collaborators (producing legendary records by Patti Smith, the Stooges, and the Modern Lovers, and making fine duo LPs, like the Andy Warhol tribute Songs for Drella,...

Engaging study of artists and radicals hanging on at the legendary New York building in the face of hungry developers is charming but vague

New York’s Chelsea Hotel is the almost mythic building renowned for the radical bohemianism and life-on-the-edge danger of its famous residents, who have included Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, Sid Vicious, Bob Dylan, Madonna and Iggy Pop. But unlike CBGBs or checker cabs, the Chelsea is a New York institution that does in fact still exist, and is the subject of this interesting, if meanderingly vague documentary from Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt.

It is all about the now ageing artists and radicals still living there, such as dancer and choreographer Merle Lister, who once staged performances in the Chelsea’s beautiful stairwell with its wrought-iron balustrades. They are the ageing holdout generation with legally protected tenancy – and they resent the forces of gentrification for...

Cultural icons from Patti Smith and Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg and Arthur Miller once roamed its corridors – but what of the artists still living there? A new film checks in with the refuseniks holding out against gentrification

A young Patti Smith playfully leans over a rooftop wall, her raven-black hair tangling with the wind as she points towards the stiletto nib of the Empire State Building in the distance. “Dylan Thomas used to hang out on this very roof!” says the singer. “I’m sure he threw up one too many rums.” She laughs, then turns to face the camera. “I’ve always wanted to be where the big guys were, you know?”

This is the opening of Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, a film about the famous New York landmark. In the course of its 138-year history, this 12-storey Victorian gothic building on West 23rd Street has...

Even with his most successful work, Rodney Crowell knows there’s always room for revision. In 2018, the celebrated singer-songwriter took another crack at the lyrics to “Shame on the Moon,” a 1982 cut recorded by Bob Seger, long after he’d excised it from his own setlists. These ongoing efforts and others are chronicled in Word for Word, a new coffee-table book featuring Crowell’s song lyrics, enhanced by images of the in-progress compositions from the author’s personal notebooks and a lifetime’s worth of photos.

At 72, Crowell is a...

What a year for music—any of my top half-dozen or so could have been Number One some other year. But these are my faves, with pop idols, guitar bangers, rap poets, disco visionaries. All these albums keep giving up new surprises for me. The double-digit years are always pivotal for music—’66, ’77, ’88, ’99 were four of the coolest music years ever. (’11 and ’55 were bangers, too. Y2K wasn’t so hot, but at least it had a kick-ass Madonna album.) 2022 felt more like Neil Young’s 22 than Taylor Swift’s, but...

Any day now the renovated Chelsea Hotel will fully reopen, capping a drawn out process that has seen the grand edifice on the west side of Manhattan shrouded in netting and defaced by scaffolding for over a decade.

Repeated construction delays, legal wrangling between residents and the building owners, as well as a dispute with the city agency devoted to historic properties all contributed to the endless postponements. But the magic of a place that has been home to the artistic and idiosyncratic for over a century seemingly cannot be obscured by clouds of construction dust.

The new documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel invites viewers inside the red brick palace to spend time with long-term residents who contribute to, and perhaps are, the essence of the Chelsea’s charm.

“It’s a film of encounters and the people we met, we love them,” explains Maya Duverdier, who co-directed...

"We are all accomplices in the dream world of the soul."—Derek Jarman, Kicking the PricksDerek Jarman was a filmmaker, set designer, gardener, writer, and activist. But to list off items of Jarman’s biography in such a manner does not come close to being able to comprehend the magnitude of his singular artistry. Over the course of his life Jarman created a visual language of love, politics, and poetry through moving images.I recall the memory well, picking up a copy of Projections (Derek Jarman's Films From The Pet Shop Boys' First Tour), an Artificial Eye VHS tape that I found as a teenager in a charity shop in my small coastal hometown. The case stood out instantly. It became a piece of a puzzle that awakened within me the possibilities of film as an artform that could expand narrative—that film was also a visual representation of musicality and feeling.

There are many layers to the mystique of the Chelsea Hotel. Long before it became a hipster hangout, the 12-story, 250-room fortress, built in the 1880s, was home to Mark Twain. In the ’50s, the Chelsea played host to assorted literary figures, the first of whom to lend it a dissolute aura was Dylan Thomas, who was living the lush life in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953. The beats moved in, and so did Arthur Miller after he divorced Marilyn Monroe and Arthur C. Clarke while he was writing “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

But it was Andy Warhol who put the stamp of underground cachet on the Chelsea when he shot his three-and-a-half-hour multi-screen ramble “The Chelsea Girls” there in 1966. By the time that Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe took up residence in 1969, they already saw themselves as the next generation in the Chelsea tradition of bohemian squalor.

Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Belgian filmmakers Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s documentary, Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, is a deeply moving spiritual deconstruction of a cultural landmark. The directors trust the viewer to know the history going in, allowing Dreaming Walls to capture the mood of the Chelsea.

New York City’s Hotel Chelsea opened on 23rd St. in 1884. Its 12 stories of brick housed some of the greatest names across all the arts. Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain were among the earliest check-ins. Madonna planned her global domination, and later shot photographs for her book, Sex, on the eighth floor. Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey shot Chelsea Girls (1966) in the rooms the Factory members lived. Arthur C. Clarke wrote the screen treatment for 2001: A Space Odyssey in its rooms. Marilyn Monroe lived at the Chelsea as a young actor, and Arthur Miller stayed there after their much-later divorce.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano)

Writer-director Jonas Carpignano completes his Calabrian trilogy with A Chiara, an enthralling drama about a teenage girl coming to terms with her family’s role in the mafia, which won the Europa Cinema Label at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. With a documentary-like authenticity, this is a touching, powerful film with a lyrical visual palette and a superb sense of time and place. As in Mediterranea and A Ciambra, which told stories about immigration and the Roma community, respectively, Carpignano takes us to Gioia Tauro at the southern tip of the Italian mainland. For ten years the director has embedded himself here, a place infamous for the penetration in all walks of life of the ‘Ndrangheta, the secretive...

In Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s mesmerizing and immersive documentary about the Chelsea Hotel, “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel,” the filmmakers pay tribute to the last bastion of New York bohemianism and breathe memory into the walls of this iconic building; walls that would speak volumes if they could talk.

The Chelsea Hotel has long loomed large in our collective cultural consciousness, demonstrated in a snippet of archival footage, with which the film opens, of a young Patti Smith describing how the hotel was the first place she landed in New York, declaring “I always wanted to be where the big guys were.”

To underscore the point about the “big guys” that lived within those walls, Duverdier and van Elmbt utilize a hypnotic stylistic motif throughout the film, projecting images of the celebrities who spent time at the Chelsea onto the walls, almost anthropomorphizing the ghosts, or at least the spirits,...

In most major cities, history is the first thing to be obliterated. Whether you live in New York, Los Angeles, or any other metropolis, not a day goes by when an architectural wonder isn’t being razed or otherwise altered, a legacy forever changed in the name of “progress.” Such is the case with the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York City, a haven for poets, musicians, and other raconteurs of the ’60s and ’70s, including Patti Smith, Marilyn Monroe, and Dylan Thomas. What was once a location of creative inspiration is now a literal shell, slowly transforming into a chic hotel, with its long-term residents punted off into quiet corners where they can’t disturb anyone.

“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” is less about where the hotel has been and more about where it’s headed. Directors Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt head into the Chelsea with...

The Chelsea Hotel has a storied history of artistry, creativity, and death. Coming to fame as a place for bohemians to find cheap rent, it grew in notoriety with the deaths of writer Dylan Thomas and Nancy Spungen, a staple in 1970s New York punk. Various poets and musicians littered the halls of the hotel, given a renaissance when Patti Smith’s Just Kids became a must-read.

Directors Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier’s documentary explores a specific part of the hotel’s history––the last 10 years of its existence marred by a construction project that has lasted throughout that duration, an attempt by new owners to modernize the spaces that were home to not-yet-famous artists. Van Elmbt and Duverdier focus on the ghosts of this place, projecting old videos of past tenants onto the bare, cracked walls of each half-finished apartment. The feeling of this place, one deserving...

How did you first get into filmmaking?

Growing up in Swansea, there was a strong arts lineage thanks to local youth theatres and the legacy of Dylan Thomas. I was always into acting and was a child of the movies. I learnt a lot from BBC2 documentaries interviewing directors, from Ken Loach to Brian DePalma. Also, my mum is a Professor of Anthropology and her department at Swansea University was in the same building as media resources, so I was able to borrow Svhs cameras and learn to edit on the giant VHS editing decks they had back in the day! I learnt by doing.

What can we expect from your first feature film Canaries?

You can expect some laughs, scares, sci-fi intrigue and some political / social subtext should you go looking for it. Mostly it’s just a fun tale to be enjoyed with a beer and friends.

Can...

To paraphrase Independence Day‘s President Thomas Whitmore and Dylan Thomas, the October 22-debuting eighth season and 100th episode of The Walking Dead makes it very clear that AMC's zombie apocalypse blockbuster has no intention of going quietly into the collapse-of-civilization night. Coming off the near-record-high ratings and much-hyped double-death brutality of the October 23, 2016 Season 7 opener, it was almost inevitable that Twd‘s previous season would come…...

“I could tell you what’s happening, but I don’t know if that’d really tell you what’s happening.”

Steven Soderbergh could have done anything he wanted after the hugely successful trifecta of “Erin Brockovich,” “Traffic,” and “Ocean’s Eleven.” What he did was remake Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris,” perhaps the headiest science-fiction film ever made — and one that didn’t necessarily seem suited to his sensibilities. The film has its defenders 15 years later — Barry Jenkins expressed his love for it just last week — but is rarely mentioned in discussions of the versatile filmmaker’s best.

Read More:‘Logan Lucky’ Review: Steven Soderbergh Returns From Retirement with a Silly Heist Movie That Has Real Soul

Maybe that’s because it’s something of an outlier in his already varied filmography. Soderbergh has dabbled in genre pictures as often as any other filmmaker not specifically thought of as a genre director,...

The American Film Institute Conservatory has a new dean in producer Richard Gladstein, and he shamelessly chased down the job.

Gladstein — president of Film Colony, producer of Best Picture Oscar nominees “Finding Neverland” and “The Cider House Rules,” as well as a bevy of Quentin Tarantino movies — comes to a Los Feliz hillside campus that is still bruised after two fractious years under the last dean, Jan Schuette, who last November agreed to step down at the end of June.

No one is more surprised than Gladstein at how much he wanted the gig. He put in a long stint with Harvey Weinstein at Miramax Films, where he started as head of production in 1993. “Oddly it was the same day that Disney bought the company,” he said. “So my first-day press conference with Jeffrey Katzenberg was my initiation. The AFI feels akin to that. The place is bursting with creativity,...

The American Film Institute Conservatory has a new dean in producer Richard Gladstein, and he shamelessly chased down the job.

Gladstein — president of Film Colony, producer of Best Picture Oscar nominees “Finding Neverland” and “The Cider House Rules,” as well as a bevy of Quentin Tarantino movies — comes to a Los Feliz hillside campus that is still bruised after two fractious years under the last dean, Jan Schuette, who last November agreed to step down at the end of June.

No one is more surprised than Gladstein at how much he wanted the gig. He put in a long stint with Harvey Weinstein at Miramax Films, where he started as head of production in 1993. “Oddly it was the same day that Disney bought the company,” he said. “So my first-day press conference with Jeffrey Katzenberg was my initiation. The AFI feels akin to that. The place is bursting with creativity,...

‘Tokyo Drift’ Saunters Out Of Old Mexico Into Neon GloryJustin Lin’s debut embodies the best of the Fast and Furious franchise.“You know those old Westerns where the cowboys make a run for the border? This is my Mexico. … Look at all those people down there. They follow the rules for what? They’re letting fear lead them. … Life’s simple. You make choices and you don’t look back.” — Han Seoul-Oh

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is the best Fast and Furious movie. I hold this truth to be self-evident. And that’s my piece for this week. Thanks for coming out. I kid! Just give me about twelve miles of runway to make my case.

Justin Lin crosses into a world of intoxicating coolness. Without that atmosphere, it’s impossible to understand why anyone would get involved with the Yakuza. The neon revelry in Tokyo is painfully lush. I...

Pierce Brosnan is opening up about learning how to be a dad without having had a father in his own life.

The former James Bond star recently sat down with Esquire for a photoshoot and a candid interview about his turbulent life, while promoting his new AMC Western drama series The Son.

In the series, set in Texas during the Mexican Revolution, Brosnan plays Eli McCullough, the head of a cattle baron dynasty who begins to shift his family's interests into the burgeoning oil business.

The series deals heavily with family legacies and the relationships between fathers and sons. Eli's character struggles with the impact of growing up with an absentee father -- an experience Brosnan can relate to.

Watch: Pierce Brosnan Takes His 3 Handsome Sons to Premiere of 'No Escape'--See the Family Resemblance!

"I know what it's like to bring up sons," said the 63-year-old star, who has four of his own. "It can be...

Paris and Prince Jackson saluted their sibling bond with some fresh ink.

On Sunday, Michael Jackson's daughter and son shared photos of their new ankle tattoos of the Yin and Yang symbols. "You are with me and I am with you ❤," Prince, 20, sweetly captioned a photo of their ink on Instagram.

Exclusive: Prince Jackson on Following in Dad Michael Jackson's Footsteps and the Importance of Giving Back

Paris, 18, shared the same photo and explained why they decided upon the popular Chinese symbol. "Yin [in Chinese philosophy], the passive female principle of the universe, characterized as female and sustaining and associated with structure, night, the moon, fluidity, calmness, the earth, darkness, cold, death, and ascends energy," she wrote. "Yang, the active male principle of the universe, characterized as male and creative and associated with function, the sky and sun, speed, expression, heaven, heat, light, birth, and descends energy."

Paris also opened up about her special relationship with Prince. "Sometimes...