‘Pacific Overtures’ Review: Rising Sondheim

Armie Hammer heads out on a solo hike on Thursday afternoon (April 6) in the Pacific Palisades, Calif.

The Italian embassy got dressed up Monday night, April 3, to celebrate Signature Theatre’s 2023 Sondheim Award honoree, theater legend, and homegrown D.C. icon, Chita Rivera.

Naman Ramachandran Leads Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden kicked off the global tour of Prime Video series “Citadel” with its Asia Pacific premiere in Mumbai on Monday. The series, created by Amazon Studios and the Russo Brothers’ AGBO, with David Weil serving as showrunner and executive producer, revolves around independent global spy agency Citadel, which has been destroyed by syndicate Manticore. With Citadel’s fall, elite agents Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) had their memories wiped as they narrowly escaped with their lives and have remained hidden ever since, building new lives under new identities, unaware of their pasts. Until one night, when Mason is tracked down by his former Citadel colleague, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), who desperately needs his help to prevent Manticore from establishing a new world order. The six episode series also features Lesley Manville in a pivotal role.

When a character promises a life story so inspirational it’ll make a believer of an atheist, the tale better come through on some big-time convincing. Life of Pi, Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaption of Yann Martel’s heart-tugging 2001 novel opening tonight at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, won’t likely be churning out any religious converts, but renewed faith in the art of puppetry is all but guaranteed.

Tilda Swinton is the latest high-profile industry figure to throw their support behind a campaign to save Edinburgh’s Filmhouse Cinema as reports suggest the popular rep house is close to being bought by a hospitality business.

Courtney Howard Don’t be surprised if the finale of “Acidman” doesn’t summon the cathartic feelings suggested by its premise, wherein an eccentric recluse and his estranged daughter try to heal their familial fracture. Director Alex Lehmann (“Blue Jay,” “Paddleton”) shrewdly chooses not to construct his strife-filled scenarios this way. Rather, those emotions tend to hit later, unfolding long after the credits roll. The film’s poignancy lies in the way these characters authentically grow from their jagged-edged conflicts, enlightening each other on their issues while bridging their cavernous divide. Though not without its flaws, this resonant, resourceful indie drama leaves a gentle imprint on audiences’ souls.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Thomas Haden Church was one of the many Spider-Man alum who returned for Marvel’s 2021 blockbuster “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Church reprised his role of Flint Marko/Sandman from Sam Raimi’s 2007 “Spider-Man 3,” but his screen-time in “No Way Home” was fairly limited when compared to fellow returning villains like Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina). In a new interview with The DisInsider, Church said conversations are taking place about future big screen appearances for Sandman. “We had a whole story involving his his daughter, for ‘No Way Home,'” Church said about the character. “And it just ended up [cut]. There was just so much going on…Amy [Pascal] and Kevin [Feige], we all had a lot of conversations. And I would say that conversations have been had about the possibility of Sandman coming into an a future iteration of it.”

Naveen Kumar The cannibalist startup in “Sweeney Todd” kills two birds: For Sweeney, the ruined barber who holds a grudge as steadily as he does a blade, it means turning enemies into actual mincemeat. For Mrs. Lovett, who laments that alley cats were too quick and meager to carve up anyway — well, it’s a living, innit love?  Slitting throats and baking bodies into pies is a wild and wicked business. But in the stately and star-filled revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s macabre 1979 musical that opened on Broadway Sunday night, the people-to-pastries pipeline quickly assumes a grim air of mundanity.  For its stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, this lushly orchestrated and opera-scale production, from “Hamilton” director Thomas Kail, proves a magnificent showcase for their respective, jaw-dropping talents. Groban’s weighted-blanket baritone makes the prospect of reclining in his company and never waking up again seem like a great way to go. And Ashford’s fleet, agile instinct for comedy, which earned her a Tony Award for “You Can’t Take It With You,” is like a dippy bird for dopamine. But only one of them is a genuine thrill.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Pictured: Casting directors Katja Zarolinski and Geoff Josselson of JZ Casting. This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. Casting director Geoff Josselson just checked off a major bucket list item. When he was asked what show he dreamed of casting, he would say “Into the Woods.” And just last year, working with Telsey Casting, Josselson was part of the team that assembled the heralded Broadway revival starring Sara Bareilles, Brian D’Arcy James and Joshua Henry. Josselson is on a bit of a Stephen Sondheim spree — with Telsey he also helped cast the new production of “Sweeney Todd,” starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. And he and his partner at JZ Casting, Katja Zarolinski, just collaborated for the first time with the Pasadena Playhouse to cast “A Little Night Music,” playing at the theater April 25-May 1. 

BFI Distribution has picked up Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg’s latest collaboration, The Eternal Daughter, for theatrical release in the UK and Ireland.

Naman Ramachandran BFI Distribution has acquired Joanna Hogg’s gothic ghost story “The Eternal Daughter,” starring Tilda Swinton in a dual role, for theatrical release in the U.K. and Ireland and will release in cinemas this fall. In the film, an artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. The film had its world premiere at Venice in 2022 and also screened at the London and Toronto festivals. Alongside its wider distribution, it will also screen at London’s BFI Southbank as part of a complete Hogg retrospective season, which will run alongside a program of films that have influenced her work.  The film is the BFI’s second acquisition from A24, following “God’s Creatures” earlier this year.

Stephen Sondheim’s final, long-awaited musical Here We Are will make its world premiere this September in a strictly limited Off Broadway engagement to be directed by two-time Tony winner Joe Mantello.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Stephen Sondheim’s final musical “Here We Are” is hitting the stage in the fall. The legendary musical theater figure, who composed “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Follies,” “Sweeney Todd” and countless other Broadway classics, died in 2021 at the age of 91. The musical, formerly known as “Square One,” was in the works prior to his death and took inspiration from two Luis Buñuel films, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Joe Mantello, whose credits include Sondheim’s “Assassins,” as well as “Wicked” and “Take Me Out,” is directing “Here We Are.” The strictly limited engagement will begin September 2023 in The Shed’s Griffin Theater, an Off-Broadway venue near Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood. Casting will be announced soon.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Some folks have it easy, and others make life difficult for themselves. Guess which type “Problemista” is about. The perpetually unsatisfied title character, a demanding New York art critic played by Tilda Swinton as a hag with hair the color of hibiscus tea, is obsessed with archiving the life’s work of her late husband (RZA), who left behind a series of egg paintings no one seems to understand. Swinton feels like a future Halloween costume in search of a movie in writer-director Julio Torres’ overly kooky and all-too-quixotic debut — another attention-deficit comedy from the studio that made “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” except that Torres lacks the technical experience to pull off even a fraction of the ideas to which he aspires.

Oscar-winning actress is set to film a new project in Ireland in the coming months, but has insisted against wearing a mask because she is “full of antibodies and very healthy”, having contracted the virus a number of times.Speaking as part of her keynote speech at the SXSW Film and TV Festival on Monday (March 13), she said (via Vanity Fair): “I’m about to shoot a picture in Ireland, and I was told to wear a mask at all times, and I’m not.“I’m sure this is being recorded. I’ve had COVID-19 multiple times so I’m full of antibodies and very healthy.”Last year, Swinton explained that while she had got off “relatively lightly” with the virus, she suffered with memory problems and vertigo as a result.She told The Guardian: “I was coughing like an old gentleman who smoked a pipe for 70 years, and had nasty vertigo.

When I saw the poster for Problemista, I wondered why Tilda Swinton–who stars in the film–was on the poster. After seeing this, I now understand. Written and directed by Julio Torres, the movie tackles issues of immigration, and isolation, all packaged in a sweet surrealist bow. Alongside Torres, the film stars Tilda Swinton, Rza, Isabella Rossellini, Catalina Saaverdra, and James Scully. 

British actress Tilda Swinton is adamant she will not wear a mask on the set of her new project, despite being asked to do so. "I'm actually just about to start shooting a picture in Ireland. And I was told, full disclosure, and I'm sure this is being recorded – people in Ireland might hear it – to wear a mask at all times," she revealed while giving the keynote address at the 2023 South by Southwest Festival (SXSW).

No one questioned why Tilda Swinton was chosen to give a keynote speech at this year’s SXSW. She’s one of the most respected actors in the entire world, and on top of that, Swinton always seems to have something interesting to say.

Selome Hailu Half of the jokes in “Problemista” fell on deaf ears at the film’s SXSW world premiere, but not because the audience didn’t want to hear them. Rather, the Austin crowd covered up several lines of dialogue with howling laughter seemingly every other time writer-director-star Julio Torres opened his mouth as Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer in New York City doing his best not to get deported back to El Salvador. Catalina Saavedra, who played Alejandro’s mother, Dolores, pointed out the uproar during the post-screening Q&A. When asked if it felt good to hear the reactions to the film, she joked that she didn’t get anything from it. Speaking in Spanish, she said that American audiences react that way to everything they see.

Saturday Night Live” monologue, Tilda Swinton became the latest actor to speak out against such measures, saying at an SXSW panel that she did not intend to wear a mask on the set of her next film. At the start of the panel ahead of the premiere of her new film “Problemista” in Austin, Swinton reflected on how much had changed in the world since her last SXSW appearance in 2014, noting that she didn’t see anyone in the audience wearing masks and how that didn’t seem possible during the more severe stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.