Todd Gilchrist Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Todd Gilchrist editor “For Khadija” is billed as a documentary about French Montana, but there’s a reason that it’s named not after the hip-hop alter ego of Moroccan expatriate Karim Kharbouch, but his mother. “I felt like my mother’s story, the beginning to the end, the closure of her going back to Morocco, is when I was like, okay, now the story has a meaning,” French tells Variety. “This goes out to all the mothers that struggle, that have kids, that was forced to sacrifice.” Given the other films made about rappers and their families — including “Dear Mama,” about Afeni and Tupac Shakur and “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” which heavily features Notorious B.I.G.’s mother Violetta Wallace — it’s not necessarily an unexpected place to start. But the documentary, which premieres June 16 at the Tribeca film Festival, uses the relationship between Karim and Khadija to highlight the unpredictable path that led a scrappy Moroccan child to become a worldwide rap star, while charting the financial struggles and familial strife that threatened to derail his meteoric rise.

Todd Gilchrist editor If an endless array of variations, alternatives and opportunities is a foundational concept of the animated superhero series “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” it also seems like one for the career of Metro Boomin. St. Louis native Leland Tyler Wayne’s musical alter ego is not only the producer of the soundtrack for its sequel, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” but also plays a small role in the film as one of its Spider-people, Metro Spider, and collaborated with Nike on an elaborate, patchwork “Spider-Verse”-themed Air Jordan that sold out almost immediately after he and his siblings modeled for its advertising campaign.A post shared by Jordan (@jumpman23) In just the past few months, he also partnered with Major League Baseball to be the opening-day voice of its 2023 season, starred in a Budweiser Super Bowl commercial, and celebrated the release of “Heroes & Villains (Villains Version),” a remix edition of his second studio album, with a digital comic book and a debut performance at Coachella 2023 assisted by The Weeknd, Young Thug, 21 Savage, Diddy and more performers. This web (excuse the pun) of projects exemplifies the scale of his creative ambition, but even a cursory scan of their results highlights how much effort he puts into each one. After shepherding the sprawling “Across the Spider-Verse” soundtrack to completion, he spent a week on Instagram premiering Spider-person iterations of his collaborators, including Coi Leray, Future, Offset, James Blake and A$AP Rocky; it’s clear he’s not content to sit behind the boards and simply let his indefatigable collection of beats speak for him.

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Dave,” titled “Looking for Love,” now streaming on Hulu. The already guest-star-studded Season 3 of FX’s “Dave” ends with not one but three of the biggest guests any show could hope to have in their cast: Rachel McAdams, completing a three-episode arc by appearing in the music video for rapper Lil Dicky’s (Dave Burd) tribute to idealized love, “Mr. McAdams;” superstar rapper Drake, Lil Dicky’s personal hero, and now, his mentor; and none other than Brad Pitt, who after making a cameo in the “Mr. McAdams” video shows up at Dicky’s door looking for a musical mentor of his own.

Todd Gilchrist editor Twenty-five years have passed since the release of Rufus Wainwright’s self-titled debut album, a rhapsodic collection of 12 songs celebrating his open homosexuality and given suitably cabaret-inspired flair by producer Jon Brion. In addition to commemorating the occasion with an expanded, remastered, digital-only re-release featuring ten extra songs from its three-year, 56-song recording process, Wainwright will on June 2 also premiere “Folkocracy,” an anthology of covers produced by Mitchell Froom. It’s a full-circle moment for the singer-songwriter after decades of sidelining his family’s pedigreed genre: though he’s collaborated many times with his folk-singer father Loudon Wainwright III, late mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna McGarrigle, the album marks the first official folk/ Americana recordings of his career.

Todd Gilchrist editor In a Season 9 episode of “Seinfeld,” Kramer reconstructs the remnants of the “The Merv Griffin Show” in his apartment so he can host his own talk show. As far as “hipster doofus” fantasies go, it’s a pretty good one — what TV lover hasn’t fantasized about sitting down behind Johnny Carson’s desk from “The Tonight Show,” or wished they could post up for a pint next to Norm and Cliff at the bar from “Cheers”? Thanks to James Comisar, curator of the Comisar Collection, you can now do just that — and unlike Kramer, you don’t have to fish it out of a dumpster to do it. Starting on June 2, Comisar is selling almost 1,000 items from his personal collection of television memorabilia, from the 1050s to present day, that fans and collectors can win for as little as a dollar, if they’re lucky.

Todd Gilchrist editor Long before she guest starred as the love interest of rapper Lil Dicky aka Dave Burd’s on FX’s comedy series “Dave,” Chloe Bennet was a television mainstay — first on seven episodes of “Nashville,” then another 136 of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..” Those experiences taught her a lot that she applied to Robyn, a photographer who ventures tentatively into a romantic relationship with Burd, a musician and performer who frequently blurs the lines between his professional ambitions and personal instincts. In “Dream Girl,” the penultimate episode of Season 3, those dueling impulses come to head after Robyn announces plans to move to Los Angeles, forcing them to confront the prospect of a more substantial commitment as Dave’s options — in his career, and his life — seem to be more open than ever before.

Todd Gilchrist editor There are few fears more universal than one of a monster under the bed or in our closet, and few filmmaking techniques more viscerally effective than the jump scare. These tropes collide — effectively, if without much originality — in “The Boogeyman,” a loose adaptation of Stephen King’s 1973 short story of the same name. Featuring an eponymous threat seemingly drafted from the same biological blueprint as the extraterrestrials in their breakthrough film “A Quiet Place,” writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods graft the psychological and thematic shorthand of unresolved trauma onto a creature feature, while director Rob Savage (“Dashcam”) papers over the seams between the two with copious style and a bold, clear-eyed lead performance coaxed from “Yellowjackets” star Sophie Thatcher.

Todd Gilchrist editor On “Dave,” a show co-created by and starring Dave Burd that dramatizes his exploits as terminally navel-gazing hip-hop star Lil Dicky, there can be little room to explore the lives of others in his orbit. But since the 2020 pilot, Davionte “GaTa” Ganter has not-so-quietly been stealing scenes as Burd’s hype man and closest confidante. Not only has GaTa become the sounding board and best friend that everyone wishes they had (whether they’re a famous rapper or not), he has offered an intimate window into his own mental health struggles, reenacting them on screen with devastating vulnerability. As tough as his journey has often been to watch throughout the series, GaTa says that performing heavy scenes comes naturally. This is despite the fact he has no prior acting experience. “It’s easy for me to get emotional,” he says. “And I’m also a Cancer, and they say we’re emotional people.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Following a handful of supporting roles in “Tag,” “Green Book” and “The Irishman,” Sebastian Maniscalco makes his first bid for leading-man status with “About My Father,” a family comedy sourced from the same semi-autobiographical material that made his stand-up a commercial and cultural phenomenon. To say it’s better than all three “Meet the Parents” films may be a dubious compliment, but it’s one made more significant because it co-stars Robert De Niro — and more importantly, actually features recognizable human behavior amidst its suitably outlandish set pieces. Whether or not Maniscalco has a legitimate future as a movie star, he proves a likeable presence as a romantic lead, while director Laura Terruso skillfully delivers comedic payoffs that tap into his wheelhouse while introducing him to a wider audience.

Todd Gilchrist editor “White Men Can’t Jump” holds a special place in a lot of moviegoers’ hearts; while not the enduring sports classic that writer-director Ron Shelton delivered with his baseball mash note “Bull Durham,” the buddy comedy vividly captures the world of pick-up basketball players, and features three standout performances by Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez. Director Calmatic’s 2023 remake not only fails to recapture the energy of the first film but seems to misunderstand the cinematic language of streetball, and is largely uninterested in utilizing stars Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow except as delivery systems for exposition. Updated only in its excess of contemporary slang and overwrought backstories, “White Men Can’t Jump” exemplifies the aversion to risk and lack of imagination in storytellers mining intellectual property at the behest of blandest-common-denominator-seeking corporate overlords.

Todd Gilchrist editor Soundstage facilities, an increasingly in-demand component of film production, are at the heart of New Mexico’s growing reputation as a destination for ambitious studios. Amber Dodson, director of the New Mexico Film Office, says that while locations from “the mountains of Montana in ‘Big Sky’ to the streets of Manila in ‘The Cleaning Lady’” make her state ideal for filming, what’s crucial is filmmakers’ access to interior production space. “We understand that stage space has been a struggle, not only in New Mexico,” she says. In fact, that’s what initially caused Netflix to lead the charge in making New Mexico a Hollywood away from Hollywood; in 2018, they purchased Albuquerque Studios, a 28-acre site where “Better Call Saul” and “Hell or High Water” completed production. In addition to that facility’s eight soundstages, the streamer employs workers at third-party properties outside Albuquerque, says a Netflix spokesperson.

Todd Gilchrist editor The explosive growth of film and television production in New Mexico has broadened perceptions about its eclectic landscape in a short amount of time, but despite increasingly well-documented evidence to the contrary, some misconceptions stubbornly persist. “One of the main comments I hear is ‘I didn’t know New Mexico has trees,’” says Amber Dodson, director of the state’s film office. While the state’s natural elements are undoubtedly beautiful and have stood in as a range of locales for countless film and TV productions, they’re only one factor in the state’s transformation from a short-term production location to a true hotspot for studios looking to put down roots.

Todd Gilchrist editor Over three seasons (and a pandemic special) on Showtime, “Couples Therapy” has quietly become a destination for healing for television watchers who are interested in the difficult work of digging into interpersonal relationships — or watching other people do that work, anyway. Through the empathetic, incisive probing of Dr. Orna Guralnik, executive producers Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres have not only explored the complexity of couples’ shared and individual lives, but the essential, often painful and yet invariably revelatory therapeutic process that helps people understand themselves, their partners and the world around them. Following the April 28 premiere of Part 2 of the show’s third season, Variety spoke to Steinberg, Kriegman and Despres about “Couples Therapy” as a mirror for the challenges that many relationship face. In addition to talking about the themes that emerged from the conversations shared with their selected couples this season, the filmmaking trio broke down the process, both logistical and philosophical, that guided them, and examined some of the deeper notions exposed by the series’ format — and by therapy itself.

Todd Gilchrist editor Connie Han has established herself as one of contemporary jazz’s most talented and inventive musicians by combining the precision of her childhood training as a classical pianist with the improvisation, and irrepressible emotion, of her heroes Freddie Hubbard and Kenny Kirklan. Just 27, it’s hard to believe Han released her first album eight years ago, but in that time, she’s built a dedicated following and gained the respect of genre peers through three full-lengths on Mack Avenue Records. Her latest, 2022’s “Secrets of Inanna,” draws upon ancient Sumerian myth not just for its song titles but its thematic underpinnings — a sophisticated foundation emblematic of a sophisticated performer.

Todd Gilchrist editor There are very few movie genres in which Emma Thompson hasn’t left her mark, but she’s established a special pedigree in romantic comedies: from “The Tall Guy” to “Sense and Sensibility” to “Love Actually” to “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” she’s explored love in more ways on screen than most people get to experience in real life. In the romantic entanglements of writer-producer Jemima Khan’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” Thompson’s more of a well-meaning instigator than an active participant, playing a divorcee named Cath who clumsily tries to make a match for her serially-single filmmaker daughter Zoe, played by Lily James. Zoe, meanwhile, is more interested in documenting the arranged (or “assisted,” they rebrand it) marriage agreed to by her childhood friend Kazim (Shazad Latif), not realizing the complicated feelings that his impending nuptials are igniting in her about relationships past, present and future.

Todd Gilchrist editor Music Box Films has acquired North American distribution rights to “Fremont,” Iranian/British Filmmaker Babak Jalali’s follow-up to “Land” and “Radio Dreams.” Jalali’s film, which premiered in the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section and later screened at the SXSW Film Festival, tells the story of mid-20s Afghan refugee Donya (played by real-life refugee Anaita Wali Zada) wrestling with complicated feelings about her work as a translator for the U.S. military. “Quiet, tender, and deeply human, ‘Fremont’ hails the arrival of a strikingly talented new performer in Anaita Wali Zada and loudly announces Jalali as a filmmaker whose ability to tell soulful stories with humor and grace demands attention,” states Music Box Films’ Brian Andreotti. “With an impressive launch out of Sundance and SXSW, we’re thrilled to continue momentum and open this film theatrically to a wider US audience later this year.”

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “The Storm,” the April 26 episode of FXX’s “Dave,” now streaming on Hulu. On the FXX show “Dave,” rapper Lil Dicky’s friend and collaborator GaTa is the best friend and hype man we all wish we had — always around to provide for a few words of encouragement and inspiration, but just as available to deliver some plainspoken wisdom when it’s most needed. That the relationship between Dave Burd and Davionte Ganter mirrors the one they have in real life only amplifies the emotional intensity — and the humor — of their moments together on screen. Burd’s own open-book honesty has further encouraged GaTa to open up about his mental health struggles as storylines on the show, leading to several of the most powerful episodes across its three seasons, including this week’s “The Storm.”

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “Wisconsin,” the April 19 episode of FXX’s “Dave,” now streaming on Hulu. Breaking up is never easy, but on television it’s especially difficult — and moreso if audiences fall in love with both parties involved. In Season 1 of FXX’s “Dave,” the relationship between aspiring rapper Lil Dicky (Dave Burd) and his kindergarten teacher girlfriend Ally (Taylor Misiak) offered an essential window not just into who the series’ title character is, but why viewers should love him despite his often deeply narcissistic worldview. After Dave’s failed overture to reconcile with her in Season 2, Ally joins him in Season 3 to capitalize on his “Looking For Love Tour” by embracing her “single girl era” and finding love for herself — if she’s ready for it.

Todd Gilchrist editor Not to be confused with an adaptation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” comedy troupe Broken Lizard’s “Quasi” tells a story that’s truer to the Oxford definition of its title than the 1831 Victor Hugo novel that inspired it. Kevin Heffernan settles uneasily into the director’s seat usually occupied by colleague Jay Chandrasekhar for an underdog story more interested in leveraging funny pronunciations of French words for underwhelming laughs than in creating real characters — much less a visual backdrop that doesn’t look like a second-rate Renaissance Faire.Set in a 13th Century France that narrator and sometime Broken Lizard collaborator Brian Cox helpfully informs us “sucked,” the film centers on Quasimodo (Steve Lemme), a social outcast who works in the torture chambers of King Guy (Chandrasekhar).

Todd Gilchrist editor “Fair to middling” is how Angie Dickinson is feeling this morning as she talks about “Rio Bravo,” the 1959 film that made her a star. “Somebody who says they’re great at 90, you can figure out that they lie a lot.” It’s a line that could have come straight from Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett’s script for the film — and a reminder that Dickinson’s gift for delivery isn’t dependent on working with a brilliant director, though she has many times in her seven-decade career. Dickinson has more then 350 screen credits — an enormous body of work that includes “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 1960 original), “Point Blank” and “Dressed to Kill.” She’s set to appear April 13 at the TCM Film Festival to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ classic Western, whose boys’ club cast of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan she breaks up with that same brisk humor. Ahead of the event, Dickinson speaks with Variety about catching the acting bug after spying Frank Sinatra (later a lifelong friend) on the set of “The Jimmy Durante Show,” working with Brian De Palma, and other highlights from a lifetime of memories.

Todd Gilchrist editor From pre-Code gangster films to Bette Davis blazing a trail for female protagonists to blockbuster super- hero sagas, Warner Bros. Pictures’ output has been synonymous with the most popular stories of the day — and the iconic filmmakers who brought them to life. Since being installed in June 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have steadily built upon this legacy that has been the foundation of the studio since its earliest days. “The history of the studio and their approach to filmmaking over the years really lines up with our belief in marrying the right filmmakers with the right IP and the right stories,” Abdy tells Variety. Adds De Luca, “We just wanted to continue that practice of trying to be a good home for the preeminent filmmakers of the day — and then try and find that next generation as well.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Michael Jordan and his signature sneakers have been a fixture of pop culture since 1984, when Sonny Vaccaro convinced the then-rookie (and more importantly, his shrewd mother, Deloris) to sign an industry-changing endorsement deal with sportswear brand Nike. “Air” dramatizes many of the finer points of these real-life events, with Matt Damon playing Vaccaro, Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan and Ben Affleck pulling double duty as director and co-star. But the new film operates less as a tribute to consumerism than as an origin story of one exceptional athlete — and the leather-and-rubber vessel that has become synonymous with his legacy. “I wasn’t all that interested in the business minutiae in the story,” Affleck tells Variety. “It’s really a fable, inspired by these characters and who they represent.”

Todd Gilchrist editor No redemptive stone is left unturned in “On a Wing and a Prayer,” Sean McNamara’s formulaic dramatization of the true events surrounding civilian Doug White’s 2009 emergency landing of a King Air 200 plane carrying his wife and children. Dennis Quaid leads a cast that includes Heather Graham, Jesse Metcalfe, Brett Rice and Rocky Myers through a “story of faith and survival” far less extraordinary than the filmmakers would have you believe, at least when working from a script by Brian Egeston that feels as mechanical as an aircraft instruction manual. Meanwhile, McNamara, best known for directing 2011 faith-based sleeper hit “Soul Surfer,” leans so heavily on the virtue of starting from the truth that he fails to recognize the abundance of elements that make his movie ring false.

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains light spoilers from the first two episodes of Season 3 of FX’s “Dave,” which premiered on FXX on April 5, and is streaming on Hulu. In Season 3 of “Dave,” the rapper known as Lil Dicky is looking for love, probably in exactly the wrong place: on tour. Liberated from the writer’s block that plagued him throughout Season 2, Dave Burd has gathered his friends and collaborators in a suitably obnoxious pink bus for a nationwide tour — and brought all of his shortcomings and neuroses along for the ride. Series co-creator and “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” alum Jeff Schaffer spoke to Variety the show’s two-episode premiere “Texas” and “Harrison Ave,” about where Dave is headed this season after the “weighted blanket” of recording an album was finally lifted, the mechanics of humiliation in a show about a rapper who talks incessantly about his genitals, and the overall series trajectory as Burd grows older — but not always wiser.

Todd Gilchrist editor At Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch panel, held March 31 at the Sun Valley Film Festival, the first order of business was defining what it means to be a producer, a title — and a role — that encapsulates a number of responsibilities on a film. “The way that I describe it is you’ve got to know a little bit about a lot of things in filmmaking,” said Rachael Fung, whose film “Fremont” later won best narrative film in the festival’s One in a Million category, recognizing features made for less than $1 million. “You’ve got to be able to understand and talk to every single person that touches the film at every single stage. And also it’s about finding those directors and filmmakers and understanding their vision and figuring out the best way to get that to screen.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Joining an illustrious list of honorees that includes Clint Eastwood, Amy Poehler and Geena Davis, Josh Brolin is set to receive the 2023 Sun Valley Film Festival’s Vision Award, which recognizes entertainment veterans for the impact on the industry. Brolin began his career more than 35 years ago as one of the stars of Richard Donner’s “The Goonies,” and he’s since won acclaim for work in films as varied as Ethan and Joel Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” Oliver Stone’s “W.,” Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice,” Joe and Anthony Russo’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and its sequel, “Endgame,” and more. That many of those high-profile roles came to him more than 20 years after becoming an actor isn’t something Brolin resents now — in fact quite the opposite. “That feels amazing as opposed to somebody who came out of the gate and was hugely famous and then had to uphold that for the rest of his career or her career, which never happens,” he tells Variety. Ahead of being feted at Sun Valley, Brolin reflected on the kind of career-overview recognition that comes with the Vision Award and the strange and unpredictable journey he’s taken as an actor, which includes auditions for “Almost Famous,” going from the whiff of “Jonah Hex” to the wow of “The Avengers,” and discovering “for what” as great and enriching motivation in one’s creative choices.

Todd Gilchrist editor Warner Bros. will commemorate its 100th anniversary with a block of programming on Turner Classic Movies starting April 1. TCM will broadcast remastered and newly restored versions of 10 classic Warner Bros. films, each featuring an introduction from a filmmaker or film expert culled from the network’s ongoing partnership with the Film Foundation, a non-profit preservation and exhibition organization. The program coincides with the April 13-16 run of the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. On April 13, a new 4K restoration of 1959’s “Rio Bravo,” Howard Hawks’ classic western starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson, will premiere on TCM and serve as the opening night film of the festival. Dickinson will attend the in-person event, while Martin Scorsese will introduce the film on TCM’s small-screen presentation. Similarly, Warner Bros. will premiere a new 4K restoration of Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden,” starring James Dean, on both the big screen and the network, the latter featuring an introduction by filmmakers Wes Anderson and Joanna Hogg.

Todd Gilchrist editor When Lee Unkrich was 12, he saw “The Shining” for the first time. He remembers less from the screening than what happened shortly afterward, which set in motion a lifelong obsession with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of horror. On his way to summer camp, Unkrich bought the movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s novel.

Todd Gilchrist editor Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi admits her enthusiasm for being recognized for the profound social and cultural weight of her output. “Usually producers are kicked to the curb when a movie is released,” she says, laughing.

Todd Gilchrist editor Despite its position as one of the seeming few big-scale “original” sci-fi films to compete with franchises, sequels and reboots for box office real estate, “65” is Frankensteinian at best. Cobbled together from (admittedly some of the best) parts of “Jurassic Park,” “The Descent,” “Armageddon” and more, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ post-“A Quiet Place” level-up too strongly resembles its forebears to break new, much less particularly interesting ground. Yet anchored by another in a series of committed performances from Adam Driver and an ensemble of suitably menacing prehistoric beasts that chase him for just over 90 minutes, Beck and Woods’ adventure delivers requisite thrills even if its creativity seems stuck in the distant cinematic past.