Todd Gilchrist Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Todd Gilchrist editor It’s impossible to overstate the impact of De La Soul on hip-hop music and its culture — but for decades, their groundbreaking early albums were not widely available, due to a morass of legal complications that kept them out of circulation, and, crucially, off of streaming services. But today, the shackles are off, the samples are cleared (or worked around) and the albums, most notably their galvanizing platinum 1989 debut “3 Feet High and Rising,” can be streamed legally. The group had the great misfortune of being a precedent for now-common sampling laws, and the dense thicket of samples on their albums, and other associated legal dramas, kept their music out of mainstream circulation for many years. But as part of its acquisition of the Tommy Boy Records catalog, New York-based Reservoir Media has resolved the litigious quagmire that surrounded the group’s first six albums, allowing the group to distribute them on streaming platforms (and vinyl) via Chrysalis Records.

Todd Gilchrist editor Even with predecessors such as  “Paths of Glory,” “A Very Long Engagement,” “1917” and of course Lewis Milestone’s 1930 best picture winner of the same name, director Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s bestseller “All Quiet on the Western Front” conveys the meat-grinder brutality — the violence, the blood, and the mud — of trench warfare unlike almost any film in the history of the medium.  “These kids are chewed up by the merciless war machine,” says Berger. “They sign up for this war full of hopes and ideals, but very quickly they realize that they have lost everything in the mud, especially their innocence and their youth.”

Todd Gilchrist editor On Feb. 24, Ray Liotta will receive a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring almost 50 years of amazing work in TV and on film. Following his turn in Jonathan Demme’s 1986 film “Something Wild,” playing Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” was the moment that many moviegoers first discovered his complex, sometimes contradictory charms. When asked about the moment he knew that Liotta was the perfect choice for Hill — a character that was slick, confident, effortlessly charming, but with an edge of danger that made him fearsome and attractive at the same time — Scorsese says it wasn’t during casting, or even on set, but when the two crossed paths ahead of the beginning of production.

Todd Gilchrist editor Boasting an intriguing premise, a compelling ensemble and frequently crisp, handsome filmmaking, Mark Burman’s “Ambush” almost qualifies as an above-average Vietnam-era nailbiter — were it not for the hopelessly below-average performances contributed by the two actors whose names stand tallest in its credits block. Aaron Eckhart and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, usually complex and appealing even in roles as small as these, play characters perched lazily outside the main story while Connor Paolo, Gregory Sims, Jason Genao and others do the narrative heavy lifting that remains after their more sellable co-stars cashed their paychecks. Nevertheless smarter and more entertaining than one might expect from a small-scale, outwardly familiar story like this, “Ambush” feels like a throwback — mostly in a good way — to the ‘Namsploitation films that companies like Cannon churned out in the 1980s, when stories about the war were at their most commercially popular.

Todd Gilchrist editor On Feb. 24, Ray Liotta is set to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just shy of a year since his death at the age of 67. The honor comes the same week as the release of “Cocaine Bear,” the sensational based-on-a-true-story film directed by Elizabeth Banks in which he plays a character she describes as “a gangster … but he’s also an unfit grandpa as well.” That characterization also encapsulates the breadth of his accomplishments on both film and TV as an actor, which range from mobsters and tough guys to loving fathers — and plenty in between. Ahead of the ceremony, Banks tells Variety that she cast Liotta after remembering her experiences working with him on the 2011 film “The Details.”

Todd Gilchrist editor After writing five “Paranormal Activity” movies, directing one (2014’s “The Marked Ones”), and creating inventive new mythologies with “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky,” “We Have a Ghost” is a decidedly different kind of horror project from filmmaker Christopher Landon: you know, for kids. To be more accurate, it’s for families — the kind of story that’s not just scary, but funny, and heartfelt as well, like “E.T the Extra-Terrestrial” and other Amblin movies of the 1980s. “They showed kids in peril and that the world is a dark place, but that you come out on the other side of it,” Landon tells Variety. “We Have a Ghost,” which premieres Feb. 24 on Netflix, was also made for Landon’s own family — not simply his two boys, who are slowly advancing to the age where they can start watching his more terrifying creations, but his late father, actor Michael Landon, who passed away in 1991 at age 54. Now 47, Landon talks about his latest project in the context of his relationship both as a son and as a father himself, and as his pedigree as a horror storyteller deepens, reflects on the kinds of projects he hopes to put out into the world.

Todd Gilchrist editor Though she’s 26, Kathryn Newton has been playing a teenager for a long time — perhaps because she does it so well: with early roles in “Bad Teacher” and “Paranormal Activity 4,” she proved she can bring depth and dimension to whatever her character is struggling with, be it a dyspeptic teacher or an otherworldly entity. But after doing comedy (“Blockers”), drama (HBO’s “Big Little Lies”) and sci-fi-tinged mystery, growing up on screen takes on new meaning in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” where — spoiler alert — she gets to participate in the series’ size-changing action as Cassie Lang, the daughter of Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) Ant-Man. Newton had previously auditioned for another role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and though she didn’t divulge which one, she tells Variety how that experience paved the way for her to play a character who could become part of the next generation of MCU superheroes.

Todd Gilchrist editor Composer Nicolas Godin is part of the creative team responsible for “Fire of Love,” the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Sara Dosa about volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. As one half of the electronic group Air, he’s no stranger to collaboration: between 1995 and 2016, he and partner Jean-Benoit Dunckel released six albums and two soundtracks that sold millions of copies and earned them worldwide accolades as the downtempo counterparts of French contemporaries like Daft Punk. But even if he and Dunckel haven’t recorded anything completely new together since “Music for Museum,” their work for a 2014 art project at France’s Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, the sound they created lives on just as vividly in their solo work, echoing the lush cinematic aesthetic they first premiered on their debut LP “Moon Safari.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Collaboration is vital to filmmaking — no one can make one completely alone. For many of 2022’s screenplay nominees, that process began on the page with a team of individuals whose efforts completed and complemented one another’s to ensure that the story being told was as thoughtful, fully realized and emotionally evocative as possible. But even though “The Fabelmans” cowriter Tony Kushner had previously partnered with Steven Spielberg three times, starting with 2005’s “Munich,” the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright says he was initially unsure how well the duo would work together as co-authors as opposed to handing over a finished script Spielberg would bring to life on the screen.

Todd Gilchrist editor Back in 2012 when Steven Soderbergh directed the first “Magic Mike” based loosely upon star Channing Tatum’s experiences in Tampa, FL, no one could have anticipated the actual empire that the film would inspire: two more films, the latest of which, “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” opened February 10, a live revue in Vegas, a stage musical in London, and a short-lived reality competition series for HBO Max. What’s interesting is the way that all of those ventures seemed to overlap and inspire one another, leading to “Last Dance” focusing on the staging of a musical in London, in some cases transplanting similar routines from that theatrical production to the silver screen.

Todd Gilchrist From “The King of Kings” to “The Northman,” hundreds of films have premiered within the storied walls of the TCL Chinese Theatre, which celebrates its 95th anniversary May 18.Indeed, as early as 1933, the famed movie house appeared in other media as a boilerplate for how a premiere should, and often does, look like. Since then, the theater played itself in dozens of television shows and movies, some of which went on to debut on its iconic screen.

Todd Gilchrist Business managers are more critical than ever in the entertainment industry — and that may be why they are under more scrutiny now than any other time in the history of their profession.Artists and celebrities aren’t just “rich” any longer; they have true eight- or nine- (or more) figure wealth, invested in a multitude of ways to keep them making money whether their careers soar or sink.To them, business managers are a sort of financial quarterback, the individual who pays their

Todd Gilchrist Adam Driver’s place in the 2021 pop culture firmament is assured because of his role in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, his four Primetime Emmy nominations and his two Academy Award noms — and being the actor everyone in Hollywood wants to star in their projects.Twenty years earlier, he was a fresh-faced 18-year-old who joined the U.S. Marine Corps, motivated by political and personal bravado after the events of 9/11.

Todd Gilchrist “A great man doesn’t seek to lead; he’s called to it.”This is the line spoken by Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) to his son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) in “Dune,” Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic science-fiction novel. But it also underscores the remarkable journey that Mary Parent, vice chairman of Worldwide Production for Legendary and one of the film’s producers, took to become one of the most successful and respected executives in Hollywood.As its Oct.

Todd Gilchrist Since 1984, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have provided a counterpoint to the Hollywood establishment’s back-patting: a scrappy celebration staged in a tent on the beach, anointing future visionaries rather than formalizing the status of industry titans.

Also Read: 'The Go-Go's' Film Review: Transcendent Rock Doc Examines 1980s Glass-Ceiling ShatterersEllwood’s film breaks the archetypes and describes who the Go-Go’s really were: a tough band of onetime punk-rock misfits whose cleaned-up music was a pop delight, but whose success ended prematurely with infighting and drug addiction.In a Wrap review of the film, Todd Gilchrist wrote, “‘The Go-Go’s’ tackles the seminal all-female ’80s rock band with such honesty, openness and effervescence that it