Hollywood

It is the best of times and the worst of times in Hollywood, where the phenomenal success of Barbenheimer elevated both movies to soaring box offices even as virtually the entire entertainment industry is on strike. But the success of these two films — one backed by the branding power of nostalgia and the desire to wear the color pink, the other by one of the last mainstream auteur directors with the power to do whatever he wants — also contrasts with the big problem facing the strikers. We know how many people saw these movies. We don't know how many people see much of anything else. The great cord-cutting has led us into a world with unprecedented opportunities to make all kinds of content.

The Barbenheimer phenomenon — thought of by many as just idle chatter on the internet — has enduring power. Last weekend, Barbie and Oppenheimer earned a combined $511 million in global box office receipts; an unprecedented number where neither film is a superhero picture or a sequel. Barbie made more money, on the grounds that it’s an hour shorter and is PG-13 rated, but the vast box office success of the R-rated Oppenheimer, which made over $170 million in its opening weekend, is testament both to Barbenheimer excitement, and to the film’s very own brand: its powerful writer-director-producer, Christopher Nolan.  James Cameron aside, it is hard to think of any filmmaker who wields such power and influence in contemporary Hollywood.

Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, is about the second biggest bang in history. Yet at its London premiere on Thursday, there was another explosion that, in its own way, was no less seismic than anything put on screen. Its star-studded cast, including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr., assembled dutifully on the red carpet for interviews and selfies, but by the time that the film itself was about to screen, none of the actors were anywhere to be seen.  As Nolan said of his “incredible cast” in his introductory talk, “You’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet.

Adam Devine, the star of the hit television series Workaholics and new Netflix movie The Out-Laws, recently gave some insight as to why comedies are hardly ever made by movie studios anymore. Devine appeared on the most recent episode of comedian Theo Von's podcast, This Past Weekend, where the pair discussed the downfall of comedy in movies. Devine, who also appeared in the Pitch Perfect series, surmised that high-budget superhero movies made comedies and other low-budget films less attractive to viewers spending money on theater tickets. He and Von also pointed out how movie executives try to force political and moral messages into their content — and that there is no longer "funny for funny's sake." "There's no hidden message," Devine said of his new movie.

At first glance, Sound of Freedom sounds as if it’s a Donald Trump re-election slogan for next year’s presidential battle. Yet, despite the presence of Jesus himself — The Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel — in the lead role, Alejandro Monteverde’s new film has nothing to do with US politics. Instead, it revolves around that most hot button of controversial topics: child sex trafficking and the evils thereof. Caviezel stars as a real-life figure, Tim Ballard, who founded something called Operation Underground Railroad to rescue children from Latin American cartels and traffickers.

In just one short year, Amber Heard has transformed from arguably the most hated woman on the planet to some kind of new and improved Spanish celebrity. Amber moved to Madrid months after she was sued by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, for defamation. In a viral TikTok video, Heard answers questions from reporters, saying in Spanish, "I love Spain so much."  When they asked if she plans on staying, she replied, "Yes, I hope so. Yes, I love living here." After being asked if she has movie projects on the horizon, she says yes and adds, "I move on. That's life." It turns out that exiling yourself to a new country for privacy can be an effective PR strategy. Take note, Harry and Meghan.

It must seem very strange to Armie Hammer — once a successful, if not quite an A-list actor, who has latterly been reduced to selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands — that his career has taken such a decisive dive into the dumpster. Not very long ago, he was appearing in leading roles in the likes of Death on the Nile and Rebecca, and then his life went into a nosedive because of allegations of everything from cannibalism to sexual abuse. In present-day Hollywood, there is no such thing as a presumption of innocence until guilt is proved, and Hammer was fired from various projects, as well as being dropped by his agency and management company. His days of fame appeared to be over.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge must be destroyed before it's too late. The short-bob comedienne fond of wall-breaking and lazy edits has, in very short order, emasculated and destroyed multiple franchises thanks to the overwrought praise for her adaptation of her one-woman show, a descriptor that should itself elicit a bit of vomit in the back of the throat. Not content to politicize Star Wars as an irritating droid in Solo or to chop off the balls of James Bond in Daniel Craig's swan song whose name no one remembers, Waller-Bridge has now set her sights on a firmly American man to take down: Indiana Jones, whose fifth edition box office she will eradicate in spite of all the goodwill of these United States. https://twitter.

During his seventy years on Earth, and for much of the nearly forty years since he left it, Orson Welles has managed to rub people the wrong way.  Welles, who was born in 1915 and died in 1985, was plainly a genius: a theatrical impresario whose Mercury Theatre was legendary in its own day; a puckish conjurer whose War of the Worlds radio broadcast misled millions; and a so-called one-man-band who, like few filmmakers before him, combined the jobs of director, producer and actor in such masterpieces as Citizen Kane, Chimes at Midnight and F for Fake.  But this record earned him little credit among the naysayers who hounded him and told us to believe them rather than our lying eyes.