Todd Gilchrist: Last News

Todd Gilchrist editor After helming a series of based-on-a-true-story projects including “Million Dollar Arm,” “The Finest Hours,” “I, Tonya” and “Pam & Tommy,” Craig Gillespie was the natural candidate to direct “Dumb Money,” Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum’s chronicle of the January 2021 GameStop stock short squeeze and its reverberations throughout Wall Street. But Gillespie tells Variety it wasn’t his developing pedigree in this eclectic subgenre but an experience closer to home that prompted him to take on the story of Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, and the scrappy bunch of investors who rattled two hedge funds and changed investment culture forever.

Todd Gilchrist editor “I’ve never really had a marketing plan ever in my career,” says Gerald Maxwell Rivera, better known as Maxwell. Though he acknowledges “I’m sure someone was doing one in the building somewhere,” the reason why a more concerted effort wasn’t made may be because the R&B singer, songwriter and producer seemed to arrive fully-formed upon the release of “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite,” his lush, libidinous 1996 debut album.

Todd Gilchrist editor To capture the breadth and depth of the musical career of Japanese composer and recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto seems impossible, but somehow “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” almost accomplishes this herculean challenge. A document of Sakamoto’s final performance before his death from cancer last march, the film provides no commentary or context for the enormity of his body of work, yet somehow encompasses it all as he performs a curated set list in a Japanese recording studio for an audience of one — himself.

Todd Gilchrist editor A scrappy urban tale of misspent young adulthood, Olmo Schnabel’s “Pet Shop Days” evokes the blown-out, stolen-shot 16mm character studies of 1990s independent cinema, as well as the bohemian oeuvre of painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, his father. This isn’t attributable merely to the fact that the younger Schnabel includes a scene in which his characters watch Julian’s 1996 “Basquiat,” whose themes and aloof tone — not to mention the events of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s actual life — would seem an obvious inspiration for his first feature.

Todd Gilchrist editor Los Angeles was severely depleted of its rhinestones, sequins and spandex Friday night when Beyoncé fans descended upon SoFi Stadium for the first night (of three) of her Renaissance Tour appearances at the venue. Dutifully attired in their “most fabulous silver fashions” per the singer’s Aug.

Todd Gilchrist editor In the 20 years since “Ghetto Pop Life,” the acclaimed debut album from producer-rapper team Danger Mouse & Jemini, much has happened — to them and to hip-hop, much less to the world. You wouldn’t know it listening to their overdue follow-up, “Born Again,” but that’s a good thing, especially against the backdrop of all of that change.

Todd Gilchrist editor Before it became a movie — but after first launching as a series of racing simulation games — “Gran Turismo” was the platform that in 2011 allowed Jann Mardenborough to become a professional driver. At 20, and even from behind a virtual console, the Cardiff, Wales native was so skilled at navigating the complexities of the sport — not just the races themselves but the assembly of his vehicles’ literal nuts and bolts — that he earned a chance to attend Nissan and PlayStation’s GT Academy, and later to compete against real professionals on the same world-class tracks recreated in the game.

Todd Gilchrist editor From the wah-wah guitar that opens the title track to the operatic closer “Just to Keep You Satisfied,” Marvin Gaye’s 1973 album “Let’s Get It On” expressed the joy — and complexity — of human sexuality like virtually none in popular music before it. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of its release, Motown/ UMe is holding an event Wednesday featuring fellow R&B luminaries Smokey Robinson and Jimmy Jam, Gaye biographer David Ritz and moderated by UMe A&R vice president Harry Weinger, in advance of a new deluxe edition of the album.

Todd Gilchrist editor The new film “Strays” may enlist Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher and Randall Park to “fill in” the personality of its four canine lead characters, but it’s real-life dogs — and an army of trainers — who work hard to deliver a convincing performance on screen that matches their voice work. Director Josh Greenbaum not only cast the pups with as much thought and detail as when he recruited their human counterparts, but worked closely with head animal trainer Mark Forbes to make sure that they learned the various activities, and behaviors to believably tell the story written by Dan Perrault about a discarded pet who travels cross country with three pals to exact revenge on his owner.

Todd Gilchrist editor “Strays” follows in the hallowed tradition of stories of animals separated from their loved ones — from “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” to “Finding Nemo” — with a few new twists, and a lot of four-letter words. Even more than offering an uncensored window into the perspective of humankind’s four-legged pals, director Josh Greenbaum and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller wanted to examine how a closer look at dogs could shed light on some truths about the people who love (and in the case of the movie, loathe) them.

Todd Gilchrist editor Pet owners spend an inordinate amount of time imagining, ascribing, even acting out the behaviors of their animals. “Strays” feels like the natural — if comically exaggerated — extension of that impulse, chronicling the personality of a border terrier named Reggie as he and three canine pals make an arduous trek back to Reggie’s owner, along with all of the attendant misunderstandings and misinterpretations about the human world around them.

Todd Gilchrist editor Composer, singer and producer Arthur Verocai just might be the best Brazilian artist you never heard — though if you’re a hip-hop fan, you probably already have: sampled by MF Doom, Ludacris, Common, Schoolboy Q, Your Old Droog, Little Brother, Action Bronson and many more, his self-titled 1972 album is a crate-digger’s paradise, full of irresistible and idiosyncratic melodies just waiting to be slapped beneath a blistering rap verse. “Those breaks that help to deliver a kind of emotion that you’re looking for just turn out to be the perfect find,” producer and composer Adrian Younge tells Variety.

Todd Gilchrist editor Anytime Aphex Twin releases new music under any of his many monikers, I’m reminded of the tag line for the Beastie Boys’ 2004 album, “To the 5 Boroughs:” “The hiatus is back off, again.” In an even more extreme disappearing act than the one the hip-hop trio would perform in between projects, artist and electronic pioneer Richard D. James always seemed to stop existing altogether, vanishing for years into a Glaswegian cavern, surrounded by devices fabricated or reinvented by himself — only to emerge with something new and big as a proof of life.

Todd Gilchrist editor At 90, Quincy Jones has accomplished enough for a dozen lifetimes. As a songwriter, composer, performer and producer, he’s collaborated with (and created) some of the biggest acts of all time, from Ray Charles to Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson.

Todd Gilchrist editor When Julee Cruise died last year on June 9, David Lynch fans lost another of the essential, even inextricable collaborators who became a part of their lives as a result of being part of his art. Her ethereal singing is synonymous with both “Blue Velvet” and the many incarnations of “Twin Peaks,” the latter of whose title theme she performed. If Cruise’s absence from the physical plane runs the risk of dimming her star in our collective memories, Sacred Bones’ vinyl reissue of her 1989 album “Floating Into the Night” offers a welcome opportunity to restore it to its full luster by letting listeners experience her work anew — carrying the legacy of her and Lynch’s historic collaboration, but unencumbered by the images he paired with her music.

Todd Gilchrist editor The panorama of bedfellows depicted in erotica, and erotic cinema (or “sexploitation”), is vast; even if it’s somebody else’s yuck, there’s likely at least one scene or movie that captures your particular yum. But capital-A art, and especially academia, doesn’t always take this work as seriously at it deserves — as part of film history, much less as sociopolitical commentary on the people, places and times in which stories are told. Severin Films hopes to remedy that in a big way with its new 15-disc, 24-film box set, “The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle.” Enlisting as producer and curator Canadian filmmaker and programmer Kier-La Janisse, who directed the documentary “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror” and founded the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, Severin produced the most ambitious and comprehensive chronicle ever assembled about the work of Laura Gemser, whose legacy in cinema as “Black Emanuelle” has heretofore existed largely as a footnote to the French film series starring the late Sylvia Kristel. To examine Gemser’s actual impact in this rarified (and often reductively-viewed) corner of cinema, Janisse worked with Severin to create more than 40 hours of special features including commentaries, video essays and documentaries, as well as a 356-page book, “The Black Emanuelle Bible,” featuring archival interviews with the actress and contemporaneous essays from film experts and scholars.

Todd Gilchrist editor Named after a word that sounds similar in Korean to both “spring” and “tiger,” Pom Klementieff has appropriately showcased ebullience and viciousness throughout her career — and especially in the past few months. In May, she reprised her role as Mantis in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” empathetically shepherding her fellow outcasts through an adventure to save Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) from unapologetic MCU villain the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). She also appears in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” as Paris, a ruthless assassin who will stop at nothing to kill Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and anyone else who gets in her way. Ahead of “Dead Reckoning Part One,” Klementieff spoke to Variety about her character in the film, whose backstory she worked closely with Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie to develop. In addition to talking about how she “manifested” the opportunity to be a part of the franchise, she revealed the panorama of influences — from Jean-Paul Belmondo to animal videos on YouTube — she enlisted to ensure that audiences never forget Paris.

Todd Gilchrist editor Since “Mission: Impossible III” in 2006, Simon Pegg has been part of the core ensemble of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, playing hacker and sometime field agent Benji Dunn opposite its stalwart star Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Pegg was never going to be the actor risking life and limb on screen — “it’s Benji’s job to be the one that actually says, ‘what the fuck are we doing here?’,” he observes. But over five installments of the indefatigable series, his character has shifted from questioning what Ethan is doing in the moment to believing absolutely in why he’s doing it, thanks in no small part to the writing and directing of Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie came onto “Ghost Protocol” as “a sort of master plumber to re-wriggle the pipes,” as Pegg characterizes it, and since became the series’ ongoing co-architect with Cruise. Their partnership reaches its peak, even if by all indications it’s far from over, with “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” half of an operatic culmination of narrative seeds planted since Cruise first played Hunt back in 1996. In a conversation with Variety, Pegg discusses what makes McQuarrie’s creativity so special, and his collaboration with Cruise et al so unique; he also talks about new details he discovered about Benji, explored the challenges of being self-referential in a franchise like this without undermining emotional stakes, and hinted at what is yet to come as he and the rest of the filmmaking team move on to “Dead Reckoning — Part Two.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Nestled into a cozy corner of a shopping center high in the Hollywood hills, Herb Alpert’s jazz club Vibrato Grill was the site of a coronation Sunday for not one but three musical luminaries. The Jazz Foundation of America honored 10-time Grammy-winning composer and pianist Dave Grusin, saxophonist Charles Lloyd and trailblazing music executive Clarence Avant at a benefit to raise proceeds for jazz, blues and R&B musicians facing financial hardship due to unemployment, illness or old age. Though host Quincy Jones was unable to attend due to unspecified health issues of his own, he and the JFA assembled a program of speakers and performers for an evening of celebration and song that the phrase “star-studded” barely does adequate justice.

Todd Gilchrist editor Chuck D was one of hip hop’s elder statesmen even before the genre was old enough to have them: born in 1960, he witnessed its birth in the boroughs of New York in 1973, released his first album as a founding member of incendiary group Public Enemy at age 27, and has presided over its evolution with a perspective and erudition shared by few in rap, before or since. His insights and attitudes both shaped hip hop on wax and commented upon it in popular culture, burnishing the legitimacy of an art form driven by people of color even as it became commercially supported, even co-opted by mainstream, majority-white consumers. His impact, and his importance, is reiterated in “Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World,” a four-part documentary he developed and executive produced for PBS which bears the name of one of Public Enemy’s biggest and most influential hit singles. On June 21, Chuck D appeared on a panel in Los Angeles to discuss the creation of the documentary alongside Gil Vazquez, President of the Keith Haring Foundation; Jean-Michel Basquiat’s sister Lisane, appearing on behalf of his King Pleasure exhibit at the Broad Museum; and “Fight the Power” coproducer Lorrie Boula. Before the panel, he spoke to Variety about the four elements — DJing, MCing, break dancing and graffiti — that for 50 years now have formed hip hop’s foundational pillars, the changing tastes and techniques artists use to create work (and get it seen), and the advantages for him of getting old in a genre steadily supported by youth.

Todd Gilchrist editor While it’s been around for decades, the New Orleans-spawned genre of bounce music is bigger than ever, thanks to Big Freedia: the self-appointed Queen Diva’s appearances on Beyonce’s singles “Formation” and “Break My Soul” have given her, her music and her community a visibility previously unimaginable outside their shared New Orleans hometown. But A-list collaborations — which also include Drake, Lizzo and Kesha — are simply a reflection of her increasing profile, not the reason for it; since releasing her first album in 2003, she’s not only worked steadily as a recording and touring musician, but starred in two TV shows (“Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce” and “Big Freedia Means Business,” both on Fuse), produced a documentary about gun violence (“Freedia Got a Gun”) and made dozens of appearances as a spokesperson and advocate for LGBTQ+ issues.