‘The Listener’ Review: Tessa Thompson Speaks to the Sleepless as the Audience Dozes Off

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic “Andor” is, both by design and circumstance, immediately different from its “Star Wars” television predecessors. Where “The Mandalorian,” “Boba Fett,” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi” wove their biggest reveals into the larger fabric of the Lucasfilm universe, “Andor” doesn’t rush toward those moments that might make fans gasp out of pure recognition. Instead, it does something more surprising still: it tells the story of people who have nothing to do with Solos, Skywalkers or Palpatines, but whose lives matter nonetheless. Of course, at least part of the reason the series can take its time this way is because haunted hustler Cassian Andor (Diego Luna, also an executive producer) isn’t a brand-new character at all. As the reluctant hero of 2016’s “Rogue One,” which portrayed the rebel pilot mission to steal the Death Star plans which drive “A New Hope,” Cassian’s “Star Wars” legacy is already written. We already know Cassian’s life will eventually intersect with someone like rebel leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly, returning for more in-depth work in “Andor”). We already know his fate — dramatic and hopeful and unforgettable in those final minutes of “Rogue One” — and that it’s well and truly sealed.  

By this time, don’t we know just about everything there is to know about Alfred Hitchcock? Few, if any, other filmmakers have had their lives and careers examined, explored and analyzed as much as has the vaunted master of suspense. So unless incontrovertible evidence were to be suddenly found that the director secretly fathered a dozen illegitimate children by as many women and personally supplied Churchill with an untraceable poison powder to drop into Stalin’s tea in Yalta, only to see the prime minister chicken out, it’s quite unlikely that much new will ever be added to his life story that we don’t already know.

Sacheen Littlefeather has formally accepted an apology from the Academy for the way in which she was treated at the 45th Oscars. 

Anne-Marie has shared some fresh details about herself during her latest appearance on The Voice UK. The chart-topping singer was back in her big red char alongside fellow coaches Olly Murs, Sir Tom Jones, and Will.I.Am on Saturday night (September 17).

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen were spotted having breakfast together at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles' Brentwood neighborhood earlier this week.Tom, 66, and Tim, 69, were seated apart from many of the restaurant's other guests and appeared to be enjoying each other's company during their meeting in a photo obtained by TMZ.The pair's meeting sparked speculation that the two could potentially be collaborating on another feature in the Toy Story franchise, in which they voice Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

Guy Lodge Film Critic In the little-remembered 1950 noir “The Damned Don’t Cry,” Joan Crawford plays a Texan housewife whose grief for her late son spurs her to make a new life for herself in the urban underworld. Fyzal Boulifa’s exquisite new film of the same title is named expressly for that Crawford vehicle, but is neither a remake nor a direct homage. Rather, it remixes the narrative components of that film and others of its ilk into the kind of new-school-old-school heart-tugger — one might say tearjerker if its characters weren’t, true to its title, stoically dry-eyed throughout — that might have been designed for the shoulder-padded diva were she alive in 2022 and, perhaps more crucially, of Moroccan heritage. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Though she’s just 22, Noah Cyrus has seen some stuff. As Miley’s younger sister, her music and acting careers launched early — at 16 and 2 (!), respectively — and she released several pop-leaning singles and EPs during her teens, opened an arena tour for Katy Perry in 2017 and was even nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 2021. On the less positive side, there was substance abuse, a bad relationship and lockdown isolation — but she overcame all of it, and that battle informs nearly every song on “The Hardest Part,” her long-percolating debut album, which sees her truly finding her voice in a way that her previous recordings only hinted at. Surprisingly or no, the Nashville native did it by returning home, musically speaking. Although her main collaborators here are Northern Irish producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, the 1975) and Australian songwriter PJ Harding (Chromeo, Ruel), the sound is country-leaning, heavy on harmonies, organic instrumentation and Music Row-friendly melodies; its big, stacked harmonies recall everything from the Chicks to Boygenius.

While the mysterious Adar and his Orcs continue to ravage the Southlands, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) finally find some common ground with the people of Numenor in Episode 4 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, entitled The Great WaveThe last episode found Galadriel and Halbrand brought to the island kingdom - once friendly to elves but no longer, as they tried to find a way to continue their mission.The fourth episode - marking the halfway point of the eight-episode series - finds Galadriel and Halbrand finally finding some allies to their cause.  Common ground: While the mysterious Adar and his Orcs continue to ravage the Southlands, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) finally find some common ground with the people of Numenor in Episode 4 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerThe episode begins in Numenor, where Queen Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai Robninson) gathers with her court, meeting the young babies of the kingdom.She meets with the young mother (Laura Medes) who says she will name the child Alinel, as Miriel tries to bless the child when a rumbling is heard.Miriel tries to put the women at ease, stating, 'Sometimes our island just needs a stretch,' though the rumbling continues even greater.The rumbling winds make way for a tidal wave of water, rushing over the mountains that guard the kingdom, as bridges and buildings crumble...

Quinta Brunson’s voice is hoarse. The days of pre-award festivities leading up to the Sept. 12 ceremony were frantic, starting with Variety’s Showrunners Dinner (where she swapped war stories with fellow TV creators like Dan Harmon, Danny Strong and Liz Meriwether). Then came the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony in downtown Los Angeles, the Governors Gala and Disney’s post-Emmy celebration, which spilled into the next day. Something had to give. Yet when the “Abbott Elementary” creator and star sits down for an in-depth interview with Variety, her creative voice is clear and strong.

Jáde Osiberu, the co-writer and director of Gangs of Lagos, has signed an overall deal with Prime Video, the studio behind the upcoming feature drama.

A funeral procession for the Queen turned ugly when a heckler in the audience directed some choice insults toward Prince Andrew.

Standing between Steve Buscemi’s newest directorial effort, “The Listener,” and his last time on the director’s chair for the Sienna Miller-starring drama “Interview” is a whopping 15 years. Buscemi has been open about his desire to direct again, but nothing seemed to work out until Oscar-nominated writer Alessandro Camon knocked on his door, script in hand.

Guy Lodge Film Critic At the 1987 Conservative Party Conference in Britain, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher issued one of the most grimly memorable quotes of her career: “Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.” For many of us, it’s a line that now sounds so archaically out of step with contemporary life as to be comical — that “inalienable right” wording ironically appropriated by many a queer-rights cause — though you need only look at Florida’s recent Don’t Say Gay bill to know that Thatcher’s sentiments live among us still. A frank, piercing debut from British writer-director Georgia Oakley, “Blue Jean” is a Thatcher-era period piece that crisply evokes that climate of politically propagated homophobia without preserving it in amber: It effectively puts the past in tacit dialogue with the present.

In his acting life, Steve Buscemi has certainly mixed things up, finding time for Bruckheimer/Simpson blockbusters, Pixar animation and even Adam Sandler movies in a bid to avoid typecasting as the definitive New York indie guy. In his directing career, however, he tends to stick to a certain genre: small, intimate, personal films like his excellent 1996 debut Trees Lounge, which told the story of a melancholic underachiever whose life revolves around a seedy dive bar where the crowd of misfit regulars become his bizarre de facto family. Loneliness is a familiar motif in Buscemi’s work, and he excelled himself with that in 2005’s Lonesome Jim, starring Casey Affleck as a young man who’s failed in the big city and now has to move in with his parents.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Not many films hit an emotional crescendo around the publication of a Pitchfork review, but Bill Pohlad’s “Dreamin’ Wild” is sufficiently sincere and embedded in musical nerdery to make it work. As onetime brother act Donnie and Joe Emerson huddle with their family around a 30-years-late evaluation of the album they recorded as teenagers, one particular critical reference sends them giddily reeling: “To twist a Brian Wilson phrase,” it reads, “[the album] is a godlike symphony to teenhood.” For fortysomething Donnie, who has spent his whole adult life scrambling for anyone to listen to his music — let alone love it — the mere mention of his musical hero in relation to his work is a crowning triumph: Donnie, as played by a typically disheveled, downcast Casey Affleck, looks briefly, guardedly happy for a moment, and this often melancholic film is suddenly suffused with well-being.

Tessa Thompson rocked a new look at the latest premiere during the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Megan Hilty has broken her silence on the tragedy of her sister’s death, who was pregnant at the time, as well as the loss of her brother-in-law and young nephew. The “Smash” star’s family was killed in a sea plane crash off the coast of Washington state on Sunday.

A Greater Manchester Police officer who tried to rape a woman in a 'deplorable' violent sex attack will have his sentence reviewed by the Court of Appeal.

Andrew Barker Senior Features Writer At this point, complaining about Disney’s deathless drive to cannibalize its entire library of animated classics into live-action remakes can feel as futile as complaining about capitalism itself. The studio has immense IP resources to exploit, a hungry well of content to fill, and a commercial imperative to introduce new generations of kids to the characters they’ll soon be expected to recognize on merch and in theme parks. And in truth, the studio could be doing a lot worse with these trawls through the archives. Once in a while genuine inspiration strikes (as it did with the gothy, revisionist “Maleficent,” or Jon Favreau’s visually inventive “The Jungle Book”), and even the least-fortunate of these remakes have mostly just been forgettable.