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    'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' Prequel Leans Toward Casting Female Actor as Willy Wonka

    The upcoming movie that will revolve around the eccentric chocolatier character has ‘Paddington’ director Paul King serving behind the lens, and Simon Rich working on its script.
    Feb 1, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Producers of a new movie centred on Roald Dahl’s beloved character “Willy Wonka” are reportedly considering casting a female actress in the role of the eccentric chocolatier.
    Warner Bros acquired the rights to the character from the Dahl estate in 2016 and are in the process of putting together a production team for a “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” prequel, which is to be set before the construction of the iconic chocolate factory.
    “Paddington” director Paul King has signed on to direct the film, which is being produced by “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman, with a script by Simon Rich, and a source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper, “A female lead is being considered.”
    “Film bosses realize it could spark a backlash but believe a female Wonka is a great way to give the classic story a fresh look,” they added.
    Producer David Heyman has previously said the film will not be a straight remake, telling Slash Film, “They’ve (already) done two films, quite different. But it’s possibly an origin story.”
    The late Gene Wilder was the first to play Wonka onscreen, opposite child actor Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket, in the 1971 musical, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”. Johnny Depp later took on the role for a 2005 version, under the direction of filmmaker Tim Burton.
    Brad Pitt was previously linked to the role for the upcoming prequel.

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    Ralph Fiennes in Talks to Play Evil Miss Trunchbull in 'Matilda'

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    While the ‘Harry Potter’ villain is linked to the gender-bending role in the film adaptation of ‘Matilda the Musical’, Emma Stone is said to be eyed to play Miss Honey.
    Feb 1, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Ralph Fiennes is reportedly in negotiations to play sinister headmistress Agatha Trunchbull in the upcoming movie version of “Matilda the Musical”.
    According to Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, the actor, who notably played Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort in the hit movies, is being tapped to play a gender-bending version of the character, in the movie helmed by Matthew Warchus.
    While Fiennes has yet to star in a musical he showcased his vocal abilities in the film “Bernard and Doris”, in which he sang a duet with Susan Sarandon of Peggy Lee’s “I Love the Way You’re Breaking My Heart”.
    Meanwhile, Warchus and his collaborators are rumoured to be seeking “La La Land”‘s Oscar-winning actress Emma Stone to play Miss Honey, the kind-hearted teacher who becomes Matilda’s mentor. Casting directors also announced a search two weeks ago to find a youngster, no taller than four foot three inches, to play the title role.
    “Matilda the Musical” debuted in 2010 before hitting London’s West End the following year. It transferred to Broadway in 2013 and ran for four years, before closing in 2017.
    The movie, which follows the story of a young bookworm prodigy mistreated by her ignorant parents and abusive school headmistress, will be a collaboration between Sony Pictures and Netflix, and will receive a limited theatre release in the U.K. before hitting the streaming service worldwide.
    The novel was previously made into a film in 1996, starring Mara Wilson as the title character, with appearances from Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Embeth Davidtz and Pam Ferris.

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    Meghan Trainor Hysterical Over Dr. Phil’s Surprise Appearance During ‘Carpool Karaoke’

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    ‘F9’ Trailer: Here’s Your First Look at the Latest ‘Fast & Furious’ Movie

    [embedded content]Last year, “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” got a jump on its Super Bowl movie-ad competitors, releasing a trailer on the Friday before the NFL championship game. The movie went on to gross more than $750 million worldwide.If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The next film in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, “F9: The Fast Saga,” has unleashed its first promo two days before this year’s Super Bowl. This one doesn’t feature Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) or Shaw (Jason Statham), but Vin Diesel returns as Dominic Toretto, a reformed criminal and ex-street racer who has settled into retirement with his wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and their young son, Brian — named after the late co-star Paul Walker’s character.Perhaps trying to make up for the absence of Johnson, “F9” has recruited another wrestler-actor, John Cena, to join the cast as Jakob, Dominic’s younger brother. Described as a master thief, an assassin and a high-performance driver, he’s sent by the cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) to kill his sibling.Also added to the ensemble are a pair of musicians, the reggaeton star Ozuna and rapper Cardi B, as yet-to-be-disclosed characters. The trailer does contain one major reveal, though: Sung Kang reprises his role as Han Lue, a driver who had apparently died in the 2006 “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”Directed by Justin Lin (returning to the series for the first time since “Fast & Furious 6” in 2013), “F9: The Fast Saga” hits theaters on May 22. More

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    At Sundance, a Glorious Diversity of Voices Breaks Through

    PARK CITY, Utah — A runaway bride, wildly rambunctious women and two quietly resolute girls — the Sundance Film Festival is one movie celebration where the so-called second sex consistently comes out on top. Now in its 36th year, the festival has long made room for female filmmakers even when there weren’t all that many. In 1985, its inaugural year, it presented 85 movies, 10 from female directors, about half non-Americans like Lina Wertmüller, one of the few such filmmakers on anyone’s radar back then. Of this year’s 128 features, nearly half are from women. (The festival ends Sunday.)These numbers are impressive; the movies even more so. At some events, female filmmakers sometimes seem to have been invited simply to check a box, a practice that, however well-intentioned, inevitably suggests that women are second-class talent. This year’s Sundance, by contrast, underscores that when women receive real opportunities — serious money and institutional support — the pool of work expands, bringing new stories, styles and worldviews. For the 2020 edition, you didn’t need to dig to find female talent, make excuses for substandard work or politely yawn through another worthy endeavor. It was right on the screen, blissful and unbound.In the case of the very different documentaries “Time” and “Saudi Runaway,” the desire to make movies isn’t simply about having a say — getting the chance to pick up a camera and share your vision with the world freely — it is also a matter of life itself. Each documentary centers on an extraordinarily gutsy woman who put her everyday existence on camera, detailing her days and nights in intimate, pointillist detail much like a diarist. Each woman subsequently handed over what she had shot to a female director, who then shaped the material, turning self-expression into collective vision.One of the most critically admired titles at the festival, Garrett Bradley’s “Time” tells the story of Fox Rich, a Louisiana activist, family woman extraordinaire and impressively dedicated memoirist. (The movie is a coproduction of The New York Times.) Processed in black-and-white, it tracks Rich over her decade-plus efforts to support her six sons and find her sense of a whole self all while advocating for the release of her husband from a punishing 60-year prison sentence. Using both original material and a trove of vivid home videos that Rich shot herself, Bradley creates a portrait of a woman that exponentially expands into a complex chronicle of a marriage, a family, a community and finally a country.“Saudi Runaway” is a starkly complementary story of incarceration, liberation and self-determination. Directed by the Swiss-German filmmaker Susanne Regina Meures, “Runaway” is the nail-biting chronicle of a fearless young Saudi — known only as Muna — as she covertly plans to leave the country for good. Using a couple of smartphones, Muna clandestinely serves as her own dauntless cinematographer, shooting herself, her family and, in fugitive glimpses, the larger world. It’s a perilous activity given women’s traditionally subordinate status there, and transforms selfie-style narcissism into radical resistance. (The movie was shot before new rights were granted to women.) As her plans solidify, “Saudi Runaway” progressively resembles a thriller, one filled with harrowingly close calls and an exhilarating countdown.The increased presence of women behind the camera at Sundance marks a crucial shift, given that not long ago the more celebrated women at the event were performers like Parker Posey and Lili Taylor (here playing a mom in the clichéd “The Evening Hour”). For years, women’s roles at this festival seemed best symbolized by the “Sundance It Girl,” a dubious honor that stretches at least back to Andie MacDowell, a star of “sex, lies, and videotape.” That’s the 1989 Steven Soderbergh game-changer that helped kick-start an era in indie cinema, one that often proved as sexist as Hollywood and just as blindingly white.The number of African-American female filmmakers in this year’s lineup offered further evidence of what seems to be a significant, perhaps lasting sea change. A perfect example, and a highlight of the U.S. dramatic competition, “The 40-Year-Old Version” hasn’t secured distribution but deserves the widest release possible. Written and directed by the playwright Radha Blank — who also stars — it traces the rebirth of an artist with lacerating insight, a great deal of warmth and terrific comic timing. It was shot in black-and-white, a visual choice that nods to iconic New York films, most instructively from Woody Allen and Spike Lee. Here, Blank makes the city and its promise her own from the first scene to a last expressive burst of rapturous color.The colors pop bright and hard in “Zola,” a kaleidoscopically hued, periodically discomforting, comically ribald adventure from Janicza Bravo (“Lemon”). Narrated by the title character (played by the game newcomer Taylour Paige), the story unwinds in extended flashback, with Zola detailing an improbable, ridiculous, often funny and sometimes dangerous adventure involving another woman, Jessica (the reliably bold Riley Keough), a stripper with execrable judgment. Bravo skims the surface with impressive control and a great deal of visual wit and, every so often — as with a shot of a Confederate flag — gestures toward deeper, unrealized ideas. (The movie is based on an epic, rather more grim Twitter thread.)A different odyssey is undertaken in Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which tracks a teenager, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), who travels to New York City to obtain an abortion. With unforced realism, a minimum of music, spare dialogue and no histrionics, Hittman nicely sketches in Autumn’s home life — her mom dresses the kids and the dad both — but mostly concentrates on Autumn and her relationship with the cousin (Talia Ryder) who accompanies her. By refusing to grandstand, Hittman, who wrote and directed, has made the most moving, cleareyed American fiction movie about a woman’s right to abortion since “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982).Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s much-publicized documentary “On the Record” looks at several women — notably Drew Dixon, a music executive — who have accused the music giant Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct (allegations he denies). Much of the movie includes interviews, including with writers like Joan Morgan, who puts the personal into larger context. The women on camera make their case strongly; they also legitimize the documentary, which had come to the festival tainted by criticism from Oprah Winfrey, a former executive producer, who cut ties to it, citing creative differences. The filmmakers make some unfortunate choices, particularly in some staged scenes, but the movie belongs to these women, whose truth feels unassailable.Time and again at the festival, you saw real diversity in both the snowy streets and in the theaters, where the American experience in all its complexity was being told and retold in movie after movie. Proof of that came in two of my favorite selections from the 2020 edition, the dramas “Minari” and “Farewell Amor.” To a degree, we have seen these stories before or at least think that we have: each turns on a hardworking family of ostensible outsiders trying to find their place in a not always welcoming country.In “Minari” (written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung), the family is Korean-American and moves from California to Arkansas to pursue the father’s dream of farming vegetables. In “Farewell Amor” (from the writer-director Ekwa Msangi), an Angolan refugee brings his wife and daughter to America after a long, anguished separation, moving them into a crowded Brooklyn apartment. Each movie solicits well-earned tears and turns on a profound crisis that can only be solved when the family pulls together, unity that works as a welcome and, in its underlying optimism, deeply moving metaphor for life in what too often feels like the Disunited States of America. More

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    Helen Mirren Calls Out BAFTA Over All-White Nominations

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    The ‘Berlin, I Love You’ star urges people to demand change in the British awards show following the lack of nomination to non-white stars for this year’s ceremony.
    Jan 31, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Dame Helen Mirren has called on British film and TV fans to demand more from BAFTA Awards voters, after they failed to hand a single acting nomination to non-white stars.
    The Oscar winner is also irked that no women are represented in the directing category at the prizegiving, which will be staged at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday, February 2.
    “People should be impatient,” she told the Mail Online, “and they should keep demanding change. It will come, incrementally, but it will only come if people demand it. And keep demanding it.”
    “Put your banner up for more roles for women, more roles for black women, especially, and more women directors. Keep demanding change. It’s good to be impatient.”
    But she doesn’t want to see tokenism at awards shows, adding, “I don’t think any director or actor would want to be nominated because of the colour of their skin, or because of their gender. It’s about the work, and there should be more of it.”

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    The Main Theme of ‘1917’? The Innocence That War Destroys

    You’re reading this week’s At War newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. Email us at atwar@nytimes.com.After watching the new movie “1917” this month, I was reminded of a poem written by Siegfried Sassoon in the summer of 1918, or just over a year after Sam Mendes’s critically acclaimed World War I film takes place. It is titled “The Dug-out.”Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,Deep-shadowed from the candle’s guttering gold;And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head…You are too young to fall asleep for ever;And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.“1917,” a two-hour movie about two young British soldiers trying to stop one battalion’s morning attack on the Western Front, is undoubtedly an incredibly shot war film. But tucked into its cinematics is a portrayal of an innocence that was so readily destroyed in those four years. World War I quickly introduced the horrors of modern artillery barrages, unwavering machine gun fire and wholesale slaughter to a generation that never truly recovered.Mendes starts his film with both characters asleep in a grassy field, only to be woken up by their sergeant to go report in to their division commander. In strange ways, the scene foreshadows the fate of both characters, Lance Corporal Blake and Lance Corporal Schofield, respectively played by Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay. From that moment forward, the viewer follows the two soldiers on their journey into the war in what is intended to feel like a single camera shot.Where “The Dug-out” and “1917” unquestionably intersect is on their subjects’ youth. Blake and Schofield are barely in their 20s. And their actions throughout the film portray them in many ways more as children than as soldiers. With such little dialogue, their ages are what ultimately adds to the movie’s heft. It’s through their perspectives that the audience experiences the war. Sasson’s poem accomplishes much the same thing.And so I guess I couldn’t help thinking of Sassoon’s poem as I watched the movie and of my own memories — of how young we all were in my own war and of my friends who were spread out, quietly sleeping in an Afghan compound or on the outskirts of some poppy field. Separated from the violence of war until one kick or shake soon followed, waking them and reminding them of where they were and what lay ahead.The Latest Stories From At WarBehind the Numbers: 4That’s the number of Soviet spies known to have infiltrated the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico, where the world’s first atom bomb was built. The identities of three of those spies were previously known to the public, but that of the fourth, Oscar Seborer, was revealed recently when the laboratory declassified a trove of internal documents. Seborer, whose code name was “Godsend,” was suspected to have had a granular understanding of the bomb’s inner workings, which most likely contributed to the Soviet Union’s ability to quickly detonate its own bomb in 1949, four years after the Americans. Seborer helped devise the bomb’s explosive trigger, an innovation that was part and parcel of the 20th-century trend toward weapon miniaturization. Even more, he was employed by the unit that worked on developing an “implosion” bomb, a more destructive and sophisticated iteration of the device that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Declassified Russian archives show, among other revelations, schematic diagrams of the implosion bomb, which the nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein described as “betraying their obvious roots in espionage.” Read the full Times report here.— Jake Nevins, Times Magazine editorial fellowEditor’s PicksHere are six articles from The Times you might have missed.“The example we set has global ramifications.” The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that it is preparing to change its current restrictions on the military’s use of anti-personnel land mines, and the new policy is expected to allow the use of these weapons in more areas of potential conflict. [Read the story.]“All I have are these tears to pour over the past.” Organizers of a ceremony at Auschwitz sought to put a spotlight on the stories of survivors, as this may be the last time that such a large number will be able to gather in one place. [Read the story.]“I heard they had headaches.” The Defense Department said on Thursday that 64 troops had sustained traumatic brain injuries after the Iranian ballistic missile strikes on Ayn Al Asad Air Base in Iraq this month, up 14 from an earlier announcement this week. [Read the story.]“I will cut your son’s throat.” In a hearing at Guantánamo Bay, an architect of the C.I.A. interrogation program testified in a pretrial hearing focused on the torture of the defendants during their years of C.I.A. captivity. [Read the story.]“Any drawdown of our troops would be shortsighted.” American officials, analyzing what they call great power competition, say they are alarmed by Russia’s growing influence in Africa, as well as China’s, as Washington struggles to exert its economic and security goals on the continent. [Read the story.]“The ultimate expression of competence.” America’s special operations forces have developed a problematic culture that overemphasizes combat “to the detriment of leadership, discipline and accountability,” according to a sweeping review conducted by the military’s Special Operations Command. [Read the story.]We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to atwar@nytimes.com. Or invite someone to subscribe through this link.Read more from At War here or follow us on Twitter. More

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    Martin Scorsese Finds Tension in Glances in ‘The Irishman’

    In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series each Friday. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.“If they can whack a president, they can whack a president of a union.”That line, delivered by the mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) is both the text and the subtext of a key scene from the Netflix movie “The Irishman,” nominated for 10 Academy Awards. The sequence takes place at a ceremony for Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), the right-hand man to the Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). But the occasion is really more of a celebration for Hoffa — although some of the “higher-ups” aren’t happy with the way Hoffa has been running the union and are eager to send him the message, through Frank: “It’s what it is.”In narration, the director Martin Scorsese explains that what he found important in the scene was not so much the dialogue as the looks, glances, silences and pauses. The dialogue only becomes significant in the heart-to-heart that Russell has with Frank near the end of the sequence. Scorsese says the looks that stand out are those of some of those unhappy mobsters, as observed by Frank’s daughter Peggy (Anna Paquin) while she’s dancing with Hoffa. She understands the gravity of the situation in that moment, even if the union leader does not.Read the “Irishman” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    ‘The Irishman’ | Anatomy of a Scene

    “I’m Martin Scorsese. And I made the movie, ‘The Irishman.’” “It is an honor for me to be here tonight to present this award to my dear friend, Mr. Frank Sheeran.” “We’re talking about a sequence that takes place in the Latin Casino. You have this wonderful reception for Frank Sheeran, who, really, it’s a highlight of his life. All the representatives of the power structure of that part of the country are there to celebrate him, supposedly. And it really is obviously— it’s for the union, it’s for Hoffa, and it’s to support Hoffa over Tony Provenzano. And it’s to show his support for Jimmy, and Jimmy’s support for Frank.” [APPLAUSE] “The highlight of my life. Thank you very— very, very much. And this man, James Riddle Hoffa, is the guy that gets the job done.” “Underlying all that, you have the darker elements, which are the men who are in real control of the situation.” “Any case, from the deepest part of my heart, I thank you all. Because I don’t really deserve all this. But I have bursitis, and I don’t deserve that, either.” “The structure of the scene is all about the looks. The dialogue doesn’t matter until you have this extraordinary moment, I think, between Russell and Frank, where Russell gives Frank this special ring that only three people have. And so for me, the playing of the scene had to be weaving all the sense of a celebration, so to speak, or family gathering, weaving all that around these beats, all strung together by the music: Jerry Vale.” ”(SINGING) Please—” “It has a very melodramatic tragedy to it. You know, a sweetness and a sadness at the same time.” ”(SINGING) Say you and your Spanish eyes—” “It’s like you go to an event, and there are factions. There are factions. And one faction may be polite, but they’re not going to be smiling too much. But they’re there. During that time, certain things are said. Looks are given, which are harder than words. But the main look’s Anna Paquin. A whole sequence revolves around Anna’s— Peggy, that is— picking up of the subtext of what’s going on. There is trouble happening. There are problems. And she knows— I mean, particularly even Anna Paquin said, when she did the dancing shot, and she looks over, and she’s says, I never saw looks like that from people. She said it chilled her as a person.” “Only three people in the world have one of these, and only one of them is Irish. I have one, Angelo has one, and now you have one.” “So really it’s about the balancing and the editing of the frames, which encompass medium shots— hardly any close-ups. Usually medium to medium close-up, like right below the shoulders up. That entails seeing a little more of the body language rather than giant close-ups. The reason for that is the atmosphere and the environment around them has to be present in the frame, because that affects them. And there you see them in that environment and that atmosphere. If it’s too close, I think you objectify it in a way. You push the audience away. But one of the hardest things to do was to get them in the frame in the wide shot, looking down, as Jerry Vale is singing in the background. They’re like the gods overlooking this world that they created in a way. There’s one shot— from their point of view, with a long lens— of Jimmy walking around and suddenly saying hello to Angelo Russo, played by Harvey Keitel. The reason is a personal reason. And that was that Harvey Keitel and Al Pacino were never in the same frame together in any movie.” “Things have gotten that with our friend again. And some people are having serious problems with him. And it’s at a point where you’re going to have to talk to him and tell him it’s what it is.” “Once I settled on the size of the frame and the size of the people in the frame, I know that, then, it was really myself and my editor, Thelma, in the editing room, playing with the dialogue and playing with the looks and the pauses— the pauses and the silences.” “These are the higher-ups.” “Well, he’s a higher-up, too. I mean, there’s no one—” “Not like this. You know that. Oh, come on, Frank. If they can whack a president, they can whack a president of the union. You know it, and I know it.” More