It’s one season and out for Fox’s 2015-2016 batch of half-hour new comedies. The network has decided not to bring back The Grinder, Grandfathered, Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life, or the animated comedy Bordertown for second seasons. While Cooper Barrett and Bordertown‘s cancellations were sure bets, there was actually reason to hope Fox would stick with The Grinder and Grandfathered for another season. Both comedies starred long-time fan favorites – Rob Lowe on The Grinder and John Stamos on Grandfathered – and both shows debuted to decent although not outstanding numbers. But as the first season went on, neither show grew its audience despite Stamos and Lowe continuously plugging their shows on talk shows and via other outlets (and despite The Grinder being one of their better comedies to appear in years).
Grandfathered‘s ratings for season one showed the comedy featuring Stamos as a playboy who discovers he’s actually a grandfather was averaging in the 4 million range. The Grinder was only managing 3.4 million viewers on average. Still, The Grinder‘s numbers were better than either Bordertown and Cooper Barrett’s. Seth MacFarlane’s animated Bordertown never found an audience, kicking off quietly and never gaining any traction. Cooper Barrett‘s numbers were a ratings disaster and no one expected the series to earn a season two renewal.
#TheGrinder was not renewed by @FOXTV It was unapologetically original, smart, funny and had a murder's row of talent. #GrinderRests.
CBS Films has just released the official trailer and poster for the dramatic thriller Hell or High Water starring Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham, and Ben Foster. Set in West Texas, the action drama comes from Young Adam‘s David MacKenzie and was written by Sicario‘s Taylor Sheridan. Gigi Pritzker, Bill Lischak, Michael Nathanson, Rachel Shane, John Penotti and Bruce Toll executive produced, with Sidney Kimmel, Peter Berg, Carla Hacken and Julie Yorn produced. Hell or High Water opens in limited release on August 12, 2016 followed by a wide release on August 19th.
The Plot: A story about the collision of the Old and New West, two brothers — Toby (Chris Pine), a straight-living, divorced father trying to make a better life for his son; and Tanner (Ben Foster), a short-tempered ex-con with a loose trigger finger — come together to rob branch after branch of the bank that is foreclosing on their family land. The hold-ups are part of a last-ditch scheme to take back a future that powerful forces beyond their control have stolen from under their feet. Vengeance seems to be theirs until they find themselves in the crosshairs of a relentless, foul-mouthed Texas Ranger (Jeff Bridges) looking for one last triumph on the eve of his retirement. As the brothers plot a final bank heist to complete their plan, a showdown looms at the crossroads where the last honest law man and a pair of brothers with nothing to live for except family collide.
Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale in Whit Stillman’s ‘Love & Friendship’ (Photo credit: Ross McDonnell, Courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions)
With an unbroken cadence and an impish smirk, Kate Beckinsale brings the house down in Whit Stillman’s characteristically verbose and wickedly funny Love & Friendship, based on Jane Austen’s posthumously titled epistolary novella Lady Susan. Teaming for the first time since 1998’s The Last Days of Disco, Beckinsale (who stars as the Lady of the original title) and Stillman pay the oft-adapted author homage by both honoring the source material and building upon its virtues. It’s a razor-sharp comedy of manners that balances the glistening opulence of Austen’s 18th-century milieu with the stinging, postmodern wit of Stillman, who eschews the epistolary style and re-shapes the story into a swirling series of urbane tête-á-tétes that fits snugly into both he and Austen’s respective oeuvres.
Beckinsale’s Lady Susan Vernon is an unstoppable force of sophisticated, duplicitous scheming, exercising her gift for charming the opposite sex into submission whenever the opportunity arises. Women are naturally threatened by Susan’s mannered magnetism, none more than Susan’s sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell), who’s put on alert when Susan announces she’s paying an extended visit to she and her husband, Charles (Justin Edwards), at Churchill, their gorgeous, sprawling estate.
Almost immediately, Susan spots her target, Catherine’s handsome, inordinately wealthy younger brother, Reginald De Courcy (Xavier Samuel). Like butter, the eligible scion melts in Susan’s gloved hands. All seems to be going to plan until her teenage daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), runs away from school and pops up at Churchill, complicating her carefully-laid plans. Unexpectedly, Frederica emerges as a rival for Reginald’s affection. While gossiping with her similarly devious, American best friend, Alicia (a charmingly helter-skelter Chloë Sevigny), Susan devises a plan to eliminate Frederica from the field by pairing her with a peripheral suitor, the imbecilic Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett, a scene-stealer).
While many of Austen’s original lines remain intact, Stillman adds plenty of his own, mostly to reframe the story so that it’s stageable and shootable (the novella was told in a series of letters between the characters, who lived miles apart). Perhaps the most miraculous thing about this particular Austen adaptation is that it’s difficult to distinguish the old lines from the new ones; every bit of dialogue is sharp, funny, and gels with the rest of the script, which is a testament to Stillman’s pen. His style seeps in elsewhere as well, like when he introduces the dramatis personae one by one, each paired with a tongue-in-cheek title card as they stay unblinkingly, earnestly in character.
One couldn’t ask for a better reciter of said dialogue than Beckinsale, who has both the unwavering poise and disarming good looks to embody an aristocratic worldbeater the likes of Lady Susan. The seasoned English actress plays every scene straight as an arrow, which of course makes everything funnier: When Susan arrives at Churchill with an unpaid servant in tow, she insists that, “As there’s a friendship involved, I’m sure the paying of wages would be offensive to us both.” A sly devil she is.
The elegance of the period set design and costuming is almost enrapturing in its presentation, with Stillman clearly relishing in the succulent details of every nook and cranny of Churchill and its inhabitants’ fine, billowy dress. The lilting score reinforces the ornate aesthetics, creating a rock-solid period presentation that allows Stillman’s postmodernist social satire to pop like pink on gold. The material doesn’t have the grand dramatic swells of Austen’s later work (Lady Susan was written pre-Pride & Prejudice), but it nevertheless beats out almost every other adaptation of its ilk. Austen fans and Stillman devotees alike are sure to rejoice at what is so far one of the best, most idiosyncratic comedies of the year.
Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog in ‘The Muppets’ episode one (Photo by Michael Desmond / ABC)
Four dramatic series and one comedy will be coming off of ABC’s primetime lineup. The network’s cancelled The Muppets and The Family after their first seasons failed to earn ratings gold. The end of The Muppets doesn’t come as much as a shock given the fact the ratings took a steep downward tumble following decent premiere numbers. ABC also announced Agent Carter starring Hayley Atwell is coming to an end after two seasons of so-so ratings that actually decreased from season one to season two.
ABC has also ended the run of Nashville, a music-driven drama that earned critical acclaim and had a passionate fan base. The series will finish up with the season four finale on May 25th.
The end of Castle was probably the biggest shocker among the just-revealed cancellations, and the series will now end with the season eight finale airing May 16th. The dramatic series starring Nathan Fillion recently caused an uproar among fans after Fillion’s co-star Stana Katic was let go. However, it appeared ABC was trying to keep the series around after word leaked the network was looking to sign Fillion, Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas for a ninth season. Something behind the scenes must have tilted the scales in favor of a cancellation rather than new deals.
Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings, Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings, Holly Taylor as Paige Jennings, and Keidrich Sellati as Henry Jennings in ‘The Americans’ (Photo Copyright 2016, FX Networks)
“The Day After,” the title of episode nine of season four of The Americans, refers to a television movie of the same name broadcast in 1983 about a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. A series of crosscuts shows the undercover Russians, Oleg, Tatiana, Arkady, William, as well as Elizabeth and Philip, watching the broadcast of a fictional nuclear Armageddon just as intently as a large American audience did at the time. The high stakes of the work that they do is made clear as the camera pulls back from a few dying survivors in the final scene of the movie as a disembodied voice asks, “Is anybody out there, anybody at all?”
When a concerned Paige (Holly Taylor) tells her father the next morning that the movie seemed “pretty real,” he tells her “that’s why we do what we do, to keep it from happening.” Just as Philip (Matthew Rhys) has been teaching his daughter how to drive, he is teaching Paige that her parents’ mission as Russian spies is necessary and morally right. If Elizabeth’s heavy-handed treatment of Paige in the last episode created resentment, perhaps Philip’s subtler campaign based on a father’s love and patience can win Paige to the cause. Indeed, Paige says she hopes that “we are all together” if a scenario like that in The Day After happens, and it is Paige herself, not her parents, who suggests that they attend a get-together for Pastor Tim before he leaves for Ethiopia. When Pastor Tim (Kelly AuCoin) expresses his concern about Paige’s state of mind and desire to meet with the family when he returns, “Just to see where we’re all at,” Philip is clearly alarmed.
While Philip provides reassurance to Paige, William (Dylan Baker) and Oleg (Costa Ronin) are not so confident in the Soviet Union’s ability to avoid a nuclear war. In a meeting with Philip that he keeps secret from Gabriel and the Center, William shares his misgivings about obtaining a potent strain of Lassa virus that he would have access to with Level 4 clearance. “Nobody needs it,” and “I don’t trust us with it,” William confides to Philip. He is not convinced that the Russians could keep the deadly pathogen contained, and given the debacle with the Glanders bacteria, this is not an unreasonable concern.
Meanwhile, Oleg shares his misgivings about Soviet competence with his co-worker and lover, Tatiana (Vera Cherny). He shares that a near nuclear mishap occurred when radar information was misinterpreted as US missiles headed toward the Soviet Union. If a decision by a duty officer had not been made to put a counter strike on hold, a nuclear confrontation would have ensued. Oleg laments the fact that Russians lack appropriate advanced technology to avoid future mistakes and wonders what he would have done in the duty officer’s place.
When Philip suggests to Elizabeth (Keri Russell) that they not report to Gabriel and the Center about the possibility of obtaining the Lassa virus, Elizabeth convinces him that they must by reminding him that the Americans dropped the atomic bomb, not once, but twice. While not explicitly stated, it is clear that Elizabeth has befriended Young Hee (Ruthie Ann Miles) in order to get close enough to her husband, Don, in order to somehow arrange William’s access to Level 4.
Knowing that Elizabeth does actually enjoy Young Hee’s company, Philip proposes that they try another plan rather than doing something that will destroy the women’s relationship. Nonetheless, Elizabeth proceeds with a babysitting ruse to gain access to Young Hee’s home. When a search of the home provides no useful information she undertakes a scheme to get Don in a compromising position after drugging his wine. When he comes to, he is in bed with Elizabeth; clearly embarrassed, he apologizes and rushes out. The usually resolute Elizabeth looks miserable after he departs and later tearfully tells Philip that she will miss Young Hee.
A24 and DirecTV have released the official trailer and poster for the dramatic film Into the Forest. The film is set in a world in which the power has gone out across the continent. Into the Forest is based on the book by Jean Hegland who co-wrote the script with director Patricia Rozema. The cast includes Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella, Callum Keith Rennie, Michael Eklund and Wendy Crewson. Into the Forest is set to premiere on DirecTV on June 23, 2016 and open in theaters on July 29th.
The Plot: Set in the near future, this riveting and suspenseful apocalyptic drama follows two sisters, Nell (Ellen Page) and Eva (Evan Rachel Wood) who live in the Pacific Northwest with their kindly father, Robert. Nell is focused on her studies and Eva is training to be a dancer, but their peaceful lives are disrupted one day by what turns out to be a continent-wide blackout. Whereas at first the family bond together and try to make the most of their difficult circumstances, as time gone on, the challenges become more serious. In the wake of a shocking and violent confrontation that Robert has with a menacing passerby, the sisters must work together in order to survive in their increasingly treacherous new world.
The half-hour comedy series Life in Pieces has been renewed for a second season. CBS officially confirmed the half-hour single-camera comedy will be back for another season after averaging 10.5 million viewers over its first season run. Created and executive produced by Justin Adler, the cast includes Dianne Wiest, James Brolin, Zoe Lister-Jones, Colin Hanks, Angelique Cabral, Thomas Sadoski, Betsy Brandt, Dan Bakkedahl, Niall Cunningham, Holly J. Barrett and Giselle Eisenberg.
Life in Pieces snagged the top spot as the #1 new comedy series of the 2015-2016 season, which should have made the renewal decision an easy one for CBS.
The Plot:Life in Pieces is a single-camera comedy about one big happy family and their sometimes awkward, often hilarious and ultimately beautiful milestone moments as told by its various members. Of the three siblings, middle child Matt may have just found his true love, his co-worker, Colleen; his coddled youngest brother, Greg, and his wife, Jen, are overwhelmed by the birth of their first child; and the eldest, Heather, and her husband, Tim, are dreading their impending empty nest so much, they’re considering having another baby. Their parents are Joan, the family’s adoring matriarch who would do anything for her kids – as long as she agrees with it – and John, the gregarious patriarch who’s searching for ways to soften the blow of turning 70. As the family’s lives unfold in four short stories each week, they try to savor these little pieces of time that flash by but stay with you forever, because these moments add up to what life’s all about.
NBC announced future The Voice coach Alicia Keys and OneRepublic will perform on the May 17, 2016 episode of The Voice. Keys will perform her new single “In Common” just released on May 4th and OneRepublic will perform “Wherever I Go,” the first single off of the band’s upcoming fourth album. Keys and Miley Cyrus will be joining Blake Shelton and Adam Levine as coaches on the 11th season of The Voice, marking the first time the show’s had two female coaches at the same time. Keys has been involved with The Voice as a mentor, helping Pharrell Williams coach his team of talented singers back in season seven.
The 15-time Grammy Award winner has had five studio albums – songs in A minor, The Diary of Alicia Keys, As I Am, The Element of Freedom, and Girl on Fire – hit the #1 on the Billboard R&B charts. Among the numerous honors Keys has received are 11 Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, and BET Awards’ Humanitarian Award for her charitable work.
OneRepublic released Dreaming Out Loud in 2007, picking up a Grammy nomination for their first album. Album number two, Waking Up, spawned the hit singles “All the Right Moves,” “Secrets,” and “Good Life.” That was followed by their third album Native in 2013 which earned the #4 spot on the Billboard Top 200 chart upon its release.
It’s finally here! The trailer for Assassin’s Creed is finally online for fans of the video game and/or Michael Fassbender to check out. Based on the popular Ubisoft video game, the action adventure film is directed by Justin Kurzel and produced by Fassbender, Jean-Julien Baronnet, Gérard Guillemot, Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley, Conor McCaughan, and Arnon Milchan. The cast also includes Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, and Michael K. Williams. 20th Century Fox and New Regency will open Assassin’s Creed in theaters on December 21, 2016.
Fassbender, Cotillard, and director Kurzel previously worked together on Macbeth.
The Plot: Through a revolutionary technology that unlocks his genetic memories, Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) experiences the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. Callum discovers he is descended from a mysterious secret society, the Assassins, and amasses incredible knowledge and skills to take on the oppressive and powerful Templar organization in the present day.
The biggest hits from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s will be featured in the new music series, Greatest Hits, as just announced by ABC. The one-hour show will be hosted by Arsenio Hall (The Arsenio Hall Show, Martial Law) and Kelsea Ballerini. Country singer Ballerini is the first solo female Country artist in 15 years to make it to the top of the charts with her first two Country singles, according to ABC. “Love Me Like You Mean It” and “Dibs” each achieved Gold status and “Peter Pan,” her third single off of her first album, is currently getting airplay on Country stations.
Per ABC, each episode of the new music-driven series will focus on a five year time period. “Each week, iconic music artists, as well as today’s music chart-toppers, will take the stage and perform the songs that defined the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.” Greatest Hits will include solo performances and brand new duets as well as tributes. The series will premiere on June 30, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT.
Ken Ehrlich, James McKinlay and Raj Kapoor are on board as executive producers. Greatest Hits will be directed by Leon Knoles who also directed The Arsenio Hall Show in 2013 and 2014.
