Movie Review: Billie Eilish and James Cameron make concert movie magic with ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’

NEW YORK (AP) — Billie Eilish is levitating. Or so it seems. When the pop star first emerges on screen in the mouthful “Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D),” she is suspended above a cube built of LED screens, surrounded by a sold-out crowd of over 23,000 fans in the center of the U.K.'s largest arena — Manchester's Co-op Live. She launches into the midtempo “Chihiro,” a house experiment from her latest album, and the 3D magic begins. In the contemporary pop music landscape, Eilish is a rulebreaker — and so is this work.

The new concert film, co-directed by Eilish and three-time Academy Award winner James Cameron, was his idea. Cameron emailed Eilish's mother, Maggie Baird — a friend of his wife via their shared interest in plant-based diets and environmentalism — and suggested they shoot Eilish's “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour in 3D.

It is new territory for Cameron, in some ways, and old hat in others. His production company has done a number of concert films, including one with Eilish's musical hero Justin Bieber, but Cameron hasn't sat in the director's chair of a project like this one. A 3D concert film also brings up a number of technical challenges — a passion of Cameron's, as anyone who has seen the blockbuster “Avatar” franchise could attest to — and as a fellow outlier of industry, the pairing succeeds.

Eilish, too, is no stranger to film: She's the subject of the 2021 documentary, “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry,” and a concert film released that same year, “Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles.” This, however, is her first time co-directing a feature. And where “The World's a Little Blurry” served as a composite of her come-up and various successes, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is dedicated to the concert film format while pushing its boundaries.

Winning filmmaker Sidney Phommarath honoured for her work

After screening her latest documentary at last weekend’s FascinAsian Film Festival, Winnipeg’s Sidney Phommarath has received the Erin Hembrador Emerging Filmmaker Award.

Hembrador, who died in 2022 at 33, was a rising star in the local and national film scene, earning a pair of best-of-fest honours at FascinAsian for her short films Mansanas and Container, the latter of which was co-directed with Winnipeg’s Quan Luong.

Phommarath, a Laotian-Canadian filmmaker, is the fourth recipient of the award, presented and funded by Hembrador’s family, the Winnipeg Film Group and Frank Digital, where Hembrador worked starting in 2019.

A film graduate of the University of Winnipeg who specializes in human rights narratives, Phommarath’s latest documentary is Dear Nya, which showcases her visit to her ancestral homeland of Laos.

Human stories the beating heart of Jewish Film Festival

The 25th edition of the Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival began last night at the Berney Theatre with a sold-out screening of Fantasy Life, a movie about a nervous manny who falls for his psychiatrist’s daughter-in-law while caring for her three daughters.

The opening-night screening is one example of the kaleidoscopic potential offered by the entry point of global Jewish cinema, a subgenre that at its best manages to be both highly specific and broadly universal, just like any other religious, ethnic or cultural filmography.

“Even though the films we show come through a Jewish lens or from a Jewish angle, at their very base, they’re always human stories,” says film festival producer Karen Burshtein, who selected the films for the annual event, which runs to May 23 at the Asper Jewish Community Campus.

“Everyone — regardless of background — can connect to these stories, which are about everything from the immigrant experience to the plight of the dispossessed to a family’s experience with divorce.”

Movie Review: In ‘The Sheep Detectives,’ the private eyes have wool over their eyes

Maybe out of fear of putting filmgoers to sleep, the sheep has not been much of a mainstay at the movies.

There’s Charles Burnett’s lyrical classic “Killer of Sheep.” You could get creative and cite Chris Farley’s “Black Sheep.” But, really, this is the domain of “Shaun the Sheep,” the uber-charming Aardman Animation about the wordless but wise guardian of Mossy Bottom Farm.

Joining this small flock of films now is “The Sheep Detectives,” which, like “Shaun the Sheep,” takes place in the verdant English countryside and concerns barnyard animals with higher-than-usual IQs. Every night, shepherd George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) reads murder mysteries as bedtime stories for his hillside of grass grazers. They listen intently and bleat the bad guys. Only while talking amongst themselves afterward do they reveal their hidden powers of deduction.

So when George turns up dead, the sheep are on the case. Led by the particularly keen Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), they prove remarkably adept private eyes despite the wool over their eyes.

‘The Sheep Detectives’ is the starry, family-friendly whodunit you didn’t know you needed

Talking animal movies do not, on the whole, have the best reputation. Yes, there is “Babe,” but “Babe” is the exception. Most are pretty bad, whether it’s the uncanny effects, the shoddy storytelling or some horrifying combination of the two.

Audiences have earned the right to be skeptical when something like “The Sheep Detectives” comes along — everyone involved was too. And yet this family-friendly “Knives Out” with a murder mystery at the center, a starry ensemble including Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson and Nicholas Braun, as well as the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall and Patrick Stewart as yes, talking sheep, has caught more than a few off guard for its quirky humor, its sincerity and its unexpected depth.

Chris O’Dowd, who voices Mopple, “the most patient sheep,” noted: “You don’t get a lot of projects that are from the director of ‘Minions’ and the writer of ‘Chernobyl.’ It’s an unusual combination.”

In the film, in theaters Friday, Jackman plays George, a kind, but isolated shepherd in the English countryside who reads his animals murder mysteries at night. Unbeknownst to him, not only do they understand the words, they debate the stories among themselves. So when George dies under mysterious circumstances, the flock take what they've learned to try to help the dimwitted local police officer (Braun) solve the case, language barriers and all.

‘Bon Cop, Bad Cop’ TV reboot is here sans Colm Feore, with Henry Czerny stepping into the role

"Bon Cop Bad Cop" creator Patrick Huard knows fans of the film have had a passion for the franchise ever since it came out in 2006. So he can understand the skepticism around the recasting of one half of the dynamic duo.

Colm Feore is not returning for the Crave TV series launching this week due to his commitment to Taylor Sheridan's "Landman," which made him unavailable, said his manager.

But Huard says the show has maintained the fun, volatile relationship of the main characters with Henry Czerny stepping into the role of Detective Martin Ward.

"A lot of people who saw the first episode told me, you know what, after 60 seconds I was with this guy. Like, they knew him forever and discovering a new one at the same time," Huard said during a video interview from Montreal.

Matthew Perry’s ‘Friends’ keepsakes and artwork go up for auction for foundation named for him

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Friends” memorabilia, artwork and other valuables from the estate of Matthew Perry are being put up for sale at an auction to benefit the charitable foundation established in the actor's name soon after his 2023 death.

The June 5 event put on by Heritage Auctions will benefit the Matthew Perry Foundation, which works to destigmatize addiction and aid in recovery from substance abuse.

“Matthew believed addiction should be met with compassion and science, not stigma and silence,” the foundation’s CEO Lisa Kasteler Calio said in a statement. “This auction fuels the Foundation’s work to expand access to evidence-based care and confront stigma. It is one more way we ensure that no one has to fight this disease alone.”

Items from Matthew Perry's collection that will be sold

Peaking our interest: Winnipeg International Mountain Film Festival taps into crag craze

There’s something unusual about throwing a mountain film festival in one of the world’s flattest regions.

Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao, Stellan Skarsgård among Cannes Film Festival jurors

Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao and Stellan Skarsgård are among the jurors who will decide the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced Monday.

Just about a week before the 79th Cannes begins May 12, organizers unveiled the nine-member jury that will deliberate on the films in competition at the annual French Riviera festival. As already announced, South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook is president of the jury.

Along with him, Moore, Zhao and Skarsgård, the jurors are: Irish-Ethiopian actor Ruth Negga, Belgian director and screenwriter Laura Wandel, Chilean director and screenwriter Diego Céspedes, Ivorian American actor Isaach De Bankolé and Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty.

Moore and Skarsgård have both in recent years co-starred in films at Cannes that ultimately earned them Oscar nominations. Moore's “The Substance” premiered at the festival in 2024. Last year, “Sentimental Value,” with Skarsgård, launched at Cannes.

Film about Toronto shooting victim ‘Nekai Walks’ wins $50K Hot Docs audience award

TORONTO -  

A documentary that follows a Toronto teenage shooting victim on a gruelling road to recovery has won the top prize at Hot Docs.

Director Rico King's "Nekai Walks" took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary on Sunday night. 

The film follows Nekai Foster, who was caught in the crossfire of a random shooting at age 16 and shot in the head. 

May the 4th (be with you): Why iconic Star Wars films and shows have stuck with fans

CALGARY - Star Wars Day, on May 4th, is a pseudo-holiday for fans like Kel Spoering -- especially when she may be able to thank Star Wars for her existence.

"My father is an incredible Star Wars guy," said Spoering. "He took my mother to the opening of 'A New Hope,' the very first Star Wars, as their first date; and mom somehow still married him," she laughed.

Spoering, now 39, recalled her Star Wars origins from the Calgary Expo Comics and Entertainment show late last month, wearing blue face paint with an elaborate crocheted blue hat that has a pair of forearm-thick tails hanging down her back. It's part of her cosplay -- a term used often to describe the elaborate costumes worn to represent characters from different franchises -- imitating the Star Wars Jedi Aayla Secura.

Her first memory of the iconic science fiction franchise is being in her parents' basement, with her brother, sat on a "horrible" brown, shag carpet of the 80s. 

‘The Devil Wears Prada’ struts to first place with $77 million debut

Twenty years after the original, the sequel to “The Devil Wears Prada” made a splash in its first weekend in theaters. Driven largely by women, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” earned $77 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $156.6 million internationally, according to studio estimates Sunday. It easily topped the box office and bumped “Michael” to second place, though the musical biopic held well in its second weekend, falling only 44%.

The Walt Disney Co.’s 20th Century Studios opened “The Devil Wears Prada 2” in 4,150 locations in North America. Women made up about 76% of the ticket buyers, according to PostTrak exit polls; 74% said they would “definitely recommend” the movie to friends. Critics were a bit mixed on the sequel, which finds Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs working once more for Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly at the fictional “Runway” magazine in a much-depleted media landscape.

The movie cost a reported $100 million to produce — a significant boost from the first movie’s $35 million production budget. But as filmmaker David Frankel told The Associated Press recently, “As it turns out, you know, by the time you finish paying all the biggest movie stars in the world, you still end up with basically the same budget for making the movie as we did the first one.”

Stars Streep, Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci have been on a fashion-forward global publicity blitz for weeks, with glamorous stops in Tokyo, London and New York. Even Anna Wintour, the inspiration for the Prada-clad devil, has been involved this time, appearing with Hathaway on the Oscars stage and with Streep on the cover of “Vogue.”

From ‘Moana’ to ‘Leviticus,’ here are summer movie breakouts you need to know

The new Moana. The 20-year-old wunderkind filmmaker. The multi Tony Award winner. The “Saturday Night Live” comedians. The next generation of Emilys. And the Australians at the heart of one of Sundance’s biggest hits.

There’s more than a few up-and-coming talents to get excited about in the movies this summer. The Associated Press spoke to 11 ones to watch.

Catherine Lagaʻaia, “Moana”

Catherine Lagaʻaia (“lung-uh-aye-uh”) found out she got “Moana” on a school day. It was around 8:15 a.m. and she’d just heard the best news of her life after a very stressful year of auditioning. But the celebration would have to wait: It was swimming carnival day and she was on deck for the 400-meter backstroke.

An Oscar is lost, then found, after director forced to check it on a flight out of JFK

NEW YORK (AP) — After being forced to check his Academy Award on a trans-Atlantic flight, recent winner Pavel Talankin's Oscar went missing before an airline tracked it down two days later.

Talankin, who co-directed the best documentary winner “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” didn't expect to have to check his statuette for a flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday. But a Transportation Security Administration agent said it couldn't go on board.

“At the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon,” Talankin's co-director, David Borenstein, said Thursday night in a post on Instagram.

“Pavel didn’t have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane,” added Borenstein. “It never arrived in Frankfurt.”

Megan Thee Stallion ‘brought so much joy’ to set of Netflix’s ‘Roommates,’ says director Chandler Levack

For Canadian director Chandler Levack, filming her new Netflix movie "Roommates" was filled with surreal moments. From Adam Sandler blasting Run DMC on set, to casting the heirs of Hollywood royalty, plus Megan Thee Stallion flying in for a one-day shoot.

"We knew we needed somebody really awesome for that last cameo," Levack said in an interview last week.

"All of us were like, completely flabbergasted, like, what? Megan Thee Stallion can be doing this? And she flew herself out from Houston."

The "Hot Girl Summer" rapper was top of mind for the casting directors for the character, and when she arrived on the New Jersey set, Levack said she was a "charisma bomb."