Sundance: A Futuristic Parenting Comedy in ‘The Pod Generation’

By Abe Friedtanzer

Just how far are we from being able to manufacture babies without a woman actually having to be pregnant? According to Sophie Barthes, the writer and director of The Pod Generation, she conceived her film as science fiction but it should now be considered closer to documentary, given medical and technological advances that make its events feel not nearly as distant as they once did. The way in which she presents a couple deciding to have a baby leans decidedly towards the humorous, sending up the way society portrays pregnancy, motherhood, attachment, and much more.

In the near future, Rachel (Emilia Clarke) is a successful employee at a major tech company, and learns that, along with a promotion, she’s also eligible for a large subsidy for the Womb Project, which enables parents to grow a baby in a pod...

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You Will Be Linked

The Atlantic drive-in movie theaters are having a moment. Not that there are many of them around. 
Variety Anne Hathaway to star in the adaptation of the memoir French Children Don't Throw Food
The New Yorker "pandemics and the shape of history"
MNPP Dolly Parton will be reading to children every Thursday on YouTube
Variety in the land of stars getting creative during the shelter in place, Emilia Clarke is offering a virtual dinner for charity for coronavirus relief. You get to cook with her and eat with her if you're selected.
/Film Genius: Queen of Soul starring Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin delayed til later this year (in related news Respect starring Jennifer Hudson is moving to 2021. I think we know who loses in an acting cage match between the two, even if they won't be competing at the same awards show.)
Boy Culture the last time various household name artists charted on the top 40
Coming Soon remember the days when Netflix never cancelled any of their shows? Those days are long gone. October Faction and V Wars are both cancelled after their first seasons (though Locke & Key gets to stay for a second round)
Deadline Sony moves all their big ticket 2020 movies to 2021 in one swoop. 
Deadline Oscar-nominated songwriter Adam Schlesinger ("That Thing You Do") of the band Fountains of Wayne in a medically induced coma due to coronavirus

Exit Music
James Corden gathered up Ben Platt and the current touring company of Dear Evan Hansen to sing "You Will Be Found". Lovely song. It starts around 2:30

Review: Last Christmas

by Chris Feil

A sure signal of the coming holiday season at the movies is the arrival of unpretentious lighter fare like Last Christmas. This year’s offering falls in line with the easy charms of such previous entries as The Holiday and Almost Christmas, but also arrives with a somewhat affably strange lump of ingredients. Inspired by the Wham! song and packed with a slew of George Michael songs, the Paul Feig-directed film is co-written by Emma Thompson (with Bryony Kimmings and Greg Wise) and offers up timely context within a classic romcom structure. It’s a sugar high of a movie that remains grounded in some substance, not exactly tidy but satisfyingly more than meets the eye.

Emilia Clarke plays the disillusioned would-be singer and Yugoslavian immigrant Kate, couch-hopping between friends that she quickly burns out with carelessness and working in a Christmas-themed giftshop. She avoids her family, particularly her domineering mother (also played by Thompson), and is increasingly testing the patience of her demanding but doting boss (Michelle Yeoh). Kate’s self-destructiveness comes after a serious illness has left her not with renewed gratitude, but with a diminished sense of self she has internalized into constant misbehavior. But her main challenger in the struggle comes when a charming man on a bike named Tom (Henry Golding) wanders in and out of her life.

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Game of Thrones "The Iron Throne" (S08E06)

For this final season of Game of Thrones, Team Experience members Ben Miller and Eric Blume have been alternating on coverage. Now they're joined up for the final wrap. - Editor

BEN MILLER: Alrighty Eric.  We are at the end of the line.  Before we get to the final episode, are you happy with the final season leading up to the finale has gone?

Personally, I feel it's been pretty fulfilling.  The problems everyone seems to be having are more related to the spectacle and anticipation as a whole.  This might be the last piece of monoculture we have for a while, so everyone has strong opinions about what it should and should not be.  I also believe our culture does not lend itself to objective criticism.  Instead of watching an episode and forming your own opinion, you watch the episode while the rest of the world is simultaneously tweeting about it.  After the episode, you watch the immediate reaction videos and fiery blog posts.  The next day, you laugh or scoff at the thousands of produced memes, read seven reaction articles and reviews, take in another dozen YouTube videos, then you suddenly have an opinion.  I started my personal media blackout until my opinion was formed after episode 2 of this season.

ERIC BLUME: While I agree with your assessment of how movies and TV are now consumed, I think there's a more disturbing trend at hand with this season:  armchair criticism.  Obviously it's cool to be disappointed with this final season in whatever way you're disappointed.  But the ugly dismissal of Benioff and Weiss by viewers is deeply gross to me...

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Game of Thrones "The Bells" (S08E05)

previously on Game of Thrones

by Ben Miller

Boy howdy, that was an episode.  Regardless of your thoughts on the final season, we can probably all agree that the penultimate episode, “The Bells,” was the MOST episode Game of Thrones has had in a long while, if not ever.  Before we get to the big developments in the back half, let's focus on some of the other quieter scenes that really popped...

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