Sony Pictures has landed an interesting and unorthodox lead for their latest kids’ movie that will take place in New York City and will have musical numbers. Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem (“Skyfall,” “No Country For Old Men“) is reportedly sticking to family-friendly material and will join Sony’s feature film adaptation of the beloved Bernard Waber children’s novel “Lyle, Lyle Crocodile.”

READ MORE: Javier Bardem In Talks To Play King Triton In ‘The Little Mermaid’ Remake

Deadline says the project it’ll be heading to theaters on July 22, 2022. 

Continue reading Javier Bardem Joins Sony’s Adaptation Of ‘Lyle, Lyle Crocodile’ With Original Songs From ‘La La Land’ Songwriters at The Playlist.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways of this almost-finished decade die, yeah? But it wouldn’t be complete without our deep dive into the best soundtracks and scores of the 2010s. It’s admittedly somewhat weird and difficult to do. Scores and soundtracks are different beasts; one original musical written for a film that gives it its emotional shape—often the secret MVP of a movie—and the other more of a mixtape, but when well-curated and used next to picture, can be just as deadly and help craft what we know as the visual and aural transcendence that’s known as cinema when it’s at its best.

Continue reading The Best Soundtracks & Scores Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The “Aladdin” remake is coming. There’s nothing you can do about it, now. But at least, there might be some great new music in the film.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are two songwriters that should definitely be on your radar by now. The duo is responsible for some of the biggest songs heard in films over the last couple years. Last year, the team won the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Original Song for “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” This year, they were back at the Oscars for their song “This is Me” from “The Greatest Showman.” And judging by a red carpet interview the two gave, we’ll be hearing a lot more from them in the future.

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ & ‘The Greatest Showman’ Songwriters Writing Two Songs For ‘Aladdin’ at The Playlist.

Unless you’ve just emerged from a two-year coma or completely block out anything dealing with musical theater, you’re probably well aware of Justin Paul and Benj Pasek, aka Pasek and Paul.  The songwriting duo have taken Broadway by storm with their Tony-Award winning phenomenon “Dear Evan Hansen” and won the Best Original Song Oscar for “City of Stars” from “La La Land,” the hit musical for which they wrote almost every song. 

Continue reading Pasek And Paul On ‘Greatest Showman’ And What They Learned From Last Year’s Oscars at The Playlist.

After Guillermo del Toro won the DGA Award this weekend for “The Shape of Water” it would appear the Fox Searchlight fantasy is on its way to ruling Oscar night.  It’s incredibly rare for a film to win both the DGA and PGA Award as “Shape” has and not win Best Picture although it’s not unheard of.  In fact, it’s slightly more common than we tend to remember, but it’s also slightly complicated.

Continue reading Is ‘The Shape of Water’ Your Slam Dunk Best Picture Winner? [Contender Countdown] at The Playlist.

While we still have a month to go until the Oscars, that hardly means the awards season is over. This morning, the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma unveiled its nominations for the César Awards aka France’s Oscars.

Leading the pack with 13 nominations each was the AIDS drama “BPM” and Albert Dupontel’s WWI drama “Au Revoir Là-Haut.” Though receiving largely rave reviews for much of the season, “BPM” is notable for not making the cut in the Best Foreign Film race at the Oscars.

Continue reading ‘BPM’ Leads 2018 César Award Nominations, ‘Dunkirk’ & ‘La La Land’ In The Race at The Playlist.

Dear Paul Thomas Anderson, please get an official Twitter account. Yesterday afternoon, the filmmaker continued his “Phantom Thread” promotional run with an absolutely terrific stint answering questions on Twitter through the film’s social media account. Both hilarious and illuminating, the whole thing is worth scrolling through, but we’ve got the highlight below.

READ MORE: Paul Thomas Anderson Reveals Fave Films Of 2017, Praises Tiffany Haddish, Wants To Work With Tom Hanks, More

As you might expect from questions coming from all over the place on Twitter, they were pretty random and there was a lot of “tell us your favorite” type queries.

Continue reading Paul Thomas Anderson Says ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Is His Favorite Film Of 2017 & More at The Playlist.

It seemed improbable that anything could top the dramatic ups and downs of 2016, but 2017 found a way. And for Hollywood, it was a year where it often felt like the entire town was on fire (and we’re not just referring to the annual wild fires that smolder in the hills).  Especially in the second half, where it seemed like a day didn’t go by when the facade of a favorite actor, director or television personality was justifiably shattered into a million pieces.

Continue reading The Biggest Entertainment News Stories Of 2017 at The Playlist.

The nominations for the 60th Grammy Awards were announced very early this morning and there were some positives and some negatives.

For the first time in 19 years there are no white men nominated in the Best Album category. Unless you’re an Ed Sheeran fan that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “Despacito” earning a Record of the Year nomination after being snubbed at the VMAs is nice payback. “Feel It Still” by Portugal, the Man getting a nod is nice for the underdog as are Cardi B’s two nominations.

Continue reading Taylor Swift Crashes The ‘La La Land’ And ‘Moana’ Rematch In Grammy’s 2018 Visual Media Categories at The Playlist.

Miles Teller must have a weird feeling of deja vu. Around this time last year, while on the circuit for “Bleed For This,” the actor addressed rumors that he turned down $4 million to star in “La La Land,” and that as negotiations dragged out, his scheduling window basically closed, leaving him to go off and do “Allegiant.” Originally slated to star Teller and Emma Watson, the pair were replaced by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and rest is history.

Continue reading Miles Teller Says His Exit From ‘La La Land’ “Played Out Much Differently Than People Think” at The Playlist.

Welcome to another edition of Over/Under Movies, the podcast in which we choose one overrated film and one underrated film — similar in tone, genre, style, or however we may see fit — and we discuss them.

On this episode, my co-host Oktay Ege Kozak is joined by fellow Playlist writer Andrew Crump (I am absent for this one, real life sometimes gets in the way) to discuss two musicals with the throughline of a bittersweet romance.

Continue reading The Melancholy Music Of ‘Umbrellas Of Cherbourg’ Vs. ‘La La Land’ [Over/Under Podcast] at The Playlist.

Now that the Academy has honored Emma Stone with a much-deserved Oscar for her performance in “La La Land,” she has become a hot commodity and, if advanced buzz is any indication, her performance as Billie Jean King in this fall’s upcoming “The Battle of the Sexes” might land her another nomination.

So it comes as no surprise that in Forbes’ recently released list of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses she figures very high up on the list.

Continue reading Emma Stone Is 2017’s Highest Paid Actress at The Playlist.

Every year, one major Oscar contender becomes the punching bag for critical and/or Film Twitter backlash, and in 2016 that dubious honor fell to “La La Land.” For whatever reason, a segment of cinephiles went from swooning over the musical to loathing it, but one person who didn’t fall under the sway of awards season moodiness was Christopher Nolan. In fact, while you were bickering online, he was at the cinema.

Continue reading Christopher Nolan Saw ‘La La Land’ 3 Times In Theaters at The Playlist.

While current Best Director Oscar winner Damien Chazelle certainly didn’t invent the whip-pan, he’s made it a trademark of his first three films, as shown in this video essay from Alejandro Torriggino. A whip-pan, a rapid horizontal movement of the camera, can imbue a scene with a frenzied, kinetic energy and can also give the audience a more exact understanding of the blocking of the characters in a scene than a more traditional cut would.

Continue reading Look At ‘La La Land’ Helmer Damien Chazelle’s Love of Whip-Pans at The Playlist.

Popularity is no measure of quality. “Transformers” makes billions of dollars, people continue to watch “The Walking Dead” and the Honest Trailers phenomenon remains one of the most popular in the movie internet. Now years in the making and with six million subscribers on YouTube, their sarcastic takedowns of popular blockbusters go from strength to strength, leaving us, as skeptics to the whole thing, somewhat baffled.

READ MORE: ‘The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg,’ ‘La La Land’ And The Bittersweetness Of A Demy Musical

We can sort of see the appeal, and the Screen Junkies crew occasionally have some good jokes in there, but too often they go the lazy, obvious route.

Continue reading Watch Lots Of Jokes About Jazz In The Honest Trailer For ‘La La Land’ at The Playlist.

It was already pretty unclear how the producers of the MTV Movie & TV Awards plan on incorporating the announcement of 16 categories into a two-hour telecast.  A challenge that would is obviously more difficult considering the program that will also include performances from Big Sean, Pitbull and Noah Cyrus, among others.  Well, the Adam Levine hosted event just made things bizarrely more complicated by adding two more categories into the mix.  

Continue reading MTV Movie & TV Awards Adds Two New Categories With Five Days To Go Because Why Not? at The Playlist.

If you kept up with reviews during “La La Land”’s theatrical run at the tail end of 2016, you probably ran into at least a few mentions of “The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg,” Jacques Demy‘s colorful 1964 romantic musical masterpiece. If you also keep up with The Criterion Collection, you know that “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” just hit home video via a pristine Criterion Blu-ray release this month.

Continue reading ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,’ ‘La La Land’ And The Bittersweetness Of A Demy Musical at The Playlist.

The expectation from everyone was that “Logan” was going to draw serious blood at the box office this weekend, and the R-rated movie didn’t disappoint.

Armed with glowing reviews and an audience eager to finally see Wolverine unbound from franchise requirements and four-quadrant appeal, the superhero movie carved up $88.3 million and added another $152.5 million abroad for a total global haul of $240.8 million. It’s the fifth-highest R-rated movie opening of all time, falling well short of the $132 million debut of “Deadpool,” which, as a whole, was a complete outlier.

Continue reading ‘Logan’ Draws Blood With Blockbuster Launch [Box Office] at The Playlist.

The 89th Academy Awards will go down in history for the inspiring choice of “Moonlight” as Best Picture and the mess that found “La La Land” mistakenly announced as the winner beforehand.  On this week’s podcast, Dan Fienberg, the television critic of The Hollywood Reporter (and also our first returning guest), and I break down the telecast and that moment which has become a modern Zapruder film.  A mistake so unexpected that the more you watch it the more details you catch.

Continue reading 4 Quadrant Podcast: Breaking Down The Oscars Best Picture Mistake With Dan Fienberg at The Playlist.

It’s the biggest bungle in Oscars history, so it only follows that the Hollywood trades are covering it with all the intensity of a congressional hearing. And while it might not have all the sizzle of a Washington-based scandal — this one involves mishandled envelopes and tweeting — the players are high-profile, and an entire industry has been left embarrassed. In case you’re just visiting from the planet Mars, you’ll know that on Sunday night, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway‘s presentation of Best Picture was marred when “La La Land” was initially announced, only for the trophy to be taken away and given to “Moonlight” instead.

Continue reading Oscars 2017: Jimmy Kimmel, Damien Chazelle & Producer Michael De Luca React To Best Picture Bungle at The Playlist.

We’ve covered last night’s stunner of an Oscars ceremony from a whole bunch of angles — from the Best & Worst of the ceremony and all the acceptance speeches to the reasons why “Moonlight” picked up the top prize — but we haven’t really gone in depth into the major thing everyone’s talking about it today: the unprecedented balls-up that saw “La La Land” announced as Best Picture, its producers give their speeches, only to announce from the stage that actually, “Moonlight” had won.

Continue reading Why The 2017 Best Picture Fiasco Was One Of The Very Worst & Very Best Oscar Moments Ever at The Playlist.

Yes, the entire world knows “Moonlight” was the huge upset shocker of last night’s 89th Annual Academy Awards ceremony. Though there’s obviously a huge argument to be made that the biggest surprise of the night was the painful mix up itself. Still, as we continue our comprehensive post-mortem on the Oscars, we analyze the winners and losers, what films were snubbed and what surprises the evening had in store.

Continue reading Oscars 2017: The Biggest Snubs & Surprises, Minus ‘Moonlight’ Of Course at The Playlist.

It’s only because it came hot on the heels of one of the biggest shocks in the near-90 year history of the Academy Awards — that the wrong name was read out, and “La La Land” had not, in fact, won Best Picture — that “Moonlight” taking the top prize last night isn’t being appreciated as the biggest Oscar surprise in over a decade.

Continue reading Oscars 2017: Why ‘Moonlight’ Beat ‘La La Land’ To Win Best Picture at The Playlist.

It’s not the Oscars without a big of song, and this year, with “La La Land” entering the show with a historic 14 nominations, it was only natural that the show kicked off with a big musical number.

Justin Timberlake got the night going with “Can’t Stop The Feeling,” and the lively performance paved the way for the rest of the musical numbers, which were mostly solid.

Continue reading Oscars 2017: Justin Timberlake’s Opening Song, In Memoriam Tribute & Musical Highlights at The Playlist.

The mistake that will haunt the Oscars telecast for decades. Maybe.

Like out of some sort of fan fiction, “La La Land” was announced by accident as the Best Picture winner for 2017 (although you’ll be able to argue for years whether presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were at fault for not asking why they had a duplicate envelope and winner for Best Actress in their hands).

Continue reading Statement From The Academy About The ‘Moonlight’ Best Picture Screw Up at The Playlist.