Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is seriously considering a West Wing reboot
Sorkin says he came up with several potential plot ideas after attending an event celebrating the show's 25th anniversary at the White House Aaron Sorkin Is Seriously Considering a West Wing Reboot Jo Vito
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem Tried to Back Out of Being the Ricardos
When word got out that Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem would be playing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos, many scratched their heads: Kidman isn’t exactly the spitting image of Ball, and Bardem isn’t exactly Cuban. Turns out, the actors were a bit confused by the casting themselves. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kidman and Bardem said they actually tried to get out of the film before shooting began. “I wasn’t aware of how big it was,” Bardem, who grew up in Spain, said of I Love Lucy, Ball and Arnaz’s sitcom-inventing television show. The actor mostly knew of Arnaz from his music with Spanish musician Xavier Cugat. “When I really started digging into him, the deeper I got, the more I knew how iconic [the show] was … i...
Joshua Malina on Why He Wants to Offer Unnecessary Commentary on His Past Aaron Sorkin Projects
The relationship between those who make TV shows and those who watch said TV shows has become, thanks to the Internet, an increasingly complicated one over the years. But before stars from Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, and The Office started making podcasts to fuel the pandemic-era thirst for vintage television, actor Joshua Malina and his friend, composer Hrishikesh Hirway, were talking The West Wing on the weekly. The West Wing Weekly, which launched in 2016, featured regular deep dives into every episode of the Emmy-winning NBC drama, with much of the original cast — as well as creator Aaron Sorkin — participating in the discussion. Now, after years of digging into the complexities of DC political drama, though, the pair have teamed up for a new enterprise entitled Unnecessary Commentary, whic...
Nicole Kidman Has Some ‘Splainin’ to Do in Trailer for Being the Ricardos: Watch
In the groundbreaking show I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo’s catchphrase was, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” And explain she does in the new teaser trailer Aaron Sorkin‘s Being the Ricardos, as Nicole Kidman plays Lucille Ball with a steely dignity that demands respect. The film co-stars Javier Bardem as her husband Desi Arnaz, and comes to theaters December 10th and Amazon Prime Video on December 21st. On camera, the two geniuses Ball and Arnaz led a television revolution, even as their marriage collapsed behind the scenes. Being the Ricardos is set over the course of one critical week in what appears to be 1956, as they film the Season 5 episode “Lucy’s Italian Movie” with its iconic grape-vat fight. The trailer opens with Ball laying out her worth: “I am...
2021 Golden Globes Winners: The Complete List
The 2021 Golden Globe Awards took place on Sunday night after being delayed for nearly two months due to COVID-19. Now in its 78th year, the Golden Globes honor the best in film and television as determined by the Hollywood Foreign Press. Film was scattered, but as expected. Nomadland and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm predictably ran away with their respective top honors, Minari won the only nomination it (tragically) could, Daniel Kaluuya matched the award seasons buzz with his Best Supporting Actor win for Judas and the Black Messiah, and Soul nabbed both Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. Television belonged to Netflix with essential wins for both The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit. The former ruled over Best Drama, Best Actor for Josh O’Connor, Best Actress for Emma Corrin,...
2021 Golden Globes Predictions: Who Will Win, Who Shouldn’t Be There, and Who’s Missing
Every year, we say we’re not going to watch the Golden Globes. “They’re pay-for-play opportunists who trade awards for access,” we plea in the mirror. “Remember Pia Zadora?” And yet, just like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, they pull us back in. Maybe it’s the pandemic insisting upon things to look forward to amidst the threat of impending doom. Or, more likely, we just love TV and the people who make it too much to not want to root for them to get recognition — no matter how dubious the award. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an enigmatic collective of 93 non-American journalists who nonetheless live in LA, give out their trophies every year, and the picks are virtually impossible to guess. Sometimes, it’s recognition of the best work in film and TV that year. Other t...
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem to Play Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in New Movie
Nearly 70 years after it went off the air, I Love Lucy is coming to the big screen. A new feature film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is in the works from Aaron Sorkin, and he plans to cast none other than Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the iconic TV couple. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two are in talks to play the beloved I Love Lucy creators and stars. The movie, titled Being the Ricardos, will be written and directed by Sorkin. Amazon Studios is onboard and production will be overseen by Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Steve Tisch. Being the Ricardos reportedly takes place during one production week of I Love Lucy. When things get unexpectedly hectic on set, Lucy and Desi are faced with two simultaneous problems: a crisis “that could end their c...
Ranking: Every David Fincher Movie from Worst to Best
Mank, the latest from director David Fincher, is yet another feat by a filmmaker who has notched a few of them. He’s in that holy trinity of modern directors right alongside P.T. Anderson and Christopher Nolan — auteurs whose films are so defiantly theirs. Fincher would be the first to tell you that his career started off disastrously (read on for info on the Alien 3 production), so who could have anticipated all of the success that would follow both critically and financially? Not only did our film staff agree on a ranking of Fincher’s 11 films, we went ahead and dissected each movie, as well. The director’s career is full of highlights, curiosities, and a small serving of disasters. However, all of his films remain interesting in their own ways. We hope you’ll dive into the 8,000+ words ...
Aaron Sorkin Wants a Sequel to The Social Network, but Only if David Fincher Directs
The Social Network celebrated its 10th anniversary last week, and it looks like it’s not just the fans who are feeling nostalgic over it. During a recent interview on the Happy.Sad.Confused podcast, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said he wants to pen a sequel to The Social Network, but only if David Fincher returns to direct. Last year, Sorkin revealed that he was considering a follow-up to his Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network. In the decade since the original film’s release, Facebook’s saga has entered an entirely new level of controversy stemming from Russia’s interference in the 2020 election, its unwillingness to police fake stories, and its safe-guarding of hate groups who use Facebook to spew their rhetoric and plan attacks. Speaking with Happy.Sad.Confu...
Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 Gives Aaron Sorkin a Timely Bully Pulpit: Review
The Pitch: In 1968, a coalition of anti-Vietnam War and counterculture protestors took to the streets in Chicago to protest outside the Democratic National Convention, rallying to end the Vietnam War and bring our boys back home. Predictably, the police retaliated with overwhelming force, greeting them with beatings, tear gas, and scores of arrests. Five scant months later, one of the most infamous trials in American history took place, charging seven of the organizers with conspiracy and incitement to riot — YIPpies Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), Mobe leaders Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danie Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins). Black Panther Bobby Seale (Yahya A...
Aaron Sorkin’s Star-Studded The Trial of the Chicago 7 Gets First Trailer: Watch
The Oscar hype is on for writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s star-studded historical drama The Trial of the Chicago 7. On Sunday night, Netflix dropped the film’s first teaser trailer ahead of its October 16th premiere on the network. The film captures the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which saw a peaceful protest dissolve into a violent clash between the police and the National Guard. This led to seven organizers — which included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale — being charged with conspiracy. Given the current political landscape — and the fact that this lands a few weeks before the 2020 Election — one might say The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a tad prescient, no? Whatever the case, it features the most incredible cast in recent memory, s...
The 25 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2020
“New year, new decade, new films, right?” That was January, back when we were still looking ahead at 2020 with blind optimism and ill-fated excitement. Sigh, hindsight is 20/20 they say, right? Who knew. At the time, we had 50 exciting new titles we were anticipating, most of which have since been either postponed, dumped to VOD, or relegated to a limbo state. It’s been an unnerving year for the film industry, to say the least. A year fraught with shutdowns, furloughs, layoffs, bankruptcies, and re-evaluations. All of that change has prompted a seismic shift in how everything’s run across the media landscape, and no one truly has a grip on things just yet. Odds are they won’t for quite some time. Because of this, anticipating anything right now — let alone anything in pop culture — seems l...
