The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which has been viewed by more than 100 million people worldwide and has been an unprecedented global success as the top Original series for Prime Video in every region in its first season, has announced that acclaimed actors Ciarán Hinds, Rory Kinnear, and Tanya Moodie have joined the series’ cast in recurring roles for the forthcoming second season, currently in production in the UK.

CIARÁN HINDS

Nominated for both an Oscar and a BAFTA Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as “Pop” in Kenneth Branagh’s film Belfast, acclaimed actor Ciarán Hinds has had an illustrious career on both stage and screen. He has starred in such films as Steven Spielberg’s Munich, Martin Scorsese’s Silence, There Will be Blood, Road to Perdition, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, In Bruges, The Phantom of the Opera, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Persuasion, First Man, Amazing Grace, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and The Eclipse, a role for which he was awarded Best Actor at the Tribeca Film Festival. He is also known for his voice role as “Grand Pabbie” the Troll King in the animated films Frozen and Frozen II.

Television audiences know Hinds from his roles as “Mance Rayder” in Game of Thrones (HBO) and “Julius Caesar” in Rome (HBO) as well as starring roles in The English (BBC/Prime Video), Ivanhoe (A&E), Above Suspicion (ITV), Political Animals (USA), and Prime Suspect 3 (ITV). He most recently appeared in the comedy-drama series The Dry (BritBox).

Hinds’ wide-ranging theatre credits include Uncle Vanya, Translations, The Girl from the North Country, Hamlet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Burnt by the Sun, Closer, The Seafarer, and many others. He toured internationally in Peter Brook’s company in The Mahabharata and has played leading roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court, the Donmar Warehouse, and the National Theatre.

RORY KINNEAR

Rory Kinnear is an award-winning British actor, perhaps best known for his role as “Bill Tanner” in the James Bond films Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre. Kinnear recently starred in Alex Garland’s Men, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and saw him nominated for a BIFA award. Other recent film credits include Bank of Dave, Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, Broken (for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the BIFAs), and the Academy Award- and BAFTA Award-nominated The Imitation Game. Kinnear’s TV credits include Inside No. 9 (BBC), Penny Dreadful (Sky Atlantic), Southcliffe (Channel 4, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror (Channel 4), and the drama Lucan (ITV) in which he starred in the title role. He can currently be seen in Taika Waititi’s series Our Flag Means Death (HBO Max).

Kinnear is hugely respected for his theatre work, winning Best Actor at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in 2010 for his performances in Measure for Measure (Almeida Theatre) and Hamlet (National Theatre), and again in 2013 for his performance as “Iago” in Othello (National Theatre), for which he also received an Olivier Award for Best Actor. He previously won an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as “Sir Fopling Flutter” in The Man of Mode in 2008, and was nominated twice before for his performances in Hamlet and Burnt by the Sun. Most recently, Kinnear starred in Force Majeure at the Donmar Warehouse. Kinnear is also an award-winning playwright, penning his debut play The Herd in 2013. He made his directorial debut with the English National Opera’s production of The Winter’s Tale in 2017.

TANYA MOODIE

Tanya Moodie is an acclaimed British actress who won the Royal Television Society’s Breakthrough Award for the role of “Meg” in the BAFTA Award-winning comedy Motherland (BBC). Her numerous television roles include starring as “Hunter” in the miniseries adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (BBC), as well as roles in Tin Star (Sky Atlantic), A Discovery of Witches (Sky One), The Man Who Fell to Earth (Showtime), and Sherlock (BBC).

Some of Moodie’s recent film roles include J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker as “General Parnadee” and Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light as “Delia.”

In the theatre, Moodie is a two-time Olivier Award nominee for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for her roles in Intimate Apparel and The House That Will Not Stand. She played “Gertrude” in Simon Godwin’s production of Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her performance as “Rose” opposite Lenny Henry in August Wilson’s Fences in the West End earned her a WhatsOnStage Awards nomination for Best Actress. She was nominated for a UK Theatre Award for Best Performance for her role in Trouble in Mind, and she has received additional Best Actress nominations from the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the UK Theatre Awards. Moodie studied at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she was later employed as an associate teacher and council member.

For additional series information, please visit The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power press site.

All eight first season episodes are available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories in multiple languages.

The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the farthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

The first season of The Rings of Power has been an unprecedented success, viewed by more than 100 million people worldwide, with more than 24 billion minutes streamed. The highly anticipated series attracted more than 25 million global viewers on its first day, marking the biggest premiere in the history of Prime Video, and also debuted as the No. 1 show on Nielsen’s overall streaming chart in its opening weekend. The show has also broken all previous Prime Video records for the most viewers, and has driven more Prime sign-ups worldwide during its launch window than any other previous content. Additionally, The Rings of Power is the top Original series in every region—North America, Europe, APAC, LATAM, and the rest of the world. The season finale also created a global cultural moment, with multiple series-themed hashtags, including #TheRingsofPower and others, trending in 27 countries across Twitter for over 426 cumulative hours throughout the weekend.

Season Two of the series is produced by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, and Gennifer Hutchinson, along with co-executive producer Charlotte Brandström, producers Kate Hazell and Helen Shang, and co-producers Andrew Lee, Matthew Penry-Davey, and Clare Buxton.

By David Baldwin

If I were to ask you who William Shatner is, you may have a different answer depending on when you were born. Most will always him as the original Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek, while others may just know him as the Priceline guy who appears regularly at fan conventions around the world. But who is the real William Shatner when he is not on the screen or stage in front of us?

Writer/Director Alexandre O. Philippe sets-out to answer this question in his latest Documentary/Vsual Essay, and it starts with letting us know that Shatner prefers to be called Bill now. What follows is a journey that beams around the proud Canadian’s life from a young man growing up in Montreal, to his time on television and the stage, right up to his recent flight to space on Jeff Bezos’ rocket ship. All the while, the camera stays on Bill as he discusses the journey, sitting alone in a production warehouse with the unseen spotlight focusing on him and only him.

What Bill also discusses are his feelings on life, humanity’s relationship with nature, the dying Earth and his own mortality – all delivered in his frank, precisely inflected manner of speech (including a small aside about that often parodied but never equaled style). He is more candid and open than I ever would have thought, and YOU CAN CALL ME BILL is at its best when we are watching him in these deeper moments in the warehouse or live on stage. The tiny clips of Star Trek and television ephemera (including scenes from shows he starred in pre-Kirk) are fun to see, yet seem rather trivial while Bill is tackling the sorrow of knowing that at 91, he does not have much time left.

For all those candid comments however, YOU CAN CALL ME BILL glosses over Shatner’s personal life and his relationship with the fan community. He gets in a few anecdotal comments and then goes on to something else. More frustratingly, Philippe’s breezy, thematic structure makes the film feel a bit too jumpy and unpolished. With the exception of last year’s Lynch/Oz (which was fascinating flawed), his previous films have been focused on one scene or one film. Here he is taking on an entire lifetime of one legendary individual and all the iconography that goes with it, and it feels like he is out of his element.

YOU CAN CALL ME BILL screens at SXSW ’23 as follows:

Mar 16 at 7:30pm at Paramount Theatre

By David Baldwin

Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) has been living in the US for 8 months. In Afghanistan, she was a translator for American troops. Now she is working in a fortune cookie factory either packaging the cookies or writing the fortunes. She is struggling to adapt to her new life in America, and has trouble coming out of her traumatized shell. So she sets out to change that.

Co-Writer/Director Babak Jalali’s portrait of this young woman living in an Afghan diaspora is not going to be for everyone. It is slow moving, droll and only sporadically funny. It has a lot it wants to say about Donya and her journey, but does not always find the time or ability to say it. Jalali cribs from the work of Jim Jarmusch here (with a slight hint of Woody Allen), spending more time focusing on Donya’s isolation and the mundane, wordless moments of her day than it does on her as a character. When she does discuss her trauma with psychiatrist Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington), the conversations devolve into nonsensical observations and bizarre moments involving Jack London’s novel White Fang.

Hollywood It-Boy Jeremy Allen White (who was terrific on 11 seasons of Shameless before he struck gold with The Bear) shows up for a bit part that is more awkward than anything else, but what really impressed me about FREMONT was the way Jalali frames Donya’s story. He tells it in 4:3, in stark black and white with minimal music, which is an all too blatant reflection of her less than thrilling existence. Stripped of colour, we learn more about Donya than the dialogue ever attempts to tell us. That gorgeous cinematography and production design is what kept me invested in FREMONT. I just wish the story did too.

FREMONT screens at SXSW ’23 as follows:

Mar 11 at 6:45pm at Violet Crown Cinema 2

Mar 11 at 7:15pm at Violet Crown Cinema 4

Mar 12 at 8:15pm at Alamo Lamar A

Mar 13 at 7:00pm at Violet Crown Cinema 2

Mar 13 at 7:30pm at Violet Crown Cinema 4

Taking place this weekend between March 17-19, 2023 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto Comicon once again is back drawing big crowds in a celebration of Fandom! Taking place in the Cente’s North Building, fans came out in a year that saw even more focus on family activities at the event which coincides with March Break.

New this year were events like Poké-Sunday, a full day dedicated to the love of Pokémon; the Great Toronto Comicon Baby Race, pitting youngsters on the cosplay red carpet in a race for speed; The Mandalorian star Emily Swallow hosting a Celeb Karaoke Party. There was even a Toronto Comicon Lightsaber Battle! An unapologetic geek-out.

In addition to giving fans a chance to meet their favourite Artists in the Artist Alley, getting a chance to obtain rare commissions, and a chance to buy cool memorabilia from vendors, Toronto Comicon is about starpower. Attending the festivities this year were the likes of Andy Serkis, Scott Patterson, Sean Gunn, Robbie Amell, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Panabaker, Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell and several more.

One of the hottest tickets at Toronto Comicon this year was the Panel by the Cast of Prime Video‘s THE BOYS – the streaming service’s #1 show. Our George Kozera was lucky enough to attend and gives us the scoop!

“The exuberance from THE BOYS Cast (Jack Quaid, Claudia Doumit, Karen Fukuhara, Laz Alonso) during the panel interview was infectious. Whether it was their favourite places to eat in Toronto while shooting the wildly-popular Series, with shout-outs to North of Brooklyn for pizza, Burger Drops in Liberty Village and Otto’s Berlin Doner in Kensington Market to name a few, Fukuhara’s lament was the inability to buy Mott’s Clamato in the U.S.. They gave away no secrets about the upcoming season four of this Emmy Award television show. We even heard Quaid reminding himself out loud before hopping on-stage, to not reveal anything about Season Four! He did however, admit that one scene was so particularly gruesome that he had to turn his head away while watching. That should get everyone’s motor running at full speed!”.

A Reel of Highlights:

Some Snaps:

You haven’t missed-out! Toronto Comicon is on for one more day and this is chance to put August’s Fan Expo Toronto on your map as well. That event promises to be an even bigger bash. More details on Toronto Comicon here.

(Photo/video credit: Mr. Will Wong/George Kozera)

SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS descends upon theatres in victorious form, taking the #1 spot at the Box Office in its debut with $30 million this weekend from 4,071 theates for Warner Bros. It gets 54% on the Tomatometer, falling short of the 90% score its Predecessor got in 2019, opening with $53 million.

SCREAM VI slips to second spot but is still going strong with $18 million from 3,676 theatres for Paramount Pictures, a two-week total of $76.5 million.

Third goes to CREED III with $15.8 million for United Artists Releasing/Warner Bros. It has made $128.1 million over its three weeks of release.

65 is fourth with $5.5 million from 3,405 theatres for Sony Pictures, a two week take of $22.1 million

ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA rounds this Top Five out with $4.7 million, a total $206.4 million over five weeks for Disney/Marvel.

Toronto got a huge surprise tonight as international megastar Keanu Reeves made an appearance at the Canadian Premiere of JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4. This latest Film in the celebrated Franchise, got the Red Carpet treatment and then some as The Black Academy, presented the affair at Scotiabank Theatre. The organization aims to empower, elevate and promote equality among the Black community and one of its founders, Scarborough’s very own Shamier Anderson, also happens to star in the Film as Tracker. Director Chad Stahelski also joined Anderson and Reeves for an introduction of the Screening.

While there was originally a Red Carpet set to take place at the Premiere, the unexpected passing of star Lance Reddick, who stars as Charon, had altered plans for this, out of respect. Stahelski took a moment to remember Reddick when introducing the Film to the audience.

This latest chapter in the John Wick franchise has already received much praise, with Critics calling it the best film yet out of the four films. Toronto-raised Reeves also surprised the audience at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin last week.

See highlights below:

Though bittersweet, this was such an incredible night, and a special energy could be felt throughout the theatre as everyone was processing both excitement and grief at once.

Lionsgate and Cineplex Pictures release JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 March 24, 2023.

(Photo/video credit: George Pimentel/Mr. Will Wong)

We cannot rayve enough about RAYE. The British Singer-Songwriter actually isn’t quite a newbie. She surfaced in 2018 and quickly was recognized with BRIT Award nominations. She’s written for the likes of John Legend and Beyoncé and it doesn’t get bigger than that. Her debut album was supposed to come quite some time ago but never surfaced and finally we get MY 21st CENTURY BLUES, her phenomenal debut released independently via Human Re Sources and distributed by The Orchard in Canada.

You’ve most definitely heard her single “Escapism” (ft. Shake 070), an intricately-layered journey into a dark place as Raye recounts dealing with a painful breakup through distraction. It has charted impressively on the Top Ten of the Canadian Hot 100. This however is only the tip of the iceberg. She has so much to say and so much range, but you can only witness it if you give her Album a proper listen. She’s been through so much to get where she is today, and we’re a huge fan.

Such a joy meeting RAYE, this her first ever visit to Toronto. She was so lovely, still donning makeup from her fabulous appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night. An intimate, sold-out show is next tonight at The Velvet Underground, followed by an opening spot for Kali Uchis this May at Coca-Cola Colisseum.

She is just incredible live! See the powerful performance here of “Ice Cream Man“, a song which bravely faces her experience with a trauma:

Some Snaps:

A Highlight Reel from her show at The Velvet Undergound:

MY 21st CENTURY BLUES is now in stores. Stream it here.

(Photo/video credit: Human Re Sources/Mr. Will Wong)

Fae Pictures is announcing the launch of their first original premium drama short-form series, Streams Flow From A River, coming to Super Channel Fuse in Canada and launching On Demand beginning April 1, 2023. Super Channel is available via most cable providers across the country, as well as streaming live and On Demand with Amazon Prime Video Channels and Apple TV+. The series is directed by Chinese Canadian writer-director Christopher Yip (Fishboy), born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. It is Executive-Produced by Christopher Yip and Shant Joshi (Framing Agnes), co- executive produced by Abdul Malik (Peace By Chocolate), and produced by Lindsay Blair Goeldner (I Like Movies).

The six-episode short-form series is a character-driven drama about the invisible struggles immigrant families face while trying to make a home in the West. A freak snowstorm traps a dysfunctional Chinese Canadian family together in their rural Albertan hometown, forcing them to confront events from a decade ago that tore them all apart. Today’s generation of immigrant kids bear the burden of the traumas we grew up with and the need to address the wounds of generations past. Hundreds of years of unspoken pain, trickling down like a river. What can we do with these streams flowing over us?

The Canadian Film Fest announced Streams Flow From A River as an official selection in this year’s slate, their first series in the festival, reflecting a need for more Canadian-made premium drama series. It will screen during the Canadian Film Fest’s opening night, March 28 at 9 p.m. ET, exclusively on Super Channel. To learn more about the festival, visit canfilmfest.ca.

The series stars Jane Luk, Simon Sinn, Liam Ma, Danielle Ayow, Jinny Wong, Raymond Chan, Adrian So and Dana Liu, with Benjamin Sutherland, Brett Houghton and Wesley French.

Streams Flow From A River is produced in association with Super Channel, with the participation of Ontario Creates, Independent Production Fund, Bell Fund and Canada Media Fund.

Canada has a proud moment at SXSW ’22 with BLACKBERRY premiering to raves, following its Berlin Premiere earlier this year.

Synopsis:

Directed by (and co-starring) Matt Johnson (The Dirties, Operation Avalanche), the film tells the story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone, and stars an ensemble cast including Jay Baruchel (This Is The End, Knocked Up), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, A.P. Bio), Cary Elwes (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Saw), Saul Rubinek (Hunters, True Romance), Rich Sommer (The Devil Wears Prada, Mad Men), Martin Donovan (Tenet, Big Little Lies), and Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Scanners).

Johnson and co-writer Matthew Miller adapted the screenplay from the #1 National Bestseller “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry,” written by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff.

Elevation Pictures and IFC Films release BLACKBERRY May 12, 2023.

(Photo/video credit: IFC Films/Elevation Pictures)

By David Baldwin

Sarah (Lydia Leonard) is a successful building developer in London with a well-guarded secret: she is deathly afraid of flying. To overcome her crippling fear, she joins the ‘Fearless Flyers’ course alongside other individuals suffering from Aerophobia. The final test is a trip on a real plane, which happens to coincide with the day Sarah is supposed to be going on vacation with her boyfriend and his daughter. And what should be a simple trip to Iceland becomes an ordeal no one saw coming.

NORTHERN COMFORT, named after an Icelandic beverage, is a cringe-inducing comedy that will have you wincing and laughing just as often as you are absolutely terrified for these poor souls. Co-Writer/Director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson puts the whole gang through absolute hell on their journey to getting over their fear and then delights in reshuffling the deck and completely changing the game in the second half of the Film. It manages to maintain the same tone throughout thankfully, but the jarring number of subplots becomes a lot to digest, as does the fleeting directions the Film continuously wanders into. When it is simply about Sarah and her journey, the Film is fairly solid. When it diverts into showcasing the supporting characters’ half-baked agendas, it gets a little lost in the weeds (or blowing snow drifts as it were).

That said, the Cast which Sigurðsson has put together here is game for anything and relishes in the madness that ensues. Leonard does a great job carrying the Film and balances the comedy and scarier elements quite well. Simon Manyonda has a whole lot of fun as an instructor who is in way over his pay grade, while comedian Rob Delaney drops in for an eyebrow raising extended cameo. Who really lets loose however is Timothy Spall, who goes for broke from start to finish. I only really know him as a dramatic actor (and as that rat of a wizard Peter Pettigrew from the Harry Potter series), so seeing him as the radically unhinged Edward was just as wild and chaotic as all the mayhem he gets up to in the Film. He is having a blast and easily steals the show.

NORTHERN COMFORT screens at SXSW ’23 as follows:

Mar 12 at 2:00pm at Stateside Theatre

Mar 13 at 6:15pm at Rollins Theatre at The Long Center

Mar 16 at 7:15pm at Violet Crown Cinema 2

Mar 16 at 7:45pm at Violet Crown Cinema 4