18-year-old Actress/Singer/Songwriter OLIVIA RODRIGO absolutely is owning the Pop game right now. The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star debuted earlier this year with DRIVERS LICENSE, taking her straight to the top of the charts, the US Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100 importantly – a huge feat for a new artist and a first single.

While it is a tall order to top that, her follow-up singles from debut Album SOUR cohesively follow post-breakup teenage angst, but she does it in such a delicate way that connects and is so relatable. Her lost love found new love quickly and she isn’t quite ready to cope with it. And so the 11-track collection explores the various emotions – sadness, anger and envy – and subsequent feelings of victimization. As she sums-up in single-worthy TRAITOR, “It took you two weeks to go off and date her/
Guess you didn’t cheat/But you’re still a traitor”. HAPPIER has her wishing them happiness but not happier than when they were together. Understandable.

The mostly Pop-Rock-driven Disc is produced by Dan Nigro who is responsible for Rodrigo‘s musical counterpart Conan Gray‘s debut Disc also, plus working with the likes of Lewis Capaldi and more. Taylor Swift even has given her blessing openly calling Rodrigo her “baby”, also allowing her to interpolate her track NEW YEARS DAY into the newcomer’s track 1 STEP FORWARD, 3 STEPS BACK. The two finally met recently at The BRITS!

Check-out some selections from SOUR, which quickly has gained critical acclaim and is primed for great commercial success.

DRIVERS LICENSE

GOOD FOR YOU

DEJA VU

TRAITOR

1 STEP FORWARD, 3 STEPS BACK

BRUTAL

HAPPIER

SOUR is available to purchase and stream now, via Universal Music Canada.

Stream it in full below:

(Photo/video credit: Universal Music)

The final group of Canadian Screen Awards were announced tonight, capping-off a seven-part celebration honouring Canada’s best scripted and non-scripted Digital, Film and Television. While traditionally held in-person, the Gala again went virtual this year.

In its sixth and final season, CBC Series SCHITT’S CREEK took home Best Comedy Series, Best Direction, Comedy* honour for Director/Screenwriter Andrew Cividino and Daniel Levy; and the sixth win in a row for Actress Catherine O’Hara in the Best Lead Actress, Comedy category.

The first season of Canada’s Drag Race also took home five Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Reality/Competition Program or Series. Season Two currently is being filmed in Toronto.

After gaining much acclaim out of TIFF’ 20, Tracey Deer’s BEANS went on to win Best Motion Picture tonight, while it was BLOOD QUANTUM that would sweep seven awards in the Film categories, including Michael Greyeyes for Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role category.

Christopher Plummer also would be awarded posthumously for his work in TV Series DEPARTURES for Supporting Actor. Television icon Alex Trebek also posthumously was given the Academy Icon Award award, one of eleven 2020 Special Awards handed-out throughout the week. 

Complete list of winners can be found here.

(Photo credit: CBC)

Great news! If you loved BIG LITTLE LIES, you’ll love Hulu Original eight-episode Series NINE PERFECT STRANGERS starring Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy, coming this Fall to Amazon Prime Video.

Synopsis:

The highly anticipated drama series Nine Perfect Strangers, starring Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy, based on the 2018 novel by Australian author of Big Little Lies Liane Moriarty and directed and produced by Jonathan Levine, will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in countries outside the U.S. and China later this year.

Set at a boutique health-and-wellness resort that promises healing and transformation, nine stressed city dwellers try to get on a path to a better way of living. Watching over them during this ten-day retreat is the resort’s director Masha (Kidman), a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies. However, these nine strangers have no idea what is about to hit them.

Filmed on location in Australia, the cast includes Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy,in their first project together, alongside Luke Evans, Tiffany Boone, Bobby Cannavale, Melvin Gregg, Regina Hall, Manny Jacinto, Asher Keddie, Michael Shannon, Grace Van Patten, and Samara Weaving.

(Photo/video credit: Amazon Prime Video)

Some 28 years after its release, HOCUS POCUS finally sees its Sequel begin production this Fall! Details below.

Synopsis:

Singer/actress Bette Midler (“The First Wives Club,” “Beaches”) returns as Winifred Sanderson, with Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex and the City”) and Kathy Najimy (“Sister Act”) back as her sisters, Sarah and Mary, respectively. In “Hocus Pocus 2,” three young women accidentally bring the Sanderson Sisters back to modern day Salem and must figure out how to stop the child-hungry witches from wreaking a new kind of havoc on the world.

“Hocus Pocus 2” will begin production this fall under the direction of Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal,” “27 Dresses”), who is taking over directing responsibilities from her friend and colleague Adam Shankman (“Hairspray,” “The Wedding Planner”), with Lynn Harris (“The Shallows”) serving as producer. Shankman is currently in production on “Disenchanted” for the studio, which he is directing, but will remain on this project as an executive producer along with Ralph Winter (“Adrift”) and David Kirschner (“Curse of Chucky”). Steven Haft (“Tigerland”) is co-producer.

(Photo credit: Disney)

Tony Hale stars as Mr. Benedict in upcoming eight-episode Disney+ Series THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY! See the new Trailer.

Synopsis:

After winning a scholarship competition, four gifted orphans are recruited by the peculiar Mr. Benedict for a dangerous mission to save the world from a global crisis known as The Emergency. Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance must infiltrate the mysterious L.I.V.E. Institute to discover the truth behind the crisis. When the headmaster, the sophisticated Dr. Curtain appears to be behind this worldwide panic, the kids of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” must devise a plan to defeat him.

“The Mysterious Benedict Society” stars Tony Hale, Kristen Schaal, Ryan Hurst, MaameYaa Boafo, Gia Sandhu, Seth Carr, Emmy DeOliveira, Mystic Inscho and Marta Kessler. 

THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY arrives on Disney+ June 25, 2021.

(Photo/video credit: Disney)

They’re back! Much-talked-about FRIENDS: THE REUNION arrives on HBO Max and Crave in Canada!

Synopsis:

Our favorite friends are back on the set that started it all. Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and special guests reunite to discuss everything from their casting process to whether or not Ross and Rachel were really on a break. Witness the unbreakable bond of the group that perfectly captured the moment in life when your friends become your family.

FRIENDS: THE REUNION arrives May 27, 2021.

(Photo/video credit: HBO Max)

At long last we get an updated Trailer for Aretha Franklin Biopic, starring Jennifer Hudson!

Synopsis:

To become the Queen, she needed to find her voice. Academy Award® Winner Jennifer Hudson is Aretha Franklin. Watch the new trailer now, and don’t miss #RespectMovie in theaters this August.

RESPECT is in theatres August 13, 2021.

(Photo/video credit: MGM)

IFC present their summer slate of programming to premiere both on VOD and on their subscription services IFC Films Unlimited. HOLLER which premiered at TIFF ’20 will arrive in June!

IFC FILMS VOD releases 
*Available to rent on Apple TV

HOLLER (2021) – June 11, 2021 (Drama)
Director: Nicole Riegel
Starring: Jessica Barden, Pamela Adlon, Becky Ann Baker, Austin Amelio, Gus Halper
Synopsis: In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories by night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost of an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021) – July 2, 2021 (Comedy, Horror)
Director: Josh Ruben
Starring: Milana Vayntrub, Cheyenne Jackson, Michaela Watkins, Sam Richardson, Anni Krueger, George Basil, Sarah Burns, Glenn Fleshler, Harvey Guillen, Wayne Duvall, Rebecca Henderson, Michael Chernus, Catherine Curtin
Synopsis: After a proposed pipeline creates divisions within the small town of Beaverfield, and a snowstorm traps its residents together inside the local inn, newly arrived forest ranger FINN (Sam Richardson) and postal worker CECILY (Milana Vayntrub) must try to keep the peace and uncover the truth behind a mysterious creature that has begun terrorizing the community.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE (2021) – July 30, 2021 (Documentary)
Director: Sonia Kennebeck
Synopsis: When their hacker son is targeted by the US Government, the DeHarts will do anything to protect him. And so begins to unravel a web of secrets in this twisty, stranger-than-fiction cyber-thriller story.

IFC FILMS UNLIMITED
*Available on Amazon Prime Video Channels and Apple TV

LITTLE FISH (2021) – June 2, 2021 (Romance, Sci-fi)
Director: Chad Hartigan
Starring: Olivia Cooke, Jack O’Connell, Soko, Raúl Castillo, Carmen Moore, David Lennon
Synopsis: As a memory loss virus runs rampant, one couple fights to hold their relationship together before the disease can erase all memory of their love in this sweeping sci-fi romance.

A L’AVENTURE (2009) – June 9, 2021 (Drama)
Director: Jean-Claud Brisseau
Starring: Arnaud Binard, Carole Brana
Synopsis: Carole is sexually unsatisfied; she meets Sophie who intrigues Carole with accounts of her sexual experimentation; Carole will follow her onto the dangerous paths of hypnosis, where she will witness ecstasy.

68 KILL (2017) – June 16, 2021 (Thriller)
Director: Trent Haaga
Starring: Matthew Gray Gubler, AnnaLynne McCord, Alisha Boe
Synopsis: It started with a couple dead bodies and $68,000 in stolen cash. Chip Taylor’s girlfriend Liza had the perfect plan to rip off her rich sugar daddy. But things started going wrong.

THAT SUMMER (2018) – June 23, 2021 (Documentary)
Director: Göran Hugo Olss
Starring: Peter Beard, Lee Radziwill, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, Edith Bouvier Beale, Andy Warhol
Synopsis: In 1972 Lee Radziwill asks Peter Beard to help make a film about her childhood on Long Island. Her eccentric cousines, the Beales of Grey Gardens, become the focus of the project.

EMBATTLED (2020) – July 7, 2021 (Action)
Director: Nick Sarkisov
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Darren Mann, Colin McKenna, Karrueche Tran, Donald Faison, Ava Capri, Saïd Taghmaoui, Elizabeth Reaser, Leopold Manswell, Mimi Davila
Synopsis: The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough, larger- than-life MMA champion must literally fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued in this emotional thriller.

NO MAN’S LAND (2021) – July 14, 2021 (Drama, Western)
Director: Conor Allyn
Starring: Frank Grillo, Andie MacDowell, George Lopez
Synopsis: When a vigilante border patrol turns fatal, a man flees on horseback – the law hot on his heels – seeking forgiveness from the victim’s father in this modern spin on the classic Western.

FREAK SHOW (2018) – July 21, 2021 (Comedy)
Director: Trudie Styler
Starring: Abigail Breslin, Alex Lawther, Ian Nelson, Annasophia Robb, Celia Weston, Walden Bryan Hudson, Daniel Bellomy, Bette Midler
Synopsis: Billy Bloom is talented, fierce and fearless but does he have what it takes to win homecoming queen? Bette Midler, Abigail Breslin star in this fabulous comedy.

HAMPSTEAD (2019) – July 28, 2021 (Comedy)
Director: Joel Hopkins
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Diane Keaton, James Norton, Alistair Petrie
Synopsis: An American widow living in the London suburb of Hampstead and a man who lives on the Heath form an unlikely alliance against unscrupulous property developers in the neighborhood.

BLITHE SPIRIT (2021) – August 8, 2021 (Comedy)
Director: Edward Hall
Starring: Judi Dench, Isla Fisher, Dan Stevens
Synopsis: A spiritualist medium holds a seance for a writer suffering from writer’s block but accidentally summons the spirit of his deceased first wife which leads to an increasingly complex love triangle with his current wife of five years.

MOFFIE (2021) – August 11, 2021 (Drame, War)
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Starring: Kai Luke Brümmer, Ryan de Villiers, Matthew Vey, Stefan Vermaak, Hilton Pelser, Wynand Ferreira
Synopsis: South Africa, 1981: a white boy is called into military service to defend the apartheid regime, but that’s not the only danger he faces.

FERAL (2018) – August 18, 2021 (Horror)
Director: Mark H. Young
Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Lew Temple, Olivia Luccardi, Renee Olstead, Brock Kelly, Landry Allbright, George Finn
Synopsis: A wild animal attacks six grad students on a weekend hike in the woods. One by one, they become infected with an unknown virus that turns them into bloodthirsty creatures.

DONNYBROOK (2019) – August 25, 2021 (Drama)
Director: Tim Sutton
Starring: Jamie Bell, Frank Grillo, Margaret Qualley, James Badge Dale
Synopsis: Jamie Bell is a veteran desperate to win or die trying in order to escape the ruthless criminal underworld and provide a better life for his family.

LAST CALL (2021) – Summer 21 (Comedy)
Director: Paolo Pilladi
Starring: Jeremy Piven, Taryn Manning, Bruce Dern, Zach McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Jack McGee, Cathy Moriarty, Cheri Oteri
Synopsis: A successful developer must decide whether to raze or resurrect his family’s bar after returning to the blue-collar Philadelphia neighborhood of his youth.

MONDAY (2021) – Summer 21 (Romance, Drama)
Director: Argyris Papadimitropoulos
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Denise Gough, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Dominique Tipper
Synopsis: Two thrill-seeking Americans trying to find themselves in Greece become entangled in a passionate love affair after an unexpected encounter one Friday night.

Coming this September, this is your first look at the Trailer for the screen adaptation of DEAR EVAN HANSEN!

Synopsis:

The breathtaking, generation-defining Broadway phenomenon becomes a soaring cinematic event as Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner Ben Platt reprises his role as an anxious, isolated high schooler aching for understanding and belonging amid the chaos and cruelty of the social-media age.   Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Wonder), the film is written for the screen by the show’s Tony winner Steven Levenson with music and lyrics by the show’s Oscar®, Grammy and Tony-winning songwriting team of Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (La La Land, The Greatest Showman). Featuring Grammy winning songs, including the iconic anthem “You Will Be Found,” “Waving Through a Window,” “For Forever” and “Words Fail,” Dear Evan Hansen stars six-time Oscar® nominee Amy Adams, Oscar® winner Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give), Colton Ryan (Apple TV+’s Little Voice), Nik Dodani (Netflix’s Atypical), DeMarius Copes (Broadway’s Mean Girls) and Danny Pino (NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).

DEAR EVAN HANSEN arrives in theatres September 24, 2021.

(Photo/video credit: Universal Pictures Canada)

Liam Neeson and Laurence Fishburne star in THE ICE ROAD, coming soon.

See the Trailer:

VVS Films release THE ICE ROAD:

June 25, 2021 – Digitally and ib VOD English

July 27, 2021 – Digitally and VOD French; DVD and Blu-ray

(Photo/video credit: VVS Films)