Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2146

Ewan McGregor Looks Unrecognizable in New FARGO Teaser

When FX announced that Ewan McGregor would not only be joining Fargo in a leading role for its third season, but that he would be playing two parts, brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy, we had to double check that we hadn’t conjured up the casting news during a fever dream. One of our favorite actors on one of our favorite shows, and he’s going to play two roles? This was the kind of fantasy casting we could only hope for, and it was really going to happen.

Of course, never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that McGregor would look quite like this.

In the first teaser from FX featuring any of the cast (that we first came across at Vulture), the almost impossible to recognize McGregor can be seen in his role as Ray Stussy, the overweight, past (never had?) his prime parole officer that is jealous of his successful, handsome older brother Emmit, “the Parking Lot King of Minnesota.” He’s eating in a diner with Nikki Swango, played by another one of our favorites, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a “crafty and alluring recent parolee with a passion for competitive bridge playing.” (I’m not familiar with the world of competitive bridge playing, but I’m going to bet not all of them look like Ms. Swango.)

Based on the appearance of each, we’re going to say old Ray is playing just a little over his balding head, so the reasons for the two being together might not be above water. Or rather, since this is Fargo, above snow.

Those suspicions seem founded when the two quickly and quietly get up and leave the diner after officer Gloria Burgle (played by the terrific Carrie Coon of The Leftovers–seriously, we love this cast) walks in. Despite a wary initial reaction from Ray, the two are cool, calm, and collected as they leave. However, the police officer can’t help but notice the strangeness of their immediate departure.

Just like we can’t help but notice that the neon diner sign outside keeps blinking out the word “die.”

And as anyone that watched season two can tell you, it’s remarkable how easily a late night diner can turn into a bloodbath in this universe. Of course, so can a basement, a butcher shop, a home, and you know what now that we think about it lots of places on Fargo end up as bloodbaths. It’s kind of a violent place. Polite, but violent.

Based on Ray’s character description, we were fairly certain he was going to be heavily involved in the major crime story of the show, but after seeing this we’re positive he will be involved in the nefarious activities that drive the plot, which always involve regular but envious, unhappy people getting caught up in something very bad and very deadly.

This very brief teaser is the best peek we have so far from FX about what’s to come. The two previous teasers only hinted at the time of year some of the story will take place, with a giant inflatable Santa Claus decoration losing its air, and an air conditioner running in the dead of winter. Sort of like (a former) someone really needs to be kept cool.

After two stellar seasons from Fargo, we know the show is going to offer superb writing, a stellar cast, lots of action and entertainment, great, meaningful themes, and tons of murder and mayhem. What we didn’t know until today is that we were going to get the worst looking version of Ewan McGregor we’ve ever seen.

We can’t wait.

Fargo season three premieres on FX on April 19, 2017.

What do you make of this teaser? Did we miss anything that might lend us some clues about the upcoming season? Okay, why dontcha pop in to the comments section below right here and tell us all about what you think please and thank you.

Images: FX

LA LA LAND is Going on a Live Concert Tour

After a particularly insane Oscar night, La La Land lost to Moonlight for Best Picture. However, they still had a lot of victories in other categories. Damien Chazelle’s original musical brought home six Academy Awards, a very impressive return at the box office, and now, the widely talked about film is taking its music on tour in a multi-city concert experience.

Lionsgate has announced that La La Land In Concert: A Live-To-Film Celebration will kick off a nationwide tour at the famed Hollywood Bowl on Memorial Day weekend, with performances on Friday, May 26, and Saturday, May 27. While Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling will not be joining the tour, a 100-piece symphony orchestra, choir, and Jazz ensemble will score and accompany their vocal contributions. The director of the concert, Richard Kraft, indicated that the concert tour will be “a one-of-kind concert experience, which becomes a hybrid of film, pre-recordings and incredible live musicianship.”

“For me, one of the most thrilling and fulfilling parts of making La La Land was scoring the film to a live orchestra: a hundred phenomenal local musicians playing in real-time to the Technicolor images, bringing Justin’s compositions to vivid life,” shared Chazelle. “I couldn’t be more excited to share that experience with audiences this summer, let alone in a setting as epic and as quintessentially ‘LA’ as the Hollywood Bowl.”

Considering the ending of La La Land involves a surreal sequence that blends fantasy and reality, it will be interesting to see how that experience translates to a live tour. So far, the US cities confirmed for the tour are Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, San Antonio, Dallas, Indianapolis, Nashville, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Denver, and Washington D.C.; with additional tour stops to be announced. The concert tour will also go international with stops in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy, Turkey, and Switzerland.

Are you excited about the chance to see the music of La La Land in concert? Reply in song in the comment section below!

Image: Summit Entertainment

THE AMERICANS is a Must-Watch Thanks to Current U.S.-Russia Relations

The Americans might take place in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War, but thanks to the current political climate — election hacking and collusion allegations — it feels more relevant than ever.

Star Noah Emmerich, who plays FBI agent Stan Beeman, told Nerdist he thinks that just makes the story more accessible and modern. “The fact that Russia-U.S. relations right now are tense and strained and combative makes our show seem less of a historical drama and more of a contemporary drama, oddly—like it really could be happening now.”

But just because The Americans takes place in the past doesn’t mean the show has been out of touch this whole time.

“I think [the current headlines] make it certainly more accessible or relevant to the audience in some way,” Emmerich said. “They’re like, ‘Wow, this has been going on for a long time, and here’s one chapter of it—the early chapter from the ’80s, but it’s still relevant now.’ That maybe lends it a layer that makes it more accessible or relevant, but ultimately, I think in some ways it’s kind of irrelevant, weirdly.”

Showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields said in January that they prefer to keep current events as separate from the show as possible. “We try to stay in a bubble because we don’t want anybody to ever feel the people doing this show were watching current events,” Weisberg said. “You can’t do that with a period show. If it were a current show, then we could let them all in, but in a period show it has to feel totally separate.”

That sentiment rings true for Emmerich as well. “It doesn’t actually impact the character to me, the central heart and meat of the show, because it’s irrelevant, really,” he told Nerdist. “It could be French and English, it could be American and Russian, it could be Chinese and Korea—it doesn’t really matter. It’s about the complexity of us human beings, and how we relate to each other, and our sense of truth, and authenticity and integrity of character, and all those themes that we wrestle with.”

He added, “You know, even if this wasn’t happening right now with the U.S.-Russian relations and the [contemporary nature] of this weird dynamic, I think it speaks to the longevity of humanity in the sense that the characters may change, the plot lines change, but the same thing keeps happening. Human race, civilization, the way human beings interact, is pretty consistent from the beginning of mankind to present. The context changes, the names of the ideology changes, the names of the countries change, but these things are universal. It’s part of being human.”

And as Weisberg reiterated on a TCA panel for the series, the goal of The Americans was to show “how important it is to remember that our enemies are human, and that those cultures we believe are out to get us somehow are comprised of human beings who aren’t that different than we are, whether or not we agree with them,” he said.

Because if you think about it, Stan and Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are all doing the same thing—trying to be good patriots. It’s just that they’re fighting for different sides. Whenever you hold your breath and hope the Jennings can complete a mission without getting caught, Emmerich said, “We’re rooting for the bad guys, you know? There are no bad guys in this show, really.”

Are you looking forward to The Americans‘ return on March 7th, 2017? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: FX

Why WONDER WOMAN is Our Best Hope for the DCEU

In three months, Wonder Woman will finally make her solo big screen debut, and we’ve been hoping that this will finally be the movie that gives the DC Extended Universe a much needed home run. We even sent our managing editor, Alicia Lutes, on a trip to the edit bay where director Patty Jenkins is currently editing Wonder Woman to give us the scoop on what to expect, and she did not disappoint! Today’s Nerdist News is all about the things that Alicia learned on her Amazonian adventure, and her account of the never-before-seen footage from Wonder Woman!

Fair warning: there are Wonder Woman spoilers in today’s video, but the rest of this post will keep them to a minimum.

Join host, and Themyscira travel blogger, Jessica Chobot as she gets the new Wonder Woman details directly from Alicia. Among the scenes she describes are Wonder Woman/Diana and Steve Trevor’s departure for the world of men, as well as Diana’s first taste of England, and a few key hints that may reveal the connection between Danny Huston’s big bad, Erich Ludendorff, and a certain God of War. Best of all, we’ve also got an account of a major action scene, and it’s got us even more excited to see this movie! Why can’t it be June 2, already?

Special thanks to Qualcomm for sponsoring today’s Nerdist News! Qualcomm and Lionsgate are also teaming up with us to send three lucky fans to see the Power Rangers premiere in Los Angeles, on March 22, and win Google Pixel phones and Daydream headsets. To enter, just follow this link and fill out the form!

Gorillaz will Make Their Live Return with Their Own Music Festival

It’s been seven years since Gorillaz have headlined their own show. With a new album en route, though, the band is making its return in a big way. On June 10, Damon Albarn and company will host the brand new Demon Dayz Festival at the Dreamland amusement park in Margate, England, and it is there that Gorillaz will return to the stage (via Vulture).

Just having Gorillaz there is big enough, but who else will be playing? The line-up hasn’t been announced yet, but a good place to begin speculating might be with the artists the band has worked with before. In the past, Gorillaz have partnered up with acts like De La Soul, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, André 3000, Snoop Dogg, MF DOOM, Del the Funky Homosapien, and others. Furthermore, Albarn has collaborated people like Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Erykah Badu, and Thundercat. Oh yeah, and he was in Blur. Combine that list with the fact that the festival is being presented by Coachella organizers Goldenvoice and we have a potentially great time on our hands.

We also don’t know how big the lineup will be, but during Chance The Rapper’s one day Magnificent Coloring Day festival, nine acts performed between noon and midnight. That seems like a good point of reference for this, so until we learn more, let’s imagine that Demon Dayz Festival will be similarly sized and potentially include a few of the aforementioned artists on the bill. For our England-based readers, who would you like to see there? Let us know what you’re thinking for a potential line-up!

Featured image: Gorillaz

IMDb’s New Rating Shines a Light on Female Representation in Movies

Hollywood hasn’t always done its share to foster diversity in films and television shows. However, with the diversity conversation closing in on the public conscience, we’re starting to see, however slowly, more stories from and about women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities (notably, we’ve seen an upswing in characters with disabilities played by actors with disabilities). It’s a huge culture shift that we’re seeing take way, and it’s awesome. For its part, IMDb is trying to highlight that shift by introducing its new rating system: F is for Female.

As Vulture reports, the website will now be adding F ratings for films that highlight women–both in front of and behind the camera. The rating system, developed by Bath Film Festival director Holly Tarquini will give films an F for being directed by women, written by women, and films that features women onscreen in significant roles. So films like Selma would receive an F for its director Ava DuVernay, Hidden Figures would get a double F for its amazing leading ladies and writer, and Frozen a triple F rating for it’s female writer, director, and lead characters.

Of course, Tarquini’s ultimate goal is for her rating system to become irrelevant. As she explained to the Chronicle, “Our real goal is to reach the stage when the F rating is redundant because 50 percent of the stories we see onscreen are told by and about film’s unfairly underrepresented half of the population — women.”

With more and more stories coming out in cinemas and on the small screen featuring significant, complex female characters, hopefully the rating system will become redundant very soon. And while female representation is only a small segment of highlighting the stories of underrepresented communities, it is encouraging to see Hollywood take steps in the right direction.

What do you think of the rating system? Do you think it will help make films and television more diverse? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Featured image: 20th Century Fox

Image: A24

Ridley Scott talks the female heroes of the Alien franchise

Nintendo Left a Secret Message for Switch Owners Inside the Pro Controller

Nintendo’s fans are notorious secret hunters. Just last month, a dedicated devotee found a new secret in Donkey Kong 64, which came out in 1999. The company expects its players to pick games and consoles apart at this point, so now, the latest easter egg discovery is Nintendo giving its fans a shout-out (via RocketNews24).

The secret was found by Japanese Twitter user @geo_stream, who is luckier than a lot of you reading this, we’re sure, in that he actually managed to get his hands on a Nintendo Switch. He went all out and got the $70 Pro Controller, and it’s there he made a discovery. If you tilt the right joystick down and look very carefully at the inside of the controller, you’ll find a secret message: “THX2 ALLGAMEFANS!”

@geo_stream tweeted out a photo demonstrating his discovery, and another user chimed in with a video that more carefully shows how to expose the message:

switchのproコンの右スティック周りの透明な部分から見える奥の方に

「thx2 allgamefans!」（すべてのゲームファンに感謝！）て書いてある…#nintendoswitch pic.twitter.com/2oHfShIw5w

— じお@ゴードン・フリーマン (@geo_stream) March 3, 2017

@geo_stream @donatama777 ホントだっ！ちゃんと書いてあった！ 動画で撮ってみたよ（＾∇＾） さすがニンテンドー！#nintendoswitch pic.twitter.com/FggfcLNK89

— BEAT (@y_beat) March 4, 2017

Nintendo has every reason to be thankful for Switch owners who invested in the new game console. Following the Wii U, there were a lot of questions about the Switch ahead of its launch, but the new console seems to be doing well so far. Like we alluded to earlier, stores have a hard time keeping it in stock. In addition, while reviews of the console itself are positive but cautious (like ours), the system’s marquee launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is getting amazing reviews, receiving nearly perfect review scores from many different outlets. Now’s the time to start getting excited, and Nintendo is happy players agree.

Featured image: Nintendo

Is the Nintendo Switch worth your money?

Jughead Becomes a Werewolf in a New Archie Comics Special

While modern comic book fans have discovered Jughead Jones’ avowed asexuality and casual fans have embraced Cole Sprouse’s performance on Riverdale, hunger is almost always Jughead’s defining trait. What can we say? The boy loves food like no other. But in an upcoming one-shot from Archie Comics, Jughead is taking his appetite to a much darker place.

Via Entertainment Weekly, Archie has revealed new details about Jughead: The Hunger, a single issue story by writer Frank Tieri and artist Michael Walsh. Within this story, Jughead has been transformed into a murderous werewolf, whose killing spree has earned him a new nickname: “the Riverdale Ripper.”

“What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Jughead? The fact that the guy’s always so damned hungry all the time, right? In Jughead: The Hunger, we ask why that is, and we reveal the answer is quite a bit more sinister than the guy just really liking Pop’s cheeseburgers a whole lot,” explained Tieri while speaking to EW. “It turns out our version of good ol’ Jug has a lot more in common with his dog Hot Dog than anybody ever realized. Well, other than the fact Hot Dog isn’t whacking and eating half of Riverdale, of course.”

This is actually not the first time that Archie Comics has put its iconic characters into horror stories. Afterlife With Archie and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are both critically acclaimed series that brought unexpected terror to the residents of Riverdale. There’s even the possibility that Jughead: The Hunger could lead to a new ongoing series as well, if fans respond favorably to it. Of course, the only way that’s going to happen is if Jughead leaves some of his friends alive after this story. Or perhaps Jughead won’t be the only werewolf in this tale. EW posted a few preview pages, and they revealed the fate of at least one supporting character at Jughead’s claws.

Jughead: The Hunger will be released on Wednesday, March 29.

What do you think about Jughead as a werewolf? Howl at the moon in the comment section below!

Image: Archie Comics

SNL’s “Girl at a Bar” Shows How Some Men Have Trouble Taking Rejection

From the first time a caveman put the moves on a cavelady at the local watering hole (which was a literal watering hole), men have refined their barroom pick-up lines to suit the times in which they live. But as this Saturday Night Live sketch reminds us, when it comes to trying to hit on women, even a modern, progressive guy still has the potential to turn into a caveman when he doesn’t get the response he wants.

In a taped sketch from this week’s SNL, titled “Girl at a Bar,” Cecily Strong played a woman repeatedly approached by totally “not gross” guys desperate to make her feel comfortable, by telling her about their progressive, left-leaning, pro-feminism political stances and activity. They are understanding, respectful, and definitely voted for Hillary; these guys are not like most men, as they remind her out loud.

Until she turns down their ever-growing–often lewd–romantic overtures. That’s when their progressive nature takes a slightly more regressive tone. After every rejection, each “feminist” suitor instantly turns into an entitled, offensive a-hole who thinks they are owed something because they “followed all the rules!”

It’s the best kind of satire, because it’s clearly over the top, while still feeling way too real. But is this skit mocking men who try to pick up women by telling them what they think they want to hear in this day and age, or is this poking fun at “progressive” men who are still prone to an old-world patriarchal mentality when it comes to dealing with women?

Yes.

Remember, just because you say you’re a feminist it doesn’t mean you get to be a dick to a woman at a bar. And the punchline shows it’s not necessarily behavior that’s unique to dudes.

What did you think of this sketch? Sit down at our comments section below and give us a draught of your thoughts.

Images: NBC

The Cellist Behind WONDER WOMAN’s Theme Has a Rockin’ New Version

Although it’s fair to say that last year’s Batman v Superman was mostly divisive, there is one aspect that almost everyone agrees was out of this world, and that’s Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Although she’s in the movie for barely ten minutes total, she leaves quite an impression, and because of that, even the biggest critics of Batman v Superman are now looking forward to the Wonder Woman solo film from director Patty Jenkins. Aside from Gadot’s performance, one of the more memorable aspects surrounding the character is the piece of music that welcomes Wonder Woman’s arrival on screen, which is called “Is She With You.”

Now thanks to io9,  we’ve learned that Tina Guo, the cellist who lent her talents to Hans Zimmer’s instantly memorable theme music for Wonder Woman’s big moment, has teased a new version of the track, which should have Wonder Woman fans everywhere even more excited for Diana’s solo big screen solo debut. Guo shared some clips on Twitter of her work on a new piece of Wonder Woman related music, which is even cooler than the version that was in the previous movie. You can listen to them below:

Recording #ElectricCello for my new #WonderWoman single…. coming soon! #Metal #PizzaPower #Pizza pic.twitter.com/Z5WtkULWCK

— Tina Guo (@Tinaguo) March 5, 2017

Metal Wonderwoman#WonderWoman #Bass #Cello #TinaGuo pic.twitter.com/fwoC7C3qUs

— Tina Guo (@Tinaguo) March 5, 2017

Guo is a classically trained musician, but she enjoys adding in elements of rock and metal into her performances. Although she maintains that the version she’s been teasing on Twitter of Wonder Woman’s theme is for her own personal amusement, she is working on the score for the upcoming Wonder Woman film, so this new version could indeed end up in the final film after all, or at least something very similar to it. These particular pieces of music ought to accompany Wonder Woman in all her big screen appearances from now on, because they’re so instantly recognizable.

What do you think of this new iteration of Wonder Woman’s theme music? Let us know down below in the comments.

Image: Warner Brothers

Let’s see that trailer again.