Latest news with #Eddington
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ari Aster's Eddington Trailer: When Reality Is a Horror Movie
The small American town of Ari Aster's new Eddington doesn't look so different from the real world presented by CNN or the Drudge Report: People can spin anything into a conspiracy, government is turned against itself, and gunfire erupts with seemingly little provocation. The small, fictional New Mexico town in the brand-new trailer for Eddington — set in 2020 — isn't so different from downtown Los Angeles right now, where local government clashes with the National Guard sent in by the president, suspicions run high, and everything feels on the edge of violence. Though a complete film can of course go places only hinted at in a preview, the Eddington trailer falls into the same tricky predicament as many recent satire or horror films: How do you keep up with a real world more dramatic than the movies? It feels quaint, for example, to see Joaquin Phoenix's Sheriff Joe Cross and Pedro Pascal's Mayor Ted Garcia face off over the direction of a small town, when in real life the president of the United States is threatening to arrest the governor of California. And while we don't recall anyone in 2020 connecting anti-Covid masks with child trafficking — as Austin Butler's cult-figure preacher, Vernon Jefferson, does in the Eddington trailer — it sounds like exactly the kind of weird connection people would make at any moment in the conspiracy-mad 2020s. Eddington, which premiered at Cannes to strong reviews and comes to theaters July 18, carries the tagline 'hindsight is 2020' — that's the long-ago year when the pandemic began — and an image of buffalo running off a cliff. (Indigenous people on the plains used to hunt and kill buffalo by chasing them into a panicked cliff jump.) Recent projects like Jesse Armstrong's terrific Mountainhead and the new season of Black Mirror feel like they're racing to stay a few steps ahead of the real-life technical innovations that can make reality seem ever more dystopian. Once we turned to entertainment for something more exciting than our humdrum real lives. Now we turn to entertainment for something not necessarily more boring, but easier to contain: It resolves, more or less, at the end of the movie, or episode, or season. Also Read: In Ari Aster's Eddington: Small-Town Covid Tensions With Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler Turning off the news can feel like hiding. Part of our instinct is to confront the problems of the world, in hopes of fixing them. But they can also add to a sense of learned helplessness that might make us worse at fighting for a better world. How do we strike the right balance between being informed and doomscrolling? Eddington presents interesting questions, but not escape: The scenario in the trailer parallels our real lives too precisely. As tension of masks and fear of the virus sweep through Eddington in 2020, Butler's social media tirades add fuel to the brushfire. Pascal's mayor pleads for calm. Phoenix's sheriff traffics in grievance. Emma Stone, as the sheriff's wife, seems disgusted, and wondering how she's gotten dragged into this insanity. When she types "Horrible" in the comments section of a Vernon Jefferson video entitled "How Masks Make It Easier to SMUGGLE CHILDREN," is she referring to the practice of smuggling children? Or the fear-stoking tactics of the video? It's been a cliche for years to say real events parallel a horror movie. But it's saying something when the director of Hereditary and Midsommar turns to the news for inspiration. And reality is not, to be clear, a horror movie. You can turn off a horror movie. Main image: A scene in the trailer for Eddington, from Ari Aster, in theaters July 18 from A24. Related Headlines 30 Baby Boomers We Love How Nobody Wants This Uses Cross Shooting and Creative Editing to Make Strong Connections Giving Voice to the Adolescents of Adolescence
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ari Aster and John Waters on the Art of Not Compromising
"He looks normal — but he's not!" John Waters said Saturday night, inviting Ari Aster to the stage. "Get on up here!" So began a spellbinding conversation at the Provincetown International Film Festival between two of the most uncompromising film directors — Waters, the rule-breaking icon who serves as the Cape Cod festival's patron saint, and Aster, who came to Provincetown for the first time to accept the festival's Filmmakers on the Edge award, a month before the release of his latest, Eddington. The two filmmakers — who first met years ago at a party at David Sedaris' house — were deeply complimentary of each other, while self-deprecatingly funny about themselves. Aster, for example, volunteered that none of his subsequent films have been as successful as his 2018 breakout Hereditary, which earned $80 million on a $10 million budget. "It's just been a declension ever since," Aster laughed. He joked that when Hereditary was a huge hit, "I took it for granted. I was like, 'Well, that's how it's gonna be.'" Waters countered by noting the intense critical praise for Hereditary, then shared one of his own reviews, Janet Maslin's takedown of his 1977 film Desperate Living: "You could look far and wide to find a more pointlessly ugly movie ... but why would you bother?" From there, the two shared a series of amusing gripes about the state of movies, though their love of filmmaking shined through. "The movie business, as I know it, is over," Waters said at one point, asking Aster if he felt the same. "Well, you know, it's feeling bad," said Aster. "And I'm very lucky. I'm making the films I want to make. But just, you know, the culture at large is feeling just... it's horrible. I don't know. Everything feels bad." In true artistic fashion, he's processing that frustration through storytelling. In Eddington, a Covid horror film set in 2020, Joaquin Phoenix's small-town New Mexico sheriff faces off with Pedro Pascal's mayor, as paranoia and conspiracy theories run rampant. The film addresses American distrust and division. Waters said of Eddington: "There are no heroes. There's no one to root for. That's why I like this so much. The left and the right are both so horrible. Is it possible to have nostalgia for Covid?" The audience roared, though Aster clarified, "I don't know how nostalgic it is." Aster is perhaps the most revered genre filmmaker of recent years, and Waters is a patron saint not just of the Provincetown festival but of bold filmmakers everywhere: Best known for the 1988 hit Hairspray, he broke out in the 1970s with shocking films like 1972's Pink Flamingos and 1974's Female Trouble. He is loved both for his films and for freely speaking his mind. In 2023, for example, after Aster's 179-minute, surrealistic tragicomedy Beau is Afraid failed at the box office and received divisive reviews, Waters delightedly named it the best film of the year. Though Waters and Aster joked about their occasional bad reviews, Waters said he sort of misses the era when critics had more influence. "It used to be, in the old days, if you had an art film and you got a ringing review in The New York Times, it was a hit, and if you got a bad review, it definitely failed," Waters said. "Now, a rave review doesn't make any difference, but if there's a bad review, it still fails. So I don't know. I miss the power of the critics in a way." Waters and Aster shared amusement and frustration with all the forces pushing them toward compromise, including focus groups (which Waters calls "fuck-us groups," because of how their input can dilute a filmmaker's vision). Waters noted that A24, which distributes Aster's films, is like a modern version of Harvey Weinstein's Miramax, without Weinstein's baggage. He also told Aster that Weinstein once offered to release his 1998 film Pecker — if he would change a key location. "If it's not a gay bar and it's a titty bar, I'll do it," Waters quoted Weinstein telling him. (Waters passed.) Aster, meanwhile, talked about studio executives who always ask him to shorten his films. "That's always a big fight while I'm editing," he said. "But how do you win?" asked Waters. "It's just a long negotiation," said Aster. "I've never been pushed to in any way compromise the films at all. It's always just, get them shorter. Which, you know, if anybody were in the room hearing the arguments, they would not be on my side." Asked if he'd ever had trouble with the ratings board, he noted that his 2019 film Midsommar briefly had an NC-17, before he ultimately got an R. Waters recalled that at one point, he was told he couldn't use the title Pecker: "I said, 'How about Shaft? How about Free Willy?" The Q&A ended on a sincere note as Aster told Waters how much his films have meant to him. "It's really an honor to receive this from you, John," Aster said as he accepted the Filmmaker on the Edge award. "You're one of my heroes, and when I was growing up, your films were a real North Star for me." Main image: Ari Aster and John Waters. MovieMaker. Related Headlines 12 Shameful Movies That Glamorize the Devil Goldfinger: 12 Behind the Scenes Photos of James Bond at His Best Kites Director Walter Thompson-Hernandez on Violence the Poetry in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pedro Pascal slaps Joaquin Phoenix during a heated standoff in first trailer for Hereditary director's pandemic drama that critics are calling "the first truly modern western"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The first full-length trailer for Eddington, directed by Ari Aster, has arrived - it looks a truly wild time. In the brief clip, which can be viewed below, Sherriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) slowly but surely starts to unravel as COVID-19 hits the small town of Eddington and tensions begin to rise amongst residents. Joe ends up starting a war with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who is running for reelection. There's plenty of gunfire, protests, and violence - though nothing beats the scene where Pascal slaps Phoenix across the face. We also get our first glimpse at Emma Stone as Joe's wife Louise, Deirdre O'Connell as Louise's mother, and Austin Butler as Vernon Jefferson Peak, who appears to be a religious zealot. The cast also includes Luke Grimes, Micheal Ward, and Clifton Collins Jr. The contemporary Western had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme D'or and was apparently met with a mixed reaction from viewers and critics alike. "Covid felt like an inflection point, where the link to the old society we lived in was finally cut," Aster told The New York Times, explaining his vision for the film. "That old idea of democracy being something that could be any sort of countervailing force to power and tech and finance, it went away completely at that moment, and it's where I think we became fully isolated. Eddington is set to hit theaters on July 18. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond, or, check out our list of movie release dates.
CNN
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Hollywood Minute: New ‘Wonder Woman' movie in the works
James Gunn reveals a new 'Wonder Woman' is being written, Ice Spice joins upcoming 'SpongeBob' flick, plus Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in 'Eddington.' Rick Damigella and Douglas Hyde contributed to this story.
CNN
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Hollywood Minute: New ‘Wonder Woman' movie in the works
James Gunn reveals a new 'Wonder Woman' is being written, Ice Spice joins upcoming 'SpongeBob' flick, plus Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in 'Eddington.' Rick Damigella and Douglas Hyde contributed to this story.
