News

Spike Lee has announced his next project will be a film version of the Broadway stage show “David Byrne’s American Utopia.” The news was originally reported by Deadline. The cross-genre stage show helmed by the Talking Heads frontman opened October 2019 and runs through February 16 at the Hudson Theatre in New York. This film version is slated for a 2020 release. The film will be executive-produced and financed by Participant, with RadicalMedia and Byrne’s Todomundo and Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks also producing. Famed cinematographer Ellen Kuras (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) will shoot it.

“Pinch me,” David Byrne said in a statement shared with Deadline. “This couldn’t have worked out better for this project. Spike Lee directing and Participant producing — two socially engaged teams, well, three if you count us in the band, coming together in what I feel will be something moving, important,...

Spike Lee has signed on to direct a movie based on the Broadway show “David Byrne’s American Utopia” with Participant acting as lead financier and executive producer.

River Road Entertainment and Warner Music Group will also co-finance. The film will be produced by RadicalMedia, as well as Byrne’s Todomundo and Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks production companies.

“Pinch me. This couldn’t have worked out better for this project,” Byrne said. “Spike Lee directing and Participant producing — two socially engaged teams, well, three if you count us in the band, coming together in what I feel will be something moving, important, and unlike anything anyone has seen before.”

“American Utopia” opened in October and runs through Feb. 16 at the Hudson Theatre. The film is planned for a 2020 release.

The Broadway show includes Byrne and 11 musical artists performing songs from Byrne’s 2018 album of the same name,...

The Bonnaroo lineup dropped this morning and it’s pretty short on classic-rock acts unless Tool and Oysterhead now fall under that banner. But buried on the fifth line of the Friday section is the news that Turkuaz featuring Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew will perform the 1980 Talking Heads masterpiece Remain in Light. The funk band has been working with the Talking Heads guitarist for a number of years, and they’re gigging all over America this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album.

“It’s been a...

Fleetwood Mac’s 12th album is both demented and debonair, familiar and foreign — a sprawling double LP that, like the Beatles’ White Album before it, reveled in its own messiness, jumbling together the work of three distinct songwriters. Singer Stevie Nicks and keyboardist Christine McVie carried the commercial weight on Tusk, penning playful pop grooves (the latter’s “Think About Me”) and stormy rockers (the former’s “Sisters of the Moon”) that massaged the same sweet spot as their previous record, the mega-platinum 1977 masterwork Rumours.

But Lindsey Buckingham was unwilling to repeat himself.

House of Cards

Kieran Kinsella

David Croft

If you write a list of your 10 favorite British TV sitcom characters, probably half of them were created by comic genius David Croft. His creations include Mr Humphries (Are You Being Served?), Sergeant Major ‘Shut up’ Williams (It Ain’t Half Hot Mum) Herr Flick (Allo, Allo) and Corporal Jones (Dad’s Army). Like many great comedy writers, Croft collaborated with others including Jimmy Perry and David Floyd. Few writers though could match his creativity or career longevity. Such was Croft’s popularity that he was a regular guest on the British TV convention circuit right up until his death at the age of 89.

Paul Abbott

BAFTA and Emmy winning writer Paul Abbott, rose from humble origins to become one of the most successful writers in British TV history. His hard-hitting dramas are far removed from the idyllic world of Marple and Midsomer Murders.

With every week that passes, it feels like things just keep getting better and better around here. It’s becoming increasingly easy to put this very column together. New writers and very soon, we’ll have some new columns to tout. There’s a reason why the tagline “The Cure for the Common Movie Blog” now graces our homepage. Because if we’re anything around here, it’s uncommon. And you can find out why with the links that I’ve strategically placed after the jump. It’s all part of a little game I like to call The Week That Was. The Lead Want to see reviews of some of the films that will be dropping into theaters later in the year? Try out our coverage of Sundance 2011, where purchases are happening and stars are on the rise. From our team on the ground, the hits just keep coming. The...

If you've never seen The T.A.M.I. Show, the 1964 youth-concert explosion that has just been released on DVD for the first time, then by all means get hold of a copy of it. It's an electric surge of '60s rock-and-soul energy that will leave you bopping, laughing, and generally awed at the crackly pop fervor of the moment it captures. I confess that I didn't realize, until now, how unique that moment was. The first time I saw The T.A.M.I. Show, back in 1979 (it was then a fixture on the revival-house and college film-society circuit), I was, at the time,...