‘Love Actually’ cast to reunite for 20th anniversary TV special | CNN

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Editor’s Note: “Tis the Season: The Holidays on Screen” celebrates the most beloved holiday films and television specials. The special airs Sunday, November 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.

CNN  — 

One of the most beloved modern Christmas classics is turning 20 next year, and to mark the occasion, cast members from the landmark 2003 romantic comedy “Love Actually” are reuniting for a TV special to air on ABC next week, the network announced Tuesday.

Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are taking part in the special, along with the film’s writer-director Richard Curtis.

In a promotional clip shared by ABC program “20/20” on Twitter, Diane Sawyer asks the cast to fill in the sentence, “Love actually is…,” to which Grant drolly answers, “Dead!”

According to ABC, the special will look at how the film successfully corralled a diverse ensemble to create a charming and winsome film examining various loving relationships during a frantic month leading up to Christmas in London, England, going on to become a beloved holiday tradition around the world.

The program, which comes a little early, considering the film was released on November 6, 2003, will also look at how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways people interact, love and connect, and the all-important need for kindness in families and communities.

The new reunion is not the first time the actors from “Love Actually” – who also include Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson and Colin Firth – have come together again.

In 2017, a short sequel to the film was produced for NBC in honor of Red Nose Day, a charity for children in need created by Curtis.

“The Laughter & Secrets of ‘Love Actually’: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special” airs Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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James Cameron almost didn’t choose Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet to star in ‘Titanic’ | CNN

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CNN  — 

James Cameron is sharing some surprising details from the making of his blockbuster hit “Titanic,” which celebrates 25 years of being released next month.

In a new video interview with GQ, the iconic director revealed that he almost didn’t end up casting Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet – his two romantic leads whose careers as major Hollywood movie stars were cemented by the landmark Oscar-winning film.

While considering actors to play the roles of his star-crossed lovers on the doomed ocean liner, Cameron explained that he was initially thinking of someone like Gwyneth Paltrow for Rose, and that while Winslet had been proposed as an option, he was afraid she was too much of a typecast.

“I actually didn’t see Kate at first,” he said in the video. “She had done a couple of other historical dramas as well, and she was getting a reputation as ‘Corset Kate’ doing historical stuff.” (It is true that “The Reader” actress’s three credits prior to “Titanic” were also period costume dramas – “Sense and Sensibility” in 1995, followed by “Jude” and “Hamlet” one year later.)

Cameron went on to say that he was afraid that putting Winslet in the role “was going to look like the laziest casting in the world,” but that he nonetheless agreed to meet her in the end. Of course, he thought she was “fantastic,” and the rest is history.

With DiCaprio, meanwhile, there were some initial hiccups.

After an initial “hysterical” meeting with the heartthrob actor, in which all the women in the production office somehow ended up in the conference room alongside Cameron, DiCaprio was invited back for a screen test with Winslet, who had already been cast at that point.

But when the “Romeo + Juliet” star came in, he was surprised to learn he’d have to read lines and be filmed alongside Winslet to gauge their chemistry on camera.

“He came in, he thought it was another meeting to meet Kate,” Cameron described.

He remembered telling the pair, “We’ll just run some lines, and I’ll video it.”

But then DiCaprio – who by then had led several movies and scored an Oscar nomination for 1993’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” – informed Cameron, “You mean I’m reading?…I don’t read,” meaning that he no longer submitted to having to audition for film roles.

Without missing a beat, Cameron extended his hand to the star and and told him, “Well, thanks for coming by.”

The director then explained to DiCaprio the enormity of the project before them, how the film was going to take two years out of his life, and how he was “not going to f**k it up by making the wrong decision in casting.”

“So you’re going to read or you’re not going to get the part,” Cameron said he told the young actor.

DiCaprio reluctantly submitted, to his credit.

Cameron remembered how the actor “lit up” and “became Jack,” creating electric chemistry with Winslet later seen plainly in the film itself.

“Titanic” sailed into theaters on December 19, 1997 and eventually went on to win 11 Academy Awards, including best director for Cameron.

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Marsai Martin and Omari Hardwick play to win in ‘Fantasy Football’ | CNN

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CNN  — 

The new film “Fantasy Football” capitalizes on some of its stars natural talent.

Marsai Martin channels lots of girl-boss energy playing Callie Coleman, a tech-savvy young woman whose father’s long career in the NFL lands him with the Atlanta Falcons team.

Her production company is behind the family-friendly film. (Martin, 18, set a Guinness World Record in 2020 as the youngest Hollywood executive producer to work on a major production.)

She and costars Omari Hardwick (Bobby Coleman), Rome Flynn (Anderson Fisher), along with the film’s director Anton Cropper, recently spoke with CNN when they appeared at a Falcons game held at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was familiar surroundings as the group shot plenty of scenes for their movie there.

The plot centers around Callie’s father, played by Hardwick, seemingly at the end of his career when his daughter discovers she can control his moves via playing the Madden football video game.

Marsai Martin as Callie Coleman and Omari Hardwick as Bobby Coleman in "Fantasy Football."

Martin sees the role in which her character also makes friends with the robotics club team members at her new school as more than just fun with its positive message about diversity in technology.

“I’ve met so many girls who are in to technology and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or are all about Black girls coding,” she said. “It’s important to shine a light on it because it’s a very big deal. It’s all about representation.”

For Hardwick, the project gave him the opportunity to lean into his football roots.

Before he became famous for his work in roles like James “Ghost” St. Patrick on “Power,” the Savannah, Georgia native played as a defensive back at the University of Georgia and later tried out with the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted free agent.

“It feels incredible to be right back here at home,” Hardwick said. “This is obviously my hometown team…but I never got to play for the Falcons. With this film, I got to do my thing.”

Hardwick also pointed out that it was appropriate that they were attending a game in which the Atlanta Falcons were playing the Chicago Bears given that Rome Flynn, who plays Bobby Coleman’s rival, the hotshot young quarterback Anderson Fisher, grew up in Chicago.

Flynn told CNN that unlike their characters, he and Hardwick had no competition between them as leading men.

“It’s all love,” he said smiling. “We respect each other and we brought out the best in each other.”

“Fantasy Football” debuts Friday on Paramount+.

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‘Glass Onion’ sharpens the ‘Knives Out’ formula in a polished Netflix sequel

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Rising to the challenge of matching its successful predecessor, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” maintains the razor-sharp formula, with a setup that feels even more conspicuously like an Agatha Christie homage before an extremely clever series of twists kick in. Writer-director Rian Johnson again assembles a solid cast behind Daniel Craig, but it’s his use of language — where nary a word is wasted — that finally gives the sequel its edge.Continue Reading

In ‘Wednesday,’ Jenna Ortega makes Netflix’s Addams Family series look like a snap | CNN

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CNN  — 

Although the main character’s name was inspired by the poetic line “Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” “Wednesday” is generally a delight, thanks almost entirely to Jenna Ortega. Having outgrown her Disney Channel days, Ortega makes the Addams Family’s now-high-school-age daughter the coolest humorless goth sociopath you’ll ever meet, in a Netflix series that’s more kooky than spooky or ooky.

Director Tim Burton sets just the right visual tone – a mix of the comedic and macabre that resembles “Edward Scissorhands” – while teaming up with “Smallville” producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who know something about building a TV show around an extraordinary teen. Indeed, when Wednesday gets enrolled in a new private school, Nevermore Academy, she tells the headmistress (“Game of Thrones’” Gwendoline Christie) about her frequent moves from school to school, “They haven’t built one strong enough to hold me.”

That might change at Nevermore, a Poe-etic name for this haven for the weird and witchy, with a supernatural vibe that’s as much Hogwarts (or X-Men) as Charles Addams’ signature comic strip.

Not only does Wednesday have to deal with dawning psychic abilities and the strange visions that go with them, but a mystery emerges that turns the suspicious lass into an ill-tempered, ebon-clad Nancy Drew, trying to ascertain who’s responsible as the clues begin to circle back to her own family tree.

It’s obviously a fairly derivative mashup of genre elements, but the mix works in part because even the smaller ingredients are tasty, from Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Wednesday’s parents, Morticia and Gomez, to her sidekick Thing, who obtains a dress she wants by employing – what else? – a “five-fingered discount.” The writers extract a great deal of comedic mileage from that extremity, so give them a hand.

What separates “Wednesday” from similar efforts (Netflix’s “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” comes to mind), ultimately, is Ortega, who somehow manages to be relentlessly strange, a portrait in unblinking intensity and oddly endearing all at once. When the character description includes never raising one’s voice or cracking even the hint of a smile, that’s no small feat.

Throw in nifty touches like having Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1990s movies, as part of the school staff, and the local sheriff (Jamie McShane) dismissing Wednesday and her classmates as “the Scooby gang,” and the series operates on multiple levels.

Perhaps inevitably, “Wednesday” can’t sustain its initial kick as the serialized story unfolds over eight episodes, and the ending becomes too chaotic. Then again, that’s hardly a surprise given the nature of source material designed more for little jokes than a big sweeping story.

Seeking to bring something new a property like the Addams Family, which has been done so many times before, isn’t easy without altering its DNA. To its credit, “Wednesday” rises to the challenge and mostly manages to make it look like a snap.

“Wednesday” premieres November 23 on Netflix.

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