Billie Eilish and Sarah Polley revisit ‘The Bell Jar’
Billie Eilish is no stranger to film work; she has two Academy Awards, both for Best Original Song. But her next project will see her taking on a different movie task: acting. She’ll play the lead in a new big screen adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s classic 1963 novel, “The Bell Jar,” for acclaimed filmmaker Sarah Polley. Polley is herself an Oscar-winner. She won for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2023, for the film she directed, “Women Talking,” and Polley will write and direct this film, about a young woman dealing with mental health issues, a story rooted in Plath’s real-life experiences of clinical depression (the writer killed herself soon after the novel’s publication). Eilish has acted before, but this will be the queer singer-songwriter’s debut feature film acting experience, one that could put her closer to that third Oscar.
Amazon gives the green light to Kristen Stewart
It’s been two years since the news that Kristen Stewart would be playing the late Sally Ride in a biopic about the lesbian astronaut’s life. In Hollywood this is called “development hell,” where a project sits around indefinitely, waiting for a studio to give the go-ahead. Well, Amazon has finally pulled the trigger on “The Challenger,” about Ride’s experiences as the first U.S. woman in space. Based on Meredith E. Bagby’s 2023 book “The New Guys,” and adapted by Maggie Cohn (“The Staircase”) who’ll write, executive produce and serve as showrunner, the limited series will explore Ride’s 1983 groundbreaking trip into orbit and her position on the Presidential commission that studied the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger accident. Here’s hoping it’s not another two-year-long wait to see it.
‘Circus of Books’ director returns with ‘My Brother’s Killer’
The world of true-crime-as-entertainment can feel like a wallow in sadness, and with good reason: some real person out there has lost their life. But what if a long-abandoned cold case was re-opened and the killer was found? That’s the subject of “My Brother’s Killer,” the new documentary from Rachel Mason, whose 2019 film “Circus of Books” chronicled an unconventional and beloved family-run bookstore in the heart of gay West Hollywood. “My Brother’s Killer” tells the tragic story of Billy London, a young gay man and occasional adult film performer, whose disappearance and brutal murder shocked and frightened the LGBT community in Los Angeles in 1990. Unsolved for decades, the film explores the trail of clues and suspects, eventually working its way toward long-awaited answers. Recently screened at South by Southwest, the film is a time capsule of a dark time in late 20th-century queer history, and how people who refuse to let the past go can sometimes find truth and justice. Look for it on the film festival circuit until it gets a proper release.
‘Enigma Variations’ swaps Jeremy Allen White for Aaron Taylor Johnson
André Aciman’s book “Enigma Variations,” already destined for an adaptation as a limited TV series for Netflix, has seen “The Bear” star Jeremy Allen White exit the project, with Aaron Taylor Johnson (“28 Years Later”) stepping into the lead. The “Call Me By Your Name” author’s 2017 novel explored the various love affairs and situationships of a bisexual man’s erotic life, told in a series of interconnected novellas. Amanda Kate Shuman (“The Wheel of Time”) is writing the series and Oliver Hermanus (“The History of Sound”) will direct the project , which promises a thorough examination of the nuances of queer sexuality and masculinity. No other casting news is available yet, but this one seems full of horny promise.
Romeo San Vicente knows all the variations.
