We talk with Alison Brie and Jeff Baena about their new comedy Spin Me Round, in which a dicey CEO’s M.O. involves pasta; Jonah Hill takes a mental health break; HBO Max scales back again. Plus: A short, dumpy Game of Thrones apology. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.
Anything Is Pasta-ble: Here is our interview with Alison Brie and Jeff Baena on the influences for their new comedy Spin Me Round, about a CEO of an Italian restaurant chain who is also a pasta-ble (their pun, not mine) Jeffrey Epstein type. Brie tells me that her own weird experiences with men, years ago, helped inform the film: “It is definitely interesting the way that perspective can change over time and the way you look at stories. I’ll share stuff with Jeff and even mid-retelling of a story that I’ve always been like, ‘This is such a funny story! About this date I went on with this man who used to be my teacher!’ … halfway through you’re sort of like, ‘This is maybe a mildly traumatic story.'”
Who’s In Spin Me Round? Thanks so much for asking. Besides Alison Brie, it stars Alessandro Nivola, Molly Shannon, Zach Woods, and Aubrey Plaza, who is on our latest cover and whose profile by Margeaux Sippell you can read right here.
Also: Can you sign up for our YouTube channel? We’re trying to buy a diamond-encased studio and it would really help.
Strong Recommendation: Is everyone watching The Rehearsal? From the title, I thought it was some very grim horror film — and it kind of is. The completely different Nathan Fielder HBO Max docu-comedy finds Fielder going to increasingly absurd and meta lengths to rehearse potentially stressful experiences — like revealing a secret to a friend. But it very quickly jumps from that relatively straightforward premise into a bananas exploration of dating, parenthood and antisemitism. You know that cliche where some pundit says a politician is playing four-dimensional chess, but it’s just pretentious nonsense? In this case it’s not: Nathan Fielder is like Sacha Baron Cohen playing four-dimensional chess.
HBO Not-So Max: With that good HBO Max news comes some bad HBO Max news. The service, which is in the midst of a reinvention, has pulled 36 titles,including 20 Originals, Variety reports. Among the departing shows is the frankly weird Sesame Street spinoff The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo.
Crikey: An Australian CEO who called Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke “short” and “dumpy” has issued a ridiculous apology. Patrick Delany, whose Foxtel is the Aussie home of Game of Thrones, said in a speech at a screening for its prequel, House of the Dragon, that when he first saw Clarke onscreen, “I was like, ‘What’s this show with the short, dumpy girl walking into the fire?’” A Foxtel spokesperson told Crikey, which first reported the news, “The aim was to convey that for him, Game of Thrones was something very different for television in 2011 and that Emilia Clarke went from relatively unknown to one of the most recognised and most-loved actors in television and film. On behalf of Mr Delany, the Foxtel Group apologises if his remarks were misunderstood and caused any offence.”
Free PR Advice From Your Friends in the States: If you get your PR team to read the speech (!!!) beforehand, they won’t have to write apologies like this one.
Jonah Hill Discusses Anxiety: Jonah Hill has a new documentary called Stutz, about his relationship with his therapist, which he hopes will “give therapy and the tools I’ve learned in therapy to a wide audience for private use through an entertaining film.” But he won’t do any media interviews for it, because he has realized that they contribute to his struggles with anxiety. “You won’t see me out there promoting this film, or any of my upcoming films, while I take this important step to protect myself. If I made myself sicker by going out there and promoting it, I wouldn’t be acting true to myself or to the film,” Hill said in an open letter. “I usually cringe at letters or statements like this but I understand that I am of the privileged few who can afford to take time off. I won’t lose my job while working on my anxiety. With this letter and with Stutz, I’m hoping to make it more normal for people to talk and act on this stuff. So they can take steps towards feeling better and so that the people in their lives might understand their issues more clearly.”
Main image: Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza in Spin Me Round.
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