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Warning: Spoilers ahead for South Park: The End of Obesity.

Randy's warning about exposing stomachs comes true as he gets caught up with Ozempic-addicted mothers in South Park: The End of Obesity. Butters gets lost in the American healthcare system in a hilarious sequence poking fun at red tape and confusion in getting prescriptions. South Park satirizes weight-loss drugs and sugar industry through the escapades of Cartman, Randy, and various cereal mascots in a funny and twisted plot.

The latest South Park special titled South Park: The End of Obesity took aim at the recent splurge in the popularity of obesity and diabetes drugs such as Ozempic. South Park, which is currently in between its 26th and 27th seasons after premiering back in 1997, continues to be one of the best platforms for sharp social commentary through a comedic lens. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have recently released two other...

“Naomi,” the DC drama pilot from Ava DuVernay and Jill Blankenship, has added six to its cast, including “7th Heaven” and “Hart of Dixie” alum Barry Watson. Additionally, “Queen Sugar” and “Ozark” director Amanda Marsalis will helm and co-executive produce the pilot.

Watson is set to play Greg, Naomi’s adoptive father and military vet who is happily married to Jennifer and sees Naomi as the “perfect daughter.” Watson recently appeared in Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” as Lachlan Murdoch, as well as in “The Current Occupant,” and “A Dog’s Way Home.” He is represented by Innovative Artists and Trademark Talent.

Mary-Charles Jones has been cast as Annabell, Naomi’s “fiercely loyal classmate and best friend who is unafraid of telling Naomi hard truths,” and supports her friend’s quest for answers about a recent mysterious event. Jones starred as CBS’ “Kevin Can Wait” for two seasons and has also appeared in “Grey’s Anatomy,...

Ava DuVernay’s superhero DC drama Naomi is rounding out its cast. In his return to the CW, former 7th Heaven star Barry Watson is set as a series regular, along with Mouzam Makkar (The Fix), Mary-Charles Jones (Kevin Can Wait), Aidan Gemme (Finding Neverland) and Daniel Puig (The System). Additionally, Amanda Marsalis has been tapped to direct and co-executive produce the pilot, from DuVernay’s Array Filmworks and Warner Bros. Television.

They join previously announced Kaci Walfall as Naomi, along with Alexander Wraith, Cranston Johnson and newcomer Camila Moreno.

Naomi, the network’s latest DC adaptation, comes from DuVernay and Arrow writer and co-exec producer Jill Blankenship. Based on the eponymous comic book series that debuted in 2019, co-written by Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker and illustrated by breakout artist Jamal Campbell, the show follows a teen girl’s journey from her small northwestern town...

In sad news, Joan Weldon, the stage and television actress best known for her performance in the iconic sci-fi monster movie Them!, has passed away. Though Weldon died on Feb. 11, her family had just recently announced the news. She was 90 years old.

"With profound sadness, we announce the passing of Joan Louise Weldon Podell, a loving and devoted mother, wife, grandmother and dear friend, on February 11 th , 2021," the family stated in Weldon's obituary. "She passed away peacefully at her home in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. A talented and successful opera singer and actress of theatre, film, musicals and television, she was simply known to many as Joanie, whose love for light-hearted pranks and practical jokes spread joy wherever she went."

Weldon was born Joan Louise Welton on Aug. 5, 1930. Left motherless at six years old and raised by her grandmother, Joan made her professional debut as a singer at the age of...

By Todd Garbarini

One of the most frustrating things that I find true of lackluster movies is that following the passage of time, usually several decades, a film that was initially, and often rightfully, considered a stinker is then later touted as “the original classic!” Generally, these accolades are tied-in with advertising to promote and ultimately sell product and give the uninitiated and the curious a reason to buy the film sight-unseen. Efren C. Piñon’s Blind Rage (1976) isn’t necessarily a bad film, it just isn’t a particularly good one. Despite its 82-minute running time, the film feels twice as long and that’s never a good sign.

Blind Rage is a good example of an interesting premise executed in a fashion that can best be described as pedestrian. A product of 1970’s “chopsocky” cinema, the opening credits play over the vocals of Helen Gamboa singing the title track,...

England’s swingin’ ’60s were more than A Hard Day’s Night, the Mersey Beat and slapstick in the street with Rita Tushingham. Michael Winner got the scene off to an early start with this beach-set tale of ‘clever lads’ that cooperate to score with vacationing girls. Oliver Reed gives a sterling performance as Tinker, a photo-snapper who takes on a tall target — an independent, posh model with her own amorous agenda. The romance proceeds in a positive direction… or is Tinker fooling himself?

The System (The Girl-Getters)

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1964 / B&w / 1:85 / 90 min. / / Street Date September 23, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow, Barbara Ferris, Julia Foster, Harry Andrews, Ann Lynn, Guy Doleman, David Hemmings.

Cinematography: Nicholas Roeg

Film Editor: Fred Burnley

Original Music: Stanley Black

Songs: The Searchers, The Marauders, The Rocking Berries

Written by Peter Draper

Produced by Kenneth Shipman

Directed by Michael...

The following text is an excerpt from an essay commissioned by the specialist publishing house Hatori Press (Japan) for a tribute to the great critic, scholar and teacher Shigehiko Hasumi on the occasion of his 80th birthday (29 April 2016). Other contributors to this book (slated to appear in both Japanese and English editions) include Pedro Costa, Chris Fujiwara and Richard I. Suchenski. Beyond Prof. Hasumi’s many achievements in criticism and education (he was President of the University of Tokyo between 1997 and 2001), his ‘method,’ his unique way of seeing and speaking about films, has served as an immense inspiration for a generation of directors in Japan including Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinji Aoyama. The online magazines Rouge (www.rouge.com.au) and Lola (www.lolajournal.com), co-edited by Martin, provide the best access to Hasumi’s work in English (see references in the notes below).Leos Carax and Shigehiko Hasumi. Photo by Michiko Yoshitake.

Some may have thought that British movie director Michael Winner died years ago. He stopped making films in the ‘90s and even wrote his own joke obituary which was picked up on by some media and taken seriously. Winner continued to live in London and found a new career as a film critic with the long-running “Winner’s Dinners” column in the Sunday UK Times newspaper. Winner is remembered in the film industry as well as the restaurant scene for his abrasive personality,

He directed Charles Bronson in six films including three, The Mechanic, Death Wish, and Death 3, that landed in my Top Ten Tuesday: The Best of Charles Bronson list from July 2010 http://wearemoviegeeks.com/2010/06/top-ten-tuesday-charles-bronson/). His other Bronson collaborations were Death Wish 2, Chato’S Land, and The Stone Killer. Death Wish was a monstrous hit for both the star and director, yet in his autobiography Winner Takes All...

Flamboyant film director, best known for Death Wish, and later an outspoken restaurant critic and bon vivant

Michael Winner, who has died aged 77, supplied interviewers with a list of more than 30 films he had directed, not always including the early travelogue This Is Belgium (1956), mostly shot in East Grinstead. But his enduring work was himself – a bravura creation of movies, television, journalism, the law courts and a catchphrase, ''Calm down, dear", from an exasperating series of television commercials.

He was born in London, the only child of George and Helen Winner, who were of Russian and Polish extraction respectively. His builder father made enough money propping up blitzed houses to invest in London property. The profits funded his wife's gambling, which, her son complained, so distracted "Mumsie" that he was never paid due attention. She left him in the bedroom with the mink coats of guests who came to his...

Andrew Pulver looks back through some of the key films of director Michael Winner, who has died aged 77

Play It Cool (1962)

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After a string of short films, Winner broke into features in the early 60s, with low budget thrillers and trendy pop musicals. Quite a few of them had "cool" in the title – including the nudie pic Some Like It Cool. The Billy Fury pic Play It Cool was considerably more commercially viable, no doubt inspired by the success of Cliff Richard's Young Ones film. Fury – in a real stretch – plays an up-and coming rocker called Billy Universe; Anna Palk the heiress who he might or might not get together with, and Dennis Price (!) as her overbearing dad.

The Cool Mikado (1962)

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Frankie Howerd led the line for Winner's followup, produced by Howard Baim,...

Michael Winner, the film director, food critic and TV personality famed for his "calm down" Esure adverts, passed away today at the age of 77. Born in Hampstead, London, in 1935, Winner started his career as a showbiz newspaper columnist before moving into filmmaking in the early '60s. Early movies saw him direct Frankie Howerd musical The Cool Mikado and comedy The System, the first of six films in which he worked with Oliver Reed.

Winner made the switch to Hollywood with Lawman and The Nightcomers before teaming up with Charles Bronson for brutal vigilante drama Death Wish. He directed two more Death (more)...

Michael Winner, director of the Death Wish movie series and A Chorus of Disapproval, who later found fame as a restaurant critic, has died at the age of 77.

Michael Winner, bon viveur, restaurant critic and arguably one of the best known British film-makers of the 20th century has died at the age of 77. "A light has gone out of my life," his wife Geraldine Lynton-Edwards said. "Michael was a wonderful man, brilliant, funny and generous."

Winner had been in ill health for a number of years and almost died after contracting a bacterial infection while holidaying on Barbados in January 2007.

Born to a wealthy family in north London, Winner cut his teeth at the BBC before making his debut as a writer-director with the 1960 crime thriller Shoot to Kill. His freewheeling 1964 sex comedy The System established him as a key chronicler of swinging 60s London and gave rise to a...

Film is dying, but the cinema still lives. To mark the death of one cycle in the age of motion pictures and the beginning of another, Film Forum recently ran a series called "This Is Dcp" to introduce us cinephiles to our inevitable digital future. Dcp, for those of you who’ve been hiding in a mineshaft the last few years, stands for Digital Cinema Package, the new industry standard for digital projection that has just recently replaced 35mm film as the most common means of presenting movies in the United States. On the first day of the series, I went to see a presentation by Grover Crisp—Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Executive Vice President of Asset Management, Film Restoration, and Digital Mastering—that was billed as Dr. Strangelove Side-by-Side but which probably should have been called Dr. Strangelove A-Few-Minutes-of-One-Followed-by-a-Few-Minutes-of-the-Other. Film Forum projected a version of the movie on an...

The notorious film director on cheating death, the awfulness of restaurants – and how he can't stand boring people

It is with a mixture of fear and exhilaration that I approach Michael Winner's large house – he likes to describe it as a mansion – in London's fashionable Holland Park. God knows how much it's worth – £25m maybe. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin lives next door, in an even bigger house. An attractive, slightly forbidding young woman answers the door – I later discover she is a resting actress called Ruby – and she shows me into Winner's private cinema, filled with memorabilia from half a lifetime of movie-making and an entire lifetime of trouble-making.

There are seats for 30 people, a bar, a director's chair with Winner's name on it, the Winner puppet from Spitting Image, a signed photograph of Marilyn Monroe, pictures of some scantily clad starlets, and hundreds of photographs of stars...