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In “A Child’s Question (July),” Pj Harvey sings in a jaunty rhythm, “Who’s inneath the Ooser-Rod?/Horny devil? Goaty God?”

The words sound playful as her guitar swells liquidly around her voice, and the couplet goes by so mellifluously, chased by whispers and chirping birds, that it’s easy go with the flow without wondering just what the heck an Ooser-Rod is. But when you look up the words’ meaning in Orlam — the novel in verse Harvey released last year, which she wrote in the dying (or maybe dead) dialect of the Dorset,...

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is going from Agbo‘s Citadel to Amazon Studios for Heads of State, an upcoming action film starring John Cena and Edris Elba. Action fans should get excited about this project, given that it comes from Nobody director Ilya Naishuller. Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec wrote the script based on a draft by Harrison Query. Plot details remain a mystery, but sources say the project combines Air Force One with Midnight Run. DC Studios co-head Peter Safran produces with John Rickard. In addition to their starring roles, Cena and Elba will executive produce with Marcus Viscidi.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas will star alongside Richard Madden (Eternals) and Stanley Tucci in the Prime Video series Citadel, premiering on April 28, 2023. The global spy agency Citadel has fallen in the show, and agents have had their memories wiped clean. Now the powerful syndicate, Manticore, is rising in the void. Can the...

Netflix released the first official trailer for “Searching for Sheela,” a short feature film follow-up to its smash hit docuseries “Wild Wild Country,” about the controversial Oregon Rajneesh cult and its spiritual leader, Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The film follows the enigmatic cult leader’s right hand woman, known as Ma Anand Sheela, an intensely devoted follower who instantly became the most compelling and unsettling character in the series. “Searching for Sheela” will capitalize on the fascination with this dangerously charismatic woman.

Here’s the official synopsis provided by Netflix: “Osho’s controversial and sassy ex-secretary, Ma Anand Sheela returns to India after 34 years of exile and people just can’t get enough of her. Searching for Sheela is an intimate look into her journey across India, observing the rebranding of her as a pop-culture icon, with audiences unable to decide if they deem her a “criminal” or remain...

Exclusive: Yen Tan, whose feature 1985 debuted at SXSW in 2018, has signed on to helm Beauty, the story of Julia Pastrana, a woman who suffered from the rare genetic condition hypertrichosis. In the 1800s, showman Theodore Lent made her a worldwide attraction.

The pic will be produced by Mark Amin for Sobini Films and David Permut for Permut Presentations. Tyler Boehm and Cami Winikoff will executive produce for Sobini Films, with Yen Tan and Hutch, who teamed on 1985, penning the screenplay

Amin most recently produced and directed the Civil War drama Emperor, and has previous credits as a producer including Jt Leroy, Miles Ahead, and Mary Shelley. Permut was Oscar nominated for Hacksaw Ridge and has upcoming credits including The Legend Of Cocaine Island to star Will Ferrell at Netflix, and the Barry Levinson-directed Sheela starring Priyanka Chopra at Amazon.

“Yen Tan is an extraordinary filmmaker with a reputation for...

Amazon Studios and MacRo Television Studios have partnered with Ava DuVernay’s Array Filmworks to bring Nebula- and Hugo Award-winning author Octavia Butler’s classic 1987 science-fiction novel, “Dawn,” to the small screen.

In what remarkably is the first time that the Science Fiction Hall of Famer’s work has been adapted, Victoria Mahoney, who served as second unit director on “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” will pen the series and will also direct the pilot.

“Dawn” is the first book in Butler’s “Lilith’s Brood” trilogy (formerly “Xenogenesis”). It tells the story of an African-American woman who enlists the help of aliens to resurrect the human race, 250 years after a nuclear war. Its official synopsis reads:

Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth — the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the...

David Permut, the Oscar-nominated producer of “Hacksaw Ridge,” has acquired the life rights to the story of John Franzese Jr., the son of the Colombo crime family’s second-in-command, Sonny Franzese.

The elder Franzese passed away on Sunday at the age of 103.

Franzese Jr. became active in the family business during the 1980s, leading to a life of overindulgence. After falling victim to drug addiction, he was excommunicated from the family and hit rock bottom, living directionless on the streets. Franzese Jr. sought help through a 12-step program, which ultimately led him to the witness protection program as well. He found that the only way to achieve peace with himself was to come clean of the crimes he had committed and work with the FBI to bring his former consiglieres to justice, including his father. In 2010, he became the first son of a New York mobster to testify in court against his father.

Priyanka Chopra is set to star in Amazon Studios drama Sheela, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

She will be playing Ma Anand Sheela, a spiritual adviser and the primary perpetrator of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in Oregon.

Made famous by Netflix docuseries Wild, Wild Country, Sheela was the personal secretary of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh from 1981 through 1985, and she managed the Rajneeshpuram ashram in Wasco County, Oregon. It was in Oregon that she led the infecting of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella, which led to the food poisoning of 751 individuals. The incident was the largest bioterrorist attack ...