Latest news with #TheBigChill
West Australian
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
Screen Queen: The Four Seasons, Duster, The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives, Murderbot
When I was a teenager in the 1990s I remember going to a friend's house and watching The Big Chill. I think someone's sister's friend's friend had recommended it as the cool 'adult' film to watch, and we'd rented it from Video Ezy with the promise of a titillating watch. Reader, it was not. I remember being bored stiff watching the exploits of a bunch of people who looked and acted like my parents. But oh, how times have changed! I now find myself inhaling episodes of Tina Fey's new series The Four Seasons, which, honestly, is The Big Chill: 2.0, but with fewer fluffy perms. Most horrifying of all: I am now relating to what I'm seeing unfold. For those who've not yet caught this fabulous comedy, don't get the wrong idea: this is not a reboot of the seminal 80s flick, though it is a modern reimagining of another film from 1981 written, directed by and starring the delightful Alan Alda. It centres around a group of old friends (sound familiar?), who gather for catch-ups through different seasons of the year. Each time we reconnect with them, there's been a shift in the dynamics, not just within the group, but also within the three couples themselves — it's cringingly great to watch what unfolds. The best part about this comedy, for my part, is the fact that while it has a lot of the hallmarks of a Tina Fey-produced piece of work — on-point writing, a cast made up of many of Fey's friends and long-time collaborators — it feels a lot more real than many of her more slapstick comedies (though there is a scene involving a red stiletto in the last episode which is very much of-her-oeuvre). For people of a certain age (me) it will feel disturbingly familiar and it's a fabulous binge-watch. Teen kids: proceed with caution. This new series from J.J. Abrams is all about a 70s getaway driver called Jim who drives a bright orange Plymouth Duster. He's played by Josh Holloway, who fans might remember as the dastardly and delicious Sawyer from Lost. Everything about this sounds vaguely bogan, but in the best possible way. Real talk: I've been waiting an eternity for Holloway to pop up on TV again, and I'm thrilled he's front and centre in this crime thriller, alongside Rachel Hilson as the FBI agent on his case. Also, can we talk about the fact Holloway looks disturbingly like Perth Survivor star David Genat? The Golden God is BACK! Haven't heard of MomTok and the Mormon wife-swapping controversy that sprang out of this series? Jog on. Everyone else: series two is here, and tea WILL be spilt, so strap in. To make 10 years of Australia's participation in Eurovision, we're sending in the big guns — WA's Go-Jo! He's bringing his (song) Milkshake to the yard, and the SBS live stream, from the wee hours on Friday. There will also be prime-time coverage at 7.30pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I can't go past a Skarsgard and this series, about a newly sentient robot, has my favourite one — Alexander! He stars as the aforementioned and though a cyborg, he's still entirely delightful to watch.
Perth Now
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Middle age under the microscope in Tina Fey's new comedy
When I was a teenager in the 1990s I remember going to a friend's house and watching The Big Chill. I think someone's sister's friend's friend had recommended it as the cool 'adult' film to watch, and we'd rented it from Video Ezy with the promise of a titillating watch. Reader, it was not. I remember being bored stiff watching the exploits of a bunch of people who looked and acted like my parents. But oh, how times have changed! I now find myself inhaling episodes of Tina Fey's new series The Four Seasons, which, honestly, is The Big Chill: 2.0, but with fewer fluffy perms. Most horrifying of all: I am now relating to what I'm seeing unfold. For those who've not yet caught this fabulous comedy, don't get the wrong idea: this is not a reboot of the seminal 80s flick, though it is a modern reimagining of another film from 1981 written, directed by and starring the delightful Alan Alda. It centres around a group of old friends (sound familiar?), who gather for catch-ups through different seasons of the year. Each time we reconnect with them, there's been a shift in the dynamics, not just within the group, but also within the three couples themselves — it's cringingly great to watch what unfolds. The best part about this comedy, for my part, is the fact that while it has a lot of the hallmarks of a Tina Fey-produced piece of work — on-point writing, a cast made up of many of Fey's friends and long-time collaborators — it feels a lot more real than many of her more slapstick comedies (though there is a scene involving a red stiletto in the last episode which is very much of-her-oeuvre). For people of a certain age (me) it will feel disturbingly familiar and it's a fabulous binge-watch. Teen kids: proceed with caution. David, that you? Duster is streaming on Max. Credit: Supplied This new series from J.J. Abrams is all about a 70s getaway driver called Jim who drives a bright orange Plymouth Duster. He's played by Josh Holloway, who fans might remember as the dastardly and delicious Sawyer from Lost. Everything about this sounds vaguely bogan, but in the best possible way. Real talk: I've been waiting an eternity for Holloway to pop up on TV again, and I'm thrilled he's front and centre in this crime thriller, alongside Rachel Hilson as the FBI agent on his case. Also, can we talk about the fact Holloway looks disturbingly like Perth Survivor star David Genat? The Golden God is BACK! Season two of The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is hitting screens this week on Disney Plus. Credit: Supplied Haven't heard of MomTok and the Mormon wife-swapping controversy that sprang out of this series? Jog on. Everyone else: series two is here, and tea WILL be spilt, so strap in. Marty Zambotto, aka Go-Jo, will represent Australia at the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland in May, 2025. Credit: Supplied / TheWest To make 10 years of Australia's participation in Eurovision, we're sending in the big guns — WA's Go-Jo! He's bringing his (song) Milkshake to the yard, and the SBS live stream, from the wee hours on Friday. There will also be prime-time coverage at 7.30pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our favourite Skarsgard! Murderbot is streaming on Apple TV Plus. Credit: Supplied I can't go past a Skarsgard and this series, about a newly sentient robot, has my favourite one — Alexander! He stars as the aforementioned and though a cyborg, he's still entirely delightful to watch.
New York Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
After Meeting 46 Years Ago, Finally Tying the Knot
The first time Jennifer Anne Carpenter Welch met Rodney William Page, she recalled threatening to 'rearrange his face.' It was April 1979, and the two eighth graders were waiting at the bus stop in Clearwater, Fla. Mr. Page and a friend were plotting to prank Ms. Welch's younger brother; the friend got on his hands and knees behind the boy as Mr. Page was ready to push him. That's when the protective big sister stepped in — forcefully. 'I made a mental note to stay away from her for fear of my physical well-being,' Mr. Page said. When they saw each other around school over the next four years, there was no communication. Ms. Welch told people she didn't like Mr. Page, but after a friend who dated him said he was an 'OK guy,' Ms. Welch developed a curiosity. 'I thought he was cute, and asked another friend to invite him to a late-night party,' she said. In September 1983, Mr. Page came to the party after attending a Men at Work concert. He said he was impressed at how she 'had grown up and looked good.' Ms. Welch felt bold and approached him. 'I was excited to learn Rodney had a great sense of humor,' she said. 'I was shocked that Jennifer liked me at all,' Mr. Page said. They headed for the driveway and kissed before he walked her home. The following weekend, they went to 'The Big Chill,' ate popcorn and laughed. 'We made out after we came home,' Ms. Welch said. They dated through their last year of high school. When Mr. Page played baseball, Ms. Welch attended his games. They attended homecoming and the senior prom together. He even wore a purple cummerbund to match her purple dress. But the timing was bad. They split after graduation and each attended college in a different city in Florida. 'There was no animosity,' Ms. Welch said. 'We were two teenagers with our lives ahead.' The two, now both 59, stayed friends and chatted at their 10-year high school reunion. 'He still made me laugh,' she said. Ms. Welch was born in Wooster, Ohio, and like Mr. Page, grew up in St. Petersburg and Clearwater. She attended the University of Florida before transferring to Ohio Northern University, where her father had gone. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and has worked as a clinical pharmacist in the intensive care unit at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, ever since. She has two children from a marriage that ended in divorce. Mr. Page, born in Iowa City, graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in English. He is a retired sports reporter for The St. Petersburg Times and now works part-time at St. Petersburg Country Club's golf course. He has two children from his previous marriage. His wife died of cancer in August 2021. [Click here to binge read this week's featured couples.] 'I called Jen for advice on different medications,' Mr. Page said of the months he spent caring for his wife. A few months after his wife's death, Mr. Page asked Ms. Welch what it was like to be 55 and going on first dates. She responded, 'I didn't know because I stopped dating when every man I met wanted my kids to be second to him.' In December 2021, when Mr. Page asked Ms. Welch to a James Taylor concert in Columbus, Ohio, about an hour from her home in Dayton, she waited 48 hours to say yes. 'I didn't want to ruin our friendship,' she said. Mr. Page stayed in a guest room at Ms. Welch's home on Friday night. They enjoyed crepes on Saturday morning at Dayton's historic 2nd Street Market before heading to Columbus for the concert, where they spent the night in a hotel. On Sunday, they strolled through Dayton's Carillon Historical Park to see the Christmas lights. 'It seemed more like our 100th date,' Mr. Page said. 'I knew there was nobody else for me.' Ms. Welch agreed. 'I laughed endlessly the whole weekend,' she said. They made sure the long distance would not be an obstacle by speaking each morning at 9:30 to play Wordle, and visiting each other once a month. But when Ms. Welch asked Mr. Page if he would ever remarry, he said no. 'When I realized how much I missed Jen after spending weekends with her, and understood that she didn't want to be somebody's girlfriend for the rest of her life, I decided if we lasted two years, I would propose.' On Dec. 11, 2023, Ms. Welch was seated in her home's family room scrolling on her phone when Mr. Page entered and announced he didn't want to be her boyfriend anymore. She said she stood up and started talking nervously as he dropped to one knee. 'I would like you to be my fiancée.' Surprised and excited, she said yes. They married April 19 before 73 guests in a courtyard of the landmark Don CeSar Hotel on St. Petersburg Beach, a childhood haunt of the bride's. The traditional ceremony, 46 years to the month from when they met, was officiated by the bride's friend Shawn Marie Frye, who was ordained through Universal Life Church. When the groom moves to Dayton in May, the couple will live together for the first time. Both have prepared for the adjustment. 'I'm neat, he's not,' she said. 'He can't fix anything, I don't cook. But we'll work it out. After all these years, Rodney makes me feel happy, important and secure.' Mr. Page concurred. 'She's smarter than I am, nice to everyone, way funnier than she thinks,' he said. 'And her laugh is infectious.'
Los Angeles Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘The Four Seasons' tackles marriage at midlife, with its relatable ups and downs
Before the word 'adult' attached to any form of media — books, movies, websites — became a synonym for 'pornographic,' it meant a sort of entertainment that was made for people who had experienced a little bit of life. People who wanted to read or see things that reflected their experience in a grown-up way, in which they could recognize familiar challenges, rendered as comedy or tragedy. It was the opposite of 'juvenile.' There was definitely a market for such things, perhaps even a market dominated by them — films like 'Kramer vs. Kramer,' 'The Big Chill' and 'An Unmarried Woman' pop to my aged mind. Even young(er) people, before they had the option of watching themselves exclusively, took an interest, if memory serves. (Maybe they still, do; let me know, young people.) The '49 and over' demographic may not be TV's most prized, but it's a fat slice of the population and many own televisions. So there is something old-fashioned about 'The Four Seasons,' a very watchable, breezy, bumpy new Netflix comedy from Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, remaking a super-successful 1981 movie about no-longer-young marrieds. (Alan Alda, who wrote, directed and starred in the film makes a cameo appearance here, so we may infer his approval.) The TV version adds original twists and new scenes — the series lasts twice as long as the film, after all — but generally follows the shape of the original story and the character of its characters, who share names with their prototypes (though Claudia has become Claude). It's an adult entertainment in the original sense, notwithstanding a character 'only' in her early 30s, with jokes about aches and pains, flagging energy, earlier bedtimes, the stresses of long relationships in longer lives, and here and there a sense of nostalgia for the people they used to be. Many will relate. The narrative gambit concerns three couples who meet for a holiday every three months, if you can imagine that. They are upper-middle class, upper-middle-age, and in such control of their lives that they can afford to take, like, a week off four times a year. Their vacation schedule brings them together in spring, summer, fall and winter — in that order, in the story — a plan that conveniently allows for Vivaldi's well-known violin concerti to fill up the soundtrack. Fey plays Kate, married to Jack (Will Forte), who is a history teacher; anyway, he is very hot on a biography of Napoleon. (It doesn't really matter what anyone does for work; some of them have jobs, but all of them have money.) Jack briefly worked for hedge-fund guy Nick (Steve Carell), at whose upstate New York lake house, shared with wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), the first movement of this 'Four Seasons' takes place. Danny (Colman Domingo), who was in college with Jack and Kate, is an interior designer, married to Claude (Marco Calvani), an emotional Italian, whose main (pre)occupation is worrying about Danny's health. (Jack worries about his own health, but he is merely a hypochondriac.) It begins a little slow — a little 'why should we care about these people, with their abundant vacation time?' Perhaps it was just class resentment on my part. Soon enough, however, things start to percolate, with Nick's announcement that he is leaving Anne; her replacement in their pod is his dental hygienist, Ginny (Erika Henningsen, from Fey's 'Mean Girls' musical), a lively young woman in her 30s. (Her age — that is to say, she's an adult — will be pointed out.) No one speaks the words 'midlife crisis' — maybe that's not a thing anyone says anymore? (Research shows the term has been with us 60 years, long enough to have a midlife crisis of its own.) But both Nick and Ginny take pains to declare it's not like that. And it's true that Anne, currently addicted to playing some farm game on her iPad and not using the potting shed, complete with kiln, that Nick built her, has let joy leak from her life. Nick's energized romantic do-si-do destabilizes the group, and gives them something new to gossip about and compare their own lives with as they wobble through the ensuing year. Ginny comes into view in the third (summer) episode, set in the Bahamas, where, indulged by Nick, she has booked the six of them into an uncomfortable vegan eco-resort. (Naturally, the writers will have some fun at the expense of eco-veganism, and of the older characters' reaction to it.) Fall is set during parents weekend at the New England college where Kate and Jack, and Anne and Nick, each have a daughter enrolled (Ashlyn Maddox and Julia Lester, respectively) and where Kate, Jack and Danny were students. Winter finds them in a chalet up a snowy mountain, with a return to the lake house for circular closure. Dramatically, Carell's storyline is dominant, and he's sympathetic in a part that doesn't hesitate to make him look silly. But Fey, being Fey — 'SNL' headwriter, winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, named the best comedian of the 21st century by the Guardian, twice listed on the Time 100, four times chosen one of People magazine's most beautiful people, and the series' designated Least Quirky character — comes across as its hub, its central intelligence. (Which puts Forte's definitely quirky character at something of a disadvantage.) If one is as aware of watching famous faces like Fey and Carell and Forte and Domingo at work as following the people they're playing, of course it's nice to see them, and knowing them as actors doesn't relieve the tension their characters create as they scrape against each other. (Everybody's got problems.) Across the course of the show we will learn that marriage is work, that not everybody believes in soulmates, that people in a new relationship might have more and noisier sex than those who have been together for many years, and that humans have the capacity to drive one another crazy, perhaps especially on vacation — a sad irony. There will be tension within and between the couples; some of their annoyance may in turn annoy the viewer. But that, I suppose, is the desired effect, and when the characters do wake up to one another, 'The Four Seasons' can be quite moving.
The Sun
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Eighties movie pin up unrecognizable 43 years after hit film with Goldie Hawn – do you know who she is?
THIS Hollywood icon was virtually unrecognizable as she ran errands in Los Angeles. The eighties pin up, now 77, is best known for starring alongside Goldie Hawn in the much-loved movie, Private Benjamin - but can you guess who she is? 6 6 6 6 The actress in question is the legendary Mary Kay Place. The movie and TV star was spotted making a rare outing in Los Angeles. Mary seemed in good spirits and was seen smiling as she went about her errands. She was dressed casually in a puffer vest and leggings, and was using a wheeled walker to help her get about. Film fans will well remember her for starring in Private Benjamin (1980), alongside legendary actress Goldie. However, she is also known for playing attorney Meg in 1983's The Big Chill. But Mary's big break came a few years before, when she played country-western singer Loretta Haggers on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. She impressed so much in the role that she won the 1977 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress. In addition to acting, Mary also wrote scripts for hit TV shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and MASH*. Mary previously revealed how she had to take some time off in the early stages of her career. Hollywood legend turns down seven-figure deal to appear on Celebrity Big Brother as she struggles with eye problem Explaining the reason why, she told The Huffington Post: "Yes, that was a purposeful situation because in the late '70s I totally burned out. "Between doing five 30-minute episodes every week for Mary Hartman, three record albums for Columbia, New York, New York and all these movies, I burnt out. "I had no education or awareness of the need to restore. I did everything that was offered, and it was too much. "My body just stopped and said, 'Until you learn how to say no and how to take care of yourself better, it's too much.' "And that was a period of insanity anyway, the late '70s. "In the '80s, I laid back completely. That was a conscious thing, definitely, because I could not continue that pace. "It was too intense. I had some life lessons to learn. I had to go to the next level of consciousness." 6
