Wonder
Director: Stephen Chbosky
Screenwriter: Stephen Chbosky
Cast: Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson, Jacob Tremblay, Izabela Vidovic, Mandy Patinkin, Daveed Diggs, Noah Jupe, Danielle Rose Russell
Distributor: Lionsgate
Rated PG | 113
Release Date: November 17, 2017

Based on the children’s novel of the same name, Wonder inspires with its virtuous themes that tell its audience to do the right thing. On the surface, Stephen Chbosky‘s film looks like one of those schmaltzy films so formulaic that you probably already know that it is going to hit all the right emotional notes at all the right times.

But sometimes predictability is not so bad, and underneath that surface, there is something honest and heartfelt about it. There is a refreshing message that reminds us when given the choice to be right or be kind, we should be kind. Check out my full review of Wonder below.

Garry Marshall, who brought some of the most remembered and successful sitcoms of the 1970s to American television and directed some notable films such as Pretty Woman, died on Tuesday in Burbank, CA, of complications from pneumonia following a stroke, according to Variety. He was 81.

Marshall’s programs, which pretty much dominated ABC-TV for the entire decade of the 1970s, consisted of The Odd Couple and Happy Days and its spinoffs, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy. With each of them came a kind of innocuous hilarity that had healthy doses of mild slapstick, easily resolved narratives, and always an emphasis on a slight surreal aspect of fun. Unlike say the socially conscious programs of the time that were being churned out by the stable of TV pioneer Norman Lear (like All in the Family and Maude), Marshall’s sitcoms, although they were rather perfunctory and innocuous by way of social redemption or awareness, held almost equal footing in terms of ratings success. And indeed, like many of the characters on Lear’s programs (Archie Bunker, Maude, Fred Sanford), Garry Marshall also helped create and was instrumental in bringing characters that were and have remained almost as iconic, such as The Fonz, Mork from Ork, Laverne, and Shirley.

Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve director Garry Marshall isn’t quite done with directing romantic comedies that feature an ensemble cast tangled in an intertwining story that take place during the course of a celebrated holiday.

After nearly a three-year hiatus, the director has chosen Mother’s Day as his next holiday movie, and he has already got Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Aniston, and Jason Sudeikis set to star in the film. More on the story below.

Julia Roberts will produce and star in Batkid Begins, a feature film based on the Dana Nachman documentary Batkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around The World.

The documentary, which is scheduled to make its world premiere tomorrow, Saturday, January 24, 2015, at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, UT, follows the real-life story of BatKid Miles Scott, the 5-year-old boy suffering from leukemia who made headlines in 2013 when the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted his wish to become Batman for the day.

Relativity Media is jumping on the sudden tide of fairy tale-inspired films and television series so wonderfully started by the “classics” Beastly and Red Riding Hood with their upcoming film Untitled Snow White. Yes, you read that correctly, the film is called Untitled Snow White. Let’s hope the powers that be change that before the film releases, but for now that’s the title in the press release.

This reimagining of the classic story features Julia Roberts, Lily Collins (The Blind Side), Arnie Hammer (The Social Network), Sean Bean (Game of Thrones), and Nathan Lane (The Bird Cage).