- Ryan Murphy dropped a teaser for a new series titled Grotesquerie in an Instagram post (see it below) on Friday. According to the post, it will star Niecy Nash-Betts — who has worked with Murphy several times before and is coming off an Emmy win for Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story — Courtney B. Vance and Lesley Manville and is set to premiere in the fall. The teaser features Nash-Betts’ voice, sounding very disturbed about a crime scene: “I don’t know when it started. I can’t put my finger on it. But it’s different now. There’s been a shift. It’s like something’s opening up in the world — a kind of hole to the center of nothingness. What I saw today — they sent shrinks for everyone who worked this crime scene. You think, ‘Well hon, evil has always existed,’ and cite some statistic about how the world’s getting better, less murder, more help, less global horror, never been a better time to be alive, honey.” Her voice cracking, Nash-Betts (or rather, her character) concludes by saying, “Come back. It’s not getting better. And I keep needing to hear your answers, because something’s happening around us, and nobody sees but me.”
- Avery is an unadventurous schoolteacher whose sister secretly signs her up for The Great Holiday Dash, a Christmas-themed reality competition show where she's paired with former hockey player Wes. Despite clashing at first, Avery's puzzle-solving skills and Wes' physical prowess help them excel as they travel from city to city and compete in festive feats that have a local flavor. It's not long before a real connection between these opposites begins to blossom. But when Avery overhears a conversation between Wes and a show producer it threatens to derail their budding romance. Keeping their eyes on the prize, the duo continues to dash to the finish line but there may be a more personal adventure for them still in store.
- 20-something Aden has no other ambition in life than to become an actor. Most of his time is spent making videos as he applies for roles he’ll never get. After a string of dreadful auditions, where bizarre and humiliating requests are made of him, he comes up with a radical move: he will take full responsibility for finding a role that primarily he, himself, wants to play. This self-assured debut, playful in form and narrative with a fairy-tale edge to it, examines both the commercial work ethic and the concept of identity, which it presents as multilayered and also questionable. At the same time, in its exploration of the given themes, the film doesn’t deny itself a socio-critical tone, nor does it resist the temptation to tease the viewer a little.
