Movies: Whats the Buzz from National Public Radio

‘Viva’: Seeking A Spot In Havana’s Spotlight
Viva is a father-son drama from Havana — one of the first from Cuba to be commercially released in the U.S. in decades.

Disney Releases 100th ‘Original Movie,’ A Millennial Favorite
Disney announced the release date for its 100th Disney Channel Original Movie. NPR’s Rachel Martin sits down with Buzzfeed Entertainment’s Jaimie Etkin to discuss the cultural legacy of the series.

Ricky Gervais On Controversial Jokes, Celebrities And ‘Special Correspondents’
“I didn’t go out there to ruin everyone’s day or undermine the moral fabric of America. I was making jokes.” Gervais talked with NPR’s Rachel Martin about his new movie and how he approaches humor.

Rob And Nick Reiner Say ‘Being Charlie’ Is ‘Drawn From Our Lives’
Being Charlie is a new film about addiction in a Hollywood family. It’s a story director Rob Reiner and his son, writer Nick Reiner, say they know well because of their own family’s struggles.

A White House Meeting Brings Together 2 Lost Souls In ‘Elvis & Nixon’
A new film imagines what happened when Elvis Presley met President Nixon on Dec. 21, 1970. Film critic David Edelstein says Elvis & Nixon “shows the crazy-making insulation of celebrity.”

Key And Peele Duo Are Back As Action-Duo In ‘Keanu’
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro talks with Wesley Morris, critic at large for The New York Times, about Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the comedians behind the award-winning sketch comedy show.

‘Jungle Book’ Love: Why I Identify With The ‘Flower In Underpants’
Growing up in India, she was a fan of the dubbed-in-Hindi TV series. As a globetrotting adult, she is touched by the Disney movie version.

‘L’Attesa’: Two Women Wait, Perhaps In Vain
Juliette Binoche plays another in a string of grieving-survivor roles in the visually powerful story of a mother who meets her son’s girlfriend.

A Maternal Melodrama Unfolds Around An Unusual Girl In ‘Viktoria’
A dictator commandeers and pampers a young girl in Maya Vitkova’s boldly visceral fairy tale.

‘Keanu’ Finds Key And Peele On The Hunt For A Kitty
The sketch comedy duo Key and Peele pull off the difficult feat of translating their sensibility into a feature film that recalls out-all-night sagas like Adventures In Babysitting.

‘The Family Fang’ Makes Art Together, Falls Apart Together
Jason Bateman directs a cast including himself, Nicole Kidman and Christopher Walken in the story of a family where the parents’ experimental performances included the kids from an early age.

Tom Hanks Says Self-Doubt Is ‘A High-Wire Act That We All Walk’
“No matter what we’ve done there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here?’ ” Hanks says. He plays an American businessman working in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert in his new film.

Meryl Streep’s First Acting Gig: Becoming Pretty And Popular In High School
In a new biography called Her Again, author Michael Schulman says that at 14, Streep decided to reinvent herself — and before she was an Oscar-winner, she was homecoming queen.

The Gospel According To Wendell Berry, On Screen
America’s foremost farmer-philosopher, Wendell Berry, is the subject of a new documentary. It celebrates the writer’s work, and the rural community in Kentucky in which he’s rooted.

Lorene Scafaria Pays Tribute To Mother In ‘The Meddler’
Lorene Scafaria’s new film is a valentine to her mother, and mothers everywhere. Rachel Martin talks to Scafaria about the film, which follows a widow remaking her life after the death of her husband.

After Two Intense Dramas, Lupita Nyong’o Says She’s Ready For A Change
The actor is now starring on Broadway in Eclipsed, a searing story of young women held captive in Liberia. After that and 12 Years a Slave, Nyong’o says she’s ready for some lighter material.

‘The Meddler’ Pokes Fun Without Mocking The Mom
The Meddler is a new comedy starring Susan Sarandon about mom who’s just a bit much — just in time for Mother’s Day.

‘Huntsman’ And ‘Tale Of Tales’ Put A Modern Spin On Classic Fairy Tales
Critic David Edelstein reviews The Huntsman: Winter’s War, a sequel to the 2012 movie, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Tale of Tales, an adaptation of a group of 17th century Italian folk stories.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Our 2016 Summer Movie Preview
The panel discusses its most anticipated summer blockbusters and makes some bold predictions. And, as always, we take a look at What’s Making Us Happy this week.

No Snow This Time Around, So The ‘Huntsman’ Should Probably Let It Go
The Huntsman: Winter’s War feels like it’s borrowed from, strangely enough, both Frozen and Game Of Thrones. If you think that sounds strange, you’re not wrong.

Finally, Some Justice For Busybody Moms In ‘The Meddler’
Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne play mother and daughter in a story that, for once, recognizes that there’s a solid argument to be made for a mom who gives, if anything, too much of herself.

Who Set This Up, Indeed: ‘Elvis And Nixon’ Tells A Summit’s Story
As Elvis and Nixon respectively, Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey don’t attempt impersonations, but with varying degrees of ham (more in the former case than the latter), they tell a strange story.

Tribeca Notebook: An Uncommon Baseball Movie
The Phenom follows a major league pitcher who finds himself suddenly unable to pitch and troubled by his history with his abusive father, played by Ethan Hawke.

Tribeca Notebook: The Oddball’s Journey
Rachel Tunnard’s first feature, Adult Life Skills, finds ways to expand on the familiar formula of the frustrated, frustrating misfit trying to grow up.

How Social Media Smeared A Missing Student As A Terrorism Suspect
The documentary Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi explores what happened after a tweet misidentified a Brown University student as one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

3 Years After Boston Marathon Bombing, The Story Of A Wrongly Accused Student
Brown University student Sunil Tripathi disappeared just before the Boston Marathon bombing, and was accused of being involved in the attack. A new documentary looks at the effects of the allegation.

Tribeca Film Festival Kicks Off, Flaunting More Than Movies
The Tribeca Film festival starts this week and it’s going to showcase a lot more than films.

Richard Linklater Goes To College — 22 Years Later — In ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’
The director’s new film follows a young baseball player through his first days of college; it’s kind of an informal sequel to Linklater’s 1993 last-days-of-high-school hit Dazed and Confused.

‘Barbershop’ Returns, With Shears In Hand And New Twists In Mind
The latest in the Barbershop movie franchise is out this weekend. Screenwriter Tracy Oliver, who co-wrote the screenplay, talks with NPR’s Michel Martin.

Mowgli Takes Convincing Lumps In The Digital World Of ‘The Jungle Book’
A new version of the classic Disney animated movie The Jungle Book features a live-action Mowgli in a digital jungle.

Feats Of Technical Magic Bring Disney’s New ‘Jungle Book’ To Life
A new version of the classic Disney animated movie features a live-action Mowgli and digitally created animals. It’s feat of animation and technical magic — the new smoke and mirrors of Hollywood.

AMC Backtracks On Experiment To Allow Texting In Theaters After Outcry
AMC said on Thursday it was considering allowing texting in some of its movie theaters. The outrage was immediate and loud, and on Friday, the company announced that it had reconsidered.

Thrilling And Kinetic, Updated ‘Jungle Book’ Is ‘A Triumph’
Jon Favreau’s adaptation of the Disney classic reprises the story of a little boy raised by wolves. Critic David Edelstein says The Jungle Book seamlessly blends computer animation and storytelling.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: ‘The Mindy Project’ And Romantic Comedies
This week’s show brings in Audie Cornish and Margaret Willison to talk about Mindy Kaling’s just-returning OB/GYN comedy and about the state and ways of romantic comedy in general.

Clash Of The Screens: Should Movie Theaters Allow Texting? AMC Says Maybe
The CEO of AMC Entertainment says he’s considering allowing texting during some movie showings at AMC Theaters. A good thing? Our pop culture blogger and movie critic weigh in.

‘Our Last Tango’: A Dance Movie With A Personal Storm At Its Center
Argentina’s premier tango couple is the subject of an ambitiously structured film that mixes dance with the story of a relationship that was both passionate and problematic.

Hey, They’re Moving Ryan Reynolds’ Consciousness Around Again
Criminal is the second film in a year that separates mind from body when it comes to poor, gorgeous Ryan Reynolds. In this case, his mind goes in Kevin Costner.

‘Green Room’: A Choreographed Thriller With A Spontaneous Beat
Green Room, from the director of the well-regarded thriller Blue Ruin, is the violent and inventive story of a touring punk band that gets in way over its head.

An Updated ‘Jungle Book’ Deftly Juggles Wonders And Threats
Jon Favreau directs a new version of The Jungle Book, in which Bill Murray and Christopher Walken help out with the voice work and the story considers the threats to the animals’ way of life.

Encore: ‘Mad Max’ Editor On How Editing Shapes A Film
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Margaret Sixel, Oscar-winning editor of Mad Max: Fury Road. This story originally aired on Feb. 15, 2016, on All Things Considered.

With Hollywood’s Advanced Digital Face-Lifting, Do We Even Need Actors?
Rachel Martin talks to journalist Logan Hill about the often invisible digital retouching in media. You can now digitally replace just about anything on an actor’s body — including the actor himself.

Buster Keaton And Samuel Beckett Walk Into A Movie Studio …
In 1964, the silent film master and the celebrated playwright made a film together. It was Beckett’s first movie — and it showed. Notfilm tells the story of their collaboration.

Grief Goes Explosive In ‘Demolition’ And ‘Louder Than Bombs’
Louder Than Bombs and Demolition both deal with car crashes and grieving men, but the damage looks very different.

Will Superhero Movies Go The Way Of Old Westerns?
Western movies once ruled Hollywood the way comic book movies seem to now. NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Brooks Hefner of James Madison University about how Westerns faded from popularity, and whether the same thing will happen to superhero movies.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Best Bad Movies And A Punishing Quiz
On this week’s show, original PCHH panelist Trey Graham returns to chat about bad movies and to be less humiliated than the rest of us by a quiz about pop culture returns.

A Family Drama Unfolds Through Shifting Viewpoints In ‘Louder Than Bombs’
Point-of-view is passed like a baton among the tortured main characters in Joachim Trier’s new film. Critic David Edelstein says Louder than Bombs is intimate, touching and “insistently alive.”

Melissa McCarthy Is Very Rich And Very Mean As ‘The Boss’
McCarthy and Kristen Bell can’t quite get the comedic fires going in the story of a super-wealthy woman whose unfortunate assistant winds up embroiled in her evil cookie-making scheme.

A Widower, A House, And A Plot Hammer That Hits A Little Hard
Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man who starts literally destroying his surroundings out of grief in Demolition, from director Jean-Marc Vallee.

A Photographer’s Family Left Behind In ‘Louder Than Bombs’
A war photographer’s death leaves behind a family of men battling their own demons in the unusually structured film from Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier.

‘Star Wars’ Alert: The ‘Rogue One’ Trailer Is Here
The first teaser trailer for this year’s Star Wars movie has arrived. The film — set after the end of the prequels, but before the original series — is the first stand-alone movie of the franchise.