50 | OCTOBER 21 • 2021
A POTENT SPICE, A
COMEDY, A SLASHER,
OPIATES & GOOP
Dune opens in theaters
Oct. 22. The film will also
be released on HBO Max
Oct. 22 and stream for 30
days. Dune is based on a
1965 sci-fi novel of the same
name by the late Frank
Herbert that became a
favorite of hippies and “New
Agers” and still has some-
thing of a cult following.
It is a difficult novel
to adapt for the screen.
In 1973, Chilean-French
director/writer Alejandro
Jodorowsky, now 92, had
a top-notch film cast lined
up, but the potential costs
soared and the movie was
scrapped. In 1984, David
Lynch made a film based
on Dune, also called Dune,
and it became the biggest
critical and financial flop of
his career.
The new Dune stars
Timothee Chalamet, 25, as
the overseer of a dry, very
inhospitable planet with a
valuable natural product,
called “spice.” Spice can
increase a user’s lifetime
and enhance their mental
abilities. Everybody wants
“spice” despite the difficul-
ties in obtaining it.
Dune has played several
film festivals and has already
opened in many other coun-
tries. Reviews are mainly
positive, but a fairly large
group of respected critics
gave it a mild thumbs-down.
Also opening on Oct. 22
is Dispatch, a comedy with
three different plotlines.
These plotlines are all
connected to the closing
of a French newspaper’s
Kansas office. Directed
and written by the “quirky”
Wes Anderson, the cast
includes Timothee Chalamet
(again), Adrien Brody, 48,
and French actor Matthieu
Amalric, 55.
CATCHING UP
I neglected to mention
Halloween Kills in my last
column. It opened Oct. 15
and, no doubt, will be in
theaters until Halloween. It
also began streaming on
Paramount+ Oct. 15. Kills
is the 12th Halloween film
made since the original 1978
film. The original co-starred
Jamie Lee Curtis, now 62.
She also co-starred in three
“direct” sequels to the first
film.
Halloween Kills is the sec-
ond film in a planned three-
film “reboot” of the slasher
franchise. The reboot
pretends that nine films in
which killer Michael Myers
seemed to die, and some-
how survived, were never
made. The reboot began
with Halloween, a 2018 film
co-starring Curtis. In this
retelling, Myers was in a
mental asylum from 1978 to
2018. After his release, he
went back to his bad ways.
At the end of the 2018 film,
Myers is trapped in a burn-
ing house.
In Kills, we learn Myers
survived the fire and Laura
Strode (Curtis) organizes a
mob to finally, for sure, kill
him. The supporting cast
includes Dylan Arnold,
27, and Kyle Richards, 52.
Arnold’s first big role was in
the 2018 Halloween film. In
both pics, he plays Cameron
Elam, boyfriend of Strode’s
granddaughter, Alyson.
Richards appeared in the
1978 Halloween movie as
Lindsey, a child Strode baby-
sat, and she plays Lindsey
again in Kills. Richards had
a “middling” acting career
that virtually ended in 2006.
However, she became
much more famous when
she began appearing in
the reality show The Real
Housewives of Beverly Hills
(2010-present). She married
“high-end” realtor Mauricio
Umansky in 1994 and con-
verted to Modern Orthodox
Judaism. Umanksy was
born in Mexico and raised
in the States. His mother,
Estella Snieder, 71, a pop-
ular Mexican TV psycholo-
gist, frequently appears on
Real Housewives.
Here’s another catch-up
item: Dopesick, an eight-ep-
isode Hulu mini-series,
began streaming Oct. 13. It
focuses on the victims of the
Oxycontin opiate addiction
plague and, oy, the role of
the (Jewish) Sackler family.
The Sacklers are now notori-
ous as the former owners of
Purdue Pharma, the compa-
ny that developed, market-
ed and “pushed” Oxycontin.
Michael Stuhlbarg, 53,
co-stars as Richard Sackler,
76, the former head of
Purdue Pharma.
GWYNETH’S GOOP
Most of you have probably
heard about the “touchy-
feely/New Age” products
on the pricey Goop web-
site. The frequently sat-
irized Goop company is
the creation of Gwyneth
Paltrow, 49.
In 2020, Goop expand-
ed to documentaries, with
Paltrow hosting a six-part
series (Goop Lab) which
covered such topics as
energy healing, anti-aging
and psychedelic drugs.
There were many com-
plaints that the series
contained a lot of medical
misinformation.
On Oct. 21, the six-part
documentary Sex, Love &
Goop starts streaming on
Netflix. Paltrow hosts real-
life couples as they explore
their bodies and try to
enhance their relationships
with a focus on understand-
ing how people experience
pleasure differently. The
couples are aided by sev-
eral sex and relationship
experts.
CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
ARTS&LIFE
NINE STARS VIA WIKIMEDIA
Timothee Chalamet in two films.
ANDREA RAFFIN VIA WIKIMEDIA
Gwyneth Paltrow