Author: rb809rb

At the start of her eponymous reality show “Earle Meets World,” the influencer Alix Earle promises that while “there’s a whole other side” of the creator economy “people don’t get to see,” her viewers are “gonna see everything in this show.” I hope for Earle’s sake she isn’t telling the truth, because if “Earle Meets World” really does contain the full scope of the TikTok star’s jet-setting lifestyle, it’s one of strikingly limited range. Rather than reveal Earle’s hidden depths or shed light on the nature of her viral appeal, the Netflix series goes to show that 30-second clips don’t easily expand into 40-minute episodes.

“Earle Meets World” is packaged as a family affair in the vein of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” with Earle’s “dadager” TJ as the Kris Jenner figure. (Individual Earles will hereby be referred to by their first names to avoid confusion.) But where the Kardashians, for all their shallowness and shameless consumerism, have a certain quotable star quality (“Kim, there’s people that are dying!”), the Earles lack a similar spark. Alix blew up while still a college student at the University of Miami, and her signature — besides a blonde, blue-eyed beauty — is a bland neutrality that lends itself to endorsing all manner of products. She’s not particularly funny, opinionated or inventive; she’s just a wealthier and more conventionally attractive version of the average consumer. But the same relatability that makes Earle a dependable brand ambassador also makes her everyday life almost painfully boring to watch, with the few juicy nuggets either overhyped, downplayed or both.

Content creation is a collective enterprise for the Earles. Alix’s younger sister Ashtin has followed her into the influencing game, while their stepmother Ashley came by fame the old-fashioned way: a tabloid scandal, as the call girl once linked to New York governor Eliot Spitzer. But Ashley, too, has taken to social media, and she’s hoping her own kids (Alix and Ashtin’s half siblings) will do the same. Some of the queasiest scenes in “Earle Meets World” involve a tweenager filming her own “outfit of the day” videos, her child’s voice aping the inflections of her older sisters. There’s no time to be a kid or cultivate your own interests when there’s clout to be chased.

Against an interchangeable backdrop of major cities that each fade into a blur — Paris for Fashion Week; Nashville for a product launch; Coachella for partying — the Earles navigate the intersection of work and home. Ashtin feels TJ doesn’t take her career as seriously as her sister’s. Alix has to fire the childhood best friend she hired to handle her Snapchat account. Alix is furious at Ashtin for “spoiling” the launch of her skincare line Reale Actives by using an unlabeled bottle in a post about her makeup routine. 

These conflicts are too far from the broader human experience to engender much sympathy, yet too petty to take on a sheen of aspirational glamor. Nor are they negotiated with any Housewife-ian flair for drama. The Earles often sound like wooden actors reading from a prefabricated script, possibly because they are; a polite conversation between TJ and his ex-wife’s boyfriend about an inappropriate remark proves conflict resolution and compelling TV can be mutually exclusive. The few moments of piercing insight, like both Alix’s recent ex and Ashtin pointing out that they can’t trust her not to record and share candid conversations, pass by so quickly and with so little comment that they seem accidental. 

The 25-year-old Alix spends the eight-episode season coping with her first serious breakup after splitting from NFL player Braxton Berrios, whom she dated for nearly three years. In the premiere, she (implausibly) rents a U-Haul to pick up the last of her things from his apartment; in the finale, a cliffhanger that strongly suggests a predetermined Season 2 hinges on a phone call between the former partners. I wish Earle all the best in navigating this romantic crossroads, but as a master narrative, her endless waffling over whether to text Berrios and unconvincing attempts to play coy over a rumored fling with Tom Brady are stultifying stuff. Even well-intentioned storylines like Alix and Ashtin getting tested for a BRCA mutation after their mother Alisa’s brush with breast cancer are more admirable than entertaining.

But the most telling flaw in “Earle Meets World” is the show’s handling of Alix’s only real frisson of controversy: her public rift with “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper, who signed Alix to her Unwell Network before the business relationship ended last year. Alix agonizes over whether to publicly share her side of the story, and strongly implies she plans to use “Earle Meets World” as a platform to do so. Yet she never does, saying only that she feels “betrayed” by Cooper as a potential mentor and drafting an allegation-free text branding her onetime partner “toxic.” (Her decision to take the high road and not hit “send” is somewhat negated by reading the message aloud on camera.) Anyone hoping for a real explanation of the feud, rather than vague aspersions and childish mud-slinging, will come away sorely disappointed.

The Earles repeatedly and casually conflate the failed podcast partnership with Alix’s 2023 appearance on “Call Her Daddy,” in which she detailed TJ’s infidelity, how Ashley’s infamy affected her as a child and other bits of dirty laundry. These disclosures apparently reopened some wounds and aggravated tensions in Alix and Ashley’s relationship, a development they’re far more specific about — and certainly seem more resentful of — than the details of a podcasting contract. (Earle was, of course, an adult when she chose to open up, but it’s easier to blame a family outsider like Cooper for pressing her.) Much of “Earle Meets World” is dedicated to performing a repaired stepmother-stepdaughter relationship, emphasizing how much the pair have moved past the days when Alix was putting toothpaste in Ashley’s shoes. “Earle Meets World” wants to fast-forward to the happy ending, even if the path to get there is the real story.

As depicted in the show, the triumphant resolution to the Earle-Cooper drama is Alix posting a TikTok where she jokingly claims she took a break from social media because she was busy learning to pole dance. The move is anticlimactic, flat and about as fun to watch Alix talk through as it is to hear someone recount a dream; canned music does most of the work to make a glorified GIF seem like savvy crisis PR. But it is, in fairness, an accurate reflection of “Earle Meets World.” If that doesn’t sound riveting to you, feel free not to engage.

All eight episodes of “Earle Meets World” are now streaming on Netflix.

Philippine studio Viva Communications has acquired the rights to remake Indonesian film “2nd Miracle in Cell No. 7,” marking the first time an Indonesian film will be officially remade for the Philippine market.

The adaptation is set to premiere Dec. 25 as part of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).

The original “Miracle in Cell No. 7” debuted in South Korea in 2013 and became a hit that spawned remakes in several countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines. Indonesia’s Falcon Pictures later went a step further, producing “2nd Miracle in Cell No. 7,” an original sequel continuing the story beyond what the film’s Korean creators had made.

Viva Communications is now adapting that Indonesian sequel for Philippine audiences. The remake is currently in production and will be a major entry in this year’s MMFF, a festival the studio is using to draw audiences back into Philippine theaters over the holiday season.

“With ‘2nd Miracle in Cell No. 7,’ Viva Communications continues its proud tradition of creating moving, high-quality cinema that resonates across generations and brings entire families together in theaters,” said Vincent Del Rosario, CEO of Viva Communications, Inc.. “Our participation in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival underscores Viva’s unwavering commitment to the festival’s enduring success and to the revitalization of the theatrical experience. We believe deeply in the magic of the communal cinema experience for Filipino audiences, and we remain dedicated to championing the continuous growth, elevate the artistry, and drive the global development of the Philippine motion picture industry.”

The franchise’s expansion has also been welcomed by Next Entertainment World, which originally held the rights to “Miracle in Cell No. 7,” along with its international sales arm, Contents Panda.

“‘Miracle in Cell No. 7’ has grown beyond a remake into a shared story that keeps evolving across Southeast Asia – we’re proud to see the Indonesian chapter now inspiring the Philippines,” said Danny Lee, president of Contents Panda.

For Falcon Pictures, the studio behind the sequel, the deal signals a growing regional profile for the Indonesian film industry.

“When we decided to produce ‘2nd Miracle in Cell No. 7,’ we took a bold creative leap to expand a beloved universe with an original Indonesian story, something that had never been done with this IP before,” said Frederica, producer at Falcon Pictures. “To see our sequel now being embraced and remade by the Philippines is a tremendous honor. It is a historic first for Indonesian cinema and proves that our deeply emotional, locally crafted stories have a universal heartbeat that can resonate far beyond our borders.”

Actor-turned director Anna Foglietta is back in Venice in a different guise this year, after serving as the event’s official emcee in 2020.

Foglietta — who is best-known to international audiences for her role in Italy’s smash hit “Perfect Strangers” — is on the Lido with her directorial debut, “A Common Story.” It’s a marriage drama toplined by Alba Rohrwacher, whose credits include Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” and who served on the 2025 Cannes competition jury panel. Rohrwacher plays a middle-aged woman named Erika whose relationship with her husband, Mauro, and their simple life in the countryside is disrupted when their daughter Irene leaves to go to university abroad. Their house feels empty, and the balance on which they had based their lives seems to crumble.

The film, being sold by True Colours, is produced by HT Film, Indigo Film, Tenderstories and Blu One Lab with support from Rai Cinema and in collaboration with HBO Max.

Foglietta spoke to Variety about working with Rohrwacher and shares her thoughts about Venice’s gender imbalance.

How did “A Common Story” germinate?

From my observation of the world. I spend a lot of time with the parents of my children’s friends. I’ve realized that, even observing myself as a parent, we’ve truly become too child-centric. Our obsession with everything a child does from the moment it is born is perhaps the fundamental alibi that allows us to effectively avoid taking care of ourselves [as adults].

There is a whole generation that does not really know itself and doesn’t have the will or the desire to do so. So together with screenwriter Matteo Ferri, with whom I wrote the story, I started to think about how to bring these elements together. I thought about a very simple couple. I’m very passionate about the part of humanity that never basks in the spotlight. They deploy energies and strategies to keep this world turning, but nobody cares. It always seems that great revolutions, even profound emotional and psychoanalytic ones, are always the prerogative of the bourgeoisie just because they have all the right cultural tools.

So I focused on two very simple people. Smart, with great emotional intelligence. But undoubtedly very simple. People who don’t have the tools that allow them to really examine and understand each other. Some people have a really serious difficulty with that. I thought it would be intriguing that with this type of simplicity, we could get all of humanity to speak. To reach a truly universal level.

What was it like working with Alba Rohrwacher?

She is an actress who loves to be guided. And I was glued to the camera guiding her, at times shouting out lines to her, even if the camera was rolling. I really want to say that Alba had a lot of guts. I told her: “I need a woman who is real. A woman who, aside from all else, is going through [menopause] that is extremely difficult — and only us women can know how difficult it is. In fact at a certain point her husband brutally tells her that “no one needs you anymore.” It comes out the wrong way, but it’s true. Because that’s what the culture teaches us. I mean, fortunately, there is a new wave of empowerment, especially linked to women in menopause But when the kids grow up and work continues to be routine, you still feel like you’re in a zone of inevitable decline. It’s very tough. So I told her: “You have to have the courage to show yourself exactly as you are.”

Speaking of female empowerment, how do you feel about the fact that there is only one woman in competition at Venice this year?

I think objectively this is a horrible year from that point of view. It’s shocking to see just one woman in competition. In past years, however, it must be said, things went better in Venice. It’s interesting that in Horizons the gender balance situation is much better [eight out of 19 films in the section are directed by women] because it’s the more experimental section. This indicates that women are bold directors. We are being bold in our gaze, our vision, and our direction, and for me this is a virtue and a value. But it must be said that the problem is systemic. The system doesn’t help support female directors and the female perspective. We absolutely need to focus on this new perspectives because today, as we have seen, it’s a huge resource.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.