CBS has given a pilot order to a comedy series titled “Hilda! (In Lights!)” about an elderly woman who moves to New York City to pursue her Broadway dreams.
Three scripts for the single-camera project, from writer and executive producer Abbey Caldwell, were announced as being in development at the studio in April. The logline reads: “One of those classic shows about a plucky small-town optimist who moves to the big city to pursue her lifelong dream of starring on Broadway. There’s just one teeny, tiny, totally inconsequential difference… our hero Hilda is a 70-year-old woman from Nebraska with absolutely no experience.”
Caldwell’s non-writing executive producers include Will Graham, Max Linsky and Tonia Davis for Invitation Media. The project is produced by CBS Studios.
The “Hilda! (In Lights!)” news comes as CBS has taken bets on a handful of new, original projects. “Eternally Yours,” a vampire comedy from “Ghosts” duo Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, is premiering on Oct. 8 alongside the Silicon Valley-set legal drama “Cupertino” from Robert and Michelle King. Tara Hernandez’s comedy pilot “The Tillbrooks” (formerly known as “Regency”) — a historical spin on the classic multi-camera family sitcom — was also ordered to pilot but will not be moving forward.
On the CBS 2026-2027 schedule is the new “NCIS” spinoff “NCIS: New York,” which will see LL Cool J reprising his role as Sam Hanna. That show will debut on Oct. 6.
New series “Einstein,” a dramedy starring Matthew Gray Gubler as the brilliant but directionless great-grandson of Albert Einstein, will premiere in the second half of the season.
News broke on Friday that Dermot Mulroneywill leave NBC’s “Chicago Fire” in its upcoming 15th season. During a recent appearance at Flash Weekend Chicago Horror Convention (via People), Mulroney opened up about his exit.
“Loved every minute of it. Became friends with this incredible crew of people,” Mulroney said. He later noted that the show gave him some “incredibly challenging scenes,” but luckily, he had an “incredible cast” to back him up.
The “My Best Friend’s Wedding” star explained that he only has one more episode left in Season 15, and then “they write the character off.” He said of his time on “Chicago Fire,” “We gave it our all for two seasons.”
“They wrote an incredible storyline that put me as an actor on [a] high challenge,” Mulroney added. “I loved every minute of it. Sad to see it go.”
Mulroney joined “Chicago Fire” in Season 13 as Chief Dom Pascal. His exit is expected to come early in Season 15, which premieres on Oct. 7 at 9 p.m. ET.
“I can’t tell you how many people come up, and they’d much rather have an autograph on ‘Scream VI,’ but [they ask for] Chief Pascal for their dad,” he later shared. “It’s an amazing thing to see and that’s how meaningful that is. Which makes it that much more, I won’t say bittersweet. It’s bitter to have to leave that.”
Mulroney’s “Chicago Fire” exit came just a couple of days after it was revealed that original cast member Joe Miñoso would also soon leave the drama series. Miñoso’s character, firefighter Joe Cruz, will likewise be written off in Season 15.
Dave Bautista could be the next “God of War.” Variety has learned from sources that Bautista is currently in talks for the role of Kratos in the Amazon Prime Video series based on the popular video game franchise.
The news comes after it was reported that Ryan Hurst, who was originally cast in the role of the titular god in January 2026, suffered a torn bicep on the set of the series that would have delayed a return to production until 2027, ultimately leading Amazon and Sony to recast the part. The plan is to get the production back up and running by the fall.
Reps for Amazon declined to comment.
There are few better suited for the role of Kratos than Bautista. Aside from the fact he is an accomplished actor, he is one of few in Hollywood who could step into the role on short notice in the physical shape it requires. Kratos is known for his incredibly muscular physique in the games, and Bautista has been in remarkable shape throughout his career. Thus, he would not need months of prep time to prepare for the role.
He also has an existing relationship with Amazon MGM Studios. He previously starred in the Amazon movies “The Wrecking Crew,” “My Spy,” and “My Spy: The Eternal City,” while he is set to appear in both “Road House 2” and the remake of “Highlander” for Amazon.
Bautista first broke out as a star in WWE before he transitioned to a highly successful and diverse acting career. He has played Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe across six movies, while he also appeared in the first two “Dune” films from Denis Villeneuve. He also recently lent his voice to the animated film “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender,” and has previously starred in films like “Blade Runner 2049,” “Knock at the Cabin,” “Spectre,” and “Army of the Dead.”
He is repped by WME and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Prime Video has given “God of War” a two-season order. As previously reported, the series will pick up with the story of the two most recent “God of War” games, in which Kratos must raise his ten-year old son Atreus while battling gods of the Norse pantheon. Per the logline, “Father and son Kratos and Atreus embark on a journey to spread the ashes of their wife and mother, Faye. Through their adventures, Kratos tries to teach his son to be a better god, while Atreus tries to teach his father how to be a better human.”
Callum Vinson remains attached to play Kratos’ son Atreus. Additional cast members include Max Parker as Heimdall, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Danny Woodburn and Jeff Gulka as as brothers Brok and Sindri, and Ed Skrein as Baldur.
Ronald D. Moore is the writer, executive producer, and showrunner on “God of War” under his Tall Ship Productions banner.
Frederick E.O. Toye will direct the first two episodes of “God of War.” Maril Davis of Tall Ship also executive produces alongside Cory Barlog, Naren Shankar, Matthew Graham, Asad Qizilbash, Jeff Ketcham, Hermen Hulst, Roy Lee, and Brad Van Arragon. Joe Menosky, Marc Bernardin, Tania Lotia, and Ben McGinnis serve as co-executive producers on the series. The series is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios in association with PlayStation Productions and Tall Ship Productions.
Did you think landing Imax 70mm tickets to “The Odyssey” was hard? Trying landing those tickets and snagging one of the limited-edition popcorn buckets tied to the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s epic, which included designs of the iconic Trojan Horse and a replica of the Imax camera (complete with a real viewfinder!) that the film was famously shot on by Hoyte van Hoytema.
The craze around these popcorn buckets, and the conversations they spark on social media, is nothing new. Just this past weekend, the box office juggernaut that is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” came with its own set of popular buckets, including a replica of Spider-Man’s head and a drink-popcorn combo featuring a web-slinger shooting out of Peter Parker’s hand.
The craze has gotten so overwhelming that these premium buckets can sell out in minutes after dropping online. For “The Odyssey,” Imax got involved with movie merchandise for the first time to bring a realistic replica of its 15/65mm camera to life. But this growing excitement has also caused some theater chains to limit how many buckets guests can purchase per visit for certain releases, and scalpers have taken to eBay to sell these limited-edition items for increasingly high price tags — and have seen success in doing so.
With the box office on track to have its strongest year since 2019, premium popcorn buckets have only become bigger money drivers for theater chains, which heavily rely on merchandise and concession sales since they typically only keep around half the revenue generated from ticket sales. In 2025, AMC Theatres reported $80 million globally from merchandise sales (including their international Odeon Cinemas) and is on track for a $100 million gross for 2026, according to Nels Storm, AMC’s VP of food and beverage.
“It’s become a vehicle for the future of moviegoing,” Storm tells Variety. “These are tangible movie memories. They’re the concert T-shirts of our industry.”
Chains like Regal estimate that the total number of premium buckets they offer throughout the year will total 50, and that figure extends to over 100 when including collectible popcorn tins.
The level to which directors get involved with designs can vary. “The Odyssey” Imax bucket is a key example of how theater chains and studios are celebrating the filmmakers getting audiences excited to go to the movies again, as Imax has become synonymous with Nolan’s brand over the years.
“The persona rubs off, and it’s like a parasocial relationship,” says Russell Belk, a professor of marketing at York University. “Cross marketing is usually part of the plan from the start. The film studios and now the actors involved are trying to get a piece of the action as well.”
Storm says: “There is so much respect for moviemaking that went into this camera. When you think about how a director like Christopher Nolan likes to film his movies and likes for them to be shown, this was a natural transition to be able to do something like this.”
Imax CEO Rich Gelfond says the camera bucket sold out in 90 minutes, and they had to borrow more from China to meet the high demand: “The scope of this is larger than anything we’ve done before, and it certainly shows the promise of a bigger merchandising effort among Imax fans. I’m a really optimistic guy, but the crazy interest in Imax among the fans would have been hard to predict.”
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Kristy Breneman, Regal’s director of food and beverage activations, confirms that filmmakers are involved with the bucket designs: “As we’re seeing these concepts, if any changes are asked for, we do hear that everything has to go through the filmmaker for approval on certain projects.”
Going to the movies and buying a tub of hot popcorn have long gone together. But these collectible buckets aren’t always the most practical for moviegoers hoping to actually munch on some food throughout a long movie — a frequent topic of discussion online.
“The rule is it has to hold popcorn, and that’s where the rules stop!” Storm says with a laugh, referencing the tiny Bowser key chain that was sold with the release of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” earlier this year.
However, not being able to fit much popcorn into certain buckets doesn’t seem to make a difference in which designs fly off the shelves.
“We try to think about what comes after. It may be a piggy bank for somebody, it may be a toy bucket for someone, and it may be a really neat, sculpted item to put on a shelf,” says David Haywood, Cinemark‘s SVP of food and beverage. “We never try to box people into how they’re going to use it.”
Haywood, of course, adds that Cinemark gives out extra popcorn to guests buying certain buckets to ensure that no one leaves the theater on an empty stomach.
Since a majority of these buckets are sold across all the major chains, one way for competing theater chains to distinguish themselves is by securing an exclusive on certain designs that then get promoted online. This comes from locking in a certain number of buckets they want to buy far in advance, according to Haywood.
AMC’s biggest exclusive this year has been the bucket shaped entirely around Spider-Man’s head, which goes for $34.99 and is currently sold out on the theater’s website. “This is the first time that vessel has existed in this way ever,” Storm says, with Marvel and Sony’s input making sure it was as size-accurate as possible.
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Another popular bucket, the iconic “Devil Wears Prada 2″ purse, started out as a Cinemark exclusive before becoming more widely available, selling online for $39.95.
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Popular membership programs like AMC A-List and Regal Unlimited, which encourage frequent moviegoing, also provide greater incentives for guests to spend money on these buckets since they’re not paying out-of-pocket for individual tickets each time they go to the theater.
“Not to give too much away about what we’re planning, but we absolutely want to incentivize those loyal customers who do purchase more,” Breneman teases.
But just as scalpers have snatched up coveted tickets for big blockbuster releases, they have found their way into the popcorn bucket craze. For “The Odyssey’s” Trojan Horse, for example, one eBay seller has it currently listed as high as $165, compared to its original $69.99 listing, and has actually sold some at or near that inflated price tag. The same can be said of the “Spider-Man” buckets, which are listed for up to $110.
“That’s been a big topic of conversation recently,” Breneman says. “It’s definitely a challenge for us and we are continuing to learn from these different experiences. Whenever you have products that are limited to a specific release, there’s naturally going to be strong interest from collectors. From our perspective, our priority is to make sure the guests have the opportunity to purchase these items as part of their visit to the theater.”
To meet the high demand for “The Odyssey,” Regal instituted a one-bucket-per-guest limit — something they’ve never had to do before. “And it is possible that it’ll be something we implement moving forward,” Breneman says.
Belk adds that having a short supply of limited-edition items can be a strategic tool to encourage customers to spend more on a whim.
“If you have a limited-time option and you’re not announcing when that’s going to be ahead of time, people that are young and don’t have jobs have a lot of time to hang out online and wait for it,” he says. “You need to find ways to make it seem scarce. It’s a way of generating excitement.”
As these buckets are typically made from plastic, Storm says that theater chain owners and manufacturing companies like Zinc, Golden Link and Snap have been conscious of designing them to “not be disposable,” when asked about any potential pushback from environmental groups.
That points to perhaps the biggest appeal of these popcorn buckets — they’ve become some of the hottest collector items on the market, designed to sit on someone’s shelf for years to come as a token of their favorite moviegoing experiences. Add them next to your favorite Funko pop!
“The fans are now making the moviegoing experience more personal than they ever have before, and these collectibles give them a tangible way to extend that experience all the way to their house,” Haywood says. “People always say, ‘If you don’t show it, it didn’t happen!’”
But with the increasing out-there designs, from the infamous “Dune: Part Two” sandworm-mouth popcorn bucket to the overwhelmingly giant Trojan horse, is there growing pressure for studios and theater chains to keep topping themselves in order to generate online conversation, especially for upcoming major releases like “Dune: Part Three” and “Avengers: Doomsday?”
“The excitement and reaction on social media has definitely raised the bar for everyone involved,” Breneman says. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we need to make things bigger and more elaborate every time. But when there is that opportunity to have something more interactive, if it really goes with the storytelling and is authentic to the film, I do see them pressing the limits.”
Country music is ruling the roost like never before, at least when it comes specifically to the Billboard Hot 100. For the first time in history, country songs are claiming all five of the top five slots on the Hot 100. That’s thanks to Ella Langley and Morgan Wallen, who currently stand at No. 1 on the singles and albums charts, respectively… and to Taylor Swift‘s return to country for a hit soundtrack… and to newcomer Stella Lefty officially joining the ranks of hitmakers.
To no one’s surprise, Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” the biggest single of 2026 so far, maintains its No. 1 perch in chart results reported by Billboard on Monday. Wallen’s new single, “Been by Now,” premieres at No. 2. Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” gets pushed down one spot on this week’s chart, now landing at No. 3. In the fourth position is a duet between Langley and Wallen, “I Can’t Love You Anymore.” And coming in at No. 5 is Lefty’s career-making “Boston,” down two slots from last week, but still with plenty of room to grow.
So many statistical anomalies are included in this top 5, it’s hard to know where to begin, although the aforementioned stat about this congregation of songs establishing a collective chart record is a good place to start.
The headline any other week might be about Langley’s ongoing winning streak at the top of the chart. This is the 16th week at No. 1 with “Choosin’ Texas,” which puts Langley in ever-more-rarefied territory. “Texas” is now tied for a historic fourth place for the number of weeks spent at No. 1. The three singles it is tied with for that sweet 16 number are Wallen’s “Last Night,” Mariah Carey’s and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” and the Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee/Justin Bieber monster “Despacito.”
So, what are the next thresholds for “Choosin’ Texas” to cross? If Langley holds on to No. 1 for just one more week — which is a highly likely prospect — then she will still be in fourth place on the all-time streak chart, just no longer tied for it. The next tier for her would be meeting or surpassing the two songs that are tied for second, at 19 weeks each — Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road.” If she gets to 20 weeks at No. 1, she will hold the record for the most weeks for a non-holiday song. Then, the final frontier would be whether she could beat Mariah Carey’s annual perennial “All I Want for Christmas,” which, at 22 nonconsecutive weeks, is a tough one for anyone to beat. Tagging on seven more weeks to the current 16 to claim the all-time record sounds impossible, but the song has surpassed so many expectations already that it might be foolish to bet against it.
Looking at the top 10 for this week, country has six out of those 10, since Langley’s second-most-popular track, “Be Her” is in at No. 9.
The non-country songs rounding the top 10 this week are Tame Impala and Jennie’s “Dracula” at No. 6, Olivia Dean’s “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” at No. 7, Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me” at No. 8 and Dean’s “Man I Need” at No. 10.
Dean having two songs in the top 10 and Langley having three (one of them a Wallen collaboration) may provide a glimpse of what the Grammy competition holds in store a few months from now. Voters in the four general categories have turned up their noses at country contenders for years, but Langley will provide the true test of whether the Recording Academy can really keep snubbing country or whether her dominance will mean it’s time to cry uncle.
The London production of “Sunday in the Park With George” is set to go ahead as planned despite Ariana Grandeexiting the show.
The Stephen Sondheim revival, which also stars Grande’s “Wicked” co-star Jonathan Bailey, was scheduled to premiere at London’s Barbican next summer with producers set to launch ticket sales after Grande completed the last leg of her “The Eternal Sunshine Tour” on Sept. 1 in the U.K.
However, on Sunday night reps for the actress said Grande will be “taking a step back from visibility” after she completes her tour — which includes dropping out of the play.
But the show must go on and a rep for producers Empire Street Productions tells Variety: “The production will open at the Barbican in summer 2027 as planned, and casting will be announced in due course.”
Grande was set to star as both Dot and Marie in the revival opposite Bailey as painter George Seurat, offering “Wicked” fans a rare opportunity to see the film’s stars together live on stage. “Sunday in the Park With George” is directed by Tony and Olivier Award winner Marianne Elliot, with design by Tom Scutt. Auditions for the ensemble have been taking place in London this summer.
Producers for the show said they “wish [Grande] nothing but the best,” adding: “We know this cannot have been an easy decision, and she makes it with our complete understanding and support.”
In recent years fans have expressed increasing concern for Grande, particularly in regards to her physical appearance. The actor and singer previously disclosed she was diagnosed with PTSD after a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including a number of children, at her concert in Manchester in 2017.
Aside from “Sunday in the Park With George,” Grande’s only other publicly-known commitment is a role in upcoming Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller comedy “Focker-in-Law,” which is set to bow over Thanksgiving. It is unclear whether Grande will still participate in the film’s publicity tour.
Grande’s rep told People magazine: “She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny.”
“Peaky Blinders” may have given closely clipped back and sides haircuts a new lease of life, but it’s now helped a region of the U.K. land official backing as a center for high-end productions.
The British Film Commission has announced that the West Midlands, home to the city of Birmingham and where “Peaky Blinders” is set and shot, has been named the U.K.’s eighth official regional production hub for scripted inward investment for film and high-end TV.
According to the Commission, having served as production base for “Peaky Blinders,” the feature film “The Immortal Man” and the as-yet untitled “Peaky Blinders” spin-off series, the region has now fulfilled the criteria needed to receive official hub status.
The West Midlands joins South-West England (Bristol); North-West England (Manchester and Liverpool); Yorkshire (Leeds); Northern Ireland (Belfast); Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh); Wales (Cardiff); and London & South-East England as an official production hub, lending its strength to a UK-wide offer which contributed £5.8 billion ($7.8 billion) to the UK economy in 2025.
“As Tommy Shelby of the Peaky Blinders once said, ‘when you plan something well, there’s no need to rush.’ The growing success of the West Midlands as a U.K. production hub certainly bears this out. Over the course of nearly 15 years, the region has steadily grown in strength and stature, building skills, infrastructure and reputation,” said Adrian Wootton, Chief Executive of the British Film Commission.
“With the West Midlands becoming an official regional production hub, our offer to the global film and TV industry now spans the length and breadth of the U.K.: wherever you base your production, you’re within a stone’s throw of world-class facilities, crew and talent, with access to one-of-a-kind locations and some of the world’s most stable, transparent and generous tax incentives.”
The two upcoming “Peaky Blinders” spin-off series are being film at the recently opened in Birmingham’s Digbeth Loc. Studios, which was founded by show creator Steven Knight.
“I’m thrilled that the West Midlands has been recognised as a fantastic place to make film and TV,” said Knight. The opening of Digbeth Loc. Studios is an important part of that ambition, providing a home for world-class film and television production in the heart of Birmingham. We are at the beginning of a journey, and we’ve got off to a great start. The West Midlands is always ambitious, and we believe we will create a global content making industry in our neighbourhood.”
In addition to the region’s new hub status, the BBC previously announced plans to establish its future regional headquarters in The Tea Factory in Digbeth .
“Bari and her team have a huge tanker of a network news organisation to turn around, and they are assembling a little team on the bridge,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The great thing about her is that she’s one of those people who will either change the world or crash and burn. But when they crash and burn, it’s in technicolour.”
Phillips, who has been a correspondent for the U.K.’s Sky News since 2021, was handpicked by CBS News editor-in-chief Weiss to join the Paramount-owned network as senior global affairs correspondent. He will also join “60 Minutes.” A veteran writer and broadcaster as well as a former politician, Phillips was previously chair of the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and in 2022 was knighted for his services to equality and human rights .
He is set to move across the pond this summer to take up the new role at CBS. “You know, I’m 72. It’s a great adventure,” he said of Weiss’s offer. “And who turns down adventures if someone is willing to take a chance on you?”
To mark the move, Phillips gave a wide-ranging interview to the Telegraph, in which he gamely discussed some of the controversy that has swirled since Weiss was appointed to her role last year. “In the U.S., the controversy has been framed as, ‘CBS News is becoming anti-woke’. But that’s not what Bari is about,” Phillip said. “She has her own views, some of which I’m sympathetic to, some of which I’m not, but her point is that the media should be heterodox. There should be a variety of voices.”
He wouldn’t comment on rumors that reporter Holly Williams, who works in CBS News’ London bureau, had been taken off an interview with right wing politician Nigel Farage in favor of Phillips, but said: “What’s interesting in politics now is this current of thought, represented by Farage, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen, which essentially says the way we have done conventional politics is bust in a new world, and we need to do things differently. We keep trying to fit it into the old Right/Left duopoly, and I don’t think that’s quite right. The interviews I’m interested in doing will include that group [of leaders].”
“I’m not the smoothest presenter on television or reader of the autocue, but I guess they think that I manage the chaos [of live guests] well,” Phillips added. “Broadcast journalism has, to some extent, become the creature of entertainment. We need to return to the business of reporting. To put it in its crassest terms, the story needs to come before the reporter. Too many people who do what I do put themselves between the viewer and the story, and that’s not our job.”
Phil Collins recently told The Times of London that he almost died in 2024 from health complications stemming from alcohol abuse.
The Genesis frontman explained that he was initially admitted to a Swiss hospital for alcohol addiction in late 2023. He was discharged at first, but was brought back in shortly after and placed into intensive care. Collins says he was mostly unconscious during his second stint at the hospital.
“My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” Collins said. “People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming. I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong.”
Collins recalled that his five children were rushed to his side, thinking their dad was about to die. He said that, at the time, “There were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing.”
“I was very lucky to have come out of that,” he added. “Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”
“If not me, who?” said actor Billy Porter in a 2024 Guardian interview, explaining the rationale for his plan to direct and star in a biopic of Black queer author and activist James Baldwin. “Who’s going to tell it better than the Black gay man who embodies that in today’s age?” Porter was right that the movie industry has been unduly slow to engage with Baldwin as a subject and source, relative to white authors of equivalent renown; one presumes, however, that he didn’t know “Jimmy” would premiere later that year. The directorial debut of photographer Yashaddai Owens is no star vehicle, and is only glancingly a character study. Its depiction of Baldwin is shimmery and largely silent, alternating between ambient portraiture and first-person perspective, yet it feels keyed into his experience of the world in a way a more completely (and conventionally) dramatized film might not.
Finally granted a U.S. release nearly two years after its Telluride world premiere, this 68-minute work occupies no clear lane. Though it’s ostensibly a narrative feature, following a version of Baldwin played by actor Benny O. Arthur through restless travels in Turkey and France, it’s light on story — and, until mere minutes before its close, shorn of dialogue — but heavy on circling mood. Owens shoots in monochrome on a Bolex 16mm camera, making no attempt to disguise the present-day backdrop to his subject’s midcentury wanderings, which occasionally lends “Jimmy” the sense of a cinematic walking tour, chasing the spirit of Baldwin rather than attempting to embody him outright. Given the candid, diaristic nature of its construction and presentation, it could equally be viewed as a nonfiction record of Owens and Arthur’s creative collaboration.
For the first ten minutes or so, Baldwin is an invisible protagonist in “Jimmy,” as Owens’ roving camera assumes his gaze: We’re immersed directly into the chattering streets and dusty rural paths of Istanbul, where the author traveled repeatedly in the 1960s, and observe as he did its teeming density of life, both human and animal. Owens’ own photographic eye for storied faces and charged urban tableaux ensures this doesn’t feel like mere travelogue, as do the jittery, changeable bebop rhythms of Paco Andreo’s marvelous jazz score; a keen individual perspective emerges despite no accompanying narration or characterization.
It’s only after this enigmatic Turkish prologue, when Baldwin relocates to Paris, that he becomes a physical presence in the film — with Arthur’s resemblance to the author assisted by the bleached-out, ink-blotted graininess of Owens’ lensing. Usually clad in high-waisted, cinch-backed khakis that impose a hint of period authenticity on these otherwise 21st-century images, the actor’s predominantly wordless performance gives Baldwin a quick, alert but inquisitive stride, a lone-wolf body language that owns its independent status, but sometimes projects a hungry, willing sexuality: We glimpse his flirtations with other men, fellow outsiders in the city’s Algerian quarter. And sometimes he merges entirely with the fabric of the city, shown only as a shadow or a translucent reflection on the scenery.
Even at a little over an hour, “Jimmy” risks stretching its impressionistic conceit: Compared to, say, Raoul Peck’s rigorous, textually engaged Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” it’s a film that doesn’t aim to say much about Baldwin, but to feel and channel his general aura. Yet there is an arc to its jagged rambling, as he gradually finds not just his feet in Paris, but his voice too: He begins to write, as Andreo’s hitherto ceaselessly cascading score pauses for the amplified scritch of pencil on paper.
Finally, in a film that mostly conjures the author’s mind and spirit without recourse to his words, “Jimmy” eventually lets him speak: Arthur reads crisply from Baldwin’s 1972 book “No Name in the Street,” verbalizing the anger, isolation and unrest that Owens has otherwise suggested in sensory terms. The specifics are needed, as Baldwin’s words bring bracing, embittered context to the film’s lustrous European tour. “My history in the West had, for its daily effect, placed me in such mortal danger that I had fled, all the way around the corner, to France,” he says. “Jimmy,” for all its beauty and curiosity, depicts not a great escape, but a renewed confrontation with the othering and alienation that Baldwin faced back home.
