Benny Safdie

This post contains spoilers for the finale of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Early in the concluding episode of The Curse, “Green Queen,” Asher and Whitney’s Shabbat dinner turns into a debate about Cara’s well-publicized decision to quit the art world. Whitney, of course, is envious that Cara is enjoying the kind of media attention that Whitney assumed she would get herself with the HGTV show. Asher tries to be more generous, but he’s in over his head as usual when it comes to…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Prior to this week, The Curse allowed the many problems in the Seigel marriage, and in the production of Fliplanthropy, to gradually simmer. With the penultimate episode, “Young Hearts,” all aspects of Whitney and Asher’s lives come to a full boil.  Whitney first went into the HGTV show with two goals: to make a killing in local real estate, and to publicly establish a do-gooder identity…

Benny Safdie talks about his split from brother and partner-in-film Josh — and reveals he doesn’t know if and when the Uncut Gems duo will reunite — in a new interview. Since the release of the Safdies’ Adam Sandler-starring hit in 2019, the brothers have collaborated to produce docuseries like Telemarketers and Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, but they haven’t returned to film directing. (The bros last co-directed Forget’s “100 Seats” music video back in late 2022.) Instead, Benny — two years younger…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. “Down and Dirty” begins with the inevitable catastrophe that Whitney created by letting the expensive jeans store keep her credit card on file to pay for all the shoplifters. Of course, word of this has spread throughout Española, and local teens are taking advantage of the situation, to the tune of a $14,000 charge so far for all the stolen merchandise. Between that and Fernando bringing in even…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. After a few midseason episodes that raised questions of whether this was all going somewhere interesting — or, at least, whether Fielder, Safdie, and company had enough to say to fill 10 hours — the story finally gets moving again with “Self-Exclusion,” as the Seigel marriage starts to crack wide open. Early on, we see Whitney once again reaching out to Cara. She’s still blind to the fact that Cara…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. “The Fire Burns On” begins with a glimpse of an actual episode of Flip-lanthropy (or, as Whitney wants to retitle it, Green Queen). Whitney is displeased with what Dougie is showing her, complaining, “It just feels lifeless.” He pushes back and notes that she has already asked him to take out potential areas of conflict, like racial tensions and crime in Española, and the end result is a preachy…

The Smashing Machine is the title of a new film from A24 that will star Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, a legendary mixed martial arts fighter and UFC champion. The film will be written and directed by Benny Safdie, who is best known for co-directing Uncut Gems with his brother Josh Safdie. Uncut Gems' director Safdie to helm 'The Smashing Machine', Dwayne Johnson steps into Mark Kerr's fighting shoes(Talksport.com/AP) “Dwayne and Benny are singular talents, and their shared vision for Mark’s inspiring story is…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. “It’s a Good Day” opens with two potential buyers prepping for an on-camera tour of one of Whitney’s passive homes. As is standard for The Curse, things are getting uncomfortable immediately, on both an emotional level and a physical one. The Seigels have decided — well, Whitney has decided, and Asher has gone along, because that is their power dynamic — that all buyers have to sign a letter in…

This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Curse, which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. The Seigels and Dougie get some very good news at the start of “Under the Big Tree.” Fliplanthropy has been picked up to series by HGTV. This is what all three of them have so badly wanted, for varying reasons. Whitney and Asher need the show to make their house-flipping business work, and Whitney also views it as an opportunity to evangelize about the causes she believes in. Dougie, meanwhile, is…

This post contains spoilers for the third episode of The Curse, “Questa Lane,” which is now streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Early in “Questa Lane,” Whitney and Asher have to suffer through the mortifying experience that is any Hollywood focus group, where the harsh opinions of a dozen random people can be treated as gospel by a network or studio. Whitney doesn’t come off terribly, though there’s a lot of skepticism about the concept of passive homes, including one person who’s an outright climate change…