Movie & TV Special: Both Funny & Animated & Much More!

“Toy Story 5” opens in theaters on June 19. The usual cast of toys (dolls) are back with a new story. Yes, Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is in the film, again. WALLACE SHAWN, 82. reprises his voice role as “Rex”, a nervous dinosaur. This beloved toy has been in all five movies. Shawn voiced Rex in the five films.  

“O Horizon” opened in a few theaters on June 12 and will open “wide” on June 19.  It played in a major film festival last year and got pretty good reviews then. It is described as a sci-fi, comedy and drama film.

Here’s the premise: Abby (Maria Bakalova) is a gifted neuroscientist. Not long after the film begins, Abby’s father, Warren, dies. (Warren is played by David Strathairn, a very good actor).  

Abby tries to bury her grief in her work. She then meets Sam (played by ADAM PALLY, 44) a programmer. He has created a technology that could reconnect Abby with her beloved father. Abby and Sam work together and they make a connection to the deceased Warren.

The film’s “official” advance info says: “Abby’s relationship with her digitized [deceased] dad then forces her to re-examine everything from her romantic relationships to her life’s work.“

The film was written by, and directed by MADELINE ROTZLER, 43. She has directed four documentaries. “O Horizon” is her 2nd fictional film. She won an Emmy for a 2013 documentary about how Belarus actors coped with major strife in that country.

There’s an asterisk that clouds her professional career. Her maiden name is Sackler. Yes, that Sackler family. Her grandfather, RAYMOND, was one of the three Sackler brothers who created and owned Purdue Pharma. It was “the company behind” the opioid epidemic. Rotzler has received criticism for her family’s wealth, which was derived mostly from the sale and manufacture of the highly addictive pharmaceutical Oxycontin (opioid). In documentaries, newspapers, and in books, Madeline has denied her family’s role in the opioid epidemic that killed thousands.

JOSH FOX, 55, is a director, playwright, and environmental activist. He’s best known for his Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning 2010 documentary, Gasland. It’s about drilling for natural gas and the effect that has on the environment. Fox’s family had a home on Pennsylvania land that the gas companies wanted to “frack”.  Fox lived in that home during his high school years.

He is an artistic director of a film and theater company in New York City and he’s written for many outlets, including “Rolling Stone” and “The Daily Beast”.

His new documentary is “The Welcome Table”. It premieres on HBO on June 23. This film confronts the global climate migration crisis and he calls for “a shift from walls to open and human-centered solutions”.

The film shows how the largest migration in history is driven by climate disasters (wildfires, flood, and others) and on-going changes like desertification. The table, he says, is a symbol of helping each other.

He backs his statements with very accurate statistics. For example, the UN estimates 1.2 billion people will be displaced by climate change by 2050. He challenges the idea that “climate refugees” should be a threat. Instead, we should emphasize survival and cooperation.

Fox’s father is Sephardic Jewish and his mother is Calabrese Italian. (I presume she isn’t Jewish). Fox’s father was a displaced person, a Jewish refugee and an infant survivor of the Holocaust. He was 8 when he arrived in New York City.

I couldn’t find out if Fox identifies as Jewish. My gut is that he is secular. I did find that he wrote and co-starred in a play called “Edge of Nature”. It was “mounted” in a New York City off-Broadway theater in 2024. The play, which included on-stage music making (Fox played banjo), focused on the Holocaust and the historic genocide of Native Americans in Pennsylvania.

“Extreme Makeover: Homer Edition” is a Disney special featuring “The Simpsons” (naturally). It runs the length of two regular episodes and it is a “Disney alone” episode. It will not be shown on the Fox network, which runs most episodes, too.

Capsule Plot: The fun Homer and Marge had on their “date night out” disappeared when Marge learned Homer left the kids unsupervised. It premiered on June 17.

The main Simpsons cast is just six actors.  All have been in the cast for 37 seasons! Half the main cast is Jewish: JULIE KAVNER, 75, voices Marge Simpson; HARRY SHEARER, 82, voices Ned Flander; and HANK AZARIA, 62, voices Moe Szyslak. (All these actors voice many characters. These are their main roles).