Sure, Michael tunes in to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” on Monday nights, but he’s otherwise quite the opposite of the “born couch potato” the real-life writer calls himself. In “Spoiler Alert,” the writer’s big-screen avatar (embodied by small-screen star Jim Parsons) doesn’t watch much television either, leaving room to live and love - and also to learn from this unthinkable tragedy. It’s a dream job, albeit a demanding one, for a boob tube-obsessed soul like Ausiello, though it was his private life that inspired his best piece of writing - and by extension, “The Big Sick” director Michael Showalter’s latest laugh-a-little/cry-a-little rom-com, based on Ausiello’s 2017 memoir. How do these people - folks like Michael Ausiello, editor-in-chief of TVLine (owned by Variety parent company PMC) and author of “ Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies” - manage to keep up with the sheer volume of new shows on TV, much less nurse a partner through a terminal battle with Stage 4 neuroendocrine cancer?

As for the critics and columnists who cover television, I don’t know how they do it. There simply isn’t time, what with all the new movies opening each week. Ausiello, the president and editorial director of Deadline’s sister site TVLine, is executive producer.įield, who is currently shooting Adam McKay’s drama series at HBO about the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers playing Jessie Buss, is repped by UTA and Hansen, Jacobson.As a film critic, I don’t watch much television. Parsons is producing with his That’s Wonderful Productions partners Todd Spiewak and Alison Mo Massey. Showalter is producing Spoiler Alert with Jordana Mollick via their Semi-Formal Productions. I know she will bring so much depth and humor to this pivotal role.” “I cannot wait to collaborate with her again. “Working with Sally Field has been the highlight of my career,” Showalter said.

Interwoven in the narrative are glimpses of the roller-coaster ride that was the couple’s 14-year romance. In his 2017 memoir, Ausiello (played by Parsons in the film) unpacks the emotional maelstrom into which his relationship was plunged in the 11 months that took his partner, photographer Kit (Aldridge), from his diagnosis with terminal cancer to his passing.

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