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Electric airplane towing concept could mean longer zero-emission flights

Magpie Aviation announced a novel new approach to electric airplanes on Monday. Today’s battery technology (including CATL’s new, more efficient one) severely limits the practicality of zero-emission aircraft, leaving clean-energy innovators with two incomplete options: flying a plane full of batteries or one full of people — but not both. So the California-based startup wants to tie them together, extending the rear plane’s range by hundreds of miles.

Towing planes isn’t a new concept, with military use going back to World War II when aerial tows would pull smaller aircraft carrying troops and supplies. But applying it to the world of green transportation is new. Magpie Aviation’s concept uses one or more electric aircraft to act as a tractor plane towing a passenger (or cargo) aircraft using a long cable. The towed plane would have enough battery power for takeoff, landing and flying to alternate airports but not enough to fly the full distance on its own, as reported by AeroTime.

The lead plane would take on the bulk of the traction, and when its battery is depleted, it could hand off towing duties to another electric towing aircraft to extend the rear plane’s range. Magpie CEO Damon Vander Lind summarized to Aviation Week, “You get towed until you’ve depleted down to your reserve in the lead aircraft, and then you swap in another tow aircraft.” Although it’s still a regional solution impractical for cross-country or international flights, Vander Lind says it could allow for a trip from San Francisco to Seattle — far beyond the sub-regional distances battery-powered passenger flights can travel on their own.

Magpie says it’s conducted successful small-scale tests using a synthetic fiber rope around 330 ft. long; the company envisions a later commercial version to use nearly mile-long cables. The startup plans to scale up its testing gradually and believes it could be implemented commercially by 2030. It expects advances in battery tech to allow it to tow single-aisle airliners eventually. Magpie suggests that the concept, mainly targeting electric planes, could also work with hybrid, hydrogen and standard aircraft in low-power modes. Additionally, the company says it’s working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with an eye toward certification.

“It sounds kind of crazy, but we kept coming back to it because we couldn’t find any reason why we couldn’t do it,” said Vander Lind. “While our modeling shows that there is an advantage to doing a custom tow aircraft like this, we get a big advantage because the more expensive and critical passenger- and cargo-carrying ‘main aircraft’ has similar requirements to today’s aircraft and so adapts well to existing in-operation and already-in-development platforms. Remember that if we want to hit a zero-carbon 2050 goal, an airliner has a 30-year life, so we’re already at the point where airlines have to think hard about the operating life of the assets that they are buying today.”

Magpie Aviation announced a novel new approach

Film

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell Talk About Their Chemistry Onscreen — and Reveal Her Nickname for Him

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell Talk About Their Chemistry Onscreen — and Reveal Her Nickname for Him | Entertainment Tonight

The Our Place Always Pan Sale Has Discounts up to 25% Off—Here’s What to Buy

UPDATE—April 25, 2023: Getting hungry? Good news—Our Place is holding a massive sale right this minute. Nearly everything is up to 25% off, including the Insta-famous Always Pan, the brand’s cute cookware sets, and tons of tableware essentials. Even its new cast-iron pans are marked down. (In case you’re wondering, this almost never happens; the cookware gods have blessed us this week.)

No matter what your kitchen or tabletop is missing, you’re bound to find it here. Need drinking glasses that aren’t boring? On-trend dishware that doubles as a great graduation gift? A pot that can handle your latest attempt at a Bon Appétit recipe? You’re in luck—and so is your wallet. Like all good things, the Our Place sale won’t last forever, so hop to it and shop our favorite finds from the brand’s spring blowout while you still can.

ORIGINAL STORY—June 10, 2021: Sure, the Insta-famous Always Pan makes for grid-worthy photos, but is it more than just a pretty face? Let Glamour’s Our Place Always Pan review help you decide.

If you’re a millennial who follows food influencers or HGTV on Instagram (or if you’ve spoken the words always and pan in tandem out loud), you’ve probably been served #sponcon for the Always Pan—and you’ve probably been tempted to buy one. Unless you have the unicorn kitchen cabinets that can accommodate every pot, pan, lid, insert, and add-on, taking out just one pan probably involves removing and rearranging a small mountain of cookware. So replacing it all with a single pan that can handle braising, searing, steaming, straining, sautéing, frying, and boiling (and be used to serve and store) probably sounds like a dream.

UPDATE—April 25, 2023: Getting hungry? Good news—Our

What to Watch

Is ‘The Hateful Eight: Extended Version’ on Netflix? Where to Watch the Series

Netflix subscription is required to watch on Netflix

Great news! “The Hateful Eight: Extended Version” is available to watch on Netflix USA!

? Please note: this series is not available on the Basic with Ads subscription plan.

Date Added: 25th April 2023

Want to keep forever? Try looking for ‘The Hateful Eight: Extended Version’ on Amazon (paid link)

History:

04/25/2019: Added to Netflix

01/26/2023: Removed from Netflix

04/25/2023: Streaming Again

Description:

Trapped at a stagecoach stop as a storm rages outside, two bounty hunters and an outlaw face a gallery of rogues. Features never-before-seen footage.

Certificate: R
Strong bloody violence, a scene of violent sexual content, language and some graphic nudity

Year: 2015

Duration: 4 Episodes

Available Seasons: Season 1 (4 Ep)

Audio: English [Original]

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Cast and Crew

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks

Production & Box Office Details:

“The Hateful Eight: Extended Version” was produced by The Weinstein Company, Double Feature Films and FilmColony with a budget of $44m. With it’s initial release on December 25th 2015 it made approximately $155.76m at the Box Office.

Watch the trailer for “The Hateful Eight: Extended Version”

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Available on Netflix USA!

Netflix subscription is required to watch on Netflix

Where else can you watch ‘The Hateful Eight: Extended Version’ on Netflix?

Want to keep forever? Why not rent or buy ‘The Hateful Eight: Extended Version’ from one of the online services below?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 24: Viola Davis attends the 2023 Chaplin Award Gala honoring Viola Davis at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on April 24, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage )

Awards

Viola Davis’ ‘The Woman King’ Oscar Snub Addressed at Chaplin Gala

The EGOT winner was feted on Monday night at Film at Lincoln Center’s 48th annual Chaplin Gala, where stars like Jessica Chastain made their support clear.

It took about an hour of speeches saluting Viola Davis during the Film at Lincoln Center’s 48th annual Chaplin Gala before someone addressed the elephant in the room.

“When I see a movie like ‘The Woman King,’ it has Viola’s fingerprints all over it,” said Davis’ “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” co-star Jessica Chastain. “A movie like that with a female director and a cast of powerful Black female leads can get made in Hollywood today because of Viola’s lifelong advocacy for women of color. Maybe one day a movie like that can get nominated for an Oscar.”

The statement was met with enthusiastic applause from an audience comprised of Lincoln Center donors, industry colleagues, and plenty of acting students from Davis’ alma mater, Juilliard. It was an explicit callout to the biggest Oscar snub to cast a shadow over last year’s awards season, and contextualized a celebration that made up for the missed opportunity.

Davis’ performance as an African war general seemed like a shoo-in for the Best Actress category after the Sony release grossed close to $100 million following its successful launch on the fall circuit, yet Davis was shut out of the category, while the movie itself garnered zero nominations — an outcome that led to questions about whether the Academy had truly addressed its diversity problems in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite.

At a dinner following the ceremony, where board members shelled out as much as $100,000 per table for the fundraising event, Chastain — who has two months left in the Broadway production of “A Doll’s House” — was still reeling about the exclusion. “Someone had to say it,” she told IndieWire. “I mean, come on. Not a single Oscar nomination for that movie? There had to be some Academy members in that room, right?”

Indeed there were. The crowd ranged from CAA heavyweight Kevin Huvane to prolific documentarian Roger Ross Williams, as well as several other notable actors and filmmakers who took the stage during the ceremony to praise Davis, only the third EGOT winner to receive the Chaplin tribute Mike Nichols and Audrey Hepburn. Notwithstanding Davis’ 2016 Oscar win for “Fences,” the event made the case that the 57-year-old actress’ talent has often been under-appreciated — and in some cases, the highlight of otherwise forgettable movies. For every “Widows” or “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” there are lesser-known gigs such as “Troop Zero” and “Lila & Eve” where she still manages to stand out.

“Widows” filmmaker Steven McQueen acknowledged as much in his speech. “Watching these clips on the screen is like watching Mike Tyson knockouts,” he said. “It’s Viola and someone else listening. You see someone who is truth. It’s scary and revealing.”

While “Woman King” director Gina Prince-Bythewood didn’t address the recent snub in the explicit terms of her editorial earlier this year, she spoke to the cultural impact of the performance. “The number of audiences who have shared that this film and her performance as Nanisca has literally changed their lives is stunning and inspiring,” Prince-Bythewood said. “It’s why we have fought so hard to allow Black female characters to show their mess.”

She also heralded Davis’ “insane work ethic,” a notion echoed by Meryl Streep, who recalled working with Davis on John Patrick Shanley’s 2008 “Doubt,” Davis’s onscreen breakout that resulted in her first Oscar nomination. Streep recalled her frustrations when Shanley kept asking for more takes of the scene in which Davis, as the mother of a child at a Catholic school who may have been abused by its priest, pushes back on allegations from Streep’s nun. “I said, ‘You’re killing this actor,’” Streep recalled. “I know an Oscar performance when I see one.”

Shanley insisted they come back the following week for additional shoots, which was when Davis delivered the devastating performance that wound up in the movie. “The greatest artists have a gift for conveying what it is to be human,” Streep said. “It’s just undeniable and it can’t be stopped by lack of opportunity.”

Matt Damon and Viola Davis in “Air”

COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

The event doubled as a soft launch for what could end up being Davis’ next Oscar campaign for her turn as Michael Jordan’s mother Deloris in “Air,” a movie that didn’t appear in any of the montages from Davis’ work but received a standalone clip towards the end of the show. The scene finds Deloris pressing for Matt Damon’s Nike executive to accept a deal that promises her son will receive indefinite revenues from Air Jordan sales, though it doubles as an argument for pay equity that Davis has pressed for across the industry.

Amazon expects big numbers for the movie when it lands on the streaming service in May following its wide theatrical release, as it inches toward $50 million box office in North America. However, “Air” director Ben Affleck and others associated with the performance did not attend the gala, as the studio is likely to wait until later this year to unleash more advocacy for that performance.

In her own speech concluding the ceremony, Davis hewed to the bigger picture of her career, striking the same rousing note of her memoir “Finding Me,” which came out last year. “The biggest regret of the dying is never becoming your ideal self,” she said. “I do believe that we’re thrust into a world where we don’t fit in. A lot of people sell a bill of goods along the way — that if you get some awards, you mean something. … You swim through all the bad, filthy swill until you come to the really, really stark conclusion that you want to leave this Earth becoming who you know deep within I’m supposed to be. That transcends status.”

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The EGOT winner was feted on Monday

Music

The Momager Crop Is the Power Haircut That Says ‘Booked and Busy’

Let it be said: ‘90s hair has been hogging the spotlight. And now? The ‘80s want in. The latest haircut we’re crushing on is the momager crop. We didn’t expect to love it as much as we do, but there’s something about its ‘80s power suit energy and Kris Jenner-levels of zero BS that we can’t help but respect.

An update (or throwback) of the mussy pixie cut that’s dominated shorter crops in recent years, the momager crop sees a return to a more refined, immaculate finish. It has all the hallmarks of a smooth operator: It’s charming, polished, and alluring. As for the length, it’s giving us pure CEO vibes—daring, risqué, and adventurous—so unless you love be bold and take risks, you need not apply.

That said, the pixie-like shape has a delicacy and diplomacy that gives it a chameleon-like ability to feel soft and strong at the same time. We can already see it working equally well with casual jeans and T-shirts, romantic silky slip dresses, floral midis, or sharp tailoring.

British singer and songwriter Pixie Lott is the latest celebrity to jump on board. She posted a picture with the caption “PIXIE cut,” referencing her name. The rounded shape moves away from spiky layers to create a modern take on a retro ’80s crop.

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When styled—like Alyssa in the City here, with large and in charge disc earrings—the look helps to echo the buttons of a skirt suit blazer, but a basic black tee feels more relaxed.

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Let it be said: ‘90s hair has

Docs

Filmmaker Greta Stocklassa on What Former UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix Can Teach Us

Czech-Swedish filmmaker Greta Stocklassa was only eight when the War on Terror began in 2001. In the years that followed, fellow Swede and former UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, became a central figure in the investigation into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In her documentary “Blix Not Bombs,” Stocklassa interviews Blix, now 94 years old, about the period running up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.

In the docu, Blix describes his meetings with George W. Bush and Tony Blair, his frustration when Colin Powell gave his pivotal speech in the UN Security Council, and his feeling of emptiness when the U.S. started the invasion, despite his reports that his team had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Blix also argues that there was a butterfly effect that the Iraq War triggered: the invasion resulted in the overthrow of the Iraqi regime, and the breakup of the Iraqi army, which led to the rise of ISIS, and the ensuing immigration crisis in Europe. As a reaction to that, a wave of far right populists such as Marie Le Pen, Geert Wilders and others arose, destabilizing governments all around Europe.

“The film became a dialogue between generations,” says “Blix Not Bombs” producer Radovan Síbrt. “Greta is trying to figure out how to live as responsibly as possible in the world Hans has co-created and is slowly leaving. She tries to understand the limitations of diplomacy, professional duty, personal responsibilities, and the fact that there is not always a simple answer to everything.

“Blix Not Bombs,” which had its world premiere at Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX, will screen at Hot Docs in the Special Presentations program.

Variety spoke with Stocklassa and Síbrt about why they wanted to make “Blix Not Bombs,” production challenges and the film’s biggest takeaways.

Variety: Did you approach Hans Blix about making this docu or did he reach out to you?

Stocklassa: I approached Hans almost four years ago, knowing he lived in Stockholm and that he was still pretty active. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make a film or what the focus of it would be, but I was intrigued by the fact that here is a man, who was part of history, yet remains not very known, at least for my generation, and is most famous for being ridiculed in the satirical cartoon “Team America.” When I reached out to him, I was surprised by his openness and friendliness, he immediately invited me to his home for tea and we met a couple of times before we decided to start filming.

What drove you to make this film?

Síbrt: Greta and I had slightly different motivations. For me, Hans is a character I knew from my adolescence. Before the invasion of Iraq, we watched the news every night and his name kept coming up. At that time, the official mood in the Czech Republic was clear: We must attack Iraq. We were freshly part of the Western world. We had joined NATO the year before, and the whole society was clearly in tune: Whatever the U.S. leaders say, we must be in agreement. It doesn’t matter if it’s a lie. So, Blix was also seen as a negative figure because he was saying something that didn’t quite fit the official discourse. So, it was extremely interesting to tell the story of a man who was touching on great history that we only knew from the television screen. Especially since no one who loudly supported the war ever publicly apologized.

Stocklassa: During the making of this film, the urgency of making it grew. The topics we had talked about in the abstract or on the example of the Iraq war – war, peace, diplomacy, future – had become very specific and urgent with the war in Ukraine. The Iraq war became a case study in what happens, when you don’t care about the facts (or create your own), don’t respect the agreements of multilateral organizations and humiliate your opponents. A lot of it applies even today.

What was the most challenging aspect of making the doc?

Stocklassa: The most challenging part was definitely in the editing room. We needed a lot of archives to tell the story and find a rhythm that wouldn’t make it into a boring history lesson. In general, finding the balance between the behind-the-scenes of Hans’ involvement in Iraq and all his other work, like Chernobyl, and all the other universal topics which are important both for him and for me, such as ethics, diplomacy, and future, was hard and a lot of darlings were killed.

Síbrt: The film was full of challenges from the very beginning. After the first short shoot, Covid-19 started, so most of the film was shot in conditions where it was impossible to travel. Access to Hans was extremely difficult. At one point he stopped communicating completely because he was hospitalized. Because of his age, we were constantly in a situation where we didn’t know whether we would finish the film. Because of that situation, we had a problem getting financing for the film.

What are you hoping audiences think about after seeing “Blix Not Bombs”?

Stocklassa: I would like (audiences) to get acquainted with Hans Blix and his values, because I think peace makers should get more spotlight than war heroes. Regardless of if they agree with Hans or not, I hope audiences think about what their personal role is in making the world a better place or maybe (the film) just incites a love for birds and nature like Hans has… Hopefully it can do both.

Síbrt: The film clearly shows how fundamental decisions are made by people who don’t care about the truth, who have other interests and are willing to do anything for them. They don’t care what the consequences of their actions will be. The effects of the war in Iraq still affect the lives of millions of people, including all of us. That is why we need to ask questions like Greta’s much earlier. Not after we see the impact around us.

Czech-Swedish filmmaker Greta Stocklassa was only eight

Global

Over 60% of Ontario RPNs have considered leaving profession, poll shows

Polling shows a majority of Registered Practical Nurses in Ontario have contemplated leaving the profession amid staffing shortages and increased stress.

The polling was done by Nanos Research of behalf of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and SEIU Healthcare. Results show 60 per cent of registered practical nurses are either considering or somewhat considering leaving the profession and 82 per cent of respondents say they experience high stress as result from their job.

“Stress is endemic. Trouble sleeping is pervasive and dread is everywhere,” said Jackie Walker, SEIU Healthcare nursing division president. “We have a crisis in Ontario’s healthcare system.”

Abie Osawe has been working as an RPN for over two decades and recently she said she and her colleagues have been feeling increased stress amid staffing shortages.

“Nurses have been struggling,” she said.

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According to College of Nurses Ontario, the main difference between RNs and RPNs is foundational education. The website said RNs study for a longer period of time, allowing for a greater depth and breadth of foundational knowledge.

Osawe said she is often called upon to cover for RN colleagues.

“It is not uncommon for RPN to look after 130 residents and be in charge of 130 residents. …There is no RN. There is so much shortage of nurses and the RPNs have to pick and do that role,” she said.

Click to play video: 'Ontario Health Coalition launches province-wide referendum against healthcare privatization'

2:14
Ontario Health Coalition launches province-wide referendum against healthcare privatization

While a majority of RPNs have considered leaving the workforce, polling also found 78 per cent would consider staying in the profession if wages increased to $35 an hour.

“Nurses are not able to commit to their futures and their nursing profession because we have a government that is not committed to addressing the very drivers of the nursing exodus,” said Walker. “Pay RPNs 70 per cent of an RN for doing 90 per cent of the scope and raise the minimum wage for RPNs to $35 per hour.”

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In a statement, a spokesperson for the Minister of Health said, “Since our government took office in 2018, over 60,000 new nurses and nearly 8,000 new doctors have registered to work in Ontario. 2022 was a record-breaking year for new nurses in Ontario with over 12,000 new nurses registered and another 30,000 nurses are studying at an Ontario college or university. But we know more needs to be done.”

The statement went on to say the provincial government has made it easier for internationally educated health care workers to work in Ontario while allowing health care workers registered in other provinces and territories to immediately start working in Ontario.

The statement also referenced the most 2023/2024 budget where the province announced a combined $280 million investment that would see the expansion of training opportunities and nursing education programs at universities and colleges.

The statement did not respond to questions around a wage increase for RPNs.

“We are doing the work load. We are doing the extra work and going above and beyond,” said Osawe. “It’s a way of showing gratitude and thank you and that’s what we are asking for.”

&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Polling shows a majority of Registered Practical

Trending

This Brooklinen Birthday Sale Is the Biggest One Yet: Save 25% On Bedding and Bath Essentials

This Brooklinen Birthday Sale Is the Biggest One Yet: Save 25% On Bedding and Bath Essentials | Entertainment Tonight

VIP+ Analysis: Why Media & Tech Layoffs Are Soaring

Tech

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver Exits ABC News Amid Disney Layoffs

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver is exiting ABC News as The Walt Disney Company ramps up layoffs, Variety has confirmed.

ABC News will hold onto the FiveThirtyEight brand with plans to streamline the statistics-driven news and analysis site. The network plans to create a more efficient structure for FiveThirtyEight leading into the 2024 presidential election and beyond.

Silver sent a message to his team in a company Slack channel warning that the Disney layoffs would impact FiveThirtyEight, and that Silver is not planning to return after his contract ends.

Silver said in a tweet, “Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that’s kind of hard to express right now. We’ve been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon and I expect that I’ll be leaving at the end of it.”

He continued, “I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this.”

In a statement obtained by Variety, a spokesperson for ABC said, “ABC News remains dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting – this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond. We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be departing the organization and know they will continue to make an important impact on the future of journalism.”

Founded in 2008, FiveThirtyEight became a licensed feature of The New York Times’ website and was renamed FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s Political Calculus. ESPN acquired the brand in 2013 before it moved over to Disney sister company ABC News in 2018.

Using Silver’s unique statistical methodology, FiveThirtyEight compiled polling data and published articles analyzing the data as it pertained to sports, economics, current events and political issues.

The Hollywood Reporter was first to report the news.

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver is exiting ABC

Video

The latest viral Drake AI hit is just a repurposed SoundCloud rap

But it turns out, “Not a Game” isn’t exactly a brand-new song. The Verge found that the track is composed of multiple preexisting elements, with the primary new addition being the Drake voice.

The fakers took the vocals from this a cappella rap posted to Looperman, a site that hosts audio loops, samples, and sounds that musicians can repurpose to create songs. The track is available to be freely used for noncommercial purposes, and it’s popped up in dozens of SoundCloud tracks since it was first posted in 2019. Artists are supposed to credit the rap to its creator, Sean Pharo.

The creators of “Not a Game” reworked Pharo’s vocals with the AI-generated “voice” of Drake, then layered that over a modified version of a beat by the artist Cedes, which is for sale on the beat marketplace BeatStars. Suddenly, two components that hadn’t been a hit before — the beat and the original rap — were going viral thanks to Drake. Pharo and Cedes did not respond to requests for comment.

This relatively low-effort creation shows just how powerful the ability to clone a musician’s voice is — and just how easy it is for creators to assemble a new track from a major artist. “Not a Game” is still available on SoundCloud and is also back on YouTube after getting reuploaded. SoundCloud, YouTube, and Drake’s label, Universal Music Group, didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Last week, the AI Drake song “Heart on My Sleeve” — somewhat suspiciously — went viral after getting posted to the relatively new TikTok account @ghostwriter977. While UMG responded by issuing copyright takedowns, Drake remained silent despite speaking out about an AI cover of him performing an Ice Spice track. This sparked questions about whether this may have been some sort of publicity stunt by Drake and UMG or if the promotional group linked to Ghostwriter’s account, Laylo, was somehow involved. Laylo has since denied these claims.

But it turns out, “Not a Game”

Entertaintment

Sydney Sweeney Still Engaged, Not Dating Glen Powell Despite Rumors

Sydney Sweeney is still with her fiancé Jonathan Davino and is NOT dating Glen Powell, multiple sources with knowledge tell TMZ … this coming on the heels of a swarm of rumors pinning them together.

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … Sydney is still living with Jonathan and all is well between them — they are still engaged. We’re told Glen and Sydney are not dating.

Glen and Sydney have been filming for months … the flirting, we’re told, is tied to the rom-com.

Sydney was spotted with a massive diamond ring last year from Jonathan, and the 2 started dating back in 2018.

She mentioned in a February interview with Cosmo she doesn’t like dating people in the entertainment industry … makes sense, he’s in the restaurant biz.

Sydney Sweeney & Glen Powell ✨ pic.twitter.com/KTUdRTgghD

— Sydney Sweeney fans (@SSydneyBest) April 23, 2023
@SSydneyBest

A clip of Glen and Sydney goofing around on a couch went viral, showing him dipping her while they both were full of laughs — folks online took it as a major red flag.

The costars were then seen at CinemaCon to promote their new flick, getting just as close while posing for pics — looking adoringly at each other. We’re told there’s less here than meets the eye.

As for Glen, he’s been dating Gigi Paris but she did something that raised eyebrows Monday … she unfollowed Sydney. We have not been able to confirm whether they’re still together.

Movies

17 Actors Who Are Too Good At Playing Villains

Note: I’m sure these actors were/are nice people IRL! It’s just interesting to think that they’re so good at their craft that people had a hard time shaking their incredible performances.

Timothée Chalamet Teases ‘Wonka’ at CinemaCon

Timothée Chalamet says he swam in real chocolate while playing the famed chocolatier Willy Wonka in the upcoming movie musical “Wonka.”

“Too much chocolate,” he said on the stage at CinemaCon, the annual exhibition trade show currently underway at Caesars Palace.

Despite the stomach aches from ingesting too many sweet treats, Chalamet called the role “a dream come true.” Past versions of the character were “cynical,” he says. But “this is a Willy that’s full of joy and hope and desire to become the greatest chocolatier.”

Chalamet is the third actor to don the recognizable top-hat. Gene Wilder memorably portrayed the candy man in the 1971 adaptation, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” and Johnny Depp later embodied the role in 2005 reboot “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” directed by Tim Burton.

Roald Dahl’s popular children’s book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” follows a poor boy who wins a golden ticket to tour the world-famous and heavily guarded chocolate factory run by one Willy Wonka. Since the movie serves as an origin story about Wonka and takes place as the chocolate factory gears up to open, Charlie and company won’t be making an appearance in the musical movie.

But in the extended footage that screened for exhibitors on Tuesday, he finally meets one of the Oompa Loompas — played by Hugh Grant, trapped in a tiny glass jar — who he later hires to keep his factory up and running.

Elsewhere in the trailer, Chalamet sings, dances and spins around a light pole á la “Singin’ in the Rain” as he searches the world for magical recipes. He later attempts to make people fly with his enchanted chocolates, a tease of the many wacky treats — like everlasting gobstoppers or snozzberries — that propelled Wonka to confectionary fame.

Crowds at CinemaCon also got glimpses at Olivia Colman as a Cockney innkeeper, Sally Hawkins as Wonka’s beloved mother and newcomer Calah Lane as the chocolatier’s new friend.

“Every good thing in this world started with a dream,” Wonka says in the trailer. “So you hold onto yours.”

#CinemaCon shows off an exclusive extended trailer for #Wonka:
–Timothee Chalamet‘s Wonka spins around a lightpole á la “Singin’ in the Rain”
-Wonka makes people fly with his magical chocolates
-“Every good thing in this world started with a dream. So you hold onto yours.”

— Variety (@Variety) April 25, 2023

“Paddington” filmmaker Paul King is directing “Wonka,” which is slated to release in theaters on Dec. 15.

Warner Bros. brought its expansive slate to CinemaCon, including previews of “Dune: Part Two,” which also stars Chalamet; as well as the Oprah Winfrey-produced musical adaptation “The Color Purple” and Greta Gerwig’s plastic, fantastic “Barbie.”

Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, the new heads of the Warner Bros. Film Division, introduced the footage of “Wonka” and told theater owners: “It’s our job to bring you the most diverse slate of films of every scale genre. It’s our personal directive for the future and we are absolutely committed to delivering on that promise.”

Timothée Chalamet says he swam in real

MCU

NEW Loki Merchandise Collection Now in Disney World

Ever since Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment, we’ve seen a TON of new things. The whole Infinity War saga happened, there are new rides in the parks, and there’s even a whole new land at Disneyland.

Marvel and Disney have big plans for the future when it comes to movies and TV shows. One of those shows is Loki on Disney+, which is getting a second season.

Photo: syfy.com

The show was incredibly successful in its first season, and we saw a bunch of fun merchandise from Disney! And today, we found a brand new Loki collection in the parks.

Loki Merchandise Collection

Check out this new Loki collection in Disney World! We found all of these items in Disney Traders at EPCOT.

There are several clothing items in the collection, like this new tank top.

The front has Loki’s helmet surrounded by one of the phrases we heard associated with the show — “Glorious Purpose.”

At the bottom corner on the front, there’s a tag that says Loki, and written underneath it says “You were meant to be ruled. In the end. You will always kneel. Trust my rage.” Such detail!

And, the back has Loki’s name, and written under it is “You know you love me.”

You can get it for $34.99.

Next up is this long sleeve purple shirt featuring Loki on the front and that same tag in the lower right corner.

This thing is super bright!

On the back, you can see it says “Master of Mischief” with that same mantra underneath. This one is $44.99.

There’s also this Glorious Purpose shirt with Loki’s headpiece on the front…

…and the back which says Loki’s name three times, with one being in color. You can get this for $39.99.

You can also find some new sweatshorts! They have Loki’s angry face at the bottom with his mantra on one side.

The other side has Loki’s headpiece and “Master of Mischief” written again.

Finally, there’s a new Loki hat! The front is black with Loki written on it.

The sides have a patch with the Master of Mischief logo and are a burgh fuchsia and yellow. Grab it for $29.99.

It’s kind of random timing for this collection, but maybe it means we’ll be finding out about the release date for Loki season 2 soon. Or, perhaps the release date was going to be announced, but it was postponed due to the abuse allegations and controversy going on right now with one of the stars of the show, Jonathan Majors.

Stay tuned for more Disney news and updates!

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Ever since Disney

The Flash Movie Image Supergirl and Two Barry Allens

DCU

The DCEU Has Saved The Best For Last

A new The Flash movie trailer was officially released at CinemaCon. Watch the new footage alongside an extensive breakdown of The Flash trailer.

This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.

Warner Bros. officially releases a new The Flash trailer at CinemaCon 2023. Plans for a Flash solo film starring Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen have been in the works since 2014, and the nearly decade-long wait for the movie could be worth the wait. The Flash is reportedly one of the best DC movies ever made and will play a prominent role in resetting the DC Universe for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new plans. This is due to the movie’s multiverse plot that involves Flash traveling to another universe featuring Michael Keaton’s Batman, Michael Shannon’s Zod, and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, as well as another Barry Allen.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

As part of Warner Bros.’ presentation at CinemaCon 2023, a new The Flash movie trailer was officially released ahead of the movie screening in its entirety for those in attendance.

Developing…

Source: Warner Bros.

Key Release Dates

A new The Flash movie trailer was

Warzone 2 is adding Plunder mode on Wednesday

Activision has announced plans to introduce Plunder mode to Warzone 2 this Wednesday.

Along with Battle Royale, Plunder was one of two modes available when the original Warzone launched in March 2020.

“Get ready to take the money and run,” the company said. “ Complete contracts, grab bags of money, take advantage of brand new public events, and hunt down cash-leaders in a race to earn the largest stash.”

Ahead of Plunder’s return, Activision has also released a new update for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2, and we’ve republished the full patch notes below.

Developer Infinity Ward recently confirmed it’s investigating reports of Warzone 2 server-related gameplay issues and said it was “actively working to resolve them”.

The acknowledgement of the issues followed complaints from players about bullet registration problems, delayed actions, and significant frame drops since Season 3 launched two weeks ago.

A week-long Modern Warfare 2 free multiplayer trial will conclude on Wednesday.

It includes access to some of the content introduced in Season 3, including new core map Pelayo’s Lighthouse, which is set on a small, craggy island during an evening storm, and Gunfight mode.

April 25 patch notes:

GLOBAL

GENERAL

Added descriptions for picking up individual trophies in the “Trophy Hunt” Event.
Reduced the number of lasers in Loadouts in Gunfight
Added more ammo caches to Zaya Observatory in Ground War.

BUG FIXES

Fixed an issue in Gunsmith where multiple Attachments displayed as Highlighted at the same time.
Fixed an issue that showed a lock symbol on a BlackCell Sector despite the Player owning BlackCell.
Fixed an issue that caused the loading time to spectate the next Player in Gunfight to take longer than intended.
Fixed an issue with Recruit a Friend where Challenges were not tracking as intended.
Fixed an issue causing the Pro-Tuned icon to display incorrectly when hovering an attachment in Gunsmith UI.
Fixed an issue where some “Trophy Hunt” Event UI was missing in Battle Royale and displayed an incorrect number of trophies earned.
Fixed an issue where, after restarting the game, both recruiters and recruitees would appear to lose progression on the Recruit a Friend Challenges menu.
Fixed an issue where War Track Bundles were not showing the Bundle names on the Vehicle Select Menu.
Fixed an issue that could cause tab navigation in Multiplayer to display an incorrect screen.

WARZONE 2.0

BATTLE ROYALE

GENERAL

Moved Killstreak banners to reduce reticle overlap on screen.
Updated audio for opening loot caches.

BUG FIXES

Fixed an issue preventing Players from pinging Contested Loadout Drops.
Fixed an issue where after playing a match through the “What’s Hot” Playlist, Players could be met with an error after attempting to open the After Action Report.

DMZ

BUG FIXES

Fixed an issue in the Active Duty tab, when the Player customizes their Operator’s Skin or Finisher, they may spot the Reactive Bonus Effect table overlapping Bonus Effect table.
Fixed an issue where equipping a larger Backpack would sometimes show the smaller Backpack returned to the Player’s inventory with the wrong name in the UI.
Fixed an issue where if the Player is attempting to change weapons for their Loadout from the Active Duty tab, the Player will be sent back to the lobby screen.

Activision has announced plans to introduce Plunder

Festivals

Cinematographer Xavier Dolléans Talks Nuns, AI, and Shooting TV

Find work close to your tastes and make it shine.

This post was written by Xavier Dolléans.

I became intrigued when my agent contacted me about filming Episodes 3 and 4 of a project centered in Spain, which Damon Lindelof was spearheading. The topic itself intrigues me–a nun fighting an AI. During my interview, I met the remarkable crew of creative people, including directors Alethea Jones and Owen Harris, co–showrunner Tara Hernandez, and director of photography of Episodes 1 and 2, Joe Anderson. I instantly clicked with the project, and the scripts were crazy!

‘Mrs. Davis’Credit: Warner Bros. Television

I had five weeks of prep in Spain. I first connected with Alethea Jones, director of Episodes 3 and 4. We discussed the show, what she had already shot in Los Angeles regarding Episode 6, and some parts of Episodes 3 and 4 (shot by DP Jay Keitel in L.A.).

Then, I watched some first edits of Episodes 1 and 2 and talked a lot with Joe Anderson, the main DP of the show. It was challenging to bring my personal touch to the show while staying true to what had already been done. Joe was very generous in terms of sharing.

Our discussions went from the usual “T-stop” used outside vs. inside vs. night throughout how much care and softness to give to faces, the use of colors, the size of the equipment list, the use of movement, how they use the two cameras at the same time, etc. Episodes 3 and 4 take the viewers on a European journey, which allowed me to express myself more profoundly.

Joe had chosen Caldwell Chameleon lenses with a custom frame line to cover just enough of the full-frame sensor to deliver a 4K negative. Those lenses are part of a new family of an “old-school” lens formula made with modern glass and housing (Atlas Orion, Caldwell Chameleon, Xelmus Apollo, etc.), adding a unique signature to the show.

In Episode 3, a vast sequence involves hundreds of extras over six days/nights of shooting. Before our main night shoot, a big storm came into Figueras, Spain, where we were. That night, I planned to use a 70-meter crane with a big “Moonbox” containing 12 Skypanel 360 units oriented in different directions and all diffused through 20x20x20 full grid cloth box diffusion. Additionally, two more cherry pickers equipped with lighting strike machines, with power outputs of 250 KW and 70 KW, were positioned at a considerable height. Furthermore, a lighting balloon was intended to be utilized as a fill light.

In the morning, production called me to inform me that nothing would fly due to the wind. I then rushed on set with the first taxi that I had found, and I designed a new lighting plan in a rush in that car.

My basic idea was to use as many of the 18kW and 9kW that I had in the trucks and put them low on the stands but high above the wall surrounding the main set to cover that gigantic area. Far from my initial idea of softness, but the only way to make that night happen.

My gaffer, Jorge Sacristán, told me, “No diffusion frame allowed!” As the nature of the sequence allowed it, I asked Director Alethea Jones if she was OK that all those fixtures would appear in the frame. She accepted, and we did the night with a powerful and different look than I had in mind, full of anamorphic flares. It worked perfectly!

As the show was already close to my photographic taste, using anamorphic framing for the 2.39:1 ratio and bold colors. I fell instantly in love with it!

My background in TV, using several cameras simultaneously, and my taste and experience with bold anamorphic looks helped me immensely on this show. We had many cameras to operate simultaneously and a big rhythm of work on specific sequences, with many shots in different setups to accomplish daily.

My experience helped me, and I was lucky enough to have a great crew to achieve that.

Find work close to your tastes

Kieran Culkin on Roman-Lukas Confrontation in Episode 5 – The Hollywood Reporter

[This story contains spoilers from Succession season four episode five, “Kill List.”]

In his exit interview, Brian Cox revealed that each episode of Succession‘s final season is one day. And with the death of his character, Logan Roy, serving as a marker, the days appear to be playing out sequentially, with the latest stop in the HBO series’ final tour taking place in the deal-making trenches of Norway.

While Logan’s oldest son Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) is handling funeral arrangements for Logan back home, his siblings were strong-armed to leave the country, with many top Waystar Royco executives in tow, at the request of Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) in order to seal to GoJo deal.

Speaking to host Kara Swisher for HBO’s official Succession podcast, Kieran Culkin explains that his character, Roman Roy, didn’t appreciate Matsson using Logan’s death as a power move and forcing them to travel so soon after, which is what led to Roman’s epic confrontation with Matsson — a move that ends up, probably, sealing the deal, despite Roman and Kendall Roy’s (Jeremy Strong) intention to tank it.

“I didn’t like, in the first place, having to get on a plane and run to some guy, and he’s going to mock us when our dad isn’t even cold yet — it’s barely been two days,” says Culkin of directing all of his grief and anger at Mattson during the scene between Roman, Kendall and the GoJo boss, which is sparked, in part, after Roman receives a photo from Connor of Logan’s body. In HBO’s after-the-episode interview, creator Jesse Armstrong described the scene between the three men as a chance to “weaponize” humor, truth and obfuscation. “You wonder: Can these guys do it? Are they going to be anything near what their dad was? I don’t think it’s conclusive. They don’t seem to nail it. But they maybe have their own way of operating which, in the end, is not total failure,” said Armstrong.

Before arriving at the serene mountain setting, “CE-bros” Kendall and Roman decided they wanted to blow up the deal, despite Matsson’s higher-than expected offer to buy the company because his offer includes ATN, the news network arm that Logan Roy had explicitly carved out of the deal before his untimely death.

Speaking to Swisher, Culkin explains, “There’s a bit of trying to keep the deal structured as is or shitting on the deal, that feels like something Logan would do. And that we want to honor him. If we just let him take the whole thing and take ATN, we can hear dad saying, ‘You bent for him.’ And we’re not going to do that.”

Which is why, as Culkin puts it, Roman is “emotionally unhinged” when he confronts Matsson and (in the spirit of Logan) tells him to fuck off. “I fucking hate you,” Roman tells Matsson, after chastising him for forcing them to come to Norway so soon after Logan’s death and vowing to stretch out the Waystar-GoJo deal-making process so long that Matsson will eventually get bored and move on. Culkin explains that, under normal circumstances, Roman, much like Logan, would be able to navigate the game, but he’s currently “caught up in too many emotions” to negotiate.

“That’s the moment he loses it and decides he’s not going to play business anymore, I’ll let the feelings come out,” says Culkin. “It’s not a move. I think in that moment, it’s not. It’s just honesty and how he’s feeling and all of his anger about his dad comes out at one person who does, in my opinion, deserve that.”

Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) in “Kill List.”

Graeme Hunter/HBO

Even though it wasn’t intended to be a power move, it works. Matsson’s response is to reach out with an even bigger offer — $5 more per share — which sends the Waystar team into victory mode. That is, until the “kill list” is announced in the final moment of the episode, revealing that Karl (David Rasche), Frank (Peter Friedman) and Hugo (Fisher Stevens) are among nine names on the chopping block after the acquisition.

At one point, Kendall expressed to Roman that he much liked being in charge of their father’s company, which is why he didn’t want to sell it. Culkin, speaking on the podcast, agrees that Roman has found a purpose at Waystar: “Finding his way back in [to Waystar] and finding his voice and realizing there’s something he can do at the company and his life has felt really good, and that’s what draws him back in. Because otherwise, to his view, he’s kinda just a rich schmuck who sits at home. He’s just the son of somebody important, and that’s not a very nice feeling.”

Culkin also doesn’t think Roman is stewing over the infamous voicemail he left after Logan’s death, which his father may or may not have heard before he dropped dead on his private jet. “I actually think he pushed that aside. I think that’s the first time he did anything kind of close to standing up to dad,” he says of the voice message tantrum he left for Logan about firing Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), a move only known to Roman and Gerri now. “He wanted to confront his dad, but I like that he left it in dad’s hands, in a voicemail, which is sort of cowardly, but also that he said, ‘Call me. Call me back and tell me why you made me do this.’ Which was a pretty strong position. I think he pushed that down, pushed that deep deep down so it never bothers you ever again.”

Ultimately, Culkin says Roman will be fine if they do indeed sell but that Roman right now only cares about his dad’s approval, even in death, which is why, he says, Roman can’t even see how the Roy trio is splintering before his eyes.

“What’s driving him right now is dad and dad’s honor. Just act like dad is here right now because I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that he’s gone,” he says. “A lot of that anger about dad dying is directed at one person. So I think he’s a little blind to seeing anything like that [the sibling alliance crumbling]. The coming episodes, that gets maybe a little clearer.”

Succession releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max. Follow along with THR‘s Succession final season coverage.

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[This story contains spoilers from Succession season four episode

What to Watch

Is ‘Nadiya Bakes’ on Netflix UK? Where to Watch the Series

Great news! “Nadiya Bakes” is available to watch on Netflix UK!

Date Added: 25th April 2023

Known expiry dates are shown above as well as on the Last Chance page.

Want to keep forever? Try looking for ‘Nadiya Bakes’ on Amazon (paid link)

Description:

Delightful cakes and heavenly breads pop from the oven as Nadiya Hussain returns to baking, her happy place, and spotlights creative kindred spirits.

Certificate: Suitable for all ages

Year: 2021

Duration: 8 Episodes

Audio: English – Audio Description, English [Original]

Subtitles: English

Episode Length: 29min

English Audio Description Available – English Audio Description

Cast and Crew

Cast: Nadiya Hussain

Production & Season Details:

Status: Returning Series”Nadiya Bakes” was originally broadcast on BBC Two (United Kingdom) and premiered on September 9th 2020. So far there have been 1 seasons (comprising of 8 episodes) of “Nadiya Bakes”. The most recent episode aired on October 21st 2020 and more seasons are expected in the future.

RATINGS:

IMDB rating 7.3/10

The Movie Database rating 60%

Average Rating Average rating 54.75%

LISTS:

DISCUSS ON…:

This title is available on Netflix UK

Where else can you watch ‘Nadiya Bakes’ on Netflix?

Want to keep forever? Why not rent or buy ‘Nadiya Bakes’ from one of the online services below?

Awards

Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav Embraces Theatrical in Emotional CinemaCon Debut: ‘This Is Our Time’

Two weeks after showing off the future of their rebranded Max streaming service, David Zaslav and Warner Bros. embraced theatrical as they showed off their upcoming 2023 slate at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

Zaslav made his debut at the movie theater trade show on Tuesday with a lengthy speech that earned plenty of applause from cinema execs, especially when he reaffirmed his company’s plans to never go back to the day-and-date releasing model that his predecessor, Jason Kilar, rolled out for all of Warner’s theatrical releases in 2021.

“We believe in full theatrical windows, we don’t believe in direct to streaming. We are in no rush to push films to Max,” Zaslav said. “When we partner with you and bring these movies to theaters and promote them, and later on we market them again and release them at home while you still have them in your theaters, and then when we put them on Max, they do better than any of our direct-to-consumer titles.”

Zaslav noted that at the time of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Warner only had six films on its theatrical slate. The studio will release 16 films in 2023 with plans to release 20 or more per year under new film group heads Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca. The CEO said that they are doing this not just for the sake of business.

“We have an obligation. There’s two movie theaters on every main street in the world…but a lot of those main streets haven’t reopened,” Zaslav said. “Our country is so divided. Your theaters are the only place where everybody comes. The phone goes off, the lights go out, we tell a story and it’s magic.”

At the center of their presentation was the summer one-two punch of the DC blockbuster “The Flash,” which is being screened to movie theater owners at the trade show, and “Barbie,” which got an extended sneak peek from star Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig. Warner’s distribution chiefs Jeff Goldsmith and Andrew Cripps even got into the spirit of “Barbie” by wearing pink suits and ties onstage.

Oprah Winfrey was also on hand with director Blitz Bazauwle to show the first look at a musical adaptation of “The Color Purple” and have a preview panel with stars Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino.

Warner is pinning its hopes on these films to lead a theatrical resurgence in its centennial year after a 2022 in which mixed box office results mingled with headlines about a bumpy merger with Discovery. The studio had one of the biggest hits of the year with “The Batman” ($369 million domestic) while “Elvis” became key to bringing older moviegoers back to theaters while earning multiple Oscar nominations.

The studio also landed the biggest talent signing of the year when “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn joined Warner as the co-head of DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, with plans to reboot the lucrative brand with a new cinematic universe.

But on the negative side, DC’s “Black Adam” failed to turn a theatrical profit last fall while the failure of “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” prompted the studio to take a different approach to J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, pivoting to a remake of the “Harry Potter” novels that will take the form of a seven-season streaming series.

The mixed results have continued so far in 2023, with DC’s “Shazam: Fury of the Gods!” grossing less than half of its predecessor with just $133 million grossed worldwide. More positive news came this past weekend as “Evil Dead Rise,” a film that pivoted from streaming to theatrical after the WBD merger, became a low-budget horror hit with a $23.5 million opening weekend against a $15 million budget.

Two weeks after showing off the future

Docs

Alcarràs | Film Threat

In the heating agricultural outskirts of Lleida, Catalonia, resides the Solé family, making a livelihood off sowing and harvesting a peach farm. The happy joint family, however, comes at a standoff with the landowner, the young Pinyol. Pinyol wishes to graze Solés’ agricultural land to install solar panels, thus, breaking off a promise his grandfather made to the Solé family that they will always remain unofficial harvesters and owners of the land.

Alcarràs then heads to paint a bittersweet portrait of a family that is to face the consequences of this “development project.” But it isn’t just the crises the project may cause to the family that Alcarràs deal with. Because it’s not just the land the family is about to lose.

It’s the Solé legacy that’s in jeopardy. For the family patriarch and retired eldest Solé, Rogelio, it’s the only purpose he has known in his life. For Quimet, his son, and head of the family, it’s his pride and his family’s bread and butter. And for little Iris, the youngest child in the family, it’s her phenomenal play area that houses her favorite rusted and discarded car she calls her and her cousins’ den.

And while the connections they share with harvesting peaches in the scorching heat are specific to individuals, there’s this collective harmony of togetherness that it brings to their lives. Alcarràs is the joyous, tearful, and heartfelt depiction of that very notion.

“…the Sóle family must overcome an impending evacuation from their farmlands and their known way of life.”

Though Alcarràs gets its driving force of a story from the core subplot, the film reaches you beyond any specific tale. The film’s narrative instead takes you through separate arcs of how each Solé deals with this unprecedented and unwanted change. As they gaze over the lake, they see trucks and solar panels slowly consuming their traditional way of life, bringing an imminent dissolution of their farm in the name of progress.

Simón and co-writer Arnau Vilaró layer several sweet and bitter moments in each character’s journey through the season and gives them their own outspoken significance to the story. In her commentary on capitalism and the destabilization of traditional farming, Simón uses her well-written and well-trained performers, neither of whom comes from a professional acting background, and takes us through remarkably natural documentation of her experiences as a native of Catalonia, Spain.

It’s not the first time Simón has cast non-actors to perform central leads in her film. However, organizing a whole ensemble of non-actors and putting them together in most sequences makes Alcarràs an excellent example of collaborative filmmaking efforts. Featuring a cast that substantially focuses on kids and young performers, having non-actors display the sheer fragility of various emotions on-screen is nothing less than mesmerizing to witness.

Among them, Ainet Jounou, who plays little Iris, brings the best of the film’s optimistic undertones through her adorable charm and body language. From her bond with her cousins and her playfulness with her siblings to her naive understanding of surrounding events – Jounou, bringing her actual child-like traits to the screen, becomes the cynosure of the movie.

Also adding great value to the cast are Xènia Roset and Albert Bosch, playing Iris’ siblings, Mariona and Roger. Playing teenagers, the two bring much-needed balance to two contrasting generations of characters in the film – the worrisome adults and carefree kids.

In the heating agricultural outskirts of Lleida,

Tech

Nate Silver Out at 538, ABC News as Disney Layoffs Hit ABC News – The Hollywood Reporter

The second round of Disney layoffs hit ABC News on Tuesday, with Nate Silver’s data-driven politics and journalism brand FiveThirtyEight among those being impacted.

Silver told FiveThirtyEight employees in a Slack message that he expects to leave Disney when his contract is up, which he added would be “soon,” The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

ABC News is expected to keep the FiveThirtyEight brand name, with plans to streamline the site and make it more efficient.

“ABC News remains dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting — this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement. “We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be departing the organization and know they will continue to make an important impact on the future of journalism.”

In his Slack message, Silver wrote that “unfortunately the day we’ve been worried about has arrived.

“We don’t yet know the scope of these layoffs, exactly who is impacted, or the terms under which they are departing, but it is going to be a hard day for all of us,” he added.

Silver founded FiveThirtyEight in 2008, eventually bringing it to The New York Times. Silver would go on to sell the site to Disney’s ESPN; it later was moved to the ABC News division. His departure will be the first time that Silver has not been involved in the site since it launched 15 years ago.

ABC News, meanwhile, is once again grappling with layoffs after a slew of senior executives were cut last month. The cuts are part of a larger cost-cutting effort at Disney, with the company seeking to slash a total of 7,000 jobs. By the end of this week the company expects to have shed about 4,000 positions.

After news broke of Silver’s exit, the pundit added on Twitter of his ABC News tenure and layoffs: “I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this.”

The second round of Disney layoffs hit

Video

Fallon Says Putin Needs a New PR Guy After Tucker Carlson’s Firing

Jimmy Fallon giddily joined the parade of late night hosts mocking Tucker Carlson on Monday night. “The Tonight Show” on NBC host wasted no time at the start of his opening monologue, launching some pointed quips about the recently fired Carlson, joking that Russian president Vladimir Putin now might “need a new PR guy.”

Also nodding to Don Lemon’s dismissal from CNN, Fallon teased that he’s “one of the few TV personalities who’s still employed.”

The news of Carlson’s sudden firing from Fox News was met by a round of applause from Fallon’s in-studio audience. “Some people aren’t sure what led to his exit, but Fox News can think of almost a billion reasons why,” Fallon joked, alluding to Fox News’ recent $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. According to the lawsuit, the news organization’s hosts like Carlson repeatedly implied to their viewers that Dominion’s machines changed Trump votes to Biden during the 2020 election.

That was far from the only swing Fallon took at the former “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host. Fallon said that when Russian president Vladimir Putin heard of Carlson’s firing, he said, “Damn, we need a new PR guy.” Fallon then added that, without Carlson, he won’t know “which M&M is most woke” and that the conservative political commentator will be replaced by “a golf shirt with the collars popped.”

On Monday, Fox News announced that Carlson would be leaving the network “effective immediately.” Fox didn’t even give its highly-recognizable host a final show, instead announcing that Carlson’s last day had aired on Friday. Not only was Carlson mentioned in the Dominion lawsuit, but he stands at the center of his own sex discrimination lawsuit. Carlson’s former booking producer Abby Grossberg alleges that Carlson and Fox created a sexist working environment that allowed harassment. Among other things, the case claims that staffers were polled twice on which two female candidates for governor they would rather have sex with.

Lemon’s firing, meanwhile, also comes in the wake of accusations of misogyny and misbehavior. The former CNN host made comments on air that Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley was not “in her prime.” Variety also released a report in April claiming that Lemon sent malicious texts to his female co-workers and mocked them.

Don Lemon Ouster: ‘CNN This Morning’ Anchors Respond to Firing, Say He Was ‘One of My First Friends Here’

Jimmy Fallon giddily joined the parade of

Entertaintment

CBS & Pluto TV Partner For Tony Awards Pre-Show – Deadline

CBS and Pluto TV will partner to present The Tony Awards: Act One, a pre-show of live, exclusive content leading into the 76th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday, June 11.

Hosts and further details about the pre-show will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Tony Awards: Act One airs at 6:30-8 PM, ET/3:30-5 PM PT on Sunday, June 11. A first round of Tony Awards will be presented on the Pluto TV special.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Pluto TV to kick off this year’s Tony Awards celebration,” said Jack Sussman, executive vice president of specials, music, live events and alternative programming at CBS. “This cross-company partnership allows us to utilize the breadth of the Paramount Global family to bring the best of Broadway into homes of more viewers than ever before.”

Pluto is a free streaming television service that viewers can access on smart TVs, streaming devices, mobile apps, or online by going to Pluto TV and clicking on the “Pluto TV Celebrity” channel. No payment, registration or sign-in is required.

Immediately following the presentation on Pluto TV, the Tony Awards will air live from 8-11 PM ET/5-8 PM, PT on CBS, and and stream live and on demand on Paramount+. Ariana DeBose returns to host the awards show live from the United Palace in New York City’s Washington Heights.

Nominations for the 2023 Tony Awards will be announced on Tuesday, May 2.

For more: Ram Charan and Upasana To Have Baby Girl? RRR Star Seemingly CONFIRMS They’re Welcoming Daughter

CBS and Pluto TV will partner to

Movies

Samantha Trolled For Fake Accents in London, Aryan Khan Directs and Stars With SRK in New Ad

Last Updated: April 25, 2023, 22:08 IST

Samantha trolled for her fake accent, SRK stars in Aryan Khan’s directorial debut.

Samantha Ruth Prabhu was subjected to trolling after fans noticed she had a fake accent in a recent interview. Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan starred in Aryan Khan’s directorial debut ad.

Ram Charan and Upasana Kamineni Konidela are having a baby girl if a viral interview of the RRR star is anything to go by. For the unversed, Ram and Upasana are expecting their first child together. Having been married for 10 years now, the couple announced in December that Upasana is pregnant and they will embrace parenthood this year. Ram and Upasana also hosted a sweet baby shower recently. While photos from the baby shower go viral, an interview of Ram speaking about his baby has surfaced online and has sparked rumours that he and Upasana are preparing to welcome a baby girl. As reported by BollywoodLife, the RRR star was speaking about the loves of his life when he referred to his soon-to-be-born baby as ‘her’.

Shah Rukh Khan superstar starred in an ad for Aryan Khan’s directorial debut ad featuring the announcement of the new collection of his clothing line. In the ad, a frustrated Aryan is seen working on coming up with the perfect logo or tagline but cannot come up with an interesting one. Frustrated, he throws the chalk away and strikes a line through the board with red paint. Soon, Shah Rukh walks into the screen and notices the board. He picks up the paintbrush and slashes another line across the red paint on the board to make it look like a cross mark. Thus forming the logo of the brand, D’yavol X. The ad is receiving much praise from fans.

For more: Shah Rukh Khan Comes to a Frustrated Aryan Khan’s Rescue In His Directorial Debut Ad; Watch

After Jr NTR, Telugu actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu is being trolled for her alleged “fake” accent. Samantha, who will be seen in the Indian spin-off of Citadel along with Varun Dhawan, recently attended the London premiere of the original American TV series, starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden. At the event, The Family Man 2 actress interacted with the press on the red carpet and spoke about playing an important role in the spy thriller. However, what caught netizens’ attention was Samantha’s accent. A video featuring Samantha talking about her role in Citadel to the media has surfaced online. But her accent has received mixed reactions on social media. One user tweeted, “I adore her a lot but the way she is faking her accent. She should have spoken in Indian accent only.”

For more: Samantha Brutally Trolled for ‘Fake Accent’ at Citadel London Premiere, Video Goes Viral; Watch

Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma are currently in Bengaluru and making the most of their time together. A video circulating on the internet shows them playing badminton with the residents of a housing society as part of a promotional activity with a sportswear brand. The video captures Virat and Anushka playing on the same team, with the actress sporting a glamorous sporty look in a black sleeveless t-shirt and black shorts. Virat, on the other hand, wore a white and blue striped t-shirt paired with black track pants. Both stars shared the video on their Instagram stories. Anushka captioned it, ‘surprised residents at a society’ by playing badminton with them as a caption.

For more: Virat Kohli And Anushka Sharma’s Badminton Face-Off In Bengaluru Wows Fans; Watch

Priyanka Chopra recently opened up about her relationship with Nick Jonas and also recollected about the first time she saw Jonas attached to her name, after her marriage. While promoting her next Citadel, the actress told FOX5, “It’s a reminder to people that I am taken.” She added, “For the first time when I saw it, I I think it was the Matrix or one of my other movies or my book or something. I looked at my husband and I was like, ‘You know right. That I love you. Can you tell? You better know that.’ But of course the gravity of of the decision and also the fact that my name and my identity has evolved in the 22-23 years that I’ve been doing this.”

For more: Priyanka Chopra Reveals Her FIRST Reaction To Seeing Jonas Added To Her Name, Told Nick ‘You Know…’

Read all the Latest Movies News and Entertainment News here

Last Updated: April 25, 2023, 22:08 ISTSamantha

Harry Belafonte death: Hollywood posts on Twitter, Instagram

Actors, musicians, filmmakers, authors and more have gathered on social media to celebrate the life and career of Harry Belafonte, who died Tuesday in New York. He was 96.

Questlove, Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, Mia Farrow, Jeffrey Wright, Ice Cube and Oprah Winfrey were among the first to honor the revered singer, actor and civil rights activist by sharing quotes, condolences and fond memories on Instagram and Twitter.

“May God Have My Dear Friend HARRY BELAFONTE At A Peaceful Rest,” wrote Lee, who directed Belafonte in his final film, “BlacKkKlansman.” “We Are Losing Our Giants Left And Right. We Have To Celebrate Our Elders While They Are With Us.”

“Another ‘GREAT TREE’ has fallen: Harry Belafonte, a Trailblazer and Hero to us all,” actor and TV host Winfrey wrote. “Thank you for your music, your artistry, your activism, your fight for civil rights and justice — especially risking your life back in the day to get money to the movement. Your being here on Earth has Blessed us all.”

On Instagram, musician and filmmaker Questlove remembered Belafonte as a “shining example of how to use your platform to make change in the world” and recalled how the performer’s contributions to the anti-apartheid movement influenced his Oscar-winning documentary, “Summer of Soul.”

“He represented many things to us: fun calypso music, iconic acting (I came to know him as #GeechieDan in the iconic #UptownSaturdayNight as a child) — but most importantly he taught me to think in terms of ‘WE’ not ‘I,’” Questlove wrote.

“That stuck with me. If there is one lesson we can learn from him it is ‘what can I do to help mankind?’ Thank You Harry Belafonte!”

On Twitter, veteran rapper and actor Ice Cube hailed Belafonte as “more than a singer, more than an actor and more than a man,” adding that the late entertainer “will be missed.”

Actors Farrow and Wright also took to Twitter to pay tribute to Belafonte. Farrow reflected on “what a wonderful world” Earth would be if more people were like him, while Wright said he’ll “never forget” the day Belafonte approached him on the street and complimented his performance in “Angels in America” on Broadway.

“We have lost the great Harry Belafonte-beautiful singer, brilliant and brave civil rights activist, a deeply moral and caring man. Miss you already Harry,” Farrow tweeted. “Harry’s life shines as an example for all of us to strive for. He lived for humankind. He stood against injustice — not only here but in South Africa & around the world.”

“Harry Belafonte was a standard bearer, in the tradition of [Paul] Robeson, for generational artistry and deeply informed & committed social & political engagement. Maybe the last of a great tribe. As smart as he was knockdown handsome,” Wright tweeted. “He met the moment thruout his life. What a man. RIP.”

Rather than speaking on Belafonte’s legacy, director DuVernay eulogized her “ancestor” in his own words by sharing the following quote on Instagram:

“There were two choices that one could make… One was to do the art of the Eurocentric, which many chose to do, and try to do that art in as perfected a way as you possibly can. There’s one thing that’s gonna always be true about that fact or that choice. And that is that you’ll never touch the soul of who you are, because that’s not what your inner soul is experiencing. Every attempt to do something that spoke to the greater truth and the greater glory of what our inner souls were about was what I tried to do.”

TRY FEEDLY FOR THREAT INTELLIGENCE

Actors, musicians, filmmakers, authors and more

MCU

Delta Dental uses Feedly to cut threat intelligence gathering time in half – Feedly Blog

More relevant threat intelligence in half the time

A complete picture of emerging threats in only 15 minutes

A streamlined and effective intelligence-gathering process

The short version

The customer: Roger, Senior Security Engineer, Cyber Risk Management Solutions, Delta Dental: Roger monitors vulnerabilities and threats for Delta Dental, the leading dental insurance provider in the US. Every week, he puts together a risk advisory report that goes out to approximately fifty people in the infrastructure and application teams.

The challenge: spending hours manually monitoring vulnerabilities. Monitoring emerging threats and vulnerabilities used to involve visiting dozens of threat intelligence websites each day.

The solution: Gathering intelligence in one place with Feedly. The vulnerability management team uses Feedly to gather, prioritize, and manage all of the intelligence on critical vulnerabilities in a single place.

The results: Better intelligence gathered in half the time. With Feedly, the vulnerability management team at Delta Dental spends 50% less time gathering intelligence and monitoring threats — and the data they gather is more relevant, too. They gather insights from millions of different sources in near real-time, so get the complete picture on emerging threats.

THE CLIENT

A small vulnerability management team

On any given day, Roger has a lot on his plate: he’s in charge of vulnerability management for Delta Dental, the United States’s leading dental insurance provider. His responsibilities include identification, analysis, validation, and remediation of all vulnerability risks. “I run the full gamut of risk management, but specifically pertaining to vulnerabilities,” Roger explains. “It’s my responsibility to make sure that the entire program is running efficiently.”

Roger tracks vulnerabilities on a daily basis to monitor critical and emergent threats. One of the most important and time-consuming aspects of his job is the weekly risk advisory report he puts together for Delta Dental’s infrastructure and application teams. With the information Roger gathers each week, his colleagues can fix vulnerabilities and update software to keep their entire network secure. The vulnerability management team functions like a managed security service provider (MSSP) for other Delta Dental IT teams.

“I identify and report vulnerabilities so that other teams can save time and go straight to implementing solutions,” Roger says.

THE CHALLENGE

Spending hours each week manually researching and tracking vulnerabilities

The vulnerability team’s threat assessment process used to look like this:

Every day, Roger would manually visit multiple threat intel websites.
He’d also work through dozens of more generic sources like news websites, Google, and LinkedIn to track and monitor vulnerabilities that could have serious consequences for his company.
Every day he looked at urgent and emerging threats, and once a week he compiled a report with information for relevant stakeholders.

The information-gathering process took hours each day. “I was spending at least eight to twelve hours a week researching vulnerabilities that could affect our enterprise. It was quite intensive.”

The vulnerability management team used many different tools for vulnerability management, but they didn’t have an easy solution for risk advisory, which left them spending hours manually gathering threat intelligence. “We needed to make stakeholders aware of the multitude of risks that exist out there. There are millions of risks. And we had no way to demonstrate that to stakeholders without doing intense manual labor on a daily and weekly basis.”

Staying on top of a large enterprise tech stack

One of the biggest vulnerabilities that an enterprise like Delta Dental faces is outdated or unsupported application software. Large companies use hundreds of different tools to run smoothly, and in worst-case scenarios, a small bug can take down a whole system.

“With a tech stack this size, there will be bugs every day. And if we don’t implement the patch or the update, obviously hackers can take advantage of that,” Roger says.

“I was spending at least eight to twelve hours a week researching vulnerabilities that could affect our enterprise. It was quite intensive.“

THE SOLUTION

Feedly: A risk advisory tool to fill gaps in the vulnerability management process

Now, Roger uses Feedly AI to gather, analyze, and prioritize intelligence from millions of sources in near real-time, so that the vulnerability management team can see it all at once, in one place. Instead of spending hours manually gathering data, Roger can easily find the most up-to-date information on software releases and patches, zero-days, exploit databases, and more.

Monitoring vulnerabilities for products & vendors in their supply chain

Roger takes three main steps to prioritize critical vulnerabilities affecting products and vendors used by Delta Dental:

He sets up Feedly AI Feeds to track critical vulnerabilities related to specific products and vendors.
He checks Feedly daily to find and research high-priority CVEs that could impact Delta Dental.
He then brings those CVEs into Kenna to help prioritize their remediate and communication strategy with Delta Dental’s stakeholders.

He uses this intelligence to build his weekly report and create recommendations for fixes and patches for the infrastructure and applications teams.

“With Feedly, I can look at a lot of different sources in a single place: threat intel websites, news wires, social media, things like that, so I have all of the latest information on current threats and technology updates. And I leverage that to populate my reports.”

Spotting critical issues faster

In addition to using Feedly as a risk advisory tool for weekly non-emergency vulnerability reports, Roger uses Feedly daily to spot critical issues and flag them right away. In minutes, he can get a complete picture of an emerging threat from multiple sources, instead of relying on any single report from one company. “When I research an emergent threat, I immediately have the latest and greatest data, because I can look directly at all of the different sources that come into Feedly,” Roger says.

Having all of this threat intel in one place gives the team better data to work with and more insights into the vulnerability. It makes the research much faster, and even gives them an edge over other cyber security analysts.

The CVE Insights Card for a recent trending vulnerability. The CVE Insights Card is one of the tools in Feedly that the Delta Dental team uses to see the complete picture of an emerging threat.

“I like to see what the hackers are seeing,” Roger explains. “And I like to see what different organizations are saying about this vulnerability, not just the instructions to fix it. I want to understand what the actual impact would be, if we were compromised.”

“When I research an emergent threat, I immediately have the latest and greatest data, because I can look directly at all of the different sources that come into Feedly”

THE RESULTS

More relevant threat intelligence in half the time

Instead of spending eight to twelve hours putting the risk advisory report together each week, Roger now only needs four or five. By using Feedly for Threat Intelligence, he’s cut the amount of time he spends gathering intelligence about emerging vulnerabilities in half. But perhaps even more importantly, the team can now gather better intelligence with much less effort.

When a new critical threat emerges, Roger can leverage Feedly to get a complete picture of the threat and its possible repercussions for Delta Dental in as little as fifteen minutes. Without Feedly, gathering that much intelligence could take days.

Feedly should be a first step for anybody working in vulnerability management.”

Roger, Senior Security Engineer, Cyber Risk Management Solutions, Delta Dental

This served the team well when several critical threats first emerged, including the Windows Printer Spooler vulnerability and POLINA ransomware. “Instead of just going to Microsoft or visiting a single resource, I was able to use Feedly to research it and gather the latest and greatest data from lots of different sources,” Roger says. “By leveraging Feedly, we were able to get a really complete picture from all of these different perspectives.”

Today, when it comes to investigating vulnerabilities, Roger’s first step is always to check Feedly. It’s become an indispensable tool in his cybersecurity arsenal.

“My process is always Feedly first, and then I go to our intel tool second,” Roger says. “Feedly should be a first step for anybody working in vulnerability management.”

Fill the gaps in your risk advisory process

Feedly for Threat Intelligence can help you gather intelligence and monitor emerging threats in near real-time.

More relevant threat intelligence in half the

DCU

Review: Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives #5

124

Dead Boy Detectives #5

Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote

Artists: Jeff Stokely, Craig Taillefer

Color Artist: Miquel Muerto

Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Reviewed By Steve J. Ray

Summary

Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives #5 brings us more thrills, scares, and deeply philosophical viewpoints on the deaths and “lives” of ghosts.

While on a case in L.A., ghost detectives Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland befriended three Thai spirits, Melvin, Tanya, and Jai.

While investigating the impossibility of these Thai ghosts even existing in America, their human mentor, Dom, was killed. Now malevolent Thai spirits have infected Charles, leaving his ghost-form slowly deteriorating.

Believing their only hope of undoing both horrors to be finding out who’d summoned the many Thai ghosts, the gang finally stumbled upon he person responsible, only for another ghost to bite and “kill” Jai.

Positives

There are so many. Whether you only know Charles and Edwin from this issue and the four preceding ones, or if you’ve followed their adventures for decades, writer Pornsak Pichetshote has you covered. With every chapter, we learn more about our heroes. In this issue alone, another element from Charles’ past is revealed.

The visuals by Jeff Stokely, Craig Taillefer, Miquel Muerto, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou continue to impress as much as the script does. The Krasue are terrifying, just as the more heroic protagonists are far more sympathetic and lovable, both in the way they act and speak, as well as in how they’re portrayed by the artists. Hassan’s lettering and Miquel’s colors deserve extra special mentions this month, particularly on the pages where Melvin and Charles encounter these monsters.

Oh, and our friends finally come face-to-face with Thessaly!

Charles’ condition is definitely cause for concern and, knowing Thessaly, I still believe that any fixes she may have for it, and for solving the problem of impossible Thai ghosts existing in America, may be worse than the problems themselves.

Negatives

This superb series only has one issue left.

Verdict

Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives #5 delivers everything I love about comics. Great characters, next-level threats, humor, scares, and thrills. The fact that it also educates while it entertains is a huge bonus. While this is a brilliant horror series, it also sheds light on life, love, and the problems faced by the children of immigrants.

If you’ve been sleeping on this series, I highly recommend picking up the collected edition (out in November 2023).

Images Courtesy of DC Entertainment

124 Dead Boy Detectives #5 Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote Artists: Jeff Stokely,

Diablo 4 Will Let You Skip Its Campaign (After Your First Playthrough)

Diablo IV will include a campaign-skip feature for players who have completed the game’s main storyline at least once, Blizzard has confirmed.

Eagle-eyed fans spotted the “skip campaign” button as part of a new “Your class your way” trailer. Blizzard global community development director Adam Fletcher took to Twitter and clarified that players will need to have completed the campaign on one character before having the ability to “skip” the campaign on subsequent characters.

Diablo III eventually introduced a similar system, called Adventure Mode, where players didn’t need to complete the story and instead could level up via completing bounties and defeating monsters in the game’s world. It’s currently unclear what options players who skip the campaign in Diablo IV will have when it comes to leveling up, as bounties, Helltides, and Nightmare dungeons in Diablo IV have been described as endgame activities for level 50+ characters.

Presumably, players can focus on completing normal dungeons or tackling the various side quests littered throughout Sanctuary to level up, but whether going that route is faster or easier than simply playing through the campaign another time isn’t known. In previous interviews, Blizzard stated that Diablo IV’s main campaign will take around 35 hours to complete.

Players will get one more chance to take Diablo IV for a spin ahead of launch as part of its Server Slam weekend May 12-14. That will be the final chance to earn beta-exclusive rewards that carry over to the full version of Diablo IV. It will also bring with it another chance for players to offer feedback ahead of the game’s June 6 release. Feedback from the beta saw Blizzard make changes to Diablo IV’s repetitive dungeons and address class balance.

Blizzard, in the lead-up to launch, has been sharing plenty of new details about Diablo IV, like how it will receive new seasonal content every three months and that its battle passes will take roughly 80 hours to complete. Diablo IV’s endgame grind will unlock at level 50 and will consist of players conquering challenging Nightmare dungeons and target-farming for powerful items in Helltide areas.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Festivals

Tribeca Festival Sets 2023 Short Film Lineup – Complete List – Deadline

The Tribeca Festival on Tuesday announced its lineup of short narrative, documentary and animated films, as well as music videos, across 12 programs.

Today’s lineup for the festival, taking place this year from June 7-18, includes 62 shorts in competition, eight music videos and six special screening shorts, from a total of 91 filmmakers across 25 countries. The program, which was curated this year from a record-breaking 8,096 total submissions, includes 48 world premieres, three international premieres, two North American premieres, one U.S. premiere, and 22 New York premieres, with six alumni of festivals past to return this time around. Themes highlighted across the lineup include love, family relationships, LGBTQ+ stories, “Expressions of Black Freedom,” Latin America and resilience, to name a few.

Notable shorts to look out for include the Harry Holland-directed Last Call, starring Tom Holland; Alden Ehrenreich’s directorial debut, Shadow Brother Sunday; writer-director Alex Lawther’s For people in trouble, starring Emma D’Arcy; Sean Schiavolin’s documentary To My Father, spotlighting CODA star Troy Kotsur’s relationship with his dad; Nathan Morris’ rom-com My Eyes Are Up Here with Jillian Mercado; and Francesca Scorsese’s Fish Out of Water. Then, there’s Lauren Finerman’s Flower, produced by and starring Misty Copeland, which will screen as a special event at Spring Studios, in its world premiere.

“From a staggering record number of 8,096 shorts submissions, we are thrilled to present an incredible range of storytelling in short films and music videos from around the globe,” said Tribeca Festical’s VP of Shorts Programming, Ben Thompson. “Thoughtfully curated into 12 distinct programs, my co-programmer VP of Programming Sharon Badal and I hope there is something for everyone. From free-flowing music and dance to crazy late-night comedy, join us for an unforgettable journey through short films.”

Recipients of the Tribeca Festival awards for Best Narrative Short, Documentary Short and Animated Short qualify for consideration in the Academy Awards’ Short Films category, provided the films comply with Academy rules. Since the Tribeca Festival’s 2001 founding 36 shorts emerging from Tribeca have gone on to nominations, with 11 claiming a statuette. Tribeca also notably grants a Student Visionary Award to a rising filmmaker with emerging talent and potential.

The Tribeca Festival is curated by Festival Director and VP of Programming Cara Cusumano; Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer; VP of Programming Sharon Badal and VP of Shorts Programming, Thompson; Senior Programmers Liza Domnitz, Faridah Gbadamosi and Jarod Neece; Programmers José F. Rodriguez, Casey Baron, Jason Gutierrez and Jonathan Penner; VP of Games and Immersive Casey Baltes and Immersive Curator Ana Brzezińska; Curator of Audio Storytelling Davy Gardner; Music Programmer Vincent Cassous; and Chief Content Officer Paula Weinstein, along with a team of associate programmers.

Passes and ticket packages can be purchased here. View this year’s entire shorts lineup below.

>> NARRATIVE SHORTS

Angelo, (Bolivia) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Alex Plumb.

Bellybutton, (United States) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Hilary Eden.

Blackwool, (Scotland) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Eubha Akilada.

Blood, (Australia) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Vathana Suganya Suppiah.

Brenda and Billy (and the Pothos Plant), (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Dave Solomon.

Burrow, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Leaf Lieber.

Cuarto de Hora, (France, Chile) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Nemo Arancibia.

Daddy Issues, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Matt Campanella and Stephanie Chloé Hepner. Written by Matt Campanella.

Dead Cat, (Canada) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Annie-Claude Caron and Danick Audet.

Ecstasy, (Mexico, United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Carolina Costa.

Everybody Dies…Sometimes, (United Kingdom) – International Premiere. Directed and written by Charlotte Hamblin.

Fairytales, (Mexico) – World Premiere. Directed by Daniela Soria. Written by Daniela Soria and Mar Flores.

Feliz Navidad, (Italy) – International Premiere. Directed and written by Greta Scarano.

Ferns, (Chile) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Paz Ramírez.

Fish Out of Water, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Francesca Scorsese. Written by Francesca Scorsese, Megan LuLu Taylor, Savannah Braswell.

Flower, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Lauren Finerman.

For people in trouble, (United Kingdom) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Alex Lawther.

A Fox In The Night, (United Kingdom) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Keeran Anwar Blessie.

Hafekasi, (Australia) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Annelise Hickey.

HEARTBEAT, (Switzerland) – North American Premiere. Directed by Michèle Flury. Written by Michèle Flury and Martha Benedict.

Il Fait Beau, (Netherlands) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Leonardo Cariglino.

In Passing, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Hillia Aho.

Konpa, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Al’Ikens Plancher.

The K-Town Killer, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Healin Kweon and Vahan Bedelian.

Last Call, (United Kingdom) – World Premiere. Directed by Harry Holland.

Let Liv, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Erica Rose. Written by Olivia Levine.

Mars, (United Kingdom) – North American Premiere. Directed by Abel Rubinstein. Written by Chris Bush.

My Eyes Are Up Here, (United Kingdom) – New York Premiere. Directed by Nathan Morris. Written by Arthur Meek.

Nuit Blonde, (Canada) – United States Premiere. Directed and written by Gabrielle Demers.

Proof of Concept, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Max Cohn and Ellie Sachs.

Rustling, (New Zealand) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Tom Furniss.

Schettinimous, (Argentina) – International Premiere. Directed by Tomás Terzano. Written by Tomás Terzano and Macarena Rubio.

Sealed Off, (China, Macau, United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Tianyu Jiang.

Shadow Brother Sunday, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Alden Ehrenreich.

Somewhere In Between, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Kyle Vorbach.

The Sperm Bank, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Margaux Susi. Written by Rob Scerbo and Jeremy Culhane.

Spinning, (Mexico) – New York Premiere. Directed by Isabel Vaca and Arturo Mendicuti. Written by Mara Vaca

Thaw, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Alex Bush

They Grow Up So Fast, (United States) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by John F. Beach.

Tits, (Norway) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Eivind Landsvik.

Upsidedown, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed and written by Razan Ghalayini.

Voice Activated, (Australia) – New York Premiere. Directed by Steve Anthopoulos.

>> DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

Ayenda, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Marie Margolius.

Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson.

Cam’s Mementos, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Cam Archer.

Cruzan Cowboys, (United States, US Virgin Islands) – World Premiere. Directed by Douglas Wesley Segars.

Deciding Vote, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons.

Dragon Boys, (United Kingdom, Ghana) – World Premiere. Directed by Tom Ringsby.

Goodbye, Morganza, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Devon Blackwell.

In the Shadow of Palms, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Mischa Meyer.

Letter to Rosie, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Ariel Danziger.

Merman, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Sterling Hampton IV.

Miss Brown, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Christina Burchard.

Over The Wall, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Krystal Tingle.

The Right to Joy, (United States) – New York Premiere. Directed by Tim Kressin.

Savi the Cat, (United States) – New York Premiere. Directed by Bryan Tucker and Netsanet Tjirongo.

Then Comes the Body, (Nigeria, United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Jacob Krupnick.

To My Father, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Sean Schiavolin.

What Next?, (France) – World Premiere. Directed by Cécile Rogue.

The Winterkeeper, (United Kingdom) – World Premiere. Directed by Laurence Topham and David Levene.

>> ANIMATED SHORTS

American Sikh, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by Ryan Westra and Vishavjit Singh. Written by Ryan Westra.

Corvine, (Canada) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Sean McCarron.

A Cow in the Sky, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by C. Fraser Press and Darren Press. Written by C. Fraser Press.

The Night Doctrine, (United States, Afghanistan) – World Premiere. Directed by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons and Almuneda Toral.

Regular Rabbit, (Ireland) – New York Premiere. Directed and written by Eoin Duffy.

Restless Is the Night, (United States) – New York Premiere. Directed by Yuehan Tan and Xiaoxue Meng.

Starling, (United States) – World Premiere. Directed by and written by Mitra Shahidi.

Witchfairy, (Belgium, Bulgaria) – New York Premiere. Directed by David Van de Weyer. Written by Brigitte Minne.

>> MUSIC VIDEOS

Anoana, (Norway) – New York Premiere. Directed by Line Klungseth Johansen. Written by Line Klungseth Johansen and Øystein Moe.

Bugs, (United States) – New York Premiere. Performed by The Vindys. Directed by Peter-John Campbell.

I Guess I’m Changing, (United Kingdom) – New York Premiere. Performed by Someone. Directed by David Spearing. Written by Tessa Rose Jackson.

The Light, (United States) – New York Premiere. Performed by Lunarcode. Directed and written by Vincenzo Carubia.

Special, (United States) – New York Premiere. Performed by Lizzo. Directed by Christian Breslauer.

To The Desert, (Israel) – New York Premiere. Performed by Dana Ivgy. Directed by Asaf Yecheskel. Written by Dana Ivgy.

Wait in the Truck, (United States) – New York Premiere. Performed by Hardy. Directed by Justin Clough. Written by Michael Hardy and Justin Clough.

Wild Child, (United States) – New York Premiere. Performed by The Black Keys. Directed by Bryan Schlam.

The Tribeca Festival on Tuesday announced its

Film

‘It Lives Inside’ – NEON Unleashes Poster Art Ahead of Trailer Debut Tomorrow

It doesn’t kill you right away…it eats you slowly. From director Bishal Dutta, the horror movie It Lives Inside is coming soon, and NEON has shared the official poster today.

Additionally, we’ve learned the trailer will arrive tomorrow (April 26). Stay tuned…

Megan Suri (“Never Have I Ever,” Missing), Neeru Bajwa (Jatt & Juliet 1 & 2), Mohana Krishnan, Vik Sahay (Captain Marvel, “Chuck”) and Betty Gabriel (Get Out) star.

In It Lives Inside, “Sam is desperate to fit in at school, rejecting her Indian culture and family to be like everyone else. When a mythological demonic spirit latches onto her former best friend, she must come to terms with her heritage in order to defeat it.”

The initial inspiration for the film emerged from the filmmaker’s own childhood experience of being born in India before emigrating to be raised in America. The story draws heavily on both Indian demonic legend and a very personal family story from Dutta’s grandfather. The original screenplay was penned by Dutta based on a story by Dutta and Ashish Mehta.

Raymond Mansfield and Sean McKittrick of QC Entertainment produced, with NEON, Edward H. Hamm Jr, Jameson Parker, Arielle Voisvert, and Shawn Williamson executive producing.

It doesn’t kill you right away…it eats

First-Look Photos Of FX/Hulu Sequel Series – Deadline

We’re getting a first look at FX’s The Full Monty, the eight-part follow-up to the BAFTA-winning movie. FX has released some of the first images from the series that will premiere in June (date TBA) and stream exclusively in the U.S. on Hulu.

Set 25 years after the film, the eight-episode series will follow the same band of brothers as they navigate the post-industrial city of Sheffield and society’s crumbling healthcare, education, and employment sectors. The comedy-drama will uncover what happened to the gang after they put their kit back on, exploring their brighter, sillier and more desperate moments. It will also highlight how the fiercely funny world of these working-class heroes – still residing in Sheffield – has changed in the intervening decades.

The original movie’s screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) returns, along with co-writer Alice Nutter (Accused), and Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special) also coming back as executive producer.

Lead cast reprising their roles include Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) as “Gaz,” Mark Addy (Game of Thrones) as “Dave,” Lesley Sharp (Before We Die) as “Jean,” Hugo Speer (Britannia) as “Guy,” Paul Barber (The Dumping Ground) as “Horse,” Steve Huison (The Royle Family) as “Lomper,” Wim Snape (The Beaker Girls) as “Nathan” and Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins) as “Gerald.”

The first-look images also introduce Talitha Wing (Wolfe, Alex Rider), as Gaz’s teenage daughter, “Destiny” (see photo above).

New cast members include Paul Clayton (The Crown) as Lomper’s husband, “Dennis.” Miles Jupp (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) stars as recent divorcee and housing officer “Darren,” who looks up to the Monty men for advice on navigating adult life. Sophie Stanton plays “Hetty,” a colleague and friend of Jean, and Phillip Rhys Chaudhary (Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists) joins as “Dilip,” Deputy Headteacher at the school. Newcomers Dominic Sharkey and Natalie Davies appear as Destiny’s mates “Cal” and “Tabani” respectively, alongside Arnold Oceng, who plays a talented graffiti artist. Aiden Cook stars as wise-cracking twelve-year-old “Dean/‘Twiglet,’” while Tupele Dorgu (Alma’s Not Normal) portrays Destiny’s mother, “Yaz.”

Simon Lewis serves as series producer. The series is executive produced for Disney+ EMEA by Lee Mason, Director, Scripted.

Robert Carlyle as Gaz.

We’re getting a first look at FX’s

What to Watch

‘The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib’ Renewed for Season 3 at Netflix

Picture: Netflix

We’ll be getting a third batch of The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib on Netflix, with the streamer confirming that more episodes are due for release in 2023.

Back in the Crib is the second major series in The Boss Baby franchise to head to Netflix following The Boss Baby: Back in Business which ran between 2018 and 2021. We also saw a Christmas bonus episode drop in 2022 and an interactive special drop in September 2020.

Season 1 of The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib debuted globally on May 19th, 2023, with a second batch of episodes arriving just recently on April 14th, 2023.

While the first season of The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib managed to enter the Netflix global top 10s for three weeks picking up 46.94 million hours watched globally, the second season notably was absent from any top 10s.

JP Karliak, Max Mittelman, Mary Faber, Krizia Bajos, Ariana Greenblatt, Alex Cazares, and Nicole Byer lend their voices to the series, with Brandon Sawyer serving as executive producer and Matt Engstrom serving as supervising producer.

Of course, while we have confirmation of a third batch of episodes, what tends to be the case with animation and, particularly, DreamWorks TV shows, is that Netflix orders big batches of episodes up front.

As we’ve also been covering in recent months, DreamWorks Animation series won’t stay on Netflix forever. In just the last two months, we’ve seen the departure of Turbo Fast and The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show. Based on our estimations, Veggie Tales In The City and The Adventures of Puss in Boots will follow later this year.

Other active DreamWorks TV shows on Netflix include Gabby’s Dollhouse, Go, Dog. Go! (also confirmed for season 4 in 2023), and Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight (returning for season 2 in 2023). They also have two new series set to debut this year: Not Quite Narwhal and Dew Drop Diaries.

A Chaotic List of the Best Rap Stars, Scenes, Trends, Freestyles, and Mixtapes of 2022

Picture: Netflix We’ll be getting a third batch

Awards

The Hollywood Reporter Wins Webby Award for Its Blackfamous Roundtable – The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter’s Blackfamous Roundtable has won a Webby Award.

THR was honored with the award in the diversity, equity and inclusion, social video category.

The roundtable featured a conversation with Loretta Devine, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Larenz Tate and Lynn Whitfield, moderated by THR editorial director Nekesa Mumbi Moody. The group opened up about the power and privilege of being legends among Black fans and how the new Hollywood landscape is making entertainment both less segmented and less intimate.

The Webbys ceremony, honoring the best of the Internet, will take place May 15 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York, with Roy Wood Jr. returning as host. The show is known for limiting winners to five-word acceptance speeches.

Nominees were announced April 4, with the winners being revealed April 25. Apple, Rihanna, Discord, Serena Williams, Selena Gomez, BTS, former President Barack Obama, Doja Cat, Steph Curry, Nike, Lizzo and The Daily Show also are among the winners in various categories, including podcasts, games, websites, video, social and apps.

“This year’s Webby Winners speak to the incredible potential of the Internet and the people who shape it,” said Clare Graves, president of the Webby Awards. “They have set the benchmark for excellence in their respective category and are an inspiration for us all to continue striving toward a more connected and creative digital world.”

Winners are voted on by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, whose members include Questlove, Roxane Gay, Quinta Brunson, Ziwe Fumudoh, LeVar Burton and Samantha Bee.

In addition, the Webbys will present several Special Achievement awards; honorees include ChatGPT, SZA, Tracee Ellis Ross and Sharon Horgan. Audible has been named Webby Podcast Company of the Year, and MTV Entertainment has been named the Webby Media Company of the Year, for earning the most honors across all Webby categories, with 11 wins.

MIKE Announces Young World III Festival Featuring Noname, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and 454

MIKE has announced the first acts for his Young World III festival in Brooklyn’s Herbert Von King Park. The third edition of the New York day fest will be headlined by Noname, with Georgia Anne Muldrow, 454, and MIKE himself down the bill. More acts will be announced later. The festival takes place on June 15, and entry is free.

The first installment of MIKE’s Young World fest took place in 2019. After a pandemic break, it returned in 2022 with Slick Rick and TisaKorean, among others. The Bronx native released his latest LP, Beware of the Monkey, in late 2022, and featured on Niontay’s “Wheredeyat???” last month.

MIKE has announced the first acts for

Docs

Andana Films Picks Up ‘Al Djanat – The Original Paradise’

International sales company Andana Films has boarded “Al Djanat – The Original Paradise” by Franco-Burkinabe director Chloé Aïcha Boro. The film had its international premiere at Visions du Réel, in Nyon, Switzerland, after a world premiere at Fespaco in February. Selected in the international competition in Nyon, the documentary was pre-sold to Canal+ International for a broadcast on the African continent.

For her fourth documentary, produced by Les Films de l’œil Sauvage, Boro has, for the first time, turned the camera on her own family, capturing life in their big courtyard surrounded by several small houses in Dédougou, Burkina Faso, where she grew up before emigrating to France. Filmed up close, over a period of five years, the animated square makes the viewer feel as welcome as at home.

The beating heart of the large Coulibaly family, it is also there that all its members’ umbilical cords are buried, binding them, according to the ancestral tradition, forever to the courtyard. Through the years, it also became for the inhabitants a place for prayer and pilgrimage due to its owner, the director’s uncle, Ousmane Coulibaly, a great religious authority.

The film, an 84-minute gem of sincerity, has been the documentarist’s most difficult project: “Returning to where my umbilical cord is buried always ties knots in my stomach,” she says in the voice-over. “This return is more of an ordeal than the others. Twelve years of exile in France have taught me that returning is often more difficult than leaving.”

An ordeal, because her childhood “original paradise” has become the scene of a family dispute over the legacy of Ousmane Coulibaly, after he died in a stampede during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Who are the patriarch’s heirs? His 19 children or his many brothers still alive? The oral tradition that regulated successions for centuries in the country was quickly called into question, clashing with the official written justice, inherited from the colonial period. The family slowly divides between those who wish to preserve traditions and those who advocate modernity and want to sell the family home.

“My uncle’s passing was the trigger,” Boro, whose former works include “Balolé, the Golden Wolf,” tells Variety. “I had the intuition that there was something to be done about his death, because such an emblematic figure could not leave without something happening. But I had no idea that the film would take this form, that my family would be torn apart by the material and spiritual transmission of his possessions and that the future of this courtyard would one day even be questioned.”

Seeking to reflect the spiritual importance of the issue through the work of cinematographers Mathieu Bertholet, Prisca Bourgoin and Rémi Jennequin, the director favored subdued lights whenever possible, “to have an atmosphere of dimmed intimacy and to recreate this feeling of sacredness one can find in churches and mosques.” Scenes were therefore mostly shot at dawns and ends of days rather than in raw sunlight.

The driving force behind the director’s film was also to make her native culture better known. “We pass by people of all origins every day, and that’s the beauty of our globalized world, but I sometimes feel that we don’t really meet each other.”

The rich oral tradition of West Africa takes the main stage. The story is punctuated by the singing of the griottes, who infuse the feature with a power that grips the heart until the very last second. “It is almost a documentary musical. The songs carry both the narrative and the poetry that I wanted to put in it. We see the opposition between the justice inherited from the West, which is recorded in writing, whereas in the Mandingue people traditions, everything is recorded by word of mouth. That’s why writer Amadou Hampâté Bâ said: ‘An old man who dies is a library that burns.’ I wanted to testify of our oral literature and its depth. Our languages are very rich, very colorful. We use a lot of proverbs,” Boro says.

“For example, instead of saying to a child, ‘Stop taunting your brother,’ we would say, ‘He who has not crossed the other shore, does not mock him who is drowning,’ and the child has to give it a meaning. That is why, by us, we often say ‘the word is a peanut and it is up to the person who receives it to deconstruct it.’”

In this powerful work showing the impact of societal changes on ancestral traditions, Boro never gets judgemental. “Even though I sometimes feel pain seeing how little has changed, I keep a strong tenderness for my culture. I am not exactly the same anymore, I could not imagine for example living with a polygamous husband. But this is my family’s reality, and it would surely be mine had I stayed. And this reality, the women of my family manage to embellish it thanks to their great strength and self-confidence.”

A part of Boro’s family refused to appear on screen. For them, the desecration of the courtyard came from the desire of some to sell it, but also from her cameras. But the biggest challenge for the filmmaker was to figure out how much distance she should put between herself and the very personal subject.

“I felt the need to protect myself, to remain, I would say, behind the fourth wall. For the same reason, I never filmed my mother, Haoua Bomborokuy Coulibaly, who still lived in the family home. I thought it would be a kind of egotism to do so. I highly regret my decision. She passed away during the pandemic in 2020. I dedicated ‘Al Djanat’ to her as a way of repairing my mistake and making her a part of the film.”

Boro found the perfect distance she was looking for only during editing when she finally agreed for a voice-over. “I decided I want to testify about my position and what I could pass from my history on to my children who are mixed and were born far from this courtyard in France. This film is my gift to them, those whose umbilical cord I could not bury. It is the story of their origins.”

International sales company Andana Films has boarded

Trending

Cristo Fernández Boards Apple’s ‘Acapulco’ & Disney+’s ‘Alexander 2’ – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso) has joined the cast of the Apple TV+ series Acapulco for Season 3 and the Disney+ film Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day reimagination.

In Acapulco, Fernández will portray an artist and community organizer. Deadline exclusively announced the addition of Jaime Camil in the role of Alejandro for Season 3. Production on the 10-episode new season is currently underway.

When Acapulco returns with new episodes, it’s time to reconcile past mistakes and exciting new beginnings. In the present story, older Maximo (Eugenio Derbez) finds himself returning to a Las Colinas he no longer recognizes. While in 1985, younger Maximo (Enrique Arrizon) continues his climb up the ladder of success while potentially jeopardizing all the relationships he’s worked so hard to build.

The cast also includes Fernando Carsa (as Memo), Damián Alcázar (Don Pablo), Camila Perez (Julia), Chord Overstreet (Chad), Vanessa Bauche (Nora), Regina Reynoso (Sara), Raphael Alejandro (Hugo), Jessica Collins (Diane), Rafael Cebrián (Hector), Carlos Corona (Esteban) and Regina Orozco (Lupe).

Austin Winsberg, Eduardo Cisneros and Jason Shuman created the series. Executive producers include Winsberg and director Jay Karas; Derbez and Ben Odell for 3Pas Studios; Eric and Kim Tannenbaum, as well as Jason Wang on behalf of The Tannenbaum Company. Sonia Almanza Gambaro co-executive produces for 3Pas Studios. Sam Laybourne serves as showrunner.

In Alexander 2, Fernández will bring to life the character Chavo, a cook who meets the Garcias while the family is on a road trip. He bonds with Henry (Jesse Garcia), a fellow chef. Production is underway in New Mexico.

From writer Matt Lopez and director Marvin Lemus, Alexander tells the story of 11-year-old Alexander Garcia (Thom Nemer), who thinks he has the worst luck in the world. When his family sets off on a road trip to California, he’s pretty sure disaster awaits at every corner. His anxiety only increases when a family secret is revealed.

The film also stars Eva Longoria, Cheech Marin, Paulina Chávez and Rose Portillo.

Alexander 2, a new take on Judith Viorst’s book following a 2014 movie starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner, is produced by Shawn Levy, Dan Levine and Lisa Henson.

Fernández currently can be seen in the Apple TV+ hit series Ted Lasso reprising the role of Dani Rojas he’s portrayed since Season 1. The actor and former professional soccer star made his debut in the Marvel Universe last year in a post-credit scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Up next, he will star as Wheeljack in the film Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts.

Fernández recently wrapped production on the indie film Sisters which he starred in—alongside Marta Cross, Valeria Maldonado and Virginia Novello— and executive produced through his Espectro MX Films production banner. The company is currently in pre-production on the feature film adaptation of his short film, Fuera de Serie, based on the real-life story of Mexican engineer, Guillermo González Camarena.

He is repped by Gersh, Authentic Talent & Management, CKG (London) and Jacoway Austen, et al.

EXCLUSIVE: Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso) has joined

Tech

G.M.’s Profits Fell 18.5 Percent in the First Quarter

General Motors on Tuesday reported an 18.5 percent drop in profits in the first quarter, mainly because of the cost of job cuts and slowing new-vehicle sales in China. The company also announced that it would build a fourth battery factory in the United States.

The decline comes as higher interest rates raise the cost of new vehicles for consumers and worries persist about a possible recession in the United States.

G.M. said its net income in the first three months of the year fell to $2.4 billion, from $2.9 billion in the same period in 2022. Revenue in the first quarter rose 11 percent, to $40 billion, thanks to higher prices and effective discounting.

“The first quarter came in ahead of our own expectations, primarily as a function of pricing and a consistent incentive plan, as well as demand remains strong for our vehicles,” G.M.’s chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, said in a conference call.

Globally, G.M. sold 1.4 million vehicles in the first quarter, 3 percent fewer than the same period last year. Its U.S. sales rose 18 percent, but its sales in China fell 25 percent.

The automaker’s first-quarter earnings were lowered by $900 million, which G.M. had set aside to cover the cost of severance and other measures resulting from its elimination of 5,000 salaried jobs. In total, G.M. is trying to cut about $2 billion a year in costs.

The effect of those cost-cutting efforts, Mr. Jacobson said, is “flowing to the bottom line quicker than we anticipated.”

Because of the job cut expenses, G.M. lowered its net income outlook for 2023 slightly. The company said it now expected 2023 net income to range from $8.4 billion to $9.9 billion. In January, it gave a range of $8.7 billion to $10.1 billion.

The auto industry’s trajectory remains uncertain. In the United States, sales of new vehicles rose about 7 percent in the first quarter, to 3.6 million vehicles. But the pace of sales slowed noticeably by March. Much of the increase had stemmed from purchases by rental-car companies and other commercial fleets, rather than individuals.

Rising interest rates and near-record prices have made it hard for many U.S. consumers to afford new cars and trucks. In March, car buyers paid an average of $48,008 for new vehicles, up nearly $1,800 from March 2022, according to Kelley Blue Book, a market researcher. The average monthly payment on new cars last month was $784, compared with $683 a year earlier.

While G.M.’s U.S. sales rose in the first quarter, signs of softening consumer demand in the broader market have started to appear. Last week, AutoNation, the largest auto retailer in the United States, said its new-vehicles sales fell 2 percent in the first quarter.

“There is a lot of mixed economic signals in the market, and within auto retail, which do warrant, I think, a more cautionary approach than the past few years,” AutoNation’s chief executive, Mike Manley, said in a conference call.

One big area of growth for the auto industry is electric cars. G.M. said Tuesday that it would build a battery plant with a South Korean partner, Samsung SDI. The two companies will jointly invest $3 billion in the factory, but did not disclose a location. G.M. is working with another South Korean company, LG Energy Solutions, at a battery plant in Ohio that has started production, and on two others that are under construction in Tennessee and Michigan.

G.M. is hoping for a surge in sales of electric vehicles this year. In the first quarter, the company sold more than 20,000 E.V.s in the United States. Mr. Jacobson said G.M. expected E.V. production in the first half of the year to top 50,000, and about double that in the second half.

“We feel good about the demand being robust for the electric vehicles we are producing,” he said.

One reason G.M.’s sales fell so much in China is that consumers increasingly prefer electric cars. That has created a big opening for Chinese manufacturers and hurt Western automakers that have been slow to roll out electric vehicles.

In the United States, G.M. has started making a new generation of electric vehicles using modular battery packs made at the Ohio plant. The Cadillac Lyriq, an electric sport utility vehicle, and the GMC Hummer are in production, although G.M. sold fewer than 1,000 of those models in the United States in the first three months of the year.

Later this year, G.M. plans to introduce three models that will use the same modular battery packs. An electric Chevrolet Silverado pickup is expected to arrive around the middle of the year, followed by the Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox S.U.V.s.

G.M.’s top-selling E.V. is the Chevrolet Bolt compact, which accounted for almost all the E.V.s that G.M. sold in the United States in the first quarter. The Bolt has been on the market since 2017 and uses an older battery design. G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said on Tuesday that the company would stop making the model at the end of this year.

In 2021, G.M. recalled all the Bolts made to that point to replace their battery packs after it found that a manufacturing defect had caused fires in a small number of them. After halting production to address the problem, the company resumed Bolt sales in 2022.

G.M.’s stock was down about 2 percent on Tuesday morning after its earnings report.

General Motors on Tuesday reported an 18.5

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spotify Daniel Ek speaks onstage during Spotify Investor Day in 2018

Video

Spotify Users Grow 22% to 515 Million in First Quarter

Spotify’s user base grew 22% to 515 million in the first three months of 2023, the audio streaming giant’s fastest-ever listener growth in the first quarter. But the Swedish company reported Tuesday that it posted a wider-than-expected loss for the period as ad revenue came in below forecasts.

The strong user growth and the company’s positive forecast for the current period nevertheless sent shares higher. Spotify Technology SA’s U.S.-listed shares added $6.36, or 4.8%, to $137.81 in morning trading.

User additions came from both developed and developing markets and nearly all age groups, Spotify said. Monthly active users topped the 500 million the company forecast, and premium subscribers — the ones who provide the bulk of the company’s revenue — rose 15% to 210 million, above the 207 million Spotify predicted.

But even with the growth spike, average revenue per user slipped 1% to $4.70, in part reflecting discount plans and lower prices used to draw users in developing markets. Spotify has made efforts to increase the amount of time users spend on the platform, including tweaking its service in recent months to introduce video and rejiggering its home page to include TikTok and YouTube-like recommendations for music, podcasts and audiobooks.

CEO Daniel Ek said during a conference call to discuss results that the company is being cautious about airing music generated through artificial intelligence, like the AI songs created using Drake and TheWeeknd’s vocals that surfaced online last week.

Using AI is a “very, very complex issue,” Ek said. Spotify aims to “strike a balance” between allowing innovation on the platform and helping right-holders and artists protect their work. “We take that role of guardian very seriously,” he said.

Spotify Lays Off 6% of Global Workforce as Content and Ad Business Chief Dawn Ostroff Departs

For the three months that ended in March, Spotify posted revenue of $3.31 billion, up 12% from $2.96 billion a year ago. Ad revenue grew 17% from last year’s first quarter, to $357.8 million, but plunged 31% from the fourth quarter of 2022. The results came in short of the $3.37 billion analysts surveyed by Zack’s Investment Research expected.

The ad slowdown reflects conditions across the tech and media industries, which have sparked widespread layoffs, including at Spotify, which in January cut its global workforce by 6%, or about 600 staffers, and shuffled executives.

About 89% of the service’s revenue, or $3 billion, came from premium subscribers, reflecting growth of 14% from last year’s first quarter, but was down about $4 million from the last three months of 2022.

The company posted a loss of $169.7 million, or $1.24 per share, a wider loss than the $1.01 per share forecast by analysts surveyed by Zack’s. A year ago, Spotify’s loss was 24 cents per share.

One contributing factor to the loss was that operating expenses came in higher than anticipated, in part because of severance-related charges related to layoffs.

Ek said during the conference call to discuss results that he made some mistakes as Spotify invested heavily in podcasting. “I probably got a little carried away and over-invested,” he said.

For the second quarter, Spotify predicted its monthly active users will rise to 530 million, with premium subscribers rising to 217 million, on revenue of $3.54 billion.

Spotify’s user base grew 22% to 515

Entertaintment

Kevin Morby Announces New Album ‘More Photographs (A Continuum)’ – Rolling Stone

Kevin Morby hasn’t completely closed the door on This is a Photograph, the introspective seventh studio album he released last year. On it, he walked a thin line between autobiographical and fictional storytelling while exploring the way childhood memories change with age. But even those 12 songs weren’t enough for him to feel at peace with it all, so he’s going back for more on More Photographs (A Continuum), set for release on May 26.

“If This Is a Photograph is a house that you have been living inside of, then More Photographs is, perhaps, the same home just experienced differently,” Morby shared in a statement. “As if you, its inhabitant, have taken a tab of something psychedelic, and now, suddenly, you’ve replaced your eyeglasses with kaleidoscopes.”

The album announcement arrives alongside the release of its first two singles, “This Is a Photograph II” and “Five Easy Pieces Revisited.” The records are reimagined renditions of “This is a Photograph” and “Five Easy Pieces” from This is a Photograph.

When “This is a Photograph” was first released, Morby described it as “about the battle every family faces, that of chasing the clock, to live our lives and hold onto one another for as long as possible. That, and, the dreams that come with being a young family in America and where those dreams eventually end up.”

More Photographs (A Continuum) will only feature nine songs, including those two pre-releases. The other seven have titles colored with hometown nostalgia, like “Going to Prom” and “Bittersweet, Tennessee,” a version of which also appeared on This is a Photograph.

In his statement, Morby continued: “With every collection of songs, I feel I have to cast them out of me before moving onto the next project, and here I knew that what I had begun with This Is a Photograph was not finished. Releasing this collection is me tying a bow on that time and place in my creative life.”

More Photographs (A Continuum) Tracklist:

“This Is A Photograph II”
“Triumph”
“Bittersweet, Tennessee”
“Going To Prom”
“Lion Tamer”
“A Song For Katie”
“Five Easy Pieces Revisited”
“Mickey Mantle’s Autograph”
“Kingdom Of Broken Hearts”

Kevin Morby hasn’t completely closed the

Movies

Harry Belafonte, 96, Dies; Barrier-Breaking Singer, Actor and Activist

When Mr. Belafonte returned to film as both producer and co-star, with Zero Mostel, of “The Angel Levine” (1970), based on a story by Bernard Malamud, the project had a sociopolitical edge: His Harry Belafonte Enterprises, with a grant from the Ford Foundation, hired 15 Black and Hispanic apprentices to learn filmmaking by working on the crew. One of them, Drake Walker, wrote the story for Mr. Belafonte’s next movie, “Buck and the Preacher” (1972), a gritty western that also starred Mr. Poitier.

But after appearing as a mob boss (a parody of Marlon Brando’s character in “The Godfather”) with Mr. Poitier and Bill Cosby in the hit 1974 comedy “Uptown Saturday Night” — directed, as “Buck and the Preacher” had been, by Mr. Poitier — Mr. Belafonte was once again absent from the big screen, this time until 1992, when he played himself in Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire “The Player.”

He appeared onscreen only sporadically after that, most notably as a gangster in Mr. Altman’s “Kansas City” (1996), for which Mr. Belafonte won a New York Film Critics Circle Award. His final film role was in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” in 2018.

Political Activism

Mr. Belafonte continued to give concerts in the years when he was off the screen, but he concentrated on political activism and charitable work. In the 1980s, he helped organize a cultural boycott of South Africa as well as the Live Aid concert and the all-star recording “We Are the World,” both of which raised money to fight famine in Africa. In 1986, encouraged by some New York State Democratic Party leaders, he briefly considered running for the United States Senate. In 1987, he replaced Danny Kaye as UNICEF’s good-will ambassador.

Never shy about expressing his opinion, he became increasingly outspoken during the George W. Bush administration. In 2002, he accused Secretary of State Colin L. Powell of abandoning his principles to “come into the house of the master.” Four years later he called Mr. Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world.”

Mr. Belafonte was equally outspoken in the 2013 New York mayoral election, in which he campaigned for the Democratic candidate and eventual winner, Bill de Blasio. During the campaign he referred to the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists known for their support of conservative causes, as “white supremacists” and compared them to the Ku Klux Klan. (Mr. de Blasio quickly distanced himself from that comment.)

When Mr. Belafonte returned to film as

SXSW Thriller ‘Monolith,’ With Lily Sullivan, Boarded by WellGo USA

WellGo USA has acquired all North American distribution rights to the Australian sci-fi thriller “Monolith,” starring Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise, I Met a Girl, Picnic at Hanging Rock). The film debuted at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2022 and recently had its international premiere as part of SXSW’s Midnighters section.

Rights were licensed from XYZ Films which previously boarded for North America, while the U.K.-based Blue Finch Films handles sales in the rest of the world. Bonsai Films is handling distribution in the film’s home Australian market.

The deal was brokered by Pip Ngo and Peter Van Steemburg of XYZ Films on behalf of the filmmakers and by Brennan Lane on behalf of Well Go USA.

The story tracks a disgraced journalist (portrayed by Sullivan) as she tries to salvage her career by turning to investigative podcasting. While trying to get to bottom of a strange artefact that may be linked to an alien conspiracy, she begins to uncover the lies at the heart of her own story.
“Monolith” was directed by Matt Vesely, written by Lucy Campbell and produced by Bettina Hamilton and was filmed across a three-week period in one location in South Australia’s Adelaide Hills.

” ‘Monolith’ brilliantly leverages its breath-taking sole location to construct a captivating and immersive world that draws viewers in from the very beginning,” said Brennan Lane, director of acquisitions and production at Well Go USA. “Built on a foundation of masterful writing alongside visual and audio storytelling approaches that sustain suspense throughout, ‘Monolith’ is a gripping, well-executed and original genre film.”

Read Variety’s review here.

The film was developed and produced through the FilmLab: New Voices program, an initiative run by the South Australian Film Corporation and the Adelaide Film Festival, financed with the assistance of Screen Australia, designed to develop and elevate first time South Australian feature filmmakers.

“In Well Go we feel we have continued to find partners who really believe in the film, as XYZ Films did when they came onboard for sales. ‘Monolith’ has had a great festival response from audiences and we can’t wait to share it further,” said Hamilton, producer at Black Cat White Rabbit Productions.

WellGo USA has acquired all North American

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Doctor Strange, Krugarr

MCU

New Guardians Vol. 3 Trailer Shows Sorcerer Using Doctor Strange Powers

A new trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 teased the presence of Doctor Strange magic.

Since the start of Phase 4, sorcerers have become much more common in the MCU.

In addition to Doctor Strange appearing in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wong became the MCU’s cameo king, and a former student of the Mystic Arts, Donny Blaze, appeared in She-Hulk on Disney+.

Now, new marketing for Guardians 3 just confirmed the presence of yet another MCU sorcerer and some mystic arts magic.

Doctor Strange Magic in Guardians 3 Trailer

Marvel

A new TV spot for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 showed the character Krugarr using Tao Mandalas, just like Doctor Strange, but to illustrate a laughing emoji.

Krugarr first showed off his sorcerer abilities in 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 alongside Sylvester Stallone‘s Stakar Ogord and the rest of his reunited Ravagers in the movie’s second mid-credits scene.

Krugarr is a wormlike species known as Lem, which are known for their long lifespans.

In the comics, he was actually a student of Doctor Strange and later succeeded him as the Sorcerer Supreme.

The full spot can be viewed below, with Krugarr’s abilities being showcased at :23:

Doctor Strange Connections in Guardians’ Next Movie?

Even though Krugarr was introduced in Phase 3, having another master of the mystic arts in Vol. 3 could serve as a connection to Strange and Wong.

If not, Krugarr’s use of Tao Mandalas to communicate will at least keeps Doctor Strange’s corner of the MCU in the audience’s consciousness.

It’s possible that Krugarr and the rest of Stakar’s Ravagers have a larger role in the upcoming threequel, especially since they’ve already been featured in a prior teaser for the film.

If so, with Guardians 3 being the final chapter of James Gunn’s trilogy, the big question is where the film will leave its surviving characters.

Is this the end of the Ravagers within the MCU? Or do they and other Guardians characters have more stories to tell?

Hopefully, Vol. 3 leaves fans with more questions by the time the credits roll.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on Friday, May 5.

DCU

The Flash Director Explains Why The Movie Had to Be Delayed So Many Times.

The Flash will be speeding towards the new DCU when it arrives in theaters this summer, and for many it has been a long time coming. The movie, like many DC projects has suffered numerous delays resulting in the film’s release almost seeming destined not to happen. However, for director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti the extra time was exactly what the film needed to be able to explode onto the big screen as the best movie it could be.

There have been many issues in the last couple of years with movies being rushed out with visual effects that are heavily criticized for their incomplete look, and others ditching a theatrical release in favor of heading straight to streaming. For The Flash, this was never an option and the delay’s faced by the Covid pandemic has just given the team more time to work on the final movie. The director/producer team told Box Office Pro Magazine:

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

“The only way to release The Flash is in theaters. Warner’s knew that, and we knew that. Of course, it feels great, We have worked solidly on The Flash for almost four years. We are very grateful to WB for working with us on using all this time to make the movie better. The pandemic allowed us to have a longer development, and, on the other side of shooting, it allowed us to have the time to explore visual effects like never before. We all knew that The Flash belongs in movie theaters, and we were happy to wait the right time.”

Will The Flash Be A Hit This Summer?

Warner Bros.

A year ago, the chances of The Flash being a massive success seemed to be getting slimmer by the month, with the film being hit with several delays and lead star Ezra Miller making headlines for all the wrong reasons. However, even after the reveal that the old DCEU would be ending and James Gunn will usher in a new DCU regime in the coming years, something about The Flash seemed to change.

The film is already hyped for a number of reasons. It brings the DC multiverse to life for the first time, adapts one of the best know stories of The Flash’s comic book runs to the big screen and it brings Michael Keaton back as Batman for the first time in three decades. If that wasn’t enough, test audiences have reported called the film one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. That is high praise indeed, but also a very nice sound bite for marketing to use as the release date approaches.

The Flash will be seen by a new audience this week at CinemaCon, and a new trailer will also be released to give another look at what is quickly turning into one of the must-watch cinema events of the summer. Will it surpass other recent DC movies at the box office? There are many people who will certainly be hoping it can after the disappointment of Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods.

The Flash will hit cinemas on June 16.

The Flash will be speeding towards the

Funko Fusion Is An All New Action Adventure Game For the Sickos

If you’re an avid Funko Pop collector, well, do we have something for you. Funko Fusion blends plenty of properties together in a crossover of miniature proportion. Developed by 1-:1- Games, Funko Fusion takes franchises such as The Thing, Umbrella Academy, Back to The Future, and more, and mashes them together in a brand-new game.

Funko Fusion Is An All New Action Adventure Game For the Sickos

If you’re the type of sicko who loves multimedia collaboration with action figures, then you’re in luck. All of your favorite franchises will be included in Funko Pop form, with their dead little eyes and no soul.

The game will feature online multiplayer which will allow up to four players to team up and explore, battle, and solve puzzles.

You can check out the full trailer for Funko Fusion below. The game currently has no release date but will be coming to PC and consoles sometime in 2024.

If you’ve ever wanted to see He-Man team up with Number Five from The Umbrella Academy, that hyper-specific dream will now be a reality.

In the trailer, we see a few players teaming up, and one of them has a flamethrower. We’re not really sure what’s going on, but it seems like the sickos will have some fun with this.

In a world filled with every crossover under the sun, what’s one more in the grand scheme of things?

Stay connected with everything video games news, reviews, and guides right here at Prima Games. I’m sure this won’t be the last time we talk about Funko Pops on this website. So stay tuned for that too, I guess.

Funko Fusion will be available sometime in 2024 and will release on PC and console. No consoles have been specified yet.

If you’re an avid Funko Pop collector,

Festivals

What Are Some Directing Lessons We Can Learn From Robert Altman?

If you listen closely, you can hear Robert Altman’s overlapping lessons.

Robert Altman, a renowned American film director, was known for his unique and innovative approach to filmmaking. His films were characterized by realistic and authentic portrayals of characters, unconventional narrative structures, and a collaborative working style.

Altman’s films left a lasting impact on the world of cinema, and there are valuable directing lessons that aspiring filmmakers can learn from his body of work.

In this article, we will explore some of the key lessons that can be gleaned from Altman’s directorial style, including embracing collaboration, emphasizing realism and authenticity, experimenting with narrative structure, paying attention to sound and music, creating an ensemble atmosphere, embracing risk-taking, and attention to detail.

Let’s dive in.

‘M*A*S*H’Credit: 20th Century Fox

What Are Some Directing Lessons We Can Learn From Robert Altman?

Altman was a highly influential American film director known for his unique approach to storytelling and his innovative use of sound and overlapping dialogue. Here are some directing lessons we can learn from Robert Altman:

Embrace a Collaborative Approach: Altman was known for his collaborative approach to filmmaking. He encouraged improvisation and input from his actors, and he often worked with a regular ensemble of actors who appeared in multiple films. He believed that the best ideas could come from anyone on set, and he created an open environment where creativity could flourish. As a director, learn to embrace collaboration and be open to ideas from your team, including actors, crew, and other collaborators.
Emphasize Realism and Authenticity: Altman was known for his realistic and authentic portrayals of characters and situations. He often used naturalistic dialogue, and his films had a documentary-like quality to them. He believed in capturing the messiness and complexity of human behavior, and he encouraged his actors to bring truth and authenticity to their performances. As a director, strive to create realistic and authentic moments in your films, and encourage your actors to deliver performances that feel genuine.
Experiment with Narrative Structure: Altman was known for his unconventional narrative structures. He often played with time, overlapping storylines, and multiple perspectives. He believed that traditional narrative structures could be confining and limiting, and he was willing to take risks and experiment with storytelling techniques. As a director, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and experiment with different narrative structures to create unique and memorable films.
Pay Attention to Sound and Music: Altman was known for his innovative use of sound and music in his films. He often used overlapping dialogue to create a sense of realism and capture the chaos of everyday life. He also paid careful attention to the sound design and used music effectively to enhance the mood and tone of his films. As a director, consider the power of sound and music in your films, and use them intentionally to enhance your storytelling.
Create an Ensemble Atmosphere: Altman often worked with a regular ensemble of actors and fostered a collaborative and inclusive atmosphere on set. He believed that a sense of community and trust among the cast and crew was crucial to the filmmaking process. As a director, strive to create an ensemble atmosphere on your sets, where everyone feels valued, and their contributions are encouraged and appreciated.
Embrace Risk-Taking: Altman was known for his willingness to take risks and push boundaries. He was not afraid to challenge the status quo and explore unconventional ideas and themes in his films. As a director, be willing to take risks, push boundaries, and challenge yourself creatively. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and explore new territories in your filmmaking.
Attention to Detail: Altman was known for his meticulous attention to detail in his films. He paid careful attention to the set design, costumes, props, and other visual elements to create a rich and immersive world for his characters. As a director, pay attention to the details and strive for visual and sensory richness in your films to create a fully realized world for your characters to inhabit.

These are just a few of the directing lessons we can learn from Robert Altman. His innovative and unconventional approach to filmmaking has left a lasting impact on the world of cinema, and his films continue to inspire and influence filmmakers today.

Summing Up Some Directing Lessons We Can Learn From Robert Altman?

Robert Altman’s approach to directing was truly distinctive, and his films continue to be celebrated for their innovation and artistic merit. Aspiring filmmakers can draw inspiration from Altman’s directing lessons, which include fostering a collaborative working environment, prioritizing realism and authenticity, experimenting with narrative structure, utilizing sound and music effectively, creating an ensemble atmosphere, embracing risk-taking, and paying attention to detail.

By incorporating these lessons into r own directing style, filmmakers can strive to create unique and memorable films that push boundaries and leave a lasting impact on audiences.

So, take these lessons to heart and embark onr own filmmaking journey with a willingness to take risks and push the boundaries of storytelling.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

If you listen closely, you can

Interview: Kevin Kennedy Chats About the Rock of Ages UK Tour as it heads to Venue Cymru

Film

Kevin Kennedy chats about Rock of Ages • Blazing Minds

No stranger to the small screen, television’s Kevin Kennedy has left the cobbles of Coronation Street far behind him as he takes to the stage and embraces his inner rock’n’roll star in the UK Tour of ROCK OF AGES which comes to Venue Cymru from May 2nd, 2023 to May 6th, 2023.

Not just an actor, you’ve also been part of many bands over the years. Have you been enjoying indulging your musical side in Rock of Ages?

Oh yes, it’s incredible to be able to put your two passions together – one being of course acting and the spoken word and the other being music, which is something I’ve loved throughout my life. To put those together is a perfect marriage, and in a vehicle such as Rock of Ages it is a whole lot of fun as well!

For those who don’t know, could you tell us a bit about the story of Rock of Ages?

Rock of Ages is set in Los Angeles, California in the mid 1980s. It’s about a rock club called The Bourbon Room, which is absolutely legendary, every single band you could think of has played there. It’s an icon of rock’n’roll and absolutely the place to be, but the local council are attempting to close it down so we are fighting them. Alongside all of that there’s a beautiful love story, lots and lots of jokes and of course some of the most incredible music from the 80s like “Here I Go Again”, “The Final Countdown” and “I Want To Know What Love Is”.

And how does your character, ‘Dennis’ fit into this?

Kevin Kennedy – Dennis Dupree – Photo The Other Richard

So, Dennis is the owner of The Bourbon Room and he’s an absolute rock guru. He’s given all these now legendary bands their stars and he’s been in bands himself. He’s also embraced the drug culture and intense sexuality of the 1980s with much enthusiasm and regularity! He’s a very interesting man to play – he’s got a good heart at his core but he’s a child of his culture and loves his sex, drugs and rock’n’roll! He’s a lot of fun to play!

Audiences may know you best from your time on television, particularly as ‘Curly Watts’ in “Coronation Street”. What are the biggest differences between working TV and theatre?

TV is a totally different skill and technique to theatre. Not least because you may put something in the can after filming and not get the payback of that for months or event years. You can almost film it, and then forget about it. With theatre however, it’s obviously live and live theatre is one of the last true shared experiences you can have – along with football! In the theatre you are all together and sharing one experience which is happening live, right in front of you and there’s not a lot of that left. That in itself generates its own energy and excitement as no two shows are the same. The show that you come and see will never been exactly the same as that ever again which is quite an exciting thought.

“ROCK OF AGES” boasts some of the biggest hits of the 1980s as its soundtrack. Were you a fan of 80s rock music?

I was a young-ish man in the 1980s and not a huge fan of some dance music, so the last refuge of guitar music to a certain extent was that brilliant American glam-rock that we showcase in Rock of Ages. They play their own instruments and perform live on stage so I had a huge respect for that.

Are there any challenges to performing this style of music on stage? Have you drawn from your experience as a musician?

It requires a lot of energy! However, once the show gets going it’s so much fun and no longer feels like work. Once you’ve done the hard work of learning the lines and where to stand we’ve been allowed to just have so much fun with it. Audiences are absolutely loving it because it’s just bonkers.

Do you have a favourite moment or number in the show?

Numerous moments! Although what I really enjoy is watching the other members of the cast doing their big solo numbers because they’re all so incredibly talented and it’s great to watch and learn from them. It’s been so lovely to see them grow into their characters from the first rehearsal through to our performances on tour now, where it all comes to fruition.

What about a favourite song?

Oh the entire finale is my favourite as it is just one big fat rock’n’roll number.

Do you have any ‘must-have’ items whilst on tour?

A cafetière, some coffee (obviously), my Manchester City mug, and of course the most important thing – a PlayStation!

5 ROCK OF AGES. Kevin Kennedy - Dennis Dupree - Photo The Other Richard — Kevin Kennedy – Dennis Dupree – Photo The Other Richard

Finally, what can audiences expect when they come and see Rock of Ages?

They can just expect to have a great time. If you’re a seasoned theatre-goer or you’ve never been to a show before you will have a lot of fun. If you want to come dressed in your leather trousers and embrace your inner 80s rock star then do that! Even bring along an inflatable guitar if you want – everything is just a whole lot of fun.

Rock of Ages with Kevin Kennedy will be at Venue Cymru from the 2nd – 6th of May 2023, tickets are available now from veneucymru.co.uk or the Box Office on 01492 872000.

Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.