British fashion designer Mary Quant, who popularized the miniskirt and is widely credited with creating the iconic 1960s fashion item, died Thursday, her family announced. She was 93.
Quant’s family said the fashion icon died “peacefully at home” in Surrey, southern England, on Thursday. Additionally, they called her “one of the most internationally [recognized] fashion designers of the 20th Century and an outstanding innovator.”
Tributes from around the world poured in to remember Quant. English Model Twiggy Lawson, who became a style icon during the era, paid her respects to Quart on Instagram.
“Mary Quant was such an influence on young girls in the late 50s early 60s,” Lawson wrote. “She revolutionised fashion and was a brilliant female entrepreneur. The 1960s would have never been the same without her. Condolences to her family, RIP dear Dame Mary.”
Quant is known for making the miniskirt popular among young women and launched one of the first global super brands which shaped a new era in fashion. The miniskirt, which was named after the Mini Cooper, was a defining staple of the Swinging ’60.
Quant quickly shot to the top of the fashion world which was around the same time The Beatles and Rolling Stones dominated the music world, and she was forever linked to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Born on Feb. 11, 1930, Quant was the daughter of schoolteachers, and she went on to study art education at Goldsmith’s College in London. She then grew interested in fashion and worked as an apprentice to a hat-maker before trying her own designs.
A new study published Friday by Screen Australia shows that the country’s on-screen television diversity has increased significantly in the past six years, but there remains more to be done.
“Seeing Ourselves 2: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Australian TV Drama” examined the diversity of the main characters in 361 scripted Australian TV and online dramas broadcast between 2016 and 2021. It compared that data with the Australian population and a previous report “Seeing Ourselves” published in 2016.
The new report shows that there is higher representation for First Nations people (7.2% of characters, compared with 4.8% in 2016), disabled people (6.6% from 3.6%), LGBTQI+ people (7.4% from 4.5%), and non-European people (16% from 6.9%).
“However, a number of Australia’s communities remain under-represented on-screen compared to population benchmarks and in particular disability representation remains critically low,” the report said.
The report looked at First Nations people, cultural background of non-First Nations people, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation, age and occupational status, and diversity in children’s drama.
“For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to see ourselves represented on screen in shows such as ‘Mystery Road, ‘Total Control’ and ‘Black Comedy’ is powerful,” said Angela Bates, head of Screen Australia’s First Nations department. “This result shows good progress and it’s not by accident – it represents years of advocacy and consistent hard work to ensure our practitioners feel supported and are afforded opportunities in an industry that hasn’t always been accessible. It’s proof of what’s possible when we are empowered to tell stories from our perspective.”
Although 53% of the Australian population have Anglo-Celtic (British or Irish) ancestry, they represented 71% of main characters in the study. This is down from 82% in 2016, suggesting the TV industry has made efforts to increase the cultural diversity in the main characters. The share of non-European main characters (for example, those with Indian, Chinese or Middle Eastern ancestry) has more than doubled from 6.9% to 16%. However, this is still lower than the population benchmark of 25%. “So, there should be more characters who are: Indian, Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese,” the report says. “There should also be more characters from European backgrounds who are not Anglo-Celtic, for example, characters who are German, Dutch or Italian.”
The rate of disability representation among main characters has increased, but from a low base. Disability remains very under-represented in TV drama (6.6%, up from 3.6% in the previous study) compared to the Australian population (18%). The report found that nearly three quarters of programs did not feature any disabled main characters, an improvement from the 90% reported in 2016. “This indicates that more work needs to be done so that disabled people are included as main characters in our screen stories,” the report said.
The gender of main characters was evenly split between women and men, similar to the Australian population. There were 13 characters who were transgender (0.4% of main characters) and five who are non-binary (0.2%), but there was no nationwide population benchmark for trans and/or gender diverse people against which to compare.
Representation of LGBTQI+ characters increased to 7.4%, up from 4.5% in 2016. This is still lower than the estimated 11% of Australia’s population who identify as LGBTQI+. The report found that 69% of programs did not feature any LGBTIQ+ characters, a slight increase from 73% in 2016.
The study found that Australian TV dramas tend to feature younger adults, with 62% of main characters aged between 18-44 years. There is under-representation of main characters aged under 12 (2.2% compared to population benchmark of 15%) and only 7% aged 60 and over, much lower than 23% of the population in this age group. Main characters in TV drama are more likely to have higher occupational status than the Australian population, suggesting a bias towards socioeconomic advantage on screens.
Children’s programs were found to have a higher level of cultural diversity than general drama. This increased since 2016 in terms of First Nations representation (9.1%) and characters from non-European backgrounds (22%). However, levels of disability (3.8%) and LGBTIQ+ representation (3.1%) are much lower among children’s titles compared to general TV drama titles.
“The wheels of change are in motion but there is a lot more work to do to achieve diversity on our screens that is both authentic and creatively and commercially fulfilling,” said Screen Australia CEO, Graeme Mason.
“This report provides international context in Part 3 by comparing similar research with the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. While our on-screen results compare favorably with some of our peers on several metrics – such as our strong First Nations and women’s on-screen representation – other jurisdictions are ahead of the game in terms of taking action and implementing whole of sector strategies. We can learn from these countries as we look at ways to pick up the pace of change in our local industry.”
Indian director Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy will be part of the Cannes Film Festival’s official sections. It will play under Midnight Screenings. This was announced today by Thierry Fremaux, the Festival Director, in Paris.
Kashyap has been a regular at Cannes. His Gangs of Wasseypur was screened at the 2012 Director’s Fortnight, which is an important sidebar of the 12-day event that begins on May 16.
“Bombay Talkies”, an anthology had Kashyap as one of the helmers. It was part of Special Screenings at the 2013 Cannes.
Kashyap’s thriller “Ugly” was also screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and this was followed by Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016 also in the Director’s Fortnight.
Besides Kennedy, the Festival will have the works of Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Wim Wenders, Kore-eda Hirokazu and Todd Haynes. These filmmakers will premiere movies both in and out of competition, meaning only a select few will have a chance at capturing the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest honour. All of these filmmakers are a familiar presence on the Croisette, having screened movies there before.
This time, Cannes will have more women directors – after being criticised for failing to give them adequate representation. There will be a record number of six films from women — including Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer,” Justine Triet’s “Anatomie d’une chute,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel et Adama,” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary’s “Olfa’s Daughters.”
The top Competition slot will have several Italian titles from auteurs like Nanni Moretti (“The Sun of the Future”), Marco Bellocchio (“Rapito”) and Rohrwacher, who was in competition before with “The Wonders” and “Happy as Lazzaro” which won the Jury Prize and the screenplay award, respectively.
The second most important section at Cannes A Certain Regard will showcase the works of emerging directors from all over the world, including a large delegation of films from the African continent, and a first film from Mongolia, Zoljargal Purevdash’s “If Only I Could Hibernate.” A Certain Regard will kick off with the French film “Le Règne Animal” by Thomas Cailley, whose feature debut “Les Combattants” won a few Cesar Awards.
Here is the full list:
COMPETITION
“Club Zero,” Jessica Hausner
“Asteroid City,” Wes Anderson
“The Zone of Interest,” Jonathan Glazer
“Fallen Leaves,” Aki Kaurismaki
“Les Filles D’Olfa” (“Four Daughters”), Kaouther Ben Hania
Guardians 3 will be director James Gunn’s final MCU installment before focusing all his efforts on his newly acquired DC Universe. His brother, Sean, is often more involved in Gunn’s movies than expected.
Many know Sean Gunn as Yondu‘s right-hand man, Kraglin. Additionally, though, he’s the stand-in actor for Rocket Raccoon, meaning he provides all of the movement for the character’s motion capture.
As a result, there are numerous scenes in the Guardians franchise that are a combination of Sean Gunn both standing and crawling around because he is playing both Kraglin and Rocket Raccoon.
As he plans to leave that work behind him following Guardians 3, this may add another question mark to Rocket Raccoon’s MCU future.
Gunn Done as Rocket after Guardian 3
Many fans know by now that Kraglin actor Sean Gunn also lends his talents as the stand-in actor for Rocket Raccoon’s motion capture in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
While admitting to Empire Magazine that it’s “a lot harder” to play Rocket now that he’s older, he mentions the upcoming Guardians threequel will be his “swan song as Rocket,” indicating he’ll no longer be providing the motion capture work needed to bring the beloved Guardian to life.
Director James Gunn has previously played coy when discussing Rocket’s possible death in Guardians 3, saying “that’s not how stories work” when a fan suggested Rocket could be kept alive by simply being sent away to an unknown place.
The actor’s most recent comments may not come as a total surprise at this point, as Rocket’s death has already been a popular topic of discussion lately thanks to how the movie has been marketed.
For instance, the film’s official plot explicitly states it will revolve around saving Rocket’s life, and many fans believe the trailers and promotional posters for Vol. 3 heavily imply the movie itself will be Rocket Raccoon’s MCU swan song.
Will Guardians 3 Bring the Death of Rocket?
Granted, Sean Gunn’s departure from the Rocket character is partially due to his brother ending his MCU run with Guardians 3. Even still, it would certainly be the most full-circle moment one could ask for if Rocket Raccoon went out by sacrificing his life to save the Guardians, just as his friend once did for him.
Throughout the Guardians franchise, Rocket has evolved from a selfish bounty hunter to a caring, compassionate companion and comrade. Sure, he may gripe and groan, but he’s become more protective of his family than he is of himself.
Much of the promotional footage for the upcoming film implies that Rocket will have to face his past head-on, further leaning into the contrast that fans will see of Rocket before and after he became a Guardian of the Galaxy.
Whether he’ll make it out alive is yet to be seen, but the end of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise may bring about a permanent goodbye for the members that make up the cosmic group of heroes.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will debut in theaters on May 5.
Yellowjackets began as a story about a game. After all, the Yellowjackets team crashed because they were heading off to play soccer at Nationals. For the girls on the team, the game was always a serious thing. They played a lot harder than most and even viciously at times. And now, the team might end up seeing another game transform into something dark. In their sanctuary cabin, the Yellowjackets team found a deck of playing cards. And the cards have been lurking in the background since season one. So far, they’ve taken on innocuous roles such as existing as an entertaining pastime or indicating which chores the survivors will do. But in the present timeline, we see the cards present more ominously.
In the most recent episode of Yellowjackets, Lottie sees a vision of the Queen of Hearts, her eyes scratched out, and it seems to haunt her. We can’t say for certain, but it feels like Yellowjackets playing cards are about to become lots that point to cannibalism or safety. Or should we say, the cards will become Lot(tie)s.
Showtime
Just in case the term feels a bit archaic, drawing lots means choosing from a set of objects in order to determine an outcome. So, let’s start off with the obvious. The Yellowjackets team is already using the playing cards to determine fate in the wilderness timeline. In episode one, we learn that Misty has to get the water because she drew the four. And even though she protests, the others have no sympathy for her. That was her lot, after all, and so she must follow the letter of the card. It’s easy to see how this might devolve now that the girls are considering cannibalism as an option for survival. We basically see Mari threaten Coach Ben with it.
The team is also growing increasingly fatalistic. They clearly express their faith in Lottie and her powers of the wilderness in season two, episode four. It really feels like they have leaned fully into the idea of Lottie as a kind of Messiah, a vessel for otherworldly powers, and the wilderness as a purveyor of magical gifts… for the right price. If Lottie were to imbue the playing cards on Yellowjackets with a symbolic meaning, it seems likely the team would quickly come to believe there was a destiny associated with them. It would be an easy leap to believe whoever drew the cannibalism card was meant for death.
Showtime
Additionally, in season one of Yellowjackets, we get a glimpse of the full-fledged cannibalism of the team. And we even likened that structure to a fairy tale court. Playing cards, of course, have exactly that, a royal court. Every person who participates in the scene of cannibalism has a role to play and a place to sit. Someone serves, someone butchers, there’s a Queen at the center, and she’s flanked by other members. The idea of choosing roles or “court positions” for the cannibalistic feast via playing card draws aligns with the vision we see.
From a more mythological standpoint, an article in Primertimer, discusses Yellowjackets ties to the god Bacchus. The article notes that traditional sacrifices to the god were made to be seen as willing participants. Worshippers would place grain on the ground, and animals would bow their heads to eat and thus “willingly” agree to their own sacrifice. When the team consumes Jackie, Shauna notes, “She wants us to.” And the original wilderness sacrifice, the bear, also knelt at Lottie’s feet. The cards could serve as a strange indicator of “willingness” to participate in the ritual if the entire team agrees on the construct. Thus, the religious rite could feel good to those who partook.
Paul Sarkis/SHOWTIME.
And, in fact, judging by what we saw in the first episode of Yellowjackets, the playing cards could go from game to murder to game in a breath. It’s possible the team will set up something like a game of fate. The Yellowjacket who draws the cannibalism card will have to make it to the team’s “goal” without dying and can thus earn their life. This would bring the team full-circle and back to the game of soccer from which they began.
For some super spoilers, turn away now. But Melanie Lynskey and Sophie Nélisse seem to confirm the theory in an interview with Bustle. Nélisse says to Lynskey, “If you were to pick that card to get killed, we’d be like, no, we can’t kill her, let’s just give it to someone else.”
So which card means cannibalism on Yellowjackets? Lottie’s vision and the details of the original cannibalistic scene point us to the Queen of Hearts. As Lottie is reading her cult’s affirmations in the present timeline, the vision of the Queen of Hearts comes to her. Its appearance clearly shocks and scares her. Later she spills blood on a stump and asks, “Can this just be enough?” It sounds like the darkness of the wilderness is hungry for blood and flesh once again. Could this foreshadow the adult Yellowjackets sacrificing one of their own in a recreation of their wilderness games? Clearly, the palm blood will not be enough.
Ultimately, we don’t know for sure what the Queen of Hearts means. But we do know that the Queen of Hearts is missing her eyes. And on Yellowjackets, that’s a cogent sign that death is lurking on the horizon. In addition, we saw in season one that the sacrificed girl, a.k.a. pit girl, was wearing Jackie’s heart necklace. Since Jackie was wearing it when she died as well, the heart could become a symbol of death. Another check in the Queen of Hearts equals death card on Yellowjackets. Finally, while discussing honey bees in season two, Nat implies Lottie has always enjoyed getting rid of other queens. That could serve as another veiled Yellowjackets reference to the Queen of Hearts.
For now, as we know from season one, the Queens are missing from the deck. But as the Antler Queen rises and the Queen of Hearts stares eyelessly at us on Yellowjackets, we bet their discovery, and more cannibalism, is just around the corner.
“The Berlin-based (Germany) indie games developer Twisted Ramble Games are today very happy and thrilled to announce that their 2D puzzle platformer “Duru – About Mole Rats and Depression”, is coming to PC (Windows and MAC) via Steam on May 5th, 2023, with a Nintendo Switch version planned following launch.” – Jonas Ek, TGG.
Divian Ladwa is a British actor who gained notable international attention for playing the psychologically troubled character in the Oscar nominated film LION (2016). He is popularly known for playing Hugh in the BAFTA winning comedy series DETECTORISTS (2014-2022). Further work in film includes playing a timorous Dev King in the British feature film 8 MINUTES IDLE (2012) and a vengefully hot-tempered Rahim Begum in the EIFF best drama winner SAXON (2007). He has an extensive theatre background working with a wide range of companies including Tamasha Theatre Company and Fluxx Improvised Theatre, early in his career.
Divian and I had an in depth interview about his experience being a working actor in England. Here is what he had to say:
How long have you been an actor and how did you get into it?
DIVIAN: Within a year or two after I left secondary (High) school, I did my first professional gig. I was trying to get into drama school but couldn’t manage to get into one. I did however start working with an improv group called Fluxx and a new writing theatre company called Tamasha. This was during a time when I was finding as many places as I could for acting lessons and classes, including at The City Lit, The Precinct, Impulse, workshops with various theatre companies and Fluxx Improv. We ran classes at Fluxx as well as doing shows.
What were some of the roles you have seen that inspired you to be an actor?
DIVIAN: As a kid, I loved watching films so much. I watched everything. It was a different time so you could watch the type of movies that parents now won’t let their kids watch. Even though they were the ones watching them when they were kids. I loved watching ALIEN, TERMINATOR, THE GOONIES, BACK TO THE FUTURE, mostly films from the 80s. During school holidays or when I pretended to be sick, I’d watch black and white films during the day and sometimes my Dad’s Spaghetti Westerns. It would take about four years for a movie to go from cinema to terrestrial TV, so as kids, we’d anticipate movies eagerly and it always felt like a big event when a film premiered on TV. We would all be speaking about the movie at school the following day. Now everything is a screen tap away.
To be a working actor, it is one of the hardest jobs in the film business. How hard is it to get acting roles today?
DIVIAN: You go from wishing you had an agent, to wishing you can be seen for projects, to wishing you’ll land one of those projects, to wishing one of those projects will bear fruit and you’ll work more regularly. Sometimes you can get close to that last stage and within a few months, feel like you’ve ended up back at the beginning. It’s like Sisyphus. You get this self-tape request which is like his boulder but first it’s square shaped. You spend time crafting it into the sphere you need it to be and push it up a hill, at which point its gone, disappeared into the abyss. You’ve sent in your self-tape and now you are at the bottom of the hill again, waiting for the next opportunity for another boulder to arrive. That would be a very generalized view for most actors, I think. That boulder can represent tapes, invites, agent submissions, your own writing, funding applications, etc. It can feel tedious and like an ouroboros cycle of no escape but as covered by Camus, if you enjoy crafting the sphere and view the hill as an opportunity to exercise those acting muscles, you are in a better place than when you were not seen at all.
DIVIAN CONT’D: More personally, when I started acting in theatre, there were not many companies that would see me or employ me or respond to my invites to shows so my work was very limited. I would often take jobs where we would tour plays to schools or prisons. Once I did a play in an old home. I did have a good run of commercials for a couple of years but when I did Detectorists, it felt like I was being taken a bit more seriously and I was being seen for more TV and film. It’s not a fairy tale with a big payoff for everyone. It’s more like a game of snakes and ladders with peaks and troughs. A journey through choppy waters. Some people you see out there, seem to start that journey on a cruise ship and sail by quite smoothly. Then, there are dopey dreamers like me who jump into the ocean with nothing but a homemade rubber ducky and hand-me-down speedos, flapping around with loads of energy but not really going anywhere until you tire out and just float. The waves seem to take you forward yet backward. You can’t stop. It’s not a train. You can’t get off. You’ve been in it too long. You still love it when you get it. It’s sink or swim. Sink or swim.
For you, what have been your biggest challenges in your career thus far?
DIVIAN: Apart from the up and downs adventure I mentioned above, I’d say working on stories that are based on real people. I did a headphone verbatim theatre play for Theatre Royal Stratford East called Mad Blud. The technique for verbatim theatre requires the actor to listen to an interview and perform the person they are listening to. This play dealt with issues of knife crime in London. One of the interviews we performed was of a family who had lost their son. That already made it difficult but one night, the family came to see the show and they were sat in the front row. I could feel them there whilst we spoke their words of loss. They were very nice to us after the show, but I recall being quite silent in the post show Q&A. I also remember crying when trying to answer a question when I was being interviewed for a book about devised plays. A researcher on behalf of an author and I were discussing a solo performance I did for an old home and this emotion just flooded out when I tried to answer one of her questions. I don’t think we realize what we carry with us, subconsciously, and sometimes it comes out and you’re like, “oh wow… I didn’t know that time was so challenging for me.” Also, dealing with loss when you are working is a hard one. Not being present to support your family can make you feel like you are making selfish choices. It’s my worst fear.
You played Mantosh, Dev Patel’s brother in LION. Can you tell us about that experience?
DIVIAN: It was quite possibly the most amazing experience of my life. You may gauge an idea of where I was at in life and my career from what you’ve read so far to then get a job with Nicole Kidman was out of this world. On top of that, she was going to play my Mum. HAHAHA!!! Sometimes it feels like it didn’t happen. I had done some small budget films in the UK, but I never thought I’d actually end up in a film that would go on to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The story was incredible, the cast was sensational, and the director’s vision was superb. We also had Greig Fraser, quite possibly one of the best DoPs out there. Normally, an actor like me is kept a little separate from the big actors but on this job, I was treated the same as everyone else. The director really embraced me. I met his family, and he took me and Dev Patel out a few times, even cooked for the cast and the Brielery family, whose story we tell. Being in Australia was an amazing experience as well. Melbourne is a great place for food and Tasmania is wild. I’d go back in a heartbeat. Everyone I met out there was awesome.
You are also in the series DETECTORISTS. And you are quite funny in it. Do you prefer comedy to drama?
DIVIAN: I love both and I’d like to continue doing both. I think comedy can feel quite rewarding on the day and in the moment. The cast and crew all seem to be in good spirits when working on comedies. Drama is also rewarding but in a different way. The rewarding feeling is not instant but comes gradually. You feel like you’ve done something more cinematic regardless of the scale.
Having worked on big budget films like ANT-MAN AND THE WASP and DAVID COPPERFIELD, as well as multiple indie films, do you like working on indie or commercial films more?
DIVIAN: They are both fun to work on. I think indie films are a little harder because the turn-around is so quick. With more money backing the project, you can play more and try different things. With ANT-MAN AND THE WASP for example, we could continue ad-libbing after the scene had ended. My last line in the film was made up on the day. I asked Payton Reed, the director, if I could say it, and he was like, “yeah, why not”. We don’t really get that luxury on an indie unless you can work it into a setup early enough. When I did MR MALCOLM’S LIST, I’d ask director Emma Holly Jones in advance if I could try stuff and she would find my suggestions funny. She was working on the script anyway so she would add any of my silly bits that she liked into the script so when we came to film, those beats were already there on the day’s set ups. That’s quite a specific example though, as Emma was already planning to get my character more involved than what was originally scripted. That said, there is a discipline that comes with indies. Coming in, knowing you only have a few takes to get it right, before they need to move on can be something to relish as you utilize more of your craft and approach, coming in prepared with the openness to play and the ability to adapt to direction.
Do you have a project you have worked on that you are most proud of?
DIVIAN: I guess LION would be the most obvious one, but I think I’ll go with a short I did with Film4 called NAPTHA (dir. Moin Hussain). It’s available on their website. It’s a drama about a father and son with a sci-fi undertone. I’ve always wanted to work on projects that require that sort of naturalistic performance where it doesn’t look like the actors are acting like SO LONG MY SON or a Hirokazu Kore-eda film, but that class of film rarely presents itself. Especially in the UK where the variety feels limited to comedy or procedural TV with scenes full of exposition. NAPTHA allowed me to play a lead role and to work on a tone for a film that I would like to do more of. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I was particularly good at it but it was the first time I got to do the type of acting that I’ve always longed for.
Do you have a funny anecdote you can share with us from one of the sets you have worked on?
DIVIAN: Ha. I can’t think of one. I must not be any fun to work with if I don’t have any. Being on set is a genuinely fun place to be. You are with likeminded individuals and can quickly bond and banter with people from different departments like the make-up team or the unit drivers. The only thing that comes to mind now was when I was doing ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, where people kept telling me you’re paid to wait. One day, I was on second unit and this phrase really rang true. I was sitting on those wooden chairs but alas, I still haven’t had one with my name on it, and the lovely PAs (runners) would check I’m ok and offer to get me anything like coffee. Filming in a big studio, it was tricky to just walk over to a table like we do in the UK, where a tea and coffee set up is present. In the States, first and foremost, you can’t even get a cappuccino at the hotel you’re staying in as a barmaid explained to me on my first day in Georgia, “They don’t do that here.” “But this is America!!!” was my response. “They drink it in the movies all the time.” I did not get my cappuccino that day. Or any day during my time at that hotel. Back on set, I did have a small window to get one before crafty decided to send the coffee machine into the abyss along with my self-tapes. I also didn’t know what ‘crafty’ was. I kept being told that “crafty can’t do that for you” and I thought whoever it is who can’t do it, certainly sounds crafty to me.
DIVIAN CONT’D: BUT…. There was a coffee machine somewhere cos the amazing Dante Spinotti of HEAT was getting espressos whenever he wanted. I just needed the right people on the inside to sort me out. One day, on second unit, when one of the PAs asked if I wanted anything, I said that I’d love an espresso, but they don’t have that machine. She said she knows of one and she’d be happy to get me one and that she’d like one too but isn’t allowed. So I said, “Cool. Can I have TWO espressos?” When she came back, I took one and told her I didn’t want the other one so she could have it. She left happily. A little while past. I was still being paid to wait and another PA came. This is another big difference between big budget and indie. Big budget in the States has like a hundred PAs whilst an indie in the UK just has one runner. If you’re lucky. Anyway, she’s like “Can I get you coffee?” and I’m about to say no as I have one in my hands until something twigs in my brain so I ask, “What sort of coffee should I get?” She recommends a latte. “Ok. I’ll have a latte.” She returns with the latte, but I just so happened to change my mind, so I tell her to have it if she wants. She’s very grateful. I was sorting out coffees for these kids all day. I’m essentially making people happy by listening to what they want and then letting them do the work they need to do to get it. This is what it must be like to be God. All is going well until the Big Boss PA arrives on our sound stage. A devilish, 4’10” veteran of the game. Now the PAs can’t get themselves, I mean, can’t get me a coffee as I now have to ask the Big Boss PA, but I can’t let my new pals down especially as the PAs in main unit, my buddies for weeks have found out that I’m getting orders in and have been visiting from the neighboring sound stage just to check in on me. So, I find out what people want and order them one at a time one. I can hear the Big Boss PA over the radio as she goes to get my latest order of frappa-dappa-dingleberry mocho-choca-la-la-da-da say, “if he asks me to make him a coffee one more time…” and when she comes back, I have one more request for an Americano… with cream. I never did any work that day. Just sat in my nameless chair. Caffeinated as fuck.
What’s next in the pipeline for you?
DIVIAN: I did do another sci-fi short that should hopefully come out this year. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & YOU! is written and directed by Charlie Brafman and Magnus McCullagh. They made an exceptional short western called RABBIT’S FOOT, which is available on Omeletto. In this AI based sci-fi, I play another lead and my character has a break-down about 30 seconds into the film and then we go on one hell of an adventure. It required me to play comedy, drama and romance and should be quirky and fun for audiences that get to see it, which I hope will be lots and lots of people. I’m sure it will hit the festival circuit later this year so keep an eye out for it.
Animated Movie Characters Vs. Live-Action Versions
Who didn’t love watching cartoons and reading comics growing up?
With so many animated shows getting adapted into TV shows and movies, here’s a roundup of what the original characters looked like vs. the actors who played them IRL. Take a look:
1.
To start, here’s the animated version of the Grinch in the 1966 television special:
And Jim Carrey as the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000):
2.
Here’s the cartoon version of the Scooby-Doo gang doing what they do best, solving mysteries:
And here’s the live-action version of the crew with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Linda Cardellini as Velma, and Matthew Lillard as Shaggy in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004):
3.
Here’s the original Dora the Explorer that premiered on Nickelodeon in 2000:
And Isabela Merced as the live-action version of Dora in the feature film, Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019):
4.
Here are Josie and the Pussycats featured in the CBS TV series that aired during the early ’70s:
And Tara Reid as Melody Valentine, Rachael Leigh Cook as Josie McCoy, and Rosario Dawson as Valerie Brown in Josie and the Pussycats (2001):
5.
Here’s The Cat in the Hat we remember from the TV special that aired in 1971:
And Mike Meyers’ version of the childhood icon in The Cat in the Hat (2003):
6.
Here’s the animated version of Fred Flintstone back in the ’60s:
And John Goodman as Fred in The Flintstones (1994):
7.
Here’s the OG version of Speed Racer made famous in the ’60s:
And Emile Hirsch as a live-action version of Speed Racer in 2008:
8.
Here’s Christopher Robin in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that originated in 1988:
And Ewan McGregor playing the title character in Christopher Robin (2018):
9.
Here’s the animated version of Inspector Gadget in the mid-’90s:
And Matthew Broderick flying around as Inspector Gadget in 1999:
10.
Here’s Fat Albert when he appeared in Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids between the ’70s and ’80s:
And Kenan Thompson as the live-action Fat Albert in 2004:
11.
Here’s Dennis the Menace in the CBS television series based on the comic strip:
And Mason Gamble as the real-life version of Dennis in 1993:
12.
Here’s Bloom in Nickelodeon’s animated series, Winx Club:
And Abigail Cowen as Bloom in Netflix’s Fate: The Winx Saga:
13.
Here’s Gargamel in the animated TV series, The Smurfs:
And Hank Azaria as the live-action Gargamel in The Smurfs (2011):
14.
Here’s Veronica, Archie, and Betty from the Archie comics:
And KJ Apa as Archie, Lili Reinhart as Betty, and Camila Mendes as Veronica in Riverdale:
15.
Finally, here’s Aang getting prepped for battle in Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender:
And Noah Ringer as Aang in The Last Airbender (2010):
Which animated character did you love seeing in a live-action movie or TV series? Tell us about it in the comments!
Comcast, the conglomerate behind NBCUniversal and the Sky European TV giant, is to invest $200 million in Bodhi Tree Systems, a company headed by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, a former head of Disney in India.
The move was approved by the Competition Commission of India on Wednesday. The funds will be directed to buying a small minority stake in Indian media group Viacom18.
The move is part of a complicated series of transactions that bind Viacom18 ever closer to Reliance Industries, the petroleum to telecoms conglomerate controlled by Mukesh Ambani which is now upending Indian media with its Jio cellular, broadband internet and streaming companies.
Bodhi Tree, which was also behind Viacom18’s nearly $3 billion bid for digital rights to the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, has a commitment to invest a total of $1.69 billion into Viacom18, with $538 million as an initial tranche.
Bodhi Tree’s current transaction is reported to be backed by payments of $250 million by the Qatar investment Authority, Bodhi Tree and Comcast. It is understood that Bodhi Tree will go out to investors to raise the remaining portion of the $1.69 billion funding.
In a statement, Viacom18 said that the dealmaking will mean that its equity is 50.994% owned by TV18, 48.994% owned by Paramount Global and that Bodhi Tree has a 0.11% stake. Additionally, Reliance Industries will own 82% of Viacom18’s convertible preference shares and Bodhi Tree the remaining 17.8%.
When all those stakes are converted, the fully diluted ownership looks somewhat different: Reliance Industries would own 60.4%, TV18 13.5%, Bodhi Tree (and its backers) 13.1% and Paramount Global 13%.
Viacom 18 explains that it gets $1.89 billion of cash for its planned growth. This it intends to uses “to innovate and disrupt the media and entertainment sector, with Shankar and Murdoch providing strategic and operational guidance [and] leveraging their track record of building iconic media businesses.”
The massively high profile IPL cricket series is now playing free of charge on JioCinema in direct competition with Disney’s paid-for Star Television.
James Murdoch was previously the Asia-based chairman and CEO of Star Television, prior to its sale to Disney. He was also chairman and CEO of Sky, prior to its sale to Comcast.
If you missed the adrenaline-fuelled Cocaine Bear at the movies, rejoice because this B-movie blast is charging onto streaming service Peacock. From actress and director Elizabeth Banks, this thriller provides gore and guffaws in its story of a botched drugs run in 1985 north Georgia, a black bear’s cocaine binge, and the fictionalised carnage that follows. And you can watch Cocaine Bear online now with a $4.99 subscription to Peacock (opens in new tab).
Fans of cringe-worthy horror-comedies (think Lake Placid, Slither, Black Sheep) will find plenty to like about Cocaine Bear. It’s a gory, action-packed yarn about a disparate group of characters – a nurse and her missing daughter, a drug kingpin and his lackeys, delinquent teens and a local detective – who find themselves in the path of a rampaging, 500lb black bear that’s ingested a crazy amount of coke.
A brilliant cast go into this bloody caper with gusto. Margo Martindale (August: Osage County) stars as a gung-ho park ranger, Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) is the weepy son of Syd (played by the late, great Ray Liotta), while Isiah Whitlock Jr is the detective trying to locate the missing drugs – and evade the bear who’ll tear through anyone for a bump!
It’s a wildly outrageous thrill ride, and you can read below how to watch Cocaine Bear online and stream the hit horror-comedy from anywhere.
Watch Cocaine Bear online in the US
(Image credit: Peacock/NBCUniversal )
Cocaine Bear comes tearing onto Peacock from Friday, April 14, offering a wildly entertaining night in front of the TV.
While there is no Peacock free trial (and hasn’t been for some time) you can save 17% when signing up to its annual plans (opens in new tab) ($49.99 or $99.99 a year respectively).
How to Watch Cocaine Bear online from anywhere
If you’re a US citizen on vacation or working overseas, you can still connect to Peacock and stream Cocaine Bear just like you would at home.
While Peacock TV blocks access from IP addresses outside of the US, there’s a handy piece of software called a VPN which can change your IP address to make it look like you’re accessing streaming services from any country in the world.
For example, US citizens vacationing in Canada can subscribe to a VPN, join a US based server and stream Cocaine Bear on Peacock from anywhere in the world, just like you would back home.
Step-by-step of using a VPN to unblock:
1. Choose a VPN and install it – our go-to recommendation is ExpressVPN (opens in new tab)
2. Connect to a server – for Peacock TV, for example, you’ll want to connect to a server based in the US
3. Go to the streaming platform you wish to access – for Cocaine Bear, head over to Peacock TV (opens in new tab)
Can I stream Cocaine Bear from anywhere else in the world?
Cocaine Bear is exclusive to NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock in the US. As of yet, there’s no word on when or which international streaming services it’ll be made available.
However, it is currently possible to rent or buy as a PVOD title on platforms like Apple TV and Amazon in numerous countries (opens in new tab), for a one-off fee. For example, you can rent it from CA$24.99 in Canada, $19.99 in Australia, or £15.99 in the UK.
And if you’re an American abroad trying to access a pre-existing Peacock subscription? Simply purchase a VPN (opens in new tab) and follow the instructions above to get access all the excellent blockbuster movies, TV shows and Peacock Original content no matter where you are
What CinemaBlend thought
Cinemas need and deserve movies that are pure and uncut bundles of nasty fun like Cocaine Bear […] We’ve got another potential word of mouth success story on our hands, as those who get the first bumps off of Cocaine Bear’s supply just might try to pressure their friends and loved ones into doing the same. When it comes to Elizabeth Banks’ rollicking ramble through the woods of Georgia, it’s not a lethal or life threatening decision to just say yes.
Don’t let me down Emmys, and nominate the songs of “Daisy Jones.”
Variety has learned exclusively about Amazon Prime Video’s plans for which songs will be submitted for Primetime Emmy Awards consideration in the outstanding music and lyrics category from the acclaimed musical drama miniseries “Daisy Jones & the Six.” While there are 11 songs that are part of the tracklist of the fictional album “Aurora,” which was released by Amazon, three tracks will be submitted for the Television Academy — the hypnotic “Let Me Down Easy,” the powerfully passionate “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb),” and the dynamic and thematic showstopper “The River.”
The original music and lyrics category is one of the few Creative Arts races where all series, regardless of genre submissions, compete against one another. Some of the most notable winners have included “Agatha All Along” from Marvel’s “WandaVision,” “Dick in a Box” from the NBC variety sketch show “Saturday Night Live” and most recently, the titular number from the Apple musical series, “Schmigadoon!”
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
“Look at Us Now (Honeycomb),” written by Blake Mills, Jason Boesel, Stephony Smith, Jonathan Rice and Marcus Mumford, has a great history within the series. It was cut from the fictional band’s debut record “SevenEightNine” before showing up on their “Aurora” album. Billy (played by Sam Claflin) wrote the song as a promise to be a better husband to his wife and band photographer Camila (Camila Morrone).
There are a couple of moments and versions of the song, but in the episode titled “Track 8: Looks Like We Made It,” the band’s intoxicated lead singer Daisy (Riley Keough) injures herself on stage and eventually sings the song a capella. This moment triggers Billy, who refuses to play the song on tour, to storm off.
Mumford, known for his band Mumford & Sons, is already a previous Emmy nominee for the main title theme music to “Ted Lasso” in 2021. Nevertheless, despite the song creating a revelatory moment, its two song counterparts seem like better shots for recognition.
If there is Emmy gold coming the show’s way, it feels as though the gorgeously moving “The River,” penned by Blake Mills, Z Berg, Joe Keefe and Kayslee Don Collins, would be the one.
The thematic chart-topper becomes the narrative crux heavily featured throughout the 10-episode musical miniseries. You hear and see it prominently in the live concert montage during episode eight, where Keough stakes her claim as a worthy contender for lead actress limited, setting the screen ablaze with her sultry vocals and physical dominance alongside Chaflin.
However, the music reaches new depths when Keough duets with Brazilian actress Nabiyah Be as Daisy’s best friend and former roommate Simone during the series finale, “Track 10: Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Featuring the most memorable 78 seconds of the series, the two come on stage together, creating soulful harmonizations within the beautifully complicated song that takes the story to new heights, in addition to orchestrating the strength and vitality of Claflin’s performance.
And then there’s the shoe-tapping jam of “Let Me Down Easy,” written by Z Berg, Ali Tamposi, James Valentine and Blake Mills.
Coming midway through the series’ journey, episode five titled “Track 5: Fire,” showcases the band’s first steps into the recording booth to create its album. Nonetheless, the viewer simultaneously witnesses the magic and tension between Billy and Daisy’s creative minds, who are unwilling (or unable) to compromise and find common ground.
It’s the most Fleetwood Mac-sounding track, recalling the time when the band recorded “Rumours” in 1977, providing glimmers of hope of a bright future that will be marred by fame and pride.
Developed by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and based on the best-selling book by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the limited series follows a fictional rock band that’s loosely inspired by Fleetwood mack on their journey through the 1970s Los Angeles music scene. The epic music inspired Variety to list the best fictional bands in movies and television.
Neustadter and Weber also serve as executive producers for the series along with Oscar and Emmy winner Reese Witherspoon (“Walk the Line” and “Big Little Lies”), James Ponsoldt, Will Graham and Lauren Neustadter. Josie Craven, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Amanda Kay Price are credited producers.
“Daisy Jones” is one of six Prime Video series vying for Emmy recognition in the outstanding limited or anthology series race, alongside “Dead Ringers” with Rachel Weisz, “The English” with Emily Blunt and “Swarm” with Dominique Fishback.
Visit the prediction pages for the respective awards ceremonies: OSCARS | EMMYS
“As the saying goes, life is no picnic, unless of course you’re at one,” Padma Lakshmi intro’d this week’s Elimination Challenge onTop Chef: World All-Stars. And while all of the competitors have had it tough this season so far, it certainly hasn’t been a picnic for Dale McKay and Begoña Rodrigo. Running concurrently with the main series, Dale and Begoña have been battling their way through Last Chance Kitchen, Top Chef’s spinoff that grants eliminated players the opportunity to cook their way back into the competition.
“Top Chef” judge Gail Simmons on favorite cuisines and dream guests
That chance finally arrived on Thursday’s episode, during which—instead of a traditional Quickfire Challenge—the remaining chefs got to exit the kitchen and enter the judges’ seat as Dale and Begoña whipped up afternoon-tea towers spotlighting a finger sandwich, a scone, and a pastry, all in under an hour.
“You chefs will be helping to decide who gets back into the competition,” Padma explained, granting the cast one cumulative vote to go along with hers and Tom Colicchio’s after a blind tasting. (“I can judge anyone at any time. Let me know and I can judge the shit out of you,” Sara joked.) Not only would the winning competitor get a spot back in the kitchen, but they’d also win immunity for the Elimination Challenge. “Personally I don’t want anybody to be back. Why would I want anybody to be back?” Ali asked.
Tasked with completing seven tea towers, Begoña and Dale had plenty to do in a frenetic sixty minutes of cooking. “If you try to do something to out of the box, you’re fucked,” Buddha said. Alas, that’s exactly what happened with Begoña’s “complex” spread. The Spanish chef ambitiously tried to make crab sandwiches, scones with a beetroot-tomato compote and eclairs (“why would you try and do choux?” Nicole questioned during the tasting), but in hustling to get everything plated, she dropped a stack of dishes and did not have time to place her scones on her towers. “I cannot believe that, Jesus Christ,” she lamented.
So it wasn’t a surprise when Dale’s display of bacon-Gruyère scones, a ginger cake with mango compote, and an egg salad and smoked salmon sandwich won the vote unanimously, bringing the Canadian toque officially back into the game. “I’m happy to have Dale back but I’m also terrified because I know he loves to compete,” Nicole said.
And, though Dale now had immunity, there was no rest for the returning chef as he was immediately thrown into the Elimination Challenge. “We want you to work in teams to create a ready-to-serve picnic basket for the judges and our guests at Highclere Castle, the famous home of the Crawleys in Downton Abbey,” Padma announced. (Sara: “My mom loves that show!”) To match the regal surroundings, each basket had to contain five elevated dishes including one sweet course.
After drawing knives to decide the two teams, we were left with Team Blue (Sara, Charbel, Nicole, Victoire, Buddha, and Dale) and Team Yellow (Gabri, Tom, Sylwia, Amar, and Ali), who were given £200 per team to shop at the luxury department store Fortnum & Mason (“the official grocer of the queen herself”) for specialty items and another £250 to pad out the rest of their picnic at Whole Foods. They’d have one-and-a-half hours to prep, cook, and pack up their baskets, which would be enjoyed the next day by the judges at Highclere. “Once you get to the picnic round, there’s no kitchen, so your dishes should hold well, serve at room temperature and be easily eaten,” Tom instructed.
Almost immediately, the shared budget proved to be an issue, especially for Team Yellow. “It’s very challenging; Tom spent £160 of the £200, which is crazy! So we have to make it work at Whole Foods Market,” Amar worried. “Is this a team challenge or is this, you know, £450 just for Tom?” “I want to do something very complicated. I did not come here to play safe,” Tom said of his cioppino-inspired salad with caviar chips, seafood marmalade, and pickled apples.
Gail Simmons, Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, Graham Hornigold Photo: David Moir/Bravo
And timing was also a major concern. “Gabri is doing everything last minute. For me, that’s very scary,” Ali fretted, with the chefs chucking everything into their baskets until the very last second on the clock. “The challenge is done; all we can do now is serve the food,” Sara said.
The next day, each team presented their respective baskets to Padma, Tom, Gail Simmons, and several guest judges (including Robin Wylde’s chef-owner Harriet Mansell, cookbook author Max Halley, and pastry chef Graham Hornigold). On Team Yellow, Ali’s muhammara with pickled walnuts and pomegranate vinaigrette as well as Amar’s “super smooth” rum-raisin flan with pineapple-sage marmalade were praised by the judges. However, “the others were quite difficult in a picnic situation,” guest judge Roger Pizey critiqued, with Gabri’s smoked-fish tostada crumbling under the weight of “wet ingredients” and Sylwia’s borek with nduja mousse and lemon posset being dubbed “confounding” by Gail.
Overall, the Blue Team’s baskets had a stronger showing, with the judges singling out Charbel’s vegetable crudité with “gorgeous” beetroot hummus and baba ganoush, Nicole’s “beautifully cooked” salmon niçoise (“I didn’t want to like it because I don’t like the idea of salmon niçoise but I liked it anyway!” Tom declared) and Sara’s “spot on” charred broccolini with manchego, lardo, and truffle vinaigrette. Nicole’s niçoise ended up nabbing the top spot and earned the chef $10,000.
In the bottom were Sylwia’s “bland” and “spongy” borek, as well as Tom’s pricey cioppino, which “needed a lot of editing,” Padma said. (“You not only wasted your money but you wasted theirs, too,” Tom Colicchio brutally chided him.) However, a normal elimination this was not. “One of you will be going home…just not yet. Come with me,” Padma told Sylwia and Tom, leading them to a pair of tricked-out tents. Yes, it looks like we haven’t seen the last of Last Chance Kitchen after all, as the two chefs will be going head-to-head in next week’s episode to dictate who will ultimately be packing their knives.
Stray observations
Padma at a Picnic™ is an entire mood: “Oh, thank god!” she yelled when she heard Tom Colicchio pop open a bottle of bubbly. Five minutes later, upon sight of some manchego: “Finally, I was waiting for some cheese!”
It’s unclear if it was all of that fresh air, but the chefs were feeling especially bawdy this week. Sara likened her salad to laying down on a blanket and making love (“or a quilt if you live in Paducah, the quilt city capital of the world”); Dale declared a hug from statuesque Padma “the goal of the whole season”; and Nicole openly flirted with the butcher at Fortnum & Mason. “Amazing!” she gasped upon looking at their display case. “What, me or the meat?” the butcher joked, to which she heartily replied: “Both!”
Speaking of Nicole, that $10,000 win is going toward a life-changing purpose. “That is my last and final installment of my adoption now. I’m fully paid up,” the chef said. “I applied for adoption and I just got approved this year and there’s a child waiting for me in Hanoi, Vietnam.” The chef emotionally revealed that she’s always wanted to be a mom but is not able to have children naturally. “It’s crazy to think that I’m gonna do that now on my own but I’m crying right now because I’m so grateful. I’m lucky.”
Jailed Putin-foe Alexei Navalny has lost nearly 18lbs in just two weeks with mystery ailment as aides fear he is being ‘killed slowly’ with poison in brutal penal colony
Alexei Navalny fell ill last Friday when he was removed from his punishment cell
Health concerns prompted fears that the Kremlin dissident is being poisoned
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, is grappling with a mystery ailment in jail that has seen him lose nearly 18lbs in just over two weeks, his spokesperson has said.
The health concerns have prompted fears that the Kremlin dissident is being slowly poisoned as he remains incarcerated in a brutal maximum-security penal colony at Melekhovo, some 115 miles (250 km) east of Moscow.
Announcing the grave fears over his health, Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, added that he was back in a punishment cell after a few days in regular confinement.
Navalny reportedly fell ill last Friday when he was removed from the punishment cell after 15 days and put in a conventional cell.
An ambulance was then called early on Saturday because of acute stomach pains but Navalny received no diagnosis, one of his lawyers, Vadim Kobzev, wrote on Twitter after visiting him in prison.
Navalny reportedly fell ill last Friday when he was removed from the punishment cell after 15 days and put in a conventional cell. Pictured: Navalny is seen via video link from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov during a court hearing, May 24, 2022.
Health concerns have prompted fears that the Kremlin dissident is being slowly poisoned
Navalny rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning President Vladimir Putin. Pictured: Putin delivers a speech at a concert marking the Cosmonautics Day at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow, 12 April 2023
‘The lawyer says that an ambulance was called for Alexey on the night of Friday to Saturday because of an acute stomach pain. No one is treating him and they are not even telling him the diagnosis. He has lost 8 kilos(!) in the last 15 days in the punishment cell,’ Yarmysh said in a post on Twitter.
‘When Alexey asks what he is ill with, the prison doctor mockingly answers that it is ”just spring and everyone has exacerbations”.’
She added: ‘We do not rule out that all this time in prison he could have been poisoned with something to make his health deteriorate slowly but steadily.’
Yarmysh also said this was the thirteenth time that Navalny had been placed in a punishment cell.
A former lawyer who rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning President Vladimir Putin’s elite and voicing allegations of corruption on a vast scale, Navalny has long forecast Russia could face seismic political turmoil.
In 2020 he survived an apparent attempt to poison him during a flight in Siberia, with what Western laboratory tests determined was a nerve agent. Russia denies that the state tried to kill him.
He was treated for that poisoning in Germany but voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021, where he was arrested on arrival and jailed in a fraud case he calls politically motivated.
Yarmysh also said this was the thirteenth time that Navalny had been placed in a punishment cell. Pictured: Navalny takes part in a rally to mark the fifth anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder, Moscow, February 29, 2020
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an event marking Cosmonaut Day at the State Kremlin Palace, on April 12, 2023
The news comes after a video documentary about Navalny won an Oscar last month.
The documentary portrays his career of fighting official corruption, his near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020 that he blames on the Kremlin, his five-month recuperation in Germany and his 2021 return to Moscow, where he was taken into custody.
He was later sentenced to two and a half years in prison and was convicted last year of other charges and given another nine-year term.
Navalny has faced unrelenting pressure from Russian authorities, and has been in and out of isolation in a tiny punishment cell. He is allowed to write and receive letters and have lawyers visit occasionally.
German government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said Berlin took note of reports about Navalny’s worsening health ‘with great concern’.
She added that Germany wants ‘the inhuman treatment that he is apparently suffering in prison to be lifted’, and wants Russian authorities to ensure he gets access to medical treatment and is released.
Just a mistake? Drake Bell addressed his recent mysterious disappearance — and claimed it was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding.
“You leave your phone in the car and don’t answer for the night and this?” Bell, 36, tweeted on Thursday, April 13, alongside a crying laughing emoji. The post comes just hours after Daytona Police revealed that the Nickelodeon alum had been found after being reported as “missing.”
“We can confirm law enforcement officials are in contact and Mr. Bell is safe,” the police wrote via their official Facebook on Thursday. The DBPD has previously issued a statement searching for the whereabouts of Bell, whose “last known location is potentially the area of Mainland High School on 4/12/2023 just before 9 p.m.” The Drake and Josh alum, who was “considered missing and endangered,” was advised to be “traveling in a 2022 grey BMW” at the time.
While Bell had a successful career as a child actor in programs including as The Amanda Show and Drake and Josh (alongside Josh Peck) he has since made headlines for his worrisome behavior in recent years.
In 2021, the California native was subject to two years probation and 200 hours of community service in connection to his high-profile child endangerment case. The “Found a Way” singer pled guilty to two counts of attempted endangering children and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles in 2017.
“I just want to say today that I accept this claim because my conduct was wrong,” Bell said during his sentencing. “I’m sorry that the victim was harmed in any way, but that was obviously not my intention. I take this matter very seriously, and again I just want to apologize to her and anyone else who may have been affected by my actions.”
That same month the actor welcomed a son with then-wife Janet Von Schmeling. The pair were together for five years but split in January, just several weeks after Us Weekly obtained photos of Bell appearing to huff balloons in the car with his child. (Von Schmeling shared and then deleted an Instagram post about their “separation” in November 2022.)
“Drake pulled up in the driveway at his house [in Los Angeles] and started to inflate a pink balloon that was in his lap. He inhaled it … [until] the balloon was deflated,” an eyewitness exclusively told Us in December 2022, noting that the A Fairly Odd Movie star seemingly continued to repeat the action “six or seven times” over the course of 30 minutes. “Eventually he got out and went into his house, then he came back out and got his kid out of the rear child seat and carried him in.”
Bell has also publicly feuded with his former costars, particularly Beck, 36, who called the Superhero Movie actor’s child endangerment case “upsetting” and “disappointing” in a statement toVariety in 2021.
After Bell publicly slammed the How I Met Your Father star in 2017 for not inviting him to his wedding to Paige O’Brien, Peck opened up about the incident during a March 2022 episode of the “BFFs” podcast.
“I am getting married that night and I see these text messages from him like cursing me out and coming for me. On the night of my wedding,” he recalled, revealing that he made Bell apologize to his wife at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. “It’s delusional because it is like, ‘Bro, it is like we worked at Coffee Bean together when we were 16. I am sorry that I am 31 now and I might have lost your number.’”
Bell, however, disagreed with Peck’s recollection of events, saying he was “bugged” by the Turner & Hooch alum saying the twosome “weren’t friends” and claimed the duo had been in touch over the years.
“We’ve had our ups and downs. We’ve had times when we wanted to kill each other. We were like brothers. I know Josh and I’m closer to Josh than I am to own brothers,” he said on his own podcast, “Drake & Janet,” at the time.
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If you or anyone you know is facing substance abuse issues, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for free and confidential information 24/7.
Paramount Global’s Pluto TV recruited Valerie Kaplan, who hails from Hulu, the Chernin Group and HBO, to lead global consumer marketing for the free, ad-supported streaming TV service.
Kaplan joins the company as global senior VP, head of consumer marketing for Pluto TV. She most recently was operating partner at Peter Chernin’s investment firm the Chernin Group. Prior to that, Kaplan served as the first chief marketing officer for Headspace, a mindfulness and meditation app. She previously was at Hulu for three and a half years, most recently as VP of growth marketing where she led marketing across the full subscriber lifecycle, including media, acquisition, lifecycle, partner and product marketing.
Kaplan reports to Domenic DiMeglio, EVP and chief marketing officer of Paramount Streaming overseeing both Pluto TV and Paramount+.
Based in Los Angeles, Kaplan will head up Pluto TV’s growth, brand, content and partnership marketing functions. Pluto TV VP of growth marketing Meg Choi and Serge Gojkovich, VP of content and partnerships marketing, will report to Kaplan. In the role, Kaplan will collaborate with Paramount Streaming’s Terry Minogue, EVP of creative marketing; Debbie Beiter, SVP, marketing production and operations; and Zeynep Zileli, VP, creative marketing.
Earlier in her career, Kaplan worked at HBO and business consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in economics and literature from Duke University.
Paramount touts Pluto TV’s as the largest free streaming TV business in the industry. In the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the company, Pluto TV gained 6.5 million global monthly active users (MAUs) to reach 78.5 million (versus 64.4 million a year prior). Pluto TV generated $1.1 billion in revenue for 2022, up 5% year over year.
Hit Showtime series “Yellowjackets” has already featured Alanis Morissette’s 1998 track “Uninvited.” Now the feminist icon has recorded a new version of the show’s theme song, “No Return,” as a single.
The single debuts in the Season 2, Episode 4 titled “Old Wounds,” which was released on Showtime streaming Thursday night. Morissette’s song will also available to download and stream globally via Universal Music Canada. Listen to the song here.
“I love the original version of ‘No Return,’ It’s just a perfect song,” said Morissette of the title track by composers Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker, which was first released in January 2022.
“It was a little daunting to be asked to reinterpret it, but I see parallels between ‘Yellowjackets’ and my perspective while songwriting: the sheer intensity, that going for the jugular with no fear around going for the profane,” added the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter.
“I’ve strived my entire career to support the empowerment of women and sensitives, and see the world through the female lens, and what’s so wonderful about this show is that each character is allowed to be dynamic and complex as opposed to oversimplified, reduced versions of women. I feel honored to be a part of the legacy of ‘Yellowjackets.’”
This dream team-up comes after Florence Welch released an eerie cover of No Doubt’s 1995 hit, “Just a Girl.”
The series, which has half of its storyline set in 1996, has also showcased music from Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Hole, and Garbage and other ’90s icons.
In Lord of the Flies, the novel that Yellowjackets is loosely based upon, the stranded young boys eventually siphon off into two groups in hopes of survival: Ralph’s group encourages civility while Jack’s veers into savagery. As leaders, the two boys couldn’t be more different: Ralph practices democratic leadership, aiming to get everyone rescued, while Jack inhabits a dictator-like role that forces his followers to comply to his every whim. Lost—another show that Yellowjackets shares DNA with—also saw two schools of thought spring up on the island: one behind Jack Shephard, the practical leader, and another behind John Locke, the spiritual one.
Four episodes into the new season of Yellowjackets, the different factions in the wilderness are beginning to clearly form. Natalie and Lottie have become the de facto leaders, each employing a different approach, much like the aforementioned characters did. Like Ralph and Jack, Natalie’s group is grounded in reality and driven by their practical survival needs. Lottie, meanwhile, has been “chosen” and her powers seem to be activated by the wilderness (just like Locke’s were), and her followers cling to her every move. At odds with each other, Lottie’s followers—a very vocal Mari and Crystal—challenge Natalie to a contest in “Old Wounds”: whoever discovers food first wins.
The two set out in opposite directions, Natalie using her hunting instincts while Lottie tries to summon her powers to lead her. Lottie is a believer, but still thinks this contest is futile—early in her quest, she touches the symbol carved into trees in the woods. But instead of having a breakthrough, she braces herself. “Fuck me,” she says, defeated. Carrying on, she finds the altar seen at the end of season 1, and sacrifices blood from her palm to speak to the spirits. As she loses a significant amount of blood, she hallucinates the small plane that Laura Lee died in sitting in front of her, fully intact. Scavenging the plane for food, she finds Laura’s cross necklace and teddy bear before the episode goes into full Lost-mode with a mysterious hatch.
On the other end of the hatch isn’t the Dharma Initiative, but rather a trippy view of a 1990s mall. She peruses the stores in a haze and driven by her hunger and the quest at hand, she sees her fellow Yellowjackets gathered at a food court table. Laura offers her food while Natalie taunts her. But in reality, Lottie is bleeding out and her significant loss of blood causes her to pass out in the snow with no plane or cafeteria in sight. This is the second time Laura has appeared in a Lottie dream (the other being the demonic version she saw while trying to save Adult Travis in the second episode). We saw Laura and the plane blow up in front of our eyes in season 1, but her reappearance in Lottie’s psyche suggests that their close connection is continuing beyond the grave or leading Lottie’s powers in some way.
Courtney Eaton as teen Lottie.
Kailey Schwerman/Showtime
Lottie isn’t faring much better in the present: her visions have spooked her enough to send her to an urgent therapy session. Her usual doctor is on sabbatical (this detail feels important since it’s not trying to explain a recasting or logistical production decision as we’ve never met the character before), so she explains to the new one that she needs her medications increased to battle the unwanted visions. “Last time, it became something different,” Lottie says fearfully. The psychiatrist pushes her to think about what the visions might be telling her, to which she says, “nothing, because they’re not real.” Almost like she’s trying to convince herself. Lottie notably ran out of pills early in season 1, and her “sobriety” likely played a role in realizing her powers; learning that she has been medicated for the past ten years (including during Travis’s death) draws less sinister conclusions to the cult, which may long have been the only thing keeping the destructive visions at bay.
Later on, Lottie is shuffling some flashcards when she sees the Queen of Hearts playing card with its eyes scratched out (which is featured in the new opening credits and is potentially connected to the man with no eyes, or a nod to her role as the Antler Queen). No matter how much she shuffles the deck, the card keeps reappearing. She’s shaken up and cuts her palm at an altar as a sacrifice again asking, “can this be enough? Please?” It’s the second time in this episode that Lottie sacrifices her blood like this for an unknown entity and the results have yet to aid her in any way.
Back in the wilderness, Natalie sees footsteps in the snow that look like they belong to a large animal. She follows them out to a frozen lake, uncovering something trapped under the surface: a moose. Rushing back to the cabin, she enlists everyone’s help to pull it out of the ice, though Mari (whom I dubbed “Lottie’s #1 fan” in my notes) resists the rescue mission, stating that it’s cheating in the ideological competition she conjured. Misty, who was firmly in Lottie’s camp earlier in the episode, can’t resist the promise of food and goes to help excavate the moose, to Mari’s chagrin. The thing is, the moose is heavy—even more so now that its fur is bogged down by water—and their best effort of tug-of-war with the animal is in vain. No one is more defeated than Natalie, who all but plunges into the water after its sinking carcass, desperate for what would have provided a sense of stability in the community.
Steven Krueger as Ben Scott, Jenna Burgess as teen Melissa, Sophie Thatcher as teen Natalie, and Jasmin Savoy Brown as teen Taissa.
Colin Bentley / Showtime
Coach Ben continues to stew in the corner of the cabin, questioning whether the girls would eat him if they had to and daydreaming about what life would have been like if he had made the decision to stay and give his relationship a chance. Before we see his daydream, in which his boyfriend reassures him about not having sentimental items from past relationships, stating that he is his future, Ben is seen reading “The Magus” by John Fowles. The postmodern British novel centers on an English teacher Nicholas Urfe who “becomes embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which become increasingly dark and serious.” In the book, Urfe is depressed and lonely until he meets a wealthy estate owner who draws him into psychological games based on his life. Now, it could be a coincidence that this is the light plane read that Ben packed, but it’s more likely a breadcrumb of Ben’s ongoing misfortune in the wilderness: there may not be a physical estate owner that seduces the survivors, but the forest itself is forcing everyone to lose their grip on reality.
In present-day, Shauna and Natalie are focused on providing freedom and truth to those around them. After Shauna finds out that Callie has been lying to her about sleeping over at her friend’s house and discovers the piece of Adam’s burnt license in her dresser, she knows it’s time to come clean to her daughter. She takes her to a remote area with no cell signal and finally tells the truth. Is she a murderer? Yes, and she admits to having even more secrets that she’s not ready to share yet. The truth is a catalyst for Callie, who has been brooding about her parents’ dysfunctional relationship and life for the entirety of the series, to finally treat her parents with some respect. But Jeff isn’t happy losing control of his family and the situation at hand, telling Shauna that as parents they should be protecting Callie, not making her an accomplice. It’s hard to argue with that despite Callie’s seemingly newfound respect for them, but the answers keep Callie from meeting up with the undercover cop Jay for the time being.
Natalie, meanwhile, goes on a road trip with Lisa. The collective sells their honey in town every Tuesday and even though their “anchors are in the compound” and not the real world, Lisa breaks the rule to go see her mom instead (well, technically she just wants to see her fish at her mom’s house). On the way over, Natalie questions these rules of the community, which Lisa says aren’t compulsory—even the purple uniform is a choice, she explains. But there are holes in the theory, especially as Lisa is actively lying in order to go see her family, and her mom clearly believes that her daughter is part of a cult, asking her to come home. She inquires about Lisa’s prescriptions and she reveals that she’s no longer taking her meds—a clear contrast to Lottie, who needs her prescription increased. Lisa pleads with her mom about taking her fish with her and when her mom says no, Natalie smuggles the fish out in her mouth.
I expected Misty and Walter to finally converge on Lottie’s compound, but it seems that reunion will be held for another week. At a diner, they discover that the cult is situated in a secluded area somewhere up Route 19 and decide to ambush them the next day instead of the dead of night. They spend the night in town in separate rooms and a split-screen shows us that they’re two halves of one whole when it comes to their various quirks. But even despite their innocent flirtations and Misty confirming that Walter isn’t just a creepy Yellowjackets fan (instead, he’s a multimillionaire survivor of a horrible accident and a musical lover who keeps a box of cassettes in his car), this storyline has been the weakest link of the series so far. With them closing in on some of the other key players, hopefully they begin to feel more vital to the plot.
Conversely, Taissa feels like the key to the entire plot. Her discoveries in both timelines prove to be the most pivotal—or at least, the most fan service—and she regularly straddles the line between practicality and spirituality. In the wilderness, she wants to renounce the supernatural happenings while also being someone who often acts as a medium for them. Her biggest believer is her girlfriend Van, who has meticulously mapped out the location of every symbol-marked tree that Tai has sleepwalked to. There’s one spot on the map missing, though, and when the girls arrive there that night, they don’t find another symbol; they find Javi. He lives! But when they bring him back to the cabin, he shows no emotion and doesn’t seem to recognize anyone—not even his brother Travis. Give Lottie a point for knowing he’s still alive, but proceed with caution as he has clearly seen some things.
Tawny Cypress as adult Taissa.
Kailey Schwerman/Showtime
In the present, a disoriented Tai wakes up behind the wheel on the side of the road with an empty gas tank (her poor assistant is never getting that car back). On the passenger seat is a manila folder titled “Yellowjackets” that seemingly belonged to the fake reporter Jessica Roberts who was tracking everyone’s whereabouts in season 1. Tai’s attention is focused on a black and white image of a video store inside the folder, and she soon begins walking along the side of the highway before being picked up by a friendly semi-truck driver. Normally I’d be worried about a situation like that, given what we know about single women hitchhiking, but Tai’s recent behavior and apparent possession by another being (or at least, another consciousness) made me more fearful for the driver.
But there’s nothing to worry about. He says he voted for her, allows her to pocket a lewd pen she finds on the floor, and views giving his Senator a ride as an honor. Tai is dropped off in town in one piece; when she looks up, she’s standing in front of the video store from the photo. Inside, a red-haired woman looks back at Tai from behind the counter: Van (played by Lauren Ambrose, who joined the cast this season). The two don’t exactly seem surprised to see their first love again and they definitely recognize each other immediately, suggesting that this isn’t their first reunion in adulthood. With Van as the purest believer of Tai’s powers, hopefully she’ll be exactly what Tai needs to gain control again.
Radhika Menon is a freelance entertainment writer, with a focus on TV and film. Her writing can be found on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more.
Hollywood sex, sin and sparkle will be much in evidence next month at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
The French Riviera event, running May 16 to 27, will present the world premiere of “The Idol,” a controversial upcoming HBO TV series billed as “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood.” It’s cocreated by and co-stars Abel Tesfaye, the Toronto musician better known as The Weeknd.
Tesfaye plays an L.A. club owner and secret cult leader who exerts sexual and career control over a rising pop star played by Lily-Rose Depp. She’s the daughter of actor Johnny Depp, who stars as French King Louis XV in actor/director Maïwenn’s period romance “Jeanne du Barry,” the fest’s opening night film. Depp is looking for a comeback after winning last year’s highly publicized lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, whose sexual assault allegations against him had threatened to cancel his career.
The Weeknd and the Depp dad and daughter are among a bevy of celebrities who will walk the Cannes red carpet in a year when North American talent and productions — including new films by Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), James Mangold (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), Wes Anderson (“Asteroid City”) and Todd Haynes (“May December”) — have a greater prominence than usual at Cannes, the world’s most prestigious film fest.
Cannes announced the films of its Official Selection early Thursday in a press conference in Paris led by festival head Thierry Frémaux and the fest’s new president, Iris Knobloch, the first woman to hold the title. Frémaux said Cannes programmers made their selections from the more than 2,000 films received from around the world.
“The Idol” is directed and cocreated by Sam Levinson, the creator and co-writer/co-director of the Emmy-winning series “Euphoria,” which depicts high school as a tumult of sex, drugs and traumatic experiences. Creative differences and production difficulties prompted the original director of “The Idol,” Amy Seimetz (“The Girlfriend Experience”), to leave the show last year, along with actor Susanna Son (“Red Rocket”). Remaining cast members include “Schitt’s Creek” star Dan Levy.
THE IDOL Trailer (2022) Lily-Rose Depp, The Weeknd, Jennie, Sam Levinson
Two or three episodes of “The Idol” will premiere out of competition at Cannes, which presents TV shows it considers culturally significant, such as “Twin Peaks: The Return” in 2017.
Another Canadian is taking a sex-themed production to Cannes: “Simple Like Sylvain,” the third feature by Quebec writer/director Monia Chokri, whose previous film “Babysitter” recently won top honours at the Canadian Film Fest. It will have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar program, which has its own set of awards.
Described as a comedy, it stars Magalie Lépine-Blondeau as Sophia, a 40-year-old married philosophy professor whose dormant sex life suddenly reawakens when she meets an entrepreneur named Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal).
The competition for the Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, always a major fascination at Cannes, is missing Martin Scorsese’s new period crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Canadian actor Tantoo Cardinal and Canadian/American actor Brendan Fraser. Frémaux said he dearly wanted Scorsese’s first film at Cannes in nearly four decades to compete for the Palme, but Scorsese declined.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” will instead screen out of competition, as will James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” a.k.a. “Indy Jones 5,” a blockbuster starring Harrison Ford in his finale as the whip-cracking title archeologist, in the company of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who plays his adventurous goddaughter.
ASTEROID CITY takes place in a fictional American desert town circa 1955. Synopsis: The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
But the Palme race will have Wes Anderson’s latest whimsy, “Asteroid City,” which features enough boldface to dominate several red carpets. The cast includes Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright and many others.
Also vying for the Palme is Todd Haynes’ “May December,” starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in a story of a Hollywood actress (Portman) who travels to Maine to research the life of the woman (Moore) whom she’ll be portraying in a film.
The 19 films in this year’s Palme competition include a record six directed by women: Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer,” Justine Triet’s “Anatomie d’une chute,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel et Adama” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary “Olfa’s Daughters.” The latter is the first doc to compete for the Palme in many years.
Many previous Palme contenders and/or winners are back in the hunt, among them Ken Loach (“The Old Oak), Aki Kaurismaki (“Fallen Leaves”), Kore-eda Hirokazu (“Monster”), Nanni Moretti (“Il Sol Dell’Avvenire”), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (“About Dry Grasses”) and Wim Wenders (“Perfect Days”).
A notable newcomer to the Palme contest is Britain’s Jonathan Glazer (“Under the Skin”), whose Holocaust-themed drama “The Zone of Interest” is based on a novel by Martin Amis.
There’s major star power even among the short films at Cannes this year.
The 30-minute western “Strange Way of Life” by Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as former hired guns with a new agenda and mutual affection, will have its world premiere at Cannes. It’s described as Almodóvar’s answer to “Brokeback Mountain.”
Some Cannes rumours didn’t come true Thursday: Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster “Barbie” and Woody Allen’s 50th film “Coup de Chance,” his first French-language movie, didn’t make the Official Selection.
But there are still more Cannes announcements to come, including next week’s unveiling of the Directors’ Fortnight and International Critics’ Week sidebars.
Star contributor Peter Howell is a movie critic in Toronto. Follow on Twitter: @peterhowellfilm.
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“Pride Nite” is officially coming to the Happiest Place on Earth in June.
Disneyland announced Thursday that it will hold its first official LGBTQ Pride Nite on June 13 and 15, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tickets for Pride Nite, part of the theme park’s “Disneyland After Dark” series, will go on sale April 20 for $139.
The Anaheim park drew inspiration from its Parisian sibling for Pride Nite, according to Disneyland officials. In 2019, Disneyland Paris was the first to hold an official pride event. After a three-year hiatus, the event will return this summer.
Disneyland’s announcement comes as the Burbank entertainment company continues to face backlash in Florida for opposing the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Florida and its governor, Ron DeSantis, have been in a dispute with Disney since the company opposed a state law last year that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. Under pressure from Disney employees, Disney’s then-Chief Executive Bob Chapek said he called DeSantis to “express our disappointment and concern” over the bill, which was signed into law last spring.
In response, DeSantis and the state dissolved the special tax district where Disney operates Walt Disney World, Epcot and other resorts, with near complete autonomy.
With Disneyland’s announcement that Pride Nite was coming to the West Coast, the reaction on social media was mixed. Many expressed excitement and suggested which Disney characters, like the Country Bears and Ursula, should make an appearance.
Others posted homophobic and transphobic comments, with some stating that they would not attend Disneyland on those days.
Pride Nite will include a dance party with characters in “special attire” and photo opportunities with “pride-themed backdrops,” Disneyland officials said.
Pride Nite comes more than 25 years after the unofficial but immensely popular “Gay Days,” which began as an after-hours event when the park could be rented out for private parties.
Gay Days is now held during park hours and attracts thousands of LGBTQ attendees each year.
Organizers of Gay Days Anaheim responded positively to the announcement of Pride Nite.
“In the wake of everything that’s happening to the country, that Disney is coming out in support of the community and inviting the community in, in this way, I think is a great thing,” said Eddie Shapiro, organizer of Gay Days Anaheim.
“Disney is obviously saying out loud, ‘We as a company are not cowed by [events in Florida],’ nor should they be,” Shapiro said. “I’m glad that they’re saying that.”
But Shapiro also noted the irony of Pride Nite being held in similar fashion to the first iteration of Gay Days.
“I think it’s kind of funny that 25 years later, Disney is ready not to have an unofficial thing but an official thing, and we’re back to having an after hours, late night event,” he said.
Although Shapiro expressed some ambivalence about Disney stepping into a space Gay Days has been filling successfully for more than two decades, he also said the events can and will coexist.
Disney can put on lavish and theatrical productions with LGBTQ themes, Shapiro said, while Gay Days can host its own events and parties outside the parks.
“I think we will both continue to be able to do things that the other can’t,” Shapiro said.
Marvel’s latest film Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania may not have been extraordinarily well-received, nor did it light the box office on fire, but it still expanded the story of Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne, as well gave them a compelling adversary in the form of Kang.
Kang the Conqueror, played by embattled actor Jonathan Majors, was an immensely powerful villain in Quantumania, especially after regaining full use of his specialized battle suit. Telekinesis, energy blasts, and forcefields were all his to command, setting him up to be a formidable foe in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
Ant-Man 3 Concept Art Shows New Kang Ability
New Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania concept art shared by Aleksi Briclot, who worked on the film, depicts Kang using a cool new superpower that didn’t make it into the finished version of the movie.
According to Briclot, this ability enabled Kang to “summon some ghosts of himself. And blast in different directions.” Check out some images below:
The Conqueror summons some bright purple spectral duplicates.
Aleksi Briclot’s Instagram
He seems to direct his ghostly copies in the second image, aiming them at their targets.
Aleksi Briclot’s Instagram
And finally, the Kang facsimiles fire their energy blasts at the unsuspecting denizens of the Quantum Realm.
Aleksi Briclot’s Instagram
A Few Words on Kang
Despite Ant-Man 3’s critical performance, one element from the film on which most seemed to agree was Kang being a great villain.
However, as most are surely aware by this point, Jonathan Majors, who portrayed Kang, has found himself in very hot water as of late, facing charges of assault. Setting aside any questions about his potential crime, Marvel Studios has a sticky situation on its hands as it was building the next two phases of the MCU essentially around Majors’ character.
It seems probable that if Majors’ situation continues, Marvel will recast the role. In fairness though, there’s nothing about the character that couldn’t be adapted to another actor’s talents. Perhaps any potential replacement would do an even better job. It all remains to be seen. Marvel has also not made any decisions on this matter as of yet.
Kang’s ghost-summoning ability wasn’t the only thing about the character left on the cutting room floor. The studio actually excised quite a bit of his backstory from Quantumania, with writer Jeff Loveness indicating that some of that would be saved for an Avengers movie.
Additionally, in other pieces of early concept art, Kang the Conqueror appeared even more menacing than he did in the actual film.
WARNING: SPOILERS for Titans season 4, episodes 7 & 8.Showrunner Greg Walker speaks about Titans season 4, part 2, and the HBO Max drama coming to an end this year. One of HBO Max’s most beloved DC TV shows is finally back for its final six episodes. After ending Titans season 4, part 1 with the rise of Brother Blood, part 2 is going all the way in.
The second half of the season will see the Titans dealing with Sebastian now operating as Brother Blood. For the second half of the season, the heroes deal with the aftermath of their clash with the Chruch of Blood. With everyone now spread out, the Titans have to find their way back, but that will be easier said than done.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Screen Rant recently had the honor of chatting with showrunner Greg Walker after the interview for part 1 in 2022. Throughout the interview, Walker talks about bringing things to a head in these final episodes for all the characters. Walker also chats about making his directorial debut as he directed the first two episodes of Titans season 4, part 2.
Showrunner Greg Walker on Titans Season 4, Part 2
Screen Rant: Even though you knew this could possibly be the final season, how much did you guys pull out of your own bucket list for this season?
Greg Walker: Exactly, we had to do it because I’ve been on shows before where we didn’t do it, and I really regretted it. I was saying, ‘Let’s not write ourselves into a corner; finish it up. If there’s a miracle, and we get to season 5, great, we’ll do some gymnastics to find our way back into it.’ But let’s really try to come up with the most satisfying journey for these characters that really get into the space where we want them to be.
When you guys found out that this was going to be it, were there any attempts to find another home for the show, or was it one of those situations of ‘These are the cards we’ve been dealt with.’
Greg Walker: I don’t even know that actually. We definitely aggressively wrote this season to be a finale. Because we wanted to for the characters, and also, it felt this is where the show wanted to go. At this point, we felt like if we doing anything less would be treading water. Again, I think there was a season 5 in the show for sure. But what we were really driving always was to kind of really give a real full fan experience for the people [who] really love Titans and the people who were just tuning in to watch them go on a journey.
Let’s talk about this kind of two-hour midseason premiere because I noticed that it said directed by Greg Walker, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t know this was happening!’ Had you tried to direct earlier in the series, or was it always planned for this season? How did this come about?
Greg Walker: Well, it came about because if the showrunner directs early on, it’s really difficult to do both jobs. You really put the show in jeopardy when you do that, unless the show really knows what it’s doing. There was a lot of figuring out of times, and it’s a giant show. There’s this big massive cast, costumes, fights, visual effects, and location expenses. It wasn’t something that I could take my eye off the ball until season 4, where we had such a great team built around me that I could take a little bit of time off from writing and producing.
I knew that the people around me would support me to do it, so I could try to do both. It was not easy, but we got there. Originally, it was always designed that I would do it in the back half. We had more scripts written so I could go away when most of the scripts are written. We still had a lot of work to do on the last two episodes. Partly when I was directing and then when I was finished directing, but the team was great to supporting me. So I was able to take that time off, I was gone all summer.
You talked about how you have to play two roles when you’re doing these episodes because you can’t really necessarily turn off the showrunner brain. Can you talk about balancing that act when you’re on set? Did you ever have to think, “I really want to do this as a director,’ but as a showrunner, there’s no way we can do this?”
Greg Walker: [Laughs] That’s a really good question. The advantage is, is that I don’t have to ask anybody. I don’t have to say like, ‘Do you think we can do this? Just do it.’ So there’s that, and I think the crew liked that because there wasn’t a call back to LA going, ‘Oh, we’re going to change this. Is that okay?’ I could do that on the fly and make things happen the same way when Akiva Goldsman directed the show. It wasn’t just a lot more decision-making because the decision-making could happen faster. I think there were times when I was going as a showrunner, ‘Do I think this is the smart choice?’ as a director. But I didn’t get to go in extra hours longer or I didn’t get any kind of perks. The show still has to be run the way that the show’s run.
There were times where I had thought, ‘Well, maybe I can throw my weight around.’ But no, actually, this is the rule and you have to be done by this time, you don’t get any extra time. So in creative madness at times, those are very ambitious episodes in a tight schedule on location. The second one since you’ve seen it, is almost entirely on location. Question. There was just living in motels and running around and trying to deal with weather and COVID. It was nuts to get it done, like shooting an indie movie out in Rural, Ontario, didn’t feel like a typical Titans episode, which I’m glad I got stuck with that one because I would have felt guilty if I gave anybody else. That episode because it was so hard.
Last time we talked, I was trying to get some DickKory teases out of you, and boy, episode 8 does not disappoint! What I find so fascinating is that in the midst of all this insanity, you guys still found a way to give the fans some great development in this romance. Can you talk a bit about how you guys came to that idea?
Greg Walker: I wish I remember because a lot of that was generating while we were doing the season, and before I was going off to direct. I didn’t plan to direct it because we had multiple directors fall out. Then I was like, ‘Well, it’s too close to shooting to explain to somebody else.’ So I should be the person and I threw myself into those episodes in that block of two episodes because we had two directors fall out of that slot [with] COVID, travel, and family stuff. I ended up being the sucker who took that.
In terms of the DickKory story, it really was more of a sense of, even though there’s a lot of fun of watching them domestics – once we saw that, ‘I was like, Oh, we can have them in bed together, and then we can have them dress as different people, kind of like Tennessee country club environment.’ The costumes did a great job, and both the actors, Brenton and Anna, jumped at the occasion – I think they really did an amazing job.
But originally, what happens when you lose your soul, the kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers way? What happens when you become a zombie? You can’t connect to the person you love. Will you ever get them back, and is it too late? What’s that feeling of a potential marriage or love that you can have that becomes impossible by circumstance? When we responded to that power of that emotion and that emotional story, that’s how we started, and then we got to have fun with cars and them goofing around. They really lit up with it.
I got to talk about the moment with Dick because this just shows how much you guys have developed him from an emotional standpoint. We hear his tape, and we hear how he actually feels about Kory. What made this the right storyline for him, rather than just telling her? I love the call back to season 1 because we always knew that it was always going to be Kory.
Greg Walker: Yeah, and I think that he knew that too. One of the things – and this is a tricky thing with fans like you, Andy – we know where they’re going. But we got to get there for both the actors and the characters and feel like we’ve earned it. They were never going to go out and have like jello shots and then end up in bed together. In fact, they did end up in bed, but that wasn’t right.
It mirrored where we needed to go with them, where they needed to get to the point where and for Dick, it was almost too late where he really was forced to realize his feelings for her. He’s so blocked that character and so much about taking care of others, but not really having that level of emotional intimacy. Because he was not raised to have that, it was actually seen as a liability. So for him to get there. It took this long.
I don’t know who had more fun here, Joshua Orpin acting out these Conner Luthor scenes or you guys getting to write all of that. At what point do you guys have to balance showing that this boy has changed but also not losing what makes him so likable? What was a rule for you guys in your Superboy bible, so to speak?
Greg Walker: Well, it’s a really smart point, and we had to go through his journey too. To me, it wasn’t enough that he had a haircut, wore cologne, and had a leather jacket. To me, and for all of us writers together, we decided he had to go on a journey where he really went too far as Lex in order to see that that’s not him. I think we all have to do that when you’re trying on a persona because it’s not as if he was trying it out.
He had it in him, but he didn’t. He went too far, and we went too far. We shot scenes that we can’t ever show wherever he went too far in terms of where I wasn’t comfortable taking Superboy to that point. At that point, I didn’t think that was who he was and I think fans would not have liked it. So we self-censored, but we had to like his character. We, the writers, had to go too far in order to see what was the limit for him to see in himself, ‘This is not me; I need to go back to the Titans.’
We know Jason Todd is back, and he plays a really intriguing role in Tim’s final step to becoming the third Robin. Why was it so important for you guys as storytellers to make sure that he also had a part to play in Tim’s arc this season?
Greg Walker: Well, I think it’s due fold. 1) it is important to see that Jason Todd, through his experience as Robin and then Red Hood, has evolved as a character. He’s no longer just the wisecrack and kick-ass hyper-violent guy. He’s actually someone who can understand what it means to be Robin and bear the responsibility of it and the core essence of the character and where he succeeded and where he failed.
It was important for him to see that wiser side of Jason. and I think Tim needed to see it too. I think Dick, who was the architect of this, wanted Tim to experience Jason Todd as a mentor to bring what he knew to it, and the way that he could show him what works for him and how he could ultimately incorporate that and be his own Robin.
Were there any other fan favorites you guys were trying to get back but couldn’t for logistical reasons?
Greg Walker: I would have had them all. It was tricky to get Hawk and Dove back together. Because of how Hawk is…
Dead, you mean?
Greg Walker: Well, dead on our show is relative. We play fast and loose with death. I felt like we earned that we could have brought anybody back. But at that point, the character stories were so focused and really streamlined towards an ending I don’t think we would have been able to do service to the amazing actors you bring on, like Minka Kelly, Conor Leslie, and Alan Ritchson back. You want to really give them something to really play and we are so dead set on this ending and steaming ahead that it would be hard to really do justice to those characters. I would love to have had them, I would do backflips if we could get them.
What can you tease for these final episodes as they go up against the bloodiest villain I have ever seen? If Joseph Morgan fans thought they saw a lot of blood on The Vampire Diariesand Originals, then just can they wait…
Greg Walker: Well yeah, he never didn’t really necessarily need to make a career of swimming in it of what we put him in, but he was such a gamer to do all that. I think that this has always been a conversation and sometimes a monologue and now a dialogue between the Titans fans and Titans writers: I feel like this, hopefully, in my mind, it is the best version of that. We love the characters as much as fans do, and we really want to set them up in a great place where they win as a team and develop as individuals.
Some time has passed since we learned about Titans coming to an end. Would you be interested in continuing to work on more DC properties with James Gunn and Peter Safran? Have you had any talks with them, or are you hoping to have a conversation with them? Is there a DC property you would like to take on next?
Greg Walker: Well, I’d work with any of these actors again; if there’s any version of Titans, I would definitely do it again. If there’s ever a chance that somebody comes calling…it’s so fresh, it’s so new, Andy. I think between myself and publicity; we are the last people working on the show in the abandoned fort at the top of the hill. But if somebody comes knocking on the gate, I’ll open it up and bring them in. I’d love to have a chance; I’m so grateful for everything that we were able to do on this show and how I was able to grow as well.
Well, thank you so much for your time today. This season leaves me wanting more, but you guys really went for it. I can’t wait for fans to see it. I will grill you with more questions about the series finale, because we have got things to talk about!
Greg Walker: All right, Andy, I’m ready! Thank you, I love what I see you say about the show on Twitter! I see your name all the time. I love your passion, and I love all the support. Thank you so much, and let’s talk again when the finale comes around.
About Titans Season 4, Part 2
In the mid-season premiere, the Titans – with the exception of Gar – are returned to the place they had vanished, the Temple of Trigon, only to find Sebastian and Mother Mayhem are no longer there. The Titans rush to find them before Sebastian summons Trigon, their pursuit leading them to a mysterious town whose populace is hiding a deep secret. Along the way, the Titans come across a prophecy that may require Kory to make a huge sacrifice to save the world, but Dick’s feelings for Kory surface and he refuses to let her die.
In the final episodes, the Titans enter into an epic battle to save both Kory and the world. Gar goes on a quest of self-discovery, attempting to find his true purpose and to save his friends. Rachel embraces darker powers while Conner, struggling with his Lex Luthor side, goes his own way to defeat Sebastian. Tim and Bernard’s growing feelings for each other become increasingly difficult to resist, and when Bernard’s life is threatened, Tim finally becomes the hero he has always strived to be.
Titans season 4, part 2, releases new episodes until Thursday, May 11, on HBO Max.
For Twitter Blue users in the US, the website’s 280-character limit has been a thing of the past since February when it gave them the ability to post 4,000-character tweets. Now, the company has more than doubled that limit and has launched support for tweets up to 10,000 characters in length. In addition, the website now supports bold and italics text formatting, allowing content creators to use those elements to break up potentially huge blocks of text. Twitter chief Elon Musk first announced that the website is making long-form tweets even longer in early March, almost a month after the initial 4,000-character expansion.
We’re making improvements to the writing and reading experience on Twitter! Starting today, Twitter now supports Tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, with bold and italic text formatting.
Sign up for Twitter Blue to access these new features, and apply to enable…
While a 10,000-character limit sounds excessive for most casual users — that’s around 2,000 words, or a pretty lengthy essay — Twitter likely introduced the capability for people looking to make money off their posts. The company has just rebranded “Super Follows” as “Subscriptions,” allowing users to charge people $3, $5 and $10 a month for exclusive content, including subscriber-only chats in Spaces. Twitter also promised not to take any of their earnings for the next 12 months.
By increasing the character tweet limit for Blue users, as well as allowing them to post “hours long videos,” Twitter is giving creators more ways to keep their subscribers engaged. At the same time, getting users to spend more time on the website means more opportunities to serve them with ads that would make the company more money. That said, Super Follows never quite took off, and it remains to be seen whether this iteration of the subscription service will fare better.
In a lineup mixing established auteurs with rising directors, Palme d’Or winners Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Nanni Moretti, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders and Hirokazu Kore-eda return to the main competition alongside first-time contenders Kaouther Ben Hania, Justine Triet and Ramata-Toulaye Sy.
Deadline sat down with Frémaux after the press conference to drill down on the Selection and the process of bringing it together this year.
DEADLINE: The selection process always goes up to the wire ahead of the main lineup announcement. What time did you manage to wrap things up overnight?
THIERRY FRÉMAUX: There have been editions where we’ve finished at 3 in the morning. This time we all left at 1 a.m. We even took the time to eat pizza with the team. Of course, I ended up fielding a few texts and messages at home.
DEADLINE: One of the final tasks is tying up the selection of French films in the lineup. I read in the French press that you received 600 French films this year. Is that true?
FRÉMAUX. It’s probably more like 200 French films, but that’s still a lot. When it comes to world cinema, we’re not selecting from the entire production available across a whole year — it’s more films that are ready for this period. For French cinema, there are really people who wait for Cannes, even if the work is ready to go out earlier.
DEADLINE: Why is Cannes so important for the French?
FRÉMAUX: There’s a nice alliance between the Cannes Film Festival and the French cinema world, which I am proud of because it was not always the case. And then, it’s simply a question of artistic satisfaction.
DEADLINE: This must put a lot of pressure on you and the selection team as you probably know many of the French professionals.
FRÉMAUX: The reason we end up so late is because of the French cinema. We have to be very diplomatic and take care to write and call everyone.
DEADLINE: News broke last week that Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of investigative news website Médiapart, has filed a complaint for violence against Maïwenn, director of the festival’s opening film Jeanne du Barry. Could this complaint impact the film’s screening in Cannes?
FRÉMAUX: No. It’s a private matter between two people. It has nothing to do with her film and nothing to do with the Cannes Film Festival. There is a complaint against her. The complaint will be dealt with according to judicial procedures; perhaps it will be declared invalid, or perhaps there will be a trial. We don’t know the outcome.
DEADLINE: What drove your decision to select Jeanne du Barry as the opening film?
FRÉMAUX: It’s a beautiful film, and Maïwenn is also part of the history of the festival. The opening film also has to come out simultaneously in French cinemas; we don’t put platform films in that slot, because we want France to participate in the festival. The film is a success, and Johnny Depp [as Louis XV] is magnificent in it. It recounts something about the history of women inside history and the place of women in relation to the king.
FRÉMAUX:Six of the 19 films in the main competition are directed by women this year, which is a record for the festival. Is this fruit of a deliberate festival strategy or is it an organic development reflecting changes in the industry?
FRÉMAUX: We came under fire one year [2014] when there was not a single woman in competition. At the time, if I dare say it, those questions weren’t being asked so much, but it made me interrogate the situation and take a closer look, even if I had the impression that things were getting better.
For me, it has always been about the films. Nobody wants to say it, but things are getting better. There are more women directors everywhere in the world. Things have changed. We and all the festivals are taking more care. I am not going to say that it’s a strategy, it’s rather a reflection of something natural.
What is interesting about this bigger presence of women directors is what they recount. It’s the female gaze.
That is also going to enrich the story of cinema, which is fantastic for us cinephiles. The films of Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino are not the same as the other film noirs being made in the same period.
Justine Triet’s film [Anatomy of a Fall] is about a trial, and the accused is a woman. Of course, we’ve seen that in the history of cinema before, but it’s not the same when it’s told by a man, as when it’s told by a woman. There’s a scene where the woman reunites with her child. It’s a woman’s scene, written by a mother, Justine. It’s a feminine artistic spirit.
I’m not for rejecting John Wayne. I am rather for welcoming the arrival of new filmmakers. I hope there will be a female Howard Hawks or Francois Truffaut so that the history of cinema can rebalance.
It’s also about results. I don’t stop repeating that in 2021 whenTitane won the Palme d’Or, a woman director also won Berlin, Venice and San Sebastian. In Cannes that year, women won everything — the competition, the short film, the Camera d’Or and Un Certain Regard. Nobody talked about it. We only talk about things when they aren’t going well. I also want to talk about it when things are going well. Six [women in competition], we’re not there yet, but it’s approaching 30%, and we might add another.
DEADLINE: There also seems to be more diversity across the different sections, with a strong North African presence this year.
FRÉMAUX: My cinephilia is to know the cinema of Glauber Rocher in Brazil or Ousmane Sembène in Senegal. Diversity has always been there. We were the first to say that in North Africa, there are interesting women directors, and in Africa. And this year’s selection is proof of that, and they’re good films. We’d like to open more to South Africa, and we had the young Kenyan cineaste Wanuri Kahiu. It’s going to come.
DEADLINE: So far you have announced 52 titles in Official Selection. Are you planning any additions?
FRÉMAUX: Maybe five or six more. There are things that arrived at the last minute and are even arriving now. They’ve warned us. The press conference was due to take place on April 13th or 20th, We decided to go on April 13, so that you can get on with your work. It’s better for everyone. We don’t want more than 60 titles. We want each film to be properly looked after.
DEADLINE:There was strong buzz that Woody Allen’s new film Coup de Coeur was going to figure in the selection. Is it under consideration?
FRÉMAUX: We haven’t seen Woody’s film, and to pre-empt the question, or Polanski’s film.
DEADLINE:There have also been rumors that one or more of the late Jean-Luc Godard’s final projects might screen in the festival? Are you planning to do anything to commemorate the director?
FRÉMAUX: Yes, we’re planning something. That will be one of our future announcements. There will be a tribute. We’re still reflecting on the details.
DEADLINE:You held out hope year after year that Godard would return to Cannes, but he never did...
FRÉMAUX: I would visit him a lot in his home. He would always promise to come to Cannes, or to Lyon [where Frémaux is head of the Lumière Institute and its festival]. In the end, I think he preferred to stay at home and work. He worked right up until his final days.
Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
Apple TV+ /Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: One of the big coups of this year is securing Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Were you worried it might not happen?
FRÉMAUX: We talk all the time. We’re friends. I saw the film very early [in November], and of course as soon as I saw it, I immediately invited it. But it’s always a long negotiation. He really wanted to come to Cannes and to respond to our invite, but there is also a producer, Apple, which also had its own ideas. When it was decided that the film would come out in the autumn, Apple could have said May was too early, but it made this fantastic gesture and said it wanted to come to Cannes. At that point, we didn’t know it was going to come out [in cinemas in France].
This is part of our profession in that from the end of November to April, it was between yes and no.
The idea of coming to Cannes was always strong for Apple, Scorsese and his team, his agent Rick Yorn. Leo DiCaprio and Bob De Niro also really wanted to come, but at the same time, I understand there can be other economic or strategic obligations or imperatives.
DEADLINE: Do you think the fact that the film is playing in Cannes influenced Apple’s decision to give it a theatrical release in France?
FRÉMAUX: I can’t make any claim to that. What I do know is that Marty, like all cineastes who are produced by the platforms, also wanted the film to come out in theaters so it could meet its public.
Both outcomes are fantastic: In the first one, the film wasn’t destined for a theatrical release, but they accepted to come out of competition, which is what we’ve invited Netflix to do on a number of occasions in the past. Apple accepted, in the same way, Amazon can accept too.
Then they decided to release the film in theatres, which is why I said I can now invite the film to competition.
DEADLINE:At the moment, the film is set for an out-of-competition screening. Do you think this might change?
FRÉMAUX: The invitation has been sent. I can understand if the answer is no. Once he had won the Palme d’Or, Fellini stopped participating in the competition. Marty might say he already has the Palme d’Or and go down the same route.
DEADLINE: By when would a decision need to be made?
FRÉMAUX: By the day of the opening, so the jury knows. We have a month. I don’t to want to in any way force my hand, and if Marty decides to play the film out of competition, that’s still a very noble decision.
DEADLINE: Another coup has been securing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Will executive producer Steven Spielberg be joining director James Mangold and Harrison Ford on the red carpet?
FRÉMAUX: We haven’t got into the details yet. I would love it if he did, because I would love to congratulate him for The Fabelmans.
DEADLINE: Another buzzy selection is the HBO and A24 series The Idol, directed by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and starring Lily-Rose Depp, which screens out of competition. How much of the series are you going to screen?
FRÉMAUX: We’re showing the two episodes, and together they are like a film. We like to show series by cineastes. Sam Levinson is a very interesting young cineaste. In the past, we’ve shown drama series by David Lynch, Jane Campion, Marco Bellocchio, Nicholas Winding Refn and Olivier Assayas.
DEADLINE: Steven McQueen’s Amsterdam-set film Occupied City is getting a Special Screening. You gave a shout-out to the director in the press conference, saying next time you want to select him for the main competition. Do you have your eyes on Blitz for 2024?
FRÉMAUX: I meant next year, next time. We’ll see. We talk all the time, but I haven’t seen it yet.
DEADLINE: Looking at the lineup, there are just four films in the Cannes Premiere sidebar you introduced three years ago for more established filmmakers. Are you getting pushback from directors with regard to that section?
FRÉMAUX: Actually, it’s the contrary. Everyone wants to be in Cannes Premiere, especially after the success of The Night of the 12th and The Beasts. The way in which the films are shown in the section is very special. It’s with the same prestige and red carpet but without the same effervescence that you have around the competition.
When people go see a Cannes Premiere film at the Debussy, it’s generally because they really want to see that particular film. Cannes Premiere also allows a cineaste to show their film more calmly which sometimes is an advantage.
DEADLINE:It’s your first edition working with the new president Iris Knobloch, having previously worked with Pierre Lescure and before Gilles Jacob. Does it mark a big change for you?
FRÉMAUX: On one hand, it’s a continuation. Cannes is an institution with strong foundations and an administrative board, in which there is the Ministry of Culture, the National Cinema Centre, Cannes City Council and the professionals. We all work together.
The artistic part is very sovereign and independent but also connected to the historic ties between the delegate general and the president. At the same time, Iris has her style and that is not the same style as Gilles Jacob or Pierre Lescure. Her profile is that she comes from the industry side. She also has a strong understanding of partnerships and knows exactly what she can bring. I find her analysis of things very useful.
Quentin Tarantino says the failure of Death Proof shook his confidence and he started receiving proposals from Hollywood again as a result.
Quentin Tarantino has been fortunate in that all of his movies have been successful… with the exception of Death Proof. The film was one-half of the Grindhouse double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, but audiences didn’t know what to make of it. Death Proof only grossed $31 million in its standalone release, and Tarantino said that the movie’s failure shook his confidence.
While speaking to Spain’s Diari ARA (via Variety) during his Cinema Speculation book tour, Quentin Tarantino reflected on the performance of Death Proof. “I have been lucky enough to write stories that have connected with many people, and this has allowed me to practice my art without the restrictions that most filmmakers have,” Tarantino said. “Now, a funny thing happened: for a while I was getting a lot of project proposals, until the studios ended up assuming that I do my stories and it wasn’t worth the effort. But after ‘Death Proof,’ which didn’t do well at the box office and was a bit of a shock to my confidence, I started getting proposals again.”
Rather than taking one of those studio proposals, Quentin Tarantino chose to continue on his own path. “They must have thought, ‘Perhaps now he’s touched and his temper has gone down, now is the time,’” Tarantino said. “And there’s nothing wrong with making commissioned movies for Hollywood. They always offered me interesting projects. But I preferred to reinvest in myself and made ‘Inglourious Basterds.’” Could a world exist in the multiverse where he did accept Hollywood’s proposal and Quentin Tarantino’s Marley & Me is a thing?
Quentin Tarantino admitted in 2020 that he had assumed audiences were more familiar with the history of double features than they were. “With Grindhouse, I think me and Robert just felt that people had a little more of a concept of the history of double features and exploitation movies,” Tarantino said. “No, they didn’t. At all. They had no idea what the f**k they were watching. It meant nothing to them, alright, what we were doing. So that was a case of being a little too cool for school.“
The filmmaker is preparing to shoot what is expected to be his tenth and final movie. There aren’t too many details about the project yet, only that it will be set in the 1970s and will be titled The Movie Critic.
What did you think of Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof?
It’s basic vampire orthodoxy at this point that if you’re dealing with Dracula, he’d better be sexy. Or, barring that: Funny. Those are the two versions of Dracula we’ve settled on in our society: He’s either gotta be a Byronic blood-drinker who smolders as he kills, or Nicolas Cage schticking it up.
In The Heights’ Olga Merediz has spent a decade with Abuela Claudia
Hence our surprise—bordering on dismay!—at the trailer for upcoming horror film The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, in which the movie’s version of Bram Stoker’s infamous vampire is neither erotic nor chuckle-ready, but is, in fact, a pretty damn scary horror movie monster who is just going to eat a whole bunch of people. What is the world coming to?
The Last Voyage of the Demeter | Official Trailer
Drac-heads will recognize that the book’s title and premise both come from Dracula itself, and specifically the chapter “The Captain’s Log,” which details the miserable tale of the ship that Dracula hires to carry his coffin, some native earth, and himself to England after he gets sick of snacking on Romanian peasants. True to the book, the Drac in the film doesn’t do sensual neck nibbles or goofy jokes: He just fucking eats people, none of whom (including stars Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, and Game Of Thrones’ Liam Cunningham) seem especially well-equipped to deal with a ravenous bat-man killing off their comrades.
And we might joke around a little, but Demeter actually looks pretty damn cool: A ship is a great “locked” location for a horror movie to take place in, and this version of Dracula seems legitimately scary, raising genuine questions about how any of these people might survive their voyage. (Spoilers for a century-old book: Most of them won’t.)
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter sails into theaters on August 11.
Producer Naoki Yoshida said that this entry doesn’t require any experience with the series and ran through a lot of the game’s mechanics, even noting that it is the first true action RPG in the mainline entries. This is evident in how the combat plays out since it is all in real-time and looks more akin to a Devil May Cry game than a traditional Final Fantasy title. This makes sense since its combat designer, Ryota Suzuki, was a designer on Devil May Cry 5.
Battles are fast and full of juggles and different effects, which players can learn and upgrade through various skill trees. Accessories can also augment combat, and the game is using those to give newer players a way to succeed. As was previously revealed, there are certain items that automate dodging or make it easier, and its story difficulty equips players with those from the jump.
Square Enix’s fantasies take different forms, but none are quite like Forspoken. This action RPG’s fantasy isn’t final and blends…
Various characters can even join Clive on his adventures and fight alongside him in battles and strike up conversations when not in the thick of it. Players can’t direct them around, aside from Torgal, the large dog, who can be given simple orders during fights. It’s also possible to practice in a separate part of the game and set parameters like enemy behaviors in order to hone combos. There’s also an arcade mode where players can compare scores to one another, but that mode wasn’t detailed much.
Eikon fights, however, are a little different because they are giant flashy beast encounters that see the player transform into an Eikon, as well. They also take place in real-time and all bring something different to the table. One may be a side-scrolling shooter, while another might be an all-out wrestling match, and this variety is shown extensively in the State of Play.
Although those elements demonstrate its combat mechanics quite well, it’s also still an RPG. The map lets players travel around and more places unlock as players progress. There’s also Cid’s little hideaway that is full of characters that can upgrade Clive’s gear, give him side missions, or teach him about the world.
Yoshida said there was still more to reveal before the game’s June 22 launch. He stated that Square Enix would talk more about its side content and the endgame in “the near future.”
Final Fantasy XVI also went up for pre-order just after the show. Those who pre-order will get a Gil Boost Accessory (the Cait Sith Charm) and the Braveheart, which is a bonus weapon. The regular edition will be $69.99, while the deluxe edition is going to be $99.99. The more expensive version comes with Final Fantasy XVI, a cloth version of the game’s map, and special steelbook case.
Lionsgate laid off staffers in its Motion Picture Group on Thursday, as the company continues to streamline operations ahead of its split from Starz, TheWrap has confirmed.
It is unknown how many people were let go but an individual with knowledge of the matter tells TheWrap it is a small number.
Earlier this year, the company announced it had cut roughly 150 positions which reduced its workforce by 10% across all divisions over a six month period. Lionsgate CFO Jimmy Barge said in February the cuts were made to manage costs ahead of the separation from Starz.
Experts believe it’s a make or break year for Lionsgate. Wins at the box office with make investors believe the company can stand on its own, especially after it completes the split of its studio business and Starz, anticipated for this fall. However, flops mean the company is waiting to be bought at a discounted rate.
Kelly Clarkson doubled up for her first release of original music in six years. Ahead of her forthcoming album Chemistry, set for release on June 23, the singer has introduced the record with two separate outlooks on two different songs, “Me” and “Mine.”
“We decided to release ‘mine’ and ‘me’ at the same time because I didn’t want to release just one song to represent an entire album, or relationship,” Clarkson explained in a statement. “There are many stages of grief and loss on this album. Each song is a different stage and emotional state.”
“Mine” is listed as the second song on the album’s 14-song tracklist, with “Me” appearing slightly further down. During a quiet acoustic moment at the start of the first song, Clarkson ponders how she arrived in this current moment. “You know I questioned every moment, everything you said/Thought with you my heart wasn’t meant to break,” she sings. “I can’t believe I let you in/I can’t believe I stayed as long as I stayed.”
She follows her disbelief with a seemingly sweet gesture towards an amicable split before tearing it all down. “I hope one day will take your heart and hold it tight/Make you feel like you’re invincible deep inside,” she offers. “And right when you think that it’s perfect, they cross the line/And steal your shine, like you did mine.”
Clarkson co-wrote “Me” with rising singer-songwriter Gayle. The ballad, stacked with layers of harmonies, establishes her independence in the aftermath of a relationship coming to an end. “I bet you feel the absence of my love every night/There’s no one else, you are the reason I said goodbye,” she sings. “Cause I don’t need somebody to scold me/Don’t need somebody that hurts me/Don’t need somebody who feels weak standing next to me.”
In her statement, Clarkson added: “Having chemistry with someone is an incredible, and overwhelming, feeling. It’s like you have no choice in the matter. You are just drawn to each other. This can be good and bad. This album takes you down every path that chemistry could lead you down.”
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Just over a month after Chemistry is released, Clarkson will reclaim her spotlight on stage at the Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas for the 10-date residencyChemistry: An Intimate Evening with Kelly Clarkson. “I could only commit to 10 shows, that’s why it’s exclusive,” Clarkson told the Kelly Clarkson Show audience as she announced the performances and surprised a fan with tickets. “I ain’t adding more, I’m telling you right now.”
Chemistry Tracklist: “Skip This Part” “Mine” “High Road” “Me” “Down To You” “Chemistry” “Favorite Kind Of High” “Magic” “Lighthouse” “Rock Hudson” “My Mistake” “Red Flag Collector” “I Hate Love (Feat. Steve Martin)” “That’s Right (Feat. Sheila E.)”
Prolific author, film critic, founder of Film Threat, regular on-air personality for G4TV’s Attack of the Show, and beloved comic con staple, Chris Gore makes his directorial debut with Attack of the Doc! Gore’s debut documentary addresses all the questions left unanswered by the cancellation of G4TV and Attack of the Show! Perfectly timed to the 21st anniversary of G4TV this year. G4TV’s Attack of the Show! was a birthplace for nerd culture on broadcast TV and where audiences watched the careers of the show’s hosts, Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira, begin their ascent. “Attack of the Doc!” will world première on April 21st, offering Q&A’s with Gore at the Frida Cinema in Southern California moderated by Film Threat editor-in-chief Alan Ng, and will be available through Indie Rights for audiences across all TVOD/Digital platforms and Video On Demand throughout North America on April 24th, 2023, which is the 21st Anniversary of the launch of G4TV.
Attack of the Doc! is written, directed & produced by Chris Gore, produced & edited by Bobby Schwartz, co-produced by Walter Areas, with additional co-editing by Anthony Ray Bench and Phillip H. Eubanks, and with an original score composed by Austin Smith. This deep dive documentary features pop icons including Wil Wheaton, John Cena, Joel McHale, Peter Jackson, Kumail Nanjiani, Whitney Cummings, Danny Pudi, Eric Andre, Jerry Stiller, Joe Rogan, Jimmy Fallen, Kel Mitchell, Anne Meara, Stan Lee, Sara Jean Underwood, Carrie Keagan, Riley Steele, Tom Green, Anthony Daniels, Michael Winslow, Joey Kern, Joan Rivers, Chris Hardwick, Robert Kirkman, Greg Nicotero, Jessica Chobot, Tony Hawk, and Alison Haislip, among others as we search for the truth.
“Attack of the Show! was unique, way ahead of its time, and was a milestone that had a huge impact on geek culture. Its core audience is one of the most coveted around the globe. I think viewers of the original show will be down for learning the history of the network and the show which helped usher in the age of nerd culture. Frankly, G4TV and Attack of the Show! are responsible for making it cool to be a nerd,” states Gore. “And at the end of the day, I hope the documentary entertains fans and reminds them of a time when a TV show could be dangerous and provide some laughs without fear of being canceled. Everyone who worked on the documentary is a super fan, so this movie was made by fans for fans.”
Tickets available here for the April 21st premiere, and follow the documentary and its journey here. Attack of the Doc! available on Video on Demand and TVOD/Digital platforms on April 24th, 2023, which is the 21st Anniversary of the launch of G4TV.
With the snow continuing to melt and rain moving in, flood watches have been issued for some parts of Manitoba.
Eastern Manitoba, including Winnipeg and areas east of Highway 75, will be under an overland flood watch as of Friday and it will last until noon on Saturday.
Twenty millimetres of rain or snow is expected on Friday and the precipiation will fall on extremely saturated and partially frozen ground.
A flood watch has also been issued for the Fisher River near Peguis and Fisher River First Nation and water levels could exceed bankfull capacity overnight tonight into Saturday.
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Manitoba’s flood forecast is still consistent with the outlook issued last month, which projects a major flood risk for the Red River.
The podcast-to-screen pipeline is going strong, thanks in part to recent adaptations that have garnered major awards recognition and viewer interest.As part of The Hollywood Reporter’s Rights Available feature, which has highlighted books with industry appeal, we have compiled a collection of podcasts that are ripe for film or TV adaptation. The collection below are podcasts featured in the print magazine that were available for pickup at the time of publication.
Svetlana! Svetlana!
By Dan Kitrosser • Produced by iHeartMedia and The Documentary Group • Agency WME and UTA Leaning into the chaotic and absurd, this series tells the story of Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, who defected to the U.S. in 1967 during the Cold War. Her life in the West became entangled with a cult-like commune in the Arizona desert run by Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife, Olgivanna; her marriage to a Wright protégé; and her increasingly complicated views of the U.S.
Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature
By Alex Kemp and Winnie Kemp • Produced by Wolf at the Door and Realm • Agency CAA This narrative fiction series debuted at Tribeca and hails from the production company that co-produced Spotify’s hit series, Batman Unburied. Formatted like a series of recorded university lectures, Modes of Thought details the discovery of an ancient civilization, believed to be the earliest human society, found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean following the accident of a Chinese government submarine. Strange occurrences take place throughout the recordings, leaving listeners to question what the truth is and what has purposefully been hidden.
Stealing Superman
By Dana Schwartz • Rep/Producer iHeartMedia On New Year’s Eve in 1999, a heist was underway to steal prized comics from Nicolas Cage (yes, that one). Included in the theft was Action Comics #1, which featured the first appearance of Superman — and the location of which eluded police and collectors for more than a decade. In this series, journalist Dana Schwartz teams up with an art detective and comic book dealer on a quest to answer, Who stole Nic Cage’s comics?
Chameleon: Dr. Dante
Produced by Campside Media and Sony Entertainment • Agency UTA The latest season of the Chameleon series, hosted by Sam Mullins, follows a hypnotist known as Dr. Dante whose skills and scams lead him to target women interested in self-help out of millions. Along the way, Dante’s schemes involve the launch of a fake university and the attempted murder of a rival hypnotist. The show is a star vehicle prime for a charismatic interpretation.
Gone South: The Dixie Mafia
Produced by Cadence 13 • Agency WME Hosted by Jed Lipinski, this nonfiction series focuses on The Dixie Mafia, which served as inspiration for characters in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, and is ripe for a more focused adaptation, given viewer interest in cult-like groups and unsolved murders.
Eliza: A Robot Story
Written by Emma Hickman • Produced by Crowd Network • Agency CAA Starring Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds, this eight-part narrative scripted series is about the robot, Eliza, who falls in love with her owner (played by Doctor Who star Arthur Darvill). But a romance this is not, as Eliza’s growing sentience leads to realizations about abuse and coercion.
This story first appeared as entries in February, March and April issues of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.Click here to subscribe.
April 13, 4:20 p.m.: Updated to reflect that UTA represents Svetlana! Svetlana! alongside WME.
Dr. Maggie Pierce treated her last patient at Grey Sloan Memorial Thursday, after nine seasons as a core member of the “Grey’s Anatomy” cast.
For Kelly McCreary, the actress behind the talented cardiothoracic surgeon and Meredith Grey’s (Ellen Pompeo) half-sister, the ABC medical drama’s two-hour farewell gave her the perfect vehicle to honor Maggie’s journey, and to close a major chapter in her own life and career.
“It meant a lot to me,” McCreary told TheWrap about the episodes. “When I spoke to Krista [Vernoff, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ showrunner and executive producer], after she agreed to let Maggie go, I said it’d be very nice to be able to have scenes that feel like closure with all of the characters that have meant something to Maggie … my homies, my family that I’ve been doing this with for such a long time.”
“I felt really lucky. [Maggie] is so valued and they treated her with such value and I thought it was lovely.”
Thursday’s two-hour special chronicled Maggie’s final case as head of cardio at Grey Sloan before heading to a new research opportunity in Chicago, and featured her and her husband, Dr. Winston Ndugu (Anthony Hill), doing yet another impressive save in the operating room. After months of turmoil in their marriage, the couple had a night of passion after the case and got close to trying to make their relationship work.
But when Maggie tried to convince Winston to move with her, he accused her of being too much like her biological mother Ellis Grey (Kate Burton) and that sent her spiraling during Part 2 of the farewell special, which featured heartwarming scenes with Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), Catherine (Debbie Allen) and Richard (James Pickens Jr.) that paid tribute to Maggie’s long journey on the show.
As for Winston, the end of the episode saw him and Maggie come to terms with the dissolution of their marriage. Maggie reflected that Ellis stayed with her husband for years while being in love with someone else, which filled her bitterness and resentment. In order to not repeat those mistakes, and similar choices by her adoptive mother Diane (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), the best thing was to let Winston stay in Seattle and separate. The episode ended with a touching moment as Maggie came face to face with visions of Ellis and Diane, as a sort of blessing on their part for her brave choice to leave and chase her ambitions.
Kelly McCreary and Anthony Hill in a still from “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Ahead of the premiere of her farewell episodes, McCreary spoke with TheWrap about her decision to exit the medical drama, filming her farewell and the hardest goodbye on set. (As previously reported, the actress will return for a visit before the end of Season 19, as will Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith.)
TheWrap: Congratulations on a great run on Grey’s. You’ve been at the core of the series for nine seasons now. What made you decide to say goodbye to Maggie Pierce now?
McCreary: It wasn’t the first time the question had come up about whether it was the end of Maggie’s journey. I ask it at the end of every season, like “what’s there to do, what’s left?” And obviously, there’s a ton left. The hospital and these characters are so rich in life that they could go on and keep reinventing themselves and keep being challenged.
But I thought, you know, the way that Maggie and Winston sort of reached this question of whether they were compatible with one another at the end of last season, that just made me think like, “are they compatible, or does Maggie just not know what she wants and who she is?” She came into the hospital asking that question, and it’s been kind of hanging over her. Who is she and what does she want?
And I thought, you know, maybe this crisis in their relationship is what really makes her realize that she wants something different, someplace else.
Maggie is off to Chicago, and she got some much-needed closure with Winston and other key characters in her life before leaving. What did you think about the way the show wrapped up Maggie’s journey?
I really thought it was a beautiful tribute to the legacy of her family. And I love the way that she and Winston were able to come to an understanding of each other, so that they didn’t leave each other with wreckage behind them.
And particularly in these last couple of episodes, it was beautiful to see her have time with Winston, and even Catherine! And just leaving with wisdom and leaving feeling fortified by all the ways that they poured into her. And, you know, leaving having given the new interns some inspiration; someone having taught them something … giving them something to aspire to.
Niko Terho, Alexis Floyd and Kelly McCreary in “Grey’s Anatomy.”
Part 2 of Maggie’s farewell found her wrestling with the idea of her similarities to Ellis Grey, as she said goodbye to Grey Sloan and her Seattle family; and we got to see Ellis and Diane — Maggie’s moms — as she exited the hospital. What was it like to film that episode for you as a performer, and what was the hardest goodbye to film for you?
Shooting the episode felt so important. I was just really aware like “this is my last time on this set, or this is my last scene with Debbie Allen, this my last surgery,” it was all very poignant for me. And I really wanted every moment to count and I wanted to remember everything and I I wanted the scenes to live up on screen to how great they were on the page.
Without question the hardest scene was the one with Caterina. Caterina is a dear, dear, dear person to me. I think it just really didn’t hit us until it was over. It hit us like a ton of bricks. It was probably the one scene where I was a little less mindful, and then all of a sudden it was over. It was my last scene of the episode to shoot, and it was with her, and it was a lot.
TheWrap: Your work as Maggie has been such a delight to watch on the show, and she’s certainly a polarizing character among fans. What will you take away from your time on the series?
“Grey’s” is such a special playground. It’s such a fun hybrid of genres. We do comedy, we do the drama, sometimes there’s suspense, sometimes we have action. And so, we got to really do so many different things. Sometimes we’re really issues-driven and sometimes it’s silly and fun. I feel so lucky that I’ve been able to spend the last nine years of my creative life in a place that kept challenging me and to get to dip my toe in a lot of different waters.
And that’s what I’ll keep doing moving forward just with different characters. I want to keep diving a little deeper into those waters. And move around. I have a theater background, and when you’re a theater actor, with the exception of these long running Broadway shows, you’re playing your character for just a few weeks at a time and then you move on to the next thing and the next theater family and the next group of collaborators.
And so that’s sort of in my DNA as an artist. So I’ll be getting back to that.
“Grey’s Anatomy” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments in Season 3, Episode 9 of “Star Trek: Picard,” currently streaming on Paramount+.
Gates McFadden didn’t know what to expect when she first got on a Zoom call with “Star Trek: Picard” executive producers Terry Matalas and Akiva Goldsman. A few years earlier, Patrick Stewart had taken the cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner and McFadden — to dinner to announce that he was going to star on the spinoff series without them. But for the show’s third and final season, Matalas wanted to bring the full cast back together.
The “TNG” storyline ended, some feel prematurely, in 2002, after “Star Trek: Nemesis” bombed in theaters. But for McFadden, her run as Dr. Beverly Crusher had really concluded with the series finale of the show in 1994. In the movies, Crusher — who on the show had a longstanding, unrequited romantic entanglement with Stewart’s Capt. Jean-Luc Picard — had almost nothing to do.
“So much of the history of the character — you didn’t even see it,” McFadden says. “Jean-Luc Picard could have this brand new love interest every time, and it was as if he and Crusher had nothing between them, or ever did. That was a huge part of the character that was just put away.”
To McFadden’s surprise and delight, Matalas pitched her what has turned out to be the most robust storyline her character has ever been given. At some point after the events of “Nemesis,” Crusher and Picard consummated their relationship in a liaison that resulted in a child. Rather than tell Picard, however, Crusher cut herself off from the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D and raised her son, named Jack Crusher (and played as an adult by “You” co-star Ed Speleers), alone.
The season begins with Crusher reaching out to Picard in desperation as she and Jack are relentlessly hunted by an unknown force. In the penultimate episode of the season, that force is revealed to be the Borg, who in collaboration with a rogue faction of shapeshifting Changelings have successfully infiltrated Starfleet at the highest levels. It turns out that when Picard was assimilated by the Borg during “TNG,” they modified his DNA, which Picard passed along to Jack. That modification, combined with some technological subterfuge that alters the DNA of anyone under 25 in Starfleet, allows the Borg to assimilate the entirety of Starfleet in one cataclysmic stroke.
If that wasn’t enough, the episode ends with one final shocking twist: The “TNG” cast reuniting with the Enterprise-D, which Burton’s Geordi LaForge has painstakingly reconstructed since it was destroyed in the events of 1994’s “Star Trek: Generations.”
McFadden talked with Variety about what it was like to return to the old Enterprise-D and reunite on camera with all her old friends, as well as her own mixed feelings about Crusher’s controversial decision to keep Picard in the dark about his own son — and the “TNG” episode that made her feel better about it.
Paramount+
How did you feel about Beverly Crusher’s presence in the “TNG” movies?
Well, it’s no surprise to hear that it was very disappointing. It’s always tricky when you’re the actor. You want your role to be as wonderful as possible. But you’re also not stupid, and you’re very happy that the franchise is doing well. “First Contact” was just an amazingly written film. My only sadness was that there had to be new female love interests. But then, that’s Hollywood. So you just accept it and do the best you can do with what you’re given. I mean, that’s the job.
So when did you understand that not only would Crusher have that history with Picard on this season of the show, but it would be central to the story?
I think in the very first conversation I had with Terry and Akiva. They told me the storyline. And I said, “Hey, terrific story, but my concern is that she’s not seen as ‘That bitch didn’t tell him she was pregnant with his child! How could she do something like that?’”
She’s basically a very ethical humanist. She really cares about doing the right thing. That was my concern. I was coming from “TNG” where I felt the female point of view was only done through different women characters who would come on board, not Troi or Crusher. I felt that we were lacking in terms of a very strong female presence. Our only scenes, usually we would be, you know, working out and talking about men somehow.
I mean, it was quite crazy, right? I have enough sense of humor to go, okay, the stupidest scene. I get it. We go to conventions and people are dressed in cosplay with our outfits. It’s funny, and I don’t feel judged by the younger generations, in a way that I wish my generation had gotten it when it happened.
So how did you resolve your feelings about Crusher’s choice about Jack?
I think if we hadn’t had the episode “Attached,” I would have had more of a problem. We had this episode where we were totally connected with each other’s deepest thoughts. I feel that’s why they basically broke up, or it never really went anywhere. Because she didn’t want this on-and-off relationship; she wanted a family. And he very clearly from the deepest instincts did not.
It was crucial for the story that he had a child. I believe it was Patrick who came up with the idea of [the mother] being Crusher. [Sighs] There’re some people who will never forgive her for not telling him. But one of the problems that me, Gates, finds in the world today is that we spend so much time not forgiving, instead of going, maybe I should let go of some of the anger and resentment and open up to the positive. Hey, Picard’s resolved his issues with his parents, and now he has a child. And that child is actually pretty frickin’ great. My children — I don’t know what it says about Crusher’s personality — they all have a bit of a lip. You know, Wesley did, and I think Jack Crusher has some of that too. That’s pretty funny to me.
On “TNG,” Crusher was often a character who was unafraid to go off alone on her own path if she felt it was the right thing to do, rules be damned. Her decision to cut off all her friends and not tell Picard about his son is the most extreme version of that, but I see how people had mixed reactions.
It’s interesting because she didn’t choose to have an abortion. She really wanted to be a mother. And if you’ve just been recently listening to Picard’s deepest thoughts — “no, I would never want a baby, absolutely no, no, no” — I think you have to base it on what she knew then. And I think she hopes that later the child would reunite with Picard, and it’s a shock when her son doesn’t want to. And perhaps she had an instinct, when the child was crying all the time at night, that this child needed protection, and was perhaps a little different. Obviously, there’s going to be people who disagree with [her decision]; I understand that. I just feel also people should then try to focus on maybe the good of why that happened.
At the same time, how did it feel to have so much material to perform as Crusher?
It was the first time ever for me in “Star Trek.” It felt fabulous. It was terrific. I owe that all to Terry. It was wonderful acting again with Patrick. We’ve always had a good chemistry on screen. I never dreamt it was ever going to happen, because I didn’t assume I was going to go back to do a just a one off where I’m, you know, opening a knitting shop or something. That I would not have been interested in.
What was it like the first day the core seven of you were all on set together?
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen most of them. The only one I hadn’t seen was Marina. The effect on fans in my mind is probably greater than it was for us. We’re in a group text; we’re in each other’s lives. I mean, there was humor. We were sort of, “Okay, we’re back at the Observation Lounge! How are they going to do these shots?” Because in the “TNG” olden days, it would be a whole day in the observation lounge for everyone’s close-up. So it was done in a different way.
Paramount+
What else was different?
The cameras were so fantastic. The lenses were so much sharper. The sound was better. You really notice that it’s been quite a while, 20 years or so — 35 years since we shot the first one. Because I couldn’t make a sound like this. [Drops a pen.] We’d have to reshoot the whole scene before, or I’d have to loop the whole scene. Now, you could make some noise. And I mean, technology has really been rockin it for cameras.
What’s your sharpest memory of being together on set with the cast?
I remember the day Michael Dorn came in and I was shooting that first scene on the Elios. And I was having so much fun because it was an action scene, which I love. I love anything with movement. And then Michael walks on. We had seen each other. We talk to each other all the time. But we both just hugged each other and we’re like, “This is so cool!” That’s the one I remember the most, because he was the first one I actually saw. And then there was this moment when Patrick, Jonathan and me were on the bridge of the Titan. And we were like wow, we are all in uniform and doing this. I mean Patrick had been doing this, but for Jonathan and me, it was special. It was really special. And then, of course, when everybody came on. I love these people. They’re terrific actors. But people forget it was during COVID. So we always had our masks on, and because the sound was so good, we couldn’t talk. We didn’t have our own little trailers outside where we used to cause havoc. We were much more behaved.
LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner told me the same thing, that you’re “older” and “more mature” now.
I think that’s definitely true, but I’m not sure that given the right circumstances, we wouldn’t still be singing on a set or whatever. There was one moment where we went crazy with it. But poor Terry had a lot to shoot in a limited time, and I think we were all aware of that. So maybe narcissistically we were more well behaved because we wanted it to be good. We wanted the first one to be good. That’s silly to say. But we had much longer hours. So I think after you’ve shot for 14 hours, you start to get incredibly silly.
So when did you learn that the Enterprise-D was going to be resurrected?
I think pretty early on. That was amazing. It was a huge visceral difference. The Titan was an intimidating bridge. Even the Gates part of it that was like, “Wow, if I were on this bridge, I wouldn’t know how to work all those machines.” Whereas on the Enterprise bridge, I was like, “Oh, yeah, I can do it all. I know how to drive it.”
It was interesting to see the difference in the lighting, for example. The original “TNG” bridge is like a living room. My little boy, he was learning how to walk on that bridge. He was going up and down and into the ready room and looking at the fish and the spaceship model. It really was this homey feeling. And it also seems really small compared to the technology and the size and the scope of the Titan.
How closely did they recreate the original “TNG” bridge?
[Whispers] Very. Very. Amazing. They had the same stuff, things that you’d be reading that would be from the show. [“TNG” graphic designer] Michael Okuda helped them with all those little details. He’s such a genius. He and his wife Denise just figured all of those things out.
Did you see it for the first time the day you shot?
I had seen it before. I went over. I wanted to see it.
As you’ve said, the “TNG” cast has been close for a long time, but what was it like to be on that set together for the first time since 1994’s “Star Trek: Generations”?
It just felt like home. You knew where to go, what to hold, where to run for this control and that control. I think it’s for the fans almost more exciting in a sense, because they’re seeing the whole. When I see it in the context of the episode, it’s powerful. When you’re acting it in the space, I had seen it before. It was just like going to a museum and seeing it. It was just lovely. I think that’s all I can say, you know. We had all the shots to fit in. But it wasn’t like, you know, we all burst into tears. What Terry and the editors have done is pretty great. It’s really dramatic and powerful.
Did you like where you were standing?
In the first series, I would sit down, either next to Riker’s seat or on one of those two sides. But it was great fun to be up there in the Worf spot. Worf and I up there brought out my inner Klingon.
Terry’s made no secret that he would love to continue this storyline on a new show that he wants to call “Star Trek: Legacy.” Would you want to continue playing Crusher?
If she was as three dimensional as she was really becoming in this one? Absolutely. And, as I said, I trust Terry. I’ll play a Klingon for Terry. I mean, he’s really a wonderful, wonderful producer and writer, storyteller. And I love good storytellers. I built a theater in L.A., and we did only new work. I think people who can tell a story, I’ll be the first one to jump on board to help out. I hope it does. I think he would do a tremendous job. And I would love to be involved in some way.
When an upcoming MCU film was on the horizon in the past, fans had no doubt that the lead actors for it would either be completely new characters or recognizable faces that had appeared in other films.
However, Phase 4 changed that narrative when those movies began to include characters that had only appeared in the MCU’s Disney+ shows.
Up until this point, only a handful of names that were introduced on the streaming platform have been billed as main characters in a feature film.
The Marvels Cast Makes Disney+ History
Marvel
The Marvels marks the first time in MCU history that two of the top-billed lead actors made their franchise debuts in a Marvel Disney+ series.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw the return of Julian Hilliard’s Billy Maximoff and Jett Klyne’s Tommy Maximoff, who made their debuts in WandaVision.
Jonathan Majors‘ Kang the Conqueror was a top-billed lead actor in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. He first appeared in the MCU as He Who Remains in the Loki Disney+ series.
The Disney+ shows will also have a major effect on the future of the MCU.
When Captain America: New World Order hits theaters on May 3, 2024, it will include Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres and Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley in lead roles. Both of those characters were first seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Julia Louis-Dreyfus will also appear in the upcoming film.
Thunderbolts will also feature Louis-Dreyfus back as Val, and she will be alongside Wyatt Russell’s US Agent. Russell, just like Louis-Dreyfus, was first introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
MCU Films Working Synonymously With Disney+
When Marvel Studios first announced that it would be branching the MCU out to include television shows, many fans wondered how the two would work with one another.
In Phases 1-3, the MCU only included feature films, but Phase 4 quickly changed the formula when it introduced eight Disney+ series.
When looking back at Phase 4, it is almost impossible to imagine what the franchise would be like without the streaming series.
So many elements and plot threads that were started on Disney+ laid the groundwork for most of the Phase 4 movies. For example, without the events of WandaVision, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness would have looked a lot different.
Now that The Marvels is making history by including two lead actors that were originally introduced in Disney+ shows, those stories on the streaming platform seem more important than ever.
Perhaps in the coming years, fans could see a feature film in the MCU where all of the lead actors originally started in one of the television shows.
Up until this point, having two different mediums hasn’t hindered the overall story of the MCU in the slightest. In reality, it has actually done the opposite and has helped create stories that weave together in a more intricate way.
The Marvels is set to hit theaters on November 10.
The last few decades have provided theater-goers and comic fans alike with countless iterations of Superman, the iconic Man of Steel, the superhero of superheroes that’s all but synonymous with the massive DC comic universe and the subsequent cinematic genre that’s spawned from it. Henry Cavill’s recent exit from the role landed hard for many fans who praised his more dramatic approach to the character, and his dedication to it despite careless writing conflicts on projects like The Justice League (2017). Either way, the pedestal currently stands empty until James Gunn decides who will fill it next. Per a report from SlashFilm, the director recently discussed at a press conference his plans for the first film of his new DCU slate, Superman: Legacy, and how he personally envisions the caped Kryptonian.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
While Zack Snyder had sent Superman on a questionably darker, more destructive path that ended with him killing Zod, one of his own brethren, Gunn instead wants to go in almost the complete opposite direction. Describing his younger version of Superman as quite literally a “big ol’ galoot”, Gunn wishes to draw upon the inherent kindness and idealistic innocence of the character.
“I really love the idea of Superman. He’s a big ol’ galoot. He’s a farmboy from Kansas who’s very idealistic. His greatest weakness is that he’ll never kill anybody. He doesn’t want to hurt a living soul. I like that sort of innate goodness about Superman; it’s his defining characteristic.
Both Gunn and Warner Bros head Peter Safran share the same sentiment, emphasizing that they want their Superman to represent “kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned.” They also press that while their version of the character will be younger than Cavill’s, the upcoming film will not be an origin story whatsoever. Rather, according to Safran, it will focus on Superman’s early days as a crime-fighter and “balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.”
Superman: Legacy is slated for release on July 11, 2025. According to Gunn, casting for the film has no yet begun and won’t until the script is finished.
The Recent Superman Movie Everyone Mocked That Arguably Came Closest to Gunn’s Vision
Before Henry Cavill came along to help execute Zack Snyder’s more dramatic vision of the Man of Steel, there was a previous attempt by Warner Bros to resurrect Superman onto the big screen. Back in the early 2000s, the studio hired director Bryan Singer (Bohemian Rhapsody) to put together a new, innovative project for the character, as part of an earlier initiative to reignite comic films. The production went forward and cast Brandon Routh (Arrow) as Superman/Clark Kent alongside Kate Bosworth (Barbarian) as Lois Lane and Kevin Spacey (House of Cards) as villain Lex Luthor. The premise of the film starts at a unique point, where Superman (Brandon Routh) has vanished from Earth to search for any surviving Kryptonians. After 5 years, he abruptly returns under his infamous guise of Clark Kent to resume working at The Daily Planet alongside Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth). With no contact before his absence, Lois chose to move on with a new relationship and focus on raising her young son, Jason, whose biological father is never clearly stated but heavily implied later in the film.
Superman/Clark awkwardly readjusts to his life on Earth, and carries himself as abundantly polite and gentle-handed towards everyone, practically a ‘galoot’ per James Gunn’s vocabulary. Even when he dons the cape during a crisis with a plane nosediving towards the ground, despite it being his public appearance as Superman in years, he acts kind and dutiful to the people who seem mostly elated to see him back. The entire film conveys a more light-hearted and inspirational tone to Superman, and it actually landed well with both audiences and critics. However, the film was unfortunately not enough of a box officer buster to warrant its planned sequel, and over the years has been joked about under the shadow of Cavill and the DCU’s now far bigger budget productions. In hindsight, it begs the question of what would’ve happened if Routh’s Superman survived to build his own franchise.
After Snyder’s vision arguably swung in too dark of a direction for the character, though, the pendulum is now set to sway back the other way, with Gunn’s Superman to embrace the kind-hearted savior role he was meant for from the beginning. Hopefully he can pull off what Bryan Singer tried and almost accomplished.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has been delayed until 2024.
The game will now launch on February 2, 2024.
In a statement on Twitter, Rocksteady confirmed the game would be delayed almost an entire year from its planned May date.
“We have made the tough but necessary decision to take the time needed to work on getting the game to be the best quality experience for players,” it reads.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Official Co-Op Gameplay
“Thank you to our amazing community for the continued support, patience and understanding. There is much more to share in the months ahead and we look forward to seeing you in Metropolis next year.”
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An internet connection will also be required to play Suicide Squad solo or via online co-op. “There’s precedent for games dropping that requirement, although I think it can be tricky,” Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier commented.
Speaking on the VGC podcast earlier this year, VGC editor Andy Robinson said he’d heard positive things about the game.
“It’s interesting because some of the people I’ve spoken to who are working on that game actually have a lot of positive things to say about it, especially compared to Gotham Knights,” he said.
“I’ve been told that this is not another Gotham Knights, that everyone who’s working on it is actually quite optimistic about the combat loops they’ve made and the game world and things like that.”
Donald Glover as Earnest “Earn” Marks in ‘Atlanta’Credit: FX
What are your favorite Donald Glover projects?
Donald Glover is a talented writer, actor, and director who has made a name for himself with his unique style and creative vision.
From his hit show Atlanta to his hyper-stylized music videos and films, Glover’s work is marked by its authenticity, complexity, and willingness to take risks. For aspiring screenwriters and direcmany lessons canat can be learned from his approach to storytelling.
Let’s dive right in.
What Are Some Screenwriting and Directing Lessons From Donald Glover?
Donald Glover is a multi-talented artist who has made significant contributions to the world of screenwriting and directing. There’s a breadth of information to be gleaned from his work. Here are just a few examples:
Write what you know: Glover’s personal experiences are a major influence on his writing, and this has allowed him to create work that feels authentic and grounded in reality. For example, his show Atlanta explores the city’s music scene and the challenges faced by young black men in America, topics that Glover has firsthand experience with. By drawing on his own life, he can create stories that feel real and relatable.
Mix genres: Glover’s willingness to blend different genres in his work can create a unique and unexpected tone that sets his work apart. For example, in Atlanta, he combines elements of comedy, drama, and surrealism to create a show that defies easy categorization. This approach can help to keep audiences engaged and on their toes, as they never know what to expect next.
Focus on character: Glover’s characters are often complex and multi-dimensional, with flaws and strengths that make them feel like real people. In Atlanta, for example, the character of Earn (played by Glover) is a struggling young man who is trying to make his way in the world, but who is also dealing with issues like mental health and family dysfunction. By focusing on character, Glover creates stories that are emotionally resonant and that audiences can connect with on a deeper level.
Take risks: Glover’s willingness to take risks in his storytelling can help to make his work feel fresh and exciting. For example, his music video for the song “This Is America” tackled issues like police brutality and mass shootings in a powerful and visually stunning way. By tackling controversial topics and pushing boundaries, Glover can create work that feels relevant and impactful.
Collaborate with talented people: Glover’s work often involves collaborations with other talented writers, directors, and actors. For example, he has worked with his brother Stephen on Atlanta, director Hiro Murai on the music video for “This Is America,” and writting films and TV series with big names in comedy like Tina Fey and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. By working with others who share his creative vision, Glover brings his ideas to life in new and exciting ways.
Pay attention to details: Glover’s attention to detail can be seen in all aspects of his work, from the writing to the directing to the acting. For example, in Atlanta, he pays careful attention to the music used in each episode, selecting songs that enhance the mood and tone of the show. This level of care and precision can help to elevate a project and make it feel more polished and professional.
Embrace your unique voice: Glover’s unique voice and style are what set him apart from other writers and directors. By embracing his own perspective and not trying to conform to conventional norms, he is able to create work that feels fresh and original. For example, Atlanta is unlike anything else on television, with a tone and style that is all it’s own. By staying true to himself, Glover creates work that feels authentic and true to his vision.
Donald Glover as Troy Barnes in ‘Community’Credit: NBC
Summing Up Screenwriting and Directing Lessons From Donald Glover
From writing what you know and mixing genres to collaborating with talented people and paying attention to details, Donald Glover’s work offers valuable insights for anyone interested in screenwriting and directing.
By taking inspiration from his example, aspiring filmmakers can learn how to create work that is original, emotionally resonant, and visually stunning. Whether you’re a fan of his music, his shows, or his films, there is much to be gained from studying the work of this multi-talented artist.
Although one of the most interesting arcs in Boruto has been about when not to fight, in the war-torn world of Naruto, fighting is a part of life. Children are conscripted into ninja armies as early as 12 years old and attacks from enemy villages can come at any time. Naruto Uzumaki grows up in a world in which becoming a shinobi is a prestigious honor and there is no other option than to learn how to use the jutsu presented to students.
Ranging in scope from massive battles where the combatants could end a civilization with a single attack to smaller-scale battles contained to a single room, there are a huge variety of fights in the Naruto series. Some of the best Naruto fights that occur early in the series happen during the original Chunin Exams, testing the skills of Naruto’s peer group against one another. Those fights occur before many of the main characters have developed their skills though, which means as the series progresses, the fights become even more fascinating to watch.
13 Shikamaru Vs Temari
When Shikamaru and Temari first interact during the Chunin Exams, the two trade insults as much as they trade blows. Their match isn’t as flashy as some of the other best fights, despite Shikamaru controlling shadows and Temari being able to use wind with her fan. Instead, their match is more strategy-focused, which is what makes it so appealing.
Shikamaru will loudly profess that he is the laziest of his peers, but it’s also clear that he’s the smartest. That’s why he’s able to move so far along in the Chunin Exams. He meets his match in Temari though, who is nearly as strategic of a thinker as he is. She meets his challenges head-on, and she manages to keep her power and chakra in check while he slowly burns his out. When Shikamaru forfeits the match, it’s because he doesn’t want to try anymore, but fans would have loved to see the two go until one of them couldn’t fight anymore.
12 Rock Lee Vs Gaara
During the Chunin Exams Gaara, the jinchuriki of Shikaku is pitted against Rock Lee, the ultimate underdog. Even though Rock Lee had no skill in ninjutsu or genjutsu, he went toe to toe with Gaara and nearly beat him with raw physical skill alone. Rock Lee makes up for his lack of seemingly magical skill with unending enthusiasm and strict training in hand-to-hand combat.
While this fight makes Rock Lee a fan favorite due to his plucky determination, it also causes fans to see Gaara as an actual threat. Rock Lee beats Sasuke pretty handily before the Chunin Exams and to see him, in turn, get beaten by Gaara sets Gaara up as a nearly unbeatable monster.
11 Sakura And Chiyo Vs Sasori
Sakura and Chiyo teaming up against Sasori is sometimes maligned because much of the arc involves a lot of talking rather than fighting. That, however, is a hallmark of the Naruto fights. The characters often talk to stall for time or in an attempt to negotiate. This particular fight allows Sakura to show off her strength to the audience, something that doesn’t get highlighted again until the Third World War.
Some members of the audience will argue that Chiyo, a puppet master and poison enthusiast, does all the work. That’s not true. While she has the experience with puppets that Sakura needs, she only controls Sakura as a puppet for part of the fight. Sakura has to fight on her own when Chiyo is immobilized, and she holds her own against Sasori and his numerous puppets without the kind of battle experience that others have. She’s also quick-thinking enough to have an antidote ready for a poison she thinks will be used against her battle. The fight demonstrates that Sakura is a better strategist than given credit for, and one of the strongest characters in the franchise.
10 Minato Vs Obito
The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, is so deadly during his lifetime that a “Flee on Sight” order is issued to the enemy ninja. While Minato has destroyed entire armies, Obito is responsible for the collapse of entire nations. His scheming led to the fall of Amegakure and the Fourth Great Ninja War.
Technically the first fight that Naruto fans see, the battle between Minato and Obito directly resulted in Kurama being sealed inside of Naruto. While Obito may have successfully killed his sensei, Minato succeeded in saving the village and his son with his dying breath.
9 Hashirama Vs Madara
Hailing from enemy clans, Madara and Hashirama are destined to fight since their childhood. Madara’s Susanoo and command over the Nine-Tails pitted against Hashirama’s Wood Style and Sage Mode leads to a battle on a scale that fans had rarely seen before up to that point.
Friends turned enemies, Hashirama and Madara’s relationship is a foil for Naruto and Sasuke’s. The former’s final battle created the Valley of the End, where the latter would have multiple fateful encounters. This further strengthens the link between the two pairs and turns Madara into a dark mirror of Sasuke’s future.
8 Orochimaru Vs Third Hokage
When Orochimaru invades Konohagakure during the Chunin Exams, he battles the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. It’s a very long and drawn-out fight, but it shows just how powerful the two shinobi really are. The Third Hokage was Orochimaru’s teacher before the latter left the village, so the two know one another’s fighting styles well.
In fact, most of the ninja skills Orochimaru learned in his childhood before experimenting with forbidden techniques are from Hiruzen. He knows all the tricks his old teacher has up his sleeve and is able to counter all of his movies, even his most powerful ones. That makes the fall of the Third Hokage all the more poignant.
7 Shikamaru Vs Hidan
Shikamaru has proven to be a capable leader, with massive strategic intellect and Shadow Possession Jutsu. Hidan may not be as clever as Shikamaru, but he has a distinct advantage given that he cannot be killed. Hidan becomes a hated character by fans the moment he kills Asuma Sarutobi and Shikamaru is forced to watch it play out. It makes this particular match-up a cathartic one for the audience.
This fight is unforgettable for fans, not only because Shikamaru is able to avenge his sensei, Asuma, but because this is Shikamaru’s first big win as a team leader after failing to stop Sasuke from leaving the village. This intense chess game of a fight cements Shikamaru as the smartest character in Naruto.
6 Jiraiya Vs Pain
In another battle between teacher and student, the Toad Sage and legendary Sannin, Jiraiya, takes on the Six Paths of Pain, six undead shinobi, each with frightening abilities, and each controlled by Jiraiya’s former pupil Nagato. It’s a massive undertaking for Jiraiya, and at the time, fans haven’t seen Jiraiya truly bested in a fight, so they might have expected him to win.
While Jiraiya is successful in his intel-gathering mission, he is killed in the process, and in so doing, he etches this battle into the memories of fans everywhere. It’s one of the most tragic fights in the series. While Naruto is no stranger to death, Jiraiya’s death may have hit Naruto harder than any other.
5 Kakashi Vs Obito
Once childhood friends, Obito’s apparent death and Kakashi’s killing of their teammate leads the pair down very different paths. Paths that would converge in the Kamui’s Dimension where the former friends would meet, now as enemies, and battle once again.
The fight between Kakashi and Obito is nearly unique in that it has nearly no special hand signs or jutsu and is primarily hand-to-hand combat. That’s unheard of in the Naruto franchise. The combination of choreography and Sakuga animation makes this battle one of the most beautiful fights in the entire Naruto series.
4 Sasuke Vs Itachi
One of the most poignant fights in Naruto, Sasuke’s battle with his brother Itachi leaves many fans dumbfounded when they first see it. After an intense and emotional battle, Sasuke finally gets the revenge that he had been in search of since his debut in the second episode. There is a sense during the battle that Itachi is weaker that fans might have expected, but he has a mysterious illness by the time his younger brother confronts him.
While fans are initially relieved to see Sasuke victorious, their joy is short-lived as they find out that Itachi’s true purpose in destroying the Uchiha Clan is to protect his brother. This twist of fate transforms Itachi from a heartless villain into one of the show’s greatest heroes. The realizations provided in the fight make Itachi one of the most interesting characters in Naruto.
3 Guy Vs Madara
Much like the battle between Lee and Gaara, this battle is between the biggest threat at the time and a man who is limited to what he can do through his physicality, determination, and the power of the springtime of youth. Rock Lee and Might Guy both cannot use jutsu the way other shinobi can. They have to rely on their own hand-to-hand combat skills.
Up until this point, Might Guy is seen mostly as a joke that could pack a punch, but it isn’t until he opened the Eighth Gate and is the only shinobi that could stand up against Madara Uchiha solo that he seals himself as one of the greatest heroes in the entire series, and gains one of the best Naruto fight sequences to his name.
2 Naruto Vs Sasuke
In the final battle in Naruto: Shippuden, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha are finally able to throw everything that they have learned over the years at each other. Wielding the Rinnegan and the Six Paths Sage Mode, their battle is massive enough to destroy entire landscapes. The battle sees the two of them use not just the basic fighting techniques they learned at the Academy against one another, but also the specific skills they pick up in their journey across the franchise.
This is a battle that is 15 years in the making. The pair are rivals since the beginning, and it is only fitting to see how far each of them come since their first major battle. And what better place to have that battle than the Valley of the End, the site of the fight that sent them on separate paths in the first place?
1 Naruto Vs Pain
Two students of the same master, Pain and Naruto are two sides of the same coin. On one side, Jiraiya’s greatest success, the other his greatest failure. But, where Jiraiya failed, Naruto succeeds by defeating Pain and helping Nagato find peace. What’s fascinating about this fight is that Naruto isn’t in it alone, but it’s the first time the village truly sees what he can do. Though others, like Hinata Hyuga, stand up to Pain, it’s Naruto who ultimately has to take him on. Naruto loses control of the nine-tailed fox inside him for part of the fight, but the village no longer fears him when it’s over, supporting him, and thanking him for standing up for them.
While the victory goes to Naruto, the moral victory is Nagato’s. Nagato is the child of a nation ravaged by war and Naruto is the child of a nation that prospers on that death and destruction. It is from this battle that Naruto learns of the cycle of pain and vows to put a stop to it. It’s truly the best fight sequence in the Naruto franchise.
Nearly a month after the Academy Awards ceremony, Michelle Yeoh brought her Oscar home to the woman she dedicated the award to.
The Malaysia-born actress shared a sweet photo of her mother holding the trophy on her Instagram Tuesday, with the caption, “Brought Mr.O home…. Without my parents love and trust and support… I wouldn’t be here today… love so much.”
Her second photo in the carousel post included a photo of the statuette at her father’s grave in Malaysia.
Last month, Yeoh made history by becoming the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress. She took home the Oscar for her performance as Evelyn Wang in A24’s film Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won a total of seven Oscars.
During her acceptance speech at the 2023 ceremony, the actress dedicated her award to someone very close and special to her: “I have to dedicate this to my mom, all the moms in the world, because they are really the superheroes, and without them, none of us would be here tonight.”
She continued, “She’s 84, and I’m taking this home to her. She’s watching right now, in Malaysia with my family and friends. I love you guys, and I’m bringing this home to you.”
Following her win, a video of the actress’ mother at an Oscar watch party went viral on social media. Just as presenter Halle Berry read Yeoh’s name, her mother could be seen with tears of joy in her eyes as everyone cheered and celebrated in the footage.
In 2006, Ehud Olmert achieved the goal he had been working for his whole life when he replaced the dying Ariel Sharon as Israel’s Prime Minister. He might have enjoyed several terms as Prime Minister were it not for his “giveaway” offered by Abbas and Palestinian Authority in 2007. The right-wing political machine and the settlers they represent flew into a panic and decided the only way forward was to destroy Olmert’s credibility. Thus, we come to director Roni Aboulafia’s wonderful documentary, Honorable Men.
The film, written by Aboulafia and Ilan Sheizaf, concerns the trial and eventual imprisonment of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for what began as an accusation of bribery and resulted in provable charges of obstructing justice. Surrounded by bottom feeders like Shula Zaken and his over-spoiled younger brother Yossi, Olmert had many potential pitfalls waiting to collapse his political aspirations. Yet, that he successfully served as a two-term mayor of Jerusalem, held ministerial offices in many iterations of the Israeli government prior to 2009, and rose from practically nothing based on hard work and diligence is remarkable.
“…concerns the trial and eventual imprisonment of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert…”
Honorable Men is broken into three parts, and I have to say going from the Olmert biography to the Prime Ministership to his defense was absolutely riveting. Here is a man who rose by using a similar playbook to Bill Clinton. He got to know people. He came to learn of their families, interests, businesses, and personal aspirations. Thus was Olmert capable of serving as one of the best mayors of Jerusalem. That he came to empathize with the plight of the Palestinians while maintaining a strong right-wing political outreach proved to be his downfall. Watching right-wing operatives collect binders chock full of blackmail material, as one retired gentleman does over the course of this film, is scary. They know everything about the people who organize on behalf of the settlers and retain as much of Israel for the Israelis as they can. The skullduggery on display is mindblowing.
Then there’s state witness Shlomo Dechner. Dechner was a corrupt businessman who was embroiled in the Holyland retirement development that was used to undermine Olmert. He is demonstrated to have absolutely thorough records of everyone he ever conducted business with, down to descriptions of the location the deal was cemented. Dechner had Zaken’s number and bribed her with 10,000 shekels. At one point, he further loans 50,000 shekels to Yossi Olmert, presumably on the Prime Minister’s insistence. That Olmert credibly denies knowledge of these transactions suggests he really should have paid better attention to whom he surrounded himself with. That the man defended himself staunchly yet still served time in prison speaks to the flaw in his character. He cannot abandon a person he likes, even if they’re dangerous.
Between all the interviews with legal authorities, and political apparatchiks, Washington insiders like Elliot Abrams, Aboulafia has seamed together a brilliant narrative. Honorable Men demonstrates a clear throughline through Olmert’s rise and fall. The interstitial news broadcasts, political footage, and phone calls with Olmert while he’s incarcerated have all been woven together in a most fascinating melange. I have rarely enjoyed a documentary this much. Seek this out if you want a historical and wild ride.
The next generation of AMD’s CPUs with Zen 5 architecture aren’t expected until 2024, but a new benchmark leak suggests they’ll be well worth waiting for.
According to a report from Moore’s Law is Dead (opens in new tab) (and reported on by Kitguru (opens in new tab)), an engineering sample of a dual AMD Zen 5 CPU system has managed an impressive score of 123,000 on the popular Cinebench R23 multi-threaded benchmark. To compare, a dual AMD Zen 4 setup scored 108K on the same test, which is a 12% difference between the two.
The sample was shown clocked up to 3.85 GHz (no confirmation whether that’s maxed out or the average), and the CPU apparently has 128 cores and 256 threads, with eight CCDs and each having eight cores. A screenshot shown in the report indicates that the Zen 5 chip would have 10MB of L1 cache, or 80KB per core. It was also mentioned that a variant of the CPU called Turin-Dense would have 16 cores per chiplet.
We don’t know for sure that the screenshots are accurate, but if they are there’s good reason to be excited about the CPU’s performance potential – especially given that this supposedly dual Zen 5 setup is only an engineering sample. In short, we could be looking at some significant gains in future AMD CPUs that use Zen 5 architecture.
Zen 5 could make for some serious competition for Team Blue
Given that Zen 5 isn’t due until at least 2024, based on AMD confirmation in 2022, we only know so much about the chip and its architecture.
We do know that it’ll include AI-related optimizations, which would be a huge potential benefit for the rumored AI-enhanced FSR 3.0 frame-rate booster. While FSR is a GPU technology, rather than a CPU-driven one, Zen 5’s AI optimizations should definitely partner with AMD GPUs to improve the quality of FSR 3.0 substantially. This would put it right on the path of Nvidia DLSS – and considering that tech makes 8K gaming much more than a pipe dream, that’s something Team Red needs to consider to stay competitive.
The next question is, what would Zen 5 be competing against once it does make its debut? Depending on when in 2024 the Zen 5 chips will launch, AMD could be seeing competition from two different Intel chip generations.
An earlier release would pit it against Intel’s Meteor Lake, which is set to release in late 2023 and which will be introducing 7nm process technology. This would be the ideal release window, as competition would be tight and AMD would have a strong chance of coming out on top in terms of performance.
However, if Zen 5 makes its debut in late 2024, then according to what we know from Intel’s existing roadmap, it’ll be going against Intel’s 15th-gen Arrow Lake processors. Considering that Arrow Lake is expected to bring about a massive leap in integrated graphics performance, that could leave Team Red lagging behind.
Of course, all of this is mere conjecture at this point, but you can be sure that when we get official word on the new CPU we’ll report it here. In the meantime, check out our guide to the best processors to see what our current favorites are.
The second half of Season 4 of Netflix series “You,” which premiered all five episodes on March 9, topped the Nielsen streaming charts for the second week in a row.
According to Nielsen, it had back-to-back billion-minute weeks (1.4B last week and 1.2B this week), and its fourth week at over 1B minutes since the new season debuted in February. For the week of March 13 – 19, the Penn Badgley-led thriller edged out fellow Netflix series, “Shadow and Bone,” which took the #2 slot with the premiere of its second season on March 16.
In third place was “The Mandalorian”; The third episode of Season 3 saw viewers jump 25% vs. last week to put it 1.1B viewing minutes and #3 overall, with an audience that was 59% male.
Netflix dominated the streaming charts, placing six series in the Top 10: “Luther: The Fallen Son” at #4, “NCIS” (which is also on Paramount+) at #5, “Outer Banks” at #9 and “Cocomelon” in tenth place.
“The Last of Us,” which had its Season finale on March 13, clocked in at #6 with 817 million viewing minutes, giving star Pedro Pascal (who also headlines “The Mandalorian”) two slots on the chart.
Disney+ kids series “Bluey” was at #7 with 749 million viewing minutes and HBO Max’s “South Park” placed eighth with 741 million viewing minutes.
The Season 3 premiere of “Ted Lasso,” which debuted on AppeTV+ on March 15, brought in 539 viewing minutes across all 23 available episodes.
Amanda Bynes was pictured in public on Wednesday for the first time after checking out of a mental health facility after a three-week stay.
The 37-year-old actress was seen getting a manicure at an establishment in Toluca Lake, California as sources told Dailymail.com that ‘she has been advised to continue to distance herself from her’ former fiancé, Paul Michael.
The Thousand Oaks, California native was seen at Cosmo Nails, where eyewitnesses said she smoked a cigarette while waiting for an Uber after the manicure.
Bynes checked out of a mental health facility after a three-week stay Tuesday. She had reportedly worked with the facility’s staff to determine that she was ready to get back to her regular routines.
‘Amanda has left the medical facility on her own recognizance,’ a source told Dailymail.com Thursday. ‘She was very cooperative, participated in her recovery the staff supported her decision to leave as she had successfully completed the treatment program.’
The latest: Amanda Bynes, 37, was pictured in public on Wednesday for the first time after checking out of a mental health facility after a three-week stay. The actress was seen getting a manicure at an establishment in Toluca Lake, California
Bynes ‘has been advised to continue to distance herself from her ex’ Michael, the source said, adding that ‘her family and friends believe that her split was a catalyst in her breakdown and that he is not a healthy and safe person for her to be around.’
The source went on to say that the former pair ‘were codependent on each other, and the latter part of their relationship was toxic due, in part, to the fact that they met in rehab.
‘They substituted their addiction to substances for an addiction for each other.’
Now, Bynes will be entering an outpatient treatment program to make sure that she maintains the progress that she has made while being treated. She also get a sense of normalcy back, as she will reportedly go back to living in her own home.
Bynes had previously been under a conservatorship since 2013, but it was ended last year, so she will go back to having more freedom to make her own decisions.
TMZ previously reported that Bynes’ parents were not considering trying to set up another conservatorship, as she had been doing relatively well prior to her recent mental health crisis.
The original arrangement began in 2013, after she was involuntarily committed after multiple run-ins with the law starting a year earlier.
She had two hit-and-runs, as well as a DUI in 2012 and she was later arrested in 2013 for allegedly throwing a bong out of the window of her 36th-floor apartment in Manhattan.
Details: The Thousand Oaks, California native was seen at Cosmo Nails, where eyewitnesses said she smoked a cigarette while waiting for an Uber after the manicure
Casual: The actress was seen wearing a white t-shirt at the Southern California salon
Relaxed: Bynes wore a wrap on her hair as she sat during the soothing procedure
Background: Bynes checked out of a mental health facility after a three-week stay Tuesday. She had reportedly worked with the facility’s staff to determine that she was ready to get back to her regular routines
Bynes was most recently hospitalized after reportedly wandering the streets of the Greater Los Angeles area for four days straight after her car was towed in Long Beach on March 15.
During that period, she was apparently in a manic state, and spent some time walking around naked.
Amanda had been reported to have been spotted walking in the nude on the day that she entered the treatment facility, but a witness told TMZ that the She’s The Man star had flagged down a car to get help.
She was apparently cognizant of her mental state, and she called 911 to report that she was coming out of a psychotic state and needed assistance.
After she was picked up, Bynes was initially put under a 72-hour psychiatric hold, which was initially extended while her team at the mental health facility devised a treatment plan for her.
Amid her mental health struggles, Bynes’ parents banned her ex-fiancé Paul Michael from having any contact with her after their four-year relationship came to an end in January of this year.
‘They do not want her ex-fiancé around her, and he has been instructed to have no contact with her,’ an insider told DailyMail.com on March 28.
‘He does not seem to have her best interests in mind and her family has nothing good to say about him.’
Chaotic split: Sources told Dailymail.com that ‘she has been advised to continue to distance herself from her’ former fiancé, Paul Michael
Back on the outside: Bynes checked out of a mental health facility after spending three weeks there after she called 911 and reported struggling with psychosis
While speaking to the New York Post, he said: ‘She got off her meds, and she’s still off her meds… She’s wild.’
Michael previously claimed the two were now ‘friends.’
Bynes found fame as a child star at the age of 13 on Nickelodeon’s The Amanda Show, and went on to have success on shows such as All That and What I Like About You.
She was also appeared in films including She’s the Man, What a Girl Wants and Hairspray, with her last appearance in a motion picture coming in 2010’s Easy A.
Bynes latest crisis appears to be the reason she pulled out of a reunion with her All That cast at ’90s Con last month, which was originally attributed to an ‘unknown illness.’
She had previously expressed excitement about reconnecting with her castmates ahead of the convention.
She was set to be joined by SNL star Kenan Thompson, his Good Burger costar Kel Mitchell, Danny Tamberelli and Lori Beth Denberg, all of whom were fixtures of the popular Nickelodeon sketch comedy series.
The event would also have marked her first public appearance since her conservatorship was ended one year earlier. The series ran from 1994 to 2005 over 10 seasons, Bynes appeared on All That from 1996 to 2000. It was later revived in 2019.
Bad days: The actress reportedly wandered the streets of LA for days after her car was towed in Long Beach, and she was even seen walking around naked
Dropped out: Amanda’s latest crisis appear to be the reason she had to pull out of a ’90s Con appearance last month with her All That costars at the last minute
On her own again: Bynes was put under a conservatorship in 2013 after suffering multiple mental health struggles and having repeat run-ins with the law, but it was ended in March 2022; seen with parents Rick and Lynn Bynes
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