24 Magical ‘Harry Potter’ Gift Ideas in 2022 for Potterheads of All Ages
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[This story contains spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.]
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law head writer and EP Jessica Gao is grateful that Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige encouraged her and her writers’ room to flip the script on the typical Marvel ending. Instead of a CG showdown with a baddie, Jen Walters/She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) smashed the fourth wall and used the Disney+ interface to end up at Marvel Studios where she debated the show’s ending with a Kevin Feige-inspired AI named K.E.V.I.N.
Gao wrote at least 20 different versions of the finale episode, all of which featured a more conventional Marvel ending, but Feige ultimately freed her of that thinking.
“Kevin was the one who said, ‘There’s no reason to do a big Marvel ending. You’ve made a show that’s completely different than anything we’ve ever done before, so there’s absolutely no reason to treat it like a typical Marvel movie,’” Gao tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s really what got wheels turning about going really out of the box and doing something that was more true to this show, as opposed to what’s true to a typical Marvel project.”
However, the two creatives did butt heads over a detail involving K.E.V.I.N. as Gao felt that the robot should be wearing a hat that’s reminiscent of Feige’s own trademark caps. But Feige believed that the choice didn’t make sense for a robot, prompting Gao to stick to her guns and even consider exiting the project.
“I was incensed, and in this big meeting, in front of like 20 people, I said, ‘Kevin, if you don’t let me put a hat on that robot, then I quit,’” Gao recalls with a laugh. “And then there was a split second pause, and he just went, ‘Thank you very much, Jessica. You’ve done some great work for us, and we really appreciate everything.’”
Fortunately, Gao and Feige can now laugh about the dust-up as visual development supervisor Jackson Sze brokered an immediate compromise.
“Sweet Jackson Sze, who was head of the vis-dev team and ever the mediator, very gently suggested that they incorporate something into the design of the robot that would make it look like it was wearing a hat, and that was the perfect compromise,” Gao says.
In a recent conversation with THR, Gao also explains the creative choices behind Hulk’s son Skaar, as well as Blonsky and Wong’s latest prison bust.
Well, you told me previously that you love to bully Kevin Feige, and I have to imagine that the finale factored into that statement on some level. So how did Kevin first respond to being turned into AI?
(Laughs.) He was very supportive. He was all for it, and that scene is very much reflective of the relationship that I have with him. A lot of the conversation in that scene is taken from conversations that I’ve had with him, but the one sticking point that we had over this entire thing was whether or not the robot would be wearing a hat. In the first draft, I described the robot as an Akira meets a HAL 9000-like AI brain/robot, and the script specifically said that it’s wearing a little black baseball cap on top. And real-life Kevin said, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would a robot wear a hat?” And I said, “That’s the logic issue you have with this, Kevin? And not that [She-Hulk] breaks the ultimate fourth wall, comes to Marvel Studios, fights her way to meet you and you are an actual robot, but it’s the fact that the robot should not be wearing a hat?” And he said, “Yeah, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. So it shouldn’t have a hat.” So I was incensed, and in this big meeting, in front of like 20 people, I said, “Kevin, if you don’t let me put a hat on that robot, then I quit.” (Laughs.) And then there was a split second pause, and he just went, “Thank you very much, Jessica. You’ve done some great work for us, and we really appreciate everything.” (Laughs.)
Oh my God.
And then sweet Jackson Sze, who was head of the vis-dev team and ever the mediator, very gently suggested that they incorporate something into the design of the robot that would make it look like it was wearing a hat, and that was the perfect compromise. And Kevin was like, “Oh, well that’s fine because that makes sense.” And I said, “Okay, great. As long as that makes sense.”
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Breaking the fourth wall was always built into the character and the show, but what’s the origin story behind this degree of fourth-wall breaking?
It was a very, very, very long road. We went through so many different versions of this finale. I’ve probably written at least 20 versions. Initially, I approached it very mistakenly, thinking, “Okay, now that it’s the finale, I have to make it a Marvel show. This is the point in which I have to follow the Marvel formula. We got to have our fun with the show. We got to do something different. But at the end of the day, there is a certain way that Marvel likes to end things, and that’s what I have to do.” So I tried so many versions of that and having a big fight with the big bad, but nothing ever felt right. There were double-digit versions of it, but nothing ever felt right.
And then Kevin was the one who said, “There’s no reason to do a big Marvel ending. This is not a Marvel movie. You’ve made a show that’s completely different than anything we’ve ever done before, so there’s absolutely no reason to treat it like a typical Marvel movie. Do the thing that this was always going to be.” And that was so freeing and inspirational. That’s really what got wheels turning about going really out of the box and doing something that was more true to this show, as opposed to what’s true to a typical Marvel project.
It’s commendable that Marvel had a sense of humor about having Jen run through a list of recurring critiques and questions about the MCU. Were you surprised that you got away with certain things?
Definitely. I’m surprised I got away with most of that conversation, but that’s the great thing about Kevin. He likes to have fun, and he has a good sense of humor, both about himself and about Marvel. And just in general.
Since I last spoke to you, Kevin hired yet another Ricky and Morty writer [Jeff Loveness for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty]. I believe Jeff is number three along with you and Michael Waldron. Have you asked Kevin about his preoccupation with you and your peers?
(Laughs.) It is an on joke that that’s where they go to mine writers, but it’s been working for them. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Chuck Zlotnick
In episode eight, you played the Daredevil series’ theme song, you recreated some of Daredevil’s old moves, and you also paid homage to his hallway fight sequences. So is it the same Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), just on a new trajectory?
We were never told, definitively, to treat it one way or the other. The approach with Marvel has always been that they don’t really set limitations before we start working on something. They just let us pitch them what we want to do, and they say yes or no. So essentially, this is all just a result of having carte blanche to pitch them whatever we wanted, and then they would just say yes.
You set up a couple threads with Hulk and Skaar, as well as Blonsky and Wong. How much did Marvel tell you about where these characters are headed?
Well, with Blonsky and Wongers, that was because it didn’t feel right that Blonsky would languish in prison. He took personal responsibility, and he ultimately ended up being mostly good. But regardless of how much good or bad he did on the show, his friendship with Jen was real. His relationship to Jen was real, and when he helps her during the retreat, that was for real as well. So because they do have this relationship and this intimacy through therapy, we just didn’t want to see him locked up forever. So that was really to just give Blonsky a happier ending.
And with Skaar, we talked a lot about a big, fun cameo that we could drop as a tag at the end, or doing the Marvel thing and teasing a new character. That would’ve been really cool, too. But ultimately, it was Kevin who decided that he wanted to introduce Skaar. So you’ll have to ask K.E.V.I.N. himself what his plans are for that.
Well, congratulations on a wonderful series, and I hope you bully Kevin into green lighting season two.
(Laughs.) Thank you so much.
***
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now available on Disney+. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
[This story contains spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney
After the release of Disney’s Pinocchio, a new generation of viewers were introduced to Monstro, the giant whale that will eat anything in its path. This new interpretation of one of Disney’s scariest sea creatures may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it was visually different in its several features from numerous sea creatures included in its design.
But there have been several movies across the decades that have either seen whales become pivotal characters or made a brief, yet important, appearance in an iconic movie. Some would even go on to create an impact on cinema as well as the real world that only these gentle giants of the sea can do.
Premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in 2002, the movie tells the story of Paikea, a girl who wants to become the leader of her tribe. But she must prove some in her community wrong as they believe that only men can take on this role.
Although appearing briefly, a beached Southern Right Whale creates one of the movie’s most touching scenes as Paikea tries to guide it back to the ocean. Many who have seen it will remember the impact this creature makes on the story and tests the tribe with an emotional revolution that made fans root for the unlikely friendship of the Paikea and the whale.
The movie has many names across the world, but some may be familiar with the characters who star in it. Two animals find themselves separated from Noah’s ark and must try to reunite with their families that have unintentionally left them behind.
But a whale named Odyssey comes to their aid and is visually unique with his moss-covered body that does make him stand out more compared to the other cast of characters. While accident-prone, he has good intentions throughout that make him relatable and likable to children, offering plenty of laughs while showing the importance of friendship.
Following in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster, Jaws, Michael Anderson directed Orca The Killer Whale. After the captain of the boat kills a female orca and unborn child, her mate exacts his revenge and attempts to kill the captain.
While the movie may not be the most memorable release during the summer of ’77, the orca proved to be an unstoppable machine that lived up to his species’ other name, the Killer Whale, that took its revenge to over-the-top levels. But today, many might understand the creature’s blight that makes its nonstop vendetta emotional which might give it more depth than some may expect.
Based on the true story that would inspire Herman Melville to write Moby Dick, the movie told the events of how a whaling ship sank by a massive bull sperm whale. Starring several familiar faces from the MCU including Chris Hemsworth, it was a dramatic interpretation that some may enjoy discovering.
While the animal was never given a name, it does feature prominently, defending itself from the ship and even sharing an emotional moment near the end that tests Hemsworth’s Owen Chase. Heavily paled and scarred, the whale is a marvelous CGI behemoth that delivered some of the movie’s most prominent moments.
One of Pixar’s most successful movies, Finding Nemo, received a sequel that saw Dory attempting to reunite with her family at an aquarium with the help of Marlin and Nemo. Finding Dory introduced many new characters, including Bailey the beluga whale.
He may not be the biggest stand-out from the movie’s cast, but he does have moments of humor while also helping Dory find her parents. Voiced by Modern Family‘s Ty Burrell, his character even encourages Destiny the whale shark to overcome her fears of the wall she so often bumps into, helping her to become free and back in the ocean.
One of Disney’s most experimental movies ever made, Fantasia was a movie unlike any other as it bought classical music to life in a whole new way. It would eventually be followed up with a sequel, Fantasia 2000, over fifty years later that featured new animated shorts and musical pieces in an attempt to make a worthy sequel.
For the song, Pine of Rome, the animators used a herd of Humpback Whales who leave their ocean-dwelling to fly in the sky. The movie may not be remembered as fondly as its predecessor, but the animators for this memorable scene were able to make the giants as light as a feather and ascend in a dreamlike and fantastical way that has not been seen for a long time.
The fourth movie from the original Star Trek series, The Voyage Home saw the crew of the USS Enterprise try to save the world from a mysterious probe and its unusual frequency under the leadership of Kirk. Discovering that it is similar to that of a humpback whale, extinct in their time, they are forced to travel back in time on Earth and bring one with them back.
During their trip in the 1980s, they find George and Gracie, two humpback whales who become significant to the movie’s plot and drive the crew to save them from whalers. Becoming unlikely allies of the USS Enterprise, they not also show the impact of their beautiful singing, but teach the crew the importance of protecting the species for a brighter future in one of the best Star Trek sequels.
Released in 1993, Free Willy became a successful franchise with sequels and an animated series before the whale who played Willy, Keiko, was eventually released back into the wild. It told the story of a boy who wants to help Willy escape from an amusement park and be reunited with his family in the wild.
With Keith Walker’s penmanship, he managed to write an effective story for anyone to enjoy that made Willy have as much depth as any other character in the movie. The boy and Willy also share plenty of screen time together, creating a convincing and unlikely friendship as well as one of the most iconic scenes from one of the best ’90s kids movies.
Perhaps one of the best adaptations of the novel, Moby Dick starred Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab as he becomes obsessed with killing the white whale that took his leg from a previous voyage. Going to any lengths to bring down the creature, his ship and his crew perish during his vendetta against the giant beast.
While there have been plenty of adaptations of the book and interpretations of the whale, it became a monster in its own right as a consequence of whaling. Despite the effects at the time, the production crew was able to make it a convincing whale hellbent on taking down Captain Ahab for good that some may enjoy today.
Despite the changes made for Disney+’s Pinocchio, the original remains a classic piece of animation and one of the greatest movies Disney has ever produced. Out of all the scenes, the showdown with Monstro the giant whale remains as haunting today as it did back in 1940.
With his beady eyes, sharp teeth, and primal aggression, there hasn’t been anything quite like it seen in animation. Taking a page out of the likes of Moby Dick, the animators were able to make something far more sinister than anything that Herman Melville could have imagined.
After the release of Disney's Pinocchio,
Well, this might be Tom Felton’s “Darkest Hour.”
The “Harry Potter” alum admitted to assuming Oscar-winning co-star Gary Oldman was a janitor while on set for 2004’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Felton wrote in his memoir “Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard” that Oldman was so “unassuming and down-to-earth” that it was easy to confuse him with being a member of the cleaning staff.
“There were certain actors on the set who you’d never really recognize out of character, even though they were absolute legends,” Felton penned, via Insider. “They just looked — and I mean this in the nicest possible way — like slightly scruffy older men.”
Felton compared Oldman to John Hurt and David Bradley as fellow actors who fit that description.
“I was on set one day when I saw another slightly scruffy older bloke wearing an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt,” Felton continued. “I’d occasionally seen him around and I thought he was one of the cleaning staff. What can I say? He just had that look.”
Felton told Oldman “top work, mate!” after squeaking his shoes on the freshly polished floor.
“He turned around to see if I was talking to someone behind him, gave me a slightly odd frown, and said nothing,” Felton said, before later seeing Oldman in the hair and makeup department.
“He seemed to be showing family and friends around,” Felton continued. “Bit weird, for one of the cleaning staff. I had a horrible feeling I might have made a faux pas, so when he’d left I asked someone, ‘Who is that?’”
It was only then that Felton was informed Oldman was joining the cast as Sirius Black in the third film, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”
“I cringed with embarrassment when I realized I’d mistaken him for the cleaner,” Felton wrote. “I wanted to apologize — not that he’d really have given a monkey’s — but in the end I took the easier route of totally ignoring my mistake and pretending I’d known who he was all along.”
Felton shared, “In my defense, for such a big star, he was hardly starry at all. He was unassuming and down-to-earth, likely to be seen making a cup of tea for everyone, rather than playing the room.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time a major star has been mistaken on set. Leslie Jordan previously told “Trailblazers” radio show (via Entertainment Weekly) that he assumed Lady Gaga was an extra while filming “American Horror Story: Roanoke.”
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"I cringed with embarrassment when I realized
For country music fans, it is a sad day. Country music superstar, Loretta Lynn passed away on October 4th, 2022.
The world of country music is mourning the singer. Tons of tributes from friends, fans, and people in the country music world poured in. Considering how long Lynn has been in the industry and how much of an impact she’s made, it’s not surprising.
Honestly, there have been so many great names within the country music realm, but like so many before her, there was only one Loretta Lynn. With the passing of such an icon, it’s only right that we pay tribute to her.
There is no way women in country music would be where they are without the hard work and effort of Loretta Lynn.
Women in country music have never had it easy. While things are certainly looking up now, the world back when Lynn started was much different. Regardless, she didn’t let the adversity, fear of rejection, or hard work keep her from getting her dream. It’s a tried and true testament that still rings true with female country artists today.
While there are a plethora of reasons why we love Loretta Lynn, I feel like one thing that a lot of women in county music owe her is that she proved you can do it all. While it wasn’t always an easy road for her, she managed to not only be a wife and mother but also write her own music and go on tour along with being a performer. It wasn’t easy, but it made for some compelling stories.
Speaking of stories, Lynn was known for writing her own songs. Most know of her more popular songs such as “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” and “The Pill.” However, Lynn was a powerhouse when it came to writing as she wrote more than 100 songs in her life and recorded a lot of them. For some, it’s unfathomable to write as many as 10 songs, but Loretta Lynn had a knack for it. Plus a lot of her songs reflected what was going on in her life which isn’t always easy to talk about let alone write and record a song about.
What really makes her such a trailblazer in country music was that she never let anything stand in her way. Despite martial woes, the loss of her best friend, Patsy Cline, and living in poverty, she never seemed to let anything get her down. If anything, music became the answer to all of her problems in a way and it stayed that way for decades. Considering that her last release came out in 2021, it’s clear music was her path and she never gave up on it.
Loretta Lynn truly changed the game for women in country music. Whether it was because of her writing, her style, or her work ethic, she blazed a trail we have yet to see repeated. Frankly, I don’t believe we’ll ever see another female country artist do what Loretta Lynn did and that’s a testament in itself. She was among a dying breed and a pioneer for country music. May she rest in peace.
For country music fans, it is
In Kelly Campbell and Mark O’Halloran’s short film, An Encounter, two thirteen-year-olds, Stephen and Jay, decide to take a day mitching (ditching) from school. Mitching was Stephen’s idea, as he as something weighing on him. At the same time, Jay is just along for the adventure. Their journey takes them away from the city by an open marsh along the sea.
As the two lounge away by the seashore, a stranger approaches them. The stranger asked the boys if they’d seen his missing dog and if they would help look for him. Suspicious of the stranger, Stephen and Jay say very little. But soon, the frustrated Jay wanders off looking for the dog, leaving Stephen behind with the stranger.
“The stranger asked the boys if they’d seen his missing dog and if they would help look for him.:
Adapted from the James Joyce short story, An Encounter, this is one of those stories that will frighten you as a parent. This stranger picks up on Stevens’s body language and tentative personality during their conversation. He’s able to pick up that Stephen is a loner, particularly at home. The strangers soon begin breaking down Stephen’s apprehensions in hopes of taking him home.
An Encounter takes down a very somber path. Director Kelly Campbell sets the tone of this story brilliantly. She immediately establishes Steven as a troubled young man and contrasts him with the much more boisterous Jay. Then when the stranger arrives, we know exactly what his intentions are. Then from O’Halloran’s script, we see just how easy it is for the stranger to manipulate Stephen to do what he wants. The performance from the cast was outstanding and scary at the same time,
An Encounter is the most part, a simple story that says so much about how easy it is for children to be lured into compromising situations.
In Kelly Campbell and Mark O’Halloran’s short
Featured Image above courtesy of: Vladimir Kolesnikov/Michael Priest Photography
Sam Heughan, best known as Jamie Fraser on Starz hit Outlander, has expanded himself as an artist in many ways. Heughan has spent time traveling the world, engaging with fans, and is the creator of the My Peak Challenge (MPC), a global movement dedicated to educating and inspiring its members to live healthier and be happier. MPC has raised over $6 million that has gone to a bunch of organizations, from hunger relief to cancer research. Heughan has continued to add to his ever-growing to-do list by previously releasing two books with co-author Graham McTavish, as well as expanding his Sassanech spirits.
“Waypoints: My Scottish Journey” cover. (Courtesy of Voracious)
However, Heughan, at 42 years old, is about to launch his first memoir, Waypoints: My Scottish Journey, in which he reveals himself in a way he has never done before, saying, “This is not Jamie Fraser, the king of men. This is an actor who thinks he’s playing the role of a hillwalker,” he says. “But I struggled. I almost gave up. I found myself lost on the side of Loch Lomond in the dark. And it wasn’t until I really sort of slowed down and enjoyed the journey that I began to appreciate the trail itself.”
The book was written using a variety of mediums during a solo backpacking trip in Scotland’s West Highland Way. At some points, Heughan scribbled down notes and thoughts, while at other times, he was recording voice memos (which he says are in the hundreds) to help keep track of his thoughts as he reflected on a career of a once struggling actor. Heughan wrote about his life from a young age, the journey, rejection, and the overnight success of Outlander. It’s all of these “waypoints” that have shaped him into the man he is today. The memoir is a mix between personal stories and the tale of an actor’s journey, letting readers peek behind the scenes to read what an actor’s life is like while struggling and what happens after you hit success. Heughan doesn’t shy away from detailing the rollercoaster that comes with both.
While Heughan has been promoting the book, his big United States debut came at the non-profit 92NY, which hosted: Waypoints: An Evening with Sam Heughan in Conversation with Nojan Aminosharei on October 17. While Aminosharei moderated the conversation, Heughan seemed to talk with a sense of relief, like a weight had been lifted from his body as he began to share some personal details for the first time. It was clear Heughan was immensely proud of this book (as he should be).
Courtesy of: Vladimir Kolesnikov/Michael Priest Photography
During the conversation, Heughan said he wanted to go on an adventure and do something personal for himself. Heughan said it was as simple as exploring. “It’s something on my doorstep; it was a challenge. I’ve always thought, ‘oh, why don’t I just do that,’ but I guess these challenges or these walks… because it’s so close to home, you never think, oh, I am going to go out and do that,” he told Aminosharei.
So how did this adventure turn into a book? Well, Heughan told 92NY that while he likes to keep his privacy, after writing his first two books, he wanted to learn more about his family. In doing so, he learned about his father leaving when he was young and things he had never known about his heritage. So although he usually would keep that to himself, he said, “[it] felt like the right waypoint in my life to kind of revisit that and maybe put things to rest as well.” Heughan was looking for peace, and it seemed he found something even better. “It’s interesting because I set off on this solitary journey. I wanted to take time to reflect, and actually, the moments where I met people made the journey way more rewarding.”
Photos below from 92NY Waypoints: An evening with Sam Heughan in Conversation with Nojan Aminosharei, October 17
**To prevent spoilers, we have refrained from releasing our full review of the book and shortened the content from the 92NY conversation. A full review of the book, Waypoints, as well as more coverage from its U.S. premiere from 92NY, will be published sometime after the book’s worldwide release on October 25, but with our advanced copy, we did give it a rating of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5.
Featured Image above courtesy of: Vladimir Kolesnikov/Michael
The British-Russian son of a close Vladimir Putin ally has been arrested in Norway for flying a drone in a restricted area, Norwegian Police said today.
Andrei Yakunin, 47, was arrested on Monday in Hammerfest in northern Norway, according to police and court documents.
Police have accused Yakunin – the son of ex-Russian Railways boss Vladimir Yakunin, who is considered to be close to Putin – of illegally flying a drone in the Svalbard archipelago, located in the geopolitically strategic Arctic region.
He becomes the seventh Russian arrested in the past few days suspected of illegally flying drones or taking photos in restricted areas in the Scandinavian country, which shares a border with Russia in the far north.
Soon after police announced the arrest, Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store accused ‘foreign intelligence’ services of being behind the recent slew of ‘unacceptable’ drone flights in the country, indirectly pointing the finger at Russia.
‘It is not acceptable that foreign intelligence is flying drones over Norwegian airports. Russians are not allowed to fly drones in Norway,’ Store said, according to Norwegian broadcaster NRK. ‘We do not want anyone to fly this type of craft over important installations in Norway.’
Yakunin’s press office said he was using the drone for recreational purposes.
British-Russian national Andrei Yakunin, 47, was arrested on Monday in Hammerfest in northern Norway, according to police and court documents. He has been accused of illegally flying a drone
Yakunin is the seventh Russian arrested in the past few days suspected of illegally flying drones or taking photos in restricted areas in the Scandinavian country, which shares a border with Russia in the far north. Pictured: A Norwegian soldier guards a gas processing plant
Yakunin heads up VIY Management, a private equity and real estate investment company that facilitates foreign investment in Russia.
According to the New Yorker in 2015, he once owned a house on North London’s Bishop’s Avenue, a ‘billionaires’ row’ between Hampstead and Highgate. His son is reported to have a attended Highgate School.
It is unclear whether he still owns the house after Britain imposed sanctions on several Russian businessmen following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
Russian investigative publication Insider reported in July that Yakunin publicly stated that he was against the invasion, telling Italian television he ‘never voted for Putin’.
Yakunin’s father Vladimir Yakunin has in the past been among Vladimir Putin’s closest allies. He was the president of Russian Railways from 2005 to 2015. He was sanctioned by Britain April, having already been sanctioned by the US since 2014.
[Yakunin] did use a recreational drone during his holiday trip to Svalbard in late August,’ said a spokesperson, responding to a request from MailOnline.
‘Andrey is passionate about nature, photography and extreme sports, as can be seen from his social media activity.
Yakunin’s press office said he is fully cooperating with authorities to provide ‘all the necessary information regarding the normal tourist activities of his boating holiday’.
Along with several other Western nations, Norway has forbidden Russians and Russian entities from flying over its territory following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, whether by drone or aircraft.
Breaking that ban is punishable by a three-year prison term while unauthorised photography can merit a one-year sentence.
A number of mysterious drone flights have been observed in Norway in recent weeks, sparking fears of Russian espionage.
Combined with the presumed sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, the observations have prompted Oslo to beef up security around strategic infrastructure, in particular its oil and gas offshore platforms.
Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store (pictured in Prague on October 6) accused ‘foreign intelligence’ services of being behind the recent slew of ‘unacceptable’ drone flights in the country, indirectly pointing the finger at Russia.
Pictured: The air traffic control tower at Flesland Airport and a small propeller plane in the air, Bergen, Norway, 19 October 2022. Flesland Airport in Bergen was briefly closed on 19 October after drone sightings
Norwegian police arrested two Russians in two separate incidents last week. They were accused of illegally flying drones and taking photos or videos.
Officers arrested the four in northern Norway in a car with Russian licence plates last Thursday and a day later placed them in custody for a week, regional police said in a statement.
Police have not disclosed what the four Russians – three men and one woman – were interested in but they had taken photos of objects covered by a photography ban.
The four, in their late 20s, had arrived in Norway from Finland in late September or early October.
They were arrested with a ‘substantial’ amount of photos, but have denied any wrongdoing and have claimed they were just tourists, police official Gaute Rydmark told Norwegian television TV2.
Norway’s Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl refused to comment on the matter, but said ‘there is heightened pressure on Norway, from an intelligence point of view’.
Police said the four were not in possession of any drones, unlike the other two Russians arrested last week, also in the country’s north.
In addition to the four last week, two other Russians have been arrested in Norway in recent days. LAst week, Police in Kirkenes detained a 50-year-old Russian when they found two drones in his luggage during a routine stop at the border.
The drones had hours of footage at locations taken across Norway, they said.
On Friday, a 51-year-old Russian was arrested en-route to Svalbard was detained at Tromso airport, also for photographing sensitive objects.
The arrest of Andrei Yakunin brings the total up to seven. ‘The suspect [Yakunin] has admitted flying a drone in Svalbard,’ police official Anja Mikkelsen said.
Yakunin has been placed in custody for two weeks, and drones and electronics in his possession have been confiscated, police said.
Located about 620 miles from the North Pole, the Svalbard archipelago is a Norwegian territory strategically located in the heart of the Arctic.
It is home to a relatively large Russian community, and its special legal status enables foreign nationals to mine some of its natural resources.
On Monday, Russia’s embassy in Oslo said ‘hysteria’ in Norway was impacting ‘ordinary tourists’, calling the ban on Russians flying drones ‘unjustified and discriminatory’.
Yakunin has been accused of illegally flying a drone in the Svalbard archipelago, located in the geopolitically strategic Arctic region (pictured, file photo)
On Wednesday, a drone was observed near the airport in Bergen, Norway’s second-biggest city, briefly suspending air traffic. The Airport was shut down at around 6.30am (5.30BST) and reopened two and a half hours later.
With 15 gates, it is Norway’s second-largest airport and serves more than six million passengers a year, according to the airport’s website.
Numerous drone sightings have been reported near Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms and infrastructure in recent weeks.
Airport operator Avinor told NRK on Tuesday that 50 possible drone observations have been reported at civilian airports so far this year, 27 of them since July.
NTB said 17 and 14 drone sightings were reported in 2021 and 2020, respectively, while the number was 44 in 2019.
On Monday, Norwegian justice minister Emilie Enger Mehl asked people to be aware of suspicious activity and said that domestic security agency PST had received a number of new drone tips.
Norway’s domestic security agency has now taken charge of the investigation into the drone sightings the country’s far north.
Hedvig Moe, deputy chief at PST, the intelligence agency’s acronym, said there was ‘an elevated intelligence threat from Russia’ and that ‘Russia is in a pressed situation as a result of the war and is isolated by sanctions’ over its war in Ukraine.
‘We are in a tense security-political situation, and at the same time a complex and unclear threat picture that can change in a relatively short time,’ she said.
Pictured: Norwegian Home Guard (Heimvernet) soldiers assist the police with increased security, at the Karst gas processing plant in the Rogaland county, Norway, on October 3, 2022
Norway has also beefed up security at its offshore oil and gas drilling platforms after the drone sightings and last month’s Nord Stream gas pipeline blasts in the Baltic Sea, widely assumed to be the result of sabotage.
The Scandinavian country has overtaken Russia as the main supplier of natural gas to Western Europe after the invasion led to a cut in energy imports from Moscow.
On Sunday, the airspace around Norway’s oil capital Stavanger was briefly closed after a drone was observed in the southwest region.
On Friday, satellite images showed that Russian president Vladimir Putin had increased the number of his strategic nuclear bombers stationed at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders.
The move came amid high tension over whether Putin plans to launch an atomic attack in Europe and his on-going invasion of Ukraine, which has suffered a string of embarrassing setbacks in recent months.
Vladimir Putin has again increased his strategic nuclear bombers at an airbase near the Finnish and Norwegian borders, say reports. Pictured: A satellite image taken on October 7, 2022 shows seven Tu-160 strategic bombers (marked in red) and four Tu-95 aircraft (marked in yellow) at the Olenya airbase, Russia Kola Peninsula
The disclosure came from Faktisk.no – an independent Norwegian fact checking website – which obtained the data from American satellite operator Planet.
The buildup above at the air base follows international concern over another report two weeks ago, when The Jerusalem Post revealed there was an ‘unusual deployment’ of seven nuclear bombers at the airbase.
This was highlighted by Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International which detected the ‘irregular presence’ of TU-160s and TU-95s. The Armageddon planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 450 miles south-east of Moscow.
Now, however, the bombers are stationed around 115 miles away from the border of NATO member Norway, and about 95 miles away from the soon-to-become Alliance member, Finland.
The British-Russian son of a close Vladimir
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Our royal monarchs are back with plenty of drama and bringing a whole new cast to boot. Last season the series ended off with the falling of out between Princess Diana and Charles fallout. Now this season we will have a significant time jump. Netflix has given us a first look at the all-star cast that will be taking off this season.
Elizabeth Debicki will be playing Princess Diana and is a perfect replica of her.
Below are character posters and images Netflix has provided us:
Courtesy of Netflix
Imelda Staunton will be playing the older Queen Elizabeth II, shedding her Professor Umbridge image.
Courtesy of Netflix
Lesley Manville will be playing the older Princess Margaret.
Courtesy of Netflix
Jonathan Pryce will be playing the older Prince Philip.
Courtesy of Netflix
Dominic West as Prince Charles.
Courtesy of Neflix
Outside of the royal family, we will also have Jonny Lee Miller playing Prime Minister John Major and Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles.
Courtesy of Netflix
Courtesy of Netflix
It has come to no surprise that this season will have plenty of controversy surrounding it. As we can see from these stills this will be when Princess Diana and the royal family start to become separated. Netflix has defended the show time and time again depicting it as a “fictional dramatization”. After the attacks this week from Former British Prime Minister, John Major who will be seen this season has slammed its depictions of his time in office as “damaging and malicious fiction” and a “barrel-load of nonsense”.
Courtesy of Netflix
Season 5 will also be centering around the Queen “approaching the 40th anniversary of her accession”. The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events however many people know this but some people are taking what is in this show as fact. It is not. This is simply created for dramatic purposes and the actors have done such a fantastic job at doing so.
Courtesy of Netflix
They will also be showing this season the breakdown of the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage in the ’90s. This will even spread into another season as well. This season will be picking up in the early ’90s and will then end with Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s separation in 1992 and their subsequent divorce in 1996. Detailing each and every drama that is going to be played out even already knowing more or less about the story between Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Courtesy of Netflix
The Crown Season 5 will be arriving on Netflix on November 9, 2022. I can’t wait to see how this season will play out. Also stay tuned because we will be posting episode recap reviews on all of our favorite and wtf moments that will be happening on the show. The trailer will also be posted on Thursday so stay posted because we have lots to look forward to with our favorite royals.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Audie Cornish’s forthcoming podcast for CNN Audio, “The Assignment With Audie Cornish,” will premiere Thursday, Nov. 17.
In this candid weekly show, the CNN anchor and correspondent will have conversations with everyday people “at the center of debates that are rocking the culture.” Topics in the weekly show will span the arts, education, politics, business and sports. According to CNN, the podcast will present stories from inside communities and cultures “shaping what we experience.” “The Assignment With Audie Cornish” will release new episodes every Thursday and will be available to stream on CNN Audio, as well as Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms.
“I’m thrilled to launch ‘The Assignment’ with the CNN Audio team,” Cornish said in a statement. “I’ve long wanted a show that spotlights the voices of real people living through stories at the intersection of hard news and pop culture.”
She added: “Nothing is off-limits, as we jump into thought-provoking conversations grappling with issues most of us only argue about.”
The news veteran joined CNN in January 2022. Originally, Cornish came on board to host a show on CNN+ as well as a podcast — but Warner Bros. Discovery shut down CNN+ one month after the subscription-streamer launched.
Cornish previously spent nearly two decades as a journalist at NPR, co-hosting the public radio broadcaster’s flagship news program “All Things Considered.” She won a George Peabody Award for her work with David Isay’s StoryCorps 9/11 Project, and the National Press Foundation recognized her work with the 2020 Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
“The Assignment” joins CNN Audio’s podcast lineup, which includes “All There Is With Anderson Cooper,” “Downside Up With Chris Cillizza,” “CNN 5 Things,” “CNN One Thing,” “Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta,” “The Axe Files With David Axelrod,” “Tug of War,” “Very Scary People” and “Silence Is Not an Option With Don Lemon.”
Audie Cornish’s forthcoming podcast for CNN Audio,
“The Sex Lives of College Girls” is back for a second term at Essex College and ready to strip down all the way.
The trailer for Season 2 of the hit HBO Max series, created by Emmy winner Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, features a sex-positive strip show á la “Magic Mike” and plenty of shenanigans for raunchy college roommates to get into.
Starring Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Reneé Rapp, and Alyah Chanelle Scott star as the core foursome who endure rising tuition rates, heartbreaks, and frustrating parents on campus at a prestigious fictional university. Per an official Season 2 description, the new season picks up with the students returning after their fall break, tackling the challenges thrown their way at the end of Season 1, and facing their next semester filled with new faces, parties and predicaments.
“The Sex Lives of College Girls” returns November 17 with two new episodes streaming on HBO Max. The 10-episode season continues with two new episodes weekly leading up to the season finale on December 15.
Additional series regulars for Season 2 include Mekki Leeper, Christopher Meyer, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino, Lolo Spencer, Renika Williams, and Mitchell Slaggert. Gavin Leatherwood, who portrayed Nico in the first season, has officially exited the series, with Midori Francis also notably absent from the Season 2 trailer (and Leighton’s love life?!).
Series creator Kaling executive produces alongside showrunner and co-creator Noble, plus Howard Klein. The series is produced by Kaling International and 3 Arts Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television.
The de-stigmatizing, sex-forward series features breakout newcomer Kaur as an aspiring stand-up comedian, much like Kaling herself. Kaur previously told E! Online that the series makes her “feel blessed to be a brown girl who can say dick and cock on the screen and talk about sex because no brown girl has done that yet, and that is crazy to me.”
As the IndieWire review for the first season stated, “The joy of ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ doesn’t come from watching the suitemates grow into friends but from watching them already out there doing it — leaning on each other and borrowing from each other with the lightning-fast familiarity it takes a dorm room to generate.”
“The Sex Lives of College Girls” Season 2 premieres November 17 on HBO Max.
Check out the trailer below.
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Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Reneé Rapp, and
In Crutchfield and Williamson’s world, breakups are a fact of life, as commonplace and mundanely tragic as the rundown gas stations on a two-lane highway. Their songwriting is more direct than their past work, favoring simpler phrases and evocative still lifes (pink carnations, a cigarette butt in a potted plant). But both artists still relish a circuitous way of storytelling, drawing out a single moment of revelation across a whole song. Take “Summer Sun,” where Williamson offers a meandering apology to someone she dated while old wounds were still fresh: “You had no reason to be afraid that my heart was hidden behind a wall that came before you.” Across her songs, Crutchfield advocates for a partner to rise to her high standards, calling them out on their avoidance and dishing out hard-earned sage advice. “You know you can’t lose a fight if you take cover or abandon it,” she intones, not unkindly, on “Easy.” They make space for the disappointment and heartache while keeping empathy for whoever’s on the other end.
Like all albums birthed out of a particular music fascination, the influences on I Walked With You a Ways are widespread and a joy to uncover with each listen. “Line of Sight,” with its wandering dobro and humming Wurlitzer piano, recalls the Chicks both in their ’90s heyday and their darker, alt-pop turn on 2006’s Taking the Long Way. Williamson covers “Bellafatima,” by contemporary Texas singer-songwriter Hoyt Van Tanner, and transforms it into a waltz that sounds as old as the prairie itself, the kind that Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt might have included on their pair of Trio albums. These callbacks are subtle enough to never upstage the main heartlines running through the album; a mournful guitar solo might sneak in for a moment between chorus and second verse, or an organ might take up a call-and-response melody on “No Record of Wrongs,” only to fade back into the cozy backdrop of acoustic strings and drum brushes.
Outside of the mainstream, more artists as of late have donned their cowboy hats and done their best spin on vintage Americana. Call it the Spotify Indigo breed of country, if you must. Cult favorites like Price, Tyler Childers, and Sturgill Simpson imbue their traditionalist leanings with an anti-authoritarian streak. Others, like Orville Peck or the “Merle Haggard with a Pax” outlaw Dougie Poole, tap into gimmicky yet sincere subversions of a modern country star’s subject matter. Plains, by comparison, feels much less weighty, a logical conclusion to two girls who wore out CDs by Deana Carter and the Judds. Country has been their guiding north star, and it’s a privilege to finally get to see it shine.
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In Crutchfield and Williamson’s world, breakups are
To All the Boys Always and Forever
Cast: Noah Centineo, Lana Condor
Director: Michael Fimognari
Three years ago, when Lara Jean’s (Lana Condor) sister Kitty sent out her secret love letters to her crushes, we all secretly wished to have a sibling like her. She did create a mess for Lara but it made her land up with the super charming Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Lara and Peter have been ‘couple goals’ since then and they continue to be in the final film of the trilogy—To All the Boys: Always and Forever. And watching Lara and Peter cuddling on a warm couch is what you exactly need in the month of love.
The third film begins with Lara having the time of her life with her sisters vacationing in different continents. She is also preparing for her last year in high-school and is busy building a fantasy world picturing what life with her family, friends and Peter will look like after graduation. But Lara’s imaginary world collapses when she learns to have been accepted to a college far away from Peter’s college. They’d soon be out of each other’s sight, which is horrible to even think about.
At the same time, Lara cannot help but be fantasised by the possibility of living in New York City. Here, we get our tipping point for part 3—Long Distance Relationships (LDR).
To All the Boys franchise has been repackaging the same old rom-com clichés in all the films and the final part is no different. The first film, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, lured the audience with the charm of first relationships and dreams of a happily-ever-after, whereas PS I Still Love You established Gen Z as confused about the concept of love as any other generation. It was about the tough parts of being in a real relationship and how to communicate through messy complications and deceits.
The final film Always and Forever serves the Internet generation. Like a conventional high school rom-com, it has a damsel in distress, a charmingly protective boyfriend, fears of separation and a flashy prom. Yet it manages to be refreshing and enjoyable. The sole credit for it goes to Lana Condor and Noah Centineo. They are so relatable that you cannot help but wonder how you’d react in their situation. Turns out, most of their chaotic and unplanned decisions are very doable when you’re a teenager.
At the heart of it — what holds the franchise together — is that the characters want the things we want: To love, be loved, and chase our dreams. Always and Forever aims to be playful but with greater consequences.
This time Lara comes around as the decisive force. She listens to herself, learns to trust her choices, and communicates those choices to Peter. A mature change we expect from somebody who stepping into the professional world.
With a blast of indie-pop score and a clever attempt at cinematography, To All the Boys franchise turns out to a fair adaptation of Jenny Han’s three-part novel. After the success of the first part, the second film did take a dip but the final outing covers for it.
Not to be too taken seriously, it’s a fun watch. The trilogy can be this generation’s Friends with Benefits or A Lot Like Love.
Rating: 3.5/5
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To All the Boys Always and ForeverCast:
Middle East’s MBC Strikes Wide-Ranging Deal With Turkey’s Medyapim & Ay Yapim; ‘Doctor Foster’ Remake Deal With The BBC
Leading Middle Eastern media firm MBC Group has struck wide-ranging content agreements with Turkish production companies Medyapim and Ay Yapim, and is remaking British drama following a deal with BBC Studios. The five-year partnerships – unveiled today at Mipcom Cannes – will see Turkish content offered exclusively on MBC channels and streaming service Shahid through first-look and volume deal agreements, along with original Arabic-language originals produced for the MENA market. Some titles will get wider distribution via Shahid’s international reach. Sam Barnett, CEO of MBC Group, said: “It’s no secret that Turkish content is extremely popular with MENA audiences – it’s a genre that has been rising in popularity in this region since the early noughties.” Medyapim will remake Suranne Jones drama Doctor Foster, having already rebooted in Turkey as Sadakatsiz. The show, based on Mike Bartlett’s scripts, will go out on MBC channels and Shahid. Doctor Foster, originally on ITV in the UK, has also been remade in France, India, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia. “We cannot wait for audiences to watch our very own regional ‘Dr. Gemma Foster’, and to discover such a captivating character,” said Barnett.
NBCU’s South Korean Music Format ‘Drive Thru-Oke’ Headed For Germany
German channel RTL Zwei is getting its own version of NBCUniversal’s South Korean karaoke format Drive-Thru. Munich-based production company SEO Entertainment is making the adaptation, titled Music Drive In, following a deal with NBCUniversal Formats, which is part of Universal International Studios. It will be hosted by three German music stars, and launches early next year. Based on the original Korean format created by Space Rabbit Co. Ltd, the shows sees a car becoming a stage of its own, with members of the public attempting to win cash prizes by singing at a talent-driven drive thru. Recent adaptations have launched in Brazil, on SBT as part of the The Eliana Show, and Saudia Arabia, where it is known as Ghanni Safari, and comes from Dubai-based production company Ogmented for SBC.
Pluto TV Strikes Mondo TV Deal
Paramount Global’s free streaming service Pluto TV has struck a content deal with Italy’s Mondo TV Studios, part of Mondo TV Group. This will Mondo library titles from the Mondo TV heading to Pluto TV in Italy and Latin American markets such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. Several Mondo shows are already on Pluto TV in LatAm, including live-action, pre-teen comedy-drama Heidi Bienvenida, animated series Sissi the Young Empress and Dinofroz, and futuristic motor racing cartoon The Drakers. In Italy, shows include CGI-animated series Invention Story, Italian-Japanese anime series Legend of Snow White and comic adventure series Bug’s Adventure, along with 20 movies, including Felix All Around The World, Jungle Book and Welcome Back Pinocchio.
VFX Studio Milk Buys Lola Post Production
London-based VFX studio Milk has acquired independent competitor Lola Post Production. The combined staff of the two firms will be over 300, with Lola and its Soho-based team joining Milk but remaining a separate studio. Both will continue to focus on films and premium TV dramas and factual. Lola is coming off the back of its biggest year to date having worked on the VFX for Universe for the BBC, Dangerous Liaisons for Starz and Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough.
Middle East’s MBC Strikes Wide-Ranging Deal With
There are plenty of veteran actors who have joined the cast of some big superhero movies, and it seems like Julia Roberts is ready to step up. The Pretty Woman star recently told Variety that she would love to be in one of the many superhero franchises out there, and of course there is no doubt that they would be more than happy to have another Oscar winner on board.
Julia Roberts is currently starring in Ticket to Paradise with someone who is infamous to the superhero genre, George Clooney. When the pair spoke together in a new “Just for Variety” video, the superhero subject was brought up, first aimed at Roberts, who grinned at the idea of potentially joining something like the MCU or DCEU and said:
“Wouldn’t it be awesome?”
She added that rather than wearing a cape, she might feel more at home wearing a “superhero apron.” How exactly that would go down among the heroes and villains of any action-packed super-hero movie is something that everyone would love to see, but if Roberts does jump on the bandwagon, she may find that she needs more than just an apron.
Meanwhile, during the same interview, George Clooney also reminded everyone of his previous foray into the world of superheroes, even if that one as part of what is arguably the worst Batman movie ever put on the big screen. Having infamously played Batman in Batman & Robin back in 1997, Clooney revealed that his son is a huge Batman fan. As Clooney said:
“I said, ‘You know I was Batman?’ And he was like, ‘Not anymore.’”
While she may have made her name as the star of movies such as Notting Hill, Runaway Bride and, of course, Pretty Woman, Ticket to Paradise is her first movie in the genre for just short of two decades. However, there has been a reason why she has been absent from the world of Rom-Coms for so long and why she decided now was the time to come back. She previously said:
“People sometimes misconstrue the amount of time that’s gone by that I haven’t done a romantic comedy as my not wanting to do one. If I had read something that I thought was that Notting Hill level of writing or My Best Friend’s Wedding level of madcap fun, I would do it. They didn’t exist until this movie [Ticket to Paradise] that I just did that Ol Parker wrote and directed. But even with that, I thought, well, disaster, because this only works if it’s George Clooney. Lo and behold, George felt it only worked with me. Somehow we were both able to do it, and off we went.”
This is obviously not the first time Roberts and Clooney have joined forces, having previously appeared in Oceans 11 and its sequels, as well as 2016’s Money Monster, and Ticket to Paradise has been certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with its early critic reviews. While it may not be a Marvel blockbuster, sometimes a gentle Rom-Com from two old hands of the industry is just what is needed. Ticket to Paradise releases on October 21.
There are plenty of veteran actors who
Trevor Noah had a pretty good reaction to a campaign ad ran by right wing Louisiana U.S. Senator John Kennedy, and honestly it’s a show we’d probably watch: CSI: Crack Smoking Investigators.
An ad Kennedy is currently running in his home state leans hard on his love and support for cops and his opposition to something no one has done — defund the police. And at the end of the clip, Kennedy says “if you hate cops just because they’re cops, the next time you get in trouble, call a crackhead.”
Noah played this ad during a run down of some of the weirder campaign commercials on Tuesday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” and he had a hard time believing what he saw.
“Ok. Ok. First of all, no one is gonna ‘call’ a crackhead. It’s 2022, I’m gonna text a crackhead,” Noah Joked.
“The senator is acting like cop and crackhead are the only two options. That’s it. What about social workers? What about mental health experts? What about heroin addicts? There’s a whole range, people,” Noah continued.
“It’s also weird for a guy who’s been in office 6 years, to complain about crime, and then campaign on it. I find it a little strange, like” Noah said, before adopting a fake southern accent, “ever since I got into office, crime has exploded! Reelect me so I can figure out what’s going on.”
“I don’t know where this logic goes,” Noah added. “Because no matter what happens, Republicans always want more cops. Crime goes up, we need more cops. Crime is down, we need more cops. What, is the plan just to keep hiring until we’re all cops?”
Then Noah got to the good TV show idea: “Maybe the solution is to hire crackhead cops. Yeah, because first of all, they’re always there when you need them. And say what you will about cops vs. crackheads, but at least the crackhead is not gonna plant crack on you. They’re keeping it for themselves. It works out.”
“I know it might be a little crazy, but you gotta admit, a crackhead detective show? That sounds like a great idea for a CSI spinoff,” Noah said, which cued up a bit where he pretended to be that cop.
“The victim is on the table, next to the flowers that he bought for Valentine’s day. I guess that means it’s time to go…” Noah said as he donned sunglasses to set up a “CSI: Miami’”-inspired joke, “smoke some crack.”
There’s more — Noah also looked at some other ads, and talked about a variety of other topics. You can watch the entire segment of “The Daily Show” in the link above — the stuff we emphasized here kicks in about 3 minutes in.
Trevor Noah had a pretty good reaction
Practical effects in moviemaking are by no means dead, but judging by Hollywood’s current offerings, you’d think directors are obligated to spring for computer-generated wizardry at every possible opportunity. That’s, unfortunately, one of the takeaways from Paul Feig’s The School For Good And Evil, fantasy-powered fluff for the whole family that’s positively swimming in CGI. Finally adapted from Soman Chainani’s beloved series of novels after years of development hell, it’s one of several young adult franchises banked on by Netflix, a studio that evidently still has money to burn on a visual effects team to rival Marvel’s (let’s hope theirs isn’t as exploited and underpaid). But until someone figures out how to innovate on delivering the shiny, “pew pew!” magic required of action-fantasy YA and its ilk, properties like this one will fail to distinguish themselves.
Feig and co-writer David Magee also show off those energy blasts right off the bat rather than hinting or building up to them. Throwing us headlong into a prologue featuring two sparring, physics-defying brothers (both played by Kit Young, of Netflix’s similar but far more focused Shadow And Bone), Good And Evil immediately feels both rushed to check every major plot point off its list, and obligated to explain and re-explain those points. Flashbacks often accompany descriptive retellings of flashbacks, and there’s both storybook-like text on screen and narration from none other than Cate Blanchett, who steals scenes as what turns out to be a talking quill. If that kind of whimsical magic sounds reminiscent of another witchy school (that rhymes with Bog-forts), you’re on the right track. And just as those movies that shall not be named struggled to condense pages of text into family-friendly runtime, this film strains credulity in connecting dots.
To be fair, there’s plenty of world-building to introduce new audiences to and dazzle devoted readers with. Headstrong teens Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie) are outcasts in their amorphously Medieval town of Gavaldon, the former for being a starry-eyed bookworm with immaculately blonde hair, the latter for being a forest-dwelling witch-in-training with an unruly (and fabulous) head of curls. Yes, their hair is important; this may be fantasy, but as with real-life middle school girls, appearance equals identity. Dreaming of escaping her narrow-minded village and wearing princess gowns, Sophie writes a letter seeking admission to the fabled School for Good and Evil, from which it turns out all fairy tale characters graduate and protect the world’s balance of, you guessed it, good and evil.
Agatha, all along for the ride, is dropped—twist!—into the sun-drenched School for Good, while Sophie finds herself among wannabe villains such as Captain Hook’s son and the Sheriff of Nottingham’s daughter in the shrouded School for Evil. Dumb jock and son of King Arthur, Tedros (Jamie Flatters), wields Excalibur to such dazzling effect that he tempts both Sophie and Agatha into, you guessed it again, a love triangle. This is YA fiction, after all. As the two misfit friends attempt to switcheroo schools, attend their respective beautification and uglification classes, navigate all-too-recognizable social cliques, and find true love’s kiss, a mysterious prophecy regarding Sophie’s latent powers is afoot.
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Wylie makes for a suitable audience stand-in (too convincingly, in fact, as her skepticism often points out the ridiculousness of this segregated school’s very premise), and looks gorgeous in Renee Ehrlich Kalfus’ costumes, which are eye-popping fun. Caruso, meanwhile, has a blast swinging for the fences; this film’s soundtrack includes Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and what feels like the umpteenth moody cover of Britney’s “Toxic,” and these capable young leads channel that punk-lite vibe. Feig surrounds them with a star-studded ensemble, although only two supporters have enough screen time to make an impression. As School for Evil dean Lady Lesso, Charlize Theron serves macabre, Bowie-esque style with her auburn updo and heavy mascara. But considering her fiendishness in epics like Snow White And The Huntsman, there’s a missed opportunity here, perhaps to sink her teeth into what should be the campiest of characters. Kerry Washington fares better as her counterpart Professor Dovey because we’ve rarely seen her silly side; throwing shade in sumptuous gold and jewels, the actor cunningly introduces the notion that it’s actually the prissy School for Good that houses the bitchier students—the bullies rather than the bullied, an idea teased out in Mean Girls-esque fashion.
There’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it work from Rob Delaney and Rachel Bloom, and I would have preferred more time with Patti LuPone’s quirky bookstore owner. Laurence Fishburne goes through the motions as the wise School Master, and an equally underutilized Michelle Yeoh elicits one of the film’s only laughs, a profanity-laden punchline that, fittingly enough, pokes at the very fact that she’s underutilized.
It’s not that there’s no humor in Good And Evil, or that a fairy tale about young friendship needs to be particularly riotous, but casual moviegoers going in blind would never in a million years guess this comes from such a maestro of belly-laugh comedies. Confoundingly, Feig has proven his ability to find jokes in unlikely places, including amid zippy action sequences (where is that Spy sequel, sir??). Maybe what’s missing here is a dose of Melissa McCarthy’s chaos.
Instead, he’s too hampered by visual chaos thanks to those pyrotechnics (Must Washington’s character conjure a flower with CGI, rather than practical magic?) and squeezing in plot data—a particularly baffling stretch in the middle ends with a failing student apparently being murdered, or at least that’s what Agatha surmises and explains, practically direct to camera. Such is the plight of literary adaptations trying to clock in under two hours. Fans of Chainani’s books may relish seeing his inventiveness and heartfelt storytelling on a (green) screen. If only Feig had the latitude to prioritize his actors, rather than his VFX team, as those storytellers.
(L-R:) Sofia Wylie, Michelle Yeoh, and Kerry
Are you a filmmaker dying to hear from one of the preeminent allies in Indigenous filmmaking about how he curated 119 films by Indigenous artists in his 20 years at Sundance? Or a fan of the Netflix hit series – Latinx dramedy Gentefied – who just wants to know what it takes to be at the forefront of advancing Latinx representation in television? Well, have we got a treat for you!
Not in L.A.? Not a problem! This year’s Forum returns in a hybrid format, bringing a robust lineup of events to emerging filmmakers and cinephiles the world over. In addition to what we’ve shared about the program kicking off in person on Monday, October 24, the Forum will continue with a jam-packed week of virtual and livestream panels, case studies, workshops and a plethora of networking opportunities!
Here is the full Forum Schedule and below are the three livestreamed events that we can’t wait to share with you!
When: Tuesday, October 25 @ 5:30 – 6:30pm PT
Why We’re Excited: A candid conversation on the paradigm-shifting progress in the industry for BIPOC filmmakers and how all indie filmmakers can capitalize on this booming landscape.
Who: Prior to his departure from the Sundance Institute in September 2021, Cloud Woman Media CEO Bird Runningwater – a member of the Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache Tribal Nations – led the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts at the Sundance Institute, where he nurtured countless emerging filmmakers for 20 years. Under his tutelage, 154 Indigenous filmmakers were mentored and supported through Sundance Labs, Grants and Fellowships, ultimately yielding a whopping 119 films written, directed and produced by Indigenous artists. Currently serving as an EP on TV series Sovereign – in development with Ava DuVernay, Warner Brothers Television and Array Filmworks – he also has projects in development with Showtime and has recently signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios.
When: Wednesday, October 26 @ 5:30 – 6:30pm PT
Why We’re Excited: As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Film Independent’s Artist Development programs, we will revisit with some alums to talk about how they got their first projects off the ground, what it’s like to work in different areas of media entertainment, and most importantly, what it takes to start and sustain a career in film and television. Join us for an illuminating conversation on what the future holds for independent storytellers and artists.
Who:
Chester Algernal Gordon – The producer of this year’s Opening Night Film, The Inspection, the Fast Track 2019 and Producing Lab 2019 alum is the first male African-American costume designer to have participated in competition at the Cannes Film Festival with the Martin Scorsese-produced American-French drama Port Authority.
Linda Yvette Chavez – An alum of the 2010 Project Involve and the 2015 Screenwriting Lab, the Gentefied co-creator, co-showrunner, director and EP’s upcoming project will be actress America Ferrara’s directorial debut for Netflix, the YA story I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Linda recently inked a multi-year overall deal with 20th Television Studios, where she is developing new series headed for Disney’s various platforms.
Billy Luther – The 2020 Directing Lab fellow and 2006 Fast Track alum’s award-winning documentary Miss Navajo, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS’ Independent Lens that same year. He also wrote and directed his first narrative feature Frybread Face and Me, which was Executive Produced by Taika Waititi and slated to premiere in 2023. He is currently a writer for the AMC series Dark Winds.
Angel Kristi Williams – Named one of the ten Black directors to watch in 2014 by Paste Magazine, the 2014 Project Involve fellow’s directorial debut Really Love – produced by MACRO and Homegrown – won the Special Jury Recognition for Acting at SXSW for co-stars Kofi Siriboe and Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing. Most recently, Angel won an NAACP Image Award for directing Colin in Black and White, her first episode of television, followed by directing episodes of Naomi and Cherish the Day.
When: Thursday, October 27 @ 5:30 – 6:30pm PT
Why We’re Excited: We will be closing the Forum with our traditional roundtable, this year’s featuring some of today’s best-known indie producers. Amongst the topics to be discussed: Does the increased appetite for stories from all corners of the globe mean that producers across the globe will be busier than ever? Is theatrical dead for all but the largest independent titles? And with streamers dominating sales at festivals and markets, what does this mean for the bottom-line and back-end? From telling stories that matter, to sustaining a career, these producers prove that it can be done and will offer tips and advice for all.
Who:
Mollye Asher – With her third collaboration with Chinese-American director Chloé Zhao – 2020’s Nomadland – the Academy Award-winning producer scored the Producers Award at the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards and was included in Variety’s 2021 NY Women’s Impact Report.
Miranda Bailey – The CEO of Cold Iron Pictures recently produced God’s Country starring Thandiwe Newton, which premiered at Sundance 2022 and was soon sold to IFC. Currently, Bailey is producing Thirsty starring Lake Bell, a comedy about Orange County moms who go just a little too far to have their kids win; and Raised Eyebrows, starring Geoffrey Rush as Groucho Marx.
Scott Franklin – An Oscar nominee for his work on Black Swan, the producer is a two-time Spirit Award Best Picture winner for The Wrestler and the aforementioned Black Swan. Recently producing Tobias’ Lindholm’s The Good Nurse – starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne – Franklin is also one of the Executive Producers on Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser.
Jhane Myers – A Comanche and Blackfeet American Indian filmmaker, Myers leveraged her cultural background in bringing Comanche authenticity to this year’s sci-fi action horror Prey – the fifth in the Predator franchise – as one of the producers on the film. Known for her knowledge and dedication to Native film and fine arts, Native language, and Native cultural advising, her upcoming producing projects include Sacajawea: The Windcatcher and documentary Journey of a Windcatcher.
There are various ways to take advantage of this year’s hybrid format. Make sure to check out the complete Forum Schedule so you don’t risk missing a second of it!
Full Access passes – $149 for Members; $189 for the general public – includes:
You can also enjoy this year’s Forum from anywhere in the world with a virtual pass. You’ll have access to recordings of all Forum Keynotes, panels, case studies and the DGA sessions until Dec 31, 2022.
Virtual Only passes – $79 for Members; $99 for the general public, which includes online access to the virtual events from October 25–27 and recordings of the DGA events.
Passes are FREE for Arts Circle Members
Arts Circle and Filmmaker Pro receive an added bonus: priority registration for one-on-one Industry Connect sessions at the DGA.
Film Independent Members save up to 20% on Forum passes… join or renew today.
Mikael Backlund scored the third-period game winner for the Calgary Flames in a 3-2 win over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday.
Elias Lindholm and Tyler Toffoli also scored for the hosts, who improved to 3-0 to start the NHL season.
Jonathan Huberdeau, acquired in an off-season trade with the Florida Panthers, assisted on Calgary’s first two goals of the game for his third point in as many games.
Kadri, signed as a free agent in August, had an assist and now has a goal and three assists in his first three games as a Flame.
Read more:
Calgary Flames start fast, hang on to beat host Edmonton Oilers 4-3
Read More
Jacob Markstrom made 19 saves for the win in Calgary’s net.
William Carrier and Brett Howden scored their first goals of the season for Vegas (3-1). Calgarian Logan Thompson stopped 37 of 40 shots in the loss.
After the Flames killed off a pair of hooking minors in the third period, Backlund scored a go-ahead goal at 15:31. Blake Coleman collected the puck off the glass and shovelled it out front to Backlund on Thompson’s doorstep.
Backlund’s 168th career goal for the Flames ranks him fifth among franchise centremen and one ahead of Joel Otto.
Down two goals after the opening period, Calgary converted two of six power-play chances in the second to draw even by 13:19.
After missing a pair of scoring chances earlier in the game, Toffoli corralled a rebound in the slot going backhand to forehand to beat Thompson high stick side.
Toffoli had a shooting lane and some open net earlier in the period but looked skyward when he shot the puck high.
Lindholm halved the deficit at 10:43 when Thompson juggled his shot high into the air.
The Knights’ goalie lost sight of the puck falling behind him as teammates Alec Martinez and Alex Pietrangelo tried to bat it away.
The Flames had two consecutive power plays to start the second period. Cassidy successfully challenged Lindholm’s goal for goalie interference at 4:39. Kadri was down in the crease when Lindholm banged in a rebound.
Vegas led by two at 15:23 of the first period on Howden’s knee-high deflection of a Brayden McNabb shot from the blue line.
Thompson down in the crease reached up to glove a golden chance for Toffoli at the side of the net midway through the opening period.
Markstrom mistimed his attempted gloving of Carrier’s wrist shot to give the visitors a 1-0 lead at 3:55.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
Mikael Backlund scored the third-period game winner
Jessica Alba and Cash Warren were all smiles at the 2022 God’s Love We Deliver Golden Heart Awards in NYC.
Jessica Alba and Cash Warren were all
Netflix will no longer be providing forecasts for its subscriber numbers, as the streamer moves toward a greater focus on revenue.
“We have such a wide range of price points, different partnerships all over the world, [that] the economic impact of any given subscriber can be quite different. And that’s particularly true if you’re trying to compare our business with other streaming services,” Spencer Wang, Netflix’s vp of finance, investor relations and corporate development, said on the investor video Tuesday.
“This is going to be, I think, even more important as we head into 2023 and we develop new revenue streams, like advertising and paid sharing, where membership growth is only one aspect of the revenue picture,” he continued.
The streamer will still report global and regional membership numbers, but will not provide guidance for them starting in January 2023, when it reports fourth quarter earnings. The company will still provide guidance on revenue, operating income, operating margin, net income and earnings per share.
The move comes as Wall Street grows weary of expansion at any cost in the streaming space. Many streamers, including Netflix, have tightened their budgets and made cuts amid a competitive and what some feared to be stalling streaming environment.
That’s not to say that Netflix is ignoring subscriber numbers. The company notably added 2.4 million subscribers in its third quarter, marking its first gain this year. And in response, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings declared on the investor call, “Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” while also adding, “We’ve got to pick up the momentum.”
Some of this momentum is expected to come from the launch of Netflix’s ad-supported tier next month, with executives anticipating that the lower cost will bring in new subscribers, while existing subscribers stick with their current price tiers. The lower price point is also expected to help with overall churn, Netflix COO Greg Peters said Tuesday.
The ad-tier should also help boost revenue, though the company said Tuesday that it does not expect it to have a “material contribution” to revenue in the next quarter, since the tier is launching in the middle of the quarter. Initial demand for the ad-support tier has been “very strong,” Netflix COO Greg Peters said Tuesday, but the advertising model is still in its early stages, particularly with its still-limited ad targeting. Peters expects to improve the model over the next several quarters.
“We’re very much in crawl, walk, run kind of model,” Peters said on the investor video.
Netflix has also ramped up its crackdown on account sharing, with a new feature available this week that allows users to move their profiles, complete with watch history and recommendations, over to a new account. This move is expected to help boost paid membership, as the company has estimated that more than 100 million households worldwide are sharing their Netflix accounts.
Netflix will no longer be providing forecasts
Hey, everyone. Ariel and Jake here for a combo issue this fine Tuesday morning / afternoon / evening, time zone dependent. We’ve been having a good time prepping for Hot Pod Summit, scoffing at political podcast launches, and wondering whether the future of audio in the metaverse has any legs.
Today, we’ve got rumors of Spotify’s long-awaited HiFi plan, big ad moves from YouTube, and some headphone jack feelings. But first, speaking of Hot Pod Summit, Ariel has some exciting news to share…
Hot Pod Summit LA is coming up fast
Hot Pod Summit LA is only two weeks away (!), and we have some excellent additional panelists to announce. Joining us will be:
I’m excited to see you all very soon for a day of conversations around IP, politics, subscriptions, and some of the other biggest podcasting topics of the moment. Tickets are very nearly sold out, so if you have a pending invite, act on that soon if you want to come.
Hot Pod Summit LA is being held as part of On Air Fest’s LA Annex, a three-day event celebrating Los Angeles’ audio storytelling scene. On Air Fest is happening November 3rd to 5th and will feature Into It host Sam Sanders, the creators of Welcome to Night Vale, the world premiere event for ESPN 30 for 30’s Pink Card with Shima Oliaee, and more. You can learn about On Air LA Annex programming and get tickets here.
Is Spotify Platinum on the way?
It certainly seems like a strong possibility. Last week, a Reddit user who had just canceled their Spotify subscription posted a screenshot of a survey they received from the company. The survey asked if they would be interested in switching to a $19.99-per-month Platinum plan, which comes with all kinds of new features: limited podcast ads, better library management, and, at long last, HiFi.
Spotify Platinum is not yet an option under the streamer’s plans, and the screenshot floating around may not even be the final version (or price). My colleague Chris Welch at The Verge spoke with the Reddit user, who said that several variations of the Platinum plan were included in the survey, including one that would entail access to audiobooks (for a higher price). Spotify declined to comment.
Whatever Platinum ends up looking like if / when it debuts, HiFi will almost certainly be part of the plan. Spotify first announced a HiFi tier in February 2021, and users have been wondering what exactly is taking so long. Last year, Apple Music debuted lossless audio at no additional cost, and Amazon Music and Tidal have long made audio quality a priority. Charging extra for what is a perk on other services may not be enough to convince users to pay double, so I’ll be interested to see what the new tools (what exactly are “Library Pro” and “Playlist Pro”?) look like.
Andrew Cuomo has a new podcast, and his first guest is Anthony Scaramucci
I have said this before, but it is worth reiterating in this particular case: the best thing about podcasting is its low barrier to entry, and the worst thing about podcasting is also its low barrier to entry. Sara Fischer at Axios talked to the disgraced former governor of New York so I don’t have to.
All right, now over to Jake for a couple more updates.
YouTube’s latest podcast move: more audio ads
YouTube is making a big play for podcast ads. The company announced this week that it’s moving audio ads out of beta and allowing advertisers to start targeting specific segments of podcast listeners. Audio ads up to 30 seconds are now rolling out, too, up from just 15-second spots today.
The launch shows YouTube leaning into its role as one of the top destinations for listening to podcasts. The company has finally started to embrace that position over the past year, launching a podcast hub (albeit a bare-bones one), funding creators who want to film their shows, and hiring a leader for its podcast efforts.
Audio ads first launched in late 2020, but YouTube referred to them as a beta and options were limited. With today’s expansion, advertisers in the US will be able to dial in on specific podcasts audiences, like those listening to comedy, news, sports, or culture shows, YouTube spokesperson Oluwa Falodun told Hot Pod.
Controlling advertising is very much the name of the game in the broader podcast business — see: the countless exclusivity deals that ignore platform lock-in in favor of ad-sales agreements — and I think YouTube’s moves here could be the start of something big. YouTube is already an advertising juggernaut, and its platform control means it’s ahead of the game when it comes to ad targeting and insertion. The tech is there. Now, it just needs to get advertisers and podcasters on board.
The newest iPad drops the headphone jack
We all saw this coming, but I think it’s still worth calling out: Apple introduced a new iPad this morning, and it has no option for plugging in wired headphones. The lack of a headphone jack isn’t entirely new for the iPad; the more expensive Air and Pro models already dropped the port a while back. But this new model is eventually going to be the entry-level version of the device, and I think that makes this more notable.
Around New York City, I regularly see parents who’ve handed their kids an iPad and a pair of wired headphones to keep them entertained while out to dinner, waiting in line, or sitting on the subway. Apple is still selling last year’s iPad with a headphone jack for now. But I suspect we’re a couple years out from parents having to figure out a new way to pull up entertainment for their kids — or else keep track of wireless headphones and finicky Bluetooth connections. For anyone making kids’ audio content, this could make the iPad a harder platform for those shows to be consumed on.
That’s all for today — Insiders, we’ll see you on Thursday.
Update October 18th, 3:45PM ET: Updated with McClendon’s latest title.
Hey, everyone. Ariel and Jake here for
The Talk has been a daytime TV staple since it premiered in 2010. The show first aired with Sara Gilbert, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini, Julie Chen and Sharon Osbourne as cohosts, but that panel has changed several times since then.
The Talk returned for season 11 in September 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Osbourne, who came under fire for defending Piers Morgan during a March 2021 episode of the morning show, was the only original cast member remaining. She cohosted alongside Sheryl Underwood, Carrie Ann Inaba and Eve, the latter of whom later left the show.
Amanda Kloots and Elaine Welteroth were then brought in as replacements. Kloots’ addition to the show was emotional, as it came months after her husband, Nick Cordero, died from COVID-19.
“I am thrilled and honored to join this incredible cast and crew,” she said in a statement in December 2020. “I look forward to starting off the new year with honest and thought-provoking discussions, mixed with plenty of fun and laughter too.”
Osbourne is the only The Talk cohost to make it through all 11 seasons of the show. Amid the controversy surrounding her comments about Morgan, she said that she was not sure she wanted to return to her seat on the panel.
“I wish we could go on and have [an] adult conversation calmly and work it out, but I don’t know whether we can,” the Osbournes alum told Entertainment Tonight in March 2021. “I don’t know whether it’s gone past that. I would love to, but I don’t know whether I even want to go back. … I don’t know whether I’m wanted there.”
After coming to Morgan’s defense following his Good Morning Britain exit, Osbourne got in a heated debate with Underwood on the show. She admitted, while speaking with ET about the situation, that she “got too personal” and said she was willing to make it right. More allegations followed, however. Remini alleged that the British TV personality had used racist and homophobic slurs toward Chen and Gilbert.
Osbourne responded to the King of Queens alum’s claims in a statement via her rep, Howard Bragman, who called Remini “a disgruntled former employee.”
He added, “[Sharon] will survive this, as she always has, and her heart will remain open and good, because she refuses to let others take her down. She thanks her family, friends and fans for standing by her and knowing her true nature.”
The Talk went on an extended hiatus that same month following the incident. CBS addressed the decision in a statement issued to Us Weekly.
“CBS is committed to a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace across all of our productions. We’re also very mindful of the important concerns expressed and discussions taking place regarding events on The Talk,” the statement read. “This includes a process where all voices are heard, claims are investigated, and appropriate action is taken where necessary. The show will extend its production hiatus until next Tuesday as we continue to review these issues.”
Keep scrolling to see all the Talk hosts who have left through the years and why.
The Talk has been a daytime TV
Filmmaker Sajid Khan’s entry in Bigg Boss 16 has ignited a debate on social media. A large section of the audience is left disappointed with his entry into the reality show since he was accused of sexual misconduct by several women during the Me Too movement in India. Recently, Bollywood actor Ali Fazal also took to social media to demand Sajid’s eviction from Salman Khan’s show.
Also Read: Bigg Boss 16: Ali Fazal Demands Sajid Khan’s Eviction From Salman Khan’s Show
SS Rajamouli’s yet-to-be-titled film with Mahesh Babu has been making headlines for a long time now. If recent reports are to be believed, Bollywood diva Deepika Padukone is now being considered to pair opposite the Telugu superstar. As reported by Pinkvilla, the makers are considering Deepika as the leading lady of the film. The entertainment portal also claimed that the actress has not been approached so far. However, if things work out as planned Deepika will romance Mahesh Babu for the first time.
Also Read: Deepika Padukone To Pair Opposite Mahesh Babu In SS Rajamouli’s Next? Here’s What We Know
TOP SHOWSHA VIDEO
Director Sooraj Barjatya is making a comeback after seven years with Uunchai. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Parineeti Chopra, Neena Gupta, Sarika, and Danny Denzongpa in the lead, Uunchai revolves around a group of senior citizens who dream of scaling Mount Everest and their journey until the finishing line. While the moving trailer has caught fan attention, Barjatya revealed that Salman Khan wanted to be a part of the film.
Also Read: Sooraj Barjatya Rejected Salman Khan’s Offer To Star in Uunchai For This Reason
Shanaya Kapoor was recently in Dubai to attend her father, Sanjay Kapoor’s 60th birthday bash. While the party was extravagant, Shanaya left her fans and admirers in awe after she “spammed” social media with photos of herself in a black outfit from a recent photoshoot. Posing against the skyline of Dubai, Shanaya Kapoor looks gorgeous in the photos she shared on Instagram. It appears that the star kid served major style goals in the black outfit
Also Read: Shanaya Kapoor’s Style Statement in Strapless Black Mini-Dress Has Left Netizens in Awe
Salman Khan fans have been quite excited ever since the announcement of the sequel of his much-loved comedy-drama No Entry was made. The Tiger Zinda Hai actor’s fans have been waiting for further details of the film including the confirmation of the star cast, and shoot dates. The latest update on the film is unfortunately an unexpected piece of news. If a report in Bollywood Hungama is anything to go by, then it is being stated that Salman has decided to shelve ‘No Entry 2’ owing to legal and financial complications.
Also Read: Salman Khan Decided To Shelve No Entry 2 Due To This Reason? Here’s What We Know
Read all the Latest Movies News and Breaking News here
Filmmaker Sajid Khan’s entry in Bigg Boss
By GRACE DETWILER
Starring Odessa A’zion, Jamie Clayton, and Adam Faison
Written by Luke Piotrowski and Ben Collins
Directed by David Bruckner
Hulu Original
Central to the philosophy of Hellraiser (1987) is Pinhead’s iconic claim that he and the other Cenobites are “explorers, in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others.” While HELLRAISER (2022) recycles this line and others from the original film, it fails to follow through on Clive Barker’s intention in writing it. Unfortunately for protagonist Riley and her group of friends, the new Cenobites have nothing to offer their victims but pointless pain and suffering.
Hellraiser gets both its mythology and aesthetic from a conflation of sadomasochism and religious iconography. The character name for the being we call Pinhead is, in fact, “The Priest” or “The Hell Priest,” and the god Pinhead serves is referred to as “Leviathan.” Not unlike 2008’s Martyrs, Hellraiser suggests that the torture endured by the Cenobites and their victims allows them to experience a kind of spiritual transcendence or ecstasy. Pinhead and the Lament Configuration are a pointedly neutral force in Barker’s incarnation of Hellraiser, wielded by human beings who are the true villains of the story. However, HELLRAISER (2022) conceptualizes the Cenobites as nothing more than demons who wish to make mankind suffer all the pain that hell has to offer.
For HELLRAISER (2022), director David Bruckner (The Ritual) reunites with his The Night House screenwriting team of Luke Piotrowski and Ben Collins (Super Dark Times) to craft a reimagining of the original film from horror master and writer/director Clive Barker. In the time between these two Hellraisers, there have been a plethora of straight-to-video sequels that were largely unsuccessfully with critics and audience members alike. Piotrowski and Collins’ screenplay attempts to update the film’s messaging around sensation-seeking by telling a cautionary tale about addiction, embodied by the characters of Riley (Odessa A’zion) and Trevor (Drew Starkey) – who are said to have met in addiction recovery. Like the drugs Riley abuses – the film concludes – the Cenobites will only bring pain, rather than the pleasure they promise.
Jamie Clayton as Pinhead in HELLRAISER (2022)
Bruckner’s Cenobites trade the leather and kink influences of their 1987 counterparts for even more extreme mutilation of the flesh – emphasizing the new Cenobites’ focus on sheer pain and torture, with little pleasure to speak of. It is unclear in HELLRAISER ‘22 what would attract a figure like the film’s antagonist Voight (Goran Visnjicto) to summon the Cenobites in the first place. Unlike Frank and Julia from Hellraiser ‘87, Voight does not seem to enjoy what the Cenobites put him through as a “reward” for the five human sacrifices he makes to them. Bruckner’s HELLRAISER appears to misunderstand the pleasure in pain itself; the sadomasochistic ideology that pervades Barker’s original is nowhere to be seen. When Voight is initially “rewarded” with a perpetual torture machine embedded in his chest, he finds no pleasure in it whatsoever, as Frank or Julia may have.
Frank Cotton, HELLRAISER (1987)
Potentially useful to the film’s ultimate message about addiction, the Lament Configuration was previously presented as a last resort turned to by people who have exhausted the experience of earthly delights, and wish to seek out more extreme physical sensations. Yet HELLRAISER presents the Cenobites as little more than monsters who use the puzzle box as a means to lure unsuspecting victims in, erasing the agency of those who interact with it. Oddly enough, Riley’s addiction plays no role in her interactions with the Cenobites. She only plays their game in the hope of resurrecting her brother, who was sacrificed by accident, summoning Pinhead (Jamie Clayton) and her legion.
Bruckner’s film presents the Cenobites as malevolent and deceitful, rather than as supernatural beings who grant exactly what is asked for by the one who solves the puzzle box. A user of the newfangled Lament Configuration is merely tempted by a false promise of life, love, knowledge, sensation, resurrection, or power – which the Cenobites will then manifest in the most horrific manner imaginable. HELLRAISER seems to put the angel/demon debate to rest; Cenobites are demons, full stop, motivated by un-nuanced sadism.
HELLRAISER (2022) is available now to stream on Hulu.
By GRACE DETWILER Starring Odessa A’zion, Jamie Clayton,
Despite rumors to the contrary, Netflix says it has no plans to stop dropping all episodes of a TV show at once for binge-friendly viewing.
“We think our bingeable release model helps drive substantial engagement, especially for newer titles,” Netflix said in its Q3 shareholder letter, as part of announcing quarterly results Tuesday. “This enables viewers to lose themselves in stories they love.” The company’s comments come after the Puck newsletter last month reported that Netflix execs were mulling a change to binge strategy and release major titles on a weekly schedule.
Netflix, which pioneered the practice of binge-releasing TV seasons in their entirety, said it’s sticking with that game plan.
“It’s hard to imagine, for example, how a Korean title like ‘Squid Game’ would have become a mega hit
globally without the momentum that came from people being able to binge it,” Netflix said in the shareholder letter. “We believe the ability for our members to immerse themselves in a story from start to finish increases their enjoyment but also their likelihood to tell their friends, which then means more people watch, join and stay with Netflix.”
The binge-release approach helped “drive significant interest” in Ryan Murphy’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which is now its No. 2 English original series in the initial 28-day window, according to Netflix. The company included a chart from Google Trends, which it said illustrated how the ability to watch all 10 episodes of “Monster” — all released on Sept. 21 — drove a much bigger spike in search queries for “Dahmer” relative to non-bingeble Amazon’s Prime Video “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and HBO’s “The House of the Dragon.”
Netflix does release some reality series, like “Love Is Blind” and “The Circle,” in groups of episodes spread over several weeks. In addition, it has split apart the most recent seasons of high-profile titles like “Stranger Things,” “Ozark” and “Money Heist” to maximize viewer interest and engagement.
In some cases, according to Netflix, an entire TV season isn’t available in its entirety because the title is licensed from a network “and the episode will usually be available on Netflix the day or week after it was broadcast on its original network.”
Despite rumors to the contrary, Netflix says
Netflix subscription is required to watch on Netflix
Great news! “LiSA LiVE is Smile Always, Eve&Birth: The Birth at Nippon Budokan” is available to watch on Netflix USA!
Date Added: 18th October 2022
Want to keep forever? Try looking for ‘LiSA LiVE is Smile Always, Eve&Birth: The Birth at Nippon Budokan’ on Amazon (paid link)
Description:
Known for her theme songs for “Demon Slayer” and more, LiSA triumphantly and gratefully takes the stage in celebration of her 10-year anniversary.
Certificate:
Suitable for General Audiences
Year: 2022
Duration: 2hr 8m
Audio: Japanese [Original]
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
Cast: LiSA
Not yet rated
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Netflix subscription is required to watch on Netflix
Where else can you watch ‘LiSA LiVE is Smile Always, Eve&Birth: The Birth at Nippon Budokan’ on Netflix?
Cameroon has picked director Eystein Young’s The Planter’s Plantation as its submission to the best international feature category at the 2023 Oscars.
The dramatic musical is produced by Extrafix Media, BGC Melody Story and Inn Amore Pictures. The Planters Plantation, shot in Cameroon, is set in 1960s west Africa and portrays a young woman battling family and society to preserve her late father’s legacy — a colonial plantation left to him at independence — amid disagreements, betrayal and secrets.
Eystein Young wrote and directed the film and also shares the producer credits with co-star Irene Nangi. Don Julio Bats and another co-star, Quinny Ijang, are executive producers.
The Planters Plantation has an ensemble cast that includes Nimo Loveline as Enanga, Loic Sumfor, Stephanie Tum, Nkem Owoh and Syriette Che.
The Cameroon film recently won three awards at the Ecran Noir Festival, including the Ecran D’or.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the 15 shortlist contenders for the international feature Oscar on Dec. 21. The five nominees will be announced Jan. 24. The 95th Academy Awards will take place on March 12, 2023.
Cameroon has picked director Eystein Young’s The
Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett on “The Dick Cavett Show,” June 1969. Photo by Ron Baldwin
Dick Cavett was writing for Jack Paar on The Tonight Show when he met Groucho Marx at the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman in 1961. It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted until Groucho’s death in 1977. When Cavett made the transition from writer to comedian in 1965, he was encouraged and mentored by Groucho. When Cavett became the host of his own talk show in 1968, Groucho quickly became a frequent guest. Groucho’s appearances on The Dick Cavett Show captured what Cavett calls, “the last of Groucho’s greatness.” This timeline depicts the milestones in the working relationship and friendship between Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett.
Dick Cavett and Groucho Marx meet for the first time at the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman in New York City. Cavett had recently joined the writing staff of “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar.
June 4, 1961
Cavett makes an on-camera appearance with Paar on “The Tonight Show.”
July 19, 1961
Jack Paar hosts “The Tonight Show” for the final time. Interim hosts fill in until Johnny Carson takes over the show in October. Cavett remains on the writing staff.
March 29, 1962
Groucho Marx begins a week as the guest host of “The Tonight Show.” Cavett writes monologue jokes for him.
August 20, 1962
Groucho and Cavett reconnect when Groucho appears on Carson’s first “Tonight Show” to introduce him as the new host.
October 1, 1962
Groucho returns as the guest host of “The Tonight Show,” this time filling in for the vacationing Johnny Carson. Cavett again writes monologue jokes for Groucho.
July 27, 1964
Cavett begins working as a standup comedian in New York nightclubs, He leaves “The Tonight Show” in early 1965.
December 1964
Cavett makes his first appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” and receives an encouraging letter from Groucho.
August 5, 1965
Groucho hosts “The Kraft Music Hall” television show and requests that Dick Cavett be booked as one of his guests.
December 13, 1967
Dick Cavett debuts as the host of ABC’s new daytime show, “This Morning.” The title of the show is soon changed to “The Dick Cavett Show.”
March 4, 1968
Groucho makes his first appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
April 23, 1968
Cavett brings the show to Hollywood and Groucho makes his second appearance.
June 19, 1968
Groucho appears on Cavett’s new prime time show. An expanded version of this episode is shown on September 5.
June 13, 1969
Groucho promotes the Broadway musical “Minnie’s Boys” on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
March 20, 1970
Groucho returns to “The Dick Cavett Show” five days after his previous appearance.
March 25, 1970
Groucho appears on “The Dick Cavett Show” with Truman Capote. Their segment together becomes one of the most memorable in the show’s history.
May 25, 1971
During his monologue Cavett spots Groucho and briefly interviews him at his seat in the audience.
December 9, 1971
Groucho makes his final appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
December 16, 1971
Cavett introduces Groucho at Carnegie Hall. Recordings from the concert – including Cavett’s introduction – are released on the album “An Evening with Groucho.”
May 6, 1972
ABC’s Wide World of Entertainment airs a 90-minute retrospective of clips from Groucho’s appearances on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
May 2, 1974
Groucho Marx dies in Los Angeles, California at the age of 86.
August 19, 1977
Cavett cohosts the tribute, “Remembering Groucho” on ABC.
September 2, 1977
Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett on “The
SPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched Monday’s episode of Fox’s “9-1-1,” titled “Home Invasion.”
Following a very rough road as of late, “9-1-1” had Maddie Buckley (Jennifer Love Hewitt) firmly in control of her life again this week and making moves that Hewitt didn’t think her character would be capable of in the early days of the Fox first-responder drama.
With Variety, Hewitt discusses Monday’s installment of the show, which saw Maddie deal with trust issues at home — where she and Chimney grapple with the reality of getting a nanny named Madga for Baby Jee-Yun — and in her home away from home, the 9-1-1 call center — where her new recruit makes the twist choice to feed personal info of people with medical emergencies to robbers, and risk Maddie’s career by using her login for the illegal activity.
New call center employee Noah’s betrayal that almost got Maddie fired was shocking. How long do you think it will take her to get over this, given her past?
This is a very personal thing that has happened with Noah, so in that big scene with him, when she expresses, you really didn’t handle this the right way, that’s big for her. And obviously, it is a break of trust and a big betrayal. But this new Maddie — Maddie 2.0, we’ll call her — is going to learn and has learned to not take everything with her for long periods of time like maybe she did before. When Noah is gone and he is karmically dealing with whatever happens to him based on his actions, Maddie will move on from it and it will be OK. But I do think that based on who Maddie is and who Doug was for her in her life, Maddie is always going to have trust issues. Unfortunately for her, she continues to just trust with such love and empathy all the time. Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes it’s not so good. And in this situation, it obviously wasn’t the right choice.
In contrast, can you break down Maddie’s choices in the comic-relief storyline to hire and fire nanny Magda?
It was a really fun storyline. And I’ve obviously dealt with that in my life, having kids and trying to figure out who do you trust with your kids, where do you let go, where do you hold onto your own personal beliefs and things done in the way that you want them to be done in your home. What I really loved about that storyline is that Maddie was the one — even though she had the GPS in Jee’s stuff — Maddie was really at the forefront of finding this nanny-house manager and deciding that it was what was right for them because she was ready to go back to work. And I love that ultimately Maddie was like, “I can’t take this in my own home, this doesn’t feel right.” I don’t know if two seasons ago she would have been able to do that. The woman who played Magda, Dendrie Allyn Taylor, and I have actually worked together numerous amounts of times over the last 20 years and she’s one of my favorite actresses ever. So it was also really fun for me when she showed up. It was so great, and I told her, “Thank God I don’t have to fire you on camera, because I would cry the whole time because I love you so much.”
I do hope Maddie and Chimney will find someone who can help them. Maddie has been through a lot, I don’t think her trust issues are for no reason. But it was a fun storyline, and I can’t wait to see who they ultimately end up with. And I do think that the bigger thing was less with Magda and more that Maddie, Jee and Chimney are now living in Chimney’s very small bachelor pad. And they’re expanding in their relationship, but they’re not expanding in space. So I think that’s hard.
Are you hinting at an upcoming relocation for the couple?
There will for sure, in a winter finale, fun storyline, be a relocation that will happen. It will not go as planned, I can tell you that much.
What do you think Maddie’s reaction is going to be to Buck’s choice in last week’s episode to be a sperm donor for his friend and his friend’s wife?
I don’t know how Maddie is going to react to that. We haven’t played anything so far. I don’t even know that Maddie knows what’s happening. I think Buck is a really interesting character, because he is so many people in their 20s and 30s that are constantly searching for what they’re gonna be, who they’re gonna be, what their story is, what their storyline in their life is gonna be, whether they’re the main character or the guest star and what it all what means. So I love Buck for that, but as of right now, Maddie hasn’t commented on it and there’s so many storylines going, I don’t think she even knows about it yet.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
SPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have
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The iPad’s ability to facilitate a range of digital creatives wasn’t lost on TechRadar’s Managing editor for Lifestyle – Josie Watson, who’s also an artist in her spare time.
She’s already compiled a wishlist of features she’d like to see from this year’s iPad Pros. What do you think?
Good Morning (or afternoon, depending on where you’re tuning in). All signs point to Apple releasing it’s new iPads any time now, with the Apple Store buy pages for iPads set to ‘be right back’ and Tim Cook throwing out a tempting tweet.
Let’s dive in.
Refresh 2022-10-18T13:18:46.644Z (Image credit: Future / Josephine Watson)The
Actor Kaalan Walker received a sentence of 50 years to life on Monday following his April conviction on multiple counts of rape.
Walker, 27, had been out on bail, the LA Times reported, but was taken into custody following the sentencing.
Walker, an actor and rapper best known for his role in “Superfly,” was convicted of raping six people and sexually assaulting another on April 18.
However, Walker was acquitted of an additional three charges, including two charges of forcible rape.
Prosecutors said the attacks occurred between 2013 and 2018, and included three under age victims.
City news service said Walker lured victims through promises of introducing them to famous people or taking them to music video shoots.
Actor Kaalan Walker received a sentence of
The candidate that’s farthest along is the single-dose ChAd3 Ebola Sudan vaccine, which is being developed by the Sabin Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, DC. By working with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and other organizations, the institute is planning to run a clinical trial in the current outbreak to see how well the vaccine works.
But there are only 100 doses available. With limited supply, health officials plan to give doses of the vaccine to immediate contacts of confirmed Ebola cases. Scientists then hope to use these contacts as potential candidates in the vaccine’s clinical trial—though the exact testing protocol they will use is still being worked out.
Kaleebu says having limited supplies is a challenge, but that they are hoping for accelerated production from the Sabin Vaccine Institute now that more doses are needed. But even if the number of vaccines used in the trial is small, they will still provide useful data, says Bruce Kirenga, a senior respiratory physician at Makerere University College of Health Sciences on the outskirts of Kampala.
“Trials use power calculation,” Kirenga says, referring to sums that allow researchers to work out the minimum number of people you need to involve to see whether a vaccine or medicine has an effect. A well-designed trial in an emergency situation in need of a drastic change of course—such as whether a vaccine stops someone from getting or dying from a severe disease like Ebola—doesn’t necessarily need to involve lots of people.
Doses of another candidate vaccine, designed to protect against both the Zaire and Sudan forms of the virus and developed by the University of Oxford, are also being sent to help in the outbreak. But the WHO has said that vaccine trials won’t start for another couple of weeks, meaning that for now, Ugandan authorities are relying on non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Contact tracing is being used to follow people who have been close to known cases, with more than 1,500 contacts having been traced as of October 16. Over a third of these are no longer being followed, having been traced for 21 days without developing symptoms.
New cases are also being picked up outside of the contacts being traced, says Daniel Kyabayinze, director of public health at Uganda’s Ministry of Health. “It’s a good sign of optimal surveillance,” he says. But it is also a sign that the limits of the outbreak are still uncertain.
On October 12, the Ministry of Health announced that a man had died of Ebola in a hospital in Kampala, having traveled to the capital from his local village. Three days later, two districts—Mubende and Kassanda—entered a three-week lockdown to try to stop the virus spreading. Bars, nightclubs, and places of worship have been closed, and only cargo trucks are allowed to enter or leave the districts.
With the risk of infection so high, trained teams are also being dispatched to bury the dead. And, at the same time, they are helping with the contact tracing—taking the details of all people the deceased could have had contact with. The Ministry of Health is also training health workers to handle Ebola cases, and communities are mobilizing volunteers and those who have previously worked in Ebola case management to take part in control efforts.
The candidate that’s farthest along is the
It’s often said that the movies that were fun to make never turn out great. Well, George Clooney and Julia Roberts look like they had a grand time making the Bali-set “Ticket to Paradise.“
The film, directed and co-written by Ol Parker (“Mama Mia! Here We Go Again”), isn’t the first movie to star Roberts and Clooney together. But it takes a moment to realize that their screen time together has been mostly limited to some scenes in the “Ocean’s Eleven” movies and Jodie Foster’s not-so-memorable 2016 thriller “Money Monster.”
Given their friendship and natural rapport, you imagine that there must have been half-a-dozen rom-coms in their past. Instead, it’s a reminder that Clooney, so often compared to Cary Grant, has, when dipping into comedy, mostly stuck to an archer, Coen-brothers register. And unlike Grant — whose on-screen romances included the brilliant likes of Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell — Clooney has less frequently found a perfect match. Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air” and Meryl Streep in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” deserve mentioning. But, really, Clooney’s best chemistry was back in 1998’s “Out of Sight“ with Jennifer Lopez — a love that bloomed in the dark trunk of a car.
For better or for worse. George Clooney and Julia Roberts star in #TicketToParadise. In Theaters this October. https://www.tickettoparadise.movie/
“Ticket to Paradise,” which opens in theaters Thursday, is a more old-fashioned proposition: a movie built strictly — and without apologies — on the charisma of its two stars.
Roberts and Clooney play Georgia and David Cotton, a bitterly divorced set of parents whose daughter, Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), is fresh out of law school. Just before she takes a demanding job with a top firm, Lily and her best friend, Wren (Billie Lourd), set off on a trip to Bali. (Here, Australia doubles for the Indonesian island.) Lily immediately falls in love with a local seaweed farmer named Gede (Maxime Bouttier) and they decide to marry within days.
For Georgia and David, such a wedding is a four-alarm fire. They fly out straight away to sabotage it, a scheme that dredges up plenty of their own unresolved issues about divorce. “Nothing’s forever,” David hisses to his son-in-law-to-be. It’s an unholy alliance. They bicker constantly, so much so that it’s clear that their feelings are still strong for one another. I know this probably comes as a shock. Maybe sit down before reading this next sentence. But, yes, the events of “Ticket to Paradise” will bring them closer again. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
OK, so Parker’s film, written by him and Daniel Pipski, is not exactly out here to reinvent the wheel. Predictability is part of the appeal of “Ticket to Paradise,” and you can’t say it doesn’t succeed in that. The familiar beats get played with sincerity. A wince-inducing late-night dance floor sequence with Kris Kross’ “Jump” arrives like a matter of prescribed ritual.
There are other traditions that fill “Ticket to Paradise” as the Cottons wrestle with and inevitably succumb to Balinese culture. But none so much as the customs of the rom-com. For me, “Ticket to Paradise“ could have — like a lot of recent entries in the genre — greatly benefitted from a funny person taking a pass on the script. There’s not nearly as much to laugh at here as you might expect, as “Ticket to Paradise” remains mostly content, like a dozing beachgoer, to bask in the glow of its stars. Dever, hysterical in “Booksmart,” is also largely wasted in a bland role.
“Ticket to Paradise” goes down as a footnote to the many superior rom-coms Roberts has sparkled in before. And if I wanted to watch Clooney in a tropical locale, I’d choose Alexander Payne’s lovely “The Descendants.” Or for Clooney in divorcee plot, the Coens’ “Intolerable Cruelty,” with Catherine Zeta-Jones, would be the choice.
But if you just want to see Roberts and Clooney together, “Ticket to Paradise” clears that not-very-high bar with just enough charm. And, lest anyone doubt, the end-credits bloopers — which feel about as scripted as those that follow “Toy Story 2” — prove that everyone making “Ticket to Paradise” did, in fact, have a very good time.
“Ticket to Paradise,” a Universal release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for some strong language and brief suggestive material. Running time: 104 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
___
Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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It’s often said that the movies that
Olivia Wilde was honored as one of Elle‘s Women in Hollywood at the magazine’s celebration in Los Angeles on Monday night, and during her speech opened up about some of what she experienced during the Don’t Worry Darling press tour and its aftermath.
The Warner Bros. film, of course, was at the center of many stories about the complicated relationships between Wilde, her stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, and Shia LaBeouf, who originally held Styles’ role. The drama came to a head during Don’t Worry Darling’s premiere in Venice, where the internet was convinced Styles spit on costar Chris Pine.
“I was an actress who started producing and then finally got the courage to start directing, and wouldn’t have started any of it at all if I knew Twitter would be invented,” Wilde noted during her speech at the Getty Center. “But here I am and it’s a real thrill to have what is undeniably the greatest job on the planet.”
The director admitted that sometimes it’s not easy to keep going. “Sometimes it’s tempting to excuse ourselves from the burning hellfire of the misogyny that defines this business and say ‘Goodnight, good luck, I’d rather eat glass for a living,’” she said but added that women in the entertainment industry don’t let each other give up, and she’d recently gotten encouragement from other Hollywood ladies in “the form of a tight grip of your shoulders and a tense stare into your eyes and a defiant, ‘Do not let them fuck with you.’ And it’s always really tempting to reply, ‘Well if I didn’t know things were bad before, I do now.’”
Wilde said that at events like Elle‘s Women in Hollywood — where she was honored alongside Ariana DeBose, Anne Hathaway, Issa Rae, Zoe Kravitz, Sydney Sweeney, Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Yeoh — she felt “motivated to keep fighting through the hellfire. In some way, the challenges are all a part of it, right, real badges of honor are just par for the course.”
“Let’s face it, you’re not a woman in Hollywood until you’ve begged to be placed into a medically induced coma until your press tour is finished. Until then, you are just a woman residing in or around the Hollywood area,” she continued. “I love my life, I love my job, what more could I ask for,” teasing she would only add a solo cover rather than being one of eight honorees.
Two of her film’s stars were also in attendance to reference the craziness surrounding its release: Nick Kroll, who hosted the event, and Kate Berlant, who presented Wilde with her honor.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m probably best known as the least interesting part of the Don’t Worry Darling press tour,” Kroll joked, later adding, “Spoiler alert, the movie has a big surprise twist ending where it’s revealed that we had a great time making it.”
As Wilde teased, “this might surprise all of you but the hardest part of the Don’t Worry Darling experience was actually trimming Kate’s jokes because they were so funny, and we weren’t trying to make it funny,” Berlant also came to the defense of her director, noting that what was lost in the media frenzy was that the movie was a box office hit.
“I don’t know what that kind of tabloid attention feels like, it seems absolutely terrifying,” Berlant continued. “I personally would be reduced to ash, truly. But Olivia handles all of it with such grace and charm and grit, I’ll never get over it.”
Olivia Wilde was honored as one of
Dan Levy is preparing to direct his first feature film (after winning Emmys for writing and directing on a little show he made called Schitt’s Creek), and he’s assembled quite a cast for it: The movie will star Dan Levy himself, so that’s cheating, plus Ruth Negga, Luke Evans, Himesh Patel, Celia Imrie, Arnaud Valois, David Bradley, and Jamael Westman. We don’t know specifically who they’re all playing, but this is a regular movie and not a nerd movie, so it’s not like any of them will be playing Darth Vader.
The movie is going to Netflix and it’s called Good Grief, and it sounds like a real cheery affair (it will actually probably end up being heartwarming). Levy will play a man named Marc Dreyfus who decides to distract himself from the loss of his mother by settling into a “comfortable marriage,” but when his husband also dies, he’s “forced to confront his grief” and goes to Paris with two of his friends for a “weekend of self-discovery.”
This all comes from IndieWire, which shared a statement from Levy:
Good Grief is a cautionary tale about friendship and loss and all the mess that comes with it when the truth is something you’ve evaded for most of your life. It’s funny, it’s bittersweet, it’s a project that has helped me work through my own grief. And I hope it does the same for other people as well.
IndieWire says that Good Grief doesn’t have a premiere date or a “production timeline” yet, which means it could be a ways off. Since they did just announce the cast, that probably means they haven’t started filming it yet, so it could be a little ways off.
Dan LevyPhoto: Dominik Bindl (Getty Images)Dan Levy
Great news! “Benidorm mon amour” is available to watch on Netflix UK!
Date Added: 17th October 2022
Known expiry dates are shown above as well as on the Last Chance page.
Want to keep forever? Try looking for ‘Benidorm mon amour’ on Amazon (paid link)
Description:
When four bumbling pals get mixed up with a pair of crooks, their vacation becomes a dangerous game of cat and mouse — and they don’t even know it.
Certificate: Suitable for ages 15 and up
Year: 2016
Duration: 1hr 33m
Audio: Spanish
Subtitles: English
Director: Santiago Pumarola
Cast: Ferrán Gadea, Miguel Barberá, Óscar Pastor, Manuel Maestro, José Lamuño, Diego Braguinsky, Andreu Castro, Nazaret Aracil, Anaïs Duperrein, Paula García Sabio, Estefanía Zaragoza
“Benidorm mon amour” was produced by Trivisión S.L. and was originally released on June 24th 2016.
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The Casting Society is out with the TV, theater, short films and shortform series nominations for its 38th annual Artios Awards. Netflix and the combined HBO/HBO Max lead the field with 10 noms each, and Apple TV+ and Hulu are next with five apiece.
ABC, AMC, Disney+, Fox and Nickelodeon are the only other outlets with multiple noms, landing two each. See the full list below.
The Artios Awards, which honor casting professionals, will unveil its film nominees November 1. Winners will pick up their statuettes during an in-person ceremony March 9 at the Beverly Hilton.
“We are so excited for the Artios Awards to take place in person after two years of it being virtual,” CSA President Destiny Lilly said. “Casting directors are a small community, and to be able to see each other in person to celebrate and toast each other will make for a very special evening. We all cannot wait.”
Special honorees selected for their contributions to the craft will be announced later.
Last year’s Artios Awards lauded the casting teams behind CODA, West Side Story, Don’t Look Up and others on the film side, with Ted Lasso, The Queen’s Gambit and Pose among the TV winners.
Here are the TV, theater, short film and shortform nominees for the 2023 Artios Awards:
FILM, NON-THEATRICAL RELEASE
BETTER NATE THAN EVER – Bernard Telsey, Bethany Knox, Pat Goodwin
DEEP WATER – Ellen Chenoweth, Tracy Kilpatrick (Location Casting), Susanne Scheel (Associate Casting Director)
THE ADAM PROJECT – Carmen Cuba, Tiffany Mak (Location Casting), Judith Sunga (Associate Casting Director)
THE HARDER THEY FALL – Victoria Thomas, Jo Edna Boldin (Location Casting)
TURNING RED – Kevin Reher, Natalie Lyon, Kate Hansen-Birnbaum (Associate Casting Director)
TELEVISION PILOT AND FIRST SEASON – COMEDY
ABBOTT ELEMENTARY – Wendy O’Brien
GHOSTS – Elizabeth Barnes, Tannis Vallely, Andrea Kenyon (Location Casting), Randi Wells (Location Casting)
JULIA – Sharon Bialy, Gohar Gazazyan, Lisa Lobel (Location Casting), Angela Peri (Location Casting), Stacia Kimler (Associate Casting Director), Melissa Morris (Associate Casting Director)
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING – Bernard Telsey, Tiffany Little Canfield, Destiny Lilly (Associate Casting Director)
RESERVATION DOGS – Angelique Midthunder, Jennifer Schwalenberg, Chris Freihofer (Location Casting), Stacey Rice (Associate Casting Director), Lisa Zambetti (Associate Casting Director)
THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS – Elizabeth Barnes, Jennifer Euston
TELEVISION PILOT AND FIRST SEASON – DRAMA
KEVIN CAN F**K HIMSELF – Felicia Fasano, Rikki Gimelstob, Angela Peri (Location Casting), Lisa Lobel (Location Casting), Katie Lantz (Associate Casting Director)
PACHINKO – Mary Vernieu, Michelle Wade Byrd, Ko Iwagami (Location Casting), Corinne Clark (Location Casting), Jennifer Page (Location Casting)
THE GILDED AGE – Bernard Telsey, Adam Caldwell, Kristian Charbonier (Associate Casting Director)
WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY – Francine Maisler, Kathy Driscoll-Mohler, Melissa Kostenbauder, Molly Rose (Associate Casting Director)
SEVERANCE – Rachel Tenner, Bess Fifer (Location Casting), Rick Messina (Associate Casting Director)
YELLOWJACKETS – Junie Lowry Johnson, Libby Goldstein, Corinne Clark (Location Casting), Jennifer Page (Location Casting), Josh Ropiequet (Associate Casting Director)
TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY
BARRY – Sherry Thomas, Sharon Bialy, Stacia Kimler (Associate Casting Director)
HACKS – Jeanne McCarthy, Nicole Abellera Hallman, Anna Mayworm (Associate Casting Director)
TED LASSO – Theo Park
THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL – Cindy Tolan, Anne Davison (Associate Casting Director)
THE OTHER TWO – Allison Estrin, Henry Russell Bergstein, Jenn Gaw (Associate Casting Director), Dayna Katz (Associate Casting Director)
TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
BETTER CALL SAUL – Sharon Bialy, Sherry Thomas, Russel Scott, Marie K. McMaster (Location Casting), Alyssa Morris (Associate Casting Director)
EUPHORIA – Jessica Kelly, Mary Vernieu, Bret Howe, Jennifer Venditti (Location Casting)
OZARK – Alexa L. Fogel, Chase Paris (Location Casting), Tara Feldstein Bennett (Location Casting), Kathryn Zamora-Benson (Associate Casting Director)
SUCCESSION – Avy Kaufman, Lilia Trapani (Location Casting), Harrison Nesbit (Associate Casting Director)
THE MORNING SHOW – Victoria Thomas
LIMITED SERIES
DOPESICK – Avy Kaufman, Erica Arvold (Location Casting), Scotty Anderson (Associate Casting Director), Dustin Presley (Associate Casting Director)
INVENTING ANNA – Linda Lowy, Henry Russell Bergstein, Allison Estrin, Jamie Castro, Simone Bär (Location Casting), Juliette Menager (Location Casting), Dayna Katz (Associate Casting Director)
MAID – Rachel Tenner, Corinne Clark (Location Casting), Jennifer Page (Location Casting), Rick Messina (Associate Casting Director)
THE DROPOUT – Jeanie Bacharach, Alison Goodman, Mark Rutman
THE STAIRCASE – Douglas Aibel, Tracy Kilpatrick (Location Casting), Matthew Glasner (Associate Casting Director), Blair Foster (Associate Casting Director)
LIVE TELEVISION PERFORMANCE, VARIETY OR SKETCH – COMEDY, DRAMA OR MUSICAL
ANNIE LIVE! – Bernard Telsey, Patrick Goodwin
THAT DAMN MICHAEL CHE – Erica A. Hart
THE G WORD WITH ADAM CONOVER – Lindsey Weissmueller, Chrissy Fiorilli-Ellington
TRUE STORY WITH ED & RANDALL – Melissa DeLizia
WOULD I LIE TO YOU? Mark Saks
CHILDREN’S PILOT AND SERIES (LIVE ACTION)
BUNK’D – Howard Meltzer, Biz Urban (Associate Casting Director)
NOGGIN KNOWS – Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick, Jennifer Treadwell, Monica Kelly
THE BABYSITTERS CLUB – Danielle Aufiero, Amber Horn, Tiffany Mak (Location Casting), Leigh Ann Smith (Associate Casting Director)
YOUNG DYLAN – Kim Coleman, Rhavynn Drummer (Associate Casting Director)
WARPED! – Nickole Doro, Shayna Sherwood, Devon Brady (Associate Casting Director), Jeremy Gordon (Associate Casting Director)
ANIMATED SERIES
BIG MOUTH – Julie Ashton
BOB’S BURGERS – Julie Ashton
CENTRAL PARK – Julie Ashton
FAMILY GUY – Christine Terry, Jackie Sollitto
RICK AND MORTY – Ruth Lambert, Robert McGee
REALITY SERIES
NAILED IT! – Ron Mare, Anna Sturgeon
QUEER EYE – Jessica Jorgensen, Danielle Gervais, Quinn Fegan, Natalie Pino, Pamela Vallarelli
RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE – Goloka Bolte, Ethan Petersen
SHARK TANK – Mindy Zemrak
TOP CHEF – Ron Mare, Heather Allyn
SHORT FILM
EL CARRITO – Emily Fleischer
THE F WORD – Rachel Reiss
MILK – Shakyra Dowling
NORTH STAR – Jeffrey Gafner
WE’RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS– Shakyra Dowling
SHORT FORM SERIES
BREAKWATER – Jeffrey Gafner
LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS – Ivy Isenberg, Natasha Vincent (Location Casting)
STATE OF THE UNION – Kathleen Chopin, John Ort
NEW YORK BROADWAY THEATER – COMEDY OR DRAMA
CHICKEN & BISCUITS – Erica A. Hart
CLYDE’S – Will Cantler, Karyn Casl, Destiny Lilly, Charlie Hano (Associate Casting Director)
FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF – Erica Jensen, Heidi Griffiths, Kate Murray
POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE – Taylor Williams
TAKE ME OUT – Jim Carnahan, Jason Thinger (Associate Casting Director)
NEW YORK BROADWAY THEATER – MUSICAL
CAROLINE OR CHANGE – Jim Carnahan, Jilian Cimini, Carrie Gardner, Stephen Kopel
COMPANY – Cindy Tolan, Nicholas Petrovich
GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY – Jordan Thaler, Heidi Griffiths
MJ THE MUSICAL – Rachel Hoffman
THE MUSIC MAN – Craig Burns, Bernard Telsey, Rebecca Scholl
NEW YORK THEATER – COMEDY OR DRAMA
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD – David Caparelliotis
FAIRYCAKES – Adam Caldwell, Destiny Lilly, Charlie Hano (Associate Casting Director)
LETTERS OF SURESH – Karyn Casl, Destiny Lilly, Charlie Hano (Associate Casting Director)
PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC – Kelly Gillespie
THE DAUGHTER IN LAW – Stephanie Klapper
WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE – Will Cantler
WISH YOU WERE HERE – Karyn Casl
NEW YORK THEATER – MUSICAL
AMERICANO! A NEW MUSICAL – Michael Cassara
BLACK NO MORE – Kristian Charbonier, Rebecca Scholl
ORATORIO FOR LIVING THINGS – Henry Russell Bergstein
THE BEDWETTER – Rachel Hoffman, Charlie Hano (Associate Casting Director)
TREVOR – Tara Rubin, Merri Sugarman
WHISPER HOUSE – Tara Rubin, Peter Van Dam
REGIONAL THEATER
A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Jim Carnahan, Jason Thinger (Associate Casting Director)
BHANGIN’ IT A BHANGIN’ NEW MUSICAL – Erica Jensen, Paul Davis
BOB FOSSE’S DANCIN’ – Tara Rubin, Xavier Rubiano (Associate Casting Director)
BUG – JC Clementz
SCHOOL GIRLS: OR THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY – Lauren Port, Rachael Jimenez (Associate Casting Director)
LOS ANGELES THEATER
A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Jim Carnahan, Jilian Cimini, Jason Thinger (Associate Casting Director)
GOD OF CARNAGE – Michael Donovan, Richie Ferris
HEAD OVER HEELS – Ryan Bernard Tymensky
MAN OF GOD – Phyllis Schuringa
POWER OF SAIL – Phyllis Schuringa
SPECIAL THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE
CANDIDE – Stephanie Klapper
THE LIFE – Destiny Lilly, Charlie Hano (Associate Casting Director)
KISMET – Peter Van Dam
THE TAP DANCE KID – Craig Burns
THEATER TOURS
HADESTOWN – Duncan Stewart, Benton Whitley
MOULIN ROUGE – Jim Carnahan, Stephen Kopel, Alexandre Bleau (Associate Casting Director)
OKLAHOMA! – Taylor Williams
SIX THE MUSICAL – Tara Rubin, Peter Van Dam, Kevin Metzger-Timson (Associate Casting Director)
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – Adam Caldwell, Destiny Lilly, Amelia McCarthy (Associate Casting Director)
The Casting Society is out with the
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Now more than ever, people are reclaiming narratives to ensure their voices are heard. Misrepresentations and tropes about marginalized groups in the media have been an issue since its inception. These documentaries are giving power back to the people and allowing often skewed stories to be steered straight.
From POV, Nausheen Dadabhoy’s An Act of Worship, an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee, reflects on the experience of Muslim people in the US over the past 30 years. Intimate accounts of the ignorance they’ve faced and the struggles they’ve overcome help create a portrait of the resistance and resilience Muslim people have cultivated to preserve their culture and identity. An Act of Worship premieres October 17 on POV, and will stream on PBS.org through November 16.
Margaret Brown’s Descendant follows the quest for justice by the descendants of enslaved African people who were illegally brought to Alabama after slavery was abolished. The documentary doesn’t just aim to share the history that has been ignored, but also draws attention to the contemporary issues that have arisen as a result. The Africans who were forced into Alabama created a vivacious community called Africatown, which, in recent years, has been surrounded by heavy industry, spewing out their pollutants and chemicals. In tracking the search for the sunken ship Clotilda within a larger framework of excavating a long-buried history, Descendant insists on the preeminence of the past to reckon with the realities of the present. Watch on Netflix this Friday, October 21.
In pursuit of making the major leagues, POV’s The Last Out follows the journey of three Cuban baseball players who “leave their families and risk exile to chase their dreams of playing in the United States.” The documentary highlights the lengths that athletes go to make pro and the lies that scouters lead with that make them willing to. Available for streaming on PBS.
From America ReFramed comes La Manplesa: An Uprising Remembered, which documents a community’s response to the lethal police shooting of Daniel Gomez in Washington D.C. The documentary goes into how gentrification and the migration of white people into Mount Pleasant led to the violence that unfolded, as well as the collective response of Latinos to the violence. Watch now on the WORLD channel.
POV’s Accepted, from director Dan Chen, follows four high schoolers who attend a prep school in Louisiana that is known for sending students to Ivy Leagues. After a New York Times article broke about the controversial methods that the founder uses to instigate students’ success, perspectives about the school, and higher education, began to shift. Available on PBS.
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On May 1st, Ezra Miller—known for their roles of The Flash in the DCEU and Credence Barebone in the Fantastic Beasts franchise—allegedly broke into a residence in Stamford, VT. After investigations took place, the Vermont State Police found that the property was missing liquor bottles, and the homeowners were not present at the time when their residence was broken into.
Miller has a charge of petit larceny and burglary into an occupied home, and the police charged them with felony burglary. Though they pled ‘Not Guilty’, if convicted, they may face a maximum $1,000 fine and 25 years in prison for the felony burglary. The larceny charge is a maximum $1,000 fine and one year in prison.
Courtesy of Getty Images
The Vermont incident is just one of several attached to Ezra Miller; as stated in an earlier article, “on March 28, Miller would be arrested after reportedly physically and verbally assaulting various people at a karaoke bar. Following this, on April 19, Miller would once again be arrested for second-degree assault, after having thrown a chair at a woman, leaving her with a deep cut on her forehead. It wouldn’t be long after this incident, that Miller would plead no contest for the March 28 incident, being charged $500 for disorderly conduct.”
In a statement, they said that “having recently gone through a time of intense crisis, I now understand that I am suffering complex mental health issues and have begun ongoing treatment… I want to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior. I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.”
They are also accused of grooming a young person from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The now 18 year old, Tokata Iron Eyes, has a restraining order against Miller. Tokata’s parents, Chase Iron Eyes and Sara Jumping Eagle, accused Miller of grooming their child through their relationship that began in 2016. Tokata was just 12 years old and Ezra Miller was 23 years old. Their parents accused Miller of using drugs and violence to groom their kid. Miller went to social media to mock the attempts by law enforcement to serve them the order.
The issues in Vermont are much deeper than a felony burglary charge over stolen liquor. Miller owns a 96-acre farm property in Vermont, and was housing a 25 year old mother and her three young kids. She left what she describes as an abusive relationship with her ex. Though the mother stated that it has been a “healing haven” for her and her children, the living conditions were extremely unsafe. The property has been said to have unattended guns lying around the house. One of the woman’s children allegedly put a stray bullet in her mouth.
In September, Vanity Fair reported that they have spoken to over a dozen people who have had contact with Miller in the last few years, and they say the actor “verbally and emotionally abused those around them and referred to themself alternately as Jesus and the devil.”
As for their role in The Flash, they supposedly returned to set earlier this month for re-shoots. Warner Bros. is moving forward with the theatrical release of the film next year.
On May 1st, Ezra Miller—known for their
With each episode of the show, Reboot goes further and deeper into the development of each character and their relationship. Viewers watch every episode as if bewitched and wait for the creators of the series to develop events. In addition to the fast-paced plot, the creators of the series don’t forget about humor. They do it so subtly and precisely that you laugh out loud every time, because it’s really funny. It’s a real treat to see how a well-written and perfectly timed joke is added in each episode. And this episode illustrates this once again. The 6th episode of Reboot, titled ‘Bewitched’, focuses on different relationship dynamics while at the same time being truthful to how characters grow and evolve as individuals. So what happens in this episode? Let’s take a look…
Reed enters the hotel elevator and meets his fans in it (more like fans of the old show). While they are talking, Reed realizes that by pure chance (or not?!), Bree is also staying in this hotel. Reed tries to remain unnoticed while simultaneously communicating with his girlfriend (with whom he has a committed relationship). But Bree notices him and tries to get his attention as loudly as possible. She screams so that the whole hotel can hear, including the fans from the elevator (that’s awkward!). Of course, Reed’s girlfriend hears all this and asks him not to keep her waiting. He tries to explain that he had no idea that she was also staying here. But it doesn’t really help… However, Reed doesn’t manage to finish the phone conversation with the girl.
Courtesy of Hulu
He’s trying to figure out what made Bree scream like she was “hailing a cab”. She asks him to pay attention to three guests behind them – an old lady, a man with a bun and a man in a tracksuit. She tells him who they are. And at first Reed doesn’t understand what it’s about. But then it dawns on him (MY GOD!)! Bree is trying to pull him into a game that they’ve always liked. They used to play it all the time when they were still together. They had to guess who these people were, while never talking to them (how interesting!). Naturally, Reed pretends that he is not interested in this (well, yes, of course…). And, like a real grown-up, he walks away from the conversation.
Reed manages to elude Bree, but not for long. He tries to leave a message for his girlfriend and explain the situation with Bree (there is nothing between them). But at the most “appropriate moment”, Bree reappears and doesn’t give up trying to solve the mystery of the strangers. She keeps playing this game (who would doubt). Reed almost falls for her bait, but pulls himself together in time. He says they shouldn’t play it anymore. And why? Because they are no longer together. It upsets Bree so much that she “makes a scandal” (she’s a really good actress!).
While Bree and Reed are trying to solve the “mystery of the unknown three” (haha), meanwhile, significant events are also taking place in the office. Hannah leaves her office with the show’s HR executive – Mallory (Stephanie Allynne). It is noticeable that Hannah likes this girl – she constantly laughs and repeats the same phrases several times (oops!). Gordon and Benny notice this and try to find out everything. Of course, Hannah says that it was a working meeting that dealt with a very sensitive issue. Really, which one? She asked if they were allowed to ask a co-worker from the set on a date. And, of course, she can’t say who it is.
Courtesy of Hulu
Gordon jokes and says that she should take this opportunity and ask Mallory out on a date. But Hannah feels very uncomfortable and tries to get rid of her father and his annoying advice. Naturally, like a real father, Gordon tries to figure out what’s wrong with Hannah. And, of course, he enlists the entire team of screenwriters into solving Hannah’s problem (is there a problem?). They decide to find out all the information they can on Mallory on the Internet. The younger generation of screenwriters helps Gordon in this (because it isn’t his forte). They quickly find everything they need and conclude that she is definitely a lesbian.
But Gordon doesn’t stop there. He invites Mallory to join them in the screenwriting room. Hannah comes back and can’t believe her eyes. Gordon says they have invited Mallory to explain to them what can be said out loud in the screenwriters room and what can’t (really?!). But this is just a cover. Hannah asks Gordon to step outside for a minute and tries to figure out what’s going on. Gordon tries to explain that he was trying to help her, because she is so tight-lipped, closed and insecure about this delicate issue. He says he’s sure it’s his fault as he wasn’t around when she was growing up. Hannah explains to her father that this is not his fault. Then Gordon gives her advice – take a chance and make a move, because life is so short.
So for whom did Hannah learn such delicate information about dating co-workers at the set? It turns out that Zack needed it. It was clear from episode 4th that he has a crush on Elaine. Hannah comes to the set and informs Zack that she has found out everything. He can ask a colleague out on a date only once. And if he tries to ask her a second time, after being turned down, then this will already be considered harassment (wow!). A little later, when Elaine comes to the set, he tries to invite her on a movie date, a screening of Pulp Fiction. But, unfortunately, he can’t ask her out properly (no wonder, because he’s on the set!).
Courtesy of Hulu
Meanwhile, Clay, while they are rehearsing a stunt for the upcoming shoot, decides to apologize to the director of the show – Jerry (Lawrence Pressman). Since he goes to AA meetings, this is part of his rehabilitation program. He should make amends to those he has offended in the past. He tells Jerry that he regrets that he came to the set drunk, stoned and that he was generally unbearable at work. Jerry says that he is grateful to him for such words. But did he forgive him? They are rehearsing a stunt and then Jerry asks not to let Clay off the wires (what?). Jerry says he doesn’t accept his apologies because they were insincere. And he also reproaches Clay for never appreciating what this job represented for him. And he is insulted by his words.
But what about Elaine and Zack? Later, they run into each other on the way out of work, and Zack decides to ask if she will go on a date with him. He is sure that Elaine didn’t hear that he wanted to invite her out. But she interrupts him and says she can’t go out with him (that’s a bummer!) He thinks she just doesn’t like him. But that’s not the point. It’s just that this is her first job on the show as an executive. And she doesn’t want to ruin it. She thinks that if she goes out with an actor, no one will take her seriously.
There is no question that the events in this episode are developing very rapidly. But the audience have definitely not seen this yet. It seems that in this episode, each of the characters is experiencing their old grievances and someone is ready to plunge into the abyss of romantic relationships. How will it end for them this time? Reed tries to convince himself that there is nothing between him and Bree (but is it true?). After throwing a tantrum, Bree is peacefully napping, and Reed can’t take his eyes off her. Suddenly, she wakes up. And then Reed tells her that these people (three strangers) are not who she thinks they are.
Courtesy of Hulu
Yes, Reed decides to play a game with her. They understand that in the end they have to find out who these three are. So they decide to follow them and go to the restaurant. Bree is getting ready for a nice dinner. But, unfortunately, she hears, Reed telling his girlfriend that he loves her. Bree doesn’t seem to have any chance of getting back together with Reed. She says she doesn’t want to eat, and neither does he (is this a coincidence?!) They admit to each other that they had a lot of fun today. And just as they decide to go upstairs, those three strangers are being led away in handcuffs! What’s happening? But, apparently, they will never know about it, because the elevator door closes.
Hannah makes an effort and follows her father’s advice. She decides to ask Mallory out on a date. Well, not really her. Mallory, it seems, guessed everything at that fake meeting that Gordon arranged. Not only is Hannah happy about this, but obviously the whole room of screenwriters (they watch through the door).
But that’s not all… Clay really did a lot of work on himself before apologizing to Jerry again. It seems that he is now going to avoid mentioning all that nonsense about how he regrets this and that. Clay says he has such a long list of people to apologize to. And this is overwhelming, especially for a person who is not at ease with feelings and with such delicate issues. Clay’s apology seems really sincere. Jerry believes him because it’s impossible to act (because Clay is a terrible actor!).
Meanwhile, Zack shows up at a Pulp Fiction screening movie suited up as Vincent Vega. Of course, he’s upset that Elaine isn’t around. But suddenly, he hears a familiar voice. And voilà – it is Elaine (what a surprise!). She winks at him and says it’s a pure coincidence that they have run into each other here. But the creators of the series could not just finish the episode right here. They, as always, end up with a very funny and awkward situation. Behind Elaine and Zack at this screening sits one of the crew members – Denis (Ryan Dietz). And of course he hears and sees everything…
Courtesy of Hulu
There are only two episodes left until the end of the season, but the creators of the series are not slowing down. With each episode, this series shows a high level of acting and an amazing script. Without a doubt, this episode has shown us so many plot twists that our heads are spinning.
But in addition to plot surprises, this series also surprises us (as always!) with its unforgettable humor. It’s hard to say what the audience should expect from the next episode. After all, this series is so unpredictable. But it is attracting more and more viewers who eagerly await the next episode every Tuesday. What have they prepared for us? We’ll find out very soon…
Check out Reboot on Hulu.
Check out reviews for previous episodes below.
Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4 Episode 5
With each episode of the show, Reboot
Only one weak remains of the first season of House of the Dragon. All that has been set up in the previous episodes is starting to pay off. The Green Council is forming, and the Hightower side of the Targaryen’s have struck first.
Courtesy of HBO
With Viserys gone, a move has been made to put Aegon II on the throne, despite his disinterest in it. Still, the way to navigate the situation is no longer clear. Alicent has long acted as a pawn for her father Otto, who is determined to completely remove Rhaenyra from the picture. Alicent, now finding her own agency, decides to progress on her own terms. Despite the Greens having a clear advantage with putting Aegon on the throne, cracks are easy to see. Alicent and Otto no longer are on the same terms, and conflict may well arise between the two. Aemond has greater ambitions, clearly jealous of Aegon’s ascension.
Even those in the court and among the knights are beginning to divide. A number of characters and houses declare support for Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne, bringing them into greater danger with the Green controlled throne. Even Corlys, a valuable ally to Alicent, acts out of line and shows a degree of faltering mental stability. All in all, the Green’s first strike is a potent one, but one that came at the cost of fractured relationships.
Courtesy of HBO
Within the previous episodes, the bells would always ring to signify some upcoming disaster. This episode is no different. It’s hard not to think of the infamous fifth episode of Season 8 of Game of Thrones. The episode brings the viewer into the crowds perspective via Rhaenys, attempting to escape from King’s Landing. The cluster of people moving to the keep where Aegon is to be crowned creates a lot of tension. Still, it’s clear that things won’t quite proceed as thought. Through clever foreshadowing, it’s clear that some sort of disaster will strike, but how so isn’t entirely clear. The destruction that follows is grand, epic, and a promise to the fire and blood that is to come.
Seeing the destruction from one dragon, even without flame, is a powerful sight. The idea of watching many of these large, grand beasts facing one another in grand warfare is an appealing prospect to say the least. It’s a small taste, but one which draws the episode to a stinging close.\
Game of Thrones has always been known for stellar 9th episodes in their seasons. While it doesn’t quite reach the same heights as Battle of the Bastards, or Blackwater, it’s strength is in the uncertainty it creates for the future. In many respects, it’s similar to Winds of Winter of Game of Thrones Season 6. It just leaves one question, how will the Black Queen, Rhaenyra, respond to this first strike.
Check out the review of the previous episode.
Check out House of the Dragon on HBO Max.
Only one weak remains of the first
Air Date: Wednesday October 12/22
On October 12/22, Big Sky’s episode 4 “Carrion Comfort” aired on ABC. Before we delve into this Big Sky S03 E04 Recap, there’s a bit to unpack here. Carla, Beau’s ex-wife, has arrived on the scene. Bit of tension there. This episode was who-done-it heavy with the murder investigation, but things have really begun to heat up in the Barnes family. It would seem that Buck knows all about Walter, and he is not happy. Buck and Walter do not like each other, and Sunny may be forced to choose between her recluse son and her husband. On a happy note, Cormac and Cassie seem to be launching a little romance. I think. Avery is still a mystery. He’s not a likeable character and we still don’t have details on his relationship with Luke and Paige. Emily is still very suspicious of Luke, but by the end of the episode we discover that Paige is still alive. However, what we don’t know, is whether she is Walt’s guest or his prisoner? Donno and Tonya, continue to walk a fine line between restaurateurs and cartel-puppets. Cassie’s missing person case regarding the backpacker Mark Woodman, has just evolved into either an accidental death or murder investigation.
ABC BigSky-Masked Man watching Jody
This week’s episode opens up with a woman (Jody) clearing away dishes from a dining table. She accidentally knocks a wine bottle onto the floor, and it shatters. In clearing up the glass she cuts herself. As she is wrapping her finger we see a masked figure outside her sliding glass door, who promptly disappears. She steps outside to take the broken glass to the trash bin and notices the yard gate is open. She goes to close the gate. When she returns to the trash bin, the masked figure appears behind her. When she turns and sees him, he is brandishing a knife.
Beau and Jenny are on their way to the crime scene, but we can see that Jenny is upset. Beau asks her where her head is at, and she says she’s fine. They are obviously getting to know each other well enough that Beau knows when she’s lying and tells her so. He reassures her, that they will fix the situation with her mom. Beau suggests that they take the win. Gigi helped them catch a murderer. Jenny says it’s personal. Beau tells her the bills are marked, but Jenny says she no longer wants to talk about it. They arrive at the crime scene, and we are immediately launched into this weeks who-done-it mystery.
ABC BigSky-Beau and Carla
In the middle of the Cutter case, Beau’s ex-wife Carla shows up outside the station just as Beau and Jenny get a break in the case. She says she is in town and is heading up tomorrow, to see Avery and Emily on their camping trip. Beau seems taken aback by Carla’s sudden appearance and Jenny bridges the silence by extending her hand and introducing herself. Beau and Carla’s exchange is tense and Beau is obviously not happy that the whole camping trip happened without Carla talking to him about it. She claims they did talk about it, but he wasn’t listening. She was supposed to be up there but had a work emergency. She just wants to check-in with Beau regarding the missing backpacker to find out if there is anything to be concerned about. Beau tells her there is nothing to worry about, and reminds Carla that Emily is supposed to be staying with him for the weekend once the camping trip is over. After Carla leaves, Jenny takes delight in teasing Beau about still being in love with with his ex-wife. He claims he is not.
While the murder case progresses, and things heat up between the members of the Barnes family, there’s a new development for Donno and Tonya. A stranger enters the Blue Fox Diner and chats with them. He says that his boss has a problem and Ren Bhullar thought they could help. All he tells them is that his boss had something taken from him and he wants it back, along with the people who took it. He asks that Donno and Tonya deliver these people to them, and they will be very well compensated. He leaves an envelope and says he will be in touch. After he leaves, Tonya opens the envelop and we see the pictures of two people; Luke and Paige.
ABC BigSky-Photos of Luke Paige
Tonya and Donno talk about whether or not they are going to take the job of finding Luke and Paige. Tonya has a rule that there are no “hits,” and this request is just about searching for people. Donno says the search is only stage one. Stage two, they will be expected to kill them, and then stage three they will be expected to dispose of the bodies. They won’t get paid until after stage three is complete. Donno volunteers to do some digging and check out Luke and Paige and show Tonya what he finds, then they can decide.
At the end of last week’s episode, we saw Gigi enter Donno and Tonya place with the bag of stolen money, but so far Tonya is not sharing any details about what is going on there. They both know that Gigi is Jenny Hoyt’s mother. When Donno asks Tonya about it, she says she will tell him when she is ready.
By the end of the episode, Donno tells Tonya that he has located Luke and Paige. He told her that they are registered under fake last names at a camping outfit close by but seem to be very bad at laying low. Tonya thinks maybe this job will be easy and tells Donno she’s always wanted to go camping.
Beau and Jenny pull up to a crime scene and Poppernak fills them in. The victim is Jody Cutter, 46 and her daughter Autumn found her body this morning. She is dead in the yard with her throat cut. Estimated time of death was 2am. They commiserate about the crime and wonder if she was sexually assaulted and/or dragged to her current location. The backdoor was left open, and they found the shattered glass in the kitchen. They found blood at the side of the house by the gate, and on the back door.
ABC BigSky-Werewolf Cam Footage
Beau suggests they canvas the neighbours to see if anyone has cameras that might have caught something. Beau and Jenny talk to both the husband and daughter. The husband was working all night and the daughter stayed at her boyfriend’s house. They don’t know of anyone strange that has been hanging around and nothing is missing from the house. They wonder if it is a random attack, but Jenny tells them in most cases it’s someone the victim knows. Beau and Jenny are not ruling anyone out yet, but they don’t think it’s random.
They pulled footage off a camera that one of Jody Cutter’s neighbours set up and saw the image of the masked stranger who looks like a werewolf. They see blood on his sleeve and think that Jody fought back with the broken bottle she had. They head out to chat with the family again.
Beau and Jenny show back up to the Cutter home and Grant is not at home, but Autumn’s boyfriend Derek is there with her. They show them the picture of the masked man and neither Autumn or Derek recognize the mask. Beau asks Derek to pull up his sleeves. He doesn’t have any cuts. They ask again if there is anything they can tell them that might help them figure out who killed her mom. Derek urges Autumn to tell Beau and Jenny what they know, but she was withholding the information because she didn’t want her dad to find out. Her mom was having an affair.
Beau and Jenny have the name and address of Jody Cutter’s boyfriend Craig, and they enter his shop full of antiques. They find masks there. Craig admits to being with Jody the previous night. He says they had dinner and a few drinks together. They look at his forearms and he has no cuts either. Beau shows him the picture of the masked man and asks Craig what he can tell them about it. He said it belonged to Jody. She bought it from him because her and Grant were doing a Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf thing for Halloween.
Beau and Jenny show up at Grant’s bike shop and talk to Scott. They are looking to confirm Grant’s alibi, but Scott said he went out for pizzas while they were working. He said that Grant headed over to their shipping warehouse.
Beau and Jenny are on the road. Poppernak calls and tells them that he is at the shipping warehouse, and no one there has seen Grant all day. They think Grant lied to Scott about where he was going, so Beau and Jenny turn around and head back to the Cutter house. When they get there, they find that Grant Cutter has been stabbed, and call an ambulance. All Grant is able to tell them when he comes to at the hospital, is that Scott has taken Autumn.
ABC BigSky-Beau Jenny Shoot Scott
Beau and Jenny show up at Scott’s home but neither he nor Autumn are there. Beau thinks the dimensions of the house look weird. They want to take another look around and go upstairs. They hear a thud and find a door at the back of a closet. Once inside they find Autumn drugged and chained. As they look around for a key to unlock the chains, Beau can see evidence that Scott has been planning this abduction for years, since Autumn was a child. The lights are cut and Scott crawls out from under the bed and attacks Beau from behind. Jenny tries to help and is knocked down. Beau and Scott continue to fight, and Scott is stabbed with his own knife and goes down.
Jenny kicks the knife away from Scott, and Beau checks his shoulder. Scott cut him and Jenny goes over to see how bad it is. Beau sees that Scott has gotten up and is coming after Jenny, whose back is turned. Beau spins Jenny so her back is against his chest, giving her shooting arm free reign, and she puts three bullets into Scott. This time he goes down for good.
Beau and Jenny deliver Autumn to her dad at the hospital. Beau wonders why the “monsters always win” even when we get them. Jenny says Grant and Autumn have each other. “A loving dad can’t protect you from everything. But it goes a long way.” Beau asks if she is still talking about Grant, and Jenny just pats him on the chest. She is obviously talking about Beau.
ABC BigSky-Cormac Sunny Talking
Back at our Sunny Day Excursions glamping site, Sunny chats with Cormac asking if he as seen his father, as he missed breakfast. Cormac said he’d check the trail. Cormac says he is making a supply run into town and Sunny reminds him to mind his own business down there. Especially not to discuss their missing guest, Paige. Cormac said he got a good look at the trail and saw no evidence that Paige was on the trail back to down. Sunny offers up the excuse that Paige probably took another route to town.
Sunny asks Avery and Emily what their plans are for the day and Avery said either a hike up to the lake or a group trail ride. Emily said she wants to go look for her lost knife. Sunny hands her replacement knife and Avery takes it off her. Emily says she wants to find her knife anyway, as it was a gift from her dad. Emily asks Sunny if she knows whether or not Paige made it back to New York okay, and Sunny said she did. It’s obvious that Emily does not believe her.
ABC BigSky-Buck Inspecting Tree
Cassie is still looking for the missing backpacker. The missing person’s case seems to be connected with the glamping outfit, as evidence points to the fact that he was seen up on Deadman’s Drop earlier in the investigation. Cassie shows up at the station and asks Beau and Jenny if they can have their techie guys look at a photo she has of Mark Woodman, that was sent to his parents from his phone. The picture was taken at a place called Logan’s Pass, but Cassie suspects that someone sent it to throw them off the trail.
Buck is inspecting one of the trees that has the heart shape carving in it when Sunny shows up. Buck says that she promised that Walter would stay in the woods, and its obvious that he is back as Sunny has been lying and sneaking around. Buck says that Walt is dangerous and as they talk, we learn that Walter was put up for adoption and the parents who adopted him were murdered and that Walt did it. Buck said he trapped them inside their house, set it on fire and watched it burn. Buck says to Sunny that Cormac is our child, and Walter is not. He threatens Sunny to end things with Walter or he will.
ABC BigSky-Vultures Circling
Cormac shows up to an outdoor shop for some supplies and runs into Cassie. He offers her some advice on what to buy. She tells him she is going to climb down Deadman’s Drop. Cormac says he is coming with her. When she refuses, he said climbing requires the buddy system.
Sunny shows up to Walt’s cabin and tells him he has to pack up. She will come back after nightfall and help him move to the hunting cabin down by the creek. Walt says it’s a trailer full of mold and he doesn’t want to go. She finds a strip of bandage with blood on it and asks Walt whose blood it is. He says its from the backpacker. She admonishes him. If the authorities found the backpackers DNA all over a swatch of fabric Sunny says he’d end up in prison for life. He says to leave it and he will burn it, but she takes it with her.
ABC BigSky-Dead Mark Woodman
Back at the glamping site, we see Luke having a heated discussion with Avery, telling him that Emily has to stop following him around, making accusations. Luke walks off and Emily approaches Avery asking him about it. He made it seem that he is on her side, but that her mom will be arriving tomorrow, so they need to keep all her suspicions about Luke secret between them. Carla thinks they are bonding, riding horses and having fun, not looking into some girls disappearance. They agree to keep it quiet.
Cormac and Cassie are still hiking in the woods looking for Mark Woodman. She asks Cormac where you would hide a body in the woods and he says, “that’s a hell of a question to ask on a first date.” But he suggests they look where the vultures are circling, but it’s a long hike that will take them until after dark to get there.
ABC BigSky-Paige is Alive
We find Emily in the woods looking for her knife and she comes across Luke again. When they talk Luke tells her that he did not hurt Paige. Emily still doesn’t know what to think, but Luke tells her that he really, really needs her to stay out of this. You don’t know what you are dealing with. After he walks away, we see Emily pull her phone out and she has recorded the conversation she had with him.
Cormac and Cassie are still in the woods and it’s dark. Cormac sounds like he’s going to suggest they have another date, just as Cassie points out the dead body of Mark Woodman, their missing backpacker.
As promised, Sunny has returned to help move Walt to the cabin by the creek. She has Buck with her. When she walks in, Walt reacts to Buck being there and there’s some pushing and shoving. Buck tells Walt he’d rather put a bullet in his brain then watch him drag his mother down. Sunny breaks it up and threatens Buck real trouble if he ever touches Walt again. Buck tells her the boy will be the end of her someday, and then he leaves.
Walt refuses to move to another cabin and he cowers when his mother comes close, but she just hugs him. She tells him she loves him and then leaves. Walter then opens a door to his sleeping quarters, and we see Paige. She’s alive but it looks like her leg is injured.
| Character | Actor | Character | Actor | Character | Actor |
| Jenny Hoyt | Katheryn Winnick | Buck Barnes | Rex Linn | Suit | West Liang |
| Cassie Dewell | Kylie Bunbury | Avery | Henry Ian Cusick | Mary | Sofia Embid |
| Denise Brisbane | Dedee Pfeiffer | Cormac Barnes | Luke Mitchell | Pat | Amy Puente |
| Tonya Walsh | Jamie-Lynn Sigler | Carla | Angelique Cabral | Jody Cutter | Marisa Brown |
| Dep. Mo Poppernak | J. Anthony Pena | Donno | Ryan O’Nan | Craig Plotnik | Grayson Berry |
| Sheriff Beau Arlen | Jensen Ackles | Emily Arlen | Cree Cicchino | Derek | Terrell Wooley |
| Sunny Barnes | Reba McEntire | Luke | Anirudh Pisharody | Nurse | Ramona King |
| Walter | Seth Gabel | Paige | Madalyn Horcher | Grant Cutter | George Newbern |
Watch ABC for the next episode of Big Sky Deadly Trails, this Wednesday October 19th at 10 pm.
Big Sky S03 E04 Recap: Carrion Comfort Air
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A mass grave containing the remains of 11 people tortured and executed by the Nazis during WWII has been found in a Polish ‘forest of death’.
The grisly discovery near the town of Jedwabne was made by researchers looking for the remains of a father and son who were allegedly shot and buried in the woodland in 1943.
Instead, the researchers found a grave containing the remains of 11 Poles with their hands tied behind their backs and signs of torture.
A mass grave containing the remains of 11 people tortured and executed by the Nazis during WWII has been found in a Polish ‘forest of death’
Nazis are seen posing outside Jedwabne’s St. James the Apostle church in Poland where they are accused of carrying out atrocities
The grisly discovery near the town of Jedwabne was made by researchers looking for the remains of a father and son
The researchers say they now expect to find ‘many more’.
The mass grave in the north of Poland also contained bullet casing from a German Mauser, a weapon widely used by all branches of Hitler’s military.
Marcin Sochoń from the historical exploration group Wizna 1939 said: ‘We came to Przestrzelski Forest near Jedwabne hoping to find a father and son who had been murdered, but it turned out that it is a mass grave.’
Anthropologist Urszula Okularczyk added: ‘The arrangement of the hands indicates that the victims were bound before they died, the hands were tied behind their backs, the bodies were thrown without care, disrespectfully, and fell one on top of the other.
‘You can also see that the skulls were destroyed by the gunshots, as evidenced by the concentric lines and holes specific to the entry and exit openings.
The mass grave in the north of Poland also contained bullet casing from a German Mauser, a weapon widely used by all branches of Hitler’s military
The grim find comes just months after the bodies of four other Nazi victims were found in the forest
The area was dubbed the ‘forest of death’ by locals because of the number of Nazi killings believed to have been carried out there
‘We are not yet able to say whether there are any more bodies under these discovered skeletons. It is possible.
‘Many of the victims have cracked skulls and jawbones.’
The area was dubbed the ‘forest of death’ by locals because of the number of Nazi killings believed to have been carried out there.
It was here that German police officers based in Jedwabne tormented and murdered their victims.
Jedwabne mayor Adam Niebrzydowski said: ‘The forest is located a little bit in the middle of nowhere, between villages, so it was easy to take these people there and murder them in a bestial way.’
The grim find comes just months after the bodies of four other Nazi victims were found in the forest.
The researchers found a grave containing the remains of 11 Poles with their hands tied behind their backs and signs of torture
The Gestapo and local German police ordered the mass killing of Jedwabne’s Jews in a pogrom
Identified as two married couples, they were murdered for helping Poland’s underground resistance movement.
Jedwabne became infamous following the publication of a book by historian Jan Gross which accused Poles of mass murdering the town’s Jews in a 1941 pogrom.
An investigation by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance concluded that those involved had been forced into it by the local German police and Gestapo.
Archaeologist Ryszard Cędrowski said: ‘The Gestapo, which had its headquarters in the market square in Jedwabne, caught Poles who helped or were innocent, or there were denunciations against them. They shot them.’
Now the researchers want to try and identify the victims in their latest discovery.
Dariusz Szymański said: ‘I would like to appeal to the inhabitants of Jedwabne and the surrounding area, to families who know that their relatives were murdered, to report and provide a sample for genetic testing.’
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EXCLUSIVE: Talent agent Brandon Liebman is in talks to join UTA after leaving WME, where he was a partner since 2014.
Word about Liebman’s move has been circulating in town all day. He has been in the mix with clients that include Dev Patel, Tom Hiddleston, Richard Madden, Pedro Pascal, Diego Luna and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and there will likely be a scrum for those clients. Liebman helped build a promising career for Armie Hammer, but cut the actor loose in 2021 when unsavory headlines made him a blight on the client list.
No comment from UTA. We’ll update when his deal makes.
EXCLUSIVE: Talent agent Brandon Liebman is in
When legendary supermodel Iman was first discovered by photographer Peter Beard in Nairobi, Kenya in 1975, a New York Post article circulated claiming that the young discovery was a goat herder who didn’t speak a lick of English. After she arrived in the U.S. three months after the article’s publication, Iman wowed the press when she revealed that she did, in fact, speak English, as well an additional four languages and was a diplomat’s daughter.
“I was going to speak for myself when I got here,” Iman told TheWrap, underlining that she set the record straight to undo the mythology built around the young model before she even moved to the states.
This clever move enabled Iman to control her narrative, as she continues to do nearly 50 years later as an executive producer for Vogue’s “Supreme Models,” a six-part docuseries focused on the evolution of Black models in the modeling and fashion industry. Based on the novel of the same name by Marcellas Reynolds, the series features interviews with industry veterans like Iman, Pat Cleveland as well as younger voices like Ebonee Davis and Precious Lee.
Similarly, in developing the series Iman found it essential to center the voices of Black models who shaped and continue to shape the industry.
“It’s not like one of those documentaries that you’re asking people to speak about … No, let me speak for myself,” Iman told TheWrap. “I wanted the girls to have their voices, tell their own stories. And of course, there’s enough videos out there to round it out, but they speak and they tell us their trials and tribulations, but most importantly, the joy and celebration of the platform.”
While younger models like Halima Aden expressed gratitude in the series that they entered the industry during a time when fashion was embracing Black beauty, Iman broke into the industry at a time when improving experiences for Black models wasn’t even a priority yet.
“When I arrived here, one of the things that I was confronted with … was that there was a discrepancy in pay between Black models and white models, and I couldn’t understand it,” she said, adding that she went to her agent to discuss the difference.
“I said to her, ‘Listen, I know this is a racist act, but let me explain it in maybe something that you can all understand,’” she continued. “‘I want to be paid for services rendered, which means simply, I want to be paid for the same job she’s doing.’” When her agent told her this difference in payment was the “status quo” at the time, Iman told them to call her when they were willing to pay her the same amount. Three months later, her answer and her payment came through.
Despite this battle won, Iman and other models of color also struggled for equity when makeup artists would ask the models if they brought their own foundation, leaving the responsibility for models of color to provide their own cosmetics while white models were free to enjoy the range of makeup suited to their skin color that were already carried by makeup departments. In another bold move to level the playing field of Black models in the industry, Iman founded her own cosmetic line, Iman Cosmetics, in 1994.
“I understood right then and there and I was barely 19 years old, that image is my currency in this industry,” Iman said. “So I have to protect it and I have to come up with something because I will be faced day in and day out with a makeup artist who will not have anything for you.”
While Iman admits that the industry has made progress in terms of representation since she first entered the modeling world, she warns that the “business has a tendency to forget,” pointing to 2013, a year in which a minuscule amount of Black models were used in fashion shows.
“The dialogue is happening, and the changes are happening, but what I always say [is] do not take the foot off the gas,” Iman said. “Trust me, before we know it we could be back in 2013 in a second.”
For the industry veteran, true progress involves making changes at the top level so that decision makers reflect the diversity of growing number of models and designers of color.
“Supreme Models” also documents the little-told story of the Battle of Versailles, a fashion show that took place in the Palace of Versailles in 1973 as a way to fundraise for its restoration. The historic moment represented a cultural shift that cemented Black models’ essential role in high fashion, but even the fondest fans of “America’s Next Top Model” might not be familiar with the story.
“In this generation, they can Google everything, that any young girl, in whatever industry she wants to go in, if she wants to check on what Black beauty is, what Black models did, that she can find the Battle of Versailles to ‘Supreme Models,’ that representation means so much, but it’s nothing when you don’t actually see it,” Iman said. “In culture, when Black models … open doors, we leave the doors open behind us.”
“Supreme Models” premieres every Monday on Vogue’s YouTube channel.
When legendary supermodel Iman was first discovered
SPOILER ALERT: This video contains details & exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the eighth and final episode of Season 1 of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which dropped on October 13. Watch past episodes of Inside the Ring here.
The true identity of the villainous Sauron is unveiled, the Stranger’s journey begins, the ancient Numenorian King passes and a certain trio of rings are forged.
Add to that, the return of the now blind Queen Regent (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to her divided kingdom and the stark recognition by Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) of deadly betrayal, and you have a bursting Season 1 finale to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – as you can see in the video above of Deadline’s Inside the Ring, the Rings of Power after show.
Amazon Prime Studios
As cast and key creative reveal, the Gennifer Hutchison and J. D. Payne & Patrick McKay written “Alloyed” also sets up all the pieces for a clearly harder hitting second season, expected in 2024. For our last episode this season, we are joined by Sauron/Halbrand himself Charlie Vickers, plus showrunners Payne and McKay, and executive producer Lindsey Weber. Additionally, episode director and EP Wayne Che Yip and composer Bear McCreary share their behind-the-scenes insights as to how the eighth and final episode of Rings of Power Season 1 came together, twists and all.
Watch the video above to see it all.
Set to run for five seasons, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is led by showrunners and EPs Payne & McKay. They are joined by executive producers Weber, Callum Greene, J.A. Bayona, Belén Atienza, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Bruce Richmond, and Sharon Tal Yguado, and producers Ron Ames and Christopher Newman. Wayne Che Yip, who helmed the season finale, is co-EP and directs several episodes along with J.A. Bayona and Charlotte Brändström
SPOILER ALERT: This video contains details & exclusive
Guinness World Records has unveiled plans to launch a new content production arm in GWR Studios, which will lead creative development, production and content output for the brand.
The new production …
Guinness World Records has unveiled plans to
The trailer opens with Rhaenys flying on her dragon Meleys to Dragonstone.
She warns Rhaenyra, “The Greens are coming for you, Rhaenyra. And for your children.”
Rhaenyra looks shocked while Daemon seems unsurprised.
There are tears in Rhaenyra’s eyes, no doubt over the fact she’s learned of her father’s death, Alicent’s betrayal, and the risk to her life and her children’s lives all at once.
We get this shot of Dragonstone.
Then we see Rhaenyra watching someone.
It seems that it’s Daemon, who is walking away from Rhaenyra as we hear him say, “You cannot bend the knee to the Hightowers. They stole your birthright.”
Next up we see Aemond remove his eyepatch.
Then we see a gathering around the painted table at Dragonstone, while we hear Rhaenys say, “Every man standing round the painted table urges her to plunge the realm into war.”
There’s this cool shot of a lit-up painted table from above.
Rhaenyra stares out at the sea.
Someone places something down on the Winterfell portion of the painted table.
A lord urges Rhaenyra to “lay siege to the Red Keep.”
Someone places a sword alongside a bunch of other swords.
Meanwhile, Jace is begging with his mother to “send us”.
Someone — a Targaryen — clenches their fist around their sword.
That person — likely Jace — runs towarsd someone else on dragonback with their sword held high.
Another dark-haired person — likely Luke — stares up at Vhagar who is standing near a castle.
Ser Erryk swears his loyalty to the Queen while delivering Viserys’ crown to Rhaenyra.
There’s this shot of someone — Jace or Luke? — on dragonback.
Over this shot of Rhaenyra and her two eldest boys, we hear someone say, “Your cause holds a power that has not been seen since the days of Old Valyria.”
Then there’s this shot of Baela, Jace, Luke and Rhaena at what seems to be Rhaenyra’s war council.
A somewhat disheveled Rhaenyra stares at Daemon, and she doesn’t look happy.
There’s this close-up of a dragon eye.
Daemon places a torch on the ground.
And we see he is standing in front of a dragon.
Next we see THREE dragons leaving Dragonstone.
Then we get this shot of the dragon breathing fire while Daemon looks on.
Next we see Daemon standing in front of Dragonstone and pulling out his sword as though to attack someone.
We see he’s on the defence against someone arriving.
Finally, there’s this shot of a dragon with its mouth wide open.
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