After teasing us three years ago with “Downhill Lullaby,” Sky Ferreira has finally returned with “Don’t Forget,” the second single from her upcoming, much-delayed album Masochism. Unfortunately, the song is pretty bland. Skimming the surface of her rock-tinged roots, the track leans into trendy ’80s-revival production and Tumblr-cliche lyricism about “sick dreams” and being a “real bad girl.” But even with its throbbing bassline, glowing synths, and relentless My Bloody Valentine-esque drums, “Don’t Forget” is a little too reminiscent of Ferreira’s now nine-year-old debut Night Time, My Time; if anything, it feels like a Night Time cutting-room floor scrap, lifelessly dolled up and postured as if for a Weekend at Sky’s. “Don’t Forget” is produced by Jorge Elbrecht and mastered by Heba Kadry, who try to ratchet up the synth pop-inflected grunginess of her iconic debut into a new wave headbanger. However, they are thwarted in this task by vague lyrics that shut the door on the honest, breathless fury that made Ferreira’s debut such a magnetic listen. Despite its title, the song is pretty unmemorable.
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We live in an era where, technically, it’s possible to pretty much always claim you’re currently in the process of “making a documentary.” After all, we carry cameras with us all the time now—capturing our lives from every angle and sharing moments of mediated reality across a variety of digital platforms. Footage is not hard to collect, nor distribute. Which is why the post-production process is so critical in establishing a cinematic point of view for the serious nonfiction filmmaker. Careful and craft-conscious editing, mixing, color correction, etc. is where content becomes art and where “stories” become stories.
That’s why the 2022 Film Independent Documentary Labis thrilled to welcome 12 new Fellows to the program representing six individual projects—all currently in post-production on their way to a screen of some type near you. Says Film Independent Director of Artist Development Lisa Hasko: “The films selected for this year’s Lab represent fierce, unapologetic storytelling,” adding: “From personal to political and everywhere in-between, these boundary-pushing filmmakers will move audiences in the most creative and immersive ways.”
Designed to advance the careers of Fellows through industry introductions and expert editorial feedback, this year’s Lab featured Lead Creative Mentors Chris Shellen and Jeff Malmberg (Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, Marwencol) and Anayansi Prado (Maid in America, The Unafraid).
Notable past Documentary Lab supported projects include Academy Award-nominated films Ascension, by director Jessica Kingdon; Minding the Gap from Fellows Bing Liu and Diane Quon; Sara Dosa and Shane Boris’ Seer and the Unseen; Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra’s A Suitable Girl; Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown’s United Skates; and Ann Kaneko and Jin Yoo-Kim’s Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (a recent PBS POV premiere.)
This year’s Film Independent Documentary Lab supported projects are:
Title: Breaking the Blue Wall (working title)
Director/Producer: Alissa Figueroa
Logline: Two women from Baltimore City take on the Fraternal Order of Police, and the politicians wary of crossing it, as they push to repeal one of the oldest and strongest police shield laws in the country: Maryland’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.
Title: in love, in memory
Directors: Drew Swedberg, Shalon Buskirk
Logline: In the wake of her son’s murder, Shalon Buskirk assembles intimate memories and intergenerational stories to reframe her loss within her city’s haunting legacy of displacement.
Title: Land of Women
Director/Produer: Ayman El Amir
Director: Nada Riyadh
Logline: In a conservative village in the south of Egypt dominated by patriarchy and full of despair, a lively group of Coptic girls refuse the traditional roles forced upon them by forming an all-female street theatre troupe. A coming-of-age portrait of girls at the crossroads of their lives.
Title: Red Herring (working title)
Director: Kit Vincent
Producer:Ed Owles
Logline: After a young filmmaker is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he enlists his family on an intimate and darkly humorous journey to help them come to terms with his illness.
Title: Untitled Helen Project
Director: Alix Blair
Producers: Lauren Kushner
Logline: For years, Helen balanced being a rebel and a politician’s wife. Now that her much-older husband depends on her, she grapples with tension between love for her partner and herself.
Title: Without Arrows
Directors: Elizabeth Day, Jonathan Olshefski
Logline: Filmed with vérité intimacy over the course of twelve years (2011-2022), Without Arrows chronicles the choices, events and relationships that shape a Lakota family’s legacy.
Now! Let’s meet the 2022 Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellows themselves…
ALISSA FIGUEROA (director/producer, Breaking the Blue Wall)
Alissa Figueroa is an award-winning and Emmy-nominated independent journalist and filmmaker and the Investigative Journalist in Residence at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She was a 2020-21 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow. From 2018 to 2021 Figueroa directed the Ida B. Wells Fellowship for Journalists of Color at Type Investigations. Prior to this, she was a founding producer of the investigative unit at Fusion, where documentaries she produced won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, among others. She started her television career at NBC News. Figueroa is a graduate of Amherst College and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
DREW SWEDBERG (director, in love, in memory)
Drew Swedberg is a filmmaker, cinematographer and educator based in Eastern Pennsylvania. Through a collaborative process and poetic approach, his filmmaking orbits around the everyday dreams, relationships and forces that shape his home. Swedberg teaches an array of film classrooms, from elementary to college—most recently as an Adjunct Professor in Lafayette College’s Film and Media Studies Department and LVAIC’s Documentary Storymaking Program. He has held fellowships with MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute and the Cultural Coalition of Allentown. He currently leads the programming for Allentown’s local art house cinema and is moving through post-production on his debut feature, in love, in memory.
SHALON BUSKIRK (director, in love, in memory)
Shalon Buskirk is a community leader who has dedicated her life to protecting, helping and saving young adults from violence within her community. She was born and raised in Allentown, PA. After the tragic death of her firstborn son, Parris, she started to work towards a nonprofit for young adults aiming to engage them with the resources they need for success. Buskirk was a driving force behind the first major funding in the city for youth violence prevention. She is a storyteller, a mother of eight children and the CEO/Founder of the Parris J. Lane Memorial Foundation.
AYMAN EL AMIR (director/producer, Land of Women)
Ayman El Amir is an Egyptian filmmaker and script consultant. His most recent work includes producing the short narrative film Fakh (The Trap), which was selected for the Semaine de la Critique at the Festival de Cannes in 2019, and for co-directing with Nada Riyadh the feature-length documentary Happily Ever After, which premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2016. He has worked as a script consultant for numerous programs, labs and institutes—including TorinoFilmLab, the Doha Film Institute, the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
NADA RIYADH (director, Land of Women)
Nada Riyadh is an Egyptian director. Her debut documentary Happily Ever After, co-directed with Ayman El Amir, premiered at IDFA in 2016. Her short fiction film Fakh (The Trap) was selected for the official competition of 58th La Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival, 2019. Since 2011, Nada has led filmmaking workshops to empower disadvantaged communities suffering from war, displacement and difficult living conditions in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. An Egyptian female filmmaker, Nada hopes to play a role in championing diversity and empowering women in the film industry in the MENA region.
KIT VINCENT (director, Red Herring)
Kit Vincent is a London-based director/producer. He began his career working on flagship documentary series for UK broadcasters and has a First Class Honors degree in Anthropology and Visual Practice from Goldsmiths, University of London. Red Herring is Kit’s debut feature. With the project, he has so far attended Edinburgh Pitch 2020, Gotham Week 2021, Sheffield Meetmarket 2021—where he won The Wicker Awards pitch runner 11 up prize—and Hot Docs 2022. He is a Jewish Film Institute 2022 fellow and he has received funding from: BFI Docsociety, Sundance Institute and The Whickers Institute.
ED OWLES (producer, Red Herring)
Ed is co-founder of Postcode Films, a multi-award winning London-based documentary production company that focuses on character-led social issue documentaries. Their feature docs have previously been supported by Worldview, Doc Society, Sundance and Fork Films and have run successful impact campaigns alongside their films with such charities as Save the Children and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. As a director, Ed has made two feature docs, which have screened at festivals and on television worldwide. He has also taught ethnographic filmmaking at various UK universities.
ALIX BLAIR (director, Untitled Helen Project)
Alix Blair is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, documentary teacher and radio producer based in the East Bay, California. Her first documentary film, Farmer/Veteran, won numerous festival awards, was an IFP (Gotham) Lab recipient, an ITVS Open Call recipient and was broadcasted on Independent Lens in May 2017. Alix worked for several years as a documentary stories teacher and assistant at the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC. She is also a lecturer and researcher on the impacts of vicarious trauma in documentary filmmaking, and teaches trauma-informed movement practices.
LAUREN KUSHNER (producer, Untitled Helen Project)
Lauren Kushner is an independent producer and the co-founder of Early Bird Films, which supports filmmakers, nonprofits and for-profit film entities to elevate exceptional emerging voices. Before launching Early Bird, Lauren was the Director of Artist Development at SFFILM where she oversaw the highly lauded Artist Development program with an emphasis on strategic planning, significant growth and furthering filmmaker programs including grants, fellowships and a robust residency program. Prior to joining SFFILM, Lauren spent six years at Participant Media in the feature documentary and film marketing divisions.
ELIZABETH DAY (director, Without Arrows)
Elizabeth Day (Ojibwe, she/her) is a filmmaker from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born on the Leech Lake Reservation and raised in the Twin Cities area, Day blends her Native American heritage with her urban upbringing to create films that employ traditional Ojibwe-style storytelling while using contemporary filmmaking techniques. Her work often explores the tension between traditional Native teachings and the life of a modern, urban Indian.
JONATHAN OLSHEFSKI (director, Without Arrows)
Jonathan Olshefski is an artist and documentary filmmaker. His debut feature documentary Quest premiered at Sundance in 2017 and was nominated for two News and Documentary Emmys. In 2018, he received the Truer Than Than Fiction Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards for Quest and was selected for a Pew Artist Fellowship. Olshefski strives to tell intimate and nuanced stories that honor his protagonists’ complexity by employing a production process that emphasizes collaboration, dialogue and relationship in order to amplify their voices and reflect their points of view in an artful way.
For more information on the Documentary Lab and the projects supported through the program, please contact Lisa Hasko, Director of Artist Development, at lhasko@filmindependent.org. Additional information and an application form can be found at filmindependent.org.
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To support our work with a donation, please click here. Become a Member of Film Independent here.
The Queen crowned her historic platinum jubilee celebrations with a last-minute appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on Sunday, bringing to a close four days of festivities that revealed not only the contents of her handbag, but a nation’s undiminished appetite for a party.
The 96-year-old monarch waved to cheering crowds gathered in the Mall for the carnival climax of the four-day bank holiday weekend.
She was accompanied only by those closest to the throne, a tableau of the future of Britain’s monarchy, with the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children; an image incorporating three future kings, and two future queens.
The royal family on the balcony. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images
This was the people’s day of the jubilee, as thousands of street parties were held across the UK. In London it did not, as threatened, rain on the Queen’s parade, as a carnival extraordinaire featured a two mile-long pageant dedicated to the only monarch most of us have ever known.
It was initially uncertain whether the Queen, whose mobility issues had caused her to miss so much of the jubilee, would be fit enough to attend. The first indication came when the royal standard was raised above Buckingham Palace at 4.30pm, meaning she had arrived.
Later, in a written message of thanks to the nation, she seemed to acknowledge her fragility, but committed to continue as monarch, saying: “When it comes to how to mark 70 years as your Queen, there is no guidebook to follow. It really is a first. But I have been humbled and deeply touched that so many people have taken to the streets to celebrate my platinum jubilee.
“While I may not have attended every event in person, my heart has been with you all; and I remain committed to serving you to the best of my ability, supported by my family.
“I have been inspired by the kindness, joy and kinship that has been so evident in recent days, and I hope this renewed sense of togetherness will be felt for many years to come.”
Along the route from Whitehall to Buckingham Palace, retracing her coronation procession, more than 6,000 participants – celebrities, costumed performers and colourful characters on extravagant floats – paraded through central London.
The procession, telling the story of the Queen’s seven-decade reign, was led by the gold state coach, more than 250 years old and a poignant symbol of the coronation.
The monarch appeared as a hologram, projected on its windows in archive footage of her as a young sovereign waving to crowds.
A hologram of the queen appears on the state coach. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
The pageant marked the end of a four-day, flag-waving orgy of patriotism; military ceremonials; crowds thronging the Mall; beacons and bunting; Buckingham Palace transformed by light shows and a spectacular drone display.
An average of 11.2 million TV viewers – reaching a peak of 13.4 million – tuned in to watch Saturday’s Platinum Party at the Palace and the unveiling of the biggest secret of all, the Queen demonstrating her capacity to still surprise, and her superb comic timing, in a small cameo having tea with Paddington Bear, and revealing – after seven decades – the marmaladey contents of her famous handbag.
Earlier on Sunday, Charles, who had paid tribute to “Her Majesty – Mummy”, and Camilla joined a Big Jubilee Lunch at The Oval, in south London.
His hope was that the spirit of togetherness, engendered over the weekend, would endure, telling guest Sarah Friar, CEO of neighbourhood app Nextdoor: “When it comes to Monday, are we going to go back to all the bickering again? Let’s hope we don’t do that.” Gemma Snow, from the Eden Project, who also spoke to Charles, said he talked about “keeping that togetherness going”.
There were royals aplenty in the royal box, but the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who flew in from California last week with children Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, were not present. Absent from the palace balcony on Thursday, the couple have only been seen in public on one occasion when they appeared with other members of the royal family at Friday’s service of thanksgiving.
The final carnival act of the jubilee took place around the Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, as the £15m pageant concluded in a finale with Ed Sheeran performing his hit Perfect, followed by a mass rendition of the national anthem.
A roll call of British stars, from TV, film, music and sport from each era of the Queen’s reign had travelled the route in eight open-top buses. They included Idris Elba, Alan Titchmarsh, Sir Cliff Richard, fashion royalty Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, as well as the puppet Basil Brush.
Chris Eubank and Sir Cliff Richard were among the celebrities on the open-topped buses. Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA
There were dames in vintage cars, including Joan Collins, Darcey Bussell, Prue Leith, Twiggy and Zandra Rhodes. A peloton of 300 cyclists, on vintage bikes, was led by Sir Chris Hoy, Dame Laura Kenny and husband Sir Jason Kenny. A nod to Britain’s history was provided by parades of classic motorbikes, scooters, Morris Minors and vintage Land Rovers, with dancers performing the Lambeth Walk.
A fleet of Aston Martins represented James Bond. There were hippies, hula-hoopers, energetic space hoppers, Daleks, ice-cream vans, a towering cake with corgi toppers, and giant puppets – all accompanied by a cacophony of musical hits from decades past.
More than 85,000 Big Jubilee lunches were held, according to organisers.
In reality, it was a jubilee without its leading lady for much of the time, as she missed the thanksgiving service, the Epsom Derby and the pop concert. The Queen was on public view in person for just over 27 minutes throughout the weekend.
Final rose worthy! More than one year after Dale Moss and Clare Crawleysplit for good, the former football player has moved on with Galey Alix (née Gravenstein).
A source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month that the Bachelorette alum, 33, was dating the interior designer, 28, after they were spotted together at Moss’ Ted Talk last month.
While the duo have just begun seeing each other, the South Dakota native was previously engaged to Crawley, 40, after meeting on season 16 of The Bachelorette, which aired in 2020. Crawley and Moss sparked an instant connection, getting engaged after nearly 12 days of filming.
Moss eventually popped the question to the Sacramento-based hairstylist before they left the show together during the fourth week. By January 2021, the now-exes had gone their separate ways only to reconcile one month later. Us confirmed they split for good that October.
“I think the No. 1 thing is [to] just keep privacy within your relationship,” the Love, Game, Match actor previously told Us in September 2021 about his go-to dating advice. “Share the happy moments and everything like that, but as you build, the No. 1 thing is just to have a certain level of privacy and support one another to the best of your abilities. And, you know, it’s always great when you can spend as much time together as possible, especially because the distance is something that can be very difficult in those situations.”
He added: “I think coming off of [The Bachelorette], I think the No. 1 thing was I felt like I was myself. I felt like I was who I am, and I think I’ve gotten so many great responses from fans who have received support or I’ve helped them through sharing different things in my day-to-day, but I also received that from them time and time again, so it’s very, very humbling.”
“I honestly believed I was living my dream life, just like I portrayed on Instagram. I had this handsome fiancé, a successful career on Wall Street, a beautiful home and cute dogs and, you know, life is perfect. But deep down, I was dying with my eyes wide open,” she admitted to Forbesin May 2021. “I [didn’t] know which is going to get me first, but if I don’t do something about this [now], I’m not going to be here much longer.”
A few months ago, Netflix began circulating an internal Google Doc containing revisions to the company’s culture memo. The document garnered some 10,000 comments from employees before the final product — published on Netflix’s jobs site — was released to the public earlier in May.
Notes included a directive for employees to “spend [Netflix] members’ money wisely” and a reminder that leaders also needed to be held accountable for following company values. But there was one section in particular, on “artistic expression,” that stood out to some staffers.
“Not everyone will like — or agree with — everything on our service,” the note specifies, ending with a message aimed directly at staffers: “Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
The updated entry appeared to be a direct response to internal and public outcry at the streaming giant last October in response to The Closer, a Dave Chappelle comedy special that included multiple transphobic jokes. Though Netflix received plenty of public backlash and co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitted he “screwed up” his initial responses to staffers’ concerns at the time, the streamer has gone on to announce a deal with Chappelle for four more comedy specials and has taken a harder line toward what it deems as “artistic freedom” — even at the potential expense of its own staffers — as part of its company culture.
“In 2021, speaking out about what is in the best interest of the business was still a part of the culture,” a former Netflix employee tells The Hollywood Reporter. “With the re-write, … Netflix has made it clear that the new order is ‘if you don’t like it, leave.’”
While most organizations today typically have a document outlining values, Netflix stood out in 2009 when CEO Reed Hastings publicly released the company’s approach to management in the form of a 125-slide deck that included seemingly radical concepts at the time, like unlimited vacation and “avoid rules.” The deck, which was since revised into a formalized culture memo, served as the inspiration behind Hastings’ 2020 book, No Rules Rules.
But this month’s memo change comes during a period of major upheaval for Netflix, which is contending with a slowdown in subscriber growth as competitors like Disney breathe down the streamer’s neck. During the first quarter of the year, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers and expects to lose an additional 2 million more in Q2 — losses that have cratered the company’s stock and have employees and investors alike worried about the future growth of the once high-flying and high-spending streamer. To help stave some of those losses, Netflix has begun experimenting in new areas of business, like advertising and video games — the former of which Hastings was once staunchly opposed to.
But as with any company trying to cut down costs, Netflix is reining in its spending growth and has implemented two rounds of major layoffs within the span of a month, with the latest round cutting 150 full-time staffers, or about 2 percent of the company’s total workforce, and several dozen contractors working in Netflix’s editorial division — some of whom were brought on just months ago and worked specifically on channels meant to serve underrepresented identities like Strong Black Lead, Con Todo, Most and Netflix Golden.
The social channels are all run within Netflix’s marketing division and are meant to elevate Netflix’s programming geared toward specific audiences and build strong communities with viewers. Strong Black Lead, for example, launched in 2018 as a way to promote Netflix’s programming featuring Black talent and creators and build a meaningful community with Black audiences year-round. Since then, the marketing brand has launched original video series, a podcast and has amassed 804,000 followers on Instagram and more than 253,000 followers on Twitter.
Following that success, Netflix’s marketing team went on to launch additional channels like Con Todo, for Latino communities; Most, for LGBTQ+ audiences; and, just recently, Golden, for the Asian diaspora. Each of those channels count several thousands of followers across Instagram and Twitter.
Netflix said the editorial cuts, which were made across all social channels — not just the identity-focused ones — are part of a larger strategy to have social content be created in-house, rather than by outside contractors. The company also let go a number of staffers in the family and animation divisions in the last round of layoffs and has dropped animated projects in the works from Ava DuVernay and Meghan Markle, though Netflix has said those series were scrapped due to creative reasons.
“We are making changes to how we support our publishing efforts, including bringing some of this important work in-house,” a Netflix spokesperson said. “Our social channels continue to grow and innovate, and we are investing heavily in them.”
Though the social accounts are still running, laid-off editorial staffers are questioning Netflix’s commitment to diversity, given that many of the contractors said they were encouraged to join Netflix because of its perceived focus on supporting writers, editors and creators from diverse backgrounds.
In addition to promoting the specific identity-focused social channels, Netflix has emphasized its commitment to inclusion with recent financial pledges, including by moving $100 million, or 2 percent, of its financial holdings to banks that support Black communities and creating a $5 million fund to invest in Black creators and businesses. The streamer has also focused on improving the diversity of its own staff; last year, Netflix said women made up half of its global workforce, while roughly half of its U.S. workforce were from the global majority, according to the company’s 2021 diversity report.
“There was so much talk about how Netflix was committed to diversity and inclusion, and I think a lot of us who were brought on really believed that,” a second former editorial staffer at Netflix who was impacted by the recent round of layoffs, notes. “The writers really make up a lot of the incredible content that you see on those channels and [bring] really broad, diverse perspectives, so it is a shame that we were all let go.”
It also didn’t help that, according to two contractors who spoke with THR, the two rounds of layoffs came with very little notice. (Netflix’s contractors are employed by outside agencies, and at least one of the agencies — Made by Fabric — appears to have shut down entirely following the recent round of layoffs.)
“They’re having to reimagine themselves,” a third former editorial staffer who was laid off in April adds of the changes at Netflix. “It’s just such a corporate thing [where] somebody high up who makes, you know, $10 or $20 million a year makes a bad decision or puts off dealing with a problem and people on the ground have to suffer because of it. That definitely sucks.”
That isn’t to say layoffs or firings at Netflix are particularly unusual at the streamer, which notably has a “keeper test” that guides the company’s approach to firing. (“If a team member was leaving for a similar role at another company, would the manager try to keep them? Those who do not pass the keeper test (i.e., their manager would not fight to keep them) are given a generous severance package so we can find someone even better for that position,” Netflix’s culture memo states.)
But with the most recent round of layoffs being determined by “business needs rather than individual performance,” as a Netflix spokesperson said at the time, employees noted the loss of trust among staffers. “This feels like they really lost control of the narrative, like it’s out of control,” another Netflix insider adds. “The trust has been eroded.”
As for how Netflix will handle future employee dissent, the updated memo regarding “artistic expression” will also be put to the test in light of a new comedy special from Ricky Gervais, which includes multiple jokes about trans women. Netflix has not responded to repeated requests for comment on Gervais’ special, and if the company’s handling of the Chappelle special is any indicator, it is likely that the streamer will once again come out in support of the comedian.
“It used to be part of the culture, and people saw that as empowering them to speak up and out. The new culture memo makes it clear that creative is now protected from having to listen to anyone’s opinions they don’t agree with,” the first former Netflix employee says. “It’s a real shame, because if they’re not listening to employees who are minority-affiliated, and they aren’t tracking viewer activity through this lens either, then they’re operating in a cultural black box.”
In the Showtime series “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Faraday, an alien who arrives on our planet and gets wrapped up in the lives of an ordinary family. According to Ejiofor, when taking on the task of playing someone from space, he tapped into the times in his life when he was an outsider.
“He has this kind of great arc to go on,” Ejiofor told Variety. “I just think you can only play your own alien. You can only really reference the times when you felt on the outside looking in, when you felt those sort of triggers of isolation and difference, you know, and so you rely on going back and excavating and plagiarizing your own life and history in order to bring out the genuine feelings you might have encountered in your experiences.”
Ejiofor was joined by co-star Naomie Harris and series creators Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman for a Variety virtual streaming room panel for “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” which is a continuation of the iconic 1976 sci-fi film. In a conversation moderated by deputy awards and features editor Jenelle Riley, the group discussed following up the original film, their own personal relationship with the source material and the themes of isolation at the heart of the story.
The original “The Man Who Fell to Earth” film was based on a Walter Tevis novel, and memorably featured David Bowie in his first on-screen role. According to Lumet, while the film made a huge impression on her as a child, she didn’t read the source material until many years later.
“I saw the movie when I was but a girl and was deeply in love with David Bowie, like so many of us,” Lumet said “I didn’t read the novel until much later. And then when [producer] Sarah Timberman brought the property to Alex and I, I thought this is a way to talk about absolutely everything. This is a way to talk about this moment… I thought it was a way to talk about some really personal stuff that I was going through at the time. And it was timeless and it was cool and it was funny and it was about the human condition, which is something that I always think is worth a look and a laugh.”
The core of the series is the relationship between Harris’ character, Justin, and Faraday. According to Harris, she and Ejiofor have almost completely different styles of acting. Harris doesn’t like to rehearse, and focuses on seeing what happens in the moment on set, while Ejiofor practices a lot beforehand. In spite of those differences, the two ended up meshing well on set, and their different styles emphasized the differences of the mismatched pair.
“I think it works incredibly well, actually, because Chiwetel and I are supposed to be from completely different planets and we are coming from completely different points of views,” Harris said. “Chiwetel’s character is all entirely in his head and just focused on the mission, whereas Justin is all heart and all emotion. She really used her head. She would never have gone on the journey to begin with, with Faraday, so I think our different approaches really helped the characters and helped the kind of awkwardness we had in the beginning.”
“The Man Who Fell to Earth” airs Sundays on Showtime. Watch the full video above.
The Queen has signed off her Platinum Jubilee Weekend of celebrations with a letter thanking the people of the UK, and pledging to continue to serve as monarch.
In a letter published after the final event of the four days of celebrations, the monarch said she was “humbled and touched” by the outpouring of affection for her after 70 years on the throne.
She wrote:
“When it comes to how to mark 70 years as your Queen, there is no guidebook to follow. It really is a first. But I have been humbled and deeply touched that so many people have taken to the streets to celebrate my Platinum Jubilee.
“While I may not have attended every event in person, my heart has been with you all; and I remain committed to serving you to the best of my ability, supported by my family.
“I have been inspired by the kindness, joy and kinship that has been so evident in recent days, and I hope this renewed sense of togetherness will be felt for many years to come.
“I thank you most sincerely for your good wishes and for the part you have all played in these happy celebrations.”
The Queen’s message comes after a huge pageant along The Mall in London, in front of Buckingham Palace, the monarch’s official home in the capital, which saw a military parade, followed by street theatre acts, urban dance groups, animal puppets, a Bollywood party and carnival floats celebrating the seven decades of her reign.
Celebrities, actors, musicians, figures from the worlds of entertainment and sport waved from open-top double-decker buses, while 300 cyclists rode up The Mall. The pageant included a fleet of vintage cars, including the classic Morris Minor vehicle depicted in lots of different colours.
The afternoon was rounded off with a performance by Ed Sheeran in front of the Palace, and a surprise appearance by the Queen with the immediate members of her family on the Royal Balcony.
“In Encanto, you can see every member of the Madrigal family getting ready for the gifting celebration, including Bruno! Bruno is sitting on the top right balcony, foreshadowing that he was living in Casita the whole time.”
One may have heard about “riot Grrrl” music and one may have heard about director Jennifer Waldo who had done a short, “Acid Test”, in 2017, about a young girl coming from a concert and confessing to her parent about tripping on acid. This new film is the feature version of Waldo take about this coming-of-age teenage rebellion and it is based on a true story. Beyond anything it is a discovery about adulthood and how a Latina girl is embracing her existence and transform herself into a woman. No surprise that “Acid Test” is a darling from film festivals and it’s destined to mark a generation of young women looking for their “way,” as Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols yelled it on top of his lungs and from the legendary anthem immortalized by Franck-“blue eyes”-Sinatra.
Q: How does one decide to turn a short into a feature and what was your goal with “Acid Test”?
Jennifer: I have always been inspired by the “riot Grrrl” music in my youth. This film is based on my own experience, and I have always wanted to share this story. And I think that the themes explored in this film are still relevant today. In terms of women rights and in terms of pushing the envelope, and in terms of how women define themselves. I hope it helps people define themselves in general. It’s also political civic duty. And of course, it’s about father-daughter relationships, especially when dealing with a complicated family relationship. As most coming of age stories are, I think this film is very relevant today. I wanted to share my particular perspective in a longer format than the short I had previously made. Even so, “riot Grrrl” music has been coming back a little bit, like with the bands like “Bikini Kill” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Kill ) touring and a movie called “Moxie” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6432466 ). When I started my journey with the short movie of “Acid Test”, none of that had come into the zeitgeist, so I felt it was a perspective that still had not been seen very much. And I wanted to share that with the audience and young women, out there.
Q: Tell me about the various obstacles about making this film?
Jennifer: Actually, this film came together pretty quickly. Because I teach filmmaking, I had a window during my summer class when I got approval to teach my summer class as “production assistants” workshop. So, I was able to bring students on board. Once I had that green light, it took only three months to get the funding in place. Because of the work I had done with the short film, I had met people along the way and I felt I had the resources to find the funding, which was raised through a non-profit and with charitable donations. I had a crew that was exited to come on board and to expand the short into a feature film. Production is always a challenge even so we had twenty one days, which is not too bad for an independent movie. But this was a pretty ambitious film with lots of locations and actors. We also had a live concert that we shot documentary style with three cameras. The largest challenge came into post-production because of the covid hit. And we had to finish the film without, all of us, be in the same room. It was very tricky and it extended the timeline to complete this film. But we came through and now we are trying to figure out distribution which has changed with covid. The landscape continues to change. Just to try to navigate that as a first-time filmmaker has been very eye opening.
Q: What is this film about for you, what is the take-away?
Jennifer: The biggest take-away for me is to showcase the complexity of family relationship. How people are complicated. And how people can be your biggest champion and your biggest source of trauma. And these are things I navigate with in my own life. I really wanted to share that in this film. I never wanted the father to be a villain, but I wanted him to be sympathetic and to understand his perspective. I wanted to showcase his love and his dedication to his family. But I also wanted to showcase that some of the ways he expresses his feelings are armful and not supportive. I have had amazing responses from audiences, like at the Austin film festival where we premiered “Acid Test”. This is so amazing to me to have people feel like I also told their stories and put something on the screen they had not seen before. Overal, it’s about women rights and finding your identity. How do we define ourselves and it’s also a love letter to “riot Grrrl” music. Life is complicated and sometimes difficult to understand; I wanted to convey that message.
You can include singer-songwriter Kate Bush among the very long list of “Stranger Things” fans, and not just because her 37-year-old song “Running Up That Hill” was featured on an episode and immediately climbed the charts.
“You might’ve heard that the first part of the fantastic, gripping new series of ‘Stranger Things’ has recently been released on Netflix,” she wrote on her official website. “It features the song, ‘Running Up That Hill’ which is being given a whole new lease of life by the young fans who love the show – I love it too!”
She continued, “Because of this, Running Up That Hill is charting around the world and has entered the UK chart at No. 8. It’s all really exciting! Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.”
The 63-year-old Brit’s song which was originally recorded in 1985 soared to the No. 1 spot on iTunes and landed on streaming charts after it was heard during the season premiere of “Stranger Things.” The song first comes into play when Max (Sadie Sink) strolls through her school hallways listening to it on her Walkman. The song returns a few episodes later, taking on added significance as she mourns her brother’s death and struggles to escape meeting the same fate.
It currently sits at 106 on Spotify’s Top 200, with 1,099,174 plays. The “Stranger Things 4” soundtrack – which also features the Talking Heads, KISS, and the Beach Boys, among others – holds the No. 5 spot on iTunes’ Top 200 Albums.
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of The Boys! Read at your own risk]
If fans had somehow forgotten how intensely gross Prime Video’s The Boys can be in the 18 months since we’ve seen new episodes, they were quickly reminded in the Season 3 premiere. Frenchie (Tomer Kapon) and Kamiko (Karen Fukuhara) are sent on a mission to capture a specific supe, Termite (Brett Geddes) — The Boys‘ universe equivalent to Ant-Man. They find him at a rowdy party after he’s snorted a bunch of cocaine, shrunk himself down, and… crawled into his lover’s penis. It’s clearly a thing the two have done before and Termite is on his way to the prostate when he has a cocaine-induced sneeze and ends up exploding his partner in half.
No part of this scenario is left to the imagination, from Termite shrinking down, to him jumping into the tip of his partner’s penis, and even stroking the walls once he got inside. It is absolutely one of the grossest and most explicit things the show has ever done (and last season they impaled a whale with a speed boat) and they spared no expense in doing it. While Termite jumping into the tip was done primarily with VFX, the interior penis scenes required a practical set.
“My favorite thing about that scene is that was a real penis that we built. VFX sweetened it up, but that is an 11-foot high, 20-foot long, actual, practical penis built at great expense,” series creator and executive producer Eric Kripke explained to TV Guide. “It’s one of the reasons I love my job.”
Karen Fukuhara, who wasn’t in the penis scene specifically but enters the room after Termite’s partner is already dead, got to see the giant penis in person and confirmed the gross factor, saying it was even worse than the beached whale she and Kamiko’s vigilante crew were stuck in for days during the Season 2 shoot.
“It was a closed set so I wasn’t there to see [them film] anything, but I got to visit the set. I had a little set visit day. It was all lubed up,” she said. “It was a little more jarring than the whale. Something about the whale beached out in the open was kind of a little nicer than this lubed-up penis just in the middle of a warehouse where we shot. It was the most The Boys thing to start with that sequence.”
Brett Geddes, The Boys
Prime Video
The Boys is a satirical commentary on superhero culture, with many of the universe’s superheroes being warped versions of classic heroes we’ve seen on comic book pages and the big screen. Not only is Termite The Boys‘ answer to Ant-Man, but the inspiration for, excuse us, the explosive scene came from a viral meme that was circulated post-Avengers: Infinity War.
“Remember there’s that meme of Ant-Man going up Thanos’ butt and exploding Thanos? … Give the audience the thing that they want to see that Marvel can’t give them,” Kripke revealed. “Another writer, I forget who, said we’ve already done a butt explosion, which is an amazing, amazing point. Once you take butts off the table, there are really only so many orifices that he can go in to explode somebody.”
If you are thinking about logistics and the fact that the prostate — Termite’s end goal in this sexual endeavor — is more efficiently reached by entering the rear, you’re not alone. Kripke confirms that the staff thought about it though and were not willing to repeat previous season moments.
“Butt stuff is something that we’ve already done and we are not going to repeat ourselves,” he stated. “We are artists and that would have just not been up to our standards.”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson had already endeared himself to countless fans through his 11-season run on the hit ABC sitcom Modern Family, but he no doubt added to the tally with both his Tony-nominated turn in Broadway’sTake Me Out and his forceful denunciation of the video-taking scofflaws who posted surreptitiously filmed footage of the play’s nude scenes featuring Ferguson’s co-stars Jesse Williams and Michael Oberholtzer.
The leak on social media arrived on a day that should have been about celebration: Ferguson, Williams and Oberholtzer had just been nominated for Tony Awards for their performances, and Take Me Out, a Second Stage Theater production of Richard Greenberg’s 2003 Broadway hit, was nominated for Best Revival of a Play.
“I’m appalled by the disrespect shown to the actors of our company whose vulnerability on stage ever night is crucial to ‘Take Me Out,’” Ferguson wrote on Twitter May 10. “Anyone who applauds or trivializes this behavior has no place in the theater which has always been a safe space for artists & audience members.”
Now, several weeks later, Ferguson has had time to reflect on the incident, his Tony nomination, and this very special Broadway season. Ferguson portrays Mason Marzac, an accountant to the star baseball pitcher (played by Williams) who has just come out as gay. Ferguson’s character, also gay, develops both a friendship with the star player and, throughout the course of the play, a profound appreciation for the game and its history. Deadline spoke to Ferguson about all that and more.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Take Me Out, starring starring Patrick J. Adams, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Jesse Williams, runs through Saturday, June 11, at the Hayes Theatre.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson in ‘Take Me Out’ Joan Marcus
DEADLINE: What was your reaction when you heard about the nomination?
JESSE TYLER FERGUSON: Well, I mean, I was actually, that night I was recovering from a stomach bug, or I was kind of in the midst of a stomach bug. So, I had put myself to sleep with NyQuil the night before, and I slept a solid 15 hours after my Sunday night show, and [husband] Justin [Mikita] woke me up kind of like shaking me to let me know that I had been nominated, and I fell back asleep, and then when I woke up again, I thought for sure that I had dreamed it. So, I had to go online to confirm it, but it was kind of a haze of a day, and so, it wasn’t until we did the first sort of press junket for the Tonys that I felt like I was actually able to celebrate, and you know, sort of get excited about it because that first day was just sort of a fever dream.
DEADLINE: Is a nomination like this something that you can be prepared for? Did you expect it or allow yourself to think along those lines?
FERGUSON: I mean, sure, I’ve always dreamed about it. Theater has been something I’ve been doing for 25 years, and of course I’ve dreamed about it. But no, I don’t think it’s something that you can ever fully prepare for. In my mind, I thought, you know, they’d honored this role before 20 years ago with Denis O’Hare in the original production, and so, I really didn’t feel like it was any sort of sure-fire thing. Then I was like, is this the new Anita in West Side Story where anyone who plays it gets a nomination? I don’t know, but I’m used to being surprised by these things. My first Emmy nomination for Modern Family I did not see coming at all. So, I think that is the healthiest way to go about these things, to not build up any sort of expectation and just allow yourself to be surprised if it happens. And that also protects you from being really disappointed if it doesn’t. I certainly don’t do this because of the awards, but there’s a line that Mason has at the end of the play, when he says, “don’t diminish it. It would be too ungrateful,” and I remind myself that all the time because it is a really big deal.
DEADLINE: Had you seen the original production?
FERGUSON: Oh, yes. Oh God, yes. Too many times actually. I saw it several times, and you know, one of the reasons I kept going back to it was to see that performance by Denis O’Hare. I just thought it was really breathtaking, and I hadn’t seen anyone do anything like that on stage before, and I just was taken by him, and you know, I didn’t realize how much of an impact he made on me until I came back to this play when it was offered to me, and I was reading these monologues that he so brilliantly delivered, and line readings that he gave 20 years ago came flooding back to me. I thought, well, this isn’t good, I’m going to have to recreate this character and it’s got to have new skin, a new point of view, and here I am attached to these ideas that Denis had created.
So, I went into the process with a lot of self-doubt, and I was very intimidated by the task at hand because I think if it was that clear in my memory, it’s got to be that clear in so many other people’s memory, and these are the people that are going to be sitting in those seats. But you know, that’s why we do this, especially if you’re revisiting a classic, you go to it to give it a fresh perspective and a different point of view, and I’m just so happy that people saw validity in my interpretation of this man.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams, ‘Take Me Out’ Joan Marcus
DEADLINE: But how do you go about distancing yourself from that?
FERGUSON: A lot of it’s just literally doing the opposite of what you remember. You know, [director] Scott Ellis was incredibly helpful with helping me make this man a different person, and he understood completely because Joe Mantello’s original direction was also so greatly lauded. So, he was like ‘I’m in the same boat as you, and we’re going to figure this out together.” One of the things that I chose to do – and it was hard for me because I like to get laughs – but I took a lot of comedy out of the first act of Mason’s journey, and I saved it for moments in the second act when he sort of blossoms and falls in love with the game of baseball. I chose to be very pragmatic and sort of super-serious in the first part of the play so that I had somewhere to go with him. So, that was a solution that I found worked really well for me. For me the solution was to take away a lot of the comedy early on and just stay very pragmatic and analytical in the first act of the play.
DEADLINE: How did this role come to you?
FERGUSON: It actually came in the same phone call that I was offered to be the host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This happened three years ago, and my agents called and said, we have an offer for you to host Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and I said, well, you know, I’m wrapping up Modern Family and I love that show, I love that it gives back to families, and it has such good will, and it changes people’s lives, but I don’t want to be a TV host. I want to act, and my agent was like, well, maybe this will sweeten the deal, and he said you’ve also got an offer to play Mason Marzac in Take Me Out. So, I felt that was the universe telling me to chill out, and I can take different types of jobs. So that’s how it came to me.
DEADLINE: What was it about the character that appealed to you so much?
FERGUSON: I’m not a big baseball fan, but I’ve fallen in love with the game of baseball through this play, more so being in it than seeing it, but what I love about the play is that it’s about relationships, and it’s about trusting new relationships, and friendships, and looking for alliances in unlikely people. It’s told through the lens of baseball but it’s really about relationships, and I just love the messages of the play. It deals with so many issues, and it’s so cross-cultural, it touches so many different people. The gay community comes to see this play because they love the character of Mason and they love his relationship with Darren, and you know, jocks come and see this play because they love baseball, and women come and see this play because they want to see handsome men on stage. It brings all these different types of people into the theater, and they share this experience, and it’s just a beautifully constructed piece of art. On top of that, it grapples with toxic masculinity, and it grapples with homophobia, and the ripple effect of becoming your true self and how that’s going to maybe not always work out, and it grapples with overconfidence and being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, like Darren must do eventually. I just think it’s a remarkable piece of writing, and I remember when I saw it 20 years ago, I left the theater with so many thoughts in my head, and that’s what great art does.
DEADLINE: Speaking of audience reaction, has it changed since the nude photo leaks – the leaks that happened on the same day as the Tony nominations announcement.
FERGUSON: Yeah. A lot happened on that Monday, and the thing that did make me sad about it is, you know, we had this great moment of celebration for our company and our show and the Tony nominations for myself and Michael and Jesse, and we were celebrating the great work we had done, and then all of a sudden, it pivoted to, you know, that, and just bodies and nudity, and it was disappointing. It really took the wind out of the sails for all of us, especially Jesse Williams. I missed those first two shows back after the Tony nominations were announced because I was sick with the stomach flu, but I asked the guys what was it like after, on those few days right after coming back, and you know, they said it was surprisingly like everything was business as usual at the Hayes, which I think was interesting.
I think the audiences have been…you know, a non-reaction is a reaction as well, and I think when you’re in a theater and you’re experiencing an actor being incredibly vulnerable, I think even if you go in with the idea of what that’s going to be, when you watch it in the context of this play, it’s different. It’s different than what you expect, and you know, I kept thinking like anyone who’s coming for the nudity is going to be so wildly bored because they’re going to have to sit through a two and a half hour play with lots of big ideas and lots of big language, and it’s just, it’s bigger than the nudity, and I was happy to hear that those first few performances back was, it seemed like it was…I think it was more us that was nervous about it than anything.
Michael Oberholtzer, Take Me Out Joan Marcus
DEADLINE: You spoke out very quickly about the leak, and I’m wondering what the reaction among your cast mates was?
FERGUSON: I think everyone felt bad for Michael and Jesse, and Second Stage certainly felt terrible that it had happened. Second Stage wanted to create an incredibly safe space for us, and it was something that everyone was always concerned about from the beginning, and the fact that it happened was disappointing. I think a lot, for all the actors on stage who participate in the nude scenes, I think they thought it was sort of inevitable, but you know, it was disappointing that it actually did happen, but at the same time, we have the job to get back up on stage and tell this story, and the nudity is necessary for this play. It can’t be done without it. I mean, if you’re really listening to the language that’s happening in those scenes, it’s commenting on the nudity while being nude, and it’s incredibly important. The play doesn’t work without it. You have to have it. So, I think it was sort of an unspoken rule that we just weren’t going to give it any more power than it already had, and we were going to continue on and do the work that we needed to do, which was to present this play. I mean, I had a quick text exchange with Jesse, and he thanked me for speaking up about it, but then, you know, we moved on.
DEADLINE: Has anyone figured out what happened or who or why…?
FERGUSON: I don’t know. All I know is that it was a leak that happened and apparently someone made some money off of it, that it was something that was sold. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know if that’s true, but you know, I think that it was a disappointing day for it to happen. None of us were happy about it, and it certainly wasn’t something that Second Stage wanted. They wanted to celebrate the Tony wins, and maybe there were a few extra seats that have been sold but I truly believe that the play is what’s bringing people in, and these great performances that have been celebrated are bringing people in.
DEADLINE: You’ve been on Broadway before, and I’m wondering with all that’s gone on this time around, with the photo leak, the Tony nominations, how has this trip to Broadway been different for you?
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Justin Mikita Elizabeth Goodenough/Everett Collection
FERGUSON: It’s different because of where I think our industry is at. We had to shut down for two years, and in that time span, a lot of change happened and a lot of…the world’s a much different place. And you know, I’m a dad now. I became a dad in that break that we had.[EDITOR’S NOTE: Following this interview, Ferguson and Mikita announced that they are expecting another baby.] For me, theater has always been just so incredibly important, and it’s always been something that I’ve made a priority to work into my career. If I had four months off from Modern Family, I would desperately look for a play that would fit into those months. And when that went away and to have the heartbeat of New York City sort of flatline was heartbreaking, and so, this season, I think for so many actors it’s a throughline that we all feel very privileged to be a part of the season welcoming Broadway back. There are lots of speed bumps and potholes in this road, and we have had to pause. We’ve had to readjust. We’ve had to pivot, but it just proves how resilient this community is. And that’s innately what made this time different for me.
I mean, there’ll never be a season like this season again. We started rehearsal in 2020, and to be with a play and have it sit with you for two years and marinate with you for two years before getting it back up on its feet is…it created depth in ways that I’ll never be able to achieve again with a character. I think that’s true for all of us. Even if we weren’t looking at the page every day, it was something that was living inside our heads and taking up space and waiting to get out and onto the stage. That was incredibly different as well.
DEADLINE: And being a dad. Talk about resilience. How are you holding up?
FERGUSON: There’s fewer outings to Bar Centrale after the show, that’s for sure.
Kate Bush has made a rare statement acknowledging the resurgence of her 1985 single “Running Up That Hill.” The song has become wildly popular in recent days, following its prominence in Netflix’s latest season of Stranger Things. “You might’ve heard that the first part of the fantastic, gripping new series of Stranger Things has recently been released on Netflix,” Bush wrote on her website. “It features the song, ‘Running Up That Hill’ which is being given a whole new lease of life by the young fans who love the show—I love it too!”
Bush continued: “Because of this, ‘Running Up That Hill’ is charting around the world and has entered the UK chart at No. 8. It’s all really exciting! Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.”
“Running Up That Hill” originally appeared on Bush’s lauded fifth album Hounds of Love, which she self-produced and composed largely with a Fairlight CMI—a groundbreaking digital sampling synthesizer. The track plays a key role and repeats as a motif throughout the current season of Stranger Things; it is also the favorite song of the character Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink).
Robert and Kenny begin the show discussing the trailer release and score cues of Dune with original score by Hans Zimmer. Kenny asks Robert to explain why the music used in trailers most often doesn’t reflect the score/sound of the film.
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Later, Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning composer Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Morning Show, Space Force, Fargo, Carol, Twilight series, No Country For Old Men, True Grit, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Tragedy of Macbeth and so many more) joins the show sharing that his initial leap into film was as an animator, how he connected with the Coen Brothers and why their bond has only gotten stronger after more than a dozen films together, explaining why he never left the east coast, and detailing his first earthquake encounter in 1994 while scoring Airheads, which happened to be one of the most catastrophic earthquakes in history.
This episode is presented by Spitfire Audio
Follow us on Twitter @ScoreThePodcast or send Kenny and Robert your questions for the mailbox at ScoreTheMailbox@epicleff.com
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Jurors in the sexual assault trial of Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard asked more questions related to consent Sunday as deliberations continued for a sixth day.
The jury asked the judge to explain how a complainant’s words and actions could be used to try to raise a reasonable doubt about her evidence related to her state of mind at the time of the alleged incident without falling back on stereotypes and assumptions regarding how sexual assault victims should behave.
It asked for examples related to the second complainant, an Ottawa woman who met Hoggard on the dating app Tinder in November 2016 and travelled to see him in Toronto later that month.
The jury also asked for clarity on what would represent genuine, rather than willful, ignorance of a complainant’s lack of consent.
Hoggard, the lead singer for the band Hedley, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm and one of sexual interference, a charge that refers to the sexual touching of someone under 16.
The Crown alleges he groped a teenage fan after a Hedley show in April 2016, and then violently raped her in a Toronto-area hotel that September, after she turned 16.
Prosecutors allege he also violently raped a young Ottawa woman in late November 2016 in a downtown Toronto hotel.
Both complainants testified they cried and said no throughout the encounters, and were left bleeding and bruised afterwards.
The defence argues the groping didn’t happen and the sexual encounters were consensual.
Hoggard testified during trial that while he doesn’t have a detailed memory of the encounters, he is confident the complainants consented based on their verbal and non-verbal cues.
In her answers to jurors Sunday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Gillian Roberts said she could not provide specific examples on how to assess the second complainant’s evidence for fear of interfering with their fact-finding process, but could remind them of a few general “legal propositions” on the issue.
Roberts first repeated her instructions not to make assumptions based on stereotypes about how an “ideal victim” should act.
“It is not an error to arrive at a factual conclusion that may logically reflect a stereotype if the factual conclusion is not drawn from a stereotypical inference but instead is based on the evidence,” she said.
She also said jurors could look at what the complainant said and did at the time and ask themselves if it is possible to draw a “reasonable inference that she did consent.”
“Remember that a reasonable doubt must not be speculative. There must be something the complainant did or said from which a reasonable doubt about consent may be drawn,” she said.
As for the question of genuine or willful ignorance of lack of consent, Roberts told jurors it doesn’t apply.
It’s agreed that the issue in each case is whether the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the complainant did not consent to the sexual activity, she said.
If jurors accept the complainants’ evidence about what happened in the hotel room, that means they have rejected Hoggard’s evidence and accept he knew the complainants were not consenting, the judge said.
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Over the last two days, the jury has asked the court to replay the bulk of the evidence given by the two complainants and by Hoggard.
That’s after jurors twice indicated they were deadlocked on “some” of the counts.
Nvidia’s RTX 4060 GPU is going to represent a fair old leap in power usage compared to the current-gen graphics cards from Team Green, and will consume more wattage than the RTX 3070 according to fresh speculation – plus we’ve heard something about the release date, too, with the card apparently due to land at the start of 2023 (more on that later).
First things first, as Kopite7kimi, one of the regular hardware leakers on Twitter shared, the RTX 4060 could demand more power than the current RTX 3070, which is rated at 220W.
I don’t care about the real release date. I’m just curious about the performance of RTX 4060, which consumes more power than RTX 3070.June 5, 2022
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Given that, we can expect the power consumption of the RTX 4060 to theoretically be pitched over 220W (or perhaps at that level). Given that the RTX 2060 drew 160W and the 3060 demanded 170W, that’s something of a leap to 220W or more.
VideoCardz (opens in new tab), which spotted the above tweet, also pointed out fresh rumors as to the release timeframe of Nvidia’s RTX 4000 (Lovelace) GPUs, and for the first time we’ve got a purported release date for the RTX 4060: January 2023 (in other words, a CES launch – the GPU will supposedly be initially revealed at the show, and go on sale probably at the end of the month).
That’s according to Wccftech’s (opens in new tab) sources, in a report which asserts that the RTX 4090 might launch in October, followed by the RTX 4080 in November, and then the RTX 4070 in December 2022, with the RTX 4060 following that.
Analysis: With great power comes great performance?
As noted, a 50W or bigger leap in power consumption from the current-gen RTX 3060 to the 4060 is fairly hefty, though that kind of increase is not unprecedented – Nvidia cranked power usage by 40W when the 2060 came out, for example. And furthermore, given all we’ve been hearing about the RTX 4000 family being power-hungry (though expectations have recently eased at least somewhat on that front), a chunkier increase in wattage for the 4060 is not really that much of a surprise.
Nvidia cranking the power usage with the RTX 4060 also potentially points to what could be a big jump in performance terms compared to the RTX 3060, and that’d be something to get excited about with mid-range Lovelace, for sure.
As for the release date details, given that we hadn’t yet seen any rumors about the RTX 4060, a CES reveal certainly makes sense. And starting with an October launch for the RTX 4090 sounds possible, too, although the most recent timeframe theorized on the grapevine is that Nvidia is shooting for August for the Lovelace flagship (with the 4080 and 4070 to follow in September and October respectively).
While an initial August on-sale date for the RTX 4090 does seem early, October feels a bit late considering the other rumors we’ve seen floating around in recent times; so perhaps September is a happy medium for when Nvidia will kick off with Lovelace.
Ultimately, though, treat all this with caution, and even if it is Nvidia’s intention to get the RTX 4090 ball rolling in August, that plan could always be subject to slippage. Whatever the case, the rumor mill now seems to firmly believe that it’ll be the RTX 4090 launched first, followed by the 4080 and 4070, and we probably won’t see the 4060 until early 2023.
“We’re going to do it because we’re lucky enough people care,” Lawrence said about a potential revival of his long-running medical sitcom.
After spanning eight seasons, two networks, and a ninth season subtitled “Med School,” there still may be more “Scrubs” on the way.
On Sunday morning, much of the cast as well as the creator, Bill Lawrence, gathered for a reunion panel at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, TX. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes, and Neil Flynn took the stage to remember their long-running comedy, and, as these things tend to do, attention eventually turned toward a possible reboot involving the original cast and crew.
“I think we all kinda want it,” Faison said. “We would all love to work together again. It’s just really hard. It can’t be a full season of a show. It would have to be a movie or something. […] This dude [Bill Lawrence] is never going to be free again.”
Lawrence is currently the showrunner on “Ted Lasso,” which is preparing its third season for Apple TV+, and he’s also working on the “Clone High” revival. In February, he signed a new overall deal with Warner Bros. TV, after announcing two new shows in development at Apple: “Bad Monkey” starring Vince Vaughn and “Shrinking” with Jason Segel.
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“We can’t possibly do anything without the wunderkind here,” Zach Braff said about a potential revival. “But if he finds the time, [we would, too.]”
“We’re gonna do it,” Flynn said, to applause from the packed Paramount Theater crowd.
“We’re going to do it because we’re lucky enough people care,” Lawrence said. “If you’re lucky enough to be able to work with the people you love, run to it.”
The cast and creator were clear that nothing formal is in the works. “Scrubs” last aired in 2010, won two Emmys, and was twice nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. The series is available to stream in full on Hulu, which was oft-encouraged during the 90-minute panel discussion moderated by Variety’s Michael Schneider.
“We all thought we were going to be canceled after one year,” Lawrence said, citing network executives’ skepticism over the comedy’s third episode, which was framed around a statistic that one in three patients admitted to a hospital will die there.
“I had to tell the network that the gut punch at the end was all three die,” he said. Their response? “‘Can just one of them die?’ And I said, no, they all have to die. ‘Can they all be kinda racist so we’re happy they die?’ No, no.”
But the mix of humor and heart proved a hit with audiences and went on to win a Peabody Award. The cast remained close in the years since it ended, including a late-night dinner in Austin preceding Sunday morning’s reunion.
“It’s so special,” Chalke said. “We were talking last night about how we’re all still chasing it [in our other work.] It’s hard to replicate that experience.”
“Scrubs” has endured with fans, as well. Braff and Faison host a podcast where they recap episodes and invite guests, including Lawrence, McGinley, and more, to join them for certain episodes. For Reyes, the podcast has proven particularly rewarding.
“Because of that podcast, my kids started watching ‘Scrubs,’” she said. “And they like it. I’m cool now.”
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HBO’s intricate drama series unveiled its Season 4 key art — along with a slew of other teases — Saturday night in Austin, TX.
Few characters have died more than Teddy on HBO’s award-winning drama “Westworld,” so imagine the shock Austin audiences felt when James Marsden showed up, alive and in-person, to confirm the beloved character’s return in Season 4.
During the ATX TV Festival’s Closing Night panel for the series, Marsden made a surprise appearance when he stood up in the theater and posed a direct question to the panelists: “Will Teddy come back in Season 4?” Co-creator Lisa Joy, who was on stage for the discussion, confirmed his return to a chorus of deafening cheers.
A bit of background: In the first season of “Westworld,” Teddy Flood (played by Marsden) was a classic hero. His love for Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) led him to rescue her (or try to) time and time again, which also meant he would fail to rescue her just as often, if not more so. Any park visitor who donned a black hat saw Teddy as the enemy, and he suffered the consequences an incalculable number of times.
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He was, after all, a host. And hosts are built to serve the guests — again, and again, and again.
But in Season 2, when Dolores tried to lead a host rebellion, she changed Teddy’s programming to make him more aggressive. He became her enforcer, doling out death instead of succumbing to it. But the new directive didn’t click. Teddy couldn’t handle the harm he inflicted, and eventually killed himself in front of Dolores. In Season 3, Teddy (and Marsden) did not appear.
How he fits into Season 4 is being kept under wraps, but the “Westworld” team — represented by Joy, Wood, executive producer Allison Schapker, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Hemsworth, Angela Sarafyan, and new cast member Aurora Perrineau — did reveal a number of curious facets for the upcoming episodes.
For one, Dolores — who died in the Season 3 finale — really is dead. Wood returns as a character named Christina, living in a city that looks a lot like New York and who’s friends with Ariana DeBose’s yet-to-be-named new character.
“She’s a normal woman living in a big city just trying to make it as a writer,” Wood said of Christina. “Nothing ever happens to her. […] I think that’s all I can say.”
Yet Wood went on to say that Christina is trying to date, but “it’s slim pickings out there,” even when Christina is “not as maniacal and murdery as Dolores.”
While not named, Perrineau’s new character was revealed in a clip exclusive to ATX TV Festival attendees, where she picks up Stubbs (Hemsworth) and Bernard (Wright) after a violent confrontation outside a diner. The two hosts need help, and despite her wariness, she seems agreeable to their plan.
Perrineau said she was slightly intimidated about jumping into such a high-profile series filled with secrets. But she felt right at home when, on her first day shooting, Wright and Hemsworth just kept cracking jokes.
“I was actually really scared,” she said, “but then I was like, ‘Oh, everyone’s nice!’ It was really fun to jump in.”
“Aurora kicks ass,” Wright said of his new co-star.
“Way better than Jeffrey,” Hemsworth said.
While Aaron Paul, Thandiwe Newton, and Ed Harris were not in attendance, Joy said the new season picks up seven years after the end of Season 3. “Maeve is on a warrior’s journey,” she said. “They’ve gone on with their lives after being freed by Dolores.”
After depicting a future version of Los Angeles in Season 3, Season 4 shot in New York City, Cabo, Big Bear (in California), and at the Hoover Dam.
“To be honest, we were surprised they let us [shoot there,]” Joy said of the nearly 100-year-old damn on the border of Nevada and Arizona.
“Westworld” Season 4 premieres Sunday, June 26 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. Check out the new key art — which Joy mocked up herself using scotch tape — below.
If you’re looking for a movie to honor veterans this holiday, look no further than Da 5 Bloods on Netflix. With artistic flair, gorgeous cinematography, and a career-defining performance from Delroy Lindo, Spike Lee created a war movie that examines the way racism, trauma, imperialism, and violence are tragically, inextricably intertwined. It’s…
Kosinski is amazed that Disney greenlit his “Tron” sequel in the first place: “I don’t think that movie would get made today.”
Joseph Kosinski has quietly established himself as Hollywood’s top director of sequels that were 30 years in the making. The success of “Top Gun: Maverick” currently has him on top of the world, but it was not the first time he updated a 1980s classic for contemporary audiences. In 2010, Kosinski made his directorial debut with “Tron: Legacy,” Disney’s sequel to 1982’s “Tron.”
The film was polarizing, but its status among cinephiles has grown in recent years. Its dazzling special effects and unique creative choices (such as hiring Daft Punk to write the score), have turned the film into something of a cult classic. Kosinski’s planned sequel, “Tron: Ascension,” never materialized, but it has become a captivating “what if?” story for many fans of the film.
In a new interview with Vulture, Kosinski opened up about how close he came to making the threequel, and shared his thoughts on why the film never materialized.
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“I got so close. I really tried. I got close in 2015, and Disney pulled the plug on it. I hadn’t built anything, but I had the whole movie storyboarded and written,” he said. “I was really excited because it was inverting the idea: It was all that stuff coming into our world, and it was about the blending of the two.”
He says that Disney’s increased reliance on franchises like “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is partially to blame for the sequel’s fate, because the entertainment giant chose to consolidate its blockbuster efforts and focus on high profile intellectual property.
“It was a different Disney by 2015,” he said. “We were the play for fantasy and science fiction. And once you’ve got those other things under your umbrella, it makes sense that you’re going to put your money into a known property and not the weird art student with black fingernails in the corner — that was ‘Tron.’”
But while Kosinski is disappointed that the opportunity to make another “Tron” movie appears to be gone, he takes solace in the fact that such a unique movie was able to be made in the first place.
“To pitch to Disney at that time that we were going to make a $150 million movie with a first-time director, a first-time production designer, actors that had never been in a big movie before, and a score by a French electronic duo that did dance music and literally dressed up as robots,” he said. “I mean, I just can’t believe they said yes. I don’t think that movie would get made today.”
Kate Bush issued a rare statement to address Stranger Things including her song “Running Up That Hill” in its fourth season.
“You might’ve heard that the first part of the fantastic, gripping new series of Stranger Things has recently been released on Netflix. It features the song, ‘Running Up That Hill’ which is being given a whole new lease of life by the young fans who love the show – I love it too!” Bush wrote in a message posted to her website. “Because of this, ‘Running Up That Hill’ is charting around the world and has entered the UK chart at No. 8. It’s all really exciting! Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.”
Bush is not one to license her music for film and television; however, her personal Stranger Things fandom led her to make an exception. The decision has proven to be a good one. “Running Up That Hill,” which was the first single off Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love, has since spiked by 8,700% in global Spotify streams and topped both Spotify’s US Daily chart and iTunes’ sales chart.
Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 2 is set to premiere on July 1 via Netflix.
Get festive this holiday season with the American Masters playlist, comprised of performers we’ve featured throughout the series. From Bing Crosby to Jimi Hendrix, from country to reggae, enjoy each American Master putting their spin on holiday classics.
So sit around the PBS NewsHour Yule log and cozy up for this eclectic mix of American Masters holiday songs:
Roland Garros has been his abode for years. And no amount of injury or age, it turns out, can cause him discomfort at the French Open. On Sunday, Nadal won his record 14th French Open title—and 22nd major championship, the most-ever for a men’s player—beating Casper Ruud of Norway, 6-3, 6-3, 6-0. On his second championship point, Nadal fired a backhand winner along the the right sideline; he put his hands over his mouth, tossed his racquet against the bench, and raised his arms, enveloped by the adoring Paris cheers.
The Spanish superstar increased his majors margin over rivals Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer to two—both those players trail him with 20. He’s now tied with Steffi Graf for the second-most majors, for a woman or man, in the Open Era: now in his sights, the all-time record, 23 major singles titles, held by Serena Williams.
Hanging over this victory, however, is the question of how long Nadal can keep playing, and the distinct possibility that we have seen the last of Nadal at Roland Garros. Nadal has been open about how chronic foot pain has disturbed his life. “Unfortunately, my day-to-day is difficult,” Nadal said in mid-May. His status for Wimbledon, the next Grand Slam event on the tennis calendar, remains in question: Nadal’s publicist has said he will “try everything within limits” to compete at Wimbledon. Before this year, Nadal has never won the season’s first two majors—the Australian Open and French Open—in the same year. So missing Wimbledon, where Nadal is a two-time champ, would forfeit his chance to take all four major tournaments in the same year; no men’s player has won such a Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969.
Even so, Nadal’s continues a golden era for aging men’s players. Nadal has now won 8 Grand Slam championships after his 30th birthday, as has Djokovic. Roger Federer took two titles at age 35, and another at 36. Other champions of the past haven’t sustained such success: Pete Sampras, for example, won a single title after turning 30.
Nadal simply dominated Ruud, 23, the first Norwegian player to make a Grand Slam final. Ruud grew up idolizing Nadal, and trains at Nadal’s academy in Spain; the pair have trained together and have a strong relationship. Ruud can’t help but remain in awe of him after Nadal’s performance. If Ruud dried a drop shot, odds are a relentless Nadal would bull-charge towards the net to smack it past his opponent. In the second set, Ruud broke Nadal’s serve to go up 3-1. Would this be a turning point? Nadal, however, broke right back, and didn’t lose a game the rest of the match. Nadal won 11 straight games to dispatch his training buddy. He’s now 14-0 in French Open finals.
Nadal beat Ruud 17 years to the day after he won his first French title, while wearing white capri pants and a headband, just after turning 19-years-old. After the match on Sunday, Nadal said this victory was more emotionally satisfying than that one, given how surprised he was, after fighting injuries, to be holding the trophy nearly two decades later.
Earlier in the year, Nadal came back from a two-set deficit against Russia’s Daniil Medvedev to win the Australian Open; this year’s French proved that in the biggest moments, he can crush his opponents while ahead, or still fight to the finish from behind. He is, quite simply, one of the greatest forces in all-sports history. Pain may keep him out of Wimbledon and prevent him from winning more championships, but the beauty of Rafael Nadal: you can never doubt him. He’s at 22. And counting.
MTV is hosting an “epic” ceremony on one-night for its 2022 Movie & TV Awards and Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED. This year’s presenters include Chris Evans, Joe Keery, Chrishell Stause and Kristin Cavallari, with the one-night event taking place at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles. The MTV Movie & TV Awards opened polls for fans to vote for their favorite nominees from May 11 to May 18, and now it’s time to find out who won.
Below, we’ve rounded up all the viewing details you need to watch the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards.
When Are the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards?
This year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards and Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED will take place Sunday, June 5 starting at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, with both ceremonies airing during one epic telecast.
Will the MTV Movie & TV Awards aBe Streaming?
The MTV Movie & TV Awards will be streaming live on Paramount+, for which you can get a weeklong free trial. The monthly subscription price is $4.99. And for those who still have cable, the ceremony will of course air on MTV.
Who Is Nominated for the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards?
Top scripted nominees include “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with a total of seven nominations, “Euphoria” holding six, and “The Batman” trailing behind with four. New shows nominated include “Inventing Anna,” “Moon Knight,” “Pam & Tommy,” and “The Dropout.” Two new categories were added for this year’s ceremony: “Best Song” & “Here For The Hookup,” joining the other 12 categories.
Check out the nominees below.
BEST MOVIE
“Dune”
“Scream”
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home”
“The Adam Project”
“The Batman”
BEST SHOW
“Euphoria”
“Inventing Anna”
“Loki”
“Squid Game”
“Ted Lasso”
“Yellowstone”
BEST KISS
Hunter Schafer & Dominic Fike – “Euphoria”
Lily Collins & Lucien Laviscount – “Emily in Paris”
Poopies & the snake – “Jackass Forever”
Robert Pattinson & Zoë Kravitz – “The Batman”
Tom Holland & Zendaya – “Spider-Man: No Way Home”
BEST FIGHT
Black Widow vs. Widows – “Black Widow”
Cassie vs. Maddy – “Euphoria”
Guy vs. Dude – “Free Guy”
Shang-Chi bus fight – “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”
Spider-Men end battle – “Spider-Man: No Way Home”
Who Is Nominated for the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED?
Unscripted top nominees are led by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” with a total of four nominations, and second place is tied between “Selling Sunset” and “Summer House” both holding three nominations. Similar to the scripted segment, the unscripted segment added new categories, including “Best Reality Return,” “Best Music Documentary,” “Best Reality Romance” & “Best Reality Star” joining the other eight categories.
BEST DOCU-REALITY SERIES
“Jersey Shore: Family Vacation”
“Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta”
“Selling Sunset”
“Summer House”
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”
BEST COMPETITION SERIES
“American Idol”
“Dancing with the Stars”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies”
“The Masked Singer”
BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY
“JANET JACKSON.”
“jeen-yuhs: AKanye Trilogy”
“Oasis Knebworth 1996”
“Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)”
“The Beatles: Get Back”
BEST REALITY RETURN
Bethenny Frankel – “The Big Shot with Bethenny”
Kylie Sonique Love – “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars”
Paris Hilton – “Cooking with Paris & Paris in Love”
Sher – “Ex on the Beach”
Tami Roman – “The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles”
You can view the full list of nominees for all categories here.
YouTube is launching gifted memberships in beta, and they’ll be available for select channels beginning Wednesday. Memberships are YouTube’s take on Twitch’s subscriptions, which viewers can use to show financial support for creators and get access to certain perks like custom emoji. Twitch users have been able to buy gift subscriptions for some time, but if you’ve wanted to buy gift memberships to other fans of a YouTube channel, you haven’t been able to.
The memberships gifting beta will be available to a “small group of creators” to start and will be expanded to more “over the next several months,” YouTube says on a page about the feature. Channels interested in trying the feature can fill out this Google Form, though you’ll need to already be eligible to enable memberships in the first place, which has its own set of requirements. And gifting will only be available for viewers using a desktop browser window to start — buying gift memberships on mobile is something YouTube plans to have in place for the feature’s full launch.
Viewers will also have to opt-in to be able to receive gifted memberships on a channel (which could be a way to prevent harassment, like the changes YouTube made to its version of raids). Gifted memberships will appear in the chat, and you’ll have to click a link and then a toggle to allow gifts. You can get an idea of what the experience looks like in this screenshot, taken from a GIF from YouTube:
Click the toggle to be able to receive gifted memberships.Image: YouTube
“With Memberships Gifting, your channel members can buy a set number of channel memberships [5, 10, 20] in a single purchase, that YouTube will ‘gift’ out to other viewers in your live stream,” YouTube says. “Viewers who receive a gift membership get 1 month of access to your channel membership perks like loyalty badges, custom emoji and more. Viewers who receive gift memberships do not pay any charges and as the creator, you receive your usual revenue share from each transaction.”
Gifted memberships are just the latest YouTube versions of major Twitch features introduced to better compete with Amazon’s popular streaming service. But YouTube hasn’t only been competing on features — it’s also enticed some huge Twitch names, including DrLupo, TimTheTatman, Ludwig, and, in a deal announced just last week, Sykkuno, to stream exclusively on its platform.
Paul Vance, the songwriter behind a string of hits in the 1950s and ’60s, has died at age 92.
Vance died on May 30 at a nursing facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, while accompanied by his daughter Paula Heart, the Washington Post reported.
The songwriter was best known for the 1960 hit Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Hitmaker: Paul Vance, the songwriter behind Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini, died May 30 at a nursing facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, at age 92, according to the Washington Post; seen in 2014 in Delray Beach, Florida
Vance, who regularly co-write with Lee Pockriss — who died in 2011 — churned out a variety of bubblegum pop hits, including Catch A Falling Star, Playground of My Mind and Tracy.
The two worked together at the iconic Brill Building in Manhattan, which served as a home for numerous famous songwriters, including Burt Bacharach, Carol King, Neil Sedaka, Paul Simon and many others.
Vance and Pockriss’ single Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini was written earlier in the 1950s, but it became a hit with Brian Hyland’s 1960 recording, and the song was subsequently rerecorded in several other countries and languages.
Vance was reportedly inspired to write the song after his daughter was too embarrassed to wear a bikini in public, as they were considered rather risqué at the time.
It’s a hit! Vance and his regular co-writer Lee Pockriss had a hit on their song after Brian Hyland’s 1960 recording of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini went to number one; seen in 2015
In a loving Facebook post announcing his death, Vance’s daughter Paula — the same one who was shy about wearing a bikini as a child — wrote that she was by his side when he died.
She said that she ‘sat by his side for hours playing beautiful music, mostly his Ofcourse [sic].’
Among the tunes played in his final moments was his single Playground In My Mind, which was partly sung on the choruses by his son Philip, along with Clint Holmes.
Philip preceded him in death at age 44 in 2009.
According to his children, Vance’s health had been declining for over a year, though they didn’t specify his cause of death.
Saying goodbye: Vance’s daughter Paula wrote on Facebook that she was by his side. They listened to some of his classic tunes, including Playground In My Mind, which was sung by his late son Philip
Prior to breaking out as a songwriter, Vance made ends meet in the 1950s by running an auto salvage yard in Brooklyn.
But the success of his Pockriss collaboration Catch A Falling Star in 1957 — recorded by Perry Como — gave him the funding and profile necessary to devote himself to songwriting full time.
Vance focused on the lyrics in his collaborations, while Pockriss was in charge of the ear worm melodies.
Starting in the 1960s, Vance took up an interest in horse racing, and he later moved to South Florida to enjoy his retirement in the heat.
His wife Margaret Curte Vance, whom he was married to for more than 60 years, died in 2012.
He is survived by his children Joseph, Paula and Connie, along with a sister, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Moving on up: Prior to breaking out as a songwriter, Vance made ends meet in the 1950s by running an auto salvage yard in Brooklyn, until the 1957 Perry Como recording of Catch A Falling Star became a success; seen in 2015
Chhorii Director: Vishal Furia Cast: Nushrratt Bharuccha, Mita Vashisht
Director Vishal Furia’s horror film Chhorii has a deep and hard-hitting meaning behind it’s title, which gets revealed towards the climax, but the dull pacing of this gem of a script undoes the pleasure of numerous thrills it sets out to scare us with.
Vishal’s film is a remake of his own Marathi sleeper success Lapachhapi. Not only was the story the star in it, but a very nuanced performance by leading lady Pooja Sawant added more depth and a nerve-racking effect to it. In Chhorii, the offbeat director has the same vision and set-up, but the performance of Nushrratt Bharuccha as Sakshi is very limited, and so is the impact. The original was a slow burn and things get pacy towards the second half. But Chhorii is just slow paced and that is the biggest minus point in it.
Sakhsi is expecting to be a mother soon. It is her eighth month into pregnancy when she learns that her husband Hemant (Saurabh Goyal) is in deep trouble with some bad guys over money. They decide to leave the city at once and their trusted driver Kajla (Rajesh Jais) offers his place in a village outside town as sanctuary for a few days. It is here the horrors, both real and supernatural, begin to unfold as Sakshi learns that neither she nor her unborn child is safe.
Mita Vashisht plays a secretive Bhanno Devi, who, as the story unfolds, is revealed to be far from the caring mother-figure she is pretending to be. Chhorii has all the horror movie tropes in it– a secluded location, a vulnerable character and evil spirits, but the effect of each of these aspects individually and combined is missing. Nushrratt isn’t able to channel the fear for her unborn child rightly for most part of the runtime. Thus, in moments that should ideally evoke anxiety in viewers, they turn out to be without the desired impact.
The slow pacing of the film robs us off the joy of jump scares too. Towards the end, the climax feels stretched as the film rounds off with an important message.
Chhorii may serve as an incentive to revisit the original, Lapachhapi. It is more raw, has an indie spirit and is driven from very strong performances of the leading ladies Pooja and Usha Naik.
There is no stopping Top Gun: Maverick and the film is continuing to give Paramount Pictures a reason to celebrate an already stellar year for the studio. Normally films coming off big opening weekends and a holiday tend to have steeper drops in week 2 but not Top Gun: Maverick. In fact, the Top Gun sequel has the best second-weekend drop for a wide release opening over $100 million.
Top Gun: Maverick eased a pretty slim 32% this weekend to gross $86 million. The film is now officially Tom Cruise’s biggest movie on the domestic front and its performance is nothing short of amazing. For comparison’s sake, Star Wars: The Force Awakens declined 40% in its second weekend back in December of 2015 and Shrek 2 dipped 33% in week 2 back in 2004.
Per Deadline, via EntTelligence, 6.5 million moviegoers came out for Top Gun: Maverick this weekend which brings its running admission count to 22 million people. This is a matter of repeat business and casual moviegoers who gave the film a chance after hearing about how great it is. The sequel is also playing very broadly. This isn’t just fans of the 1986 movie coming out to reunite with Maverick. It’s attracting a wide range of demographics. 38% of the crowd was over 45 while the 25-34 crowd is coming in at 24% with 45-54-year-old moviegoers representing 20%.
The film also benefitted from zero competition this weekend and it will be interesting to see how it holds next weekend when Jurassic World: Dominion opens. It’s possible that Top Gun: Maverick will hold its own against Chris Pratt and the dinosaurs because we really haven’t seen word of mouth like this for a traditional blockbuster without the Marvel label in a long time. As it stands, Top Gun: Maverick has a running domestic total of $291.6 million and after grossing an additional $81.7 million from overseas markets, the film has a global tally of $548.6 million.
As expected, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness maintains second place with a gross of $9.3 million. That’s a decline of 42% and it should be noted that Doctor Strange hasn’t seen a decline of 50% or more since opening and that’s even with competition from Top Gun: Maverick. Not easy to do when two blockbusters are in play and I honestly think it shows people are just excited to get back to movies and are spreading the wealth. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness now brings its domestic total to $388.7 million and a mighty $909.4 million worldwide without major players like China or Russia in play.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie remains in third place this weekend with a gross of $4.5 million. That’s a steep decline of 64% but it was kind of expected because the fanbase of the show came out for it last weekend and it’s playing to a rather niche audience. To date, The Bob’s Burgers Movie has grossed $22.2 million at the domestic box office.
Still maintaining a position in the top five is The Bad Guys, which placed fourth this weekend with a gross of $3.3 million in its seventh weekend of release. That’s another slim drop of 24% as the film continues to lure in kids and families. To date, The Bad Guys has grossed $87.2 million at the domestic box office to date.
Rounding out the top five is Downton Abbey: A New Era, which grossed $3 million over the weekend. That’s a decline of 48% as the film hasn’t really broken out beyond its target audience which didn’t come out for this sequel as they did for its predecessor. The film has grossed $35.7 million domestically to date and I’m guessing it will stall slightly below or right at $40 million, which was the production budget for the film.
While Top Gun: Maverick had the marketplace to itself, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future opened in limited release in about 773 theaters for a gross of $1.1 million. That’s a per-theater average of $1,423 which is decent but not groundbreaking either. The film played well in big cities but Deadline reports the grosses diminished once they started tracking smaller cities. Cronenberg isn’t really known for big box office so this result isn’t all that surprising but it will be interesting to see how it performs once it opens wide.
What are YOUR thoughts on this weekend’s box office results?
Congratulations are in order! Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell has officially welcomed another baby girl.
On June 4, Mitchell confirmed the news in a new interview with E! News. “I recently just had my second child and this is why this is all so much sweeter because this is the first time I’ve actually been outside of the house since having her,” she said during an event for her travel brand BÉIS at their Los Angeles pop-up shop. “It’s really special to come and visit my other baby.”
According to People, Mitchell gave birth to her daughter two weeks ago, though she has yet to reveal the baby girl’s name. Mitchell now shares two children with her partner Matte Babel. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Atlas Noa Babel, in 2019.
“I think when you find someone who has the same morals as you, it makes parenting a lot easier,” she told E! News. “It’s definitely a partnership. Finding somebody who has similar morals to you is extremely important.”
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Shay Mitchell announced her she was pregnant with baby number two in February, shortly following the death of her beloved grandmother. “Saying goodbye to a loved one while simultaneously experiencing the joy of welcoming another into this world is the great cycle of life,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time. “It is also my most challenging season to date. I can’t help but think this was the universe’s plan all along, knowing I would need other worldly joy to cushion the blow of losing one of the most important people in my life.”
She continued, “Yet, this is proof that love, life, and loss can profoundly exist all at the same time. Gram, I miss you every day. Little one, we are so excited to meet you. I breathe a sigh of peace knowing you two are already connected in such a cosmic way.”
The director Robert Rodriguez is best known these days for family entertainment like the “Spy Kids” franchise and sci-fi efforts like “Alita: Battle Angel.” But he broke through as a master of hyperkinetic action, first on the self-financed indie “El Mariachi,” and then with this follow-up, which injected that film’s Spaghetti Western style and filmmaking bravado with studio resources and the stars Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. Banderas is an enigmatic musician, strolling from one border town to the next with a guitar case full of guns, looking for the man who killed the woman he loved; Hayek is a bookstore owner who bandages his wounds and steals his heart. Their chemistry is off the charts, the action beats are rip-roaring and the cameos are delightful.
Very few films can be said to have “changed everything,” but William Friedkin’s 1973 adaptation of the novel by William Peter Blatty is certainly one of them — a box office smash, a critical success and a certified cultural phenomenon. A haunted Ellen Burstyn stars as a Georgetown actress whose daughter (a powerful Linda Blair) seems controlled by evil forces. Once a sensitive priest (Jason Miller) determines she has been possessed by the devil, a specialist (Max von Sydow) is brought in to rescue her soul. So many of the film’s big moments — the green vomit, the devil voice, the incantations of the exorcism — have been recycled and satirized that you’d think the film would lose its bite, but “The Exorcist” has lost none of its ability to scare and shock.
The actor turned screenwriter Jason Segel and his “Muppets” and “Five Year Engagement” collaborator Nicholas Stoller first teamed up for this 2008 romantic comedy from the producer Judd Apatow. Segal is Peter, a sad-sack composer in a perpetual funk after his breakup with the title character (Kristen Bell), a famous TV actress. In an attempt to escape his depression, he takes a Hawaiian vacation — only to find Sarah at the same resort with her new beau (Russell Brand), a pretentious British pop star. Mila Kunis co-stars as the resort receptionist who presents a new opportunity for love; Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, and Jack McBrayer turn up in small but uproarious supporting roles.
The idea of falling in love with a virtual assistant might have seemed like pure science fiction when this comedy-drama from the writer and director Spike Jonze hit theaters in 2013; today, the growing ubiquity and sophistication of Siri and Alexa are perhaps making it inevitable. The assistant here is named Samantha and voiced by Scarlett Johansson; her “user” is Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), who is particularly wounded because of a pending divorce. Jonze’s touching script bypasses the easy, cheap jokes for a penetrating exploration of loneliness and companionship, and Phoenix’s performance is an astonishing symphony of vulnerability and pain.
This 2010 adaptation of the book by Cressida Cowell was one of the family franchise success stories of the decade, spawning two sequels, a TV series, video games and even a live “arena spectacular.” But it is, at its heart, a simple story — something like the “boy and his dog” stories of old, in which the meek young Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), intimidated by his dragon-slaying dad (Gerald Butler) teaches himself how to tame the beasts instead. Kids will appreciate the gorgeous animation and the “be yourself” messaging; grown-ups will enjoy the comic supporting cast, which includes Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Kristen Wiig.
Paramount/Skydance’s “Top Gun: Maverick” cannot be stopped at the box office, as it continues to ride its critical and audience acclaim to an $86 million haul in its second weekend and a 10-day total of $291 million domestic and $548 million worldwide.
That result is the best second weekend hold for any film that has opened to over $100 million, dropping just 32% from the Tom Cruise sequel’s $126.7 million 3-day opening. By comparison, the Marvel films “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” both fell 67% in their second weekend while Warner Bros./DC’s “The Batman” fell 50% in its second weekend back in March.
In addition, “Top Gun 2” is now already Cruise’s highest grossing domestic release before inflation adjustment and Paramount’s highest grossing film since “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” ($352 million) in 2011, ranking in the studio’s top 10 all-time. “Top Gun: Maverick” got here off an audience base that has skewed considerably older than for most blockbusters, with the opening weekend crowd being 55% over the age of 35 while this weekend’s crowd was roughly even between moviegoers over and under age 35.
In a distant second on the box office charts is Marvel Studios’ “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which crossed $900 million worldwide in its fifth weekend with $9.3 million grossed domestically. With $909 million grossed globally, the film now stands among the top 10 highest grossing Marvel Studios releases.
20th Century Studios’ “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” is in third, dropping 63% from $12.4 million opening for a second weekend total of $4.5 million and a 10-day total of $22.3 million. Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s “The Bad Guys” is fourth with $3.3 million and an $87.2 million total after seven weekends in theaters.
Focus Features: “Downton Abbey: A New Era” completes the top 5 with $3 million grossed in its third weekend, giving it a total of $35.7 million. With a budget of $40 million and just under $80 million grossed globally, the film is looking like it will just make it past the break-even point theatrically as it may arrive on digital rental this coming week as per Universal’s windowing agreement with major theater chains.
With no major wide releases this weekend, the only newcomers to the top 10 weekend box office charts were from limited release. In seventh is the Indian action film “Vikram,” which made $1.8 million from 460 theaters for a per theater average of $3,913.
In tenth is Neon’s “Crimes of the Future,” which stars Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart and marks “The Fly” director David Cronenberg’s return to the body horror genre. After premiering in competition at Cannes to positive reviews, the film grossed $1.1 million from 773 theaters for an average of $1,423.
Finally, Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” opened in 15 countries ahead of its U.S. release this Friday and grossed $55.4 million. This included an $18.1 million opening in Mexico, which is a studio record for Universal. The film also posted the best openings for any “Jurassic” film in seven other Latin American markets and a $15.1 million opening in South Korea. The film is expected to have a strong chance of passing $1 billion worldwide like its “Jurassic World” predecessors, with a release in China booked and domestic projections for opening weekend set at $150 million-plus.
The Doobie Brothers announced a series of rescheduled concert dates this weekend after members of their touring party tested positive for COVID-19.
June shows in Indiana, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina were moved to July. The new dates were posted on Saturday (June 4).
“We want to apologize to our fans,” the band said in a statement shared on social media. “Several members of the Doobies touring party came down with Covid and we had no choice but to reschedule the below dates. We look forward to seeing you all very soon.”
The concerts are part of the Doobie Brothers’ North American tour celebrating their 50th anniversary. The trek features band members Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons and John McFee reunited with Michael McDonald.
See the rescheduled tour dates below and the group’s full list of current tour dates here.
For over four decades, 20,000 feet of 16mm-shot film sat untouched in the San Francisco home of lifetime Chinatown resident Reverend Harry Chuck. The footage was supposed to serve as the basis for Chuck’s sweeping graduate thesis, “Chinatown San Francisco: A Community in Transition.” But then life invariably got in the way, and the epic cinematic history of one marginalized community’s generational struggles—‘60s-radicalized youth vs. their “keep your head down” elders raised under the threat of the Chinese Exclusion Act—was never completed. Until now.
With the help of son/co-director and producer Josh Chuck (himself a longtime Chinatown-focused filmmaker, fundraiser and youth worker), Harry’s personal and political history is now set to see the public light on May 26 as part of World Channel’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPIHM) programming. The father-son duo’s America ReFramed doc Chinatown Rising features enlightening contemporary interviews with the era’s prominent activists (as well as an elder), juxtaposed with the treasure trove of footage. All insightfully narrated, both onscreen and in VO, by the now-octogenarian, first-time feature filmmaker himself.
Documentary is honored that the former Youth Director and later Executive Director of Cameron House (an organization founded “to build strength and resilience through family-centered programs” for San Francisco’s Chinese community), co-founder of the Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing, onetime member of both the Public Housing Authority and Juvenile Justice Commission in San Francisco—not to mention one of the first Asian American religious leaders to advocate for marriage equality—found time in his still-active schedule to serve as May’s Doc Star of the Month.
DOCUMENTARY: You seem to have spent much of your life being reluctant about taking the spotlight. Were you wary of appearing so prominently in the film as well? Was it Josh’s idea for you to serve as the narrative guide through this history?
HARRY CHUCK: I can still hear my dad saying, “Don’t get into trouble. Be inconspicuous. Don’t give people reason to be curious and judgmental.” Those were seeds planted early in my childhood. My dad probably heard that from his dad—and his dad from his. And so on.
The thought of being on full display onscreen really sent chills up my spine. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of being in front of the camera, or projected upon a theater screen. Asking me to take the lead with the film’s narrative was all Joshua’s idea. I didn’t realize how persistent he could be. His strategy was to engage me in hour-long interviews until something useful came to light.
D: What was it like working with—and being filmed by—your son? Anything you discovered about each other?
HC: Initially, it felt awkward to be filmed by Josh. It took me a while to realize that we had reversed our roles. We were no longer parent and offspring; we were now two individuals relating as adults, co-directing and producing a full-length documentary.
Into our second year, I could see that he was well on his way towards developing interpersonal skills I never had as a young adult.
D: Josh has expressed surprise at learning the extent of your involvement in Chinatown activism, since you never discussed it when he was growing up. Has this experience of revisiting your private past so publicly been uncomfortable— or perhaps liberating? Has this sharing unearthed unexpected memories or even regrets?
HC: Josh was genuinely surprised when our interviewees shared their stories with him. He would always end his interviews by asking, “What do you remember about my dad?” I found that somewhat amusing until I realized that he was on a serious quest of discovering his own identity as a third-generation Chinese-American.
I think learning about my history gave him a launching pad towards his own search for meaning. I don’t have any regrets about our filmmaking experience. If anything, it has been refreshing; I continue to marvel at Josh’s ability to capture on film and tape the significance of such a transformative moment.
D: You’ve said, “Looking back, I did not have enough wisdom to understand what was happening,” about being unable to complete your graduate thesis, “Chinatown San Francisco: A Community in Transition.” So what has participating in this film, both behind and in front of the camera, taught you?
HC: Yes, I really didn’t have enough wisdom, insight or maturity to fully understand what was happening in Chinatown during the decades [1960s-80s] of social, political and cultural change. I could only sense that my quiet insulated neighborhood was changing, and that I wanted to capture those shifting moments of change with my camera.
I would spend long hours developing and enlarging black- and-white photos of life in Chinatown. Subsequently, that led to filmmaking classes at San Francisco State College in the 1970s. I just loved watching foreign films that transcended stereotypical Hollywood portrayals of human trauma and struggle. And it suddenly occurred to me that my life and family history in Chinatown were vastly different from the mundane lives of my classmates. Chinatown was my foreign country within a foreign country. So my focus would be that of a person in search of his identity.
Am I and my peers Chinese-Americans or American-Chinese? Or is this just a play on words? The questions outweighed the answers. So I packed up my reels of film, tucked them in a corner of the garage, and joined the movement towards change.
My commitment to the community would reach a new level in 1977, when I became the director of Donaldina Cameron House, a faith-based community service center. Working collaboratively with other nonprofits, we became better equipped to address community problems holistically. College graduates who were once activists returned to Chinatown to provide leadership as professionals in medicine, law, social work, education and civil service.
D: I have to say, One of my favorite scenes in the doc is also quite meta—of you in your younger days at a public hearing, using a clip from the archival footage to advocate for the Mei Lun Yuen affordable housing project. It really shows the power of the image to effect change. Are you likewise hoping to enact change, or maybe just reconnect with folks, through Chinatown Rising?
HC: I retired in 2001 and would not return to filmmaking until my 80th birthday—when Josh and I unpacked the reels of unedited film that were nestled in the corner of my garage. I did contact my former college mentor James Goldner to announce that I was returning to complete the film begun 40 years before. He was delighted to learn that we were dedicating our film to him at the opening of the 2019 CAAMfest.
Lauren Wissot is a film critic and journalist, filmmaker and programmer, and a contributing editor at both Filmmaker magazine and Documentary magazine. She’s served as the director of programming at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, and has written for Salon, Bitch, The Rumpus and Hammer to Nail.
Another “Iggy” has landed on the international hockey scene.
Jade Iginla, daughter of Hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, is among the 23 women representing Canada at the world under-18 championship starting Monday in Madison and Middleton, Wis.
She and the majority of her teammates, born in 2004 and 2005, were named to the Canadian roster a second time.
When the tournament initially scheduled for Jan. 8-15 in Sweden was abruptly called off two weeks before puck drop because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hockey Canada announced a roster on Jan. 20 in recognition of players’ efforts to make that team.
After a five-day reselection camp in Calgary in May, Canada opens the rescheduled tournament Monday against Finland in Madison.
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Aware her Canadian counterparts born in 2003 couldn’t play in a world under-18 championship at all – the pandemic also wiped out the 2021 tournament – Iginla appreciates wearing the Maple Leaf for the first time in her career.
“I think the first two words that come to mind are gratitude and pride,” Iginla told The Canadian Press.
University of Alberta Pandas head coach Howie Draper returns to the bench after navigating the under-18 women to gold in 2019 and silver in 2020.
Iginla, the oldest child of Jarome and Kara, compiled 18 goals and 10 assists in 22 games for Hockey Academy Kelowna’s under-18 team this past season. She’s committed to play for Brown University next season.
Younger brothers Tij and Joe also play hockey. Tij was drafted ninth overall by the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds in 2021.
Jarome played the majority of his 1,554 NHL games for the Calgary Flames. He holds the franchise record in goals and points.
He famously assisted on Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal to win Olympic men’s hockey gold for Canada in 2010, when Crosby yelled “Iggy” to indicate he was open. Jarome was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last year.
“He’s my dad first and that’s what always comes to mind before all his other accomplishments,” Jade Iginla said.
“My dad, having played such a high level of hockey for so long … whenever I have, say, a bad experience or something that didn’t go my way, he immediately references something that happened to him, and it’s always similar. It always helps to find common ground in that.”
She possesses elements of her father’s power-forward game.
“What we like about Jade is she seems to really connect well with all of her teammates,” Draper said. “She seems to be able to read off them really well. She obviously has a high hockey intelligence.
“The thing that really stands out for us is her grit factor and that’s something you can compare to her father. That makes it really tough for the opponent to play against you. She’s got a little bit of that, which is really cool to see.
“She doesn’t shy away from the tough areas. She protects the puck really well and as a result, she creates great opportunities for her teammates and linemates.
“She’s fun to watch just like all the rest of these girls. They all have some special elements. In that way, I think we have a really strong group.”
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Hockey Canada held a panel during selection camp with some women’s national-team players who won Olympic gold in Beijing in February.
“They just spewed wisdom,” Iginla said.
Among them was 25-year-old defender Micah Zandee-Hart, who won world under-18 gold in 2014 and captained the team to silver the following year.
“I asked about leadership and how everyone can be their own leader, being different personalities, being more quiet or loud,” Iginla recalled.
“Micah had a great answer about really just leaning into what you can do. If that means making conversation with the person next to you, and that pushes you out of your comfort zone today, then that’s a good day.”
Canada lost its lone pre-tournament game 3-1 to the United States. Iginla’s Kelowna teammate Brooke Disher of Lake Country, B.C., was named under-18 captain.
Defender Sarah MacEachern of Cornwall, Ont., and forward Karel Prefontaine of Gatineau, Que., were chosen assistant captains.
Two-thirds of Canada’s Olympic team played in a world under-18 championship at some point in their careers. Captain Marie-Philip Poulin and veteran forward Natalie Spooner appeared in the first in 2008.
Canada is in Group A in Wisconsin alongside the Finns, Sweden and the host United States. Czechia, Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland comprise Group B.
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After facing the Finns on Monday, Canada meets Sweden on Tuesday and caps the preliminary round Thursday against the U.S.
The quarterfinals are Friday, followed by Sunday’s semifinals and Monday’s medal games.
The players’ fears in January over whether there would be no world under-18-championship for a second straight year has been replaced by a drive to get the gold medal.
“They’re like animals that have been caged for a significant period of time and you just let them out of that cage,” Draper said. “The energy, the excitement and enthusiasm is at a high level right now.”
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Payback,” “The Only Man in the Sky” and “Barbary Coast,” the three episodes that are part of the June 3 launch of “The Boys” Season 3.
After hating all super-powered people throughout the first two seasons of “The Boys,” Butcher (Karl Urban) has now become the exact thing he’s despised — at least, for 24 hours at a time. Thanks to Temp V, a brand new Vought serum he’s gotten his hands on, Butcher can now withstand gunshots and shoot lasers from his eyes, which an NRA-obsessed supe named Gunpowder learns the hard way.
On his Season 3 mission to kill Homelander (Antony Starr), Butcher decides to level the playing field a bit by taking Temp V, which makes him super-strong and near-invincible. He and The Boys are also in search of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), a powerful supe who’s been presumed dead for decades. Butcher tracks down Gunpowder, who used to be Solder Boy’s sidekick and punching bag on their superhero team Payback. After failing to blackmail Gunpowder in the men’s bathroom and getting shot at in a parking garage, Butcher takes his interrogation tactics to the next level with his Temp V powers. He confronts Gunpowder again, this time learning that Soldier Boy’s death was faked and that he and Payback were deployed in the Nicaraguan Revolution on behalf of Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) and the CIA.
After the successful interrogation, Butcher lasers Gunpowder’s face off in a very Homelander-esque move. As the two characters brace for an inevitable showdown, the parallels between Butcher’s and Homelander’s powers were intentional, according to “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke.
“All the powers on our show are ultimately metaphors,” Kripke told Variety. “When it came time to give Butcher powers, that still held. The discussion was, ‘What is going on inside Butcher and then how do we come up with a power that dramatizes that?’ For Butcher, he is turning into the thing he hates most in the world. He hates it and loves it, in equal measure. That was where we got to laser eyes, because laser eyes is a real Homelander thing. But if you notice, visually and in the way Karl performs it, it’s painful. It’s a different, self-punishing, self-flagellating power. The beams are really rough and they’re smoking because they’re burning his eyes as it’s happening. It’s a natural extension of his inner rage and his inner hatred, both toward Homelander and toward himself.”
Here, Urban explains to Variety how Butcher’s new abilities and how will affect him during the rest of “The Boys” Season 3.
How did it feel to finally get super powers?
It felt a little bit ridiculous, to tell you the truth. The reality is, you’re standing on set and you’re doing your best to give a laser stare, but there’s no lasers coming out, obviously. So you just hope the special effects department will come and save your ass, which they do. We’re so blessed, they did an amazing job on the special effects this season.
Did Antony Starr or anyone who plays a supe pass down any tips on how to pretend like you have powers?
No, nobody was forthcoming about that. I just remember having conversations about the nature of Butcher’s super abilities with Kripke. We wanted to do something that would differentiate his from others that we had seen. What we really stumbled upon was the fact that it would cause Butcher an immense amount of pain. To actually have lasers shooting out of your eyeballs, it was a double edged sword. It came at a high cost to use these super powers for Butcher. He pays a high price for it. I think that is very in line with Kripke’s motto of “You make the right choice, you get rewarded. You make the wrong choice and you get punished.”
Were there other ideas for Butcher’s powers that weren’t used?
No, I just really love the whole morale dilemma of Butcher having superpowers. He’s a character who absolutely despises supes and is forced to turn himself into the thing he despises the most in order to defeat that very thing. It examines the cost of that, not only to Butcher, but to all of those around him, and seeing how everybody has to make a choice, in terms of how far they’re willing to go.
What was it like shooting that heartbreaking scene where Ryan tells Butcher that he hates him?
I love working with Cameron [Crovetti], he’s an amazingly talented, fine young actor. I really enjoy all of my scenes with him of Butcher trying to be some sort of parental figure. He has a genuine bond with this kid and we see him struggling, trying to be a parent. We come to realize he’s ill equipped to actually be that and ultimately working through the tragedy of what occurred, which is as much Butcher realizing he is probably the worst thing that this kid could have in his life.
The Vought NRA scene with Gunpowder hit much closer to home after the recent shootings in the U.S. It doesn’t seem that far off from where we are currently.
That’s one of the things that Kripke and the writers are pretty adept at doing. This show does have an element of satire, and they have often managed to somehow tap into the zeitgeist of what is happening in current culture and pop culture. Certainly this is a look at the gun culture with that character. I had a lot of fun working with Sean Patrick Flannery. One of my favorite scenes of the season was Butcher’s attempt to bribe Gunpowder at the convention, primarily because Butcher gets to pretend he’s a rabid fan and then proceeds to try and blackmail him, which doesn’t work too well.
Tesla used a public relations firm to monitor employees’ social media activity at a time when some were attempting to unionize, according to a news report.
The electric-vehicle maker hired New York-based MWW PR to monitor employees “in a Facebook group and more broadly on social media” in 2017 and 2018, CNBC reported Friday, citing invoices and unspecified documents. It said MWW paid particular attention to discussions alleging unfair labor practices at Tesla and those related to a sexual harassment lawsuit.
The report comes as organized labor is asserting itself in numerous industries, including Big Tech. Some leaders, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have dismissed unions as relics of an outdated business model, but organized labor has recently made headway at several traditionally nonunion companies.
Workers from at least three Apple stores have expressed their intention to organize, and an upstart union effort succeeded in winning an election at a Staten Island Amazon warehouse. On Thursday, Microsoft announced a new strategy for dealing with organized labor in an apparent attempt to avoid the public clashes that have played out at other Big Tech companies. Meanwhile, Tesla’s counterparts in the auto industry have a long history with organized labor.
According to CNBC, the consultancy monitored a Tesla employee Facebook group and the social media site more broadly for mentions of organizing efforts and researched specific organizers, then developed a communications plan based on the information.
MWW, which confirmed its previous work with Tesla, said in anemail that it was “common practice to review media coverage and public social conversation about a company to gain insights into issues and perceptions of stakeholders about the brand.”
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
Last year, the EV maker was ordered to reinstate a fired worker after the National Labor Relations Board determined that it had unlawfully interrogated workers over suspected unionization efforts, threatened workers with the loss of their stock options if they unionized, and unfairly prohibiting its employees from communicating with the media.
As part of that decision, Musk also was ordered to delete a 2018 tweet reading: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.”
As of Friday afternoon, the tweet was still online.
It’s relatively common for companies to monitor social media mentions of their brand, as well as to contract such work to public relations and marketing firms. But the National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from “spying” on employees’ union activity, which the National Labor Relations Board defines as “doing something out of the ordinary to observe the activity.” Observing open union activity in workplace areas frequented by supervisors would not constitute spying, according to the NLRB.
The MWW spokesperson said it would be “misleading and inaccurate” to “classify broad media monitoring and social media listening as surveillance.”
“MWW did not, and would not, conduct activity of that kind,” the spokesperson said. “Social media research was limited to open and public communications and did not include any invite-only groups or chats.”
In late April, Musk arrived at a deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, an acquisition he said was motivated by the platform’s status as a sort of town square that is integral to free speech.
Though he’s still the world’s richest person, with an estimated fortune of $227 billion as on Friday, his wealth has taken a hit since he made his Twitter bid amid declines in the stock market and Tesla shares in particular. The carmaker slumped another 9.2 percent on Friday, closing at $703.55, after Musk signaled plans to cut 10 percent of the Tesla’s workforce.
Cassandra Jenkins was invited by Abbey Road Studios and Pitchfork to record a session around her performance at the inaugural Pitchfork Music Festival London. This session was recorded in celebration of Abbey Road Studios 90th Anniversary and the inaugural Pitchfork Music Festival London.
While the rest of us impatiently waited out the worst cuffing season in history, Lori Harvey and Michael B. Jordan were cozying up and making us all jealous. The couple made a strong early case for the biggest celebrity hookup of 2021, and they’re still going strong as we head into 2022. Here’s everything we know about Lori Harvey and Michael B. Jordan, from their earliest meeting to now:
November 2020:TMZ spots Jordan in Atlanta at the end of November 2020, when rumors started swirling that he was seeing Harvey. The Sun catches them together in Salt Lake City for New Year’s Eve. We’re pretty sure that’s where they had the photo shoot that led to…
January 2021: The model and the Black Panther star make things public just after the new year, posting some pictures on Instagram. In his, they embrace among the holiday lights; in hers, we got a smile. As the kids say, a new celeb couple just dropped.
Just a few days later, Lori Harvey turned 24 in the snow and was showered with affection (and snowflakes) by her boyfriend. The moment was posted for posterity along with a video showing the two of them playing around.
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Not long after, they got the Steve Harvey stamp of approval. “I like this one. I still got my eye on him,” Lori Harvey’s dad said on The Steve Harvey Morning Show. “I mean, I like him, but like I say to all of ’em, ‘I might like you, I might approve of you, but I got a thumb-size section of my heart filled with nothing but pure hatred for your ass. Just in case I need it.’
In late January the couple jetted off to St. Bart’s, where they were spotted riding wave runners and hanging out on a yacht (with her parents). On January 24, Jordan posted a couple thirst traps to the ’gram and credited Harvey for taking the photos. She commented “mine” with the tongue emoji, and he replied with a smiley face. If that doesn’t scream “This is for real,” we don’t know what does.
Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani hosted the Arangetram of Radhika Merchant, disciple of Bhavana Thakar, on Sunday evening. Radhika, the daughter of Encore Healthcare CEO Virent Merchant and Shaila Merchant, performed her Arangetram at The Grand Theatre in Jio World Centre, Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. Virent Merchant and Shaila Merchant jointly hosted the event with Mukesh and Nita Ambani.
For the unversed, an Arangetram is a dancer’s completion of their formal training in classical dance and their debut on-stage performance. Radhika is reportedly the disciple of Guru Bhavana Thakar of Shree Nibha Arts. Thakar has made a priceless contribution to the world of Indian classical dance spanning over four decades. She is a distinguished exponent, honored with a master’s degree from the Nalanda Institute, of Mumbai University.
Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram (Pic: Viral Bhayani)
The high profile event saw the turnout of VVIPs from the city including Anil Ambani and Tina Ambani, who arrived in their traditional finery.
Tina Ambani and Anil Ambani at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Pic: Viral Bhayani)
The Ambani brothers were seen receiving the esteemed guests of the night together.
Mukesh and Anil Ambani at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Pic: Viral Bhayani)Mukesh and Anil Ambani welcome spiritual leader Ramesh Oza at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Photo: Viral Bhayani)Rashmi Thackeray with sons Aaditya and Tejas Thackeray. (Photo: Viral Bhayani)
The family was joined by several stars in the industry, including Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan. Ranveer was seen wearing a traditional red kurta for the event. He sported a matching mask, which he refused to remove despite numerous requests from the paparazzi. Meanwhile, Salman opted for a more formal fit. Returning from IIfA only a few hours ago, Salman was seen wearing a formal blazer with a dark blue shirt underneath and a pair of black pants.
Ranveer Singh at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Pic: Viral Bhayani)Salman Khan at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Pic: Viral Bhayani)
Also present at the event were Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge. While the cricketer was seen wearing a pink and white kurta-pyjama, Sagrika opted for a simple beige kurta with a bright red dupatta.
Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge at Radhika Merchant’s Arangetram. (Pic: Viral Bhayani)
In the series, the world’s best bakers compete to produce hyper-realistic cakes that resemble everyday objects with the aim of deceiving a panel of judges and winning money.
Mikey Day will return as host for the second season, along with an all-new cast of participants and guest judges.
The first season aired in March 2022 and spent four weeks on Netflix’s global Top 10 English TV list, as well as reaching the Top 10 TV list in 75 countries.
Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz, Nan Strait, Dan Volpe and Andrew Wallace serve as executive producers.
Wormwood was a children’s television series produced by Network Ten and ABC1 that premiered in October of 2007.
Made as a joint Canadian-Australian production, Wormwood was a TV series about a quirky town where a group of kids investigated strange events. The series was based on the stories written by Paul Jennings.
Some of the most acclaimed documentaries of recent decades have come out of the arena of sports, among them Hoop Dreams (1994), When We Were Kings (1996), Senna (2010), O.J.: Made in America (2016), Icarus (2017), and The Last Dance (2020).
Netflix continues that distinguished tradition with a pair of Emmy-contending documentary series with a sports connection: Untold, from Emmy-winning directors Maclain and Chapman Way, and Naomi Osaka, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Garrett Bradley (Time). Bradley’s documentary on the 24-year-old tennis sensation – winner of four Grand Slam singles titles – explores Osaka’s background as the daughter of a Japanese mother and Haitian father, her emergence both as a player and an activist for racial justice, and her openness about dealing with mental health issues in the public spotlight.
Bradley sees Osaka as being in the vanguard of a new kind of superstar athlete. “You’re connecting with people not in a way that is about aspiration, that is unachievable and unattainable excessively,” the director noted during an appearance at a Netflix FYSEE panel in Hollywood. “You’re connecting with people by sharing your experience and your journey. And I think more and more that’s what people are demanding… She’s really at the forefront of it.”
The Way Brothers’ Untold consists of five episodes, each of them examining an overlooked or misunderstood story or figure from sports. The episode titled “Breaking Point” focuses on former top American tennis player Mardy Fish, who suffered a panic attack before the biggest match of his career at the 2012 U.S. Open against Roger Federer. He later made the brave decision to speak publicly about experiencing anxiety disorder.
“He was really kind of the first professional athlete while still playing to go on the record about suffering from mental illness,” Chapman Way said at the FYSEE event. “That was 2015, which at the time was almost like an incredibly dangerous thing to do as an athlete… Talking to Mardy and realizing he really wanted to draw back the curtains and talk openly about his mental health and his battle — for us, as filmmakers, I think we realized this is just a truly incredible story that should be documented.”
Another episode focuses on Christy Martin, one of the first stars of women’s professional boxing, who struggled with coming out as gay. She also dealt with an abusive husband who shot and stabbed her in a near-fatal attack in 2010. “Malice in the Palace,” meanwhile, examines a notorious incident at a 2004 NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and the home team Detroit Pistons when a fracas broke out between unruly fans and Pacers stars. Commentators at the time branded as “thugs” the African American Pacers players involved, inviting the incident to be perceived through a racial lens. The league abandoned the players, ignoring video evidence showing Pistons partisans were responsible for provoking the fight.
The Untold episode devoted to Caitlyn Jenner centers on someone we thought we knew all about, but uses never-before-seen archival material to tell the story of Jenner’s athletic accomplishments and simultaneous battle to come to terms with her gender identity.
“The central engine of these documentaries, the central conflict, really in none of our films, I would say, have anything to do with who’s going to win, who’s going to lose, who’s going to win the championship,” Maclain Way explained. “For us, it’s always like, great, let’s have sports be the setting. But whether it’s Mardy Fish and a mental health documentary or whether it’s ‘Malice in the Palace’ and how these professional basketball players were labeled for the rest of their lives, whether it’s Caitlyn Jenner and gender identity issues, Christy Martin and the domestic violence that she faced in her life — we’re always interested in how to take these stories and grow them beyond the court, beyond the field.”
The same is true of Naomi Osaka, which places the tennis star’s effort to define herself and establish her identity in the context of larger societal issues. At the 2020 U.S. Open, as America confronted the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, Osaka stepped onto the court for each of her matches wearing a different mask acknowledging Black people killed in racial or racist incidents – including Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, and Elijah McClain.
Bradley describes Osaka’s evolution as being “about purpose and self-worth and about courage to kind of identify and also embrace one’s personal values and then to try to actually see if you can make those align with your work, with your public self. That’s at a very young age, what she was doing, and on a stage in a very public space.”
Naomi Osaka is streaming on Netflix, as is Untold and two other documentary projects directed by Maclain and Chapman Way – the 2014 film The Battered Bastards of Baseball and the 2018 mega-hit Wild Wild Country, winner of a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Watch the Netflix FYSEE panel on Naomi Osaka and Untold by clicking on the video above.
The U.N. mission to Yemen said delegations from the internationally recognized government and the country’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels began their second round of direct discussion in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
The mission did not provide further details.
The two sides did not reach an agreement on lifting the rebels blockade of Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city, in their first round of talks late last month.
Reopening the roads around Taiz and elsewhere in Yemen is part of a truce the U.N. brokered early in April. It was the first nationwide cease-fire in in six years in Yemen’s brutal conflict, now in its eighth year.
The Houthis have imposed a siege on government-held city of Taiz, the capital of the province by the same name, since March 2016.
The two sides agreed on Thursday to extend the truce for more two months after concerted pressure from the U.N. and international aid groups.
Yemen’s civil war erupted in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try restore the government to power.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and killed over over 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians.
