Lokesh Kanagaraj‘s Tamil-language “Leo: Bloody Sweet,” starring Vijay, debuted in third position at the global box office over the latest weekend, with $31.2 million planetwide, according to estimates released on Sunday by Comscore.
The weekend was won by Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, with $44 million, followed by “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” with $41.5 million. However, in terms of worldwide cumulative among new releases, “Leo” scored $48.5 million (after four days) compared with the $44 million earned by “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
An homage to David Cronenberg’s 2005 film “A History of Violence,” “Leo” released on Oct. 19. The action-thriller follows a docile cafe owner (Vijay) who is incited to return to his violent past. The cast also includes Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Madonna Sebastian, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Mysskin, Mansoor Ali Khan, George Maryan, Priya Anand and Mathew Thomas. The film is produced by S.S. Lalit Kumar and Jagadish Palanisamy for Seven Screen Studio.
In the U.S., “Leo” was released by Prathyangira Cinemas and earned $2.1 million over the weekend. In the U.K. and Ireland it was released by Ahimsa Entertainment and collected £1.07 million ($1.3 million) in its first three days of release.
“Leo” is the latest instalment in Kanagaraj’s LCU or Lokesh Cinematic Universe, which began with “Kaithi” (2019), continued with “Vikram” in 2022 and retrospectively included 1986 title “Vikram.” Characters from “Kaithi” and the 2022 “Vikram” make appearances in “Leo.”
This is the second time that Vijay, known to his fans as “Thalapathy” (commander), is teaming with Kanagaraj. They previously collaborated on 2021’s “Master,” which grossed $36 million. Vijay subsequently headlined “Beast” (2022) and “Varisu” (2023), both of which delivered numbers similar to “Master.”
The Samsung Galaxy S24 is slowly coming into view as its expected early 2024 launch window gets closer, and the latest from the rumor mill suggests that the phone series will be packed full of AI smarts – and come with a design tweak on the Ultra model, too.
Sources speaking to SamMobile say that Samsung will be “going all in with artificial intelligence” on its upcoming flagship phones – and indeed that the company wants to make these handsets “the smartest AI phones ever”.
That clearly means that Samsung’s engineers have seen what Google has done with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, and are wanting to go even further. Certain features will closely mimic what tools such as ChatGPT can already do, SamMobile says.
Even a quick read of our Google Pixel 8 review is enough to tell you how much AI is packed in: AI tech can remove background noise on videos, or help you create composite photos in which all of your family members are smiling at the same time.
All the AI
We don’t get much detail about what Samsung is planning, but there are mentions of text-to-image generative AI (something you can do with Dall-E, for example), and an upgrade for the speech-to-text engine offered on the phones.
And it would appear that Samsung hasn’t given up on Bixby yet, either. According to SamMobile, the digital assistant could be pushed back into the spotlight as the focus is put on AI, in a direct challenge to Google Assistant and Google Bard.
The design of the speaker opening on the bottom of the Galaxy S24 Ultra has changed, becoming a long strip design instead of holes. pic.twitter.com/108rQXbs32October 22, 2023
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Our other Galaxy S24 leak today concerns the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Prolific tipster @UniverseIce says that the speaker on the bottom edge of the phone will be one long grille, rather than a series of holes – reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy S9 from 2018.
All will be revealed next year, with those in the know suggesting that January is the month when the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra will break cover – so slightly earlier in the year than their direct predecessors.
Jonathan Karl brought Republican presidential hopeful Tim Scott on to his show today to discuss Scott’s belief that President Biden is “complicit” in the Oct. 7 Hamas-orchestrated attack against Israeli civilians.
After Scott referenced $6 billion in funds to Iran that the US has frozen again, Karl jumped in and said, “You said that he has blood on his hands. With all due respect, the blood is on the hands of Hamas, and to say that Biden is complicit, which you also said in the greatest, deadliest attack, on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, I mean, that’s beyond the pale.”
“You said that he has blood on his hands. With all due respect, the blood is on the hands of hamas, and to say that Biden is complicit, which you also said in the greatest, deadliest attack, on the jewish people since the holocaust, I mean, that’s beyond the pale” pic.twitter.com/ANEFoPcQnf
As Karl continued to speak, Scott replied, “Well Jon, let’s just go right back to where we find ourselves … I think it’s important for your viewers to hear the actual truth as I see it.”
“There’s no doubt that when you have President Biden negotiating with the Iranians for the release of the hostages… I said this under President Obama as well, when we paid $400 million for hostages, you are creating a market for American lives to be lost.”
“When you pay $6 billion,” he continued, “do not be surprised when the result of that $6 billion leads to more conflict in the Middle East.”
To be clear, the United States did not give Iran money. In September, the United States unfroze a block of $6 billion as part of a prisoner swap with Iran. On Oct. 8, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken clarified that the country has not been able to spend any of that money to date amid concerns that Iran had used part of the funds to support Hamas.
On Oct. 12, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “Every single dime of that money is still sitting in the Qatari bank. … Not one dime of it has been spent.”
As dusk fell on a warm Tokyo evening, comeback director Wim Wenders introduced the cast and crew of “Perfect Days” at an outdoor stage, giving the opening ceremony of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival a moment of European cool.
Inside the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater, Wenders was brought on stage twice more.
“I had a dream that with ‘Perfect Days,’ I’d make a film that would play at the Cannes Film Festival. I dreamed that it would win the best acting prize. I didn’t dare to dream that it would be Japan’s Oscar entry. But I did dream that it would be the opening film at the Tokyo festival and play in front of Japanese audiences,” said Wenders, getting into his stride. “And then I woke up. And yet here you are.”
Wenders, who must be nursing a bad case of jetlag, having only recently been honored at the Lumiere festival in France, is likely to be kept busy in the Japanese capital over the next days.
In addition to being director of the opening film, he is set at the president of the competition jury. And he is positioned as the chief foreign luminary at the festival’s anniversary tribute to past master Ozu Yasujiro.
Wenders has frequently declared Ozu, who died 60 years ago in 1963, to be his inspiration and his “master.” And the fact that Wenders has this year delivered his best fiction film in years, in Japanese-set “Perfect Days,” could not have been better timed from TIFF organizers’ perspective.
In the wider world, Japan’s national leaders are tossing around an array of political and economic problems that include inflation (a shock after some 30 years of deflation), a weak currency that is stoking inflation for imported goods, but is also a boon for the country’s tourism industry, and a Prime Minister struggling to keep his ruling coalition in one piece.
Diplomatic relations with China are improving – if the official narrative is to be believed – though Kishida Fumio’s government has also firmly allied itself in the western camp over Ukraine and other security issues. Wherever that balance lies, the Tokyo festival is chock-full of mainland Chinese films and used its opening ceremony to honor Chinese director Zhang Yimou with a lifetime achievement award.
This is like a new start for me,” said Zhang, who had been to the Tokyo festival twice before, once 36 years ago, and then again 18 years later with his “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.”
Kishida also delivered what is becoming his customary annual video message to the Japanese film industry as part of the festival’s opening ceremony. He name-checked Ozu, Wenders and “Perfect Days” lead actor Yakusho Koji and referenced the festival’s one-off tribute to Italian film directors. This follows the signing earlier this year of a bilateral co-production agreement with Italy.
Historically, formal co-production treaties have often reflected trends in diplomatic, or inter-government relations, rather than the state of audiovisual relations, and have been bypassed by filmmakers working in the real world. But a younger generation of Japanese filmmakers is indeed increasing its involvement in cross-border film production and fund raising. That trend is reflected in the growing weight being given by the festival’s TIFFCOM rights sales event to its Tokyo Gap Financing Market, project pitching and matching component, and the revived overseas guest participation at the festival.
Festival chairman Ando Hiroyasu said that he was, “Very happy that we are able to welcome nearly 2,000 guests from abroad this year. Last year due to various restrictions, the number of foreign guest was only about 100.” He also apologized for the slow pace of the red carpet procession. which inconvenienced some of his guests. “We had an overflow that kept things from flowing as smoothly as we had hoped.”
The country’s film industry has had a decent year. Hamaguchi Ryusuke is confirming his position as the leader of a new generation of Japanese filmmakers to follow the established Kore-eda Hirokazu, Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Kawase Naomi. Hamagichi’s enigmatic “Evil Does Not Exist” is up for a hatful of awards worldwide and confirmed the promise he delivered with “Drive My Car” and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy.” With “The Boy and the Heron,” animation maestro Miyazaki Hayao released what was billed as his final feature film – but, according to some local reports, he went straight back to work. A few weeks later, his Studio Ghibli put itself on a firmer financial footing, by selling a controlling share stake to Nippon Television.
On the debit side Japan and the festival noted the death of leading composer Sakamoto Ryuichi (biographical documentary “Opus” is playing in the festival) and the ongoing #MeToo reckoning claimed has claimed some painful scalps.
Still, the Tokyo festival expects to close on a home-grown high, with “Godzilla Minus One,” the 36th instalment in Toho’s “Gojira” franchise bringing the festival to a noisy and destructive end on a week on Wednesday.
Heechul was embroiled in a controversy earlier this year. (Image Credits: YouTube)
Super Junior member Heechul took fans by surprise after announcing his wedding on SBS’s My Little Old Boy. He reportedly wore a red tuxedo for his wedding.
Korean boyband Super Junior member Kim Hee-chul, better known as Heechul, has surprised fans by announcing his wedding on the popular television show My Little Old Boy. During a recent episode, Heechul reportedly visited a tuxedo shop in preparation for his upcoming nuptials. In a candid moment, he expressed his desire to lose weight for the wedding and challenge the traditional expectation that grooms must always wear black tuxedos, inquiring about the availability of white ones. Adding to the intrigue, Heechul revealed his intention to wear a red tuxedo for the wedding and extended invitations to notable guests like Tak Jae Hoon, Kim Jong Kook, Choi Jin Hyuk, and Heo Kyung Hwan.
However, what took the cake in this episode of My Little Old Boy, is his partner. He raised curiosity by teasing, “First, I will introduce you to the bride,” informs Koreaboo.
“Today’s groom is Kim Heechul, and the bride is also Kim Heechul, whom I love very much.” He went on to share that he was participating in sologamy, a ceremony where one marries oneself, emphasising his pursuit of personal happiness.
In response to this revelation, Heechul’s mother inquired, “So you’re saying you won’t get married?” To which, Heechul explained, “I am not against the idea of marrying someone else. I do consider the possibility of marriage, but I pondered, ‘Do I genuinely deserve to love a woman?’ and ‘Shouldn’t I prioritise self-love a bit more?'”
Heechul candidly reflected, “The saddest thing in my twenties was not being able to kiss myself. Have you ever looked in the mirror after a shower and kissed your own reflection? This wedding is something I need more than anyone else.”
During the ceremony, Heechul recited wedding vows, and Kim Jong Kook serenaded the occasion with a congratulatory wedding song.
Watch it here:
Heechul is a versatile South Korean artist associated with SM Entertainment. He is also a member of the popular boy group Super Junior’s sub-unit Super Juniot-T. Additionally, he has been part of various project duos, including M&D and Universe Cowards.
He is widely recognised for his hosting roles on various variety shows, such as Knowing Brothers, Weekly Idol, Lipstick Prince, and A Style for You.
In terms of his personal life, on January 1, 2020, it was reported that Heechul was dating TWICE’s Momo, a report later confirmed by both agencies. However, their busy schedules reportedly led to their breakup, as confirmed by JYP Entertainment and Label SJ on July 8, 2021, informs Allkpop.
Earlier this year, Heechul was reportedly involved in a controversy during a live broadcast on AfreecaTV on February 9. He faced criticism for defending his former teammate Kangin, who had a history of drunk driving and scandals, and for using strong language during discussions related to school violence and a specific online community. Heechul responded to the controversy with an apology posted on Instagram on February 13.
In his statement, Heechul expressed his regret for using profanity and portraying double standards, acknowledging that his words had hurt his fans. He vowed that this incident would be the last of its kind and committed to avoiding future controversies, reported Soompi.
Dishya Sharma, Chief Sub Editor, is part of the entertainment team at News18. She eats, sleeps, and drinks entertainment. While Indian films have fuel…Read More
Live from somewhere near New York, it’s yet another recap of an original broadcast of “Saturday Night Live.” The venerable late-night NBC series, now just two episodes into its 49th season, kicked off the show with a satirical look at the Republican Party. “SNL” skewered Rep. Jim Jordan’s efforts to win the battle for U.S. […]
Some movie stars, like Dwayne Johnson, have it in their contracts to never lose fights, but the same can’t be said for Red Notice co-star, Ryan Reynolds who has frequently gotten his ass kicked in front of audiences.
In an interview on The Jess Cagle Show, Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy was asked how the threequel will let Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds shine without “falling into punching each other for 20 minutes” with no one winning.
Levy expresses that “the reason they’re close friends of mine” is due to them being “grounded, generous people” who “love each others’ jam:”
“Here’s the truth. Ryan and Hugh, and the reason they’re close friends of mine is, they’re both extremely grounded, generous people and I will say one of the great luxuries for me on [Deadpool 3] is that both of them: they love each others’ jam.”
Because they’re so grounded and generous, “both guys are always trying to set up the other to win,” but that Reynolds “is amazing at wanting Deadpool to lose:”
“Hugh is such a fan of Ryan’s and Ryan knows the opportunity that it is to have Wolverine co-star in a Deadpool movie. Both guys are always trying to set up the other to win and I’ll say this, because Ryan also was my fellow writer on this movie and is my fellow producer on this movie at every turn, Ryan is amazing at wanting Deadpool to lose.”
The reason that Deadpool loses is due to him being “deeply flawed,” while “Wolverine is Wolverine,” but it’s also because Ryan believes what matters most is what happens is “most satisfying to the story” and not serving his ego:
“The truth is that Deadpool’s awesome, but he’s deeply flawed and Wolverine is Wolverine and so I’ll just say that as a 360-[degree] creative force Ryan operates from a place of ‘what’s going to be most satisfying to the story’ not from a place of ‘well, I gotta get equal number of victories and punches into the other character’.”
Regardless of who wins or loses, Shavy, who considers himself “an audience member before [he’s] a director,” feels that it’s “a dream come true” to get these two stars together “in their most iconic roles:”
“…for us as audience members because I count myself — I’m an audience member before I’m a director — to get these two movie stars in their most iconic roles, together, is a dream come true.”
Deadpool Losing Limbs
It’s nothing new for Deadpool to lose in this franchise, which is helped by the anti-hero having a healing factor equal or greater to Wolverine himself. Compared to other blockbuster protagonists, losing for Deadpool most often ends with some R-rated slapstick with him as the victim.
Deadpool 3 will no doubt lean heavily on Deadpool’s in-universe reverence of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, which will likely result in the merc humorously losing several more limbs to Logan’s claws. However, it’d be fun to see Wolverine have his own share of punishment, whether it be from Deadpool or the film’s villain.
According to a new report from Variety, DC Studios will part ways with all its major Justice Leaguestars, including Ezra Miller’s Flash, for the new DCU reboot set to launch next year under James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Miller’s reported exit means their Barry Allen will conclude their tenure with six live-action appearances: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Justice League, the Peacemakerfinale, and The Flash, along with a cameo in The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover (Arrow Season 8, Episode 8).
The exit comes after a mixed response to Miller’s Flash over the years, culminating with the long-awaited release of their first solo movie this summer, which arrived to mediocre reactions from fans and critics, along with a disastrous box office run.
Reports of Miller exiting their superhero role long predate the October hiring of Gunn and Safran to lead the DCU reboot, as Deadline reported last summer Warner Bros. may part ways with the actor due to a long-running controversy.
Issues with Miller began as early as January 2020 after being caught on camera choking a woman, but things really kicked off for the star in 2022 with multiple arrests that included harassment, assault, and burglary.
The Flash’s Live-Action DC Future Explained: What Happens Now?
DC
As of now, DC Studios has not announced a new Flash project nor any movies or shows that are expected to involve the Scarlet Speedster. But whenever the Justice League icon does inevitably appear eventually, it now appears Ezra Miller will not be the one to don the red spandex.
Previous reports had claimed The Flash 2 may have been on the table had the 2023 movie found box office success, but the financial disaster behind that means that sequel will never come to pass. The backlash and reputation of that movie may hold up a Flash reboot from coming around shortly at all.
When the time comes, James Gunn and Peter Safran will presumably look for a new star to bring Barry Allen to life, hopefully to more avail than Miller’s portrayal. Alternatively, the DCU could take things in another direction and utilize Wally West, a Flash brought to life by Keiynan Lonsdale in The CW’s Arrowverse.
In terms of when the Flash will join the DCU, he appears unlikely to show up anywhere in the ten projects announced so far, which are expected to take the slate up until at least 2027. After that point, Flash could make his way into the next batch of Chapter 1 movies and shows in 2028 or later.
Insomniac Games is fixing a factual error in Spider-Man 2 which led to Miles Morales having the wrong flag on his wall at home.
Players have pointed out that Miles has a large flag draped on one of the walls of his house, and that it appears to be the national flag of Cuba.
However, Miles and his family have no connection to Cuba, and are Puerto Rican instead.
The flags of Puerto Rico and Cuba have a similar design, with each featuring five stripes, a triangle on the left-hand side and a star in the middle. Their colours are different, however, with the Cuban flag having a red triangle and blue stripes, and the Puerto Rican flag having a blue triangle and red stripes.
As such, it would appear the issue was one of human error, with the wrong flag being placed on Miles’ wall by mistake.
Insomniac director of community and marketing James Stevenson has confirmed on Twitter that the team is working to fix the mistake in a future patch.
Responding to a follower who brought up the issue, Stevenson replied: “Fix is coming for that.”
Further exacerbating the mistake is the fact that the game actually has an alternate suit for Miles Morales which is designed like the Puerto Rico flag, but with the correct colours this time.
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Insomniac has previously said that it’s working on a New Game Plus mode and a mission replay feature which are expected to be added to the game in an update later this year. The flag error will likely be fixed in a patch long before this, however.
Can you make a big-budget, sci-fi film that isn’t a franchise, a sequel, or a reboot, and tackle it using an indie mindset? That’s what the team behind the film, The Creator did. The film, which tells a story about a war between humanity and artificial intelligence, is currently in theaters.
In today’s episode, No Film School’s Charles Haine speaks with DP Oren Soffer to discuss:
Being offered a co-DP position on the film
How shooting on one lens made the VFX much easier to work with
The differences in lenses over time that affect their consistency
Leaning into natural light as much as possible
Wanting to maintain the creative energy of guerilla-style filmmaking
How the project originally got the green light from the studio
Working in a very trusting environment
Looking at tons of reference images the director pulled from
Apparently, this got spun as a dig against Swift and Kelce, as opposed to her opinion about the NFL’s fervent response to a marketing opportunity. So, of course, Clarkson took to social media to clear the air. “Just a quick public service announcement everybody since this seems to be breaking news…Do not fall prey to clickbait, trash reporters twisting the facts again,” Clarkson wrote. “I did not bash anyone’s romance. I am pro romance. Yay romance.”
She continued, “Did y’all even watch what I actually said on my show? I just said I want to watch football when I tune in to watch football. Seems an appropriate request. Okay, carry on, and GO COWBOYS!”
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Do you know who else thought the NFL was “overdoing” the Traylor coverage? Travis Kelce. “I think it’s fun when they show who was at the game,” the 34-year-old Chiefs player told brother Jason Kelce on October 4 during an episode of their New Heights podcast, per People. “I think it brings a little bit more to the atmosphere, brings a little bit more to what you’re watching.”
Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny began dating in public in February of this year. Since then, eight months have passed and the couple has yet to make any official statement regarding their relationship. But after sharing romantic horseback rides, dinners with close friends, front-row seats at the Lakers game, and kisses at Coachella, we can say with certainty that the pictures say more than a thousand words.
Between one event and another, the couple’s style has been the common denominator, with Jenner, being the supermodel, leading the way. Most recently, she arrived at the Saturday Night Live after-party in a chic pants and loafers ensemble following Bad Bunny’s double-duty shift as both host and musical guest.
The trends this season are breathing new life into some of the most minimalist, boardroom-appropriate styles. It’s all about the return of the 90’s—with style icons like Carolyn Bessette, Julia Roberts, and Gwyneth Paltrow as the ultimate reference. In the midst of 2023, the L’Oréal ambassador has been one of the main celebrities pushing this aesthetic, largely driven by her stylist Dani Michelle.
For this occasion, Kendall Jenner wore black trousers with a loose silhouette, matched with black normcore loafers distinguished by their discreet heel. She complemented the outfit with a camel suede jacket. Instead of her usual ponytail, Jenner opted to wear her hair down with waves at the ends.
When it comes to complex souls-like RPGs such as Lords of the Fallen, it’s no secret that some beginner tips will come in handy. Especially considering CI Games brings even more confusing concepts into the mix by allowing players to venture between Axiom, the realm of the living, and Umbral, the realm of the dead. As a result, it doesn’t hurt to wrap your head around a couple of the game’s concepts before you throw yourself in the fire that is Lords of the Fallen.
Lords of the Fallen introduces novel ideas into the souls-like genre, such as Soulflaying, Respec, and your Umbral Lamp. Thankfully, these beginner tips will break down everything you need to understand the game and get the ball rolling. After that, you can also learn how to level up fast in Lords of the Fallen to make the most of your playthrough.
First and foremost, it’s a good idea to distinguish between the Axiom and Umbral realms. Most of your time will be spent in the Axiom realm, but you can look into the Umbral world by holding up your Umbral Lamp. You can find many secret doors and passages throughout Axiom by peering through your Umbral Lamp. For example, you must enter the Umbral Realm and find a secret passage to find the Skyrest Bridge Key.
You can pull out your Umbral Lamp by switching to it on your d-pad, pressing L-Ctrl on the keyboard and mouse, or pressing Left Trigger/L2 on your controller.
As a result, one of the best beginner tips is to thoroughly explore Axiom, which means using your Umbral Lamp to look for secret pathways everywhere and interacting with almost everything. If you don’t, you will miss many side missions and valuable loot throughout the game.
7 Using Your Umbral Lamp
Your Umbral Lamp can be used for more than just exploration or traveling between realms in Lords of the Fallen. In fact, you can do Wither damage with your Umbral Lamp using the Soulflay attack. Furthermore, this attack will pull the enemy’s soul out of their body and leave them vulnerable to a free hit. Aside from that, you can use your Umbral Lamp to interact with the environment, destroy nodes, and even create new forge Vestiges by planting a vestige seed when you find an Umbral bed of flowers.
You can fully cross over to the Umbral Realm by pressing Q while your Umbral Lamp is out (Square or X on Controller). Just be careful; the longer you spend in the Umbral Realm, the more difficult the enemies get.
Although it’s essential to get familiar with using your Umbral Lamp, its Soul Flaying power is limited. Every time you use it on an enemy, you will use up a Soulflay charge, which you can identify by the white blocks under your stamina and mana bars. You need to use your Umbral Lamp to siphon enemies or Umbral blisters to replenish these bars. However, using your Umbral Lamp to perform other commands, such as opening chests or pulling out platforms, doesn’t cost a Soulflay charge.
6 Wither Health Explained
Wither health is one of the most confusing aspects of Lords of the Fallen. You can tell if you have it by the gray portion of your health bar. Every time you damage an enemy, a portion of your withered health will return to normal health. As a result, you can essentially never heal and just keep restoring your health this way. The catch is that if you take damage while having withered health, you will lose it all and take regular damage from the attack.
You gain Wither health by traveling to the Umbral Realm, healing in the realm, taking damage from enemies, or simply blocking. By knowing how Wither health works and effectively using it, you can save your Sanguinarix charges for when you really need them.
5 Summon Allies for Boss Fights
Like any other soul-like game, Lords of the Fallen is full of difficult boss fights. Fortunately, CI Games was kind enough to allow players to summon allies to aid them in boss fights. If you encounter a moth statue before entering a boss fight arena, you can interact with it to summon allies to aid you. Unfortunately, this does not apply to all boss fights; for example, Pieta, She of Blessed Renewal, must be bested alone.
4 How To Use Vestige Seeds
If you’ve ever played the Dark Souls series,a Vestige is similar to a Bonfire in that they both serve as a resting and saving point. However, Lords of the Fallen also has Umbral flowerbeds, which you can plant a vestige seed to create a new Vestige. You can get vestige seeds as a drop after a boss fight, from certain Umbral enemies or Molhu at Skyrest Bridge for 2,500 Vigor.
It’s also worth noting that only one Umbral flowerbed can be active at any time. So, if you use a vestige seedling on a new Umbral flowerbed, your old one will no longer be active.
3 Healing Tips
Apart from healing from Wither damage, Sanguinarix is the primary means of restoring your health in Lords of the Fallen. Your Sanguinariz will initially have a few charges, but you can upgrade it to get more. You will need Saintly Quintessence, which you can get by Soulflaying Umbral Tumors in the Umbral Realm. Once you have obtained it, give it to Pieta at Skyrest Bridge to increase the number of charges in your Sanguinarix.
Alternatively, you can use the Briostone consumable to heal you over time. If you want to buy some, you can purchase them from Stomund at Skyrest Bridge for 200 Vigor.
2 Upgrading Weapons and Socket Runes
It won’t feel like you’re scaling with the game difficulty if you don’t upgrade your weapons. As a result, you must upgrade your weapons and armor at Lords of the Fallen’s sole blacksmith, Gerlinde. To upgrade your gear, you will need Deralim, which can be found throughout the game, dropped by enemies, and even purchased from some merchants.
You must first unlock Gerlinde, the blacksmith, by rescuing her from her cell below the Blind Agatha Vestige.
On top of upgrading weapons, Gerlinde’s services also allow you to socket runes into your weapons in Lords of the Fallen. This is possible after you have given her the Cracked Rune Tablet from Fitroy’s Gorge. Socket runes can do various things, such as reducing the weight of your weapon, restoring mana when you hit an enemy, or increasing strength scaling. In general, socket runes act like attributes for your weapons, making them more rewarding to use.
1 Respec Your Build
Although there are only six stats to upgrade in Lords of the Fallen, you may want to change how your build turned out. Alternatively, you could be stuck at a certain point because your build lacks Vitality or Strength. In any case, you can respec your build, which allows you to reallocate your character’s stats. In other words, they can be rebuilt from the ground up. However, it is not as simple as pressing a button.
You first need to beat Pieta, She of Blessed Renewal. Second, you need to buy Rebirth Chrysalis from Molhu at Skyrest Bridge for a light 8,00 vigor. Once you have obtained it, proceed to Pieta’s vestige and exhaust her dialogue options until you see “Use Rebirth Chrysalis.” Now, you can shoot for a new build in Lords of the Fallen.
The Lords of the Fallen is a single-player/co-op Action-RPG set in a high fantasy setting, acting as a soft reboot of the original entry, Lords of the Fallen. Over a thousand years after the first game’s events, The Lords of the Fallen will set players in a massive world -one five times the size of the original – filled with NPC quests, dungeons, bosses, and other surprises that await. To navigate the lands between the living and the dead, players will fully customize their hero before embarking on the adventure. They can tackle the entire game solo or cooperatively with a friend online. The Lords of the Fallen emphasizes fast-action combat and a souls-like approach to world navigation. The release date hasn’t been set for the title, but it will be exclusively available on PC and next-generation consoles.
Saturday night was already going pretty well for fans of Snoop Dogg and Step Brothers stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. The rap legend joined the two actors on stage at the Best Night of Your Life 2 benefit show, to perform “Boats ‘N Hoes,” the song originally sung by the characters Dale and Brennan in the 2008 comedy. After performing a verse of “Boats ‘N Hoes” together, the trio then transitioned into the rapper’s 1994 hit, “Gin and Juice.”
Then, before Snoop could leave the stage, Reilly took the mic to announce that the rapper had celebrated his 52nd birthday the day prior.
“Yesterday was a very special day,” Reilly told the crowd at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre, in a video shared to Snoop’s Instagram. “It was Mr. Snoop Dogg’s birthday. We’re about to sing happy birthday to the greatest rapper in the world!”
The video shows Ferrell wheeling out a giant cake for the rapper, who uses the birthday candles to light a joint.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Reilly said, as the crowd launched into “Happy Birthday,” followed by Snoop blowing out his candles.
The rapper recently went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to confirm, once and for all, that he knows the most drug dealers of anyone on the planet. Host Jimmy Kimmel asked Snoop about the time Mike Epps enlisted the rapper to help him find weed in Iceland and Snoop confirmed that, yes, he know someone who knows someone in almost every country.
“Well, last time I checked I was the plug to your plug,” Snoop said. “I’m the connect. It’s good to have friends that have friends that are international and global and able to get you medicated and dedicated no matter where you at.”
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In September, Snoop teamed up with Chris Stapleton and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana to remake Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” for ESPN’s Monday Night Football.
Over 10,000 individuals — many of them prominent figures from British culture — have signed a letter condemning the atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7 and demanding the immediate release of the more than 200 civilians still being held hostage.
Among those who have signed the letter, titled the October Declaration, are “The Lion King” lyricist Tim Rice, playwright Tom Stoppard, “The Pianist” actor Maureen Lipman, “Doctor Who” actor Tracy Ann Oberman and “Dreamland” actor Frances Barber.
“On 7 October 2023 the State of Israel and her citizens, both Jews and non-Jews, were subjected to a brutal terrorist attack, which resulted in the murder, torture, rape and kidnapping of over 1,500 people,” the letter states. “More Jews were killed on that day than on any other day since the Holocaust. We are aware that Jews are not the only victims of this tragedy. Hamas knew that there would be consequences to 7 October, but the consequences did not weigh with Hamas.”
The letter goes on to say: “We call for all the hostages taken on 7 October to be released immediately. It is an essential step on the path to peace and the cessation of hostilities.”
More than 2000 people were murdered by Hamas during the massacre two weeks ago, including children, senior citizens and in some cases entire families. At least 200 victims are still being held hostage in Gaza. Their ages range from 9 months old to people in their 80s and represent a number of nationalities as well as Israeli, including American, British, French and Thai. Israel is currently preparing a ground assault to try and retrieve the hostages and end Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza and throughout the region.
Other signatories to the letter include historian Tom Holland, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali and literary agent Neil Blair and women’s right campaigner (and inspiration for “Absolutely Fabulous” character Edina) Lynne Franks. Screenwriter Nicholas Martin, who wrote the recently-released movie “Golda,” starring Helen Mirren as the formidable Israeli Prime Minister, also signed the declaration.
The October Declaration comes on the heels of another letter, organized by Artists for Palestine U.K., signed by a number of British celebrities including actors Tilda Swinton, Charles Dance and Maxine Peake and comedian Steve Coogan which condemned Israel and failed to make any mention of Hamas’s action in Israels or express sympathy for those murdered.
At least one signatory to the Artists for Palestine U.K. letter, “Outlander” star Sam Heughan, has since retracted their signature. Heughan posted to Twitter: “I inadvertently signed something that does not reflect my beliefs. I believed it was a simple call for PEACE… it wasn’t.”
Laurence Fox‘s GB News show, in which stand-in presenter Martin Daubney interviewed Reform Party leader Richard Tice about the hot-button small boats issue, has become the latest to be found in breach by Ofcom.
The regulator has rapped GB News once again for “due impartiality” issues, following an interview between Daubney and Tice that was deemed to be “insufficiently challenged,” with the “limited alternative views presented dismissed,” according to today’s ruling.
During the program, right-wing commentator Daubney, standing in for Fox, gave his views on the topic of immigration and asylum policy, in the context of controversy over small boats crossing the English Channel. He also interviewed the leader of the Reform Party, Tice, which was flagged up by complainants to Ofcom.
“We considered that immigration and asylum policy constituted a matter of major political controversy and a major matter relating to current public policy,” Ofcom said. “When dealing with major matters, all Ofcom licensees must comply with the heightened special impartiality requirements in the Code.”
As with many current Ofcom investigations into GB News, the network was found in breach of rules 5.11 and 5.12 of its code, which look to balance freedom of expression with due impartiality. The regulator has, however, decided against investigating Conservative Party Vice-Chair Lee Anderson’s interview with Home Secretary Suella Braverman, saying that it was “satisfied this was a current affairs programme” and that due impartiality was met.
Ofcom has another 12 GB News investigations open, most of which concern due impartiality, and Fox’s show is the fourth to be rapped this year.
While Fox wasn’t actually presenting the show, he is the subject of the most high-profile of these investigations, which is looking into his interview with Dan Wootton in which he denigrated a female journalist by saying that no “self-respecting man” would “climb into bed” with her. That incident is Ofcom’s most complained about show of this year so far.
Earlier this month, GB News fired Fox following his behavior on Wootton’s show, and he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to controversial low-emission zone cameras in London shortly afterwards.
Fellow GB News presenter Calvin Robinson has also lost his job after declaring his support for Wootton, who remains off air while he is being investigated by the news network
Paddy Cosgrave, the CEO and co-founder of Web Summit, has stepped down from the role in the wake of comments he made about the current Israel-Hamas conflict. On Oct. 13, Cosgrave tweeted, “I’m shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing. War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.”
I’m shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing. War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.
In the wake of his comments, Meta, Amazon, and more attendees pulled out of this year’s conference, which is scheduled for Nov. 13 to Nov. 16 in Lisbon, Portgual.
Cosgrave went on to reiterate his message on Oct. 16, when he tweeted, “To repeat: War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies & should be called out for what they are. I will not relent.”
To repeat: War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies & should be called out for what they are.
Cosgrave also issued a lengthy apology on Web Summit’s website. He wrote in party, “To reiterate what I said last week: I unreservedly condemn Hamas’ evil, disgusting and monstrous October 7 attack. I also call for the unconditional release of all hostages. As a parent, I sympathise deeply with the families of the victims of this appalling act, and mourn for all the innocent lives lost in this and other wars.”
“I unequivocally support Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. I unequivocally support a two-state solution,” Cosgrave continued. “
Like so many figures globally, I also believe that, in defending itself, Israel should adhere to international law and the Geneva Conventions – ie, not commit war crimes. This belief applies equally to any state in any war. No country should breach these laws, even if atrocities were committed against it.
I have always been anti-war and pro-international law. It is precisely at our darkest moments that we must try to uphold the principles that make us civilised.”
More than 70,000 people attended Web Summit’s conference last year. Cosgrave organized the first Web Summit conference in 2009. He later told Wired that when only 150 people showed up, “I thought nothing of it; I had no interest in conferences whatsoever.”
The next year brought a crowd of 400 which included Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Bono agreed to host a pub crawl for the 2011 conference, and the event grew from there.
A spokesperson for Web Summit told CNN that the company will appoint a new CEO ahead of this year’s conference.
EXCLUSIVE: Unscripted streamer Curiosity Stream is reviving classic British doc series Connections with science historian James Burke.
More than 45 years after Burke first made a Connections series with the BBC, global streamer Curiosity Stream is bringing back the brand as Connections with James Burke and will launch a batch of new episodes on November 9. You can watch the trailer above.
The series is known for its mind-blowing approach to looking at the past and the future, with Burke in each episode interlocking threads of knowledge to show how seemingly unrelated ideas connect and build pathways to the present.
The six episodes will cover topics such as how limitless energy has its roots in the Incas and the potato thousands of years ago, how the French Revolution was partly behind the rise of big data and why a cup of coffee in the 18th Century is directly connected with genetic engineering in humans of the future.
He’ll address issues such as AI and quantum computing and will jump in a sensory deprivation tank with a man who took LSD with dolphins to discover syphilis in the French aristocracy kicked of a journey towards the nanfabricator — a machine that can build anything, molecule by molecule. Producer Bigger Bang is also incorporating CGI and virtual reality sequences to reflect Burke’s imagination.
“The stakes we’re facing are high – AI, limitless energy, genetically-engineered superhumans – and there is no better guide through this universe of connected people and ideas than the iconic science historian James Burke,” said Rob Burk, Head of Content for Curiosity. “We are thrilled to be working, once again, with our colleagues at Bigger Bang to bring back this groundbreaking series and reimagine it for a modern age.”
“The original Connections was perhaps the most influential documentary series of its era, greatly inspiring my desire to become a filmmaker,” said Iain Riddick at UK indie Bigger Bang, which is making the show. “James is a hero of mine, so collaborating with him to bring Connections back to the screen has been an incredible thrill. Today, Connections feels more relevant than ever as we stand at a major inflection point, with technology on the verge of transforming our lives profoundly.”
Riddick is the executive producer for Bigger Bang, with John Cavanagh doing the same for Curiosity. Burk commissioned the show.
The BBC’s Connections first broadcast in 1978 and made a star of Burke, whose awe-inspiring journeys through science history resonated with audiences. A second season was made in 1994 and a third in 1997. Burke also made The Day the Universe Changed, which follows a similar interlinking science format.
“This time round James wanted his Connections to explore not only how we arrived at today, but also how we can shape the future we desire,” said Riddick. “At Bigger Bang, our aspiration is always to go big and bold. So when considering how to revive such a legendary broadcaster and extraordinary series, we knew we had to tell each of the six mind-blowing stories in a unique way.
“We developed a virtual world using CGI that we named ‘MindSpace,’ where James can conjure up any crucial moment or significant idea from history. I’m thrilled by what we’ve created with James and look forward to sharing it with audiences worldwide. His foresight remains legendary.”
Curiosity Stream currently has more than 25 million total paying subscribers worldwide, and is available in more than 175 countries. Discovery founder John Hendricks launched the service in 2015 alongside his daughter, Elizabeth Hendricks, who was its first CEO.
Burke added: “Increasingly today, change happens too fast for most of us to handle. Connections shows how this happens: because when things come together in new ways, 1+1=3. The connective approach offers a way to second-guess that process. And predict the future.”
After apologizing for remarks made following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, CAA’s co-chief of the motion pictures department Maha Dakhil is stepping away from her leadership role in the division. Additionally she’s resigning from the Century City-based firm’s internal agency board.
Dakhil, whose clients include Tom Cruise, Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Anne Hathaway and more, came under scrutiny for an Instagram post that had been highly critical of Israel and referenced “genocide.” That post was later deleted and the agent apologized for the remarks.
“I made a mistake with a repost in my Instagram story, which used hurtful language,” Dakhil wrote in an Oct. 19 statement. “Like so many of us, I have been reeling with heartbreak. I pride myself on being on the side of humanity and peace. I’m so grateful to Jewish friends and colleagues who pointed out the implications and further educated me. I immediately took the repost down. I’m sorry for the pain I have caused.”
As word of the post reverberated across town, attention turned to what action, if any, that the Bryan Lourd-run major agency — which was subject to multiple headlines about the comments — would take in response. While Dakhil will not lead the motion pictures department, she will continue to work with clients.
The shake-up reflects the fraught social media environment in the weeks since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, and the country’s airstrike response in Gaza. Leaders like Jonathan Greenblatt, who runs the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have encouraged Hollywood voices to speak out firmly in favor of Israel, arguing, “In light of how distorting social media algorithms can present the world, it’s even more important for these voices to cut through.” Earlier this year, the ADL published a report stating that 2022 saw a “record-setting” number of antisemitic incidents (including harassment and vandalism) in Los Angeles.
But while major studios — including Disney, Paramount and Comcast — issued donations to humanitarian organizations after the attack and executives like Bob Iger and Shari Redstone condemned Hamas’ actions, there’s been a groundswell of activist attention in Hollywood on the perceived lack of similar support for the Palestinian people.
In the days following the attack, a petition circulated with 700-plus entertainment industry names signing an open letter in support of Israel, which included signatures of the top execs at CAA including Lourd and co-chairmen Richard Lovett and Kevin Huvane. “The open letter calls on the entertainment community to speak out forcefully against Hamas, to support Israel,” that note read.
Shortly after, an A-list group of at least 57 stars put their name to a letter addressed to President Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. “We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” that letter read.
The conflict has raised a debate about when and how Hollywood companies should weigh in on a divisive issue that has fractured opinion among typically liberal-leaning executives and talent. While the Directors Guild and SAG-AFTRA released statements on Oct. 11 and Oct. 13 deploring the initial Hamas attack, the Writers Guild of America held off from comment as the board was divided on a response and ultimately didn’t make a statement.
Stephen Sondheim had a genius for genre. Some of his best works were adapted from very niche sources like penny dreadfuls (“Sweeney Todd”), epistolary novels (“Passion”) and Roman comedies (“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”). Leaning hard into their specific styles, he mined their expressive potential in songs that could hardly be improved and never sounded alike.
Still, for him and for others, surrealism was often a genre too far. Musical theater is surreal enough already. (Why did that taciturn man suddenly start singing? Who are those dancing women in lingerie?) Building a show on a willfully irrational source risks doubling down on the weirdness, leading to “Huh?” results like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” and Sondheim’s own “Anyone Can Whistle.”
So as we waited what seemed like decades for what would turn out to be his last musical, never quite knowing if he’d ditched it or not, the dribbles of information he and his collaborators let drop suggested that the new show — eventually titled “Here We Are” — might be misbegotten.
Not only are the two Luis Buñuel films that Sondheim and the playwright David Ives took as their inspiration maximally surrealist, they are also surreal in different, seemingly incompatible ways. “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) is a sunny romp about a group of friends who, seeking a meal, are mysteriously unable to find one. “The Exterminating Angel” (1962) is a much darker affair, about a dinner party no one can leave. Both movies ridicule aristocrats who are underfed yet over-sated: people for whom nothing is ever enough. But one is like the silky tartness of a lemon meringue pie and the other like chicken bones stuck in your throat.
The best good news about “Here We Are,” the combo platter Buñuel musical that opened on Sunday at the Shed, nearly two years after Sondheim’s death in November 2021, is that it justifies the idea of merging these two works and succeeds in making a surrealist musical expressive. In Joe Mantello’s breathtakingly chic and shapely production, with a cast of can-you-top-this Broadway treasures, it is never less than a pleasure to watch as it confidently polishes and embraces its illogic. Musically, it’s fully if a little skimpily Sondheim, and entirely worthy of his catalog. That it is also a bit cold, only occasionally moving in the way that song would ideally allow, may speak to the reason he had so much trouble writing it.
The first act, about an hour long and with perhaps seven numbers — though it’s hard to count because they weave in and out of the dialogue — introduces us to Ives’s American versions of Buñuel’s French gourmands from “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.” Leo Brink (Bobby Cannavale) is a crass tycoon and Marianne Brink (Rachel Bay Jones) a society decorator; their Saturday morning is interrupted when four of their circle arrive at the couple’s hyper-sleek apartment, insisting they’ve been invited for brunch.
The interlopers include Paul Zimmer (Jeremy Shamos), a plastic surgeon celebrating his 1,000th nose job, and his wife, Claudia Bursik-Zimmer (Amber Gray), an agent, she brays, for “a major entertainment entity.” Along with them are Raffael Santello Di Santicci (Steven Pasquale), the horndog ambassador from a Mediterranean country called Moranda, and Fritz (Micaela Diamond), Marianne’s sour younger sister, a revolutionary with champagne tastes.
Ives quickly and amusingly delineates the six with specific and almost universally obnoxious traits. Raffael, who butchers his English, and Claudia, quick to pull rank, have a weekly assignation behind Paul’s back; Paul and Leo run a drug cartel with Raffael’s ambassadorial assistance. Fritz is a pill. As they go on the road in search of a meal, accompanied by a Sondheim vamp that starts out marvelously jaunty and ends like water swirling down a drain, each reveals worse and worse traits, except for Marianne, who is too dim to be venal. When she asks her husband to “buy this perfect day” for her, it seems less acquisitive than sentimental.
The changes of scenery as they visit various establishments featuring outré waiters (Tracie Bennett and Denis O’Hare) in ever more ludicrous wigs (by Robert Pickens and Katie Gell) are accomplished with swift grace on David Zinn’s shiny white box of a set, as neon marquees descend from the flies and then descend further to form tables or banquettes. (Zinn’s costumes are also telegraphic, including Leo’s velour sweatsuit and Claudia’s sky-high purple Fendis.) The theme-and-variations format is enchanting, allowing Sondheim, the great puzzler, to treat songs almost as anagrams. Eventually, along with three other characters they pick up — a colonel (Francois Battiste), a soldier (Jin Ha) and a bishop (David Hyde Pierce) — the crew lands, by now starving, at Raffael’s embassy, where they dine as Act I ends.
Here the musical hinges into “The Exterminating Angel,” only instead of a completely different set of characters (Buñuel’s were Spanish, living under Franco), Ives, in a neat piece of joinery, continues with Leo and Marianne and the others. It is they who find it impossible to leave after dinner, and wind up, in Act II, sleeping, bickering and eventually fighting over food scraps as their metaphysical entrapment persists for days. Ives also complicates Buñuel’s antifascist, anti-bourgeois glee, in which plutocrats are exposed as pigs, by implicating the revolution as well; Fritz turns out to be less of a threat to her own way of life than she intended.
Clever as all that is, the windup has problems, as is true for many new shows finding their final shape. To make the characters in “Here We Are” worthy of punishment in the second act has meant making them too obviously awful in the first. Their brutishness throughout also lets us off Buñuel’s hook: His movies are about people whose sophistication and disposable income we should recognize, but “Here We Are,” which sometimes feels like a butterfly box, is about people we don’t dare to.
Had Sondheim written more songs for Act II — there are just a few, bunched at the beginning — that problem might have been eased. In any case, Mantello and Ives decided to reframe the dearth as an opportunity. Before his death, Sondheim apparently agreed with them that the lack of songs in fact made structural sense: Once trapped in a repeating nightmare of deprivation, these characters would have no reason to sing. But then why retain the ones he’d already written?
Perhaps because the songs he did write are everything you could want them to be. There are fewer trick rhymes than usual, but laugh-out-loud jokes nonetheless. A rhapsodic love song for the soldier and a paean to superficiality for Marianne — “I want things to gleam./To be what they seem/And not what they are” — have the familiar Sondheimian depth and luster to crystallize complex insights.
Though we sorely miss that in Act II, and especially at the attempted triple lutz of an ending (which is probably two lutzes too many), Ives, the author of “Venus in Fur” and innumerable clever comedies, has done much to compensate. Some of his dialogue scenes — including a riveting colloquy between the questing Marianne and the questioning bishop — have the shape, rhythm and sorrowful wit of a Sondheim song. (Jones and Pierce are standouts in the excellent cast.) Also lovingly filling in blanks are the musical supervisor, Alexander Gemignani, and Sondheim’s longtime orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, who have arranged themes from the earlier part of the show as instrumental interludes to take up the slack in the later part.
You can understand their care. Pending the discovery of some unpublished juvenilia or yet another iteration of the penultimate “Road Show,” this is the last Sondheim musical we will ever have. That alone makes the production historic, a pressure that happily does not show in the product, which is fleet and flashy. Natasha Katz’s lighting, Tom Gibbons’s sound and Sam Pinkleton’s droll choreography do a lot of the heavy lifting for Mantello’s agenda.
More important, “Here We Are” is as experimental as Sondheim throughout his career wanted everything to be. To swim through its currents of echoes of earlier work — some “Anyone Can Whistle,” some “Passion,” some “Merrily We Roll Along” — is to understand the characters’ monstrous insatiability. We, too, will always want more, even when we’ve had what by any reasonable standards should already be more than enough.
Here We Are Through Jan. 21 at the Shed, Manhattan; theshed.org. Running time: 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Expected to hail from the planet Aldana, Prince Yan is wearing a different costume in this artwork than he did in The Marvels‘ ensemble poster.
Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel, who has a rumored connection to Prince Yan, also received a solo poster that highlights her powers in action.
Marvel Studios
In fact, all three of The Marvels leading heroines received the same style of solo posters, including Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel.
Marvel Studios
However, the poster of Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau or Photon differs in that she’s not making a fist like Carol or Kamala – rather, she has her palm open and arm outstretched.
This latest Captain Marvel 2 promotion may have included Park Seo-joon’s first MCU poster, but it’s far from his first appearance in The Marvels marketing.
The South Korean star best known for 2019’s Parasite has become a familiar face in the film’s teasers and trailers; and while Marvel Studios confirmed that he’s playing Prince Yan, questions still remain.
For instance, in Marvel Comics, Yan was the (sort of) husband of Captain Marvel and prince of Aldana, a planet where men can’t choose who they marry and where everyone speaks in rhymes.
Merchandising for The Marvels suggests Prince Yan and Carol Danvers’ marriage may be part of the film and why footage has been shown of them dancing.
Just how faithful to the comics Prince Yan will be and how he contributes to Captain Marvel 2‘s story remains to be seen, but Seo-joon’s new MCU character is definitely one to watch.
The Marvels arrives in theaters on Friday, November 10.
When you think of Halloween, it’s easy to think of terror and frights throughout the whole month of October. Sure, the perfect Halloween night for many would be to pop on a scary movie to get into the spirit. However, there may be some out there who still wish to experience the magic of All Hallows Eve but aren’t quite as hardened to the horror of horror movies. Well, if that’s you, there are many Halloween movies that aren’t scary at all. Here are the best non-scary movies to watch around Halloween.
Updated on October 22nd, 2023 by Samuel Cormier: If you love Halloween but aren’t a fan of horror movies, then you’ll be happy to know this article has been updated with more entries.
Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi
Rating
PG
Genres
Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
As one of Adam Sandler’s better films of late, Hotel Transylvania is the perfect family Halloween movie to pull laughs in a spook-ish atmosphere. Although it may not exactly be a “Halloween” movie, the film centers around iconic characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man, just to name a few. Hotel Transylvania is a hilarious, animated flick for the entire family, with simple writing and a similarly simple story that will keep kids and adults engaged the whole time.
The plot follows Count Dracula (Adam Sandler), owner of the Hotel Transylvania, a safe haven for monsters of all shapes and sizes. Dracula has invited everyone for his daughter Mabel’s (Selena Gomez) 118th Birthday. However, when an unexpected human guest turns up at the hotel, Dracula must risk everything to prevent the other monsters from finding out.
Right now you can stream Hotel Transylvania on fuboTV. You are able to watch Hotel Transylvania by renting or purchasing on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu.
Jack Black, Amy Ryan, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Ken Marino, Jillian Bell
Rating
PG
Genres
Adventure, Comedy, Family, Horror, Thriller
2015’sGoosebumpswas a surprise hit for everybody. While it doesn’t break any new ground, or shy away from being predictable, it is still a lot of fun. After moving to a small town, Zack (Dylan Minnette) befriends his new next-door neighbor, Hannah (Odeya Rush), whose Dad is the mysterious author R.L. Stine (Jack Black). However, after Zach accidentally unleashes the monsters from the terrifying tales, they all must come together to put the creatures back from whence they came.
Jack Black is always a delight on screen, and more so, as a socially inept author who writes terrifying monster stories. He also plays the villainous puppet, Slappy The Dummy, brilliantly. Being terrifyingly maniacal and still hilarious is something Jack Black pulls off so perfectly. Seeing all the creatures on screen together is strangely similar to The Cabin in the Woods, but obviously a family-friendly and tamer version. It’s a delight seeing all our favorite Goosebumps monsters come to life.
Right now you can stream Goosebumps on Netflix. You are able to stream Goosebumps by renting or purchasing on Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu.
Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer
Rating
PG
Genres
Animation, Comedy, Family, Horror, Sci-Fi
Stop-motion never runs short of spooky films. Frankenweenie is a refreshing take on the story of Frankenstein’s monster, where Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) is just a little kid and the monster is his dog Sparky. There is of course Igor, renamed Edgar, but also many other colorful characters such as the haunted unnamed “Weird Girl” (Catherine O’Hara) or the somber Elsa van Helsing (Winona Ryder). When his creation escapes, it causes chaos to his neighbors, so Victor must find Sparky — fast.
This movie makes the smart choice to show claymation in black and white, winking back at the old horror movies before color. Despite this oddity, it’s a very nice watch because the characters are so colorful in personality. They have the delightful design of big eyes and slender faces so recognizable from Tim Burton’s animated movies.
Right now you can stream Frankenweenie on fuboTV or Disney+. You are able to watch Frankenweenie by renting or purchasing on Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.
8 The Addams Family (1991)
Paramount Pictures Columbia Pictures
The Addams Family is a classic family Halloween movie to watch every year. It has an iconic cast that includes Christopher Lloyd, Anjelica Huston, Christina Ricci, and Raul Julia, just to name a few. The movie centers around a spooky family that could have in fact created the idea of Halloween themselves.
When a man claiming to be Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), the missing brother of Gomez Addams (Raul Julia), arrives at their home, the family is thrilled. Morticia Addams (Anjelica Huston) isn’t sold on who this man claims to be, after failing to recall important details of Gomez’s life. It is soon revealed why this man has arrived, and it could put the safety of the whole family at risk.
Right now you can stream The Addams Family on Prime Video or Paramount+. You are able to watch The Addams Family by renting or purchasing on Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.
Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman
Rating
PG
Genres
Animation, Family, Fantasy, Thriller
Probably one of the most well-known animated spooky movies, Coraline tells the story of the eponymous Coraline — NOT Caroline! (Dakota Fanning) as she moves into an old house with her absent parents. She soon discovers that there is an alternate version of this house where her parents love and cherish her, but are obsessed with giving her buttons for eyes. Coraline will have to enlist the help of Mr Bobbinsky the Russian mice tamer and former burlesque dancers April and Miriam, her odd neighbors, as well as local weird kid Wybie and his talking black cat, to save herself from her Other Parents.
Coraline creates a world so full of details, that fans are still theorizing about the events that unfold almost fifteen years later. The iconic design of Coraline and her blue hair, yellow raincoat, and sassy attitude make the movie recognizable from any frame. To watch and rewatch, at Halloween or anytime you feel like diving into a disturbing adventure into dreamland.
Right now you can stream Coraline on Prime Video or Max. You are able to watch Coraline by renting or purchasing on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu.
This Halloween classic is the perfect blend of comedy, charm, and Halloween spirit. The main draw to this movie is the hilarious witches, the Sanderson Sisters, who are brought to life by the brilliant Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy. After moving to Salem, a teenager and his younger sister explore an old abandoned house in the creepy woods of Salem, after being warned by their new-found friend not to go in there.
Soon, the three accidentally free a coven of witches who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a talking cat, they must find a way to stop the witches from becoming immortal. The three actresses manage to deliver exceptional chemistry and hilarity all throughout the film, notably with the iconic out-of-nowhere musical number of “I Put a Spell on You”. Sure, this movie is predictable and helms a simple story that we have seen ample times, but it’s saved by the phenomenally iconic characters.
Right now you can stream Hocus Pocus on Disney+. You are able to watch Hocus Pocus by renting or purchasing on Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.
5 The Witches (1990)
Warner Bros.
Adapted from a Roald Dahl novel of the same name, The Witches explores a world where witches disguise themselves as regular women but in reality sport a bald head, square feet with no toes, and claws instead of fingernails. Luke and his grandmother Helga, a witch hunter, unluckily find themselves at the exact hotel where the witches have their yearly convention to discuss their evil plan to transform all the children in the world into rats. They will have to find a way to prevent this disaster.
The character design of the witches is so strange, you forget to get spooked by their appearance. The very end of the movie is also delightfully absurd. Anjelica Houston delivers an unforgettable performance as the Grand High Witch, despite a character design as ugly as Morticia Addams is pretty! Her enigmatic smile and restrained acting style is exactly what was needed to drive the evilness of the witch leader. It’s a Halloween classic whose style may have aged a bit. Therefore, you can also choose to watch the 2020 remake of this film for more modern special effects, starring Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch.
You are able to watch The Witches by renting or purchasing on Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.
Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Gonzales-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, Ben Fransham
Rating
R
Genres
Comedy, Horror
While not exactly a family film, Taika Waititi’sWhat We Do in the Shadows is still one of the best non-scary Halloween movies to watch this year. What We Do in the Shadows centers around a documentary crew documenting the lives of three roommates who also happen to be vampires.
This hilarious mockumentary is a laugh-a-minute movie with relentless and uproarious jokes and so many comedic camera zoom-ins that, by the end, your stomach will be hurting. Waititi is perfect in the lead role as Viago, with Jemaine Clement and Jonny Brugh also delivering hilarious performances. The movie is such a cult classic that it led to an equally brilliant, dare we say, better, Emmy-nominated TV series.
You are able to watch What We Do in the Shadows by renting or purchasing on Google Play or Vudu.
Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Zach Woods, Ed Begley Jr.
Rating
PG-13
Genres
Comedy, Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
This hilarious comedy flick isn’t only one of the best Halloween movies, scary or not, but is among many of the best comedies of all time. After three scientists lose their jobs at a University, they decide to form a group called the Ghostbusters, which is a group that uses tech to defeat any and all supernatural entities. When a gateway to another dimension is opened, they must use everything to prevent evil from being released.
The film is nothing short of iconic, from the Giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man showdown, to the first encounter with Slimer, and Rick Moranis giving a gut–busting performance as the nosy neighbor. The cast holds some of the best the ’80s had to offer, with Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Sigourney Weaver, and Rick Moranis, just to name a few. Sure, this movie may be PG and is a little dated with its humor, but Ghostbustersis nothing but legendary, and deserves to be watched by everyone around Halloween.
Right now you can stream Ghostbusters on Prime Video, fuboTV, and Peacock. You are able to watch Ghostbusters by renting or purchasing on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu.
Bill Pullman, Christina Ricci, Eric Idle, Ben Stein, Chauncey Leopardi, Spencer Vrooman
Rating
PG
Genres
Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Ghosts don’t have to be evil entities; sometimes, they’re just looking for a friend. In Casper, the protagonists are 13-year-old Kat (Halloween queen Christina Ricci) and her father, Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman), a ghost therapist who travels the country to help lost souls, and attempts to find of his deceased wife. One day, spoiled and broke heiress Carrigan Crittenden hires Dr. Harvey to coax out the ghosts of the gigantic old manor that she inherited in Friendship, Maine. The duo moves in, but as Dr. Harvey has to deal with three cruel jokester ghosts, Kat comes to develop a friendship with Casper, the ghost of a boy around her age. Kat will learn more and more about Casper’s life as well as his father, a rich inventor who lived in this house…
This star-studded, comforting cast and heart-warming story make for a perfect movie to snuggle with a loved one and a nice hot chocolate around Halloween. The design of Casper’s character is cartoonish enough that the movie ages well, and the spooky backdrop of a gigantic abandoned house is simply to die for. Characters have clear-cut intentions, making for a plot that is easy to follow for viewers of all ages.
Right now you can watch Casper on fuboTV or Netflix. You are able to stream Casper by renting or purchasing on Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu.
Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, K.C. Martel
Rating
PG
Genres
Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
What is there to say that hasn’t already been said?E.T. the Extraterrestrial is easily among acclaimed director Steven Spielberg’s best work, and that is very hard to achieve considering his impressive filmography. E.T. follows a young child named Elliott (Henry Thomas), as he stumbles upon a gentle and friendly alien, who was stranded on Earth, and is searching for a way to get home. The two become the best of friends, and they must avoid the government, which wants to capture E.T. for testing.
E.T. is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of friendship. The relationship between E.T. and Elliott is timeless and makes every single audience member wish for a relationship as close as theirs. The film is filled with iconic moments, with E.T. and Elliott flying across the moon in one of the most recognizable shots in cinematic history. There is also a great scene where Elliott dresses E.T. as a ghost during Halloween, and they walk by a child in a Yoda costume, which holds an awesome theory about E.T. recognizing Yoda. E.T. is a timeless motion picture for everyone to enjoy no matter how heartbreaking its ending might make you feel.
Now through November 20, everyone aged 18 or older in the US who donates blood at any blood donation center in the US can earn free content for Diablo IV. Blizzard also announced a special sweepstakes where players can win a PC with real human blood in it.
People need to log their blood donation on the Blood Harvest website to be eligible for the free content. Blizzard is aiming to reach a collective 666 quarts of blood donated. But even if the campaign falls short, players will earn a reward at 33% and 66% of the goal, with the final reward going out if the campaign reaches the full 666-quart target.
666 quarts of blood works out to 1,332 donations, Blizzard said. If the full amount is reached, everyone Diablo IV player–whether they donated blood or not–will be entered into a sweepstakes to win a custom-made PC featuring real human blood as part of its liquid cooling system. Here’s what that looks like:
We don’t know whose blood is in the PC
As for the blood donation rewards, they include a variety of in-game items like a dagger, axe, sword, and more. If the campaign reaches the full 666 quarts of blood, all players will get the Vermillion Eye Piebald horse. You can see all the reward tiers below.
Tier I–At 33% of the total goal, all players will receive the following Weapon Cosmetics:
Dagger: Bloodpetal Anlace
Axe: Bloodpetal Sever
Necromancer Focus: Bloodpetal Heart
Sword: Bloodpetal Blade
Druid Staff: Bloodpetal Bludgeon
The first reward tier
Tier II–At 66%, all players will receive Tier I rewards plus:
The Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian Armor Cosmetic
Looks good!
Tier III–At 100% participation, all players will receive Tier I and Tier II rewards plus:
The Vermilion Eye Piebald Mount
The sweepstakes to win the custom real human blood-infused PC will unlock.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Elaine Devry, whose career spanned film and dozens of television shows, died Sept. 20 at her home in Grants Pass, Oregon. She was 93 and no cause was given by the funeral home, which listed her under her married name of Davis.
After marrying him in November 1952, she first appeared the next year in the Rooney-starring comedy film A Slight Case of Larceny and on an episode of the Ronald Reagan-hosted CBS anthology series, General Electric Theater.
Devry also appeared in such films as China Doll (1958), Man-Trap (1961), The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961), Diary of a Madman (1963), With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), Bless the Beasts & Children (1971), The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973) and Herbie Rides Again (1974).
Her TV resume included many guest starring appearances in the early days of television, including stints on Bourbon Street Beat, Bachelor Father, Perry Mason, Death Valley Days, 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye to Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, My Three Sons, Family Affair, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Cannon.
She left acting in the late 1970s.
Born Thelma Elaine Mahnken on Jan. 10, 1930, in Compton, California, she modeled before moving to Butte, Montanta to marry a high school flame, Dan Ducich. The couple divorced in 1952.
She returned to California, meeting Rooney in Woodland Hills, and they married when she was 22 and he was 32, his fourth trip down the aisle. They divorced in 1958.
At a moment of war and deep division in the Middle East, a film co-directed by an Israeli and an Iranian is already a victory in and of itself. But the gripping sports drama Tatami, which follows a female judo champ whose career is severely jeopardized by Iran’s government during an international tournament, is more than just a promising collaboration between two filmmakers hailing from opposing sides of a major conflict.
Set during one nail-biting day at the world championship in Tbilisi, Tatami — whose title refers to the mat where judoka fighters engage in combat — is both a riveting story of an athlete trying to achieve gold for the first time, and a searing political thriller where Iranian women are subjected to persecution, intimidation and possibly kidnapping at the hands of their country’s far-reaching authoritarian regime. Vibrantly helmed and performed, with co-director and Cannes best actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) playing one of the leads, the film is a win both behind and in front of the camera.
Tatami
The Bottom Line
Gripping, in all senses of the term.
Venue: Tokyo International Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Arienne Mandi, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Jaime Ray Newman, Ash Goldeh, Lir Katz, Ash Goldeh, Valeriu Andriuta Directors: Guy Nattiv, Zar Amir Ebrahimi Screenwriters: Guy Nattiv, Elham Erfani
1 hour 45 minutes
Shot in stark black-and-white by DP Todd Martin (The Novice), who uses the Academy ratio to lend the drama a claustrophobic feel, Tatami bears some of the marks of classic boxing flicks like Body and Soul or The Set-Up, where a talented fighter is attacked by sinister forces outside the ring while taking a pummeling inside it. Here, those forces are the political operatives sent to Tbilisi to prevent national champion Leila Hosseini (the impressive Arienne Mandi, an American actress of Chilean and Iranian descent) from advancing too far in a tournament that could end with her fighting — and possibly losing to — the reigning Israeli champ, Shani Lavi (Lir Katz).
Instead of throwing the fight for the mob, Hosseini is coerced to declare forfeit for the glory of Iran. This she refuses to do so, winning one combat after another, and thus deepening the pressure on her coach, Maryam (Amir Ebrahimi), as well as on her husband (Ash Goldeh) back home. Her decision transforms Tatami into a riveting tale of women versus men, athletes versus government agents, and freedom versus oppression.
It’s also an engrossing sports flick in its own right, and one with a convincingly femme-centric point of view. Leila is a bull in the ring, taking out opponents with spectacular body slams (or whatever they’re called in judo) that she seems to pull out of her hat. She’s also a loving mother and wife — a fact that’s put to the test when the authorities start harassing her family, pressuring her to give up before she reaches the last round.
Maryam is under the gun as well, both as Leila’s longtime coach and as a daughter whose father is quickly taken into custody, and possibly beaten, so that she’ll act on the regime’s behalf. The well-structured script (by co-director Guy Nattiv and Elham Erfani) reveals that Maryam may herself have forfeited a tournament when she was at the prime of her career, making her inner conflict all the more nerve-wracking.
The film’s pressure-cooker atmosphere builds to a crescendo as Leila gets closer to the final, surviving several beatings on the mat while government thugs, as well as the rest of her team, tighten their grip around her. Dynamic editing by Yuval Orr keeps the action on the move, cutting between multiple viewpoints — including that of a concerned tournament official, played by Jaime Ray Newman — as Martin’s roving camera takes us in and out of the ring, with the bulk of the movie set in one location.
In your typical fight flick, an underdog like Leila would wind up prevailing against all odds, winning the title even though her government does everything it can to stop her. That the filmmakers opted for a different denouement is both a welcome twist and a meaningful one, underscoring the grueling political situation both Leila and Maryam find themselves in. In Tatami, victory is less about getting the gold than about choosing whose side you’re on, even if it means losing so much else in the process.
In the most lacerating episode of Max’s dearly departed comedy The Other Two, the characters attend the premiere of a Broadway show titled 8 Gay Men with AIDS: A Poem in Many Hours. Wondering about future roles for his Method-actor boyfriend, who stars in the play, Drew Tarver’s Cary wonders, “Is there anything coming up that is prestigious and gay, but doesn’t have, like, nonstop trauma in it?”
The fact is, we’re not at a point, as a society, where we can stop telling stories of trauma. There remains a cultural need for narratives that foreground the AIDS epidemic, that acknowledge the horrors of the Holocaust and slavery. That said, if you’re going to do a trauma-fueled, decades-spanning odyssey of gay life from McCarthy to Reagan, weaving in the Red Scare and the early days of AIDS, comparisons to Angels in America are going to be inevitable. And you won’t win.
Airdate: 9 p.m. Sunday, October 29 (Showtime) Cast: Matthew Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Jelani Alladin, Noah J. Ricketts Creator: Ron Nyswaner
Ron Nyswaner’s Showtime limited series Fellow Travelers has the temporal reach of Angels in America but none of the formal experimentaion or operatic scope (which is a bit odd since Thomas Mallon’s source novel was previously adapted as an opera). A love story, a rudimentary history lesson and, yes, an ample dose of trauma porn, Fellow Travelers is by turns vital and stodgy, with passionate, emotional elements — stars Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey and Allison Williams are consistently compelling across eight hours — in conflict with by-the-numbers storylines.
The series begins in 1986 with Bomer’s Hawkins Fuller, introduced as an aging family man, finding out that Bailey’s Tim Laughlin has been hospitalized in San Francisco. “Hawk” is closeted, but living a life of fundamental hollowness. Tim is out, but dying.
Back in 1952, Hawk is a war hero, State Department up-and-comer and fixer for Senator Smith (Linus Roache, in a role that reduces real-life Senator Lester Hunt to a pale fictionalization), a liberal politician who hopes Hawk will marry his daughter Lucy (Williams). But Hawk, who has no ideology other than career advancement, is more interested in rough gay sexual encounters in parks and restrooms.
Then Hawk meets Tim, a former seminary student and anti-Communist true believer. Hawk helps Tim get a job with Senator Joseph McCarthy (Chris Bauer with a prosthetic penis-nose) on a staff with Roy Cohn (Will Brill) and Cohn’s protege David Schine (Matt Visser).
As McCarthy and company are making D.C. increasingly less safe for reds and homosexuals, the outgoing Hawk and the sexually timid Tim — the series dances around their age difference — begin a dalliance that progresses from kinky and transitory to kinky and romantic.
There’s also a storyline with Hawk’s kinda-ex Marcus (Jelani Alladin), an aspiring journalist who encounters racism and homophobia and falls for nightclub performer Frankie (Noah J. Rickets). If that sounds like an afterthought, it plays like one, too. Somebody correctly noted that the story needed this thread of intersectionality, but also refused to sacrifice the McCarthy Hearings material. The result is that Marcus and Frankie feel like narratve interlopers rather than fully realized characters.
The McCarthy subplot is thoroughly disposable — and sucks up too much oxygen from the first five episodes — but will be the thing that viewers uninterested in the love story gravitate toward. Brill has a rodent-like high energy as Cohn, and Bauer has fun playing dress-up. But the “They were all self-hating gays” angle is reductive — a weakness in the series.
The second half of the show hops among backdrops — Vietnam protests, the aftermath of the Harvey Milk assassination — but sets aside latex-enclosed re-enactments and historical namedropping for interpersonal relationships. It’s much stronger.
The limited appetite for Showtime’s bland, rubberized recent historical Showtime chronicles — The Loudest Voice,The Comey Rule— suggests that Fellow Travelers would have been better off focusing entirely on Bomer and Bailey, who are both exceptional. Though they never look quite convincing as either the younger or older incarnations of their characters, they overcome the mediocre makeup.
Bailey’s turn is more volatile, his youthful exuberance gradually giving way to tormented combustibility. In the more consistently externalized role, Bomer locates a wildly charismatic, self-destructive Don Draper streak in Hawk; even when he realizes he can’t go his whole life hurting the people who care about him most, Hawk can’t decide whom he wants to hurt least.
The sex scenes are plentiful and graphic. Nyswaner (Philadelphia) and the series directors, led by Daniel Minahan (Halston), tailor the chemistry and choreography of the couplings around Tim and Hawk’s shifting power dynamics. However frequently you might think, “I’ve never seen THAT position on TV,” the frequent boinking never feels gratuitous.
The cracks in Hawk’s impeccable exterior play compellingly off of Lucy’s staged domesticity. Williams has become one of our most underrated performers by specializing in characters whose unlikable obliviousness is a defense mechanism, not a flaw. The show wants you to empathize with Lucy — the “other woman” trapped in the middle of a love affair for the ages — but never to pity her, and Williams nails this instantly recognizable humanity. The tension any time Lucy is sizing up either her husband or her husband’s special friend is one of the best things in Fellow Travelers.
The series could have just been that — a chamber drama about three people connected by inconvenient and untenable love. Nobody would have needed to be saddled with synthetic crow’s feet or frosted graying hair. Or stare down a HUAC panel. Or get AIDS. Nobody would have needed to be traumatized beyond the inherent trauma of heartbreak. But nobody, of course, would make that series until the industry’s definition of “prestige” changes. This is what we get, and sometimes it’s effective enough.
Jon Stewart’s highly anticipated return to television with The Problem with Jon Stewart has come to an end, as he and Apple executives have decided to part ways.
The show’s staff were informed about the show’s end, just as taping for the third season was set to begin.
Apple had concerns about the subject matter Stewart planned to cover in the upcoming season, including China, Israel, and artificial intelligence.
Jon Stewart ruled the post-9/11 political comedy scene with his legendary run as the host of The Daily Show, a series which has led to the successful careers of numerous actors and comedians (Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Michael Che, Samantha Bee, Wyatt Cenac, Rob Corddry, Ed Helms, and many more). He left the show just before the candidacy of Donald Trump swept America, and swept Trump into office. Stewart’s long-awaited return to television came with the Apple TV+ series, The Problem with Jon Stewart in 2021. But now, it’s over.
According to The New York Times, “Mr. Stewart and Apple executives decided to part ways in recent days, two of the people said. Members of the show’s staff were informed about its end on Thursday. Taping of episodes for the third season was scheduled to begin within a couple of weeks, one of the people said.” CNN elaborated:
He told staff that the company had concerns about the subject matter Stewart planned for three shows during the upcoming season. Those topics included China, Israel and artificial intelligence.
It’s unclear where Stewart goes from here, but with his pedigree, he could likely do anything he’d like. Though whether he should do so with a behemoth of a company is another question.
Admittedly, Stewart and Apple were an odd pair; as Salon put it in a recent article, “It was inevitable that Apple would have a problem with The Problem with Jon Stewart.” Stewart has always been an advocate for people over profits, and so Apple’s history of controversial practices is incongruous with Stewart’s political ethos.
Then again, Apple TV+ does feel like a distinct entity from the rest of Apple’s practices, and they have produced some of the most prestigious and acclaimed programming of recent years. It’s the same issue with Disney; people may ideologically or morally disagree with their practices, but they watch their titles.
Stewart, however, rightfully wanted creative control over The Problem with Jon Stewart, so when Apple voiced their concerns (at best) about Stewart tackling issues surrounding Israel, China, and artificial intelligence, it made sense that Stewart would rather shut things down than compromise. It also made sense that Apple shot down these subjects, considering its corporate ties with China, the fact that it’s likely one of the studios on the opposite side of actors striking over artificial intelligence, and the fact that Stewart has been vocal about Israel’s war crimes against Gazans and the Palestinian people in general. All three of these subjects obviously ruffled feathers with Apple. Hopefully, we’ll still get to hear Stewart’s opinions at some point, in some fashion.
The Writers Guild of America spent the weekend embroiled in argument over whether it should denounce Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7. Ultimately, guild president Meredith Stiehm sent a note to some members acknowledging this was impossible, saying, “We found consensus out of reach.”
That inability to formally denounce the massacre of 1,400 Israelis by Hamas – men, women, children, babies and elderly – two weeks after the event infuriated some members of the guild, most prominently “24” and “Homeland” co-creator Howard Gordon, Joel Fields (“The Americans”) and Jonathan Prince (“American Dreams”), according to multiple individuals who spoke to TheWrap.
Some 75 guild members met over Zoom on Friday afternoon to share their frustrations about the matter. And since the guild’s decision to say nothing, several said it was beyond comprehension that their board could not do something all the other Hollywood guilds and major companies had already done — make a simple declaration denouncing the massacre of innocent civilians in the most brutal of ways, even while also recognizing Palestinian suffering.
“It’s shocking,” David Kohan, co-creator of “Will and Grace,” said in an interview with TheWrap. “To me, it’s either cowardice or something worse.”
“I want to know how come that is,” said Matti Leshem, another guild member. “I don’t want to draw conclusions about the board of the Writers Guild, but for me that’s the question: Why can’t they thread that needle?”
He added: “It’s a moral question. You’re either pro that, or against that. And if you’re not against what Hamas did, you’re pro-terror. You’re pro-raping women and burning babies.”
When reached by TheWrap, one board member declined to go into detail, but reflected the internal strife in saying only: “I’m too exhausted and frustrated from all this. Nothing to say.”
A spokesperson for the guild declined to comment on Sunday.
The difficulty seems to be among guild members who sympathize primarily with the Palestinian plight, or who do not agree with showing any support to Israel. Their views mirror those of the progressive left, which has shown support on campuses across the country for Palestinians and against Israel, and among activists like The Squad in Congress, who have called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
That view was reflected in an open letter posted on Medium on Saturday and signed by 267 members of the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the DGA. The letter accused “high profile members” of the WGA of exerting pressure to issue statements supporting Israel.
“We must tread carefully when endorsing any government’s actions, especially when said government has been accused of carrying out human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide,” the letter read.
“As storytellers, the narratives we craft matter, and the language we use has consequences,” the letter continued. “This is especially true in a moment where many of us who stand against genocide cannot even take that bare minimum position publicly without fear of being doxxed or blacklisted.”
The signatories did not use their names, only initials and guild affiliation. TheWrap could find no guild members willing to speak on behalf of that view.
Reached by TheWrap on Sunday, showrunner Gordon called the letter “a gross distortion” of what was being asked. “No one ever asked for that,” referring to an endorsement of Israel, he said.
He added: “Words like ‘genocide’ are being thrown around. All that was ever asked for by me or anyone else was merely acknowledging the horror.”
The letter provided no specific examples of signatories or others being blacklisted or doxxed for opposing Israel.
Like other Jewish progressives who have been reeling from an anti-Semitic backlash to the war in Gaza, those in the Writers Guild who have supported causes, from LGBTQ rights to Black Lives Matter, said they were wounded by the lack of support from their guild.
“I’ve always been a progressive,” Kohan said. “But the facts matter. The truth of the situation and the history matters. The actual context matters. If you don’t have the moral backbone to condemn an act of mass slaughter on civilians, women and elderly, does that make you pro-slaughter?”
In an interview with TheWrap before the controversy took root at the Writers Guild, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, urged Hollywood organizations to denounce Hamas’s actions as a moral imperative.
“The people creating the content are king,” he noted. “The brands and stories that come out of Hollywood have extraordinary power, as do the people behind them.”
He went on: “In this world that seems complicated, there are moments that are not complicated at all. This is one of them.”
But this moment has been extremely complicated inside the guild, which represents the heart of Hollywood storytelling.
“The Board of Directors has worked exhaustively to consider the great diversity of opinions among our members on this issue, and determine how best to address this as a Guild,” said Stiehm, without providing any further detail.
She added: “Like the membership itself, the Board’s viewpoints are varied, and we found consensus out of reach. For these reasons, we have decided not to comment publicly.”
Asked to respond to why a statement was necessary, Kohan said: “because all the other guilds have done it. And your reluctance to do it is now taking a stance. By not doing it, you’re taking a stance.”
“In a vacuum, maybe you wouldn’t take a stand. But not taking a stand is very much taking a stand.”
Gordon added: “To be characterized as taking a side in this conflict is factually and irresponsibly wrong. I would hope the guild leadership, if they’re not going to make a statement of sympathy for the victims of the terror attack, would at least disabuse anyone of that misapprehension.”
And, he added: “I’d like a toning down of the rhetoric, which isn’t helpful. I’d like to call for calm, even internally. We will never be understood if we’re yelling.”
In the vast digital cinematic landscape, where aspiring filmmakers are constantly vying for attention and recognition, having a well-constructed website is crucial. Your website is not just a digital calling card but also a powerful tool for showcasing your work, connecting with your audience, and advancing your film career!
However, even the most stunning website won’t yield results if it doesn’t attract traffic. This is where the art of navigation comes into play. In this guide, you’ll learn how you can amplify your film career website’s traffic by using several proven tips and tricks in the digital marketing world.
The Digital Cinematic Landscape
Before navigating the intricacies of website traffic, it’s essential to understand the digital cinematic landscape and its significance to a filmmaker. Today, filmmakers and scriptwriters have transcended the boundaries of conventional cinema. They now wear multiple hats, functioning as storytellers, content creators, and adept digital marketers.
The online landscape has played a pivotal role in democratizing the art of filmmaking, rendering it accessible even to fledgling filmmakers, and enabling them to connect with a worldwide audience! Your online footprint, with a special emphasis on your website, emerges as the pivotal avenue through which you interact with the global community.
The Role of Your Website
Your website is your online portfolio and the hub of your digital identity. It’s where you showcase your past work, share your vision, engage with your audience, and establish your brand as a filmmaker. It’s not just a static webpage but a dynamic platform that should evolve alongside your career. To ensure your website serves its purpose effectively, it needs regular traffic.
The Importance of Website Traffic
The importance of website traffic extends beyond mere statistics; it revolves around connecting with the ideal audience. When your website attracts visitors who possess a genuine interest in your work, it can usher in a multitude of benefits, including:
Recognition and Exposure
Increased traffic means more people see your work. This can lead to increased recognition in the film industry and more opportunities for collaboration or funding.
Audience Engagement
Traffic can help you build a dedicated fan base. Engaging with your audience through your website, social media, or newsletters can foster a loyal following. You can even use tools like WordPress forms to drive audience engagement by providing interactive content. Interactive elements like surveys, quizzes, and contact forms can make your site more appealing, encouraging visitors to spend more time on your site.
Networking Opportunities
As your website gains traction, you may receive inquiries from fellow filmmakers, producers, or industry professionals interested in your work.
Revenue Generation
For many filmmakers, websites can become a source of income through advertising, merchandise sales, or paid content.
The SEM Approach
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a powerful strategy for driving traffic to your film career website. It involves paid advertising to ensure your website appears prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs) when users search for relevant keywords. Here’s how you can use SEM effectively:
Keyword Research
Start by identifying keywords that are relevant to your work as a filmmaker. Use keyword research tools to find out what terms your target audience is searching for. Incorporate these keywords strategically into your website’s content, including blog posts, project descriptions, and meta tags.
Google Ads
Google Ads is a leading SEM platform. Create compelling ad campaigns targeting your chosen keywords. Craft engaging ad copy and set a budget that suits your needs. Google Ads offers various ad formats, including text ads, display ads, and video ads, allowing you to showcase your work creatively.
Landing Pages
When users click on your ads, they should land on relevant and well-designed pages on your website. These landing pages should provide valuable information and encourage users to take specific actions, such as signing up for your newsletter or viewing your film trailers.
Monitoring and Optimization
SEM is an ongoing process. Consistently oversee the effectiveness of your advertising initiatives and your website traffic by employing analytical tools such as Google Analytics. Adapt your campaigns in response to what proves successful and what doesn’t yield the desired results. Experiment with different keywords, ad copy, and landing page designs to optimize your results.
Budget Management
Establish a budget that aligns with your objectives and available resources. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) provides the flexibility to begin with modest investments and gradually expand as you receive favorable outcomes. Be sure to be mindful of your expenditures and prioritize maximizing your return on investment (ROI).
Local SEO
Don’t forget about local SEO if you’re targeting a specific geographic area. Ensure your website is optimized for local search by including location-specific keywords and creating Google My Business listings.
Beyond SEM: Additional Traffic Strategies
While SEM is a powerful tool, it’s not the only strategy to amplify your website’s traffic. Here are some additional tips:
1. High-Quality Content
Produce compelling, high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. This can include blog posts, videos, behind-the-scenes content, and interviews. Consistency in content creation is key.
2. Social Media Engagement
Leverage social media platforms to promote your website and engage with your audience. Share your work, interact with followers, and participate in conversations related to your niche.
3. Email Marketing
Build an email list of interested followers and send regular newsletters with updates on your projects, exclusive content, and promotions. Email marketing can foster a sense of community and loyalty.
4. Collaborations and Networking
Collaborate with other filmmakers, industry influencers, and websites related to your niche. Guest posting, podcast appearances, and joint projects can expose your website to new audiences.
5. User Experience (UX) Optimization
Ensure your website is user-friendly, mobile-responsive, and loads quickly. A positive user experience can keep visitors engaged and encourage them to explore your site further.
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In addition to SEM, invest in organic SEO efforts. This involves optimizing your website’s structure, content, and meta tags to improve its ranking in organic search results.
Final Word
As a filmmaker, navigating the complex landscape of the digital cinematic world demands a comprehensive approach. Your website acts as the doorway to your success, with web traffic serving as the pivotal element in realizing its full potential.
Building and sustaining website traffic requires dedication, creativity, and adaptability. As you refine your website and traffic-building strategies, you’ll find that your online presence as a filmmaker can become a powerful force in your career, opening doors to exciting opportunities and helping you make your mark in the dynamic world of digital cinema!
Chatty is a freelance writer from Manila. She finds joy in inspiring and educating others through writing. That’s why aside from her job as a language evaluator for local and international students, she spends her leisure time writing about various topics such as lifestyle, technology, and business.
Heart Fit Clinic on Talk to the Experts at 12 pm on QR Calgary. There is always a right time to examine just where your health truly is. It’s time to contact the Heart Fit Clinic! Ever had those spicy wings and experienced a bit of acid reflux but didn’t overthink it? Did you know…
The Brown family continues to brace for more changes. Christine Brown has left Kody Brown, and Janelle Brown is separated from him. Meri Brown is moving her business to Utah, which leaves Robyn Brown as the only one left who has a stable relationship with Kody. After years of having a united family, the Browns are more divided than ever.
Despite the tension and fighting with Kody, Christine, 51, reveals in the October 22 episode of Sister Wives that she would partake in a family reunion with Kody, 54, Meri, 52, Robyn, 45, and, of course, Janelle, 54. “I would do a family reunion again just to get the kids together. Absolutely. I wouldn’t have great conversations with Meri or Robyn or Kody,” Christine reveals.
Meri is on board with the idea as well. “I think I would be open to doing some sort of family reunion thing. I don’t think it would be too incredibly awkward,” she says.
Christine Brown in the October 22 episode. (TLC)
However, Kody adamantly refuses to consider the idea. “After the trash-talking that Christine has done on me, I would never want to do a family reunion with her at this point,” he reveals. Meanwhile, Robyn’s stance is firmly in the middle. “I feel like doing something like that when things aren’t resolved and worked through is just asking for trouble and fights,” she says.
As for Janelle, she remains close to Christine. She doesn’t have an opinion either way about a family reunion. “I don’t really care if I interact with Robyn and Meri from here forward,” she says.
Earlier in the episode, Kody goes off about Christine and calls her “pathetic.” He believes that his ex has “so much influence over Janelle.” Kody says that he’s “afraid” to tell Janelle because he doesn’t want Christine to immediately find out about it.
Given how he’s treated Janelle and his ongoing feud with Garrison and Gabe Brown, Christine is disappointed in Kody. “I’m so disgusted by Kody’s behavior. Just disgusted. Disappointed. Appalled,” she says about her ex-husband.
Christine declares that she’s tired of being called a “bad sister wife.” Christine is adamant about Kody’s favoritism toward Robyn and their kids has caused most of the problems in the family. “A bad sister wife takes her kids away from her husband, and that’s exactly what Christine has done. Robyn’s not guilty of that. Robyn’s just loyal, and Christine just wasn’t,” Kody says. New episodes of Sister Wives air Sundays on TLC.
“Only the River Flows,” a pitch-black crime noir from auteur Wei Shujun, comfortably topped the mainland Chinabox office on a quietish weekend.
The film, ostensibly a murder mystery, but one concerned more with atmosphere than linear plotting, earned $12.6 million (RMB90.8 million) in its opening three days, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, or close to a third of the market.
The film had its premiere in Cannes where Variety gave it a rave review, calling it an “inventive riff on Asian-noir” and making comparisons with films by Park Chan-wook and Diao Yinan.
“Only the River Flows” has since played at a succession of festivals ever since, including New Zealand, BFI London, Vancouver, Adelaide and last week’s Pingyao event in China.
Falling to second place at the box office after three weeks on top was Zhang Yimou’s “Under the Light,” which earned $6.9 million for a four-weekend cumulative of $176 million.
Chen Kaige’s war, propaganda film “The Volunteers: To the War” earned $5.3 million in third place. Its cumulative total passed a symbolic milestone and is currently $103 million.
CMC Pictures’ “Moscow Mission” earned $4.6 million for a cumulative of $84.7 million. Huayi’s “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” took fifth place, with $3.8 million for a running total of $131 million.
The four films that took second to fifth places were all released in the final days of September in time for the National Day ‘Golden Week’ holidays. Their figures are all slightly disappointing, but there have been few major new titles released so far in October, making for a slowing trend.
Artisan Gateway reports that the latest weekend was worth $39.1 million nationwide. The year-to-date box office in China is now $6.78 billion, a 76% improvement when compared with a woeful 2022, but still 12% shy of 2019 levels.
With J.Crew turning 40 this year, chief marketing officer Derek Yarbrough says this milestone is “not just about swimming in nostalgia, but it’s actually also about pushing the brand forward.”
Lauren Price, vice president of ecommerce & digital strategy, joined Yarbrough to discuss J.Crew’s legacy and future plans in the Variety Studio, presented by Canva, at Advertising Week. Price said J.Crew’s multigenerational reputation is one aspect of the brand that sets it apart. For instance, J.Crew’s spring campaign included Diane Keaton, Quinta Brunson, Aubrey Plaza and Michelle Yeoh, which allowed customers to resonate with each woman individually.
When asked about how the brand approaches messaging, Yarbrough said: “We look at it more from a creative lens, trying to capture authenticity in imagery, leading with aspiration in our styling, connecting with multigenerational stories about the brand, asking consumers to tell us your memories of J Crew.”
With authenticity becoming an increasingly important factor to customers, Price and Yarbrough discussed the importance of staying on top of trends to see how J.Crew can fit into what consumers are already interested in.
“For example, on TikTok when the coastal grandmother trends came back, there’s all these pictures of Diane Keaton floating around, and we’re like that is J.Crew,” Yarbrough said. “We own the cultural grandmother aesthetic, and so that was an exciting moment to jump on.”
Yarbrough said the brand’s 40th anniversary provides an opportunity to look to inspiration from the next generation, while still maintaining J.Crew’s heritage. But whether consumers resonate with the brand’s traditional looks or its new styles, Price hopes J.Crew can continue to make people feel “confident and excited.”
“No matter what’s going on in someone’s life, we can have a role in just bringing them a little bit of excitement, a little bit of joy and getting them prepared for what the day holds,” Price said.
The singer made some remarks on her daytime talk show about the wall-to-wall reporting every NFL broadcast has whenever the “Shake It Off” singer makes an appearance to support Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs. Following the show, reports said Clarkson had “bashed” the romance but the “Breakaway” singer is denying she did.
“Just a quick public service announcement everybody since this seems to be breaking news… Do not fall prey to clickbait, trash reporters twisting the facts again. I did not bash anyone’s romance,” Clarkson wrote in a statement she shared on Instagram.
Clarkson continued, “I am pro romance. Yay romance Did y’all even watch what I actually said on my show? I just said I want to watch football when I tune in to watch football. Seems an appropriate request. Okay, carry on, and GO COWBOYS!”
The NFL has been getting a lot of criticism for their coverage on Swift and Kelce that Saturday Night Live made a spoof about it during their season premiere. SNL star Bowen Yang made an appearance on Clarkson’s talk show where they talked about the sketch, which the singer found “hilarious” but not so much the actual coverage.
“It’s not hilarious how it is literally taking over the NFL for people that like watching sports now,” she said. “It’s like you’re watching ‘Housewives’ while you’re watching.”
The NFL itself released a statement defending its coverage of the couple saying, “We frequently change our bios and profile imagery based on what’s happening in and around our games, as well as culturally. The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce news has been a pop cultural moment we’ve leaned into in real-time, as it’s an intersection of sport and entertainment, and we’ve seen an incredible amount of positivity around the sport.”
If anyone who ACTUALLY watches football doesn’t think that the NFL was overdoing the TS coverage, then they’re weird. If you DON’T watch football, allow me to inform you that the NFL was overdoing it lol. Can’t believe anyone would come for Kelly for stating the obvious
Maha Dakhil, one of the top agents in Hollywood, is leaving her leadership roles at Creative Artists Agency after she posted on social media about Israel-Hamas.
CAA on Sunday confirmed that Dakhil resigned from the agency’s internal board and is stepping away for the time being from her position as co-head of the motion picture department.
Dakhil will still work with her clients at CAA, the agency said, declining further comment.
Dakhil’s client list includes big-name talents such as Tom Cruise, Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Ava DuVernay and Anne Hathaway, among others.
This decision was made after Dakhil reposted an Instagram Story on Wednesday, which read, in part, “You’re currently learning who supports genocide.” She added her own message over the repost stating, “That’s the line for me.” Dakhil subsequently posted a second photo that was captioned, “What’s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.”
The posts were later deleted and Dakhil issued an apology regarding her social media messages.
“I made a mistake with a repost in my Instagram story, which used hurtful language. Like so many of us, I have been reeling with heartbreak. I pride myself on being on the side of humanity and peace,” Dakhil told Variety in a statement. “I’m so grateful to Jewish friends and colleagues who pointed out the implications and further educated me. I immediately took the repost down. I’m sorry for the pain I have caused.”
The Hollywood power player posted another message on her Instagram Wednesday night that further clarified her position.
“Choice of words is important. Dialogue is healing. As each excruciating day passes, I’m listening and learning more from my friends. Thank you,” she wrote. “I’m holding all our families in my prayers…I am grieving for everyone who is suffering right now. I continue to mourn all innocent lives. My mission is peace.”
CAA issued its own statement about Israel-Hamas in an Oct. 10 Instagram post.
“CAA stands with the people of Israel, the Jewish community, and all innocent victims in the face of horrific acts of terrorism,” the talent agency wrote. “For those with family, friends, or loved ones living in or connected to Israel and the region, our thoughts are with you. We wish for peace for all people. You can join us in supporting the following humanitarian organizations working to provide aid and relief resources.”
An executive producer on Marvel’s latest, Loki Season 2, broke down a specific namedrop from the third episode that many assumed to be a reference to Doctor Strange 2.
In 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the titular sorcerer and teenage tagalong America Chavez found themselves on Earth-838, where Strange comes face to face with the Illuminati. The team was composed of several alternate and previously unseen incarnations of popular Marvel characters.
Many fans formulated the theory that Balder was featured only because he was originally set to appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, Loki executive producer Kevin Wright debunked the speculation surrounding the statue’s inclusion.
According to Wright (via ScreenRant), the reference to Balder in Episode 3 came about specifically because he was cut from Doctor Strange 2, noting that if he had shown up in the movie, the series wouldn’t have run with this “little gag:”
“No, and had that happened in Multiverse of Madness, we probably wouldn’t have done it. I think so much of the fun of that joke anyway is it just feels like Balder has been erased from history a bit. And so getting to do that joke and then put him up there and Loki is the one being erased from the history of this Norse mythology, Asgardian mythology, just felt like a fun flip. So in a way, them not being able to do it kind of cleared the ground for us that set up that little gag.”
As the producer put it, with Balder being present in the carving and Loki not even a part of it, they were able to make the joke that instead of one of Thor’s brothers being “erased from history,” it was the other.
Could Balder the Brave Still Show Up?
It remains to be seen whether or not Balder appears in the MCU at some point. It’s likely an even bigger question if Daniel Craig would be attached to play the character again.
Still, with Marvel Studios promising that there are more Thor stories yet to come (Love and Thunder’s message regarding the character returning) the character’s biological brother could have a place in an MCU tale yet to be told.
Whatever the case may be, Loki still has three episodes in its sophomore season yet to debut, with fresh episodes arriving on Disney+ on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. EST.
The traditional mascots of Halloween tend to be skeletons, witches, zombies and the like, but also, a handful of very specific horror characters. Namely Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Wolf Man. Occasionally we get supporting appearances by the Mummy, Frankenstein’s Bride, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We see them in Halloween decorations decade after decade, and on any and all kinds of Halloween merchandise. Now, most of these characters are technically in the public domain, as the trademark on those 19th-century novels they came from has long since expired. But it’s not just any versions of these characters that have become ubiquitous with spooky season. They’re the ones from Universal Pictures, who dominated Hollywood from the 1930s through the early ’50s.
Universal Pictures
But how did this happen? How did these specific versions of certain monsters become icons of a whole season? After all, most people under the age of 50 have never even seen those Universal Monsters movies. At least, not beyond clips used in other media. Even modern-day kids, for whom these films might as well be as old as the pyramids, know who these specific character archetypes are. Many still dress like them each Halloween. Ultimately, the story of how the Universal Monsters became synonymous with Halloween is about the power of the Hollywood dream machine, and how movies can create icons that transcend the big screen and enter the pop culture fabric. Decades after their supposed expiration date.
The Universal Monsters Become Hollywood’s First Big Franchise
The Universal Monsters as we know them launched in 1931, with the release of Dracula and Frankenstein. Both films were based on already celebrated novels, and had prior silent adaptations. But these versions were instant blockbusters, and the double whammy of Dracula and Frankenstein‘s massive success helped save Universal Studios financially that year. However, both versions deviated from their book incarnations. Dracula wearing a tuxedo and cape like a dapper gentleman? That was an invention of the 1924 stage play, popularized on screen by Bela Lugosi. Frankenstein’s iconic, lumbering look, with the flattop head and the bolts coming out of actor Boris Karloff’s neck? That was certainly not how Mary Shelley described him. No, that was the invention of makeup artist Jack Pierce. Once millions of moviegoers saw those versions, however, they imprinted on the mass consciousness. They became the definitive versions of Dracula and Frankenstein.
Universal Pictures
As many know now, Universal Pictures launched a whole universe of monster sequels coming from these films. There was The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, and eventually The Wolf Man. Starring Lon Chaney Jr., The Wolf Man was not based on any one werewolf story. But the idea of a werewolf, half-man/half-wolf hybrid who walks on two legs, was also Universal Pictures’ invention. By 1948, and after endless crossovers and sequels, the monster well had run dry. Dracula and Frankenstein had become parodies, mocked in comedic films like Universal’s own Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That might have been the end of them, were it not for the advent of television in the 1950s. Combined with a post-war suburban surge in trick or treating, this confluence of events would keep these versions of the classic monsters cemented in the public consciousness for all time. And forever linked to Halloween night.
The Monster Craze of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s
Mad Monster
These new television stations needed content. Lots of it. In 1957, those old Universal horror classics were sold as a package, and started to be rerun late at night, primarily on shows like Shock Theater. Baby Boomer kids became obsessed with the classic monsters, which their parents now discarded as silly camp. To them, they weren’t necessarily scary, they were cool, outsider figures to admire. This led to magazines celebrating those old movie boogeymen, like Famous Monsters of Filmland the very next year, and a ton of merchandise. Specifically, Halloween costumes. The chief producers of cheap, vinyl Halloween costumes from the ’50s through the mid-80s were Ben Cooper (pictured below) and Collegeville. They did their off-brand version of the Universal Monsters, and Frankenstein became their biggest seller. Suburban streets were flooded with pint-sized versions of the Universal Monsters on October 31, owning the night.
Doctor Durant’s Sanctum/YouTube
During this time, tons of other companies, like Dennison and even Hallmark, who produced Halloween merchandise used the images of the Universal Monsters, now beloved by American kids. However, not all had the official Universal license. In fact, most didn’t. But those other companies found a way to skirt around such pesky legalities. Their Frankenstein might be pale orange instead of green. Their Dracula might have more exaggerated features, so as to not be confused with Bela Lugosi. But everyone knew; these versions were the same monsters from those old movies. Changing little details was enough to not get sued by Universal, but every kid knew exactly who they were. And because they managed to do a dance around trademarks, they were used to sell everything from Colgate shampoo to Fritos chips, especially at Halloween. Off-brand or not, the Universal Monsters became the unofficial ambassadors of the holiday.
Dennison/Hallmark
The Universal Monsters Become Rock Stars, Sell Cereal, and Star in Cartoons
Aurora Plastics
The early ‘60s was when the “Monster Craze” peaked. During this time, model kits were all the rage so Aurora Plastics sold thousands of models of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Mummy. These began in 1962, and they sold so briskly that the plant where they were made had to run overtime to keep up with demand. The same year, a novelty single cashed in on the fad, Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “ The Monster Mash.” Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man all got a namecheck. The song became a Halloween season staple, and has remained so for 60 years. The creatures that terrorized the Greatest Generation were now the cuddly Halloween season icons of their children. Just as Santa and his elves became the mascots of Christmas, versions of Universal’s monsters were now the same for Halloween.
Filmation/General Mills/Hanna-Barbera/Universal Television/Children’s Television Workshop
The apex of this fad was the release of The Munsters on TV in 1964. In a Universal-produced show, Herman Munster’s makeup could legally look like the one made famous by Karloff. But it further ingrained the idea of these monsters as almost cuddly friends to kids, and representative of all things Halloween. They’d continue to become kid-friendly going into the ‘70s, and non-official versions turned into wholesome entertainment, with animated shows like The Groovie Ghoulies, the Count on Sesame Street, and the Monster cereals like Count Chocula and Franken Berry.
Tri-Star Pictures
There was even Drac Pack, a cartoon that reinvented the classic monsters as teenage superheroes. And, of course, Scooby-Doo had fun doing their own versions of the Universal Monsters, although there was always some boring old man under the mask. Halloween was mainly a kid’s holiday, so naturally, the monsters kids like the most ruled it. Although this trend slowed down after the ’70, it reached all the way into the ’80s, with all the Universal Monsters together (again, off-brand) fighting Goonies-style kids in The Monster Squad. That film, of course, became a Halloween night tradition.
Why the Classic Monsters Will Always Rule Halloween
This trend of paying homage (but also defanging) these icons continues all the way to the modern day, with franchises like Hotel Transylvania. All of these versions of the Universal Monsters are tweaked ever so slightly, as to avoid copyright infringement. However, it’s unmistakable who they are to anyone who knows. Collectively, all these knock-offs have kept the Universal Monsters alive in the minds of one generation after the next. Audiences would take seriously characters like Dracula on film, but in every instance, they’d have to ditch the old Universal trappings to become scary once more. Sure, these days, modern horror icons are just as ubiquitous with the season. But no others really embody Halloween night like the originals. As these classic Universal versions slowly became the domain of young kids, they became the domain of the Halloween season itself. And we don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.
Thanks to the ongoing Fan Fest 2023 event hosted in London, the first of two new jobs in Dawntrail, Final Fantasy XIV’s upcoming expansion has been announced. The Viper job is melee DPS class which dual wields swords swiftly to gain advantage over their opponents.
Fan Fest began with Naoki Yoshida on stage wearing what we now know to be Viper Job specific gear with both swords included. From here, fans viewed the above trailer which provided a brief overview as to how Viper will perform in combat. Following the trailer, Yoshida stated that the reason that Viper was created was that there were many people around the world who had asked for a dual-wielding DPS class that was different from Ninja. Viper’s gear will fall under the same category as Ninja, dexterity melee.
Image via Square Enix
Viper is an all-new class that has been designed specifically for Dawntrail. Unlike previous jobs which have either directly come from other Final Fantasy games, or taken inspiration from them, Viper has been created from the ground up for the upcoming expansion. The Viper job seems to align closely to the world of Tural as it was stated that the fighting style has been passed down via Turali hunters. In fact, the Viper can call on these ancient hunters for additional power whilst in battle. Curiously, the dual blades that the Viper wields can be combined into one singular two-handed weapon.
Like previous jobs. There will be no starting class requirements needed to become a Viper. All you will need is to have purchased Dawntrail, and have a single job at level 80, before making your way to Ul’dah to begin the quest at launch if you wish to do so.
The second job will be announced at Tokyo Fan Festival on January 7, 2024, and after how interesting and fresh Viper feels, the new class has a lot to live up to. With Yoshida at the helm, it undoubtedly will, and Dawntrail is shaping up to be another fantastic expansion to Final Fantasy XIV.
About the Author
Priscilla Wells
Priscilla is both the weekend editor and a freelance writer at Prima Games. She began working at Prima Games in early 2023. Prior to this, she spent nine years writing for both her own personal gaming blog, and other related websites. Priscilla has grown up playing video games, and most often plays her PS5 and Nintendo Switch consoles. You can find her playing Final Fantasy XIV, RuneScape, Pokemon GO, or lost in the latest RPG to release.
She is an Australian living in the United States with her American husband, three children, and her Basset Hound. Before moving to the United States, Priscilla obtained a Bachelors of Secondary Education majoring in English and Japanese Language. This allowed her to teach English and Japanese in a high school setting.
You can follow her on Twitter/X at @Cilllah
Chasing brunch to the brink of apocalypse is Stephen Sondheim at his most extreme, and the world premiere of “Here We Are,” which opened Off Broadway at the Shed on Sunday, is a study in overabundance.
Appetite for the late composer’s final musical, written with David Ives and directed by Joe Mantello, has made it a hot ticket among those familiar enough with the moneyed types depicted onstage to potentially be the butt of the joke. Though Sondheim made light sport of critiquing bourgeois mores in shows like “Company” and “Merrily We Roll Along,” here the rich are served hot like a bottomless buffet.
And let’s cut straight to the sweet stuff: Performances from the pinch-me-this-can’t-be-real cast are like a Broadway gourmand’s fever dream. Whatever else this deeply strange and Frankenstein-ed musical delivers — which is a lot — the production’s outrageous lineup of stars are as delectably odd as they’ve ever been (yes, even Denis O’Hare). By the time David Hyde Pierce makes a late act-one entrance as a martini-swilling bishop who covets designer heels, the needle on one’s pleasure odometer simply snaps off. That “Here We Are” ultimately doesn’t know when to stop becomes easy to forgive.
Developed over the decade prior to Sondheim’s death in 2021, the musical draws inspiration from two films by avant garde director Luis Buñuel, whose surrealism and social satire bind the show’s two stylistically disparate parts together.
The first act, modeled after “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972), follows a gaggle of frivolous friends (plus a token revolutionary, played with droll militancy by Micaela Diamond) on their frustrated quest for midday repast. Urbane and bizarre, it has the uncanny feel of an amusement park ride, with servers (played by O’Hare and scene-stealer Tracie Bennett as a series of severe European matrons) who frustrate rather than soothe their needy patrons. The herd ultimately retreats to the estate of Steven Pasquale’s louche lothario, where they finally dine.
Only it might be their last supper. Act two, drawn from “The Exterminating Angel” (1962), finds them trapped in an ornate study while doomsday looms outside. Book-lined and elaborately furnished, the room hems in its captives with slick-black walls and gold trim, a stark contrast to the first act’s laboratory-white, blank abyss. David Zinn’s set and Natasha Katz’s lighting are marvelous signifiers of mood and money, and serve as a primed canvas for Zinn’s splendid costumes, which do nearly as much identifying work as the stars who wear them.
Wafting about in a flowy, sky-blue negligee, Rachel Bay Jones’ lady of leisure is daft but sweet and accidentally profound. Her husband, a plush tracksuit-clad Bobby Cannavale, less distinctly drawn, could be any number of swaggering loudmouths the actor has played before. And their married pals, played by Amber Gray and Jeremy Shamos, are as image-obsessed as their posh-professional off-duty looks suggest — until, of course, they aren’t. Who could be when the only available toilet is a Ming vase in a closet?
The “we” in “Here We Are” — including a colonel played by an underused Francois Battiste and a soldier-turned-lover played by Jin Ha — are broadly sketched types. These are not psychologically complex characters whose interior lives are clarified in song, as many of Sondheim’s other scores have done. Aside from a hallucinatory second-act reverie that gives Jones a production high point, waiting for the end times proves less tuneful. A grand piano onstage inexplicably stops working, a nod to the coming end of the world. (“The Exterminating Angel” does not have a score.)
That unevenness is by design, the creators say, not because Sondheim’s work was left unfinished. His score to the first act, an itinerant black comedy, features motifs familiar from shows like “Into the Woods” (bouncy, wordy, existential), and the composer trying out a looser hand with profanity. There is at least one dud (about a restaurant that’s out of everything), but hearing new Sondheim, at times harshly amplified here, is a thrill on its own.
But the combination of Sondheim’s score with Ives’ absurd and often hilarious book, rather than generating synergy, feels uneasy and disjointed, like they’re pulling in opposite directions. Partly that’s because the plot itself only stumbles forward, first through non sequiturs and then inevitability. Two thin subplots are extraneous, including one that saddles Battiste’s homeland security officer, the only dark-skinned person onstage, with trauma that evokes little more than a loose end. Once the social satire of “Here We Are” has been established, the question merely goes from whether the rich will eat brunch to whether they’ll eat each other.
Appropriately enough, prodding the elite without actually eating them has become a perennial plat du jour at the Shed, where other recent shows, like “Straight Line Crazy” and “Help,” have gestured at condemning the privilege and inequality that resulted in the Hudson Yards megadevelopment without much bite.
“Here We Are” delights in the flavor of its vapid jet-sets, but ultimately spits them out in a resolution that betrays its own internal logic. It’s too much, and robs the show of its potential teeth. Better to know when the feast is done.
EXCLUSIVE: Korean webcomic platform Manta has named its first CEO.
The Seoul, Korea-based subscription service will be led by Travis Kim, effective immediately.
This comes as Manta looks to build a repository of IP and scale for the future. The company said the move will “cement” its autonomy from its parent, RIDI Corporation, and positions it to create more scale independently.
RIDI founder Kisik Bae founded the platform in late 2020, offering webtoons for a price – like the webtoons services that have exploded around the world in recent years.
New CEO Kim will spend his time between Korea and the U.S. He has an extensive background in operations, management, product management and scaling businesses. His most recent role was Chief Product Officer for CLASS101, a Korean start-up, and has worked closely with global businesses such as Amazon and LG Electronics.
“Travis has the proven leadership acumen, honed through a myriad of management roles, enabling him to take the helm at Manta and expedite the company’s growth,” said Bae, who predicted the platform would become a “powerhouse… in the future.”
“I am convinced that we have all witnessed Manta’s potential to be a significant force in the digital industry,” added Kim.
Manta operates in 175 countries and offers comics for a set monthly price, while most of its competitors have traditionally opted for pay-per-title models. The company has also said it expects IP owned by RIDI and Manta through the platform will be adapted for films and TV.
John Oliver got back to talking about politics on Last Week Tonight and took a swipe at O.J. Simpson.
While on the topic of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian, Oliver showcased a clip of when he proposed to Arslanian in front of the Taj Mahal. While doing so, Menendez serenaded Arslanian with a musical number from The Greatest Showman.
Menendez sang “Never Enough” which lyrics say that “towers of gold will never be enough,” which made Oliver relate it to Simpson.
“It doesn’t look great now to hear the world’s oldest theater kid sing about how ‘towers of gold will never be enough’ for him, given the multiple gold bars that were found in his actual house,” Oliver said. “I don’t care how much you like a song, if it sounds like a confession, maybe don’t sing it in public.”
Oliver then quipped, “It’s one of the many reasons the Sweeney Todd revival on Broadway stars Josh Groban and not O.J. Simpson because regardless of how good juice would be in the role, the knife crimes happening on stage wouldn’t be the knife crimes that I’d be thinking about.”
The Sweeney Todd revival on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre stars Groban alongside Annaleigh Ashford, Jordan Fisher, Maria Bilbao, Jamie Jackson, Gaten Matarazzo, John Rapson, Ruthie Ann Miles and Nicholas Christopher.
An intrepid high schooler in Sacramento undergoes the trials of love, family and self-discovery as she dreams of escaping to college on the East Coast.
Certificate:R Language, sexual content, brief graphic nudity and teen partying
Year: 2017
Duration: 1hr 33m
Audio: English – Audio Description, English [Original]
“Lady Bird” was produced by IAC Films, Scott Rudin Productions and Entertainment 360 with a budget of $10m. With it’s initial release on September 1st 2017 it made approximately $78.97m at the Box Office.
Dave Chappelle allegedly criticized Israel‘s bombing of Gaza at one of his recent Boston comedy tour stops.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the comedian initially condemned the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas during his show at TD Garden on Thursday, according to people in attendance. He reportedly then criticized Israel’s bombing of Gaza and accused the United States of aiding the slaughter of innocent people.
Those in attendance said Chappelle’s comments on the Israel-Hamas war came about after he said that he didn’t think students should lose their job offers for expressing their support for Palestinians. That’s when some people in the audience proceed to tell the comedian to “shut up,” evoking a response from Chappelle.
The comedian then allegedly went on to slam the Israeli government for cutting off water and other essential items to Gaza, as well as accused it of killing innocent civilians.
The attendees told the newspaper that some audience members cheered on Chappelle and shouted “Free Palestine” following his comments, while others yelled, “What about Hamas.”
He later reportedly added at the end of his show that “two wrongs don’t make a right” regarding Israeli policies and the Hamas attacks.
A spokesperson for the comedian told the WSJ that he “denies being in Boston last night,” though the TD Garden’s website shows Chappelle had two shows for his tour, Dave Chappelle Live: It’s a Celebration, B!%?#&$!, scheduled at the Boston event venue for Oct. 19 and 20. The Hollywood Reporter also has reached out to reps for Chappelle and TD Garden.
After months of wrangling at the negotiating table, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the union representing its musicians have reached a deal for a new contract.
The three-year contract, which the members of the American Federation of Musicians,Local 77,ratified on Saturday, includes salary raises of nearly 16 percent over three years, a central demand of the musicians, who had argued that they were underpaid compared with other leading ensembles.
The musicians’ union praised the agreement, which it said also included pay raises for substitutes as well as a requirement that the orchestra increase the number of musicians it hires each year to fill vacancies. The base salary for musicians in the orchestra in the 2022-23 season was $152,256, including compensation for recordings.
“We are an ensemble, and we stuck together and refused to accept substandard deal after substandard deal,” David Fay, a double bass player since 1984 and a union leader, said in a statement. “This contract is a victory for the present and future for the Philadelphia Orchestra and its world-class musicians.”
The contract was the first that the orchestra has negotiated since the coronavirus pandemic, which put financial strains on the ensemble, forcing the cancellation of more than 200 concerts and resulting in the loss of about $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees.
“Our joint challenge was to find a new and financially responsible path forward that recognizes and furthers the placement of the Philadelphia Orchestra as one of the world’s greatest musical ensembles,” said Ralph W. Muller and Michael D. Zisman, who lead the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Kimmel Center Inc., a joint entity that oversees the orchestra.
The dispute grew heated over the past several months as orchestra members rejected several proposals from management. A vote in August to authorize a strike, if needed, won the support of 95 percent of those participating. Concerts proceeded as usual and talks continued through the expiration of the old contract in early September.
The orchestra has gone through other painful periods in recent decades. It declared bankruptcy in 2011 after the financial crisis but has since balanced its budget and worked to rebuild. Despite expense cuts and bankruptcy, that has not been easy: In 2016, the musicians held a brief strike that began on the night of the orchestra’s season-opening gala.
BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2023 REVIEW! There is a scene at the start of this film which has real skill. Our heroine undergoes hypnosis. We focus on a metronome, then her arm, as she is told it’s getting heavier. These are some of the only close-ups in the entire movie. We get the sense that something has happened, but we don’t know what. The style flips back to business as usual, but all things feel precarious. Business as usual is a crowded zoo of people arranged in fun ways. The Hypnosis couldn’t upstage an actor if it tried. The jagged little sets with their corporate blobs of orange and blue trap the cast in the frame like fish in a tank. Even characters slouching in the distance have the power to raise a smile, so thickly are the manners spread about in this wild story.
They live in a weird world—Vera (Asta Kamma August) and Andre (Herbert Nordrum). Young application developers who have been sucked into the orbit of a snobbish technocrats ball by winning entry to a three-day camp for pitching to investors. But the event is an absolute Jonestown of smarmy business kung fu run by simmering guru Julian (David Fukamachi Regnfors), and the young couple have a serious problem on their plate – Vera has gone a bit mad.
“…the event is an absolute Jonestown of smarmy business kung fu run by simmering guru…”
What rockets this little movie along is the performance of Kamma August. This is a killer role that begs for a Hollywood remake someday. But for now, Kamma August is perfection in a provocative fable about the dangers of wishes. Hypnotized to stop smoking, Vera is instead traumatized by a vision of her childhood self uncovered by her therapist. As the days and hours pass, Vera sinks into a deepening episode that chafes against the conference one moment and then is feted by it the next. Our heroine randomly generates doom and delight for all. The other participants, trapped and unlikeable, seem to light up as Vera blazes past them half-crazy, spurring the reflection that they are not the ones flaming out today.
Vera herself, deeply unsure of her commitment to her boyfriend and worried they are selling out, assumes the effects of a knight errant conjured by her childhood self; an invisible dog, good humor, and being fearless around snacks.
Despite being in nearly every shot, Herbert Nordrum, as Andre, spends so much time reacting to Vera he resembles marginalia in a comedy Bible. His cherubic face is a twisted herald for the woe of it all. It’s trouble he is not fit to help with. He looks like he’s drowning. They all do. The hotel setting has an airless quality, forever glassed in.
Vera is a mystery to most around her. With a few snatched words of her hypnosis as clues, the audience sees some logic in the chaotic path she beats. Still, the film is at its best when unsure about our protagonist, finding her buried beneath business and clouded by trauma.
This is a great comedy that gets under your skin. It’s hard to imagine the two leads being any better than they are. Highly recommended.
The Kansas City Chief tight end, 34, has produced more than twice the yards received when Swift was in attendance, 34, according to a graphic shown by CBS during the Sunday, October 22, game versus the Los Angeles Chargers. When Swift was in the bleachers, Kelce gained 99 yards per game versus 46.5 when he’s “left to his own devices,” (a not-so-subtle reference to her song “Anti-Hero”).
Swift has made an appearance at four of Kelce’s NFL games this season. The “Lover” singer first attended a game at Arrowhead Stadium when the Chiefs played the Chicago Bears in September, where she made her connection public with Kelce.
With Swift in the stands, the Chiefs have taken home the win every time — winning 41-10 against the Bears, 23-20 versus the New York Jets, 19-8 against the Denver Broncos and 31-17 versus the Chargers.
Since her debut, the NFL has made Swift a focal point of its coverage. After a so-called “media frenzy” surrounded her appearances, the Thursday Night Football production team even had a meeting to discuss their plans ahead of the Broncos game.
Taylor Swift has loved being the girl in the bleachers amid her blossoming romance with Travis Kelce. The “Anti-Hero” singer made her first appearance at a Kansas City Chiefs game in September 2023, watching them defeat the Chicago Bears from the Kelce family’s private suite. After cheering alongside the tight end’s mom, Donna Kelce, she […]
“Our crew talked about it this morning,” sports broadcaster Al Michaels, who works with Prime Video and NBC Sports for Thursday Night Football, said prior to the game earlier this month. “You can’t make a sideshow the show. The vast majority of the audience are tuning in to watch a football game. There are people, I don’t know how many, it could be a sizable number, but it’s certainly not a majority, that if you trained the camera on her all night long, they’d be satisfied with that. This is not what we’re doing [sic] to do.”
Michaels, 78, said that the network planned on doing “everything in moderation” regarding showing Swift during the game.
“There might be an appropriate shot or a couple. I don’t know what the number is going to be,” he told the outlet. “If Kelce scores six touchdowns, who the hell knows what we’re going to do. But for the most part, just in moderation. The game is still the important element here, by far. That’s our thought. After that, you sort of make it, one of my favorite words, ‘farcical.’”
The move to showcase Swift during these games has caught the attention of celebrities including Kelly Clarkson, who compared the coverage to watching The Real Housewives.
“It’s not hilarious how it is literally taking over the NFL for people that like watching sports now,” Clarkson, 41, said during an October 20 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show.
Taylor Swift is sparking the interest of the NFL’s biggest stars — and we’re not just talking about Travis Kelce. New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, for one, attended multiple dates of Swift’s Eras Tour when the show came through East Rutherford, NJ in May 2023. “I’m very proud of my dancing skills finally being […]
A source told Us Weekly that Swift is “really happy and excited” about her new relationship with Kelce. While they haven’t said they’re in love yet, the insider said her friends think they’re “heading in that direction.”
“She’s at the relationship stage where she looks forward to seeing him, getting calls from him, spending time with him,” the source told Us. “She has butterflies in her stomach and she hasn’t had that in a while. She feels safe and comfortable around him physically and emotionally.”
– English Audio Description
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