Standard Blog Whole Post - Time Warner Entertainment

In the future, we’ll all just shoot

UK Jewish Film Festival To Host Anthony Hopkins Pic ‘One Life’ – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 9 – 22) has revealed its lineup of 2023 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the Anthony Hopkins pic One Life and Mario Bellochi’s Cannes competition title Kidnapped.

One Life, directed by James Hawes, will open the festival. The pic tells the true-life story of Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker and son of German-Jewish parents, who, after being horrified by tales of refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Sudetenland, sets off for Prague and begins to find ways to bring out as many refugee children as possible. Aided by his formidable mother, Barbara (Helena Bonham Carter), and a coterie of dedicated activists, their seemingly impossible mission faces daunting obstacles in this inspiring true story of hope and determination. James Hawes will be present on the night to introduce his film.

Mario Bellochi’s Kidnapped will screen at the festival’s centerpiece gala. The film tells the true story of a six-year-old Jewish-Italian boy who is secretly baptized by his nurse and kidnapped from his family in Bologna on the orders of the Pope in June 1858. Brought up and indoctrinated into Christianity at the Pope’s side, his distraught Jewish family embarked on an international campaign to have their son returned and find themselves at the epicenter of a wider historical battle between the forces of Catholic authoritarianism and equality and the unification of Italy.

This year’s animation gala is the UK Premiere of the animated pic My Father’s Secrets. The film’s voice cast features Elliott Gould, Miriam Margolyes, and Tracy-Ann Oberman. Based on a graphic novel by Michel Kichka, one of Israel’s most beloved cartoonists, the pic tells the story of Kichka’s youth growing up in the house of his father, Henri Kichka, who had survived Auschwitz but only felt that he was ready to share his story after the Eichmann Trial. Synopsis reads: Henri only told his story to strangers, not his own family – his wife and four children creating a divide that would only be reconciled over time. David Baddiel, who narrates the film, will be present with David Freedman, director of the film’s English-language version, for a Q&A at the screening.

The UK Premiere of My Daughter. My Love, starring Sasson Gabay, will close this year’s fest. The film’s synopsis reads: My Daughter. My Love follows Shimon (Gabay), who is visiting his recently married daughter and her husband in Paris in this stylish and unsettling tale of marital crisis. The young couple is living the dream, but Shimon soon discovers something is wrong and begins to dig deeper.

This year’s fiction competition jury will be headed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham). Seven features will compete for the Best Documentary Award, and this year’s jury is headed by Robert Rinder, best known for his ITV show Judge Rinder.

EXCLUSIVE: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November

Netflix To Debut David Oyelowo Short By Misan Harriman – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: The After, the debut short from photographer Misan Harriman, best known for his portraits of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, will debut on Netflix before screening at the London Film Festival.

The short stars David Oyelowo and comes from a story by Harriman, with a screenplay by writer John Julius Schwabach. The story follows Dayo (Oyelowo), a Londoner who has to reconnect with himself and society after witnessing a devastating random attack in the capital.

Si Bell BSC (A Very British Scandal, Peaky Blinders) served as DoP while Nicky Bentham (The Duke, Locked In) of Neon Films, and Oyelowo via his Yoruba Saxon Productions (A United Kingdom, The Water Man) produced.

The After is Harriman’s first narrative film project. A self-taught photographer, he is the first black person to shoot the September cover of British Vogue. His photography work has also been featured in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Telegraph. He is best known for his portraits of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. His other subjects include Angelina Jolie, Jay-Z, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Rhianna, Cate Blanchett, and Olivia Colman. In 2021, he was appointed chair of trustees at the Southbank Centre.

The short also stars Jessica Plummer (The Girl Before, How To Talk To Girls at Parties), supported by a cast including Sule Rimi (Andor, Ear for Eye), Ruth Sheen (Another Year, Cyrano), Alan Williams (Chernobyl, The Crown), Izuka Hoyle (Persuasion, The Wheel of Time), Dominique Tipper (The Expanse, One Ranger), Nikesh Patel (The Devil’s Hour, Four Weddings and a Funeral), and Ellen Francis (Chemistry of Death).

The film world premiered at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, where it won Best Live Action Short.

EXCLUSIVE: The After, the debut short from

‘Remember the Titans’ | Decider

By Samantha Nungesser

Football season is in full swing, baby! As someone who grew up with sports but never truly played one, I can wholeheartedly recommend adding Remember the Titans to your fall watchlist. The Disney film from 2000 tells the true story of a newly-integrated Virginian high school football team in the early 1970s as they learn to put race aside and work with each other as well as their new head coach, played by Denzel Washington, toward the one ultimate goal: a season championship. Remember the Titans — which will have you laughing and singing one minute and crying the next — is a movie that brings together sports fanatics and those like myself, who get excited for game days solely for the food.

Photo: Everett Collection

By Samantha Nungesser Football season is in full swing,

Netflix Unveils Trailer & Launch Date – Deadline

Trailer has dropped for Netflix’s Squid Game reality series, which launches November 22 with record prize money of $4.56M.

There have been bumps along the way but Squid Game: The Challenge has pushed on and today’s teaser shows the 456 contestants competing in a range of games inspired by the hit Korean show – Netflix’s most-watched of all time.

Contestants will compete in challenges that were in the show plus “surprising new additions,” according to the logline, with dozens eliminated as the game progresses. The colossal $4.56M prize fund is by far and away the highest for a competition format.

The show is produced by UK indies Studio Lambert and The Garden. The production process hit several snags.

Various publications detailed issues during filming, when a cold snap in Britain created complications at Cardington Studios, a former Royal Air Force base in Bedford, and Netflix confirmed that three of the 456 players received medical attention during the filming of ‘Red Light, Green Light,’ in which players must evade the attention of a menacing robotic doll. A spokeswoman said at the time that “all the appropriate safety precautions” had been taken by the show, with Deadline revealing that Britain’s Health and Safety Executive reminded producers to plan properly for risk but ultimately decided that no further action was necessary.

Squid Game: The Challenge is exec-produced by Nicola Brown (The Garden), Tim Harcourt (Studio Lambert), John Hay (The Garden), Toni Ireland (Studio Lambert), Anna Kidd, Stephen Lambert (Studio Lambert), Louise Peet, Nia Yemoh (Studio Lambert) and Stephen Yemoh (Studio Lambert).

Trailer has dropped for Netflix’s Squid Game

Docs

Eduardo Williams Bends the Globe

Mankind is barreling further into an age of climate disaster, but whether it has the speaking vocabulary, much less a cinematic one, to accurately interpret its rapidly changing environment is another matter. With his astonishing new experimental feature, “The Human Surge 3,” Argentine filmmaker Eduardo Williams proposes a new analogue for the sensation of modern living: It’s kind of like seeing panoramas shot with a 360-degree camera, navigated via a VR headset and then translated back to a traditional cinematic frame, completely and utterly distorting the imagery in the process. If that all sounds like a discombobulating experience, it is. It’s also a uniquely rewarding one.

Prospective viewers should at least be familiar with the first “Human Surge” before experiencing Williams’ continuation. As an art-house in-joke, the title of Williams’ new sort-of-documentary, sort-of-funhouse-mirror-maze skips straight to threequel status. There is no “The Human Surge 2.” It’s a comical touch that clues into the film’s playful disorientations, jumping around different areas of the world with little introduction or clarification.

Across the various friend groups featured in “The Human Surge 3,” no individual appears to be older than 30. There’s an impression of an endless summer, with riverside lazing, flirty conversations and an excursion to a pounding rave — a focus on youth that’s key to Williams’ forward-looking contemplations, while also offering some coziness to complement an eerie ambiance.

Williams found his actors by meeting locals and distributing flyers in Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Peru. The settings may be disparate, but the film constantly slips between them, blurring the three into one gloomy jungle. Murmurs of Tamil, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish overlap in the soundscape and an overcast sky hovers above each sequence

It’s worth reiterating: This all looks bananas. Williams’ unorthodox handling of extensive virtual-reality recordings renders his film an unabating abstract. Terrain rises like bread beneath humans, and the sky seems to swallow up the landscape. The effect is especially overwhelming whenever the camera wanders into civilization, with small bedrooms and village architecture bent in sudden, sharp contortions. “Existing is exhausting,” one person is heard muttering at one point — probably the closest that the film comes to an explicit sentiment for itself.

“The Human Surge 3” doesn’t have defined characters or even very coherent conversations, but its swirling of reality conjures an absorbing dreamscape. And patterns do begin to emerge, like a prominence of blossoming queer relationships or a strange, haunting epidemic of humans suddenly becoming unconscious and dropping to the ground.

In reaching for the cerebral, “The Human Surge 3” doesn’t traffic in specifics. That’s a liberating quality for a feature composed of flowing, transforming aesthetic textures, but it also limits the experiment. It’s much more ponderous than the first “Human Surge,” which placed internet-age despair directly in its crosshairs with motifs such as webcam spectacle, dead-end jobs and computer factories. Williams’ follow-up is comparatively open-ended. Though it provides itself the space to wander and arrive at new insights, the detachment can sometimes come across as a restraint that betrays an overall adventurous spirit.

It takes some patience, but “The Human Surge 3” fully delivers on its inventions with a bona fide climax — an unbroken shot featuring characters climbing up a mountain, trudging above the clouds that have blanketed each scene thus far. Uniting an ensemble hand-picked from across the globe, the film grows beyond its eeriness and reaches for the otherworldly. The characters move as if they’re being summoned by a higher authority, like the everyday people helplessly drawn to aliens in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or, more pessimistically, the group of newfound companions that form a macabre cha-cha line behind Death in “The Seventh Seal.” As Spielberg and Bergman and hundreds more filmmakers have invented stages to wrestle with existential angst, Williams mounts his own eccentric production. There are no UFOs or chess games with the Grim Reaper, but his audacious formal approach transforms the world into a spectacle all its own.

Mankind is barreling further into an age

Global

Fire breaks out at former Vinnies thrift store on George Street in Peterborough – Peterborough

No injuries were reported after a fire broke out Thursday at a building that formerly housed a Vinnies thrift store on George Street North in Peterborough, Ont.

According to Peterborough Fire Services platoon chief Jeff Guest, around 6:40 p.m., crews responded to an automatic alarm in a multi-use commercial building at 539 George St. N.

Guest said crews found smoke venting under pressure from multiple levels and openings of the building.

He said it was determined the main body of the fire was in the basement and fire suppression operations were deployed at various locations in the building.

He said despite the size and complexity of the building, firefighters were able to confine the fire to the basement area, however, damage throughout the building is “extensive.”

Story continues below advertisement

Guest said an early damage estimate was pegged at $400,000.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

The building once housed the former Vinnie’s thrift store building. It was sold in late 2019 to a Toronto-area developer for plans for an apartment complex. The Vinnies store relocated to Hunter Street East.

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

Descrease article font size Increase article font size No

Tech

Geoff Daniels to Join Film Fest Org Jackson Wild as Exec Director

September 22, 2023 @ 5:00 AM

Former National Geographic executive Geoff Daniels is set to join the natural history and conservation media organization Jackson Wild. Daniels will serve as its new executive director.

Daniels’ 20-year-long stint in the film and TV industry will continue on with Jackson Wild, which was formerly known as the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. The company creates and elevates storytelling centered on nature, science and climate through partnerships and initiatives.

In his role, Daniel will be responsible for leading Jackson Wild’s yearly programming and will help facilitate the organization’s vision and overall strategy. He’s also set to take charge of the planning process and execution of its annual Jackson Wild Summit.

“It’s such an incredible honor to have this opportunity to build on the inspiration that Lisa’s vision and Jackson Wild have provided to our filmmakers and wider conservation community,” Daniels said in a statement shared with TheWrap. “In the coming years, you can expect us to shine the brightest light possible on the kind of innovative storytelling and strategic partnerships that will elevate Jackson Wild as a true beacon of hope for anyone seeking to make a real impact in creating a healthier, more sustainable future for our planet.”

Daniels will replace current Executive Director Lisa Samford, who will be stepping down from the role at the end of October after a 20-year-long tenure.

“Geoff has been a champion of Jackson Wild from the beginning, quite literally. He attended the first event in 1991 and has been an active member of our community ever since,” Samford said. “Change is essential for Jackson Wild to continue being the dynamic, innovative organization we strive to be, and it gives me great comfort to know that the organization will be in the hands of such a capable and passionate leader.”

Prior to Jackson Wild, Daniels got his start in new product development at Time-Life Video & Television, where he helped build that imprint as a leading home video distributor. His time there included acquiring and marketing Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” and Sir David Attenborough’s “Trials of Life.”

“Geoff is an ideal leader to oversee the continued growth of Jackson Wild and solidify the organization’s position as a leading force in the conservation media space for years to come,” Bill Gardner, chairperson of Jackson Wild’s Board of Directors, said. “The Board feels confident in Geoff’s ability to lead the organization to new heights.”

Daniels’ most recent role was as EVP of unscripted entertainment for the London-based production company Nutopia. During that period, he oversaw programming and marketing. He also executive-produced several series, including “7 Toughest Days with Dwayne Fields,” “Rewind the ’90s” and “Shark Beach.” When he was working as EVP of global unscripted entertainment for National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo on Disney+, he was in charge of all original content and greenlit popular series including Chris Hemsworth’s “Limitless” and “Secrets of the Whales.”

September 22, 2023 @ 5:00 AM Former National

Video

The Toughest Act to Follow Is Rupert Murdoch

The ruthless, decades-long sibling rivalry that inspired “Succession” is coming to a quiet close, as Rupert Murdoch hands the keys to Fox and News Corp. to his eldest son Lachlan. But with the less-hands-on son taking over from the business and media legend, experts say this family saga is far from over.

Murdoch for decades was concerned about his successor, and long wanted one of his three children with his second wife — Elisabeth, Lachlan and James — to take over, at one point intentionally plunging them into a lengthy succession battle. Besides being the oldest son, Lachlan also had the advantage of sharing his father’s right-wing political ideology, and his heir-apparent status became clear in recent years as he ascended within Fox Corp.

The ruthless, decades-long sibling rivalry that inspired

Entertaintment

The Challenge Teaser Shows Real-Life Netflix Competition – The Hollywood Reporter

The games have officially become a reality in Netflix’s upcoming series Squid Game: The Challenge.

The reality show, based on the streamer’s popular global dystopian series Squid Game, follows 456 real players from around the world who enter the competition show in pursuit of a record-setting cash prize of $4.56 million. The players will compete through games inspired by the original show as well as some surprising new additions.

One contestant can be heard saying in the footage, “$4.56 million dollars – people do a whole lot worse for a whole lot less.”

The original Squid Game series, Netflix’s most popular show of all time, told the story of a divorced father and gambler (Lee Jung-jae) who joins a secret competition with 456 total players. But the losers of each round are executed in the survival game until one victor remains and takes home the cash prize. The series has been renewed for a second season.

“Squid Game took the world by storm with [director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s] captivating story and iconic imagery,” Brandon Riegg, Netflix vp unscripted and documentary series, previously said of the reality show. “We’re grateful for his support as we turn the fictional world into reality in this massive competition and social experiment. Fans of the drama series are in for a fascinating and unpredictable journey as our 456 real-world contestants navigate the biggest competition series ever, full of tension and twists, with the biggest-ever cash prize at the end.”

The series is being co-produced by Studio Lambert and The Garden with Stephen Lambert, Tim Harcourt and Toni Ireland from Studio Lambert; and John Hay, Nicola Hill and Nicola Brown from The Garden serving as executive producers.

Squid Game: The Challenge, which consists of 10 episodes, hits Netflix on Nov. 22.

The games have officially become a reality

Movies

Angelica Ross Calling Out Emma Roberts For Being Anti Trans, And 6 Other Anti-LGBTQ Celebs

In an Instagram live, the actress recalled a moment on set where co-star Emma jokily complained about Angelica to producer John J. Gray. According to Angelica, Emma said: “John, Angelica’s being mean.” Angelica went on to say that after John said, “okay ladies, that’s enough; back to work”, Emma turned to Angelica and said, “don’t you mean lady?“

Emma then apparently covered her mouth and walked away. Angelica expressed how she felt after the incident, saying: “my blood is boiling. Boiling. Because if I say something, it’s gonna be me that’s the problem. And I know this because there was someone who spoke up about what she was doing, and they got repercussions from it. Not her, they did.”

In an Instagram live, the actress

Kaitlyn Dever Takes on Aliens

Got trauma? A global alien invasion is all it takes for emotionally scarred Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) to sort through her issues in “No One Will Save You,” an extra-terrestrial creature feature cut from the same cloth as M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs,” where the jump scares are secondary to an earnest (but far less effective) portrait of coping with guilt and grief.

Building on the novelty value of 2020 debut “Spontaneous” (in which a bunch of teenagers inexplicably start to pop like pimples), director Brian Duffield sets multiple creative challenges for himself and mostly succeeds — well enough to attract eyeballs to this buzz-worthy Hulu release, at least. Amusingly enough, one of the things liable to get people talking is Duffield’s decision to construct the film with hardly any dialogue.

Brynn’s a loner, living in a house that looks like it was decorated by a 12-year-old girl. When her phone rings, she picks up and immediately hangs up without answering. And when she goes to town, Brynn wears a baseball cap and sunglasses, desperately trying to make herself invisible. What’s this young woman’s deal? The film withholds that information until the penultimate scene, although one of its shortcomings is that without speech, whatever Duffield’s trying to say proves confusing to interpret. As a horror movie, however, it’s fun to watch an intelligent character make reasonably smart decisions when her home is broken into.

Audiences who stumble in blind should appreciate when, 15 minutes into the film, the shadowy figure that’s forced its way into Brynn’s quaint, two-story country abode steps into focus, and they realize those feet aren’t human. This pale-skinned home invader has long finger-like digits instead of toes, stalking through Brynn’s bedroom like a praying mantis.

A short time later, Duffield reveals the creature in full. It’s consistent with the “gray alien” phenotype most common in popular culture: big, bobble-headed guys with enormous black eyes, tiny mouths and roughly human proportions. These critters come in different shapes and sizes, with limbs of variable lengths (there’s a short, squatty one that can gnaw through wooden doors and a far taller variation that climbs walls and moves like a daddy longlegs spider). They all possess some form of telekinetic power, which allows them to move furniture and swing doors open at will.

The film is most successful when it finds Brynn in survival mode. The fact she doesn’t talk during these stretches recalls “A Quiet Place” — although it’s worth pointing out that she doesn’t have anyone to talk to, and she makes an awful lot of noise (between heavy breathing and bumping into furniture around her house) when trying to hide from the aliens. Otherwise, she’s pretty clever, turning household objects into makeshift weapons, and even going so far as to jam the belltower from one of her birdhouses into an unwelcome intruder’s noggin. And thus she discovers that they’re not so difficult to kill (still, it’s a huge improvement over the water allergy of “Signs”).

The title refers first to the fact that Brynn is persona non grata in town. Again, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, the local police chief (Dane Rhodes) and his wife (Geraldine Singer) refuse to help Brynn when she shows up at the station, post break-in. But it’s also an indication that sheer self-reliance is the only thing keeping Brynn alive during this time. Other neighbors aren’t so lucky. Circle-shaped burns in their lawns, viewed from above via drone footage, suggest the aliens have been busy. Would-be allies act possessed — and positively homicidal — when Brynn crosses their path. Still, if these characters talked, it would be a lot easier to make sense of whatever’s going through Brynn’s head.

After playing a hyper-articulate motormouth in “Booksmart,” Dever does a fine job of communicating the moment-to-moment logic of each sequence without dialogue, though it’s far from clear what the aliens want or how any of this relates to the terrible thing that happened to her childhood friend Maude (Evangeline Rose) way back when. The climactic scene, in which Brynn is forced to swallow a wriggling parasite, ought to be the scariest moment in the movie, closely followed by the scene where a tractor beam lifts Brynn aboard a flying saucer. By this point, it feels as if the space invaders have come all this way just to teach Brynn a lesson. Trouble is, they speak in the foghorn blurts of Hans Zimmer’s “Inception” score, which no one will save you from misinterpreting.

Got trauma? A global alien invasion is

DCU

BG3 Voice Actors Play D&D, POKÉMON Happy Meals Return, and More News Odds & Ends

This week we’ve seen exciting new trailers for movies and TV shows like The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Percy Jackson & the Olympians. Ahsoka returned with another intrigue-filled episode. And we even saw My Little Pony Magic cards. But that’s not all that happened. From exciting Baldur’s Gate 3 announcements to DC zombies, and public domain debates, there have been quite a few exciting stories circulating.

McDonald’s, CMON, PlayStation

Here are some of our favorite pop-culture news odds & ends that you don’t want to miss reading about.

This Week’s Odds & Ends in News:

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Reveals Release Date and 100+ Hours Worth of Content

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, finally revealed its release date. Fans eagerly anticipating this new Final Fantasy content can rejoice, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will release on February 29, 2024. That’s not so far away now! Alongside a release date, PlayStation revealed a trailer with a ton of new footage from the game. But it’s merely a tease of what’s to come. As GameSpot reports, Naoki Hamaguchi, the game’s director, reveals, “While the main storyline is bigger and more ambitious than the previous game’s narrative, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth also embraces the concept of ‘free exploration,’ with compelling stories, fun mini-games, powerful monsters and so much more to find throughout the world map… We hope you will explore this world in great detail, as nearly 100 hours of adventure awaits.”

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Sepiroth — PlayStation

Check out our review of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, here:

Baldur's Gate 3 character holding dice — Larian Studios

This week we’ve seen exciting new trailers

Comics

Shuyan Saga Review – Wonderful Ideas, Woeful Execution | Chit Hot

Developers Mark Media have come up with a graphic novel story that they decided to turn into a video game, making it a Visual novel adventure story that will take place over the course of several chapters. The story follows Shuyan, a princess that wants to become a warrior and break free from the boring life that is in store for her.

Shuyan ends up learning martial arts and becoming the keeper of a powerful and ancient magic. When General Ganbataar rises up an army and threatens her hometown, it is up to Shuyan to defend her people and stop the evil General. The story will have full professional voice actors for the story, with multiple choice scenes that will lead to three different endings.

Developers Mark Media have come up with

Festivals

Newport Beach Film Festival opens with “The Absence of Eden” and closes with “The Holdovers”

The 2023 Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) announced that the festival’s opening night will be the Los Angeles Times Envelope screening of The Absence of Eden, directed by Marco Perego and starring Zoe Saldaña, on Thursday October 12 at the Edwards Big Newport. The festival will close with Focus Features’ The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne, on Thursday, October 19 at the Port Theatre. The 24^th edition of the festival will be held in person from October 12-19 and will spotlight 91 films from around the world.

Filmmakers will be in attendance for a moderated interview prior to the screening of The Absence of Eden. The film centers around an ICE agent (Garrett Hedlund) struggling with the moral dilemmas of border security and an undocumented woman (Zoe Saldaña) fighting to escape a ruthless cartel who cross paths and work together to save the life of an innocent girl. The film is produced by Academy Award-nominated producer Julie Yorn and Marco Perego, along with Robert Kravis and Karl Herrmann under their banner of Pioneer Pictures, and Academy Award-nominated producer Alexandra Milchan. Academy Award-winning director and producer Martin Scorsese, and Rick Yorn serve as executive producers, alongside Zoe Saldaña’s Cinestar Pictures, Ingenious Media, Ashland Hill, Sycuan Tribal as well as Ruben Islas, Jolene Rodriguez and Stanley Preschutti.

The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). The Focus Features comedy is directed by Alexander Payne and produced by Mark Johnson, Bill Block and David Hemingson. Chris Stinson, Tom Williams, Andrew Golov and Thom Zadra serve as executive producers.

The 2023 Newport Beach Film Festival will host world premieres, awards contenders, nightly special events and compelling conversations with filmmakers. Already announced Centerpiece and Spotlight films include A Whole Life, Double Blind, Frontiers, Honey Sweet, Freelance, Fingernails, Gentleman, Woken, In the Name of the Father, May December, Monster, NYAD, Only the River Flows, Radical, Rustin, Second Act, The First Day of My Life, Verdigris, Live and Without Her.

Tickets to the Opening Night Film and Gala are $225. Tickets to the Closing Night Film and Gala are $145. Gala events are open to attendees 21 & older. For Festival passes, tickets, and complete line-up, visit www.NewportBeachFilmFest.com.

About Newport Beach Film Festival

Recognized as one of the largest luxury lifestyle film festivals in the United States, the Newport Beach Film Festival brings an internationally curated collection of films and vibrant cultural gatherings to the beautiful Southern California coast. Committed to championing the work of original storytellers from around the globe, the Festival celebrates contemporary screen culture, cinematic excellence, engaging the community in compelling conversations with filmmakers and artists. The Newport Beach Film Festival is sponsored in part by UCI Health, Los Angeles Times, The Macallan, Fashion Island, and the City of Newport Beach. For Festival passes, tickets and safety information, visit www.NewportBeachFilmFest.com.

The 2023 Newport Beach Film Festival

Squid Game The Challenge Trailer; Netflix Sets November Premiere

Netflix have released a trailer for their upcoming reality show based on “Squid Game.”

The streamer also confirmed the show is set to drop on Nov. 22. Previously, they revealed the game show was going to premiere in November at their Tudu fan event earlier this summer.

“Squid Game: The Challenge” will see 456 contestants from around the world battle it out through various challenges based on the Korean game show in the scripted series, as well as introducing some new games.

Only one winner will take home the $4.56 million cash prize.

“Though the reality version of ‘Squid Game‘ isn’t a matter of life or death, there’s still a lot on the line,” reads the show’s logline. “456 players will compete to win $4.56 million, the largest cash prize in reality television history. Through a series of games, each player will be pushed to their limits and forced to ask themselves just how far they’ll go to win, with opportunistic alliances, cutthroat strategies and timely betrayals to follow.”

However the series has already been mired in controversy after contestants required medical assistance during the shoot, which took place in the U.K. during a surprise cold snap. Variety reported at the time that a number of contestants — who were not paid for their participation in the series — collapsed on set from a combination of cold and fatigue.

The show is produced by Studio Lambert — the same company behind hit game show “The Traitors” — and The Garden.

Check out the trailer below:

Netflix have released a trailer for their

The 18 best (and 5 worst) Sylvester Stallone movies

Clockwise from top left: First Blood (Orion), Rocky (MGM), Creed (Warner Bros.), Rhinestone (20th Century), Over The Top (Warner Bros.)

Graphic: AVCliub

Whether it’s the slurred, street-toughened voice that seems lifted from the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood where he was born, the monosyllabic heroes who cemented his iconic status, or the embarrassing career lows, Sylvester Stallone has always been underappreciated. Or, more accurately, after writing, directing, and starring in films for almost 50 years, maybe we just take him for granted. Through half a century of cinematic trends, movements, and upheavals, he’s always been here, like Rocky, taking hits and getting up off the canvas.

And even if he’s played the same two characters in 13 of his films, the phases of Stallone’s career remain disparate and many; he’s been an Oscar nominated phenom, a stand-in for American aggression, a serious filmmaker, a (failed) movie comedian, a punchline, a near-parodic action hero, and, hopefully soon, an unacknowledged legend who deserves a late career reassessment. Indeed, this November he’ll receive about as meaningful a career recognition as a star is likely to get nowadays; he’s the subject of a Netflix documentary titled Sly. Until then, you can see him in Expend4bles, which opens Friday. So in honor of Stallone, we’ve ranked his 18 best and five worst films.

Clockwise from top left: First Blood (Orion),

Watch Arranged Full Episodes Online | Season 1 Video Streaming & Torrent Search »

Watch Meet the Smiths Online

April 28, 2015

44 sec read

Meet the Smiths Synopsis

Meet the Smiths is a scripted reality television series produced by TBS that premiered in April of 2015.

Meet the Smiths follows the daily lives of Kenny Smith, an NBA analyst for TNT and his wife Gwendolyn Osborne-Smith, a model for The Price is Right. The couple has five children together and they are doing their best to raise their kids into responsible adults all the while keeping their relationship strong.

Meet the Smiths is currently in its first season.

Episode List

Season 1

1 – Step Your Notches Up (S01E01 – 101)
2 – The 8-Year Itch (S01E02 – 102)
3 – Competitive Pedigree (S01E03 – 103)
4 – Letting Go (S01E04 – 104)
5 – The Zen Detective (S01E05 – 105)
6 – The Honeymoon Ain’t Over (S01E06 – 106)

Also See:

Commercials Ads Streaming Illustration Placeholder

Amazon Plans Commercial Breaks for Prime Video

Viewers of landmark series on Amazon Prime Video like “The Boys” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will soon be offered something never made available on the service before: TV commercials.

Amazon Prime Video, one of the last mainstream streaming services to eschew the injection of regular commercial breaks into its movies and shows, plans to start letting them run early next year. Amazon follows a host of other streaming hubs — including Disney+, Netflix, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max– that also offer ad-supported tiers, a move that suggests the world of streaming may just eventually mirror the world of traditional television in the not-too-distant future.

“The TV industry has really never been able to truly control itself when it comes to aggressive monetization,” says Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group, a media-industry consultancy.

The company says it plans to run fewer ads on Amazon Prime Video than traditional broadcasters or broadband rivals. Four minutes per hour seems to be a benchmark for the lowest amount of ad time on a streaming platform. Commercials will first appear the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. Those who want to keep Amazon Prime Video ad-free can still do so — for an additional $2.99 per month in the U.S. on top of the annual subscription to Amazon’s overall Prime service.

Amazon declined to make executives available for comment.

Most media-sector executives agree that streaming video represents the future of the business, and companies ranging from NBCUniversal to Apple have scrambled to make comedies, dramas and sports available to people who no longer watch traditional broadcast or cable TV. And yet, doing so is costly, requiring millions of dollars in content and infrastructure costs — all while new entrants take to the field. Wall Street initially encouraged companies like Paramount Global and Fox Corp. to chase after Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney’s Hulu. Now, investors are demanding timelines of when all the activity will be profitable.

Such pressure has spurred even the most resistant streamers to embrace advertising. Executives from Netflix for years insisted the service would never rely on commercials. Earlier this year, the company planned to mount a glitzy presentation during the TV-industry’s annual “upfront” week, when networks try to carve out deals with Madison Avenue.

Amazon said the decision to run ads during Prime Video selections would help it “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” In addition to paying millions for the rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” Amazon acquired MGM Studios in May of 2021 for $8.5 billion. Over the years, it has launched premium series including “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” and “The Wheel of Time.”

Big media companies like CBS and Disney have thrived for decades on two big sources of revenue: advertising and subscription fees from cable and satellite companies. Streaming services, many of them launched with few ads, and, sometimes, none, remove a major source of cash flow.

“It’s a lesson that we all learned in the 1990s when cable really came into its own,” says Hanlon. “The most beautiful business model is media, where you get paid for subscribers and you get paid for advertising.”

Amazon already runs ads elsewhere. Its Freevee service does not require a subscription and lets users view movies and TV series in exchange for looking at ads that tend to interrupt content at sudden and random moments. And the company also seeks ad support for its weekly stream of “Thursday Night Football.” It has also introduced new commercial formats in such areas as its Amazon Fire broadband service. Some ads pair sponsors with movie recommendations, and others allow subscribers to make quick e-commerce purchases.

Amazon’s decision means few if any of the nation’s large streaming services reject ads outright. Apple TV+ does not run ads in its scripted programs and features.

The introduction of a limited number of commercials to streaming services may soon prompt fears that the big media companies will continue to add more, as they have done on their TV networks. “The relatively small ad loads that we see in today’s premium streaming is probably as good as it is going to get,” says Hanlon. He expects commercials in streaming environments to “become more prominent” over time, with bigger ad loads per break and “more opportunities to squeeze in ad messaging along the way, especially if it is perceived as a cost saver for consumers.”

Most media and content platforms have embraced at least some form of advertising, the executive says, and the companies that run such operations will need to govern the flow of commercials, lest consumers perceive streaming to be as stuffed with ads as the TV networks they once watched. “I’m not certain that advertising solves all problems,” he says. “It could make some of them worse.”

Viewers of landmark series on Amazon Prime

Music

Remembering Jimmy Buffett, Beach Bum Bard

Subscribe to Popcast!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Jimmy Buffett, who died this month at 76, was best known for one thing: making an island-friendly country-rock concoction that millions of listeners found to be a balm. He turned that balm into big business — “Margaritaville,” the song, was his lone Top 10 hit, and Margaritaville, the business he built atop it, became a licensing juggernaut and netted countless millions in revenue.

But Buffett was other things as well — a clever, cheeky songwriter; a musician who fused styles from various regions; someone who held firm to his political values even if he only sometimes infused his songs with them.

On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Buffett’s unlikely rise to niche stardom; how he turned a way of life into a song, and that song back into a very profitable way of life; and the way in which his music sometimes extends beyond lifestyle soundtrack and into knottier emotional (and sometimes) political territory.

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify |

Docs

‘Harry Potter’ to Light Up Empire State Building For 25th Anniversary

MAKING MAGIC

To mark the 25th anniversary of the “Harry Potter” books being published in the U.S., the Empire State Building is set to be lit up in Hogwarts house colors at sunset on Wednesday, Sept. 27.

Viewers outside of New York can watch the building’s Tower Lights shine red for Gryffindor, yellow for Hufflepuff, blue for Ravenclaw and green for Slytherin on the Empire State’s live cam. For those in New York, there will be a magical pop-up cart on the 86th Floor Observation Deck where fans will be able to pick up free copies of the book and bottles of Butterbeer. Costumes and wizard robes are encouraged.

CRYPTO SCAM

BBC One have set a documentary on alleged crypto-scammer Sam Bankman-Fried. Produced by Bitachon365 (“Secrets of Prince Andrew”), the 60-minute doc will air under the BBC’s “Panorama” strand on Sept. 25. A 90-minute cut will be available on the BBC’s streaming service iPlayer.

Among the contributors are former colleagues, crypto insiders and others including YouTuber Tiffany Fong, business partner Anthony Scaramucci and reporter Ian Allison, who first uncovered the hole in Bankman-Fried’s finances.

Bitachon365’s Sheldon Lazarus said: “We’ve used the very best investigative journalism and some of the greatest current affairs minds, to bring to television the very first in-depth look at how Sam Bankman-Fried went from having it all, to losing it in a matter of days and the lives impacted along the way.”

Fifth Season are handling global distribution.

DISTRIBUTION

EXCLUSIVE: Buffalo 8 has acquired the worldwide rights to psychological thriller “Mindwash.” Starring “Katy Keane’s” Camille Hyde and Ben Edlin from “Chicago Med,” the feature was written, directed and produced by Beatrice Brigitte (“Gotham”).

Kazy Tauginas (“The Equalizer 2”) and Freya Saxon produce alongside Brigitte’s The Arcane Company.

“Camille Hyde and Ben Edlin deliver gripping performances in this thought-provoking psychological thriller about the fragile boundary between individuality and conformity,” said Buffalo 8’s head of distribution, Nikki Stier Justice.

***

EXCLUSIVE: Dartmouth Films have acquired Sheila Hayman’s feature documentary “Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn” for U.K. distribution. The doc, about Felix Mendelssohn‘s sister Fanny, herself a prolific composer, is set to get a theatrical release in the U.K. on over 100 screens nationwide.

Produced by Mercury Studios, the doc also stars Isata Kanneh-Mason performing some of Fanny’s works. Mercury’s Alice Webb, Marc Robinson and Steve Condie and Annabel Hobley and Maureen Murray serve as executive producers.

“Mercury Studios is thrilled to partner with Dartmouth Films, one of the U.K.’s leaders in the independent documentary space, to bring the untold story of Fanny Mendelssohn to the big screen,” said Alice Webb, CEO and co-president of Mercury Studios. “We hope Fanny’s journey and Isata’s performance surprises and delights audiences throughout the country.”

INDIAN EPIC

Indian filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker, director of the Oscar nominated “Lagaan,” will next direct “Shankar,” a biopic of 8th century Indian Vedic scholar, philosopher and teacher, Adi Shankaracharya. The film will be produced by Ashutosh Gowariker Productions in association with Acharya Shankar Sanskritik Ekta Nyas.

MAKING MUSIC

Bollywood star Sunny Kaushal (“Shiddat”) has turned musician with his debut single, Punjabi-language hip-hop rap number “Jhandey,” under his music name SunSunnykhez. The song is produced by Bharg Kale and will release Sept. 28.

MAKING MAGIC To mark the 25th anniversary of

Global

Timbuktu siege: Two killed in Mali mortar attack

The culturally significant city is under siege by jihadist fighters, causing shortages of basic items.

The culturally significant city is under siege

Trending

Ashley Brucks Picked to Run Screen Gems

Ashley Brucks has been tapped to lead Screen Gems, the Sony Pictures division behind the “Resident Evil” and “Insidious” franchises. A deal hasn’t been finalized and several other candidates were up for the post, but insiders say the job is Brucks’ and expect a formal announcement to come soon.

She joins the company from Paramount, where she worked as head of development for Paramount Players, a production label focused on making comedies and genre fare. At Screen Gems, Brucks replaces Steve Bersch, who will leave the label when his contract ends in December. The decision was made by the executive, who had been with Sony for more than 15 years, serving in various capacities.

Brucks is a long-time executive at Paramount, working there for over a decade as an executive vice president and later a senior executive vice president. Paramount Players was launched by Brian Robbins, who later became the studio chief, in 2017. Last year, the division was folded into the larger film group.

Brucks also worked as a production and development executive at DreamWorks Animation, the studio behind “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.”

Screen Gems’ past hits include “The Wedding Ringer,” “Dear John,” “Easy A,” “Think Like a Man,” and the “Don’t Breathe” films. It most recently released “Insidious: The Red Door” in July, as well the action-comedy “The Machine” and “The Pope’s Exorcist,” a horror film with Russell Crowe. Upcoming films include “They Listen,” a horror-thriller from Blumhouse, as well as ‘Border Patrol’ with “Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City’s” Johannes Roberts directing.

Ashley Brucks has been tapped to lead

Tech

Jochen Koestler Joins LEONINE Studios

Jochen Koestler will take up the position of executive vice president non-fiction at German media company LEONINE Studios on Jan. 1, 2024.

Together with CEO Fred Kogel, he will head the group’s non-fiction production division, which includes production banners gebrueder beetz Filmproduktion, hyperbole Medien, i&u TV, Madame Zheng Production and SEO Entertainment.

From January 2025, he will assume sole overall responsibility for LEONINE Studios’ non-fiction production business.

In addition, Koestler will join the management board of Cologne-based i&u TV, one of the leading production companies for information and entertainment programs, on Jan. 1, 2024, where he will be responsible for the entire entertainment division, including the genres show and comedy.

As managing director of i&u TV, Andreas Zaik will remain responsible for the information productions comprising the weekly news magazine “STERN TV” as well as documentaries and will continue to act as chairman of the management board. As chief digital officer of LEONINE Studios and managing director of i&u TV and hyperbole Medien, Christian Meinberger will maintain responsibility for the digital units producing branded entertainment and YouTube formats, among others.

Kogel said: “It is a great pleasure to welcome Jochen Koestler, one of Germany’s most accomplished and successful non-fiction producers, to our team. He is one of the few who combines impressive expertise in both entertainment and documentary production. I am convinced that Jochen, who brings a wealth of experience, will successfully keep the i&u TV entertainment production business on our growth path and also position it for further expansion in the future with genres such as reality. He will also support me in a significant capacity in the management of the entire LEONINE non-fiction division in the coming year and will be solely responsible for this division from 2025 onwards.”

Zaik commented: “i&u stands for outstanding information and entertainment programs. We’ve achieved strong growth during the past few years. In the process, the importance of the entertainment sector within our production business has increased above average. Jochen Koestler’s appointment to the management team of i&u TV reflects this development. I’m delighted to have such an experienced and successful producer at my side as a colleague and sparring partner.”

Koestler added: “It’s a great privilege to take on these new tasks and goals and I’m going to embrace this responsibility with great pleasure and passion. I’m very much looking forward to working with my new colleagues and especially with the great team at i&u TV in Cologne. Together, we want to build on great successes with our high-rated shows like ‘Small Vs. Tall’ and ‘They Don’t Know What Will Happen,’ while creating sustainable structures for a scalable entertainment business.”

Koestler joins LEONINE Studios and i&u TV from Constantin Entertainment, where he has been managing director since 2017, and had already worked as a producer for more than 10 years. In addition to building the business with streaming platforms and successful formats such as the Amazon Original “Last One Laughing,” whose first season he co-produced, and the reality series “Germany Shore,” Koestler produced series such as “K11 – Die Neuen Fälle” for Sat.1, “Darf Er Das? – Die Chris Tall Show” for RTL and the series “Der RTL Comedy Grand Prix.”

Furthermore, he established and headed the documentary division at Constantin with successful projects such as the highly acclaimed Amazon Original “Bild.Macht.Deutschland?,” the most successful Sky Original documentary in Germany of all time “Der Anschlag – Angriff Auf Den BVB,” as well as the two high-end documentary series “Jan Ullrich – Der Gejagte” for Prime Video and “Inside Greenpeace – Was Braucht Es, Um Die Welt Zu Retten?” for Sky, both of which premiere this fall.

During his time at Constantin Entertainment, he also served as managing director of the subsidiaries in Serbia, the Czech Republic and Romania, where he was responsible for globally successful formats such as “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Come Dine With Me,” among others.

Jochen Koestler will take up the position

Entertaintment

BBC Buys Hulu show – Deadline

The BBC has acquired all three seasons of Hulu’s Love, Victor.

Set in the same universe as hit movie Love, Simon, the show focuses on a new student at Creekwood High School, played by Michael Cimino. The series follows his journey of self-discovery: facing challenges at home and struggling with his sexual orientation. He reaches out to Simon (played by Nick Robinson, star of the original Love, Simon film) when it seems too difficult for him to navigate his way through high school.

Love, Victor ran for three seasons between 2020 and 2022.

The deal was struck with Disney Entertainment. The BBC has been buying more American shows of late, having struck a deal for AMC’s Interview with the Vampire earlier this month along with Australian hits such as Colin From Accounts and Scrublands.

Sue Deeks, Head of BBC Programme Acquisition, said: “Love, Victor is a heartfelt, funny and nuanced coming-of-age story, beautifully portrayed by a winning and relatable cast.”

Love, Victor is produced by Temple Hill Entertainment, No Helmet Productions, The Walk-Up Company and 20^th Television.

The BBC has acquired all three seasons

Movies

Bipasha Basu Shares Adorable Photo Daughter Devi Crawling, Calls Her ‘My Little Bengal Tiger’; See Here

Last Updated: September 22, 2023, 17:09 IST

Bipasha shared photo of daughter Devi

Last year in November, Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover joyfully welcomed their daughter, Devi Basu Singh Grover.

Bipasha Basu is completely the new phase of her life. She always shares new updates about her daughter Devi. Fans are in love with this little munchkin. Her social media is filled with adorable moments of daughter Devi. Today, also the actress shared a video on her Instagram stories which immediately went viral. Bipasha’s daughter can be seen crawling in the new video.

The actress called her ‘My little Bengal tiger.” In the video, Devi can be seen wearing blue colour rompers with pink flowers printed on it. She is looking very cute. On September 12, Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover hosted a cozy party to mark the occasion. On her Instagram Stories, Bipasha posted several pictures featuring her daughter Devi. One of the photos showcased Devi’s birthday cake adorned with a cute bunny. She also shared a delightful video capturing Devi’s excitement upon seeing her cake. Bipasha humorously mentioned, “Devi loves Bunnies. Tough to save this cake from being smashed by her.”

Take a look here:

Just two days before Devi turned 10 months, Bipasha Basu shared a heartwarming video of her daughter enjoying some playtime with her mother’s belongings. In the video clip, Devi was seen sitting on Bipasha’s pink yoga mat, as she played with her beach hat and handbag, which bore the initials of the actress. In her caption, Bipasha thanked Kaal director Soham Shah for giving her the gifts that were also loved by her little daughter.

Last year in November, Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover joyfully welcomed their daughter, Devi Basu Singh Grover, into the world. However, in a previous conversation with actress Neha Dhupia, Bipasha revealed that Devi was born with two holes in her heart that gave her numerous sleepless nights. Bipasha also disclosed that Karan Singh Grover was “not ready” for Devi’s surgery. She further shared with Neha Dhupia that Devi had to undergo a six-hour-long surgical procedure. Bipasha added that she didn’t sleep for “40 days and 40 nights. I am not lying. I swear on God.”

Well, now their daughter is fine. Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover tied the knot in April 2016.

Last Updated: September 22, 2023, 17:09 ISTBipasha

Doja Cat puts critics on blast on new album 'Scarlet’

Doja Cat puts critics on blast on

DCU

Which Version Of Lex Luthor Will Appear In James Gunn’s Superman Movie Based On What We Know So Far

Summary

James Gunn plans to introduce a younger, more wide-eyed Superman in “Superman: Legacy,” setting the stage for a younger version of Lex Luthor.
Interviews with Gunn have suggested he wants the DCU Lex Luthor to be grounded and carry more gravitas than previous iterations, leaning into his sinister nature.
Gunn also draws inspiration from the “All-Star Superman” storyline, suggesting that the DC Universe’s Lex Luthor will have a prior connection to Clark Kent, adding a personal touch to the story.

A new version of Lex Luthor is set to debut in Superman: Legacy, and James Gunn has provided some insight into what the villain might look like in the new DC Universe. After James Gunn and Peter Safran were hired as co-CEOs of DC Studios in 2022, they immediately set plans into motion to reboot DC’s live-action franchise, which included replacing some of the DCEU’s biggest stars with new actors. Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck won’t be returning among these figures, and while a new Batman hasn’t been revealed, Clark Kent will be portrayed by David Corenswet in Superman: Legacy. As such, the new Man of Steel needs a new Lex Luthor.

Lex Luthor debuted in DC Comics in 1940’s Action Comics #23, and has since endured as Superman’s archnemesis, his most recognizable, memorable, and challenging villain. Several actors have portrayed Luthor in live-action, including Michael Rosenbaum, Titus Welliver, Gene Hackman, and Jesse Eisenberg, who portrayed the villain opposite Henry Cavill’s Superman in the DCEU. A new version of Lex Luthor is expected to debut in the DC Universe’s first feature film. However, with several different iterations of Luthor in DC Comics, it’s unclear which version will be introduced to the DC Universe, though Gunn has revealed some details about the villain in 2025’s Superman: Legacy.

Superman Details Give Some Insight Into James Gunn’s Lex Luthor

Details surrounding the DC Universe’s new Superman could provide context to which Lex Luthor debuts in Superman: Legacy. Upon the announcement of the DCU’s future plans and Superman: Legacy’s development, James Gunn revealed that a younger Superman would be introduced, allowing a more wide-eyed Man of Steel to take over from Henry Cavill’s darker and grittier hero. Superman: Legacy won’t be detailing an origin story, but it will explore Clark Kent’s upbringing in Smallville, Kansas, his heritage as a Kryptonian, and his work-life as a reporter alongside Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane at the Daily Planet, which could be very important aspects in introducing Lex Luthor.

In many origin stories in DC Comics, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor were shown to be childhood friends – or at least people who knew each other – growing up in Smallville. This means it makes sense for Superman and Luthor to be similar in age, which suggests that a younger Lex Luthor will be introduced as well as a younger Clark Kent. The fact that Superman’s upbringing in Smallville will be explored means that Lex Luthor’s childhood could also be seen in Superman: Legacy, establishing a clear relationship between hero and villain in the DC Universe – which was something that the DCEU was sorely missing.

What James Gunn Has Said About Lex Luthor So Far

Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor in DC Universe fan art

Since announcing Superman: Legacy in January 2023, James Gunn has provided further information about his version of Lex Luthor. Not only is Gunn the co-CEO of DC Studios, but he is also writing and directing Superman: Legacy, which means he has a huge amount of control over which actors kick off his new franchise, and Lex Luthor will be an important cog in this machine. Several actors have been rumored to be being considered to portray Luthor, including the likes of Nicholas Hoult, Bradley Cooper, Bill Skarsgård, and Daniel Craig, though James Gunn debunked Craig’s casting rumors, and Hoult still appears to be the fan-favorite.

During a recent interview, Gunn suggested that his version of Lex Luthor would be grounded and carry more gravitas than previous iterations, even going so far as to stating on Twitter that Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor from 1978’s Superman was “campy… [not a] threat,” and that he “wished he’d played it bald.” This suggests that Superman: Legacy’s Lex Luthor will be darker and grittier, perhaps leaning more heavily into his sinister nature, while also keeping the villain bald – as is his most iconic look. Gunn is basing his DC Universe projects heavily on storylines and characters from DC Comics, so it seems Lex Luthor may be fairly comic-accurate, too.

Which Versions Of Lex Luthor From DC Comics Make The Most Sense For Superman: Legacy

James Gunn has confirmed that Superman: Legacy will be taking a lot of inspiration from Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Jamie Grant’s All-Star Superman which ran between 2005 and 2008, exploring Clark Kent’s attempts to make peace ahead of his imminent death. The version of Lex Luthor featured in this storyline debuted in 2004’s Superman: Birthright, which established a childhood friendship between Luthor and Kent when both were growing up in Smallville. The fact that Gunn is taking so much inspiration from All-Star Superman suggests that the DC Universe’s Lex Luthor will have a prior connection to Clark Kent, making for a more personal live-action story.

Although WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have brought Hollywood to a halt, it was reported prior to the strikes that James Gunn was looking for an actor to portray Lex Luthor in Superman: Legacy using the codename “Apex” (via Deadline). While this could simply be a cover for Luthor’s casting, this could also hint at Apex Lex Luthor being introduced, a version of the villain who had been gifted powers by the god Perpetua, including the power to travel across realities. This would make the DC Universe’s Lex Luthor incredibly powerful from the get-go, though may be too otherworldly and fantastical for his debut in Superman: Legacy.

Key Release Dates

Summary James Gunn plans to

Comics

Amazon’s Prime Video will show ads unless you pay $3 more per month

Prime Video users will soon see ads on shows and movies unless they pay an extra $3 per month on top of their regular Prime subscription, Amazon has announced. “Starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements,” the company wrote, noting that pricing for the ad-free tier will be announced for additional countries “at a later date.”

The news represents a significant change to Prime Video, which hadn’t previously served ads next to movie and TV content as part of Amazon’s Prime subscription. The streaming service is currently included for free with a Prime or $9 per month if purchased separately, offering third-party content (movies, TV series, etc.) and Amazon Original content produced by Amazon Studios. That includes series like The Boys and The Citadel, along with movies including Air, Manchester by the Sea and The Big Sick.

It didn’t say how many ads you’ll have to watch, though Variety suggests “limited advertisements” could mean around four minutes per hour. “We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,” the company said. “Ads in Prime Video content will be introduced in the US, UK, Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. No action is required for Prime members. We’re not making changes in 2024 to the current price of Prime membership.”

The news follows a report early this summer that Amazon was planning some kind of ad-supported Prime Video tier. Now, it turns out that’s just the regular subscription, with the new tier effectively an add-on.

Amazon justified the decision, saying it will allow it to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” It also cited the “vast selection of movies and series, including Amazon Originals and live sports, along with critically acclaimed series like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. The company recently spent millions to acquire rights to NFL Thursday Night Football and acquired MGM Studios in 2021 for $8.5 billion.

Amazon has already dallied with ads, as it currently shows them next to live sports streaming on Prime. Amazon also offers the FreeVee ad-supported site with over 100 Prime Video original series, available on its Fire TV stick, on other devices and as an app.

Ad-free Prime Video certainly made Amazon’s $139 per year ($15 per month) Prime membership compelling. With that now watered down, and Amazon also introducing new fees for same-day deliveries, it will be interesting to see if there’s any impact on subscriber numbers.

Prime Video users will soon see ads

Festivals

CBC Predicts Meta & Alphabet Will Block News In Other Countries – Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Meta and Alphabet will pull back from news distribution in more countries if forced to pay for content, the CEO of leading Canadian public network CBC/Radio Canada has predicted.

Catherine Tait told Deadline she “absolutely believes” globally-focused social media giants are prepared to stop linking to news content from organizations around the world, despite the “general growth of disinformation” on the internet.

The news comes as California seeks to introduce legislation that would require platforms to pay news outlets monthly usage fees, and as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which will provide protections to newspapers, broadcast stations and digital journalism outlets and give them more market power in the face of competition for advertising from the digital giants.

It also follows Meta and Alphabet choosing to stop hosting news sites in Canada and Meta’s announcement earlier this month that in December it would ‘deprecate’ Facebook News in the UK, Germany and France.

Facebook is focusing more on short-form video and away from news and political content, which it claims users no longer want as often.

In Canada, the government and news providers are currently at odds with the social media giants after the country’s new Online News Act — also known as Bill C-18 — ordered the Facebook and Instagram owner and others to compensate news orgs when their content is shared. Draft regulations show this would cost both companies around 4% of their Canadian revenues. In response to the law, Meta made the call to block news on its platforms and Alphabet is considering the same.

Meta claims the law “misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms” and is based on “on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true.”

Google has said it feared that the law would “make it harder for Canadians to find news online, make it harder for journalists to reach their audiences, and reduce valuable free web traffic to Canadian publishers.”

Tait said Canada had now become “the canary in the coal mine” for the future relations between public news organizations and social media platforms. “Canada was among first to adopt cable, the internet and Netflix outside of the U.S. As a result, we’ve become a precautionary tale for potential negative outcomes or, at a minimum, the strains of being at the leading edge of technology.

“The business model of these companies is global, so for us to be thinking of us as individual nation states, separate with our own regimes, is a bit absurd. They operate on a global scale and so therefore will be looking at any sort of regulatory imposition as a precedent in other jurisdictions. It’s logical.”

The debate on the role that social media — and Facebook and Instagram, in particular — plays in local news ecosystems has been rumbling on for years now. As far back as 2018, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said paying publishers was not part of his plans, though the company has ceded ground on occasion since.

For example, the Facebook News feature sees Meta pay some news outlets for the content. In Europe, it is being wound down, but users will still be able to access news through links and existing contracts will be honored until they expire in the UK, France and Germany.

“However, to ensure that we continue to invest in those products and services that drive user engagement, we will not enter into new commercial deals for news content on Facebook News in these countries and do not expect to offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future,” the company said in a blog post unveiling the move just over two weeks ago.

Another situation came to a head in Australia two years ago, with Facebook blocking news content after being ordered to shell out cash. The standoff ended quickly with the major social media platforms agreeing a deal with the Australian government to create the News Media Bargaining Code, which sees news providers paid for their online content.

Meanwhile, in California, a bill resembling C-18 has cleared preliminary hurdles in the state and could soon become law, as we reported in August in our story on the Canadian situation. Canada’s plight has reinvigorated a longstanding debate in the U.S. about how news organizations can respond as tech companies continue to draw vast numbers of readers and advertisers.

Canadian clash

Exacerbating the situation in Canada is the wildfires that have ravaged Canada’s Northwestern Territories and British Columbia in recent months. Facebook’s news block began in August as the fires spread, becoming the largest in North American history. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among those to criticize the move.

The CBC says locals used Facebook Groups to stay in touch during the worst of the fires, and its reporters interviewed evacuees angry they could not share important news reports on the platform.

With more than 450 Canadian news outlets estimated to have closed in the past 15 years, in large part due to the rise of the internet and social media, many remote, small-sized communities such as Yellowknife and Kelowna do not have vast arrays of options for information. Instead, they rely more than ever on mainstream sources — or less reputable ones.

Meta statistics show 70,000 Canadians used its Safety Check tool and more than 1.5 million visited its Yellowknife and Kelowna crisis response pages to access information and check on loved ones. The company also provided Red Cross Canada with resources to “amplify” evacuation resource messaging.

CBC/Radio Canada claims Facebook should have “put aside political and business concerns with the legislation” and kept linking “as a humanitarian act” during the fires. Along with News Media Canada and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the public network has lodged an anti-competition complaint against Facebook with regulators.

“We know sharing on Facebook is the habit that has been formed and we were therefore very concerned that people were not getting the very important news about evacuation, movement of the fires or health and safety concerns. Unfortunately, our appeal landed on deaf ears,” Tait told Deadline. “It’s a great worry to us that a service that has such as outsized, dominant role in another sovereign state can exercise that kind of control.”

During the fires, Meta Head of Partnerships for Canada Marc Dinsdale wrote to the CBC to say Meta shares Tait’s “deep concern for the wellbeing of Canadians in communities impacted by wildfires across the country and ha[s] been taking steps to ensure people in impacted communities can access authoritative information from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations through our platforms.”

Facebook declined to comment directly on this article.

Digital domination

The Online News Act law was brought in as a response to Meta and Alphabet’s domination of the digital ad market. In Canada, the pair account for around 80% of digital ad revenues, according to the Canadian government.

Meta believes the law is based on an incorrect premise that social media companies benefit unfairly from news content shared on Facebook and Instagram, and that Canadian companies actually benefit financially.

Meta also claims news is no longer a substantial part of users’ feeds, with less than 3% of what’s posted being news links, and says that habits are changing. The social media giant has data showing the proportion of adults using Facebook for news fell by about a third between 2016-2022 from 45% to 30%, and that 20% of Canadians believe there is “too much” news on the platform.

CBC/Radio Canada chief Tait said the Online News Act requires a “modest” redistribution of revenues that would be reinvested in journalism, but Meta sees the only way to comply is to back out of the system altogether. The digital giant has noted news is still accessible through websites of news outlets, downloading mobile news apps and subscribing to publishers.

Tait was reappointed CBC/Radio Canada CEO in June for an additional 18-month term, since when she has mainly focused on highlighting issues around disinformation and fake news. She joined in 2018, becoming the first woman to lead the organization.

Tait was in Prague, Czechia this week at the Public Broadcasters International conference, which brought together the likes of the CBC, BBC and France Televisions and members of the European Commission and European Broadcasting Union.

She said a main area of discussion at the confab is how globally-minded digital companies had “really revolutionized our industries for a lot of good reasons” and added: “No one is saying to get Facebook or Google out of Canada — Canadians love and appreciate these services.”

Tait said Canadian broadcasters and services were required to pay taxes and services and invest in Canadian content, meaning companies as powerful as Alphabet and Meta would simply be paying into a existing system. “We all have requirements regarding local news so that there is a provision in a country of only 40 million to support our own domestic industry,” she said. “We would ask Facebook to be held responsible in the way we treat our own companies.”

EXCLUSIVE: Meta and Alphabet will pull back

The Continental, No One Will Save You

Welcome to the weekend edition of What’s On. Here are the big things happening on TV from Friday, September 22 to Sunday, September 24. All times are Eastern. [Note: The weekly What’s On will be published on Sundays.]

HBO really doesn’t want to talk about J.K. Rowling

1. John Wick’s world expands with The Continental

The Continental: From the World of John Wick | Behind the History and Lore of the Continental

Peacock, Friday, 3:01 a.m.: The John Wick universe grows with The Continental, a three-part limited series prequel. Set in an alternate history in the ’70s, the show chronicles how Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) became proprietor of the New York branch of The Continental, a safe haven for legal assassins. The cast includes Mishel Prada, Katie McGrath, and Jessica Allain. Mel Gibson also shows up for some reason. Here’s a bit from The A.V. Club’s review:

The Continental isn’t a mess. It’s fine, if anything, and for the most part—one notable casting decision aside—it doesn’t really screw up the John Wick canon in any way.

2. Kaitlyn Dever battles aliens in No One Will Save You

No One Will Save You | Official Trailer

Hulu, Friday, 12:01 a.m.: Brian Duffield’s horror-thriller, No One Will Save You, centers on Brynn Adams (Kaitlyn Dever), who lives in isolation in her childhood cabin. Brynn’s self-contained world is interrupted when aliens invade, forcing her to fight for survival while dealing with her past.

3. Apple TV+ drops British comedy Still Up

Still Up — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

Apple TV+, Friday, 12:01 a.m.: Still Up is a British rom-com focused on two insomniacs whose relationship is cultivated when they talk on the phone for hours late into the night—even though they’ve never actually met in person. Lisa (Antonia Thomas) is a free-spirited illustrator and Danny (Craig Roberts) is a socially anxious journalist. (Wonder what that’s like.) The eight-episode-strong Still Up debuts with two installments.

4. Yeah, there’s another Spy Kids movie

Spy Kids: Armageddon | Official Trailer | Netflix

Netflix, Friday, 3:01 a.m.: Robert Rodriguez directs another Spy Kids film, the fifth in the franchise. Armageddon follows Patty (Everly Carganilla) and Tony (Connor Esterson), the children of secret agents Nora (Gina Rodriguez) and Terrence (Zachary Levi). When they unwittingly help a powerful game developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, the kids become spies to save their parents and the world.

5. Sam Jay and HBO team up for a comedy special

Sam Jay: Salute Me or Shoot Me | Official Trailer | HBO

HBO, Saturday, 9 p.m.: Stand-up comic Sam Jay’s special, Salute Me Or Shoot Me, marks her first at HBO since her comedy series, Pause With Sam Jay, was canceled by the network. In the special, she talks about long-distance relationships, embracing diversity, and the importance of empathy.

6. Everyone’s guilty pleasure, Love Is Blind, is back

Love Is Blind: Season 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix

Netflix, Friday, 3:01 a.m.: Who’s ready to step back into the pod with Love Is Blind? The dating reality show returns with Nick and Vanessa Lachey as hosts. In the series, contestants attempt to fall in love, sight unseen, with others. Season five kicks off with four episodes, with multiple outings airing every week until the finale on October 13.

Welcome to the weekend edition of What’s

Izzy Zapata and Stacy Snyder on Love Is Blind

‘Love Is Blind’ Season 5: Are Izzy Zapata and Stacy Snyder Still Together?

Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen the first four episodes of season 5 of Love Is Blind, proceed with caution.

Welcome back to another season of highs, lows, and golden goblets. Love Is Blind premiered season 5 on Friday, with the Netflix reality series dropping the first four episodes.

There seemed to be more drama than ever as the singles entered into the pods hoping to find the one. From the start, contestant Izzy Zapata seemed to be at the top of multiple women’s lists. He made connections with Lydia, Johnie, and Stacy, though he said goodbye to Lydia when it was clear that her feelings for him were stronger than his were for her.

Izzy seemed torn between Johnie and Stacy, but after Johnie shared her “8,000 red flags,” regarding her complicated past with exes and addicts, Izzy decided he wasn’t ready to commit.

Netflix

He broke up with Johnie in favor of giving things with Stacy a go. Though Stacy admitted to struggling with letting her walls down and letting someone in, she ultimately accepted his proposal and the two had a sweet, albeit nerve-filled first encounter.

In the trailer for the upcoming episodes, Izzy is seen telling contestant Chris that Johnie told him she loved him “four times,” and Stacy tells Izzy, “So I’m taking it as you want me to see you as a f**kboy.”

In the footage, we see Stacy in a wedding dress walking down the aisle with her father, so it seems clear that these two at least make it to the altar.

Netflix

But do they say their “I dos”? The cast of Love Is Blind is known for wiping their socials to keep things spoiler-free until the wedding episodes air. Both Izzy and Stacy are following each other on Instagram, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re still together.

What is more telling is the fact that two of Stacy’s close friends, who are tagged in her photos, are also following Izzy and he is following them back.

This could mean that the two have tied the knot or simply continued on in their romance. Season 5 of Love Is Blind was filmed in early 2022, so if they are still together, the couple has been keeping this secret for more than a year.

New episodes of Love Is Blind stream Fridays on Netflix.

RELATED CONTENT:

Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen the

Stream Cassandro on Prime Video.

Cassandro Cast: Where You’ve Seen The Actors From The Biopic Before

Though Saúl Armendáriz is a name that’s not as recognizable as some of the Latino wrestlers currently running the ropes in companies like WWE and AEW, the flashy and decorated exótico (imagine a drag queen in the squared circle) better known as Cassandro has been a major influence for aspiring grapplers the past few decades. And now, he has his own movie in which he’s portrayed by Gael García Bernal.

If you caught the movie as a way to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month on the big screen, or checked out the biographical drama now that it’s streaming for anyone with an Amazon subscription, there’s a good chance you’re wondering why Bernal and other members of the Cassandro cast look so familiar. Well, let’s break that down all the major players in Roger Ross Williams’ latest film…

(Image credit: Amazon)

Gael García Bernal (Saúl Armendáriz)

Leading things off is Gael García Bernal, who, as mentioned up above, takes on the role of Saúl Armendáriz, the titular character in Cassandro. Going from a struggling El Paso-based wrestler to one of the most colorful and influential Hispanic wrestlers on the international scene after adopting the exótico style, Bernal brings Armendáriz’s journey to the screen.

Though he hadn’t appeared in a wrestling movie prior to joining the Cassandro cast, Bernal has had some experience in the world of biographical dramas, taking on leading roles in movies like The Motorcycle Diaries in which he played a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and then Maziar Bahari in Rosewater.

That’s just a small portion of Bernal’s body of work, as he has voiced beloved characters like Héctor in one of the best Pixar movies, Coco, and even won a Golden Globe for his take on Rodrigo De Souza in the Amazon original series, Mozart in the Jungle. Bernal’s other notable films include everything from Amores Perros to Bad Education and The Science of Sleep to Werewolf By Night.

Roberta Colindrez in Cassandro

(Image credit: Amazon)

Roberta Colindrez

Roberta Colindrez, who built quite a name for herself over the course of the past decade-and-a-half, is another talented actor to appear in Cassandro.

After making brief appearances in movies like Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and shows like Boardwalk Empire and Girls, Colindrez has found success on the small screen in recent years. This includes everything from The Deuce to Vida and Mrs. America to The Harper House. Most recently, Colindrez appeared in the A League of Their Own cast, taking on the role of Lupe Garcia.

Perla De La Rosa in Cassandro

(Image credit: Amazon)

Perla De La Rosa

Perla De La Rosa also shows up in the Cassandro cast, appearing in her first movie in nearly a decade.

Throughout her career, which goes back several decades, De La Rosa has given commanding performances in movies like A Thousand Clouds of Peace, Ave María, and One Man’s Hero to name a few. During that same stretch of time, the actress has also taken on roles on TV shows such as Nada Personal, Alcanzar Una Estrella, and Carrusel.

The Morales family sitting at dinner in Gentefied.

(Image credit: Netflix)

Joaquín Cosío

Also joining the Cassandro cast is veteran actor Joaquín Cosío, who audiences will surely remember from the big-budget comic book movie, action flicks, and spy thrillers he’s been a part of the past few decades.

Cosío famously played Mateo Suárez in The Suicide Squad, a role that James Gunn wrote without meeting the actor first. On top of playing the over-the-top military general in the blood-soaked 2021 DCEU movie, Cosío has also popped up in movies like Rambo: Last Blood, The Lone Ranger, Savages, A Better Life, and Quantum of Solace, a film that defined the Daniel Craig 007 era. The actor also has a great number of TV credits to his name as well, including popular shows like Narcos: Mexico, The Strain, and Eastbound & Down.

Raúl Castillo in Cassandro

(Image credit: Amazon)

Raúl Castillo

Next up is Raúl Castillo, another actor who brings years of experience on the big screen and small screen to the Cassandro cast.

Prior to signing on to appear in Roger Ross Williams’ biographical drama, Castillo cut his teeth with small, one-off roles on shows like Nurse Jackie, Law & Order, All My Children, and Blue Bloods. That would change after taking on the role of Richie on the HBO romantic dramedy series Looking, which he followed up with appearances on Gotham, Easy, and Atypical. Most recently, Castillo appeared in the Class of ‘09 cast. His film work is just as impressive thanks to movies like Knives Out, The Inspection, and Army of the Dead, to name only a few.

El Hijo Del Santo and Gael García Bernal in Cassandro

(Image credit: Amazon)

El Hijo Del Santo

El Hijo del Santo, the son of the masked wrestler and B-horror movie actor El Santa, a.k.a., the world’s most famous luchador, is one of several professional grapplers to show up in Cassandro, and perhaps the most notable.

The accomplished wrestler and actor whose name translates to “The Son of the Saint,” has followed his father’s footsteps in a number of ways throughout his life and career. This includes a successful in-ring career dating back to early 1980s that has taken him to the top of promotions like AAA, CMLL, UWA, and multiple others in Mexico, the United States, and internationally. In 2004, Pro Wrestling Illustrated listed him as the 14th best wrestler in the world in the magazine’s annual Top 500 ranking, per ProFightDB.com. El Hijo Del Santo has also appeared in several movies throughout his career and even developed the animated series Santo vs. The Clones.

Bad Bunny in Cassandro

(Image credit: Amazon)

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio AKA “Bad Bunny”

And then there is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known by his stage name Bad Bunny, who rounds out the Cassandro cast.

Bad Bunny has not only made a name for himself in the music industry (countless awards, headlining Coachella 2023, other accolades), he’s also become a major force in professional wrestling and Hollywood. With multiple appearances in marquee WWE events like WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, and numerous others, the rapper-turned-wrestler has become one of the most successful celebrity guests in the company’s history. Combine that with roles in F9 and Bullet Train, and you’ve got quite a successful past few years.

We still don’t know what’s happening with El Muerto, the upcoming Marvel movie in which Bad Bunny will play a luchador-turned-superhero, but hopefully that changes in the coming months.

You can see all of these actors in more now that Cassandro is streaming on Prime Video, a streaming service that will also be home to some of the other big releases on the 2023 movie schedule.

Though Saúl Armendáriz is a name that’s

Rodriguez’s Beloved Franchise Returns – IndieWire

For a certain generation of movie fan, the list of the best sequels in cinema history has to extend beyond “The Godfather Part II,” straight into another intergenerational saga of children bearing the emotional weight of their parents’ legacy. That film, of course, is “Spy Kids 2: The Lost Island of Dreams.”

Yes, Robert Rodriguez’s beloved kid-centric franchise, which first high-kicked its way into theaters in 2001, still holds a very special spot in the heart of many millennial-Gen-Z-cuspers, at least as it applies to their take on “classic cinema.” So when Rodriguez, in partnership with Skydance, Spyglass, and Netflix, announced a reboot in 2022, this reviewer was skeptical (and, sadly, now an actual adult).

But, thanks to an odd (if not uninspired) combination of Fortnite, “Tron,” and even a dash of the sensibilities of “Mission: Impossible,” Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids: Armageddon” meets expectations. It’s a cute, family-centric movie geared to the Gen Alpha kids of today who were raised on iPads and Nintendo Switches. (Yes, we had to look up what generation follows Gen Z; the more you know.)

Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer"

Directed by Rodriguez from a script he co-wrote with own son Racer Max, “Spy Kids: Armageddon” is more or less is a modernized remake of the first film (and, yes, with the original film now over 20 years old, there are still things here to modernize). Super-spies Nora Torrez (Gina Rodriguez) and Terrence Tango (Zachary Levi) are attempting to lead a normal life while also being frequently dispatched to save the world, while also parenting kids Patty (Everly Carganilla) and Tony (Connor Esterson), both of whom have developed some sleuthing skills of their own, all the better to sneak around their whipsmart folks.

Tony is obsessed with popular video game Hyskor, and when the villains of the game come to life to attack his very own parents, Tony’s knowledge of the rules of the game suddenly become very necessary (plus, he has to stop a skeleton key computer code from getting out into the world, shades of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”!). Hyskor developer Rey “The King” Kingston (Billy Magnussen) is determined to avenge his own father, who incidentally created the titular Armageddon code before perishing as part of a mission that the Torrez-Tango parents (incidentally!) completed.

On the anniversary of Rey’s father’s death, he steals the Armageddon code back from Terrence, who has been using it to infiltrate the tech of evil masterminds for years. Yes, that plot seems eerily similar to the latest “Mission: Impossible” film, and Rodriguez’s feature includes even more winks toward the camera (the kinda that original “Spy Kids” stars Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas already mastered). Magnussen’s turn as the whiny, evil mastermind is even teased to return in a possible follow-up. Still, two decades on, this “Spy Kids” is more focused on the role of technology in the home (and world) than silly euphemisms between married adults and eye-rolling kids.

As delightful as Levi and Rodriguez prove to be together, “Armageddon” thoroughly belongs to fresh faces Esterson and Carganilla, taking over for Daryl Sabara and Alexa PenaVega. The kids’ respective performances feel relatable, authentic, and above all, fun, making “Armageddon” the type of children’s movie where a young audience member could see themselves onscreen, no doubt agreeing with Tony’s disdain for rules around when he can play video games. The film needs more family time, however, with the Torres-Tango family not being seen as a whole unit until the third act, when they literally enter the Hyskor game to save the planet from evil tech (and, yes, this movie was made before the WGA and SAG strikes over A.I.).

With its video games references and exciting spy elements (a super-tech mobile! an underwater safe house! gadgets!), “Armageddon” will certainly appeal to kids today, the kind that fall into the pre-tween age group who still dream about joining the CIA. As spy boss Devlin (D.J. Cotrona) says at the end of the film, it’s simply onto the next mission for the “Spy Kids” family. Will that sequel rival “Spy Kids 2”? Stay tuned.

Rating: B-

“Spy Kids: Armageddon” is now streaming on Netflix.

For a certain generation of movie fan,

Music

Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas: A Complete Divorce Timeline

He also says that he asked permission to post the photos of Turner at the bar, and her team said yes. “Then two days later it gets about that she’s getting a divorce,” he says.

“The annoying thing for me is obviously [her team] would’ve known that she was getting a divorce,” he continues. “Just because it wasn’t publicized, they would’ve known what was going on. I kind of feel a little let down that we then posted the photos…and then were told that we have to take them down because of what was going on.”

As for her carefree demeanor in the photos, Stephenson says that she was simply obliging his requests to smile and pose for the cameras, and that, while she did enjoy some drinks with her colleagues, “she wasn’t getting smashed.”

“She had maybe a couple of drinks. That mojito,” he said, referencing the drink in her hand in one of the photos, “she had probably like two of them, if that. We had a couple of shots together and then they left at two o’clock. She wasn’t paralytic, she wasn’t sitting there drowning in sorrows, forgetting children or anything like that. She was just finishing work and going home.”

“And for her to be painted like she’s some kind of terrible parent,” he added, shaking his head. “I can’t comment on that because I don’t know her lifestyle, I don’t know her like that. But what I do know is when I did meet her, she was very down-to-earth, very lovely, very approachable, very nice, and I feel very sorry that all this has come about from photos that I’ve posted.”

Watch the video below:

TikTok content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

September 9, 2023: Joe Jonas makes his first solo public statement to fans during the Jonas Brothers concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. “It’s been a tough week. I just wanna say, look, if you don’t hear it from these lips, don’t believe it,” he told the crowd, per fan recordings. “Okay? Thank you everyone for your love and support. Me and my family love you guys.”

After his speech, Jonas appeared to shed a tear as he performed “Hesitate,” according to one fan video.

TikTok content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

September 12, 2023: Turner is spotted back at work filming the upcoming series Joan in Spain for the first time since the news dropped, and she was rocking a totally new look. For the character, she wears a blonde bob and a massive back tattoo, both of which you can see here. (Actors in Europe are not on strike; she’s not a scab!) As the outlet notes, Turner, who was photographed while taking a cigarette break, holds her phone, which has a Toy Story case on it. She and Joe got Buzz Lightyear tattoos together. My heart!

September 21, 2023: Turner sues Jonas for the “wrongful retention” of their two children in New York.

According to Turner’s petition, obtained by Today, Jonas blocked the actor from returning the couple’s daughters to their “habitual residence in England.” She alleges that they had jointly decided to make Turner’s home country their permanent residence back in April, and suggests that Jonas is currently withholding the girls’ passports.

He also says that he asked permission

Diego Robino, Hernan Musaluppi, Laura Fernandez Espeso and Santiago Lopez

Docs

The Mediapro Studio Acquires Cimarrón, Co-Founded by Hernan Musaluppi

SAN SEBASTIAN — In a first big deal to be announced during this year’s San Sebastian Festival, Madrid-based The Mediapro Studio, one of Europe’s biggest independent and international creation-production-distribution powerhouses, has acquired Cimarrón, the Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico-based production house and services company.

Of “highly significant value,” TMS said Friday, the deal looks set to consolidate TMS’ presence in Latin America and beyond. In the region, in its earliest talent deal, TMS acquired Argentina’s Oficina Burman in 2018, headed by filmmaker Daniel Burman who plays a further double role at TMS as head of content U.S. and as one of TMS’s leading creators, show running Amazon’s Prime Video title “Yosi, the Regretful Spy,” a major hit at 2022’s Berlinale Series.

Cimarrón’s integration in The Mediapro Studio follows on that of Spanish comedy powerhouse El Terrat and production alliances with Penelope Cruz’s Moonlyon, Mexico’s ViX, Turkey’s Mediapym, Belgium international format distributor BE-Entertainment and L.A.-based Wild Sheep Content, headed by former Netflix intentional honcho Erik Barmack, which has built in record time a global streamer client list on international series as he has also driven forcefully into the production in Mexico of Spanish literary IPs.

Following on the acquisition, Cimarrón founders Hernán Musaluppi, Diego Robino and Santiago López will continue to head up the company, which will function with “total creative freedom ,” The Mediapro Studio CEO Laura Fernández Espeso told Variety.

No price nor exact shareholding percentage has been revealed, though the latter looks like at least a majority stake.

The acquisition links two of the fastest-growing companies based out of the Spanish-speaking world but with much larger ambitions, and is a union of like-minded companies.

Both launched in 2018, collecting Mediapro’s multiple production companies under one umbrella TMS hit the ground running with 34 scripted series in various degrees of production worldwide.

TMS already runs offices in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, New York and Miami, as part of production productions around the globe which have grown from 11 on launch to now 24.

That said, Cimarrón brings a lot to the table for The Mediapro Studio. One key element is a great taste for talent, Musaluppi figuring as a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema, cutting his teeth associate producing refined arthouse titles such as Lisandro Alonso’s Cannes 2001 Un Certain Regard player “La Libertad” before also branching out to also producing more mainstream fare.

In a mark of just how far Cimarrón has grown in just five years, this year at San Sebastian, Cimarrón Cine produced Paula Hernández’s open art-house “The Ravishing Wind,” which opens San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos, and co-produced the singular real-life musician biopic “The Blue Star,” a buzz title in San Sebastian’s biggest sidebar New Directors. Moreover, it delivered production services on J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow,” confirmed Thursday as Spain’s Oscar entry and one of Netflix’s biggest plays for next year’s Academy Awards.

Yosi, the Regretful Spy

Underscoring its production range, Cimarrón Cine also co-produced “Extorsion” – backed by Warner Bros. Discovery Latin America’s Particular Crowd, Oscar winner Juan José Campanella’s 100 Bars, and “Argentina, 1985” producer Infinity Hill – and Argentina’s biggest box office hit of early 2023.

At the same time, however, Cimarrón, a company of large drive, seized the opportunity of Uruguay’s early emergence from COVID-19 in June 2020 to leverage the country’s stable currency, security, tax breaks and relative low costs to power up a production services business working on title from global streamers – Amazon’s Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix – which earned the platforms ’ trust.

Latest production services include Prime Video’s “LOV3,” “LOL” and “Dom” and Disney Star+’s “Impuros” Seasons 2 and 3 and “Insania.”

Cimarrón also provided services in Uruguay on The Mediapro Studio’s Prime Video series “Yosi, the Regretful Spy.”

“When we worked together on ‘Yosi,’ their whole production design was hugely creative in how they approached it, their methodology. They’re people who know how to read, interpret and produce content,” Fernández Espeso recalled.

“Cimarrón brings new creative talent of the highest order to our productions, and a production capacity of the highest quality. Together we aim to create projects targeting international markets, not just Spanish-speaking territories but the whole world,” she added.

After “Yosi,” TMS and Cimarrón began to talk pretty immediately about how to join forces. “When we first talked, at MipCancún, we realised that behind Mediapro is a philosophy, one of collaboration, which was what really interested us,” said Robino. “The deal is a catalyst. It allows us access to TMS talent, and the worldwide network of a benchmark company, taking us even more onto an international stage.”

Approaching a big Spanish star for a project, it will now be far easier to do so hand-in-hand with The Mediapro Studio, he added.

“Cimarrón was born out of a necessity to collaborate in order t0 grow,” said López. “Now we’ll be able to learn how to grow hand in hand with a studio. TMS is a giant company but when we chat with Laura she talks as equal to equal.”

“The new link puts us under pressure and we love pressure,” said Musaluppi. “There’s some challenge in my particular case, coming from cinema, to learn how to move forward, to maintain a production line but shaped to market necessities, given that, with the passage of time, the possibilities and models and players are evolving.”

That is a journey best made with partners, a philosophy The Mediapro Studio and Cimarrón have put and are now again putting into practice.

SAN SEBASTIAN — In a first big

Global

Psychiatrist ‘drugged up to 180 children and falsely convinced them they had been sexually abused by their parents so he could cash in on treating them’

Professor Suleyman Salih Zoroglu was arrested at his Istanbul clinic this month
Police believe he clocked up huge fees while the ‘abused’ children were patients

By Chris Jewers

Published: 04:47 EDT, 22 September 2023 | Updated: 06:41 EDT, 22 September 2023

A psychiatrist accused of drugging scores of children to convince them their parents had sexually abused them has been seized by police in Turkey.

Professor Suleyman Salih Zoroglu is said to have dosed nearly 200 youngsters with psychoactive drugs after they were taken to see him at his clinic in Istanbul in order to cash in on subsequent treatment.

Then, local media reports, he manipulated them to make them believe they had multiple personalities and had been subjected to sex attacks by their families.

Zoroglu and his staff were arrested in a police raid on his clinic on September 11, including a doctor who supplied him with illegal drugs.

Police believe Zoroglu – the Head of the Department of Child Psychiatry at Istanbul Çapa Medical Faculty – clocked up huge fees while the ‘abused’ children were patients at his clinic, forcing families to pay up for treatment and drugs.

Professor Suleyman Salih Zoroglu (pictured) is said to have dosed nearly 200 youngsters with psychoactive drugs after they were taken to see him at his clinic in Istanbul

Zoroglu knew that while police were investigating the bogus abuse claims, he would be able to cash in on money for the children’s care, according to reports.

But instead of helping the youngsters, he used the sessions to reinforce their false memories of abuse and make their situation even worse, police believe.

Zoroglu was only exposed when the horrified parents of one 15-year-old girl brought to his clinic were determined to prove he was lying.

The girl was originally taken to Zoroglu by her parents in October last year because they worried she was failing at school.

Greedy Zoroglu quickly diagnosed her with dissociative identity disorder. He said she had 48 distinct personalities and blamed it on sexual abuse by her father.

Then while she was an inpatient at his clinic, he doped her with the powerful horse tranquilliser Ketamine to compile a lurid catalogue of rape and abuse by her family.

Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning it acts on different chemicals in the brain to produce visual distortion and a detachment from reality.

In a grim twist, he even ordered her parents to buy the drugs he was dosing her with and bombarded them with religious messages accusing them of sinning.

Together with the doctor she filed a 12-page report with authorities, but when police were called in to investigate, a medical examination found she was still a virgin, and that her stories about being raped could therefore not be true.

Suspecting that she might have been taking drugs as the reason for the allegations, further tests were carried out that revealed traces of Ketamine in her hair, which led to the suspicion she had to have been taking this while she was in Zoroglu’s care.

It was only after the police took her away from the psychiatrist and his mind-bending treatments that she withdrew all her allegations about her parents and abuse.

The girl’s brother helped nail the shrink by saving key text messages between his sister and the medic which are said to have proven Zoroglu’s manipulative tactics.

His sister also provided prosecutors with a dossier of Zoroglu’s methods and the abuse he allegedly put seven other young patients through.

Zoroglu admits he prepared sexual abuse reports for more than 40 children but denied allegations of manipulation and coaching.

Prosecutors, however, suspect there may be as many as 180 children who received a bogus abuse diagnosis from Zoroglu.

The investigation continues.

Trending

Amazon To Start Running Ads In Prime Video Series & Movies – Deadline

Ads are coming to Prime Video’s entertainment content. Commercials in movies and series will be introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year.

Prime Video viewers got their first taste of ads on the platform after Amazon landed exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football in a $13.2 billion, 11-year deal that began in 2022. The live football telecasts have been airing with commercial breaks, which will now expand to non-sports content.

There are no details about how big the ad load will be, with Amazon saying that commercials will be “limited” and the goal is “to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”

In addition to free shipping and other benefits, for their monthly fee — currently at $14.99 — Prime members have been able to watch Prime Video films and series ad-free. Those who want to continue to do so next year will have to pay an additional fee, set at $2.99 per month in the U.S. The rest will watch shows and movies that feature ads, with their monthly Prime membership remaining unchanged.

According to Amazon, adding ads will allow the company to continue investing in content and increasing that investment over time.

Once frowned upon by streamers, a dual subscription-ad model — and the dual revenue stream that comes with it — has become the norm. With Amazon Prime adopting ads across its entire content portfolio on the heels of Netflix and Disney+ introducing ad tiers, Apple TV+ remains the only major streaming platform to employ a pure subscription model.

This marks the next step in Amazon’s advertising ambitions. The company has spent the past several years mounting a major ad offensive, through both live sports as well as ad-supported sibling Prime Video platforms such as Freevee and Twitch. While the $38 billion that Amazon took in from advertising last year is a small share of its $502 billion in total annual revenue, it is growing at a more than 20% quarterly clip.

Prime Video originals include series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Citadel, The Wheel of Time, Reacher, and The Summer I Turned Pretty, as well as movies Air, Creed III, Dungeons & Dragons, and the upcoming Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy.

Ads are coming to Prime Video’s entertainment

Tech

Amazon’s Prime Video Will Have Ads Starting in 2024 – The Hollywood Reporter

Another formerly ad-free streaming service is adding commercials to its programming.

Amazon announced Friday morning that its Prime Video service will feature limited ads beginning in early 2024 (an exact date for the rollout is to be determined). What’s more, the ad tier will be the default option for Prime Video, which is included in an Amazon Prime membership along with free shipping on packages, Amazon Music and other perks. The company says the price of a regular Prime subscription won’t rise next year, but users who want to continue watching Prime Video without commercials will have to pay an extra $2.99 per month. Amazon will alert users a few weeks ahead of the introduction of ads on Prime Video with instructions on how to sign up for ad-free viewing.

Prime Video joins previously commercial-free services Netflix, Disney+ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max in seeking out the revenue stream that advertising can provide on top of subscription fees (Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+ have had ad-supported plans from their beginnings). Amazon also has the free, ad-supported streamer Freevee, which won’t be affected by the Prime Video change.

Amazon says the inclusion of ads — it promises “meaningfully fewer” commercials than linear TV — on Prime Video will help the streamer keep investing in programming over the long term, including original series and live sports like the NFL’s Thursday Night Football franchise, rights to which come in at $1 billion annually.

Although ad-supported tiers for SVOD services typically come at lower monthly prices — or at no extra cost, in Prime Video’s case — the dual revenue streams can actually make the cheaper offerings more lucrative. “Consumers don’t just tolerate advertising in video content — in most cases, they actually see benefits from it,” Mark Loughney, senior consultant to Hub Research, told The Hollywood Reporter in August. “It allows them to choose their preferred video tiers at lower cost, and when presented right, advertising results in a more engaging viewing experience.”

Ads on Prime Video programming will roll out in early 2024 in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada. Users in France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia will start seeing commercials later in the year.

Another formerly ad-free streaming service is adding

Entertaintment

British Thriller ‘On the Line’ Snapped Up for U.K., U.S. Distribution

Oliver Pearn’s feature directorial debut “On the Line” has been snapped up for U.K. and U.S. distribution by Trinity Creative Partnership and 101 Films.

Set in Alderney, U.K. in 1964, the film follows a telephone operator, Agnes, who ends up being the pivotal piece of a drama unfurling which puts professional integrity and relationships, to the test. She finds herself in a deadly standoff and with time running out and the fate of a victim hanging in the balance Agnes must use her ingenuity and courage to navigate a web of lies.

The cast includes Victoria Lucie (“The Devil’s Machine”), Harriet Walter (“Ted Lasso”, “Succession”), and Royce Pierreson (“The Witcher”).

“The profession of the switchboard operator, a vital link connecting individuals, is now consigned to history’s archives. Today, the rise of artificial intelligence is transforming various industries and professions. Here, in 1964 against a backdrop of societal change – a new international phone line – attitudes to female roles and career ambitions swirl,” Pearn says in his director’s statement.

“Inspiration came from working at an international healthcare charity, I was moved by people’s life experience and at this time someone close to me took their life. I created this film in the hope that people feel able to reach out for help without fear or judgement,” Pearn added.

“On The Line” is produced by Nicola Quilter and Pearn. MovieHouse Entertainment is handling international sales.

Trinity Creative Partnership is the distributor behind “Oppenheimer: The Real Story” while 101 Films recently distributed Michael Flatley’s “Blackbird.”

Trinity Creative Partnership’s Andy Taylor said: “We’re excited to be working on the film ‘On The Line.’ We always like to support British independent filmmakers and this film deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.”

The film will premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival in October.

Oliver Pearn’s feature directorial debut “On the

Movies

‘It Lives Inside’ Review: The Horrors of Building Self-Acceptance

Why did you even come here, Samidha scoffs at her mother, if you were just going to be another Desi housewife? It’s about as piercing a jab as an American child could throw at their immigrant parent, and emblematic of the kind of disdain central to “It Lives Inside,” a social-horror movie from the writer-director Bishal Dutta, in his feature debut.

As Samidha (Megan Suri), an Indian American teenager, has gotten older, she’s increasingly distanced herself from anything that might reveal her cultural identity. She goes by Sam to her peers, avoids speaking Hindi and had a mysterious break from Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), an Indian American classmate who used to be her best friend. When she lashes out at Tamira, she unwittingly unleashes a monster ripped from Hindu folklore.

It’s a compelling premise. And as a horror movie with frights and an effective score, the film largely works. But the weightier themes around internalized racism and the immigrant experience fail to push beyond the basics, and the allegory doesn’t always succeed — a connection between the back story of the film’s monster and the idea of cultural self-acceptance is pretty flimsy.

Still, it’s a promising debut from Dutta, who offers a fresh premise that proves a natural fit for the genre. The themes will feel familiar to the American children of any diaspora. High school is scary to begin with. But when there’s only one other classmate of your race, what’s worse than being mistaken for each other?

It Lives Inside
Rated PG-13 for terror, violent content, bloody images, brief strong language and teen drug use. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters.

Why did you even come here, Samidha

Review: Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee’s new novel, ‘The Pole’

Review

The Pole

By J.M. Coetzee
Liveright: 176 pages, $26

If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

I’ve long been intrigued by late style. The phrase comes from Theodor Adorno, who in 1937 defined it like this: “The maturity of the late works does not resemble the kind one finds in fruit. They are for the most part not round, but furrowed, even ravaged. Devoid of sweetness, bitter and spiny, they do not surrender themselves to mere delectation.” The idea is that as an artist grows old, an aesthetic shift occurs. Its cause is the proximity of death.

Of course, death is always proximate, more or less, but for the aging artist, it is more concrete. I think of Philip Roth’s “Everyman,” the tautness by which it re-creates the life of its protagonist. Toni Morrison’s “A Mercy,” in less than 200 pages, effectively recapitulates America’s tortuous racial history. Such efforts read like distillations; they are winnowed. Perhaps immediate is the better word.

J.M. Coetzee’s “The Pole” operates at a similar frequency: tightly focused, a late style. (The author turned 83 in February.) At the same time, it represents a return of sorts — to the spareness of his early writing as well as to his fascination with artists as characters.

Coetzee, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003, began his career with a breathtaking series of short novels, particularly “Waiting for the Barbarians” (1980) and “Life and Times of Michael K” (1983), which recall Kafka in subject and sensibility. Then, he took a more ekphrastic turn. His 1986 novel “Foe” reimagines both “Robinson Crusoe” and its creator, Daniel Defoe. “The Master of Petersburg” (1994) offers a fictionalized portrait of Dostoevsky. In the 1999 collection “The Lives of Animals,” Coetzee invented a literary alter ego named Elizabeth Costello. She appears as well in two subsequent novels: the eponymous “Elizabeth Costello” and “Slow Man.”

“The Pole” is not about a writer. Rather, the book, which is centered in Barcelona, Spain, charts the halting relationship between a “tall Polish pianist and [an] elegant woman with the gliding walk, the banker’s wife who occupies her days in good works.” Those good works include helping to arrange recitals at a local concert circle, where she and the pianist meet.

The woman is named Beatriz, and the story is essentially told from her point of view, although Coetzee is, as he has often been, a trickster, which he makes clear from the novel’s opening line.

“The woman is the first to give him trouble,” he begins, “followed soon afterwards by the man.” If the woman is Beatriz and the man is the Pole, then is Coetzee “him”? The effect is to create a frame or a context, to remind us that, like every story, this one is mediated, an expression of the author’s perspective as much as of his characters.

Coetzee doesn’t directly insert himself again, but it’s not the only trick in the book, stylistic or otherwise; “The Pole” is full of them. The first five of the novel’s six chapters (it may be useful to think of them as movements) comprise numbered sections, ensuring that we never lose sight of the constructedness of the work.

The author highlights this throughout “The Pole,” mostly via Beatriz’s mind. She is charming, if deliberately self-deluding. She is content despite the fact that she and her husband have fallen out of love. Although she’s intrigued by the pianist, who is 25 years older, she keeps resisting her interest, even after she invites him to her family’s summer house. During his visit, she introduces her guest to the housekeeper, Loreto. Why would she do that if there were anything untoward?

In any case, Coetzee reminds us, “Loreto has a life of her own, invisible to her employers, which may well be full of surprises. It may contain, for instance, Loreto’s equivalent of the Pole. … It is only a matter of chance that the story being told is not about Loreto and her man but about her, Beatriz, and her Polish admirer. Another fall of the dice and the story would be about Loreto’s submerged life.”

We are thus primed for potential disruptions. Even the Pole, well into his own late style, is not too old to surprise us — or to find himself surprised. Like Dante, he is compelled by Beatriz. Or perhaps it is she who is compelled by him. “If she had to pin it down,” Coetzee writes, “she would call it pity. He fell in love with her and she took pity on him and out of pity gave him his desire. That was how it happened; that was her mistake.”

Here we have another of Beatriz’s (and Coetzee’s) counter-narratives, a lie that allows her to continue her life. If she can minimize her feelings, they will be neutralized. But emotions rarely remain so contained. “She is prepared,” Coetzee tells us, “to entertain the possibility that her story may be incomplete and even in certain respects untrue. But, looking into her heart, she can find no dark residue: no regret, no sorrow, no longings — nothing to trouble the future.” This is accurate enough, as it happens; she returns to her husband without event. Yet truth, we are left to imagine, is an illusion. Truth is another lie.

There’s more to say about this, but I don’t want to give away too much; among the pleasures of “The Pole” are the layers it reveals. It is a book not only of the living but also of the dead. What does love mean? Coetzee wants us to consider. And memory — what consolations can it offer when we know it doesn’t last?

“What has she forgotten?” he writes of Beatriz. “She has no idea. It is gone, has vanished from the face of the earth as if it had never existed.” That this is happening to all of us goes without saying. As we forget, so shall we also disappear. In “The Pole,” though, that’s no mere concept. Even Beatriz cannot keep immune.

In this deeply moving novel, Coetzee reminds us of what we wish we didn’t have to remember: that everything dissolves.

There you have it, in a nutshell: the reality of late style.

Ulin is a former books editor and book critic of the Times. His novel “Thirteen Question Method” will be published in October.

Review

DCU

Michael Caine Talks Retirement & How He Wants to Be Remembered

Summary

Michael Caine, the iconic actor, believes his retirement is near at the age of 90, saying he has practically stopped acting due to his physical limitations.
Caine reflects on his life and is grateful for the best possible wife and family, acknowledging that everyone will eventually face death.
Caine’s next film, “The Great Escaper,” could be his last, following his suggestion that retirement is imminent.

Acting icon Michael Caine could be near the end of his successful career. After becoming one of the most recognized and celebrated actors within the entire film industry, Caine is ready to rest and enjoy his achievements. The British artist has managed to become an absolute icon of cinema, working in more than 160 titles across film and television since he took his first steps in acting in 1950.

Turning 90 earlier this year, the multi-award-winning actor believes that his retirement is very close. In an article published by The Telegraph, Caine spoke about his future, revealing that he has practically stopped acting: “I am bloody 90 now, and I can’t walk properly and all that. I sort of am retired now,” said the actor to the outlet before sharing a reflection on his life:

“[Death] could be just around the corner at 90. But I’m quite happy. I’m sitting here writing, doing my thing. I like it. I have two children, three grandchildren and a wife… Everyone’s going to join me eventually. No one’s going to say, ‘I’m so sorry you’re going to die — I wish you were like me and not going to die.’ Everybody’s going to die. At least I’ve lived to f—ing 90; I didn’t die at 9, or 19 or 29. I’m 90, and I’ve had the best possible life I could have thought of. The best possible wife, and the best possible family. They may not be a family that other people would say is the best possible family — but the best possible family for me.”

Caine’s filmography includes movies such as Youth, Educating Rita, The Italian Job, Zulu, The Prestige, The Dark Knight trilogy, Gambit, California Suit, Mona Lisa, Dressed to Kill, Get Carter, The Cider House Rules, The Quiet American, The Man Who Would Be King, Hannah and Her Sisters, Alfie, and many others.

Michael Caine’s Next Role Could Be His Last One

Warner Bros. Pictures UK

If Caine really plans to retire and get away from the cameras, that means his next film, The Great Escaper, could be the last of his successful career after being surprisingly beng absent from Christopher Nolan’s recent hit Oppenheimer. The film, directed by Oliver Parker, is based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, a British war veteran who escaped from his retirement home in Sussex to attend the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in France.

The cast of The Great Escaper also includes Glenda Jackson, John Standing, Danielle Vitalis, Donald Sage, Kiera Bell, Ian Conningham, Jack Johnson, Isabella Domville, Joe Bone, Victor Oshin, Jeanette Maskell, and Peter Theobalds.

In the interview, Caine talked about his role in the film, and how he enjoyed being a part of the project

“I was so happy to do it. I just loved the character of Bernie. I thought he was incredible, and it’s so beautifully written. With Covid and all that, I hadn’t done a picture for three years, and I thought I was finished. And I suddenly did it — and had such a wonderful time.”

The Great Escaper is scheduled for release on October 6, 2023.

Summary Michael Caine, the iconic

Comics

A new Lord of the Rings game, Tales of the Shire, is coming to consoles and PC

A new Lord of the Rings game, Tales of the Shire, has been announced for PC and consoles.

It’s being developed by New Zealand-based special effects and prop company Wētā Workshop, which is perhaps best known for its work on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbits films, and will be published by Take-Two’s Private Division label.

“Your cosy Hobbit life awaits in Tales of the Shire, a heart-warming, new, The Lord of the Rings game due out in 2024 on console and PC,” Private Division said.

A teaser trailer for the game, which is listed as “coming soon” on the publisher’s website, is viewable above.

Embracer Group acquired the entertainment rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit IPs in August 2022.

As part of ongoing restructuring efforts, which have resulted in some game studios being closed and some projects being cancelled, the company has said it plans to increase its focus on internal IP like The Lord of the Rings.

“I have a high degree of confidence that this entire process is going to easily translate into better product selection that’s more profitable and that gives us a greater opportunity for growth in the future, and that helps to leverage the IP that we own within our organisation,” interim chief operating officer Matthew Karch said in June.

“I mean, we own Lord of the Rings, and we know we need to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion and turning that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world, and that’s obviously something we’re going to be doing.”

It was announced in May that Amazon Games is developing and set to publish a Lord of the Rings MMO for PC and console.

That same month, the poorly received The Lord of the Rings Gollum was released for PC and consoles.

In February, Embracer announced it had stuck an agreement with New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures to collaborate on multiple feature films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s most famous works.

A new Lord of the Rings game,

Festivals

‘The Goat’ with Mira Sorvino, John Savage, Set For El Gouna and Rome

Italian multi-hyphenate Ilaria Borrelli’s Arabic-language feminist drama “The Goat” – featuring Mira Sorvino and John Savage, alongside a stellar Egyptian cast – is set for back-to-back launches at Egypt’s upcoming El Gouna Film Festival, followed by the closing film slot at the Rome Film Festival.

A rare, if not unique, case of an Arab production directed by an Italian, “The Goat” stars young Egyptian TikTok star Jessica Hosam as an 11-year-old pregnant orphan named Hadya who after being forced into marriage becomes the target of a western corporation that seeks to control the only water source in her village. She escapes into the desert with her goat on a journey in search of her father. See trailer above

“She takes the road to freedom alone with her goat whose milk she will use to survive. Sometimes when she drinks the milk she feels her mum is talking to her,” according to the film’s provided logline.

This film aims to question “‘civilised western countries’ – and all of us who live in them – about our role in the appropriation of the natural resources of poorer countries,” Borrelli said in a statement.

“The Goat” also shines a spotlight “On barbaric traditions still practiced in so many areas of the world that devastate the young women and girls in these communities, such as marriage by abduction, gang rape, deadly childbirth conditions and obstetric fistula,” she went on to note.

Borrelli is a Paris-based Italian actress and director who studied at NYU and previously directed the comedy “Our Italian Husband” with Pierfrancesco Favino and Brooke Shields and “The Girl From the Brothel,” a drama about a French woman who risks her life to rescue three young girls from a Cambodian brothel.

Savage plays the CEO of a U.S. multinational company that wants to take over the village’s spring to produce fancy bottled mineral water; Sorvino plays the company’s engineer; Egyptian star Amr Saad plays Hadya’s father.

“The Goat,” which is written and directed by Borrelli, is a co-production between Egypt’s Agora Media Production and France’s Domedo Productions in collaboration with Italy’s Orange Media and producer Oscar Generale, plus Lebanon’s Cedars Art Production (Sabbah Brothers) and U.S. company Pantheon Entertainment, and with support from Italy’s culture ministry.

Italian multi-hyphenate Ilaria Borrelli’s Arabic-language feminist drama

The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told has been awarded at INDIEFEST with 4 Awards

Cindy Drukier (USA), The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told has been awareded in the followin Categories

Award of excellence: Documentary Feature

Award of Merit Liberation: Social Justice / Protest

Award of excellence: Special Purpose Productions

Award of Merit: Women Filmmakers

indie film festival

Indie Film Festival winner

THE COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS

Cindy Drukier (USA), The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine

Ads Are Coming to Amazon Prime Video – IndieWire

The y got to Amazon Prime Video, too.

Beginning in early 2024, Prime Video series and movies will include commercials. The core Amazon video-streaming service says it aims to have “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”

Of course, that’s what they all say. And we do mean all — this latest development pretty much just leaves Apple TV+ as the lone major streamer without commercials. We’ll see how long that lasts. (Due to the nature of live sports, Apple’s MLS service and MLB “Friday Night Baseball” add-on package have ads.)

Netflix and other top streamers have been pushing users to ad-supported versions of their services. The average revenue per user (ARPU) on those tiers tends to be a bit higher than on the subscription-only plans. That’s especially the case in poorer countries where consumers are conditioned to sit through a larger ad load to get their entertainment.

Existing Prime Video members will automatically be opted-in to the ad-supported tier and their monthly subscription price will not change. Those who want to remain ad-free will have to pay an extra $2.99 per month in the U.S. Pricing for other countries will come at a later date. So will ads.

At first, subscribers in the U.S., the UK, Germany, and Canada will start to see commercials; “later in the year” ads will migrate to France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia. Prime members will be officially notified of the change — and offered the ad-free upgrade — weeks before the ads invade.

A Prime membership — the one that includes the free, fast shipping on online goods — costs $14.99 per month. If you want to remain ad-free, begin to budget $17.98. One can subscribe solely to Prime Video — that option currently runs $8.99 per month. It is currently not clear if the ad-free version will math up to $11.98, but probably.

Amazon kinda-sorta had ads already. Much like the parenthetical Apple example above, Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” has commercials. Prime Video also rolled some marketing ads ahead of content; a “Jack Ryan” spot in front of “Reacher,” for one perfectly synergistic example. (Author’s side note: What a crossover opportunity!)

There was no information available on when the new ads would or would not run within Prime Video. Pre-roll is pretty much a certainty in the business, but interrupting a film is a whole ‘nother ballgame. Some plans on some streamers already commit this sin; others do not. Fingers-crossed for Prime Video to be as selective and careful as its corporate promise above.

Amazon, through its acquisition of MGM, has a whole bunch of movies at its disposal. We’re not sure Artists Equity had visions of a Charmin toilet-paper ad midway through a screening of “Air,” for example. Enjoy the go, you guys.

There will be no changes to Amazon’s FAST service Freevee, we’re told. That one, like its acronym implies, is totally free.

James Marsden (C), Ronald Gladden (R) and the cast of — Amazon Prime Video Freevee’s “Jury Duty”Courtesy of Amazon Freevee

Amazon Prime offers free delivery on hundreds of millions of items, which are typically delivered in one or two days. It has free same-day delivery on more than a million items.

Surely, many of those same items will be the consumer products and packaged goods you’ll soon see advertised during an “Upload” binge. How meta. Apple and Amazon were already the two largest companies (by market cap) in the world; their video businesses have pretty much just been side hustles to their respective retail operations.

An Amazon Prime membership gets you Prime Video series and films, access to deals and shopping events (like Prime Day), and Amazon music, which offers ad-free listening to 100 million songs and millions of podcast episodes. There are other ancillary benefits like unlimited photo storage, Prime Gaming, and Prime Reading, among others.

They got to Amazon Prime Video, too. Beginning

How to Beat The King’s Flame, Fuoco (Boss Fight)

A mobile furnace called the King’s Flame, Fuoco in Lies of P spreads devastating fire attacks against Pinocchio in the third major boss fight of the game that you must find a way to beat. A dangerous opponent with slow but highly damaging physical attacks, it can be hard to parry and dodge this boss. Thankfully, a hidden weakness can make this battle far easier when you collect items that inflict a specific type of damage.

This boss is weak to electric damage, which can be applied with attacks from the Electric Coil Stick weapon and Fulminis Legion Arm. Items such as Throwing Cells, Electric Blitz Canisters, and Electric Blitz Abrasives can also deal this damage type to the flaming automaton, giving you a massive advantage during the fight. You can Fast travel in Lies of P to vendors and upgrade stations in Hotel Krat to purchase a few of these tools beforehand.

How To Defeat King’s Flame, Fuoco in Lies of P

While taking advantage of the King’s Flame, Fuoco’s electric vulnerability, block or dodge the hammer attacks in the first phase, then stay far away to carefully avoid ranged fire projectiles in the second phase. This boss has melee strikes that are notoriously hard to Perfect Guard in Lies of P, making speed your greatest weapon. Toss the electric items at the boss from afar to get a head start and deal significant damage immediately.

Gear like the Workshop Union Standard Radiation Converter will also help increase your Heat resistance against this boss if you can find the enemy that carries the item close to the Stargazer outside Fuoco’s boss room.

The second phase will begin when Fuoco reaches 50% health, as the boss spews fire almost across the entire arena that will inflict the Overheat condition if you get hit. This causes your health to deteriorate over time, so make sure to have one or two Attribute Purification Ampoules at hand to cure this quickly. Like the Parade Master fight in Lies of P, healing or recovery must be done carefully.

Continue to pressure the boss while avoiding its physical strikes and blocking the fire projectiles it shoots throughout the second phase. The electrified weapon and Legion Arm mentioned earlier will make short work of the walking boiler room if you take your time and anticipate attack patterns. The King’s Flame Fuoco may be an unorthodox boss to beat, but it is far from impossible when you learn its tricks and take you one step closer to Lies of P‘s final boss.

A mobile furnace called the King's Flame,

Bad Bunny Casting ‘Almost Made Me Fall Off My Chair’

Audiences watching Roger Ross Williams’ latest feature “Cassandro” might be surprised by one of the faces they see: that of musician Bad Bunny. The singer turned actor stars as Felipe, a friend and associate “exotico” wrestler Cassandro (Gael Garcia Bernal) meets. The film follows Cassandro’s journey of finding self-acceptance through a larger-than-life character.

“I remember the producers came to me and said, ‘Bad Bunny wants to be in the film.’ I almost fell off my chair,” Williams told TheWrap. According to the director, he auditioned several actors for the character of Felipe and had actually come down to the final group of contenders. “We screen tested a Felipe and the guy was about to get the call,” he said. That is until Bad Bunny’s people reached out.

The musician, according to Williams, is a fan of the Mexican wrestling known as lucha libre that, along with his interest in the script sparked his interest in wanting to be in “Cassandro.”

“We moved heaven and Earth,” Williams said.

What surprised Williams was how much Bad Bunny, the actor, was different from the singer’s on-stage persona. “It’s a little like ‘The Wizard of Oz,” Williams said. “There’s a shy little person in there pulling the strings and creating this bigger-than-life character, but that’s why he’s able to act and he’s able to give the subtle performance off of Gael’s performance.”

“He has a huge career ahead of him as an actor,” Williams said.

But that’s no surprise. Bad Bunny made his cinematic debut in the actioner “Bullet Train” last year. He was attached to Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off “El Muerto,” a story about a man who, through the aid of a luchador mask, becomes a superhero. However, the studio removed the film from the release calendar back in June and a September interview with Vanity Fair revealed he is no longer connected with the role.

Amazon Prime Video will release “Cassandro” to stream Friday, Sept 22.