Ghostrunner is an action-packed romp through sick slides and a neon-filled environment. I’ve been immensely excited to play through the sequel and I’m planning to buy it on day 1. However, it looks like we won’t need to wait that long. At today’s State of Play, Ghostrunner 2 devs One More Level Games released a new trailer and announced a playable demo. The best part, it’s playable right now!
While I haven’t played through the demo just yet, if it’s like the first game’s pre-launch demo, it’ll offer around 30 minutes of the game, including some combat and traversal, along with early story details. It’ll only be a fraction of what we can expect, but having even a crumb could be a nice lead-up to the full meal next month. I know I’m craving it at least.
Image via 505 Games.
Ghostrunner 2 takes place one year after the events of the first game where the Keymaster, a tyrant who brought great pain and suffering to the people of Dharma Tower, was taken down by Jack. While her corruption on the tower has been felled, an AI cult seeks to cause disarray from outside the tower and within. Like the entry before it, Jack’s the only hope for anyone remotely sane left.
If you like the demo, Ghostrunner 2 releases on October 26 for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC through Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. Right now, you can pre-order one of the three editions ranging between $40-70. While changes between each are mostly cosmetic, those who pre-order the $70 Brutal Edition get 48-hour early access to the game alongside a Season Pass.
Shawn’s been playing games for a decade and a half now, dabbling in many genres though finding his niche in FPS games and RPGs. If he’s not being one of the five people that still plays Heroes of the Storm, he’s probably sinking his teeth into a new singleplayer experience.
The Rolling Stones have proved their tireless capacity to evolve, with a new documentary helmed by the team behind The Kardashians.
The Sun newspaper reports that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are marking the launch of their forthcoming album Hackney Diamonds, with a documentary charting the making of the new record.
The Sun quotes a production insider, saying:
“The band have been working with Fulwell 73 on the production. They’re the team behind The Kardashians’ big deal with Hulu.
“The film will chart the band as they started working on the 12 tracks which appear on ‘Hackney Diamonds’.
“It will give followers an intimate and candid look at Mick, Keith and Ronnie as they work their magic in the studio, including the banter between them.”
The film will include tributes to Charlie Watts, the band’s original drummer who died in 2021. He played drums on two of the new album’s tracks.
The album, the band’s first new music in 18 years, will be released next month. The band released the tracklist on Thursday, with the next single reported to a track ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’, running length of seven minutes plus, and including the talents of Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder.
Fulwell 73 has an impressive track record of A-list pedigree documentaries. Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, The Kardashians, One Direction, Michael Mcintyre, Jack Whitehall, and Elton John have all made shows with the production company.
Russell Brand has published a video across his social media channels in which he preemptively denies a “litany” of allegations about unspecified criminal behavior at the height of his celebrity.
The Forgetting Sarah Marshall star said two UK “mainstream media” publications had sent him notice of their intention to publish stories about his alleged misconduct.
Deadline understands that Channel 4 and Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers The Times and The Sunday Times are behind the stories.
Brand claimed that the right of reply letters contain “astonishing, rather baroque attacks” on his character, as well as “very serious” criminal allegations about his well-known sex addiction.
“The relationships that I had were absolutely always consensual,” Brand said. “I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent. And I’m being transparent about it now.”
He claimed that this openness was being “metastasized into something criminal” and suggested that it was a “serious and concerted agenda” to silence him.
Brand has in recent years reinvented himself as a counter-culture guru, who questions mainstream media reporting and endorses conspiracy theories.
“It’s been clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there’s a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices,” he continued.
“I don’t mind them using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.”
Brand claimed that he was aware of witnesses whose evidence “directly contradicts the narrative that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct.”
It is not clear when Channel 4 and The Times newspapers intend to publish, though the timing of Brand’s video suggests that the stories will be released on Saturday.
Channel 4 has a special episode of its investigative journalism brand Dispatches scheduled to broadcast tonight at 9PM UK time. It has not released details of the show’s subject.
Brand appears to have parted ways with his UK agent Tavistock Wood. His profile is no longer on the agency’s website having been available as recently as June. Tavistock Wood, which also represents Lily James and Dominic West, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), appeared to sympathize with Brand. “Of course. They don’t like competition,” he replied to the comedian’s video on X.
Brand shot to fame in the UK in the noughties as a TV and radio presenter, hosting series including Channel 4’s Big Brother’s Big Mouth and a BBC Radio 2 show.
The 48-year-old comedian later graduated to Hollywood, starring in films including Rock of Ages, Get Him to the Greek, Despicable Me, and more recently Death on the Nile.
Along the way, he has written bestselling books and had a string of high-profile relationships, including being married to Katy Perry for little more than a year in 2010.
The Wonder Years is coming to an end after two seasons on ABC, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The decision to end the comedy series follows the 10-episode second season having aired its finale Aug. 16. ABC announced late last year that the season had been bumped to the summer.
The Wonder Years is inspired by the original series of the same name that debuted in 1988 and aired its finale in May 1993 after six seasons.
The recent version starred Dulé Hill and featured Don Cheadle as the narrator. Elisha “EJ” Williams, Saycon Sengbloh, Laura Kariuki, Amari O’Neil, Julian Lerner and Milan Ray rounded out the cast for the project that was created by Saladin K. Patterson and premiered in September 2021.
Original series star Fred Savage, who worked as a director and executive producer on ABC’s reinvented version, was fired last year following a misconduct investigation.
Amid the ongoing writers and actors strikes, ABC is set to launch its fall slate later this month with no new scripted shows and a heavy reliance on unscripted offerings. Among the series airing new episodes soon include Dancing With the Stars — which returns to the network after its previous season on Disney+ — along with game shows such as Celebrity Jeopardy!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and Press Your Luck, plus The Bachelor franchise spinoffs Bachelor in Paradise and senior citizen-focused The Golden Bachelor.
In her review of The Wonder Years for THR at the time of the show’s 2021 launch, critic Angie Han wrote, “That the series manages to invoke nostalgia for bygone days while also remaining relatively clear-eyed about the challenges of that period, both in adolescence and in American history, is no small feat — and it accomplishes this while delivering the cozy appeal of the best family sitcoms, including the one that gives it its name.”
Another week, another victory for Tommy and company, and a loss for Jenard.
Will the tides ever change?
Right now, absolutely not. Jenard is so far behind he doesn’t even realize he’s in the race. And during the closing moments of Power Book IV: Force Season 2 Episode 3, he was getting high over strategizing, which will always be a recipe for disaster.
What’s cool about this season is that there are a lot of different wars going on, which makes each hour exciting. And each storyline has its own intrigue factor, meaning that there is literally never a dull moment or wasted minute of screen time.
Even during an hour like this that was light on the action and set up to be an hour that puts future things in motion more than answering any lingering questions, everything flowed and worked to create an engaging installment.
The slower-paced hours are always needed during Power seasons to help move pieces. Everything can’t be twist-filled and dramatic at all times.
For Tommy, he was being pulled in a million different directions as he confronted childhood neglect, made business moves, threatened many people, and set up a date.
So, it was a typical day for Tommy, but a busy one, nonetheless.
Tommy and Diamond’s partnership continued to work while also faltering at the same time. It’s starting to feel like it’s hanging on by a thread, a thread made of money.
Everything Tommy has done so far during Power Book IV: Force Season 2 has been with the endgame of being Chicago’s connect, which means encroaching on territories and getting rivals to take each other out.
Diamond’s been on board for the most part, but he’s also trying to keep himself alive and out of prison, while Tommy, as usual, was much more cavalier in his approach.
Moving into the prison was a smart and proactive play because it bit into the Serbs, and they gained another avenue to make money fast. But it wasn’t smooth sailing, of course.
It’s funny because Tommy appears to be making most of the moves, but he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without Diamond, which is why I think he’s keeping himself in check more than he may typically.
He can’t take over Chicago alone, and he knows that. He’s still an outsider, as evidenced by the fact that Lil K went off-script to come after him in the first place. That wouldn’t happen to Diamond, and it didn’t happen to Diamond because even if you’re on opposite sides, that’s not a move you ever dare to make.
Lil K was essentially hiding in plain sight because everybody knew where to find him. And he felt comfortable enough helping his grandmother to the cash-checking place even while knowing there was a bounty on his head.
Give me some of that man’s courage because he was not afraid of anybody.
Tommy wanted him dead, naturally, but I love that he went to Jenard first to do it. It was both a warning and a way for Tommy to get a clearer picture of what was happening in Treason. And he found out quickly that Treason was in shambles.
We already knew Jenard had no control over Treason, but now Tommy and CBI know that, too.
Jenard split away from CBI and Diamond because his ego was bruised, and he didn’t like taking a backseat to his brother. But he didn’t have a solid plan, and now he’s trying to claw out of a hole that keeps getting bigger.
Shanti was right about him killing Lil K not helping his case, but what else was he supposed to do?
Keeping him alive was correct in the moment outside his grandma’s house, but in the long run, it wouldn’t have been wise for him. He had to decide whether or not he tried to salvage what little respect his people had for him or stay off Tommy’s radar.
I know what I would have chosen.
Jenard is like the definition of fake it until you make it because he talks and talks, but nobody is listening anymore. He garnered a lot of respect during Power Book IV: Force Season 1 and, obviously, during the time Diamond was away.
But the losses are weighing heavy now, and the streets talk. CBI was making big moves, and Jenard was getting run off the road and his ride stolen in frankly humiliating fashion.
Was Jenard always dipping in his product? I remember him hitting the dahlia, along with half of Chicago, but I don’t remember seeing him regularly use. And even Lil K seemed surprised, as that old ‘don’t get high off your own supply’ motto clearly made its way around Treason.
Lil K honestly thought he was untouchable because he came at Jenard with major attitude, already knowing the man was itching for a reason to do something violent.
Killing Lil K will set him straight with Tommy but will most likely drive an even bigger wedge between him and Shanti and everyone else. And a full-blown drug addiction on top of that could be a death sentence for him.
I’ve wondered if there was anything that could bring Jenard and Diamond back together in any capacity, and if he hits rock bottom, losing Treason and everything he’s worked for, is there a world in which Diamond buries the hatchet and brings him back into CBI?
Tommy, Diamond, and Jenard working together would be insane if you think about it. Diamond can keep his ego in check, but Tommy trying to boss Jenard around, and Jenard obeying while keeping his mouth shut? Put that at the top of the list of things I’d LOVE to see, but I doubt it would ever happen.
Jenard may be losing now, and Tommy seeing nothing but wins and more power, but I wonder how much he underestimates Miguel.
They’re building Miguel up to be a savage, and cryogenically freezing someone’s hand so you can smash it off didn’t dull that narrative, but he’s also been shown to have a ceiling. He answers to others, and his current power only reaches so far.
Tommy: Due respect, Miguel, what the fuck does this got to do with us? Miguel: I just wanted you to see what happens to those who betray me.
Miguel and Diamond may have gotten over on Miguel with the heist during Power Book IV: Force Season 2 Episode 2, but they have to know they may not be that lucky again. And while it netted them a short-term advantage, it put Miguel on high alert.
Coming to him with that request for more product was a head-scratcher, if for no other reason than it was like the guys couldn’t read the room. Miguel felt betrayed, and his frame of mind was not right, so maybe their request wasn’t crazy, but Miguel wasn’t in a trusting and accepting mood.
It’ll be a continued tall task for Tommy and Diamond to slip in the backdoor to take Miguel’s business while acting like dutiful soldiers.
The Flynn’s were falling apart at the seams, but that’s not breaking news. Claudia needs to find her identity outside of being a daddy’s girl because Walter may not be willing to give her up to Tommy, but not being responsible for her death seems to be just about the only thing he’s willing to do for her.
There’s been a lot of ragging on Vic from both his dad and sister, yet he’s the only one who talked to Tommy and didn’t immediately tip him off to Claudia being Liliana’s killer.
Claudia had zero poker face once Tommy showed a flash of emotion, and Walter’s inability to maintain his temper will always be a tell.
The Flynn’s have more significant issues than Tommy, but it’s also not something that’s going away. At this point, the only way for Claudia to save herself would be to get into business with someone better connected than Tommy.
She has to become untouchable, or at the very least, embedded into a situation Tommy can’t really afford to mess with.
But then again, it’s Tommy. There isn’t anyone out there Tommy wouldn’t step to if he had to.
Step one of Vic’s ‘take down my daddy’ plan involved was successful, but Vic is not Tommy. I’m giving it one or two more issues before Walter catches on to what Vic’s doing.
He’s not that slick.
After a week off, we checked back in with the family, and it was nice to see some honest conversations among them, even if nothing was resolved.
Kate has been this periphery hurricane for the entire time we’ve known her, popping in to ask for drugs or money and forever giving unsolicited advice. To say she and Tommy’s relationship was strained would do a massive disservice to that word, but Tommy never fully turned his back on her.
He’s always let her back in, even when she didn’t deserve it, because so much of who Tommy is and what he’s become has been wrapped up in family and trying to find that for himself. And suddenly, having Kate, JP, and D-Mac together has undoubtedly had to feel too good to be true at times.
But it’s very real, and it’s working. And I think that’s why Kate has finally decided to get clean. Or at least I hope that’s what’s happening.
Kate has proven herself to be a very selfish person over the years who will protect herself by any means necessary. And Tommy and JP should be skeptical of her sudden desire to change after so many years.
JP especially has reason to keep her at arm’s length still, as he may not have suffered endless disappointment like Tommy, except he did in the way she abandoned him.
Kate can’t change the past and shouldn’t be looking to do so. Much like JP’s conversation with D-Mac, if she wants to make amends, she needs to own her actions, not justify them. Work toward a better future.
JP is right in front of her and willing to work on the relationship. He deserves the hard truths and her commitment to improving things.
I loved this whole side plot with Kate, and I hope they continue to intersperse the family stuff with all the drug-dealing carnage. It provides a satisfying balance, and it’s always been something that all the Power series’ have excelled at.
Everything Else You Need To Know
Just call Big Smurf Casper because he was following Jenard around all day like a damn ghost over his shoulder, haunting his every move.
Even after almost dying, D-Mac wants back in the game, and unfortunately, JP won’t be the one who gets through to him. That job will have to go to Uncle Tommy.
Can we get more backstory on Stacy and Bobby? It feels like there is good material to mine there, but we only get these brief little flashes. And cops on Power do NOT last, so please flesh out their dynamic before we potentially lose Bobby.
With Joseph Sikora at the head of the call sheet, you know your series is in good hands, but they’re getting some great performances this season. Kris Lofton is doing some good work, and everything Patricia Kalember did this week was mesmerizing.
We so rarely get to see Tommy genuinely happy, and he was when he saw that ice cream. His eyes lit up, and for a second, you could see how touched he was.
Diamond becoming a little mentor for Leon was nice and should help him with Reeves, who walks around with a constant scowl of distrust.
Mireya leaving Tommy on read was so funny. He’s not used to not getting what he wants, and he wants Mireya badly.
Alright, I’ve talked enough! I want to hear your thoughts about the hour and where things could go next.
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk knows how to make headlines. A new biography on the controversial CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX examines what the was released Tuesday by author Walter Isaacson, and it’s now No. 3 on Amazon’s nonfiction charts in its first week.
Published by Simon & Schuster, the 688-page book explores the 52-year-old’s upbringing in South Africa by “charismatic fantasist” engineer father, Errol Musk, and dietician mother, Maye Musk, who now moonlights as a model. (They divorced in 1979.) It’s 30 percent off for its debut week, but those who prefer audiobooks can listen to Isaacson’s Elon Musk for free with a new subscription to Audible.
As a child, the future billionaire “was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father [whose] impact on his psyche would linger.” (In a statement to Business Insider, the elder Musk disputed his son’s accounts.)
“[Elon Musk] developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive,” per the book’s synopsis. “The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?”
By 2022, Tesla had sold one million electric cars and SpaceX launched 31 rockets into space.
Isaacson shadowed his subject for two years and attended his meetings, toured his companies’ factories and spent hours interviewing Musk and his family, friends, colleagues and “adversaries.”
Elon Musk himself has admitted, “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about 14 years now, or arguably most of my life.”
For those who don’t have time to read up on Musk’s life story, the audiobook version is available for free on Audible with a new membership. The audiobook platform is free for the first 30 days and members get to claim two free titles during their first month, then one monthly thereafter. Memberships include unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible originals and podcasts; after the first 30 days, the service is $15 per month and you can cancel anytime.
Maren Morris is breaking up with country music. On Friday, the 33-year-old singer released her two-track EP, The Bridge, after butting heads with Jason Aldean, his wife, Brittany Aldean, and others. While promoting her new songs, “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here,” Morris told The Los Angeles Timesthat she is saying goodbye to the genre for good.
“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over, but it’s burning itself down without my help,” Morris told the outlet of country music. “… I’ve kind of said everything I can say. I always thought I’d have to do middle fingers in the air jumping out of an airplane, but I’m trying to mature here and realize I can just walk away from the parts of this that no longer make me happy.”
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display. It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic,” Morris said. “All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”
“I’ve always been an asker of questions and a status quo challenger just by being a woman. So it wasn’t really even a choice. I didn’t think of myself as a political artist. I just wrote songs about real life through a lens of deep respect for my country heroes,” Morris said. “But the further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks. And once you see it, you can’t un-see it. So you start doing everything you can with the little power you have to make things better… If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized. Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress.”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Earlier this year, Jason Aldean sparked backlash for the pro-gun lyrics in his song, “Try That in a Small Town,” and the inflammatory images in its accompanying music video. Despite the controversy, the song, which Morris appeared to take aim at in her new Jason Lester-directed videos, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Songs chart.
“I’d say, sure, congratulations on crossing over onto the big all-genre chart. But the stories going on within country music right now, I’ve tried to avoid a lot of it at all costs. I feel very, very distanced from it,” Morris said, before calling Aldean’s song and others like it “a last bastion.”
“People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs,” she said. “And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”
Photo by Jason Davis/WireImage)
As for if her country music departure will be seen by many as her losing that war, Morris said, “I’m sure some people may think that. And I would say, ‘Feel free. Go ahead.'”
“I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship to country music. I still find myself weirdly wanting to protect it. But it’s not a family member. That’s the f**ked up part, is that I’m talking about it as if it’s a person, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of deep deconstructing that I’m still unraveling.”
Morris’ new songs, she said, “are obviously the result of that — the aftermath of walking away from something that was really important to you and the betrayal that you felt very righteously. But also knowing there’s a thread of hope as you get to the other side.”
In making her upcoming LP, Morris said she’s realized that she “needed to purposely focus on just making good music and not so much on how we’ll market it… I’ve had to clear all of that out of my head this year and just write songs.”
She’s been doing that alongside frequent Taylor Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff, making an album with “quirky jam-band moments to, like, prog rock.” The process, Morris said, has been “so fun” and put her “back in this space of writing songs I love with people I love.”
“It’s like, let’s write something bats**t insane today, and it might suck, but this is what I used to do when I moved to Nashville 10 years ago. The freedom to fail, you know?” Morris said. “New collaborations have been helpful for me too in getting perspective on feeling like the hall monitor of country music. The people I’m working with now have no idea what’s going on or the names I’m talking about.”
As for the path she envisions for her career now, Morris said she looks to Swift, with whom she recently sang onstage during an Eras Tourshow.
“She’s been such a great friend over the years and has been really helpful in ways she probably doesn’t even realize in conversations I’ve had with her about everything you and I have been talking about,” Morris said of Swift, before explaining why Linda Ronstadt is also an inspiration. “She’s weaved through so many different genres, and she just had one of those voices that can kind of fit anywhere because you believe her when she sings something.”
In an Instagram post about her new songs, Morris explained the meaning behind the tracks. “The Tree,” Morris wrote, is about “a toxic ‘family tree’ burning itself to the ground, adding, “By the end of the song, I give myself permission to face the sun, plant new seeds where it’s safer to grow and realize that sometimes there IS greener grass elsewhere.”
Meanwhile, she described “Get the Hell Out of Here” as “the aftermath of the tree burning,” writing, “Doing the right thing can feel lonely at times, but there are more friends than foes, so I finally quit making myself one of them.”
NOW IN THEATERS! 2023 has been crammed with subpar animation efforts. Disney/Pixar’s fare may look fantastic, but the dearth of originality (read: desperate attempts at being woke) quickly becomes evident and increasingly annoying. Despite lacking the visual grandeur of its big-budget counterparts, Jim Capobianco’s stop-motion tale The Inventor proves superior in every other way, even down to its DIY little puppets. Perhaps we are as sick of pixels as we are of superheroes, slickness be damned. This particular tale, steeped in fascinating real history and boundless imagination, is bound to charm both kids and adults – although it may also alienate those used to bombast and perpetual eye candy.
Based on events in the life of the great inventor and painter Leonardo da Vinci (voice by Stephen Fry), the story starts off in Rome, Italy, at the dawn of the 16th Century. An aging da Vinci, Mona Lisa in tow, is endlessly curious, investigating – among a plethora of things – mysteries of the cosmos and the human body. He boldly claims that we are not the center of the universe and tries to define a “soul.” His desire to know everything “might be dangerous with the Pope” (Matt Berry), who has other concerns, like waging war with the French. (When the pope tells da Vinci to be “a good little artist,” he follows up with, “Even Michelangelo agrees, isn’t that right?” – and Michelangelo sticks out his tongue at our hero.) He utilizes da Vinci to make war machines, but the genius demonstrates that peace may be the answer. A truce between the two countries is announced.
“…a look into the mind of arguably the most famous and influential man who’s ever lived…”
Soon enough, our hero moves to France and meets the shallow and self-absorbed Francis I (Gauthier Battoue), as well as his sister, the lovely Marguerite (Daisy Ridley). Marguerite believes in da Vinci’s genius and, by extension, in progress and development. “It will be a new Rome,” she tells her skeptical royal sibling. She – along with her mom, Louise de Savoy (Marion Cotillard) – joins the professor in his quest to build a new city, but also to get to the root of some existential issues: “Why are we here, what is our purpose, what is the meaning of life.” Of course, they also have to impress Francis I, who in turn has to impress his competitors, which leads to an entertaining final pseudo-showdown.
The Inventor is many things: a musical, a slapstick comedy, a piece of history visualized, a look into the mind of arguably the most famous and influential man who’s ever lived, a reminder to focus on progress and the wonder of our universe… It’s about thinking big and outside the box, challenging the established norm, and continuously pursuing knowledge. Legendary composer Alex Mandel creates musical interludes out of, say, raindrops, clock chimes, and guitar strumming. In one of these interludes, da Vinci encounters all five human senses, personified. The tangent of da Vinci falling ill is handled gracefully. The fact that writer-director Capobianco juggles all these balls in the air and makes it all work is a testament to his skill (he’s written one of Pixar’s best features, Ratatouille).
Okay, so the stop-motion may be far from Pixar’s standards of animation. It’s charming in its own modest way (it ain’t Laika), but the simplistic character design is made up for with energy and creativity. Whether all the cadavers, complex inventions, existential musings, themes of progress and censorship, and politics will alienate the wee ones remains to be seen – but, again, at least it’s not pandering. The Inventor is charming and modest but also honest and true – a rarity these days. Hurry up and check it out before Gen Z cancels Leonardo for being a misogynist.
There is a new and significant hurdle facing the massively over-budget and contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project running through Alberta and British Columbia.
The Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc, a First Nation in the Interior of B.C., near Kamloops, is disputing a proposed change by Trans Mountain to the pipeline route through an area known as Pípsell.
The Nation, known by its acronym SSN, says the change in construction methodology and routing of the pipeline will severely jeopardize what it considers a “cultural keystone place.”
The pipeline project’s cost has already soared from an initial purchase price of $4.7 billion by the federal government in 2018, to a whopping $30.9 billion – and it is still not complete. This latest hurdle poses yet another potential cost overrun, and delay, for Trans Mountain, whose debt is backstopped by the federal government and could very well be borne by Canadian taxpayers.
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Canada’s energy regulator has agreed to listen to SSN’s case against Trans Mountain’s 11th-hour change in plans. Those hearings will begin on Monday in Calgary. If the regulator rules against Trans Mountain, the pipeline giant may very well have to dig deep into its pocketbooks and find millions of dollars of extra cash to complete the line according to the construction method it had initially agreed to.
Changing the plans
In its negotiations with SSN, Trans Mountain had agreed to employ a technique known as ‘micro-tunneling’ to traverse Pípsell, which is also known as Jacko Lake. This method entails digging a shaft and meticulously pushing the pipeline under the lake in a process that would create the least amount of surface disruption and pose the smallest degree of risk along a four kilometre stretch of the Indigenous territory.
Instead, Trans Mountain is proposing to change the construction method – employing a less costly, yet more disruptive technique that SSN fears will pose undue risk to a sacred lake.
SSN insists Trans Mountain is changing its plans to cut overall costs on a project that has already gone six times over budget.
“Trans Mountain has made it clear that financial considerations unrelated to the implementation of the micro-tunneling […] are the rationale for submitting the Deviation Application,” the Nation stated in a letter to the pipeline giant.
“These reasons are insufficient to demonstrate that Micro-Tunnelling in the Pípsell Area is no longer a viable method of construction.”
Indigenous monitoring group raises concerns
In a separate response to the energy regulator, an Indigenous advisory and monitoring group established by the federal government at the request of First Nations leaders, is similarly warning of irreparable damage should the construction plans at Jacko Lake be altered.
“There is no amount of money that Canada has, that can replace a site that’s sacred,” says Raymond Cardinal, the chair of Trans Mountain’s Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee.
Pulling the plug on previously agreed-upon plans, he says, essentially renders the consultation process meaningless, and sets a terrible precedent.
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“It shouldn’t be as easy as ‘well, we looked at it, and it’s going to cost money, so we’re going to do whatever we want to do.”
Trans Mountain says the original budget for completing the micro-tunneling project was forecast at $24,700,00. However, like many other aspects of the project that have gone significantly over budget, the cost of construction on a portion known as Tunnel Drive #2 has since risen to $58,900,000.
Documents reviewed by Global News indicate that 55 per cent of Trans Mountain’s latest cost overruns are attributable to what the company calls “engineering and plan maturity.”
Initially purchased for $5 billion, the Trans Mountain expansion project’s costs have since ballooned to over $30 billion. This marks one of the costliest increases in recent memory for a pipeline project in Canada.
Global News
The term ‘plan maturity’ is not widely used in the industry, but experts say it refers to finalizing construction and engineering plans. The fact that the company is changing its plans so far into construction is evidence of poor management and planning, according to at least three experts that Global News spoke with.
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“What really concerns me is that if they’re still doing design and engineering planning at this stage, they haven’t known what they’re doing,” said Robyn Allan, an independent economist who has been monitoring the pipeline project for over a decade, in an interview over the summer with Global News.
“It is patent that there have been numerous delays of the in-service deadline to date, and the CER should be careful to ensure […] that Trans Mountain is not permitted to abandon accommodation measures merely because initial estimates of construction costs and timelines were significantly underestimated,” Cardinal stated in his letter.
From floor to ceiling
Trans Mountain fears that the delays in the Pípsell area will push back the anticipated in-service date of its new 1,147 kilometre pipeline, which twins an existing line to the B.C. coast, to the end of 2024. The company had hoped to send crude oil flowing through the line by early 2024. But that date, too, had already been pushed back as a result of several regulatory and construction hurdles.
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The Trans Mountain expansion project twins an existing pipeline that moves oil from Alberta to the B.C. coast. The project will triple the amount of oil that can be shipped.
Global News
Even at $30.9 billion, Trans Mountain says the pipeline will provide a significant cost advantage over a competing Enbridge line that is currently available to pipe Alberta crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast for export.
The goal of the new Trans Mountain line, which sends oil from Edmonton to a terminal in Burnaby, B.C., is to open up new markets in Asia to Canadian crude, via a shorter and more cost-efficient route. This is, say pipeline proponents, still a viable and worthwhile cause.
“Having another source of secure oil is a big deal,” Richard Masson, the chair of the World Petroleum Congress in Canada told Global News in July. But even he admits – a $16 to $20 cost overrun is a painful sticker shock for Canadians taxpayers to absorb.
“So it’s really cost way more than anybody would have dreamed at the beginning,” Masson added.
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The roadblock involving SSN, says environmental lawyer Eugene Kung, serves as a warning to other Nations that have signed, or may sign future deals with Trans Mountain. It also reflects, he says, poor consideration of Indigenous rights by some large resource companies in Canada.
Too often, Kung says, companies are trying slide projects by Indigenous groups while only securing the bare minimum level of consent.
“The way to move forward is in fact to aim higher than the floor,” Kung says. “They need to do better than aiming for the bare legal minimum and hoping that that passes muster by the courts.”
Nia Long‘s ex has responded to the actress’ request for primary custody of their 11-year-old son, and he’s not having it.
Ime Udoka filed court documents Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court and requested that when it comes to their son, Kez Sunday Long Udoka, the former couple share legal and physical joint custody. Udoka is making the request despite disclosing in the same court documents that Kez has been living with Long solely since last October, weeks after Udoka was involved in a scandal that led to his termination as head coach of the Boston Celtics.
Udoka, now the head coach of the Houston Rockets, is also requesting visitation rights and that they both should pay their own legal fees in this case. His filing comes nearly a month after Long went to court requesting legal and physical custody of their son, after claiming Udoka “has failed” to provide support for their son.
In those same documents, obtained by ET, Long also noted that she does want her ex to have “reasonable visitation to Respondent consistent with the child’s best interest.”
The judge has not yet made a ruling on either one’s request.
The actress began dating Udoka in 2009 and the couple got engaged in 2015. They welcomed Kez on Nov. 7, 2011. Long also has a 22-year-old son, Massai, from a previous relationship. The relationship ended after allegations surfaced in which he was accused of engaging in a relationship with a female member of the Celtics staff. A relationship with a staff member is against the franchise’s code of conduct.
Udoka apologized “to our players, fans, the entire Celtics organization, and my family for letting them down.”
Long, who had been engaged to Udoka for nearly a decade before the scandal torpedoed the relationship, later told ET that, “above all, I am a mother and will continue to focus on my children.”
The federal judge overseeing the second of the Justice Department’s pair of antitrust lawsuits on Friday rejected Google’s claims that one of the architects behind the case, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, is improperly biased and should submit to the company’s questioning at a deposition.
Google argued in a legal filing that before Kanter became a top antitrust attorney in the Justice Department, he represented Microsoft and other Google competitors, who paid him “millions of dollars over a period of fifteen years to advocate that DOJ and other antitrust enforcers bring antitrust cases against Google.” Justice Department officials countered that attorneys such as Kanter are not usually subject to depositions and that Google had not met the legal standard to question him.
The case, which is focused on Google’s advertising technology, is still wending its way to trial. The Justice Department and 17 states are seeking $300 million and possibly more from Google, alleging in federal court in Virginia that the company is hurting competitors by monopolizing key advertising technologies that businesses need to generate revenue online.
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema rejected Google’s claims, calling allegations of bias “essentially a red herring defense.”
Kanter has built a reputation as an adversary of Big Tech, previously representing clients like Google critic Yelp as a partner at the Kanter Law Group. After President Biden nominated him to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division in 2021, Kanter was recused from the Google case for his first year at the department, and was authorized to work on it after that. Kanter was re-recused in April, after Google retained his former employer, law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, to represent them in the case.
The Virginia hearing is a reminder of the Justice Department’s multipronged offensive: Prosecutors will get two swings to try to nail Google on antitrust charges, appearing before one court in Washington and one in Virginia.
The first of the two cases — which revolves around Google’s dominance in the search and search advertising sectors — began trial in Washington to much fanfare on Tuesday, marking the first time the Justice Department has taken a major tech company to court for antitrust issues in more than two decades.
At the Friday hearing, Brinkema admonished an attorney for the tech company to focus on what she described as “huge discovery problems” in the case. The court found that Google failed to provide millions of documents subject to discovery before a judge’s deadline this summer.
“In my view, this is a mistake,” Brinkema saidof the allegations involving Kanter. “Google needs to focus on … whether the advertising platform is anti-competitive — that’s the case.”
Justice Department attorney Aaron Teitelbaum argued that Google was “attempting to elevate its disagreement” with the department’s staffing decisions — a reference to Kanter’s hiring — “into a constitutional issue.” But Supreme Court precedent establishes that questioning an attorney should be done only in extraordinary circumstances, which were not present in the Google antitrust litigation, Teitelbaum argued.
Although the investigation began in 2019, under the Trump administration, Google attorney Eric Mahr argued that it kicked into high gear only after Kanter got involved.
“Mr. Kanter, along with the DOJ’s chief economist, who was not the chief economist at the time, appeared before the Antitrust Division on his own behalf to lobby DOJ to bring this case that he brought 11 weeks later,” Mahr said.
Mahr noted that the Justice Department has said career staff also approved the Google ad-tech lawsuit, but he added, “Mr. Kanter shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind the career staff, when he directed them to do that.”
Brinkema said, “I might agree with you if Mr. Kanter was the sole attorney in this case.” The judge noted that Democratic and Republican state attorneys general from 17 states were co-plaintiffs in the DOJ’s lawsuit.
The Washington Post is a member of the News Media Alliance, a trade association that Kanter has worked with in the past.
The judge noted that the Justice Department is still seeking millions of documents in discovery from Google, which the tech company has not produced despite a judge’s deadline earlier this month.
“You need to get this case more focused,” Brinkema told Mahr. “There are huge discovery problems.”
Screenwriter: Bertrand Bonello, Guillaume Bréaud, Benjamin Charbit
Logline: In 2044, A.I. has taken over the world, and a woman named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) is undergoing a treatment that will “purify” her by depriving her of strong emotions. In doing so, she experiences flashbacks to previous lives, going back to 1910 and 2014, where she interacts with a mysterious and possibly dangerous man named Louis (George MacKay).
International Sales: Kinology
Panelists: Bertrand Bonello (director)
First Screening: Sept.12. 2023.
Key Quote: “The first idea was to do a melodrama, which is something I’ve never done before, and that drove me to a short novel by Henry James called The Beast in the Jungle. For me, it’s one of the most heart-breaking, beautiful, and awful stories you can imagine. I wanted to mix this with some genre [elements], because, in James’s novel, love and fear are so related. So I wanted to have some ‘fear’ scenes, and there is almost a slasher movie inside this film. The other thing, that came quite quickly, was the desire to do a film, for the first time in my life, in which the main character is female.” – Bertrand Bonello
Selena Gomez should really release a fashion coffee table book called Selena Gomez’s Mirror Selfies because every ‘fit is a work of art.
All summer long, Gomez has been sharing OOTD photos on her Instagram Stories, which are at least 70% responsible for my current obsession with cottage-core princess dresses and Lemon Girl Style, while simultaneously making me want to rebuild the quintessential cool girl all-black wardrobe I left behind when I moved from NYC to Los Angeles. How can all these aesthetics exist in harmony? I don’t know, ask Selena Gomez. She’s the one who has me convinced I could rock the head-to-toe baggy look that would absolutely swallow me in reality.
Luckily, I don’t have to be delulu to pull off the look Gomez shared on September 15. While standing in front of an intricate gold-framed bathroom mirror, the 31-year-old pop star paired a nude lingerie-style tube top with a simple pair of lightwash blue jeans. The sleeveless shapewear, which may actually be a bodysuit, features a stretchy mesh material with exposed boning, resulting in a snatched, yet wearable ensemble for every day. Hell, it could even be worn to work with the right blazer (and job).
The red-hot manicure certainly takes the neutral ensemble to a much more vampy, sophisticated level. Thankfully, celebrity nail artist Tom Bachik recently broke down the look for Glamour, revealing that he used the Tweezerman x Tom Bachik Ultimate Nail Care Set to shape the full-coverage tips into a long tapered square before applying PLA Nails vegan and cruelty-free polish in Chai and Chai Again. Of course, the effect wouldn’t be complete without a golden layer of chrome powder before setting everything with PLA Nails No Wipe Top Coat.
While every celebrity outfit these days is seemingly granted a catchy food-related title, I’m going to refrain from dubbing this “Pumpkin Spice Latte With Crushed Peppermint Candy Style” and simply say that Gomez looks great. And Selena Gomez, if you’re reading this and decide to turn this hypothetical coffee table book into a real business venture, have your people get my address for those royalty checks…
Pashmina Roshan bags her second project with Tiger Shroff
Pashmina is all set to make her acting debut with Ishq Vishk Rebound. It is sequel of 2003 coming-of-age romantic comedy Ishq Vishk
Hrithik Roshan’s cousin Pashmina Roshan will be seen opposite Tiger Shroff in an upcoming film Hero No 1. She will be seen as his love interest in the film, as mentioned by Hindustan Times in its exclusive report. The film also stars Sara Ali Khan in the lead role. The news will surely create a lot of excitement among the fans. Well, nothing has been made official till now.
Hindustan Times claims that the project features Sara and Pashmina as the leading ladies opposite Tiger, and Pashmina will play his primary love interest,” informs a source, adding that the film belong to the action-drama genre, “with a dash of science”. However, it is also said that it is not a remake or sequel of Govind’s film. Hero No 1 will be directed by Jagan Shakti and is expected to go on floors early next year.
“Though the shoot will begin in London in January 2024, Tiger has already shot for an action sequence, and Sara and Pashmina will join him only next year,” adds the source.
To note, Pashmina is all set to make her acting debut in Bollywood with film producer Ramesh Taurani’s upcoming sequel to his 2003 coming-of-age romantic comedy Ishq Vishk, titled Ishq Vishk Rebound. The movie will star Pashmina, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham actor Jibraan Khan, Rohit Saraf and Naila Grewal. The original movie featured Shahid Kapoor, Amrita Rao, Vishal Malhotra and Shenaz Treasury.
While Tiger Shroff and Janhvi Kapoor will be seen in the Hindi remake of Rambo. The shoot is set to start in January 2024 and will be filmed in various locations across Europe on a large scale. This will be the first time both will be seen together. Apart from this he also has Ganpath and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan in his kitty.
On the work front, Sara Ali Khan will be next seen in Metro In Dino. She also has Ae Watan Mere Watan.
Peculiar and invigorating, visual artist Ann Oren’s feature debut “Piaffe” defies easy description — its lead character grows a horse’s tail, for one thing. But it rewards the attention of a committed voyeur, which all proper cineastes and many of our best provocateurs are anyway. The pinched of mind and the humorless need not bother. Invariably more welcome (one imagines Oren thinking) are those who enjoy their senses and perspectives pried open while their heads get a thorough scratching.
Though set in Berlin, this film’s real location is a timid young woman’s expanding view of her world and herself. The power of movies to reveal, arouse and mystify is also very much on Oren’s mind, specifically the eccentric, transformative discipline of Foley artists: sound technicians who bend everyday objects into a new aural reality. It’s a job this film’s protagonist Eva (Simone Bucio) finds herself unexpectedly diving into when her sibling Zara (non-binary artist Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau) is suddenly hospitalized, leaving their makeshift studio unused and a drug commercial that needs finishing pronto.
The pharma outfit’s product, an equine-inspired mood stabilizer called Equili, is being sold with footage of a dressage horse in various emotional states. Eva’s task is Foley-ing a piece of film, shot inside a sawdust-strewn barn, depicting the piaffe: a graceful, animated trot in place. She tries heels on rocks, boots in sand, swatting a boxer’s glove and putting a necklace in her mouth to get the clack of a horse’s bit. But when the commercial’s director blasts her work by saying “A machine made this,” she embarks on a journey of observation and experience, touching horses at an equestrian center, watching girls on a tram stroke each other’s long hair, mimicking hoof stomps at a thumping nightclub. As if willing into being her own side effects, her lower back begins sprouting a dark-haired horse’s tail.
Within the fantastical realm of “Piaffe,” which Oren co-wrote with Thais Guisasola, lies a cheeky nod to the horse’s importance to film history, but also to the isolating purgatory Foley artists have been known to sometimes experience. Sure, photographer Eadweard Muybridge pioneered moving images to learn how horses galloped (an experiment also referenced in Jordan Peele’s cinema-reflective “Nope”). So why can’t Eva’s exploratory journey into equine sound effects manifest a new female-driven cross-species consciousness?
Sebastian Rudolph and Simone Bucio in the movie “Piaffe.”
(Oscilloscope)
Naturally, Eva gets more confident Foley-ing. Borders of pleasure and role-playing are explored, too, when an emboldened Eva initiates a submissive, unbridled (if kinda bridled) intimacy with a serious-minded botanist (Sebastian Rudolph). Stirred by hybridization — Oren dramatizes his observation of fronds as if it were a peep show — his idea of foreplay is talking about the complex hermaphroditic sexuality of ferns. As for the erotic appeal of her tail in this scenario, all one can say is: different strokes?
Your mileage may vary with the BDSM eroticism in “Piaffe,” but its fluidity and consensuality is assured and well-seeded by both Bucio’s alluring portrayal and Oren’s direction, which tints the whole film with sensory curiosity, as if it were essential to self-discovery, to moving through life and appreciating its tensions. You can feel it in the rich foregrounding of discrete sound — whether in the studio or in the world — and the lively primary colors, fleshy grain and glide of Carlos Vasquez’s exquisite 16mm cinematography, which recalls Jacques Rivette at his most elegantly unconventional.
Though issues of gender, sex positivity, mental health and non-normativity are on Oren’s mind (and yes, animal welfare too), the last thing “Piaffe” feels like is some medicinal manifesto. It’s a horse of a different color, but enjoyably, kinkily so. Oren’s winking playfulness is refreshing, but also elemental. The occasional exposure flares and soundtrack sync pops reminds us this is a movie, but also that we’re watching what’s raw and possible in art and life, that it’s good to be open to wherever images and sounds may take us.
Yelena Belova, who holds the mantle of the MCU’s new Black Widow, just took the spotlight in her White Widow costume before making her Marvel Studios return.
She would later return in a semi-antagonistic role for the Hawkeye series on Disney+, and she’s primed to take on her first headlining appearance next year as she plays the leading role in the upcoming Thunderbolts team-up film.
Marvel Comic Shows New Yelena Costume
Marvel Comics revisited an announcement from late June 2023 confirming that Yelena Belova would headline her own limited comic series, which will hit shelves and online retailers in November.
This comic run, going under the title “White Widow,” will put Yelena front and center as a solo hero for the first time in her long history with Marvel Comics, written by Sarah Gailey and drawn by artist Alessandro Miracolo.
The cover for this comic run features Yelena in her memorable White Widow costume, sitting in a huge spider web hammock as she dons her classic Black Widow gauntlets and a shotgun in her left hand.
This comic will put Yelena on a new path as she gains her freedom from the Black Widow program, allowing her to pick her own path as a spy, rogue agent, or another kind of hero.
This comes after Yelena proclaimed herself to be the White Widow and an ally to the Black Widow in Black Widow Vol. 8 #6 in late April 2021.
When Will Yelena Belova Return to the MCU?
Barring any unforeseen appearances in other projects or an unexpected post-credits scene like the one she had in Black Widow, Yelena’s next time showing up in the MCU should be in 2024’s Thunderbolts.
David Corenswet rocks multiple comic-accurate versions of Clark Kent’s costume in new Superman: Legacy fan art, giving fans a glimpse of what the Man of Steel’s new suit may look like.
Details about the upcoming reboot and Corenswet’s costume are being kept under wraps by DC Studios, leaving fans eagerly awaiting its reveal.
The actor’s ability to promote Superman: Legacy is hindered by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, potentially causing delays in production and the costume reveal.
David Corenswet suits up in four different comic-accurate versions of Clark Kent’s costume in new Superman: Legacy fan art. A new DC Universe is on its way with James Gunn and Peter Safran at the helm, as the two DC Studios co-CEOs look to give the on-screen franchise a fresh start. Superman: Legacy will be the first proper DCU movie that will launch Chapter 1, “Gods and Monsters,” with other movies and shows currently in various development stages.
While Superman: Legacy’s cast of characters has slowly been shaping up, there are still a lot of details that DC Studios are keeping under wraps about the upcoming reboot. One of the most exciting and talked about prospects for this impending release regards what the Man of Steel’s new suit is going to look like in the DC Universe installment, as each live-action suit carries its own legacy.
As such, digital artist Jaxson Derr recently shared a gallery of images of Corenswet wearing not one but four different incarnations of Superman’s costumes from the comics for Superman: Legacy. The first suit is based on the 1938 design that Clark initially wore, the second suit adapts Max Fleischer’s iconic look, and the last two feature Corenswet with and without Superman’s red trunks.
When Will DC Studios Actually Reveal The Superman: Legacy Costume?
Ever since Corenswet’s official Superman: Legacy casting, the world has been actively wanting to know what his costume is going to look like in the DC Universe, and what alterations may be made to prior editions of the outfit. However, Gunn has stated on numerous occasions that they are nowhere near ready to show the Superman: Legacy suit, though whether this means the suit is not ready for display or unmade and still in the designing phase is currently unclear.
What is also worth taking into account is that even if the team had finished making the costume, Corenswet can’t do any promotional work for Superman: Legacy due to the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes, with the actor being directly affected by the former rather than the latter. If the strikes continue until the end of 2023, a costume reveal is going to get even more delayed, as Superman: Legacy won’t be able to start filming in the projected early 2024 window. Whether that means DC Studios will have to push Superman: Legacy away from its July 2025 release date is also unclear, but it would certainly be possible.
Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how Superman: Legacy tackles the costume, especially as the suit has had unique looks in live-action over the last few years in Superman TV shows and movies. With DC Studios striving to add something different to the Man of Steel through Superman: Legacy, that will ideally be reflected through whatever suit Corenswet ends up getting in the film. Hopefully, if the Hollywood strikes conclude anytime soon, Superman: Legacy will be able to meet its 2024 production start and finally reveal Corenswet’s official costume to the public.
Jordan Rudek: “With a fairly enjoyable main narrative that plays second fiddle to engaging gameplay and effective presentation, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails may be slight in terms of length when compared to other Trails games, but it’s a spinoff that matches them in quality and enjoyment.”
Beyond Fest genre film festival returns for its 11th edition with a full slate of premieres and acclaimed classics from Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” to the Michael Mann hit “Manhunter.” James Cameron is set to make an appearance for a special edition screening of “The Abyss” followed by a special tribute to Roger Corman, along with appearances by Mann and Guillermo del Toro.
“Our goal this year was to go bigger while also exposing audiences to new filmmakers who represent the future,” said Evrim Ersoy, Beyond’s head of programming. “We’ve delivered on that promise with a program that has the world’s most celebrated artists like James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, and Roger Corman joining us alongside some of Cinema’s boldest new voices including Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, Demián Rugna and Macon Blair.”
Beyond Fest will open with Gareth Edward’s sci-fi feature “The Creator” and later in the evening, will screen Kristoffer Borgli’s A24 film “Dream Scenario” led by Nicolas Cage. Premiering later in the festival is Tyler MacIntyre’s bloody feature “It’s a Wonderful Knife” alongside thrillers and movies like Macon Blair’s 2023 revamp of “The Toxic Avenger,” Prime Video and Blumhouse Television’s “Totally Killer” and the ‘80s throwback “V/H/S 85.”
“Fifty-five movies across 15 days adds up to a true celebration of the theatrical experience – the very mission at the heart of the American Cinematheque,” said Grant Moninger, director of programming at Cinematheque. “It is an honor to give back to the incredible film-loving community that supports us year-round and the city that was literally built by Cinema.”
Some other gems for cinephiles include Rucking Fotten hosting a 30th anniversary screening of the Quentin Tarantino-written “True Romance,” “Final Destination” creator Jeffrey Reddick sitting in for a special screening and a glimpse of the NC-17 cut of David Cronenberg’s “Crash.”
Also on the program are screenings of “Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” with Malcolm McDowell attending; “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” “Grand Theft Auto” and “Piranha.”
Beyond Festival will take place from Sept. 26 through Oct. 10. The festival is presented by Neon and built in partnership with American Cinematheque. Films will screen at Los Angeles’s Aero Theatre, Los Feliz 3 and Regency Village Theatre. The full program is available at the festival’s website.
After being kicked out of a performance of a Beetlejuice musical in Downtown Denver last weekend for vaping, being on her phone and making a racket, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) made light of the incident, saying she was guilty only of “laughing and singing out loud” and, according to her campaign, any vapor present was due to what a representative told the Washington Post were “heavy fog machines and electronic cigarettes used during the show.” The rep explained that there might have been “a misunderstanding from someone sitting near her.”
That someone was reportedly a pregnant woman who, sitting directly behind the Colorado Congresswoman, asked her to stop vaping, which Boebert allegedly refused to do.
In the past day, however, surveillance video from the theater seems to show Boebert vaping in her seat, among other things.
Newly released surveillance video from a Denver theater appears to show Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert vaping during a “Beetlejuice” musical play — the one thing she denied doing while acknowledging earlier this week that she had been kicked out for being disruptive. pic.twitter.com/aQ01G230cT
Today, after the video circulated widely, Boebert issued a lengthy apology in which she claimed she genuinely did not recall vaping during the show. She also claimed that her words and actions that night were those of “a private citizen” and “not intended to be malicious.”
She cited a tough personal period as she goes through a divorce and said, “I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.”
See below.
The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community,” Boebert’s statement said. “While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that.
There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made for a challenging personal time for me and my entire family. I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.
Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical,” Boebert’s statement on Friday night said. “Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate. It was not my or my campaign’s intention to mislead, but we do understand the nature of how this looks. We know we will have to work to earn your trust back and it may not happen overnight, but we will do it.
Based on Audrey Shulman’s cookbook of the same name, Prime Video‘s Sitting in Bars with Cake follows Jane (Yara Shahidi) and Corinne (Odessa A’zion), two best friends and roommates who are navigating life in LA. After Jane attracts attention when she bakes a cake and brings it to a bar for Corinne’s birthday, the two hatch a plan for Jane to make a new cake to bring to a different bar each weekend for a year to meet guys. When Corinne is diagnosed with cancer halfway through their “cakebarring” mission, the two must savor every last slice of life she has left.
Country music queen Dolly Parton rose to the top of the charts with the 1973 classic “I Will Always Love You.” The ballad has earned a place in music history as one of the greatest love songs and remains a beloved classic.
However, if things had worked out differently 50 years ago, Elvis could’ve had dibs on the song.
In a recent interview with BBC Radio, Parton revealed that although she wrote the song, Elvis was initially going to record it.
“He loved the song, wanted to do it, had it worked up. They called me to come down to the studio to meet him and hear the song. And that night, Colonel Parker says, ‘We don’t record anything with Elvis unless we have publishing on it. Or at least half the publishing.”
Parker’s demands were too much for Parton, who bowed out of the deal.
“And I said this is the most important publishing copyright and I can’t do that. He said, ‘Well, we can’t do it.’ And I was heartbroken. I always wanted to hear how Elvis did it.”
Elvis serenaded Priscilla Presley with Dolly Parton’s song
While Parton was bummed that the deal with Elvis fell through, she later learned The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was a fan of the song. According to Parton, the Hound Dog singer serenaded his ex-wife Priscilla Presley with the ballad.
“Elvis loved the song. In fact, I talked to Priscilla not very long ago. She said to me, ‘You know, Elvis sang that song to me when we walked down the courthouse steps when we got divorced. He was singing to me ‘I Will Always Love You.’”
Parton’s admiration for Elvis continues five decades later. Her latest album Rockstar pays tribute to the late singer with the track “I Dreamed About Elvis.”
Due to the presence of Christopher Lloyd, director Sean Olson’s Camp Hideout will bring to mind Camp Nowhere for several audience members. Written by Kat Olson, C. Neil Davenport, and Dave DeBorde, the film also contains shades of Home Alone and even Olson’s own F.R.E.D.I.. Does the family-friendly comedy get smothered in the nostalgia for those other titles? Or can the film find its own path?
Noah (Ethan Drew) is a troubled teen living in a foster home. After agreeing to help some thieves, the boy is in serious trouble, especially since he pinched the goods from the bumbling burglars. Now Selena (Amanda Leighton) gives Noah one last shot to stay out of juvenile hall by attending a church-run summer camp. The kid agrees, believing it would be a good way of lying low for a while.
Once at Deer Run Summer Camp, Noah is ambushed with questions from his bunkmates, Oliver (Tyler Kowalski) and Chase (Zion Wyatt). But making friends is not high on his priority list, so Noah is concise and stand-off-ish, though not as much as camp owner Falco (Lloyd) is. However, a budding friendship with Mallory (Jenna Raine Simmons) seems to break down his walls slightly. Unfortunately, bully Trey (Luca Alexander) has singled out Noah, making his experience miserable. All the while, the big city goons, Charlie (Josh Inocalla) and Willis (Joshua Childs) have figured out where Noah is and are coming for him. Will Noah run away from his troubles again or take a stand and fight back with his newfound friends?
Camp Hideout wears its message and values on its sleeves. The kids will point blank discuss their misgivings over this or that incident. Camp counselor Jake (Corbin Bleu) talks with Noah about a young kid who struggled and then found the right path. Want to guess who that kid turns out to be?
“…gives Noah one last shot to stay out of juvenile hall by attending a church-run summer camp.”
But the saccharine nature of the script is not really a problem; it just means that everything is tidied up with a nice little bow. Reality, this is not. Once audiences get on the same wavelength as the film, a sweet earnestness permeates everything. It’s nice that there is family-friendly entertainment with a capital F. It helps that the cast is uniformly strong. A hallmark of Olson’s other titles is how good he is with child actors, and the same holds true here.
Drew is endearing as the troubled teen throughout Camp Hideout. When running away from a cop early on, Noah accidentally runs into a lady carrying groceries. He stops to help her pick them up. The actor plays this moment with sincerity. Later on, in a moment between him and the legend that is Lloyd, the young thespian ably holds his own. For his part, Lloyd, who is pushing 90, is still as commanding a presence as he’s ever been. His deadpan delivery kills with laughter often.
Bleu is reliable, delivering the more serious role with charm. Kowalski and Wyatt are fun as the overly friendly bunkmates. Inocalla and Childs play off each other naturally, turning the too-dumb-for-their-good villains into constant sources of amusement.
Olson keeps the pace chugging at a hearty speed so there’s not much fat to excise. Every scene serves its purpose, and then the film moves forward. This does mean a few of the characters, Mallory and Selena, for instance, aren’t as fleshed out as the boys Noah bunks with. But it also means that the film is a tight 100 minutes, swiftly delivering laughs, drama, and action.
Camp Hideout is another fun feature from Sean Olson, who is quickly becoming the go-to filmmaker for solidly made, independent, family-friendly fare. The action hijinks are both exciting and funny. The cast is good, and the direction keeps the momentum at a steady pace.
Halle Berry is speaking out briefly about Drake’s new single cover for “Slime You Out.”
The rapper released his new song, which marks his first collaboration with SZA and is the first from his upcoming album For All the Dogs, on Friday. The cover of the single features an image of Berry getting slimed at the 2012 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards.
Drake and SZA posted the same single cover on their respective Instagram accounts on Wednesday, teasing their upcoming collab without outright saying what it would be or when it would come.
Berry shared an Instagram post after the single was released of a pink square with the words “Sometimes you have to be the bigger guy … even if you’re a woman!” on it. In the comment section, an artist who goes by “slicartist” asked the actress what her thoughts were about Drake using the photo of her for the single.
“Didn’t get my permission,” she wrote. “That’s not cool I thought better of him !” She then followed up that comment with another one, adding, “hence my post today. When people you admire disappoint you you have to be the bigger person and move on !”
Drake announced the single was coming at his Austin, Texas, tour stop on Monday, saying that he knows his fans are excited about the album, which releases Sept. 22, so he wanted to drop a single sooner rather than later.
“What a time, what a time. I appreciate y’all,” he said during the tour stop with 21 Ssavage. “Deeply, by the way, I do. It’s a lot of love.”
“Slime You Out” isn’t the only collab SZA dropped on Friday. The singer also released an acoustic take on her hit “Snooze,” featuring Justin Bieber, who just starred in her music video for the original version of the song.
Logline: When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother Saori suspects that one of his teachers has been bullying him. She complains to the school, but the truth is more complex than it first seems, in a story that gradually unfolds, Rashomon-style, through the eyes of the mother, the teacher and the child.
International Sales: Gaga, Goodfellas
Panelists: Kore-eda Hirokazu director)
First Screening: Sept. 10, 2023
Key Quote: “Sakamoto was not well at the time that I approached him about the music, and so most of our correspondence was done through letters. We went back and forth, talking about what might work. In the beginning, I did a rough edit of the film and put some of his music to it, and I sent it to him to sort of get the ball rolling. And in his head, he had already decided what might be good for it. In the end, after looking at the film, he decided to compose two specific pieces of music for me.” – Kore-eda Hirokazu.
Lavish reissues of a single album usually signify the record’s general sense of importance: We need to gather all that’s known about this work, they suggest, every note and outtake, in order to more completely understand its historical moment. The new edition of Pharoah Sanders’ 1977 album Pharoah, which comes in a beautiful box with an expansive booklet filled with essays and interviews, a companion live disc, sheet music, photographs, and more, is trying to correct the record rather than expand upon it.
In the grand scheme of jazz history, Pharoah is merely one LP among the dozens the saxophonist issued between the blistering far-out free jazz of his 1965 debut and Promises, the album he made with Floating Points that was issued in 2021, about 18 months before his death. Pharoah was cut for India Navigation, a small imprint that specialized in the jazz avant-garde, and it sold poorly and was not regarded highly by its maker. Though it made little impact at the time, Pharoah spawned a fervent cult among spiritual-jazz fans, particularly those who enjoy the chase for rare LPs. This reissue, while not cheap, is a bargain compared to the hundreds of dollars one might spend for a beat-up original. And the music itself, which is identifiably the work of its creator but has a highly unusual atmosphere all its own, easily justifies the effort and care that went into the set.
The secret appeal of Pharoah is the quality that ultimately gave Sanders pause when the album was first coming together: As a recording, it sounds crude and homemade, which it was. It was cut in a former factory in upstate New York where India Navigation founder Bob Cummins, an attorney and jazz obsessive, lived with his family. Cummins would put out records by important jazz figures, including saxophonist David Murray and bassist Cecil McBee. But he typically issued live albums and was not an engineer by trade. He and Sanders had trouble agreeing on the details of this project, and in the end, neither man was happy with how it turned out. But the modest recording is perfect for the music, framing a peculiar mood and atmosphere that’s lusty and joyous one moment and haunting and meditative the next.
The side-long “Harvest Time” opens the record with guitarist Tisziji Muñoz and bassist Steve Neil sketching out a two-chord vamp. When Sanders enters, his tone is smoky and relaxed, perfect for a late-night seance. He darts across the melody and fixates on his lower range, where the resonance of his instrument’s reed makes you think of a rumbly congested breath more than a melodic voice. Sanders jumps an octave for some trills and Muñoz joins him, breaking out of his two-chord reverie, and then percussion enters—bowls, bells; you can smell the burning sandalwood—followed by droning harmonium from Sanders’ then-wife Bedria. After 20 minutes that seem to race by, the piece drifts away, as if dispersed by the wind.
The dream of being an astronaut was planted in José Hernández (Michael Peña) early, when he and his family were migrant workers in 1960s California. Back when the U.S. immigration policy resembled a revolving door more than a steel wall, tens of thousands of families would travel north to harvest seasonal crops. For his parents, the work was in service of a long-held dream: to build a house in their native Michoacán. The children were frequently uprooted and placed in new schools as the family zigzagged across the state, following the work. It wasn’t until a teacher, Ms. Young (Michelle Krusiec), intervened that the Hernández parents settled in Stockton, Calif., forsaking their dream for their children’s education. That’s where young José saw the 1969 moon landing on T.V., a moment that ignited a lasting passion for flight.
Sacrifice, grit, perseverance, tenacity: These are the themes that drive “A Million Miles Away,” directed by Alejandra Márquez Abella and based on José Hernández’s memoir, “Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut,” a true up-by-the-bootstraps tale. The film spans decades, from childhood to, eventually, the NASA space program. He married Adela (Rosa Salazar), a car saleswoman and aspiring chef, with whom he had five children; along the way he also worked as an engineer at a federal research facility. He is propelled by the support of his wife and family as well as a “recipe” for success from his father, Salvador (Julio César Cedillo), around which the film is framed.
Beautifully shot and interspersed with historical footage of migrant workers and spacecraft launches, the film’s most effective and touching scenes revolve around the family relationships, particularly José’s with his cousin Beto (Bobby Soto), who became a farmworker like his parents. In one scene, Beto says: “I just think it’s great that I get to be so freaking proud and have no idea what you’re talking about, cousin.” It’s a line that aptly distills what many upwardly mobile immigrants face. There are moments that show the clashes of the two worlds, and those that show their melding: José’s driving to work blasting a ranchera on the radio; using a corncob as a spaceship; or washing dishes in his astronaut uniform. These are heartwarming scenes, and it’s hard not to be moved by the enormity of the challenge he undertook and conquered.
But the grit narrative at times becomes a bit heavy-handed, with quotes such as “Hard work or nada,” from his father, and “Tenacity is a superpower” from his NASA trainer, Kalpana Chawla (Sarayu Blue). José Hernández applied to the space program 11 times before succeeding, and the film centers almost exclusively on this plight. There are meaningful glances at his hands, an echo of the calloused hands that supported him, and montages of his persevering through training.
In peddling the mythical American dream narrative, the film misses an opportunity for conflict or character development and falls short of delving into bigger, more interesting themes: assimilation, immigration, gender roles, family conflict. Doing so would have made for a more meaningful watch and felt more in line with our present understanding of the reality of migrants’ lives.
A Million Miles Away Rated PG. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters, and streaming on Prime Video Sept. 15.
“I use the tools of standup comedy — hyperbole, changing names and locations, and compressing timelines to tell entertaining stories. That’s inherent to the art form,” he said in a statement to The Times, responding to the article. “You wouldn’t go to a haunted house and say, ‘Why are these people lying to me?’ The point is the ride. Stand-up is the same.”
In Minhaj’s 2022 Netflix special, “The King’s Jester,” he told a story about being handed “fan mail” by his building’s doorman. He opened one of the letters, he said, and “all this white powder falls into the stroller” he was pushing, and onto his daughter’s shoulder, neck and cheeks.
In the special, he said, he panicked that the powder was anthrax, told his wife what had happened, and they raced to the emergency room. Hours later, a nurse arrived with his daughter — and an investigator who told him he was very lucky, because the powder was nothing. But the man wanted to know, who exactly had Minhaj been antagonizing?
Cue the laughter, because Minhaj’s answer was, “Everybody.”
Later, back at their house, his anecdote continued, his wife accused him of putting clout above their kids — yes, kids plural — she was informing him that she was pregnant (and allowing a callback to an earlier joke about their doctor).
“You get to say whatever you want onstage, and we have to live with the consequences. … I don’t give a s— that Time magazine thinks you’re an ‘influencer.’ If you ever put my kids in danger again, I will leave you in a second,” Minhaj quoted his wife as saying.
He represented the situation as a reckoning, then continued the bit, saying, “I don’t want to be the Tupac of comedy. … I’m trying to live to see these retweets. If anything, I want to be the Puffy of comedy. I want to live — while more talented people die around me.” Punch line delivered.
Minhaj told the New Yorker that, yes, a letter with white powder had been sent to his house in real life, and at the time he joked to his wife, “Holy s—. What if this was anthrax?” But he had embellished that his daughter came in contact with the powder, and said she wasn’t actually rushed to a hospital.
“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” Minhaj said. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is 70% emotional truth — this happened — and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
Stephen Rosenfield,founding director and teacher at American Comedy Institute and author of “Mastering Stand-Up,” detailed the art of transforming stories into comedy gold for Writer’s Digest.
“Funny stories that comedians perform in clubs are called anecdotal stand-up. These stories can be based on real-life experiences or they can be made up,” Rosenfield wrote.
“When regular storytellers tell a story, there may or may not be laughs along the way. Their story can succeed on the merits of its drama and suspense, with or without laughter,” he continued. “But any form of stand-up that a club comedian employs — including anecdotal stand-up — comes with the challenge and necessity of serving up frequent laughs. Hey, that’s why people go to comedy clubs — to laugh.”
In another anecdote Minhaj used for laughs in “The King’s Jester,” he told the story of an FBI informant who infiltrated his family’s mosque.
Brother Eric was a white man who claimed to be a convert to Islam, and Minhaj said Brother Eric attempted to coax the men at the mosque to talk about jihad. He joked that after telling Brother Eric he was pursuing his pilot’s license, the cops showed up and slammed him onto the hood of his car.
Minhaj also admitted that he took creative license with the factual components of the Brother Eric anecdote.
Both stories were based in “emotional truth,” the comedian told the New Yorker, adding that the punch line was worth the fictionalized premise.
The Brother Eric story came from a personal experience from Minhaj’s youth. Minhaj and other teenage Muslims played games of pickup basketball with middle-aged men “whom the boys suspected were officers. One made a show of pushing Minhaj to the ground.”
Minhaj reiterated that his stand-up sets are “grounded in truth,” but the New Yorker pressed the comedian on his embellishments, asking him if he felt that he had manipulated his audience.
“No, I don’t think I’m manipulating,” he said. “I think they are coming for the emotional roller-coaster ride. To the people that are, like, ‘Yo, that is way too crazy to happen,’ I don’t care because yes, f— yes, that’s the point.”
Xolo Maridueña is excited to share Blue Beetle with the world.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Summary
Xolo Maridueña is excited for people to meet the Blue Beetle character and hopes it provides representation for kids who look like him.
Maridueña’s mother played a role in him landing the Blue Beetle role, and he did his research to familiarize himself with the character.
The Blue Beetle movie marks Maridueña’s big-screen debut, and there are hints that he will continue to portray the superhero in future DC Universe projects.
Xolo Maridueña was born to be the Blue Beetle. Best known for portraying Miguel Diaz on Cobra Kai, Maridueña is trading in his karate gi for the super-powered suit he receives once being chosen by the scarab. “I’m so excited about people meeting this character for the first time,” Maridueña told Newsweek.
Maridueña continued:
“The thing that I’m most excited about for this movie and for this opportunity is not necessarily for myself to become the biggest star, it’s really for the opportunities for people to feel represented and to feel seen on the biggest screen and on the biggest platform. That’s why I’m so excited for all the kids who are going to be able to see someone who looks like them kicking butt. That’s what I’m excited about.”
Now, flashback to the moment Maridueña found out he’d won the role of Jaime Reyes, aka the Blue Beetle. The actor was having dinner when he found out the news, and Ángel Manuel Soto ended up speaking to Maridueña’s mom. When the filmmaker told her that Maridueña was the only one who could pull off playing the part, she replied, “Of course, he’s the only guy for the role.”
Xolo Maridueña Has ‘Ants in his Pants’ From All the Excitement
Warner Bros. Pictures
Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña didn’t know much about the superhero from the source material. As it turns out, his mother was more of a comic book reader than him. However, Maridueña was familiar with the character thanks to the second season of Young Justice. After he landed the role, Maridueña went back and did his research. And he can’t wait for cinephiles to meet Blue Beetle. Maridueña said in the same interview:
“I’m so excited for the movie to come out. It’s very ambitious. It was a really big step for me, career wise. I’d never worked on a movie before. But I feel like we really knocked it out of the park. So, at this point, the feeling that I have is a gracious feeling, but also an exhilarating [one]. I got ants in my pants.”
Casual fans know from the trailer that the scarab ultimately selects Jaime Reyes (Maridueña) as its host. But what might not be apparent is that the motives of the device aren’t exactly aligned with those of your typical superhero — quite the contrary.
“He is selected as a host to destroy the world on whichever planet it’s [the scarab] on. And on Earth, it attaches itself to Jaime, but we find that this one maybe isn’t going to destroy the whole world. And because Jaime is the host, he’s going to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
Blue Beetle marks the big-screen debut of the Cobra Kai star. However, it’s likely not the last time audiences will see Maridueña as the superhero. James Gunn has already anointed the Blue Beetle as a member of his and Peter Safran’s upcoming DC Universe (DCU). And with Cobra Kai preparing to end after its sixth season, Maridueña will have more time to devote to Blue Beetle. Check out the film’s trailer below:
Apple is prepping a software update to address alleged radiation concerns regarding the three-year-old iPhone 12s after French regulators alleged that the phone exceeds proper radiation levels. France stopped selling the smartphones after recommendations from the country’s radiation watchdog (ANFR), but Cupertino denies the allegations and seems to place the onus on the European nation’s testing protocols,
To that end, Apple has reiterated that this isn’t a safety concern and notes that the phone was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global radiation standards. The software update won’t adjust radiation levels, as that would be a hardware issue, but it will “accommodate the protocol used by French regulators.” So it looks like Apple thinks the software patch will be enough to allow the iPhone 12s to sail through future radiation tests, saying it looks forward “to the iPhone 12 continuing to be available in France.”
France did change its regulations back in 2020. It added consideration for extremities, like hands, when testing for radiation levels and the rate of radio-frequency energy absorbed by the body by using a particular piece of equipment. This is called the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR.) During the country’s recently-instituted SAR tests, regulators found that the iPhone 12s exceeded normal levels of energy absorption when holding the phone, despite acing the test when considering the head and body.
Belgium and Denmark have both come to Apple’s aid here, with Belgian minister for digitalization, Mathieu Michel, saying that local tests were “reassuring” and recommending against a suspension on sales. Denmark’s Safety Authority followed suit, suggesting it had no concerns regarding iPhone 12s radiation levels. Industry experts have also weighed in, stating that the findings indicated no risk of burns or heatstroke emanating from the phone’s radiation.
France says Apple’s software fix should be adequate and that they’ll resume testing as soon as it arrives, which was spelled out in a Apple regularly drops software updates for its iPhones, so it should show up in the near future. In the meantime, the company’s focusing its energy away from the three-year-old iPhone 12 and onto
As with any big trade conference, all of the initial buzz and fanfare might initially go to the biggest camera announcements and tech releases. However, the real ones know where to go for the good stuff. Lighting isn’t always as sexy as AI, per se, but when news of major new LED panels from the likes of ARRI comes out, you better bet we’re there to cover it.
And these new ARRI SkyPanel X LED panels promise to be quite the game changer for cinematographers and video professionals alike as it’s the company’s first fixture to use RGBACL technology. An update on the original ARRI SkyPanels which were introduced back in 2015, these new LED panels are a major update for the brand and should instantly be a great option for film and video pros looking for LED lighting in any setting or weather conditions.
Let’s check out these new ARRI SkyPanel X LED panels and explore if they might be right for you.
Introducing the ARRI SkyPanel X
Designed as a more powerful and all-weather update to the previous SkyPanel version (which was quite popular itself), this new SkyPanel X should provide all of the hard and soft lighting options you could ever need with new dimming controls, color science tweaks, and an overall output quality that enhances medium to long throws with up to 20 times greater output than other soft lights.
With a modular design aimed at supporting native soft light using a dome and hard light using open-face lighting with the optional HyPerOptic lens, the SkyPanel X should be able to use its multiple panels together to work as a single fixture in 2 x 1, 2 x 2, or 2 x 3 configurations.
As far as measurements go, the 2×1 ARRI SkyPanel X will stand at 73.8 x 33.9 x 15.4cm/29.1 x 13.3 x 6.1″ without a yoke. And, similar to most ARRI fixtures, the SkyPanel X should clock in at around 33 lbs (or 40 lbs with the yoke) making it a bit heavier, but still moveable on bigger sets.
The different ARRI SkyPanel X options
Credit: ARRI
A Full-Spectrum RGBACL Color Engine
What’s perhaps most interesting about the new SkyPanel X though is its full-spectrum RGBACL color engine which boasts a 1500-20,000 CCT range with accurate color rendition plus numerous wired and wireless control options.
The SkyPanel X also sports an IP66 rating for performance in all weather conditions, making it an excellent option in the studio or out in the field for the stormiest of shoots.
There are also some nifty design features like a built-in power supply unit for portability which itself can be daisy-chained with other SkyPanel X units to create a fully realized and expansive lighting grid for bigger shoots and productions.
There are also some neat modular design features as well as the SkyPanel X is divided into eight-pixel zones which all can be animated and programmed independently. The SkyPanel X is also set to launch with three lighting modifiers including a dome for creating soft light, a HyPer Optic for very hard and direction light, and a S60 Adapter for adapting all existing lighting modifiers created for the original SkyPanel.
Price and Availability
While just announced, ARRI has not yet released a price or expected arrival date for these new LED panels. However, we could expect pre-orders to begin here soon which you can keep tabs on below—along with the full list of specs:
BAD BOY will, no doubt, rock TIFF this year so it is such an intense new series from Israel. This show was created by the original creators of ‘Euphoria’ and it’s the tale of a troubled teen sent to a brutal juvenile detention facility, and how his humor and talent is going to save him from this horrible fate. It’s a series full of humanity, of compassion and of laughs. We had a little conversation with ‘Bad Boy’ director and main writer/producer, let’s roll:
Q: how did this show happen and what was the idea behind; what were you trying to achieve with this series?
Ron: It goes back to the time when I was a journalist, and I had an assignment to write an article about a juvenile prison. This experience never left me, and I had to figure out a way to report on this journey. It touched me in so many ways and I wanted to figure out a show such as this one. It was hard to ponder the heartwarming aspect of such story and the dark side of it. We found out that one of the boys who had been locked there became a famous stand-up comedian. This was the twist we needed to make this show happen. Suddenly we had a show where you see this dark environment seen through the eyes of humor, through the eyes of this kid. We needed the perfect director and when Hagar agreed to jump on board, we knew we had something solid.
Hagar: I was so intrigued by the idea of a young boy in prison becoming a stand-up comedian. I couldn’t pass on such a unique opportunity. Just to hear the real story behind this show blew my mind. On top of this, I love prisons and I love boys, so this was the perfect combination for me to be part of this adventure. And I love humor. I had no choice but to direct this show in Israel. Also, I wanted to work with Ron for a while. This was the special occasion I could not be part of. Also, this show makes so many statements on an emotional level or a political one. It’s such a provocative program that will not let you unsensitive about what you will watch.
Q: Tell me about the main challenges making this show?
Hagar: Casting was the biggest challenge. It was so tough to find a young boy who had not acted before and who could be funny and dramatic at the same time. It turned out that 95% of the boys we casted were not actor before coming on board. We found them, mainly, in shitty boarding school in Israel! Also, we had to put these kids in 45 days shooting schedule and this was truly challenging as they had never experienced such a thing. It was a big challenge to do this series but such a gift to be able to bring to life such an intense series.
Ron: It’s true that Hagar had to see hundreds of kids before picking up the ones you see in our series!
Q: What is this show truly about, tell me about the themes explored?
Hagar: It’s about the judicial system in any case. But it’s also about the melting pot of Israel. And what it is about being a kid in a tough system; these are the main “political” themes of our show. For me, it’s really about a kid who can’t find his place in society. He doesn’t want to be home, to be funny and he doesn’t want to be in prison. This kid is a misfit. He can only survive life with humor. When Life is shitty, I want to believe you can rely on your sense of humor to save yourself.
Q: Being at Tiff, what does it mean to you? Any expectation?
Ron: We hope the audience embrace our show. Initially we were not sure if we wanted to shoot in English or in Hebrew. But we went with the Hebrew language. We now hope the show will travel around the world and that the audience will be able to experience our series.
Hagar: TIFF is so festive despite the strike. This is such a joyful place. This is a meaningful festival, and we are so happy to be here.
Katie Featherston, Oran Peli, Micah SloatPhoto: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images For Paramount
Few film franchises are more wedded to their format than the Paranormal Activity movies, which, for the last decade-plus, have explored pretty much every angle (often literally) that the found footage horror idea could support. (Remember that time they put the camera on an oscillating fan? Slow panning shots have never been more spooky!) It’s an inherent part of what makes those films as distinctive as they are: People meticulously recording their own destruction at the hands of…demons? Witches? Amish people? (We’ll admit, it’s been a minute since we checked in on the franchise’s needlessly over-complicated lore.)
Michael Jai White on “Outlaw Johnny Black” and his favorite Western movie
Now, though, it sounds like the world of theater might be hoping to divorce Paranormal Activity from its “footage” roots entirely: THR reports that Simon Friend, who recently adapted boat-and-tiger-heavy story Life Of Pi for Broadway, has picked up the rights to the PA franchise for a potential stage adaptation for London’s West End. Levi Holloway will reportedly write the script, presumably working from the original 2009 Paranormal Activity, whichwas “written” by series creator Oren Peli. (Verb in quotes because the first movie was mostly retroscripted, with stars Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston improvising their own dialogue from an outline given to them by Peli.)
And while we might make jokes about the difficulties of trying to replicate the films’ aesthetics for the theater—in our heads, they have to put in some sort of sign in the bottom right corner of the stage to recreate the video timestamp, right?—it’s worth noting that the first Paranormal Activity is already basically a two-person play. (There’s a reason Peli was able to shoot the thing in a week, for basically no money, making it the most profitable movie of all time in the process.) The basic story of a troubled couple whose various personality conflicts and secrets open them up to a horrifying nightmare is more-or-less universal—whether it’s being taped through a grainy night-vision camera or not.
In honor of ‘The Equalizer 3’s release, Moviefone is counting down the 45 best movies of Denzel Washington’s incredibly impressive acting career.
Let’s begin!
Denzel Washington as Joe “Deke” Deacon in ‘The Little Things’ from Warner Bros. Pictures.
Deputy Sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) joins forces with Sgt. Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) to search for a serial killer who’s terrorizing Los Angeles. As they track the culprit, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deke’s past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.
“Some things never let us go.”
63
R2 hr 8 minJan 29th, 2021
Good natured Reverend Henry Biggs (Courtney B. Vance) finds that his marriage to choir mistress Julia (Whitney Houston) is flagging, due to his constant absence caring for the deprived neighborhood they live in. On top of all this, his church is coming under threat from property developer Joe Hamilton (Gregory Hines). In desperation, Rev. Biggs prays to God for help – and help arrives in the form of an angel named Dudley (Washington).
“They needed help. What they got was a miracle.”
58
PG2 hr 4 minDec 13th, 1996
A sailor (Derek Luke) prone to violent outbursts is sent to a naval psychiatrist for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his doctor (Washington), he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.
“Antwone Fisher is at war… with himself.”
Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco (Washington) finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco’s doubts deepen, Shaw’s political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.
The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist from his Middle East homeland leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. An FBI senior agent (Washington) and his team attempt to locate and decommission the enemy cells, but must also deal with an Army General (Bruce Willis) gone rogue and a female CIA agent (Annette Bening) of uncertain loyalties.
“On November 6th our freedom is history”
63
R1 hr 56 minNov 6th, 1998
Denzel Washington stars in ‘Déjà Vu’ from Buena Vista Pictures.
Called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a horrific explosion on a New Orleans ferry, Federal agent Doug Carlin (Washington) gets pulled away from the scene and taken to a top-secret government lab that uses a time-shifting surveillance device to help prevent crime.
“If you think it’s just a feeling, go back… and look again.”
Matt Lee Whitlock (Washington), respected chief of police in small Banyan Key, Florida, must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Matt Lee has to stay a few steps ahead of his own police force and everyone he’s trusted in order to find out the truth.
“The Clock Is Ticking…”
63
R1 hr 45 minOct 3rd, 2003
In this Shakespearean farce, Hero (Kate Beckinsale) and her groom-to-be, Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard), team up with Claudio’s commanding officer, Don Pedro (Washington), the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson) — a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John (Keanu Reeves) plots to ruin the wedding.
Homicide detective John Hobbes (Washington) witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas). Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese’s style.
“Detective John Hobbes is searching for a criminal he’s already met… already caught… and already killed”
67
R2 hr 4 minJan 16th, 1998
An Indian family is expelled from Uganda when Idi Amin takes power. They move to Mississippi and time passes. The Indian daughter (Sarita Choudhury) falls in love with a black man (Washington), and the respective families have to come to terms with it.
Denzel Washington as Roman J. Israel in ‘Roman J. Israel, Esq.’ from Sony Pictures.
Hard-nosed liberal lawyer Roman J. Israel (Washington) has been fighting the good fight forever while others take the credit. When his partner – the firm’s frontman – has a heart attack, Israel suddenly takes on that role. He soon discovers some unsettling truths about the firm – truths that conflict with his values of helping the poor and dispossessed – and finds himself in an existential crisis that leads to extreme actions.
“All rise.”
63
PG-132 hr 2 minNov 17th, 2017
The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7 (Russell Crowe): a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers, and only one man can stop him.
“Justice needs a new program.”
55
R1 hr 46 minAug 4th, 1995
In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. Military lawyer, Captain Davenport (Howard E. Rollins Jr.)—also a black man—is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill the Master Sergeant.
“Alone, far from home, and far from justice, he has three days to learn the truth about a murder… and the truth is a story you won’t forget.”
68
PG1 hr 41 minSep 14th, 1984
A US Army officer (Washington), who made a “friendly fire” mistake that was covered up, has been reassigned to a desk job. He is tasked to investigate a female chopper commander’s (Meg Ryan) worthiness to be awarded the Medal of Honor. At first all seems in order. But then he begins to notice inconsistencies between the testimonies of the witnesses…
“A medal for honor. A search for justice. A battle for truth.”
65
R1 hr 56 minJul 4th, 1996
Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gillian (Washington) is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo (Joie Lee) and Clarke (Cynda Williams). But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend (Spike Lee), Bleek finds his world more fragile that he ever imagined.
65
R2 hr 9 minAug 3rd, 1990
Denzel Washington in ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth.’
From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Joel Coen comes the propulsive, boldly cinematic ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth,’ starring Oscar-winners Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as the devious, ill-fated Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. An original, striking reimagining of the classic Shakespearean tale portrayed in sumptuous black-and-white cinematography, ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ finds the titular general and his loyal wife older and warier, desperately striving against a merciless ticking clock as they attempt to seize upon a final opportunity for power. In the chaos that ensues, their grasp on the throne unravels, terror mounts and regret enshrouds every inch of their wretched world. Co-starring Kathryn Hunter, Corey Hawkins, Moses Ingram, Brendan Gleeson, Harry Melling and Bertie Carvel.
John Quincy Archibald (Washington) is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son’s name on the donor’s list.
“Give a father no options and you leave him no choice.”
71
PG-131 hr 56 minFeb 15th, 2002
A basketball player’s father (Washington) must try to convince him (Ray Allen) to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.
“The father, the son and the holy game.”
68
R2 hr 16 minApr 25th, 1998
A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man (Washington) fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.
“Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.”
68
R1 hr 58 minJan 11th, 2010
An attorney (Washington) is terrorized by the criminal (John Lithgow) he put away years ago when he was a cop.
“He’s a cop accused of murder. And the only man who knows he’s innocent is the killer who framed him.”
Denzel Washington as Captain William “Whip” Whitaker in ‘Flight’ from Paramount Pictures.
Commercial airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Washington) has a problem with drugs and alcohol, though so far he’s managed to complete his flights safely. His luck runs out when a disastrous mechanical malfunction sends his plane hurtling toward the ground. Whip pulls off a miraculous crash-landing that results in only six lives lost. Shaken to the core, Whip vows to get sober — but when the crash investigation exposes his addiction, he finds himself in an even worse situation.
68
R2 hr 18 minOct 14th, 2012
Rookie cop, Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme (Washington) – formerly the department’s top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury – to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed ‘The Bone Collector’. The murderer’s special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes.
“Two cops on the trail of a serial killer. They must see as one… They must act as one… They must think as one… Before another victim falls.”
A DEA agent (Washington) and an undercover Naval Intelligence officer (Mark Wahlberg) who have been tasked with investigating one another find they have been set up by the mob — the very organization the two men believe they have been stealing money from.
“2 Guns, 1 Bank.”
65
R1 hr 49 minAug 2nd, 2013
A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko (Washington), a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.
71
PG2 hr 37 minNov 5th, 1987
Two competing lawyers (Tom Hanks and Washington) join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for AIDS discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.
“No one would take on his case… until one man was willing to take on the system.”
77
PG-132 hr 6 minDec 14th, 1993
Denzel Washington in ‘The Equalizer 3.’ Photo: Stefano Montesi.
Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia.
Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds… Read the Plot
Looking to mine for gold, greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) seizes control of the Old West town of Rose Creek. With their lives in jeopardy, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) and other desperate residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Washington) for help. Chisolm recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his ruthless henchmen. With a deadly showdown on the horizon, the seven mercenaries soon find themselves fighting for more than just money once the bullets start to fly.
“Justice has a number.”
64
PG-132 hr 12 minSep 19th, 2016
A runaway train, transporting deadly, toxic chemicals, is barreling down on Stanton, Pennsylvania, and proves to be unstoppable until a veteran engineer (Washington) and young conductor (Chris Pine) risk their lives to try and stop it with a switch engine.
“1,000,000 Tons. 100,000 Lives. 100 Minutes.”
65
PG-131 hr 38 minNov 12th, 2010
Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student (Julia Roberts) has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist (Washington) wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.
66
PG-132 hr 21 minDec 13th, 1993
After the Cold War, a breakaway Russian republic with nuclear warheads becomes a possible worldwide threat. U.S. submarine Capt. Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman) signs on a relatively green but highly recommended Lt. Cmdr. Ron Hunter (Washington) to the USS Alabama, which may be the only ship able to stop a possible Armageddon. When Ramsay insists that the Alabama must act aggressively, Hunter, fearing they will start rather than stop a disaster, leads a potential mutiny to stop him.
(L to R) Denzel Washington plays Troy Maxson and Viola Davis plays Rose Maxson in ‘Fences’ from Paramount Pictures.
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father (Washington) struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
“Some people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in.”
Robert McCall (Washington), who serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, embarks on a relentless, globe-trotting quest for vengeance when a long-time friend (Melissa Leo) is murdered.
Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day’s work for dispatcher Walter Garber (Washington) into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.
“I can’t get it out of my head. I’m gonna die today.”
63
R1 hr 46 minJun 4th, 2009
A dangerous CIA renegade (Washington) resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he’s remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative (Ryan Reynolds) escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.
Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) leads the US Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.
“Their innocence. Their heritage. Their lives.”
75
R2 hr 2 minDec 15th, 1989
(Right) Denzel Washington as Herman Boone in ‘Remember the Titans.’
After leading his football team to 15 winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone (Washington) – who is tough, opinionated and as different from the beloved Yoast as he could be. The two men learn to overcome their differences and turn a group of hostile young men into champions.
“History is written by the winners.”
76
PG1 hr 53 minSep 23rd, 2000
In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins (Washington) is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city’s black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.
“Private detective Easy Rawlins has been caught on the wrong side of the most dangerous secret in town.”
Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III), Frank Lucas (Washington) establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. Partly based on a true story.
“There are two sides to the American dream”
76
NR2 hr 37 minOct 19th, 2007
When an armed, masked gang (led by Clive Owen) enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective (Washington) assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.
“It looked like the perfect bank robbery. But you can’t judge a crime by its cover.”
The story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (Washington), a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
“His greatest fight was for justice.”
74
R2 hr 26 minDec 29th, 1999
(L to R) Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in director Tony Scott’s ‘Man on Fire.’
Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy (Washington) reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl (Dakota Fanning) in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she’s kidnapped he’s consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.
“Creasy’s art is death, and he is about to paint his masterpiece.”
74
R2 hr 26 minApr 21st, 2004
Robert McCall (Washington) believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life. But when he meets Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can’t stand idly by – he has to help her. Armed with hidden skills that allow him to serve vengeance against anyone who would brutalize the helpless, McCall comes out of his self-imposed retirement and finds his desire for justice reawakened. If someone has a problem, if the odds are stacked against them, if they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer.
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader (played by Washington) of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the ’50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.
Police chief Xavier Quinn (Washington) investigates the gruesome murder of Donald Pater, one of the wealthiest residents on a Caribbean island. He was found decapitated in his Jacuzzi. Although the local political establishment, especially crooked Governor Chalk (Norman Beaton), insists that small-time thief Maubee (Robert Townsend) is responsible, Xavier has his doubts. This view is complicated by the police chief’s personal history with Maubee: The men have been friends since childhood.
“The chief of police and the chief suspect know each other too well to let a little thing like murder get in their way.”
62
R1 hr 38 minFeb 17th, 1989
Denzel Washington as Detective Alonzo Harris in ‘Training Day.’ Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop (Ethan Hawke) works with a rogue detective (Washington) who isn’t what he appears.
“The only thing more dangerous than the line being crossed, is the cop who will cross it.”
On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: A Smooth-Brained Boy and His Bright Blue Dog Escape Capitalism
I got my first gig as a professional journalist during the 2016 election. Since then, I’ve read and written countless variations on the same despairing lede. It’s a rambling list of the world’s gravest existential threats punctuated with a quip about something recent, specific, sensational, and typically terrible.
“Protesters may be flooding the pandemic-ridden streets while an insurrection takes place, the planet literally boils, and killer bees swarm Times Square…” some sad-sack news writer might begin. “But at least we still have ‘Vanderpump Rules’/’Animal Crossing’ memes/reasonably priced eggs again!”
The joke worked for years, effectively acknowledging the vast, unending awfulness of modern life before hand-waving it away to make room for the Best Tweets of the Week… or whatever. But as the years passed and the horrors continued to mount, a simpler, sadder hook emerged in my mind as what we disgruntled newsies really wanted to say: What’s the point?
An animated expansion on Harry Nilsson’s 1970 rock album of the same name, “The Point” answers that dark philosophical quandary with smart wordplay, surprising depth, and the comforting warmth of an actual analog hug. The throwback children’s TV special features the voice of Mike Lookinland (aka Bobby Brady of “The Brady Bunch”) as Oblio, an 8-year-old boy with a heart of gold and a big ol’ round head.
Oblio is the only circular-skulled person in the Pointed Village: a conformist, capitalist hellscape where everything has to have a literal point. “That’s the way it always has been and for all anybody knew, that’s the way it always would be,” Ringo Starr says in a Seussical-esque explanation of society’s cyclical failings and maddening complacency.
Narrated by the silliest Beatle in most versions (Dustin Hoffman was used one time in the original broadcast), “The Point!” is almost eerily well suited to the anxiety-ridden masses of today. It was reportedly dreamed up by Nilsson while he was on acid — and that shows.
When Oblio attempts to join in some triangle-style reindeer games with the other neighborhood kids, he’s bullied relentlessly — and yes, his biggest tormentor is voiced by the same kid who famously asked an owl how many licks it takes to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop. A pointy, plum-colored Count (Lennie Weinrib) eventually convinces the king to exile the spherical bastard to a life of lonely wandering. It is never explained why child neglect is universally accepted.
And yet Oblio’s free-wheeling story needs little justification. Our hero’s journey through lands less pointed is a dreamy indictment of the people, institutions, and forces that can make Western World existence suck at any age and in any decade. As he encounters kooky characters of various pointel-age, Oblio earnestly searches for his purpose with his porcupine-esque, blue dog Arrow at his side.
Where the ’70s kiddos and hippies for whom the musical film was first intended might have seen Vietnam War-era counterculture, contemporary viewers will find a kaleidoscopic consideration of consumerism and democracy easily bent to the more amorphous problems facing us now. There’s a dark, scribbly cloud hanging over director Fred Wolf’s film, quietly questioning, “Is this genius or were they just really high?” But there’s also beauty in its shrugging imperfections.
“The Point” justifies its existence as a self-sustaining loop of winking, slanted puns with earnest sweetness and the ever-lasting wisdom of hallucinogenics. It’s a decent excuse to dip your toe in phrenology and a salve for whatever article you just read. (Sorry if I wrote it.) —AF
The Aftermath: Ringo Starr Has Once Again Shown Me Horrors That Put My Darkest Nightmares to Shame
As I immersed myself in the angular world of “The Point,” a fantasy kingdom in which Ringo Starr declared that “business was brisk and competition was competitive,” I began to daydream about watching a live-action remake of this insanity in 2023. Who, I wondered, would be the best director to capture the human drama contained in a game of toss-the-triangle?
Wes Anderson and Tim Burton were low-hanging fruit, considering the film’s storybook color palette and playfully depraved fantasy creatures. But it eventually became clear that only one auteur would do: David Cronenberg. Because, dear reader, “The Point” might look like it takes place in a candy-colored, “Schoolhouse Rock”-ass world — but look under the surface and you’ll find nothing but a fascist dystopia run by deformed egomaniacs.
Frankly, even the Points who weren’t exiled to the Pointless Forest lived a grotesque existence that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. In addition to the obvious “having acute angles for heads” problem, there’s the fact that adults all cease to have legs despite children clearly being born with them. And the king’s elegant robes imply that clothing does exist here, but everyone is inexplicably naked all the time. It’s unsurprising that they’ve built a nihilistic society whose only two industries involve manufacturing large triangles and candies known as “butter balls.”
The legal system, which uses in-the-round seating for its trials and places the defendant on a lone chair in the center of the circle, seems like a Kafkaesque nightmare. The fact that a dog can be tried for the crimes of its 8-year-old owner by an overzealous purple prosecutor convinced me that being exiled to the Pointless Forest wasn’t so bad.
I was particularly amused by the film’s depiction of paternal narcissism. Ringo’s narrator is ostensibly reading his son a bedtime story — but not only does he ignore the fact that the kid is straight-up watching TV static, he takes every opportunity to stop the story to rant about how kids don’t like stories anymore. And rather than discuss the yarn with his son after he finishes, he bolts out of the room the instant he’s able to coerce a compliment about his storytelling skills out of the disinterested kid.
But his apathy pales in comparison to that of Oblio’s father, who treats his young son’s exile from the kingdom with all the indignation that I would devote to an ingrown hair. He spends their final moments together reminding his son that breaking laws we don’t like would only lead to anarchy — and only after Oblio takes a harrowing journey through a forest of nihilism does this deadbeat concede that he “probably should have tried” to appeal the ruling.
Still, there’s no doubt in my mind that “The Point” is the pinnacle of Ringo’s post-Beatles acting career — though I imagine I would have said that upon learning that he starred in literally any film besides “Caveman.” I was more entertained by the comedic mundanities than the feel-good plot, but the endless weirdness made this the most enjoyable 85 minutes that I’ve ever spent watching a 71-minute movie (thanks, Freevee!) But I can’t help but wonder if some of the cultural momentum that accompanied Dustin Hoffman’s passing of the torch to Ringo has been squandered by the lack of new narrators over the past five decades. An annual re-release with a different legendary middle-aged man (Mario Lopez! Christopher Cross! Bill Belichick! Shaq!) as the guy who wants his son to think he’s cool would be a global sensation. —CZ
Those brave enough to join in on the fun can stream “The Point” on Amazon Prime Video’s Freevee, Peacock, and Tubi. IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations at 11:59 p.m. ET every Friday. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
Saycon Sengbloh, Elisha Williams, Dulé HillPhoto: ABC/Matt Miller
There are a lot of things you can be wistfully nostalgic for is in this complicated, mixed-up world of ours—but the Friday Night TV Murder Pile probably isn’t one of them. Not even if you’re The Wonder Years, which has, tonight, found itself chucked unceremoniously onto The Pile, i.e., that span of hours on a Friday evening when the TV networks get rid of all the shows that don’t merit any kind of extended, Don Cheadle-narrated farewell tour, and instead just get, well, dumped.
Dulé Hill on “The Wonder Years,” “The West Wing,” and a new “Psych” movie
An updated revival version of the beloved ’80s and ’90s series (which ran for six seasons on ABC), the new Wonder Years didn’t last nearly as long: Just two seasons, numbering 32 episodes total, with the last few arriving in August of this year. The show starred Dulé Hill, Elisha “EJ” Williams, Saycon Sengbloh, Laura Kariuki, Amari O’Neil, Julian Lerner, and Milan Ray, and featured Cheadle as the adult version of Williams’ character, narrating the show’s story of a middle-class Black family living in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1960s.
Created by Saladin K. Patterson, the series had a mixed critical reception in its early going; writing for us in 2021, Stephen Robinson noted that the show matched neither the cinematic sweep, or the poignant and complex portrait of suburban life, of the original series. Despite getting a series renewal, the show was brought back for a significantly shorter second season earlier this year—just 10 episodes, versus an initial order of 22—that lost about a third of its average viewers overall. Which brings us, of course, to The Pile: True to form, the show has been dispensed with on a Friday night with no public press comments from ABC, 20th Century Television, or executive producers Lee Daniels and Fred Savage.
Any movie that begins with “I am not a good man” is a clue that this story may not be so family-friendly. With the sound of a dripping faucet in a dark-lit space, we meet Vincent Damiano, played by Kevin Interdonato, The Bastard Sons director and co-writer, who played Dogsy on The Sopranos. It is a well-suited setting and lays the foundation for Vincent and his gangster life as he sets out to seek revenge for the hit that took place on his father and his plan to become head of his family, separating his crew from what exists.
A down-and-dirty crime thriller with a bit of mystery, The Bastard Sons holds nothing back. It’s brutal and brash, all business, and hits hard. Vincent’s family is his “brothers.” A group of battled-ready misfits all raised together with relentless loyalty and no fear. In an all too familiar plot of revenge-seeking, The Bastard Sons is not complicated yet has some good personality for a modern-day small-town gangster thriller crime story with two rules: an eye for an eye and take what’s yours. It’s that simple.
“…about to embark on change that will shake up all the gangster crews.”
The passing of Vincent’s father is acknowledged by all with respect, but business is down, so the pressure on Vincent to get back to work is on and serious. Yet, Vincent has his plan and is about to embark on change that will shake up all the gangster crews. The one and main objective he seeks is to take out Rome, his partner, in a plot he has been scheming, which goes down in a bloody, violent, and head-banging war. Vincent’s crew, loyal to the death, does not quite know all the outcomes but sticks to Vincent’s plan even when shocked by a twist in the story that no one sees coming along with some heinous injuries.
There’s a Sopranos feel to The Bastard Sons, which is not surprising considering Kevin Interdonato’s connection. It’s primarily set in New Jersey but even more lower end of mafia life than The Sopranos, but nonetheless, it holds one’s attention for the unthinkable. Well-acted, good camera work and excellent locations allow The Bastard Sons to stand on its own, including Vincent’s mafia girlfriend Olivia, who plays an interesting part in Vincent’s revenge.
Emotions are kept tight, and at times, there’s a lag between scenes; however, there is no holding back on the fighting, gun-slinging, and gruesome aftermaths that allow this family to continue with product and cash. Some tasteless and nasty men sprinkled throughout contribute to the film’s mafia tone and, along with a dead and bleak winter atmosphere, give The Bastard Sons even more grit. The film’s interesting end leads one to believe there’s more to the story, which is wholly a mafia theme and perhaps plays into more to come, which is believable and possible.
Calgarians continued to spill into city hall Friday to share their thoughts on the city’s proposed strategy to address housing affordability, but one recommendation in the plan garnered more attention than others.
It’s the second straight day of public feedback at an extended city committee meeting all focused on ‘Home is Here,’ the city’s proposed housing strategy.
With the cost of renting or owning a home rising exponentially in Calgary, the city’s strategy aims to increase the supply of housing, support affordable housing, help the city’s housing subsidiaries, ensure diverse types of housing to meet the needs of equity-deserving populations, and address the affordable housing needs of Calgary’s Indigenous population.
To achieve the goal of improving housing affordability, the city’s strategy includes close to 80 recommendations from city administration and the city’s Housing Affordability Task Force.
Among those recommendations is a proposal to change the base residential zoning district to include more housing types.
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Currently, more than 60 per cent of residential properties in Calgary are zoned to only allow single family homes as a default.
The recommendation asks to change the default zoning type to RC-G, which allows for single family homes, but also different housing like duplexes, triplexes, and row houses.
“It is absolutely imperative that we have a proper mix of housing for everyone to be able to live with dignity in every community in this city,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said.
Co-founder of developer RndSqr, Alkarim Devani, highlighted the recommendation during his chance to address council in support of the strategy.
Devani said the current process to apply to rezone a property is “arduous” and can lead to costly and lengthy delays on residential developments that get passed down to the future owner or renter.
“We have a constraint on supply that is driven primarily by zoning,” Devani said. “If we can make supply more accessible, we can make the process more dependable, predictable and quicker, you know that supply will reduce or level out demand because there will be more options.”
Although much of the feedback in the two-day public hearing has overwhelmingly been supportive of the strategy, several speakers on Friday voiced their opposition to the recommendation around zoning reform.
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“It will not achieve the goal of creating more affordable housing options,” Bowness resident Jean Woeller told committee. “It will create losers who own homes in established neighbourhoods.”
Others like Bob Morrison said the strategy will only be successful if it is revised to address concerns around zoning reform.
“Housing growth needs to be where people, especially those in the greatest need can easily access services and amenities,” Morrison said. “Blanket rezoning and incentivizing $650,000 row houses in low density areas will not accomplish that.”
Others raised concerns around land value, aging city infrastructure in established areas and the city’s tree canopy.
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said he’d like to see a more “gentle transition” through the existing local area planning process ahead of zoning reform across the city.
“To try and do it with one fell swoop with big hammer, I don’t think it’s the right approach,” he told reporters. “We need to use a soft hammer and move forward in a thoughtful, methodical way.”
Other speakers like Candace Chambers acknowledged the concerns of homeowners against the zoning recommendations, but said it can’t derail the strategy as the housing situation in Calgary is untenable for many struggling with affordability.
“I need people to really think this through of what you might be rejecting and what you might be letting young people walk into,” she said. “I remember promises of older generations making things better for the younger. Right now it feels like you’re having fun torturing us.”
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Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott said the status quo isn’t working, and the recommendation is to go beyond and look at the “entire continuum of housing.”
“Half measures have proven themselves to be ineffective and incrementalism has proven itself to be the reason why we’ve seen such drastic housing price increases,” Walcott said.
The zoning recommendation wouldn’t take immediate effect if it’s approved in the housing strategy as it requires another council decision and public hearing to change the current zoning bylaw.
Committee will begin debating the housing strategy on Saturday morning, including any potential amendments from city councillors.
“Is it a silver bullet? No,” Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said. “Not any single action in the package is a silver bullet. Do they work together? Absolutely.”
If the strategy is approved by committee, it will move to a special meeting of city council as a whole on Saturday afternoon for a final debate and decision.
In her new memoir Oh Miriam: Stories From An Extraordinary Life, the veteran actress wrote of playing a dental assistant to Martin’s Orin Scrivello D.D.S., specifically a sequence in which Martin’s character slams a door in the face of Margolyes’ character and punches her.
“I was hit all day by doors opening in my face; repeatedly punched, slapped and knocked down by an unlovely and unapologetic Steve Martin – perhaps he was method acting – and came home grumpy with a splitting headache.”
Her overall appraisal? Martin was “undeniably brilliant, but horrid to me.”
Martin addressed the allegations in a statement to Deadline:
“When I first read Miriam Margolyes’ pejorative account of our scene in Little Shop of Horrors, I was surprised. My memory is that we had a good communication as professional actors. But when it is implied that I harmed her or was in some way careless about doing the stunts, I have to object. I remember taking EXTREME caution regarding the fake punch – the same caution I would use with any similar scene. She assured me she felt fine, and we did a few successful takes and stopped. There was never any physical contact between her and me, accidental or otherwise, in this scene or any other we shot.”
You can watch the sequence below.
Martin noted that others were present.
“Also on the set, keeping their eyes on the action, was the highly skilled and sensitive director, Frank Oz, a stunt coordinator, a camera crew, a script supervisor, as well as extras who witnessed the entire, very-well rehearsed scene.”
In support of his account, Martin offered the following recollection from Oz:
“I always rehearse physical actions in slow motion. The scene was supposed to include a fake punch. It’s puzzling what she’s talking about. It’s not the Steve I know or anyone knows. He’s always been professional and respectful of everyone on all of my shoots.”
Oz and Martin have made four movies together: Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bowfinger and Housesitter.
When Fidji Simo took over as chief executive of Instacart in 2021, the grocery delivery start-up’s growth was cratering as its pandemic boom ebbed. The board of directors asked her to find new ways for the company to earn money.
Ms. Simo, a former executive at Meta with experience in advertising, played to her strengths. She aggressively expanded Instacart’s advertising business, begun in 2019, which allows food brands to pay for better placement in the company’s app. Brands had questioned whether the ads were helping, so Ms. Simo commissioned studies demonstrating their efficacy, two people familiar with the company said.
She also hatched a plan to sell software tools and other products to grocery companies to help improve shopping experiences, they said. Then she embarked on a good-will tour to visit the grocery companies and hosted their executives at her home in Carmel, Calif.
As Instacart prepares to go public next week, it is a markedly different company. Envisioned in 2012 as a service that matched people at home with contract workers who would shop for them and deliver groceries, it has increasingly focused on advertising and software products as its delivery business has slowed.
Last month, Instacart revealed in an offering prospectus that the ads and software sales had allowed it to do what skeptics considered impossible — turn a profit. Other so-called gig economy companies that use contract workers to deliver goods via apps have typically failed to do so.
Nearly a third of Instacart’s $2.5 billion in revenue last year came from its “highly profitable” ads and software division, according to its prospectus. In the first half of this year, Instacart’s $406 million in revenue from ads and software helped propel it to $242 million in profit.
Instacart shows that one way for a historically unprofitable gig business to get to the public markets is to diversify into more lucrative areas and move away from its gig-economy roots. It has been a long road for the start-up, which weathered years of losing money and the 2021 resignation of its co-founder and former chief executive, Apoorva Mehta, after friction with the board.
Still, Instacart’s profits may not be enough to attract investors to its I.P.O. Once worth $39 billion in the private markets, the company has slashed its valuation several times, most recently to $10 billion. In a filing this week, it set a price range of $26 to $28 a share, valuing it at $8.9 billion at the midpoint. Instacart plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange, days after the public offering of Arm, the British chip designer.
In an interview last year, Ms. Simo, who is now 37, said she was overseeing a “third act of the company” — after first attracting consumers and then attracting grocers — which included the software tools for retailers. She said her goal was for Instacart to compete more with Amazon, which offers grocery delivery services, and to help grocery stores adapt to the digital world.
“It really shows very clearly where we’re going as a company and this new ambition,” Ms. Simo said.
Instacart declined to comment, citing a quiet period before its I.P.O. Meredith Kopit Levien, The New York Times’s chief executive, sits on Instacart’s board.
From its founding in 2012, Instacart burned through cash, like other companies at the time that jumped on the proliferation of smartphones and cloud computing to offer real-world services via apps. At the tap of a button, these apps conjured up services including dog walking, housecleaning, takeout and taxi rides.
Investors ate them up, betting the companies would grow large enough to generate profits. But even though consumers loved the apps’ convenience, they scoffed at high fees. Many of the companies went under or sold. The most successful — Uber, Lyft and DoorDash — have never turned an annual profit.
Mr. Mehta, Instacart’s co-founder, had plans to change that. A former engineer at Amazon, he determined early on that Instacart could build a business promoting products to its customers using the data it collected on their grocery purchases, just as Amazon had.
“The belief was if we reached enough scale, there would be an interesting advertising business to be built,” said Ali Rowghani, an investor in Instacart.
When Instacart started selling ads four years ago, its executives debated whether they would turn off customers, a person familiar with the conversations said. After internal tests showed that the impact was minimal, the company increased the types and frequency of ads shown.
Ms. Simo took over Instacart during a volatile period. The company had benefited from the pandemic when people stuck at home ordered groceries through the app, sending its grocery sales soaring 303 percent in 2020. Growth continued into 2021 but slowed to 20 percent overall that year as people returned to shopping in person in stores.
Ihar Mahaniok, an investor at Geek Ventures who provided funding to Instacart in 2012, said the start-up’s potential had excited him but that he had worried about its ability to make money. He was encouraged by Ms. Simo’s appointment, he said, because he had worked on her team at Meta and had seen firsthand how she balanced innovative ideas with efficiency.
“I really trusted she’d be able to figure this out, and she did,” he said.
Ms. Simo strengthened the advertising business by adding more than a dozen tools, including video ads and pop-ups. She also introduced Instacart Platform, the software offerings for grocery companies.
Ms. Simo had pitched working more closely with grocery retailers to Instacart’s board before she started the job. She suggested that the company buy start-ups like Caper, which makes an electronic shopping cart that helps customers check off their grocery lists and lets retailers track their purchases, a person with knowledge of the conversations said. Instacart bought Caper in October 2021 for $350 million.
Grocers had long worried that Instacart would compete with them, but Ms. Simo emphasized that the company wanted to be a partner rather than a rival, retailers said.
“She is very powerful at affirming that message and has been very consistent in her actions over the past couple years,” said Neil Stern, the chief executive of Good Food Holdings, which operates several regional grocery chains. He became an early tester of Instacart Platform after a series of Zoom meetings with Ms. Simo in the summer of 2021.
Instacart still faces challenges. The company relies heavily on a few large grocery retailers like Kroger and Costco for orders, leaving it vulnerable if one of those chains switched to a competitor.
Its grocery delivery business has also stagnated. In its prospectus, Instacart said grocery orders last year rose 18 percent, but that orders in the first half of this year were flat compared with a year earlier. That sluggishness could hamper its lucrative ads business if there are not enough delivery customers to show the ads to.
“The ads business only works because you have the core delivery business,” said Nikhil Devnani, an analyst at Bernstein. “They’re part and parcel with each other.”
Logline: Awkwafina and Sandra Oh play sisters who are forced to think on the fly when gangsters come to demand payment of their mother’s gambling debts.
US Distributors: Hulu, Disney+
Panelists: Jessica Yu (director)
First Screening: Sept. 13, 2023.
Key Quote: “It’s about two estranged sisters who have to go on an odyssey together to satisfy their mother’s gambling debts. It’s so weird to just say a sentence like that, because so much more than that happens, but that’s kind of what sets things off. The element that really attracted me was the sister dynamic. For one thing, I just haven’t seen a lot of comedies about sisters and the fact that at the center of this was two Asian-American sisters, made me think, ‘Oh, this will be really fun to explore.’ I felt like I had something I could really bring to it.” – Jessica Yu
“She’d upstage. I know that’s my love for her, but I truly think she’d upstage all these basic ladies,” Spencer, 40, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on Friday, September 15, adding that he’s “heard” people claim his wife is “too polarizing.”
Heidi, for her part, agreed when she was asked if she thought Andy Cohen was the reason for not being asked to join the cast. “I think so. He made a statement a while ago that he would never want me on it and that I wasn’t for their franchise, but I think that he’s so wrong,” she claimed, noting that it would “make sense” for her to be part of a show likeThe Real Housewives of Orange County orThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hills now that she’s a mom of two.
Referring to her longtime feud with former costar Lauren Conrad, she continued: “I don’t know if [Andy] is just a Lauren fan or what, because I would think that he would appreciate the reality star that I am.”
Just like us! Many stars have opened up in the past about ending their day with a nice Real Housewives binge watch. But over the years, some celebrities have managed to take their love for the Bravo hit shows to the next level. Nicki Minaj managed to potentially score herself an invite to host the […]
Following the end of The Hills – which ran on MTV from 2006 to 2010 — both Spencer and Heidi have made a name for themselves in the reality TV landscape. After appearing on shows like Celebrity Big Brother, Celebrity Wife Swap and Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars 2, the pair returned for The Hills’ short-lived spinoff, The Hills: New Beginnings in 2019.
“It’s an idea Heidi and I’ve been saying, I can’t believe no one’s come to us for 10 years to do. And then this big heavy-hitter came with that idea,” Spencer teased to THR. “So the paperwork’s just getting signed and if it goes through it would all come together just like a vision.”
While some reality TV stars are considering joining the ongoing Hollywood strikes, Spencer and Heidi have made it clear they aren’t on board. After Bethenny Frankel urged her fellow reality TV personalities to join her in fighting for fair pay alongside SAG-AFTRA and WGA earlier this summer, Spencer and Heidi clarified via social media that they will go “on any show” and networks can “treat us however you like.”
When The Hills first debuted in May 2006, it looked a lot different than the revival, The Hills: New Beginnings. No matter what version they’re watching, fans are still hooked on the cast’s unwritten chapters. The MTV reality show, a spinoff of Laguna Beach, followed Lauren Conrad from Laguna to Los Angeles where she moved […]
“[She] made people think there really was a reality strike,” he explained. “I was clowning when I jokingly said, ‘I’ve been on strike. That’s why you haven’t seen me.’ No, I don’t have a TV show. That’s why you haven’t seen me. But Heidi and I have learned this so many times, the amount of pilots we’ve shot with big production companies and big producers, and how many times those pilots never get to air, once you’ve been in that game and know how hard it is to be a reality TV person on a television show, until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t get what a privilege it is.”
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The WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) and SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), who kicked off their strikes in May and July, respectively, are seeking similar new contracts with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) in regards to wages, the use of artificial intelligence and streaming residuals. In July, Frankel weighed in on the situation and claimed she hasn’t seen “a single residual check” for reruns of her past reality TV appearances.
Ever since reality TV began, one of the biggest draws has been the drama — specifically, the fighting that breaks out while the cameras are rolling. Through the years — from Laguna Beach and The Hills to the Real Housewives and beyond, the claws come out when action is called. Although Lauren Conrad butted heads […]
“I’m well aware that unscripted talent aka ‘reality stars’ should have a union or simply be treated fairly and valued,” the Real Housewives of New York Cityalum said via TikTok video at the time. “The mentality that we were nobodies and that these streamers and networks have given us platforms and that we can capitalize on them is also moronic.”
“Being in American Graffiti almost caused him to miss a chance at being cast in Star Wars because Lucas didn’t want to reuse actors from his previous work, but the casting director kept pushing him on Lucas and employed him to do carpentry work at the office where the casting was taking place. Lucas recognized him and pulled him in to feed some lines to other actors during auditions, and that was how he ultimately ended up being able to audition for the Han Solo role.”
With James Gunn’s DC reboot looming, there are some key mistakes from the SnyderVerse that the super-powered universe should avoid going forward.
Coming off a lackluster last decade and change for the DCEU, Gunn (and his DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran) will look to distance the series from the Zack Snyder-led era, with a full-scale reimagining of the blue brand’s on-screen efforts.
So with the Gunn/Safran era getting set to begin and the Snyder era set to end, here is every mistake from the DCEU that Gunn’s DC reboot should avoid.
1.) Introducing Too Much Too Fast
Warner Bros.
One of the biggest problems with the SnyderVerse was the speed at which its storytelling came.
This led to a brand of worldbuilding that felt like drinking out of a fire hose at times. The focus was no longer on setting the stage for the story but rather on getting to that story (being a Justice League team-up) as fast as possible.
The best thing James Gunn’s DC reboot can do is take its time, slowly laying the seeds for the greater world with no rush to get to some epic team-up.
Major successes on the other sides of the comic book movie fence (in the MCU) have worked because Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and co. carefully laid the cobblestone in front of them before trying to drive on the road they were building.
The reason Avengers: Endgame was such a massive hit was because of the more than a decade of connective tissue the franchise had built.
While fans want to see major DC events like Crisis on Infinite Earths on the big screen eventually, there is no need to rush to get to those moments. Instead, the best thing James Gunn and Peter Safran can do is make sure they have a strong foundation before anything else.
2.) Not Having a Concrete Plan
Warner Bros.
Coming hand-in-hand with the ‘too much, too fast’ point is having a concrete plan for the DCU.
Yes, there have been plenty of examples of massive slates being announced only to never see the light of day (just look at the original DCEU slate announcement). But Gunn seems committed to not announcing things unless he feels confident they will happen.
3.) Avoiding the Weirdness of DC
Warner Bros.
Something the DCEU only dabbled in (with films like Aquamanand Shazam!) but never fully embraced is the absolutely bonkers nature of some of the DC universe.
Arguably even more than the world of Marvel Comics, DC can get weird, and its on-screen universe should get into that.
Gunn’s reimagined DC world should broaden those horizons beyond just the traditional Justice League headliners and dive into the cosmic, mythological, and mystical.
This apprehension toward embracing the weird is something that Gunn already seems primed to get over. His first set of DC projects includes stories at street level with The Brave and The Boldand those of the intergalactic with Lanterns.
And for those that are still skeptical, Gunn already announced the franchise’s first dip into the dark world of the DC occult with James Mangold’s Swamp Thing as well.
4.) Holding Back Directors
Warner Bros.
One of the biggest complaints fans have had with the SnyderVerse of Warner Bros. (WB) is holding back or impeding the vision of directors.
Even though mileage may have varied when it comes to the quality of some of those visions, in several cases WB stepped in mid-production, Frankenstein-ing films into something they were never meant to be.
What Gunn needs to do with his renewed vision for the franchise is advise as best he can, set the teams up for success, and then let them craft their vision within the confines of the greater universe.
Without creative freedom like this, the world would have never gotten certified classics of the genre like The Dark Knight or Guardians of the Galaxy (which, funnily enough, was directed by James Gunn).
This likely will not be as much of an issue for Gunn, as he has been on the other side working within the confines of IP with major studios before and knows how it can feel to have a creative vision meddled with.
5.) Not Focusing On Standalone Stories
Warner Bros.
In concert with every one of the points above is focusing on good standalone stories first and foremost.
This is one of the most prevalent mistakes of not just the SnyderVerse-era DCEU but modern comic book movie-making as a whole.
Instead of crafting excellent superhero stories that stand on their own (with just seeds of worldbuilding), comic book movies have – in some cases – become overstuffed commercials for what is next in that particular universe rather than making what is happening now feel meaningful.
That is not to say there should be no mention of the greater universe; it is that interconnection narrative sinew that makes these cinematic universes special.
But the greater universe should not be justification for mediocre stories being told just because it will all supposedly pay off in some event movie down the line.
Part of the reason SnyderVerse films like Shazam!, Wonder Woman, and Man of Steel succeeded is that they are first and foremost solid stories on their own.
Where some of the other DCEU films failed was prioritizing universe-building rather than making a great, satisfying narrative in the present, and the Gunn/Safran DC reboot would be smart to avoid this tactic.
James Gunn’s DC reboot kicks off on the big screen with Superman: Legacy on July 11, 2025.
Retro specialist Digital Eclipse has announced a remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.
Wizardry is generally agreed to be the first ever party-based RPG video game, and one of the first Dungeons & Dragons style RPGs made for computers.
The game was originally released on the Apple II in 1981, and was ported to numerous other systems including the Mac, C64 and NES. In Japan it was also ported to the Super Famicom and Game Boy Color.
Digital Eclipse’s remake is available today on Steam and GOG Early Access, and offers a modernised take on the game.
According to the studio, its remake is actually built directly on top of the original Apple II game’s code, and players can bring up the original interface while playing to compare the new and old versions.
As well as modern visuals, the remake will feature improved party management, navigation, spellcasting and combat.
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Digital Eclipse has gained a reputation for its handling of retro games, most notably its retro compilations, which often include large helpings of behind-the-scenes content that almost present the games as museum pieces.
The Wizardry remake has been in development for nearly two years “by a small but dedicated team” at the studio.
Digital Eclipse has now released it in Early Access for $29.99 (a price it says is expected to rise as it nears completion) to get feedback from fans of the series as well as players who enjoy modern RPGs.
“Long Beach Island,” by fulltime attorneyEdson McClellanwho wrote his first screenplay four years ago at age 49, won the Eighth Annual Ojai Film Festival Screenplay Competition. The award comes with a Live Table Read performed by professional actors. Festival organizers welcome the return of the Live component of the Table Read, presented via recording the last three years due to the pandemic. The public may attend the reading onSunday, November 5at 1 pm in the gallery at the Ojai Art Center.
Three distinguished judges,Michael Ewingan industry professional since 1990,Valerie Levettwho retired after 33-years with Warner Bros, andPatty Reed, a Vice President at Roserock Films, selected the winner from five finalists.
“The entries offered a wide range of genres and styles,” Screenplay Competition DirectorBruce Novotnysaid. “From pulse-pounding action to gritty underdog stories, from eerie suspense to uproarious farce, they all shared quality storytelling enhanced with passion and commitment.”
Finalists in the competition included “Love in the Time of Coronavirus” byEmilio Santín, “The Cuban Missile” byShelly Goldstein, “Hitler’s Script” byDan Fiorello, and “Spookshow” byJosef Anderson.
The backdrop of “Long Beach Island” draws from McClellan’s mother and grandmother, who survived the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 on Long Beach Island. The script tells the story of three siblings now in their eighties who carry painful memories of the traumatic storm. They approach a Princeton professor developing a breakthrough scientific method, “memoryscapes.” Through a combination of hypnosis and intense memory stimulants, memoryscapes enable the subjects to essentially re-live events from their past. The siblings go back to 1944 to find the truth of how family members perished. At the same time, the end of the professor’s research grant looms requiring her to make a last-ditch effort to prove the validity of the memoryscape science.
McClellan attended undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania and received his law degree at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif. He’s a partner at the Irvine office of Rutan & Tucker LLP, an AM Law 200 firm. He lives with his wife and their 16-year-old daughter in San Juan Capistrano, California.
The Ojai Film Festival takes place at the Ojai Art Center November 3 through 6 with Live Table Read happening on Sunday at 1 pm in the gallery. For tickets and more information go tohttps://ojaifilmfestival.com.
