Dua Lipa is “recharging her crystals” after wearing some very un-Dua Lipa looks in London over the past couple of weeks.
I’m not quite sure what that means, but it might have something to do with the pop star’s recent trip to her homeland. Though she was born in London, Lipa grew up in the country of Kosovo, not far from her parents’ native Albania. Throughout her visit, which she has been documenting on Instagram, Lipa has returned to sartorial form in a variety of playful looks, including a scoop-backed black minidress, a cutout orange cover-up, and multiple tiny string bikinis.
On July 30, she brought back one of her favorite trends in yet another seaside photoshoot. In the photos, which are certainly Mermaid Barbie-approved, Lipa posed by the water in a vibrant red crochet dress, which she wore over a black thong and paired with gold jewelry and a sunkissed makeup look. Many fans in the comments pointed out that red and black are the colors of the Albanian flag, which Lipa featured in a previous post.
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Lipa wore a similar look to the Barbie premiere earlier this month, wearing a silver chainmail dress by Bottega Veneta with nothing but a matching thong underneath.
Status: Returning Series”The Uncanny Counter” is a TV show produced by Studio Dragon, Neo Entertainment and BETTY & Creators. The show was originally broadcast on Netflix, OCN (South Korea) and tvN (South Korea) and premiered on November 28th 2020. So far there have been 2 seasons (comprising of 30 episodes) of “The Uncanny Counter”. The most recent episode aired on January 24th 2021 and more seasons are expected in the future.
EXCLUSIVE: A second major transatlantic drama series on the Lockerbie bombing terror attack is in the works — this time at the BBC and Netflix.
The British broadcaster and U.S. streamer will co-produce Lockerbie, a factual drama that will explore the joint investigation into the 1988 disaster by Scottish and American authorities.
Pan Am Flight 103 was en route from Heathrow to JFK when a bomb exploded in its hold over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. It was the worst terror attack ever on British soil.
Line of Duty producer World Productions is making the six-part series, which was initially developed by MGM Television and Night Train Media alongside filmmaker Adam Morane-Griffiths.
The BBC and Netflix commission comes more than a year after Sky and Peacock came together to greenlight a separate series, also titled Lockerbie. The project was meant to premiere this year but has been delayed amid continued development.
Jim Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated director of My Left Foot, and daughter Kirsten Sheridan are writing the Sky/Peacock series, which is centered on a family’s search for justice. Carnival Films is producing.
Jonathan Lee, the novelist behind High Dive, is writing the BBC/Netflix drama alongside Gillian Roger Park (The Young Offenders), a Scottish screenwriter who will pen two episodes.
They will draw on extensive interviews done by Morane-Griffiths, who spoke to Scottish police and U.S. investigative agencies. The series will also examine the bombing’s impact on the people of Lockerbie.
Michael Keillor (Best Interests) will direct. The Executive Producers are Simon Heath and Roderick Seligman for World; Steve Stark and Stacey Levin for Toluca Pictures; Adam Morane-Griffiths, Sara Curran, Herbert L. Kloiber, Keillor; and Gaynor Holmes for the BBC. The Co-Executive Producer is Joe Hill.
Netflix drama commissioner Mona Qureshi said: “The moment we read Jonathan’s pilot script, informed by Adam’s meticulous research, we understood that this team had found a way into these events that is epic and intimate, local and global, personal and political. The devastation wrought on the night of 21st December 1988 continues to reverberate through the decades.”
BBC commissioner Holmes added: “We have the right team in place to tell this extraordinary story with the greatest of care, making sure the series reflects the devastating events of that night, the complex and far-reaching investigation that followed and the effect it had on all those who lost loved ones.”
Silent Sirens, written, directed, and narrated by Neil Sandhoefner, is simple in its presentation. The short film is not animated exactly; rather, the story is told in a series of still black and white drawings. Each one comes and goes as the new scene begins. Heavy lines against the white backdrop make the pictures pop.
Sandhoefner’s ode to what connects people, places, and things begins with a myth. Specifically, the tale told is that of Odysseus and his encounter with the sirens. Then the filmmaker recounts his first time traveling out of the country. He’s off to London to visit a friend and that person’s girlfriend. They make a whole day out of sightseeing, trekking ever closer to a new painting by the girlfriend’s favorite artist (or at least it’s being newly displayed). During the trip, myths, modern and ancient, come into play as Sandhoefner tries to make sense of why certain people are compelled to witness or experience this or that event or piece of art.
“…trekking ever closer to a new painting by the girlfriend’s favorite artist…”
And that last sentence makes the 13 and a half minutes of Silent Sirens enrapturing. Admittedly, it is not easy to figure out where the narrative is going at first, which might throw off potential viewers. But stick it out, as what the director has to say about being human, the nature of the stories we tell each other, and how we relate to art and other people is profound.
Silent Sirens simply its story through monochromatic images. But the strong narration from Sandhoefner and the ending ensures a viewing experience that is felt down to the bone. Humanity and art are inextricably, and the director shows why that matters.
A church in Vancouver held a special service Sunday in honour of Pride Week.
Canadian Memorial United Church, on West 15th Avenue, was lit up with rainbow colours during the morning service.
Rev. Gary Paterson was the guest preacher for the event.
As an openly gay minister, he preached about the importance of inclusive communities and celebrated the progress made while recognizing the discrimination LGBTQ+ community members still face in 2023.
“We need to be aware,” he said. “We need … in the week of celebrating and feeling good in the bubble of Vancouver … there’s a lot that needs to be done if we are going to be following the way of Jesus, not being woke or politically correct, but following in the way of Jesus.”
The church will host a second queer-affirming service next Sunday. Following that, congregants will march in Vancouver’s Pride Parade with other churches from across the Lower Mainland.
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The Vancouver Pride Society is expanding the Vancouver Pride Festival this year, adding an extra day to the event, as well as more activities and entertainment.
The society has also revealed its new parade route beginning at Davie and Denman streets, proceeding down Beach Avenue and Pacific Street, and ending at the new festival site at Concord Community Park. The changes bring the parade from 2.7 kilometres in length to 3.1 kilometres.
Vancouver Pride Festival programming will last all weekend on Aug. 5 and 6, with the parade taking place on the Sunday.
This year, the Vancouver Pride Society is also reducing the number of floats and trailers allowed in the parade. On its website, it says this change is to lower the number of heavy vehicles involved with a goal of making Pride emissions-free for Canada Pride in 2024.
The parade will see part of Denman Street, Davie Street and Beach Avenue closed from Denman to Jervis Street, and Pacific Avenue from Jervis Street to Carrall Street.
Red Roomswon a leading three awards including Best Feature at the 27th annual Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, with the thriller Femmetaking Best Director for Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping and Outstanding Performance for Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. See the full list of winners below.
“The ultimate effect a film can achieve is to implant a significant and lasting emotional memory,” the genre fest’s jury said in a statement. “The jury was unanimously convinced that [Red Rooms] masterfully accomplished that goal.”
In writer-director Pascal Plante’s thriller from Nemesis Films, the case of a serial killer who streamed his murders in the “red rooms” of the Dark Web goes to trial, and Kelly-Anne (Laurie Babin) is obsessed. She goes down a dark path to obtain the final piece of the case’s puzzle.
In Femme, after drag artist Jules (Stewart-Jarrett) sees his closeted assailant (George Mackay) at a gay sauna, he begins dating him, hatching a plan for revenge.
Best Director Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping (FEMME, United Kingdom)
Best Screenplay Pascal Plante (RED ROOMS, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
Best Score (The Sandro Forte Award) Dominique Plante (RED ROOMS, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
Best Cinematography Zelda Adams & John Adams (WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS, United States, d. Zelda Adams, John Adams and Toby Poser)
Outstanding Performance Award Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (FEMME, United Kingdom, d. Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping) Juliette Gariépy (RED ROOMS, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
Special Mention Vincent Doit Mourir (France, d. Stéphan Castang)
New Flesh Competition for Best First Feature – Debut Films
Best First Feature STAY ONLINE (Ukraine, d. Yeva Strelnikova)
Special Jury Mention TIGER STRIPES (Malaysia,Taiwan, France, Germany, d. Amanda Nell Eu) THE ABANDONED (Taiwan, d. Tseng Ying-Ting)
International Short Film Competition
Best Short Film BOLD EAGLE (Philippines, dir. Whammy Alcazaren)
Best Director Jacob Chase (MR. BLUR, USA)
Best Screenplay David Winstone (THE NOLBELTO METHOD, UK, dir. David Winstone)
Outstanding Performance Silvana Mihai (THE TASTER, Germany, dir. Sophia Bierend) Lim Hyojin (SHOULDER, South Korea, dir. Kim Jaehyung)
Special Mention SWEET JUICES (Australia, dir. Im Sejon, Will Suen)
Best Score Matthias Dewilde (POPPY’S SATURN, Belgium, dir. Nicole Tegelaar)
Best Cinematography Julien Ramirez Hernan (TRANSLYVANIE, France, dir. Rodrigue Huart)
Axis: Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation
Best Feature Film THE FIRST SLAM DUNK (Japan, d. Takehiko Inoue)
Special Jury Mention SAND LAND (Japan, d. Toshihisa Yokoshima)
Best Short Film – Gold A KIND OF TESTAMENT (France, d. Stephen Vuillemin)
Best Short Film – Silver ARCHITECT A (South Korea, d. Lee Jonghoon)
Best Short Film – Bronze RECORD. PLAY. STOP. (India, d. Neeraj Bhattacharjee)
AQCC-CAMERA LUCIDA
IRLANDE CAHIER BLEU (Québec, dir. Olivier Godin)
Special Jury Mention HOME INVASION (United Kingdom, dir. Graeme Arnfield)
A company in crisis went back to basics to deliver a viral hit. But can Adam Mosseri’s bare-bones Twitter clone reinvigorate an aging tech giant?
July 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
(Illustration by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post; Getty Images)
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Adam Mosseri was on a family vacation in Italy last November when he learned he’d have to go toe-to-toe with Elon Musk. The mercurial Musk had just taken over Twitter. Amid the ensuing chaos, Mosseri’s boss at rival Meta smelled opportunity.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives wanted to woo creators from Twitter to their social networks. Mosseri, who runs Instagram, paused his holiday to take Zuckerberg’s call.
It was nighttime in Italy, and Mosseri spoke softly to avoid waking his sleeping wife. The group discussed Twitter-like features they could add to existing apps, including Instagram.
Zuckerberg, however, had a different idea: “What if we went bigger?”
By the time the call ended well after midnight, Mosseri had a mandate to build a stand-alone app to compete with Twitter — and a knot in his stomach.
“Oh God, we’ve got to figure this out, because [Zuckerberg is] very excited about this,” Mosseri recalled thinking. “Sometimes you can tell when he kind of gets his teeth into something.”
Just seven months later, Meta unveiled Threads, a project that has shocked even its creators with its instant success. Launched a week early to capitalize on Twitter’s high-profile stumbles, including Musk’s decision to cap the number of tweets users could view each day, Threads drew more than 100 million users in its first five days — making it, by some estimations, the most successful social media app launch of all time.
Threads’ long-term success is not assured. Weeks after its July 5 launch, analytics firms estimated that the app’s usage dropped by more than half from its early peak. And Meta has a long history of copycat products or features that have failed to gain traction (along with a few, like Instagram Stories, that have thrived).
Still, its promising start has reinvigorated a company battered by layoffs, scandals and competition from TikTok for younger users. And the story of Threads’ creation, as recounted to The Washington Post by Mosseri and six other current and former employees, is being hailed by Meta leaders as a new path forward at a time when its ambitious, expensive push to build a virtual-reality–powered “metaverse” is sputtering and employee morale is flagging.
With a mandate from Zuckerberg to take a big risk, Mosseri assembled a lean, engineer-heavy team of fewer than 60 people to hack together a bare-bones app on a breakneck timetable more reminiscent of a start-up than an entrenched tech giant. Speaking to investors this week after Meta reported strong earnings, Zuckerberg held up Threads as vindication of his “year of efficiency,” in which he sheared tens of thousands of jobs in a bid for more agile teams that would ship products quickly.
That Threads was created by such a small group in such a short amount of time has become something of a marvel inside Meta, according to current and former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, as well as private messages viewed by The Post. Many see itsquick rise as a reminder that well-executed product launches might not need all the bureaucratic trappings that a company with some 66,000 employees had grown accustomed to.
“Quick execution. Nothing fancy,” one person wrote on Blind, an anonymous workplace app. “Just solid engineering that most of our ICs [individual contributors] can do but unfortunately are shackled.”
Now that Threads’ daily users have plummeted, the team behind it faces a new test: turning a bare-bones Twitter clone into a thriving social network with its own identity and staying power.
‘Do the simple thing first’
Meta has long viewed Twitter as a competitor: Zuckerberg reportedly tried to buy the platform in 2008 for $500 million. But while Twitter captured the cultural and political zeitgeist, its business — with 237.8 million daily users and $5 billion in annual revenue — remained a fraction of Zuckerberg’s empire, and never posed a serious threat.
“They haven’t been the business we thought they might,” Mosseri said.
But once Musk took over Twitter, embarking on what Mosseri called “high-risk” decisions like limiting the reach of posts for users who hadn’t paid for verification, company executives inside Meta pounced.
Zuckerberg wanted Threads up and running by January, less than two months after greenlighting it. Mosseri, who oversaw the work along with longtime product leader Connor Hayes, tempered the CEO’s expectations, saying they first needed to assemble the right team.
Over the next few months, the pair recruited an engineer-focused group, prioritizing people “willing to be scrappy, and sort of just crank through a bunch [of tasks] really quickly,” Mosserisaid. He drew workers from Messenger, Instagram and Facebook.
Twitter attorney Alex Spiro earlier this month accused Meta of poaching Twitter employees to help create its “copycat” app so rapidly. But no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee, according to Meta spokesman Andy Stone.
Initially, the team carried just two product managers and one or two designers alongside dozens of engineers — a flatter and more coder-dominated group than most Meta product teams, Mosseri said. (At launch, it had grown to three product managers, three designers and 50 coders.) Instead of 30-minute presentations on a single design decision, typical at Facebook and Instagram, “It would be like, ‘Here are six things we need to go through this week.’”
The process was a manifestation of what has been a divisive era at Meta, as it shed more than 20,000 workers in layoffs designed to return the business to what Zuckerberg has called “a more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”
To keep things moving, the Threads team punted thorny decisions and eschewed difficult features, including private messages and the ability to search for content or view the feeds of people you don’t follow. The company also opted not to launch in the European Union, where regulators are preparing to enforce new rules next year requiring tech companies to provide more information to regulators about their algorithms.
“You do the simple thing first,” Mosseri said. “And I think that also helps reduce the scope, because often what happens is scope creep and you want to add all these things because they’re all great.”
Threads isn’t the first product Meta has hustled to market for competitive reasons.
In 2020, it spun up a short-form video product, Instagram Reels, to vie with TikTok, said Sam Saliba, a former global brand marketing lead for Instagram. Meta launched its rival service at a moment when TikTok was politically vulnerable: President Donald Trump was seeking to ban the app or force a sale, citing national security concerns about the company’s Chinese ownership.
“They saw that as an opportunity to kind of launch quickly and get out the door and then build and iterate,” Saliba said. “When it launched it was like a barely minimal product, like really thin.” (Meta spokeswoman Seine Kim said the company worked on Reels for over a year.)
Meta hopes Threads can steer clear of the political quagmires that have made Twitter and other social media platforms so controversial. Mosseri stirred debate earlier this month when he said Threads would not actively “encourage” politics and “hard news,” because the extra engagement is not worth the scrutiny.
Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg later elaborated in an interviewthat the company would likely not add specific news-focused product features, but would give more users control over what they see. Zuckerberg, for his part, has proudly welcomed some of his favorite mixed martial arts athletes to the platform.
But if Threads takes off, the company might find it impossible to avoid the sort of politically charged decisions that have made operating Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp so challenging.
Some of Threads’ most influential early adopters were journalists and media organizations sharing the kind of breaking news that generates partisan reactions. Politicians such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and several Republican presidential hopefuls, including Mike Pence, were also quick to join the platform.
Meta can’t just “wish away” political discourse if it hopes to serve users fleeing from Twitter, said Yael Eisenstat, vice president at the Anti-Defamation League and a former senior Facebook policy official. She criticized the company’s approach of prioritizing a rapid launch over careful consideration of the ways Threads could be exploited for hate speech, harassment or political misinformation.
“I really at some point thought that we had finally moved on from this whole ‘move fast and break things’ mentality,” Eisenstat said, referring to a famous internal motto from Facebook’s earlier days. “If there’s any company that should have learned the lessons of the real damage that can be done by not building in the proper safety mechanisms, privacy assurances, and integrity products, it should be Meta.”
Meta’s Kim responded, “Our industry leading integrity enforcement tools and human review are wired into Threads.”
‘Are we sure about these numbers?’
When Musk announced July 1 that Twitter would temporarily limit the number of tweets users can read per day to combat an influx spam and bots, Meta took notice. Whereas new apps often face launch delays as the team works out kinks, Mosseri and company decided to move up Threads’ launch date by about a week. (Two weeks later, Mosseri would announce a measure to fight an influx of spam attacks on his own platform.)
After realizing the app would drop into some international app stores before it was live, Meta pivoted again, shaving another few hours off its launch.
That night, a “core group” worked together at Meta headquarters while Mosseri and other team members chatted on an internal messaging forum, watching the sign-ups pour in. Mosseri recalled astonished team members asking, “Are we sure about these numbers? Can someone double-check that the logging isn’t messed up?”
As the number of sign-ups blew past the team’s expectations, they started throwing out predictions of how high it might go, Mosseri said. Their giddiness was tempered when the avalanche of users triggered roughly a dozen severe technical glitches on the first day.
Still, the aggressive timeline seemed to pay off: The next morning, Zuckerberg publicly touted the apps’ early success, saying it “feels like the beginning of something special.”
For the first time in years, Meta had a viral hit on its hands — the first one built internally since the original Facebook app.
Inside the firm, there was jubilation and perhaps relief, current and former employees said. Rank and file workers flooded Blind with analyses of the app’s initial success in messages viewed by The Post.
Still, getting users to log in to a Twitter alternative is one thing. Getting them to stick around is another — as Mastodon, Bluesky and any number of start-ups can attest.
By the end of last week, third-party analytics services began reporting steep drops in Threads’ engagement. On Google’s Android platform, it was down from a high of 49 million daily users on July 7 — nearly half that of Twitter — to just 12.6 million on July 23, according to estimates from Similarweb.
While Mosseri didn’t confirm those numbers, he said it’s normal to see a “novelty spike’” when a buzzy social experience launches. “I think things weren’t as amazing as people were saying when we were at the peak, and it’s certainly not as bad as people are saying now that we’re stabilizing.”
Threads’ unexpected popularity prompted Mosseri to cut short another Italian vacation last week to handle a deluge of requests and concerns from other Meta teams, such as communications and policy. He said he wants to keep the core Threads team insulated so they can focus on adding the features users expect from a full-service social app.
Asked what he sees as the key to Threads’ long-term success, Mosseri didn’t offer the sort of big-picture vision he has become known for at Meta. Instead, he pointed to four short-term priorities: helping users build their lists of people to follow, improving the algorithms that decide what users see, giving users a way to see posts only from people they follow, and figuring out how to let people message each other.
“Lots of basics like that really need to get fixed — and fixed quickly,” he said.
Five days after Mosseri spoke with The Post, Threads rolled out numerous new features, including a feed that shows users posts only from the people they follow.
Meanwhile, the internal excitement about Threads has validated advice Mosseri said he received from Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom soon after Mosseri replaced him in 2018: Often, the best way to boost morale — even in a company battered by missteps and layoffs — is simply to deliver functional products.
“You’re focusing a lot on talking to everyone,” Mosseri recalled Systrom telling him. “Just make sure you ship things that work and then everything will be easier, I promise.”
2023 is here, and the new movies coming to a theater (and/or streaming service) near you are legion. “Dune Part II” and a new “Hunger Games” movie bring some serious heat to November as the final few months of the year heat up with new films from Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Michael Mann and more.
And that’s barely scratching the surface. Below we’ve got a complete list of 2023 movie release dates, including both streaming and theatrical titles. Note: We haven’t included anything that doesn’t have a firm release date yet.
The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle might well receive the heat of the endless controversies, but she knows how to handle them with ease. Long before her royal life took a toll on Markle, the former Suits actress was thriving at the pinnacle of her career. Back in the day, her much-talked-about personal blog, The Tig, did the job of the current-day royal experts. The now-defunct website was the source of the actress’ whereabouts and her personal life.
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In the summers of 2014, Markle took to her blog to share some summer essentials and interests with her readers. The contents of these have once again come in handy for users, as outlined by People. Long before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan Markle talked about bringing in ‘perfection of celebrating the summers.
“There is a special kind of calm that fills me when I’m there(Negril, Jamaica), much of it having to do with the off the beaten track locale of the property (Rockhouse Hotel), and the warmth of the people” -Meghan Markle on The Tig pic.twitter.com/5sH1sDI2k5
“Sun-kissed afternoons, cocktail in hand, surrounded by nothing but the laughter of your closest mates, an Otis Redding playlist, and the whistling breeze of the wind” combined together formed the perfect summer for the then actress. She further added that all of this comes with perfection in the summer time. Further setting the mood, Markle added how “Picnics and barbecues, laying out by the pool with friends, and toasting to the season” topped her list.
Adding to the post, she shared a summer drink recipe which somewhat hinted at her future. Sharing a cocktail, Markle wrote how she “loves all things British“. Nonetheless, her life at the English landing did not go as planned.
Controversies around Meghan Markle skyrocketed upon her royal entry
Right from her courtship days with the military Prince Harry up until they left the Kingdom for good, Markle had controversies engulfing her left and right. The majority of them revolved around the rivalry between her and the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton. A few of them also saw light in Markle’s long-disabled blog, the Tig.
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Don’t forget Meghan Markle wrote about “Princess Kate” in a 2014 Tig blog post. But says she knew nothing about the royal family or royal etiquette. . This was 3 yrs after W&K married and yet she was still bleating on about it… pic.twitter.com/Px584IpbNW
Her journal previously made noise for sheltering some age-old controversial comments about the royal family. Nevertheless, despite her personal confession, it also outlined Markle’s day-to-day activities, her likes, and her dislikes. She also listed some of her favorite meals, products, shows, and curated list of books, accessible to commoners.
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Share your thoughts on the Duchess’ way of spending summers in the comments below.
John Updike once described writing as a matter of “taking a deep breath, leaning out over the typewriter and trying to drive a little deeper than the first words that come to mind.” Unfortunately, the writing in “The Beanie Bubble,” a dramatic comedy based loosely on the true story of the short-lived Beanie Baby toy craze, sits on the surface.
This is a movie that uses stock footage of the Bill Clinton inauguration and the O.J. Simpson trial to demonstrate that it’s the 1990s, and which, to show a flashback to the ’80s, has a character ask, “Did you pick up any Tab?” It deploys every storytelling cliché in the book, from “you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation”-style voice-overs to pat last-act monologues that reiterate the themes.
The story of Beanie Babies is not especially interesting: In 1993, Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis), the creator of Beanie Babies, introduced the plush animal dolls for $5, and then, owing to a confluence of opportune internet savvy and a nascent secondary market on the web, they became coveted for their scarcity.
“The Beanie Bubble” contrives to add intrigue by embellishing various personal dramas behind the scenes at the company, including infidelities, a fraught love triangle and the ethical quandaries of three women who worked with Warner and in some cases were involved with him romantically: Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Sheila (Sarah Snook) and Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan).
Each of these women has exactly one defining feature — she is eager to get rich; or she loves her children; or she knows a lot about computers — and the women mention this feature every single time they’re onscreen. The directors, Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Jr., make several embarrassing efforts to cast them as feminist superheroes at odds with the cluelessly patriarchal Warner, which might have been more effective had they been fleshed out as anything more than paper-thin Girl Boss caricatures. As it stands, the celebratory montages that herald these women’s professional triumphs are about as rousing as a Sheryl Sandberg TED Talk.
Much of the film’s running time is dedicated to graphics detailing Beanie Baby sales figures, archival news footage showing mall shoppers going crazy and oversimplified explanations of Beanie-related milestones and achievements, such as how the company became an early pioneer of e-commerce.
These elements are, of course, reminiscent of “Air,” “Tetris,” “Flamin’ Hot” and “Blackberry,” among other recent making-of marketing pictures. It’s not the fault of “The Beanie Bubble” that it arrives at the tail end of a summer of similar corporate biopics, but seen after so many other marketing making-of dramas, the familiar beats of novel invention to overnight phenomenon can’t help but feel all the more hackneyed.
Like those films, “The Beanie Bubble” attempts to extrapolate some more substantive social meaning from what is otherwise an amusing but ultimately insignificant moment in time. The best it can do is to conclude, feebly, that there will “always be another fad,” with references to cryptocurrency and NFTs. This conclusion is hard to square with the movie’s earlier claim that the Beanie Baby craze ushered in “a new era of capitalism,” but that paradox is typical of its shaky approach. In any given moment, the movie is either overstating the importance of its subject or trivializing it.
Can we learn anything from this? “The Beanie Bubble” proves that there will always be movie fads, but some of them will be worse than others.
The Beanie Bubble Rated R for strong language and some mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+.
This week, we talk Spider-Man 4. No, not that one…
We will also discuss Marvel’s modest Comic-Con presence in the latest edition of MarvelBlog News!
Sandman Said WHAT???
Photo: Columbia Pictures/Marvel Entertainment
Typically, when a rumormonger states something controversial, you can quickly recalibrate your expectations depending on their reliability.
I’m mentioning that early in this report because a couple of these rumormongers have fully denied what we’re about to discuss.
However, the source here is better than any of the people denying the report…by a lot.
That’s right, folks. Thomas Haden Church, the Academy Award-nominated actor, just dropped a bombshell.
Church leveraged his career-defining work in Sideways into a role in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man franchise.
The actor portrayed Sandman in the ill-fated blockbuster, Spider-Man 3, which some sadly describe as the franchise killer.
Marvel’s Sandman. Photo: Hasbro
None of that was Church’s fault, but it reflects the fact that fans soured on the idea of Peter Parker’s jazz hands.
I lived through the trauma as a movie site webmaster at the time, and I can assure you that the rage against this film was off the charts.
However, Church had a terrific time working with director Sam Raimi as well as the film’s star, Tobey Maguire.
Source: Marvel/ Sony
Marvel executives obviously liked him as well. They chose Church as one of the returning villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
So, Church has worked in the third Spider-Man movie in the franchise…twice!
During this time, the well-regarded actor has made friends with the cast and crew. He’s as plugged in as anyone possibly can be with Marvel.
Source: Sony Pictures
That’s why jaws dropped when the Sandman actor dropped a bombshell during a podcast appearance.
According to Church, his friends and former co-workers, Raimi and Maguire, are working on…Spider-Man 4.
Yes, Spider-Man 4!
Source: Sony Pictures/ Marvel Studios
Generally, 16-year-old movies with multiple reboots don’t get sequels. I’ll acknowledge that fact in advance.
We’re already in uncharted waters with the Spider-Man franchise, though. All of it is weird and shouldn’t be possible.
Since Spider-Man 3 debuted in 2007, we’ve had a failed Spider-Man series starring Andrew Garfield, and a wildly successful one with Tom Holland.
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire. Photo: Reddit
Also, there are a couple of cartoons thrown in the mix as well, and those absolutely wrecked the box office, too.
No Way Home, the title where Church returned, has grossed $1.92 billion.
Just as importantly, the exceptional quality of the film has reinvigorated previously dead franchises.
Photo: FandomWire
Andrew Garfield has been rumored to appear as his version of Peter Parker in an upcoming Sony’s Spider-Man Universe picture.
Now, Church has indicated that Maguire might return as well, and I swear to you that all of this makes thematic and financial sense.
The strange concoction of the encounter between the three Peter Parkers has enhanced interest in each of them.
Andrew Garfield (top) and Tobey Maguire (bottom), both as Spider-Man. Photo: Sony
Now, people would like to see the new and improved Garfield benefit from the one thing his films lacked the most, a good story.
Similarly, fans would love for Maguire to get another kick at the can since his seminal Spider-Man series ended with a whimper, not a bang.
From Sony’s perspective, having three Spider-Men in the mix would secure the studio’s financials for a three-year stretch.
American actor Tobey Maguire arrives at the premiere of “Spider-Man 2.” (Photo by Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images)
In fact, if everything broke right, Spider-Man movies generally arrive every third year anyway.
As long as saturation doesn’t become a problem – and let’s be realistic that it probably would – Sony could feed its studio pipeline for several straight years.
I don’t think that will happen, but I DO believe that Spider-Man 4 with Maguire and Raimi is a decent possibility at this point.
Marvel Comic-Con News
Photo: Comic-Con International
As I warned you a couple of weeks ago, Marvel’s Comic-Con presence proved underwhelming.
There was nothing the company could do about this problem. Once the actors joined the writers on strike, Comic-Con became superfluous.
For its part, Marvel did hold court all three days of the event. The official site even recappedeach ofits days.
Source: by Chelsea Lauren/Variety/Shutterstock (10341985ce) Marvel Studios casts Marvel Studios panel, Comic-Con International, San Diego, USA – 20 Jul 2019
You can read everything to verify that not much of note happened, at least not on the film/television side of the conversation.
We did get an exceptional new trailer for The Marvels:
I’ve already written a recap of what we just learned, which you can read here. You can also watch a 12-minute highlight clip from Marvel here:
I’d love to tell you about noteworthy items, but the reality is that there weren’t many.
Most of the good stuff involved upcoming comic books and Marvel merchandise, including an exciting Loki line.
However, we did get a few insights about the upcoming Disney+ cartoon, X-Men ‘97. IGN offers a nice summary here:
The most tantalizing reveal is that the writers are already working on the season two finale’s script.
That matters because Disney+ hasn’t officially confirmed a second season.
The production team is deep into planning, which means that it expects that renewal. So, we can safely expect at least 20 episodes of X-Men ‘97!
Beyond that, Marvel primarily laid low during the strike, understanding that it would send the wrong message by trumpeting projects right now.
We did learn that a Superior Spider-Man comic book sequel is in the offing, though! That’s something that should make you happy!
Marvel Miscellany
Image: Marvel
First, I’ll mention that Secret Invasion has officially ended. If you’ve read my recaps, you know that I felt it kinda…collapsed under its own weight.
However, the Nielsen ratings for the show aren’t bad at all. According to the latest streaming numbers, viewers watched 464 million minutes.
That’s quite strong when you remember that only two episodes were available at the time of these ratings from the week of June 26th.
Image: Marvel
These numbers surpass what Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk managed early in their releases, but Secret Invasion lags behind Loki and Hawkeye.
We’ll see whether this trend continues over the next month as the show builds to its climax.
In stranger Marvel news, one of Disney’s Blu-Ray licensees has done something super-weird.
DVD WandaVision Cover. Photo: Walmart
This company announced a steelbook for WandaVision, one that lacks…well, physical media.
The steelbook will feature an “exclusive steelbook and full slip, an envelope, a folder, character cards, and postcards.” What it won’t have is a Blu-Ray.
WandaVision DVD Set. Photo: Amazon
Also, Marvel apparently didn’t authorize this and had no idea the announcement was in the offing. So, the lawyers will probably get involved now.
If you can somehow get your hands on one of these, I would imagine it’ll become a collector’s item VERY soon.
More Marvel Miscellany
Source: Sony Pictures
Sony also capitalized on the strikes to reset its release schedule. You’re gonna want to pay attention to these two changes.
First, as widely predicted, Sony temporarily pulled Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse from the schedule.
I mentioned an article earlier this year that suggested production hadn’t advanced to the point that Sony could release the film in March 2024.
Source: Sony Pictures
Now, the production team can take more time to complete the arduous process of creating this animated film.
The surprise involves Kraven the Hunter. I’ve joked for months that it’s in terrible shape, with the kind of buzz that has Kraven looking up at Morbius.
Sony has chosen to try and save the project. It’ll delay the film’s release from October 6th, 2023, until August 30th, 2024.
Photo: BossLogic
If you know any good script doctors, Sony probably wants to talk to you.
When you do, you’ll receive a toy from The Marvels as part of the package!
As a reminder, The Marvels had originally scheduled its theatrical release for July. So, McDonald’s went ahead and sold the Happy Meals toy now.
I got a Flerken, and even though it’s a super-cheap toy, I adore it!
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2024 is expected to have an abundance of superhero movies, with franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Universe, and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe contributing to the saturated market.
The overwhelming success of superhero movies in recent years has led to multiple releases each year, making it the most abundant genre in Hollywood.
While 2024 will have eight superhero movies, matching the number from 2019, it may not hold the record for long as both the MCU and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – alongside James Gunn’s fledgling DCU – show no sign of slowing down their content production.
2024 looks to contain too many superhero movies, with plenty of releases from franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Universe, and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. Since the early 2000s, superhero movies have dominated Hollywood franchise filmmaking. While franchises like X-Men, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy were all popular, it was really 2008’s Iron Man that kickstarted the modern age of superhero cinema.
The overwhelming success of the MCU led to multiple projects being released each year by Marvel Studios. This was then matched by Warner Bros. and the studio’s attempted DCEU. Combined with Sony’s own attempts at creating a superhero universe, superhero cinema quickly became the most abundant genre from year-to-year. 2024 only looks to be continuing that streak with the release of several superhero films that may prove to be too many for one year to handle. With that said, here is every superhero movie releasing in 2024 from Marvel’s upcoming movies and their release dates to the works of DC.
All 8 2024 Superhero Movies
After the latest changing of release dates from differing movie studios, there are eight confirmed superhero movies set to release in 2024:
Madame Web – Set to be the fourth major film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Madame Web is expected to be released on February 12, 2024.
Deadpool 3 – The third installment in the Deadpool franchise but the first in the MCU, Deadpool 3 is scheduled for release on May 3, 2024.
Venom 3 – The as-of-yet-untitled Venom sequel is set for release on July 12, 2024, with Sony announcing the release date for the first time after various Sony-Marvel films’ release dates were changed.
Captain America: Brave New World – The fourth Captain America movie is expected to release as the MCU’s second 2024 film, with its release date currently set as July 26, 2024.
Kraven the Hunter – Originally scheduled for October 6, 2023, Kraven the Hunter has recently been delayed by Sony and will now release on August 30, 2024.
Joker: Folie à Deux – The first DC Elseworlds film to be released since James Gunn and Peter Safran coined the term for live-action movies will be Joker: Folie à Deux, scheduled to release on October 4, 2024.
Untitled Sony/Marvel Movie – In June 2023, Sony confirmed an untitled movie in their Sony Spider-Man Universe that is still set to release on November 8, 2024.
Thunderbolts – The final superhero film to release in 2024 will be Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts, which currently has a release date of December 20, 2024.
The Last Time So Many Superhero Movies Released Was In 2019 With 10
With the argument of superhero fatigue often being brought up of late, it is hard to imagine more than eight superhero films releasing in a year like in 2024, yet 2019 saw the release of 10 major superhero releases. Starting with the MCU, 2019 was a huge year for the Disney franchise. 2019 saw the end of the Infinity Saga, with Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home all releasing to overwhelming success. Many would argue that this year was the last year Marvel Studios had a unanimously successful year given the state of flux the franchise has been in since the Multiverse Saga began.
Alongside Marvel Studios’ three releases was another Marvel release as part of the waning X-Men franchise – X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Not counting the mid-COVID release of The New Mutants, Dark Phoenix rounded out Fox’s X-Men franchise in an underwhelming fashion before the rights for the titular team fully transferred to Disney. DC also saw a lot of success in 2019, releasing the billion-dollar hit Joker alongside the well-received Shazam! in the live-action department. Another major release for DC in 2019 was Teen Titans Go! Vs. Teen Titans.
Besides the DC and Marvel releases, three other superhero movies were released. These were Hellboy, Glass, and Brightburn. When taking into consideration all of these releases, 2019 has been the biggest year for superhero movies in a long time. While 2024 will not top 2019 regarding superhero movies, it matches 2023 by having eight releases, albeit both years likely have too many.
Why So Many Superhero Movies Are Releasing In 2024
The sheer amount of superhero movies releasing in 2024 begs the question of why such an influx is taking place. One of the primary reasons is the recent SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. In May 2023, the WGA began striking as a means of obtaining fairer working conditions from major Hollywood studios. A few months after this, the SAG-AFTRA union followed suit. With the strikes currently showing no sign of being resolved quickly, Sony became the first studio to shuffle its release schedule in response to the strikes.
One of the movies affected was Kraven the Hunter. The standalone Kraven film was originally supposed to be released in October 2023, yet the strikes caused Sony to push the film to August 2024. Similarly, Sony announced the release date of July 2024 for Venom 3 alongside these delays, adding two more superhero movies to the release slate for the year. The other untitled movie from Sony and the various MCU/DCU releases of 2024 see the tally rise to eight.
2024 May Not Hold The Record For Most Superhero Movies For Long
Despite 2024 holding the record – tied with 2023 – for the most superhero movies released since 2019, it may not hold this record for long. Both the MCU and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe show no sign of slowing down regarding how much content they will release meaning 2025 and beyond could see a similar number of four-to-six movies being released from those franchises alone. To add to this, James Gunn’s DC Universe officially begins in 2025 with the release of Superman: Legacy, not to mention The Batman – Part II being another Elseworlds release.
If the DCU begins releasing two-to-three movies a year like its Marvel competitors, 2025/2026 could easily go beyond 2024’s tally of eight superhero movies. This is not taking into account any other delays or shuffling of plans from the various franchises which could certainly see this amount change. However, it is clear that 2024’s eight superhero movies may be dwarfed in the near future, especially with the hopeful rise of DC under Gun and Safran on the horizon.
Will Superhero Movie Fatigue Every Truly Set In?
However, this inevitable increase in superhero movie releases could only further the arguments for superhero fatigue. With movies like Black Adam, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash all bombing at the box office in 2022 and 2023, the argument that superhero fatigue has finally set in became more frequent. That being said, some outliers like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse all performed well at the box office, proving that audiences are simply fatigued of mediocre superhero movies rather than the genre as a whole.
As such, if the movies released in 2024 are all of good quality, they could all see some semblance of success. The same goes for any superhero movies released after 2024. Studios simply need to begin striving for quality over quantity, which could see the argument of superhero fatigue disappear as quickly as it was raised. However, if studios continue releasing subpar products in franchises like the MCU, DCU, and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, 2024’s eight releases could prove to be too much and directly contribute to the fatigue of below-average superhero cinema.
Don’t let the charming curly-haired doll fool you, this game isn’t meant for the faint-hearted. Bendy and the Ink Machine may have had a classic cartoonish art style, and Security Breach was a massive throwback to the 80’s between its beautifully designed mascots and the mall aesthetic. However, Poppy Playtime was never one to hold back how dark it could truly be.
Poppy Playtime’s Chapter Three will be Returning in Winter 2023
Mob Entertainment promised that Chapter Three was going to deliver more scary vibes than previously, and with the release of their Chapter 3 Teaser Trailer, they surely delivered. Originally, this chapter was meant to be released at the beginning of the year but due to some work that still needed to be done on the game, it was pushed back.
And now the game developers have plenty of time to hype up the game in the meantime since it has been confirmed that the game will release sometime in the winter of this year, so probably around December like Security Breach was. This chapter will be dubbed Deep Sleep, following the theme of what theorists have been trying to unravel for months now.
Screenshot from Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3 – Teaser Trailer #2
In Chapter Three, players will be forced to investigate the Playcare area after their train has crashed due to something interfering with its path. The Playcare area was meant to house more of the younger children that couldn’t play and perform the activities that Mommy Long Legs organized for them. So, we’re likely to see more than one antagonist lurking in the dark for us, since we were provided with hints as to what different creatures may await players in the Playcare facility.
Not only have we yet to see the Bron, a mascot in Poppy Playtime, who is meant to be the joking dinosaur, but thus far, all we’ve seen is the weight Bron we use to solve a puzzle. In Mob Entertainment’s recent teasers, we’ve seen what has to be multiple creatures, one with giant claws that can rip through concrete and evidently other toys. The other has super dilated eyes and spews red smoke that indicates the biggest theme of the Playcare area, surviving against the smoke. Poppy as a flower is meant to induce sleep, however, it has been tied with hallucinogens as well, a theme we see in the messages clawed into the wall as well as scribbled by the children in Playcare. Players will be gifted a mask so as to survive against this dangerous gas that may just worsen our experience and what we perceive in the dark as our true enemies.
Screenshot from Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3 – Teaser Trailer #2
This indicates that not only were the doctors of this facility gassing children but also causing them to have nightmares while being trapped with their caretakers. Portraits of children can be seen throughout the trailer with iconography that may hint at the fact that these children were paired with that specific toy in order to become them. We also see towards the end, an effigy of what looks to be multiple parts of toys from the franchise, put together in a sort of alter-like room. The messages from the wall indicate this may be “the original”, perhaps talking about Prototype 1006, the same creature that took away the remains of Mommy Long Legs.
There are still many theories coming out about the limited trailer we’ve seen, but with many months to come until the third chapter, we’re sure to get more news by then.
About the Author
Jordan Lemons
Jordan is a college student jumping into the world of gaming journalism. Some of her favorite games would include but are most certainly not limited to Genshin Impact, Final Fantasy, Ace Attorney, and Danganronpa.
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.
Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:
2024 Oscars Predictions: Best Actress in a Leading Role
May December
Francois Duhamel
Weekly Commentary (Updated July 30, 2023): “Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism have been solved.”
Well, perhaps the Academy’s TV rating concerns could also benefit if they embrace Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy in a significant way, in categories such as best picture, supporting actor (Ryan Gosling), and best actress for its star Margot Robbie.
How far will “Barbie” go with Oscar voters? That’s what consumers and casual awards enthusiasts want to know.
Robbie, a two-time Oscar nominee for “I, Tonya” (2017) and “Bombshell” (2019), is well-liked by her fellow actors. Coincidentally, as a producer for “Tonya,” she was also almost double nominated that year. Now, as one of the producers for the Mattel box office hit, she could become the second woman nominated for producing and acting in the same year (the first was Frances McDormand for “Nomadland,” for which she won both). While an acting nom for the Australian performer is possible, the film would have to prove itself as an awards favorite, which isn’t always a given with something from the comedy genre. Nonetheless, it will remain a topic of conversation over the next few months. Golden Globes will surely bite in the comedy/musical categories, but let’s see if other groups follow suit.
Cannes dropped the one-two punch of Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore from Todd Haynes’ “May December,” we expect to hear both of their names on the circuit. However, no decisions have yet to be made on either of their campaigns, but we suspect Portman may opt for lead, with Moore angling for supporting.
In addition to Moore, some other “supporting” players could opt for leading status, such as Lily Gladstone from “Killers of the Flower Moon” (we’re expecting supporting) or the still unseen “Maestro” and “Napoleon” with Carey Mulligan and Vanessa Kirby.
Question marks are on several of this year’s release schedules amid the Hollywood strikes. That’s why we’re pumping the brakes on Fantasia Barrino’s work in “The Color Purple,” which could go either way with a Christmas release. The same for its Warner Bros counterpart, “Dune Part Two” with Zendaya (especially after MGM’s “Challengers” already exited the year).
The same goes for the movies without distribution but debuting at some of the upcoming fall festivals, such as “Lee” with Kate Winslet, “Origin” with Anjanue Ellis-Taylor and “Memory” with Jessica Chastain.
There are also a handful of undated projects, such as “Leave the World Behind” with Julia Roberts and “Nightbitch” with Amy Adams, that we’re keeping a close eye on.
The submission deadline for general categories is Nov. 18, 2023. Preliminary shortlist voting will begin on Dec. 18, with the results announced on Dec. 21. The voting period will run from Jan. 11-16, 2024, with the official nominations announcement on Jan. 23.
The 96th Oscars will be held on Sunday, Mar. 10.
And the Predicted Nominees Are:
Natalie Portman — “May December” (Netflix) **
Carey Mulligan — “Maestro” (Netflix) **
Greta Lee — “Past Lives” (A24)
Sandra Hüller — “Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon)
Margot Robbie — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
Next in Line
Fantasia Barrino — “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.) **
Annette Bening — “Nyad” (Netflix)
Emma Stone — “Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)
Lily Gladstone — “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) **
Jane Levy — “A Little Prayer” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Layla Mohammadi — “The Persian Version” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Zar Amir Ebrahimi — “Shadya” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Leonie Benesch — “The Teachers’ Lounge” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Allison Williams — “M3gan” (Universal Pictures)
Margot Robbie — “Barbie” (Warner Bros.)
Fantasia Barrino — “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)
Zendaya — “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.) **
Phoebe Waller-Bridge — “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (Warner Bros.)
Halle Bailey — “The Little Mermaid” (Walt Disney Pictures)
Ariana DeBose — “Wish” (Walt Disney Pictures)
** This official list is incomplete, with all release dates not yet confirmed and subject to change.
2022 category winner: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
Oscars Predictions Categories
BEST PICTURE | DIRECTOR | BEST ACTOR | BEST ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY | ADAPTED SCREENPLAY | ANIMATED FEATURE | PRODUCTION DESIGN | CINEMATOGRAPHY | COSTUME DESIGN | FILM EDITING | MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING | SOUND | VISUAL EFFECTS | ORIGINAL SCORE | ORIGINAL SONG | DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | INTERNATIONAL FEATURE | ANIMATED SHORT | DOCUMENTARY SHORT | LIVE ACTION SHORT
About the Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, is Hollywood’s most prestigious artistic award in the film industry. Since 1927, nominees and winners have been selected by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Seventeen branches are represented within the nearly 10,000-person membership. The branches are actors, associates, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, documentary, executives, film editors, makeup and hairstylists, marketing and public relations, members-at-large, members-at-large (artists’ representatives), music, producers, production design, short films and feature animation, sound, visual effects and writers.
Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is shaping up to be a career-defining role for Cillian Murphy. The longtime Nolan ensemble member stepped into a lead role in one of the auteur’s films for the first time, and his nuanced performance as atomic bomb inventor J. Robert Oppenheimer has made him an early Oscar frontrunner. You could even say that Oppenheimer was a role that Murphy was born to play.
As it turns out, Murphy came close to portraying the infamous nuclear physicist in another project nearly a decade ago. One of the most recent dramatizations of the Manhattan Project was the WGN TV series “Manhattan,” which featured Daniel London in a reoccurring role as Oppenheimer. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, showrunner Sam Shaw and writer Lila Byock revealed that they cast a wide net when searching for the right actor to play father of the atomic bomb. Other candidates included Beck, Ebon Moss-Barach, and none other than Murphy himself.
“A thousand percent, Cillian Murphy was on that list,” Shaw said.
Murphy is certainly happy with the way things ultimately turned out. He has often spoke about his lengthy collaborative relationship with Nolan, and how much it meant to receive his first lead role.
“He’s so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, ‘Listen, I’ve written this script, it’s about Oppenheimer. I’d like you to be my Oppenheimer.’ It was a great day,” Murphy said in a recent interview. “We have this long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect. It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a huge one.”
Once Murphy had the job, he threw himself into the preparation with a vigor that impressed his co-stars. Robert Downey Jr. recently heaped praise on Murphy’s dedication to the role.
“I have never witnessed a greater sacrifice by a lead actor in my career,” Downey said. “He knew it was going to be a behemoth ask when Chris called him. But I think he also had the humility that is required to survive playing a role like this.”
In a conversation with Rolling Stone, the director and actress shared that she had a great time working on the film, which follows a 500-pound black bear after it consumes a significant amount of cocaine and embarks on a drug-fueled rampage in a Georgia forest.
“I loved how subversive, crazy, silly and funny it was,” she said. “I loved surprising people with the cast. I don’t think anybody was expecting Margo Martindale, who’s 70 years old, to shoot that kid. We had a lot [of] fun, and if I got the opportunity to surprise the audience and delight myself again, I would take it.”
Banks shared that she hoped that directing the film would show that she can helm big, fun, bloody genre pictures in addition to things like Pitch Perfect 2 and Charlie’s Angels. Her diverse directing interests resemble her acting career.
“I’ve been very fortunate to work across a lot of genres and things that appeal to me,” she continued. “Cocaine Bear also came to me during the pandemic. We were all locked away, and I loved the sense of fun inside of it. It was what I wanted to see. And it had this message about mankind’s culpability in nature’s demise. It spoke to me on a lot of levels.”
Elsewhere in the profile, Banks discussed her newest film The Beanie Bubble, which details the Beanie Baby phenomena that overcame America in the 1990s and early 2000s and takes an in-depth look at how the zeitgeist came to be.
She explained that she believes that The Beanie Bubble, its fellow AppleTV+ project Tetris and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, show that there seems to be a trend of projects coming out that hone in on nostalgia. People are creating films and TV shows now that look back at the things that were a big part of their formative years.
The Hunger Games actress also addressed the rumor that she pitched Marvel to let her direct Thor: Ragnarok, but they never got back to her.
“In terms of characters that I love in Marvel, that’s the character that I would have loved to take on,” Banks said. “I never had a pitch or a meeting about Thor. And, yeah, if it was the right character and a great idea, I would love to direct a superhero movie. My door’s really open to anything.”
Status: Returning Series”The Uncanny Counter” is a TV show produced by Studio Dragon, Neo Entertainment and BETTY & Creators. The show was originally broadcast on OCN (South Korea) and tvN (South Korea) and premiered on November 28th 2020. So far there have been 2 seasons (comprising of 30 episodes) of “The Uncanny Counter”. The most recent episode aired on January 24th 2021 and more seasons are expected in the future.
It’s become increasingly common to lend genre films some semblance of emotional depth by having their protagonists burdened from the start with profound grief or loss. That is especially the case with “Aporia,” producer Jared Moshe’s third feature as writer-director. Its variation on a particular kind of fantasy premise (often involving time travel) underlines the familiar wisdom of “Be careful what you wish for,” as the ability to alter tragic past events only ends up complicating the present for our main characters.
Starring Judy Greer as a recent widow in a lower-middle-class Los Angeles milieu, this is more an effective drama with a novel hook than any typically violence- or spectacle-driven dive into the fantastic— the lo-fi sci-fi on tap here requires nary a special effect. Those expecting more action or thrills may be underwhelmed. But “Aporia” (the title of which is a term for a state of doubt or uncertainty) will reward viewers seeking a thoughtful exploration of imaginative themes that usually come adorned in showier bells and whistles. Following its Fantasia premiere, Well Go plans a limited release to U.S. theaters on August 11.
An opening glimpse of domestic bliss turns out to be just a painful memory for Sophie Rice (Greer), whose husband Malcolm (Edi Gathegi) got killed by a drunk driver (Adam O’Byrne) eight months prior. As she deals with the perp’s court trial and struggles to stay financially afloat, daughter Riley (Faithe Herman) is faring even worse. Since her beloved father’s death, the hitherto exemplary student has been skipping school, failing classes, picking fights and directing open hostility at her mother. Without Malcolm, their lives are coming unglued.
Witnessing that freefall, family friend Jabir (Payman Maadi) cautiously extends a possible solution. A refugee from an unnamed nation whose dictatorship killed everyone else in his family, he’s a physicist now reduced to driving a cab — circumstances that cemented his friendship with Malcolm, whose own career in scientific engineering ended after a workplace mishap left him part-paralyzed. It turns out they’d been working together on a project in Jabir’s spare bedroom: What was intended to be a time machine, but instead turned out to have a more narrow application. To whit, if given precise coordinates, it can kill someone in the past. What if the drunk driver could be offed before the fatal accident occurred?
Sophie is incredulous, though after a new pileup of crises, she’s willing to try anything. The Rube Goldbergian apparatus revs up, and disgorges a puff of smoke; nothing seems to have happened. Yet soon it’s apparent something indeed has: Malcolm is back, unaware he’d ever been gone, his wife and colleague the only parties wise to this miracle. Eventually he has to be told, however, so now the three adults have a grave responsibility to weigh. Should the machine be used again, for instance to eliminate a terrorist or school shooter prior to their mass-murdering acts? Or simply to help other individuals in dire straits — like the widow (Whitney Morgan Cox) and daughter (Veda Cienfuegos) of that inebriate driver, their current plight worsened by the bankruptcy brought on by a Bernie Madoff-like financial predator?
Emphasizing emotional reactions over gimmicky plot intricacies of reality-rewriting as in “Edge of Tomorrow” or “The Butterfly Effect,” “Aporia” concerns itself mostly with the awkward tradeoffs that our characters are forced into by their choices. They cannot predict what wider, incidental impacts a death will have on the world around them, or their own lives. What’s more, those who use the machine are the only ones aware of its impact — and oblivious to whatever changes have occurred in the interim.
So Jabir, Mal and Sophie must cope with “new normals” they alone are surprised by, which can include drastic alterations to employment, relationship or other statuses. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Messing about with the fabric of existence, even altruistically, can render it unrecognizable.
These moral and logistical dilemnas are satisfyingly addressed in Moshe’s screenplay, even if some audience members may be frustrated that the results of a climactic collective decision are left to our imagination, in a “lady or tiger?”-style fadeout. That creative choice remains faithful to the central characterizations, which are emphatically relatable — though tonally it might have been better to have Greer, otherwise strong as the empathetic Sophie, spend a bit less time on the verge of tears.
Shot primarily in El Sereno, the film’s locations capture a working-class Los Angeles not frequently seen on screen, let alone utilized in this kind of genre piece. In a similar spirit, the tech and design contributions are assured but unobtrusive, their straightforward modesty of style keeping focus securely trained on everyday matters of marriage, family, child-rearing, finances, and so forth. Even “the machine” itself is basically just an expanded version of a classic junk-drawer tangle of old cords and spare electronic parts.
Still, the concept provides enough narrative drive to prevent “Aporia” from settling into mere depressing kitchen-sink realism. While it may not stress fear or fancy as much as most such comparable tales, this quasi-scientific fiction nonetheless easily holds us in suspense, wondering just where so much monkeying with the time-space continuum will lead.
Oppenheimer (Universal), Barbie (Warner Bros.)Image: The A.V. Club
Just in case anyone out there thought last week’s Barbenheimer box office explosion was a fluke, both movies were not only still on top of the domestic box office this weekend, but their totals also both dropped less than 45 percent from last week—which is pretty good. Barbiewon, naturally, making $93 million and crossing $350 million after only two weeks, while Oppenheimermade $46 million and will probably cross $200 million by next week (if the numbers hold on better than Albert Einstein did with his hat).
Sam Raimi on finding his place in the MCU
Following those two is Disney’s Haunted Mansion, the kid-friendly ghost movie that opened in July rather than October, and one week after Barbie and Oppenheimer. It made $24 million in its debut, which isn’t terrible, but… maybe it would’ve done better if it had opened closer to the spookiest season and further from two of the biggest movies of the year. We’ll never know!
After that is Sound Of Freedom, which is a buzzy propaganda piece for far right political ideologies normal movie, with $12 million (and a legitimately stunning $148 million after four weeks, a higher domestic total than Elemental). Finishing the top five is Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, a movie that is a lot of fun but shouldn’t have opened so close to Barbenheimer (it made almost $11 million and has $139 million after three weeks, which we’re going to blame on The Entity, but at least Part Two won’t have to compete against Barbie 2 and Oppenheimer 2: The Rise Of Teller whenever it comes out).
Awarded the Cheval Noir Award for best feature at the 27th edition of the fest, Pascal Plante’s film also took honors for screenplay and Dominique Plante’s haunting score, as well as an outstanding performance award for Juliette Gariépy.
“The ultimate effect a film can achieve is to implant a significant and lasting emotional memory. ‘Red Rooms’ masterfully accomplished that goal,” said jurors David Hewlett, Brenda Lieberman, Jourdain Searles, Virginie Sélavy and Gary Sherman.
“With incredible skill and artistry, without resorting to gore or violence, this film delivers not only an extremely disturbing and frightening experience but introduces you to characters and situations you may never forget.”
Produced by Nemesis Films, it takes on the trial of a man accused of murdering teenage girls and selling videos of his crimes online. But Plante wanted to focus on women who follow him.
“All these killers, they had enough attention already. There are enough people analyzing their psychological background. When someone asks about the root of evil, it’s much more disturbing if the answer is: ‘I don’t know’,” he told Variety.
“This film is about the psychological consequences of extreme violence. I really don’t want it to be perceived only as controversial, but I know it can make you feel very uncomfortable.”
Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s also had reasons to celebrate, as their “Femme” was awarded for Nathan Stewart-Jarrett’s “breakout” performance and for direction.
Femme
Courtesy of Agile Films
“It’s a gripping thriller that’s both supremely tense and sensitively directed. The two contrasting worlds of the drag queens and the macho thugs are vividly rendered,” argued the jury.
Stéphan Castang’s “Vincent Must Die” was granted special mention, while Zelda and John Adams’ “Where the Devil Roams,” set in Depression-era America, was awarded for cinematography.
“The Adams Family have done an extraordinary job of capturing the film’s challenging 1930’s setting, transporting us back in time with their creative approach and extraordinary aesthetic. Every frame vibrates with visceral, eerie dread,” it was noted.
In the New Flesh competition, Ukraine’s Yeva Strelnikova triumphed with “Stay Online” about a young volunteer in Kyiv.
Asked to install a military application on one of the laptops donated to support the war effort, she receives a call from a boy searching for his missing father: the laptop’s previous owner.
“The war is destructive. Many people cannot shoot or write at such times. I wanted to write. Some people fall silent in severe stressful situations, while others, on the contrary, mobilize all resources. Our film shows it all,” said Strelnikova.
“It takes a special filmmaking team to have the drive, wit, and talent to not just finish a film, but in a war zone. It takes a special filmmaker to make one that’s so moving, meaningful, and thrilling,” added jurors Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, Sarah Bolger, David Lawson Jr., Sara Neidorf and Angie Power.
“It’s a brilliant display of courage and raw talent that showcases how you can fight violence with art.”
“People adored it. Yeva is such a gutsy filmmaker. It’s so important for the film to be seen and discussed, and the recognition it received here will go a long way in helping to break it out wider,” noted Fantasia artistic director Mitch Davis.
Fantasia hasn’t been shying away from serious, often political subjects, he stated.
“It’s always been an important aspect of our personality. ‘Rascals’ and ‘Richelieu’ are two other examples in this year’s lineup. ‘Han Gong-ju’ [inspired by the Miryang gang rape case] won our Audience Award in 2013, [documentary about a Haitian slum] ‘Ghosts of Cité Soleil’ was one of our most popular screenings in 2006. We have presented retro screenings of ‘Come and See’ and ‘Christiane F.’.”
Davis also opened up about “Red Rooms.”
“The screening was incredible, with palpable tension that just never stopped building. It’s such a powerful experience to share as an audience. 700 people and you could hear a pin drop. At the close, the audience roared into extended, thunderous applause. It’s one of the best films of the year, in any genre or budget class.”
Other popular titles this year included “Clown Apocalypse,” “New Normal,” “Aporia,” “The Fantastic Golem Affairs,” “River” or “Hippo,” said Davis.
“‘Talk to Me’ tore the roof off, people absolutely lost their minds at ‘The Sacrifice Game.’ We are finally back to pre-pandemic energies and it’s so exciting to feel.”
The festival will run until Aug. 9.
You can find the full list of winners here:
Cheval Noir Competition
Best Feature: “Red Rooms” (Pascal Plante, Québec)
Best Director: Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping (“Femme,” U.K.)
Best Screenplay: Pascal Plante (“Red Rooms”)
Best Score (The Sandro Forte Award): Dominique Plante (“Red Rooms”)
Best Cinematography: Zelda Adams and John Adams (“Where the Devil Roams,” U.S.)
Taylor Swift gave fans a curious wink during a performance of “To All Of The Girls You Loved Before,” perhaps hinting she’s over a past relationship. The 33-year-old singer chose the track — which was a 2023 release but still part of 2019’s Lover — as one of her two surprise songs during her Eras Tour stop in Santa Clara, California on Saturday, July 29. In the song, Taylor sings about the past relationships an partner — presumably now ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, given the era of the song — had and thanks the previous girlfriends for helping turn him into the man he is now.
While singing about “Cryin’ in the bathroom for some dude / Whose name I cannot remember now,” the GRAMMY winner winked at the sold-out crowd in video posted to social media. While Taylor is known for her cryptic messaging, this move seemed to imply she was over a past relationship — possibly Joe, who she dated for nearly seven years from 2016 to sometime in the spring of 2023. Taylor also had a brief reported fling with The 1975 singer Matty Healy through May and June, and the two were even seen holding hands at Casa Cipriani in New York City — but their relationship fizzled just a few weeks in.
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn split earlier this year. (Shutterstock)
“Every woman that you knew brought you here / I wanna teach you how forever feels like,” she sings on the track. “All of the girls you’ve loved before (Ooh) / Made you the one I’ve fallen for / Every dead-end street led you straight to me,” she also says in the lyrics on the song, seemingly about Joe based on the word choice and era.
Taylor and Matty leaving Electric Lady Studios together in New York last month. (Claude Yao Sahi @hijoshotit / Shutterstock)
The initial lyric about “cryin’ in the bathroom,” however, is believed to have been originally written for ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal. Despite their 10 year age gap, 19 year old Taylor and 29 year old Jake briefly dated in the Fall of 2010. The track “All Too Well” tells the tale of the ill-fated romance, where she also sings “Not weeping in a party bathroom / Some actress asking me what happened, you, that’s what happened, you,” which could be about the same incident. On Red‘s “Moment I Knew,” she once again sings about what seems to be the same night with the lyrics, “And there in the bathroom / I try not to fall apart / And the sinking feeling starts / As I say hopelessly / ‘He said he’d be here’”.
Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms (Les Chambres Rouges), a French-language thriller about a woman’s obsession with a high-profile serial killer case, took top honors as the Fantasia Film Festival handed out its juried Cheval Noir competition prizes this weekend.
After opening Fantasia’s 27th edition, the Canadian psychological drama earned Cheval Noirs for best feature, best screenplay for Pascal Plante and best score for Dominique Plante. Red Rooms also earned lead Juliette Gariépy an outstanding performance award.
Red Rooms had an international premiere at Fantasia after debuting at Karlovy Vary as part of the Crystal Global competition. The Fantasia jury at North America’s largest genre film festival, led by David Hewlett, also gave its best director prize to Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping for Femmes, while the trophy for best cinematography went to Zelda Adams and John Adams for their work on Where The Devil Roams.
In the acting categories, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett also earned the prize for outstanding performance for his role in Femme.Nicolas Cage, who was set to receive a Cheval Noir career achievement award for his four-decade run in Hollywood, canceled his trip to Canada due to the SAG-AFTRA strike as he was also to premiere his latest film, Sympathy for the Devil.
Sympathy for the Devil reunites Cage with director Yuval Adler with Joel Kinnaman after The Secrets We Keep. Fantasia, which is set to run until Aug. 9, will close with We Are Zombies, from the Canadian cult film collective RKSS, led by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The film stars Megan Peta Hill, Alexandre Nachi and Derek Johns.
Kendall Jenner teased that she should have worn cowboy boots to country star Chris Stapleton on Friday night, after suffering a wardrobe malfunction at the concert.
While attending the 45-year-old Tennessee Whiskey’s concert at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, the model, 27, revealed to her 293 million followers that one of her vintage heels snapped from all her dancing and jumping backstage.
‘[I] went too hard. My vintage couldn’t handle it,’ she wrote on a photo of her broken shoe, uploaded to her Instagram Story.
Despite the hiccup, the 818 Tequila founder continued to get down as she watched the eight-time Grammy winner perform some of his greatest hits.
The reality star, who is currently dating Bad Bunny, recently gushed that she considers herself ‘one of the luckiest people on the planet to be able to live the life that’ she lives.
Having fun: Kendall Jenner teased that she should have worn cowboy boots to country star Chris Stapleton on Friday night, after suffering a wardrobe malfunction at the concert
Oh no! While attending the 45-year-old Tennessee Whiskey’s concert at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, the model, 27, revealed to her 293 million followers that one of her vintage heels snapped from all her dancing and jumping backstage
Still, she explained: ‘I do think that it’s challenging for me a lot more than it’s not … I was born into this life, but I didn’t choose this life. I’m not built for this by any means. I’m not good at it. I do it, and I’ve learned how to do it.’
Despite feeling uncomfortable by fame, Jenner clarified that she isn’t ‘going to sit’ around and say: ‘Poor me.’
‘But, I do think that it’s pretty intense … People are more mean to my family in general. They take everything and make it a bad thing,’ the Vogue cover girl told the WSJ. Magazine last month.
Elsewhere in the interview, she stated: ‘I understand that I fall under the umbrella of the Kardashian sisters. It’s just weird to me because I am just like my dad in so many ways.’
Almost immediately, critics took to social media to highlight the contradictions of Jenner’s comments in the article, which was titled How Kendall Jenner Wants to Ditch the Nepo Baby Playbook.
The outtake shows Kendall’s mom, Kris Jenner, securing her a meeting with agency Wilhelmina Models.
Jenner is just a teenager in the clip, looking at her cell phone as her mom enters the room and says, ‘So guess who just called me. Wilhelmina modeling agency. They would love to have a meeting with you.’
‘[I] went too hard. My vintage couldn’t handle it,’ she wrote on a photo of her broken shoe, uploaded to her Instagram Story
Jamming out: Despite the hiccup, the 818 Tequila founder continued to get down as she watched the eight-time Grammy winner perform some of his greatest hits
Then, in a confessional interview, Kris admits: ‘I spent the last two days calling everybody I know so that I can make sure that I set Kendall up with the best modeling agency possible.’
She adds, ‘This is actually a really big deal and I’m so surprised this is happening so fast for her.’
The snippet has been posted with a more recent clip from a Keeping Up With The Kardashians reunion in which Kendall insists she achieved her modeling success independently from her family.
While being interviewed by Andy Cohen, Kendall stresses, ‘I took my last name off of my name on all my modeling cards so that I was taken completely seriously.
‘I mean, I literally went to the middle of nowhere castings. I definitely worked my way to where I am now.’
Living the dream: The reality star, who is currently dating Bad Bunny, recently gushed that she considers herself ‘one of the luckiest people on the planet to be able to live the life that’ she lives (seen in June 2023)
Still, she explained in a recent interview: ‘I do think that it’s challenging for me a lot more than it’s not … I was born into this life, but I didn’t choose this life. I’m not built for this by any means. I’m not good at it. I do it, and I’ve learned how to do it’
Polarizing comments: Almost immediately, critics took to social media to highlight the contradictions of Jenner’s comments in the article, which was titled How Kendall Jenner Wants to Ditch the Nepo Baby Playbook
She added, ‘I think it’s just a perception that people have that I just was like, “Give it to me” and I had it. It definitely was not that.’
One person on Twitter called the model ‘Kendall ‘Pick Me’ Jenner’ in response to the article.
Another person highlighted the cost of the designer tank top Kendall wore in one of the WSJ photos, which had a $1,150 price tag.
It was listed next to the quote of the star saying that her life as a famous person is ‘challenging.’
‘OK the quote followed by the price of her tank top has me so [dead],’ the Twitter user said, adding a string of skull emojis.
Elsewhere in the publication, the LA native noted: ‘Since I was really young, I felt out of place in my family.
“Movie stars are making movies because they’re independent movies, and SAG is allowing it because if they do sell it to streaming, it has to be because streaming is abiding by all the things we’re asking for.”
Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal Pictures’ “Oppenheimer” continued to dominate the domestic box office this weekend as Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” crept into third place, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore.
“Barbie” clinched the No. 1 spot again, adding $93 million in its second frame for a North American cumulative of $351.4 million. The feminist comedy sustained a 43% drop in ticket sales from last week.
“Oppenheimer” stayed in second place, grossing $46.2 million in its sophomore outing for a North American total of $174.1 million. The historical drama experienced a 44% decline in ticket sales from last week.
Rounding out the top three was “Haunted Mansion,” which scared up $24.2 million in its opening weekend. That’s about $1 million less than Disney’s previous attempt at a “Haunted Mansion” picture earned when it opened in 2003 — not adjusting for inflation.
The spooky revival matched early projections ranging from $20 million to $30 million domestically. Internationally, the fantasy film earned $9 million for a global cumulative of $33 million.
Directed by Justin Simien, “Haunted Mansion” stars Rosario Dawson and Chase W. Dillon as a mother and son who recruit a ragtag team of ghostbusters to help them expel myriad supernatural terrors from their home. The movie’s ensemble cast also features LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Dan Levy, Jared Leto and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Disney’s latest adaptation of the classic Disneyland ride of the same name received a lackluster 41% rotten rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and a B-plus grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.
“‘Haunted Mansion’ isn’t as much of a digital Disney-ride-inspired eyesore as 2021’s ‘Jungle Cruise,’ mainly because all this cheesily computer-generated ectoplasm is more or less in keeping with the (ahem) spirit of the proceedings,” writes Times film critic Justin Chang.
“But because no effort has been expended to make any of this even remotely scary — there are only so many times you can watch Stanfield dodge a flying CGI axe — you might at least hope for a belly laugh or two, or at least a few decent jokes.”
It’s worth noting that “Haunted Mansion” was among the first mainstream titles to be affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike in the weeks leading up to its release. The stars of the film skipped its Disneyland premiere and haven’t promoted it since the strike went into effect July 14.
Opening in wide release next week are Paramount Pictures’ “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and Warner Bros.’ “Meg 2: The Trench.”
A Nick Fury-led series being branded as Marvel Studios’ first “crossover event” telling the story of one of the most iconic Marvel Comics events of all time? It has to be a guaranteed success, right? Well, things went sideways quickly for Secret Invasion.
A handful of fans enjoyed the series, but more fans than usual seem to agree with the critics. Here is a list of a few of the biggest criticisms coming out of Secret Invasion.
1.) What Could Have Been
Marvel
On paper, Secret Invasion had all of the pieces necessary to be a smash hit.
The Secret Invasion comic book event is one of the most iconic and beloved Marvel Comics runs in the history of the brand. It also just so happens to be the perfect story to be adapted into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the espionage branch.
It also came at the perfect time to capitalize on the current state of the genre being almost a full year removed from She-Hulk and the first series in Phase 5. The MCU’s first “crossover event” was primed to stand out amongst some saturation concerns in the comic book content.
While the cast managed to deliver a handful of stellar performances, the show never managed to capture the tone of the Secret Invasion comics. No one asked for it to follow the story beat-for-beat, but a sense of suspense and espionage-driven intrigue would have been nice.
2.) Managing New Characters
Marvel Studios
The script seemed to be solid with a series of great monologues and speeches, but the editing and pacing of the story put that script in a tough spot.
This can be most easily seen through the usage and minutes given to the new supporting characters of the show.
G’iah, played by Emilia Clarke, ended the series as arguably the most important player on the board. Her lead-up to that point was largely reliant on being the daughter of Talos and the number two to Gravik. Minutes ≠ importance.
Priscilla Fury/Varra, played by Charlayne Woodard, probably has the second biggest importance at the end as Nick Fury’s estranged wife and suspect Skrull informant. While the love story between Varra and Nick Fury had its moments, it seemed to overtake any other suspense-driven storylines week-to-week.
Then there is Olivia Colman’s Sonya Farnsworth. Arguably the MVP of the series, Colman stole every scene she was in with this magical combination of Dolores Umbridge and the Joker. However, she was nothing more than a supporting role with little to no depth to her character, motives, etc.
3.) Death Bait
Marvel Studios
The series kicked off with a bang as the premiere episode had the death of Maria Hill as the cliffhanger. There was Skrull trickery, suspenseful walking chases, and an impactful death to one of the most veteran characters on the MCU roster. It was a great start.
Then came the sudden and surprising death of G’iah at the hands of Gravik. This was a death that did not make sense in Episode 3 and was predictably undone in the next scene. This meant viewers had one impactful surprise death and one death that meant virtually nothing.
Afterward, in what was supposed to be one of the biggest emotional moments of the series, Talos goes down in Episode 4. This is the same episode that saw his daughter come back to life.
The overuse of Gravik surprisingly killing main characters was further diluted by Talos’ death having little to no impact on Nick Fury. All of this retroactively softened the impact of Maria Hill’s death in Episode 1.
4.) The MCU’s Super Skrull
Marvel Studios
Skrulls in the MCU have been a unique experience, to say the least, and the idea of a Super Skrull ended up being a huge factor in the plot of Secret Invasion. How it ended was… a choice.
The traditional Super Skrull has four superpowers from the Fantastic Four. Gravik originally adapted an MCU version of that taking similar powers from established MCU characters. Awesome.
Then, the shark was jumped in the biggest way as both Gravik and G’iah (seemingly for no reason) gained the abilities of virtually every hero and villain in the history of the MCU. They applied zero subtlety to it as they showed the range from Drax to Mantis, to Thanos to turning G’iah into a remade Captain Marvel.
The worst offense of this overpowered character is that it left G’iah on the board. A character that has already had a less-than-stellar introduction into the MCU (see above) is now the most powerful player on the MCU roster.
The Superman problem has made its way to the MCU, but instead of the most iconic hero of all time… it’s G’iah.
5.) She-Hulk Warned Marvel Studios About CGI
Marvel Studios
The irony of the final fight of this series is palpable. One of the biggest critiques of She-Hulk was that it was an unserious mockery of the established grounded storytelling of the MCU. Many believed Secret Invasion would be a return to form.
However, the commentary in the She-Hulk finale is how upsetting it is when a Marvel Studios show defaults to a big CGI-driven fight instead of focusing on the story being told. For Secret Invasion to be the grounded espionage story everyone was waiting for and ending with one of the most over-the-top CGI fights is insane.
The fact that She-Hulk so blatantly called attention to it is the cherry on top of a bummer sundae.
6.) Lack of Conclusion
Marvel Studios
Back to the script, this show does nothing for the characters involved other than kill off a few.
Nick Fury is right back up in space without finding the Skrulls a home or confronting Gravik in any way. While he may have exposed the Skrull invasion to the United States President, it leads to something arguably worse with vigilante terrorists killing anyone who might be a Skrull. This leads to the genocide of Skrulls and humans alike.
G’iah is off with Sonya Farnsworth to combat this initiative, seemingly putting her right back to where she started settling Skrull/Human relations. Only now, she is the most powerful character in MCU history.
When it comes down to it, the only real arch in this show was the love story between Nick Fury and Varra, something that would have been much better received in a show called “I Love Fury.”
7.) The James Rhodes Situation
Marvel Studios
One of the things that worried people about Secret Invasion is that some key players may have been revealed to be Skrulls throughout events in the MCU. The main suspect was Nick Fury and his being a Skrull would have been a challenging notion, but it would have added so much to his already mysterious character.
Instead, Marvel Studios all but confirmed that James “Rhodey” Rhodes was a Skrull since the airport fight scene in Captain America: Civil War. The reason this is different is because this adds almost nothing to the character. There are few (if any) moments in Rhodes’ past that fans can point at and gain value from the idea of him being a Skrull.
It largely takes away some of Rhodey’s most impactful moments in the MCU. Rhodes was not there for the death and funeral of Tony Stark, a Skrull was. Rhodes was not the one who made the Baby Thanos joke, a Skrull did. Rhodes did not witness the creation of “Tony Stank,” a Skrull did.
This is something that could have been left ambiguous and would have had the same impact on the Secret Invasion story. The showrunners seemingly went out of their way to define the timeline and raise all of these concerns for no reason other than shock value.
Harsh But Fair
Marvel Studios
The criticism of this show is not people being upset that their predictions didn’t come true. It is not the unfair minority hate that so many other shows have previously gotten. And, for once, it is not about people expecting every MCU project to be as good as Avengers: Endgame.
This show made a multitude of decisions that raised more questions than answers and added little to no value to the viewing experience. It has been reported that director Ali Salim was asked not to read the Secret Invasion comics to tell an original story. Marvel Studios just forgot to tell him what the comic was about.
The studio cannot get this back. There is no world where fans get another chance to see the Secret Invasion storyline in the MCU.
For the hype, cast, source material, timing, and potential impact on the MCU future, Secret Invasion is one of the biggest busts in MCU history.
While DC Studios confirmed that David Corenswet will be the next Superman, audiences are still waiting to see who he’ll be going up against in his first movie.
It’s already confirmed that the anti-hero group named The Authority, or at the very least, members from it, will be in Legacy. Given the group’s questionable morals, they could easily be going up against the Man of Steel.
Though, many fans have been quick to point out that they might not be the main antagonists of the movie but rather one piece of the puzzle. Plenty of rumors suggest that Clark Kent will be going up against Lobo—perhaps even played by Jason Momoa, who might be leaving Aquaman behind.
Brainiac the Villain of Superman: Legacy.
The official Superman Twitter account revealed three of the character’s comic arcs that inspired James Gunn’s upcoming reboot, Superman: Legacy. One of the picks seemingly alluded to Brainiac being the movie’s villain.
The selections in question are Action Comics #866-780, from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, otherwise known simply as Brainiac. The story sees the knowledge-obsessed alien Brainiac setting his sights on Earth and the Man of Steel who protects it.
DC Comics
The villain has a tendency to go to various worlds and literally collect its people and cities to add to his vast reservoir of assets and knowledge.
DC Comics
Another comic run on the list was the already announced All-Star Superman, from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, which sees the Man of Steel dying due to overexposure to the sun. The Kryptonian sets out to accomplish as many heroic feats as he can in the time he has left while trying to make peace with his fate.
DC Comics
Finally, there’s Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright, which focuses on the character’s origin story—specifically when the hero decided he needed to do more with his powers.
DC Comics
David Corenswet vs. Brainiac?
It’s hard to see why a comic series with Brainiac explicitly in the title would be included in a list like this if the iconic villain wasn’t involved in some way. Otherwise, it would come off as DC Comics offering false promises.
Fans have wanted to see the classic villain get his due on the big screen for quite some time, so they’d no doubt be delighted if he does face off against David Corenswet’s Superman.
The classic villain has popped up in various Superman media outside of film. He was recently the key antagonist in the Injustice 2 video game and is even set to be the leading baddie in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Brainiac was also the central villain in the SyFy series Krypton, which followed the titular planet 200 years before its doom.
Superman: Legacy arrives in theaters on July 11, 2025.
PlayStation Plus Premium members can now play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition for up to four hours, offering a brief introduction to the highly-rated game.
Who doesn’t love a good action movie? They have fun characters, great set pieces, and keep you on the edge of your seat for two hours.
But they’re not easy to write or easy to brainstorm.
A great action spec has to stand out from the crowd and showcase your voice.
Crafting an enthralling action movie script is a tall order that requires an intricate blend of dynamic conflict, high-stakes, and compelling characters.
It’s not just about penning explosive car chases, intense shootouts, or nail-biting stunts; it’s also about immersing your audience in a fast-paced, edge-of-the-seat narrative that reveals character depth and advances the story. This comprehensive guide explores the key elements to consider when venturing into action movie screenwriting.
Let’s punch this out together.
1. Understanding Action Movie Screenwriting
‘The Fast and the Furious’
Credit: Universal Pictures
Before diving into the specifics of writing impactful action sequences, it’s essential to grasp the essence of action movie screenwriting.
Unlike other genres, action films are adrenaline-fueled roller coaster rides, demanding a precise blend of high-octane sequences and relatable characters.
You want to see fights, chases, and everything in between.
These elements should intertwine seamlessly to create a compelling narrative where each action sequence propels the plot forward while revealing more about the characters.
2. The Dual Nature of Action Sequences
‘John Wick 2’
Credit: Lionsgate
Maybe my favorite thing about writing action movies is that everything has a purpose and a secondary purpose. You’re using these huge set pieces to deliver something meaningful and character-based.
It’s not easy to do, but it is fun when you get it right.
Action sequences are the lifeblood of any action film, providing the adrenaline rush that audiences crave. However, they can be written in two distinct ways: granular and general.
Let’s break those down.
Granular Approach
Some screenwriters, like Derek Kolstad who wrote John Wick and Nobody, prefer a granular approach. The granular approach means detailing every punch, gunshot, and car chase.
In case you care, this is actually what I do as well. I like this approach because it gives me control of specific moments and allows me to make sure the action is vivid, precise, and easy to visualize for an engaged reader.
But it’s not the only way to do things.
General Approach
Other screenwriters opt for a more general approach, providing an overview of the action sequence without delving into the nitty-gritty. We see that in a lot of Marvel movie screenplays.
Writers will generally provide what happens in the scene without going into the nitty gritty. They still include the narrative beats but in a much more general way.
3. Crafting Engaging Fight Scenes
‘Creed’
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Fight scenes are an integral part of action movie screenwriting. And, let’s be honest, it’s why we see these movies!
I love watching Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee kick ass, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson breaking through walls.
These scenes can be written in various ways, from getting into the minutiae of each punch and kick to providing a broad overview, as we mentioned earlier.
But the point is, they have to happen.
These scenes are crucial to building excitement and character. So write them in a way that exemplifies both. Dig in and bring this stuff forward. Are your characters crafty? Brutish? Let the ideas flow.
4. Drawing in Your Reader from the Start
‘The Matrix’
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
The opening scenes of your script is critical in capturing the reader’s attention. The first few pages should instantly draw the reader into your film’s world, setting the tone and establishing the stakes.
Whether it’s a high-speed chase, an intense shootout, or a tense standoff, the opening action sequence must be compelling enough to hook the reader and make them want to read on.
So what does your opening scene tell about your script?
5. The Importance of High Stakes
‘The Avengers’
Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
High stakes are a crucial element of any action film. They create tension, make the audience care about the characters, and drive the narrative forward.
Whether it’s a fight for survival, a race against time, or a mission to save the world, the stakes must be real and significant enough to engage the audience.
Think about how Marvel movies use stakes to show the importance of their heroes. You can go as big as that, or do something like Die Hard, where the stake is your life and the life of your wife.
Just show us why they are important to the people in the movie.
6. Character Through Action
‘Kill Bill: Vol 2’
Credit: Miramax Films
Character development is just as important in action films as it is in any other genre. Action sequences should reveal character traits, helping the audience understand and connect with them.
Whether it’s their bravery, resourcefulness, or determination, every action sequence should contribute to character development.
In Kill Bill: Vol 1 and Vol 2, we constantly are learning who the Bride (Uma Thurman) is as we go. She’s a skilled fighter, a mother, and a jilted lover — all of these elements of her character come out in action sequences, and we learn how ruthless and determined she is along the way as well.
7. The Art of Plant and Pay Off
‘Tenet’
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Planting and paying off is a classic narrative technique used frequently in action movie screenwriting. It involves subtly setting up plot elements or items early in the story, which become significant later on.
The “plant” creates anticipation, and the “payoff” delivers a satisfying resolution, making the action sequences more engaging and impactful.
I think plant and payoff is the only rule in all of screenwriting that really matters. In action, it’s those moments that make us recall something fun that occurred earlier or a detail we may have missed.
8. The Failure is Key to Action Sequences
‘Saving Private Ryan’
Paramount
You learn the most about a character when they do not get their way. What happens when their back is against the wall? What about when they have hurdles or other goals they do not exceed?
Character failure is an essential component of action movie scripts. It raises the stakes, increases tension, and drives character development. By allowing your hero to fail during action sequences, you make them more relatable and human, deepening the audience’s emotional investment in their journey.
We don’t want a hero who wins every fight. We want to watch people who try.
9. Writing Action Sequences in a Screenplay
‘RRR’
Credit: Pen Studios
Writing action sequences in a screenplay requires a delicate balance of pacing, description, and excitement.
These sequences should be clear, concise, and visually compelling, immersing the reader in the action. They should also serve the story, advancing the plot, and revealing more about the characters.
Make sure the audience knows what’s happening where, and what;’s at stake in every scene.
Is there a button that needs to be pushed, a vial of antidote rolling around?
We should feel every story beat.
Summing Up How to Write Action Movie Screenplays
Writing an action movie screenplay is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. It requires a deep understanding of the genre, a knack for crafting engaging action sequences, and the ability to create compelling characters.
By incorporating these elements into your script, you can create a thrilling, action-packed narrative that captures the essence of the genre and resonates with audiences.
In an alternate timeline, this November’s Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, would have probably just had a pretty big weekend at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC).
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) final film of 2023, this movie’s cast would have taken to the stage at SDCC’s legendary Hall H (a venue Marvel Studios has traditionally dominated), with the likes of Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, and Samuel L. Jackson, alongside director/co-writer Nia DaCosta, all eagerly sharing new details about their film, endearing the 6000-plus fans in attendance with their undeniable chemistry and camaraderie (a continuation of what was teased at Disney’s D23 Expo in September of 2022), and more than likely debuting the official full-length trailer for the film.
Marvel Studios would have also presumably unveiled exclusive footage and casting details for several other projects on their upcoming release slate, including Loki Season 2, the Echo series, and maybe even teases for next year’s Deadpool 3, Captain America: Brave New World, Agatha: Coven of Chaos – the list goes on.
Well, at least in that alternate timeline it does.
Alas, we live in the timeline where Marvel Studios, along with most of the other major Hollywood studios, did not make an appearance at this year’s SDCC. Their absence was largely due to Hollywood’s present shutdown, where both the actors (the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) (SAG-AFTRA)) and the screenwriters (the Writers Guild of America (WGA)) are on strike simultaneously for the first time in 63 years.
Both strikes have arisen from the respective guilds’ fight for fair wages, better working conditions, and protection against the advancing threat of artificial intelligence on their industry, among other objectives, after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to reach an agreement earlier this spring (for the WGA) and summer (for SAG-AFTRA).
So while Hollywood remains in limbo until a fair deal can be reached for each of these guilds, yet-to-be-released movies (and their fans) remain in limbo, too – which is why, rather than having a massive, star-studded Marvel Studios panel to delve into in this article, what I’ll be focusing on instead is the new piece of promotional material we did receive – the aforementioned full-length trailer for The Marvels.
Marvel dropped this trailer in the wee hours of the morning on July 21st, after their official YouTube channel shared a cryptic visual of a familiar pager device counting down to what would end up being the second official look at the team-up between Larson’s Carol Danvers/ Captain Marvel, Parris’s Monica Rambeau, and Vellani’s Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel.
Fans already had their first taste of this trio’s dynamic a la the shorter teaser trailer that premiered on Good Morning America on April 11th, and, as is the case with the second trailer for nearly any blockbuster movie, there’s a considerable amount of overlap between the footage included in that trailer and this new one.
Familiar scenes are once again shown in Kamala’s family’s Jersey City living room and up on the S.A.B.E.R. space station with Nick Fury (fresh off a six-episode stint in the MCU’s Secret Invasion), and there are also multiple moments depicting the final confrontation between our heroic trio and the villainous Dar-Benn (more on her later), this time with additional evidence of the team working together and showing off some pretty exceptional power combos (inquiring minds want to know where Kamala picked up all her parkour moves in the time since we last saw her).
There’s also, of course, a generous offering of chaotic place-switching shenanigans (the main premise of the film being that all three heroes swap locations whenever they use their powers), just like in the first trailer. Plus, the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic” is employed once again, this time as a rousing, semi-orchestral remix.
The two main differences, then, between this July trailer and the one from April, have to do with Carol Danvers herself. Carol had a somewhat diminutive presence in the first teaser, largely assumed to be due to Marvel wanting to instead use the time to familiarize audiences with Kamala and Monica, both of whom debuted in the Disney+ series (Ms. Marveland WandaVision, respectively), not movies.
Right at the start of this nearly 2-and-a-half-minute trailer, we’re brought up to speed on Carol’s current status – she’s been alone in space (well, aside from the fan-favorite Flerken, Goose, making her triumphant return here!), presumably handling various intergalactic threats without the need for any assistance over the years. She’s still on good terms with Fury, at least, which is a nice callback to their bond in Captain Marvel.
Eagle-eyed viewers will note that Carol has a polaroid of Lashana Lynch’s Maria Rambeau (rumored to appear in this movie via flashbacks, seeing as the character passed away before the events of WandaVision), and a news clipping about Maria’s daughter, Monica, on the wall of her ship. It’s expected that The Marvels will explore the reason behind Monica’s present-day resentment towards her surrogate aunt, as was teased in WandaVision, and this detail all but confirms that the Rambeaus have never been far from Carol’s mind.
We also see several impressive displays of Carol’s power set, including her signature move of busting through spaceships like they’re nothing, a closer look at her two updated costumes for this film, and even a split-second glimpse of a reluctant dance with Park Seo-joon’s Prince Yan, while dressed in what appears to be a ballgown version of her normal Captain Marvel suit (1:38 in the trailer if you’re curious). For those who were missing Carol in the first teaser, this follow-up was more than delivered.
In addition to setting the stage for Carol’s emotional journey in this movie, we finally gain a better understanding of how she’s connected to the main antagonist of The Marvels, Zawe Ashton’s Dar-Benn.
One of the main updates afforded to fans in this extended trailer is a better understanding of Ashton’s Kree Accuser. She regards Carol as “the Annihilator,” and through voiceover, we’re told that Carol “took everything from [Dar-Benn],” and now the villain is “returning the favor.”
She’s somehow in possession of a twin bangle to the one adorning Kamala’s left wrist and appears to be using it to cause quite a bit of planetary destruction (as evidenced by this trailer). It’s also implied that Dar-Benn herself is responsible for the predicament our three leads find themselves in at the start of this movie, but whether this is the extent of Dar-Benn’s revenge on Carol, or if there’s something more up her sleeve, remains to be seen. We’re left to speculate on how exactly Carol wronged Dar-Benn so significantly, but that’s what the next three or so months are for!
All in all, this new trailer, matching the tone of the April teaser, successfully brings the focus back onto Carol Danvers (it is technically still her sequel), clarifies the role of the movie’s villain, and promises a fun-spirited adventure where we’ll get to watch the notoriously independent hero have no choice but to navigate the concept of teamwork with her estranged niece and her biggest fan.
Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani star in Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, which hits theatres on November 10th, 2023.
A security guard at Hollywood’s Dragonfly nightclub was killed early Sunday morning after being brutally beaten by a large mob.
Police are still trying to piece together the details of the incident. Officers responded to the Dragonfly in the 6500 block of Santa Monica Boulevard near Wilcox Avenue around 2 a.m. on reports of a group of 10 people attacking one person.
“The victim was working at this nightclub, and a large group – for unknown reasons – confronted that security guard, causing him to fall into the street,” said LAPD West Bureau Homicide Division Detective Samuel Marullo. “At which time the group advanced and kicked and stomped him to death.”
The investigation is still determining whether the fight began inside the club and spilled onto the street, or started outside.
First responders attempted rescue measures on the security guard. He has only been identified as a male in his 30s.
Dragonflywas still open at the time of the security guard’s death. According to the club’s social media, it was hosting its weekly Signature Saturdays event, with Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley headlining.
The club also hosts an event on Sundays called Sunday Night Fever. It is not known if that will still happen in the wake of the death.
No arrests have been made.Anyone with information regarding the attack is urged to contact the LAPD.
July was an unusually quiet month at Netflix, with the addition of just three new Tamil movies and the debut of one Original Punjabi series: the small-town cop drama Kohrra. Thankfully, August already has a few big Original series on the release calendar. Here are all of the new Indian movies and series added to Netflix in July 2023.
Given the quieter month, you may be in search of some other Netflix suggestions. In this case, check out our guide to finding new movies from directors that have contributed to Netflix’s growing array of anthology titles.
Article continues below…
N = Netflix Original
New Indian Movies on Netflix: July 2023
Takkar (2023)
Languages: Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, & Telugu Runtime: 137 Minutes Director: Karthik G. Krish Cast: Siddharth, Divyansha Kaushik, Yogi Babu Genre: Romantic Drama | Added to Netflix: July 6
Poor guy Gunz will do anything to make money. Rich girl Lucky will do anything to escape her suffocating life of privilege. When they meet, there are fireworks, but the two run into trouble while on an explosive road trip. There are separate catalog entries for each language version of the Tamil film Takkar, which is also available dubbed in Kannada, Malayalam, & Telugu.
Writer-director Tarun Teja Mallareddy’s debut feature finds a group of YouTubers investigating paranormal events at a British mansion owned by an archeologist. The artifacts in the home have a connection to a centuries-old folktale — but will the group find the answers they need before a malevolent entity drives them mad? In addition to the original Tamil version of Asvins, there are separate catalog entries for dubbed versions in Kannada, Malayalam, and Telugu.
Maamannan (2023)
Languages: Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, & Telugu Runtime: 155 Minutes Director: Mari Selvaraj Cast: Vadivelu, Fahadh Faasil, Keerthy Suresh Genre: Drama, Thriller | Added to Netflix: July 26
A political party is thrown into turmoil by casteism and ambition, forcing a veteran politician to reunite with his estranged martial artist son to regain control of the party. Maamannan (“Emperor“) features a soundtrack by Oscar-winning composer A. R. Rahman. Additional dubbed versions of the Tamil film can be found in Maamannan‘s audio menu.
Kohrra is Netflix’s second Original Punjabi series (after the 2022 spy drama CAT). A groom from abroad arrives in a small Punjabi town for his arranged marriage but is murdered before the wedding. As the police hunt for a killer, the investigation takes a toll on the cops’ personal lives. The series is directed by Randeep Jha, who also directed four episodes of the Original Hindi series Trial by Fire. In an interesting Variety interview, series co-creator Sudip Sharma discussed the ways Indian censorship rules influenced the focus of Kohrra‘s story. Additional dialogue options can be found in the show’s audio menu, including descriptive audio tracks in both Punjabi and Hindi.
Which of the newly added Indian movies and series will you be watching? Let us know in the comments below!
The massive box office success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” provided a much-needed shot of adrenaline to the film industry, proving that there is still a large audience for original theatrical films. Now, the question on everybody’s mind is whether the “Barbenheimer” cultural phenomenon was a fluke or a sign that Hollywood has found a new path towards sustained success.
Count Francis Ford Coppola among the optimists. The “Apocalypse Now” director took to his personal Instagram account over the weekend to answer questions from fans, and was quickly asked about the two films that are sweeping the nation. While he hasn’t seen either film yet, Coppola celebrated the fact that audiences are turning out for original films.
“I have yet to see them,” Coppola wrote. “But the fact that people are filling big theaters to see them and that they are neither sequels nor prequels, no number attached to them, meaning they are true one-offs, is a victory for cinema.”
In a separate question, Coppola was asked to share his thoughts about the future of cinema. He broke from the pessimism that has become commonplace in film industry circles and predicted that more theatrical success is on the horizon.
“My hunch is that we’re on the verge of a golden age,” he said. “Wonderful and illuminating cinema seen in large theaters.”
Coppola’s optimism about the film industry comes after he took one of the biggest risks of his career. The Oscar-winner recently wrapped principle photography on “Megalopolis,” his long-gestating futuristic epic starring Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Forest Whitaker, Jon Voight, and Shia LaBeouf. Coppola largely self-financed the passion project, which has a budget of over $100 million, after failing to obtain financing for decades. While the production initially faced rumors of on-set chaos, Driver recently praised the experience of working with Coppola.
“‘Megalopolis’ is one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of, with Francis in particular,” Driver said. “It’s one of the best shooting experiences I’ve had. And the things that he’s made, there’s no frame of reference for it. It’s so unique and inventive and hopefully accessible by everyone. That it’s not so elusive that it’s for a certain audience, it’s for everyone. And he is everything that you hope he will be.”
Former President Donald Trump has been charged with obstructing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago documents investigation by allegedly trying to get security footage deleted after authorities requested it.
Yet according to Trump lawyer and spokesperson Alina Habba, there was no obstruction because it’s “common sense” that Trump could’ve easily had the footage deleted if he put his mind to it.
On Fox News Sunday, anchor Shannon Bream asked Habba if, even though investigators ultimately obtained the tapes, there was “an attempt to try to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“Well, let’s be clear,” Habba replied. “If there was an attempt by somebody who lives in a home—take out President Trump—who owns a company. He owns it, he owns the I.T., and he pays for all these employees. If there was an attempt for him to not turn over documents or he wanted something deleted, do you not think that that’s something he couldn’t have gotten done? Let’s just use common sense.”
Bream didn’t seem convinced by that answer.
“That’s the allegation—is that he did try to talk to these employees and that these employees said, ‘we may have to talk to someone else and I don’t know if I can even do that,’” she replied.
“Shannon, I know the facts,” Habba insisted. “When President Trump gets the subpoena, it goes to the organization and the organization turns it over. That is what actually happened.”
According to the superseding indictment, which charges Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira with obstruction in addition to Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, de Oliveira told an IT employee that “the boss” wanted the server “deleted.” In response, the unnamed employee allegedly said he didn’t know how to do that and that he didn’t have the rights to do it. He then told de Oliveira to ask the security supervisor for Trump’s business about it, the indictment states. Yet de Oliveira kept pressing the issue, telling the employee what “the boss” wanted, and asked, “What are we going to do?”
Trending
Despite the allegations in the indictment, which now lists seven obstruction counts, Habba sought to make it seem like Trump never wanted to have the tapes deleted.
“If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you that is something that could’ve been done,” she said at an earlier point in the interview. “But he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.”
NOW ON VIMEO! In Big Break, filmmaker Julian Berger taps into that moment of our biggest heartbreak and then walks us through that moment when we can put it behind us and move forward. Austin (Hudson Klass) is an up-and-coming songwriter and artist, but he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life. Thinking it was the right decision for himself personally, he broke up with his girlfriend, Eve (Sage Moore). To compound the problem, Eve was way out of Austin’s league and a bit too quick to agree to the breakup. Now she’s in the arms of another.
Depressed and emotionally paralyzed, Austin exacts his revenge by using spring break to produce an album and enter it in a singing and songwriting contest known as Big Break. Austin’s best revenge is to win the contest with a song about Eve. Seeing the project through is Austin’s best friend/manager, Palms (Julian Berger), who sequesters him at his father’s studio for the proper creative setting. Joining the pair is Palm’s girlfriend, Stella (Marie Zolezzi).
Big Break is this sweet, dramatic comedy about recovering from a devasting breakup, but in a way, it feels a bit more like romance rehab. Palms pulls Austin away from his life into seclusion and takes away his phone to subvert any temptation to contact Eve and allow Austin to work out his feelings…grief from his failed relationship. For anyone whose ever been through a devasting breakup, you’ll know precisely what Austin is going through. From the start, he sits at the keyboard, banging away and frozen with writer’s block. Out of frustration, he verbally vomits his most insane feelings and wrestles with the guilt of giving up the best thing that ever happened to him.
“…Austin exacts his revenge by using spring break to produce an album and enter it in a singing and songwriting contest known as Big Break.”
At the heart of Big Break is the relationship between Austin and Palms. Hudson Klass and Julian Berger have this incredible chemistry together on screen. Their interactions feel very surfacy on screen, but there are layers, like the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and his father. The “goal” of the weekend is to get the album done, but unlike the Wilsons’ toxic relationship, Palms unknowingly walks Austin through the stages of grief. Adding Stella to the mix was also a brilliant choice. As the two dudes try to get through Austin’s feelings as only men can, Stella serves as the female perspective…almost Eve’s voice in the situation.
Though listed as a comedy, Big Break is more of a drama with comedic elements. The film’s comedy comes through following the trio on this awkward and clumsy road to recovery. None of the three know exactly what they’re doing, but they are friends, and a bit of ball-busting ultimately gets personal. Sometimes you have to pull the scabs off to complete the healing process.
Big Break is a story that all of us can relate to lost love. Better yet, the story is about something…something we all experience as human beings. With an indie spirit, the film is set in a single location with a cast of three and a story that’s allowed to germinate over its 88-minute runtime. Big Break is an example of insightful storytelling through low-budget independent filmmaking and is worthy of our support.
Big Break is available for screening on Vimeo On Demand.
More than 2,000 properties in Osoyoos, B.C., near the Eagle Bluff wildfire have been placed on evacuation alert, while an evacuation order remains in place for more than 700 properties.
The evacuation order was issued for 732 properties in Electoral Area “A”, Electoral Area “B,” and the Town of Osoyoos. The order covers the area north of the Canada/U.S. border to the intersection of Highway 97 and Highway 3, west and north along Highway 3.
The evacuation alert is in effect for 2,094 properties in electoral areas “A”, “B”, and “C” as well as the Town of Osoyoos. It covers properties from the east side of Highway 97 and the west side of Osoyoos Lake from the U.S. border, properties east of Highway 3 and west of Highway 97, as well as south of Road 20. The alert also includes properties along Highway 3 to Similkameen River, south of Sumac Road.
EOC Update: Evacuation ALERT Electoral Area “A”, “B” and “C” and the Town of Osoyoos Saturday, July 29, 2023, 11:30 pm due to Lone Pine Creek wildfire (K52318) More info: https://t.co/0Jnb59jgK7pic.twitter.com/Vf5ye1gfLz
Those who have been put on evacuation alert or order, or who have been displaced from their homes, are able to self-register for Emergency Support Services. The reception centre is set up at the Oliver Community Centre, located at 6359 Park Dr.
At this time, a travel advisory is in effect for Highway 3 between Keremeos and Osoyoos. Drive BC is asking motorists to avoid the area and use the detour via Highway 3A to Highway 97.
“Fake love out on the town / Cryin’ in the bathroom for some dude / Whose name I cannot remember now,” Swift sang while performing “All of the Girls You Loved Before” for the Santa Clara, California, crowd, per TikTok concert footage.
As she crooned the “name I cannot remember” lyrics, Swift shook her head and gave a brief wink.
While the pop star — who kicked off her Eras Tour in March in Arizona — did not further reveal what the wink or the lyric represented, fans started swapping theories on social media.
“All of the Girls You Loved Before,” one of Swift’s Saturday surprise songs, was released earlier this year and categorized under her LP Lover. Due to the romantic lyrics and its inclusion in the 2019 album, fans immediately speculated that the track was dedicated to Joe Alwyn, Swift’s partner of six years before they split earlier this year, who was also the inspiration for several other Lover songs. After noticing Swift’s wink on Saturday, fans thought she was hinting that she has completely moved on from Alwyn, 32.
“Damn it’s over [for real],” a social media user tweeted on Saturday, thinking that the wink meant Swift had gotten over the Conversations With Friends alum after their April breakup. Another added: “ITS JOEVER.”
Others quickly pointed out that the lyric in question was probably not about Alwyn, thinking that Jake Gyllenhaal was the more likely subject. They thought that the “cryin’ in the bathroom” line calls back to a similar line in Swift’s 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” a song that is widely rumored to be about her whirlwind romance and breakup with the Brokeback Mountain star, 42. (Neither Swift nor Gyllenhaal have ever confirmed the rumors about the lyrical inspiration.)
“Not weeping in a party bathroom / Some actress asking me what happened, you / That’s what happened, you,” she sings in “All Too Well,” specifically mentioning crying in a restroom as she does in “All of the Girls You Loved Before.”
“You know why they did that? Because I’m mayor,” she quipped on Saturday, referring to the honorary title she was gifted for the duration of her Eras residency in town. “It happened yesterday and I was kind of hoping it would happen tonight too, and it did!”
That was the question that Mike Masnick found himself fielding this summer in a WhatsApp chat with about 100 directors, actors and screenwriters. The group, including marquee talent, was worried about a grim possible future in which deepfake versions of actors perform screenplays written by ChatGPT.
Mr. Masnick, a professional tech wonk, told his Hollywood listeners to work with what they had: Publicly shame projects that replace human labor with artificial intelligence, use state publicity laws against any unauthorized deepfakes and fight hard for contractual protections. (The fight is on: A.I. is one reason for the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have paralyzed the film and television industry.)
But he also suggested that they capitalize on the technology. Convinced that “A.I. plus human” is the future, he pointed to the singer Grimes. She invited people to use A.I.-generated versions of her voice, trained on music that she had done in the past, in exchange for half of any royalties. One GrimesAI song is closing in on a million listens on Spotify.
“Let people be creative and they’ll do creative things and expand the interest in your own work,” Mr. Masnick, 48, said. The technological shift is inevitable, he said, so “use it to your advantage.”
Since starting his Techdirt blog in 1998, Mr. Masnick has been doling out this same message as wave after wave of tech innovation has stirred fears, going back to the time of Napster: The new thing is less scary than you think it is.
He had been added to the Hollywood group chat about A.I. by Alex Winter, an actor and filmmaker whose oeuvre ranges from “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” to documentaries about other alarming technology, including Bitcoin and YouTube. Mr. Winter said he appreciated Mr. Masnick’s pragmatism.
“I find people like Mike reassuring because they are setting up guardrails to prevent you from driving your car off the cliff in your zeal to find solutions,” he said.
By sheer longevity and a deep knowledge of tech history, Mr. Masnick has become something of a Silicon Valley oracle. His message is to embrace change even when painful and to beware of knee-jerk legal protections with unintended consequences.
It hasn’t paid very well, but what Mr. Masnick doesn’t have in wealth he makes up for in influence. Lawmakers, activists and executives consider him an essential guide for what’s happening in the technology world and what to do next.
“Whenever tech policy news breaks I always want to see what Mike’s take is going to be,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, in a statement. Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, has called him “insightful and reasonable.” The tech entrepreneur Anil Dash said he “shows up and ships every day” and has been “filing constantly for decades on a beat that is thankless.”
What Mr. Masnick apparently hasn’t had time for is a redesign of his blog. A wall of text, heavy on hyperlinks, it has not evolved much since its founding.
Intellectual Gig Work
Based just outside Silicon Valley in Redwood City, Calif., with an office view that features tech company commuters and a giant Buddha statue looking down onto U.S. 101, Mr. Masnick started writing online about the “high-tech industry” in the late 1990s while in business school — mainly as a ploy to get a job at a long-forgotten start-up — and then never stopped.
In the early 2000s — a thousand years ago in internet time — online file-sharing was taking off and CD sales were plummeting. Mr. Masnick exhorted the music industry to accept the internet and the opportunity it offered to connect with more fans. The internet would be great for artists: fewer middlemen and gatekeepers!
The digitization of music didn’t go exactly the way Mr. Masnick had hoped. Creators weren’t the primary winners; subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music were. But artists who had a direct relationship with their audience did gain more power, as many a Taylor Swift fan can attest.
Mr. Masnick has been a close observer of the tech industry’s rise from disruptive force to world-dominating power center, but he has never quite managed to reap its astronomical financial rewards for himself. The best way to describe how he makes a living is as an intellectual gig worker, equal parts business owner, tech journalist, policy analyst, research fellow and game designer.
Techdirt has a handful of employees and paid contributors, almost all selected in meritocratic style from the comments section. Because of Mr. Masnick’s commitment to the free flow of information, Techdirt has never had a paywall. Advertising and support from the site’s million or so readers have never fully paid his bills.
Mr. Masnick has written more than 51,000 (often lengthy) blog posts, adding more several times a day, and also hosts a weekly podcast. On one Friday this month, he wrote about proposed A.I. regulations (mostly bad, in his opinion), a court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against Amazon for selling teenagers “suicide kits” (a tragic case but a good ruling, he concluded), and legal challenges to “crazy” age-verification laws meant to protect children online. (He recently filed a declaration in a lawsuit seeking to stop California from enacting such a law, outlining how burdensome it would be for Techdirt to comply.)
He runs the Copia Institute, a think tank that organizes events about internet policy and produces geeky research reports; it accepts sponsorships from foundations and companies, including ones that Mr. Masnick writes about, such as Google and Yelp. The financial entanglement might get him in trouble at a traditional journalism organization, but not at a blog where he is the boss. Sponsors never have editorial control, he said.
Being a small independent tech blogger, Mr. Masnick said, means “finding that spot where you can survive.”
In the last few years, he has taken to game design. He co-created a role-playing exercise for the United Nations to help forecast the future in countries with political upheaval and a game about what it’s like to be an online content moderator, sponsored by a start-up advocacy group. Few people would describe them as fun, but Mr. Masnick said they helped people wrap their heads around complicated technology issues like nothing else he had done.
His productivity hacks include a laptop with a slide-out second screen that makes it easy to work on the go and Focusmate, a paid service that pairs him with a stranger so they can silently “co-work” together. At the end of a session, they tell each other whether they accomplished what they set out to do.
In the Heads of Tech C.E.O.s
The message in Mr. Masnick’s Facebook Messenger inbox was from the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in February 2021, “but I’ve always found your writing insightful and reasonable, even when you’re critical of us for making mistakes.”
Mr. Masnick, who provided this account, tried to message him back — but couldn’t. Because he and Mr. Zuckerberg weren’t Facebook friends, the message was rejected.
Befitting his status as an outsider whom insiders read, Mr. Masnick reached out to someone else at Facebook, and soon Mr. Zuckerberg was back in his DMs apologizing for the “bug.”
When they talked by phone, Mr. Zuckerberg asked Mr. Masnick what Facebook was doing wrong. Given his distaste for powerful tech companies that exercise too much control over people’s internet experience, Mr. Masnick suggested that Mr. Zuckerberg consider decentralizing.
He talked about a concept he has been pushing called “protocols, not platforms” — software that is interoperable, like email, so people from different services can interact and outside developers can build on it. This would open up a market for different content filters and algorithms that users could choose from, giving them more control over what they did and didn’t see. It would make people like Mr. Zuckerberg less powerful, because his company would be allowing third parties to be the arbiters of online speech, but it could deflect the complaints they got about harmful speech and censorship.
The idea had resonated with Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder, who credited Mr. Masnick as an inspiration for the creation of Bluesky, a Twitter clone that embraced that approach.
Mr. Masnick spent more than an hour on the phone with Mr. Zuckerberg, but wasn’t sure if he was really listening — until last month, when Mr. Zuckerberg launched his own Twitter clone, Threads. The news release emphasized that the plan was to make it a protocol interoperable with other apps, including Mastodon. Mr. Masnick celebrated with a long blog post.
The Streisand Effect
Mr. Masnick has a way of seeding ideas about technology that take root and grow.
In 2005, he wrote about legal threats against a website devoted to amassing urinal photos. (The early internet was a strange place.) The threats, intended to remove information about certain urinal owners, instead created their own news cycle and garnered more attention for the otherwise obscure site.
Mr. Masnick coined a phrase for an attempt to censor information on the internet that backfires: “the Streisand effect.”
In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued an aerial photographer who had put photos of her Malibu beach house on his website, causing the little-seen images to go viral. Now the episode is internet lore, and the phrase has its own Wikipedia entry with a long list of examples.
It’s a typical Masnickian principle of the internet, gleaned from lengthy observation: Poorly thought-out attempts to solve online problems will make them worse.
“He understands the internet in a deep way that I don’t think is common,” said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital liberties organization gave Mr. Masnick an award for digital activism in 2017, when fighting a defamation lawsuit almost bankrupted Techdirt.
A man who claimed to have “invented email” had sued Techdirt for $15 million over its blog posts questioning those claims. The suit garnered significant media attention; it’s not among the examples in the Wikipedia article on the Streisand effect, but it really should be.
Mr. Masnick knew the lawsuit was ridiculous and unlikely to succeed, but the legal bills were a hardship. Techdirt turned to the internet and asked for donations. It got the support it needed, and the suit was eventually settled with no money changing hands.
Mr. Masnick got to continue evangelizing for tech innovation.
“I’m trying to get people to see the world the way I see it,” he said. “It’s cool when people can do stuff.”
Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has been reinstated on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The account, restored Saturday, faced an eight-month suspension on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk after Ye posted a symbol combining a swastika and the Star of David, which Musk said at the time “violated the platform’s rules prohibiting incitement to violence.”
“I tried my best,” Musk tweeted in the evening of Dec. 1, 2022, just one day before Ye was suspended from the platform. “Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”
The rapper’s X page now displays a tweet from Dec. 1, 2022. Ye has yet to post anything new to the social media as of Sunday morning. Musk has also not yet commented on Ye’s reinstatement.
The conclusion of the eight-month-long suspension is Ye’s second suspension on X after the rapper faced a two-month-long ban from both Twitter and Instagram after posting antisemitic messages in October, all of which were removed by the platforms.
Following a slew of antisemitic comments across social media and on various guest appearances on shows or podcasts, the Anti-Defamation League identified at least 30 antisemitic incidents that directly referenced the rapper. These events included vandalism, banner drops, targeted harassment and campus propaganda distributions that occurred between the onset of Ye’s comments in October to the report’s publication in February.
With some of his platforms taken away, antisemitic chatter from Ye has been less noticeable in recent months, though he said that he shifted his perspective on Jewish people after watching “21 Jump Street” in an Instagram post in March.
“Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump Street made me like Jewish people again,” Ye wrote on Instagram. “No one should take anger against one or two individuals and transform that into hatred towards millions of innocent people. No Christian can be labeled antisemite knowing Jesus is Jew.”
Selena Gomez just rocked the perfect pink bikini for your next trip to Barbieland.
Prior to her recent boat trip, Gomez was one of the many celebs embracing One-Piece Summer in 2023, rolling up to bestie Nicola Peltz Beckham’s pool in a smocked mocha swimsuit with a scoop neck and low back. Now, she’s serving another round of swimspo in a look that couldn’t be more different. On July 29, the 31-year-old pop star traded in her neutral one-piece for a pale pink adjustable two-piece, featuring a balconette bikini top and high-waisted belted bottoms, which she paired with subtle gold jewelry and some ripped-up overalls.
The Rare Beauty mogul let her hair down and went makeup-free in a series of fun photos and videos from her latest summer adventure. Even her manicure matched her suit, making me think that her birthday screening of Barbie really stuck with the “Lose You to Love Me” singer. Clearly, her job is Boat…and Pop Star…and Hollywood…and Business. Maybe we just call her Quadrupal Threat Barbie?
Instagram/@selenagomez
Instagram/@selenagomez
When things got a bit too windy—as they tend to do on boats—Gomez just threw on a white cloth headband and kept the pics coming.
Instagram/@selenagomez
Selena Gomez recently rang in her 31st birthday, kicking off her next rotation around the sun by extending an olive branch to former friend and kidney donor, Francia Raisa. The actors have been close friends since 2007 but appeared to have a public falling out in November 2022 when Gomez referred to Taylor Swift as her “only friend in the industry” in a Rolling Stone interview. According to screenshots of an Instagram comments section, Raisa thought this was “interesting” and unfollowed the pop star.
Eight months later, Gomez shared an Instagram tribute to Raisa on the How I Met Your Father star’s own birthday, writing, “Happiest of birthdays to this special human being. No matter where life takes us, I love you.”
Kartik Aaryan often shares pictures of his pet dog Katori and his fans love him equally.
Kartik Aaryan is currently basking in the success of SatyaPrem Ki Katha with Kiara Advani. The romantic drama not only had a good run at the box office but was also received well by the critics. After the film’s success, Kartik has flown to London for his next project. But amid his work commitments, the Bhool Bhulaiya 2 star is really missing his pet dog Katori and his recent social media post is a proof of that.
On Saturday, Kartik Aaryan took to his Instagram handle and shared an adorable picture of himself, posing with his cute pet dog Katori. In the snap, Kartik can be seen looking at Katori and Katori reciprocating the favour by looking back at his favourite human. Kartik wore a peach jacked and paired it with white printed t-shirt and blue denim jeans. He penned the caption, “Missing(with white heart emoji).”
Check It Out
Meanwhile, Kartik Aaryan fans came up with some really cute comments. One of them wrote, “BEST DUO? BEST DUO. ❤️.” Another one commented, “Katori and Kartik are just too adorable!!” Someone else said, “Sooo cutest ❤️ you both ❤️.” A fan also stated, “How lucky katori sitting next kartik ❤️.”
Kartik Aaryan undeniably has a massive fan army that spans across the globe. And we don’t need to take anyone’s word for it because we have the proof right here! Kartik Aaryan, who is currently in London, took the time to meet and greet his fans, and the excitement was palpable. In a video, one of Kartik’s ardent fans couldn’t contain his thrill as he received the actor’s autograph on his sweatshirt. But that’s not all, there were many others who had the incredible opportunity to click pictures with the talented actor. It’s evident that Kartik Aaryan’s charm has established him as a beloved figure among fans from every corner of the world.
The actor jetted off to London last week to begin shooting his next film Chandu Champion. This film marks a significant departure for the actor, as he ventures into a new genre. What’s intriguing about this project is that it is said to be inspired by true events. The movie is being directed by the renowned filmmaker Kabir Khan, and although it was announced last year, the official title was only recently unveiled. During one of the events held, the director hinted that the film will be based on a relatively unknown sportsperson. “What compelled me to tell this story is that as Indians you’ll be shocked, that how do we not know this person,” he said.
Kartik Aaryan was last seen in Satyaprem Ki Katha with Kiara Advani. Apart from Chandu Champion, Kartik also has Freddy with Alaya F.
Yatamanyu is a multi-disciplinary Journalist & Photographer who dabbles in Films, Poetry, Music, Politics, Pop-Culture and everything in between. …Read More
One of the more mind-blowingly idiotic trends in an era full of them is the recent spate of audience members throwing things at performers during concerts. In the past few weeks alone, Bebe Rexha was almost knocked out cold by a fan throwing a cellphone at her head in New York, Harry Styles was hit with an unidentified object in Vienna, and Latto responded to a similar projectile in Germany by saying “Want your ass beat?”
Saturday in Las Vegas, Cardi B proved yet again that she is not someone to trifle with: During a performance at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas, an audience member threw a drink at the rapper while she performed her breakthrough hit, “Bodak Yellow.” A second later Cardi — who is apparently a lefty — instantly retaliated by hurling her microphone back at the offending “fan.” The video shows the person being escorted out by security; after hurling some doubtless colorful words at the offender, Cardi apparently left the stage after the incident.
This is not a new trend: back in the ‘70s audience members often set off firecrackers and M-80s at concerts — one seriously injured Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s right hand — and back in 2004, the stick of a lollipop some fan threw at David Bowie lodged in his eye, prompting a colorful and outraged reaction from the ordinarily cool performer.
But the trend these days seems to be more about people wanting to call attention to themselves, although to what end is unclear: Nicolas Malvagna, the 27-year-old grown man who threw his phone at Bebe Rexha, apparently thought “it would be funny,” according to a criminal complaint that followed his arrest on misdemeanor charges of harassment and assault — which is nowhere near sufficient punishment for someone who does something that dangerously stupid.
In Marvel Studios’ latest Disney+ episode, the studio seemingly included a hidden X-Men Easter egg for eagle-eyed MCU fans.
The X-Men are slowly but surely making their way toward the MCU spotlight thanks to a couple of cameos and namedrops, all before the X-Men ’97 series brings the team back in animated form on Disney+.
Episode 4 of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion featured a nod to Marvel’s X-Men courtesy of an image in Priscilla Fury/Varra’s house.
Marvel Studios
While simming her human form on Earth, Varra wrote a book entitled “Decoding the ‘Superhuman’ Gene,” a picture of which can be seen on her wall.
Marvel Studios
On the back of that book is a cosmic-looking image that actually forms the letter “X” – a conspicuous letter considering it’s seen on a book about human genetics.
For reference, the classic X-Men logo can be seen below, with the image on Varra’s book even using a similar blue hue as the one that represents Marvel’s mutants.
But with this being yet another possible hint that mutants are a part of the MCU’s growing landscape as well, it could only be a matter of time until the group takes a more prominent role in the story.
Barbie leaves the security of Barbieland and embarks on a treacherous voyage in this compelling film based on Mattel’s well-known invention. In the Greta Gerwig-directed film, Barbie is presented as a dynamic lead character eager to explore life outside the pink-painted utopia. Margot Robbie portrays Barbie as she explores the complexities of the real world with her faithful friend Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, learning unexpected truths and suffering catastrophes.
The seamless merging of Barbie’s dream world with the harsh realities of the actual world demonstrates Gerwig’s directing skill as the plot develops. Barbieland sequences and the harsh, occasionally dark, features of the real world are skillfully juxtaposed by Gerwig, producing an alluring visual contrast that keeps viewers interested throughout the whole movie.
The Surprising Twist: Ken’s Villainous Turn
Warner Bros.
Gerwig throws a curveball that steers the movie in an unanticipated direction just when viewers believe they have a handle on the plot’s progression. In Barbie, Ken—who had previously been portrayed as a devoted friend—becomes an unexpected foe. This sudden shift in the narrative surprises viewers and results in a dramatic story surprise and an engaging critique of contemporary practices.
Gerwig’s ability to give the plot depth is demonstrated by Ken’s journey from a beloved hero to a cunning genius. Barbie and her supporting cast’s clichés are put to the test by this unanticipated character growth, which gives the story depth and complexity.
As Barbie battles with her own identity issues and Ken deals with his own existential crisis, Ken must admit that he has lived his entire life in Barbie’s shadow and depended on her approval. The movie tackles the concepts of power and self-worth via Ken’s character, who at first finds it difficult to deal with his developing self-awareness.
Ryan Gosling’s outstanding performance vividly depicts Ken’s battle with his existential dilemma. Gosling skillfully captures the core of Ken’s inner struggles, allowing the audience to identify with Ken as he sets out on a journey for self-awareness.
The character of Ken significantly changes from being an antagonist to a more understanding person during the course of the film. Ken cleanses the poison of his previous conduct and embraces vulnerability by thinking back on his deeds and realizing his own worth. Because of the intricacy and depth Ryan Gosling offers Ken’s transition, his need for restitution is both emotional and realistic.
Ken’s Journey of Self-Discovery
Warner Bros.
In Barbie, Greta Gerwig masterfully crafts a surprising twist by turning Ken, typically portrayed as Barbie’s loyal companion, into the unexpected villain of the story. Ken’s role in the movie takes an unexpected turn when he becomes infatuated with the patriarchal structures of the real world, and upon returning to Barbieland, he seeks to implement these toxic beliefs, leading to a male-centric takeover named Kendom.
The viewer can relate to Ken’s inner conflict thanks to Ryan Gosling’s outstanding performance, which vividly depicts his quest for self-awareness. With Ken’s character serving as a prism to explore the demands society places on males, Gerwig’s satirical approach dives into the complexity of cultural conventions.
Ken’s character has substantial change during the course of the film, changing from the antagonist to a more enlightened person. Ken removes the poison of his previous conduct and embraces vulnerability as a result of self-reflection and newly discovered self-worth. One of the movie’s high points is this redemption arc, which shows Ken’s development and character complexity.
The sequel now offers a wide range of intriguing possibilities thanks to Ken’s remarkable change. Our cherished characters now have to deal with Kendom’s consequences after the Barbies successfully free Barbieland from his control. The following chapter has the ability to dig further into Ken’s quest for atonement as he works to atone for his earlier erroneous attempts to dominate and control.
Furthermore, Ken may become a more confident and advanced version of himself as a result of his profound insight that his deservingness of love and respect doesn’t depend on outside approval. In the sequel, Ken will have the ability to discover who he is apart from being Barbie’s friend, giving him a chance to carve his own path and control his fate.
A great examination of cultural values is provided by Gerwig’s excellent direction of Barbie. With the characters in this movie being given the freedom to go on profoundly transformational journeys, the complexity of gender stereotypes is completely embraced. We are given a powerful message of self-discovery, community, and the joyful embracing of difference as we follow Barbie’s adventure in the real world. As she progresses from the limits of Stereotypical Barbie to a beacon of courage and honesty, Barbie exhorts us all to embrace our uniqueness and follow our own paths of growth and enlightenment.
If reality television has taught us anything, it’s there’s not much people won’t do if offered enough money and attention. Sometimes, even just the latter. Unfortunately for the future prospects of our civilization, modern social media has focused upon those same character foibles and optimized them at a global scale, sacrifices at the altar of audience growth and engagement. In Outrage Machine, writer and technologist Tobias Rose-Stockwell, walks readers through the inner workings of these modern technologies, illustrating how they’re designed to capture and keep our attention, regardless of what they have to do in order to do it. In the excerpt below, Rose-Stockwell examines the human cost of feeding the content machine through a discussion on YouTube personality Nikocado Avocado’s rise to internet stardom.
Social media can seem like a game. When we open our apps and craft a post, the way we look to score points in the form of likes and followers distinctly resembles a strange new playful competition. But while it feels like a game, it is unlike any other game we might play in our spare time.
The academic C. Thi Nguyen has explained how games are different: “Actions in games are screened off, in important ways, from ordinary life. When we are playing basketball, and you block my pass, I do not take this to be a sign of your long-term hostility towards me. When we are playing at having an insult contest, we don’t take each other’s speech to be indicative of our actual attitudes or beliefs about the world.” Games happen in what the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga famously called “the magic circle”— where the players take on alternate roles, and our actions take on alternate meanings.
With social media we never exit the game. Our phones are always with us. We don’t extricate ourselves from the mechanics. And since the goal of the game designers of social media is to keep us there as long as possible, it’s an active competition with real life. With a constant type of habituated attention being pulled into the metrics, we never leave these digital spaces. In doing so, social media has colonized our world with its game mechanics.
Metrics are Money
While we are paid in the small rushes of dopamine that come from accumulating abstract numbers, metrics also translate into hard cash. Acquiring these metrics don’t just provide us with hits of emotional validation. They are transferable into economic value that is quantifiable and very real.
It’s no secret that the ability to consistently capture attention is an asset that brands will pay for. A follower is a tangible, monetizable asset worth money. If you’re trying to purchase followers, Twitter will charge you between $2 and $4 to acquire a new one using their promoted accounts feature.
If you have a significant enough following, brands will pay you to post sponsored items on their behalf. Depending on the size of your following in Instagram, for instance, these payouts can range from $75 per post (to an account with two thousand followers), up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per post (for accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers).
Between 2017 and 2021, the average cost for reaching a thousand Twitter users (the metric advertisers use is CPM, or cost per mille) was between $5 and $7. It costs that much to get a thousand eyeballs on your post. Any strategies that increase how much your content is shared also have a financial value.
Let’s now bring this economic incentive back to Billy Brady’s accounting of the engagement value of moral outrage. He found that adding a single moral or emotional word to a post on Twitter increased the viral spread of that content by 17 percent per word. All of our posts to social media exist in a marketplace for attention — they vie for the top of our followers’ feeds. Our posts are always competing against other people’s posts. If outraged posts have an advantage in this competition, they are literally worth more money.
For a brand or an individual, if you want to increase the value of a post, then including moral outrage, or linking to a larger movement that signals its moral conviction, might increase the reach of that content by at least that much. Moreover, it might actually improve the perception and brand affinity by appealing to the moral foundations of the brand’s consumers and employees, increasing sales and burnishing their reputation. This can be an inherently polarizing strategy, as a company that picks a cause to support, whose audience is morally diverse, might then alienate a sizable percentage of their customer base who disagree with that cause. But these economics can also make sense — if a company knows enough about its consumers’ and employees’ moral affiliations — it can make sure to pick a cause-sector that’s in line with its customers.
Since moral content is a reliable tool for capturing attention, it can also be used for psychographic profiling for future marketing opportunities. Many major brands do this with tremendous success — creating viral campaigns that utilize moral righteousness and outrage to gain traction and attention among core consumers who have a similar moral disposition. These campaigns also often get a secondary boost due to the proliferation of pile- ons and think pieces discussing these ad spots. Brands that moralize their products often succeed in the attention marketplace.
This basic economic incentive can help to explain how and why so many brands have begun to link themselves with online cause-related issues. While it may make strong moral sense to those decision-makers, it can make clear economic sense to the company as a whole as well. Social media provides measurable financial incentives for companies to include moral language in their quest to burnish their brands and perceptions.
But as nefarious as this sounds, moralization of content is not always the result of callous manipulation and greed. Social metrics do something else that influences our behavior in pernicious ways.
Audience Capture
In the latter days of 2016, I wrote an article about how social media was diminishing our capacity for empathy. In the wake of that year’s presidential election, the article went hugely viral, and was shared with several million people. At the time I was working on other projects full time. When the article took off, I shifted my focus away from the consulting work I had been doing for years, and began focusing instead on writing full time. One of the by-products of that tremendous signal from this new audience is the book you’re reading right now.
A sizable new audience of strangers had given me a clear message: This was important. Do more of it. When many people we care about tell us what we should be doing, we listen.
This is the result of “audience capture”: how we influence, and are influenced by those who observe us. We don’t just capture an audience — we are also captured by their feedback. This is often a wonderful thing, provoking us to produce more useful and interesting works. As creators, the signal from our audience is a huge part of why we do what we do.
But it also has a dark side. The writer Gurwinder Boghal has explained the phenomena of audience capture for influencers illustrating the story of a young YouTuber named Nicholas Perry. In 2016, Perry began a You- Tube channel as a skinny vegan violinist. After a year of getting little traction online, he abandoned veganism, citing health concerns, and shifted to uploading mukbang (eating show) videos of him trying different foods for his followers. These followers began demanding more and more extreme feats of food consumption. Before long, in an attempt to appease his increasingly demanding audience, he was posting videos of himself eating whole fast-food menus in a single sitting.
He found a large audience with this new format. In terms of metrics, this new format was overwhelmingly successful. After several years of following his audience’s continued requests, he amassed millions of followers, and over a billion total views. But in the process, his online identity and physical character changed dramatically as well. Nicholas Perry became the personality Nikocado — an obese parody of himself, ballooning to more than four hundred pounds, voraciously consuming anything his audience asked him to eat. Following his audience’s desires caused him to pursue increasingly extreme feats at the expense of his mental and physical health.
Legacy Lit
Nicholas Perry, left, and Nikocado, right, after several years of building a following on YouTube. Source: Nikocado Avocado YouTube Channel.
Boghal summarizes this cross-directional influence.
When influencers are analyzing audience feedback, they often find that their more outlandish behavior receives the most attention and approval, which leads them to recalibrate their personalities according to far more extreme social cues than those they’d receive in real life. In doing this they exaggerate the more idiosyncratic facets of their personalities, becoming crude caricatures of themselves.
This need not only apply to influencers. We are signal-processing machines. We respond to the types of positive signals we receive from those who observe us. Our audiences online reflect back to us what their opinion of our behavior is, and we adapt to fit it. The metrics (likes, followers, shares, and comments) available to us now on social media allow for us to measure that feedback far more precisely than we previously could, leading to us internalizing what is “good” behavior.
As we find ourselves more and more inside of these online spaces, this influence becomes more pronounced. As Boghal notes, “We are all gaining online audiences.” Anytime we post to our followers, we are entering into a process of exchange with our viewers — one that is beholden to the same extreme engagement problems found everywhere else on social media.
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Rantzen was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer earlier this year, and her disease is not the type linked to smoking. She told The Times she couldn’t be sure what caused her illness but said: “It is vital that asbestos is removed from buildings everywhere as soon as possible.
“I worked in the BBC’s Lime Grove studios for at least 35 happy years from 1965. Some time in the late-Eighties or early-Nineties, workmen wearing white spacesuits arrived to take down walls and ceilings along the corridors where I wrote our scripts to remove the asbestos, which did not surprise any of us since my team called our regular route to the canteen ‘asbestos alley.’”
Separately, The Times reports, the BBC has paid out £1.64 million in damages, following the deaths of 11 former staff who died from cancer, with 18 different locations being mentioned in reports. These include two musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra who both died in 2021, while the newspaper lists other musicians, set builders, engineers, make-up artists, producers and studio managers who have also suffered.
Jo Laverty, national organiser of the Musicians’ Union, told the paper the organisation had been “seeking robust answers” about asbestos at Maida Vale since 2017.
Asbestos kills more than 5,000 people a year in the UK, causing mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer.
A BBC spokesman said in response it could not comment on individual cases but added: “We would like to extend our continued sympathies to the families of all those affected. The health and safety of BBC staff and all that use BBC buildings is a primary concern. The BBC manages asbestos in accordance with applicable regulations and statutory requirements.”
Rewind the ‘90s(National Geographic): The 10 episode docu-series that revisits life in the ’90s premieres tonight with two episodes, followed by a new episode each week. In the first episode, titled “The Reality Revolution,” cameras are suddenly everywhere as America’s Funniest Home Videos fuels our obsession with ourselves, cops have camcorders to keep them in check, news choppers chase O.J. Simpson while courtroom cams film his trial, and a hand-held horror flick makes us question reality. In episode two, titled “Comedy Rebellion,” there’s a deep dive on the young Black comedians of Phat Tuesdays to the drag queens of To Wong Foo. 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT
Wednesday, August 2
Big Brother(CBS): The 25th season debuts tonight with a 90-minute episode. Per CBS, “expect the unexpected this summer with a season full of twists and turns and throwbacks to the last 24 seasons.” 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT; following the premiere, the series will air Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT, and Thursdays 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT, featuring the live evictions
Physical(Apple TV+): The third and final season premieres today with the first two episodes, followed by one new episode a week. Joining Rose Byrne this season is Zooey Deschanel, who plays Kelly, a network sitcom star who decides to enter the burgeoning Fitness Industry. Streaming
Thursday, August 3
And Just Like That…(Max): If you thought last week’s episode was big, get ready for episode eight in which Carrie questions her past choices as she prepares to meet Aidan’s sons. Meanwhile, Charlotte gets ready to go back to work full-time. Episode eight is titled “A Hundred Years Ago,” and is written by Michael Patrick King, Julie Rottenberg, and Elisa Zuritsky, and directed by Ry Russo-Young. Streaming
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‘The Avengers’
‘Kill Bill: Vol 2’
‘Tenet’
