Blake Lively almost started her own cheating scandal on Instagram. Don’t worry, she cleared everything up before DeuxMoi could get ahold of it!
On July 27, the 35-year-old actor shared another round of swimspo, posing in a little red bikini top with high-waisted matching bottoms and heart-shaped sunglasses she probably snagged at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The photo by Guy Aroch were so scorching that one fan questioned how the Gossip Girl star could possibly be the mother of four children. “How have you had 4 kids???” the fan commented on Instagram along with three fire emojis. You can see the pic here.
According to Instyle, Lively initially responded to the comment by simply tagging her personal trainer, Don Saladino, before quickly realizing how the reply could be misinterpreted. “Wait, no. That’s not how. He’s not the father,” she corrected in a second comment. “He’s just the one who helps me fit into (some of) my clothes again after. He’s an even better person and friend than trainer. And that’s saying a lot.”
Rest assured, Lively shares all of her children with her husband of nearly 11 years, Ryan Reynolds. The couple are proud parents of three daughters—James, Betty, and Inez—as well as a fourth child they welcomed earlier this year.
Instagram
The pair have not revealed much about their newest addition since soft-launching the exciting news in February. “I haven’t met any of them yet, but they seem great,” Reynolds joked about his children during an interview with ET Canada back in April. “They have a private Instagram account that I follow.”
In all seriousness, he continued, “You know, two to three was a huge jump…three to four less so. I cannot speak for my wife, but it’s just from what I’ve observed. But we love it. You know, we would be idiots to do this again if we didn’t love it.”
The musical romantic comedy series “Up Here” has been canceled after just one season at Hulu, Variety has learned.
The series’ one and only season debuted on Hulu back on March 24. It was originally ordered to series at the streamer in January 2022.
The series boasted an all-star lineup behind the camera. Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the songwriters of “Frozen” and “Frozen 2” wrote original songs for the series and executive produced, while Steven Levenson, who wrote the book for “Dear Evan Hansen,” and veteran TV writer Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (“New Girl,” “My Name Is Earl”) served as writers and executive producers.
Thomas Kail, who previously directed Broadway shows like “Hamilton” and “In the Heights,” directed and executive produced under his Old 320 Sycamore Productions banner. Jennifer Todd of Old 320 Sycamore also executive produced. 20th Television was the studio. Old 320 Sycamore is currently under an overall deal at the studio.
Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes led the cast, with Katie Finneran, Sophia Hammons, Emilia Suárez, Andréa Burns, John Hodgman, and Scott Porter also starring.
The official logline stated the show was “set in New York City in the waning days of 1999. It follows the extraordinary story of one ordinary couple, as they fall in love – and discover that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness together might just be themselves – and the treacherous world of memories, obsessions, fears, and fantasies that lives inside their heads.”
The series received mixed reviews from critics upon its debut, garnering a 56% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, in Daniel D’Addario’s review for Variety, he wrote “Assaying a time just before the social web allowed loners to find one another, ‘Up Here’ presents a winning and lovely pair of oddballs singing their hearts out, in disbelief at having found one another.”
FOUR people have been electrocuted to death after their religious float hit overhead cables during a procession.
Another 10 people were also injured during the Muharram procession in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district, India.
2
Four people were electrocuted to death during a religious processionCredit: YouTube
The group’s religious float, made of iron, came in contact with a live wire, police confirmed.
Footage showed members of the procession carrying the float down the street, when an electric shock sound was heard and a few men started falling to the ground.
“The incident occurred around 6am on Saturday while they were preparing for a Muharram procession,” Bokaro Superintendent of Police Priyadarshi Alok said.
“They were carrying a religious flag and its pole was made of iron. It somehow came in contact with a high-tension electric wire of 11,000 volts.”
All injured people have been taken to a nearby hospital.
Eight of them were referred to the Bokaro General Hospital, where four succumbed to their injuries and three were stated to be in critical condition, the officer added.
The Mourning of Muharram, also known as the Muharram procession or observances, is a set of commemoration rituals observed primarily by Shia Muslims.
The commemoration falls in Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar.
Emergency services raced to the scene in Indore after the floor caved in while more than 40 people were performing a fire ritual to celebrate a Hindu festival.
At least 35 people, mostly women and children, have died.
The army was called in at 11pm as the desperate rescue operation continued into the night.
Underwater cameras from divers revealed grisly images of bodies floating in the muddy waters, Times of India reports.
2
Another 10 people were also injured and taken to a nearby hospitalCredit: YouTube
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.
Summer is in full swing, and while temperatures may be sweltering outside, you don’t have to suffer through the heatwave indoors. One of the best ways to stay cool is by picking up a portable air conditioner, like this one from Amazon.
While stand-alone air conditioners can be heavy and bulky, this shoebox-sized unit weighs less than two pounds and be easily moved from room to room (or table to table). Better known as an “evaporative cooler,” this device is like a hybrid between a humidifier and a fan, turning water into a cool blast of air.
Mistletoe, the brand behind this personal air cooler, touts its four-in-one functions: use it as a fan, a humidifier, an aromatherapy machine and a night light. The water tank holds up to 550ml of water, and the fan has three different speeds. You can also adjust the angle of the blades, similar to how you would adjust the AC vents in your car.
Want to add a little aromatherapy? Simply put a few drops of your favorite essential oil into the top of the box, which can also open up to fit aromatherapy strips inside. The night light, meantime, can cycle through seven different colors and you can adjust the intensity too (or turn it off completely if you prefer to sleep in the dark).
This is one of the best portable air conditioners on Amazon, with users giving it a 4.6-star rating (out of five) from more than 3000 verified reviews. Get the Mistletoe Portable Evaporative Air Conditioner on sale for $48 on Amazon.com.
If you’re looking for a true portable air conditioner on Amazon, we like this one, which is about the size of a large air purifier and can cool rooms up to 250 square feet. Regularly $359+, it’s currently on sale on Amazon for just $299.99. Apply the on-site coupon to save an additional $20 at checkout.
This portable air conditioner has three functions: cooling A/C, dehumidifier and fan. Adjust settings using the LED touchscreen or the included remote control. Ergonomic handles and four rolling wheels make it easy to move this portable AC unit from room to room. This set also comes with a window kit in case you want to mount it in place.
It can be challenging to describe HBO’s How To with John Wilsonto the uninitiated. The show, which debuts its third and final season Friday night, presents itself on its surface as a guide to modern life with 30-minute episodes titles like “How to Find a Public Restroom” and “How to Clean Your Ears.” But as told through the eyes of its 36-year-old videographer narrator John Wilson — a self-described “anxious New Yorker” who was discovered by Nathan Fielder, who mines similar surreal territory in The Rehearsal — it begins to take on quirkier and more profound inflections. Imagine Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with cameras trained on mankind; now imagine it drifting off occasionally into a melancholy road diary of lost America. That’s How To with John Wilson. The series has found a passionate following as well as critical acclaim (season two earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding writing for a nonfiction program). The Hollywood Reporter recently caught up with Wilson to talk about his creative process, his ongoing feud with the sex-cult NXIVM and the origins of his signature stammer. (Some episode one spoilers below.)
Nice to meet you, John. I love your show, mostly because I’ve never seen anything like it before — and I doubt I’ll see something like it again.
Cool. I mean, that’s why I wanted to make it, I guess.
You’ve said you have the biggest archive of New York City footage right before the pandemic. What has changed about the city since COVID-19?
It was kind of grim for a moment at the height of the pandemic. Thankfully, I was mostly just in the edit in-between seasons during the most dead period. So when season two production started formally, the city was finally starting to open up. The landscape has definitely changed, but people have just wanted to talk even more. They’ve been starved for conversation. I think visually, New York became really more exciting after the pandemic. The city just opens up kind of weird new avenues to you.
What did you want to accomplish in season three (the final season)? Or, does it always just sort of meander?
I had the episode titles that I had thought up in between seasons two and three. So I kind of had a general idea of what I wanted to cover, but I had no idea where I would end up, really. That’s kind of what’s scary at the beginning of each season — is that I know I’m about to do a bunch of really crazy stuff and there’s about to be a bunch of really crazy coincidences that I witnessed, but I don’t know what that is yet. There’s a a lot of anxiety at the top of the rollercoaster, before we descend.
Making this season, there was a bunch of stuff that I was afraid to explore or admit in the first couple of seasons that I was really excited to just kind of lean fully into. It made me really excited to fully indulge and reveal things that may have been a bit premature to reveal earlier.
Almost every episode, there’s a moment where you’re like, “Do I ask them if I can join them on whatever the hell they’re doing?” And you always do. Is that part of your natural personality, to want to do that? What are you thinking in those moments?
I think it’s part of my natural personality, but I don’t think I would have the confidence to follow it as far as I do without the camera with me. So it’s hard to say if you were to take one leg off the tripod, whether or not it would still stand. The show is not about restrooms or wine or whatever. That’s only how we begin. The mantra I try to operate with is just taking the first exit you can and taking that as far as you possibly can until you run out of road.
Having those opportunities is when I get really excited. Otherwise I get really frustrated that, like, I really am just making an episode about bathrooms. Like, what’s going on here? So I always feel like it’s a gift whenever I find some other thing to distract me or an opportunity to reinterpret or reveal some deeper truth about the subject matter. That’s the thing that excites me most.
So in this first episode, for example, you join a woman on her drive to Burning Man right across the country. I admire that you let your frustrations out in the episode. It turned into a legal battle over this Burning Man footage.
I had a lot more to say.
You can say it here.
I wanted to include the [venting about] Burning Man because it’s very much in the spirit of the show. I try to turn these bad things that happen to me into something good. The worst feeling in the world is when something is a net loss. When something bad happens, I need to to just sit with it, you know? Like, sure we were denied access to the Burning Man footage, but it ended up thematically working well with this idea of gatekeeping, private space and artistic expression and stuff like that.
I think it ended up making the episode stronger in a weird way than if I had just like used the material at Burning Man, which I feel like people have seen what Burning Man looks like, so I’m almost denying the audience that. With any bad thing that happens to me in my life, if I do something productive with that bad feeling or that bad event, then I feel better. It’s like, “This good thing would’ve never happened if that bad thing never happened.” I always am searching for that, whatever that good thing.
It was interesting that there was a NXIVM connection once again. They’re constantly your nemesis.
Right — [the lawsuit over the Burning Man footage] was from the production company that made The Vow, [featuring former NXIVM members].
I don’t want to rub salt in the wound. I just thought it was interesting.
Because NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, just to explain to people who might not know, was your a capella nemesis in college.
Yeah. He was this kind of self-appointed a capella guru. We have a long history. He’s still puppeteering from a maximum security prison.
You know, this is the longest I’ve ever looked at your face straight on. Because you keep your face rather hidden in the show.
That’s by design. It’s a shame that so much content these days has the camera focused on the host’s face. It’s just such a waste of an image, you know? I feel like the most interesting imagery out there does not have me in it. I wanted to remove the vanity from it. I mean, even though it’s a very ego-driven show. But I just didn’t wanna film myself. It allows the viewer to project as much of themselves onto the image as they possibly can.
And it also helps because you’re still not recognized, I would imagine, on the street.
I have been recognized a lot more — and I don’t know how or why, but mostly with people that are around my age.
But then to most people you’re just some guy with a video camera, which leads to funny interactions with overzealous security. Like at the Hudson Yards.
Oh yeah, it was fascist. Hudson Yards is a very hostile space for, uh, documentarians. It’s also where HBO is based.
Nathan Fielder was instrumental in bringing you to HBO, is that right?
Yeah. He opened all the doors for me. And I am eternally grateful to him for that.
What can you tell us about your friendship with him?
We have become really close over the past few years with the show. During season one, he was there every day, over my shoulder a lot of the time. Just kind of like really beating the ego out of me. I thought I had all the answers when I first started the show, but I definitely didn’t. And he really beat all that out of me. Not like physically — even though Nathan could probably beat me up as well.
What was he trying to beat out of you, exactly?
My first approach was a bit more formless. I didn’t really know how to shape it narratively. And he taught me how to craft all of this random stuff into a story that would end up with an emotionally satisfying climax. It was really, really helpful. I had never really like a story like that before. He was just so experienced with it from Nathan for You. Also having [former Saturday Night Live writer] Michael Koman as an EP and co-writer for all three seasons — he’s really great with story too.
But as for Nathan, like one example, in the very first episode I used a bunch of shots of mannequin faces to express some thought. And then in the second episode I was like, “Let’s use some mannequins again.” And he is just like, “No, we used that earlier.” That was the first time I was like, “Oh, OK, so don’t ever go backwards. Just keep the material fresh.” That was this philosophy that has extended until now: continue to surprise people, don’t regress, stuff like that.
The first thing that jumps out when you start watching the show, I’ll never forget, is your voiceover. The viewer has to grow accustomed to your cadences. I remember when it clicked for me. I was like, “Oh, he’s kind of like Bob Newhart.” Bob has this kind of stammer that is kind of inviting, instead of halting. Not that I’m saying you’re imitating Newhart, but for me, that’s what helped me get used to it.
OK, cool. I actually don’t know Bob Newhart. I haven’t really, like, consumed that much of him. I want to listen now to see what you’re talking about.
You should definitely check out his old comedy albums and his sitcoms. He does it a lot. It adds to the joke. But in talking to you here, I see that it is not as pronounced as when you do the voiceover on How To.
Right? Yeah. I think the way that I craft the show necessitates it in a way. Because there’s a very specific order that I edit things. The editors and I, we basically cut everything — like we put all the shots in the order that we want and then we kind of write a script over that. And then I record the voiceover. I have to have everything fit the length of the shot. The timing is very specific, like almost down to the frame. So if there is a bit of a stammer, it’s because I’m trying to make the right word land at the right time when something is revealed within a shot. So yeah, there is a bit of stammering. It’s also for comedic effect, you know, even if you don’t think it’s funny.
Well, I do think it’s funny. Thank you John. I hope this wasn’t too painful. I’m excited for the rest of the season and keep up the great work.
You’re, uh — you’re in for something.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
How To with John Wilson releases on HBO Max Fridays at 11 p.m. ET.
Michael Cohen is no stranger to making the media rounds denouncing former President Donald Trump and speaking candidly about his time working for the embattled politician as his longtime attorney and “fixer.” But he was left stumped Friday morning interviewing with CNN’s Erica Hill when asked what it is about the man that continues to pull people in — and at one time, pulled him in, too.
“I don’t really have a good enough answer to give to you that would satisfy anyone, myself, or even my family that still asks me the same question,” Cohen admitted.
The interview, airing on “CNN This Morning,” ran the gamut of hot-button Trump topics, including the twice-impeached, twice-indicted former president’s reasoning for keeping classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago estate. Cohen also offered Carlos de Oliveira, the newly named defendant in that case led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, some advice on how to navigate the coming months.
But anchor Hill wrapped her time with Cohen by asking how, per his own estimation, Trump “continues to bring people into his orbit and to gather that loyalty.”
“What is it?” she asked. “What do you think he’s promising people?”
“Yeah, look. It’s not as devious as you might think. The man is a cult leader, plain and simple, and he has managed, you know, to indoctrinate into this cult,” Cohen said. “Many millions of people, many millions of Americans who are parting with their hard-earned dollars to give it to a billionaire so he can fix an old 757 or to pay for his own legal fees or his own responsibilities. Why do we do it? Why I did it? I don’t have a — I don’t really have a good enough answer to give to you that would satisfy anyone, myself, or even my family that still asks me the same question.”
Cohen added that the former president’s ability to “indoctrinate” isn’t just a reflection of his character, but the character of those who are choosing to follow him.
“There’s something — there’s something about ourselves that we were following that I can’t explain. It’s something that you would probably need a cult expert, you know, to explain on what is it that they say and what is it that they do and what we’re missing ourselves that cause us to stay in this cult.”
Watch the full CNN segment, which features post-interview analysis from the “CNN This Morning” panel, in the video above.
Montreal’s Frontières, the industry arm of Canada’s Fantasia Film Festival, has announced its winners.
In the official selection, “Freya” proved unbeatable, taking home the Post-Production Award by PurpleDOG Post worth CAD$10,000 ($7,576). The same award – and CAD$5,000 ($3,788) – was also given to Forum’s “In the Heart of the South” and Genre Film Lab’s “Alligator.”
The Pitch Deck Award, offered by The Film Deck, went to “Animal Realm,” presented in the Shorts to Features section.
“We are extremely grateful to PurpleDOG Post and The Film Deck for supporting us with the awards this year. Our plan is to continue doing it and hopefully grow, by partnering up with the companies that can support filmmakers in their production process,” Annick Mahnert, Frontières executive director, told Variety.
“Each of these projects has a specific identity and they are all extremely original. I know they didn’t have an easy job selecting the awardees.”
Rhona Rees’ “Freya” – currently in development – is set in the future when abortion is completely illegal. Its protagonist, Jade, is tricked into getting pregnant. Caught buying black market abortion pills, she is thrown into a conversion therapy jail for pregnant women.
“FREYA”
Courtesy of Frontières
The story has won a pitching competition in 2022 for an AACTA development grant in association with Monster Pictures, with the latter providing a letter of intent for Australian and New Zealand distribution.
“We are in talks with Screen Australia,” said Rees, calling her project a “dark imagining of a truly pro-birth future.”
“It challenges our relationship with AI, personal data and government control through a narrative that society needs right now: a perfectly healthy and capable woman who loves kids, but doesn’t want a baby of her own,” she added.
Hayley Gray’s “Alligator,” eyeing a 2024 shoot, also takes on some timely issues while focusing on Grace, a cheerleader for the Alligators professional football team, who takes revenge into her own hands following an attempted assault.
“I read an article about the Washington Commander’s cheer team and how they were coerced into a nude photoshoot with spectators. I immediately related [to it]. Within the entertainment industry, whether it’s sports or film, women are told they have to say ‘yes,’” said Grey.
In the film, Grace goes on a killing spree, also remembering what was done to her mother in the past.
“What do you do when your dream is on the line and you have to choose? ‘Alligator’ is a wild reimagining inspired by the lives and experiences of cheerleaders in professional football.”
Canada’s High Deaf Productions is on board.
“Aligator”
Courtesy of Frontières
Also from Canada, Nyla Innuksuk’s psychological thriller “In the Heart of the South” takes a look at Yura Ivalu, living far from the isolated community in Nunavut where she was born. She has often felt stuck in-between two worlds, but she decides to draw inspiration from her Inuk identity while creating new artwork.
“This is a very personal film, having been inspired in part by my experiences as a mixed-race Indigenous woman and filmmaker,” stated Innuksuk, who co-wrote the script with Ryan Cavan during the summer of 2020, “in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the resulting conversations about race.”
“One of the anxieties I was struggling with was how to create work that could represent me as an individual and further the goals of the larger Indigenous screen community. For years my colleagues and I have been advocating for our right to tell our stories, and that summer it seemed like the rest of the world started to use our language.”
Sphere Media Productions and Mixtape VR Inc. produce.
Any recognizable reality will be left behind in stop-motion martial arts film “Animal Realm,” however, produced by Kytoon Studio and directed by CaoCong Maing. Where overreliance on technology has destroyed civilization and all that’s left is ruthless survival instinct.
“Innermost,” the first story set within the same universe, premiered at Fantasia.
“There are more and more projects anchored in our (sad) reality. But even though most of them discuss very serious topics, I sensed there was also a lot of humor,” summed up Mahnert.
“I am extremely happy that so many diverse voices submitted to the market this year.”
“Animal Realm”
Courtesy of Frontières
You can find the list of all the Frontières projects here.
Kangana Ranaut slams Ranveer Singh in latest post. (Photos: Instagram)
Kangana Ranaut asks Ranveer Singh to to take inspiration from South actors when it comes to his dressing sense.
Kangana Ranaut took to her Instagram stories on Saturday morning and bashed Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani actor Ranveer Singh for his dressing sense. Kangana called Ranveer a ‘cartoon-looking person’ and asked him to stop getting influenced by Karan Johar. Not just this, the Manikarnika actress also asked Ranveer to take inspiration from Dharmendra and claimed how South actors always dress up in a ‘dignified’ way.
“My sincere advice to @ranveersingh he should stop getting influenced by Karan Johar and his dressing sense … he should dress up like a normal human being, like Dharm ji or Vinod Khanna ji dressed in their days, Indian people can’t identify with a cartoon looking person calling himself a hero, please see all south heros how they dress up and carry themselves with great dignity and integrity….They look manly and dignified… people don’t ruin the culture in our country,” she wrote.
A screengrab of Kangana Ranaut’s Instagram story.
This comes moments after Kangana bashed Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and called it no less than a daily soap. “Indian audience watching 3 hours long film on the origin of nuclear weapon and intricacies of atomic science aur vahan nepo gang ka wahi saas bahu ka rona, lekin why he needs 250 cr to make a daily soap ….???” she wrote.
The actress further urged Karan Johar to retire and added, “Shame on you Karan Johar for making the same film nth time … calling yourself the flag bearer of Indian cinema and perpetually regressing it …. Don’t waste funds it’s not easy time for the Industry, retire now and let young filmmakers make new and revolutionary films.”
Kangana’s comments come a day after Karan Johar’s much-awaited directorial RRKPK hit theatres. The film stars Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the lead. Veteran actors like Dharmendra, Shabana Azmi and Jaya Bachchan are also a part of the movie. RRKPK also includes supporting actors like Tota Roy Chowdhury, Ronit Roy, Saswata Chatterjee, Karmveer Choudhary, Kshitee Jog. The film received majorly positive reviews from all and collected Rs 11.10 crore at the box office on its opening day.
Chirag Sehgal, Sub Editor at News18, covers Bollywood, television and K-pop group BTS. Apart from digging deep into the world of television and Bollyw…Read More
Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard were kicked out of an airport — and no, it wasn’t for letting their kids chug some non-alcoholic brewskis.
The celebrity couple shared that they dropped $600 buying pillows and blankets so their family could crash in Boston Logan International Airport after flight delays, but they were booted from the airport, despite it being open 24 hours a day.
Bell said in a since-expired Instagram Story on Wednesday that her husband and their two children, Lincoln, 10, and Delta, 8, were “stranded at the Boston airport” after hours of delays. And Shepard posted that after seven hours of delays, the flight was “kicked to the next day all together” and that there were “ZERO” hotel vacancies in the greater Boston area.
In a video that showed the famous family improvising by assembling a makeshift “bedroom” on the airport floor, the “Idiocracy” star joked with his wife that he’d gone out and spent $350 on bed sheets and neck pillows, “But then you went and you spend a little bit more!”
She admitted spending “$253 for bed sheets.”
“So we’re at $600, we could have been at a really nice hotel, but they’re all taken,” Shepard added, before his wife quipped that it cost them $600 to stay at the Boston airport.
But that wasn’t the punchline. The “Armchair Expert” podcast host admitted he’d splurged for only one toothbrush for the whole family to share, saving the family a whopping $7.50 (times three) after dropping all that dough on pillows and sheets.
In the “Frozen” star’s since-expired Instagram Story, she said they were biding their time with card games like Uno and Spades before they crafted their sleeping quarters. Then airport officials came to break up the slumber party.
Bell shared an update that after they’d taken their sleeping meds, they were “kicked out” of the airport.
“Thankfully we found friends of friends who offered us their attics and accepted us at 1am!!!!!!,” Bell said via her Instagram Story. “And then took us on a hike the next morning with a lot of dogs and it was heaven!”
Now, Bell recently admitted on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that she lets her kids enjoy non-alcoholic beer, something they’ve shared with their dad (who’s a recovering addict) since they were little.
While it’s unclear whether kids sipping 0%-alcohol brewskis at an airport slumber party had anything to do with the family getting the boot — it’s more likely that, delay or no delay, Boston Logan has a policy that states “travelers are not allowed to wait or sleep airside after security checkpoints have closed for the night.”
According to a new update from Sony Pictures that is sure to disappoint fans, Spider-Verse 3 (officially titled Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse) won’t be keeping its previously announced release date.
Spider-Verse 3 was initially set to break records for Sony Pictures with its March 29, 2024 release date, with its 301-day gap after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse‘s release being the shortest between any two Marvel movies ever.
And after Spider-Verse 2 became Sony’s highest-grossing animated picture ever, breaking records at every turn, the anticipation for its sequel continues to grow amidst the tenuous movie landscape.
Spider-Verse 3 Gets Disappointing Delay
Marvel
Sony Pictures announced its updated theatrical release slate that’s been impacted by the Hollywood strikes. One of the most notable changes is that Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse was removed from the calendar, meaning that it will be delayed from its March 29, 2024 slot.
As of now, the sequel doesn’t have an official release date. Once the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes come to a conclusion and production on Spider-Verse 3 resumes, fans can expect the sequel to land a new date, which won’t be any earlier than Fall 2024.
And with the Spider-Verse team intent on doing everything in their power to make the best movie possible, no matter how long it takes, the strikes may be only one factor playing into how long fans will have to wait for the next outing.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verseis still playing in theaters now. For the time being, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse doesn’t have a release date.
Warner Bros. Discovery has teamed up with DC to send soaring a collection of Blue Beetle merch in honor of the DC Super Hero’s first feature film. The collection includes toys, collectibles, apparel, books, and much more, with the studio inviting everyone into the world of comic book fan-favorite, Blue Beetle, with a new merchandise collection inspired by the upcoming action adventure from Warner Bros. Pictures. You can check out some images and details of this Blue Beetle merchandise below.
The studio hopes that fans will be able to make their own symbiotic connection with a wide range of Blue Beetle products from global partners like Funko, Spin Master, McFarlane Toys, and more. Blue Beetle fans will be able to recreate heroic adventures with Spin Master’s epic 12-Inch Blue Beetle Action Figures, while famous collectible manufacturer McFarlane Toys has created a stunning line of action figures and statues based on the superhero, available via DC Direct.
Blue Beetle and his supporting cast will also be brought to life by fan-favorite Funko, using their iconic style to create Pop! Figures showcasing Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, Carapax, and more. DC fans will also be able to bestow a Timeless Teddy from Build-A-Bear with the new Blue Beetle costume, which includes a plush antenna on the back and a mask complete with openings for the bear’s ears.
Warner Bros./Funko
Warner Bros./Build-A-Bear
If that were not already enough to have you drowning in Blue Beetle merch, Rubies, the world’s largest designer, manufacturer, and distributor of Halloween merchandise, is proud to offer exclusive Blue Beetle Halloween costumes and accessories. Fans can express their DC fandom with the Bioworld Blue Beetle collection, which includes neon-colored socks, tees, and a Blue Beetle backpack with a neon reflective glow, with Partners Trevco and Bentex offering graphic t-shirts and children’s sweatshirts and sweatpants; and from Komar, children’s pajamas featuring the DC hero, with more fashion, footwear and accessories available courtesy of Mad Engine Global, LLC.
For the fans looking for larger-than-life accessories that look like they’re pulled right from the movie, the Scarab Magnetic Pin by Salesone pays tribute to the Blue Beetle’s signature emblem is available exclusively at GameStop. Blue Beetle will also feature on all manner of home goods, such as bedding, mugs, and more, with the superhero also planning to take over what we drink with Blue Beetle: Horchata Flavored Coffee from family-owned company Comics on Coffee and G FUEL Energy, who will be releasing a zero-sugar energy drink flavor inspired by Blue Beetle.
Warner Bros./Salesone
And this doesn’t even include the Blue Beetle Plush, Blue Beetle Popcorn Container/Backpack and a Blue Beetle Beverage Buddy being offered in North American theaters, or the variety of other merch on the DC Shop.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures
You can transform your home into Blue Beetle’s “Bug Lair” (because why wouldn’t you?) with these items and more, which are available at US and international retailers including Target, Amazon, Walmart, Party City, GameStop, Hot Topic, Kohls, Macy’s, and the DC Shop.
As for the movie itself, Blue Beetle follows Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña), who suddenly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology called the Scarab. When the Scarab chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he’s bestowed with an incredible suit of armor that’s capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero Blue Beetle.
Blue Beetle is scheduled to be released on August 18, 2023, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
‘Twitters swift rebrand to X is generating yet another issue. As reported by Bleeping Computer, the social media platform is causing Microsoft’s Edge browser to throw up a warning, indicating some sort of security problem.
It seems to be related to how Edge and other Chromium-based web browsers deal with favicons (or ‘Progressive Web App Icon Change’, if you want to get super technical about it). With the Twitter rebrand being so sudden, Edge likely thinks X is a scam. The security alert prompts users to review the icon update and reads, “If this web app is trying to trick you into thinking it’s a different app, uninstall it.”
But as Bleeping Computer points out, PWA is working as intended. It is supposed to alert you when a website suddenly changes its favicon as that could indicate a potential redirect to a scam website. Presumably, this is temporary and will be fixed quickly. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story once we’ve heard back.
Florian / X
This is similar to an incident earlier this week, where X was blocked in Indonesia as it has laws forbidding gambling or porn. The X.com domain’s previous owners broke the country’s content laws.
Still, this is yet another indicator of how sudden the Twitter-to-X transition was. Other companies such as Meta and Microsoft already own trademarks on variations of X, which could land Musk’s company some lawsuits. X even ran into trouble when attempting to change its signage at its San Francisco headquarters, as it didn’t have the required permits. The company had to abandon its would-be facelift and leave the old bird logo and the letters “er” intact for a day or so.
The sudden name change is part of a larger plan to turn Twitter into a “super app” that’s similar to China’s popular WeChat. The platform could theoretically be used for payments, messaging and calls in the future.
Rapper G Herbo pleaded guilty Friday to using stolen credit card information from the dark web to pay for private jets, exotic car rentals, a luxury vacation rental, and expensive designer puppies.
The lifestyle was a far cry from his growing up years on the East Side of Chicago in a neighborhood dubbed Terror Town, so named for its gang and gun violence.
He released his debut mix tapes “Welcome to Fazoland” and “Pistol P Project” in 2014, both named for friends who had been killed in the city. His first album was 2017’s “Humble Beast,” and his latest is “Survivor’s Remorse,” released last year.
His 2020 album “PTSD” debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200.
The 27-year-old Chicago rapper (real name Herbert Wright III) entered a guilty plea today in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false statements. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed several counts of aggravated identity theft.
As part of his plea, G Herbo also agreed to forfeit nearly $140,000, the amount he used in what prosecutors claimed was a $1.5 million scheme that involved several other people.
“Mr. Wright used stolen account information as his very own unlimited funding source, using victims’ payment cards to finance an extravagant lifestyle and advance his career,” acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement.
Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 7, and he faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
From at least March 2017 until November 2018, G Herbo and his promoter, Antonio Strong, used text messages, social media messages and emails to share account information taken from dark websites, authorities said.
Prosecutors contend that the stolen account information paid for a chartered jet to fly the rapper and members of his entourage from Chicago to Austin, Texas. On another occasion, they used a stolen account on a six-bedroom Jamaican Villa, racking up a nearly $15,000 bill. ,
In court documents, prosecutors said G Herbo “used the proceeds of these frauds to travel to various concert venues and to advance his career by posting photographs and/or videos of himself on the private jets, in the exotic cars, and at the Jamaican villa.”
G Herbo was also charged in May 2021 with lying to investigators by denying that he had any ties to Strong. The two worked together since 2016.
Strong has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Many things may change, over the years, in the wild and constantly evolving world of TV production. But probably not this: Friday night is still a secluded patch of dirt with a broken streetlight hanging over it, where the networks (and now streamers) take their victims to finally die.
Only Murders in the Building gets a third season
Going down there tonight: Up Here, the Hulu rom-com musical that starred the ever-dependable Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes as a couple whose romantic prospects are continually sabotaged by their own hang-ups and “inner voices”—literalized in the form of co-stars Katie Finneran, John Hodgman, Andréa Burns, Sophia Hammons, Scott Porter, and Emilia Suárez. And they sang a lot! And it was also a period piece set in 1999, just to up the quirk load a little bit more.
Up Here | Official Trailer | Hulu
And, certainly, Up Here had what a looking-on-the-bright-side-type realtor might describe as “good bones”: The show was developed by Tony winner Steven Levenson and also-Tony (and Oscar) winners Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, with directing duties handled, in part, by Hamilton’s Thomas Kail. (Also, again: Mae Whitman remains a winning presence on TV at pretty much all times.) But our own review of the series dinged the show for both its storytelling and its songwriting. And Up Here’s ratings, unfortunately… well, okay, actually, we have no idea how the ratings were, since Hulu doesn’t reveal that information to anybody. (There’s actually a couple of strikes going on where that’s a big sticking point. Who knew?)
Anyway, they were apparently insufficient, such that Up Here has gotten shuffled off its mortal coil after just a single season (amounting to 8 episodes), all of which got binge-dropped on the service back on March 23. THR does note that the show will remain on the streamer for the foreseeable future, which is, apparently, what fans have to take as a “win” of sorts at this point in television history.
Nandor’s attempt to make a new Jewish friend leads to hilarity as he awkwardly slips Yiddish words into conversation, causing his roommates to criticize his behavior.
Colin Robinson’s campaign for Comptroller gets derailed by love and scandal, showcasing his unique political strategies and humor.
The episode ends with the revelation of major bombshells, including the convergence of the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires, ensuring future seasons of “What We Do in the Shadows.”
What We Do in the ShadowsSeason 5 Episode 4 “The Campaign” is an ironic title for a show that just keeps improving on its formula with even more unexpected scenarios and laugh-out-loud moments. The episode begins with Neighbor Sean out of the race for Comptroller of Staten Island and an eager Colin Robinson jumping at the chance to step in as a replacement candidate. A lonely Nandor, confused by Guillermo’s continuously furtive behavior, spends more time at the gym, where he makes a new friend and, in typical Nandor fashion, decides to embrace their cultural customs to the fullest and alienate him before their bond can solidify.
After having embraced her Antipaxos roots in previous episodes, Nadja spends more time out of the house helping out at her relative’s restaurant, confusing salad plates for coffee cups and refilling them with whatever’s brewing. Meanwhile, Colin Robinson’s campaign trail gets derailed by love, scandal, and potential political ruination before he can achieve victory. By the end of the episode, What We Do in the Shadows future seasons are all but guaranteed thanks to a couple of major bombshells, including Colin and Nandor exposing themselves in more ways than one, and the greatest one of all – the convergence of the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires.
7 Nandor Learning Yiddish For His New Jewish BFF
In an effort to conceal his identity as a half-vampire, Guillermo has been avoiding Nandor, which has only made Nandor more suspicious of both his absence and his relationship with Laszlo, the only member of the household who knows his secret. After deciding that he needs a new friend, Nandor strikes up a conversation with a Jewish man at his local gym and the pair make plans to see a movie together. Hilarity ensues when Nandor tries to slip Yiddish words casually into the conversation at home, making his roommates kvetch about how much of a schelmiel he’s become.
6 Colin’s 5-Hour Town Hall During His Campaign For Comptroller
Sean has to suddenly drop out of the run for Comptroller of Staten Island because of numerous DUIs, leaving Colin Robinson no choice but to step in as a candidate. He relishes the opportunity to feed on all the energy during numerous town halls, in which large crowds show up only to be bored out of their minds. In one notable instance, Colin strings together dozens of personal anecdotes about a made-up family in order to lull them into a stupor, while at the same time poking fun at the political strategies of real candidates, reminding everyone why he’s one of the best What We Do in the Shadows characters.
5 Colin Giving His Emotional Vampire Ex The Titanic Necklace
What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 surprises fans with Colin Robinson revealing that he was in love with an emotional vampire. After draining all the emotions she could from him she moved on to siphoning them from single people at group therapy, which turns out to be as much of a buffet for her as town halls are for Colin. When they reunite, he gives her the Heart of the Ocean, the iconic necklace from Titanic (one of the most romantic totems in cinema history), which is almost as amusing as their quirky tendency to address each other by first and last name.
4 Nandor Getting Circumcised
Like with most things, Nandor takes the great thing he has going with his new Jewish friend Alexander and decides to go completely overboard with it, going so far as to have Guillermo circumcise him so that he will no longer have a foreskin. He doesn’t take into account the fact that vampires have incredibly fast healing, so we he strips down to show Alexander what he’s done, his new friend thinks he’s trying to come onto him. Nandor loses a friend but, also in typical fashion after these sorts of calamities, never loses his dignity.
3 Laszlo Winning Over Nadja’s Antipaxos Family
In an effort to lift a hex that’s been placed upon her, Nadja has been attempting to spend more time with her Antipaxos family, and she thinks the time is right to introduce Laszlo. Unfortunately for her, Laszlo’s research prior to meeting them involves wearing anachronistic clothing, referring to them as “peasants” and other quotes that sum up Laszlo’s character, and singing anti-Antipaxos songs from their rivaling island, and the first encounter doesn’t go very well. When Laszlo decides to just be himself, it actually endears him to the community, and they embrace him as a physical manifestation of one of their oldest deities, who is similar to Bacchas.
2 Meeting The Supreme Council Of Energy Vampires
What We Do in the Shadows has always parsed out its vampire lore in bite-sized pieces that add to the world-building of the series, and Season 5 has included a lot more thanks to Guillermo becoming a fledgling vampire. But the greatest revelation of all has to be in Episode 4, when Colin Robin and his ex-girlfriend get kidnapped and brought before the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires. Watching Colin Robinson squirm as they read through a powerpoint presentation of over five hundred slides on proper energy vampire behavior just proves that when it comes to the different vampires, they might be the most powerful of all.
1 Colin Exposing Himself & Political Scandal Fallout
Even Colin Robinson, for whom the siren song of politics rings the loudest, cannot follow the edict of the Supreme Council of Energy Vampires when they decree that he has to win his campaign. His opponent will only cause chaos and disruption to their beloved bureaucracy, but when faced with actually winning over minds rather than sucking them dry, he comes up with a radical plan that he hopes will derail his political career. He decides to, while on a live Zoom with voters, expose his nether regions and suffer through a political scandal that will annihilate any chance of his success.
Whereas Nandor exposed himself in an effort to win over a friend, Colin did it to lose face in front of his delegation, and in the end, both of them learned a lesson in being careful about what they wished for. What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 continues to show that just because vampires have long lives, doesn’t mean that they take the lessons immortality grants them to heart. Episode 4 ends with some normalcy returning to their world as Nandor and Guillermo share a night out at the movies, though as usual, Guillermo’s observations are dismissed in favor of Nandor’s superiority.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for The Flash.]
Nicolas Cage is sharing his thoughts on his surprise cameo as Superman in Andy Muschietti’s The Flash.
During an interview with USA Today, published online Thursday, the Oscar-winning actor said it was fulfilling to finally see the character come to life decades after the 1998 film Superman Lives was scrapped.
“Well, I was glad I didn’t blink,” he quipped. “For me, it was the feeling of being actualized. Even that look for that particular character, finally seeing it on screen, was satisfying. But as I said, it’s quick.”
In The Flash, Cage appears during a scene when Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen opens the multiverse to see the different universes. That’s when Barry sees Cage as Superman fighting a giant spider as well as Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Helen Slater’s Supergirl, Adam West’s Batman and George Reeve’s Superman.
Warner Bros. ended up calling off the infamous 1998 movie just weeks before filming was set to begin, citing creative differences.
For those who still wonder what Cage had in store for his character if the movie was actually completed, he suggested looking at his “performance in City of Angels.”
“I was supposed [to play] Clark Kent after that [in Superman Lives], and I was already developing this alien otherness playing this angel,” he told the outlet. “That is a perfect example of the tonality you would’ve gotten for Kal-El and for Clark Kent: Clark would’ve been a little more amusing but Kal-El [had] the sensitivity and the goodness and the vulnerability and all those feelings that were kind of angelic and also terrifying.”
Last month, filmmaker Kevin Smith, who initially penned several draft screenplays for the scrapped Superman Lives movie, reacted to seeing his vision of Cage as Superman in Muschietti’s film.
“I finally got to see Nic Cage be Superman,” Smith told Rolling Stone. “It has been an absolute delight for me.” He added that it was “mind-melting” after seeing the scene.
Love is a potent substance, and who knows this better than Carly Rae Jepsen, the starry-eyed pop star who has dedicated her entire career to exploring the mind-altering thrills of romance? On the swooning floor-filler “Psychedelic Switch,” the highlight of her new B-sides album The Loveliest Time, she once again evokes the concept of love as transcendence: “I was a sad, sad song before we met,” she sings. “But boy your love is such a trip, it’s like a psychedelic switch.” With four-on-the-floor kicks, hypnotic guitar loops, and tickling hi-hats, “Psychedelic Switch” harkens back to Daft Punk’sDiscovery and the pinnacle of French touch. From this beatific state, the song reaches a new high in the final minute, heightened by strings, chipmunk vocals, and a bass-heavy breakdown. Even on the comedown, Jepsen still sounds blissed-out: “Cause baby I’d be satisfied forever with a couple years of this!” she exclaims. When the music sounds this good, you’d be too.
Delve into the world of movies inspired by online games and casinos. Find out how influential casino themes are in movie production.
If you’ve ever watched blockbuster movies that feature casino scenes, you’ll likely agree that they uniquely capture the thrills of gambling. With their vibrant floors, flashing lights, spinning wheels, and card tables, these films exude a sense of opulence and extravagance. Even if you’ve never visited a casino in real life, these movies have a way of immersing you in the casino lifestyle and giving you a taste of its thrills.
This article seeks to explore the influence of casino themes in movies and understand the emotions they evoke in viewers. We’ll also see how it has affected the viewers beyond entertainment.
The Glamour of Casinos
Many films that feature these gambling centers focus on extravagance They showcase a world of luxury, where high rollers spend their money on expensive suites, parties, and high-stakes gambling.
A good example is the 1995 movie “Casino” directed by Martin Scorsese. The film allows you to experience the exciting world of Las Vegas at the peak of its grandeur. You feel the glamor surrounding casinos as well as the depth of vice and underworld criminal activities around them.
To date, casinos have this aura around them that speaks of wealth and excess, as seen in cinemas. Even online casinos display the same luxury. When you play live dealer games at platforms listed at BestUSCasinos, you’ll get to see the exotic nature of the gaming studios and the beautifully set tables. The dealers themselves are dressed elegantly to enhance the ambiance and provide you with an authentic gambling experience. These casinos also offer various services including slots, table games, bonuses, promotions, mobile gaming, etc.
High-Stakes Robbery
Heists are very common when it comes to films centered around casinos. Movies like “The Sting” and “Ocean’s Eleven” gained widespread appeal due to their thrilling portrayal of daring characters who embarked on missions to rob casinos. They fascinate you with carefully planned schemes, deep plots, and lovable characters. They also get you to feel a mix of humor, suspense, and camaraderie.
Casinos are perceived as places of wealth, tight security, and sophisticated technology, so they provide a perfect plot setting for robberies. Breaking the security and outsmarting the house always seems like a big challenge for the characters. This captures your interest as a viewer, as you’ll want to witness how the underdogs navigate obstacles and complete the tasks.
Portrayal of Different Classes of People
Movies depict the different kinds of persons that patronize gambling centers. In many films, the leading characters are those from the “high class”. For such persons, gambling is portrayed as a favorite pastime activity or an expensive hobby they indulge in since they have abundant funds. These characters only play for entertainment and prestige. They do not run into debt even if they lose large sums of money.
On the other hand, there are movies where people in debt patronize casinos. These usually begin with a character in distress who has to pay off a debt or has been a victim of unfortunate circumstances. The protagonists in such scenes are usually smart characters with good skill sets that help them beat high rollers and earn huge amounts. By featuring characters from all walks of life, these casino movies display how gambling can involve everyone, and even show the dark side of gambling.
Exciting Stories of High-Stakes Gambling and Spies
If you love thrillers, you’ll like iconic films like Rounders and Casino Royale, which take you into the exciting world of expert gamblers and spies. Casino Royale, released in 2013, is one of the most popular James Bond movies. The story revolves around an MI6 agent who competes against the villains at the poker table and not on a battlefield. You can feel the tension and suspense as the players try to outsmart each other at the poker table.
When you watch these kinds of movies, you see gambling as an activity that requires intelligence and skill. The intention behind staking goes beyond earning money or prestige but also they represent internal struggles. The decisions made by the players at the table reflect their ability to control themselves and their willingness to take risks. This makes them even more intriguing and suspenseful.
The Evolution from Classic to Modern Casino Themes in Movies
The depiction of the casino and gambling lifestyle in movies has evolved over the years. In classic films, the casino experience was romanticized and portrayed as a way to escape reality. On the other hand, modern films have explored darker areas of the industry and also exposed the consequences of gambling addiction.
In the 1942 movie “Casablanca”, the Roulette table symbolizes uncertainty and danger during wartime. It sees Rick’s Cafe Americain become a place full of secrets and spies, while the roulette wheel represents the unpredictability of life during World War II.
Conversely, recent movies like “The Gambler,” released in 2014, and “Uncut Gems” in 2019 take a different approach. The Gambler was based on Jim Bennett, a professor who had a gambling addiction. It shows how Jim struggles through the problem and how it affects his life and relationships. These films give you a glimpse into the importance of responsible gambling and the potential dangers of excessive gambling.
How These Casino-themed Movies Shape Pop Culture
Like many other themes explored in movies, the charm of casinos has extended to popular culture in numerous ways. Many people are now hosting casino-themed parties and events with their dresses mirroring the luxurious ambiance of casino resorts.
Moreover, the video games industry has also caught on to casino fashion. Popular video games such as Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have incorporated casinos where you can play poker, blackjack, and other casino games. There’s no doubt that the allure of casinos in movies will continue to impact how we perceive popular culture. Fashion, entertainment, and the gaming industries are just a few examples. There are many more ways through which casino-themed films have enriched our cultural experiences.
Bo Levi Mitchell won in his return to the Tiger-Cats’ lineup, but suffered what looked like a serious ankle injury, as Hamilton beat the Ottawa Redblacks 16-12 at TD Place Stadium Friday night.
Mitchell, who missed the previous four games with an abductor injury, threw for 353 yards and two touchdowns including a 75 yard TD to receiver Kai Locksley to give the Cats a 16-9 lead in the third quarter.
However, the Ticats No. 1 quarterback was intercepted five times in his first start since Week 2, and two of those turnovers turned into field goals by Ottawa’s Lewis Ward. Ward accounted for all of the Redblacks’ points in the game, going 4-for-4 on the night.
After Hamilton made what turned out to be a game-winning defensive stop on a third and two play from inside their own five yard line, Mitchell attempted a quarterback sneak to move the ball away from the Ticats’ endzone and got hurt.
Redblacks linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox landed on Mitchell’s right ankle and the QB was carried off the field by his teammates.
Ottawa QB Dustin Crum was held in check by Hamilton’s defence and completed 13-of-21 passes for 148 yards and one interception. Crum also ran the ball 13 times for 82 yards.
The Ticats recorded a season high seven sacks on Crum, including two each by defensive ends Malik Carney and Tre Crawford.
The game was paused just two minutes into the contest when lightning was spotted near the stadium and both teams were pulled off the field for what amounted to a 58-minute weather delay.
Story continues below advertisement
Hamilton next plays host to the Montreal Alouettes at Tim Hortons Field on Aug. 5.
San Francisco have stopped the installation of the new Twitter logo today atop its headquarters. Officials have launched an investigation, claiming that the giant “X” sign didn’t have the proper design and safety permits.
Earlier this week, officials halted removal of the old Twitter logo, a bluebird, from the building. In that instance, officials claimed workers hadn’t taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.
Regarding the “X” on top of the building, any replacement letters or symbols require a permit to ensure “consistency with the historic nature of the building” and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said.
Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday.
The Australian physicist shook the heavy metal box that resembled a beer cooler but held a quantum sensor. A computer screen showed that the cutting-edge device — with lasers manipulating atoms into a sensitive state — continued functioning despite the rattling.
He and his team had built a hard-to-detect, super-accurate navigation system for when satellite GPS networks are jammed or do not work that was robust and portable enough to be used outside a lab. It could potentially guide military equipment, from submarines to spacecraft, for months with a minuscule risk of directional error — a significant improvement over what is available today.
“The fact that we can do that is probably a wild, insane surprise,” said Russell Anderson, the head of quantum sensing at Q-CTRL, a start-up that recently signed a deal with Australia’s Department of Defense to develop and field-test its quantum sensor technology.
The global race to develop quantum technologies of all kinds has accelerated as governments pour investment into the industry and scientists make rapid technical advances. But to maintain an edge over China — which takes a centralized approach to tech development — the United States is considering tougher export controls for quantum. And allies say more limits, on top of those already in place, could stifle momentum because the strength of the American model of tech development comes from its openness, combining pools of public research money with private investment to support scientists from many countries.
For the United States and its allies, the challenge is clear: how to balance protectionism and cooperation in a transformative field where talent is scarce and less concentrated in the United States, making interdependence inevitable and increasingly necessary.
“The world has changed, and the pace of technology is much faster than it used to be,” said John Christianson, a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who co-authored a recent report on AUKUS, the 2021 security agreement among the United States, Britain and Australia. “We can’t just rely on Americans always having the best stuff.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III are in Australia this week for annual bilateral meetings. Australian officials say they will likely be urged to hurry up and clarify the rules for technology sharing in rapidly-changing fields.
In just the past few years, quantum technology has moved to the cusp of widespread use as companies, nations and investors have helped scientists turn the extreme sensitivity of atoms into powerful sensors, more secure communication systems and superfast quantum computers that could drive exponential progress in artificial intelligence, drug discovery, mining, finance and other industries.
With its centralized method of funneling billions of dollars to military-affiliated universities, China has produced results that have nearly matched or exceeded the American approach. Some of its claims about quantum breakthroughs and funding pledges have been disputed, but a demonstrable rise in Chinese expertise began a decade ago with surging government investment after the Edward Snowden leak confirmed in 2013 that U.S. and British intelligence agencies had found ways to crack and spy on encrypted internet traffic.
In 2017, China built a 91-acre campus in Hefei, west of Shanghai, with the world’s largest national laboratory for quantum science. Since then, Chinese researchers have published thousands of papers demonstrating critical advances, including, in 2021, the use of a “space-to-ground quantum communication network” linking satellites to a fiber-optic cable connecting Shanghai to Beijing.
“For China, the Snowden thing had a psychological impact,” said Edward Parker, a physicist focused on emerging technologies at the RAND Corporation. “There’s also some aspect of national pride — they identified this as a very demonstrable quantum technology where they could become the best in the world.”
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s critical technology tracker, China appears to be lagging more in quantum computers — which perform many calculations in one pass, making them faster than today’s digital computers that perform each calculation separately — while narrowing the gap in quantum sensing for navigation, mapping and detection. Chinese scientists have even said they are building a quantum-based radar to find stealth aircraft with a small electromagnetic storm, though quantum specialists outside China have questioned their claims.
One of the doubters is Michael Biercuk, 43, the founder of Q-CTRL, an American physicist with a military mien and a Harvard Ph.D. who moved to Australia in 2010 to teach at the University of Sydney. He and his start-up, with offices in Sydney, Los Angeles, Berlin and Oxford, are among a cutting-edge group of global quantum leaders who see hyperbole and statecraft in many Chinese quantum announcements and hope to capitalize on what technology-sharing partnerships like the AUKUS security agreement represent.
“AUKUS, for us, is exceptionally important,” said Professor Biercuk, noting that Q-CTRL works on sensors and quantum computing. “It’s a real opportunity for the homegrown capability we’re building in Australia to be deployed into an international framework.”
About half of Q-CTRL’s 100 employees are Australian, half from other countries, and many, including Professor Biercuk, have experience working for America’s elite defense and civilian laboratories. The company’s main software product, which “stabilizes the hardware against everything that goes wrong in the field,” Professor Biercuk said, is already being used by quantum developers in the United States, Canada and Europe, where precise sensor technology is also advancing.
But moving sensitive technology from one nation to another, or developing technology with cross-border teams, has become increasingly fraught.
Fearing that its technology will be used to build the economies of larger countries, Australia has been exploring how to keep its own advances secret. Q-CTRL’s scientists in Sydney already cautiously avoid sharing technical information with colleagues in the United States to avoid being subject to the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a set of restrictive safeguards for military technology that is widely seen as a major obstacle to modernizing America’s alliances in the region.
If American officials go through with their plan to expand export controls for quantum computing, following a pattern that began with advanced microchips, information itself could be considered an export, meaning details could not be shared with people born outside the United States.
“It’s just very complicated if you have to have separate lab facilities with more sensitive things,” said Dr. Parker, the RAND physicist.
Many quantum companies in the United States and elsewhere, including Q-CTRL, are hoping for sensible, clear guidelines. Australian officials and some American lawmakers are also pushing for an exemption from U.S. arms regulations so Australian companies would not be treated as foreign entities.
For many who work closely with advanced technology, where innovation requires information sharing, there is a gnawing worry that the United States and its closest allies are at risk of squandering recent gains by waiting too long to clarify the legal mechanisms for cooperation.
On a recent afternoon in the former locomotive factory where Q-CTRL has its offices, Professor Biercuk said the next few years will be crucial. If friendly democracies don’t build quantum’s strengths together, other countries will speed past with sharper militaries and lucrative opportunities.
“You better believe that China and any nations allied with China are not going to put restrictions on themselves or their partners,” he said. “Anytime we overly regulate emerging areas of science, we risk simply stopping progress locally and ceding technological advantage to our adversaries.”
Jen Psaki was struck Friday with a nagging question that she decided to air out while filling in on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes”: Is Ron DeSantis OK?
“So lately as I have been watching the way Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running his presidential campaign, there’s a question that has been running through my mind: Are you OK governor? I mean, for real — are you good?” she said, before indicating that she thinks he doesn’t actually want to be president.
She then ran down a laundry list of recent developments that show his campaign might be in trouble.
“It’s enough to make you wonder if this whole campaign is really a cry for help,” Psaki said. “Does he really want to do it?”
“It’s OK if you don’t actually want to run for president. It’s completely OK,” she clarified earlier on in the segment. “It’s difficult, really, to take away any other conclusion when you look at the events of the last few weeks from the Florida governor’s increasingly bizarre campaign for the White House.”
The former press secretary for President Joe Biden’s White House then turned her attention to the DeSantis campaign’s spending habits, stating that, per a recent fundraising report, his campaign is underperforming but overspending.
“Until recently, at least, he was burning through money like a teen pop star with a new record deal. For anyone who doesn’t follow that, it’s quite quickly,” Psaki said. She then broke down where some of that money might be going — namely, DeSantis and his wife, Casey, “criss-crossing the country on private jets, spending more than $1 million on air travel.”
(Humorously, Psaki used this opportunity to get a dig in at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, noting: “Don’t they know free private jet rides are only available to conservative Supreme Court justices with rich benefactors? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself on that one.”)
Tie in DeSantis’ recent defense of a Florida’s Department of Education decision mandating the state curriculum include language “effectively defending slavery and touting the supposed benefits of it to people who were enslaved” — and thirdly his proposed appointment of Democratic presidential hopeful and noted anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his cabinet — and Psaki figured it’s three strikes and you’re out.
“So DeSantis is floundering in the polls, burning through cash, defending the merits of slavery, floating jobs for conspiracy theorist Democrats — it’s enough to make you wonder if this whole campaign is really a cry for help,” she concluded. “Does he really want to do it?”
She ended the segment sarcastically emphasizing how he could always fall back on his charisma:
“Just know that you can always take solace in the knowledge that you still have the political X-factor, that unteachable gift for retail politics that could make up for all of it.”
She then showed a clip of DeSantis telling a child there’s too much sugar in their chosen snack on a hot day: an ice pop.
Watch the full “All In” segment with Psaki in the video above.
Smith visited a class of rising actors led by his mentor Aaron Speier
Will Smith is standing behind the writers and his fellow actors on strike. On Friday, Smith shared his support for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, describing the uproar as a “pivotal moment for our profession.”
The actor joined a class run by his mentor Aaron Speier of The Screen Acting Studio to visit with burgeoning actors, who “amazed and inspired” Smith.
“33 years into my career as an actor and there are still some days when I feel like I’m that kid from Philly who’s on borrowed time, even though I know I’ve been extraordinarily blessed and lucky to have worked as an actor all this time,” he wrote.
He added: “It’s thanks to my friend, my teacher, and my mentor @aaronspeiser whom I fondly refer to as ‘coach’ that those days when I feel like I don’t belong are fewer and further between.”
Smith also thanked Speier for supporting the rising artists. “I’m grateful to coach for continuing to support these talented hopefuls in this art-form that I love and have been lucky enough to work in for three decades of my life! Thanks COACH!” he wrote.
The moment comes about four months after he made his first awards show appearance since the 2022 Oscars debacle. He accepted the Beacon Award at the African American Film Critics Associations Awards ceremony for his work on Emancipation.
Trending
“The Beacon Award is intended to highlight films that are tackling challenging subjects with insight, enlightening, as well as engaging the audience,” the actor said on stage, per THR. “It was our hope that Emancipation, that it would be able to bring Peter’s triumphant story and unwavering faith and his deep love for his family to life.”
According to Deadline, Smith recently finished filming Bad Boys 4 with Martin Lawrence prior to the strike.
Anyone with an overactive inner critic will feel seen and heard by this bittersweet debut feature from the illustrator and filmmaker Céline Devaux, which charts a middle-aged Frenchwoman’s coming to terms with grief and professional failure. As Jeanne (Blanche Gardin) deals with the aftermath of her mother’s suicide and the televised collapse of her own invention to rid the ocean of microplastics, Devaux imagines her protagonist’s anxiety as an animated figure that nags her constantly, voicing Jeanne’s worst thoughts about herself. This nifty conceit is one of the many inspired quirks that imbue “Everybody Loves Jeanne” with wit and charm, without undercutting its more serious themes.
With brisk editing and bright colors, the film unfolds as a tale of whimsy. Jeanne travels to Lisbon to clear out her mother’s apartment and sell it to save herself from bankruptcy. On the way, she runs into Jean (Laurent Lafitte), a goofy kleptomaniac who claims to know her from her school days. As Jeanne confronts difficult memories (and even ghostly hallucinations) of her mother and exasperating encounters with her ex, her path keeps crossing with that of Jean, whose kooky exterior slowly chips away to reveal his own battles with mental health. Brimming with warmth and hope, “Everybody Loves Jeanne” is a light-as-air tale about the heaviest of themes: the grown-up struggle to love oneself.
This drama about the failings of corrupt bureaucracy pulls no punches: In its opening scene, a woman (Nada Sargin) storms into the courtyard of a factory with two children in tow, pours gasoline on herself and sets herself on fire. She is the wife of Nikola (Goran Bogdan), who was laid off from a factory two years ago and is still owed his pending wages and severance. Poverty and hunger have driven her to madness, and this spectacle of self-inflicted suffering is her last resort.
Yet the film only has more heartbreak in store for her, and for us. She is sent off to a hospital to recover, and her children are taken away by social services. When Nikola, who spends his days working seasonal construction jobs, tries to get his children back, he is told that his lack of a full-time job makes him unfit to care for them. Faced with a Kafkaesque, no-win conundrum, Nikola sets off on foot to Belgrade — 300 miles away — to file an appeal in person with the ministry.
Nikola encounters both misfortunes and small kindnesses along the way, so that his journey becomes a showcase of Serbian society — of the powers that exploit, and the people that persevere. As he undertakes this Sisyphean quest, the director, Srdan Golubovic maintains an austere, realistic tone that matches Bogdan’s heroically stoic performance — a razor-sharp evocation of the stubbornness that only the very desperate can summon.
Set in the Free State province of South Africa, where white, Christian families tend to vast, golden-yellow fields of maize, Etienne Kallos’s feature weaves threads of coming-of-age, queerness, colonial reckoning and pastoral horror into a combustible domestic thriller. The film is arresting in its vivid evocation of the insular world of Free State farmers. Alternating between shots of windswept farmland and claustrophobic close-ups of faces, Kallos conjures the sheltered and overwhelmingly macho environment in which the sensitive Janno (Brent Vermeulen) grows up, trying dutifully to please his religious mother and gruff father. When his mother brings another adolescent boy into the family — Pieter (Alex van Dyk), an orphan and addict rescued from the streets — the familiar routines of Janno’s life are ruptured, and secrets and repressed feelings come pouring out. Kallos is careful never to overstate any of the film’s themes. Instead, he allows calibrated atmospherics and the fantastic performances of the two leads to suggest bigger ideas — about the saviorism that can underlie adoption, the racialized fear that causes white South African communities to insulate themselves and the toxic masculinity that is so inherent in imperialism.
In 2020, duringthe pandemic-induced lockdown, the Austrian filmmaker Andreas Horvath took his camera into an eerily vacated world: the Salzburg Zoo. With no visitors around, he was free to observe the lives and routines of the animals and their handlers: the feeding of bears, the cleaning of fish tanks, the grooming of elephants. In “Zoo Lock Down,” he combines these stark visual tableaus with bursts of dramatic music that evoke action movies or thrillers. These incongruities emphasize the strange, artificial, even tacky world of the zoo, where leopards prowl in front of painted backgrounds, and lemurs titter in glass cages illuminated by fluorescent lights. Parallels with our own experiences of confinement during the pandemic come to mind, but the film also gets, wordlessly, at something about the nature of spectacle — about the hubris of ecosystems created and cultivated by humans solely for the purpose of voyeuristic viewing.
Between 1998 and 2005, a string of women over 60 years of age were strangled to death in Mexico City by a killer who posed as a social worker. The perpetrator was nicknamed La Mataviejitas, or The Little Old Lady Killer. Elaborate searches, arrests of suspects, and sensationalist media coverage yielded no answers — until, in 2006, a man saw the killer leaving his neighbor’s home and beckoned the police. María José Cuevas’s documentary traces the yearslong hunt for the murderer, Juana Barraza, who became known as Mexico’s first female serial killer.
There’s plenty in “The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders” to whet the appetites of true-crime nuts — Cuevas combines interviews, re-enactments, and snazzy visuals to recreate the macabre mystery. But the film also takes a keen look at the failures of the justice system and the ways in which gender stereotypes influenced the case. Though witnesses claimed the killer was a woman, investigators believed that only a man would have been strong enough to strangle the victims to death, and they began persecuting gay and trans sex workers. Activists interviewed by Cuevas in the film also noted the staggering number of unsolved femicides in Mexico, which, in contrast to the “little old lady” rhetoric of the police and the media in the Mataviejitas murders, attract victim-blaming comments about young women’s life choices.
With her careful attention to everyone who bore the brunt of the killings — from the victims and their family members to innocent people who were illegally detained and arrested — Cuevas paints a portrait not just of a crime, but also of the projections and fears that often cloud pursuits of justice.
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.
When Amazon released their second-generation earbuds in 2021, it almost seemed too good to be true. They were smaller, lighter and more comfortable than the company’s first go at wireless earbuds, for a fraction of the cost of competitors like Bose and Apple. Now, these same Echo Buds are back in an all-new package for 2023 with a ton of features packed into an aggressively low price of just $49.99.
Released this past spring, the revamped Echo Buds make few sacrifices for its competitive price. They boast impressive audio technology, easy pairing with Alexa and up to 20 hours of battery life with the included charging case. A quick 15-minute charge gets you two hours of playtime.
What we like: while some earbuds disconnect every time you take a call or switch to another device, the Echo Buds’ “Multipoint Pairing” feature lets you easily switch between two connected devices (I.e. from your phone to your laptop and vice-versa).
While it would be hard to argue that these Amazon earbuds outperform buds from Apple or Jabra, who have had years to perfect their tech, it certainly gets the job done when it comes to taking calls or listening to music.
There are some areas where the Echo Buds soar, however. They offer some of the best audio in the earbuds market for their price point, with particularly strong bass. And according to reviewers, the new 12mm drivers offer impressive sound clarity.
What’s perhaps most impressive about the Echo Buds is that they don’t let up on any of the bells and whistles that are usually relegated to upper-tier models. Hands-free Alexa allows you to make voice commands for practically any directive, such as changing audio, or pausing and skipping music tracks. Plus, they come packed with everything you need to ensure a snug fit. Included in the box are two sizes of silicone tips for optimal comfort, enhanced by a new vented design to cut down on air pressure.
Prefer the original Amazon Echo Buds? The site still has the second-generation Echo Buds with noise-cancelling technology and more than 21,000 reviews on sale for $119.99 here.
Following the release of Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy gave a brutally honest response to fan casting of him as a major Marvel villain.
Long before the days of Oppenheimer and Peaky Blinders, Cillian Murphy took a dive into the superhero genre as the villain Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow, in all three movies in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy opposite Christian Bale.
Since the actor’s rise to stardom, Murphy has become roped into the game of comic book fan casting, most notably for the role of Doctor Doom in the MCU.
Cillian Murphy Talks Modern Superhero Movies
BossLogic
During an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confusedpodcast, Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy responded to questions of whether he would ever take on another comic book role, particularly addressing fan casting of him as the MCU’s new Doctor Doom.
Horowitz questioned whether Murphy would ever take on another comic book role or if he feels he has already satiated that craving through his role as Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow, in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
The Peaky Blinders lead noted how “if someone sends a script” he will read it as “it’s always about the script:”
“Yeah, I think you’ve answered the question. Yeah, I mean, I’m always… It’s always about the script. So, I’ll read… If someone sends a script, I’ll read it. And you never know what turns up.”
He added how the “unpredictable and wild” nature of the movie business is “what [he loves]” about it:
“That’s what I love about this business. I had no inclination or no idea that that [Christopher Nolan] was going to call me about all of this with. It just happens and that’s that’s the kind of the beauty of this business. It’s so unpredictable and wild.”
Cillian Murphy has previously been more critical of the superhero genre since the Dark Knight trilogy, as, during an interview with Vulture in 2016, he suggested they may have “exhausted” all the source material:
“Have they exhausted every single comic book ever? I don’t know where they’re coming from anymore.”
The actor explained how it was a “different time” when he worked on 2005’s Batman Begins, praising that trilogy as “so grounded in a relatable reality:”
“It was a different time back when we made Batman Begins. I think that Chris [Nolan] has to take credit for making that trilogy of films. I think they’re so grounded in a relatable reality.”
He added how the trilogy completely omitted superpowers and took a realistic angle, which is part of “what [he] loved about them:”
“Nobody in those films ever had a superpower. Do you know what I mean? It’s a slightly heightened level of storytelling, where New York is Gotham, and no one did anything magical. Batman in his movies just did a lot of pushups and was, like, British. So that’s what I loved about them.”
While Murphy stated his “kids love Marvel movies,” he was clear he actually doesn’t take part in the phenomenon himself:
“My kids love the Marvel movies, but I don’t know. I don’t watch them.”
Will Cillian Murphy Ever Join the MCU?
Marvel Studios has recently taken strides to select actors who share a background with the actor they will bring to life. This has been reflected in Fantastic Four casting rumors which claim Ben Grimm’s Thing will be played by a Jewish actor to reflect the character’s background in the comics.
If the studio is looking to take the same direction in casting Doctor Doom, Murphy may be out of the running as the Latverian ruler is Romani in the comics. As the actor certainly doesn’t come from that descent, as he hails from Ireland, he may not be on Marvel’s radar for the role, no matter how well he could pull it off.
With regard to whether Murphy would be willing to join the MCU in general, it appears that will require a very strong script, and therefore a powerhouse filmmaking team behind the movie. Then again, nobody expected Christian Bale to join Thor: Love and Thunder as Gorr, so anything could happen.
The actor could also instead find a place in a new role over at James Gunn’s DC Studios, making his big return to the blue brand, many years after his last collaboration with the company for 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises.
Murphy’s latest movie, Oppenheimer, is playing now in theaters.
Nicholas Cage finally spoke about his brief, but long-overdue, cameo as Superman in Ezra Miller’sThe Flash, even throwing some shade towards the scene.
At one point and time, there was once a Superman Lives film expected to debut in 1998. The project was to be directed by Tim Burton and see the Man of Steel go up against Brainiac, Doomsday, Lex Luthor, and even a giant spider.
Best of all, the legendary Nicolas Cage would have played the titular hero. Up until The Flash, all fans had to picture what he would have looked like in the role was a leaked costume test.
In an interview with USA Today, Nicholas Cage broke his silence about finally making his debut as Superman through a Multiversal cameo in The Flash, while also revealing his feelings about his short screen time.
Cage stated he was “glad [he] didn’t blink” because his appearance was just that “quick.” Although he did admit how it was “satisfying” to finally appear as the character, 25 years after his solo Superman movie was canceled:
“Well, I was glad I didn’t blink. For me, it was the feeling of being actualized. Even that look for that particular character, finally seeing it on screen, was satisfying. But as I said, it’s quick.”
The Superman Lives universe only appears for around 30 seconds in The Flash, with Cage’s actual face only even visible for a few seconds of that time.
For those looking to see more of the direction Cage planned to take Superman, the actor shared how that can be found in 1998’s City of Angels where he was already “developing this alien otherness” which he would have utilized as Clark Kent:
“If you really wanted to know what I was going do with that character, look at my performance in ‘City of Angels.’ I was supposed (to play) Clark Kent after that (in ‘Superman Lives’), and I was already developing this alien otherness playing this angel.
In the 1998 romantic fantasy City of Angels, Cage played Seth, an angel who guides humans to their next life but falls in love with a heart surgeon (Meg Ryan’s Maggie) after seeing her trying to save somebody’s life.
The Hollywood icon continued to explain how his Clark “would’ve been a little more amusing” while his Kal-El would have had “the sensitivity and the goodness and the vulnerability” of his angelic romantic:
“That is a perfect example of the tonality you would’ve gotten for Kal-El and for Clark Kent: Clark would’ve been a little more amusing but Kal-El (had) the sensitivity and the goodness and the vulnerability and all those feelings that were kind of angelic and also terrifying.”
The Superman That Never Lived
It’s easy to see how satisfying it is for Nicholas Cage to see himself on screen as the iconic Kryptonian. His Superman that never permeated pop culture for years now, and getting to see it realized probably felt amazing.
It’s a shame that Cage’s Superman cameo was so short and did look like a poorly rendered CGI model. To those unaware of the behind-the-scenes details, it would be easy to assume that the actor never actually shot anything for the movie. However, he was, in fact, on set for the project.
Maybe Cage could get another shot as the Man of Steel whenever James Gunn’s big DCU reboot starts touching upon the Multiverse. Until then, however, perhaps the actor could get a different notable role.
Cage previously expressed interest in bringing to life Jim Corrigan, aka the Spectre—a niche character who would be perfect for Gunn’s new DCU.
Final Fantasy 14 is finally set to arrive on Xbox Sereis X/S.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer made a surprise appearance at the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in Las Vegas to announce that the game was coming to current-gen Xbox systems.
The MMO will be officially launching in Spring 2024, but an open beta will be launching alongside the game’s upcoming Patch 6.5 update, which is likely due in the coming months.
According to Xbox, the Series X version of the game will support 4K graphics, while both the Series X and Series S versions will benefit from fast loading times.
The Expanded Free Trial, which is available on PC and PlayStation consoles, will also be applicable on Xbox too.
This means players will be able to play through the entirety of the base game A Realm Reborn, as well as its first two expansions Heavensward and Stormblood, up to level 70 with no restrictions on playtime.
Once players reach level 70, they’ll then have to pay a monthly fee to continue playing the game.
Notice: To display this embed please allow the use of Functional Cookies in Cookie Preferences.
While the game is mainly an online multiplayer adventure, Square Enix has been implementing a system called Duty Support, which lets players take on content with a party of NPC allies instead of real players.
According to Xbox, by the time the game’s open beta launches the Duty Support system will cover all the main story dungeons from A Realm Reborn and the four current expansions, meaning players will be able to play through the main story content solo.
The news marks the end of a lengthy effort by Xbox boss Phil Spencer to bring Final Fantasy 14 to Xbox consoles.
Will Smith has taken to Instagram and Twitter to support the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. A member of SAG-AFTRA, Smith wrote about the importance of this moment for both guilds.
“I wanna talk for a second about ACTING,” Smith wrote. “As some of y’all mighta heard, my guild, @SAGAFTRA are on strike along with our writer colleagues in the WGA. It’s a pivotal moment for our profession.”
The WGA has been on strike since April and SAG-AFTRA since July 14, calling for negotiations with studios for fairer contracts. The SAG-AFTRA Foundation replied to Smith with “Thank you for your support Will!”
In addition to identifying the strike as a “pivotal moment,” Smith also reminisced on how far he’s come in his own 30-plus years of acting and expressed gratitude to a mentor of his, Aaron Speiser.
“33 years into my career as an actor and there are still some days when I feel like I’m that kid from Philly who’s on borrowed time, even though I know I’ve been extraordinarily blessed and lucky to have worked as an actor all this time,” Smith continued. “It’s thanks to my friend, my teacher and my mentor @aaronspeiser whom I fondly refer to as ‘coach’ that those days when I feel like I don’t belong are fewer and further between.”
The accompanying photo shows Smith posing alongside students at The Screen Acting Studio, where he dropped in on a class. Speiser works at The Screen Acting Studio and also hosts “Coach The Podcast.”
He concluded the post by thanking his mentor and expressing his faith in the next generation of actors to take on the industry.
“Coach invited me to acting class the other day and I met a group of our talented next generation of actors and they amazed and inspired me!” Smith wrote. “I’m grateful to coach for continuing to support these talented hopefuls in this art-form that I love and have been lucky enough to work in for three decades of my life! Thanks COACH!” he concluded.
American Horror Story is an anthological horror show created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Surprisingly, the very same duo got their start with the teen musical dramedy, Glee. Differing greatly from their origins, American Horror Story tells creatively horrific stories varying from witches to serial killers. The stories in AHS are nightmare fuel. Some scares are broad like murderous clowns or aliens, but there are so many niche horrors that almost feel personal.
Each season follows a theme, central story, and cast of characters. While each season is different, AHS is notorious for crossover between the seasons. For example, in the first season, Murder House, the latex suit originated but made a cameo in Season 8, Apocalypse. Possessed by some evil of the house, it lured wearers in, sometimes even ghosts of the house, and put them into a murderous rage. The witches from the third season, Coven, have also appeared in and been referenced in other seasons. It’s not been explicitly stated, but many believe all the seasons take place in the same world at different times and locations or at least are all connected.
11 Big Daddy Sets the Bar Aflame (NYC)
FX
NYC, the latest season of AHS centers around New York City in the ’80s where gay men are being targeted by a serial killer, ignored by the police, and getting infected with a new virus. This season was too rooted in real events considering it’s essentially a rip and replace of HIV/AIDS and Jeffrey Dahmer. If this season would’ve changed anything about the plot versus real life or made a commentary on it, NYC could’ve been great, but it wasn’t fun watching depictions of events that tore through an entire community not that long ago.
That said, the scariest moment in NYC was the moment that Big Daddy, a BDSM gear-wearing spirit meant to foreshadow the death and destruction of HIV/AIDS, locks everyone inside a gay establishment, Ascension Bar, and sets it on fire. The screams and terror in this scene are vivid, and the aftermath is graphic, but it’s not scary in a way that you want to see twice.
10 Sophie and Milo’s Deaths (Roanoke)
FX
Roanoke is regarded as the worst season of AHS, but that is mostly about how it squandered the opportunity to do more with a topic that garners so much fascination. It definitely is not lacking on the spooks. This season is told in two parts: the first is a paranormal documentary reenactment of a couple’s experiences living in a haunted house and the second half is found footage of the doomed documentary. The supernatural aspects of this season are a result of the house being built near the lost colony of Roanoke which while it’s an interesting take, haunted house horrors have been done and everyone wanted a scary story just about Roanoke.
Despite its shortcomings, this season had some moments of true terror. The scariest moment was the death of Sophie and Milo. Both big fans of the Roanoke documentary, they decided to strap on helmet cameras and explore the site themselves, to broadcast to their followers of course. Things are weird, but not a cause to flee, until nightfall, when they discover that almost everyone from the documentary is dead, and one of the lone survivors is possessed.
The possessed survivor kills their friend and in an act of heroism, they try to stop him from killing the other survivors. They quickly realize they are being followed by the entire Roanoke colony and through the perspective of their helmet cameras, they are caught, impaled on a stake, and burned alive: all of which is being live broadcasted to their followers. The first-person perspective makes this death a sight viewers will not soon forget.
9 The Childhood of the Antichrist (Apocalypse)
FX
Apocalypsewasn’t the stereotypical sky is falling trope, but with the way it was set up, it could’ve been more. In Murder House, a baby was born that was sired by a very disturbed ghost possibly possessed at the time of conception, resulting in the birth of the Antichrist. This season was also to Coven, where the witches are tasked with stopping the Antichrist from bringing on the end times. This season tried to engage a lot of different concepts also tying Hotel in but overall was too busy to be effective in any way other than to be scary.
The scariest moments in this season are those of the Antichrist growing up. Raised by his grandmother, Michael Langdon didn’t always know what he was, but it was apparent to everyone around him that he wasn’t normal. Everyone who upset him ended up dead, starting with his nanny when he was young. The scene of the crime is covered in blood with a young Michael playing in it after killing his nanny, unaware and unbothered by his actions and the first of many kills.
8 Who Set Mr. Jingles Free (1984)
FX
1984 imitates the classic cabin slasher trope when five friends become camp counselors for the summer in an effort to get out of the city for a bit, only to stumble right into a nightmare. This season has great ’80s slasher plots including a campfire massacre story from 14 years ago reenacting itself, the murderer escaping from a mental institution for his revenge, and plot twists you can see coming from a mile away.
Since this season garners more suspense and jump scares than other seasons, it’s hard to isolate one fright as the scariest, but there are a few that stand out. One is when everyone is running from Mr. Jingles only to discover there is a second serial killer in the woods, The Night Stalker.
The scariest moment has to be the scene where one counselor is running for her life when she starts setting off traps in the woods eventually getting caught in a net. She is discovered by the camp nurse, who reveals that she’s a psychologist who set Mr. Jingles free, so she could observe him and subsequently set the traps to see if he kills for the hunt or the pleasure of taking life.
7 Trying to Break a Record (Cult)
FX
Cult came out during the 2017 election and depicted what life would be like if a fear-mongering cult leader abused their power for political gain (totally unrealistic, right?). This dramatization of real life in the present time was not well received because the wound was too fresh.
There was a jarring depiction of a mass shooting in this season, as well as in other seasons, which is an interesting choice for a recurring horror. There was also a gross guinea pig killing that took place in a microwave. The worst scene of all is one where cult members decide they can’t trust a man and are convinced he will either sell them out or bring them down.
Because he knows too much, their only choice is to murder him which is scary, but it’s the way they kill him that makes it the worst. They announce that the record for the number of nails to the head before death is 13 and decide that they’re not only going to kill him with a nail gun but contemplate breaking the record while they’re at it. This scene isn’t the most graphic in AHS history, but the disregard for human life and the casual nature in which they take it away is chilling.
6 Black Pills and Human Hybrids (Double Feature)
FX
Double Feature was a season split in half with completely different stories. The first half, Red Tide, told the story of a town where talented people thrived. It’s revealed that their talents were amplified by taking mysterious black pills with the only caveat being that it only amplified true talent. If the person taking the pill wasn’t naturally gifted, they would essentially become a mindless vampire.
The scariest moment in this half of the season is horrifying in its cruelty. When the protagonist realizes his daughter is taking the black pills too, he wants to call it all off and give her a normal life, but she’s tasted greatness and won’t give it up. She convinces her mother to take a black pill, knowing she isn’t talented, and it will turn her into a pale person, but she wants her out of the way. After she sacrifices her mom, she kills her dad in pursuit of being the greatest violinist on Earth.
The second half of the season, Death Valley, takes place in Area 51. Following the lure, it does involve aliens, but it’s far more complicated than just that. The alien species is dying out, and they come to Earth to find the perfect human to breed, so they can save their race. While the story jumps between different time periods, the scariest moment is the successful breeding of the alien-human hybrid.
After college students are kidnapped to be used as test subjects, one of them is the perfect match. After watching several “unsuccessful” attempts resulting in brutal murders, it seems like she will have a different fate since her baby was finally a success. Much to the contrary, when she gives birth to the perfect hybrid, she is beheaded and her head is replaced by a machine with plans to clone her half-human half-machine body to mass-produce hybrids and take over the human race.
5 Twisty Sneaking Up on People (Freak Show)
FX
Freak Show takes place in a sleepy 1950s town overturned by the arrival of carnies, human curiosities, and something that goes bump in the night and murders a lot of people. This season focuses heavily on the lives of these carnies including their successes, downfalls, and origins. While some of the characters might seem frightening at first glance, their backstories are the real horror.
This season’s biggest terror is a scary, heaving-breathing clown with an affinity for sneaking up on couples having some outdoor fun and brutally murdering them. Everyone hates scary clowns, so naturally these scenes are the scariest of the season. Twisty the clown greets the couples with a little juggling trick and then uses his bowling pin to knock them down, before brutally stabbing and/or slashing them. He starts with the boyfriend and then when he’s down he chases after the girlfriend, eventually catching and killing her. His character is scary to look at and scarier to run into.
4 Vampires Establish Their New Home (Hotel)
FX
Hotel centers the Hotel Cortez based on the Cecil Hotel, a notoriously haunted and spooky spot in Los Angeles. This season more or less dramatizes Cecil Hotel lore, while adding more layers of terror. The haunts and backstories are bone-chilling combining all the scariest hotel stories you’ve heard.
The scariest moment in Hotel features two vampires who have taken up residence at the Hotel Cortez as they effortlessly seduce a young couple and bring them back to their room. After playing with their food and lots of foreplay, the two vampires lock eyes and simultaneously slash their throats, sensually drinking their blood as they panic. The vampiric nature of the scene isn’t necessarily what makes it so terrifying, but more the pleasure and ritual it clearly is to the vampires.
3 Madam LaLaurie’s House of Horrors (Coven)
FX
The third season of AHS, Coven, is sometimes thought to be the last really good season, which is a little sad considering it’s only the third out of eleven. This season follows a coven of Salem-descended witches living in New Orleans. Throughout the season, the young witches at Miss Robichaux’s Academy navigate how to use their powers in real time as evil threatens their existence from inside and outside the house. Due to the witchy nature of this season, it’s more sci-fi at times than horror, but it wouldn’t be AHS without some gut-wrenching moments.
This season features flashbacks including those of Madame Delphine LaLaurie’s house of horrors where she mutilates and tortures those whom she enslaves. Scenes from her flashbacks are definitely the most gruesome, but the scenes are so inhumane, it is more disgusting and heartbreaking than scary.
The scariest moment in Coven takes place when Miss Robichaux’s Academy is under attack from Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen. In an attempt to exterminate these witches, she summons the dead to descend upon the house and tear them apart. It’s not graphic, suspenseful, and the characters attacking them are straight out of a nightmare.
2 A Child Death (Murder House)
FX
The first season of AHS is a fan-favorite and has a very classic horror feeling. It follows the story of the Harmon family after they move into the infamous Murder House as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage and family. This quickly has the opposite effect when the ghosts of the house’s past began haunting and hurting the family.
This season has a lot of smaller plot lines, most of which provide backstory on the home’s spectral predecessors, all these plots competing for the scariest. While the Black Dahlia killer’s origin story or the Piggy Piggy legend coming to life make viewers’ arm hairs stand on end, the creation of a Frankenstein baby Infantata and subsequent terror is the scariest moment in Murder House.
The beginning of the story is heartbreakingly sad. A doctor and his wife live in the Murder House and one night their infant son is kidnapped. After praying for his return, they get what they ask for, in the worst way. They discover their infant son’s chopped-up remains on their front doorstep.
While this is horrifying enough, AHS always takes it a step further. The doctor is known for performing abortions and decides to piece his beloved son, Thaddeus back together with the still-beating heart of an aborted baby. In a normal house, this would’ve been a grief-filled failure, but with the dark magic within the house, this pieced-together baby comes to life as Infantata, a clawed, fanged creature who terrorizes the house.
1 A Fake Santa (Asylum)
FX
Like Murder House, Asylum is a beloved season of AHS. Just when it seems like there can’t be any more plot twists, scares, and subplots another one is layered on top. Asylum revolves around the happenings in Briarcliffe Manor, a fictional mental hospital.
Throughout the season, there is a serial killer on the loose, a possessed nun, an alien invasion, and a reporter wrongfully committed to the institution, not to mention horrific backstories for many patients of Briarcliffe. Many moments rival for the most frightening in the season, like seeing Bloody Face’s grotesque lair or the discarded gory aftermath of one doctor’s volatile experiments crawling up the stairs of an elementary school.
Scariest of all, the backstory of one patient who lands himself at Briarcliffe after he’s deemed mentally unstable at his trial cakes the cake. Leigh Emerson murders a charity Santa and after stealing his costume ruins Christmas. In one night, Emerson violently murders 18 people after coming into their homes pretending to be Saint Nick. The horror on-screen seeing a jolly holiday icon covered in blood killing entire families is one that will not soon be forgotten.
The newest season of American Horror Story: Delicate, will premiere on Hulu on August 1st.
With their incredibly atmospheric and compelling debut feature Talk to Me, a fairly gory supernatural title out of Australia, twin brother filmmakers Danny & Michael Philippou have set themselves up as the next great A24 success story.
Directed by the duo from Danny’s script written with Bill Hinzman, Talk to Me tells the story of Mia (Sophie Wilde), a teenager grappling with the loss of her mother who gets in over the head, to say the least, when she and her friends begin playing a malevolent party game as a kind of way of getting high. As they sit around a table and whip out their smartphones to record, Mia grips a mysterious ceramic hand, says some magic words and finds her body taken over by an unknown spirit. There was initially interest in making the film at a major U.S. studio. But when the brothers sensed that their vision would be compromised, they stuck to their creative guns and went the indie route. The ultimate incarnation of Talk to Me sparked huge buzz out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival and a bidding war to go with it, which is where A24 came in.
Joe Bird in Talk to Me
A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
The Philippous have been honing their craft for around a decade with their YouTube channel RackaRacka which has amassed massive, viral viewership, and are now likely to get the chance to steer themselves toward a major career. (They’ve already inked a deal to develop a Street Fighter film for Legendary and have other projects in the works.) Ahead of the release of their first feature, the filmmakers hopped on Zoom with Deadline to discuss how they’re making th most of this pivotal moment in their career, digging into the “mythology bible” they put together for Talk to Me and directions they’ve already mulled taking with a sequel, capturing Australia in a horror pic in a way they hadn’t seen done, doing their own thing with Street Fighter, the importance of “original” films to the health of the industry and them personally, “imposter syndrome” in meeting their filmmaking idols, and more.
DEADLINE: You came to make Talk to Me after spending many years developing your command of stunts, effects and other visual concepts via your YouTube channel RackaRacka, and after working on numerous film sets. But how did you acquire the knowledge of story required to make the jump into features?
DANNYPHILIPPOU: Pretty much analyzing so many other films and consuming so much of it. And, and all the way in the background — not full time, and not seriously — but we were still writing things. Before the YouTube stuff had even taken off, [we] had a short film that… we directed called Deluge about a farmer and his son and a suicide cult, which was more Talk to Me and not RackaRacka. It was like the exact opposite, and I was always scared to upload that to the channel because it felt too different from the YouTube stuff.
MICHAELPHILIPPOU: I think it’s also surrounding yourself with people smarter than you in their fields. Like, we did a workshop with Samantha Jennings, who produced our film. We had written an outline for a TV show and she gave notes on it, and then you just start learning through them about character development and arcs and things like that. Because usually when we write, we’ll write without an ending in mind, or anything in particular — just scenes and moments and character. And then you board it with our co-writer, [Bill] Hinzman, and people like Sam give notes and help structure it that way.
DEADLINE: How much different was your first draft of the script, given that the image of the ceramic hand that’s so central to the film only emerged on your second pass?
DANNY: The essence [was] there, the characters were there. Those set pieces were there, whether it was like the dog scene, or the headbutt scene, and the hospital stuff. So all that stuff was there, and then…
MICHAEL: …It was a lot more cutthroat. It was a lot more violent.
DANNY: But through that process, [the goal was to] not let it feel exploitative and really find that line. Because we knew we didn’t want to make a splatter film; we didn’t want to make it too extreme, and the first draft was probably a bit more extreme.
DEADLINE: You’re part of a movement these days of artists coming to mainstream cinema from platforms like YouTube. What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for creatives looking to launch careers through these channels?
MICHAEL: There’s a weird stigma that comes with being a YouTuber. Especially when you want to transition to anything else, it’s like you get branded as a YouTuber. But YouTube’s a platform to share your content internationally at the click of a button. And any director, I feel like, from generations ago, if they had YouTube, they’d be using it to upload because it’s kind of a no-brainer to get to access different parts of the world.
DANNY: Even George Miller told us that he’d [have been] on YouTube if it was available to him.
DEADLINE: How did you land on the powerful, specific visual of the ceramic hand at the heart of your story?
DANNY: That was our awesome conversations, even at the concept art level, looking at different variations and trying to figure out what the strongest version was. And then a really hands-on, super detailed thing with our production designer, Bethany Ryan, about making it come to life. She was pivotal, doing so many different molds, and looking at different shapes, and trying to find what was mobile and easy to access for the actors. Initially, it was on a wooden board, and it was nailed to it. But then we found the weighted base throughout…that collaboration with those heads of departments.
MICHAEL: I remember the concept art, there was like 12 completely different types. And one just stuck out, in particular.
DEADLINE: You initially looked at setting up Talk to Me with an entity other than A24, but went your own way after balking at some of their notes or proposals, including a change of setting. It’s hard to imagine the idea of taking this film out of Australia when that setting is part of what really makes itwork.
DANNY: Yeah. It was just sort of getting inklings that maybe [the companies] weren’t going to want to shoot it. We knew that we weren’t going to have final cut, we wouldn’t have final say on cast. And they were just giving some creative notes, which by the way, weren’t bad. They were just sort of in a direction that we didn’t feel like we could tell that story, or that story had been told before. We really wanted to stick by what we’d written initially and didn’t want to overdevelop it. We know what the mythos was…So, our producer, Sam, made us feel really safe and secure about stepping away from it. But it was a very tough decision, and they were seriously the nicest people. I hate to make it look like we’re sh*t-talking them. [Laughs]
DEADLINE: What did you hope to capture, as far as Australian youth culture?
MICHAEL: Our experience of most Australian horror films is The Outback, and that’s not how we perceive Australia at all. You know how they say seven of the 10 most dangerous creatures [live] in Australia? We haven’t seen any of them. [Laughs] We’re in the cities where it’s just a very different look that I haven’t seen captured in too many films. So, it just felt natural. And also just the dialect. If we were going to change it to American, it might’ve felt false or not right in some way.
DANNY: We grew up and know those voices that are around us. We captured the people around us and captured their voices. And I just don’t know how it would’ve translated in America because I don’t know that many American young people or anything like that.
MICHAEL: It was just trying to be as authentic as possible, because that’s the world we know and understand. That’s what was what most comfortable to shoot.
DEADLINE: How did you figure out the rules that would govern encounters with the supernatural in this cinematic world? It seems like that aspect of the writing process must have been fun.
DANNY: The really fun part was doing our mythology bible, which breaks down every spirit that the kids connected with, why they’re connecting with them, all the people that have had the hand, where the hand came from, what the actual rules are. I think like with any sort of drug, everyone’s body reacts differently to the same thing, and one person’s experience may not exactly be the other person’s experience. And I knew that we wanted the phrases that the kids are saying to the hand to really be tied thematically to what that character’s going through. Like, “Talk to me. I’m lonely. I need someone to talk to, and I’m letting you into my body. Whether it be drugs or alcohol or sex, and whether or not you’re bad to me, I’m letting you in and using you as a crutch. I’m connecting to this unnatural thing to feel good.” So, we just tried to really ground it in the characters.
MICHAEL: Working on a strong backstory, even for characters, it just makes it more exciting when you’re writing. If you’ve put effort into the backstory and why these characters are crossing paths, it’s just so much more fulfilling and dynamic.
DEADLINE: Were there specific tricks you employed to give the film such visceral atmosphere?
DANNY: I think that with the possession sequences specifically, we knew that the camerawork wanted to feel different — like astral projection and like the camera is tied to the spirit that’s embodying the kids. And it’s sort of tied to the movement that the spirit is doing around the room.
MICHAEL: The sound design, as well, because there’s so much you can do through sound. It was so awesome working on the sound design with Emma Bortignon, creating specific feels for each of the possessions. There’s so much effort that we put into the soundscape. It’s tied to the way [spirits] died, to [character] themes. There’s a lot of that with the sound and the music.
DEADLINE: Was it challenging to find actors who could not only embody a depth of emotion for this film, but also so effectively channel the experience of possession?
DANNY: Well, it was two years of casting — due to Covid, as well. But we got to really comb through different auditions and find the people that were right. A lot of kids were able to capture the dramatic elements of it, but then the possession side of it, they were sort of struggling with. But Joe [Bird] came into the room and did that possession in front of us. He just sat in front of us and started doing it, and we’re like, “We need someone that already is there and can already pull it off.” The directing is just heightening that, but you need someone that has that talent and skill already.
MICHAEL: Also, patience [was required], because there were a lot of prosthetics…
DEADLINE: What is it like having a twin brother director? How much did simply having each other to lean on help you through the learning curve of your directorial debut?
MICHAEL: I feel like it’s a cheat code in film if you have someone who has the same vision as you because creating a film is such a mammoth task. Being able to delegate tasks and split the load a bit…Like with YouTube, Danny would do a rough cut, I’d do fine cut. Danny would’ve filmed it; I would be in front of the camera and do sound effects and music. Danny would do VFX and color, so we kind of learned doing that on the YouTube stuff and worked with those departments one the film, as well. You know, if it’s one person doing all of it, like Spielberg, god. My hat’s off to them because it’s so difficult doing a film.
DANNY: It’s like you’ve grown up together. We’ve made stuff together for so long, so there is a weird shorthand and a united vision, and twin telepathy. [Laughs]
DEADLINE: Were there aspects to the feature filmmaking process that surprised you in their level of difficulty?
MICHAEL: It was mainly in post. It was the music. That was the most difficult. The shoot itself, because it was supposed to be an eight-week shoot and it dropped down to five, that was difficult. But we had such an amazing cast and crew that were dedicated…
DANNY: …And when we ran, they ran.
MICHAEL: Yeah, it’s funny. When you’re in the storm, you don’t really realize…I remember we had a friend come and film everyday behind the scenes, and when you look at that back and the problems, it’s like I have no idea how we pulled it off and got the whole film. Genuinely…
DEADLINE: Why was getting the film’s music together so hard?
MICHAEL: I’m so particular with music, and I can’t even explain technically why I feel certain things are the right feeling, or whatever. But I can show you through sound and music. So, I did a really in-depth temp score of the whole film using a whole bunch of different things. The composer was going to stick close to that, but then went off in a different direction, and it felt like a different film.
DANNY: But it was edited to certain musical beats, as well. We were constantly editing while we were on set, and it was always edited to these temp scores. And then when the music came in and was not hitting these beats and it went off in a different direction, it just felt like it wasn’t right.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Then, we did the mix and tried to make it work, and it was genuinely really stressful. Then, we had to get a second go at the music and another mix. When we first played it back and the music didn’t work, it was supposed to be finished that day and the tickets went on sale for the Adelaide premiere in Australia. And I was like, “We’ve got no music. We’ve got no film here. I don’t know what we’re going to do.” So that’s where having an awesome producer, Samantha Jennings, was [critical]. She was like, “We’re so close to finish line. Let’s not fumble this now. Let’s finish this properly and do the music again.”
DANNY: Poor Michael broke down crying in the music suite. [Laughs]
DEADLINE: You’ve said you’re very game for a sequel toTalk to Meif A24 is interested, having in fact written out ideas for the sequel while working on the film. How did you come to the decision to actively go even deeper in your exploration of this world at the time?
DANNY: Because I was writing it for so long and we were redrafting and redrafting, you just can’t help but start writing other scenes, scenes of different people experiencing the hands, continuing on these characters’ story. So, there’s scenes for a sequel, yeah. And if A24 want it, I’ll bloody give it to them. [Laughs]
MICHAEL: When you’re writing and you know, say, the ending — and it’s not just specific to Talk to Me; I think it’s everything that we write — you think of the scenes after. What are the characters going to do after? How they’re going to interact after the climax. So you always just naturally write, even though you’re like, “Oh, this is probably a bit rough.” [Laughs] But it’s just fun because you love the characters and can just keep going.
DANNY: You take one for a walk and see where it goes.
DEADLINE: You anticipate that a sequel could center on an entirely new set of characters?
MICHAEL: What do you think? Do you reckon we should do a new story or continue?
DEADLINE: That’s a tough one… the Stranger Thingsone-off dilemma.Though this world does seem ripe for future exploration through new stories.
DANNY: That is the stressful thing because I’m super proud about both [the original and the sequel scenes].
DEADLINE: It seems like the industry is pivoting back in the direction of originals, having recognized between franchise fatigue, the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon, and other circumstances that this is perhaps what audiences want now. If studios insist on doing franchises, perhaps a homegrown, fresh one like a potential Talk to Mefranchise is the one to explore, rather than a continuing of the long ongoing. What do you think?
DANNY: That’s the most exciting thing, is an original story, and not not having to hit certain beats. I’m really excited by the idea of creating more original work. We’ve got another script that we finished called Bring Her Back, which is another original horror film that I’m so excited to do.
MICHAEL: You get these opportunities for these awesome redos of films…With YouTube we’re able to get a lot of the small ideas out of our head. But we’ve got a lifetime of stories and original concepts that we want to do. I’d more inclined, I really want to do mainly original stuff. We got signed on to develop Street Fighter, which has an amazing lore, characters and world. But then we have so many original ideas. The only thing about them is when they get in your head, some stick around and they won’t leave your head till you make them.
DEADLINE: To expand on this last point, what exactly do you feel the industry needs now, at a time of such uncertainty over its future?
MICHAEL: It’s interesting; I’ll just speak from my experience with it. This whole world now of releasing a film and box office and performance, all this stuff, this is so alien to us. We’re used to just making the thing, it’s finished, and we click upload. Even when we read up on past films and stuff, I never read the opening weekend or how it performed. I just read the reception and critic reviews and things like that. It’s all telling the story and trying to make the best story possible, and then the thing that comes after it, I have no idea. So, this whole past four months has been so new to us.
DANNY: So we’re definitely the wrong person to ask. [Laughs]
MICHAEL: I just hope that we’ll get the opportunity to keep creating our original stories. Because that’s what’s in us.
DANNY: I’m also also open to book adaptations, I’ll say. I’m excited about some book adaptations, too.
DEADLINE: The success of this film has led to you connecting with a number of filmmaking idols, from the aforementioned George Miller to Jordan Peele, Ari Aster and others who have expressed admiration of your work. What has the experience been like?
DANNY: Literally every time was just us fanboying the whole time. [Laughs]
MICHAEL: It’s interesting. It’s like, you know when you look at old pictures of all these great filmmakers in the past, all these iconic directors meeting and talking to each other? Seeing those people, in general, now, that you admire and you grew up watching, actually having a conversation with them, especially being from Australia where it’s so separated from the entertainment world… Like, we’re on the other side of the planet and it’s a not film [culture] at all. To have those people see your film and like your film and then actually meet and talk to you, it is really surreal. It feels like I’m kind of interfering with history, in a way. [Laughs] It’s like, “We shouldn’t be in a conversation with these guys. Why are we at dinner with Sam Raimi and getting a call with Jordan Peele?” The imposter syndrome is massive.
DANNY: How awesome that they’re all nice people and then everyone’s like, “Oh, don’t meet your heroes.” We’ve met so many of them now, and they’re all f***ing awesome.
DEADLINE: We sort of circled around this question earlier, but how do you negotiate your next steps in the industry when there is such a focus on linking up breakout indie directors with franchises or IP for massive tentpoles? While that route can obviously work, we’ve certainly seen that it doesn’t for everyone. How are you going to look to ensure, in other words, that no matter the kinds of projects you take on, you wind up creatively fulfilled?
DANNY: Just with those conversations with the studio. With Street Fighter, Legendary, [it appears] that they’re going to let us take control and really do our thing with it. It’s very exciting. And so it’s just about negotiating how many cooks are going to be in this kitchen and how much freedom we’re going to have.
MICHAEL: We just want, if you see a film that comes out by us, to know that we’ve put a hundred percent into it, and that it’s ours, and that it’s not like we’re just jumping on something for a paycheck or something like that. We want to make stuff that we’re really passionate about and put everything into it. That’s what we want. So, we’ve been offered stuff, but it’s like you want to stick [with] stuff that you know you’re going to want to be dedicated to doing for the next few years and putting your all into it.
Drake has been identified as the buyer of a gold, ruby, and diamond crown ring that Tupac Shakur wore during his final public appearance. He paid $1,016,000 for it at a Sotheby’s auction, according to a press release. The late Shakur designed the ring himself, and wore it to the MTV Video Music Awards in early September 1996. Take a look at the piece via Sotheby’s.
Shakur’s ring was expected to sell for at least $200,000. The auction was the third in a Sotheby’s series dedicated to articles from the world of hip-hop, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the genre.
Drake’s big purchase happened amid his It’s All a Blur Tour with 21 Savage. He’s been teasing the release of a new album titled All the Dogs, but he hasn’t specified a date for its arrival. In recent months, Drake has released a poetry book and shared a new track titled “Search & Rescue.” He’s also dropped in on new material by J Hus and Young Thug, and joined Central Cee for an On the Radar Radio Freestyle.
Travis Scott recruited Drake for a guest appearance on Utopia’s “Meltdown,“ where Drake reportedly takes a dig at Pharrell Williams. “Since V not around, the members done hung up the Louis/They not even wearing that shit/Don’t come to the boy ’bout repairing some shit,” he raps. The verse seems to indict the producer’s takeover as Louis Vuitton’s creative director of menswear after the 2021 death of Virgil Abloh. Drake supposedly extends his long-running beef with Pusha T in a takes a separate swipe. He insinuates that he would’ve flown to Paris to fight Williams and Pusha T at a fashion show, were it not for his facing a lawsuit from Vogue over a promo campaign for Her Loss. Pharrell has a co-writing credit with Scott and Kid Cudi on Utopia’s “Looove.”
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.
The 2023 Women’s World Cup is underway and this year’s tournament has the potential to be one of the most entertaining events in the game’s 32-year history.
It’s the first time that 32 teams will compete for the world title, with more than half of the field as serious title contenders: most notably, the U.S who has the opportunity to three-peat, England off the back of a Euros 2022 win and Australia, whose striker Sam Kerr is one of the best players on the field and arguably the face of this year’s tournament.
The tournament started on July 20 and runs to August 20. We are now into the second week of the Women’s World Cup with only a few group stage matches left before the knockout round. The USWNT is in Group E with Netherlands, Vietnam and Portugal.
What TV Channel Is the Women’s World Cup On?
As always, Fox is broadcasting the English-language version of the tournament while Telemundo will broadcast the Spanish-language coverage.
While both networks will cover all 64 games, Fox will only air 24 games on their over-the-air network (cable). The rest of the games will air on Fox Sports 1 (FS1). If you have an indoor antenna, you’ll be able to pick up your local Fox affiliate feed to watch the matches on TV. For everyone else — and to watch the Women’s World Cup on FS1 — check out the best ways to live stream the tournament without cable below.
Where to Watch Women’s World Cup Online Free
The best way to livestream the Women’s World Cup online is through DIRECTV. Their streaming service offers 75+ live TV channels — including Fox and FS1 — so you can watch the soccer matches live on your TV, computer, tablet or phone without cable. DIRECTV also gets you ESPN for post-game coverage and match analysis.
DIRECTV offers a 5-day free trial that you can use right now to watch the Women’s World Cup online for free. Cancel before your five days are up and you won’t be charged.
Another way to watch the tournament without cable? Use this 7-day free trial to fuboTV to live stream the Women’s World Cup online free on Fox and FS1.
While sites like Reddit will often list free Women’s World Cup live streaming links, only DIRECTV and fuboTV get you the official tournament feeds on Fox and FS1.
Prefer a European or South American Women’s World Cup feed? Use a service like ExpressVPN, which lets you set your IP address to an international location, so you can watch the international live feed of the soccer games. ExpressVPN pricing starts at just over $6 and you can see details here.
The USWNT plays in Group E of the first-round. Other countries in Group E are Netherlands, Portugal, and Vietnam. The two top teams will advance to the knockout stage. Here’s the rest of the first round schedule for the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Monday, July 24 (PT/ET)
Columbia vs. South Korea 7:00 p.m. / 10:00 p.m.
Tuesday, July 25 (ET/PT)
New Zealand vs. Philippines 10:30 a.m. / 10:30 p.m.
Switzerland vs. Norway 1:00 p.m./ 4:00 p.m.
Japan vs. Costa Rica 10:00 p.m. / 1:00 a.m.
Wednesday, July 26 (ET/PT)
Spain vs. Zambia 12:30 a.m. / 3:30 a.m.
Canada vs. Republic of Ireland 5:00 a.m. / 8:00 a.m.
United States vs. Netherlands 6:00 p.m. / 9:00 p.m.
Madonna has returned to Instagram with an inspirational message for her beloved fans. In a series of pictures she shared on her Instagram Story on Friday, July 28, the 64-year-old pop icon encouraged her fans to “Follow The Joy”. Each word in the phrase accompanied a picture Madonna took of herself wearing black cargo pants and a sheer top worn under a sexy black bustier, as seen below.
The post came one day after the “Vogue” hitmaker shared her first dancing video following her health scare and hospitalization in June. In the video, Madonna wore the same outfit as above and danced to her 1983 song, “Lucky Star”, even blowing fans a kiss. In the caption, Madonna celebrated the 40th anniversary of her self-titled debut album as well as the progress she’s made since her hospitalization. “To be able to move my body and dance just a little bit makes me feel like the Luckiest Star in the world!” she wrote. “Thank you to all of my fans and friends! You must be my lucky stars too! And Happy 40th Birthday to my very. First Album”.
The Grammy Award winner has only posted a handful of times since breaking her silence on her June 24 hospitalization. In the Instagram post, which Madonna shared on July 10, she thanked her fans for their support and well wishes, and confirmed she is on her road to recovery. She also addressed the postponement of her highly anticipatedCelebration tour, saying she was so scared of disappointing her fans. “I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets to my tour,” she explained. “I also didn’t want to let down the people who worked tirelessly with me over the last few months to create my show. I hate to disappoint anyone.”
However, Madonna said she understands that she needs to work on her health before getting on the road. “My focus now is my health and getting stronger, and I assure you, I’ll be back as soon as I can!” she confirmed. Madonna’s North American tour dates will be rescheduled, and she will start her tour in Europe in October instead.
The Queen of Pop was rushed to a New York City hospital last month after she was found unresponsive in her Upper East Side apartment. She was treated in the intensive care unit for a bacterial infection and was able to start her recovery journey at her home on Thursday, June 29. Although one report claimed Madonna was bed-ridden after returning home, she was spotted on a walk with her friend near her apartment just under two weeks after returning home.
If you need any more reason to be skeptical of generative AI, look no further than a recent BBC interview with Debbie Weinstein, Vice President of Google UK. She recommends people use Google Search to fact-check content generated by the Bard AI.
Weinstein says in the interview that Bard should be considered more of an “experiment” better suited for “collaboration around problem solving” and “creating new ideas”. It seems like Google didn’t really intend for the AI to be used as a resource for “specific information”. Besides fact-checking any information offered by Bard, she suggests using the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons at the bottom of generated content to give feedback to improve the chatbot. As the BBC points out, Bard’s homepage states “it has limitations and won’t always get it right, but doesn’t repeat Ms. Weinstein’s advice” to double-check results via Google Search.
On one hand, Debbie Weinstein is giving some sound advice. Generative AIs have a massive problem when it comes to getting things right. They hallucinate, meaning that a chatbot may come up with totally false information when generating text that fits a prompt. This issue has even gotten two lawyers from New York in trouble as they used ChatGPT in a case and presenting “fictitious legal research” that the AI cited.
So it’s certainly not a bad idea to double-check whatever Bard says. However, considering these comments are coming from a vice president of the company, it’s a little concerning.
Analysis: So, what’s the point?
The thing is Bard is essentially a fancy search engine. One of its main function is be “a launchpad for curiosity”; a resource for factual information. The main difference between Bard and Google Search is the former is relatively easier to use. It’s a lot more conversational, plus the AI offers important context. Whether Google likes it or not, people are going to be using Bard for looking up stuff.
What’s particularly strange about Weinstein’s comments is it contradicts with the company’s plans for Bard. During I/O 2023, we saw all the different ways the AI model could enhance Google Search from providing in-depth results on a topic to even creating a fitness plan. Both of these use cases and more require factual information to work. Is Weinstein saying this update is all for naught since it uses Google’s AI tech?
While it’s just one person from Google asserting this on the record (so far), she is a vice president at Google. If you’re not supposed to use the chatbot for important information, then why is it being added to the search engine as way to further enhance? Why implement something that’s apparently untrustworthy?
It’s a strange statement; one that we hope is not echoed throughout the company. Generative AI is here to stay after all, and it’s important that we trust it to output accurate information. We reached out to the tech giant for comment. This story will be updated at a later time.
A Fox News production crew dug deep Friday for left-leaning media reaction to the news that Hunter Biden’s plea deal with prosecutors was put on hold.
What it found was no surprise, unless ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is on your list of experts on the workings of American government.
Smith, as to not disappoint, featured among a group of political reporters, anchors and pundits in a segment “The Five” rolled out, served up a signature dish of Stephen A. spice, taking his place near the front of line while falling in after only U.S. Rep Eric Swalwell’s comments to CNN, which were highlighted by the California congressman saying Hunter Biden is “trying to take responsibility.”
“The Republicans in the House want to be in an uproar,” Smith said as the “The Five” montage cuts= to the “First Take” host, who for this clip was dishing for his podcast and YouTube show.
“They want to be apoplectic. ‘Migh gawd, preferential treatment was accorded to the son of the president of the United States of America,” Smith said, briefly launching into an impersonation of a white conservative politician with anxiety.
The Fox News montage then jumped forward in Smith’s remarks to a bombastic subtlety that few can pull off like Stephen A.
“Why the hell wouldn’t preferential treatment be accorded?” Smith asks.
But it wasn’t Smith’s comments that drove the take of “The Five” star and cohost Greg Gutfeld. He was focused on CNN and their comparisons of the updated classified documents indictment of Donald Trump to similar cases against mafia figures of the 1970s and ’80s.
“What I was listening to that montage I felt 2015 all over again,” Gutfeld said. “They actually use the same phrase, mafioso, right? Hasn’t CNN learned what that does to their brand? I mean they’re barely conscious right now as a network. And this is amazing time right now as the Hunter plea deal falls apart that suddenly these new charges on Trump just happen to arive.”
Watch more of Gutfeld’s comments in the full Fox News segment at the top of this post.
Just a month ahead of its expected premiere, FX’s limited series “A Murder at the End of the World” has moved its Hulu-exclusive debut to November. The seven-episode murder mystery show was previously set to air on Aug. 29 but, amid the ongoing writers and actors strike, has changed course on its release plans.
The series stars Emma Corrin as Darby Hart, a hacker and novice Sherlock on a mission to solve a murder. “Darby and eight other guests are invited by a reclusive billionaire (Clive Owen) to participate in a retreat at a remote and dazzling location. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must use all of her skills to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life,” reads the official synopsis.
Corrin is known for their Golden Globe-winning performance as Princess Diana in the “The Crown” Season 4 and is set to appear in the upcoming “Deadpool 3.” They also have credits on “My Policeman” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”
The series also stars Clive Owen, Harris Dickinson, Brit Marling, Alice Braga, Joan Chen, Raúl Esparza, Jermaine Fowler, Ryan J. Haddad, Pegah Ferydoni, Javed Khan, Louis Cancelmi, Edoardo Ballerini, Britian Seibert, Christopher Gurr, Kellan Tetlow, Daniel Olson and Neal Huff.
“A Murder at the End of the World” was created and directed by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Marling served as executive producer of the show alongside Andrea Sperling, Melanie Marnich and Nicki Paluga. The series was written by Marnich and Rebecca Roanhorse and was produced by FX productions.
It’s a rough time for the industry. With the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes both going on simultaneously, many fan-favorite projects are facing big delays going forward.
Thankfully, things are shaping up better for a highly-anticipated clairvoyant Spider-Person.
Madame Web’s Release Gets Moved Up
Marvel
Sony Pictures’ latest upcoming theatrical release slate confirmed that Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney, will hit theaters earlier than originally planned, according to Variety.
Instead of its original debut date of February 16, the upcoming Spider-Man spin-off will be hitting theaters two days earlier on February 14, aka Valentine’s Day.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates
The actual plot of Madame Web remains a closely guarded secret for now.
What is known is that Dakota Johnson leads the cast as Madame Web, while Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor all play different versions of Spider-Woman. Previous rumors indicated that the movie would have some sort of connection to the iconic Peter Parker character, but nothing is confirmed as of now.
In a previous interview, Sweeney commented how she “couldn’t be more excited” for the film and that she “can’t wait to be able to talk about it.”
With so much secrecy around the film, it’s hard not to think that some big concepts could be in play. Could it finally start connecting the many Sony Spider-Man spin-offs in a meaningful way?
Fans will know soon enough, as it’s now set to be the next Spidey Sony Pictures outing when it releases in theaters on February 14, 2024.
Even though they are among one of the most popular media franchises of all time, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlessaga has always had difficulty transitioning to the big screen. It makes sense that Paramount Pictures would want to bring Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo to movie theaters to become the studio’s signature superhero saga with the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, despite complaints of superhero fatigue.
The characters, stories, and action of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics and graphic novels look great when brought to life with stunning animation, but this has sadly mostly been seen on the small screen. While 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, are both fun nostalgic favorites, their goofy costumes and popular culture references to 1990s hits mean they have not aged very well. Comparatively, the next film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, was a complete disaster, as were the two films executive produced by Michael Bay.
However, the one success in the 21st century that the turtles have had on the big screen has been the severely underrated animated feature film TMNT, which hit theaters in 2007. There have been other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated films, but Turtles Forever was a television film, Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released directly to home video and VOD services, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie was on Netflix, with no theatrical distribution. Here’s why TMNT is the most underrated theatrical film within the franchise.
A Change Of Style
Imagi Animation Studios
At the time of the original 1990 film’s release, computer-generated imagery had not yet developed in a way that would have properly served the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Since Jurassic Park had not yet hit theaters, the notion that characters created with CGI could interact with live-action actors was not yet plausible, and there was no chance that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could have worked as a live-action film. Even in 2007, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would have seemed like an odd choice of sagas to reboot in live-action, considering the franchise’s success on the small screen.
As a result, the 2007 film got to use all the advents of 3D animation that had developed in the time since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III had been released. In the time since, Pixar had found success with the Toy Story films and their other critically acclaimed original projects such as Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, and A Bug’s Life. While it briefly seemed like they would be the only studio to master the craft, Dreamworks Animation proved that it had what it took to compete when Shrek won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature after its release in 2001. This indicated that it was the right time for a computer-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
The finished result is the most stylized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film at the time. Hard use of shadows gave the film a more mature film than its live-action predecessors, which is an inverse of how most people think of animated films. The detailed New York gave the film a strong visual look, and the computer animation allowed the Turtles to move and perform martial arts like fans had only ever dreamed of and is one of the most underrated action movies of the 2000s.
Continuing The Story
New Line Cinema
Even though the animation style is radically different from anything else in the franchise that had been released at that point in time, TMNT actually continued the events of the original trilogy in a compelling way. Even though they had worked together to defeat Shredder, the former brothers had grown apart and gone down their separate paths. It was a slightly darker storyline to approach, and in many ways, TMNT serves as a “legacy sequel” to the original films.
It actually marked the great setup for a sequel, and in fact, there was originally going to be a sequel focused on the 13-part comic book saga “City At War.” However, when Paramount and Nickelodeon acquired the rights to the property in 2009, the sequel was scrapped in favor of a live-action reboot. It’s unfortunate because the 2014 reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2016 sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows were not well-regarded entries that turned the beloved characters into monstrous CGI caricatures and featured too much adult humor to be enjoyed by the intended audience of children.
Interesting Character Interpretations
Warner Bros. Pictures
The characters are sufficiently developed and reach interesting conclusions by the time the film ends. Starting the team off as distant at the beginning not only allows for a strong character arc but also highlights their personalities separate from one another while also showing how they are stronger together.
Leonardo is made more the traditional stern leader he is typically known in the comics, while Ralphael’s cool but rude attitude is amped up to be a more violent vigilante. Contrasting these two brothers’ personalities really develops their relationship and culminates in a fight fans have wanted to see for years. Meanwhile, Donatello is shown as the most mature, while Michaelangelo is allowed to be the comic relief he works best at.
TMNT, in many ways, is a better mix of the classic 80s cartoons with the underground comics the characters originated from, even more so than the 1990 film. TMNT is a high mark in the franchise, and even though the reaction to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem might eclipse it, TMNT should not be forgotten.
In theory, live service games seem like a win-win for developers and consumers: Developers get to focus on supporting one title, while players are offered a constant stream of new content for their favorite games. In practice, however, things are playing out a bit differently.
With the rise of games as a service comes the rise of microtransactions, small in-game purchases that offer players additional content, cosmetics, and more. The problem is, these charges quickly add up, luring players into shelving out large amounts of money in small increments. Though some companies are more predatory in their tactics than others, we find ourselves growing frustrated by all it–and increasingly wary of what the future holds.
Spot On is a weekly news show airing Fridays in which GameSpot’s managing editor Tamoor Hussain and senior producer Lucy James talk about the latest news in games. Given the highly dynamic and never-ending news cycle of the massive video game industry, there’s always something to talk about but, unlike most other news shows, Spot On will dive deep into a single topic as opposed to recapping all the news. Spot On airs each Friday.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Mental health is an incredibly important topic, and one that can lead to many short film ideas.
So why not try to crack your story with some funding while you’re at it?
Voices With Impact is a yearly short film production grant that funds 5-minute films that create transformative conversations around the topic of mental health.
Each year thry award 10 filmmaking teams $7.5k to make a 5-minute short on specific underrepresented mental health topics.
A judge has rejected Disney’s attempt to have a lawsuit dismissed which would challenge the validity of an agreement that transferred powers of its special district back to Disney before Gov. Ron DeSantis essentially eliminated the district, installing his own people in roles and retitling it (from the Reedy Creek Improvement District to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board).
After assuming control of the special district, established in the late 1960s to allow for limited oversight when it comes to things like road construction and maintenance and building permits (at the time Disney was thinking about either developing in Florida or advancing the Mineral King project in California; Florida wanted to sweeten the deal), DeSantis was shocked to learn that Disney had actually passed a number of agreements right before he took control.
These agreements, essentially, allowed Disney to control what was being built and operated on property for the next 30 years. DeSantis filed a lawsuit; Disney filed an attempt to have that lawsuit dismissed. And now Disney was rejected.
“The District alleges that Disney controlled RCID; that Disney itself drafted the Agreements and caused them to be adopted; and that the Agreements would assure Disney’s control of future land use and development within the District, including the District’s own lands, consistent with Disney’s corporate plans for future expansion,” is how today’s filing put it. You can read the rest of the decision here, via WESH (NBC Orlando).
Disney was saying that a state law left DeSantis’ lawsuit untenable and that it shouldn’t be allowed to move forward until other cases, in federal court, are resolved. “Because this case is not moot and a stay is not proper, the Court hereby denies Disney’s Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, to Stay this Action,” wrote 9th Judicial Circuit judge Margaret Schreiber in the order.
In response, a Disney spokesperson said, “Today’s decision has no bearing on our lawsuit in federal court to vindicate Disney’s constitutional rights, and we are fully confident Disney will prevail in both the federal and state cases.”
Inga Swenson, who was nominated for three Emmys for her role as German cook Gretchen Kraus on the 1980s ABC sitcom “Benson,” has died at age 90.
Swenson died Sunday night in Los Angeles as a result of natural causes, her son, Mark, told TMZ on Friday.
The character Gretchen originated on the ’70s series “Soap,” as did Benson, the character played by Robert Guillaume, who headlined the eponymous spinoff.
Swenson was also a trained lyric soprano, who was nominated for two Tony Awards for her roles in the musicals “110 in the Shade” and “Baker Street.”
After a guardian of magical jewels turns an awkward girl and a popular boy into superheroes, they can never reveal their identities — even to each other.
Certificate:PG Action, some thematic elements and brief smoking
Year: 2023
Duration: 1hr 42m
Audio: English – Audio Description, English [Original], Spanish, French, Italian, Korean
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Filipino, Italian, Traditional Chinese
“Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie” was produced by ON Animation Studios, The Awakening Production, SND, Zagtoon, Method Animation, Fantawild and Mediawan with a budget of $86m. With it’s initial release on July 5th 2023 it made approximately $10.42m at the Box Office.
Watch the trailer for “Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie”
This summer, “Barbie” has revived the box office, making nearly $500 million worldwide in its first week. Earlier this year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” surpassed the billion-dollar mark. If those two success are any indication, it seems that nostalgia sells — particularly nostalgia for classic toys and characters to which moviegoers have a personal connection.
“The Beanie Bubble” (streaming Friday on Apple TV+) centers around the Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s. But the movie is not really about Beanie Babies.
Based on the book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute” by author Zac Bissonnette, the film is the feature directorial debut for co-directors and real-life married couple, musician Damian Kulash and Kristin Gore, who wrote the screenplay. The movie is set against the backdrop of the rise in popularity of Beanie Babies in the 1990’s. But what the filmmakers are aiming to tell is a much deeper, human story about the American dream, capitalism, democracy, power, cracks in the system and sexism in business.
“I didn’t think that I cared about the Beanie Baby craze,” Gore tells Variety. But when she read the book, she says was immediately captivated. “We both realized that within this incredibly wild story, it was full of really compelling people.”
She continues, “There was this insane tale about one of the most absurd crazes in American history involving tiny beanbag animals that were $5 and became treated like gold — and that’s already so bizarre and weird — but really, what spoke to us in the book were these three women’s journeys that were so instrumental to the phenomenon. That is what hooked us on wanting to tell the movie and making their journeys.”
“The Beanie Bubble” stars Zach Galifianakis as Beanie Baby founder Ty Warner, who became a billionaire as the inventor of the tiny stuffed animals. Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan star as the three women who helped Warner create Beanie Babies, but were never given any credit.
Banks, Snook and Viswanathan play characters based on the real women who helped Warner create a toy empire. The women they portray in the film are composites of the real-life people, but the directors took some liberties with adding in creative, fictionalized elements. “In their stories, we found fascinating underdog stories that helped us explore why we value what we value in our culture and what the female relationship to the American dream really is,” Gore says.
The filmmaking duo never met any of the real people portrayed in the movie, solely using the book as their source material. They did not reach out to Warner, but utilized him, symbolically, as a “stand-in for the American dream,” Gore describes.
“And the fact that the American dream does reward narcissists,” Kulash chimes in. “Especially narcissist men who take credit for things.”
Gore says that in the book, Warner is portrayed as charismatic. “He’s warm and generous and interesting and Willy Wonka-ish, but also capable of great selfishness and cruelty,” she says. “He’s basically just an opportunist who’s given the opportunities that the women aren’t, and he’s able to take the fruits of their labor and continue his path forward.”
In 2014, Warner pleaded guilty to tax evasion. At the end of the film, viewers learn how the women’s lives all ended up with happy endings.
“It was really important to us that the feeling at the end of the movie is that you’re pissed off about the system, but you feel a sense of victory,” Kulash says. “Do you really want to be the person who wins the billions of dollars, if all it does is leave you alone in your ivory tower, while the people you screwed over are off having good lives?”
“It feels pretty universal to be pissed off right now,” Kulash adds. “There are few parts of society now that don’t feel fucked. Whether or not you’re on the left or the right, you’re pissed off right now. I think the ’90s is about as far back as people can look and go, ‘It wasn’t like this then.’ But part of our story is like, ‘Well, it was sort of always like this.’”
Recently, there has been a recent trend in movies that center around products: from Eva Longoria’s “Flamin’ Hot,” which tells the story behind the founder of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos; to Ben Affleck’s “Air” about the rise of Nike; to “BlackBerry,” the biographical dramedy that chronicled the rise and fall of the first smartphone.
At their core, all of these movies are actually about the people behind the products — whether it’s a cautionary tale, or an upbeat underdog story. Still, for “The Beanie Bubble,” the filmmakers say the product trend and nostalgia factor were not intentional.
“We can’t ignore that there is a big pattern there, but we so did not mean to be part of it,” Kulash says. Theorizing about the recent trend in movies, he says, “Corporations have more power than governments do at this point. And, in the same way that we grew up on Cold War films, I’m not that surprised that we now have the same ‘us and them’ mentality, but based on corporations.”
Kulash notes that he and his wife were not interested in telling a story about a product or about a “man getting richer,” but rather about the “universal tale” that happens over and over again in American society where “people find the allure and promise in a dream, buy into it and end up being spat out.”
Gore says she finds it “super depressing” that there are so many movies being made today about products. “I think it’s a real testament to the consumerist excess of late stage capitalism. Everyone is just looking for human stories — it’s just sort of depressing that it falls around products. It feels like if everyone could channel that passion into stories, we could make humanity into a little bit healthier of a place.”
With a laugh, she quips, “But we’re total hypocrites, I realize, because we made a movie about Beanie Babies.”
The big takeaway, she hopes, is audiences feel “some sense of empowerment that we can create a better system.”
Mandy Moore revealed that one of her sons is having an issue with his health. On Friday (July 28), the “Candy” singer took to her Instagram Stories to share a photo of her two-year-old son Gus with a red rash on his body, along with some insight on his recently diagnosed condition.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“This sweet boy woke up with a crazy rash on Saturday am. We thought maybe an eczema flare? Poison oak? Allergy,” she captioned the photo. “We tried to deduce what it could be and did anything to help him find relief from the itch. Went to urgent care. Pediatrician. Dermatologist. pediatric dermatologist. All the while, he smiles and carries on with his day like the rockstar he is.”
She continued, “Turns out it’s a viral childhood rash that just spontaneously appears called Gianotti-Crosti syndrome. It sometimes accompanies a cold but not in Gus’ case. It’s all over his legs and feed and the backs of his arms but nowhere else. There’s nothing to do but a steroid cream and Benadryl at night. And it could last 6-8 weeks.”
According to the National Institute of Health, Gianotti Crosti syndrome is “a rare childhood skin condition characterized by a papular rash with blisters on the skin of the legs, buttocks, and arms.” The condition results in skin lesions that last a minimum of 10 days to several weeks, as described by Moore.
“This parenting thing is weird and hard and sometimes you feel so helpless (and yes I’m ever so grateful it’s only an itchy skin condition). Kids are resilient and as long as he’s smiling through it, we are a-okay,” the This Is Us actress concluded her Stories post.
Moore shares her two sons with Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith — the pair tied the knot in 2018. Gus, whose name is August “Gus” Harrison, on Feb. 20, 2021. The couple’s youngest child, Oscar “Ozzie” Bennett Goldsmith, was born in October 2022.
See Moore’s Instagram Story about Gus’ skin condition before it disappears here.
– English Audio Description
Facebook
Mastodon
Login or register for updates…
