Anybody looking to buy Intel‘s 4th-Gen Xeon Scalable processors may have noticed a recent pause in shipments as the company looked to address a bug that looked to be interrupting system operations.
The mystery error reportedly affected Sapphire Rapids processors with between eight and 32 cores, but the precise reason behind the error remains unclear to this day, despite the resumption of shipments once more.
Intel has since responded with a fix which is available via a firmware update to existing customers. The company did not immediately respond to TechRadar Pro’s request to confirm whether new orders come from the factory with the fix installed.
Intel Sapphire Rapids patch
Intel’s 4th-Gen Xeon Scalable processors were launched earlier this year after several delays and months of holdbacks.
While details of the error remain sparse, The Registerreported that the error did not present itself when processors were running commercially available software, indicating that only niche applications were problematic for Sapphire Rapids.
An Intel spokesperson told Tom’s Hardware: “We became aware of an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that could interrupt system operation under certain conditions and are actively investigating.”
A company spokesperson said about the patch: “We are now confident the firmware mitigation addresses the issue. We have resumed shipping all versions of SPR-MCC and are working with customers to deploy the firmware as needed.”
A pause in shipments out of an “abundance of caution,” which is believed to have started in mid-June, has now been lifted, and processors are being delivered as normal.
The Canadian government is working to pare back the law that has driven Meta Platforms, Google and other tech companies to threaten to cut news links out of their feeds rather than share revenue with publishers.
The Online News Act, which is slated to take effect in less than six months, requires that digital platforms reach deals with Canadian news outlets to share revenue for their content. Google and Meta, respective parents of Facebook and Instagram, lobbied against the law, and have pledged to block Canadian news rather than pay up.
But after months of appearing steadfast in enforcing the law in full, Heritage Canada, the agency tasked with promoting and supporting Canada’s culture and heritage, is now planning to scale back the rules for how it works, The National Post reported.
Planned adjustments to the act, posted by Heritage Canada in an online notice Monday, aim to “clarify” the criteria under which news-aggregator platforms can qualify for exemptions to the requirements to deal with Canadian publishers, the report said.
The notice said that the agency plans to propose regulations that would “establish a financial threshold for contributions to the sustainability of the Canadian news marketplace” that would be “based on a platform’s estimated Canadian revenues and would be specific to each platform and their position within the news marketplace.” In other words, rather than requiring platforms to pay an uncapped amount for news, there would be a limit to what each company would be required to pay.
Another proposal would allow the tech companies to count “non-monetary offerings to news organizations” like training and other products that could count toward an exemption for direct payments.
The new rules would also “consider existing agreements that the digital platforms have reached with news businesses,” which critics said is directly related to Google’s objections to the law and its agreements with Canadian outlets via its Google News Showcase program.
The regulations are still in the works, and Heritage Canada will be accepting comments from stakeholders and Canadians before they are set in place. The law is expected to take effect by mid-December.
“It would appear that the government has caved on the bill as it searches for a face-saving compromise,” wrote Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and the school’s Canada research chair in internet and i-commerce law on his blog. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo “Rodriguez and Prime Minister Trudeau had tough talk last week, but behind the scenes they were seemingly ready to cast aside the core principles that they claimed were essential to the legislation,” he said.
Geist also noted that even if Canada reaches a deal with Google, that doesn’t guarantee it can reach one with Meta. “Meta has left no doubt that it will not pay for links and that news has limited value on its platform,” he wrote, adding, “it is hard to see a road back for Meta.”
“If that is the case, Bill C-18 is already a disaster as the lost links and cancellation of existing deals mean that Bill C-18 may result in a net loss for the media sector,” Geist wrote.
Robert Downey Jr. admitted in a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine that he was concerned his acting chops might be at risk while playing Iron Man/Tony Stark for 11 years in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The actor debuted as the superhero in 2008’s “Iron Man” and was killed off in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” appearing in a total of nine Marvel movies.
“You start to wonder if a muscle you have hasn’t atrophied,” Downey Jr. said about the risks of playing the same character for over a decade.
When asked if he had any concerns about what effect playing Iron Man for 11 years might have on his acting, Downey Jr. replied: “Yes. 100%, and I knew there was a point where Christopher Nolan was endorsing, let’s work those other muscles, but let’s do it while rendering you devoid of your usual go-to things.”
Downey Jr. is starring as Lewis Strauss in Nolan’s atomic bomb epic “Oppenehimer.” Strauss served two terms on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He was the organization’s chairman during his second term. The film gave Downey Jr. a chance to flex acting muscles he couldn’t in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nolan didn’t want the actor relying on his “usual go-to things,” which Downey Jr. described as “fast-talking, charming, unpredictable, blah, blah, blah.”
Working with Nolan also brought Downey Jr. back to a far more practical mode of filmmaking. Unlike the green screens and VFX-heavy work of Marvel, Nolan shot “Oppenheimer” with practical effects and even reconstructed the Manhattan Project village so that he wouldn’t be shooting the film on a studio lot. It was a welcome return for Downey Jr.
“Coming from that other place, entering the box-office-weekend-dominating place, then going into this spot now where I’m happy that I’m in this quality product — I’m happy that I regained my connection with a more purist approach to making movies,” the actor told The New York Times Magazine.
“He’s one of our great actors, and though a generation of kids know what a great movie star he is, they’ve not seen his subtlety and brilliance,” Nolan recently told the Los Angeles Times about casting Downey Jr. “I wanted to get him to do something completely different, to lose himself in another human being. When was the last time we’ve seen that? ‘Chaplin’? Directors are very aware of how talented Downey is, but because of his incredible energy that can punch through the screen, finding the right thing for him is difficult.”
Downey Jr. nearly lost out on the Iron Man role as his casting worried the Marvel board of directors. The actor was still on the outs of Hollywood during the casting process for “Iron Man,” having been arrested in April 1996 for possession of heroin, cocaine and an unloaded gun. Marvel was deciding between him or Timothy Olyphant to cast as Iron Man.
“My board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict,” former Marvel Studios president David Maisel told The New Yorker earlier this year. “I helped them understand how great he was for the role. We all had confidence that he was clean and would stay clean.”
“Oppenheimer” opens in theaters nationwide July 21 from Universal Pictures.
17 Actors That Changed Genres And Performed Amazingly
We can be fairly quick to make our minds up about actors or put them in a specific genre box. However, sometimes, they give us a performance that makes us see them in a completely different light.
Well, I recently asked the BuzzFeed Community for the role an actor played that changed how we saw them and here are the best responses:
1.
Catherine Tate in Doctor Who
2.
Robin Williams in One Hour Photo
3.
Chris Evans in Knives Out
4.
Salma Hayek in Black Mirror
5.
Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto
6.
Adam Sandler in Reign Over Me
7.
Viggo Mortensen in Green Book
8.
Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction
9.
Mo’Nique in Precious
10.
Steve Carell in Little Miss Sunshine
11.
Robert Pattinson in The Batman
12.
Ryan Gosling in La La Land
13.
Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
14.
Robert Pattinson in Good Times
15.
Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained
16.
Melissa Rauch in The Bronze
17.
Lee Je Hoon in Taxi Driver
When has an actor completely changed your opinion of them? Let us know in the comments below!
In March 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order as COVID-19 spread across the globe. People were left at home to their devices — literally.
Theaters went dark and artists’ livelihoods were suspended indefinitely. As L.A.-based dancer Kevin Zambrano witnessed time pass and theaters remain shuttered, he had an idea for a residency program that would allow artists to create while keeping everyone safe. The initiative would give one solo dance artist an entire venue to themselves, so they could have the opportunity to develop new works in a performance space.
In 2021, Zambrano created the Ghost Light Residency. He reached out to Bret Easterling of the nonprofit organization BeMoving to assist in the residency’s creation; Easterling became co-director. As the group prepared to launch, they brought on producers Loni Rodgers and Sadie Wilking. Funding began with a Kickstarter campaign supported predominantly by dance lovers and practitioners. The Ghost Light Residency team then reached out to venues operated by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
“We’re trying to allow these artists to come in and disrupt these spaces,” Zambrano says.
Artists accepted into the residency had five days, or roughly 20 hours, to work on anything they wanted with no strings attached. Two years later, as COVID restrictions continue to fade, Ghost Light Residency continues to offer artists opportunities to explore and has cemented itself as a resource for the dance community.
Ghost Light Residency 2023 artists Lena Martin and Mak Thornquest create new work at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
The program’s name — Ghost Light — refers to the single electric light left on in unoccupied theaters. For each cycle, Ghost Light chooses two L.A.-based dance theater artists by lottery, many of them from underrepresented communities, to take part in the residency. During their allotted time, artists can make use of anything in the theater: the stage, lights, sound, backstage, audience seats and more. Toward the end of the residency, Ghost Light’s in-house photographer, Josh S. Rose, and a video team, RYBG, document the resident artists’ work. As the program moves forward, live performances are being presented.
“The mission has always been to invest in artists who are from marginalized communities to give them proper time and space to do what they do,” Easterling says.
Jasmine Orpilla was one of Ghost Light’s first resident artists. Orpilla, a Ilokana/x American vocal performance artist who weaves music of the Philippine diaspora with folk ritual dance, applied during a time that felt like “the edge of survival.”
Jasmine Orpilla, one of the first resident artists of the Ghost Light Residency, performing at Madrid Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
“When I got the call, I was floored by what it was that they were offering,” Orpilla says. “It was a huge gift, actually, and the timing was absolutely perfect.”
Orpilla chose to make a short film during her time at the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park. In the piece, she imbues her sung music with movements inspired by her culture. At one point she plays a traditional Filipino game for kids, making faces to move a coin from her forehead to her mouth, as she stands behind a picture frame. In the next moment, she is hidden behind seats in a theater and slowly reveals her limbs from the backrests. These installations are used to “create a living human ghost light beacon using my body and the entire theater,” she says.
Some parts she filmed on her own; RYBG helped with others. The work is informed by her family history as well as grief stemming from the pandemic and uncertainty at the time. It led to awards: the 2023 COLA Artist Fellowship and the 2023 Creative Capital Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact Award.
Jasmine Orpilla, one of the first resident artists of the Ghost Light Residency, performing at Madrid Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
“It really sparked something in me and I carry that energy forward,” she says.
Although Orpilla came into the residency with a final film in mind, Zambrano says that there’s no pressure for artists to leave with a full-fledged final product, though that’s certainly possible. “The artists can use the time and space however they are needing,” he explains. This year’s residents, Yoli and duo Lena Martin and Mak Thornquest, presented their work at a Ghost Light Pop-Up event at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in East Hollywood on July 6.
Ghost Light Residency 2023 artist Yoli creating new work at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
Yoli, who identifies as queer and uses they/them pronouns, taps into their “spiritual path or way of returning to the earth.”
In their work for Ghost Light, Yoli toys with mythology, humor and teatro de la vida — or the theatric expressions and gestures of everyday life. The beauty of pedestrian movements, such as walking, waving and climbing, comes through in their stories.
Ghost Light Residency 2023 artists Lena Martin and Mak Thornquest create new work at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
Martin and Thornquest are using the residency for one big experiment as first-time collaborators. Thornquest graduated from CalArts in 2022 and moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., and Martin recently graduated from the same program in 2023. Themes of viewership, audiences and surveillance converge in their residency work. The pair intentionally created with the audience in mind: Is watching consensual or nonconsensual? What is the relationship between those performing?
“I think that we’re interested in bringing in our toolbox of things that we’ve been collecting for a long time like our poetry practice, our feather boas, our investigations around the theater and what it means to be people who have made a home out of the theater,” Martin says.
Ghost Light Residency 2023 artist Yoli creates new work at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.
(Josh S. Rose)
Dance is a historically gendered medium, separating roles on stage between men and women. As nonbinary artists, Martin and Thornquest have struggled to ground themselves throughout their dance careers. “A lot of the spaces that trans people make work in are trans-forward spaces or spaces where it’s about queerness,” Thornquest says. “It’s so refreshing to be allowed to make work about whatever I want.”
Easterling hopes to find new ways of funding so that the program is “not reliant on the community that we’re trying to support.” The goal is to give artists more time in respective venues, or even increase the number of participants each cycle. Rodgers also hopes for the residency to expand to other cities in the future.
In the words of previous resident artist Jas Lin, the participants who come through the residency are “haunting” the space.
The Ghost Light Residency team, from left: Kevin Zambrano, Loni Rodgers, Sadie Wilking and Bret Easterling.
(Owen Scarlett)
In November, six previous resident artists — Lin, Orpilla, Javon Jones, Jul Wiggins, Emara Neymour Jackson and Tom Tsai — came together for the residency’s first gala to share bits of the work they created with an audience, turning their hauntings into a live presence. It was the first effort of many to keep the artists in community with one another, Easterling says. During the gala, the six stood up and bowed to the audience, Rodgers recalled. Parallel to them were Zambrano, Easterling, Rodgers and Wilking.
“It was like ‘wow’ in the best way,” Rodgers says. “You look around and you see the community that supported us plus new people that came along the way that’s there to witness two years of magic.”
Agent Carter was once with a husband, but just exactly who that person was remains a mystery—one which was almost solved in Captain America 2 until it was removed.
There’s a lot to love about Avengers: Endgame, but many fans found endless enjoyment in Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter’s happy ending.
After jumping around the timelines and returning the various Infinity Stones (an adventure some still hope to see play out on screen one day), Steve took it upon himself to go to an alternate timeline and live a life with Peggy, a chance the two were not given in the MCU’s original timeline.
But before any of those crazy events went down. Peggy Carter did live a full life and passed away during the events of Captain America: Civil War. That life she lived also included a husband—whose identity remains a big mystery.
Peggy Carter’s Mystery Husband
While speaking with Collider, actress Hayley Atwell, who brings to life Agent Carter in the MCU, discussed how Marvel Studios avoided confirming the identity of her character’s offscreen husband by removing a framed photo from her scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Atwell recalled how when they were filming her bed scene in Captain America 2, Marvel producer Louis D’Esposito declared that they “don’t want to limit [themselves] by kind of suggesting” any specific person:
“I remember when I was filming it, the prop master had put a framed photograph on Peggy’s bedside, of Peggy with her husband and her children, and Louis de Esposito ran over just before we started rolling, going ’take that out. We don’t know yet. We don’t want to limit ourselves by kind of suggesting this is who she’s married.’ And so that was taken out. And I thought, ‘OK, that’s really interesting.’”
Marvel
She went on to praise Marvel for these tactics, explaining how the company is “always aware of just feeding the amount of information that the audience need to keep engaged:”
“And so that I think what [Marvel is] so good at, they’re so good at giving the audience what they want and exceeding the expectations. And I think that’s why they’re always aware of just feeding the amount of information that the audience need to know, to keep engaged, but also delighting them and surprising them with, with new information.”
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Peggy is seen in archive footage, and it’s here where she talks about Captain America saving over a thousand men, “including the man who would later become [her] husband.”
Marvel
Cap 2 preceded ABC’s Agent Carter series by two years. In that show, which was prematurely canceled, Peggy got a new love interest: Daniel Sousa (played by Enver Gjovak).
Many fans quickly started to believe that it was Sousa who Peggy would go on to marry in the absence of Steve Rogers. Sadly, whatever may‘ve happened between the two of them will likely never be further explored.
Marvel
At the end of the day, following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Peggy got her dance with Steve, and the two lived a long and full life in an alternate timeline.
Marvel
Will Fans Ever Get an Answer About Agent Carter’s Spouse?
While Sousa might not get the girl, he did have some fun adventures with the cast of Agents of Shield in their final season. While Agent Carter was canceled, Enver Gjokaj’s character went on to partake in some time-traveling shenanigans alongside the likes of Chloe Bennett’s Daisy Johnson and Clark Greg’s Phil Coulson.
When it comes to Agent Carter and all of its loose plot threads, audiences shouldn’t expect them to be cleared up anytime soon. A revival isn’t likely at this stage, and any further exploration of Carter will almost certainly be tied to either her Captain Carter Variant or the version of her who’s spent a lifetime with Steve Rogers.
But could anyone slip up and reveal Carter’s secret husband in the original timeline? Well, Jonathan Majors’Kang the Conqueror might be willing—though it’s hard to imagine that being one of his priorities.
Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for My Adventures With Superman episodes 1 & 2.The Superman logo in My Adventures With Superman underwent one minor design change which further enhanced the character’s thematic meaning. The new animated series, which draws equally upon the classic Superman mythology and anime tropes for its unique aesthetic, has made several small changes from the traditional Superman story for the sake of diversity and realism. However, the changes to the Superman logo were reportedly born of a desire on the part of the production team to emphasize a key trait of Superman’s character.
The precise meaning of Superman’s logo has changed dramatically over the years. Originally a simple “S” for Superman, the distinctive diamond design became the family crest of the House of El based on a suggestion from actor Marlon Brando during the filming of 1978’s Superman: The Movie. This explanation made its way into the comics, where writer Mark Waid introduced the idea of the logo being the Kryptonian symbol for “hope” in 2004’s Superman: Birthright. Geoff Johns later enscrolled both explanations as canon in 2009’s Superman: Secret Origin. However, despite these changes in meaning, the actual Superman logo design has changed relatively little over the years.
Superman’s New Logo & Costume Fit What Superman Represents
The Superman logo in My Adventures With Superman is sharper and more angular, contrasting with the soft curves of the classic design. This makes it look less like a familiar “S” shape and more alien in nature. It also emphasizes the harshness of the Kryptonian culture, which has been shown to be fascist, isolationist and xenophobic in different interpretations. This subtly backs a young Clark Kent’s rejection of his alien heritage, after he has a frightening encounter with a hologram of Jor-El while exploring the ship that brought him to Earth.
This drives home a key point regarding Superman’s core character across all media. While Superman looks human, he is an alien. Paradoxically, he is driven by human emotions and chooses to live the life of an ordinary human, rather than setting himself up as a ruler or a god. Many interpretations, like the DCEU Superman, falter in trying to emphasize Superman’s nature as an outsider and his feelings of alienation from humanity. This idea doesn’t mesh with Superman’s history, however, as the revelation that he is an alien did nothing to change who Clark Kent is or alter the values taught to him by Jonathan and Martha Kent.
My Adventures With Superman honors this history while also emphasizing the duality of Clark Kent’s identity through his costume. Clark acquires his famous super-suit in the second-half of the My Adventures With Superman premiere, after reluctantly confronting the Jor-El hologram. The suit, which resembles the trunkless armor of the New 52 Superman, prompts Martha Kent to declare that the outfit needs something to set it off, like a belt or shorts. This serves both to soften the harsh appearance of the Kryptonian garb and makes the costume into a merger of Kryptonian and human fashion, reflecting Clark’s conflicting identities.
Why My Adventures With Superman Changed Superman’s Logo
Beyond being more distinctive and alien in appearance, the new Superman logo also serves a practical purpose for the production team of My Adventures With Superman. Artist and character designer Kris Anka, who worked on both My Adventures With Superman and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, explained in a post on his personal Twitter that his primary goal had been making something simpler and streamlined, yet still recognizable as Superman’s logo. Curved lines are harder to animate cleanly than straight ones, so the straight-lined logo presented in My Adventures With Superman offered a symbol that animators could reproduce faster and more consistently.
While Kris Anka was successful in his goal of making “something fresh” for Superman’s reworked logo, he also created the perfect symbol of Superman’s duality. The new House of El logo is distinctively Superman, with the same familiar colors and diamond-cut shape. At the same time, it looks strange, like something from an alien world light years beyond Earth, physically and culturally. This makes it the perfect centerpiece to a Superman costume that is a balance between human ingenuity and alien practicality. It is also symbolic of how My Adventures With Superman remains true to the spirit of an American icon while presenting it through an anime aesthetic.
My Adventures With Superman releases Thursdays on Adult Swim and Fridays on Max.
How much time do you spend taking pictures of yourself, various characters and the environment in Disney Dreamlight Valley? Personally, I’ve spent many hours getting some for work, but have spent plenty of time in my free time finding cute pictures of companions, snapping photos of my house and seeing what kind of poses different characters have. It’s a great way to express your creativity, and the upcoming DreamSnaps update lets us take this to the next level.
Disney Dreamlight Valley DreamSnaps Update – All Confirmed Details
Earlier today, the official DDLV Twitter and Discord announced that the DreamSnaps update is coming soon! It’ll feature weekly challenges where we can submit photos and vote on each other’s pictures for a chance to get weekly Moonstone rewards! By participating in this weekly challenge, we have the opportunity to get free premium currency to go toward Star Paths and shop items.
The following posts also explain that, although it is a smaller-scale update, a new feature will be implemented that ties everything together.
The DreamSnaps Update in coming soon and with it, a brand new way to flex your creativity and earn exciting rewards!
✅ Submit a photo in weekly challenges ✅ Vote on your faves ✅ Earn weekly Moonstones (and more)!
— Disney Dreamlight Valley (@DisneyDLV) July 10, 2023
The social media accounts also confirm that this new addition will evolve over time, meaning that we’ll get to participate and experiment with submissions for months, or even years, after its initial launch.
While there is no exact release date yet, we can anticipate more information in the coming weeks as we get deeper into the summer. The posts confirm that it is a “summer update”, so we can expect this to be released sometime in July or August.
Since this is the first look into the few update, we can also expect more details regarding this new feature and the types of photos we’ll submit in the weekly challenges. In the meantime, we can all prepare our photography skills in anticipation of the event!
Disney Dreamlight Valley is available to play on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation platforms.
About the Author
Madison Benson
Madison is a writer who has played video games for over twenty years. When she isn’t playing games on her PC, she’s hanging out with her dogs and rabbits.
Sometimes a character exists to take us on a journey and nothing more.
It seems like every time someone wants to talk about storytelling or screenwriting, they always bring change up. Sure, some people want to see characters change and have tangible arcs, but what about the characters who exist just to take us on a trip?
We call them static characters and they are incredibly fun to write.
Static characters have long been the unsung heroes of storytelling, often overlooked due to their seemingly unchanging nature.
These characters remain consistent throughout the narrative, their traits, beliefs, and attitudes remaining steadfast despite the evolving plot.
However, their unchanging nature doesn’t make them any less significant. In fact, it’s their consistency that often enhances the narrative by providing a stable point of reference for the audience. Today, we’ll delve into the world of static characters, their role, significance, and how they contribute to the overall narrative.
Let’s dive in.
‘Crazy Rich Asians’
Static Character Definition
In storytelling, a static character is a fictional character who does not undergo significant internal changes or development throughout the course of a story. These characters typically maintain consistent traits, attitudes, and behaviors from the beginning to the end of the narrative.
Static characters serve various purposes within a story. They often provide stability or act as a foil to dynamic characters, who undergo substantial growth or transformation.
Static characters may serve as a source of comic relief, offer insight into the story’s theme or moral, or serve as a point of contrast to highlight the changes occurring in other characters.
Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes in ‘Enola Holmes’Credit: Netflix
Understanding the Essence of Static Characters
Now that you know the definition, it’s time to tap into the soul of the static character. Sure, a static character, fundamentally, is a character whose persona remains unaltered throughout the story but that being static doesn’t mean these characters are flat or one-dimensional; on the contrary, they can be quite complex.
A lot of times, their very existence is crucial to the story moving forward or for the writer taking advantage of the genre at hand.
They can also be a lot of fun to write, even though they might initially seem unexciting due to their unchanging nature. Their consistency often provides a stable foundation for the narrative, making them indispensable to storytelling.
And they make up some of the most popular characters of all time.
Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Marwan Kenzari as Jafar in ‘Aladdin’Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Differentiating Static Characters from Other Character Types
The storytelling and screenwriting world is teeming with a variety of character types, each with its unique traits and roles. Understanding how static characters differentiate from other types is crucial in comprehending their role in a narrative.
Static Characters vs. Dynamic Characters
The primary distinction between static and dynamic characters lies in their evolution (or lack thereof) throughout the story. While static characters stay the same, dynamic characters undergo significant internal changes or character arcs. A dynamic character’s transformation is often closely tied to the story’s central themes or conflicts.
Static Characters vs. Flat Characters
While static and flat characters might seem similar due to their unchanging nature, they serve different roles. A static character, despite remaining constant, can be multi-layered and complex. On the other hand, a flat character is typically one-dimensional, lacking depth and development.
‘Watchmen’Credit: HBO
Mastering the Art of Writing Engaging Static Characters
After learning all this, you might actually be intimidated to write a static character. But that shouldn’t be the case. In fact, I bet you’ve written some without even knowing it before. I know I have.
Writing an engaging static character requires a delicate balance. Despite their lack of change, these characters should still be well-rounded, with compelling backstories, relatable goals, and interesting character traits.
Okay, static characters are just like other characters in your story. They still need some love and attention. But if you follow these tips it will be much easier to understand where they’re coming from and to make them not feel flat.
You do not need to do all this stuff, they are just suggestions to get your ideas flowing:
Develop a well-rounded static character, complete with a compelling backstory, realistic goals, and relatable flaws.
Give the static character a flaw that leads to their downfall when they refuse to change.
Ensure your static characters play a crucial role in advancing the plot.
Mirror some traits of your dynamic characters in your static ones. This contrast can effectively highlight the dynamic character’s transformation.
Introduce another character who attempts (and fails) to change the static character. This refusal to change can lend a sense of purpose and confidence to your static character’s persona.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ Credit: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Examples of Static Characters in Film and TV and Literature
To better understand static characters and how you can riff on them, let’s take a look at some examples from literature and film:
Sherlock Holmes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and movies and TV. He solves the crimes but I’m not sure we’ve ever seen them change him.
Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a stand-up person whose points of view do not change within the story, but who helps us understand why the world has to change.
Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a gal on a journey and an adventure that may not change her but who leads us to many fantastical places.
Romeo and Juliet from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are two static characters who fall in love, while the world crumbles around them.
Emperor Palpatine/The Emperor from Star Wars is a villain always hellbent on ruling the galaxy. Like many villains, he does not change but rather deepens his villainy with each new story.
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’Credit: Universal Pictures
The Impact and Significance of Static Characters
Hopefully, those examples showed you how these characters can carry a story. And also how they can be utilized in many different ways. Static characters, with their steady attributes and consistent behavior, provide a reliable point of reference for the audience.
They help underline the changes in dynamic characters and highlight the story’s central themes. Moreover, their constant nature can evoke a range of emotions in the readers or viewers, from admiration for their steadfastness to sympathy for their inability to change.
‘Romeo+Juliet’Credit: Fox
Summing Up The Definition and Examples of Static Characters in Screenwriting
While static characters might not undergo dramatic transformations, they play a crucial role in enhancing the narrative, supporting dynamic characters, and enriching the overall storytelling experience.
Whether they’re serving as the protagonist’s foil, driving the plot forward, or highlighting a story’s themes, their impact is undeniable. Therefore, mastering the art of crafting engaging static characters is a valuable skill for any writer.
So you want a copy of the Abducted Edition for Refugium Games’ The Greyhill Incident, but don’t want to shell out for the import changes? No need to fret, as publisher Perp Games has announced that the Abduction Edition is now available in the US, containing some physical extras for those who love their alien abductions. That includes the game’s creepy “Found Footage” mode.
Available via Amazon, the Abducted Edition includes a copy of The Greyhill Incident, alongside a step-by-step manual on creating the ultimate tinfoil hat to deflect alien brain-reading attacks, and a newspaper detailing the alien invasion. And as mentioned, this version of The Greyhill Incident includes the immersive “Found Footage” mode, which offers a unique perspective of playing the game as if you were looking through the lens of a camcorder.
Drawing inspiration from classics such as Signs and “The X-Files”, The Greyhill Incident has survivors board up windows, hide from and fight the uninvited visitors through the atmospheric Greyhill neighborhood, and communicate with your weird and often wacky neighbors to make it through the night and save your son.
The Abducted Edition of The Greyhill Incident is also available digitally on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC via Steam.
It’s a new cast and mystery in the second season of the Cruel Summer TV show on Freeform. As we all know, the Nielsen ratings typically play a big role in determining whether a TV show like Cruel Summer is cancelled or renewed for season three. Unfortunately, most of us do not live in Nielsen households. Because many viewers feel frustrated when their viewing habits and opinions aren’t considered, we invite you to rate all of the second season episodes of Cruel Summer here.
A Freeform teen thriller series, the Cruel Summer TV show stars Sadie Stanley, Lexi Underwood, Griffin Gluck, KaDee Strickland, Lisa Yamada and Sean Blakemore, with Paul Adelstein recurring. Season two is set in an idyllic waterfront town in the Pacific Northwest and follows the rise and fall of an intense teenage friendship. Approaching the story from three different timelines in the 1990s leading up to Y2K, the story twists and turns as it tracks the early friendship between computer genius Megan (Stanley), mysterious foreign exchange student Isabella (Underwood), and Luke (Gluck), Megan’s best friend. A popular teen goes missing, and a seemingly unrelated girl transforms from a sweet and awkward outlier to the most popular girl in town.
What do you think? Which season two episodes of the Cruel Summer TV series do you rate as wonderful, terrible, or somewhere between? Do you think that Cruel Summer should be cancelled or renewed for a third season on Freeform?
Check out our status sheets to track new TV series pickups, renewals, and cancellations. You can find lists of cancelled shows here.
The Olivier Award-winning revival of Cabaret is headed to Broadway.
A new production of the musical, which originated on the West End in November 2021, will play Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre in spring 2024.
Few other details have been announced, including the Broadway casting. Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley starred in the lead roles of the Emcee and Sally Bowles at the start of the run in London and both won Olivier Awards for their portrayals. Cabaret won the 2022 Olivier for best musical revival, with Rebecca Frecknall winning for best director.
The musical, which features a score by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff, centers on a seedy night club in pre-World War II Berlin, overseen by the mysterious, all-knowing Emcee. American writer Cliff Bradshaw sweeps in, meets performer Sally and tries to create a stable, happy life, even as the threat of fascism is on the rise.
The musical originally opened on Broadway in 1966 and spawned a film adaptation, starring Joel Grey and Liza Minelli, as well as several other revivals. The 1998 and 2014 revivals both featured Alan Cumming as the Emcee, alongside a slate of starry Sallys, including Natasha Richardson, Michelle Williams, Sienna Miller and Emma Stone.
The London production is still running at the Playhouse Theatre with Maude Apatow as Sally and Mason Park as the Emcee and is booking tickets through June 2024. It features several pre-show elements, in which the audience is led through an operating Kit Kat Club and then to the lobby, where multiple platforms are filled with actors and dancers in character. The New York production will also feature a “prologue,” according to a spokesperson for the production, but the entertainment will be “bespoke to the August Wilson Theatre.” The production has not yet announced whether the theater will be remodeled for the show.
The revival, which was praised by critics and described by The New York Timesas being pulled into a “hedonistic milieu, only to send us out nearly three hours later reminded of life’s horrors,” features club, set and costume design by Tom Scutt and choreography by Julia Cheng.
Ambassador Theatre Group Productions and Underbelly, Gavin Kalin Productions, Hunter Arnold, Smith & Brant Theatricals and Wessex Grove are producing the show on Broadway.
The revival of Funny Girl, starring Lea Michele, is currently running at the August Wilson Theatre. That run, which began in March 2022, is set to end on Sept. 3.
Global Citizen Festival returns to the Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park on September 23. It’s a free benefit concert seeking to help end extreme poverty. Ms. Lauryn Hill, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Megan Thee Stallion, Conan Gray, and Stray Kids are set to perform.
Two years ago, Ms. Lauryn Hill and the reunited Fugees performed in New York City as part of Global Citizen. It was the beginning of what was supposed to be a reunion tour, ultimately canceled due to COVID-19. This year, the band delivered a surprise performance at Roots Picnic. The performance came after Pras Michel was found guilty by a federal jury on charges including conspiracy, witness tampering, and failing to register as an agent of China. He has yet to be sentenced.
This year’s festival will stream via the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, Facebook, iHeartRadio, Instagram, TikTok, TimesLIVE, Twitter, Veeps, YouTube, and the Global Citizen website and app.
The intention of every documentary filmmaker is inherently to broadcast some form of truth or reality. Often this reality comes in the form of a perceived injustice. These 8 films were not only able to broadcast various injustices, but also (rather impressively) end up having real life implications in combating them. You might even say these documentaries each changed the world in their own little way.
Fire at Sea (2016)
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi, this documentary depicts life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a major entry point for migrants fleeing Africa and the Middle East. The film juxtaposes the everyday existence of the island’s residents with the struggles and dangers faced by refugees, offering a poignant commentary on the refugee crisis.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
The most famous film of documentarian Michael Moore’s career, Bowling for Columbine focuses on gun ownership in the United States and the factors leading to the infamous mass shooting in Columbine High School in 1999. In a grand display (the type of which Moore has become known for) Moore and a paralyzed victim of the shooting go to K-Mart headquarters to ‘try return’ the K-Mart bought bullets lodged in the victims spine. In response the following day K-Mart would announce they were halting the sale of handgun ammunition.
The Invisible War (2012)
This Oscar nominated documentary tackles the issue of sexual harassment and assault in the US military, or more specifically the mismanagement of reports of it. Through interviews with several military personnel The Invisible War shines a light on a problem that went below the radar in public consciousness. The films impact was felt even before its widespread release, as in April of 2012 Leon Panetta (the then Secretary of Defense) announced reforms in the military’s policy on sexual assault allegations after seeing the documentary himself. The following year President Obama would introduce a bill implementing further reforms.
2040 (2019)
2040 is a thought-provoking documentary film that takes viewers on a journey into the future and explores the potential solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. Directed by Damon Gameau, the film offers an optimistic and hopeful vision of what the year 2040 could look like if we embrace innovative and sustainable technologies and practices. The film takes a refreshing approach by showcasing real-world examples of projects and initiatives already underway in different parts of the world. Gameau travels to various locations, meeting with scientists, entrepreneurs, and everyday people who are making a difference in their communities.
Super Size Me (2004)
Fair to call one of the most famous documentaries ever made, Super Size Me sees director Morgan Spurlock eat at McDonalds three times a day for a period of 30 days and every time staff asked if he wanted his meal ‘super sized’ he had to say yes. Spurlock would gain 24.5 pounds by the end of the 30 day period and develop other significant health issues. In recent years the film has garnered some criticism but the impact of it is still undeniable, with McDonalds discontinuing their super size meal option shortly after the films release in the face of public scrutiny.
Crime + Punishment (2019)
This critically acclaimed documentary sheds light on the systemic corruption and racial bias within the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and follows the efforts of a group of brave whistleblowing police officers known as the “NYPD 12.” The film exposes the quota system requiring officers to fulfill predetermined arrest and summons targets, disproportionately affecting minority communities and leading to unjust arrests and summonses.
Blackfish (2013)
Another documentary dealing with the treatment of marine life, Blackfish uses the case study of Tilikum, a captured orca whale at SeaWorld, to discuss the treatment of whales in captivity and its consequences. A year after the films release the US Congress would update the 1966 Animal Welfare Act to provide protection specifically for orcas and other marine life. That year SeaWorld would also announce record losses and in response for calls to Southwest Airlines to terminate their partnership with SeaWorld they did so in July.
Trashed (2012)
Trashed follows actor Jeremy Irons as he examines the issues of pollution and environmental degradation. The film heavily promotes Zero Waste schemes, and in the aftermath of the films release the numbers of people engaging in such schemes began to increase. The documentary has also been screened for many houses of parliament around the world, such as Westminster, the European Parliament, the French National Assembly and the Irish Oireachtas.
Raindance promotes and supports independent filmmaking and filmmakers.
From new and emerging to industry pros, Raindance connects, trains, supports, and promotes visual storytellers through every step of their career.
The Raindance Film Festival runs each Autumn in London’s Leicester Square.
A volcanic eruption that has seen lava snaking its way down the side of a mountain in Iceland – just 20 miles from the country’s main airport – has today prompted warnings that it is spewing out ‘life-threatening toxic gas pollution’.
The volcano, which is located on Mount Fagradalsfjall, began erupting on Monday following heightened seismic activity in the area.
Dramatic video shows the volcano spewing out a continuous stream of bubbling lava that began snaking its way down the mountain, some 20 miles southeast of the international Keflavik airport.
Residents in the nearby Reykjanes peninsula have been confined to their homes and encouraged to sleep with their windows closed and ventilation switched off due to the risk of deadly toxic gas emerging from the volcano.
Icelandic police have also restricted access to the volcano, located 20 miles from the capital Reykjavik, due to the risks posed by the ‘life-threatening toxic gas’ and urged any hikers in the area to turn back.
A volcanic eruption that has seen lava snaking its way down the side of a mountain in Iceland – just 20 miles from the country’s main airport – has today prompted warnings that it is spewing out ‘life-threatening toxic gas pollution’.
This aerial photo taken on Monday shows smoke billowing from flowing lava during an volcanic eruption
People watch flowing lava during an volcanic eruption near the mountain. Officials have now told people to return home due to the risk of toxic pollution coming from the volcano
Authorities in Iceland on Tuesday warned spectators to stay away from a newly erupting volcano that is spewing lava and noxious gases
The volcano, which is located on Mount Fagradalsfjall, began erupting on Monday following heightened seismic activity in the area. It is located 20 miles from the Keflavik airport
‘The police, after counsel from scientists, have decided to restrict access to the eruption site due to enormous and life-threatening toxic gas pollution,’ the department of civil protection and emergency management said.
‘For the next hours, it is highly likely that gas will build up around the eruption site due to low wind. Those who have already undertaken the hike to the eruption site, or are already there, are strongly advised to leave the area,’ it said on Monday night.
‘It is not a little hike,’ Kristin Gudmundsdottir, a natural hazard specialist at the Met Office, said. ‘We need to wait and see how the eruption develops.’
The eruption follows intense seismic activity in the area over the past few days.
The area, known broadly as Fagradalsfjall volcano, has erupted twice in the last two years without causing damage or disruptions to flights, despite being near Keflavik Airport, Iceland’s international air traffic hub.
The airport said on Tuesday it was remaining open and no flights were affected. Some domestic flights were delayed yesterday after the eruption created a plume of smoke over a road connecting Reykjavik and Keflavik airport.
The latest eruption is classified as a fissure eruption, which does not usually result in large explosions or a significant amount of ash in the stratosphere, the Icelandic government said in a statement late on Monday.
Lava cuts through the Icelandic landscape as Fagradalsfjall starts to erupt in a fresh eruption following a number of earthquakes in recent days
A person walks near lava emerging from a fissure of the Fagradalsfjall volcano, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of Reykjavik,
Lava emerges from a fissure of the Fagradalsfjall volcano near the Litli-Hrutur mountain
Lava emerges from a fissure of the Fagradalsfjall volcano as authorities in Iceland on Tuesday warned spectators to stay away from a newly erupting volcano
Smoke billows and lava spurts after the eruption of a volcano, on the Reykjanes peninsula, near the capital Reykjavik, on Monday
Hikers watch smoke and lava billow from the volcano in Iceland on Monday
Smoke is seen billowing from flowing lava during an volcanic eruption near Litli Hrutur, south-west of Reykjavik in Iceland on Monda
People watch flowing lava during an volcanic eruption near Litli Hrutur, south-west of Reykjavik in Iceland on Monday
This aerial photo taken on July 10, 2023 shows smoke billowing from flowing lava during an volcanic eruption in southwestern Iceland
The volcano, which is located on Mount Fagradalsfjall, began erupting on Monday following heightened seismic activity in the area
Smoke billows and lava spurts after the eruption of a volcano, on the Reykjanes peninsula, on Monday
Pictured: Smoke billows from flowing lava during the volcanic eruption in Iceland on Monday
‘The eruption is small and there is presently no emission of ash to the atmosphere,’ the Icelandic Meteorological Office said last night. Lava is emerging as ‘a series of fountains’ from a 200-metre (656-feet) long fissure on the slopes of the mountain, it added.
‘The lava fissure appears small at first sight,’ television reporter Kristjan Unnarsson, who was aboard a helicopter about an hour after the eruption began Monday afternoon, told viewers.
A 2021 eruption in the same area produced spectacular lava flows for several months. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to see the spectacular sight.
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption every four to five years.
The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.
More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of international travelers and halting air travel for days because of concerns the ash could damage jet engines.
In response to an MSNBC panelist that labeled Ron DeSantis’ wife, Casey, as “America’s Karen,” the Florida Governor told Fox News that they just “shrug it off.”
“My wife is an incredibly strong first lady of Florida, a fantastic mother, and a great wife, and that threatens the left,” DeSantis said on Monday’s “Varney & Co.” in defense of his wife.
He continued, “We know it just shows they view her as a threat.”
Last weekend, a panel during MSNBC’s “Saturday Show With Jonathan Capehart” tore into Florida’s first lady while discussing her husband’s ongoing presidential campaign. On the panel was MSNBC analyst David Jolly, who said, “For many, she’s the brighter side to Florida’s angry governor. For others, she’s become America’s Karen.”
DeSantis pressed that the criticism doesn’t bother him because Casey is a “great advocate for families, a great advocate for children.” “I’m thankful that she’s my wife,” said the presidential hopeful.
“I’m really honored that she’s willing to go out there and press the case. And so we wear criticism from MSNBC as a badge of honor,” DeSantis concluded.
Here’s your first look at Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Phoenix stars as the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte in the pic and Vanessa Kirby is Empress Josephine. Directed by Scott from a screenplay by David Scarpa, Napoleon tells the story of the French emperor and military leader’s origins and swift, ruthless climb to emperor. That is viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. The film captures Napoleon’s famous battles, relentless ambition, and astounding strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.
The film’s official logline reads: Napoleon is an original and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. The film captures Napoleon’s famous battles, relentless ambition, and astounding strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.
Apple Original Films has partnered with Sony Pictures Entertainment to set a November 22 worldwide theatrical release launch for the pic. After the theatrical run, the film will stream globally on Apple TV+. The historical epic becomes the second awards-season film from Apple set for an ambitious theatrical run after Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is set for a late October release through Paramount Pictures.
Also starring are Tahar Rahim, Mark Bonnar, Rupert Everett, and Youssef Kerkour. Producers are Kevin J. Walsh, Mark Huffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Ridley Scott. Executive Producers are Raymond Kirk, Aidan Elliott, and Michael Pruss.
Early Tuesday morning, Ticketmaster opened the online presales for the first of four Paris shows on Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” set for La Défense Arena on May 9, 10, 11 and 12, 2024. The four Paris dates were set to go on sale today in two allotments, with one sale for May 9 and 10 opening at 9 a.m. local time and another, for May 11 and May 12, due to start at 11 a.m.
Over a million Swifties queued up for the first tranche of tickets, but less than 15 minutes after opening the Paris sale, French Ticketmaster tweeted: “Some of you may be having issues with the site this morning – we are working on it and will let you know.” An hour into the sale started, with reportedly no movement in the queue, the company announced it was suspending both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. sales.
La mise en vente Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour de 9h et 11h pour Paris La Défense Arena a été mise en pause. Nous vous tiendrons au courant avec une nouvelle heure de mise en vente dès que possible. Tous les codes non déjà utilisés resteront valables.
“The Taylor Swift sale | The 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Eras Tour for Paris La Défense Arena has been put on hold. We will keep you posted with a new on-sale time as soon as possible. All codes not already used will remain valid,” Ticketmaster tweeted.
The tickets were on general release, and fans had to sign up to be put into a lottery in order to get a code to redeem for tickets.
The company did not give any explanation for the suspension. It’s unclear if the site will go ahead with sales for Swift’s two Lyon concerts, which were planned to kick off at 1 p.m. local time.
This isn’t the first time Ticketmaster has botched sales for a Taylor Swift concert. The company had major technical issues with its presale of “The Eras Tour” tickets in November, such that more than two dozen fans filed suit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation. Swift herself commented on the debacle, saying it “really pisses me off that a lot of the people who were able to buy tickets feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
Social media users were not impressed with her act.
In the video, Rakhi can be seen planting fresh tomatoes in a planter, instead of just using the seed from the vegetables.
Actress-dancer Rakhi Sawant is often known for her hilarious interactions with paparazzi. She has once again caught their attention. This time, the reason is Rakhi planting fresh tomatoes in a planter, instead of just using the seed from the vegetables. Celebrity photographer Viral Bhayani has shared a clip on Instagram, showing her in this act. The video opens up with Rakhi saying, “Doston main uga rahi hun tamatar yeh dekho (Friends, I am growing tomatoes, take a look).” “Kya baat hai (That’s great)”, one of the reporters said. “Rakhi ji tamatar kab tak aayenge iss pe (How long will it take for the tomatoes to grow)?”, another reporter asked her. In the video, one of Rakhi’s employees can be seen helping her and claimed that the sapling will produce fresh fruit in fifteen days. Bhayani wrote in the caption, “Tamatar toh aab Jaan se bhi pyaara hai (Tomatoes are now more precious than our lives). Rakhi Sawant ki new strategy, tamatar ka tree ugao (Rakhi’s new strategy, grow tree on a tomato)”. The video has garnered more than 9,79,000 views.
Social media users were not at all impressed with this act. One of them advised her to not waste tomatoes. She wrote that Rakhi should only use their seed. Another user criticised her and wrote that people are tense about the exorbitant prices of tomatoes and their availability. The prices of tomatoes in India have soared in recent weeks, while Rakhi is wasting food, just to gain some footage from the press, said one user. Another user ridiculed the claim of tomato seedlings producing fresh fruit in just 15 days.
In another clip uploaded by AJ Bollywood, Rakhi shared her outburst about the skyrocketing prices of vegetables, especially tomatoes. She was spotted by the paparazzi, looking quite concerned and frustrated. She even pretended to beat her head against the wall and then revealed the reason behind it to the reporters. Rakhi said that the prices of vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes, and onions have become expensive. She added that the tomatoes are being sold at Rs 120 per kilo. She told the reporters that even the green chilies have become costly.
She also asked the government the reason behind this inflation.
Entertainment Bureau brings you all updates from the world of entertainment — breaking news, Twitter trends, features, movie reviews, exclusive inter…Read More
Smash hit Japanese animation feature “The First Slam Dunk” is set to be the first film theatrically released by newly-launched Australian distribution and New Zealand licensing firm Sugoi Co.
The company is headed by Tim Anderson, founder and former CEO of Madman Entertainment, the Australian indie with a strong leaning for Japanese content, and Sylvester “Sly” Ip.
The pair made an announcement on Twitter and conducted a soft launch at the recent Anime Expo in Los Angeles.
“The First Slam Dunk. Coming soon to cinemas across Australia. Follow us for full release and ticket info,” said Sugoi Co on Twitter.
Anderson told Anime News Network that Sugoi will focus on marketing and promotion for the Australian and New Zealand market. It will be a portfolio business and platform agnostic, releasing anime properties through the appropriate channel, rather than being wedded to theatrical or any specific platform for release.
Having merged with brand licensing company JW Brands, Sugoi will also extend to merchandizing and brand management.
Madman sold its anime division to Sony’s Aniplex in 2019. The business was later rolled into Sony’s Funimation animation streaming unit. Two years later, Sony acquired rival anime streamer Crunchyroll from WarnerMedia and merged Crunchyroll and Funimation, retaining the Crunchyroll brand. Redundancies in Australia, including those of several former Madman staff, were announced by Crunchyroll in February this year.
Produced by Toei Animation and Dandelion Entertainment, “The First Slam Dunk” was released in Japan in December 2022. It had theatrical releases throughout Asia in early 2023, with those in mainland China (box office of RMB 654 million or $90.8 million at current exchange rates) and South Korea ($37.9 million) being particularly lucrative.
.If you’ve been following along with MickeyBlog you’ll know that Rogers: The Musical has been winning over audiences at the Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure. The 30-minute musical will run through August 31, 2023, and a very interesting audience member popped up to check out the show over the weekend – Is that a Skrull we see!?
For those unfamiliar, the Skrull are a technologically advanced race of reptile-like humanoids hailing from the destroyed planet Skrullos. They are known for their shapeshifting abilities which allows them to transform into other lifeforms and wreak havoc on other planets without detection. They are woven into many plotlines in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with appearances/mentions in Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, Loki, What if…?, and Secret Invasion.
With one of these mysterious shapeshifters spotted at Disney California Adventure, we’re wondering where it may pop up next! You’ll want to keep following along with us for further updates.
Photo: Disney
Don’t miss your chance to check out Rogers: The Musical at the Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure which will run through August 31, 2023. This new musical experience was inspired by the fictional musical number from the first episode of the Disney+ series Hawkeye. This musical tells the story of Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America) and also his relationship with Peggy Carter.
Photo: Disney
The musical runs on Tuesdays through Saturdays most weeks this summer! Don’t miss your chance to see what all of the buzz is about! Plus, ….you never know who might show up at the theater as evidenced above!
Photo: Disney
Readers are encouraged to keep following along with MickeyBlog for further Walt Disney World news and updates. We’ll be coming to you LIVE! from the theme parks each and every week.
Have you heard the news? MickeyTravels just earned the incredible distinction of being a Diamond Earmarked Agency!
Whether it’s a visit to the theme parks, a Disney cruise, a stay at Aulani in Hawaii, or the trip of a lifetime with Adventures by Disney, I can’t wait to help you plan your vacation utilizing all of our incredible concierge-level services. This includes discount monitoring, itinerary planning, flexible booking, and more. Best of all my services are 100% FREE!
The reviews for the long, long, long-awaited DC outing, The Flash, are now in. So, following the much publicized praise from the likes of James Gunn, Tom Cruise, and Stephen King, does The Flash reach the heights of being “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” Well, not quite, is the frustrating answer, as The Flash sprints to a ‘Fresh’ score of 73% on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
We begin with MovieWeb’s own Julian Roman, who heaped praise on The Flash and how it gives DC fans exactly what they’ve been looking for.
“Ezra Miller saves the Snyderverse in a stunning superhero adaptation that gloriously lives up to the hype. The Flash is the DC film that fans have been aching to see.”
Much hype has surrounded the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman in The Flash and, according to Julian, it was well worth it.
“Michael Keaton’s return as Batman will kick your a** and break a foot doing it. The Caped Crusader soaring in his 1989 costume and vehicles to Danny Elfman’s classic theme is stupefyingly awesome. Keaton plays the character as older and wiser but just as formidable.”
The applause continues courtesy of Deadline’s Pete Hammond, who calls The Flash the best superhero movie since Marvel’s similarly multiversal Spider-Man: No Way Home.
“Easily the best in the genre since Spiderman: No Way Home, this fresh, invigorating, and hugely entertaining summer treat is as good as it gets when it comes to cinematic takes on superheroes.”
Rolling Stone’s David Fear also felt that The Flash deserves to be hailed as one of the best examples of the modern take on the comic book movie.
“The Flash is, by far, the best movie to come out of this modern, post-Nolan Warners/DC collaboration…”
Things get a bit more middling with Joshua Yehl of IGN, who criticizes the sheer level of fan service but did find the more intimate, central story gripping nevertheless.
“The superhero fan service is strong with this one – perhaps too strong at times – but it never fully overshadows Barry Allen’s genuinely tragic and heartfelt story of grief.”
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter meanwhile calls The Flash “uneven” but equally found a lot to enjoy in the personal journey of Barry Allen.
“If The Flash ultimately proves uneven, its wobbly climactic showdown far less interesting than the more character-driven buildup, the story’s core of a young man struggling to reconcile with the loss of his mother carries it through.”
Here’s where things get more negative, as Variety’s Owen Gleiberman condemns The Flash for drowning in too much fan-service and Easter eggs.
“In The Flash, the multiverse of possibilities that opens up by toying with the past becomes an excuse to throw everything but the Batcave sink at the audience.”
Collider’s Ross Bonaime felt similarly, criticizing The Flash for its lacking story, which is lost amid the cavalcade of cameos.
“Cameos and fan service are fine to have, but the story has to be there to back them up, and it’s not quite there with The Flash.”
“The Flash is a passable multiverse superhero movie, but no amount of DC cameos can make audiences forget the awful off-screen actions of Ezra Miller.”
But we shall end on something more upbeat, with CBR’s Brandon Zachary enjoying The Flash for its combination of emotional heft and crowd-pleasing moments.
“As fun as the movie is, what elevates The Flash is a genuinely weighty concept explored with all the bombast fans expect from the franchise.”
Directed by Andy Muschietti from a screenplay by Christina Hodson, worlds will collide in The Flash when the superhero uses his powers to travel back in time to change the events of the past. However, when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, he becomes trapped in an alternate reality.
Starring Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Kiersey Clemons, Antje Traue, and Michael Keaton, The Flash is scheduled to be released on June 16.
The Big Apple is back on Bravo with the return of The Real Housewives of New York City. Following a complete overhaul of the cast, Season 14 introduces a whole new set of women to The Real Housewives franchise, a whole new intro and fresh taglines.
Brynn Whitfield: “I love to laugh, but make me mad and I’ll date your dad.”
Erin Lichy: “I’m a true New Yorker. The only bull I’ll take is by the horns.”
Jenna Lyons: “My lashes may be fake, but I definitely keep it real.”
Jessel Taank: “I always bring the flavor. It’s not my fault you don’t have any taste.”
Sai de Silva: “In New York there’s a lot of bad apples, but I’m the baddest of the bunch.”
Ubah Hassan: “The secret ingredient? Darling, it’s me.”
The taglines give viewers a glimpse of what each of the stars is bringing to the season.
Watch the RHONY taglines in the video posted below.
The RHONY Season 14 reboot introduced a whole new aesthetic to the franchise and went in a completely different direction for their opening sequence. Bravo introduced new intros for The Real Housewives of Orange County Season 17 and The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 15 that made heavy use of their graphics department showcasing the women in the middle of 3D environments and a glowing effect.
In contrast, RHONY kept it simple and classy using only one big green screen as their background as the NYC skyline was showcased. All the cast physically posed together for the title card, seeing the ladies leaning on each other as they held their apples. The fresh take on the tagline opening sequence for RHONY is something that the rest of the franchises should adopt.
RHONY Season 14 premieres Sunday, July 16 at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
In retrospect, Danny DeVito seems like the perfect choice to play the Penguin. But the man needed some convincing prior to being officially cast in “Batman Returns.” Jack Nicholson even had a hand in persuading his friend to take on the role, and after a meeting with Tim Burton, DeVito was finally onboard.
In the years since “Batman Returns” debuted, the actor has spoken about his willingness to return as the Penguin, saying he’d be open to reprising the role as recently as 2021. Now, he’s once again reminded us all of his passion for Oswald Cobblepot, in an SFX Magazine interview. During the Zoom interview, he revealed he still has one of the umbrellas used in “Returns,” even bringing out the prop out during the call.
According to the report, DeVito took a moment to announce, “I have something you’re gonna really like, just stay right where you are. Don’t move,” before walking away and returning to reveal a black and white spiral umbrella. He then added, “That is the original Penguin’s umbrella […] Ladies and gentlemen, watch his mind be blown,” referring to the prop as “a treasure of mine.”
The umbrella in question is one of many used in “Returns,” and sounds like it comes from the scene in which Christopher Walken’s Max Shreck first gets taken to the Penguin’s sewer hideout. There Oswald takes out the umbrella and starts twirling it before letting off a shot and revealing it to be a gun in disguise.
The Film Academy has tapped Tamika Etheart of the Paley Center Media to head up its New York office, TheWrap has confirmed. She’ll begin her new role as director of Member Relations & Global Outreach on Aug. 15.
She succeeds Patrick Harrison, whose departure was announced in April after a long absence. He had been with the Academy since 2001.
The Academy has also hired Erica Bahrenburg, previously of Max, who will serve under Etheart as a senior coordinator of member relations.
Meredith Shea, the academy’s chief membership, impact and industry officer, told employees in an email: “I am thrilled to let you know that we have hired fantastic new team members for both positions. Moving forward, the New York office will report directly into me. We are extremely excited to continue our presence in New York and to work with you all to celebrate cinema and build community.”
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Jeanell English recently stepped down from her role as the Academy’s executive vice president of impact and inclusion.
My god, we’re like 20% through Charity’s season already and it’s only through 2 episodes! Well, we don’t know for sure since they haven’t laid out how many episodes there are, when the finale airs, or when BIP starts, but knowing that hometowns is episode #6, unless overnights or finale takes 2 episodes to air, this will be a 9 episode season including the “Men Tell All.” If we have a two-night finale then we’ll have a 10 episode season. So actually at worst we are 20% through the season already. This show just started last week, right? I’m not delusional in thinking it’s almost over already. Although it’d be nice if it was so I’d stop getting emails regarding who won. I know. It comes with the territory but how many times can I repeat myself saying “when I know, then you’ll know,” and I STILL get asked non-stop. Even get asked when will I know. If I knew that, then I’d tell you. Just be patient. That’s the best advice I can give you even though, well, very few of you will listen to it. Deep down I take it as a compliment, so thank you.
You can listen to today’s podcast on a number of platforms, but you can also tune in by clicking the player below:
There definitely will be a “Reader Emails” column tomorrow, so get your emails in steve@realitysteve.com today. Last week just didn’t have enough and got bogged down with lack of other things to talk about. So I just skipped it, but expect it to be there every Wednesday going forward. It’s been a staple on this site for, ummmm, how long? I gotta believe I’ve had “Reader Emails” for at least 10 years? 12? Maybe longer. I honestly don’t even know. I’ll have to go digging.
To follow up on what I said yesterday in the Daily Roundup regarding Charity in New Orleans. My information that’s been given to me absolutely has her having three 1-on-1 dates in New Orleans and a 3 person group date. It’s why I put it in the rose ceremony-by-rose ceremony spoilers last week and it’s why I haven’t changed it. I think Charity just misspoke at the Essence event this past weekend when she said she had two 1-on-1 dates. Not intentionally, not maliciously, not to lead anyone on. She was asked a question on the spot about filming in New Orleans during her season, and for whatever reason she answered the way she did. My information says otherwise. So unless a preview shows more of it, we’ll have our official answer in 3 weeks, but, I’m confident in this info based on what’s already played out this season.
I know it might not make sense to some of you, but that’s because I can’t share my sources and how I know what I know. If I could, you’d be saying the same thing that she had three 1-on-1’s in New Orleans. It’s ok to doubt. I just know my sources on this are solid, and just because it wasn’t shown in a preview doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That’s the whole point of having sources. They give you info that the show doesn’t show you. If you rely on previews to get all your information, you’ll never have the full story. Plenty of stuff I’ve given you in 14 years of spoiling was never shown in a season preview. This is no different. I wish I could share with you why I’m confident in this but I can’t. I don’t reveal sources. But it’s not like someone just told it to me and I said, “Ok thanks byeeeeeeeeee.” I asked questions, I asked for some sort of proof, and I made sure it made sense before I posted it.
If you’re questioning if there was three 1-on-1’s in New Orleans, then ask yourself this: what happened then? How was New Orleans laid out in terms of dates? If you can’t answer with 100% certainty either, then how can you possibly say three 1-on-1’s didn’t happen? It’s just your opinion which, of course you’re entitled to, but when you have nothing to back it up, you’re just guessing. At least I have some solid intel behind what I’m saying. Again, I wish I could share how I know but I can’t. So I guess I’ll see you on July 24th when we meet again and this question is answered. Actually, you’ll probably know earlier when the press release for episode 5 is released right after episode 4. Fun times. All over whether there was two or three 1-on-1 dates in episode 5. Unreal how it’s impossible for people to believe this.
EXCLUSIVE: Manny Cotodied on July 9th at the age of 62. Nearly 35 years to the day earlier, he and I are on Beverly Boulevard picketing in front of CBS.
I’ve been a WGA member for about four months and Manny for maybe eight. To say we are wet behind the ears is an insult to moisture. As always, we are having a blast because everything we do together is fun. It’s how we have survived trying to break into show business. It’s amazing how doing something alongside your best friend never really feels daunting. Anyhow, we are in one of those long loops that keeps doubling back on itself once you reach the end of the line. And Manny suddenly says, “Holy shit, that’s Harlan Ellison we just passed!” I only know the name, but, along with Gene Roddenberry, Ellison is a particular hero of Manny’s and he can’t believe he is on the very same picket line as a writing immortal. And every 10 minutes or so we pass him going the other way.
Now Ellison, by all accounts a force of friggin’ nature, is carrying a homemade sign that reads “Nick Is Counter Productive” with the Nick and Counter in red. Two mysteries need to be solved as we march: Who is Nick Counter, and how are we going to get a photo of Manny and his hero? (I have my 35mm camera.) Finally, as we pass for the umpteenth time, Manny has the temerity to call out, “Who is Nick Counter?” Ellison stops short. The picket line stops behind him as Ellison rages at Manny, “Who is Nick Counter?! Who is Nick Counter!? What are you doing here? How can you not know who Nick Counter is!?” The haranguing goes on. And on. Manny hangs his head in shame.
Finally, Ellison marches on, as does the line. Nick Counter – and we will never forget this – is the chief negotiator for the AMPTP. The other fact clearly expressed here is that under no circumstances may we stop Harlan Ellison and ask him to take a photo with Manny. Cut to an hour later as our shift is about to end. We fall out of line into the street and set up a guerrilla operation: Manny stands with his picket held proudly, I pre-focus and get into position, and we wait for the great man of letters to pass. Click. Always meet your heroes. Ellison is none the wiser. Like everything, we are laughing about it all day long.
Manny Coto (and Harlan Ellison, far right) on the WGA picket line in 1988.
I was introduced to Manny a year earlier on the set of 976-EVIL, the first film ever made that had my name on it. We had both been signed out of our respective film schools by the same agent, and he had brought Manny to visit the set. Horror movies had turned out to be a great way to break in as they didn’t pay and no one established was all that interested in doing them. We gave them our all as we did all things. Little did the two of us know it, but at that moment we were best friends who had just met. It was a momentous moment marked only by agreeing that, yes, we should have lunch. I had no idea I had just met the funniest, most steadfast person I would ever know. Except … I kinda did.
I was trying to enter a strange new world. I had made my few forays, but as anyone reading this knows: Hollywood doesn’t come with a Lonely Planet guide. Manny was in the exact same situation. We were beyond naïve, which is why we were here in the first place. We actually thought we could move to Los Angeles from Florida and Massachusetts and it would all somehow work out. I mean, only one of four of our respective parents was born in the United States, and the one who was (my father) did not grow up speaking English as a first language. Hollywood was just east of Timbuktu where we came from. But it turned out we both had one enormous connection – we had each other. When I met Manny, a bigger world was born for us both, a world we could navigate together and start to get our hands around. We realized something invaluable; we could control things with our writing.
In 1990 we both felt boxed in by our credits and the perception of us they created. Big action films were taking over, and we were obviously not a part of that move. One night we were on the phone trying to strategize a way out of our predicament and find a way to move up. We knew for a fact that would involve writing a spec. We’d already done one together but failed at it. One of us, it may have been me, said, “Let’s not get off the phone until we come up with an idea for an action movie we can sell for a million bucks.” The other, it may have been Manny, agreed to the challenge. It was certainly not about the money, but the money meant it and we would get noticed. Forty-five minutes and a lot of laughs later, Manny said, “What if a nuclear bomb became sentient?” I asked what sentient meant, and after Manny explained it was something I was not (hahaha), The Ticking Man was born. Another half-hour later he was bouncing back and forth along that phone line like a pinball.
Three months later we sold it for 1 million U.S. dollars, and our lives were changed forever. We got called up to the Big Leagues, the Show, and we were the ones who had done the calling. There’s no reason why anyone reading should know what The Ticking Man was other than it is part of screenwriting lore. It was never made, but it made us. On the eve of it going out (it sold in about 10 hours), Manny decided we should send Ticking Clocks out with the script. We made 30 of them all identical, all spray-painted black with a very cool logo that Manny designed and painted himself (see the photo above). For that reason, the script also went down in hype lore, but it was truly great and we were so proud of what we’d done. We’d also beaten the system without even trying to beat it. That’s what friends could do, and our friendship is front and center in the pages of that script.
Friendship is made by choice, of course; it is a love that is whimsical in a way. You may have a duty to your family, but you are under no obligation to be someone’s friend, nor do they have any responsibility to be yours. No right, no dibs, no claim. Friendship, it turns out, is unnecessary. But freely given, it is a beautiful gift to accept and return. In 2023, when he wants to talk about his vicious cancer, we’re at Barneys Beanery at our usual table. The old haunt seemingly takes years off of us both as we step through the door.
Our careers had evolved in different directions, his mostly in television and mine mostly in film. Our growing apart professionally was always informed by the fact that we started out growing side-by-side. Our roots will always be knotted together, and they always nourished our futures. We just needed to look at each other to know where we came from. And whenever we drifted too far apart, we would write a script together. Not remotely, not “you do this scene and I’ll do that one,” but present in a room, working on every word together. Manny used to say our team efforts were written by Branny Cotland. A talented caricaturist, Manny even drew a picture of what Branny looked like. Sadly, Cotland is now gone into the ether, but the six scripts Branny wrote survive as an affirmation of friendship if not actual physical proof of it. We were best friends after all; we wrote together to be together.
Manny was a comrade and a boon companion. Striving with him made the impossible seem conquerable. Because our friendship made it so much damn fun. I’ve laughed more with Manny than with anyone else I’ve ever known. He’s the godfather of my sons. His death has left a hole in my heart that will never be filled, nor do I want it to be. I would stand alongside Manny anywhere. Ride or die. And as far as the dying goes, it may take the one you love, but it doesn’t take the love.
I love you, Manny Hector Coto, and I always will.
Brian Helgeland is the Oscar-winning screenwriter of L.A. Confidential whose writing credits also include Payback, Man on Fire, 42, Robin Hood and the Oscar-nominated Mystic River script. His latest screenplay is for the upcoming Paramount+ film Finestkind.
Based on sales and streaming data published by the Official Charts Company, Swift’s Lover single “Cruel Summer” could hold at No. 5; “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version)” is tracking to become the highest new entry, at No. 6; and “Mine (Taylor’s Version)” is close behind, new at No. 8.
As previously reported, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), the third in TayTay’s rerecorded “Version” series, is currently outselling the rest of the top 10 combined. Good luck to anyone chasing it. If the second half of the chart week plays out as expected, Swift will snag her 10th consecutive U.K. No. 1 album.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
None of Swift’s singles have the legs of Dave and Central Cee’s “Sprinter,” which leads the race once again. “Sprinter” is on its way to a sixth straight week at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart; it leads an unchanged top three on the chart blast, ahead of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” and J Hus featuring Drake’s “Who Told You,” respectively.
Meanwhile, Kylie Minogue’s infectious hit “Padam Padam” is upwardly mobile, and could sneak back into the top 10, at No. 9, while Jorja Smith’s “Little Things” (No. 13); the Weeknd, Madonna and Playboi Carti’s “Popular” (No. 14); Gunna’s “Fukumean” (No. 16) and Tom Grennan’s “How Does It Feel” (No. 17) are on the rise.
All will be revealed when the weekly chart is published this Friday (July 14).
Learn successful tennis betting tips & strategies to increase your chances of winning. Get expert advice on how to be a successful tennis bettor and win more bets.
Becoming a Skilled Tennis Bettor: A Guide to Making Informed Choices
Tennis is a really exciting sport that a lot of people enjoy, and betting on tennis matches can make it even more fun. If you want to be good at betting on tennis, this article will give you some helpful tips and strategies in simpler language. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or have some experience, knowing the basics of tennis betting can help you make smart choices and improve your chances of winning. And you can use all bonuses by placing your bets on this site https://in.1xbet.com/line/tennis
Learn the Game
To be a good tennis bettor, start by familiarizing yourself with the sport. Learn the rules, scoring system, and the different types of tennis tournaments. When you understand how tennis is played, it will be easier for you to guess what might happen in matches and find good bets to make.
Research Players and Stats
Researching players and their performance is crucial for making informed betting decisions. Take a closer look at player rankings, their past matches, how they’ve performed against specific opponents, their playing styles, and how well they’ve played on different types of courts. By studying these statistics, you can get a better idea of how good the players are and find patterns that can help you make smarter betting decisions.
Consider Court Surfaces
Different players excel on different court surfaces, such as grass, clay, or hard courts. Assess the surface specialization of players and how it may affect their performance. Some players may perform exceptionally well on a particular surface while struggling on others. Take this into account when analyzing matchups and making your bets.
Assess Current Form and Fitness
Player form and fitness play a significant role in tennis matches. Evaluate players’ recent performances, injuries, and overall fitness levels. Consider factors such as recent wins, losses, consistency, and whether a player is returning from an injury. Players in good form are more likely to perform well and could be favorable betting options.
Analyze Head-to-Head Records
Head-to-head records between players provide valuable insights into their matchups. Look at past encounters and assess how players have fared against each other. Some players might have a mental edge over certain opponents, while others may struggle when playing against specific players. This can affect how a match turns out.
Pay Attention to External Factors
Think about things outside of the players themselves that can affect matches, like the weather, injuries, how motivated the players are, and if they’re tired. These factors can have an impact on the outcome of a match. Extreme heat, rain, or strong winds can affect player performance and outcomes. Stay updated with the latest news and information to make well-informed betting decisions.
Understand Betting Markets and Odds
Familiarize yourself with different betting markets and odds offered by bookmakers. Learn about options such as match-winner, set betting, game totals, and more. Compare odds from various bookmakers to find the best value for your bets.
Practice Bankroll Management
Manage your betting bankroll wisely to ensure long-term sustainability. Set a budget for your betting activities and stick to it. Avoid chasing losses or betting more than you can afford. Wager a sensible portion of your bankroll on each bet to minimize risks.
Embrace Live Betting and In-Play Markets
Take advantage of live betting and in-play markets, which allow you to bet on matches as they unfold. Live betting provides an opportunity to assess player performance and adapt your strategy accordingly. Stay engaged with the match and look for favorable betting opportunities in real-time.
Conclusion
Becoming a skilled tennis bettor requires dedication, research, and understanding of the game and its nuances. To make better decisions when betting on tennis, it’s important to learn about the players, look at statistics, think about the type of court they’re playing on, see how they’re doing right now, and consider external factors. Also, make sure to use your money wisely, understand how betting works, and take advantage of live betting when it’s available. Enjoy the thrill of tennis betting while practicing responsible gambling.
Canada’s provincial and territorial leaders welcomed their Indigenous counterparts in Winnipeg today at the first meeting of Canada’s Premier conference.
The provincial leaders met with Indigenous leaders from across the country at the Leaf in Assiniboine Park to discuss issues facing Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Manitoba Metis Federation President David Chartrand said housing in First Nations Communities was a priority. He felt the premiers listened and were open to a discussion, and he hopes to pool resources to work collaboratively – using healthcare as an example.
“Why would we build a clinic side by side, the province and the Metis government build one clinic across the street from each other, when we should build a clinic together,” he said.
Shortly after the meeting began, protestors from Brady Road Landfill also made an appearance, calling for a commitment to search for missing Indigenous people. This comes after a blockade over the weekend outside the landfill carried into the start of the week, defying a deadline imposed by the city to disperse and remove barricades from the landfill’s main entrance.
Story continues below advertisement
The blockade was set up in response to the Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson’s decision not to involve the province in searching the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women – Marcedes Ryan and Morgan Harris.
At the conference, protestors said government had blood on their hands.
“If you cannot step up, I ask you to step down,” said Cambria Harris, whose mother’s remains are believed to be in Prairie Green Landfill.
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson stood by her decision not to search the landfill.
“We cannot ignore the complexity of the issue and the objective viability of other considerations, things like toxic and hazardous waste in a landfill when it comes to a search,” she said.
The meeting continued as protestors eventually left the building.
Holding a meeting for Indigenous leaders separate from the rest of the conference was a point of contention. Metis National Council President Cassidy Caron said it did not allow for any meaningful progress to be made.
“I have fifteen minutes on the agenda today to present issues and priorities affecting the Metis Nation. Fifteen minutes just simply isn’t enough time to engage with these governments on a government to government basis, nation to nation basis, to influence the change that’s needed,” she said ahead of the meeting.
Story continues below advertisement
Indigenous leaders will not be participating in the July 11 and 12 meetings, where healthcare spending and affordability are expected to dominate the discourse
Still, Chief Gordon Bluesky is hopeful these meetings could be the beginning of a new relationship – one where Indigenous leaders also have a seat at the table.
“There is a need for us to make space and make room for Indigenous people,” said Bluesky. “To look at our path forward and not just continuing down the path that is inherited.”
Brady Road landfill blockade holding in place against evacuation order
BBC Studios has taken 25% of The Only Way is Essex and Geordie Shore exec Sarah Tyekiff’s new indie, Mettlemouse Entertainment.
Tyekiff recently exited TOWIE producer Lime Pictures, where she ran the UK and U.S. slates, and has now re-emerged with Mettlemouse. Former Youngest Media Chief Creative Officer Shaun Parry is joining her as Creative Director.
The investment gives BBC Studios a first look at global distribution and format rights from Mettlemouse’s slate. “With BBC Studios’ track record of managing international hits they’re the perfect fit to supercharge our new adventure both here in the UK and globally,” said Tyekiff.
She and Parry plan to work up unscripted formats. Her credits at Lime include ITV2 constructed reality hit TOWIE and MTV’s Geordie Shore, along with Celebs Go Dating and Netflix’s Dance Monsters, Channel 4’s Stand Up and Deliver and ABC’s Who Do You Believe, the latter three of which she developed and produced. Before that, she was an exec producer at ITV Studios where she worked on Hell’s Kitchen, Saturday Night Take Away and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. She also developed Simon Cowell format Red or Black.
She left her Chief Creative Officer, Unscripted role at Lime in January after five years.
Emma Hardie, Commercial Director, International Production and Formats, BBC Studios, said: “Sarah has been behind some of the UK’s most successful entertainment and primetime reality formats. She is building a formidable team around her and we are delighted to be partnering with Mettlemouse Entertainment to bring their exciting, creative ideas to UK and global audiences.”
Parry is know as the co-creator of British game show Pointless and counts spell at Electric Ray and Endemol Shine Group on his CV, working on shows such as Moneybags, Million Pound Menu and Bromans.
Matt Forde, Managing Director, International Production and Formats, BBC Studios, added: “We look forward to partnering with Sarah who has proven success in the US as well as the UK and we could not be happier to be working with Shaun again. Their creative direction and ambition strongly aligns with BBC Studios in creating the next generation of Unscripted formats.”
BBC Studios invested in five companies in 2022 and now has 14 production labels and invested Indies. It returned nearly £180M ($231M) to the indie production sector through investment, development funding and royalties.
The BBC is due to release its annual report today.
Chris Argentieri, president and chief operating officer of the L.A. Times, confirmed the sale in a statement distributed to staff members and obtained by Variety on Monday. The message included words from owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who purchased both the Times and Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing in 2018.
“The Union-Tribune is a great news organization with a long, distinguished history that I hope will continue to serve the San Diego community for generations to come,” said Soon-Shiong. “Our intention now is to focus on the ongoing work of transforming the L.A. Times into a self-sustaining institution. Our hometown of Los Angeles and the state of California – really, the West Coast – needs a strong, independent news organization. We believe in the L.A. Times and are committed to its future.”
A representative for the L.A. Times confirmed the sale to Variety in a statement: “We formed the California Times in 2018 when the Soon-Shiong family purchased the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing, and have made a good faith effort to rebuild and support both news organizations. We hope that this change now will position both the L.A. Times and San Diego Union-Tribune to succeed. For all of us who remain with the California Times, we will continue focusing on building a prosperous future for the Los Angeles Times.”
Founded in 1868, the Union-Tribune has been a San Diego staple for several decades. It has been acquired seven times through its history, with a series of deals coming in more rapid succession in recent years: Platinum Equity in 2009, followed by MLIM Holdings in 2011, U-T San Diego in 2012, Tribune Publishing Company in 2015, Soon-Shiong in 2018 and now by a company owned by Alden Global Capital and MediaNews Group. The acquisition by the paired N.Y. investment firm and Denver-based media company take San Diego Union-Tribune out from local ownership. The corporations own several dozen publications through the United States.
The sale of the San Diego Union-Tribune comes only weeks after the Los Angeles Times laid off 13% of its newsroom — a decision prompted by declining ad revenue and readership. The abrupt round of job eliminations “outraged” and “blindsided” the L.A. Times Guild, the union that represents staff members.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher was criticized on Monday after it became public that she traveled to Italy for a Dolce & Gabbana fashion event over the weekend despite the guild’s ongoing contract talks with studios.
The trip became publicly known after Kim Kardashian, who also attended the event, posted a photo with Drescher on Instagram.
Guild reps didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap, but in a statement to The Ankler, SAG-AFTRA said, “President Drescher is working as a brand ambassador for Dolce and Gabbana on location in Italy. This was a commitment fully known to the negotiating committee. She has been in negotiations every day either in person or via videoconference. President Drescher is managing a physically demanding schedule across three time zones, overseeing negotiations and working on location daily as well as managing her parents’ needs in FL. She is returning to the states and will be on the ground in LA tomorrow, and will continue to chair our negotiations.”
SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were unable to reach a new deal before their existing contract expired on June 30. A strike was at least temporarily averted when negotiations were extended through July 12. But on Monday the guild sent strike rules out to members, a sign it believes the extended talks may not succeed.
And whether the negotiating committee was aware of the trip, it seems it wasn’t widely known to rank and file SAG-AFTRA members, judging from the reactions online from those who at best considered the trip in poor taste.
This is a joke right? The deadline for a union that she is President of has a deadline to strike Wed at midnight. Livelihoods are on the line. I’m hoping this is not true. It can’t be. No one could be this stupid. https://t.co/0BENOzvrUt
Look — I’m not saying one can’t have a personal life. And I’m not saying one can’t take a vacation. But we are in the middle of the most crucial negotiation in decades and our WGA siblings are on day 70 of fighting for their lives. The optics here are *truly* awful. Do better. https://t.co/5ZHnwgQqYJ
But members of the still-on-strike Writers Guild of America also called Drescher out.
iconic thing to do as a union president on the eve of a potential strike is hobnob across the pond with an unscripted televison mogul who recently crossed a picket line to work on a production run by a scab who threatened to sue another member of his sister union https://t.co/FaZxFGKCDp
— the ben keeps the flores (@limitlessjest) July 10, 2023
some real let them eat cake vibes for the SAG-AFTRA members who were marching alongside us WGA members just this morning https://t.co/UiPL6IiZTD
When your sweet six-figure residuals from a 90’s sitcom allow you to jetset off to Italy in the middle of a critical labor negotiation that doesn’t afford your fellow union members the same financial advantages, that’s amore. https://t.co/UXdVdzZ9Oh
On June 24, SAG-AFTRA leaders including Drescher released a video expressing optimism about the progress of talks with the AMPTP. And it seemed when the groups extended the deadline for a new deal from June 30 to July 12, it meant a new contract was likely, given than extensions in 2014 and 2017 also ended with new contracts.
But sources with knowledge of the talks tell TheWrap that the talks have bogged down over streaming residuals. SAG-AFTRA members want a new residual system based on viewership data, information streamers currently do not share with creators.
The Directors Guild of America negotiated a significant residual increase in its recently ratified contract, but viewership was not accounted for in that deal.
Greta Gerwig was planning to work with Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan again in the Barbie movie but that ultimately didn’t pan out.
The filmmaker opened up about wanting Chalamet and Ronan to cameo in the Margot Robbie-starring film after working with both of them in Lady Bird and Little Women.
“Well, it was always going to have to be a sort of smaller thing because [Saoirse] was actually producing at the time, which I am so proud of her for. And of course, it’s brilliant. But it was going to be a specialty cameo,” Gerwig told CinemaBlend in a recent interview. “I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy, and both of them couldn’t do it and I was so annoyed. But I love them so much.”
Barbie, which opens July 21 in theaters, has a star-studded cast that includes Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Ariana Greenblatt, Emma Mackey, Alexandra Shipp, Michael Cera, Hari Nef, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Rhea Perlman, Ncuti Gatwa, Emerald Fennell, Sharon Rooney, Scott Evans, Ana Cruz Kayne, Connor Swindells, Ritu Arya, Jamie Demetriou and Marisa Abela.
Martin Sherwin was hardly your classic blocked writer. Outgoing, funny, and athletic, he is described by those who knew him as the opposite of neurotic.
But by the late 1990s, he had to admit he was stuck. Sherwin, a history professor and the author of one previous book, had agreed to write a full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer two decades earlier. Now he wondered if he would ever finish it. He’d done plenty of research — an extraordinary amount, actually, amassing some 50,000 pages of interviews, transcripts, letters, diaries, declassified documents and F.B.I. dossiers, stored in seemingly endless boxes in his basement, attic and office. But he’d barely written a word.
Sherwin had originally tried to turn the project down, his wife remembered, telling his editor, Angus Cameron, that he didn’t think he was seasoned enough to take on such a consequential subject as Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb. But Cameron, who had published Sherwin’s first book at Knopf — and who, like Oppenheimer, had been a victim of McCarthyism — insisted.
So on March 13, 1980, Sherwin signed a $70,000 contract with Knopf for the project. Paid half to get started, he expected to finish it in five years.
In the end, the book took 25 years to write — and Sherwin didn’t do it alone.
When Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” is released on July 21, it will be the first time many younger Americans encounter the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. But that film stands on the shoulders of the exhaustive and exhilarating 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning biography called “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” co-written by Sherwin and Kai Bird.
Knopf published this masterwork in 2005. But it was only thanks to a rare collaboration between two indefatigable writers — and a deep friendship, built around a shared dedication to the art of biography as a life’s work — that “American Prometheus” got done at all.
OPPENHEIMER would have been a daunting subject for any biographer.
A public intellectual with a flair for the dramatic, he directed the top-secret lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico, taking the atomic bomb from theoretical possibility to terrifying reality in an impossibly short timeline. Later he emerged as a kind of philosopher king of the postwar nuclear era, publicly opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb and becoming a symbol both of America’s technological genius and of its conscience.
That stance made Oppenheimer a target in the McCarthy era, spurring his enemies to paint him as a Communist sympathizer. He was stripped of his security clearance during a 1954 hearing convened by the Atomic Energy Commission. He lived the rest of his life diminished, and died at 62 in 1967, in Princeton, New Jersey.
When Sherwin began interviewing people there who had known him, he was taken aback by the intensity of their feelings. Physicists, and the widows of physicists, were still angry for the casual neglect Oppenheimer had shown to his family.
Yet after Sherwin moved his own family to Boston for a job at Tufts University, he and his wife Susan met Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, who admitted with embarrassment that their years working under Oppenheimer on the bomb were some of the happiest of their lives.
Among the scores of people Sherwin also interviewed were Haakon Chevalier, Oppenheimer’s onetime best friend whose Communist ties in part formed the basis of the inquisition against him, and Edward Teller, whose testimony at the 1954 hearing helped end his career.
Oppenheimer’s son Peter refused a formal interview, so Sherwin brought his family to the Pecos Wilderness near Santa Fe, saddled up a horse and rode to the Oppenheimers’ rustic cabin, wrangling a chance to talk to the scientist’s son as the two men built a fence. “Marty never thought he was a great interviewer,” said Susan Sherwin, who accompanied him on many research trips, and survives him. But he had a knack for connecting with people.
Sherwin’s deadline came and went. His editor retired, and he did his best to avoid his new one. There was always another person to interview, or another document to read.
The unfinished book became a running joke in the Sherwin household.
“We had this New Yorker cartoon on our refrigerator my entire childhood,” his son Alex remembered. “It’s a guy at a typewriter, and he’s surrounded by stacks of papers. His wife is in the distance, in the threshold of the door to his office. And he says, ‘Finish it? Why would I want to finish it?’”
KAI BIRD, A FORMER associate editorat The Nation, needed a job. It was 1999, and while Bird had written a couple of modestly successfulbiographies, as a 48-year-old historian without a Ph.D. he was underqualified for a tenure-track university position and overqualified for nearly everything else. His wife, Susan Goldmark, who held a lucrative job at the World Bank, was getting tired of being the main breadwinner.
Bird was unsuccessfully applying for jobs at newspapers when he heard from an old friend. Sherwin took Bird out to dinner, and suggested they join forces on Oppenheimer.
They had known each other for years, and their friendship had solidified in the mid-1990s, when Bird included Sherwin’s essays in a volume about the controversy surrounding a planned Smithsonian exhibit of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb.
But there was one complication. “My first book started out as a collaboration with my best friend,” the writer Max Holland, Bird said, “and eight years later ended in divorce.” Things broke down, in part, over disagreements about how much research was enough.
The episode had been painful. Never again, his wife reminded him.
“I told Marty, ‘No, I can’t. I like you too much,’ ” Bird said.
So began a yearlong charm campaign to convince Bird, but especially Goldmark, that this time would be different. “I was watching very carefully, looking at them interacting and finishing each other’s sentences the way couples sometimes do,” she recalled. “They were both so cute.”
Finally, with everyone on board, Gail Ross, Bird’s agent, negotiated a new contract with Knopf, which agreed to pay the pair an additional $290,000 to finish the book.
Sherwin cautioned Bird that there were gaps in his research. But soon “untold numbers of boxes” started showing up at Bird’s home, according to his wife. As Bird began to sift through everything, he recognized how painstakingly detailed and dizzyingly broad Sherwin’s research was. “There were no gaps,” Bird remembered.
It was time to write. Bird started at the beginning.
“I wrote a draft of the early childhood years,” he said, “and Marty took it and rewrote it.” Sherwin sent the revision back to Bird, who was impressed. “He knew exactly what was missing in the anecdotes,” Bird said.
Their process took shape: Bird would pore over the research, synthesize it, and produce a draft which he’d send to Sherwin, who would recognize what was missing, edit and rewrite, and return the copy to Bird. Soon Sherwin was drafting as well. “We wrote furiously for four years,” Bird said.
Sherwin always knew that the hearing that stripped Oppenheimer of his clearance would be the “epicenter” of the biography, Bird said. They argued about what the evidence might suggest, but never about style, process, or the shape of the book itself. “It became,” Susan Sherwin said, “almost a magical thing.”
By fall 2004, nearly 25 years after Knopf committed to the project, the manuscript was almost ready. Bird and Sherwin’s editor Ann Close vetoed “Oppie,” the pair’s working title. A scramble ensued, until something came to Goldmark late at night: “Prometheus … fire … the bomb is this fire. And you could put ‘American’ there.’ ”
Bird dismissed “American Prometheus” as too obscure, until Sherwin called the next morning to tell him that a friend, the biographer Ronald Steel, had suggested the same title over dinner the night before. “I’m in big trouble,” said Bird. His wife felt vindicated.
On April 5, 2005, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer”was published to enormous acclaim. The Boston Globe raved that it “stands as an Everest among the mountains of books on the bomb project and Oppenheimer, and is an achievement not likely to be surpassed or equaled.”
Among its numerous accolades was the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Bird always thought the book had an outside shot at the prize, but Sherwin had been skeptical. “He always thought I was an incorrigible optimist. So he was genuinely astonished,” Bird would later say. “He was, in fact, sweetly elated.”
BY THE TIME the collaborators learned in September 2021 that Christopher Nolan planned to turn “American Prometheus” into a film, Marty Sherwin was dying of cancer.
The pair had read several unmade scripts based on their book over the years, so Sherwin was doubtful of its chances in Hollywood. He was too sick to join, but Bird and Goldmark met Nolan at a boutique hotel in Greenwich Village. Bird reported to Sherwin in person afterward that, with Nolan as writer and director, their work was in good hands.
“Oppenheimer’s story is one of the most dramatic and complex that I’ve ever encountered,” Nolan said recently. “I don’t think I ever would have taken this on without Kai and Martin’s book.” (Anticipation for the movie has put the biography on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction paperbacks.)
On Oct. 6, 2021, Bird received word that his friend had died at the age of 84.
Sherwin “would have been deeply pleased,” by the film’s accuracy, Bird said after seeing the film for the first time. “I think he would have appreciated what an artistic achievement it is.”
He recalled the day he and his wife spent a few hours on the film’s set in Los Alamos. The crew was filming in Oppenheimer’s original cabin, now painstakingly restored. Bird watched Cillian Murphy do take after take as Oppenheimer, astonished at the actor’s resemblance to the subject he’d spent years studying.
Finally, there was a break in filming, and Murphy walked over to introduce himself. As the actor approached — dressed in Oppenheimer’s brown, baggy 1940s-era suit and wide tie — Bird couldn’t help himself.
“Dr. Oppenheimer!” he shouted. “I’ve been waiting decades to meet you!”
Bird said Murphy just laughed. “We’ve all been reading your book,” the actor told him. “It’s mandatory reading around here.”
Halloween is the time for creepy costumes, delicious candy, and thanks to Marvel, thrilling comic books!
This October, Marvel Comics is back with another year of “TRICK-OR-READ,” the popular retailer event that gives fans a chance to pick up copies of bestselling comics starring some of Marvel’s hottest characters and storylines. This year’s selections feature something for every reader including perfect entry points for newcomers and young children!
In the same spirit as Free Comic Book Day, local participating comic shops will celebrate Halloween with a spellbinding trip to the Marvel Universe with these five free titles.
Concept/costume illustrator Robert Rowley shared new pieces of concept art detailing differently colored designs for Ben Affleck’s Batman suit that was seen in The Flash.
One design takes his look back to what he sported in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, giving him an extra dark shade of black on his cape and chest piece.
Warner Bros.
Another design gives the Caped Crusader more of a gray tone in everything except for the actual cape and cowl.
Warner Bros.
The following design darkens the cape and cowl while adding a silver Bat symbol on the chest, black bindings over his arms and chest, and grey fabric under all of the expensive Bat gear.
Warner Bros.
Fans also get a full head-to-tow look at the Batsuit, highlighting a pair of worn-down boots that prove just how long Ben Affleck’s run as Batman ran.
Amazon Prime Day 2023 is a few hours out, but you can still snag some early deals before the two-day shopping event begins in earnest. We’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals we can find below. Remember that you’ll need to subscribe to Prime to take advantage of many (but not all) of the offers, and that there’s always a chance that prices drop lower during the event itself. For those with no interest in Prime, we’ve also included a few of the best tech deals that aren’t explicitly tied to the event.
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped to $25 for Prime members before Prime Day, which is more than half off its regular price and ties its all-time low. This the most powerful streaming dongle Amazon makes, with a superior processor than the standard Fire TV Stick 4K, plus support for WiFi 6, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio. While Amazon’s Fire TV OS can be messy compared to other platforms from Roku, Google and Apple, it still gets you access to just about all of the major streaming apps. A few other Fire streaming devices have been discounted as well, including the latest Fire TV Cube, which Prime members can pick up for $110.
Fire TV Stick Lite
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick Lite is half off and down to only $15. It was slightly cheaper last Prime Day when it was on sale for $12, but nevertheless, this is a great sale on Amazon’s most affordable streaming dongle. With its support for 1080p video and WiFi 5 connectivity, it’s arguably best for those on tight budgets who just want to upgrade an old TV with basic streaming chops.
Amazon Fire HD 8
If you’re on an ultra-tight budget and need a new tablet, the Fire HD 8 is worth considering at its current deal price of $55, which matches its lowest price to date. Normally, the device retails around $90. This tablet has a smaller (8-inch) and lower-resolution (1,280×800) display than the Fire HD 10, and it isn’t as quick in day-to-day use. Like all Fire tablets, its app support lags well behind iPadOS, which is most noticeable in its lack of Google apps. But it has just enough power for the basics, it gets a solid 10-ish hours of battery life and it’s light in the hand. You can expand its 32GB of storage with a microSD card, too. If all you want is a competent tablet for casual reading and streaming for as little as possible, it should do the job.
Amazon Fire Max 11
Amazon’s recently released Fire Max 11 tablet is on sale for $150 for Prime Day. It’s the best discount we’ve seen since Amazon’s most powerful tablet launched in May. The slab has an 11-inch 2000 x 1200 touchscreen, an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, up to 128GB of built-in storage and up to 14 hours of battery life. It can also work with a detachable keyboard and stylus, so you could use it like a 2-in-1 laptop.
Amazon Echo Buds (2023)
The latest Echo Buds just arrived in May yet they’re already 30 percent off at Amazon for Prime members. You can get them for $35, which is $15 off and ties the lowest price we’ve seen. We recommended the Echo Buds to those who prefer an open design in our best budget wireless earbuds guide. They lack active noise cancellation and don’t completely seal off the ear canal, but their sound quality is decent for the price, and they come with features we don’t often see in cheap earbuds, such as multipoint connectivity, auto-pausing and a customizable EQ tool. Naturally, they also work well with Alexa. If you hate the feeling of in-ear headphones, they’ll be a good value.
Amazon is giving Prime members a $5 promotional credit when they buy an eGift card valued at $50 or more before July 10th. You’ll need to use the promo credit by August 25, 2023, but the only things it won’t apply to are items sold by third-party merchants and e-books.
Blink Mini
Prime members can get a two-pack of Blink Mini security cameras for $34 right now. Single cameras are also on sale for $18. While these Blink cameras are wired, they have most of the same features as the standard wireless models, including 1080p video recording, motion alerts and support for two-way talk. Several other Blink wireless cameras are on sale as well.
Ring Battery Doorbell Plus
The new Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is down to a new low of $130 for Prime members. This model just came out this year and it’s powered by a quick-release, rechargeable battery that you can easily remove when the device needs more power. It also supports some of the latest Ring Doorbell features including 156p video recording, color night vision, two-way talk, Quick Replies and customizable motion zones.
Amazon Kindle Unlimited 3-month membership
If you’re a Prime member who has never subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, you can get a three-month trial to Amazon’s e-book service for no extra cost. Normally, the subscription goes for $12 a month after a 30-day free trial. Just note that the membership will be set to auto-renew by default. As a refresher, Kindle Unlimited makes a selection of e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines accessible on-demand. It doesn’t include every e-book in the Kindle library, but it may still be worthwhile if you’re a particularly avid reader. If nothing else, this deal makes it easier to figure out if it’s worth paying for.
Audible Premium Plus 3-month membership
Similar to that Kindle Unlimited offer, Prime members who are new to Audible Premium Plus can get three months of the audiobook service for free. This membership usually costs $14.95 a month after a 30-day free trial, so you’re saving about $30. Premium Plus is Audible’s upper tier: Like the less expensive Audible Plus, it provides an assortment of audiobooks, podcasts and other audio content you can access on-demand. The main difference is that it also includes a monthly credit that you can use to buy any book in the Audible store permanently. As with Kindle Unlimited, Premium Plus will be most worth it if you burn through audiobooks and podcasts quickly, but this extended trial is a comfier way to see if it’s useful. Again, be aware that the subscription will be set to auto-renew by default.
Amazon Echo Dot
Amazon has knocked the latest Echo Dot down to $23, which is roughly half off its typical street price, and is throwing in a Sengled color smart bulb for no extra cost. We consider the Echo Dot the best smart speaker you can get for less than $50 thanks to its compact design, surprisingly good sound quality for its size and handy Alexa integration. The newest Echo Dots can also act as Eero WiFi boosters, adding up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your existing Eero system.
Amazon Echo
Amazon has discounted several other Echo speakers as well. The base Echo, for one, is down to $55, which is $5 more than its all-time low but still $35 off its typical going rate. This is the top pick for less than $100 in our smart speaker buying guide, as it represents a clear step-up from the Echo Dot in terms of sound quality. If you aren’t tied to Apple or Google, we generally found it to outperform the HomePod Mini and Nest Audio as well.
If you’re looking for something more affordable than the Echo Dot, the unidirectional Echo Pop doesn’t sound as nice, but it offers most of the same Alexa capabilities and is currently on sale for $18. The Echo Dot with Clock, meanwhile, has similar hardware to the standard Dot, but adds an LED display that can show the time and basic weather and music info. That one is down to a new low of $30. And while the larger Echo Studio can’t top something like the Sonos Era 100, it’s still the best-sounding Echo, and it could be a decent value at its current price of $155 if you already own several other Alexa speakers and want to save some cash. That deal also matches the lowest price we’ve tracked.
Amazon Echo Show 5
The latest Echo Show 5 is half off and down to a record low of $45. We’ve previously recommended the Show 5 to those who prefer Alexa over the Google Assistant and want a smart display that won’t take up much space. It’s particularly useful as a smart alarm clock, as it has a gentle sunrise alarm feature and a tap-to-snooze function. This new model has a faster processor, a slightly larger speaker and an extra mic for better Alexa performance.
Amazon Echo Show 8
If you don’t need something so compact, the Echo Show 8 is our favorite Amazon smart display overall and is currently on sale for $60. That’s a new all-time low and roughly $45 off the device’s average street price. Compared to the 5.5-inch panel on the Echo Show 5, the 8-inch touchscreen here is much better suited for making video calls or viewing photos. You get a vastly superior camera, more powerful speakers and a faster processor as well. As with the Show 5, there’s also a physical camera shutter and mic mute button.
The more spacious Echo Show 10 and Echo Show 15 are also down to new lows at $163 and $182, respectively. Neither of those devices are outright bad, but our reviews found them to be less universally appealing than their smaller and more affordable siblings.
Ring Video Doorbell + Echo Show 5
Amazon’s sweeping early Prime Day sale on Ring devices includes a bundle that gives you the Ring Video Doorbell plus an Echo Show 5 for only $65. Considering the Video Doorbell alone is going for $55 as an early Prime Day deal, that means you’ll only spend $10 on the Show 5 if you opt for the bundle. The Video Doorbell itself is a fairly basic 1080p option, but it’s easy to install and generally accurate at delivering motion alerts
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Kids
The 16GB version of Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite Kids is down to $105, which is $65 off and a new low. While this e-reader is marketed toward children, it features the same hardware as the standard Paperwhite, with a lightweight and waterproof design, 6.8-inch 300 ppi display, 10-week battery life and extensive e-book library. Here, though, you also get a cover case, a longer two-year warranty and a year of Amazon’s Kids+ service (which you can ignore if you aren’t buying for a little one). We gave the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition a review score of 97 back in 2021. The Kids edition lacks that model’s ad-free lock screen (when you aren’t using a child account, at least), upgraded front light, wireless charging and 32GB of storage, but the two devices are otherwise similar.
Motorola Razr+
The foldable Moto Razr+ only just arrived last month, but it’s already received a 15 percent discount for Prime Day, albeit in a roundabout way. You’ll need to be a Prime member and request an invite first, after which you’ll be able to buy the phone on Prime Day for the discounted price. While jumping through Amazon’s hoops is annoying, doing so will get you an unlocked Razr+ for $850 instead of $1,000.
We spent some time with the new foldable before it came out last month and gave it a full review upon its debut. The verdict? Samsung’s Galaxy foldables have some serious competition. The Razr+ has a 6.9-inch screen when open and offers a 3.6-inch screen when folded, which is much larger than the 1.9-inch exterior screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. The foldable design unlocks different uses, as it can act as its own tripod in addition to taking up less space in your pocket.
Eero Pro routers
A number of Eero and Eero Pro WiFi router packs have been discounted for Prime members ahead of the shopping event. You can pick up one Eero router for as low as $45, or an Eero Pro router for $70. We recommend going for the Eero Pro if you can, since it’s a tri-band system that supports speeds up to 1Gbps and covers slightly more square feet than the standard Eero does. Just keep in mind that these are not the latest Eero systems; for WiFi 6 support, you’ll have to shell out a bit more money for an Eero 6 set.
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd gen)
Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro are back on sale for $200, which is $50 off their usual rate and a record low. These remain the best true wireless earbuds for Apple lovers, even though the company didn’t drastically overhaul the design with this latest model. Most of the new features are under the hood, with Apple noticeably improving the pair’s sound quality, noise cancellation and transparency mode.
Samsung Pro Plus microSD card
The 256GB version of Samsung’s latest Pro Plus microSD card is down to a new low of $20. That’s $10 off its MSRP. If you need more space, the 512GB model is within a couple dollars of its best price at $43.52. The Pro Plus is the top pick in our guide to the best microSD cards, as it finished at or near the top of all of our sequential and random speed tests. It’s also backed by a 10-year warranty.
Samsung 980 Pro
The 2TB version of Samsung’s 980 Pro is down to a new low of $100. We’ve seen this SSD steadily drop in price over the course of the year, but this deal marks a roughly $35 drop from the device’s average street price in recent months. The 980 Pro isn’t Samsung’s fastest SSD – that would be the 990 Pro, the 1TB model of which is down to $70 – but it still meets Sony’s requirements for expanding the PS5’s storage. You’ll just need to add a heatsink for a few bucks more to go along with it. If you aren’t buying for a PS5 specifically, a speedy PCIe 4.0 drive like this may be overkill but will provide fast storage all the same.
Both this and the Evo Plus microSD card deal come as part of a wider sale on Samsung storage devices. This includes the Fit Plus, a tiny flash drive we recommend in our best SSDs guide, down to $22, and the T7 Shield, a ruggedized version of one of our favorite portable SSDs, back down to $75. Both deals match the lowest prices we’ve tracked, and nothing in the sale is exclusive to Prime subscribers.
Apple iPad (9th gen)
The 64GB model of Apple’s 9th-gen iPad is down to $250 at Amazon, matching the lowest price we’ve tracked. You’ll see the price listed as $279 and an additional $29 discount will apply at checkout. Apple normally sells the device for $329, though we’ve seen it retail closer to $275 in recent months. This is the budget pick in our iPad buying guide: It lacks the accessory support, thinner bezels and laminated display of the iPad Air, but it’s by far the most affordable route into iPadOS, and it remains fast and comfortable enough for casual reading, streaming and gaming. It’s also the only current iPad with a headphone jack.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is down to $199 for a 40mm model and $229 for a 44mm model. We gave the Galaxy Watch 5 a score of 85 last year, and it’s currently the “best for Android users” pick in our smartwatch buying guide. While its battery life could be better, its design is durable and attractive, its OS is easy to navigate and its health tracking is relatively comprehensive. Samsung is expected to announce a Galaxy Watch 6 in the coming weeks, however, so it may be worth waiting to see how that model stacks up if you don’t need a new smartwatch right this instant.
Google Pixel 7a
Google’s Pixel 7a is $50 off and down to a new low of $449 right now. It’s currently the best midrange phone you can get thanks to its fast Tensor G2 chipset, smooth 90Hz display, IP67 water resistance, fantastic cameras and support for wireless charging. If you’re willing to spend an extra $50, you can spend $500 and upgrade to the Pixel 7.
Elgato Stream Deck +
Elgato’s Stream Deck + is 10 percent off right now and down to $180 in one of the first real discounts we’ve seen on the gaming accessory. In addition to eight customizable buttons, the Deck+ also has a touch bar and four knobs that make it easier to control things like lighting and sound during a stream. The Deck+ also supports plugins for Camera Hub, Elgato Wave Link, Spotify, Twitch and more.
The extended deadline for SAG-AFTRA negotiations is approaching fast.
This has been the summer of strikes. Although the Directors Guild of America met an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Writers Guild of America still holds strong at the picket lines, even ten weeks in.
SAG-AFTRA has been in deep negotiations over the last month, and things are looking dicey. After SAG-AFTRA extended their negotiations with the AMPTP till July 12th, things have been fairly silent… that is until today.
‘The Bear’Credit: FX
Read SAG-AFTRA Strike Rules
On July 10th, the Wrap reported that the actors union has notified publicists of what is expected if a strike is to be called on Wednesday night. If a strike is called on, then many of Hollywood’s publicists and clients who are in the guild will be affected in a multitude of ways. However, any of the remaining Hollywood productions will feel the brunt of the force as they have no choice but to shut down during the strike.
Included in SAG-AFTRA’s strike rules, union actors are to step away from all film and television productions worldwide, actors will not be permitted to take part in any promotional work (this includes press junkets, film premieres, and fan events like San Diego Comic-Con as a part of panels that promote a specific film, television show, or current or future work. While attendance at these fan events is allowed, the union strongly recommends that actors skip the events in solidarity with the strike.
The Wrap has also reported that sources say that SAG-AFTRA has told publicists to cancel any press or acting work after a strike is ordered and request that no work is promoted on social media.
Obviously, this means that many of the big films and movies that are coming out in July and August, such as Barbie, Oppenheimer, and The Sandman Season 2, will have to cease their press junkets or film before the strike begins, placing a disclaimer on any pre-deadline junkets that they were recorded beforehand. The union stated that they will be reaching out to those who are possibly breaching these rules.
‘Oppenheimer’Credit: Universal Pictures
What Does This All Mean for Indie Filmmakers?
Well, SAG-AFTRA might be giving indie productions an exception. If you have a truly independent production, which means that there are no studios and streamers that are members of the AMPTP attached as producers or distributors, then you may qualify to still work with union actors.
However, these matters should be discussed with a SAG-AFTRA leader just to make sure that no one is scabbing.
Similar to the WGA, SAG-AFTRA is negotiating for streaming residuals based on viewership data, something that streamers have kept confidential from creators, and are fighting to prevent AI from replicating their likeness in any way. There is a lot more to SAG-AFTRA’s fight that we’ve covered in the past, which you can read here.
We will keep our eyes and ears open for any news on Wednesday night and will update you as the story unfolds.
On the first episode of her new CNN primetime show “The Source,” Kaitlan Collins tried really hard to give Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville a chance to walk back statements he made recently that sure sounded like he was defending the racist ideology known as white nationalism.
Instead, while he repeatedly said he rejects racism, he also repeatedly (and incorrectly) insisted that white nationalism is not racist, that saying otherwise is merely “some people’s opinion,” and that “most white people” in the military actually are white nationalists. Ok then!
Tuberville: My opinion of a white nationalist.. it’s an American. If that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against them.
The context here is that in May, the hard right Republican appeared on a radio show where, among other things, he elaborated on his opposition to efforts by Democrats to keep extremists out of the military, and refused to condemn white nationalists.
The term refers to the political ideology that promotes the political enshrinement of segregation and white supremacy, originally coined to describe South Africa’s apartheid government. But after his comments were criticized, Tuberville claimed that he merely meant that in his view, the term was used to smear people with conservative beliefs. He also disavowed racism in tepid terms, and continued to defend white nationalists, who he insisted are just patriots.
On “The Source,” Collins brought this up in relation to the other reason Tuberville is in the news these days — he’s been using the U.S. Senate’s maddening procedural roadblocks to single-handedly block all military promotions in an attempt to force the military to adopt strict anti-abortion polices.
“Just to be clear, you agree that white nationalists should not be serving in the US military. Is that what you’re saying?” Collins asked him when the topic was broached.
“If people think that a white nationalist is a racist. I agree with that, I agree they shouldn’t,” Tuberville replied.
“A White nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races,” Collins said.
“Well, that’s some people’s opinion,: Tuberville insisted.
Asked Collins: “What’s your opinion?”
“My opinions of a white nationalist, if somebody wants to call them white nationalist, is to me ‘an American,” Tuberville said. “Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything they want to do, because I am 110% against racism. But I want somebody that’s in our military, that’s strong belief in this country, that’s an American, that will fight alongside anybody, whether with a man or woman, black or white, red. It doesn’t make any difference. And so I’m totally against identity politics. I think it’s ruining this country. And I think that Democrats ought to be ashamed for how they’re doing this, because it’s divided this country and it’s making this country weaker every day.
“That’s not identity politics,” Collins replied. “You said a So White Nationalist in American politics and white nationalist is an American-“
“It is an American,” Tuberville interjected.
“But a white nationalist is someone who, who believes horrific things. Do you really think that’s someone who should be serving in the military?” Collins countered.
“Well, that’s just the name that it’s been given,” Tuberville said.
“It’s not, there’s a real a definition, there’s real concerns about extremism,” Collins said.
“So if you’re gonna do away with most white people in this country out of the military, we got a huge problems,” Tuberville said.
“It’s not white people, it’s white nationalists,” Collins responded.
“That have a few probably different beliefs, that have different beliefs,” Tuberville said. “Now, if racism is one of those beliefs, I’m totally against. I’m totally against racism.”
“But a white nationalist is racist, senator,” Collins said.
“Well, that’s your opinion. That’s your opinion. But if it’s racism, if it’s racism, I’m totally against any type of racism, any type of racism. I don’t care what it is,” Tuberville added.
The “Barbie” writer-director revealed that both Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan were asked to make “specialty cameos” in the ensemble film, led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Gerwig channeled her mom-ergy when discussing working again with the “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” actors.
“Well, it was always going to have to be a sort of smaller thing because [Saoirse] was actually producing at the time, which I am so proud of her for. And of course, it’s brilliant. But it was going to be a specialty cameo,” Gerwig told CinemaBlend. “I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy, and both of them couldn’t do it and I was so annoyed. But I love them so much.”
She added, “But it felt like doing something without my children. I mean, I’m not their mom, but I sort of feel like their mom.”
Gerwig wrote and directed “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Little Women” (2019), which both starred Oscar nominees Ronan and Chalamet.
Ronan previously told People that she was “gutted” to not be in “Barbie.” “I was supposed to do a cameo because I live in London and they were [filming] there,” Ronan said. “There was a whole character I was going to play — another Barbie. I was gutted I couldn’t do it. I have texted Margot and Greta and I’m like, ‘If you’re doing any pick-up [shots], maybe I can just walk through the background?’”
Meanwhile, Chalamet will be showing off his singing chops outside of “Barbie” with musical “Wonka” and Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” He will this fall also be seen in “Dune: Part Two” from “Barbie” studio Warner Bros.
For all the details on “Barbie,” in theaters July 21, click here.
Both on the awards circuit and in the public consciousness, HBO is widely regarded as among the first Hollywood heavyweights to recognize that television, as a medium, had the power to deliver sprawling, large scale stories on a smaller screen. From HBO’s ascent in the late 1990s through its dragon-aided roar across the 2010s, the network’s original series tackled universal stories, stretching across continents and decades.
The network hasn’t been without controversy, though. HBO faced questions about its lack of diversity in flagship series, including “Game of Thrones” and “Girls,” throughout the 2010s. And, unshackled from the restrictions of broadcast TV, the various steps the network took to push the limit of what’s allowed on screen garnered a fair share of pearl-clutching headlines; see “The Sopranos” in the ’90s and “Euphoria” just a few years back. And since the Warner Bros. and Discovery merger, there’s been many worries from TV fans about the impact it’s having on HBO’s future — especially with series like “Succession” and “Barry” concluding.
But overall, the network’s commitment to collaborating with talented filmmakers and inventive creators has earned them creative success that few of their rivals have been able to equal. Even as the age of prestige TV has blanketed the marketplace with plenty of other options, HBO’s newest shows have been able to stand out. “Barry,” “I May Destroy You,” “The White Lotus,” and “Mare of Easttown” are among the Emmy-nominated series carrying on HBO’s storied tradition with TV that captivates and compels.
Not including Max Originals (which have their own separate list): Here are 40 of the best TV shows HBO has ever had to offer.
Michael Schneider and Wilson Chapman contributed to this report.
40. “The Rehearsal”
“The Rehearsal”Allyson Riggs/HBO
A confounding, bizarre experiment, “The Rehearsal” got everyone talking when it premiered in Summer 2022, launching meme after meme about the various stunts creator and host Nathan Fielder gets into over its six-episode first season. Ostensibly a series about Fielder staging “rehearsals” for big life events in order to help ordinary people prepare for the unexpected, “The Rehearsal” gets so much weirder and more personal that that initial premise, as Fielder begins staging rehearsals for rehearsals and involving himself directly in the story. Is the show’s treatment of its real-life subjects one hundred percent ethically above board? The jury will (likely always) be out on that. But the show recognizes that reality, and provides one of the queasiest but most fascinating TV experiences in recent memory. —WC
39. “OZ”
“Oz”Courtesy Everett Collection
Although “The Sopranos” gets most of the credit for making HBO the place for edgy, artful TV, prison melodrama “Oz” deserves its flowers as the show that paved the way. The channel’s first one-hour TV drama, Tom Fontana’s 1997 show was set in an experimental, rehabilitative wing of the Oswald State Penitentiary, where several colorful inmates from different backgrounds engage in drug trade, gang wars, fight each other, or fall in love. Boasting brilliant performances from the large ensemble cast — including Harold Perrineau, J. K. Simmons, Lee Tergesen, Christopher Meloni, and Rita Moreno — the series remains an under-appreciated, compulsively watchable drama decades after it broke ground. —WC
38. “Olive Kitteridge”
“Olive Kitteridge” HBO
Adapted from Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 novel, “Olive Kitteridge” significantly streamlines the original text — essentially a series of short stories about the people in the life of the title character — to focus more squarely on its protagonist. Thankfully, Kitteridge is played by Frances McDormand in one of her best performances. A depressed retiree in the Maine town of Crosby, the four-part series tracks Olive’s life over a 25-year period, as her relationships with her husband Henry (Richard Jenkins), son Christopher (John Gallagher Jr.), and friends grow and change. The series won eight Emmys, including Best Limited Series and acting wins for Jenkins and McDormand. —WC
37. “Mildred Pierce”
“Mildred Pierce”HBO
It takes guts to readapt a book that’s already been turned into a classic film, but Todd Hayes did just that when he wrote and directed a limited series adaptation of James M. Cain’s “Mildred Pierce” back in 2011. The 1945 Michael Curtiz adaptation of the novel is a classic featuring Joan Crawford in one of her defining film roles, but significantly changes the structure of the story to transform a psychological drama into a film noir. Hayes’ adaptation is significantly more faithful, featuring Kate Winslet in the title role. A hard-working mother in the Great Depression, Mildred struggles to care for her family when her husband loses his job, opening a restaurant and falling in love with a new man (Guy Pearce, wooing Winslet a few years before “Mare of Easttown”), while struggling to navigate her relationship with her spoiled and selfish daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). Winslet and Pierce both received Emmy Awards for their work in the miniseries. —WC
36. “Fraggle Rock”
“Fraggle Rock”Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock
The Jim Henson series might be considered the “HBO starter drug” for a generation of viewers, now in their 40s, who came of age in the 1980s. Fraggles are mostly carefree creatures with different personalities, led by the characters Gobo, Red, Wembley, Mokey and Boober. They sing, they play, they eat structures built by Doozers, they steal radishes from the Gorgs, and seek answers from the enlightened Marjory the Trash Heap. Out in the real world, Doc and Sprocket were the gateway for the Fraggles to “outer space.” The Fraggle world lived on with the Hulu animated series “The Doozers” from 2014 to 2018. —MS
35. “True Detective”
“True Detective”HBO
Although “True Detective” is an anthology — rotating casts, settings, and plots each season — there’s an eerie familiarity to the nightmarish journeys the crime show has taken thus far. In the first season, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are Louisiana detectives investigating a series of killings seemingly related to the occult. Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, and Taylor Kitsch lead the second season, as California cops looking into corrupt politicians. Finally, Mahershala Ali leads the third season as a detective in the Ozarks looking for two missing children. A fourth season starring Jodie Foster is expected in 2023. —AF
34. “Euphoria”
“Euphoria”HBO
Based on the Israeli series of the same name, Sam Levinson’s “Euphoria” takes the more is more approach to twisted teen dramedy. Zendaya stars as a high school-aged drug addict named Rue, whose struggles with mental health and grief ground an otherwise chaotic kaleidoscope of social media-fueled coming-of-age angst. “Euphoria” is first and foremost celebrated for its moody soundtrack and arresting aesthetic, with its costuming and makeup honored by the Emmys and fashion world writ large. Despite a rocky second season, Zendaya and the rest of the “Euphoria” cast continue to earn top praise for their performances with special attention paid to series regulars Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Angus Cloud, and Hunter Schafer. —AF
33. “Game of Thrones”
“Game of Thrones”HBO
Even with a head start as rich as George R. R. Martin’s novels, translating the dense mythology of this fantasy behemoth to the world of TV was an unprecedented undertaking, creating entire cities and species from the ground up on a mammoth scale. In the process, that attention to detail and willingness to forge new directions for these characters kept the series grounded in ways that kept viewers in dragon-free zones hooked week after week. In a fractured entertainment environment, the mere existence of “Game of Thrones” as an all-consuming, quadrant-crossing hit was something of a minor miracle. Even as the show faltered in its home stretch (at least according to some), the impending spinoff series lets the Westeros legacy live on. —SG
32. “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”HBO
Even before the never-ending news cycle became an apocalypse-focused monoculture, “Last Week Tonight” provided a valuable service by directing the late-night focus away from the front page. With segments on pressing issues as disparate as net neutrality, multi-level marketing schemes, mandatory minimum sentencing, gerrymandering, and infringement on LGBTQ rights, John Oliver and company have produced far more than the “evisceration” they often get headlines for (something Oliver himself has poked fun at). Using the show’s distinct viewpoint to punch up rather than tred on easy targets, it’s political-themed comedy that offers something constructive to our national discourse, all while managing to slip in dogs who look like Supreme Court justices for good measure. —SG
31. “Big Love”
“Big Love”HBO
Bill Paxton plays a polygamist wrestling with the complications of married life in HBO’s “Big Love.” Set in a fundamentalist Mormon community in aughts Utah, the drama series ran for five seasons from 2006 to 2011 and was praised for its tight writing and emotional performances. Created by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, “Big Love” commingled the high-stakes intensity of religion and politics with the intimate family drama of three sister wives sharing a backyard and the household responsibilities therein. Played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin, the three main wives grounded the series, which would earn nine Emmy nominations. —AF
30. “The Jinx”
“The Jinx”HBO
“The Jinx” kicks off with a criminal trying to get caught. If Andrew Jarecki’s journey into the mind of late murderer Robert Durst was only an unpacking of that single idea, it would have still been compelling TV. That this true-crime docuseries also uncovers plenty of unexpected discoveries not just about Durst, but about the ethical nature of the proper reporting process of homicides makes it a watershed moment of the “Serial” boom. “The Jinx” doesn’t skimp on the brutality of these crimes, showing them in full detail so that an unsuspecting audience has a better understanding of the severity of the murders described. Ultimately, it’s a gripping examination of the power of trauma and how the cycle of violence can be perpetuated before we even realize it. [Editor’s note: Plus, “The Jinx” helped get Durst convicted in 2021.] —SG
29. “The White Lotus”
“The White Lotus”HBO
Shot at a real Hawaiian resort during the COVID-19 pandemic, season one of Mike White’s “The White Lotus” kicks off with the mysterious death of someone at a five-star resort. Who died, how, and why? Dripping with dramatic irony, these questions fuel the extraordinarily bingeworthy six-part dramedy that earned the show five Emmy nods, including Outstanding Limited Series. In fact, the limited series was so outstanding it’s no longer limited at all, having gone the way of “Big Little Lies” and been green-lit for an Italian-set second season. —AF
28. “Mare of Easttown”
“Mare of Easttown”HBO
Kate Winslet stars as title character Mare in Brad Ingelsby’s harrowing crime thriller about a beleaguered Philadelphia detective grappling with an unsolved case. Equal parts absorbing character study and slow-burn whodunnit, the stark series boasts not only an incredible knack for creating suspense but also a consistent commitment to following those threads somewhere satisfying. “Mare of Easttown” earned six Emmy nominations, winning Outstanding Lead Actress for Winslet; Outstanding Supporting Actor for Evan Peters; and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Julianne Nicholson. —AF
27. “Big Little Lies”
Whodunits so often get overrun by the juiciness of their premises. Not so for Jean-Marc Vallée and David E. Kelley’s 2017 adaption of the Liane Moriarty novel, which crafts a central California community of intrigue and looks for the more nuanced story behind the death that sets off the series. The show’s central quartet (played by Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, and Laura Dern) each bring a dynamic thread to the fabric of this seaside town and the children whose actions become a focal point for the story. While the series left off as a strong, standalone piece of TV craftsmanship, it’s a testament to how well this blend of visual style and otherworldly performances captured audience’s imaginations that Season 2 happened (and with Meryl Streep in tow, no less). —SG
26. “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel”
“Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel”Patrick Harbron
In a changing landscapes that has an increasingly smaller space for TV newsmagazines, “Real Sports” has consistently found a way to bring vital stories from the sports world to a wider consciousness. Anchored by some of the industry’s strongest voices, these reports go beyond human interest stories to uncover the hidden side of iconic institutions or put a face to stories only previously whispered in off-the-record circles. Recent pieces on college athletics, youth football leagues, domestic violence issues and traffic deaths in the Dominican Republic continue a two-decade tradition of offering insight into lives beyond the highlight-reel regulars. Thorough, provocative and far-reaching, it’s a series with a persistence and consistency, a model for similar journalistic endeavors. —SG
25. “Silicon Valley”
“Silicon Valley”HBO
If Mike Judge made “Silicon Valley” now, it would have to be totally different. So treat yourself. Seriously, turn off your phone, suspend any concerns you might have about the downfall of humanity, and instead revel in the strange optimism of this somehow already dated 2010s sitcom about misfit programmers trying to make it in big tech. Thomas Middleditch, Kumail Nanjiani, T.J. Miller, Josh Brener, Amanda Crew, Zach Woods, Jimmy O. Yang, Martin Starr, and more appear. —AF
24. “Six Feet Under”
“Six Feet Under”HBO
Alan Ball’s opus about family, life, and loss is probably best known for how it tackled the subject of death. “Six Feet Under” centered on the lives of brothers Nate (Peter Krause) and David (Michael C. Hall) Fisher, who run the family funeral parlor after the death of their father. Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez, and Rachel Griffith also starred in the series as characters all searching for their own personal truths. As the Peabody Awards wrote when honoring the show in 2002: “Created by producer/writer Alan Ball, the strange yet strangely familiar world of the Fishers and their assortment of friends and companions, lovers and clients, deals with the most fundamental human experiences. The face the celebration of life and the loss of life, the joy of love and the pain of love, the struggle for understanding—and the headlong crash into confusion. Here, dreams, memories and neuroses intersect, remind us that those who pass are never fully lost.” —MS
23. “Looking”
“Looking”HBO
HBO has had its share of bombast over the past few decades, but “Looking” is an example of the network doing quieter stories with even more profound impact. Seeing the world of San Francisco through the eyes of three friends, all navigating their respective professional and personal challenges, the show was able to intertwine these individual experiences with the city it was set in. Under the watchful eyes of Andrew Haigh, Michael Lannan and a revolving door of talented independent filmmakers, this small group showed a diversity of ambition and desires from life, but never lost sight of the friendship that kept these men together. Over two seasons and a feature-length coda, “Looking” made drag clubs, bathhouses, Halloween parties, and tech offices each come alive with the specificity and care that comes with documenting the search for love, acceptance, and companionship. —SG
22. “The Comeback”
“The Comeback”HBO
“Sex and the City” writer/director Michael Patrick King moved on from that show to immediately create another HBO classic, this time with former “Friends” star Lisa Kudrow. “The Comeback” introduced the world to Valerie Cherish, a washed-up sitcom actress who is followed by a reality TV camera crew as she lands a role on a new network comedy. “The Comeback” made a comeback of its own in 2014, when a second season premiered nine years later, and was just as awkward, brutal, heartbreaking and beautiful as ever. —MS
21. “Sex and the City”
“Sex and the City”HBO/Darren/REX/Shutterstock
“Sex and the City” aired on HBO roughly the same time as “The Sopranos,” giving HBO a one-two punch in drama and comedy that turned the premium service into a powerhouse. The series, based on Candace Bushnell’s book, became a pop culture phenomenon, inspiring cocktail parties, cupcake runs and millions of people to proclaim whether they were a Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) or Charlotte (Kristin Davis). The revolutionary series (created by Darren Star and later overseen by Michael Patrick King) was lauded for its portrayal of strong, complicated women in their late 30s and early 40s who freely discussed relationships, sex, gender, friendship, career, family, and more. “Sex and the City” won four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2001. Parker, Nixon, and Davis reprised their roles in HBO Max’s “And Just Like That…” —MS
20. “Los Espookys”
“Los Espookys”HBO
Not especially scary but particularly perfect for horror lovers, “Los Espookys” is a fantastically funny comedy series about a group of friends whose fondness for terror spurs them to start a strange new business. Created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega, and Fred Armisen, “Los Espookys” stars its creators as well as Bernardo Velasco, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Carol Kane, and José Pablo Minor.
“Clocking in at six episodes, the first season moves well, gets the details right, and packs in the laughs at every turn,” writes IndieWire’s Ben Travers. “It’s never scary, and even its appreciation of a good scare, which leads to a gross-out gag or two, keeps the focus on the craft talent who made it happen.” —AF
19. “Mr. Show with Bob and David”
“Mr. Show with Bob and David”Brillstein-Grey Entertainment/Everett Collection
“Cheers” is probably your favorite comedian’s favorite comedy, but among the other American outputs from last quarter century, few shows lay claim to a similar spot in the hearts of comedy nerds more than “Mr. Show.” Bolstered by the two men up top and a bevy of supporting players who would go on to have influential places of their own in the comedy world, few sketch shows have been able to create comedic shorthand in quite a way that this show did. Sketches like “The Story of Everest,” rival mayo and mustard commercials, and “The Audition” not only showed off David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s comedic range, they challenged the standard format. Bending time, nesting narratives, and embracing the absurdities of everyday life, “Mr. Show” used the freedom of pay cable to usher in a new era of laughs.
18. “Insecure”
“Insecure”HBO
“Insecure” exists as a TV landmark of two kinds. First, it paved critical new ground at HBO for Black stories, spotlighting the friendship of two Black women living in SoCal across five impeccable seasons. Second, it solidified creator/multi-hyphenate Issa Rae’s reputation as an auteur of the 21st century, letting her sparkling dynamic with co-star Yvonne Orji ground the show. Lisa Joyce, Natasha Rothwell, Jay Ellis, Dominique Perry, and more complete the sensational “Insecure” cast. —AF
17. “Deadwood”
“Deadwood”Prods./Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
David Milch’s 36-episode opus, which chronicled the growth of a South Dakota outpost in the 1870s, was lauded at the time for its take on civilization and capitalism — and remembered for its colorful, and frequent, use of profanities. Milch weaved real-life characters and fictional storylines together, casting Ian McShane as saloon owner Al Swearengen: a role that earned the actor an Emmy nomination. “Deadwood” is considered one of the most lamented TV cancellations of the modern era, but got a much-anticipated movie in 2019. —MS
16. “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Other shows have mixed improvisation with scripted outlines, but no show has ever done it more masterfully than Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The show first premiered in 2000, and quickly established David – then mostly known as the co-creator behind “Seinfeld” — as a star in his own right. The cantankerous David’s social faux pas and quick-tempered take on everyday inconveniences became a hallmark of the show, and over time have led to plenty of cringe-worthy and hysterically iconic moments. “Curb” had been on hiatus since 2011, but returned for its long-awaited revival in 2017 and again in 2020.
15. “Angels in America”
“Angels in America”HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
It took more than a decade, and several starts and stops, for “Angels in America” to finally get produced. But ultimately, the pieces fell into place just right, with Mike Nichols directing the six-hour miniseries and HBO splitting it into two three-hour parts: “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika.” Based on the Tony Kushner play, “Angels in America” starred Al Pacino as Roy Cohn, the real-life conservative (and closeted) lawyer who worked to have accused spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in the 1950s, and later contracted AIDS, dying in 1986. The cast also included Meryl Streep, Patrick Wilson, Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, James Cromwell, Jeffrey Wright, and Justin Kirk. Nichols, Pacino, Streep, Wright, and Parker all won Emmys for “Angels in America,” which was also named Outstanding Miniseries in 2004. —MS
14. “Girls”
Lena Dunham left an indelible mark on TV with the captivating complexity hidden behind the simply monikered “Girls.” Starring Dunham as a fictionalized version of herself, the New York-set series follows Hannah: a twenty-something grappling with ambition, isolation, and mental health in an increasingly demanding world. Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Andrew Rannells, Adam Driver, and Alex Karpovsky bring fearless life to Hannah’s friend group, imbuing the exacting script with raw energy and fraught passion. The series won the Golden Globe for Best TV Comedy in 2013, and was a regular contender in the Emmys’ acting race. —AF
13. “The Righteous Gemstones”
“The Righteous Gemstones”HBO
HBO was first graced with the comedy stylings of Danny McBride in “Eastbound & Down” and “Vice Principals.” But “The Righteous Gemstones” — a stupidly entertaining dark comedy about a family of fabulously wealthy televangelists — finally blessed the creator with the production scale and budget needed to preach his goofy gospel from heavenly new heights. John Goodman plays the patriarch, with McBride, Edi Patterson, and Adam Devine portraying his adult kids. Tony Cavalero, Dermot Mulroney, Gregory Alan Williams, Cassidy Freeman, Syler Gisondo, Tim Baltz, Walton Goggins, and more fill out the congregation-sized cast. —AF
After seven sensational seasons, “Veep” still stands as TV’s greatest tribute to failing upwards. Between (Vice) President emeritus Selina Meyer and her flotilla of dysfunctional staffers, this series demonstrated that D.C. isn’t just a place of murderous Majority Whips (hello, “House of Cards”), but a bubble where unqualified individuals have a way of finding their way to the top. What these people lack in policy nuance and media savvy, they make up for in the nastiest, most vicious one-liners this side of the Atlantic. Through the guidance of show creator Armando Iannucci and later under the supervision of David Mandel, the show refined insults into an artform. It helps to have a cast full of profanity Picassos, from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, all the way through Timothy Simons, Kevin Dunn, Dan Bakkedahl, and a legion of the slimiest characters our (fictitious) nation’s capital has ever had to offer. —SG
11. “Room 104”
The Duplass brothers unleash otherworldly magic in “Room 104,” a low-budget anthology that’s arguably best likened to “The Twilight Zone” but exists in a category unto itself. Set in the same motel room across 48 episodes, the genre-blending experiment tasked four seasons’ of filmmakers with transporting audiences into an entirely new story world without exiting the room. From sci-fi adventures and ghost stories to cartoons and even a documentary, “Room 104” broke mold in ways no comment card could ever capture. Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Mel Eslyn, Sydney Fleischmann, and Xan Aranda executive produce, with a breathtaking score and original songs from Julian Wass. —AF
10. “The Leftovers”
“The Leftovers”Ben King/HBO
To have a show about the end of the world engender so much humanity amongst the sadness is an accomplishment worth celebrating. “The Leftovers” is a simple love story in a bleak time, cushioned by the tenuous family connections that helped each of these two central figures cope with varying degrees of loss. Their specific tragedies may be invented ones, but the boldness of the series’ storytelling only served to underline how their struggles connected a universal understanding of what it means to grieve something that’s gone. From the fierce, charged conversations that only took two people baring their souls to create something explosive, to the transformative “International Assassin” trilogy of episodes, “The Leftovers” took an unconventional approach to its source material and turned it into legend. —SG
9. “Watchmen”
“Watchmen”HBO
Adapted from the Alan Moore comic of the same name, Damon Lindelof’s “Watchmen” blew audience expectations out of the water with a strongly grounded — and decidedly terrifying — new take on a familiar universe with stars Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Louis Gosset Jr., Jovan Adepo, Jean Smart, and more. It won Best Limited Series at the 2020 Emmy Awards.
“Looking beyond the veils people share with the world, ‘Watchmen’ finds fundamental truths about an America divided by a lack of faith in itself, its people, and its institutions,” writes IndieWire’s Ben Travers. “The series’ scope is astonishing given its subject matter, and even more so given its relentless entertainment value. Through six episodes, ‘Watchmen’ has already provided a bounty of intelligent theories to study and debate, but it’s designed to be one helluva good time, as well.” —AF
8. “Band of Brothers”
“Band of Brothers”20th Century/REX/Shutterstock
War is always a delicate experience to capture in a fictional setting. By incorporating interviews with veterans, telling the story of real-life individuals of Easy Company’s Paratrooper division helped “Band of Brothers” lend authenticity to a television event already brimming with gravitas. But the true strength of the series rested in its ensemble, a collection of actors with some familiar faces and others who would later come to highlight the TV landscape in other venues. The swells of Michael Kamen’s score may evoke a particular sense of heroism, but the best moments of this series showed ordinary men being called upon to do extraordinary things. Through the vulnerability of performances from folks like David Schwimmer and Damian Lewis, delivered in a visual template set by executive producer Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” it condensed a entire battalion’s worth of experiences into 10 hours and still made it feel like a story that had time to breathe. —SG
7. “I May Destroy You”
“I May Destroy You”HBO
Earning eight nominations and two wins at the 2021 Emmy Awards, “I May Destroy You” expertly explored sexuality, dating, consent, and trauma through the unconventional story of a viral writer recovering from assault. Created, written, directed, and produced by star Michaela Coel, the 12-part series has been praised for its feminist message, delivered with searing specificity, and its fearless commitment to vividly portraying difficult subject matter. Weruche Opia and Paapa Essiedu also star. —AF
6. “Barry”
“Barry”HBO
In Bill Hader and Alec Berg’s masterful “Barry,” a hitman chasing a mark through Los Angeles decides he’d rather be an actor instead. Entering its fourth season sometime next year, the series that started off sounding like a bad “Saturday Night Live” sketch has since matured into an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that’s not only a staggeringly well written study of its tortured main character, but boasts an ensemble cast that consistently leads the Emmys’ comedy acting race. Hader, Henry Winkler, Stephen Root, Anthony Carrigan, and Sarah Goldberg have all been nominated for their performances, with Winkler and Hader winning in 2018 and 2019 respectively. —AF
5. “The Larry Sanders Show”
“The Larry Sanders Show”Prods./Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Hey now! There have been countless Hollywood parodies over the years, including others on HBO. But none have ever been as biting or realistic as “The Larry Sanders Show,” because perhaps no other show has better captured the ego, self-hate, insecurity and fear that actually drives this business. The late, great Garry Shandling had already become a cable pioneer with Showtime’s “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” when he came up with “The Larry Sanders Show” as a way to satirize his experience as a “Tonight Show” guest host and standup comedian. Jeffrey Tambor played sidekick Hank Kingsley and Rip Torn was producer Artie, while the show also featured Janeane Garofalo, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeremy Pieven, and Bob Odenkirk in major roles. “The Larry Sanders Show” legacy also includes the parade of guest stars playing heightened versions of themselves. That’s commonplace now, but it was always surprising to see stars being self-deprecating on “Larry Sanders” (including David Duchovny, who famously played himself as having a massive crush on Larry). No flipping! —MS
4. “Succession”
“Succession”HBO
Created by Jesse Armstrong, “Succession” can be tidily described as the Bad People Olympics. Anchored in a terrifying centerpiece performance from Brian Cox, the searing satirical drama follows media titan Logan Roy’s attempts to secure his insidious legacy. Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Alan Ruck portray the four main Roy children, with Nicholas Braun, Matthew Macfadyen, J. Smith-Cameron, and more rounding out the cast. At the Emmys, “Succession” has earned repeat acclaim for its acting, directing, writing, editing, and score. —AF
3. “Chernobyl”
“Chernobyl”HBO
Writer-creator Craig Mazin and director Johan Renck put HBO audiences through hell with their “Chernobyl” miniseries: a staggeringly realistic dramatization of the 1986 Ukrainian nuclear disaster told in five parts. Winner of the 2019 Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series — as well as Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing — the series’ sprawling ensemble cast includes Stellan Skarsgård, Jared Harris, Emily Watson, Jessie Buckley, Paul Ritter, and more. “Each nauseating moment, be it a shot of decaying human flesh or a decision made for the wrong reasons, has a purpose — and pays back the viewer for their investment,” writes IndieWire’s Ben Travers. “‘Chernobyl’ is a stunning dramatization, and one worth admiring on many levels.” —AF
2. “The Sopranos”
“The Sopranos”Hbo/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
It’s almost easy now to forget how revolutionary “The Sopranos” was: to HBO, to pop culture, to the talent involved, to the industry, and to the way we watch television. Cable TV had produced original scripted programming in the past, but never at this scale — or with this kind of audience. Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini in the role of a lifetime, scared the networks — as he should have. “The Sopranos” was an early nail in the broadcast networks’ coffin, inspiring this modern era of peak TV as every cable network and streaming service began looking for its own breakthrough show (and HBO became a go-to destination for top-tier talent). From a storytelling perspective, David Chase’s story of a New Jersey mobster visiting a therapist (Lorraine Bracco) in an effort to balance the demands of his life ushered in an age of the anti-hero, and also helped re-popularize episodic serialized television, breaking the stranglehold that procedural dramas had on TV. “The Sopranos” ultimately won 21 Primetime Emmys, and became the first cable series to be named Outstanding Drama in 2004. Plus, “The Sopranos” ended with one of the most infamous — and highly debated — series finales of all time, when the show just abruptly —MS
David Simon’s magnum opus is one of the most thoroughly constructed and physically detailed looks at American life that American TV has ever put forth. But “The Wire” also helped teach generations of TV viewers how to approach televised storytelling of that caliber. The season-as-chapter approach was a fresh concept, and it showed that a TV series was more than just a handful of sets and some series regulars locked into a single viewpoint. As a result, HBO proved that gambling on shows that don’t have an established star at the head or that take place outside of the familiar New York and LA environs could be an artistic boon, something that would have a lasting legacy beyond its airdate. With the eye of a journalist, the ear of a novelist, and the heart of a city, “The Wire” shepherded Baltimore’s onscreen identity and established a blueprint for all the shows that came in its wake. —SG
Luxury fashion label Saint Laurent recently launched its own production company. It will potentially provide a “lifeline for auteur directors, as the streaming revolution and a growing focus on blockbuster franchises restricts financing for independent films”, Yahoo reports. With a number of feature-length projects already in production, Saint Laurent says the movies won’t be obviously advertorial. The unorthodox brand extension has already been a success. Two shorts debuted at Cannes Film Festival – “it’s brilliant, especially because it’s not hitting us over the head with their product,” said Amy Baker, Winston Baker CEO. Indeed, promotional partnerships can be an effective way in which filmmakers can further monetize intellectual property. By choosing the right partner, you can successfully incorporate brands into your production and boost the profile of your film.
What are brand partnerships?
Brand partnerships are partnerships between filmmakers and brands designed to boost the profile of both the film and brand’s product. The brand puts some of its media budget toward the film’s marketing campaign. In turn, the film studio features the brand’s product or logo in the marketing campaign, press junkets, and cast promotion tours. When done right, brand awareness surrounding the film can soar as a result. And, the brand can benefit from tapping into the emotional connection that exists between the fans and the movie. Just look at James Bond blockbuster No Time to Die as an impressive example. The promo campaign for this movie was worth $150 million, and featured over fourteen brand partners including Aston Martin, Nokia, DHL, Chopard Jewelry, Smirnoff Vodka, Bollinger, Jaguar, Land Rover, SWATCH, and Heineken. A complimentary marketing campaign was created for each brand partner, some featuring actors from the movie.
Choosing the right bran
It’s important to take time to choose the right brand to partner with. Otherwise, a bad partnership can ultimately end up damaging your film’s brand. So, consider your film’s target audience. Then, have a think about the story points, themes, or locations within your film that may gel with a certain brand; this should give you ideas of who you want to work with. Trust should also be the foundation of any successful business relationship. So, be sure to do due diligence on potential business partners as needed. For instance, you should ensure your attitude and goals should broadly align with your chosen partner to ensure a cohesive and friction-free relationship.
Define the terms of the partnership
When a filmmaker decides to partner with a brand, clearly defining the terms of the partnership should be a priority. Get clear on exactly how your partnership will work. What are both party’s responsibilities and commitment levels? Also, define exactly what actions can and can’t be done. Specifically, you’ll want to clarify the brand’s access to things like film imagery, as well as whether film merchandise can be used as prizes, for example. Ultimately, there are many different ways a partnership can go – whether it involves just a standalone ad, placement fee, or a cross-channel marketing campaign. So you’ll have to consider what works best for your production.
Approve marketing materials
As the rights holder, the film studio needs to approve all marketing materials before they go live. Materials can include TV and radio ads, social media campaigns, press advertising, dedicated marketing campaign websites, as well as product packaging, for example. You may also want to consider the use of the word “free”: it’s one of the most powerful words in marketing, and works as an emotional trigger for consumers, making whatever’s being offered irresistible. So, for example, within a brand partnership, this could look like – “free movie tickets when you buy this product”. Although the brand covers the cost of the free tickets, filmmakers can sometimes think offering anything for free devalues their work. If this is the case for you, you may want to consider alternative phrasing, such as “buy the product and win one of 5,000 movie tickets”.
If done correctly, brand partnerships can be an effective marketing tool for filmmakers. By taking care to partner with the right brand, you can find ways to successfully further monetise your intellectual property.
Briana spent seven years working in independent film production before taking a step back to start a family. She has since returned to her first love of writing and enjoys contributing to a range of publications, both printed and online.
Rihanna, 35, knows how to rock her bare baby bump in just about anything! The singer shared a new series of Instagram photos in which she’s standing and posing in a room full of fabrics while wearing the pink Sheer X Demi Spacer bra and thong underwear from her Savage X Fenty line. Her growing bump was also on full display and her hair, which was cut in bangs in the front, was down.
“new fav’s ….sheer x group dropping rn! head over to savageX.com,” the soon-to-be mother of two captioned the post. It didn’t take long for her fans to compliment both her style and figure in the comments section. “Hottest girl in the world,” one fan wrote, while another wrote, “Moms are beautiful. Thank you Riri.” Many more revealed they’d be heading to the Savage X Fenty store to pick up the same look, and others shared hearts.
Just two days before Rihanna wowed with her new campaign photos, she made headlines for putting her baby bump on display during an outing in Los Angeles, CA. She wore a black crop top under an open black and red sweater, black sweatpants, and black loafers. She also added sunglasses to her look and had her hair in braids. The beauty topped her overall outfit off with some bright red lipstick.
Rihanna poses in a bed. (Savage x Fenty/ MEGA)
Rihanna is known for rocking epic fashion choices during her pregnancies. The “Umbrella” crooner hasn’t been shy about showing off her growing bump to the world before she gets ready to welcome her second child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky. The lovebirds are already the parents of their son Rza, 1, and have shared many adorable photos of the tot since his birth.
One recent photo that Rihanna shared showed the proud dad holding up his oldest child while shadows were upon them. It appeared that the proud mom took the photo while they were spending time outside near beautiful palm trees and under a sunny sky. “my Bajan boyz,” the caption alongside it read.
![Pre-orders for Physical Copies of ‘The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation’ Open This Thursday [Trailer]](https://timewarnerent.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Pre-orders-for-Physical-Copies-of-‘The-Bridge-Curse-Road-to.jpg)
