Famous birthdays for July 20: Judy Greer, Sandra Oh
They include:
-- Macedonian leader Alexander the Great in 356 B.C.
-- Poet Petrarch in 1304
-- Pope Innocent IX in 1519
-- Monk/botanist Gregor Johann Mendel in 1822
-- Explorer Edmund Hillary in 1919
-- Artist Nam June Paik in 1932
-- Writer Cormac McCarthy in 1933
-- Former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the longest serving woman in U.S. Congress history, in 1936 (age 89)
-- Actor Diana Rigg in 1938
-- Actor Natalie Wood in 1938
-- Artist Judy Chicago in 1939 (age 86)
-- Musician John Lodge (Moody Blues) in 1943 (age 82)
-- Musician Kim Carnes in 1945 (age 80)
-- Musician Carlos Santana in 1947 (age 78)
-- Musician Jay Jay French (Twisted Sister) in 1952 (age 73)
-- Musician Paul Cook (Sex Pistols) in 1956 (age 69)
-- Actor Donna Dixon in 1957 (age 68)
-- Musician Mick MacNeil (Simple Minds) in 1958 (age 67)
-- Musician Chris Cornell (Soundgarden/Audioslave/Temple of the Dog) in 1964
-- Actor Dean Winters in 1964 (age 61)
-- Actor Adam Godley in 1964 (age 61)
-- Musician Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam) in 1966 (age 59)
-- Actor Josh Holloway in 1969 (age 56)
-- Actor Sandra Oh in 1971 (age 54)
-- Actor Omar Epps in 1973 (age 52)
-- Actor Simon Rex in 1974 (age 51)
-- Actor Judy Greer in 1975 (age 50)
-- Actor Charlie Korsmo in 1978 (age 47)
-- Model Gisele Bundchen in 1980 (age 45)
-- Musician Mike Kennerty (All-American Rejects) in 1980 (age 45)
-- Actor/filmmaker John Francis Daley in 1985 (age 40)
-- Actor Osric Chau in 1986 (age 39)
-- Dancer/Julianne Hough in 1988 (age 37)
-- Actor Alycia Debnam-Carey in 1993 (age 32)
-- U.S. Olympic figure skater Maia Shibutani in 1994 (age 31)
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New York Times
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Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night's highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. Quelle Surprise On Wednesday, it was reported that President Donald Trump had been informed back in May about his name appearing multiple times in the Jeffrey Epstein files. 'But he said he hardly knew the guy!' Stephen Colbert said, feigning surprise. 'You know how they say, 'There's no such thing as bad publicity'? They're not talkin' about this.' — STEPHEN COLBERT 'You're best friends with a pedophile for 10 years one time, and the world never forgets it.' — JOSH JOHNSON 'This new reporting is on top of what we learned last night, when CNN's The KFile released new, never-before-published photos of Trump and Epstein. Good job, I guess, but do we really need more evidence that these guys were best buds? [imitating reporter] 'This just in from CNN: Shocker! Frog and Toad are friends.' — STEPHEN COLBERT '[imitating Trump] I mean, I can't believe — I was only friends with him for, what, 15 years?' — SETH MEYERS 'But, yeah, this whole time, Trump already knew he was in the Epstein files, which is a good reminder that if someone's acting guilty, they're probably guilty. No one's ever like, 'Don't look at my browser history — you'll see all the charities I volunteer for!'' — JOSH JOHNSON The Punchiest Punchlines (The Happy Couple Edition) 'Well, guys, the big story continues to be President Trump's handling of the Epstein files, and now newly uncovered footage shows that Jeffrey Epstein attended Trump's second wedding in 1993. Yeah, it was nice — you had the bride, the groom, the groomer.' — JIMMY FALLON 'And this was odd. At the end of his vows, Trump turned to Epstein and said, ''Till suspicious death do us part.'' — JIMMY FALLON 'O.J. Simpson was also at Trump's wedding. Jeffrey Epstein and O.J. Simpson. Trump's ex-wife was like, 'OK, so in hindsight, maybe there have been a couple red flags there.' Apparently, Jeffrey Dahmer couldn't make it because he had a bar mitzvah that day.' — JIMMY FALLON 'But Rosie O'Donnell was also at the wedding. Honestly, I feel like Trump is more upset that that got out.' — JIMMY FALLON Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
WIRED
25 minutes ago
- WIRED
Americans Are Obsessed With Watching Short Video Dramas From China
Jul 24, 2025 3:00 AM How did steamy, short soap operas that originated in China become the hottest thing in Hollywood, seemingly overnight? The ReelShort is seen in the App Store. Photograph:My partner recently confessed something to me about his screen-time habits: When he's giggling at his phone, he's often watching short English-language soap operas that have begun showing up on his social feeds. The plots are basic, the acting is exaggerated, and the performers are stereotypically good-looking, but the constant twists and turns keep him spellbound and wanting more. I knew exactly where these videos were coming from. It's been four years since I first heard about the exploding popularity of Chinese vertical soap operas called 短剧, or duanju. Since then, the industry has become fully entrenched in foreign markets, including Hollywood. Remember the streaming platform Quibi? It lasted only six months from start to finish. Compare that with three-year-old ReelShort, the first platform to export Chinese short dramas to foreign markets, which says it now has 55 million monthly active users. In the first quarter of 2025, ReelShort and similar apps like DramaBox, GoodShort, and DramaWave earned nearly $700 million from in-app purchases—either weekly subscriptions or one-time payments to watch an episode. That's roughly 300 percent more than they earned during the same period last year, according to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Globally, these apps were downloaded 370 million times in the first quarter, a 500 percent increase from 2024. So how did short dramas from China quietly become the hottest thing in entertainment seemingly overnight? ReelShort arrived in Hollywood at a time when the legacy movie and TV business was struggling. Many actors and production teams were on strike or out of work after the major streaming giants slashed funding for original programming. Companies making vertical dramas were becoming more powerful and ambitious than ever, and they became a lifeline for some entertainment workers. ReelShort representatives told me the company still sees itself as occupying a middle ground between TikTok and Netflix, but it looks to me like they are no longer satisfied with just being something in between. The company is rapidly expanding into different genres, including reality TV, thrillers, art house, and more. It recently launched a global competition for new show ideas pitched by social media creators. And it's building fandom empires for its most successful actors, turning them into genuine international stars. At least for now, the company says it's continuing to double down on real, human actors and writers, rather than going all-in on artificial intelligence. 'I don't think it will even come close to what humans can do when it comes to the nuances and how people follow emotion,' says Sammie Hao, head of talent relations and brand partnership at ReelShort. What Exactly Are Short Dramas? Short dramas are similar to low-budget feature-length movies, but filmed vertically and cut into one-minute episodes (they almost always end on a cliff-hanger.) The size of the cast and investment in things like props and costume design is minimal. But compared to an amateur TikTok sketch, they are much more professional and regularly incorporate visual effects, editing, and directing. To be honest, the short drama industry is still largely defined by storylines that hinge on tired tropes: the salacious adventures of a billionaire's housewife, affairs with sexy werewolves and vampires, or rags-to-riches fairy tales. But they reliably deliver a shot of dopamine when they appear on your social feed, drawing traffic and generating revenue for the platforms. I've been told by multiple people that the set of a short drama doesn't necessarily look that different from an indie movie or commercial shoot, except everything is churned out much faster to save on costs. Whereas a traditional shoot would last weeks or months, the entire season of a vertical show is typically filmed within two weeks. Nicole Mattox, one of the vertical stars working with ReelShort in Los Angeles, told me she usually books two to three shoots in one month, with only two days in between. A professionally trained actress originally from Texas, she had only been in a few small movie productions before stumbling on the short drama industry in 2023. But she says she quickly learned how to remember all of her lines—an impressive feat, considering that the platforms usually shoot a dozen pages of script a day, whereas a traditional movie may only shoot three. Mattox says her acting coach told her that her performances don't have to be unrealistically dramatic; rather, it's just that every plot development is incredibly meaningful for her characters. For example, in the fictional world of a vertical drama, a romantic breakup can be your entire life. 'There's nothing else for you to move on from. There's no future for you anymore. Everything's ruined,' Mattox explains. Creating Global Stars Hao, who works in talent recruiting for ReelShort, says many of the company's actors come from modeling or advertising backgrounds and have never had speaking roles before. Now, they can star in a dozen shows in a single year and quickly grow their careers. The third ReelShort production Mattox starred in was a romantic comedy about professional ice hockey called Breaking the Ice. Mattox played the personal assistant to an NHL player, who naturally, was also his secret baby mama. The show became a runaway success, with over 300 million views on ReelShort. Mattox says she has been surprised by how devoted her fans are, a large number of whom are in the Philippines. In May, some of them paid to put a picture of her face on a billboard in Times Square to celebrate her birthday. Earlier this month, they rented another billboard in Manila to advertise her latest production. Your show 'had me in a chokehold,' one commenter wrote on her personal TikTok account, where she has amassed over 130,000 followers. What ReelShort did after Breaking the Ice became a hit demonstrates the real secret behind its success. The company quickly adapted it for the Spanish-speaking and Japanese-speaking markets, but rather than dubbing the existing dialog or simply swapping the actors, it changed key aspects of the plot. In the Spanish version, the male protagonist became a soccer player, while in the Japanese version, he was a baseball star. 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Chinese Roots ReelShort's parent company, Crazy Maple Studio, was previously majority-controlled by COL Group, one of the largest digital novel publishers in China. The startup now says its founder, Joey Jia, owns the company, though COL Group continues to hold 49 percent of shares. Even as the genre goes global, most of the people making short dramas in the US still appear to be Chinese immigrants or Chinese Americans, largely because they are more familiar with how it works. Jay, a Los Angeles–based short-drama producer from China, says the industry still looks to China for guidance and inspiration. One of the key lessons it learned from China is the importance of collecting extremely granular user data. Which episode made people stop watching a show? Which one made them sign up for a subscription? Jay gave me a specific example: Actors, she says, often react with the same loud gasp and shocked expression when they are slapped on screen. But if one show found that instructing an actor to kneel to the ground after getting hit in the face increased engagement, then all of the company's productions would typically incorporate the same thing into their plots. I think there's something discreetly Chinese in the way these data-driven insights are finding their way into short-drama productions outside of China: The cheesy plots and cliff-hangers, no matter how simple they seem to be, are the result of years of hard work by Chinese scriptwriters who cracked the formula for evoking strong emotions from their viewers. Jay says when a script from China is being localized in the US, there's sometimes a tendency among producers to make big adjustments to align with local cultural norms. But changing too much also risks undermining what made the show a hit in the first place. At the end of the day, 'this is not an industry that encourages innovation, unless you can prove that the innovation resulted in real revenues,' Jay says. This is an edition of Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis' Made in China newsletter . Read previous coverage from Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jimmy Kimmel lays down challenge for Donald Trump
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