Latest news with #Bond-villain
Irish Independent
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
From the Kardashians to actual royalty: who had the best time partying with Bezos?
When dozens of people have Irish-exited to avoid the day-four life drawing and tarot after-after-after party, despite the airport being a six-hour taxi ride away and there being no flights until March. It's a volta you so rarely see caught on camera – usually because the photographer died of exhaustion shortly after the first dance – which is why we must treasure a new image of Bill Gates. Here is a deeply serious, respected 69-year-old man who absolutely does not want to go to a dolce notte pyjamas-and-lingerie party with Orlando Bloom and some of the Kardashians, but alas, he RSVP'd and gave his dietary requirements. His sentence is written. Gates was in Venice as a guest at the little-reported union of Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sanchez. In the build-up, 'the wedding of the century', according to Vogue saw the Floating City at risk of sinking under the weight of expectation, but it seems to have gone off without incident. Who exactly are Bezos and Sanchez's friends, given one is a businessman of near Bond-villain wealth and notoriety and the other is a journalist turned helicopter pilot? A good question, and one we're no closer to answering after a €40m feature-length weekend of felicity that included a foam party, a Great Gatsby-themed party, the aforementioned jim-jam jamboree and, at some point, a wedding. We were promised an A-list crowd and we… only sort of got it. There were superstars, foreign dignitaries, fashion doyennes, middling celebrities and miscellaneous rich people, but the thread between most of them and the happy couple was rarely clear. What seemed more likely was that invitations were sent to the 1,000 wealthiest and most famous people on the planet, and around 200 thought: 'Yeah, why not? I'm free that weekend.' So, here are 10 guests, ranked from least to most happy to be there. It's pure speculation, of course, but this we do know: right now, they never want to see one another again. 10) Bill Gates The former world's richest man likely attended the wedding of another former world's richest man out of curiosity. 'It's been a while. What are guys like me doing for second weddings these days? I should go check Jeff's out,' he might have thought. The haunted look in his eyes in those day-three pyjamas suggests he will not be rushing into marriage again. There's simply no way Gates didn't make his excuses to Ellie Goulding or whoever he was chatting to, and then pretend to take a call, before jumping in a water Uber within 10 minutes of arriving. 9) Sydney Sweeney It's a puzzle, quite why the most in-demand young actress in the world at the moment, a 27-year-old woman so desired that she's literally selling soap made from her own bathwater, decided to travel to Venice to attend the wedding of a 61-year-old e-commerce magnate. It's something to do, I guess. Hopefully she arrived with a suitcase full of that soap to flog, as she reportedly proved a hit – especially with famous men in their late 40s who have recently split up with famous women. 'Tom Brady and Sydney Sweeney fuel romance buzz after 'dancing til 2am' at Bezos wedding blowout,' shrieked one headline. According to an 'insider' the Daily Mail found, 'Sydney apparently is the most sought-after person to be around at the Bezos wedding. 8) Queen Rania of Jordan You may be starting to get an idea of how delightfully chaotic this guest list is, and it really is. In fact, there's a very real chance the following conversation took place: 'Hello, I'm Khloe Kardashian, who are you?' 'Hi, I'm the Queen of Jordan. What do you do?' 'Well, I'm one of the stars of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and the founder of protein popcorn brand Khloud. And you?' 'I'm the Queen of Jordan.' 7) Sam Altman Speaking of artificial intelligence, here's Sam Altman. He's a tech billionaire, so it is at least easy to understand why the OpenAI boss might have met Bezos and become friends with him. Trickier to parse is how the socially reclusive, firmly nerdish, famously serious Altman dealt with being at a pounding foam party with Oprah and Gayle King. 6) Leonardo DiCaprio For reasons we can only guess at, Leonardo DiCaprio always appears in public looking like a housemaster from a small Home Counties private school scurrying out of Westminster Magistrates' Court after being found guilty in a case relating to him leaving a GoPro in the sixth form girls' dormitory. That is: cap pulled down, stiff palm out, a quick shuffle to a car, no questions please. This was the case again at the wedding in Venice, an event he agreed to attend despite one of the party themes being The Great Gatsby – which is a bit like Daniel Radcliffe hanging around in the car park at Warner Bros Studios. 5) Orlando Bloom Is it possible for an entire wedding to have 'big divorce energy'? Well, this one did. Not only were Bezos and Sanchez on second weddings, but a curious number of guests divorced recently and used the weekend to be noticeably single. Bloom and the astronaut Katy Perry were never technically married, but news of their recent split after nine years together still threatened to steal Sanchez and Bezos' thunder when it broke this week. As it happened, Perry is on tour (on Earth) and couldn't attend. 4) Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Is it likely they attended purely to experience the giddy rush of being at a high-profile event where protestors were chanting and threatening to shut down the whole thing but not because of them? No, they probably know the couple. But is it possible? Yes, absolutely. 3) Lauren Sanchez She's only behind Jeff because no man has ever looked happier than Jeff. Also, she went to space earlier this year, so it's debatable whether this is actually her highlight of 2025. 2) Jeff Bezos Just look at him. Imagine his rocket. Sorry. 1) Kris Jenner The ultimate culmination of so much momaging, glad-handing, one heroic stint commentating on that space flight and probably so many emails asking whether invitations have been sent out yet. She did it. Almost the whole gang at the wedding of the second or third most powerful man in the world. No wonder she didn't stop smiling. Though it's not entirely clear what other option she has.
Irish Examiner
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
TV review: I was glad to see the closing credits of Mountainhead
I was in two minds about Mountainhead (Sky Atlantic and NOW). Every now and again I wished this movie was a series but mainly I was glad that I didn't have to spend more than 90 minutes with the main characters. I wanted it to be a series because it's directed by Jesse Armstrong, who was involved with The Thick of It and Succession, two of the best 21st century telly satires. But this one is about four super-rich tech titans, awful men who are happy to set the world on fire as long as their net worth is bigger than the next guy. In this case, the world is literally in flames as the four former frat-boys gather in a Bond-villain mountain retreat to play poker and rekindle their time in The Brewsters. I think that's a fraternity, we're not told. The chief villain is Venis – his social-media platform Traam has just released new features which make it too easy to produce deep-fake videos, which are then used to incite hatred and sectarianism across the globe. His goofy friend Jeff has an AI platform that could douse the flames by identifying any false videos, if only he'd make that technology available to Traam. Overseeing it all is Randall, AKA Papa Bear, which sees Steve Carrell in top Steve Carrell form, playing the original tech God, who likes to name-drop philosophers to justify making money no matter what. The fourth character is the host, Souper, the poorest of the group with a net worth of $550 million. Fans of Succession will like the look and feel of Mountainhead. You've got your fleets of private jets and expensive 4x4s, whisking middle-aged white people here and there. There are put-upon personal assistants making knowing glances at the camera. Everyone is terribly dressed, expensively. But there isn't enough fun. Succession and The Thick of It allowed their characters sufficient humanity and awareness to make jokes about themselves and each other. The four tech bros here are too consumed by themselves to get a decent laugh. There is oodles of acting talent here, but it's wasted with long monologues that could have been lifted from Elon Musk's twitter account. We don't need a telly drama to tell us that super-rich white American nerds are a danger to the planet, we can get that from the news. There are some very funny bits. Souper being parachuted in to head a coup in Argentina is a lovely touch; the bit where Venis tries to bond with his baby boy is gold; the scene around the sauna terrifyingly hilarious. But I was glad to see the closing credits and the back of The Brewsters.
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Andor season two review – the excellent Star Wars for grownups is as thrilling as ever (and funnier too)
Comrades! Welcome back to the revolution. Andor is the Star Wars TV show with the sharpest political acumen: yes, like everything in the franchise, it's about an underdog rebel movement fighting against a totalitarian empire in space, and it has plenty of thrilling battle sequences, but here there are no Jedi mind powers or cute green backwards-talking psychics. Under the hard-nosed stewardship of writer Tony Gilroy, Andor bins the magic and myth and replaces it with the reality of anti-fascist struggle, where the good guys are ready to risk their lives for freedom. It's the Star Wars spin-off with the strongest claim to being a proper drama – but, in season two's opening triple bill, it shows it can do sly, wry comedy too. We're a year on from where we left off, which is four years before the Death Star blows up at the end of the original movie – the point at which all the work done by our hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), pays off. We pick him up in an imperial military facility, where he's posing as a test pilot for a spacecraft he intends to nick. There's a classic Andor moment where Cassian meets the rebellion's woman on the inside, a junior technician who has gathered her courage to make her contribution, and knows the rage of her superiors will be directed at her once Cassian has flown off. 'If I die tonight, was it worth it?' she asks him, and gets a rousing speech in response, urgently whispered. But once it's revealed that the ship is more advanced than Cassian is used to and he doesn't know how to fly it properly – forward and reverse are not where he expects – it's clear that Andor has returned in an unusually playful mood. Soon Cassian is captured by a gang of inexperienced young mercenaries who are no danger to him, because being lost in a forest together without being able to agree who their leader is has turned them into a cross between the People's Front of Judea and the cast of Yellowjackets. We wait, amused and expectant, for Cassian to outwit them and escape. Meanwhile, in a meeting room atop a snowy Bond-villain mountain, Galactic Empire politicians are discussing the planet Ghorman and how best to extract its priceless deposits of 'deep substrate foliated calcite', the mining of which could cause the whole rock to break apart. Basically, they're going to frack Ghorman to death. The rising star at the summit is Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), who has to decide whether owning the Ghorman project, with its likely death toll of 800,000, will serve her career ambitions. Before she has a chance to nail that down, however, she is part of the sort of domestic scene that Andor isn't afraid to include, even if it means putting the fight for intergalactic supremacy on hold. In the season one finale it was hinted that focused, calculating Dedra might enter into a symbiotic romantic relationship with callow, conniving failure Syril (Kyle Soller). And now here the two Empire loyalists are, cohabiting in a high-rise apartment with an extremely unwelcoming light-grey interior palette. This is excellent news because Syril is perhaps Andor's best character, representing the male emotional inadequates who tend to be a fascist movement's foot soldiers. Syril is the sort of man who, on Earth, would be posting aggressive, grandstanding political opinions from a computer in his mother's basement. Season one recognised this by having him actually move back in with his mother after a professional setback, and revealing her to be a textbook overprotective, vicariously ambitious mom played with fearsome comic smarts by the fabulous Kathryn Hunter. Now she is Dedra's new in-law, and she's on her way round for a lunch where the passive-aggression threatens to curdle the fondue. We visit two other locations that seem unconnected but won't stay that way for long. On the lush planet of Chandrila, comfortably wealthy senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) is hosting a lavish wedding for her daughter, but the marriage is a grubby arranged affair that is about to tip Mon into betraying her upper-class lifestyle and leading the resistance instead. Meanwhile, far away in the wheat fields of Mina-Rau, Cassian's activist pals are trying to lay low while they await his return, but are subjected to an imperial inspection led by a smarmy officer who singles out Bix (Adria Arjona) for special attention. The power imbalance between them, with Bix recognising immediately that this man's apparent friendliness is loaded with a threat of sexual violence, reminds us that even when it's in a lighter mode, Andor is Star Wars for grownups. This rebellion is a serious business. Andor is on Disney+ now
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's A.G. Just Did Something So Corrupt She Should Be Fired Already
Pam Bondi was approved by the Senate to be attorney general on February 4. On February 5, she was sworn in. And on February 10, five days into her already ghastly tenure, she committed an act so electrically sleazy that in a normally ordered world, she'd be forced from office immediately. Why Bondi? Why is my wrath not limited to Emil Bove, the acting assistant attorney general? After all, it was Bove (apparently rhymes with 'no way') who wrote the instantly infamous memo ordering Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to dismiss all charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams 'as soon as is practicable.' (Sassoon quit instead.) True enough, Bove's Bond-villain name and his broodingly pharaonic countenance help finger him as an easy bad guy. But read the damn memo. Here's how it starts: 'You [Sassoon] are directed, as authorized by the Attorney General, to dismiss the pending charges in United States vs. Adams.' As authorized by the attorney general. There it is. The top law enforcement officer of the United States, five days on the job, ordered that corruption charges, painstakingly assembled over a multiyear period by prosecutors in New York's Southern District, be dismissed. Why? Well, your average fair-minded person, presented with the facts as I've laid them out so far, would assume that said attorney general and her people had discovered new information that exculpated the mayor. That's how justice works in the movies, right? But not here. In fact, Bove's memo admits the opposite! It reads: 'The Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.' Couldn't be clearer. Bondi's decision—and please, please, call it that; Bondi's decision, not Bove's—had nothing to do with evidence. So what did it have to do with? Two factors. The first is timing. The memo states: 'It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration's immigration policies before the charges were filed.' That's a staggering sentence. It assumes an almost casual and universal corruption on the part of prosecutors in the Southern District generally, and the U.S. attorney in particular. This is an outrageous charge: that prosecutors are working to exact political revenge for presidents. That is a morality that Fox News and others have gotten millions of American to cynically buy into. It is not the real-life morality of the Southern District, which for decades has rightfully enjoyed an apolitical reputation. Even when there have been politically ambitious U.S. attorneys in charge who were clearly bringing cases that might benefit them politically—most obviously, Rudy Giuliani prosecuting corrupt Democratic bosses in the 1980s—it had to be admitted that the prosecutions were legit. Giuliani won convictions in those cases, and the city was better off. But this is an accusation—by the nation's top law-enforcement officer—that the Southern District is, or was, a priori corrupt. It's the kind of accusation, history instructs us, that is usually made by people who are guilty of exactly that which they allege. And it is an accusation lodged specifically at former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. Yes, Williams was appointed by Biden. Yes, Williams is a Democrat. But what is his record of politically selective prosecutions? Well, let's see. He oversaw the indictment of former New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin—a Democrat and, for what it's worth, like Williams, a Black man (I mention this only because the right-wing media would surely claim the fact as relevant were it expedient to do so). He oversaw the indictment of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. In 2018, as an assistant U.S. attorney in the same Southern District, he helped secure the indictment and conviction of Sheldon Silver, the powerful former speaker of the New York State Assembly—and, yes, another fellow Democrat. And bear in mind, of course, that the investigation of Adams stretched back years. Read the indictment. It's more than 50 pages, and it tracks events going back to 2016. You don't assemble that in a week. Southern District investigators were obviously building an Adams case for years—probably before Williams was even named U.S. attorney, which happened in 2021, and long before Adams cozied up to Donald Trump. On top of all that, suspicion of corruption has swirled around Adams's head practically since he took office. The notion that the filing of the Adams indictment was somehow tied to his refusal to talk nice about Kamala Harris before the election is the kind of absurd conspiracy that used to be laughable in this country, consigned to the John Birch margins, before the right-wing media promoted this kind of thinking to the extent that it became imprintable on millions of fevered minds. But remember—that's only the first factor cited by Bove (and Bondi). The second, if you can believe it, is far more ridiculous. The indictment against Adams needs to be dropped posthaste, Bondi ordered, because it's distracting him from doing his job! I'm not joking: 'The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.' This is, to put it politely, not how the law works in this country. Remember that the Supreme Court ruled—unanimously—that even a sitting president can't be immune from civil litigation on the grounds that it will distract him from his duties. But that was about Bill Clinton, a scourge of the right. For a darling of the right, the rules appear to be different. Except that the dismissal of these charges carries a big asterisk. They were dismissed 'without prejudice,' meaning they can be refiled anytime Bondi—or Donald Trump—wants them to be. In other words, Mayor Adams is too busy fighting crime and immigration, but only for as long as Bondi and Trump think he's fighting it their way. Once he's not, cuff him. So things go in a nation where it is openly declared that some people are above the law. That was not supposed to be the United States (although often it has been, in the case of rich people). It was supposed to be places like Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua. But now it is the United States. I didn't declare it so. Trump did—more specifically, his White House counsel David Warrington did this week, in the form of a memo obtained by The Washington Post stating that it is now the official policy of the Trump administration that the president and vice president (What? Why?) and their top lawyers 'can discuss ongoing criminal and civil cases with the attorney general and her deputies.' In other words, Trump—or Vance—can make one phone call and set any investigation they wish in motion, or get one quashed. In other words, they are the law. But don't forget the central role here of Bondi: 'As authorized by the attorney general.' She has proven in a week that she will corrupt her office to any point and in any way that Trump desires. Don't take it from me. Take it from Sassoon—a Republican and a Federalist Society member who, far from thinking Adams innocent, was about to file a superseding indictment charging him with even more corruption, including tampering with evidence. And take it from the five Justice Department prosecutors who followed Sassoon with their resignations. This is a crisis. A legal and constitutional crisis of a sort seen only a few times in this country's history. And yet the squashing of the Adams case will pass, as all these things pass, with nary a peep from elected Republicans because a serial liar with a mighty propaganda machine working overtime for him has convinced half the country that up is down, that honor is venality, and that integrity is just a ruse for suckers who believe all that garbage from our schoolbooks. This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.
