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Evening Standard
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson's Cannes directorial debuts, unpacked
Cannes 2025 is done, and two of its most talked about feature film debuts didn't come from unknowns. They came from familiar faces. Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson, pictured above, both featured in Un Certain Regard – the strand known for championing bold new voices. Their films Eleanor the Great, a New York-set character study by Johansson, and Urchin, Dickinson's walk on the margins of London. Both sparked immediate curiosity – not only about the stories, but also about the kind of directors these two stars might be.
New Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Jackie Chan on 'Karate Kid: Legends': 'I've been training for 64 Years, I don't need it anymore'
LOS ANGELES: Action legend Jackie Chan says he didn't require any formal training for his latest film Karate Kid: Legends, as he has already been practising martial arts for 64 years. Directed by Jonathan Entwistle, the New York-set film stars Chan alongside Ralph Macchio and Ben Wang. The film sees Chan reprise his role from the 2010 reboot of The Karate Kid. Chan, known for performing his own stunts throughout his career, said that fighting has become second nature to him. 'I don't need to anymore. I've been training every day for 64 years. I've been fighting, fighting, fighting,' the 71-year-old actor told entertainment outlet Variety.
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First Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- First Post
Scarlett Johansson debuts as a director in Cannes with a comic tale of grief and empathy
Johansson brought 'Eleanor the Great' to the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival this week, unveiling a funny and tender, character-driven, New York-set indie that launches her as a filmmaker read more Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, 'Eleanor the Great,' stars June Squibb as a 94-year-old woman who, out of grief and loneliness, does a terrible thing. After her best friend (Rita Zohar) dies, Eleanor (Squibb) moves to New York and, after accidentally joining the wrong meeting at the Jewish Community Center, adopts her friend's story of Holocaust survival. The film builds toward a moment where Eleanor could be harshly condemned in a public forum, or not. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For Johansson, her movie speaks to the moment. 'There's a lack of empathy in the zeitgeist. It's obviously a reaction to a lot of things,' says Johansson. 'It feels to me like forgiveness feels less possible in the environment we're in.' Johansson brought 'Eleanor the Great' to the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival this week, unveiling a funny and tender, character-driven, New York-set indie that launches her as a filmmaker. For the 40-year-old star, it's the humble culmination of a dream that's always bounced around in her mind. 'It has been for most of my career,' Johansson says, meeting at a hotel on the Croisette after a day of junket interviews. 'Whether it was reading something and thinking, 'I can envision this in my mind,' or even being on a production and thinking, 'I am directing some elements of this out of necessity.'' Johansson came to Cannes just days after hosting the season finale of 'Saturday Night Live,' making for a fairly head-spinning week. 'It's adding to the surrealistic element of the experience,' Johansson says with a smile. In just over a month's time, she'll be back in a big summer movie, 'Jurassic World Rebirth.' But even that gig is a product of her own interests. Johansson had been a fan of the 'Jurassic Park' movies for years, and simply wanted to be a part of it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Following her own instincts, and her willingness to fight for them, has been a regular feature of her career recently. She confronted The Walt Disney Co. over pay during the pandemic release of 'Black Widow,' and won a settlement. When OpenAI launched a voice system called 'Sky' for ChatGPT 4.0 that sounded eerily similar to her own, she got the company to take it down. She's increasingly produced films, including 'Eleanor the Great,' 'Black Widow' and 'Fly Me to the Moon.' After working with an enviable string of directors such as Jonathan Glazer ('Under the Skin'), Spike Jonze ('Her'), the Coen brothers ('Hail, Caesar!') and Noah Baumbach ('Marriage Story'), she's become a part of Wes Anderson's troupe. After a standout performance in 'Asteroid City,' she appears in 'The Phoenician Scheme,' which premiered shortly before 'Eleanor the Great' in Cannes. 'At some point, I worked enough that I stopped worrying about not working, or not being relevant — which is very liberating,' Johansson says. 'I think it's something all actors feel for a long time until they don't. I would not have had the confidence to direct this film 10 years ago.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Which isn't to say that I don't often think many times: What the hell am I doing?' she adds. 'I have that feeling, still. Certainly doing 'Jurassic,' I had many moments where I was like: Am I the right person for this? Is this working? But I just recently saw it and the movie works.' So does 'Eleanor the Great,' which Sony Pictures Classics will release at some future date. That's owed significantly to the performance of Squibb, who, at 95, experienced a Cannes standing ovation alongside Johansson. 'Something I'll never forget is holding June in that moment,' says Johansson. 'The pureness of her joy and her presence in that moment was very touching, I think for everyone in theater. Maybe my way of processing it, too, is through June. It makes it less personal because it's hard for me to absorb it all.' Some parts of 'Eleanor the Great' have personal touches, though. After one character says he lives in Staten Island, Squibb's character retorts, 'My condolences.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Yeah, I had to apologize to my in-laws for that,' Johansson, who is married to Staten Island native Colin Jost, said laughing. 'I was like: Believe it not, I didn't write that line.' A poster for the 1999 documentary about underground cartoonist R. Crumb, 'Crumb,' also hangs on the wall in one scene, a vague reference, Johansson acknowledges, to her loosely connected 2001 breakthrough film 'Ghost World.' 'I was very young when I made that movie. I think I was 15, and the character is supposed to be 18 or 19. When I was a teenager, I often played characters who were a bit older than myself,' Johansson says. 'Even doing 'Lost in Translation,' I think I was 17 when I made it. I think I was playing someone in their mid-20s.' 'It's a funny thing,' she says. 'I wonder sometimes if it then feels like I've been around so long, that people expect me to be in my 70s now.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Highest 2 Lowest' Review: Spike Lee's Kurosawa-Inspired Kidnapping Drama Isn't So Much a Remake as a Manifesto
There's enormous risk in remaking a movie like 'High and Low.' Japanese master Akira Kurosawa set the bar high with his 1963 take on a kidnapping that brings an ambitious businessman to his knees — which means, even in the hands of such a visionary director as Spike Lee, you can't help worrying how low a modern, New York-set update might go. For three-quarters of its running time, Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' glides along far better than skeptics might have expected (it's night and day with his sordid U.S. adaptation of 'Old Boy'). And then comes a scene for which there is no equivalent in Kurosawa's version — a face-off between Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky as the man with the nerve to ransom his son — and the movie rockets into a sublime new stratosphere, delivering an electrifying last act that's at once original and deeply personal. More from Variety 'Splitsville' Review: Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona Play the Field in an Exhausting Knockabout Romcom 'The Crime of Father Amaro' Exec Producer Laura Imperiale Boards Dominican-Set 'Black Sheep, White Sheep' by 'Made in Bangkok' Helmer Flavio Florencio (EXCLUSIVE) Denzel Washington Gets Surprise Honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes During Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' Premiere In the end, Lee has taken 'High and Low' to new highs, delivering a soul-searching genre movie that entertains while also sounding the alarm about where the culture could be headed. Ultimately destined to stream on Apple TV+, the big-screen-worthy project should perform well when A24 releases it in theaters on Aug. 22, three months after premiering out of competition at Cannes. As the film opens, blaring 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'' over beauty shots of the Big Apple (treating the 'Oklahoma!' hit as a New York-signifying show tune), hip-hop mogul David King is on top of the world. From the balcony of his penthouse apartment — in Brooklyn's awe-inspiring Olympia Dumbo building, no less — Washington's character is poised to acquire a majority stake in Stackin' Hits, the record label he co-founded more than two decades earlier. David has two things to show for all his years in the music business. There's Stackin' Hits, of course, but even more important is his family: wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) and teenage son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), whose ear for fresh talent just might carry the label through the turbulent challenges the industry is facing. At this moment, just as David cashed in his portfolio and took out second mortgages on his two homes — all with the intention of seizing control of the company he helped to create — he receives a call from someone who claims to have abducted Trey. This direct threat to the King family puts his plans on pause, but it's just the first of several twists (unchanged from the original) that force David to decide whether he'll pay the ransom: 17.5 million Swiss francs. In a new wrinkle, public perception (as in, how the situation looks on social media) plays a significant role in his decision. No one wants to be seen as the guy who bought a company with the same fortune that could have saved an innocent teenager's life. The three NYPD detectives (Dean Winters, LaChanze and John Douglas Thompson) insist they'll be able to retrieve the money, but the kidnapper is smarter than they think, insisting that David bring the loot by subway, then making it disappear amid a busy Puerto Rican Day Parade in the South Bronx. Pumped full of life by pianist Eddie Palmieri's street performance, it's a spectacular sequence that instantly ranks among the best New York City action set-pieces of all time, up there with the chase scene in 'The French Connection' and the Five Points battle in 'Gangs of New York.' Lee has been establishing a lot more than just exposition in the lead-up to this moment, but from here on, the movie has us by the collar, propelled by a dramatic force that reminds what a gifted filmmaker he can be when everything's firing in the same direction. As in Kurosawa's version (loosely adapted from the novel 'King's Ransom' by Ed McBain), a serious miscalculation by the kidnapper drags David's oldest and closest friend, Paul (Jeffrey Wright), into the mix. Screenwriter Alan Fox strengthens the bond between these two men while also making a point about how the police officers treat them differently. David is one of the city's most successful Black entrepreneurs, and as such, he's afforded special respect and cooperation. Paul, on the other hand, has a criminal record and is viewed as a suspect at first. Later, when the tables turn, the police seem far less willing to help him than they did David. But Paul's not without his own support network, putting out calls to 'the streets' that yield essential clues in the investigation. You could hardly ask for two better actors than Washington and Wright in these roles, with the reunion between Washington and Lee (their fifth collaboration) allowing them to build on their own decades-long artistic legacies. Here, we find the 'Malcolm X' star playing a man called King, while doctored portraits of a young Denzel hang all around the man's office. Meanwhile, King's home is a temple to Black excellence, art-directed like a Pedro Almodóvar movie (its colored walls adorned with paintings and artifacts from Lee's personal collection), in a way that collapses the distance between the filmmaker and his fictional protagonist. In theory, paying the ransom comes at the direct expense of David's big plans for the music biz, and as such, it forces him to put all of his priorities into perspective. For the remake's all-new climax, looking every bit the Equalizer (while dubbing himself 'the Chance-Giver'), Washington throws down in a spontaneous rap battle with A$AP Rocky in a moment that shows why this man's the king. As David reclaims what he loves, we can hear Lee's own passions: as a teacher of film, speaker of truths and elder statesman to the community. They boil over in the last half-hour — in the rousing musical performance that gives the film its name and in a coda that reveals Lee's artistic conscience, answering why he dared to touch such a sacred object as Kurosawa's masterpiece. For starters, New York is practically another planet, compared to 1960s Tokyo, and this project allows Lee to celebrate what the city means to him today. As David puts it, 'You either build or destroy in this world.' Done wrong, remaking 'High and Low' might have diminished the original, but in this case, Lee clearly has something vital to add. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Business Insider
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Business Insider
Where to watch the Preakness Stakes: Live stream the 2025 race from anywhere
The landmark 150th Preakness Stakes is underway, marking the second race in the 2025 Triple Crown. Keep reading to learn absolutely everything you need to know about where to watch the Preakness Stakes, including global live streaming Preakness Stakes takes place at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It's the second of three annual races in the iconic Triple Crown circuit, which wraps up each year with the New York-set Belmont Stakes in June. This will be the last year on the Pimlico course before it's demolished ahead of a massive reconstruction. The Kentucky Derby, which took place earlier this month, saw Sovereignty win, surpassing the favorite, Journalism. Sovereignty won't compete in the Preakness Stakes, which means there's no chance for a Triple Crown winner this year, but Journalism will once again take to the you're a casual fan or a horse racing devotee, we'll make sure you know how to tune into this year's race. Peacock is just one of the many ways to live stream the NBCUK:When: Saturday, May 17, 2025*This option might not be VPN Preakness Stakes will air on NBC in the US. Coverage will begin at 4 p.m. ET on the network (and at 2 p.m. in general), but the main event won't kick off until 7:01 p.m. and usually only lasts about four minutes. Peacock is the cheapest way to live stream the coverage. Subscriptions start at just $8/month and unlock ad-supported coverage to the app's full on-demand offerings. You can upgrade for ad-free content and a few other perks or try out an annual is currently offering its best deal so far this year by knocking nearly 70% off its ad-supported annual Peacock Premium plan. You can get a year of Peacock, normally $79.99/year, for just $24.99 using the code SPRINGSAVINGS. The annual version of Peacock's ad-supported tier offers some solid savings compared to month-to-month plans. The plan unlocks Peacock's full suite of on-demand content, including programming from NBC, Bravo, Universal, and Peacock originals. Save $55 on your first year for a limited time. Preakness Stakes coverage will be available through Sky Sports in the UK. The cost of a Sky TV subscription varies depending on what contract you opt for, but plans with Sky Sports start at £35/month when you opt for a long-term contract. Plus, you'll get a Netflix subscription and tons of other channels. If you're looking for something a bit more flexible, you can check out a Now TV Sports you're traveling away from home and still hoping to tune into one of the streaming services mentioned above, you can do so with the help of a VPN, or virtual private network. VPNs are handy, easy-to-use cybersecurity apps that enable you to change your device's virtual location. This way, your go-to websites and apps work seamlessly from anywhere in the world. ExpressVPN is consistently our top recommendation. It's a user-friendly option with a hassle-free 30-day money-back guarantee. Check out our ExpressVPN review for more info, and keep reading to learn how to use one. With its consistent performance, reliable security, and expansive global streaming features, ExpressVPN is the best VPN out there, excelling in every spec and offering many advanced features that make it exceptional. Better yet, you can save more than 60% right now and get up to four months free. Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.
