Latest news with #Sugarman
Spectator
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Darkly comic samurai spaghetti western: Tornado reviewed
Tornado is a samurai spaghetti western starring Tim Roth, Jack Lowden and Takehiro Hira (among others). Samurai spaghetti westerns aren't anything new. In fact, we wouldn't have spaghetti westerns if it weren't for the samurai genre – Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars (1964) was, as Clint Eastwood conceded, an 'obvious rip-off'* of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) – yet this may be the first one set in 1790 and filmed in Scotland. It may also be the first one to feature thick woollens and tweed. That makes it sound twee which it isn't. It's a super-bloody revenge story filmed in just 25 days with a running time of 90 minutes. We love a 90-minute film, so I feel bad saying this, but it does feel as if it needed more time to cook. It comes flying out the gate flying, opening mid-chase with an adolescent girl (played by Koki, a famous Japanese singer-songwriter and model) running from the gang of outlaws who are on her trail. The outlaws are led by Sugarman (Roth) who would slit your throat at the drop of a hat. (The endless violence is darkly comic; expect chopped off limbs and geysers of spurting blood.) He has a resentful son, Little Sugar (Lowden), while the other woollen- and tweed-clad gang members have Guy Ritchie-esque names like Kitten (Rory McCann) or Squid Lips (Jack Morris). This is the sort of film Tom Hardy should be in but isn't. The gang pursue the girl through the forest into a mansion where she hides. What has she done? Questions are answered with a jump back in time to events earlier that day. (It turns out the opening 20 minutes come from the middle section of the story. We're doing middle, back, then forwards. I think chronological storytelling may well be over. I blame Christopher Nolan). The Japanese girl is not the Japanese girl with no name. She is called Tornado, and she and her father (Hira) are travelling puppeteers with a marionette act that stages samurai combat. It's an impoverished existence, not to her liking. She is bored and resists her father's attempt to teach her Japanese culture, honour and sword skills. Teenagers: when have they ever realised how boring they are? She wants a way out so when she crosses paths with Sugarman's gang she steals their bag of gold. She is not given to making good decisions, this wee lassie. She runs; they chase, and if you are awaiting a big twist, it doesn't come. It is light on story as well as dialogue. Thankfully, characters arrive fully formed in the hands of actors like Roth. Joanne Whalley pops up at one point and even though she only has two or three lines max, her character is fully formed. Koki, meanwhile, delivers a strong performance but Tornado may well be underwritten. Why is she so oblivious to the rising body count caused by her actions? Come the final act, which effectively turns into a superhero origins story, it turns out that she was listening to her father all along. We are meant to be rooting for her but I'm not sure I ever was. I wanted a lot more Kitten, as well as a conflict that wasn't solved by lopping someone's arm off. That said, the film is assured. It has a terrific soundtrack by Jed Kurzel, which is all pounding percussion and jagged strings with hints of Morricone, while the cinematography by Robbie Ryan delivers a beautiful yet bleak landscape beset by shimmering lochs. * When Fistful of Dollars was released Kurosawa wrote to Leone: 'It is a very fine film but it is my film… you must pay me.' He was awarded 15 per cent of all revenue.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Patriot National gets serious about private banking
Two months after shepherding a $58 million private placement to completion, Patriot National Bancorp CEO Steven Sugarman is remaking the Connecticut bank's board and management team. Patriot, which has $957 million of assets, announced a number of new director and executive appointments on Monday. Most prominently, Private Bank of California founder Richard Smith is joining the board, and Nicole Wells, who previously served as head strategic retail operations at Santander Bank, will serve as senior vice president and head of operations. Several of the incoming faces are familiar to Sugarman from his earlier stints at Banc of California and The Change Company. They'll assist in implementing a new strategy for Stamford, Connecticut-based Patriot, focusing on the high-net-worth segment. "Their collective expertise and vision will advance Patriot's mission to empower our clients while delivering exceptional value to our shareholders," Sugarman said in a press release. Sugarman, 50, joined Patriot as president in January. He was appointed CEO April 30. He is tasked with turning around an underperforming bank that's reported heavy losses in recent years — $4.5 million in 2023, $39.9 million in 2024, followed by $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency classified Patriot as being "in troubled condition" in January. While the fiscal red ink ate away at Patriot's capital position, the private placement announced in March gave the company renewed room to maneuver, boosting its common equity tier 1 capital ratio to 13.62% at March 31, up from 7.58% three months earlier. An emphasis on high-net-worth clients jibes with Patriot's geographic footprint. It operates branches in the Fairfield, Connecticut, region and in Westchester County, New York — both among the wealthiest communities in America, with median household incomes well above $115,000. Fairfield and Westchester border each other and have a combined $321 billion of deposits, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. statistics. Patriot holds a 0.19% market share. In other appointments announced Monday, Patriot tabbed Paul Simmons as chief credit officer. Rebecca Mais will serve as president for high-net-worth and specialty deposits, and Raquel Gillett joined the company as vice president for digital automation and risk analytics. Mais comes to Patriot from Change Home Mortgage. Simmons was chief credit officer at the $3.5 billion-asset SunWest Bank in Sandy, Utah. Before joining SunWest in 2020, Simmons was chief credit officer at Silvergate Bank and Banc of California. "I am excited to be a part of this high-performing executive team … and to contribute to Patriot Bank's turnaround," Simmons said in the press release. Smith is currently a director at the $2.4 billion-asset CalPrivate Bank in La Jolla. In 2005, he founded another Golden State bank, Private Bank of California, and led it until its 2012 sale to Banc of California. "Patriot Bank's commitment to serving high net worth clients and their advisors aligns with my passion for fostering strong client relationships," Smith said in the press release. Patriot also appointed Change Company executives Jeff Seabold and Thedora Nickel as directors. Sugarman founded the Anaheim, California-based Change Company, a community development financial institution, in 2017. He served as CEO at Banc of California from 2013 to 2017. Patriot had not responded to American Banker's request for comment at deadline. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New Yorkers facing dry summer as outdoor booze applications lag: ‘Absolute murder'
It could be a long, dry summer in the Big Apple. As New Yorkers prepare for the anticipated return of outdoor dining next week, a key element is missing — booze. Only seven restaurants out of 3,000 hoping to set up al fresco have received outdoor liquor licenses from the State Liquor Authority, meaning thousands may not be able to legally serve alcohol outside. New York's new post-pandemic outdoor dining rules require restaurants to get a permit from the city's Department of Transportation to establish outdoor eating, and cannot ask for an outdoor liquor license from the State Liquor Authority until they get full approval. Since the DOT began reviewing applications in March 2024, it has approved a measly 47 restaurants. 'We're already coming off of a terribly cold winter, and to finally walk into decent weather and not be able to serve our customers with drinks outside is just crippling,' Eytan Sugarman, owner of the famed White Horse Tavern in the West Village, told The Post. The tavern applied for both sidewalk and street dining last year and is still waiting for the green light. The restaurant has so far only received conditional approval to put up a street shed to open April 1, according to the DOT website. It is unclear how much longer a full approval could take. A conditional approval is not enough to apply to the state for a liquor license, and Sugarman decided not to risk serving illegally. 'Other people do it. I don't fault them, they're desperate,' he said. 'You lose every competitive edge, and it's absolute murder.' The Post witnessed several bars and restaurants apparently flouting the rules this week, with summer still months away. Just down the block from the tavern, Dante – who is also waiting on full approval according to the DOT website – was serving drinks on a packed sidewalk patio, as were half a dozen others around the neighborhood. And down in Little Italy, eateries clogged up sidewalks with illegal tables, even taking parking spots to set up tables al fresco. None of these restaurants had outdoor liquor licenses. What was noticeably absent from the Big Apple's streets was the commotion of construction workers building the dining shacks, with only a handful having been erected so far. The DOT says it has issued conditional approvals to another 547 restaurants to build street shacks, which would open April 1, as it works through the logjam. 'If they can't serve alcohol, they're not going to make much money,' said Joseph Levey, a lawyer representing Sugarman and about 100 other restaurants still waiting on full approvals. 'It's staggering. The city is so far behind the eight ball.' Some New Yorkers have a hard time picturing outdoor dining without booze. 'Then what's the point? That would not be ideal to go somewhere and not be able to order a drink on a summer afternoon,' said Morgan Hale, 29. 'I think outdoor dining definitely makes New York summers less insufferable,' said Halle Lindholm, 23. Others however are thrilled the booze-less summer could be bombing the return of what many New Yorkers have called 'rat infested' street shacks. 'Hello, goodbye,' said West Village resident Poonam Srivastava. 'They shouldn't build them. We don't live in a food court, we live in a city.' 'The sidewalk patios are great – people crammed in the sheds not so much. The roadside sheds are a bit of an eyesore,' said Matt Pearson, 32.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Families of survivors urge education on Holocaust Remembrance Day
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Relatives of Holocaust survivors, state leaders, and other community members gathered at the Ohio Statehouse on Monday to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day is commemorated on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the deadliest concentration camp, with 2025 marking the 80th anniversary. 'It's a poignant memorable day for me and it's full of emotion and his whole family was murdered there, he was the only survivor. It's not an easy day,' Debbi Sugarman said. Holocaust documentary directed by Gahanna resident debuts Sugarman's father Morrish Dach survived the Holocaust after spending more than two years in Auschwitz. 'We can't forget the 6 million Jews and almost 5 million other marginalized communities,' Sugarman said. 'I'm not going to forget my family. I'm not going to let my father down so it's very important to me.' Sugarman's father, who died about 20 years ago, would often speak to others about his experiences. Now, Sugarman does to make sure people never forget what happened. Monday's commemoration, organized by the Ohio Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission (OHGMEC), started inside the statehouse, then ended at the Holocaust memorial outside. 'I was thinking how we're all complaining about the cold and how 80 years ago today, my dad was on a death march in the forest after surviving over two years in Auschwitz,' Sugarman said. 'I have an employee today that told me he didn't know what the holocaust was and he's in his 20s and had never learned about it, so that makes it even more important to me.' One name tops pundits' short list for Ohio lieutenant governor As time passes, more and more survivors are not alive to tell their own stories, so there is a focus on keeping their stories alive. 'The world must know and we gather to tell the stories like Debbi's father's story and so many countless others that every time I hear one of the stories, I am in awe of the strength and the will that so many people were able to find to survive,' Congregation Beth Tikvah Rabbi Rick Kellner said. OHGMEC is planning other events around the state for later this year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
