Film

Film

Bryan Brown gives a barely perceptible nod of welcome after I arrive by ferry at Balmain wharf, as he steps out from under the semicircular roof of the late 19th-century timber shelter here, the last of its kind on Sydney harbour. How's it going? he asks, his Australian drawl at once familiar from his roles in 80-plus films and television series. The actor wears a straw hat and sunglasses with a waist-length jacket partially zipped against a rugged late-afternoon north-westerly.

As hard as it may be to believe, some of us have nev­er seen a movie belong­ing to the Mar­vel Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse. If you're one of those unini­ti­at­ed, none of the count­less clips incor­po­rat­ed into the Like Sto­ries of Old video essay above will tempt you to get ini­ti­at­ed. Nor will the laments aired by host Tom van der Lin­den, who, despite once enjoy­ing the MCU him­self, even­tu­al­ly came to won­der why keep­ing up with its releas­es had begun to feel less like a thrill.

The filmmaker Noah Baumbach can recall when he may have fallen out of love with his craft. He was shooting "White Noise," based on Don DeLillo's novel, "on a deserted highway in Ohio at 4 A.M. with a rain machine." "Oh, God, I don't know that I like doing this," he recalls thinking. "Am I doing this"-making movies-"only because I do it?"

One of the best activities for the holiday season - especially if the weather is keeping you indoors - is to build yourself a Lego vehicle, scene, or animal.

So Slosberg was in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. earlier this month as town officials planted a plaque at Las Olas Beach to honor Nyad, a local kid who grew up to be as famous as any female American swimmer of the pre-Ledecky era. Slosberg says he hadn't flown in 10 years, but when he heard that the woman who Slosberg calls "swimming's greatest fraud," was going to be commemorated by public servants, he had to get on a plane.

What makes a protagonist cool? When it comes to heroic narratives, there tends to be a binary; either our star character is tight-lipped and detached, or they are forthright and obvious. This dichotomy is probably best exemplified as the difference between DC's Batman and Superman. Regardless of all the evidence to the contrary, our shared default notions of the two heroes come down to this: Batman is brooding, a man of few words, while Superman often smiles and is generally more chatty.

An unfilmed chapter of Kill Bill, centered on Gogo Yubari's sister Yuki,is premiering on Fornite ahead of the theatrical release of The Whole Bloody Affair. You remember Gogo. She's the one with the meteor hammer, played by Battle Royale's Chiaki Kuriyama. In keeping with Kill Bill's cyclic revenge themes, it appears Quentin Tarantino wrote a segment where Yuki traveled to the U.S. to try and get her revenge on Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman).

Trier's newest film is tied up in the mess of parental issues. Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) plays a negligent father and a filmmaker himself who has returned with his magnum opus: a script written about his own mother who died by suicide. He's written the lead role for his daughter, Nora (Renate Reinsve, a frequent Trier collaborator). But she's less than forgiving of her father's absence and ultimately passes on the part.

Wicked protagonists Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are at the centre of a case of online misinformation claiming that they are in a "semi-binary" relationship. The duo, who were recently confronted by a "serial intruder" at the premiere of Wicked: For Good in Singapore, have continued to remain close during the promotional tour of the second film. Their intimate friendship, which tends to include a lot of touching, has led to online speculation that the pair are dating, with some even labelling them "creepy" online.

"Born with an insatiable drive for stardom and a knack for spotting talent, Combs made a quick ascent through the ranks of the music industry with Bad Boy Entertainment and was crucial in bringing hip-hop to the pop masses and launching the careers of dozens of generation-defining artists like The Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, and Danity Kane," reads the synopsis. "But along the way ... something darker began to color his ambitions."

"I've been committed to real storytelling for years through G-Unit Film and Television,"

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.