This week, some of the most highly anticipated trailers were released - from Dhanush's Jagame Thandiram, to M Night Shyamalan's Old.
Check out the trailers released this week
Jagame Thandiram
Netflix has unveiled the first official trailer of Dhanush's Tamil film Jagame Thandhiram (Tricky World). Directed by Karthik Subbaraj, the film revolves around Suruli, a nomadic gangster who has to choose between good and evil in a war for what one can truly call home.
The film also stars James Cosmo, Aishwarya, Lekshmi, Kalaiyarasan, Joju George and others. The music of the film is composed by Santhosh Narayanan.
The film is produced by YNot Studios and Reliance Entertainment and will release on June 18 on Netflix.
Old
The official trailer of M Night Shyamalan's upcoming supernatural thriller Old is out. The film follows a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly … reducing their entire lives into a single day.
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Vicky Krieps, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Rufus Sewell, Embeth Davidtz and Emun Elliott and also produced by Shyamalan, the film will hit US theatres on 23 July.
Sunflower
The ZEE5 Original thriller series stars actor-comedian Sunil Grover in the lead. The cast also includes Ranvir Shorey, Girish Kulkarni, Shonali Nagrani, Sonal Jha and Ashish Vidyarthi. The story revolves around a murder mystery based in a middle-class housing society in Mumbai called Sunflower.
The show will premiere on 11 June.
The Tomorrow War
In this Chris Pratt-starrer sci-fi action drama, releasing on Amazon Prime Video on 2 July, the world is stunned when a group of time travellers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species.
The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist and his estranged father in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.
Directed by Chris McKay, the Skydance Media's film also features Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, and Academy Award-winner J.K. Simmons.
Physical
Rose Byrne's Apple TV+dark comedy series Physical follows Sheila Rubin (Byrne), a "quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband’s bid for state assembly. But she’s also battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image…. that is, until she finds release through the unlikeliest source: the world of aerobics. The series tracks her epic journey from a stifled, overlooked enabler to a powerful, confident economic force, as Sheila transforms into someone we take for granted today, the female lifestyle guru."
Also starring Rory Scovel, Dierdre Friel, Della Saba, Lou Taylor Pucci, Paul Sparks, and Ashley Liao, the show will make its global premiere on 18 June.
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Bollywood today boasts of several filmmakers who engage with Indian politics in a variety of ways. While some like Anurag Kashyap, Tigmanshu Dhulia, and Vishal Bhardwaj choose to do it subversively, directors like Subash Kapoor and Prakash Jha follow a more knuckle-first approach, tackling Indian politics through its literalities.
Of the two, the former has undergone a curious transformation over his decade-long career. With his new show Maharani, Subhash continues to see politics through the red-hot lens of sensationalism and exaggeration, with a recently acquired fondness for the stories of the lower castes.
Subhash's last two creations are a marked shift in terms of his politics, as they go searching for the life-affirming amidst the grimly unpromising. It could be down to a director growing beyond his journalistic instincts or merely a tactical shift in siding with the margins for the purpose of appeasement.
Subhash came in from the cold with Say Salaam India, a two-fold soft exercise in nation appeasement bringing together the two things Indians love the most – an underdog story and cricket. The unremarkable film was followed up by the breakthroughPhas Gaye Re Obama (2010),a satirical comedy of errors that managed to connect India’s sense of desperation with the global economic recession of 2008. Shouldered by terrific actors like Rajat Kapoor, Amit Sial, and Sanjay Mishra, the film written by Subhash was coarse and earthy in its portrayal of Uttar Pradesh and its people. Born and brought up in Eastern UP, Subhash’s familiarity with the geography, and its many caste and cultural complexities, shined through this ensemble piece that despite its moderate technical accomplishments, remains eminently watchable till date.
In 2013, Subhash madeJolly LLB (2013), perhaps the definitive moment in his filming career. Taking a small-time lawyer (Jolly) to the high-stakes corridors of Delhi High Court, and transforming him from opportunistic pest to reawakened social warrior, Subhash, though resigned to the system, also presented a way of fighting it – again through the individual. The film, a thrilling, yet comical take on the farce that is the Indian judiciary also gets its teeth into the rich and the elite. It was a marked shift from the defamation of rural India to the takedown of the well-heeled.
His next was the watchable but messy Guddu Rangeela (2015) that signalled at a hangover from Phas Gaye Re Obama. His next, would be the sequel to Jolly LLB, fronted by the man who cannot let a moralistic ode go by without poking the acting nose in it. That said, Akshay Kumar’s comedic chops can rarely be criticised. This second film, for all its borrowed energy and déjà vus, remains watchable.
Now, before we look at what Subhash made next, we must also look back at how the director’s life publically came apart in 2014. Accussed by actress Geetika Tyagi of rape and molestation, and videotaped being slapped by her in a video that went viral, Subhash's public image took a massive beating.All of his subsequent projects have since been through the moral scrutiny of people who remember that episode. Herein lies the crucial connection, maybe, to Subhash’s last two projectsMadam Chief MinisterandMaharani, both of which came out this year.
Two projects, that look at two lower-caste women, who became significant political figures in India's history. One through ambition and the other through chance. Loosely modelled on Mayawati and Rabri Devi, both projects do a decent job of excavating Dalit politics and portraying their suffering. Yet they are marred, somewhat, by Subhash's sense of grandiosity, his over-the-top filing of political character that leaves the boundary between reality and imagination so blurred you cannot tell what is realistic and what is not. There is the obvious explanation that in order to excite and entertain, Subhash overdoes the bits where he can bring in some grace, some life-affirming etiquette. Granted these are stories about India’s rough corners, no man or woman seems to want to take up the mantle of decency and dignity. Maybe. to Subhash's glee, that is the sad truth.
Subhash's recent projects suggest he has, to an extent, internalised the fallouts of the allegations against him. He seems determined to unearth the heroes in women that the public has already evaluated one way or the other. While these are interesting stories to explore, it also indicates a tactical shift, a clear-up act of Subhash's image that continues to trail him.
All that said, Subhash's grasp of the hinterland and his ability to extract drama from local dialects alone is incomparable to many. With that, Subhash is also helping familiarise, however dramatically, India’s urban dwellers with a side of politics they neither engage with nor understand. Whatever the calculated intent behind this recent focus on forgotten women politicians, the results, the excessiveness withstanding, are largely positive, both in terms of education and entertainment.
Maharani is streaming on SonyLIV.
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Director-stuntman Buddy Van Horn who often doubled for American actor Clint Eastwood has passed away at the age of 92. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he is survived by wife Konne and their daughters Erika and Jennifer along with his five grandchildren.
Van Horn directed three films in his lifetime, all starring Eastwood. These films are the 1980 movie Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool released in 1988 and the 1989 film Pink Cadillac.
Speaking about Eastwood, in a 2011 interview with The Independent, Van Horn had said that the actor liked doing some of his own stunts. Van Horn also said that he had tried to talk Eastwood out of doing his own stunts but was not successful most of the time. The stunt double had said, “He went and did ’em anyway, several of ’em. He’s been banged up a few times.”
People reported that an obituary was published for the veteran stunt double in the Los Angeles Times which says that he died on 11 May. Van Horn worked as a stunt coordinator with Eastwood’s company Malpaso for around 44 years.
A highlight of his career was being the stunt double for Guy William in the 39 episodes of Disney’s Zorro. The stuntman was able to use his equestrian skills and fencing.
Another prominent role of Van Horn’s career was his appearance in the 1973 film High Plains Drifter, reported Deadline. He played the role of Marshal Jim Duncan in the film and was also the stunt coordinator.
According to the publication, he worked as a stunt double in films that were released in the recent past like the 2000 film Space Cowboys, 2004 movie Million Dollar Baby and 2008 film Gran Torino.
He has also worked as a stunt coordinator in movies like Enforcer, The Gauntlet and Sudden Impact. Van Horn was also a second unit director on The Rookie and Magnum Force.
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पतंजलि आयुर्वेद के सर्वेसर्वा आगे बोले, "सर्जरी के आविष्कारक महर्षि सुश्रुत हैं। फिर भी मैं कहता हूं कि सर्जरी और लाइफ सेविंग ड्रग्स में ऐलोपैथी ने बहुत अच्छी प्रगति की है, जो कि प्रशंसनीय है। पर एक-दूसरे के प्रति जो पक्षपातपूर्ण रवैया है। अमानता जैसी बात आ जाती है।"
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बैठक में भाजपा के उत्तर प्रदेश प्रभारी राधा मोहन सिंह, पार्टी के प्रदेश अध्यक्ष स्वतंत्र देव सिंह और संगठन के प्रदेश प्रभारी महासचिव सुनील बंसल भी शामिल थे।
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स्वास्थ्य बुलेटिन में बताया गया है कि राज्य में कुल मामले 14,26,240 हो गए हैं जबकि 24,237 मरीजों की संक्रमण के कारण मौत हो चुकी है। दिल्ली में मृत्यु दर 1.7 फीसदी है। बुलेटिन के मुताबिक, दिल्ली में संक्रमण का इलाज करा रहे मरीजों की संख्या 11,040 है।
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विश्व स्वास्थ्य संगठन ने सोमवार को केंद्रीय स्वास्थ्य मंत्री को ई-सिगरेट के प्रतिबंध के लिए सम्मानित किया। संगठन के प्रमुख टेड्रोस एडनॉम घेब्रेयसस ने ट्वीट कर इसकी जानकारी दी। उन्होंने अपने ट्वीट में कहा कि मुझे भारत के स्वास्थ्य मंत्री हर्षवर्धन को सम्मानित करते हुए खुशी महसूस हो रही है जिनके प्रयासों से 2019 में भारत में ई-सिगरेट को प्रतिबंधित करने का अधिनियम बना। धन्यवाद मंत्री। इसके जवाब में हर्षवर्धन ने भी संगठन के प्रमुख को धन्यवाद ज्ञापित किया।
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दिल्ली में सोमवार को कोविड-19 के 648 मरीजों की पुष्टि हुई, जो पिछले ढाई महीनों में सबसे कम है। वहीं, 86 मरीजों की मौत हो गई। स्वास्थ्य विभाग के मुताबिक, राष्ट्रीय राजधानी में संक्रमण दर एक फीसदी से नीचे आ गई है, जो 19 मार्च के बाद पहली बार सबसे कम है।
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For many independent musicians in India, life has looked drastically different after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Before, they relied almost entirely on live gigs to earn a livelihood. Streaming websites contribute very little to their incomes, unless they are extremely popular; most use platforms like Spotify as a promotional tool. Now, after the passage of 15 months and the imposition of several lockdowns, their future remains uncertain. Clubs and other performance venues shut abruptly, then opened months later, only to shut again as the second wave of the pandemic struck. The result is that these artists lost their biggest source of revenue.
In the absence of any state-backed unemployment support scheme for self-employed individuals, these musicians were left to fend for themselves. In 2020, in a feeble attempt to address the crisis, the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) — a representative body of artists, music owners, composers, lyricists, and publishers of music responsible for collecting royalties on behalf of artists — announced a small grant for its members during the lockdown. Recently, the organisation announced a similar one-time special relief fund of Rs 7,500 for its members to address the growing financial insecurity among artists in aftermath of the second wave of the coronavirus in the country. Music composers and author members of the IPRS who had earned less than Rs 1 lakh in royalties between April 2020 and March 2021 are eligible for the grant. But since the IPRS is largely dominated by artists who work in the Hindi film industry, most independent musicians do not have access to this fund.
An inherently unsustainable career path
In an interview with Firstpost, Indian Idol contestant-turned-playback singer Bhavya Pandit shared that she had made some ill-timed investments around the announcement of the first lockdown. "I thought I would be able to recover the money through live gigs, but that did not happen. The reality of my situation hit me hard when the time came to pay rent for the second consecutive month and I had no money. I was depressed for a long time before I started looking for other sources of income,” she says.
Without any financial support from the government or private organisations like the IPRS, independent musicians had to extensively diversify their portfolios to earn a living. “Many musicians, including me, had to leave Mumbai at the start of the lockdown because staying in the city was no longer sustainable. I started to teach vocals, music composition and arrangement to earn a living. Additionally, I have also started giving background scores for independent films and short films, so that’s how I coped,” says Aditi Ramesh, a musician-vocalist and one of the founders of the dynamic Mumbai-based band Ladies Compartment.
Artists also started performing on live streams for free to sustain their audiences’ interest in their work, but this necessitated investing in high-quality equipment, which further added to their financial woes. The absence of such equipment, as well as other resources such as high-speed internet and a strong social media presence, meant that some lacked the basic means to diversify and find alternative sources of income within the industry.
“As a musician, the lockdown was extremely tough. Even before the pandemic, due to the political nature of my songs, I struggled to generate an income through gigs. But once the lockdown was announced, I had to abandon music entirely and move back to my village. Now I spend most of my time farming alongside my father,” says Deepak Peace, an independent musician based in Pune.
A few private individuals and companies like ArtUnites and SkillBox attempted to support artists either by providing high-quality equipment on rent for live concerts or by creating platforms where online live performances could be ticketed. But much of these initiatives were either a result of isolated acts of kindness or were entrepreneurial endeavours aimed at generating a profit.
The unorganised 'meritocracy'
The dominant feeling underpinning much of the independent music scene remains: if you are talented, you will eventually succeed. The status quo is perceived as the industry’s tough but fair meritocracy. While some artists might acknowledge that their privilege accruing from their caste-class status gives them an advantage in the initial days, they continue to believe that with the right combination of talent and hustle, anyone can succeed.
Thanks to the internet, and the aforementioned belief about talent and hard work, more and more individuals are trying their luck at launching a successful DIY musical career. Most work in isolation away from their peers, competing over a small pool of resources even as the top earners — a small minority within this group — continue to rake in unprecedented profits. As a result, musicians from marginalised backgrounds — bereft of the necessary cultural, social and financial capital needed to sustain their musical journeys — are left to fend for themselves.
In a study on the working conditions of independent artists, entertainment lawyer Manojna Yeluri argued that irregular and delayed payment schedules, a paucity of performance venues, irresponsible creative sharing (intellectual property and credit-related legal issues) and a lack of solidarity among artists have rendered them vulnerable to exploitation. In other words, musicians were already grappling with numerous challenges before the coronavirus pandemic drastically altered the scene.
Further, unlike the musicians in the Hindi film industry, artists in the independent scene continue to remain fairly unorganised.
The absence of a formal collective or union has to a great extent prevented independent musicians from forging bonds based on mutual interests and from holding stakeholders like venues, organisers and agencies accountable.
The need for solidarity
In a survey conducted by Firstpost, 16 out of 20 independent musicians acknowledged the need for a collective or union to address the growing insecurity plaguing the field. “If artists start focusing on what they have in common rather than focusing on things that set them apart, we will be able to come together. Today, in every state, you will at least find one successful independent musician who has the potential to bring other artists in their region together. A centralised collective of musicians, therefore, is possible, and can act as a platform for knowledge and resource sharing,” says Aditi Ramesh.
Similarly, singer-songwriter Maalavika Manoj, popularly known by her stage name Mali, also emphasised the need for more established artists to lead future initiatives to collectivise. “A musicians’ collective can certainly help artists hold powerful stakeholders in the field accountable for their actions, but any collective or union in India can only be effective if popular artists join the effort. The solidarity among only three-and-a-half independent artists will hardly help the scene,” she remarks.
Most musicians accept that greater solidarity among artists is required to transform the scene from one that has traditionally been dominated by a privileged few into a more equal space. However, many remain sceptical about the scene’s potential for change. “To put up a fight (for better working conditions), a musician has to be madly committed to the cause. In India, however, most musicians don’t even know if they will continue making music two or three years down the line. Most young musicians are given a year or two by their families to prove that they can make money through music. So for most of them, it is about survival; things like artistic integrity and solidarity with fellow musicians take a backseat,” says Abhay Sharma, one of the co-founders of the Delhi-based jazz band The Revisit Project.
In an interview with Firstpost, Sahib Singh, the founder of the Carnatic band Jatayu, said that for long, the competition between artists over limited spots and venues made it easier for organisers to exploit musicians, thereby cutting costs. “It also festered animosity among artists which prevented them from coming together. But things are changing; artists are becoming increasingly supportive of each other,” he says.
The promising potential of collectivisation
The pandemic has encouraged artists across the world to record their experiences and hold governments and big corporations accountable for their actions. For instance, the UK-based Musicians’ Union conducted in-depth interviews of thousands of musicians all across the country in 2020 for the research titled The Working Musician, to provide sound evidentiary grounds for future policy-making and civil society activism. The study highlighted that despite working multiple jobs, one in three musicians earned between £10,000-£20,000, with their earnings remaining static over time. To place these figures in context, the starting salary of a public school teacher in the UK is £21,000. Additionally, the group successfully ran the campaign #InvestInMusicians last year, which helped extend the Self-Employment Income Support (SIESS) grant by several months, as well as increased the funds going into the Culture Recovery Fund in the UK.
In another show of solidarity, the US-based Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) organised worldwide demonstrations outside Spotify offices on 15 March, as part of its Justice At Spotify campaign, with the demand that artists should be paid at least one cent per stream — effectively scrapping the current system of revenue distribution in which artists need around 250 streams to generate a dollar. In response, Spotify launched the website Loud and Clear to bring in increased transparency about their streaming royalties model. While the artists’ demands are yet to be met, they remain determined in their fight for fair royalty payments.
In India, musicians, lawyers and music journalists are also coming together to raise awareness among independent musicians about their rights and entitlements. Music journalist Amit Gurbaxani observed: “Last year, during the lockdown, many individuals within the field started to discuss the possibility of having some form of collective or union to address the issues of independent musicians and other workers in the field. These discussions, so far, have resulted in many resource-sharing portals.” Such resource-sharing endeavours are, however, plagued by a top-down approach adopted for information dissemination, which remains a concern — even among some of their creators.
Platforms like Indie Music Allies, ArtistikLicense and Songdewnetwork on Instagram and Lex Talk Music on Spotify are sharing knowledge on a range of topics, starting from copyright infringement and licensing, to tips on managing one's mental health in an attempt to fill several gaps in knowledge that frequently render musicians vulnerable to exploitation. While these platforms do not function as formal collectives or unions, they are all aiming towards generating greater solidarity among artists.
The activities of the Musician’s Union, UMAW or even the resource sharing platforms in India, show the promising potential of collectivisation for independent musicians. As complex and fraught with challenges the process may be, without collective action geared towards creating a just industry, the independent music scene in India will remain closed off to diverse voices, allowing only a select few to thrive.
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A new month amounts to the digital calendar brimming with new content, from horror and fantasy shows to psychological thrillers and action extravaganzas.
On Netflix, get ready to witness Dhanush as a nomadic gangster in Tamil-language action thriller Jagame Thandhiram, while on the other hand, Manoj Bajpayee's much loved show The Family Man in returning for the second season on Amazon Prime Video India.
We have dug deep into the abyss of OTT platforms to collate a comprehensive list of content that is available to stream on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, and MUBI among several others in June.
Netflix
Feel Good Season 2 - 2 June
The dramedy’s new season follows Mae (Mae Martin) as she attempts to salvage her relationship with her girlfriend and move on from her past after a relapse.
The official synopsis reads: "Mae and George's complicated love story continues as Mae struggles to come to terms with the ghosts from her past and George tries to reinvent her present. Can they grow together or will they grow apart?"
Also returning for the series are Lisa Kudrow, Philip Burgers, and Adrian Lukis, who will join new additions Jordan Stephens, John Ross Bowie, Eve, and Eleanor Matsuura.
Sweet Tooth -4 June
Netflix's comic book-inspired series, Sweet Tooth, is set in a post-apocalyptic world that sees babies born as half-human half-animal. The show follows Gus, a deer boy whose apocalyptic fairy tale takes him across the former US to meet the strange, wonderful, and not-so-wonderful remnants of society. The show is executive produced by Robert Downey Jr.
Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet - 4 June
Breaking Boundaries follows the scientific journey of world-renowned scientist Professor Johan Rockström. It tells the story of the most important scientific discovery of our time - that humanity has pushed Earth beyond the boundaries that have kept our planet stable for 10,000 years, since the dawn of civilisation. It is presented by David Attenborough.
Awake - 9 June
Starring Jane the Virgin actor Gina Rodriguez, this dystopian drama follows the aftermath of a global event that wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, causing chaos to quickly consume the world. Only Jill, an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. The question is: can Jill safely deliver her daughter and save the world before she herself loses her mind?
Lupin Season 2 - 11 June
Netflix heist drama Lupin, based on Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin; Gentleman Burglar novels, has been a major hit.
In the second part, Assane (played by Omar Sy) takes revenge to the next level. At the end of part one, Raoul (played by Etan Simon) was kidnapped by Leonard (played by Adama Niane). The new instalment picks right from there where he is ready to go to any extent to rescue his kid from the kidnappers.
The official synopsis given by Netflix says, “Assane's quest for revenge against Hubert Pellegrini has torn his family to pieces. With his back to the wall, he now has to think of a new plan, even if it means putting himself in danger”.
Wish Dragon - 4 June
Longing to reconnect with his childhood best friend, resourceful teen Din meets a charming wish-granting dragon who shows him the magic of possibilities. Constance Wu and Jimmy Wong have lent voices to the Sony Pictures animated film.
Trese - 4 June
In this anime show set in a Manila where mythical creatures of Philippine folklore hide amongst humans, Alexandra Trese goes head-to-head with a criminal underworld.
Skater Girl - 11 June
A teen in rural India of Rajasthan must fight against all odds to follow her dreams of becoming a skater and competing in the national championship. The Hindi film is directed by Manjari Makinjay, daughter of veteran actor Mac Mohan.
Jagame Thandhiram - 18 June
The one and only Dhanush stars in JAGAME THANDHIRAM, a gripping drama directed by Karthik Subbaraj.
The film, an epic story about a nomadic gangster who must choose between good and evil in a war for what one can truly call home, makes its worldwide debut on Netflix on June 18! pic.twitter.com/jwKXMaWLmP
The Tamil-language action thriller, directed by Karthik Subbaraj, revolves around Suruli (Dhanush), a nomadic gangster who has to choose between good and evil in a war for what one can truly call home. The film also features Aishwarya Lekshmi, Kalaiyarasan, and Joju George. It also marks the debut of actor James Cosmo, the Jeor Mormont of Game of Thrones. The film is produced by YNot Studios and Reliance Entertainment. Fatherhood - 18 June Kevin Hart sheds off his comedic chops to tap into the emotional, serious side of his acting. The film is based on the 2011 memoir Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss & Love by Matthew Logelin. It follows the story of Hart's character, a widowed new dad as he copes with doubts, fears, heartache, and dirty diapers when he sets out to raise his daughter on his own. Directed by Paul Weitz, the cast also includes Lil Rel Howery, DeWanda Wise, Anthony Carrigan, and Paul Reiser. Ray - 25 June Netflix's upcoming anthology will be based on Satyajit Ray’s short stories that centre on themes of "love, lust, betrayal and truth", Ray will explore "vulnerabilities and multiple shades of each character," said a press release. Manoj Bajpayee, Gajraj Rao, Ali Fazal, Shweta Basu Prasad, Anindita Bose, Kay Kay Menon, Bidita Bag, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Harshvarrdhan Kapoor, Radhika Madan, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor will feature in Ray. Abhishek Chaubey, Srijit Mukherji and Vasan Bala are the directors onboard. Niren Bhatt and Siraj Ahmed have adapted the stories for the screen with Sayantan Mukherjee as showrunner. America: The Motion Picture - 30 June
Channing Tatum is George Washington! Olivia Munn is Thomas Edison! Other actors are other characters! Time to officially reveal the cast of AMERICA: THE MOTION PICTURE, crossing rivers to deliver you to a prosperous new horizon on June 30. pic.twitter.com/PWy1Yo62ms — NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) April 27, 2021
America: The Motion Picture, an animated feature comedy includes a star-studded cast like Channing Tatum, Jason Mantzoukas, Olivia Munn, Bobby Moynihan, Judy Greer, Will Forte, Raoul Max Trujillo, Killer Mike, Simon Pegg, and Andy Samberg.
The film sees George Washington assemble a team of famed agitators, including founding father Sam Adams, scientist Thomas Edison, horseman Paul Revere, in order to defeat Benedict Arnold and King James in the American Revolution. The film’s official synopsis describes it as a "wildly tongue-in-cheek animated revisionist history."
Amazon Prime Video
The Family Man Season 2
The new season of The Family Man sees the return of Manoj Bajpayee's character Srikant Tiwari, who continues to jostle between the duality of being a middle-class family man and a world-class spy trying to save the nation from an imminent attack. However, this season, Srikant will be pitted against a new, powerful, and brutal adversary named Raaji (Samantha Akkineni). Created and Produced by Raj and DK, the new season of The Family Man also stars Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, and Sunny Hinduja among others.
Newton director Amit Masukar’s Sherni will see Vidya Balan in the role of an upright Forest Officer who strives for balance in a world of man-animal conflict while she also seeks her true calling in a hostile environment.
Produced by T-Series & Abundantia Entertainment, Sherni also stars Sharad Saxena, Mukul Chaddha, Vijay Raaz, Ila Arun, Brijendra Kala, and Neeraj Kabi.
Mary Jane Blige documentary
An upcoming documentary on Grammy-winner Mary J Blige will release on Amazon Prime Video. The singer has won nine Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards and has also received three Golden Globe Award nominations. Furthermore, she also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song, becoming the first person nominated for acting and songwriting in the same year.
Apple TV+
Lisey's Story - 4 June
Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King, and adapted by the author himself, Lisey's Story is a thriller that follows Lisey Landon (Academy Award winner Julianne Moore) two years after the death of her husband, famous novelist Scott Landon (Academy Award nominee Clive Owen). A series of unsettling events causes Lisey to face memories of her marriage to Scott that she has deliberately blocked out of her mind.
An Apple Original limited series, Lisey's Story is directed by Pablo Larraín, and hails from JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Productions and Warner Bros Television. King, Moore, and Larraín executive produce alongside Abrams, Ben Stephenson, and Juan de Dios Larraín.
Home Before Dark Season 2 - 11 June
In the sophomore season of Home Before Dark, Brooklyn Prince returns as a young, investigative journalist Hilde Lisko, who is now set to tackle a powerful corporation. Jim Sturgess stars opposite Prince in the series, playing the young girl’s father. It is directed and executive produced by Jon M Chu.
Physical - 18 June
Set in the idyllic but fragile beach paradise of sunny 1980s San Diego, Physical is a half-hour dark comedy series following Sheila Rubin (played by Rose Byrne), a quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband's bid for state assembly. But behind closed doors, Sheila has her own darkly funny take on life she rarely lets the world see.
In addition to Byrne, Physical also stars Rory Scovel, Dierdre Friel, Della Saba, Lou Taylor Pucci, Paul Sparks, and Ashley Liao.
The first three episodes of Physical will premiere on 18 June.
Disney+ Hotstar Premium
Loki
Tom Hiddleston returns to portray the God of Mischief alongside Owen Wilson, who plays Mobius M Mobius. The series takes place after the events of the film Avengers: Endgame (2019), where Loki escapes with the Tesseract but is caught by the TVA (Time Variance Authority).
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E Grant also star in the series directed by Kate Herron and written by Michael Waldron.
Loki releases will be available in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.
Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted
In the National Geographic series Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, chef Gordon Ramsay journeys to some of the most incredible and remote locations on Earth in search of culinary inspiration, epic adventures, and cultural experiences he will never forget.
Luca - 18 June
Disney Pixar's Luca follows two boys — titular character Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Glazer) — emerging from the sea and then turning into humans. Subsequently, they enjoy a memorable ‘human’ summer in a fictional quaint town called Portorosso on the Italian Riviera. It is directed by Enrico Casarosa.
MUBI
Shiva Baby - 11 June
Shiva Baby is an absurd Jewish comedy about a college student who runs into both her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend at a family funeral. The feature directorial debut of writer/director Emma Seligman, Shiva Baby premiered at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival.
ZEE5
Sunflower - 11 June
Actors Sunil Grover, Ranvir Shorey, Ashish Vidyarthi, Mukul Chadda and Girish Kulkarni have teamed up for ZEE5 Original web series Sunflower. Directed by Vikas Bahl, the series is a whodunit revolving around a housing society by the same name, and its interesting residents.
BookMyShow Stream
Those Who Wish Me Dead -10 June
Helmed by Taylor Sheridan, Those Who Wish Me Dead follows Hannah (Angelina Jolie), a smoke jumper fighting off the wildfires in the northern wilderness of Montana. Along the line, she encounters a terrified boy named Connor, who is followed by a pair of killers. The film also stars Nicholas Hoult, Aidan Gillen, Jon Bernthal, Tyler Perry, Jake Weber, James Jordan and Tory Kittles.
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Every three hours, every day, for the past seven-and-a-half years, an anxious, spirited Twitter bot has transmitted a short message of perseverance and hope into the universe.
“The Space Jam website is still online,” it tweets. Or: “Hooray! Space Jam is still online!”
To date, the bot, @SpaceJamCheck, has assured a changing world more than 20,000 times that the official website of the 1996 live-action/animated sports comedy Space Jam remains a functional web destination. If it surprises you to learn that people care whether or not the promotional website for a mid-'90s children’s movie is still online, congratulations — you have just revealed your utter, humiliating ignorance about all matters relating to the mildly famous Space Jam website.
Whence the Space Jam Website?
The 1996 Space Jam website is important in the way antique maps are important — not because they are necessarily useful tools for present-day navigation, but because they reveal the boundaries around which people’s lives were once oriented, and invite us to remember, or imagine, a world differently arranged.
Many years past its original relevance (of which there was never terribly much, this being the official website of the 1996 live-action/animated sports comedy Space Jam), the Space Jam website now serves as a virtual portal to the 1990s. The homepage — a low resolution star-speckled black galaxy whose flat cartoon planets are slapped, like stickers, around the Space Jam logo — is not a nostalgic recreation. It is the real thing, beautifully preserved in the resin of digital time — a visual artifact from a less connected World Wide Web.
Today, the internet is dominated by overlapping social platforms. But the Space Jam website, which existed before Google, harkens to an era when the web felt more like an infinite archipelago of islands to which one might surf in pursuit of one’s passions — or by accident.
Run on a basic HTML script, the website is a bonanza of early internet “content”: downloadable screen savers; in-progress animation sketches; printable coloring pages featuring the words “Space Jam” in large Times New Roman font; basic basketball tips; a one-second .wav file of Michael Jordan saying, “You guys are nuts.” And more.
(The plot of the film, recounted in great detail on the website, centers on a basketball match that pits Jordan and the Looney Tunes against a team of aliens who aim to capture them, and force them to work as entertainment “slaves” at their “Moron Mountain” amusement park located in outer space. It was the 15th best-performing movie of 1996, earning slightly more domestically than Mr. Holland’s Opus and far less than The Nutty Professor.)
To be sure, it is unlikely many children of the ’90s spent their free time reading the lyrical development narratives of characters like Elmer Fudd posted on the Space Jam website. (“Without changing the basic nature or concept of the character, his directors and animators finally developed him into a creature capable of great elasticity,” the copy explains.) At the same time, kids with cable television were almost certainly aware of the film.
But while the film faded from the memories of millennials as they aged, its virtual altar remained accessible and relatively pristine.
The website catapulted to meme status in 2010, apparently after a Reddit post drew users’ attention to its inexplicable continued existence. A few years later, Rolling Stone published a lengthy, definitive history of the site — a tale of survival in the face of the internet’s rapid evolution.
People’s favourite thing about www.spacejam.com was simply that it was. (“This is like finding King Tut’s tomb of my childhood movie recollection,” wrote one Reddit user.)
But on 2 April, 2021, the Twitter bot, @SpaceJamCheck, sounded an alarm: “Hmm, looks like Space Jam isn’t online. Hopefully it’s a fluke ;(.”
Hither the Space Jam Website
The Space Jam bot continued to sound its mournful toll for three days, at which point a human, Colin Mitchell, the bot creator, stepped in. The Space Jam website was still whole, Mitchell tweeted, but had moved to a new URL: www.spacejam.com/1996.
The original domain had been repurposed to advertise a new Space Jam film, scheduled for release on 16 July.
(In the new version, basketball star LeBron James joins forces with Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes to free himself and his son — by means of a basketball game — from imprisonment in a virtual world. The new Space Jam website describes this as “the highest-stakes challenge” of James’ life.)
The website for Space Jam: A New Legacy, is — at least at present — modern, minimal, and much less clickable than its predecessor. The landing page features a crisp image of James and Bugs Bunny clutching basketballs in silhouette. An image of the classic Space Jam logo, located in the upper-right portion of the screen, functions as a button back to the 1996 website.
“I think big feature-heavy movie websites are a thing of the past,” said Don Buckley, who worked as the vice president of advertising and publicity at Warner Bros at the time of the original film’s debut.
Social media, he said, has negated the usefulness of most flashy movie websites. “A distributed content model online is a much more effective means of marketing and communication,” said Buckley. (Indeed, the main event of the new Space Jam page is an embedded YouTube trailer for the film.)
Buckley was an early proponent of movie websites as promotional tools. It was he who enlisted a small, largely autonomous team of web producers and designers — Dara Kubovy-Weiss, Jen Braun, Michael Tritter, and Andrew Stachler — to create a richly detailed online hub for all things Space Jam. The website took shape in an office in midtown Manhattan, far from the influence of studio executives and other producers.
Online media, said Buckley, “was clumsy and adolescent, just like us.” “We were exuberant about its possibilities. And, you know, we were kind of subversively thumbing our noses at all the skeptics,” he said.
At the time, few people in the publicity industry understood how to create websites — and “nobody who wasn’t doing it could fake knowing it,” said Buckley.
“Space Jam happened at a moment in time when the internet was still whispering its promise.”
Kubovy-Weiss, who was a producer on the website, and is now the director of a branding consultancy, said that at the time she worked on the site, not many people in her life visited websites or had an appreciation for the internet. The lack of familiarity — and oversight — allowed the design team to experiment.
“We were able to sort of take risks and do things that we thought were funny or interesting or cool without having to go through the channels that a more mainstream marketing effort would have required,” said Kubovy-Weiss.
These included a secretive effort to sprinkle Easter eggs — or hidden interactive features — throughout the website. Two decades later, members of the design team, who keep in touch via a group text assembled after the unexpected popular resurgence of the website in 2010, still will not confirm how many of these are buried within the html. Fans have discovered at least some. (For instance, clicking on the letter “y” in one publicist’s name on the credits page automatically downloads an audio clip of a voice croaking the word “Yeah.”)
Tritter, who, at 26, was declared associate producer of the site, and is credited by the web team with writing most of its snarky text, remembers not being particularly excited for the movie, which was aimed at a generation now known as “millennials.”
“Gen-X kids were not the target audience,” said Tritter, now 51, and a music producer and writer in Los Angeles. The film and website were designed for “kids who were kind of growing up on the internet for the first time,” he said.
Years ago, Tritter was having drinks with some acquaintances at the SXSW music festival, when one of them mentioned to the group that Tritter was “OG internet,” and had helped build the website. A younger attendee appeared shocked and impressed. Tritter thought he was kidding.
That was the first time he understood, said Tritter, “that something I found hilarious — they actually thought it was cool.” He had regarded the newfound obsession with the website as somewhat ridiculous. But, “a whole generation younger than us is like, ‘No, no, no, that’s actually something that we were all really into at the time.’”
“I realised I was among millennials, and that they were different from me,” he said. The friend who had broken the news to the group said he “went into a thousand-yard stare, and muttered ‘this will define my life.’”
Curiously, while the original audience of millennials approaches middle age — the oldest members of that cohort will turn 40 this year — fans of the 1996 Space Jam website seem only to get younger. For Ripley Heator, 19, an animation and game arts student in Philadelphia, the source material is besides the point. He discovered the site in 2020; its features and layout influenced a project for his web design class.
“I don’t have many memories of this movie,” said Heator. “I’m mostly just a fan of the site.”
Mitchell, 45, created the @SpaceJamCheck bot account in the fall of 2013, with the expectation that it would not tweet forever. “I was happy to make a Twitter bot that would be around for what I assumed would be the inevitable day that it would go offline,” he said.
When the site was moved to its new URL, fear erupted in the bot’s mentions from fans who thought the day had come. Mitchell, who works as a web developer in Montague, Massachusetts, began questioning, as @SpaceJamCheck, whether it was even worth continuing the watchdog account.
“I tweeted as the bot, like, ‘Hey I’m thinking about shutting this down,’ and I got a lot of responses that people didn’t want me to,” Mitchell said. “I guess they still see some value in it.” He has mixed feelings about that: “It’s okay to let go of things, but at the same time, this has become a really important part of internet history.”
Gina Cherelus and Caity Weaver c.2021 The New York Times Company
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Days after Friends: The Reunion aired, Courteney Cox had a small surprise for her fans. Cox, who played the character of Monica in the popular sitcom, teamed up with singer Ed Sheeran and brought back memories of The Routine dance on social media.
Taking to her Instagram handle, Cox shared the video in which she and Sheeran have re-enacted the steps.
The dance was aired on the show in the episode The One With The Routine, where Monica (Cox) and Ross (David Schwimmer) performed it together.
An unscripted special reunited the main cast of the show actors, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and Lisa Kudrow along with Cox and Schwimmer.
Stars like David Beckham, Lady Gaga, Kit Harington, Reese Witherspoon, Malala Yousafzai, BTS, among others also appeared as guests for the show. Friends: The Reunion premiered on ZEE5 in India and on HBO Max in the US.
When fans asked the director Ben Winstow why The Routine was not a part of the special episode. Winstow said, “I did say, ‘Would you ever consider doing The Routine?’ And both (Cox and Schwimmer) of them were like, “Oh, please don’t make us do that.” There were certain things I really cared for like the table read or the quiz. I also couldn’t work out where it would have worked. I’m not sure it would have landed 20 years later. But it was definitely on my list of ideas that I pitched,” as per The Indian Express report.
Amazon Prime Video released the teaser of Vidya Balan’s next - Sherni earlier today, 31 May.
Directed by Amit Masurkar of Newton fame, the film is a fictional story that takes us through the journey of a forest officer (played by Balan) who strives for balance in a world of man-animal conflict.
The trailer will release on 2nd June, confirms a press release.
Check out the teaser here
No matter what, she will do the right thing!
Trailer out, June 2.
— amazon prime video IN (@PrimeVideoIN) May 31, 2021
Produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Vikram Malhotra and Amit Masukar, the film boasts of a powerful ensemble cast that includes Sharat Saxena, Mukul Chadda, Vijay Raaz, Ila Arun, Brijendra Kala and Neeraj Kabi.
"Sherni is one of the most special and important stories that we’ve worked on and Amit’s evocative take on a highly relevant subject, laced with his trademark satire, will make for a compelling watch,” Abundantia Entertainment founder Malhotra said in the press release.
Sherni will exclusively release in June 2021 on Amazon Prime Video.
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Record producer and television personality Simon Cowell has cancelled his scheduled appearance as a judge on the upcoming season of The X Factor Israel.
A spokesman from Reshet, the network which produces the show, has told Variety that Cowell has cancelled the scheduled appearance “for his own reasons”. Further, Reshet has not commented whether Cowell is associated with X Factor Israel in any other way outside of judging.
The 61-year-old music mogul last December signed a deal to serve as one of the judges on the fourth instalment of the Israel version of the singing reality show. At that time, he had commented, “I can barely wait to see what the Israelis have to offer”. This would have been Cowell’s first time being a judge of an international X Factor outside of the US and UK versions.
As per a Reshet representative, Cowell’s staff had reached out to the makers with “legitimate concerns” over his participation in the show after the violence broke out between Israel and Gaza but at that time, no final decision was taken.
Representatives for Cowell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Cowell broke his back in a bike accident last year and had to take a break from work for surgery and extensive rehab and recovery.
TV presenter Liron Weizman will host The X Factor Israel, which is slated to begin shooting this summer.
In the new season, Mizrahi singer Margalit Tzan'ani, singer-songwriter Aviv Geffen, and singer and Eurovision 2018 winner Netta Barzilai will serve as judges. After Cowell's exit, a fourth judge is yet to be named.
Cowell currently appears as a judge on America's Got Talent.
(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
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Akshay Kumar’s much-awaited periodical saga Prithviraj is back in the news as the youth wing of Karni Sena has threatened the film.
In a letter, written by filmmaker Surjeet Singh Rathore, president of the Youth Wing of the Karni Sena, the makers have been asked to change the movie’s title. Also, if their conditions are not met, the film will receive the same fate as Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat, the letter said.
The film is a biopic on Emperor Prithiviraj Chauhan and is being helmed by Chandraparaksh Dwivedi while Yash Raj Film’s Aditya Chopra is producing it.
The letter, shared on Instagram, states that Sena respects Kumar for playing the great king but it is Chopra’s duty to respect the feelings and emotions of the Rajput community. In that regard, the name of the film should be changed to ‘Veer Yodha Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan’. Also, there should be screening before the release of the film so that they can see whether due respect has been given to the Rajput characters or not.
The film should be shown to Rajput historians who can check the historical accuracy. In the post, Rathore has warned that in case of any agitation, YRF will be responsible for all the losses.
Earlier, in a statement, Kumar had commented that it is an honour to play the role of one of the most fearless and courageous kings of India, Prithviraj Chauhan.
“As a nation, we should always celebrate our heroes and immortalize what they did to propagate the values that Indians lived by. Prithviraj is our attempt to bring to light his valour and daredevilry”.
The film was announced on Chauhan’s birth anniversary in 2019. However, the film’s shooting got stalled due to COVID-19. It is now expected to hit the theatres on 5 November.
Miss Universe Manushi Chillar, who is making her Bollywood debut with the movie, will be seen opposite Kumar. It also stars Sonu Sood, Sanjay Dutt, Ashutosh Rana, Sakshi Tanwar, Manav Vij, and Lalit Tiwari in pivotal roles.
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Joanna Coles published her first magazine at 11 and mailed a copy to Queen Elizabeth. She received a letter of thanks and a royal request for further issues. “It was all the encouragement I needed,” Coles said.
Coles went on to become an editor-in-chief of Marie Claire and then Cosmopolitan. This was in the 2000s and the 2010s, when magazine subscriptions had already begun to slide. The world of glossies was still what Coles called, “pretty [expletive] shiny, though it soon became clear that the shine was getting a bit thin.”
In 2017, in her second year as the chief content officer for Hearst Magazines, she became an executive producer on The Bold Type. An hourlong dramedy on American platform Freeform, The Bold Type is set at a legacy women’s magazine called Scarlet that looks a lot like Cosmopolitan, with a glamorous editor-in-chief (played by Melora Hardin) who looks a lot like Coles. Centred on three young Scarlet employees — a junior writer, a fashion assistant, a social media director — it depicts a world of galas, lavish photo shoots, luxury accessories and a dress code that has somehow sanctioned mesh tops and plunging décolletage as appropriate workwear.
For the past two decades, movies and TV shows have depicted media jobs as glitzy and aspirational. Think of Just Shoot Me, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30, Ugly Betty or Carrie’s Vogue sojourn on Sex and the City. Even unscripted series got in on the perfume ad-laden act, showing Olivia Palermo joining Elle (The City) and Lauren Conrad interning at Teen Vogue (The Hills).
Then again, in a scene that was almost certainly staged, Conrad famously turned down a work trip to Paris in order to spend more time with her boyfriend. So much for aspiration.
But as September issues have shrunk, so have these portrayals. The Bold Type begins its fifth and final season on Wednesday, about two weeks before Younger, the Paramount+ comedy set at a glittery publishing company, wraps up its seven-season run. The finales of these series may also close the increasingly ad-starved book on movies and TV shows that depict media careers as enviable.
“I mean, we may well be at the end of an era,” said Coles, who left Hearst in 2019. (She is now producing television shows and is the chief executive of Northern Star Acquisition Cos)
In reality, magazine ad revenue has declined precipitously, newspapers have closed at a devastating rate, and the publishing industry has been transformed by the coming mega-merger between Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster, none of which really lends itself to feel-good TV. And the median journalist salary is around $38,000, hardly enough to keep a character in Louboutins.
Will that sustain new shows? Already it’s become a punchline for current ones.
In the pilot episode of Starz’s Run the World, the editor-in-chief of an online magazine mourns what used to be. “There’s no more car service or white parties in the Hamptons or offices with doors that lock,” she tells a recent hire. In an early episode of the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls, a source asks a reporter why he went into journalism. “The money,” the reporter says. And then, after a beat, “It’s sad people know that’s funny.”
I’ve worked in journalism for about 20 years, starting just as the internet began to threaten traditional print media, and have been living through panics — of form, structure, content and budget — ever since. Shine has always been limited. I remember how, in my second year at The Village Voice, rumours swirled that we would all receive a holiday bonus. And we did. That bonus was $15. To put that in perspective, my roommate at the time, a college friend who worked at Deutsche Bank, also received a bonus. His was $25,000.
So despite having once worn a nightgown to the office (in my defence, I was 22 and also semi-convinced that it was actually a dress), my experience has never really aligned with a series like The Bold Type. Friends in publishing report fewer Michelin-starred lunches and less Gucci worn to casual meetings than Younger affords for Sutton Foster and her co-stars.
But that’s largely why I love these shows. They neatly elide the drudgery, crippling salaries and soul destruction of early career media in favour of plot points surrounding Miu Miu shoes. Crises loom and then neatly resolve, usually in time for the finale.
“Sometimes we ignore the realities so that we can live in the fun and the aspiration,” said Wendy Straker Hauser, the showrunner of The Bold Type.
Yet Straker Hauser, who spent 10 years in print media, insisted that the show doesn’t diverge too far from the actual. “There’s also an interesting, accurate depiction of the grit and the glamour, just living in a fabulous place like New York City and having access to the clothes and the bags and the fashion and the crazy hours and the magic that comes out of that,” she said.
Still, she conceded that the show had heightened some facets of magazine work. In her previous career, she never dressed like the women on the show. “I’ve never gone in with a bare midriff,” she said.
But one of the show’s more fanciful elements, the access that the women have to Scarlet’s fashion closet, is absolutely based on fact. “You were constantly dressing up, knowing that this was the only time you would ever wear this skirt, because it had to be back in the closet at 8 am tomorrow morning,” Coles said.
Darren Star, who created Younger, admitted that the characters’ wardrobes might stretch the means of the average publishing salary. Or not. “They may be very smart shoppers,” he said, “a lot of Century 21.” It doesn’t really matter.
“I don’t think the audience is watching this show so they can see Sutton Foster dressing drably,” he said. “That really is just entertainment.”
He suggested that the show had perhaps exaggerated the parties and the expense accounts at Empirical, the fictional publishing house on Younger. But the show also hired a consultant to ensure that the publishing-centered stories felt true.
“It was important to me that aside from how the characters dress, there’s some veracity to how business is conducted,” he said.
Over the years, Empirical became Millennial, which tussled with an offshoot called Mercury before finally becoming Empirical again. The industry machinations mostly served as a glass-walled backdrop for relationship dramas. Similarly, Scarlet finally contended with a switch to digital, though the change in formats never really faded the glamour. There were no big budget cuts, no mass layoffs. The champagne — or at least, some very upmarket prosecco — continued to flow. The $10 pressed juices, too.
If you work in print media or publishing, this might feel like a betrayal, or a sweet escapist dream. (Those in search of greater realism can always just binge the final, newspaper-set season of The Wire again. And cry and cry.) Though journalism and publishing had already become increasingly decentralised — and the life of a freelancer like me is pretty much a constant quarantine — this past year kept almost everyone out of most media offices. So a vision of buzzy, plush workplaces provides a jolt of pure pleasure. What this work often looks like now — remote, budget-crunched, mostly in pyjamas — doesn’t lend itself to soapy series television the way the magazines and publishing houses of past decades did.
That world, Coles recalled, was bright: “It was colourful. It was fun. It was aspirational. It was joyous. And that’s such fun to capture on TV and in film.”
She added: “I just think that we’re struggling with how to televisualise the next stage.”
One show has tried. Even as Younger and The Bold Type featured formal galas and endless glamour, another series offered a more representative portrayal of modern media careers. On Hulu’s Shrill, which premiered its third and final season earlier this month, Annie (Aidy Bryant) works at The Thorn, a Portland alternative weekly that serves as a loosely fictionalised version of Seattle’s The Stranger. A woman in her early 30s, she still lives with a roommate and her wardrobe seems sourced from thrift stores and ModCloth. Champagne is a rarity.
The Thorn lives from crisis to crisis — story lines about reduced hours and managerial shake-ups track with my own years at alternative weeklies. But it also invites an eclectic group of writers and artists to develop their own voices, and that tracks, too. The Thorn allows Annie to grow as an essayist, even as its own cultural footprint shrinks. In the final season, The Thorn is sold, rumour has it, to a news conglomerate called Neutral Source News.
“All their articles are medical fear clickbait,” a photographer says mid freak out. “Like, ‘99 Ways Sugar Is Child Cocaine.’” Sadly, that also tracks.
The coronavirus pandemic has been unusually devastating for alt-weeklies, with many now defunct. (The Stranger has survived, though, and the Voice, smaller and thinner, is bizarrely back.) So we probably won’t see many more shows set in even this dustier corner of the media landscape.
On a recent afternoon I spoke with Lindy West, the creator of Shrill, about bringing an alt-weekly to TV, and she reminisced about her time at The Stranger and the passionate, creative, weird people she found there. “I’ve achieved like, a million of my dreams,” she said. “My husband just said to me the other day, he was like, ‘I don’t think you’re happier than when you were at The Stranger.’ And that was with all the drama and the chaos.”
She wanted to instil that drama and chaos into Shrill. And The Thorn does feel surprisingly genuine, though even here, West admitted, some streaming-service glitter has intervened.
“It’s like 15 percent more stylish and less falling apart,” she said. “Real life is way more dark.”
Alexis Soloski c.2021 The New York Times Company
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The Producers Guild of India (PGI), the association of Indian film, television and digital content producers, on Monday announced a vaccination drive for its members and associated production crews beginning from 1 June.
According to a press release, the guild said the members will be vaccinated over the multi-day drive to be held at Mehboob Studios in suburban Bandra.
Siddharth Roy Kapur, president of the Producers Guild of India, said the initiative was key to getting the film industry back on its feet amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"An activity of such importance and magnitude cannot be carried out singlehandedly and we are extremely grateful for the support we have received to make this possible," Kapur said in a statement.
He also thanked production banner "Excel Entertainment who played a pivotal role in securing the vaccines and Mehboob Productions who very generously offered complimentary use of the spacious Mehboob Studios".
Here is the full statement
PRODUCERS GUILD OF INDIA ORGANISES VACCINATION CAMP FOR MEMBERS... Starting tomorrow [1 June 2021]... Read the OFFICIAL STATEMENT for details... pic.twitter.com/6kUPEujENG
"We are happy that we are able to provide this facility to our members, their employees and the cast and crew of their productions as we work to get the industry back on its feet again in the weeks ahead," Kapur added.
Earlier this month, Yash Raj Films wrote to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to allocate and allow them to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for 30,000 members of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE).
On 1 March, the central government launched the nationwide drive to vaccinate everyone above 60 years of age and those aged between 45 and 59 with co-morbidities.
Last month, the Maharashtra government announced its decision to provide vaccines to the people in the age group of 18 to 44 years.
The state government has also suspended all shootings in order to curb the spread of the infection in the state, amid the second wave of COVID-19. Currently, few TV shows and film shoots are happening outside Maharashtra.
According to the health department, Maharashtra on Sunday reported 18,600 new COVID-19 cases, which took the tally to 57,31 815, while the death of 402 patients pushed the number of fatalities to 94,844.
(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
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Oscar winner Emma Stone has denied that she is set to star in the upcoming film Spider-Man: No Way Home, fronted by Tom Holland.
The Marvel Studio and Sony Pictures project will be Holland's third outing as the web slinger, and there has been speculation that the film might see actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their previous renditions of the titular superhero.
Stone, who played Gwen Stacy in the 2012 film The Amazing Spider-Man and its 2014 sequel, was asked if she would feature in the Jon Watts directorial, which she denied.
"I have heard those rumours. I don't know if I''m supposed to say anything, but I'm not. I don''t know what you're supposed to respond as an alumnus," the Cruella star told MTV News.
Her comments come after Garfield also shut down claims of his own return to the film series, saying that fans should "chill" as he "ain't got a call".
On the big screen, Maguire had first played Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in filmmaker Sam Raimi's celebrated trilogy — Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).
He was later followed by Garfield, who starred as the superhero in two movies — The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).
Holland later took over the part and made his first appearance with Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, before going on to headline his stand-alone films.
It is rumoured that Alfred Molina will reprise his role of Doctor Octopus from Maguire's Spider-Man movies, as well as Jamie Foxx, who is said to be returning as Electro from Garfield's Spider-Man films.
Also starring Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, No Way Home is slated to be released in December.
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Investigators on Sunday continued searching for the bodies of seven people believed killed in the crash a day earlier of a small jet into a Tennessee lake, including an actor who portrayed Tarzan in a 1990s television series.
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Moviegoing increasingly looks like it didn’t die during the pandemic. It just went into hibernation.
John Krasinski’s thriller sequel A Quiet Place Part II opened over the Memorial Day weekend to a pandemic-best $48.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Including the Monday holiday, the studio forecasts the film will gross $58.5 million in North America. It added another $22 million in ticket sales overseas.
The film’s performance cheered a movie industry that has been punished and transformed by the pandemic. Paramount Pictures’ A Quiet Place Part II, which was on the cusp of opening in March 2021 before theatres shut, was the first big film this year — and one of the only larger budget COVID-era releases beside Christopher Nolan’s Tenet — to open exclusively in theatres.
Chris Aronson, distribution chief for Paramount, called the opening “an unqualified success.”
“It’s a huge sigh of relief and a sense of optimism for sure,” Aronson said. “Movies, moviegoing, movie theatres aren’t dead. Yes, they’ve been threatened but they’re proving once again that they’re resilient and that people do want to have that communal experience.”
Many studios have trotted out hybrid release plans during the pandemic, debuting films simultaneously in the home. The Walt Disney Co. did that this weekend with its live-action PG-13 Cruella De Vil prequel, Cruella, making it available to Disney+ subscribers for $30. In theatres, it grossed $21.3 million, Disney said, and an estimated $26.4 million over the four-day weekend. Cruella also added $16.1 million in 29 international territories. Disney didn’t say how much the film made on the company’s streaming platform.
A Quiet Place II will also turn to streaming after 45 days in theatres when it becomes available on Paramount+. One clear result of the pandemic is that the theatrical window has shrunk, probably permanently. Three months was once the customary length of a movie’s run in theatres. The year’s previous best debut belonged to Warner Bros.′ Godzilla vs. Kong, which opened with $32.2 million, or $48.5 million over its first five days, while simultaneously streaming on HBO Max.
The contrasting release strategies between A Quiet Place Part II and Cruella offered a test case for Hollywood. How much does a day-and-date release cost a movie like Cruella in ticket sales? Is it worth it? Without knowing how much Cruella benefitted Disney+, a true comparison isn’t possible. But the strong returns for the theatre-only A Quiet Place Part II are telling, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. He called it a “pivotal weekend” for the movie industry that proved predictions of the movie theatre’s demise “flat-out wrong.”
“That Quiet Place Part II did so well makes a strong case that a theatrical-first release for a big movie is the way to go,” Dergarabedian said. “This is the best possible news for an industry that’s been dealing with probably the most profoundly challenging chapter in the history of the movie theatre.”
The debut of A Quiet Place Part II was much watched throughout Hollywood as the kickoff to its delayed summer movie season. After largely sitting out the pandemic, or diverting to streaming platforms, a lineup of blockbusters are again queuing up. On tap are Warner Bros.′ In the Heights, Universals’ F9 and Disney’s Black Widow.
Last week, Universal Pictures’ ninth instalment in the Fast & Furious franchise, F9, opened with $162 million in ticket sales in eight international markets, and $135 million in China alone. In its second weekend, F9, which opens in North America on 25 June, raced toward $230 million worldwide.
A Quiet Place Part II had already had its red-carpet premiere in March last year and spent some of its marketing budget. But it opened remarkably in line with predictions of how many tickets it would sell before the onset of the pandemic. In the intervening months, Paramount sold off many of its films to streamers — Coming 2 America, The Trial of the Chicago 7 — but Krasinski and the studio felt strongly that the hushed intensity of A Quiet Place Part II worked best on the big screen.
In an interview ahead of the film’s release, Krasinski said a theatrical release was “non-negotiable.” And Krasinski worked hard to stoke excitement, travelling the country in the week leading up to release to surprise moviegoers. Still, given the circumstances, he had little idea whether audiences would come out.
“As bizarre as the entire year has been is how bizarre whatever opening weekend is,” Krasinski said. “I don’t really know what it is anymore.”
In the end, A Quiet Place Part II performed a lot like how the first one did. That 2018 hit, which ultimately grossed $340 million globally on a $17 million budget, launched with $50.2 million in North American ticket sales. Sequels usually do better than the original but Part II had far more challenges due to pandemic.
Rich Gelfond, chief executive of IMAX, where A Quiet Place Part II earned $4.1 million domestically, called the film “the first domestic release this year to cross the threshold from ‘great opening weekend given the pandemic’ to ‘great opening weekend, period.’”
Memorial Day weekend, usually one of the busiest for theatres still didn’t look like it normally does at the movies. Total box office exceeded $80 million but that’s about a third of the holiday weekend’s normal business. Last Memorial Day, when nearly all operating theatres were drive-ins, ticket sales amounted to $842,000, according to Comscore.
Many theatres, particularly in New York and Los Angeles, are still operating with social distancing measures. But guidelines are thawing. Last week, the nation’s top theatre chains — AMC, Regal, Cinemark — said they would no longer require vaccinated moviegoers to wear face masks.
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With great timing comes great responsibility. Based on JT Rogers’ award-winning play of the same name,Oslois a dramatic account of the secret back-channel peace negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. The Bartlett Sher-directed film – which chronicles the first face-to-face attempt between both sides, the building bricks of what was intended to be a permanent resolution to a generations-long conflict – comes in a year that has seen Gaza burn with renewed bloodshed. For several nations with no direct connection to the Middle East, Western news coverage has been the only legitimate window into the violence. And more notably, the politics behind the violence. But more on that later.
The stage-to-screen “peg” ofOsloconcerns not only the verbose nature of a script composed entirely of closed-door meetings but also the device that the two Nobel Peace Prize-winning leaders – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat – are never seen in the film.Osloinstead brings into focus the unheralded roles of Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul (Ruth Wilson) and her husband, sociologist and Fafo Foundation director TerjeRød-Larsen (hot priest-turned-hot-peace-broker Andrew Scott). The European couple supervise the deal with headmasterly precision, bringing to mind the underdog efforts of Tom Hanks’Bridge of Spiescharacter James Donovan: the unglamorous American lawyer who orchestrates the titular spy swap against the clock of history. While a Clinton-powered US government sponsors an official negotiation channel at a London hotel inOslo, Mona and Terje are unlikely parallel brokers spurred on by a near-fatal visit to Israel-occupied Gaza.
The odds they’re up against are outlined early. Arafat has sent PLO Finance Minister Ahmed Qurei (Salim Daw) and his hot-headed aide Hassan (Waleed Zuaiter), while Israel’s obsession with protocol leads to the assigning of a lowly economics professor (Dov Glickman) and his associate (Rotem Keinan). The couple’s task is not just limited to attracting the high-ranking politicians – the Norwegian government, too, is in the dark about the risky but potentially world-changing ‘heist’. I like the simplicity at the core of the premise, based on what Terje calls “intimate discussions between people, not grand statements by governments”. As a result, the film’s expository tone is bereft of the pompous self-importance and technicalities that tend to define such classified meetings. On the contrary, it holds the emotional clarity of a high-school debate that, unlike official conferences, can be entertaining as well as enlightening. There is plenty of passion and rage, male egos butting against one another, as well as disarming moments of behavioural humour. For instance, a certain Johnnie Walker acts as a social lubricant, and at one point, the serving of a special dessert immediately softens the flaring tempers in the room – evoking the sight of unruly children being soothed by the promise of their favourite toy. Hassan resists the ice-breaking and, during an alcohol-fuelled nostalgia fest, dismisses the concept of family as a “petty bourgeois construct”. When the volatile men agree on something, it feels strangely uplifting, and, as a viewer, one can’t help but root for them to impress one another. A gesture as basic as a handshake then becomes a romantic release.
Given thatOslois adapted from a celebrated Broadway play, it does well to update the visual language of a chamber drama. Early on, a melancholic score underlines the montage of Terje driving the guests from the airport across the picturesque Norwegian wilderness. The aesthetic isn’t random. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis barely allow themselves a glimpse of the serene countryside, almost as though the casual freedom of the environment might diminish – or mock – their respect and battle for land. There’s an optical arc to the meetings too. The first one does not show the men at work, choosing instead to reveal them outside the debate room at dinner and drinks. This familiarises the viewer with the humans behind the diplomats, before the second and third meetings flip the template and stay rooted inside the intense room. The title design of the film, too, is suggestive. The camera rises up from Terje walking through the snaking lanes of Jerusalem’s Old City to reveal an aerial view of the Al-Aqsa mosque – incidentally a centre of dispute today – with the word “Oslo” fading into the clear sky.
But despite its crafty control and performances, something aboutOslojust doesn’t sit right. The film, like its Norwegian protagonists, operates as a diplomat of its own accord. It strives to present an objective view of a traditional conflict – which sounds honourable on paper, especially considering the ‘outsider’ status of the Norwegians. However, subject to the dispute at hand, a neutral stance can often amount to choosing a side. Framing a film like this in isolation – where the circumstances of the PLO rebellion are rarely addressed under the pretext of mutual progress – belies the sense of humanity the story seems to see in its characters. It brings to mind another Steven Spielberg film,Munich, which was at best a prolonged portrait of Jewish guilt hidden beneath the slick exterior of an Israeli-retaliation thriller. Spielberg, a legendary Jewish artist himself, is incidentally one of the executive producers ofOslo. While Spielberg’s artistry has illuminated the right side of history through holocaust epics, his blinkered view of this particular conflict has less to do with his own cultural heritage than with the blatant Americanism driving his legacy.Oslobelieves it is empathetic and balanced (which is questionable enough), but its skewed scales are essentially a consequence of an inbuilt Hollywood gaze.
For example, the Palestinian diplomats appear as caricatures – nationalistic, sentimental, bumpkin-ish, comically stern men – not unlike the way Adolf Hitler is gloriously appropriated in Western movies. They seem to fit the idea of a people rather than be real people. The Israelis on the other hand are the more even-headed and “intellectual” of the lot, even while Uri Savir, the young Director General of Foreign Affairs, is presented as an eccentric Bond villain. Eventually, the film also veers towards the physical perspective of the Israelis. A night-long phone call from Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin’s study decides the fate of the peace treaty, though it can be argued that the camera is likely sticking to where the Norwegians are – in Oslo’s Royal Palace with a visiting Israeli contingent, and not in faraway Tunisia with an exiled Yasser Arafat. Still, it’s hard to escape the feeling that the Israeli word seems to be the final word on the Declaration of Principles document.
The Hollywood prism extends beyond the Middle Eastern slant. I have no problem with the factual accuracy of white saviours driving the plot, but it’s the storytelling that reeks of moral superiority. The central couple’s awakening is undeniably noble but also desperately white: Mona gets sepia-toned nightmares of their trip. The palette goes borderline-yellow and dusty – like a Michael Bay movie in South Asia or Miami – when Terje dines with the Israelis in Jerusalem. Not to mention one of the opening shots, which shows a yellow-coated Mona walking in a sea of black winter coats – a nod perhaps to Spielberg’s iconicSchindler’s Listimage of the red-coated little girl in an ocean of monochromatic darkness. Mona’s flashbacks, too, feature crossfire dotted by Palestinian flags and aggressions in the West Bank. Which brings me back to the international news coverage of the Middle East in 2021.Oslolooks like an unwitting product of the partisan reportage: the kind that subconsciously phrases Israeli action as Palestinian passiveness at the top of New York newspaper pages. There is irony to be found in the fact that the Americans are the invisible bullies of this movie – but its Western righteousness is omnipresent.
An early scene has Mona swearing her husband to utmost neutrality. She reminds him that they are simply mediators who cannot interfere, irrespective of their personal bend. When one of the participants demands to know what he should do after hitting a roadblock, Terje is instinctively about to advise him, before Mona shuts her husband up. The implication, of course, is that Terje nurses an opinion – a distinctly human trait that the American film pretends to eschew in favour of ‘equal footing’. We all know how that goes.
Rating: 2 (out of 5)
Oslo is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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