Coolie: Aamir Khan to shoot for Rajinikanth’s film in Jaipur? All we know

Rajinikanth will soon be seen in Coolie, which marks his first collaboration with Lokesh Kanagaraj. The film has created a great deal of buzz in the industry as it features the mass hero in the role of a don/gangster. Aamir Khan is said to be part of Coolie. However, this is yet to be confirmed. Now, the latest reports suggest that ‘Mr Perfectionist’ is set to shoot for Coolie in Jaipur. Aamir Khan set to shoot for Coolie?Aamir Khan is apparently set to make his Tamil debut with Coolie, which features Rajinikanth in the lead. According to Movie Scoop, a handle that tracks South cinema, the Bollywood star will be shooting for his role in the flick in Jaipur. The cast and crew have already arrived in the ‘Pink City’. [embedded content]While not much is known about Aamir’s role in the film, it is likely to be a cameo. Lokesh’s acclaimed 2022 blockbuster Vikram featured a strong cameo from Suriya, which left the audience asking for more. Given Aamir’s stature in the industry and Lokesh’s brand of storytelling, one can expect the Ishq star’s role to have a similar impact. About CoolieCoolie is an action-packed gangster drama that features Rajinikanth in the role of a don. It reportedly centres on gold smuggling and features several mass moments. Interestingly, unlike Leo and Vikram, it is not set in the Loki Cinematic Universe. It features Shruti Haasan, Sathyaraj, Upendra, and Nagarjuna in key roles. Coolie is expected to hit screens sometime in 2025. For Rajinikanth, it will be his first release after the actioner Vettaiyan, which opened to a good response at the box office this October. The film revolves around corruption in the education sector and carries a strong message. The film features Amitabh Bachchan, Fahadh Faasil, and Manju Warrier in the lead. Aamir Khan, on the other hand, is working on Sitaare Zameen Par. For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.

Revival: Scrofano, Weltman & Elliott Wrap Filming; Seeley Set Visit

Posted in: SYFY, TV | Tagged: mike norton, revival, tim seeleyMelanie Scrofano, Romy Weltman, and David James Elliott have wrapped filming on SYFY’s adaptation of Tim Seeley and Mike Norton’s Revival.Published Sat, 07 Dec 2024 19:37:07 -0600 by Ray Flook | Only a day after Revival co-creator Tim Seeley shared some looks from the set of SYFY’s upcoming adaptation of his and artist Mike Norton’s Image Comics series, we have some big news to pass along in terms of production on the Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp: Vengeance), Romy Weltman (Slasher), David James Elliott (JAG), Andy McQueen (Mrs. Davis), Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead, Snowpiercer), and CM Punk (STARZ’s Heels)-starring series. In addition to Seeley sharing more looks from his set visit, Scrofano, Weltman, and Elliott, all checked in on social media to let everyone know that they have wrapped filming on the first season.Image: REVIVAL – Image Comics (Tim Seeley & Mike Norton); SYFY
“That’s a wrap on Season 1 of #Revival! I can’t wait to start spamming my feed with this show. Until then I’m proud to say that among the many mysteries we solved on the show this season, none were as satisfying as the climax of this one. (See: ‘why was there a condom on my boot that time’),” Scrofano wrote as the caption to their Instagram post. “The cast and crew whose passion and perseverance kept this show going is inspiring and I feel so lucky to have spent this time with you.♥️💋👽🥶💀🫶👮‍♀️🧟🤱👯‍♀️👨‍👧‍👧.”

“That’s a Wrap for ‘Revival’- Thank you to an amazing cast and crew and an especially big thank you to my two TV daughters for bringing it with their enormous talent, professionalism, and kindness @melanie.scrofano.officiel @romyweltman!!” wrote Elliot in his post:

“wow. i got to learn from and work with the most inspiring people for 3 whole months 🖤 thank you to the entire cast and crew of REVIVAL. my heart is so full. ps. this is the only photo i have that won’t get me in trouble!” penned Weltman in their post:

And here’s a look at what else Seeley had to share from his visit to the set this week, including the incredibly cool move of signing Revival compendiums for the series adaptation’s cast and crew:

Scrofano’s Dana is “constantly having to prove her worth to a stubborn sheriff, who just so happens to be her father. And just when she is about to leave her small town for good, the events of Revival Day change that, instead sending her into her most important case to date.” Weltman’s Martha “Em” Cypress is the sheriff’s younger daughter who, “having led a very sheltered life due to a recurring illness, is still figuring out her place in the world. A world that, for her in particular, is now turned upside down.”
Elliott’s Wayne Cypress is the longtime Wausau sheriff who is “determined to keep his town and family as normal and safe as possible — a tall order when the dead return to life in the small town he’s sworn to protect.” McQueen’s Ibrahim Ramin is a scientist from the Center for Disease Control “who has been stationed in Wausau to study the bizarre phenomenon that brought people back to life.” “Raised by a fire-and-brimstone pastor,” Ogg’s Blaine Abel sees Revival Day as his divine calling and will use the fear and chaos within Wausau to build and rally a militia of true believers against the Revivers.” As for Punk’s character, no details were released at the time of the initial reporting.
Produced by Blue Ice Pictures and Hemmings Films, the upcoming SYFY series Revival was created by showrunners Aaron B. Koontz and Luke Boyce – who executive produce alongside Lance Samuels, Daniel Iron, Samantha Levine, Daniel March, and Greg Hemmings.
Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Pushpa 2 Box Office Collection Day 3: Allu Arjun And Rashmika Mandanna’s Film Becomes The Fastest Indian Movie To Cross Rs 500 Crore Mark (Globally)

A still from the film. New Delhi: Allu Arjun and Rashmika Mandanna‘s much-awaited film Pushpa 2 has made a smashing debut at the box office, breaking multiple records across the globe. Released on December 5, a non-holiday weekday, the movie has already amassed an astounding Rs 500 crore gross worldwide in just three days.  According…

The Sabarmati Report Box Office Collection (23 Days): Vikrant Massey’s Film Is A Losing Affair, Gets Severely Impacted By Pushpa 2 Storm

The Sabarmati Report Day 23 (Photo Credit – Facebook)
The Vikrant Massey starrer The Sabarmati Report witnessed a decent run at the box office, but it is a losing affair now. The movie still needs to recover its budget and is far from the safe zone. Let us look at its box office performance on the 23rd day.
The Sabarmati Report Box Office Day 23

The Vikrant Massey starrer’s day-wise collections have drastically reduced now and have gone below 1 crore. As the film is probably in the last leg of its theatrical run, it has 55 lakhs on its 23rd day. The total India net collection of the movie comes to 33.19 crore. At the same time, the gross collection comes to 39.16 crore. The film is most likely to wrap up under 40 crore. The Pushpa 2 storm has made it more difficult for the film to amp up its collection now.
The Sabarmati Report’s Failed Budget Recovery

The Vikrant Massey starrer will wrap up with a losing verdict since it has been unable to recover its budget. For the unversed, it has been mounted at a budget of 50 crores. With its current India net collection of 33.19 crore, the movie has managed to recover around 66% of its budget. With the day-wise collection of the movie being reduced and Pushpa 2 stealing away all the footfalls, the movie will not be able to recover its budget now. However, despite this, the film did enjoy a little acclaim. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also watched the movie along with his cabinet ministers. He furthermore took to his social media handle to praise the film.

About The Film
Apart from Vikrant Massey, The Sabarmati Report also stars Raashi Khanna and Ridhi Dogra. It has been directed by Dheeraj Sarna. The movie is based on the gruesome death of 59 devotees after the burning of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra in February 2002.
Note: Box office numbers are based on estimates and various sources. Numbers have not been independently verified by Koimoi.
Stay tuned to Koimoi for more box office updates!
Must Read: Kal Ho Naa Ho Re-Release Box Office (17 Days): Needs Just 56 Lakh To Surpass Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’s Re-Run
Follow Us: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Youtube | Google News

The best books to give as gifts this Christmas

View image in fullscreenColm TóibínAuthor of the award-winning Brooklyn (Penguin) and Long Island (Picador)Colin Barrett’s Wild Houses (Jonathan Cape) and Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 (Chatto & Windus) would add excitement to anyone’s Christmas. They write stylishly, these two blokes; they offer a passionate engagement with the material. Barrett’s story is fiction; Flanagan’s book is an investigation of who he became and how. Me? Please give me Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud (Pan Macmillan) by his daughter, the novelist Rose Boyt. It has a brilliant first sentence: “Nothing had been discussed, I just presumed I would be naked.” And what follows is an intriguing story, like something from a complex modern folktale – a daughter refinding her father.Samantha HarveyAuthor of Orbital, winner of this year’s Booker prizeI’d like to give Evie Wyld’s The Echoes (Jonathan Cape) as a present. There is no better storyteller writing fiction in Britain today. The Echoes is everything you’d hope an Evie Wyld novel to be: humane, ambitious, innovating, captivating, funny, clever with never, ever a hint of pretension. In my stocking I’d like to find A Ballet of Lepers (Canongate) by Leonard Cohen. I’m a diehard Cohen fan, can’t help it; I might regret reading these early works, which will surely have dated, but to sneak a look at his young mind, the root system of what followed, is irresistible.Rachel ClarkeDoctor and author of Dear Life, Breathtaking and The Story of a Heart (Abacus)I’ll be gifting Raising Hare (Canongate), the tale of a Westminster hotshot floored by a leveret. When foreign policy adviser Chloe Dalton encounters the abandoned baby hare during lockdown, the improbable bond between them is so precisely drawn, I felt I could see the world through hare eyes – just beautiful. Second, I know how Sally Rooney divides critics – wildly successful young women tend to do so – but I defy anyone not to be moved by her stunning depiction of grief in Intermezzo (Faber). Loneliness, buried pain, our longing to be understood – it’s all here, unforgettably. I’m hoping to receive Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc (Allen Lane) – essential reading after the grim US presidential election results.Jonathan CoeAward-winning author of 16 novels, including What a Carve Up!, Mr Wilder and Me and The Proof of My Innocence (Viking)For anyone who wants their faith restoring in British fiction, my Christmas present would probably be Tell (Fitzcarraldo) by Jonathan Buckley. Buckley has been pursuing his own quiet path for many years now, and this novel, an intriguing art world mystery told in the form of interview transcripts, is typically innovative and unsettling. For myself, I hope someone buys me There and Back (W&N), Michael Palin’s fourth volume of diaries. True, this evolving series is the ultimate comfort read, but it’s also much more than that: a social history of Britain spanning four decades, told with unflagging empathy and wit.Anne MichaelsCanadian poet and novelist whose books include Fugitive Pieces and this year’s Booker prize-nominated Held (Bloomsbury)In these agonising times of opinion displacing deep thought in public conversation, my gift book suggestion is a quiet antidote to despair: Over to You: Letters Between a Father and Son (Pantheon Books) by Yves Berger and the late John Berger. Even a single page brings the sanity of listening, looking, and a compassion that asks rather than answers. The love between father and son is a form of shelter in itself. Another book to gift is Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac (Pushkin), for its hard look at what we’ve so willingly surrendered to our machines. And the book I would like to receive is Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death by Susana Monsó (Princeton University Press), because I’ve been investigating mortality and consciousness for decades and I look forward to the Spanish philosopher’s perspective.Andrew O’HaganScottish novelist and nonfiction author whose books include Mayflies and Caledonian Road (Faber)Michael Longley thinks like no one else, and the resulting poems replenish your senses and bring you home to yourself. This year’s Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape) is a book I will give to people I love, sure in the belief that the Longleyesque is now a beautiful mountain range, showing nature’s peaks and shadows, as well as our own. Another great highlight this year was the novel Munichs (Faber) by David Peace, a brilliantly written tale of the Manchester air disaster and the story of a lost Britain. I’m hoping someone sneaks into my stocking a copy of Sally Mann’s book Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs (Penguin), which asks in a new way how personal history becomes art.Kit de WaalNovelist and nonfiction writer whose books include My Name Is Leon (Penguin) and the memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes (Tinder)Colin Barrett’s expert skills in describing big events in small-town Ireland is brilliantly on show in Wild Houses (Jonathan Cape). I just adored it and I’m desperate to spread the love. The second book I’d give is James (Mantle) by Percival Everett, such a brilliant retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved Jim, resisting and rebelling against underestimation and oppression. A wise and profound book – and funny too. I would like to receive Yotam Ottolenghi’s Comfort (Ebury). I’ve got all his other cookery books which I read like novels, sitting up in bed, trying not to drool. Beautifully photographed and brilliant, simple recipes that make you look like you know what you’re doing.View image in fullscreenSalman RushdieAward-winning novelist and nonfiction writer whose latest book is the memoir, Knife (Vintage)My favourite novel this year was James (Mantle) by Percival Everett. By giving the runaway Jim from Huckleberry Finn his own voice (or voices) and his dignity – James, not Jim – he adds a dimension that’s missing from the original, and, I think, improves on it. I loved and admired Hanif Kureishi’s memoir Shattered (Hamish Hamilton), in which he brilliantly faces a physical catastrophe with honesty, courage, and his characteristic dark humour. And if I find this year’s Booker winner, Orbital (Vintage), by Samantha Harvey in my stocking I’ll be very pleased. I’m obsessed by space travel myself, and this is a writer I don’t know and I should clearly change that.Sara CollinsAuthor of The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Penguin) and one of this year’s Booker prize judgesThe book I am going to gift this year is You Are Here (Hodder & Stoughton) by David Nicholls, a love story between two people who have given up on love. It tackles existential questions through a thrillingly intimate lens. To balance that out with some nonfiction, I’ll also be wrapping several copies of Question 7 (Chatto & Windus), Richard Flanagan’s masterpiece of a memoir that stitches together a collage of such astonishing, agonising links and associations I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Meanwhile the book on the top of my own wish list is The Land inWinter (Hodder & Stoughton) by Andrew Miller, because it’s worth reading anything he writes.Tessa HadleyAuthor of Late in the Day, Free Love and The Party (Jonathan Cape)I’ll give my daughter-in-law Colm Tóibín’s Long Island (Picador), which is that rare thing, a sequel that works as well as its original. Eilis from Brooklyn is thoroughly grown-up now. She’s such a living creation: distinctive, guarded, forceful, watchful. I’ve already given my brother Shannon Vallor’s lucid and fascinating The AI Mirror (OUP USA), debunking the tech bro hype, alerting us to those mundane aspects of the digital future we really ought to be afraid of. What I want for myself is Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings (Picador); I listened to him read an extract on a podcast and loved every delicate, funny, exact word.Mick HerronAuthor of the Slough House thrillers, adapted for television as Slow HorsesNick Harkaway’s dive into his late father’s world in Karla’s Choice (Viking) is the perfect gift for spook-loving readers: George Smiley is back and all is awry with the world, as murky doings on the streets of Primrose Hill reverberate through the Circus’s secret corridors. Harkaway’s triumph lies in pulling off the neat trick of being faithful to the original vision without producing a retread of familiar tropes. As for my own stocking, Jonathan Coe has a new novel out, which is always a cause for celebration. The Proof of My Innocence (Viking), it’s called. Santa has been informed.Clare ChambersAuthor of 10 novels including Small Pleasures and Shy Creatures (W&N)To the bookish and non-bookish alike, I’ll be giving Simon Mason’s The Case of the Lonely Accountant (Riverrun), a short, ingeniously plotted missing-person mystery with a provincial English setting and an appealing atmosphere of Maigret-ish melancholy. If I’m feeling generous I’ll also throw in Charlotte Wood’s quietly commanding Stone Yard Devotional (Sceptre), about a woman in the grip of a personal crisis who takes refuge in a community of nuns in outback Australia. Profound reflections on guilt, memory and forgiveness ensue. Loved ones: my mood on Boxing Day will very much depend on whether someone has bought me Our Evenings (Picdor) by Alan Hollinghurst.Kevin BarryAuthor of the novels Beatlebone, Night Boat to Tangier and The Heart in Winter (Canongate)The driving rhythms and propulsive narrative force of David Peace’s novels are among the glories of contemporary fiction and Munichs (Faber), his telling of the 1958 Manchester United air disaster, has been a book worth waiting for. An obsessive, hard-won narrative, emotional but coolly rendered, it’s as good as anything he’s written. In Cathy Sweeney’s Breakdown (W&N), a woman walks out of her house in the Dublin suburbs and into the world and tries to throw off the shackles of her life. A brilliantly controlled novel – this is a writer with great talent and a use for it. A worthy companion read to Miranda July’s terrific All Fours (Canongate). For my own stocking, I’ve been berated long enough for my abject ignorance in never having read Janet Frame, so it’s time to start with The Edge of the Alphabet (Fitzcarraldo).Taffy Brodesser-AknerAmerican author of Fleishman Is in Trouble and Long Island Compromise (Wildfire)Maybe it’s the election — perhaps you heard we had one in the US — but the only thing that consumes my thinking lately is making sense of the world. And this wild, deranged country I live in only made partial sense to me before I read Wright Thompson’s new book, The Barn (Hutchinson Heinemann), about the barn in Mississippi where Emmett Till was murdered. Wright (who is a friend of mine) argues that Till’s murder is the sin America can’t get past, and the honest conversation we can’t have. Help Wanted (Serpent’s Tail), Adelle Waldman’s second novel, held me from its first page. Through the trials of the employees of a discount department store, Waldman is able to hold in her hands every nuance of working life and gently transmit, through narrative tension and beautifully rendered heartbreak, the exact way that capitalism turned on the very lives it was there to boost and instead corroded. For myself, I read a Guardian review of The Unfinished Harauld Hughes (Faber) by Richard Ayoade. Just the description made me shriek with delight. I cannot wait to read it.Caroline LucasFormer leader of the Green party and the author of Another England (Hutchinson Heinemann)Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance (Allen Lane) is the perfect Christmas gift – a beautiful meditation on abundance, reciprocity and community, drawing inspiration from indigenous wisdom, and inviting us to reimagine what we value most. Few writers capture the beauty and pathos of everyday lives as well as Elizabeth Strout, so I’ll also be wrapping up her latest in the Lucy Barton series, Tell Me Everything (Viking) – an elegy to lost possibilities and the redeeming power of love. And in my own stocking I’d love to find Elif Shafak’s There Are Rivers in the Sky (Viking) – it looks like a glorious feast of novel, from one of the world’s most exhilarating storytellers.Nick HarkawayAuthor of Karla’s Choice (Viking), a new story about the spymaster George Smiley, created by his late father, John le CarréThe first book I will be gifting is Solvable (University of Chicago Press) by Prof Susan Solomon: an uplifting reminder – from someone who knows how to do it – that we can beat the climate crisis. As the 1.5C limit increasingly looks like yesterday’s lost hope, tomorrow can still be saved. Meanwhile, Attica Locke has produced another must-have, the dazzling Guide Me Home (Profile) – compelling detective fiction with plenty to say about Trump’s America. And Santa: I’d like The Saint of Bright Doors (St Martin’s Press) by Vajra Chandrasekera. “Divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life.” Sold: one coral reef of the mind, please.View image in fullscreenOlivia LaingWriter, novelist and cultural critic. Her latest book is The Garden Against Time (Picador)This year saw the publication of a stunning new edition of Peter Hujar’s 1976 cult classic Portraits in Life and Death (WW Norton), which combines photographs from the Palermo catacombs with images of Hujar’s own New York demi-monde, including William Burroughs, Fran Lebowitz and John Waters. No one took photographs like Hujar. Sensuous and sensitive, this is a real masterwork. Clair Wills’s family memoir Missing Persons (Penguin) was fascinating on exile and how history plays out through the generations. It made me think completely differently about the diaspora and what being Irish really means. As for my stocking: Ali Smith’s Gliff (Hamish Hamilton), please.Rumaan AlamAuthor of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement (Bloomsbury)A novel I loved this year (one I am confident many people on my Christmas list will also feel strongly about) is Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings (Picador), an engrossing book about art, sex, family, friendship – life itself, in short. A very different but no less thrilling gift is Julia Phillips’s Bear (W&N), a realist story with a twist of magic, a beguiling companion for those last quiet days of the year. My own stocking will be easy to fill this season, as two of my very favourite writers have new novels out: Louise Erdrich (The Mighty Red, Corsair) and Richard Powers (Playground, Hutchinson Heinemann).Lola YoungCrossbench peer and author of the memoir Eight Weeks (Fig Tree)The book I most want to give is The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them (Hamish Hamilton) by Ekow Eshun. It’s one for the intellectually curious. Eshun mixes biography and imagination to craft essays based on the lives of five Black men from history. Interspersed with thoughts about Eshun’s own experiences as a Black man, the stories cross generations, and form part of a wider narrative about race, culture and historical amnesia. Then there’s Death at the Sign of the Rook (Doubleday) by Kate Atkinson. Trust Atkinson to inject new life into the “murder mystery weekend” setting. Her humour and the presence of Jackson Brodie mean that the cliches of the genre are regularly and wittily subverted. The book I’d like to receive is Butter (4th Estate) – a cult thriller from Japan and based on actual events – by Asako Yuzuki. Translated by Polly Barton, it tells the story of a woman who commits a series of murders, but with recipes threaded throughout the narrative. Intriguing.Elif ShafakNovelist whose most recent book is There Are Rivers in the Sky (Viking)I loved reading Kaveh Akbar’s fabulous novel, Marytr! (Pan Macmillan). It is playful, soulful, kaledeiscopic, honest and profoundly moving. It is also wholly original, and the writing is brilliant, full of chutzpah and heart. Another book that I’d love to put inside everyone’s Christmas stocking is Shattered (Hamish Hamilton) by Hanif Kureishi. It is an incredible and wise and unflinching meditation on both the vulnerability and the resilience of being human. I think when you read it, it will transform the way you connect with life – and love. The book I would like to find in my own stocking is We Will Not Be Saved: A Memoir of Hope and Resistance in the Amazon Forest (Headline) by Nemonte Nenquimo. Born into the Waorani tribe in the Amazon rainforest, Nenquimo has dedicated her life to defending indigenous cultures and biodiversity. She is astonishing, and I find her voice deeply important not only for climate change activism and awareness, or for eco-feminism, but also for anyone who cares about ancestral heritage, the complexity of history and the stories of the silenced.View image in fullscreenMichael PalinActor, comedian, writer and broadcaster. His latest book is Great Uncle Harry (Penguin)I’d give Simon Barnes’s How to Be a Bad Botanist (Simon & Schuster) to anyone interested in what we take for granted, the plants around us. He writes as an everyman, not an expert, which makes the book accessible and appealing. I know plenty of people who love Russia and hate what Putin’s doing to it, and I’d send them BBC foreign correspondent Sarah Rainsford’s Goodbye to Russia (Bloomsbury), her eloquent elegy to a country she knew so well. I’ve become a a bit obsessed with another country that turned bad and I’d be very grateful to anyone who gave me Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany (WH Allen) by Harald Jähner.Irenosen OkojieAuthor of Nudibranch and Curandera (Dialogue)I’ll be giving Tommy Orange’s tremendous Wandering Stars (Harvill Secker) as presents. It’s unforgettable, often devastating, exploring generations of a Cheyenne community. I love its kaleidoscopic sensibility, its big heart, anger and audaciousness. Another must is wrapping up copies of Laura Fish’s Lying Perfectly Still (Fly on the Wall Press). Fish sadly died this year but this complex study of an aid worker returning to South Africa is a wonderful reflection of her gifts. If Santa’s listening, Yael Inokai’s ASimple Intervention (Peirene Press) will be in my stocking. It’s a fascinating mix of social commentary and personal repercussions from an exciting talent.Tash AwMalaysian-born author of The Harmony Silk Factory and Five Star Billionaire (4th Estate)Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings (Picador) guarantees sheer reading joy – a tender and sometimes angry portrait of Britain over the past half-century, totally immersive but so intimate that you will barely notice its quasi-epic scale. Fitzcarraldo’s English translation (by Frank Wynne) of Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s The Son of Man – about dysfunctional parent-child relationships – would be good for anyone sheltering from family squabbles. I’m living in Berlin this year, in Christopher Isherwood’s neighbourhood, so Katherine Bucknell’s majestic biography of him, Inside Out (Chatto & Windus), would be a most welcome gift.Yuan YangLabour MP for Earley and Woodley and the author of Private Revolutions (Bloomsbury Circus)Josephine Quinn’s How the World Made the West (Bloomsbury) would be the perfect gift for my mother, who has long been fascinated by the meeting of eastern and western ancient civilisations. This book traces and blurs the boundaries of the two. For my brother, I’d give Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back (Bodley Head) by my fellow Labour MP, Torsten Bell. Like me, my brother studied economics, and I think this book would spark some brilliant dinner-table discussions. For myself, it’s David McWilliams’s Money: A Story of Humanity (Simon & Schuster). I already have several books on the history of money – but none written by the founder of an economics and comedy festival.William DalrympleAward-winning historian whose books include The Last Mughal, Return of a King, The Anarchy and The Golden Road (Bloomsbury)I’ll be gifting The House Divided (Profile) by Barnaby Rogerson, which traces how the great 16th-century confrontation between the Ottomans of Turkey and the Safavids of Iran cemented what had previously been a much more porous division. Rogerson is an eloquent and always fascinating guide to one of the crucial turning points of Persian history: few British authors understand the Middle East so intimately and well. Antony Loewenstein is one of the most fearless voices writing on how Israel subjugates the Palestinians. The Palestine Laboratory (Verso) is an essential gift for anyone wishing to understand the horrific story of how Israel has built an entire tech economy on the spyware, drones and gruesome hardware that makes it possible for 7 million Israelis to keep 5.5 million Palestinians suspended in stateless serfdom. The book should be read alongside two important photographic books documenting Palestinian life: Ten Days in Gaza (Hood Hood Books) and Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba (Haymarket). Both represent important acts of remembering of a world now utterly destroyed, making these images even more poignant now than they were when they were first taken. Finally​, I’d like to receive a copy of Disrupted City (The New Press), Manan Ahmed Asif’s learned and lyrical elegy for the great city of Lahore: a book that is both nostalgic and scholarly, written by one of the most outstanding historian-flaneurs of South Asia.Kaliane BradleyAuthor of The Ministry of Time (Hodder & Stoughton)I’d like to press a copy of Private Rites (4th Estate) by Julia Armfield into everyone’s hands. For frighteningly (and hilariously) plausible depictions of late capitalist life under total climate breakdown, it can’t be beaten; and its profundity and honesty in realising the emotional worlds of its characters needs more words than I have here to describe. For myself, anything from Marie-Helene Bertino’s backlist; I read Beautyland (Picador) this year and was rapt. Bertino’s weightless, joyful prose style nevertheless freights huge emotion. As much about acceptance and community as it is about yearning and divergency, it’s a wonderful novel about making a life on Earth.Attica LockeAmerican writer whose books include Black Water Rising, Bluebird, Bluebird and Guide Me Home (Viper)James (Mantle) by Percival Everett is more than a retelling of a classic; it is a reclamation, somehow both a homage and a rebuke – a retelling that centres a man we only previously accessed through the lens of a child. Everett’s is a wry, wise, funny and touching book that I would gift to strangers on the street if I could. So too In My Time of Dying (4th Estate) by Sebastian Junger, a journalist’s chronicling of his own near-death experience. Rather than harrowing, the book is deeply life-affirming as it ponders life’s big questions: Why are we here? And where are we going when we die? The writing is sharp, humble and quietly powerful. I can’t express how much peace this book brought me. I would like All Fours (Canongate) by Miranda July in my stocking. It has been all the rage among women of a certain age, recommended to me no less than five times. I’ve heard it’s about menopause and wild sex. “Say less,” as the kids say. I’m in.Ferdia LennonAuthor of Glorious Exploits (Fig Tree), winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fictionKevin Barry’s The Heart in Winter (Canongate) is a book I plan on placing in several Christmas stockings. It’s a love story and a western that has echoes of Deadwood yet always remains quintessentially a Barry novel and, as such, is brilliant. For my own stocking, I’d love to find Al Pacino’s autobiography Sonny Boy (Century). Growing up, I was a little obsessed with Pacino films, especially those from the 1970s. Godfather I and II, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon are just some of my absolute favourites, and I can’t wait to dig into the story of the man himself in his own words.Laurent BinetFrench writer and academic whose books include HHhH and Perspective(s), out in the UK in February (Harvill Secker)Under the Christmas tree, I wish to find Lev Grossman’s novel, The Bright Sword (Penguin). Partly because I recently enjoyed watching with my nine-year-old son a French medieval fantasy comedy TV series called Kaamelott, which is based on the Arthurian legends. Also, because I have always liked modern-day sequels to epic literature – I am thinking myself about writing one some day – and Grossman’s book sounds superb. Speaking of swords and blades, I’d like to give to those around me as a present Salman Rushdie’s latest book, Knife (Jonathan Cape), because what has been happening to him since 1989 is still a scandal whose magnitude has never been sufficiently measured.Sophie ElmhirstAuthor of Maurice and Maralyn (Chatto & Windus)I’ll give Toy Fights (Faber) by Don Paterson, surely the funniest memoir ever written, and Stone Yard Devotional (Hodder & Stoughton) by Charlotte Wood, which is a beautiful, questioning novel, with ideally gruesome parts (nothing says Christmas like a plague of mice). And I’d like to be given V13 (Fern Press) by Emmanuel Carrère, please.Tommy OrangeAmerican author of There There and Wandering Stars (Harvill Secker)Colored Television (Dialogue) by Danzy Senna is the book I will be gifting to people, not only because the book itself is a gift, but because anyone who loves reading will love this book. I read it in one sitting. There is no one else who writes like Senna. In all her books she tackles so many different subjects, all the while telling a story with characters so real and compelling you never think about how many ideas are being developed, and discussed, only that you want to find out what happens next, and how the ideas and the characters and the story will coalesce, all the way up until the last page, when you won’t want it to have to end. For myself, Mother (Penguin) by MS Redcherries is the book I would want to be given. It is written by someone from my tribe [the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma] and I will never get enough of my people writing about my kind of people. This is an incredibly powerful book of poetry that is also fiction but it is so real, and singular, as to defy definition, and I defy anyone to read it and come away unchanged.Gillian AndersonActor and the author of Want: Sexual Fantasies (Bloomsbury) by AnonymousI loved Dr Jen Gunter’s Blood: The Science, Medicine and Mythology of Menstruation (Piatkus), a powerful nonfiction “period piece”, which aspires to give power back to women through education. Too often, a woman’s period is viewed as her own personal curse. The effects of periods are either ignored or resoundly mocked. This title sets the challenge for another look. A book for me under the tree? I have already ordered the 2024 Booker prize winner – Orbital (Jonathan Cape) by Samantha Harvey, about astronauts exploring the furthest reaches of space – for my own stocking.Stephen FryActor, broadcaster and writer. His latest novel is Odyssey (Michael Joseph), the final part of his Greek myths seriesThe first book I’d give is Roger Lewis’s Erotic Vagrancy (Quercus) – the story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s amour fou. It’s huge and compendious but so stunningly well-written and filled with such eye-popping and extraordinary details, accompanied by such penetrating and hilarious asides… well, I’ve taken longer to read some novellas. The second is The Wide Wide Sea (Michael Joseph) by Hampton Sides. It’s the story of Captain Cook’s third voyage. Extraordinarily compulsive and fascinating on every page, it combines the satisfaction of a Patrick O’Brian or CS Forester maritime blockbuster with the insights and revelations of a true historian. I felt it somehow told me more about the making of the modern world than any book I had read for ages. And this year’s Booker winner Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (Jonathan Cape) has been recommended to me on too many sides for me to doubt that it would be a very welcome neighbour to the tangerine in my stocking.

To browse all of the Observer’s best books of 2024 go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Coup film 12.12: The Day tops Netflix after South Korea martial law chaos

SEOUL – For many South Koreans, last week’s dramatic events were their first real-life brush with the nation’s history of military dictatorship.
That is why millions turned to a year-old movie on Netflix and a literary classic to try and make sense of the turmoil.
The film 12.12: The Day, which debuted in 2023 to 13 million moviegoers, has been the number one South Korean film on the streaming platform since Dec 3, when President Yoon Suk Yeol stunned the nation by imposing martial law.

The 141-minute blockbuster, which has been on Netflix since May, depicts the events surrounding the Dec 12 coup in 1979.
The Asian country is still dealing with the aftermath of Mr Yoon’s decision on the evening of Dec 3, which reignited memories of the movement led by General Chun Doo-hwan that created a dictatorship and culminated in the bloody Gwangju Uprising of 1980. South Korean actor Hwang Jung-min played General Chun in 12.12: The Day.
The movie, along with a 2014 book on the subject by 2024’s Nobel Prize Literature winner Han Kang, introduced an entire generation to the darker aspects of the nation’s history and is credited with helping galvanise South Koreans on the night of Dec 3.

Hundreds poured out onto Seoul’s streets after Mr Yoon’s actions, braving bitterly cold conditions. The president backtracked within hours.

Han’s win in October catapulted her Human Acts – which explores how censorship and violence upended whole communities – back onto bestseller lists.
On Dec 6, the 54-year-old said she was shocked to see that martial law happened again four decades later. 
“Like everyone else on that night, I was deeply shocked,” Han said during a press conference at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. “It is my wish that violence and coercion will not take place to suppress the press. We should not go back to the past when the press was oppressed by the government.”  
As with the movie, the novel has since dominated trending topics on domestic social media. Since Dec 3, both have become memes on the internet, invoked by users to dissect Mr Yoon’s shock move and the implications for the country.
“Are we living through Spring Of Seoul in real life?” one X user said, referring to the Korean title of 12.12: The Day.
“Thank goodness, we haven’t forgotten this history,” another user said, urging people to revisit the film.
Many in South Korea are now calling for Mr Yoon to be held accountable.
The leader of South Korea’s ruling People Power Party said on Dec 8 that the party will prepare an orderly exit plan for Mr Yoon after he survived an impeachment motion on Dec 7. BLOOMBERG

Judy Garland’s Ruby Slippers become ‘most valuable’ film memorabilia ever after selling for $32.5m

A pair of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers have sold for $32.5 million.The late actress wore the famous red shoes when she played Dorothy Gale in the 1939 classic ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and one of the surviving pairs fetched more than 10 times their $3m estimate at auction on Saturday (07.12.24), meaning that they are now the “most valuable” piece of film memorabilia in history.Robert Wilonsky, Vice President for Public Relations at the Heritage Auction, said in a statement: “At $32.5 million, the slippers are the most valuable cinema treasures in the world, and they helped make this the most successful entertainment auction ever held.”The legendary film star – who died in June 1969 at the age of 47 – wore numerous pairs during filming, and four are known to have survived.The pair in question were sold to collector Michael Shaw by Kent Warner in 1970, and they were stolen whilst on loan to the Judy Garland Museum in Minnesota in 2005.They resurfaced in 2018 amid an FBI investigation, and have recently been on a world tour with the auction house along with other iconic film props such as the Wicked Witch of the West’s pointed hat and a Golden Ticket from ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’.It is thought that the newly-auctioned shoes could have been used in the famous numbers down the Yellow Brick Road, as they have orange felt on the soles which muffled the sound of dancing on the plywood set.Several pairs of ruby slippers were discovered in storage by late costume designer Warner on the MGM lot in early 1970, whilst another pair was owned by late Tennessee homemaker Roberta Bauman, who won them in a competition at the time of the film’s release and later sold them to Anthony Landini for $165,000 in 1988.That pair was on display at The Great Movie Ride in Walt Disney World, Florida for a number of years but was then purchased by Elkouby and Co in 2000 for $666,000, although they have never displayed them publicly.The Academy of Museum Arts and Sciences acquired a pair in 2012 in a sale orgnaised by ‘Titanic’ star Leonardo DiCaprio, whilst another pair is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.CA fifth pair – which was only used during test shots before filming commenced – was owned by late actress Debbie Reynolds, and they were sold for $510,000 in 2011.The next valuable item of Hollywood memorabilia is thought to be Marilyn Monroe’s white dress from ‘The Seven Year Itch’, which was sold at auction in 2011 for just over $6 million.

Daniel Craig felt ‘exhausted’ by Bond films

Daniel Craig felt emotionally “exhausted” after shooting each of his James Bond movies.The 56-year-old actor starred in five Bond films between 2006 and 2021, and Daniel admits that the money-spinning movies took a physical and emotional toll on him.He told The Sunday Times newspaper: “Early on with Bond I thought I had to do other work, but I didn’t. I was becoming a star, whatever that means, and people wanted me in their films. Incredible.”Most actors are out of work for large chunks so you take your job offers – but they left me empty. Then, bottom line, I got paid.”I was so exhausted at the end of a Bond it would take me six months to recover emotionally. I always had the attitude that life must come first and, when work came first for a while, it strung me out.”Daniel remains very fond of the Bond franchise, and he’s curious to see where producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson decide to take it.He shared: “Of course I care!”I keep saying I don’t, because people ask me all the time and I’m an ornery, grumpy old man, so I say I don’t give a s***. But I care about it deeply – deeply. I care what the franchise does, because I love Barbara and Michael. But it’s not my decision or problem. I wish them luck.”Daniel trained at the National Youth Theatre in London and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991. But the acclaimed actor fears for aspiring actors in the UK in 2024.He explained: “My family didn’t have any money. My mother was a teacher. It was pitiful the wage she was on. I don’t look at my upbringing as harsh – just normal. But I went to drama school on a full ride. That doesn’t exist any more. Who can afford to go to drama school now?”

Reflecting on the wonder of Christmas: New book by local author helps readers recapture season’s spiritual gifts

If there’s any time of the year that brings the word “wonder” to mind, it’s Christmas.That “feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar or inexplicable” as Oxford Languages describes it, seems to come to life with the awesomeness of the season.Bringing a tree inside, hanging lights outside, buying gifts, cooking and cleaning, being with family, seeing familiar faces at church services and feeling the excitement through the eyes of children can boost spirits and anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen.But as the Rev. John Goodale, caring ministry pastor at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Colorado Springs, knows, it’s easy for adults to lose the joyfulness of the holiday that marks the birth of the Christian Savior, Jesus Christ.“So often in December it feels like the pace ramps up and there’s more to add to our calendar — social activities, family visits,” he said. “It feels like I’m ready to celebrate Christmas when it’s all over.”Amid the chaos that can quickly mount, adults often forget to pause and be intentional about preparing spiritually for the meaning of the celebration, he said.Providing guidance to recapture that feeling from childhood is the purpose of the pastor’s second book, “Restoring the Wonder of Christmas,” which was published in October by Colorado Springs publisher Rhyolite Press.“There’s a built-in hope it will be a special moment, but with a full calendar we don’t get to celebrate the season as fully as we’d like,” Goodale said.The book gives a worldview of the Bible’s Nativity scenes in four personable and easy-to-read sections. Each offers a keyword for readers to contemplate and reflect on as they are challenged to view the story in a new light and apply its teachings to their lives.The perspectives of all the characters are there — Mary and Joseph, the innkeeper, the shepherds, the animals and, of course, Jesus.The journey begins with what constitutes “Wonder” and moves into “Respond,” including how a seemingly normal day for Mary, the mother of Jesus, required a response from her that changed the world forever. Goodale explores how being open to God’s presence and responding from the heart can affect positive change for everyone.

Sign Up for free: Peak Interest

Your weekly local update on arts, entertainment, and life in Colorado Springs! Delivered every Thursday to your inbox.

Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

#nsltr {
min-width: 100%;
margin: 10px 0;
padding: 10px 20px;
background-color: #0f69e9;

background-image: url(https://static.gazette.com/emails/circ/Audience%20Images/peak%20interest%20signup%202.png);
background-size: cover;

}

#nsltr-header {
color: #ffffff
}
#nsltr-body {
text-align: center;
color: #ffffff
}
#nsltr-button {
margin-top: 5px;
}
#successnsltr {
min-width: 100%;
margin: 10px 0;
padding: 10px 20px;
background-color: green;
text-align: center;
color: white;
}

#successnsltr a {
color: white;
}

.hideblock {
display:none;
}

h6 a {
color: black;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 5px;
background-color: #bbccdd;
font-weight: 600;
}

The 3 Best Bruce Willis Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

20th Century Studios

Bruce Willis, one of Hollywood’s finest, made wearing a vest during a hostage situation seem perfectly acceptable. Many of his most beloved roles saw him wielding a squint like Clint Eastwood and a level of sass that other actors just couldn’t deliver. But much like Willis himself, his top three rated films on Rotten Tomatoes are a surprising package that would certainly make for an interesting unofficial trilogy to watch over a weekend. That includes what RT has deemed the best of the bunch: a movie about a decidedly vexed New York City cop with no shoes and a partiality to Roy Rogers films.

Indeed, it should come as absolutely no shock that “Die Hard,” Willis’ breakout vehicle and a bullet-riddled pillar of the action movie genre, is the actor’s highest rated film on RT among critics. Earning a well-deserved 94% from the website, “Die Hard” broke the mold that so many other films would try to replicate from then on. “Die Hard” on a bus (aka “Speed”), “Die Hard” on a battleship (aka “Under Siege”), “Die Hard” on a plane (aka “Air Force One”); all of them tried their best to match the same excitement and air-tight writing of director John McTiernan’s 1988 hit. Nevertheless, the original “Die Hard” (and Willis’ John McClane) continues to stand 36 stories above the rest as one of the best action movies ever. In fact, it took 24 years for another Willis-led project to come close to matching “Die Hard” in the eyes of critics (according to RT’s metrics, anyway).

Looper is Bruce Willis’ second best movie (and deservedly so)

TriStar Pictures

For nearly a quarter-century after John McClane dropped Hans Gruber off a roof for Christmas, Bruce Willis continued to work in other genres besides the one that sent his career into the stratosphere. Most notably, he starred in two very different sci-fi films in the ’90s in the forms of Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” and Michael Bay’s “Armageddon.” However, his most widely-acclaimed entry in the genre (again, according to RT) would come in 2012 when he teamed up with filmmaker Rian Johnson and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the latter of whom donned prosthetics to better resemble a young Willis for their movie “Looper” (which has a 93% rating on the website).

Joined by the likes of Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels, “Looper” is set in a future where gangsters tie up loose ends by sending those they want to get rid of back to the past, where a “Looper” kills them in order to destroy the “evidence.” Levitt plays one such hitman, who is faced with a tricky task when his latest job turns out to be his future self (Willis), giving rise to a mind-melting tale of time loops, kids with special powers, and Gordon-Levitt doing his best impression of Willis. “Looper” remains both one of Johnson’s best films and one of the best sci-fi movies ever, in no small part thanks to Willis’ pitch-perfect performance. Coincidentally, though, that same year also saw the actor pop up in another well-received film — one that couldn’t be more different from Johnson’s tale of time-traveling hitmen. 

Bruce Willis searched for missing children in Moonrise Kingdom

Focus Features

Sometimes eccentric Bruce Willis is the best Bruce Willis, which is why seeing him turn up among the eclectic cast list for Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” (which is tied with “Looper” on RT with a 93% rating) was an absolute treat. The 2012 dramedy features the typical quirky ensemble the filmmaker is known for roping together. That includes Willis as the straight-faced Captain Sharp, a police officer on an island on the lookout for a missing boy and girl who’ve headed off on an adventure (forcing the adults around them to undergo an adventure of their own).

Willis’ turn in “Moonrise Kingdom” made for a refreshing addition to his back catalog of work. The actor always had comedic timing and would often combine that with either frenetic energy (in films like “Death Becomes Her”) or dry wit (the kind that made him the ideal action hero in the “Die Hard” movies and “The Last Boy Scout”). Here though, there’s a heart to his performance that wasn’t always on display in his other films. As far as its director’s work goes, “Moonrise Kingdom” isn’t necessarily the best Wes Anderson movie (depending on who you ask), but it’s certainly a welcome addition to both his and Willis’ filmographies.