I love nothing more than a festive movie to get in the mood for Christmas. We watched Home Alone in our house on November 1, so that gives you an idea of how much we love a Christmas movie. But while the classics will never be beaten, and we watch them every year, I do…
Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreEvery now and then, an actor gets quite candid about dislking a film they once starred in.While the question “Do you have any career biggest regrets?” might perhaps be one of the more obvious ones a journalist can ask an actor. the answer can sometimes be rather revealing.Many Hollywood stars, recently including Chris Hemsworth and Orlando Bloom, have spoken negatively about their past choices. Hemsworth, as well as his co-star Christian Bale, are not fans of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder while Bloom said he has “blanked” 2004 film Troy from his memory.Others (we’re looking at you, Bill Murray) have even gone on to poke fun at their disliked role during a role in another film.Then there are those – for example Charlize Theron – have admitted accepting a film purely based on the director’s filmography, only to then be let down by the final result of their collaboration.Below, The Independent looks at 23 actors who have been vocal about disliking films they have starred in.George Clooney – Batman & Robin (1997)Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck – some of Hollywood’s best-known actors have played the Caped Crusader on screen. However, only one wore a suit with Batnipples – and that was George Clooney. “Let me just say that I’d actually thought I’d destroyed the franchise until somebody else brought it back years later and changed it,” he once said of the role. “I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move. It wasn’t.”Halle Berry – Catwoman (2004)Halle Berry remains one of the few actors to accept her Razzie award in person. “Thank you so much. I never in my life thought I would be up here,” she told the audience, before spoofing her own Oscar acceptance speech and thanking her manager. “He loves me so much that he convinces me to do projects even when he knows that it is s***.” She recently said she has been “carrying the weight” of the film’s failure, telling Jimmy Kimmel: “Whatever success it had or didn’t have somehow seemed like it was all my fault. But it really wasn’t my fault.”Ben Affleck – Daredevil (2003)If you hate Daredevil, Ben Affleck hates it more. “Daredevil didn’t work at all”, the actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2007. “If I wanted to go viral, I would be less polite.” He’d give the superhero genre another go, accepting the role of Bruce Wayne for Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman, with better, if underwhelming, results.Ben Affleck, like most of us, wasn’t a fan of ‘Daredevil’
Nostalgia alert! Salman Khan and Karisma Kapoor-starrer ‘Biwi No. 1’ is all set to be re-released in cinema halls. On Thursday, producer Vashu Bhagnani shared the update, disclosing the re-release date of the hit film, which also starred Tabu, Sushmita Sen and Anil Kapoor. The movie was originally released in 1999, and now it will return to theatres on November 29. Excited about the re-release, producer Vashu Bhagnani in a press note said, “Biwi No. 1 holds a special place in our hearts. The movie connected with audiences against all odds and won the hearts of millions. Bringing it back to the big screen gives us a chance to relive the laughter and fun, especially with its amazing star cast. The magic of this film is timeless, and we want every cinegoer to remember the joy of laughter.” Director David Dhawan also expressed equal enthusiasm. “Audiences still talk about the film’s humor and the joy it brought to families. Comedy films are best enjoyed when watched in a group and on the big screen. Re-releasing Biwi No. 1 will give fans a chance to celebrate those memories and introduce new viewers,” he shared.
The comedy drama revolves around the life of Prem as Salman Khan, a successful businessman who is married to Pooja as Karisma Kapoor. Prem’s life takes a dramatic turn when he meets Rupali as Sushmita Sen, a glamorous model, and they begin an affair.
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Unbeknownst to Prem, Pooja is aware of his infidelity and decides to teach him a lesson by pretending to be an ideal wife while planning her own revenge. ‘Biwi No. 1’ received a positive response from the audience and was the second highest-grossing film of Bollywood in 1999. The film’s soundtrack, composed by Anu Malik, became immensely popular, featuring hit songs like ‘Chunari Chunari’, ‘Ishq Sona’ and ‘Mujhe Maaf Karna’.Saif Ali Khan appeared in a special cameo in the film.(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
The teaser trailer has arrived for ‘Back in Action‘, the new action-comedy film coming to Netflix.Directed by Seth Gordon (‘Horrible Bosses’), who wrote the screenplay with Brendan O’Brien (‘Neighbours’), the film stars Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Kyle Chandler, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, Rylan Jackson and Glenn Close.
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Years after giving up life as CIA spies to start a family, Emily (Diaz) and Matt (Foxx) find themselves dragged back into the world of espionage when their cover is blown.
The film is produced by Jenno Topping, Peter Chernin and Sharla Sumpter Bridgett (‘Ford v Ferrari’, ‘Hidden Figures’, ‘Luther’) for Chernin Entertainment; Beau Bauman (‘Central Intelligence’) for Good One Productions; Seth Gordon for Exhibit A. The executive producers are Jamie Foxx, Datari Turner, Brendan O’Brien and Tim Lewis.Take a look at the key art for ‘Back in Action’ below:Credit: Netflix‘Back in Action’ will premiere on Netflix on 17th January 2025.
Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreEvery now and then, an actor gets quite candid about dislking a film they once starred in.While the question “Do you have any career biggest regrets?” might perhaps be one of the more obvious ones a journalist can ask an actor. the answer can sometimes be rather revealing.Many Hollywood stars, recently including Chris Hemsworth and Orlando Bloom, have spoken negatively about their past choices. Hemsworth, as well as his co-star Christian Bale, are not fans of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder while Bloom said he has “blanked” 2004 film Troy from his memory.Others (we’re looking at you, Bill Murray) have even gone on to poke fun at their disliked role during a role in another film.Then there are those – for example Charlize Theron – have admitted accepting a film purely based on the director’s filmography, only to then be let down by the final result of their collaboration.Below, The Independent looks at 23 actors who have been vocal about disliking films they have starred in.George Clooney – Batman & Robin (1997)Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck – some of Hollywood’s best-known actors have played the Caped Crusader on screen. However, only one wore a suit with Batnipples – and that was George Clooney. “Let me just say that I’d actually thought I’d destroyed the franchise until somebody else brought it back years later and changed it,” he once said of the role. “I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move. It wasn’t.”Halle Berry – Catwoman (2004)Halle Berry remains one of the few actors to accept her Razzie award in person. “Thank you so much. I never in my life thought I would be up here,” she told the audience, before spoofing her own Oscar acceptance speech and thanking her manager. “He loves me so much that he convinces me to do projects even when he knows that it is s***.” She recently said she has been “carrying the weight” of the film’s failure, telling Jimmy Kimmel: “Whatever success it had or didn’t have somehow seemed like it was all my fault. But it really wasn’t my fault.”Ben Affleck – Daredevil (2003)If you hate Daredevil, Ben Affleck hates it more. “Daredevil didn’t work at all”, the actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2007. “If I wanted to go viral, I would be less polite.” He’d give the superhero genre another go, accepting the role of Bruce Wayne for Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman, with better, if underwhelming, results.Ben Affleck, like most of us, wasn’t a fan of ‘Daredevil’
You can’t possibly look at Ernest Cole’s haunting photography, capturing the struggle for South Africans during apartheid, and not immediately and urgently think about what Palestinians are living through today. Ernest Cole: Lost And Found, the latest documentary from I Am Not Your Negro director Raoul Peck, pours over those violent images captured by the late photographer in his 1967 book House of Bondage. They show South Africans living with a proverbial boot to their neck – constantly policed, segregated, barred entry to not just spaces but employment opportunities their European oppressors access freely, having their homes bulldozed for new settlements and their marches brutally met with gunfire – viscerally recalling what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank.“Yes, those parallels are clearly in the film,” says Peck, on a Zoom call, adding that it’s those types of connections that inspire him to tell whatever story he pursues. “In this film you can also see the western world not wanting to boycott South Africa while doing business with them: selling arms, buying arms, buying gold, uranium.”“But it’s not my job to point to anything,” Peck continues, speaking not just to his new film but all his work. “That’s the contract between me and the person watching the film. I leave space for you to bring in your own current situation, to help you understand the world as it is now.”Peck is a former minister of culture in Haiti who has lived in West Berlin, Paris and the US, describing his experience as a life in exile. His films going back 40 years are often drawn to people whose relationship to their homes are tenuous, uncertain or altogether severed, whether politically or violently. His first narrative feature, 2000’s Lumumba, focused on the Congo leader’s exile. Last year’s Silver Dollar Road stuck by a Black family whose home comes under threat from land developers.His HBO series Exterminate All The Brutes, examines genocide as a pillar of the European and US cultures, wiping Indigenous, African and Jewish people from their homes. Though what’s happening in Israel falls just outside that show’s purview, Peck highlights a passing mention in Exterminate All The Brutes of a Palestinian suicide bomber. “I ask the question, what would I have done if it was my daughter? Would I call her a monster? That’s how I address it.”Peck is speaking from a hotel room in New York City, where his latest subject Ernest Cole lived in exile and died in 1990. Peck’s film isn’t just a showcase of Cole’s work in House of Bondage, which the photographer published at 27, exposing the world to casual horrors in the country he could no longer return to due to apartheid. The film also explores selections among 60,000 negatives that mysteriously surfaced seven years ago in a Swedish bank vault, lost images Cole had taken while he was living in the US, touring the American south as well as Europe, before he became despondent, houseless for some years and fallen of the map. Many of the alternately warm and striking images Cole shot in places such as Alabama observe African American life; the joys and the resilience, but also the echoes to his experience in Johannesburg, the oppression that they share with their counterparts across the world.“It’s the view of a 26-year-old, 27-year-old South African who has spent all his life in an apartheid prison,” says Peck, “discovering something that was sold to him as the free world. That alone is worth observing. What does he do? What does he catch? What does he see?”Ernest Cole: Lost and Found works as a companion piece to Peck’s James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, in that it’s also about a critical voice who experienced varying realities through travel and refused to have his humanity reduced to just being Black. “Baldwin is somebody who always said: ‘I don’t let anybody define who I am,’” says Peck. “And I learned that very early in my life. I read Baldwin when I was 16. And he gave me the gave me the tools, already.”View image in fullscreenWhere the Baldwin documentary had the author’s words but also his footage of him speaking passionately during interviews, the new film has photographs, Peck’s camera moving within them, directing our gaze, searching for the details Cole would have fixated on. An image from South Africa, when a white child in a bathing suit innocently sips water from a park fountain, the camera pans up to reveal the violence of a Europeans-only sign hanging just above her. “Beyond the innocence”, Peck says.The film also pairs Cole’s photos with his own words. Atlanta actor LaKeith Stanfield lends his voice as Cole to the criticism and poetry found in House of Bondage’s prose, subsequent letters he wrote or observations pieced together from testimonies of those who knew or witnessed him. In a street scene showing a young Black man interrogated by police, the camera scans the crowd around him. Cole asks what each person in the photo is thinking, how they see themselves in relation to the anxious police interaction on the street, as either the next potential victim or the white man calmly affirmed that things are the way they should be.In the US, Cole photographs white citizens, describing and mulling over the way they look into his camera, and regard him, with indignance or suspicion. Such photos aren’t just a window into the US’s soul, but Cole’s own. When he photographs couples on the street embracing each other, there’s an ache in his words as he ruminates on their public displays of affection. “You can see how cold it was for him in the metropolis,” says Peck. “That he was isolated.”That isolation is even more pronounced when Cole describes the unhoused people he captures sleeping on the street or benches. “Empty useless bodies”, he says, reflecting perhaps on himself. “My ultimate photos.”View image in fullscreenWhile there’s no record of what Cole is going through when those photos are taken, and only assumptions as far as addiction projected onto him, Peck is confident he can fill in the gaps, at least emotionally. “Having been in exile myself, I know what happened,” he says. “Knowing what is happening in your country every day and not be able to do anything, that can make you crazy. That can depress you. It’s like PTSD, before it was diagnosed as such.”For Peck, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a reclamation of the photographer’s voice, a film that forgoes talking head interviews and the opinions of others – and instead leaves the space for the artist to tell his own story.“It was about Ernest taking back his power,” says Peck, describing how his film, and even the way his camera points in habits the artists gaze. “Because he had been disempowered for the last 50 years … I wanted to give him the total podium to talk about his work, to talk about his life and even beyond his death.”
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is out in New York cinemas on 22 November, Los Angeles on 29 November, with more cities to follow and a UK date to be announced
Nana also said he didn’t want to watch the film but when he did, he felt Anil Kapoor’s was the only restrained performance in the action-dramaread moreRanbir Kapoor starrer Animal, which turned out to be one of the biggest grossers in the history of Indian cinema, garnered criticism from a section of audience along with celebs like Javed Akhtar, Swanand Kirkire, Kangana and others. Nana Patekar, in a conversation with Anil Kapoor for his upcoming movie Vanvaas, had a take on the blockbuster too.Patekar joked how he saw the film, called Anil Kapoor, and said ‘Teri film Anil-mal dekhi.’ Nana also said he didn’t want to watch the film but when he did, he felt Anil Kapoor’s was the only restrained performance in the action-drama.AdvertisementNow, the lead star has finally opened up about the criticism and said that some people were disappointed of him. “Social media played havoc. They need something to talk about, so they really went to town claiming it was a misogynistic film. What happens is that the hard work that you put in… I know the director had made Kabir Singh, which also faced the same thing, the hard work gets diminished. Because it gets this tag, which isn’t true, the perception stayed with this film. So, the general public will speak very fondly about the film, but there are many people I meet, who tell me, ‘You shouldn’t have done this film, we are so disappointed in you’. And a lot of people from the film industry (said the same thing). I quietly apologize and say, ‘Sorry I won’t do it next time.’ I don’t really agree with them, but I am in that phase of my life I don’t argue with anyone. If you don’t like my work, I will say I am sorry I will try harder next time,” said Ranbir while talking to Nikhil Kamath.Revealing the real reason of doing
Animal, RK added, “I had always been following a career path where I was doing good roles, trying to give good social messages, play the ‘good boy’ basically, the coming-of-age romantic image that I had. So, I found this very bold, adult-rated. I was scared that maybe the audience will not accept me. When the film released, even though it did amazing numbers and we got a lot of love, there is a big audience which found the film misogynist and wrong, in some way.”End of Article
The life of Robert DeShaun Peace, a brilliant and tragic figure, has been brought to the big screen in the 2024 movie ‘Rob Peace,’ directed by British actor, screenwriter, and film director Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film is based on the 2014 biography ‘The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace’ written by Jeff Hobbs, who was Peace’s roommate at Yale University.
Robert DeShaun Peace was an American scholar and teacher born on June 25, 1980, in Orange, New Jersey. Despite the challenges he faced, including his father’s imprisonment for an alleged murder when Peace was just seven years old, he excelled academically and athletically. He attended St. Benedict’s Preparatory School, where he was a student body leader, captained the swimming and water polo teams, and received the Presidential Award upon graduation.
Peace went on to attend Yale University, majoring in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. At Yale, he co-captained the club water polo team and worked in a cancer and infectious disease laboratory associated with the Yale Medical School. Despite his academic and athletic achievements, Peace was also involved in selling marijuana to his classmates, a facet of his life that is depicted in the film.
After graduating from Yale with honors in 2002, Peace became a biology teacher and water polo coach at his former high school in Newark, New Jersey. He later worked at Newark Liberty International Airport and started a real estate venture aimed at renovating abandoned homes in his neighborhood.
Tragically, Robert Peace was murdered in May 2011 at the age of 30 in a drug-related incident. The movie ‘Rob Peace’ stars Jay Will, Mary J. Blige, and Camila Cabello and was released in theaters in August 2024 and on Netflix on November 11, 2024. It quickly became one of the Top 10 movies on the streaming platform within a week of its release.
Robert Pattinson is reportedly in talks to join Christopher Nolan’s next film.The 38-year-old actor – who previously worked with the iconic filmmaker on 2020’s time travel sci-fi thriller ‘Tenet’ – is in line to join an all star cast featuring A-listers like Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and more.According to Deadline, Pattinson is the latest big name linked to Nolan’s upcoming movie for Universal.Tom Holland and Lupita Nyong’o are also set to join the cast, as well as Zendaya, who will appear with Pattinson in A24’s ‘The Drama’.The as yet untitled film has been shrouded in secrecy with details being kept closely under wraps.It’s set to be released in July 2026, which is a similar window to other Nolan films in the past, including last year’s ‘Oppenheimer’.Plot details and the genre are yet to be confirmed for the movie, with is being written and helmed by Nolan for Universal Pictures.Filming is expected to get underway early next year.Nolan previously explained how he has constantly had to adapt as a director, and he’s not actually made any of the ideas he had growing up.In an interview with Empire magazine, he said: “As a young man, I had a list of, however many I’d worked out, 12 or 13 films… I had a lot of ideas and a lot of very specific things that I was going to do. And I look back and I haven’t done any of them; they all changed.”When you plan ahead too far in the movie business, you’re not taking into account the shifting sands of culture under your feet… (Cinema) evolves. And part of your job as a filmmaker is to be open to being part of that evolution.”
Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: prime video, the boysShowrunner Eric Kripke’s The Boys embraces the hate in a Variety FYC ad; it looks like Antony Starr is heading out for final season filming.Published Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:04:07 -0600 by Ray Flook | [embedded content]When we last checked in on how things were going with the fifth and final season of Showrunner Eric Kripke’s The Boys, he and series star Antony Starr were offering some early insights into how the dynamic between Homelander (Starr) and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) will be explored further. Now, with filming set to get underway next week, we’ve got two updates to pass along. Since we’re already discussing filming, based on Starr’s Instagram post from earlier today, it looks like he’s getting ready to head out to start work (“So long for a while LA and the dorks”). But before we get to that, we’ve got a follow-up to a great awards season campaign move from earlier this month that saw the hit streaming series embracing the hits it took from trolls on social media, one that elevated things to the level of a full-page ad in Variety.
Image: Prime Video
Here’s a look at how the Prime Video series turned the hate into one of the best awards campaign ads we’ve seen in a long time – and big thanks to Culture Crave for sharing. Following that, we have a look at Starr’s post, seemingly signaling that he’s heading out for filming on the final season:
#TheBoys releases an awards campaign advertisement that includes negative reviews about the show:
• ‘Communist propaganda’• ‘Severe turn towards wokeism’• ‘Politicized garbage’ pic.twitter.com/u1nqNwcvsh
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) November 20, 2024
Here’s a look back at what Kripke and the Prime Video series’ social media accounts had to share earlier this month, already making it clear that they’re more than happy to embrace the hate – followed by a look back at an opinion piece we wrote back on July 17, 2024, about how the fourth season finally became an eye-opener for Homelander fans (and how they were not happy with it):
The Boys: Homelander Fans Finally Get The Point & They’re Not Happy
I was originally going to write a review of the first three episodes of Prime Video and Showrunner Eric Kripke’s fourth season of The Boys. It was going to include how directors Phil Sgriccia, Karen Gaviola & Fred Toye, and writers David Reed, Jessica Chou & Ellie Monahan offered us a dark and twisted start to the streaming series’ penultimate season that raised the stakes in some pretty surprising ways. I was going to address how the series continues to expertly balance the insane with the heartfelt – balancing the absurdity with some truly hard realities. From there, I would’ve touched upon what amazing additions to the cast Susan Heyward’s Sister Sage, Valorie Curry’s Firecracker, Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Joe Kessler, and Rosemarie DeWitt’s Daphne Campbell (Hughie’s mother) are – especially Curry, who holds her own on the screen in ways that have us forgetting that she hasn’t been with the series from the start.
THE BOYS (Image: Prime Video Screencaps)
We would’ve continued by praising the ensemble cast for the way each of them has found a way to evolve their characters in ways that connect with viewers – from Butcher’s (Karl Urban) & A-Train’s (Jessie T. Usher) respective attempts at a redemption arc and Kimiko’s (Karen Fukuhara) efforts to literally kill her past to Hughie’s (Jack Quaid) efforts to reconnect with his mother and Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) being forced to confront the sins of her past. I would note that Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit, and Cameron Crovetti all deserve to be noted for their efforts – and how Antony Starr continues flicking lit matches at Emmy voters, reminding them through his work that his Homelander might just be the best thing going in terms of what Starr brings to the character and how that continues to show in some truly unique ways.
Instead, I’m going to take a moment to address those out there who’ve been review-bombing the streaming series. With The Boys Season 4 currently sitting at 95% with critics and 52% with the “audience” on Rotten Tomatoes, there’s clearly a serious disconnect – one that can be easily explained if you check out the comments in the “audience section.” Just so there’s no confusion? Review-bombing a series because it’s “too woke” or “too left-leaning” or nonsense like that simply because it doesn’t speak to your narrow-minded “sensibilities” is bad enough. But there’s something especially sad and pathetic when it takes them four seasons to finally figure out that they – much like Homelander, who they worship as some kind of role model – aren’t the “heroes” of this story. Never have been, never will be. And yes, Kripke has made it crystal clear that there are a ton of horrific metaphors connecting to ex-reality shows & POTUS and now-convicted felon Donald Trump – and none of them are good.
Is it fair that the show’s fourth season has to suffer because Homelander/Trump lovers can’t take a ten-ton hint? No – but unfortunately, all we can do is report on efforts like review-bombing so folks know how haters try to manipulate the system to peddle their steaming piles of nonsense. That said, I do think I figured out why it took so long for them to realize that they weren’t in on the joke but were, in fact, the joke – aside from the obvious. Over the past three seasons, it was easy for them to write off what Homelander did because they either felt the same way or because it never really hit them personally.
But “Department of Dirty Tricks” changed the game for them – and they didn’t like it. Of course, you know the scene I’m talking about – when Homelander orders The Deep (Crawford), A-Train (Usher), and Black Noir II (Mitchell) to brutally kill three of his biggest supporters as a way of setting up Annie’s/Starlight’s followers. Homelander can barely fake interest in his speech to them about their “important sacrifices” before having someone else do his dirty work – because the leader of The Seven sees them as beneath him and not worthy of his personal handling. It looks like that ended up being the final straw for them – a truth bomb that blew up a little too close to home this time. But you can’t blame The Boys for being “The Boys” – they didn’t know it would take some folks so long to finally catch on…
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