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  • Laura Dern and Carol Burnett on the Inspiration Behind That Emotional ‘Palm Royale’ Twist

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    So began a decades-long friendship that entered a new phase when they were both cast in Palm Royale, which premiered in March 2024. Set in 1969 Palm Beach, the Apple TV series follows Kristen Wiig’s Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons, a spry social climber eager to infiltrate high society. Dern, an executive producer on the series, who also plays feminist activist Linda Shaw, had one person in mind for the role of Norma Dellacorte, the flask-toting matriarch who rules the area’s social scene. “I had a mission to get as close to Carol as possible,” Dern says, “and if I had to produce a show to make it happen, I was going to do it.”

    The first season earned Burnett an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress—and a group of new female industry friends, including her costars Allison Janney and Leslie Bibb. “What’s wonderful is, at my age now, I’ve got new young girlfriends,” Burnett laughs. “But with Laura, it’s really a deep love. I do feel that it’s kind of like a mother-daughter thing. Not even kind of like. It is a mother-daughter thing, and I’m grateful for it.”

    Carol Burnett and Laura Dern pose at Burnett’s hand and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 20, 2024.Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images

    It was fitting, then, that the penultimate episode of Palm Royale season two reveals that Burnett’s character is actually the birth mother of Dern’s character, and her real name is Agnes. Years ago, the real Norma Dellacorte died and Agnes, her boarding school roommate, assumed her identity for a better life. Upon realizing that she was pregnant with a married man’s baby, Agnes allowed her daughter—born Penelope, then renamed Linda—to be adopted by birth father Skeet (played in season one by Dern’s real-life Oscar-nominated dad, Bruce) and his wife, Evelyn (Janney).

    “Being here in this room where I first became someone else, I can be myself again,” Norma tells Linda, explaining that she sacrificed her daughter so that her life wouldn’t be marred by the scandal of being born out of wedlock. “Losing you was the greatest pain of my entire life. I love you,” Norma tells Linda, who is happy to be found.

    The show’s season two finale, premiering January 14, extends the long-awaited mother-daughter reunion. “The last moment of Carol at the end of our season is just one of the most breathtaking things, as an actor, I’ve ever witnessed,” Dern says, “looking in those eyes and seeing her love of her daughter in that seemingly simple but profound look. You realize this is a woman who did everything for her daughter.”

    Image may contain Carol Burnett Face Head Person Photography Portrait Adult Clothing Dress Photobombing and Happy

    Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett in 1983.Images Press/Getty Images

    Image may contain Diane Ladd Laura Dern Accessories Earring Jewelry Face Head Person Photography and Portrait

    Diane Ladd and Laura Dern in 1994.Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images

    I ask Burnett where that moment may have originated. “Well, in a way, just from my memory about my relationship with Carrie, and how much I loved her and what she meant to me,” she says of her late daughter Carrie Hamilton, who died in 2002 at age 38 from pneumonia as a complication of lung and brain cancer. “Deep down, I might’ve been thinking about that. It finally came full circle, and I could love her and she could love me. It was easy to play.”

    A third season of Palm Royale, which would presumably delve deeper into 1970s Palm Beach, has not been renewed as of press time. But what are the actors’ thoughts on the modern-day community, now the setting of a new Netflix reality series and the gated locale where Donald Trump rang in the New Year? “Let’s leave it to Shakespeare,” says Dern: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If we follow the money train, where there is wealth and influence, there are sometimes remarkable people doing extraordinary things, but most of the time when we’re following power and influence, there’s a lot of corruption throughout the world.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Adam Sandler Brings Down the House at Palm Springs Gala With Hilarious ‘What If’ He Hadn’t Made It Speech

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    Adam Sandler delivered one of the most memorable moments of the Palm Springs International Film Awards gala, turning a heartfelt honor into a full-blown comedy set while accepting the Chairman’s Award.

    Presented by his “Jay Kelly” co-star Laura Dern, Sandler took the stage and quickly veered into a wildly funny alternate-history monologue, imagining what his life might have looked like had his acting career stalled after college.

    “When I graduated college, I got a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and my father told me he was very proud of me and I should try it out for one year,” Sandler recalled. “He said, ‘See if you get something going. If it doesn’t work out after one year, you’ll come work for me.’ My dad was an electrical contractor. I didn’t know very much about electricity or contracting.”

    From there, Sandler riffed on a fictional future spent wiring fuse boxes instead of movie sets, joking that he’d still be married to his wife, Jackie, but living in a much smaller house with “about 10 less bathrooms and a few less statues of me.”

    He added that he’d “probably know how to charge my own phone” and would still get stopped on the street. “Not because of the fame factor, but because they’ve never seen anybody with that much scoliosis.”

    The bit escalated as Sandler roped his longtime friend Rob Schneider into the fantasy, joking that Schneider would “work with me on every electrical contracting project I ever had to do.”

    Amid the laughs, Sandler repeatedly returned to gratitude, crediting the unlikely run that followed that pivotal first year out of college. “I’ve been acting a very long time,” he said. “I can’t thank you all enough for letting me have this career that I’ve been lucky enough to have.”

    He singled out “Jay Kelly” his recent creative high point, praising the cast and director Noah Baumbach for pushing him to do some of his best work.

    “I didn’t want to let him down. I didn’t want to let down any of my castmates. I didn’t want to let down my family. I didn’t want to let myself down,” Sandler said sincerely. “So I always try my best.”

    The speech closed on a characteristically sincere note, with Sandler thanking his wife — “my forever girl” — and promising the audience he’s not done yet.

    “Thank you guys for letting me make all these movies over the years. I’m going to try to make more.”

    The Palm Springs International Film Awards gala, held annually during the Palm Springs International Film Festival, has become a key stop on the awards-season circuit. Sandler is currently nominated for a Critics Choice and Golden Globe Award for his turn in Baumbach’s film.

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    Clayton Davis

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  • Will Arnett and Andra Day On Midlife Reckonings and Movies Without Villains

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    Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, Laura Dern and Andra Day at a special Q&A panel at Angelika Film Center in advance of the film’s theatrical release. Photo by John Nacion/Getty Images for Searchlight Pictures

    A flailing relationship is no joke—unless you’re Alex Novak (Will Arnett), who stumbles into personal salvation by cracking wise in front of a live audience. Multi-hyphenate Bradley Cooper’s latest film c?, now playing in theaters nationwide, traces this journey, which begins with Alex’s spur-of-the-moment impulse to get up in front of a crowd and emotionally unload. “It’s the first time that he talks about what he’s going through,” Arnett told Observer. “It’s kind of the first time he admits it to himself.”

    What triggers the confessional is a still-fresh separation from longtime wife Tess (Laura Dern), after 20 years of marriage (and 5 years as a couple before that). A quarter-century together will change anyone—moving to the suburbs, having kids, sacrificing professional goals for familial stability. The real question is how to acknowledge that change in each other without falling apart.

    Arnett, who co-wrote the script with his writing partner Mark Chappell and Cooper, came up with the idea for the film after hearing the origin story behind British comedian John Bishop, who unexpectedly started his career in comedy—and saved his marriage—by turning his estrangement from his wife into comic fodder that became a catalyst for personal change.

    “It’s a midlife catharsis, not a crisis,” explained Cooper at a press screening before Is This Thing On?, which premiered as the Closing Night Film of the New York Film Festival. “This movie’s not about a guy who’s unhappy in his profession. It’s that he’s not really comfortable with who he is.”

    Arnett echoed the sentiment during his talk with Observer. “We don’t see Alex at work, for instance,” he said. “We don’t see any of that stuff. What was important to us was really getting down to him trying to find his voice. And by that I don’t mean his comedic voice, but his voice as a person—to see him start to connect the dots and be able to actually speak.”

    A man wearing a white shirt stands on stage holding a microphone, illuminated by green and red stage lights as he performs a stand-up comedy routine.A man wearing a white shirt stands on stage holding a microphone, illuminated by green and red stage lights as he performs a stand-up comedy routine.
    Will Arnett in Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

    Is This Thing On? is both a thematic continuation and a pivot for Cooper, whose trajectory as a writer-director-actor-producer includes his splashy Lady Gaga vehicle A Star Is Born and the ambitious Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Both of those were big-budget productions that, at heart, were relationship dramas writ large. Is This Thing On? compresses that canvas and trades studio spectacle for low-budget intimacy.

    Intrigued by the story’s possibilities, Cooper—who has known Arnett for almost 30 years and even was his roommate in L.A. as their careers were getting off the ground—offered to join Arnett and Chappell to explore the script’s characters further with a rewrite. He then added himself to the cast (in a small role as a Falstaffian goofball buddy nicknamed Balls) and brought together a terrific ensemble, .including Academy Award winner Dern; Andra Day as Balls’s frustrated wife; Arnett’s Smartless podcast cohost Sean Hayes as his newlywed friend (coupled with Scott Icenogle); plus Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds as Alex’s parents. Amy Sedaris and Peyton Manning pop up in smaller roles, and stand-up legend Dave Attell even makes an appearance.

    Cooper and his collaborators pulled together the film very quickly and shot almost entirely on location in New York last spring over 33 tight days, getting it edited in time to premiere at the NYFF in the fall. “New York is a treasure chest and very, very little was shot on a stage,” said Cooper, a native Philadelphian who relished being back in the downtown neighborhood where he spent time as a grad student in places like the Comedy Cellar and Bar Six (both of which play key roles in the film). Alex’s apartment is on 12th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, right on the same street where Cooper got his MFA at the New School.

    “It was a small budget,” said Cooper, who often served as his own camera operator. “That shot of him crossing Sixth Avenue? I’m on a seatbelt on a dolly handheld with nothing shut off from the street. That’s all actual traffic. And there’s just the cop there. We’re like, ‘Is it okay?’ ‘Yeah, you got ten minutes.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, okay!’”

    But that run-and-gun indie vibe was inspirational for the cast. “It’s like Christmas on steroids!” said Dern at the NYFF press screening, and then invoked her longtime professional relationship with David Lynch. “Inland Empire was the only other experience I had where my director was right there with the camera. Bradley, as an actor and as our family, knows us so well and feels the instincts with us in character. The most fun of your life is to be in it and feel an instinct as an actor that you catch up to after the take is done, and you go, ‘Oh man, maybe I should try this…’”

    Arnett was even further in uncharted territory, handling a dramatic role while surrounded by Oscar-caliber talent. “For me, that was a lot of the work,” he said. “To just be present in those moments and be open and vulnerable. These kinds of roles never came my way,” said the actor best known for indelible turns like being Job in Arrested Development or the voice of Lego Batman. “But, also, I did it to myself. I’ve heard people say that I got typecast. Well, I didn’t have to do all the things I did. I had fun doing them—but certainly to do something like this is much closer to what I’d always wanted to do.”

    Day, an Oscar-nominated actress better known as a Grammy Award-winning singer, plays a small but larger-than-life role in the film as Christine, an unhappy wife simmering with marital discontent. She has a seminal scene with Arnett when Christine hilariously confronts Alex about the rage she feels toward him. “She tells him straight up, ‘I despise you because I hate myself. You remind me of me’,” she told Observer, laughing. “Let’s see what you’re going to do now with that truth!”

    But that interaction speaks to a greater truth: the film has no villains, only people who are adrift and unable to communicate with each other. “She’s not a victim,” said Day about her character. “She’s not blaming everyone else. She’s like, ‘What am I passionate about? What do I love? Well, shit, maybe I’m pissed at myself!’ You know what I mean? I love that the movie talks about this theme of grace. We have to transform as people in order to actually have a pulse and be alive. We need to have grace to allow other people to transform.”

    Dern echoed those same feelings at the NYFF press screening. “The film finds the unbelievable complexity of relationships. I hadn’t seen a script or a film allowing us to know that we don’t know how we got here. Because most of us don’t, in moments of despair, in one’s self and in relationship.”

    And for Arnett, as the lead in this marital reckoning, Is This Thing On? was truly transformative. “It was a difficult task for me,” he said. “I did have to recalibrate and remember why I started doing this in the first place. Making a movie like this was how I always envisioned my life going when I was a young man. For me, it was kind of like a rebirth in a way, as opposed to a new thing. It was just reconnecting to something I always wanted to do.”

    Will Arnett and Andra Day On Midlife Reckonings and Movies Without Villains

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    Stephen Garrett

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  • Laura Dern Reflects on a Year of Personal Grief, Industry Anxiety and Great Movies

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    This year, when Laura Dern started shooting Is This Thing On?, she noticed her dynamic with director Bradley Cooper echoing her work with David Lynch, who’d cast Dern in her breakout Blue Velvet role nearly 40 years earlier. “People might think, appropriately, that this would be the first time I’d have had the experience of the director being the camera operator,” Dern says, noting that Cooper took on that job just as Lynch had in the past. “But I’ve been lucky to have that experience firsthand [repeatedly], in a very raw way, where your director becomes your partner.” 

    Over the past several decades, Lynch remained one of Dern’s closest artistic collaborators, as she starred in everything from Wild at Heart to Inland Empire to Twin Peaks: The Return. He died just before filming began on Is This Thing On. “It was a very tender, heartbreaking time,” Dern admits. “I feel like I’m still just at the beginning of it.” 

    Dern has been touched closely by 12 months of profound loss and grief for Los Angeles, the city in which she was born, raised, and still works and lives. At this point, she’s all but embedded in its heartbeat, from her work with the Academy as a governor and museum board member to her singular filmography across iconic movies and TV series. January saw Lynch’s death and the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Last month, her mother, the Oscar-nominated actor Diane Ladd, died by Dern’s side at 89 years old. And on this December afternoon, we’re speaking just a few days out from the brutal killings of Rob and Michele Reiner, whose son Nick has been charged with their murders. 

    “Literally, my kids are in this house like it’s the countdown to Christmas, but it’s just for getting to the end of this year,” Dern says with a weary laugh. “That’s the most common discussion.” 

    As to how she’s holding up these days? “I just haven’t gotten there yet — I haven’t let myself be in it yet,” Dern says of processing her mother’s death. “It’s the same in a weird way with David and other losses that have happened this year — it’s so compounded. But I will say, while I’m in the deep thick of it, looking at photos and watching things and trying to figure out how to honor her and honor him and all of that to come, I feel really blessed by their legacies — by holding onto the things they’ve given us in art and in friendship and in memories, in stories and in activism, in all of it.” 

    Dern adds, “And I am particularly grateful — sincerely — that this is the movie that I’m talking about. I’m talking about intimacy and grace and longing and grief and being true to yourself. Honestly, I said to my publicist, if it were any other themes, I don’t think I could do this at all.”

    **

    Laura Dern and Will Arnett in Is This Thing On?

    Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures

    “This was my first opportunity and blessing to be part of a movie that I knew Rob Reiner had gifted us,” the 58-year-old Dern tells me right out of the gate. What does she mean by that? “Knowing how to balance truth and complication and flawed characters and joy and hopefulness — it feels like an impossible task, but one that he seemed to always be able to give us.” Is This Thing On? was made intently in that tradition. 

    Dern met Cooper about a decade ago, and before long became a close friend and colleague as he made the shift to directing. “Anything he was acting in, he was like, ‘Will you look at this? What do you think?’” Dern says. “Then once he started directing, I was with him to watch screen tests and camera tests, or read early drafts.” On both A Star Is Born and Maestro, “We played around with scenes together watching cuts in the editing room.” She didn’t know Arnett as well, but he too was tight with Cooper. As they embarked on Is This Thing On?’s emotional two-hander together, the actors made each other a promise: “To be as vulnerable and honest and open as we’ve ever been.”

    The magic of Dern’s moving, complex performance crystallizes in a scene where she doesn’t say a word. The film traces the lives of separated spouses Alex (Arnett) and Tess (Dern), with the former secretly processing the breakup through an amateur stand-up comedy act. While on a date, Tess inadvertently stumbles into one of Alex’s sets — which spikily interrogates why their romance fell apart. Tess listens on in shock. With Cooper right there up close with the camera, Dern reacts through it with spectacular nuance. You can feel the actor discovering, then exploring the emotions as they hit her — newly heartbroken, dryly amused, oddly turned on. 

    “It takes a filmmaker who wants to not only hold on an actor’s face, but let the actor in real time catch up with themselves,” Dern says. “What surprised me, but I’m so grateful for, is that I was able to find Will so funny even in the hurt and the pain.”

    The sequence showcases what Is This Thing On? is all about: a warm, honest examination of flawed people reflecting on their mistakes while trying to figure out what they want. While the most modestly scaled film of Cooper’s directing career, it fits neatly into Dern’s oeuvre, which is loaded with movies by such great American humanists as Alexander Payne, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Mike White and Kelly Reichardt. Its arrival at the end of a year marked by box-office gloom for films of its type — sophisticated, relatively quiet character studies made for adults — is top of mind for Dern. “We’ve all become desensitized by fireworks, maybe,” she says.

    Does she worry about the future of movies without the fireworks, then? “The industry gets into a clickbait habit of like, ‘Oh yeah, that movie’s not doing well, that movie’s not doing well, people didn’t like that movie as much as the other movie,’” Dern says. “But it’s like, ‘Well, you’ve said that about 15 movies this season, so maybe it’s that people aren’t going to the movies.’

    “What worries me is the noise of, ‘I guess people are just only watching it at home.’ When people talk about smaller, independent film — movies about people — as though those are movies you can stay home to watch because they’re intimate, they’re missing the point,” she continues. “To be next to your neighbor that you don’t know, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to, one, have a shared experience; and two, you’re then walking down to your car with the person you went with and you’re talking about it — and then you’re going to dinner and maybe getting into a relationship conversation you wouldn’t have had otherwise. That’s the church of movie going that I was raised on, and I just don’t ever want us to lose that.” 

    This has been Dern’s biggest onscreen year since before the pandemic, when she won the Oscar for 2019’s Marriage Story while appearing in Gerwig’s Little Women and the second season of Big Little Lies that same year. Her other major 2025 credit, Jay Kelly, is another Netflix-Baumbach joint in which she effortlessly steals all of her scenes — this time, as the worn-down publicist of a Hollywood mega-star, played by George Clooney, inching toward a personal reckoning. 

    Laura Dern with her mother, Diane Ladd, after being named the 2020 Oscar winner for best supporting actress at the attend the 92nd Annual Academy Awards

    Kevin Winter/Getty Images

    On the Oscars stage in 2020, Dern called Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarnados a friend; she also toplined the streamer’s romance film Lonely Planet last year. In all this talk about theatrical with films like Is This Thing On?, I wonder how Dern feels about Netflix’s possible impending acquisition of Warner Bros., which has the town on edge even as Sarandos is promising to maintain the legacy studio’s theatrical strategy. “I’m deeply hopeful that with the news at hand that what can come from it is a trust in cinema, that movies deserve to have a theatrical experience and audiences need that and filmmakers that need that,” Dern says. “If we lose that, we lose the filmmakers. They’ll always be there  — David Lynch will go make a movie with the Sony camcorder and shoot it for $300,000 — but you don’t get to make the same movies you want to make if you’re not given the financial support to make them. Those movies should be seen in the theaters.”

    And trust: Dern is going to theaters. “This is a great year for movies,” she raves. “I’ve been particularly moved by how intimate relationships are at the core of a lot of these films…. Filmmakers are leaning on empathy as a theme. I just saw such a great movie last night, which made me proud of this moment for movies.” I expect her to name a best-picture heavyweight in the conversation with her films, like Sinners or Sentimental Value. “It’s Zootopia 2!” she cheers. “Oh my God. I mean, incredible. Everybody’s finding their way to do it, and to be honest, you don’t want to miss seeing Zootopia 2.”

    Dern brings a life spent on film sets to work every day. Moviemaking is her life and she speaks of the process with reverence, passion and expertise. She had a moment with Cooper on Is This Thing On? that says a lot about how she approaches the job these days. They were holding for some kind of noise pollution, maybe a helicopter, to pass while wandering around the set. He stood right in front of her, holding the camera. 

    “He’s staring at me through the lens, and I’m looking at him, and we’re waiting through this moment, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it’s you and me and we’re doing this,’” Dern says. “There was no adjustment period of like, ‘Whoa, Bradley is in my face with a camera.’ No — it’s what we do.”

    For her noted taste in Hollywood, her work in the trenches with filmmakers like Cooper, Dern only amassed a handful of significant credits behind the camera so far. The big shift came a little over a decade ago with Enlightened, HBO’s masterful but underseen series that Dern starred in (winning a Golden Globe and receiving an Emmy nomination), but also co-created and executive produced with Mike White. She’s more recently gone on to help develop series like Apple TV+’s Palm Royale and Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things. But in observing an actor-turned-director like Cooper, might Dern see that in her future too? 

    “No one’s asked me recently because, for years, I’d say it is something that fascinates me, but I’ll never do it until my baby goes to college,” Dern says. “And now, my baby is at NYU — so I better get my act together.” She has been thinking about directing, she reveals, but as with every choice in her career, she’s approaching it carefully — and heart-first. “God knows I know how much there is to learn as a filmmaker, so I would never do it unless I believe that I was the person to tell the story,” she says. “So: Maybe. I hope so. I know that the story will reveal itself.”

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    David Canfield

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  • Laura Dern and Will Arnett go deep on comedy for Is This Thing On | The Mary Sue

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    Is This Thing On? pairs Laura Dern and Will Arnett for a look at a slightly more serious side of comedy. The Mary Sue’s Rachel Leishman got a chance to talk with them about music, what makes comedy work, and more during our exclusive interview. After she blew the actors’ minds with a question about what song they would choose to represent themselves, they dove right into the question of what makes comedy. It’s a weighty topic. But, Arnett kicked us off with some observations about comedy’s link to drama. It’s a delicate dance.

    “What was the hardest part? I don’t think there was. It was all hard and it always felt very natural,” Arnett admitted. “I think that, you know, comedy and drama. It’s great that they coexist in our lives, because we all have days that start one way and go another.”

    “We have tough moments, and then we have deep, laughter in those moments,” he added. “Sometimes, and I think that I always say like we, I never start out by day saying like ‘Today’s going to be a comedy day.’ So, I think that in a lot of ways it felt like a really sort of true reflection of life.”

    Is This Thing On tackles comedy and drama

    bradley cooper directing laura dern and will arnett
    (Searchlight Pictures/Jason McDonald)

    For Dern, the interplay of the characters on the page matters a lot. In her eyes, that kind of dance is well-suited to comedies of the past, and can do great things for the current cinema landscape. She also noted that having an element of discomfort along with comedy is essential for the art form to really have the desired effect. Emotion helps make things funny, you can’t avoid it. Check out what else she had to say in her comments down below. 

    “The thing I loved the most about the rhythm of the script is it reminded me of a classic screwball comedy. In the way that the tone, and the rhythm, had a musicality and a motor to it,” Dern recalled. “And so even in the depth of pain, there was a rhythm to those scenes. So we had to be in the truth of it, and it was very emotional.” 

    “But, it still had this like underpinning. This drive is a kind of Frank Capra comedy, which are painful movies,” she added. “And so, you know, it was a really interesting balance. I think, like never not remembering the movie as a whole. And, where we were getting to, but we had to also completely forget it, and just be in the truth of each other. So, I loved that about the script.

    Is This Thing On? feasts on the interplay between the two stars. They’ve clearly thought a lot about comedy. And, these actors are hoping that you’ll do the same. The film hits theaters on December 19.

    (Photo Credit: Searchlight Pictures)

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    Aaron Perine

    Aaron Perine is a writer that covers Free Streaming TV, normal TV, small TV (the kind that plays on your phone mostly!), and even movies sometimes!

    Phase Hero co-host. Host of Free Space: The Free Streaming TV Podcast.

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    Aaron Perine

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  • How the funny and feminist fashion in ‘Palm Royale’ further the storytelling

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    NEW YORK (AP) — When Kristen Wiig steps out of a vintage Rolls-Royce in the opening scene of Season 2 of “Palm Royale,” she’s sporting a tall, yellow, fringed hat, gold platform sandals and sunny bell bottoms, with fabric petals that sway with every determined step. It’s the first clue that the costumes on the female-driven comedy are taking center stage.

    The Apple TV show made a splash in its first season with the starry cast, high production values and ubiquitous grasshopper cocktail. Wiig’s character, Maxine, tries to break into Palm Beach high society in 1969 and bumps heads with co-stars Carol Burnett, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb and Laura Dern. But also playing a starring role are the vintage designer frocks that reflect each character.

    For Season 2, which premiered this week, Emmy-winning costume designer Alix Friedberg says she and her team coordinated “thousands” of looks that reflect the characters’ jet-setting style. She says 50-60% of the brightly colored and graphic print costumes are original vintage designer pieces, sourced by shoppers and costume designers.

    “The looks are so iconic. Sometimes Kristen will walk in in something, and it brings tears to my eyes,” Kaia Gerber — who plays Mitzi — told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

    The creative process entails more than shopping

    If not original vintage, Friedberg’s team builds the costumes, and if a character has to wear an outfit in multiple scenes or in big dance numbers, the team may create duplicates to preserve continuity. Friedberg says she was lucky to find so many vendors with vintage designer pieces in great condition.

    “(Bibb’s character) Dinah wears a few original Oscar de la Renta pieces that are really so perfect. Bill Blass was a big one, Oleg Cassini,” Friedberg says. “There’s a dress that (Janney’s character) Evelyn wears that’s this all emerald green jersey, it’s an original Halston and it’s so stunning on her and it really does sort of evoke what’s to come in the ‘70s.”

    Janney calls Friedberg “brilliant” and marveled at her talent at finding pieces that are like works of art. Some of her favorites were the characters’ après-ski looks in the Swiss Alps — but she finds it hard to pick an ultimate favorite.

    “All of them just make me feel divine. And the hair is just a masterpiece, and the makeup — it all goes together to just create Evelyn and I barely have to do anything,” Janney says.

    Costumes can be funny

    The costumes also help heighten the comedy. Friedberg says Evelyn’s stoic and deadpan character elicits laughs with some of her over-the-top getups.

    “She’s delivering this dialogue, these lines with, like, seven wigs on top of her,” Friedberg says. “The absurdity comes out really in how these women present themselves time and time again. … It was just so much fun to get to laugh and wink at the audience.”

    Burnett called costume fittings on the show “great fun” and said they helped her find her character, the scheming Norma. “I work from the outside in. I have to know what I’m going to look like,” she says.

    Norma’s signature turban started as a practical idea to help Burnett save time in hair and makeup. “The first time she put it on, we were both like, ‘Oh, that’s really so fabulous,’ and every time she came out as Norma without the turban, I really missed it,” Friedberg says. “Each time we built her a dress, we always had to sort of think about what the turban would be, and then it started to switch, and we started designing the turbans before the dress!”

    Season 2 of Apple TV’s “Palm Royale” features fabulous costumes and sets, lots of laughs and an undercurrent theme of feminism and female friendship. (Nov. 10)

    Many looks go deeper than sparkly sequins

    The costumes also help set the tone for the female empowerment theme that permeates this season. “Evelyn wore a lot more pants — which seems ridiculous to say today — but back then that was a real power move,” Friedberg says.

    Bibb had ideas to show how Dinah evolves from her trophy wife persona. “I knew this season was about her finding sort of her own wealth without a man … and what that looked like. I always have been obsessed with Sharon Stone in ‘Casino,’” Bibb says — and so they “stole” a bit of that look. “We really have Dinah going into pantsuits and just a different sense of her and she’s really becoming her most modern self.”

    Friedberg conveyed the privilege and simplicity of the rich men in the series through clothing as well. Josh Lucas plays Douglas, who suffers some disappointments this season, reflected in his costumes.

    “What if we approach Douglas where he’s always been dressed by women in his life? He’s always been dressed by someone else. He’s never shopped,” Lucas says he posed to Friedberg (who happens to be his sister-in-law in real life). “And for the first time, (his wife’s) character is not doing that, so he only has three hole-filled Hawaiian shirts.”

    He’s in fact the rare character who repeats outfits, Friedberg notes. “You can kind of see them, as the series goes along, getting a little bit more and more threadbare,” she says.

    Gerber’s character gets a major makeover this season after coming into money. The actor gushed about Friedberg’s intentional designs as Mitzi finds her “womanhood and her power.”

    “It was so fun to be able to be wearing these expensive gowns and jewelry and the hair and the makeup, and how that really sort of parallels Mitzi’s inner journey as well,” she says.

    The costumes may be eye candy, but Friedberg says each look also carries deeper meaning.

    “Maxine wears this dress that was an original Oscar de la Renta dress,” Friedberg says. “It’s very much something that Norma would wear, and it is saying to the audience without saying to the audience that she’s arrived, it’s her time, it’s time for her to rule.”

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  • What to Stream: ‘Freakier Friday,’ NF, ‘Landman,’ ‘Palm Royale’ and Black Ops 7

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    Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan re-teaming as the body-swapping mother and daughter duo in “Freakier Friday” and albums from 5 Seconds of Summer and the rapper NF are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys team up for the new limited-series thriller “The Beast in Me,” gamers get Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Apple TV’s star-studded “Palm Royale” is back.

    New movies to stream from Nov. 10-16

    — Richard Linklater’s love letter to the French New Wave and the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” “Nouvelle Vague,” will be streaming on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 14. In his review, Associated Press Film Writer Jake Coyle writes that, “To a remarkable degree, Linklater’s film, in French and boxed into the Academy ratio, black-and-white style of ‘Breathless,’ has fully imbibed that spirit, resurrecting one of the most hallowed eras of movies to capture an iconoclast in the making. The result is something endlessly stylish and almost absurdly uncanny.”

    — Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan re-team as the body-swapping mother and daughter duo in “Freakier Friday,” a sequel to their 2003 movie, streaming on Disney+ on Wednesday. In her review, Jocelyn Noveck writes, “The chief weakness of ‘Freakier Friday’ — an amiable, often joyful and certainly chaotic reunion — is that while it hews overly closely to the structure, storyline and even dialogue of the original, it tries too hard to up the ante. The comedy is thus a bit more manic, and the plot machinations more overwrought (or sometimes distractingly silly).”

    — Ari Aster’s latest nightmare “Eddington” is set in a small, fictional New Mexico town during the coronavirus pandemic, which becomes a kind of microcosm for our polarized society at large with Joaquin Phoenix as the sheriff and Pedro Pascal as its mayor. In my review, I wrote that, “it is an anti-escapist symphony of masking debates, conspiracy theories, YouTube prophets, TikTok trends and third-rail topics in which no side is spared.”

    — An incurable cancer diagnoses might not be the most obvious starting place for a funny and affirming film, but that is the magic of Ryan White’s documentary “Come See Me in the Good Light,” about two poets, Andrea Gibson, who died in July, and Megan Falley, facing a difficult reality together. It will be on Apple TV on Friday, Nov. 14.

    AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    New music to stream from Nov. 10-16

    — There’s nothing worse than a band without a sense of humor. Thankfully 5 Seconds of Summer are in on the joke. Their sixth studio album, “Everyone’s a Star!,” sounds like the Australian pop-rock band are having fun again, from The Prodigy-esq. “Not OK” to the self-referential and effacing “Boy Band.” Candor is their provocation now, and it sounds good — particularly after the band has spent the last few years exploring solo projects.

    — The R&B and neo soul powerhouse Summer Walker has returned with her third studio album and first in four years. “Finally Over It,” out Friday, Nov. 14, is the final chapter of her “Over It” trilogy; a release centered on transformation and autonomy. That’s evident from the dreamy throwback single, “Heart of A Woman,” in which the song’s protagonist is disappointed with her partner — but with striking self-awareness. “In love with you but can’t stand your ways,” she sings. “And I try to be strong/But how much can I take?”

    — Consider him one of the biggest artists on the planet that you may not be familiar with. NF, the musical moniker of Nate Feuerstein, emerged from the Christian rap world a modern answer to Eminem only to top the mainstream, all-genre Billboard 200 chart twice, with 2017’s “Perception” and 2019’s “The Search.” On Friday, Nov. 14, he’ll release “Fear,” a new six-track EP featuring mgk (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) and the English singer James Arthur.

    AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    New series to stream from Nov. 10-16

    — Apple TV’s star-studded “Palm Royale” is back just in time for a new social season. Starring Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Kaia Gerber, Ricky Martin AND Carol Burnett, the show is campy, colorful and fun, plus it has great costumes. Wiig plays Maxine, a woman desperate to be accepted into high society in Palm Beach, Florida, in the late 1960s. The first episode streams Wednesday and one will follow weekly into January.

    — “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member Heather Gay has written a book called “Bad Mormon” about how she went from a devout Mormon to leaving the church. Next, she’s fronting a new docuseries that delves into that too called “Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay.” The reality TV star also speaks to others who have left the religion. All three episodes drop Wednesday on Peacock.

    — Thanks to “Homeland” and “The Americans,” Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys helped put the prestige in the term prestige TV. They grace the screen together in a new limited-series for Netflix called “The Beast in Me.” Danes plays a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who finds a new subject in her next door neighbor, a real estate tycoon who also may or may not have killed his first wife. Howard Gordon, who worked with Danes on “Homeland,” is also the showrunner and an executive producer of “The Beast in Me.” It premieres Thursday.

    — David Duchovny and Jack Whitehall star in a new thriller on Prime Video called “Malice.” Duchovny plays Jamie, a wealthy man vacationing with his family in Greece. He hires a tutor (played by Whitehall) named Adam to work with the kids who seems likable, personable and they invite him into their world. Soon it becomes apparent that Adam’s charm is actually creepy. Something is up. As these stories go, getting rid of an interloper is never easy. All six episodes drop Friday, Nov. 14.

    “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” returns to Fox Nation on Sunday, Nov. 16 for a second season. The premiere details the story of Saint Patrick. The show is a passion project for Scorsese who executive produces, hosts, and narrates the episodes.

    — Billy Bob Thornton has struck oil in the second season of “Landman” on Paramount+. Created by Taylor Sheridan, the show is set in modern day Texas in the world of Big Oil. Sam Elliott and Andy Garcia have joined the cast and Demi Moore also returns. The show returns Sunday, Nov. 16.

    Alicia Rancilio

    New video games to play from Nov. 10-16

    — The Call of Duty team behind the Black Ops subseries delivered a chapter last year — but they’re already back with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The new installment of the bestselling first-person shooter franchise moves to 2035 and a world “on the brink of chaos.” (What else is new?) Publisher Activision is promising a “reality-shattering” experience that dives into “into the deepest corners of the human psyche.” Beyond that storyline there are also 16 multiplayer maps and the ever-popular zombie mode, in which you and your friends get to blast away at relentless hordes of the undead. Lock and load Friday, Nov. 14, on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

    Lumines Arise is the latest head trip from Enhance Games, the studio behind puzzlers like Tetris Effect, Rez Infinite and Humanity. The basic challenge is simple enough: Multicolored 2×2 blocks drift down the screen, and you need to arrange them to form single-color squares. Completed squares vanish unless you apply the “burst” mechanic, which lets you build ever-larger squares and rack up bigger scores. It’s all accompanied by hallucinatory graphics and thumping electronic music, and you can plug in a virtual reality headset if you really want to feel like you’re at a rave. Pick up the groove Tuesday on PlayStation 5 or PC.

    Lou Kesten

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  • Laura Dern Remembers Her ‘Amazing Hero’ and Mother Diane Ladd

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    Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images

    Family, former co-stars, and sometimes both are paying their respects to the late Diane Ladd. Laura Dern, who remembered her “amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother” in a tribute below, starred alongside her mother in some of her most memorable roles, including Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Wild At Heart; both were nominated for Academy Awards in their respective roles in Rambling Rose, making them the first mother-daughter actresses to be nominated for the same film. Bruce Dern, Ladd’s ex-husband, her Wild Angels co-star, and father to Laura, paid tribute to the “wonderful mother” Ladd was to their daughters. Below, the full statements from Ladd’s family as well as her co-stars from her more recent films, like Isle of Hope.

    “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother, Diane Ladd, passed with me beside her this morning, at her home in Ojai, Ca.

    She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created

    We were blessed to have her

    She is flying with her angels now.”

    “Diane was a tremendous actress and I feel like, a bit of a ‘hidden treasure’ until she ran into David Lynch. When he cast her as Laura‘s mom in Wild at Heart it felt like the world then really understood her brilliance.

    She was a great value as a decades long board member of SAG, giving a real actress’ point of view.

    She lived a good life. She saw everything the way it was. She was a great teammate to her fellow actors. She was funny, clever, gracious.

    But most importantly to me, she was a wonderful mother to our incredible wunderkind daughter. And for that I will be forever grateful to her.”

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    Alejandra Gularte

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  • Tory Burch Hosts a Book Party for Kristina O’Neill and Laura Brown

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    Cindy Crawford, Laura Dern, Monica Lewinsky and Uzo Aduba gathered on Rodeo Drive to toast Kristina O’Neill and Laura Brown’s empowering release

    Her last store party in Beverly Hills turned into the dance party of the year. And on Thursday, Oct. 23, designer Tory Burch once again brought out an impressive group of friends — this time to celebrate Kristina O’Neill and Laura Brown’s new book, All the Cool Girls Get Fired: How to Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Back on Top.

    The front of the Rodeo Drive flagship hosted something of a fashion show with the arrival of guests — who included Cindy Crawford, Laura Dern, Rebecca Gayheart and Max Greenfield.

    Cindy Crawford, Laura Dern, Laura Brown, Tory Burch, Kristina O’Neill and Carolyn Murphy
    Credit: Cody Marquez/BFA.com

    After mingling over Champagne, spicy margaritas, sliders and fries (served in paper cones printed with quotes from the book), partygoers assembled around the stairs — where Kiernan Shipka, Janicza Bravo, Bella Heathcote, Lake Bell, Monica Lewinsky, Jurnee Smollett, Santigold, Uzo Aduba and Zoey Deutch stood in a line.

    Tess Sanchez, Max Greenfield, Rebecca Gayheart
    Tess Sanchez, Max Greenfield and Rebecca Gayheart, wearing Tory Burch’s oversized wool coat with the Romy suede bucket bag and peep-toe pump.
    Credit: Cody Marquez/BFA.com

    First, Burch kicked things off. “I’m sure everyone in this room either has been fired, was almost fired or should have been fired,” she said. “It isn’t the end — it’s just the beginning of something smarter, cooler and much much bigger.”

    Then author Brown took the mic. Now the founder of LB Media and the chair of (RED)’s Creative Council, she’d once been fired from her editor-in-chief role at InStyle magazine. Friend O’Neill, now the editor-in-chief of Sotheby’s Magazine, previously lost her EIC job at WSJ Magazine

    “We know that in the creative businesses, oftentimes you’re judged on how you perform — there’s work, there’s no work,” Brown said. “The thing to really believe in all the time is yourself.”

    Then, the women lined up recited passes from the book.

    Kiernan Shipka
    Kiernan Shipka in a Tory Burch denim blazer, straight-leg jean and viscose ribbed polo with the Romy bucket bag, peep-toe pump and mini wave earrings
    Credit: Cody Marquez/BFA.com

    Shipka kicked things off. “So, you got fired — laid off, let go, reduced, restructured, canned, shit-canned,” she read. “Or if you want to spin it (and we don’t suggest you do), you ‘left.’ Well, welcome to the party, baby!”

    “Hello, I’m Janicza,” said Bravo, donning Tory Burch’s deconstructed satin skirt and cuffed cotton shirt with the peep-toe Mary Jane ballet and pierced calf hair handbag. “I’ve been fired, and I’m so grateful for it!”

    “I’m Lake … and I’ve also been fired,” echoed Bell, before launching into her passage. “So why should getting fired define you? Why should you let it? … Do not attach your value to where you work. Your value lies within you. Read this in a Brené Brown voice.

    Lewinsky got the biggest applause when she prefaced her reading with, “Hi, I’m Monica. I don’t want to show anybody up, but I was fired from the White House.”

    Zoey Deutch, Jurnee Smollett and Monica Lewinsky
    Zoey Deutch, Jurnee Smollett and Monica Lewinsky
    Credit: Cody Marquez/BFA.com

    Lewinsky, wearing a Tory Burch silk bow blouse and wrap skirt with a pierced suede bag, then read: “Being fired is a universal experience and one of the greatest equalizers, because everyone feels the same: like shit.”

    “Hi — I’m Zoey, and I’ve also been fired,” began Deutsch, who wore a Tory Burch half-zip wool sweatshirt and Japanese jersey sweatpants with the Romy shoulder bag and pierced heeled ankle boot. She then read a quote from Carol Burnett: “My advice for women who’ve been fired: It’s not over. There are other mountains to climb and other things to do to win.”

    “It’s amazing that so many people have been fired!” exclaimed Santigold before reading a quote from Oprah that she said was relevant to her firing experience.

    Uzo Aduba
    Uzo Aduba
    Credit: Cody Marquez/BFA.com

    Adubo finished things off. “Life is short,” she read. “Whether you leave an unfulfilling job or are dumped right out of it, remember you have regained the most important thing: your independence. Now take some time to sit on that beautiful beach you’d barely noticed, and lean out.”

    Guests left with a copy of the book, released Oct. 14 from Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books.

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    Jasmin Rosemberg

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  • Screening at NYFF: Bradley Cooper’s ‘Is This Thing On?’

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    Will Arnett. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

    Bradley Cooper’s third feature after Maestro and A Star is Born—the divorce-and-stand-up dramedy Is This Thing On?—departs from the musical focus of his previous efforts but, like them, comes achingly close to being great. The actor-director is three-for-three when it comes to films about art and artistry that just come up short, while displaying enough thoughtful flourishes to convince you he’ll create a masterpiece down the line. Sadly, today is not that day, but the result remains perfectly entertaining.

    The story, penned by Cooper, Mark Chappell, and the movie’s lead actor will arnett, begins with dour finance man Alex Novak (Arnett) and his anxious homemaker wife Tess (Laura Dern) mutually deciding to separate. It’s a spontaneous moment seemingly informed by lengthy consideration off-screen, and while this framing provides little context as to their reasons, the movie opens up space for both characters to re-litigate their relationship in some unique and enticing ways. The couple’s ten-year-old boys readily accept the amicable separation, even if it means splitting their time between Tess in their suburban home and Alex in his new bachelor pad in Manhattan. However, in order to cope with the unexpected grief of the situation, Alex finds himself—at first by happenstance and then by intent—at various open mic nights at New York’s Comedy Cellar, letting his troubles pour out of him in the form of some decidedly average stand-up. It’s an experiment he keeps close to his chest, like a dirty secret, the gradual reveal of which makes for some fun situational comedy.

    Cooper and cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s camera remains tethered to Alex’s uncomfortable close-ups for most of his sets as he finds ways to turn his impending divorce into fodder for his act and learns the ropes from more seasoned comics in scenes filled with snappy wit. All the while, he and Tess remain in each other’s orbit and gradually navigate the awkward complications of remaining close despite going their separate ways. At first, Is This Thing On? plays like the tale of an artist discovering his hidden talent, but while Alex’s routine gestures at catharsis, it seldom helps him address his avoidant personality—or the lingering tensions that prevent him and Tess from figuring out their new dynamic. After all, men will literally [insert hobby here] instead of going to therapy.

    A man and a woman sit facing each other in a dimly lit wooden room, appearing to argue or have an intense conversation on a bed.A man and a woman sit facing each other in a dimly lit wooden room, appearing to argue or have an intense conversation on a bed.
    Will Arnett and Laura Dern. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

    The supporting characters around the couple weave in and out of focus, between Alex’s loving parents (Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds) and a litany of married pals, including Cooper himself as a floundering actor named Balls. Unfortunately, these B-plots tend to feel more intrusive than informative, especially when Cooper keeps the camera running—often on himself—for extended periods that reveal little about the characters and move the story even less. Still, they’re idiosyncratic enough to be amusing, even if Cooper could afford to leave some of his riffing on the cutting room floor.

    However, when Will and Tess are the movie’s focus, there’s no end to its audiovisual delights. Cooper moves between scenes with furious momentum; one uproarious transition in particular makes literal the idea of bringing domestic woes to the stage, while James Newberry’s jazzy score creates numerous anxious crescendos at every turn. His commitment to capturing drama in real time yields engaging and side-splitting dialogue scenes, where the camera—although it oscillates noticeably between its leads without cutting away—affords his actors the chance to dig deep into the uncertainties underlying their confident, personable façades. These are polite masks they wear before one another, even during pleasant interactions, if it means never letting slip that they might blame themselves for their breakup. But as Alex explores stand-up and Tess tries to get back to her former career as a volleyball coach (with the help of an acquaintance played naturalistically by former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning), the duo also explores a complicated friends-with-benefits dynamic, while the question of whether they’ll ever admit their faults to themselves—let alone each other—continues to loom.


    IS THIS THING ON? ★★★ (3/4 stars)
    Directed by: Bradley Cooper
    Written by: Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, Mark Chappell
    Starring: Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day, Bradley Cooper, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds
    Running time: 120 mins.


    The thorny evolution of the couple’s relationship speaks to an artistic desire to solve some kind of riddle that has no easy answer. Cooper and Arnett have both been through divorces themselves, and the movie captures vignettes of reality in energetic spurts, especially in isolated moments where the lead characters grow more worried, frustrated, or aggrieved, sometimes all at once. As a performance piece, Is This Thing On? is unimpeachable, and results in surprising despondency from Arnett and remarkable work from Dern, whose silent reactions and introspections speak louder than words. However, the adrenaline of the movie’s drama tends to wane the longer it goes on without a real objective in mind. It’s a film that ultimately has too many open questions without the dramatic rigor to justify them, even when its plot wraps up neatly (albeit too quickly and conveniently).

    In a broader sense, one has to wonder if Cooper has taken criticisms of his preceding work to heart. “No one wants an Oscar as badly as Bradley Cooper,” wrote Alex Abad-Santos for Vox, in a piece that also refers to him as a “try-hard.” It’s just one of several such sentiments that tend to accompany his writer-director-actor-producer (and occasionally singer) ventures, although this time, he’s mostly removed himself from the equation on screen and diverted his focus away from music altogether. This is unfortunately at odds with the kind of visual verve he usually brings to his movies. I also wrote in 2023 that he should just direct a musical already, a sentiment that holds true here as well, given how purposefully he moves his camera around each performer, creating enrapturing rhythms even when the movie’s other pieces don’t necessarily fit.

    I tend to disagree with assessments like Abad-Santos’s, given how much of Cooper’s output is laced with emotional sincerity, whether or not his end goal is some intimate emotional purging or simply winning a trophy. Then again, in the intensely rendered but chaotic A Star Is Born, the more cogent but reserved Maestro, and now the more focused but less ambitious Is This Thing On?—all tales of artists finding themselves by opening up their veins and showing audiences what pours out—is there really a difference between the desire for catharsis and major accolades? Cooper’s latest is clearly the output of someone who has been through personal anguish, and like Alex Novak, he attempts to use his pain as the basis for not just something healing but something hilarious, albeit something deeply imperfect, too.

    Screening at NYFF: Bradley Cooper’s ‘Is This Thing On?’

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    Siddhant Adlakha

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  • ‘Jay Kelly’ Trailer: George Clooney Examines His Life With Help From Adam Sandler

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    George Clooney examines his life and what it all means in the trailer for Noah Baumbach‘s upcoming film Jay Kelly.

    Netflix released the first full trailer for its awards hopeful on Monday. The official logline for the film, via Netflix: “Jay Kelly follows famous movie actor, Jay Kelly (George Clooney), as he embarks on a journey of self discovery confronting both his past and present, accompanied by his devoted manager Ron (Adam Sandler). Poignant and humor filled, epic and intimate, Jay Kelly is pitched at the intersection of life’s regrets and notable glories.”

    The trailer starts out with Jay saying: “I don’t want to be here anymore.… I want to leave the party.”

    His daughter reveals she’s going to Paris, and Kelly decides to follow her to France, with Ron and his publicist (Laura Dern) in tow.

    “Lately I feel like my life doesn’t really feel real,” Jay tells Ron. “Suddenly, I’m remembering things. What is that?”

    “Memory?” Ron asks.

    “It’s like a movie where I’m playing myself,” Jay muses.

    The movie, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, will be released in select theaters Nov. 14 and on Netflix on Dec. 5.

    In addition to directing, Baumbach wrote the script with Emily Mortimer and served as producer with David Heyman and Amy Pascal. The cast also includes Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Greta Gerwig, Alba Rohrwacher, Josh Hamilton, Lenny Henry, Emily Mortimer, Nicôle Lecky, Thaddea Graham, Isla Fisher, Louis Partridge and Charlie Rowe. 

    Watch the trailer below.

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    Kimberly Nordyke

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  • Telluride: ‘Jay Kelly’ Team on Clooney and Stardom, Sandler’s Soulful Turn and Crudup’s Crazy Scene

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    Due to illness, George Clooney couldn’t make it to this year’s Telluride Film Festival for the North American premiere of Jay Kelly, a film that centers on a movie star (Clooney) who experiences an existential crisis that prompts him to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to Europe to see his daughter and accept a career tribute from a film festival, and his “team,” who are expected to drop everything to support him. But a large coterie of Clooney’s collaborators on the film were in town — among them co-writer/director Noah Baumbach, actors Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson, and composer Nicholas Britell — and basked in the warm reception and awards chatter that greeted the Netflix title at its four festival screenings, two of which followed career tributes to Baumbach.

    On Sunday, following one of those screenings, I sat down with the aforementioned group for a wide-ranging Q&A. We discussed why Baumbach and Emily Mortimer wrote the part of Kelly with Clooney in mind, and why it was a gutsy decision for the A-lister to agree to take it on; what Sandler drew upon to formulate his portrayal of Kelly’s manager, Ron, for which the Sand-man is receiving some of the best reviews of his career and looks like a strong bet to land his first Oscar nom; how Crudup, who plays a former acting school classmate of Kelly’s, Timothy, prepared for his brief but complex scene in the film, which elicited mid-movie applause at every screening; plus more.

    A transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appears below.

    * * *

    Noah, what was the root of the idea for this film, which you co-wrote with Emily Mortimer? Also, some might wonder: why center it on a famous movie star rather than, say, a famous writer-director who also occasionally receives career tributes of his own?

    BAUMBACH Well, we needed some barrier. [laughs] I don’t know, I found it compelling, this notion of a movie star who has some kind of crisis and goes on a journey — an actual journey into the world, and also a journey into himself. I had a bunch of ideas, and I didn’t know quite what to do with all of them, and I was talking to Emily about it. She asked all the right questions, and then, just on a whim, I was like, “Do you want to do this with me? If it goes south, we can always just stop.” But it was such a great collaboration. It was a year or so that we really just worked on and shaped the movie.

    My understanding is that you two wrote it with George in mind for the title role, which begs the question: what would you have done if George had said no? I can understand why he might have: Jay Kelly, like George, is an actor from Kentucky, often described as the last “real” movie star, and shares a number of other things in common with him — but Jay also has some attributes that aren’t great, and some people might assume that Jay is George.

    BAUMBACH Well, not to mention what he would have to do in the movie. I mean, it’s a character who’s running from himself, and he’s very good at deflecting and hiding, but as we see in the movie, these memories come at him. We described the memories as “headwinds.” The actor who was playing Jay Kelly had to then start to reveal more of himself, which requires vulnerability. But George said yes within 24 hours, and I knew immediately, when he said yes, that he was going to be amazing, because he knew what was in front of him and what he was going to have to do. To answer your other question, I don’t know [what we would have done if George had said no]. I think we wouldn’t have made the movie. The audience needed to have a history with the actor playing Jay Kelly, the same way the people in the movie have a relationship with Jay Kelly. What George does, as he starts to reveal more and more, is just beautiful to watch.

    There’s another actor in this film who we’ve known and loved for decades — actually several — and not all of this guy’s movies have gotten the critical respect that Jay Kelly is getting, but he’s brought a lot of people a lot of joy over a lot of years—

    SANDLER Patrick Wilson! [laughs]

    But I’m not sure that he has gotten the credit that he deserves for stretching himself as much as he has in films like Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, Reign Over Me, Noah’s film The Meyerowitz Stories, Uncut Gems and Hustle. Noah, for the part of Ron, why did you go back to Adam Sandler?

    BAUMBACH Adam and I fell in love with each other on The Meyerowitz Stories — we became very close; our families are close and love each other; and my son, Rohmer, who’s here, basically lives at Adam’s house half the year. The character of Ron, I wrote for Adam — even though you might think that Adam is more like Jay Kelly [because he’s a movie star] — because of the way Adam is in the world, with his heart and his generosity and his loyalty. The people who work with him have been with him since the beginning, and the way he is with his family is so beautiful. I felt like, “Well, that’s what Ron is like, and Adam, in a way, could play something that is close to him, but in disguise.” That was really exciting to me, and also a way to pay tribute to the Adam I know and love.

    SANDLER That’s beautiful. Thank you.

    Adam, I’d love to hear what your reaction was when you saw what Noah had written for you. But also, having been in the business for as long as you have, you’ve had an up-close view of the actor/manager relationship, with all of its friend/employee complexities, and I wondered if that particularly informed the way you approached this guy?

    SANDLER First of all, thank you to Noah for this part — Noah, you’re a great man, and all of us thank you. What a guy he is. He writes the most beautiful lines, and we get to say them, so thank you. Yes, over the years I’ve had a team, similar to Jay Kelly. I have a manager; I have a publicist; I have an agent; I have my makeup girl, Anne — she’s not here tonight, but imagine being her! Imagine every morning going, “What the fuck can I do?!” But I really loved being this guy who just loves his client and feels that they’re in it together — he feels the same successes, and when something goes wrong he feels the same pain. My team feels that way also. When things go wrong, they are definitely shook up. When we have a nice moment, they’re as excited as I am. So I connected with my guy, absolutely.

    Adam, as Noah alluded to, you’ve been exceptionally the opposite of Jay Kelly, in terms of casting people that you’ve known forever in your films and being very present with your family — I think your whole family was in Happy Gilmore 2 earlier this year! But even with that being the case, has being part of this movie, watching it and thinking about it, made you look at your role as a movie star, or movie stardom in general, any differently than you had before?

    SANDLER I think what the movie is saying is that not just movie stars, but anybody who wants to do their best, has to put time in to their work, and when you do that, you are away from your family, and you know your family’s still going on, and you want to get to them. I definitely have schlepped my family all over the world wherever I go, but there are times when they can’t come. Jay Kelly not getting to be with his family, and looking back and knowing how painful it was for them, is crushing. Even though I’m with my family a lot, I still have moments where it kills me being away. We all do.

    Another person who has some history with Noah — namely, the movie Marriage Story, for which she won an Academy Award — is Laura Dern. Laura, similar to Adam, you’ve been at the highest levels of this business for so many years. Has this film made you think differently about stardom?

    DERN What I love — and Adam spoke so eloquently to it — is the question of the cost of any of our journeys in life, what we might miss. So before Jay Kelly can get to, “I want another one,” there’s the cost for Ron, what he’s lost in life by being of service to Jay. And so my character [Kelly’s publicist] is helping Ron’s journey of getting to the place where he’s also willing to get off the train. And getting to stare into the eyes and work with the face that Anne gets to make up every day was the dream of my life!

    SANDLER We had fun.

    DERN And being back with Noah was a dream because he creates a home, makes you feel the safest you’ve ever been, and gifts you with these people you get to dive right into, even if they’re the very people you’ve been surrounded by your whole life. I, too, have had the good fortune of being surrounded by publicists.

    Billy, it seems to me like your assignment must have fet very daunting: you have to come in and, in a relatively short amount of time, provide the motivation for Jay’s existential crisis. You crushed the Method acting scene. Can you share how you prepared for it, and if that process was any different from the process that you use when, as is often the case, you are the guy who’s at the center of a project?

    CRUDUP Well, thank you. What a gift it was to have Noah come to me with this composition. You have to understand, I’ve been in New York for over 30 years now, and Noah is a fixture of the independent cinema scene there, and every one of my friends has worked with him at some point or another. I was desperate to be in one of Noah’s movies — I was ready for anything — and then I read this and I was like, “Dude, that’s a very hard thing to do! Something I’m not exactly sure how to do. And it seems like the rest of your movie is predicated on that being successful.” [laughs] So, “Are you sure?” was really my question to him, and we had a lot of conversations. Most of my friends are actors, and result-oriented acting — where you just think, “Oh, this is the scene where my character cries” — is anathema to everything that we do. I thought, “That’s going to be a problem.” Noah was very considerate and understanding that I was desperate to work with him, but that I really did not know how to pull this off. I had a whole other version that I had written down to try, and Noah entertained me. Then, about two or three weeks before we were going to shoot this scene, I noticed that the scene hadn’t changed at all, and that I was going to have to figure out some solution. So I started doing research on Method acting, and sure enough, Noah had constructed this scene in such a way that the scene actually plays itself, it leads you in the right direction. That’s a great writer. I don’t know how many takes we did, but it was probably over 50 on both sides — and there wasn’t a second of it that I wasn’t in absolute heaven.

    Patrick, your character, Ben Alcock, another movie star and client of Ron’s, is the antithesis of Jay Kelly in a number of ways. I wonder if you can talk about that, and specifically about the very memorable scene that you shared with Mr. Sandler.

    WILSON I only have two scenes, and I knew nothing about the rest of the script — I mean nothing — until I saw the movie this morning. And Ben didn’t know anything, nor did he need to know anything, so that was an interesting exercise for me, but a glorious one, because the words that I had been given said everything that I needed to know. The scene with George on the side of the road said so much about Ben’s family, his values and how he views his own career. And the scene with Adam? Just working with Adam has been this crazy dream of mine, because I don’t live in the comedy space. It was a double-whammy for me to work with Adam and Noah, two people that I revere so much. It can make you feel uncomfortable when you’re only coming in for a couple of days, but I was given such support by Noah and the crew. And then Adam, you were just so glorious on that day, and made me feel so comfortable. We did 30 different versions with shit flying off the table, and I was looking across the table at this guy who was wiped out every single take. I knew I just had to react and be open. I’ve never had a scene like that. I did have to fire an agent once years ago, but it wasn’t like that! [laughs] Anyway, I just love your [Adam’s] work, and I love your work in this movie.

    We are going to close with the great composer Nicholas Britell, who everyone knows from the theme of Succession, the scores of Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk and Don’t Look Up, and so much else. Nick, I was fascinated to learn that on this project, perhaps unlike any other on which you’ve worked, your music was in place before some of the scenes were even shot.

    BRITELL It’s true. This was something that I’d never done before, getting involved in a project so early. Noah and I met over two years ago, and from the script stage he and I had amazing conversations, and I started trying to imagine the feeling that the movie might have. Then I wrote three of the four main themes of the movie, and Noah invited me to come to Tuscany, and we actually played the music on set for everybody. It was such a special thing for me to sort of absorb the atmosphere. And it was important, I think, for everybody, sort of like osmosis — you feel the world that you’re going to be a part of creating. I just had a blast from start to finish.

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    Scott Feinberg

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  • The Best Red Carpet Fashion from the 2025 Venice Film Festival

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    Emma Stone. Getty Images

    The Venice Film Festival is always a glamorous affair, but this year’s prestigious competition just might be the most star-studded yet. The 11-day extravaganza, which kicks off on August 27 and runs through September 6, is filled with noteworthy film premieres, screenings and fêtes, all of which are attended by A-list filmmakers and celebrities.

    The 2025 lineup is replete with buzzy, highly-anticipated films; the main competition includes Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, with Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, with George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Billy Crudup, and Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson.

    Luca Guadagnino’s eagerly awaited After the Hunt is also premiering at the festival out of competition, featuring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Chloë Sevigny, Andrew Garfield and Michael Stuhlbarg.

    Alexander Payne is the jury president for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, and this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement which will be awarded to Werner Herzog and Kim Novak.

    Glitzy movie premieres aside, let’s not forget about the sartorial moments at Venice, because attendees always bring their most fashionable A-game to walk the red carpet in front of the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema. It’s a week-and-a-half of some of the best style moments of the year, and we’re keeping you updated with all the top ensembles on the Venice red carpet. Below, see the best fashion moments from the 2025 Venice International Film Festival.

    "The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emily Blunt. Getty Images

    Emily Blunt

    in Tamara Ralph 

    "The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Halsey. WireImage

    Halsey

    "The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Smashing Machine" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Dwayne Johnson. Getty Images

    Dwayne Johnson

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 6 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 6 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Kaia Gerber and Lewis Pullman. FilmMagic

    Kaia Gerber and Lewis Pullman

    Gerber in Givenchy 

    "The Testament Of Ann Lee" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Testament Of Ann Lee" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Amanda Seyfried. Getty Images

    Amanda Seyfried

    in Prada

    "The Testament Of Ann Lee" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Testament Of Ann Lee" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Thomasin McKenzie. Corbis via Getty Images

    Thomasin McKenzie

    in Rodarte 

    The 82nd Venice International Film Festival - Day 6The 82nd Venice International Film Festival - Day 6
    Stacy Martin. Deadline via Getty Images

    Stacy Martin

    "The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alexa Chung. Corbis via Getty Images

    Alexa Chung

    in Chloe

    "The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alicia Vikander. Getty Images

    Alicia Vikander

    in Louis Vuitton

    "Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Cate Blanchett. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag

    Cate Blanchett

    in Maison Margiela 

    "Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Charlotte Rampling. WireImage

    Charlotte Rampling

    in Saint Laurent 

    "Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Mayim Bialik. Getty Images

    Mayim Bialik

    in Saint Laurent 

    Filming Italy Venice Award Delegation Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalFilming Italy Venice Award Delegation Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alicia Silverstone. WireImage

    Alicia Silverstone

    "Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Father Mother Sister Brother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Luka Sabbat. WireImage

    Luka Sabbat

    "The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"The Wizard Of The Kremlin" (Le Mage Du Kremlin) Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Jude Law. Corbis via Getty Images

    Jude Law

    Filming Italy Venice Award Delegation Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalFilming Italy Venice Award Delegation Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph. WireImage

    Da’Vine Joy Randolph

    in Alfredo Martinez 

    "Motor City" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Motor City" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Shailene Woodley. FilmMagic

    Shailene Woodley

    in Fendi

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Molly Gordon. Getty Images

    Molly Gordon

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Mia Goth. Getty Images

    Mia Goth

    in Dior 

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Jacob Elordi. WireImage

    Jacob Elordi

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Kaitlyn Dever. Getty Images

    Kaitlyn Dever

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Callum Turner. Getty Images

    Callum Turner

    in Louis Vuitton 

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Leslie Bibb. Getty Images

    Leslie Bibb

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Paris Jackson. Getty Images

    Paris Jackson

    in Trussardi

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Gemma Chan. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag

    Gemma Chan

    in Armani Privé

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag

    Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

    in Armani Privé

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Sofia Carson. WireImage

    Sofia Carson

    in Armani Privé

    "Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Suki Waterhouse. Getty Images

    Suki Waterhouse

    in Rabanne 

    "Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Tilda Swinton. Getty Images

    Tilda Swinton

    in Chanel 

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Julia Roberts. WireImage

    Julia Roberts

    in Versace 

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Ayo Edebiri. Getty Images

    Ayo Edebiri

    in Chanel

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Monica Barbaro. WireImage

    Monica Barbaro

    in Dior 

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Andrew Garfield. WireImage

    Andrew Garfield

    in Dior 

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Chloe Sevigny. Getty Images

    Chloe Sevigny

    in Saint Laurent 

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer. Getty Images

    Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer

    "After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Isabeli Fontana. Getty Images

    Isabeli Fontana

    in Yara Shoemaker 

    "After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Chloe Sevigny. WireImage

    Chloe Sevigny

    in Simone Rocha 

    "After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Ayo Edebiri. Corbis via Getty Images

    Ayo Edebiri

    in Chanel  

    "After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Julia Roberts. WireImage

    Julia Roberts

    in Versace 

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 3 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 3 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Mia Goth. Getty Images

    Mia Goth

    in Versace 

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 3 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 3 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Cate Blanchett. Getty Images

    Cate Blanchett

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    George Clooney and Amal Clooney. WireImage

    George Clooney and Amal Clooney

    Amal Clooney in vintage Jean-Louis Scherrer 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Laura Dern. WireImage

    Laura Dern

    in Armani Privé

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Riley Keough. WireImage

    Riley Keough

    in Chloe 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Getty Images

    Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig

    Gerwig in Rodarte 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emily Mortimer. Getty Images

    Emily Mortimer

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Molly Sims. WireImage

    Molly Sims

    in Pamella Roland

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup. Getty Images

    Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup

    Watts in Valentino, Crudup in Celine 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Shailene Woodley. WireImage

    Shailene Woodley

    in Kallmeyer 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Eve Hewson. WireImage

    Eve Hewson

    in Schiaparelli

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alba Rohrwacher. WireImage

    Alba Rohrwacher

    in Dior 

    "Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Sunny Madeline Sandler, Sadie Madison Sandler, Jackie Sandler and Adam Sandler. WireImage

    Sunny Madeline Sandler, Sadie Madison Sandler, Jackie Sandler and Adam Sandler

    "Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emma Stone. WireImage

    Emma Stone

    in Louis Vuitton 

    "Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alicia Silverstone. WireImage

    Alicia Silverstone

    in Prada

    "Il Rapimento Di Arabella" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Il Rapimento Di Arabella" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Benedetta Porcaroli. Getty Images

    Benedetta Porcaroli

    in Prada

    "Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Riley Keough. WireImage

    Riley Keough

    in Chanel 

    "Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Laura Dern. WireImage

    Laura Dern

    in Saint Laurent 

    "Bugonia" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Bugonia" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emma Stone. Getty Images

    Emma Stone

    in Louis Vuitton 

    "Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Greta Gerwig. WireImage

    Greta Gerwig

    in Prada

    "Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alba Rohrwacher. WireImage

    Alba Rohrwacher

    in Dior 

    "Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Eve Hewson. WireImage

    Eve Hewson

    in Erdem 

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 2 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 2 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emily Mortimer. Getty Images

    Emily Mortimer

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Cate Blanchett. WireImage

    Cate Blanchett

    in Armani Privé

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Tilda Swinton. WireImage

    Tilda Swinton

    in Chanel

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Claire Holt. WireImage

    Claire Holt

    in Intimissimi 

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Barbara Palvin. Getty Images

    Barbara Palvin

    in Intimissimi 

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Zhao Tao. WireImage

    Zhao Tao

    in Prada

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Fernanda Torres. WireImage

    Fernanda Torres

    in Armani Privé

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Heidi Klum and Leni Klum. WireImage

    Heidi Klum and Leni Klum

    in Intimissimi 

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Charleen Weiss. WireImage

    Charleen Weiss

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Charlotte Wells. WireImage

    Charlotte Wells

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Paola Turani. WireImage

    Paola Turani

    in Galia Lahav 

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    RaMell Ross. WireImage

    RaMell Ross

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Shannon Murphy. WireImage

    Shannon Murphy

    "La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"La Grazia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emanuela Fanelli. WireImage

    Emanuela Fanelli

    in Armani Privé

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Benedetta Porcaroli and Carolina Cavalli. Getty Images

    Benedetta Porcaroli and Carolina Cavalli

    "Mother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Mother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Noomi Rapace. Corbis via Getty Images

    Noomi Rapace

    in Courrèges

    "Mother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Mother" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Sylvia Hoeks. Getty Images

    Sylvia Hoeks

    in Prada

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Alba Rohrwacher. Getty Images

    Alba Rohrwacher

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Laura Dern. Getty Images

    Laura Dern

    in Emilia Wickstead

    Celebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film FestivalCelebrity Sightings - Day 1 - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola. Getty Images

    Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola

    "Jay Kelly" Cast Arrive In Venice For The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Jay Kelly" Cast Arrive In Venice For The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Amal Clooney and George Clooney. GC Images

    Amal Clooney and George Clooney

    Amal Clooney in Balmain 

    The Best Red Carpet Fashion from the 2025 Venice Film Festival

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    Morgan Halberg

    Source link

  • The Best Red Carpet Fashion from the 2025 Venice Film Festival

    [ad_1]

    Emma Stone. Getty Images

    The Venice Film Festival is always a glamorous affair, but this year’s prestigious competition just might be the most star-studded yet. The 11-day extravaganza, which kicks off on August 27 and runs through September 6, is filled with noteworthy film premieres, screenings and fêtes, all of which are attended by A-list filmmakers and celebrities.

    The 2025 lineup is replete with buzzy, highly-anticipated films; the main competition includes Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, with Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, with George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Billy Crudup, and Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson.

    Luca Guadagnino’s eagerly awaited After the Hunt is also premiering at the festival out of competition, featuring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Chloë Sevigny, Andrew Garfield and Michael Stuhlbarg.

    Alexander Payne is the jury president for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, and this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement which will be awarded to Werner Herzog and Kim Novak.

    Glitzy movie premieres aside, let’s not forget about the sartorial moments at Venice, because attendees always bring their most fashionable A-game to walk the red carpet in front of the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema. It’s a week-and-a-half of some of the best style moments of the year, and we’re keeping you updated with all the top ensembles on the Venice red carpet. Below, see the best fashion moments from the 2025 Venice International Film Festival.

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Molly Gordon. Getty Images

    Molly Gordon

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Mia Goth. Getty Images

    Mia Goth

    in Dior 

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Jacob Elordi. WireImage

    Jacob Elordi

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Kaitlyn Dever. Getty Images

    Kaitlyn Dever

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Callum Turner

    in Louis Vuitton 

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Leslie Bibb

    in Giorgio Armani

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Paris Jackson

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    Gemma Chan. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag

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    in Armani Privé

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
    Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImag

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    in Armani Privé

    "Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Frankenstein" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Sofia Carson

    in Armani Privé

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    Suki Waterhouse

    in Rabanne 

    "Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Broken English" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Tilda Swinton

    in Chanel 

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    in Versace 

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    in Chanel

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    Monica Barbaro

    in Dior 

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    in Dior 

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    Chloe Sevigny

    in Saint Laurent 

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    Lady Amelia Spencer and Lady Eliza Spencer

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    Isabeli Fontana

    in Yara Shoemaker 

    "After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Chloe Sevigny

    in Simone Rocha 

    "After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"After The Hunt" Photocall - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Ayo Edebiri

    in Chanel  

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    Julia Roberts

    in Versace 

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    Mia Goth

    in Versace 

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    Cate Blanchett

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    George Clooney and Amal Clooney

    Amal Clooney in vintage Jean-Louis Scherrer 

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    Laura Dern

    in Armani Privé

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    in Chloe 

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    Gerwig in Rodarte 

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    Emily Mortimer

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    Molly Sims

    in Pamella Roland

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    Watts in Valentino, Crudup in Celine 

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    Shailene Woodley

    in Kallmeyer 

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    Eve Hewson

    in Schiaparelli

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    in Dior 

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    "Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival"Bugonia" Red Carpet - The 82nd Venice International Film Festival
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    Emma Stone

    in Louis Vuitton 

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    Alicia Silverstone

    in Prada

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    in Prada

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    in Chanel 

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    Laura Dern

    in Saint Laurent 

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    Emma Stone

    in Louis Vuitton 

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    in Prada

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    in Dior 

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    in Erdem 

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    Emily Mortimer

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    in Armani Privé

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    Tilda Swinton

    in Chanel

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    Claire Holt

    in Intimissimi 

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    Barbara Palvin

    in Intimissimi 

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    in Prada

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    in Armani Privé

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    Heidi Klum and Leni Klum

    in Intimissimi 

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    in Galia Lahav 

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    in Armani Privé

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    in Courrèges

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    in Prada

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    Alba Rohrwacher

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    in Emilia Wickstead

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    Amal Clooney and George Clooney

    Amal Clooney in Balmain 

    The Best Red Carpet Fashion from the 2025 Venice Film Festival

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  • Caught Stealing: Darren Aronofsky Might Call It a “Love Letter” to New York, But It’s More Like a Requiem (Not for a Dream)

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    It’s been three years since Darren Aronofsky proceeded to break audiences’ hearts with The Whale (written by Samuel D. Hunter, and based on his 2012 play). In that time, of course, the world has only become a darker place. And so, with that in mind, perhaps there was a reason Aronofsky felt compelled to go “back in time” (that is, to “a simpler time”) via Charlie Huston’s screenplay adaptation of his own novel, Caught Stealing (released in 2004, ergo having a fresher perspective on the 90s after the decade had just ended). For yes, it appears that Aronofsky is actually at his best when directing someone else’s material (in other words, there aren’t many “fans,” per se, of Requiem for a Dream or mother!). Accordingly, Caught Stealing signals a marked tonal shift for Aronofsky.

    For, although the material is still quite, shall we say, heavy at times, Caught Stealing has “probably more jokes in the first ten minutes of this than in my entire body of work,” as Aronofsky told The Guardian. Plus, as a native New Yorker, Aronofsky has a certain kind of nostalgic slant to bring to the distinct period he’s depicting: late 90s on the Lower East Side. And, to immediately indicate this is “B911” (Before 9/11) epoch, a shot of the Twin Towers, in all of its romanticized glory, is proudly displayed at the beginning of the film. This being a seminal downtown view belying the seedy goings-on at a joint like Paul’s Bar (which is actually the Double Down Saloon on Avenue A, near the corner of Houston). The joint where Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler) makes his way in life as a bartender subjected to such jukebox picks of the day as Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun.” The type of bop (or is it the type of MMMBop, in this case?) that can now put the bar at risk thanks to Rudy Giuliani’s “quality of life” campaign that extended to outlawing dancing in bars without a cabaret license (and, of course, most bars weren’t trying to shell out for something like that). Yes, that’s right, Giuliani “Footloose’d” NYC bars starting in 1997—this being just one of many harbingers of doom that his mayorship heralded. Yet another portent of the unstoppable gentrification that Giuliani further aided in opening the floodgates for.

    To be sure, the late 90s was arguably the last time anyone can remember truly seeing some glimmer of what they call the “old” New York. This being why the fall (to put it mildly) of the Twin Towers in 2001 further demarcates a “before” and “after” period for the city and what it once used to “mean.” Thus, Aronofsky and Huston’s organic wielding of these types of details, like Hank telling customers to stop dancing (lest the bar get shut down and/or fined), lends further insight into this period. And it’s part of what makes Caught Stealing feel authentic to the time. 

    Indeed, this form of Giuliani shade-throwing was used even in the era when his “sweeping changes” (read: implementation of a police state) went into effect. One need look no further than the first season of Sex and the City for proof of that (with Miranda [Cynthia Nixon] being the most prone to insulting Giuliani). In fact, it could be said that the season one “look” (a.k.a. how it actually looked in New York at the time) of SATC served as a kind of “mood board” for cinematographer Matthew Libatique, another New Yorker on the crew who has been with Aronofsky since his 1998 debut, Pi. A film that, per The Guardian, “he says could almost be his parallel-universe first movie, given that it’s set in 1998, around the time he was shooting his actual first film on the same East Side streets” (back when Kim’s Video didn’t have to be added into the set design, because it was still there).

    Caught Stealing, instead, has a much greater sense of “levity,” even amidst all its darkness. That “dark aesthetic” of the city, however, is still there. And further aided by the fact that bartenders (and other assorted “shady” characters) live by night. But, more than anything, it seems that with this dark cinematography, Aronofsky aims to more than just subtly convey how much grittier the city used to be. And, as Caught Stealing makes quite clear, that grittiness was most palatable within the crime and corruption sector. With every “organization” from the Hasids (or Hasidim, if you prefer)—played by none other than Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio—to the Russian mob to the cops to Bad Bunny (playing the Russians’ “Puerto Rican associate,” Colorado) thrown into this blender of “antagonistic forces” who all suddenly have it out for Hank after his British, cantankerous punk rocker of a next-door neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), leaves for London in a hurry. And sticks Hank with his equally surly cat in the process. (On a side note, viewers detecting some major overtones of Quentin Tarantino-meets-Guy Ritchie [the latter being an obvious acolyte of the former] stylings wouldn’t be incorrect in making that comparison.)  

    Needless to say, the greater sense of levity in this particular Aronofsky film is supported almost entirely by the presence of this cat named Bud (played by a Siberian forest cat named Tonic). From the start, Hank makes it known he “prefers dogs for a reason.” Luckily for him, Siberian forest cats are described as having a “dog-like” temperament. But it takes his girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), encouraging Bud’s stay for Hank to fully get on board with the unwanted task. As for Yvonne, a paramedic (hence, her and Hank’s work schedules being perfectly aligned), it’s obvious from the outset that, even apart from her profession, she has a thing for rescuing people.

    And no one is in more need of being saved from himself than Hank, who, much like Henry “Hank” Chinaski (a.k.a. Charles Bukowski), has an alcohol problem. Albeit one that stems from trying to outrun the demons of his past, which, at the time, seemed to foretell an impossibly bright future. Back then, when he was still in high school, Hank thought he would be a shoo-in to play for his favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants (because, as it should go without saying, the title Caught Stealing has a baseball meaning too). This very possibility marveled at as he drunkenly drove through some backwater roads of Stanislaus County while his friend and fellow ball player, Dale (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), rode shotgun, talking up this future before Hank swerved the car at the sight of a cow and wrapped the car around a pole, launching Dale through the windshield and killing him instantaneously. 

    Hank’s own fallout from the accident, apart from a guilty conscience, was injuring his knee so badly it was never going to be good enough for the major leagues. And so, what would a California boy running away from his problems and looking to forget about his past do but move to New York?—the antithesis of his home state on the other side of the country. The irony being, of course, that his beloved Giants moved from NYC to San Francisco (not unlike the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to LA). In any case, Hank runs as far as he can from the scene of the accidental crime (/car crash) without leaving the country entirely—that will come later. In the meantime, he thinks he’s going about his business, living his life as “minimally” (read: with a disaffected “90s slacker chic” aura) as possible, only to have every heavyweight of every crime organization on his ass in the wake of Russ’ departure. 

    With no one else to harass/beat to a pulp for answers, Hank is left holding the bag. Or rather, the key. A key he finds in a decoy piece of shit in Bud’s litterbox (this after dealing with another human’s shit in his own toilet since, again, the Sex and the City [de facto, And Just Like That…] connections to Caught Stealing abound). Considering his discovery occurs after two scary Russians (always the Russians, n’est-ce pas?) land him in the hospital for two days, Hank is unsure what to do with the newfound item. Worse still, while at the hospital, doctors removed his kidney because the Russians fucked him up so bad that it ruptured. Which means that, now, alcohol—the one thing that was getting him through it all, holding everything together and making New York seem like the nonstop party it really isn’t—must be off the menu. Otherwise, it’s at his own health risk to imbibe. And certainly a risk to do so with same intensity he did before. 

    Alas, all that resolve, all those promises to Yvonne (and the cat, for that matter) that he has it in him to quit cold turkey, go out the window when he walks into Paul’s Bar to show his boss, the eponymous Paul (played by a man considered a “New York institution,” Griffin Dunne) the key. Walking into the bar as Madonna’s “Ray of Light” resounds through the space (because it was the song of ’98), it’s apparent that Hank is doomed to go down a rabbit hole. The kind that happens after he experiences the adage, “One drink is too many and a thousand never enough.” From the looks of it, as the night goes on, Hank does seem to have very well close to a thousand, getting up on the pool table to sing along with another prime tune of the day: Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch.” This moment amounting to his version of Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) in 10 Things I Hate About You drunkenly dancing on the table at Bogey Lowenstein’s (Kyle Cease) party to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize.” 

    Saddled with “picking him up” is Yvonne, who quickly loses her patience or sympathy for him when he starts drunkenly ranting about how everything in his life is garbage (by the way, yet another band that gets played on the soundtrack), and that he used to have it all. Everything ahead of him. So much promise, so much potential. The dramatic irony here is that the same can be said of New York, seeing it through the lens of the present as compared with the past. This late 90s past, so evocatively shown in Caught Stealing

    Of course, there are literally millions who will swear up and down that the New York of the present remains just as viable, as “vibrant.” More so than ever, they’ll insist. Take, for instance, when Taffy Brodesser-Akner told Vulture, in an article discussing the issues of filming Fleischman Is in Trouble in a manner that would make it look like 2016, “The New York you live in now is the best version of New York. You have to keep out the noise from people like me lest you come to think you missed the whole thing by arriving so late—either by being born or moving here more recently than the person you’re talking to.” But no, she’s wrong…and so are all the others who try to maintain their “positive outlook” (a.k.a. daily application of denial) about “the greatest city in the world.” The New York you live in now is patently not the best version at all. 

    And, perhaps as a testament to how effective a job it does as a “period piece,” Caught Stealing is sure to remind viewers who still cling to, er, live in New York (and even those who never have) that such a statement simply isn’t true. Sometimes, the reality is that it really was better before. This is one of those instances. Even so, it doesn’t stop Regina King (as a cop named Roman), meant to be existing in one of the city’s primes, the 90s, from delivering a beautifully bitter monologue that details how she won’t miss anything about New York other than the black and white cookies once she makes her escape. Because “escape from New York” isn’t just a movie, but a wise person’s motto. Besides (barring that traitor, Joan Didion), Californians like Hank never really commit to New York, eventually turning it into just another base stop on the way home.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • ‘Lonely Planet’ Review: Laura Dern Rom-Com Is A Better Travel Ad Than Movie

    ‘Lonely Planet’ Review: Laura Dern Rom-Com Is A Better Travel Ad Than Movie

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    Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth in Lonely Planet. Anne Marie Fox/Netflix

    Did anyone have a Morocco-set rom-com starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth on their 2024 bingo card? If so, congratulations, even if the resulting film is a limp, chemistry-free excuse for the two actors to visit a series of aspirational destinations and get a nice Netflix paycheck. Dern, a national treasure, can be commended for her efforts in Lonely Planet, a made-for-streaming movie about an author, Katherine Loewe, who travels to a writers’ retreat to finish her novel after a breakup. It’s there she meets Owen Brophy, an investor (or something) who is the boyfriend of young novelist Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers). What ensues is a series of scenes forcing the two characters together even though they have nothing in common and can’t conjure a single spark. 


    LONELY PLANET ★1/2 (1.5/4 stars)
    Directed by: Susannah Grant
    Written by: Susannah Grant
    Starring: Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth, Diana Silvers, Younès Boucif, Adriano Giannini, Rachida Brakni
    Running time: 94 mins.


    Katherine arrives to the luxurious, remote retreat without her luggage and with an isolationist attitude. She’s there only to write, not to interact with the other writers, who she seems to regard with derision. Lily has brought Owen along—a bizarre decision if you know how writing retreats work—despite the fact that he doesn’t enjoy travel and is always on the phone making deals. By happenstance, Katherine and Owen end up stuck on a dusty road in a broken-down car after a day gallivanting around Chefchaouen. They connect, although it’s unclear over what, a disconnect that is unrelated to their disparate ages. Owen and Lily become more and more distant as the days pass, with her humiliating him during a literary game (he doesn’t know who Pip from Great Expectations is, which should be humiliating if he ever graduated from high school). Katherine and Owen become more and more drawn to each other, and the viewer becomes more and more disinterested. 

    Lonely Planet, from award-winning writer and director Susannah Grant, should add up to something compelling. It’s got beautiful settings and basically functions as a travel advertisement for Morocco. The premise is decent and Katherine is a relatable character who seems at home in a rom-com. But Hemsworth, who has always struggled to conjure captivating emotion onscreen, can’t bring Owen to life. He’s just a good-looking guy who wants to protect the people who invest with him (or something). What Katherine sees in him is completely unclear, although Dern does her best with the script she’s given. When the pair finally do get together, in one of film history’s most uncomfortable sex scenes, you don’t want to root for them. A better version of this movie is Katherine falling in love with the hot retreat worker who is constantly finding her somewhere quiet to work. 

    Of course, despite these hiccups, Lonely Planet seems destined for Netflix’s Top Ten. The algorithm knows what people are going to watch and the coupling up of Dern and Hemsworth is impossible to deny. You have to see what happens, even if you know the end result isn’t going to win anyone an Oscar. The movie isn’t necessarily bad—it’s just wooden and unconvincing, both attributes that apply to many romance movies of the past that we still watch and moderately enjoy. Dern deserves a better rom-com with a better co-star. She’s always compelling and it’s clear she could be a winning leading lady in a movie like this (proving, of course, that age is irrelevant when it comes to love and to Hollywood). Katherine is searching for inspiration during her time in Morocco and, meanwhile, Dern should search for a better project. 

    ‘Lonely Planet’ is streaming on Netflix now. 

    ‘Lonely Planet’ Review: Laura Dern Rom-Com Is A Better Travel Ad Than Movie

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    Emily Zemler

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  • Zoe Kravitz And Channing Tatum Drip Heart Eye Goo At The L.A. Premiere Of ‘Blink Twice’

    Zoe Kravitz And Channing Tatum Drip Heart Eye Goo At The L.A. Premiere Of ‘Blink Twice’

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    Love was definitely in the air for Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum at the Los Angeles premiere of their new film Blink Twice on Thursday, August 8 at the DGA theater.

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    In case you’ve been hiding under a rock — this is the highly anticipated film that serves as Zoë’s directorial debut (she also co-wrote and produced the project). You can check out the latest trailer below:

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: JC Olivera / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    The film stars Naomi Ackie as a cocktail waitress named Frida and Channing Tatum as tech billionaire Slater King. When Frida “accidentally” bumps into King while working his fundraising gala, the chemistry is undeniable. By the end of the night, he invites her and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Wild nights blend into sun soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    There’s a lot of famous faces in this one — Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment and Levon Hawke play King’s friends.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: JC Olivera / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Liz Claribel, Adria Arjona and Trew Mullen play the other ladies invited along with Frida and Jess.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    We’re so glad the premiere could get the gang back together.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Geena Davis also has a role in the film. We actually adored her character and are excited for everyone to see.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Zoë’s Big Little Lies fam Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern showed up to support her at the premiere.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    Alicia Keys and her bonus daughter Nicole also posed with Zoë on the carpet.

    'Blink Twice' Los Angeles Premiere

    Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv

    We really can’t get over these shots of Zoë and Channing though. It’s no wonder these two made movie magic together!

    Blink Twice is in theaters only August 23!

    Fair warning — the film is rated R for strong violent content, sexual assault, drug use and language throughout, and some sexual references.

    Check out a first look featurette below:

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    Janeé Bolden

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  • Jurassic World 4 Adds Manuel Garcia-Rulfo to Its Enigamtic Cast

    Jurassic World 4 Adds Manuel Garcia-Rulfo to Its Enigamtic Cast

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    Image: David Livingston/WireImage

    There’s a new human entering the Jurassic World franchise, and he’s gonna be fighting for his life in this new film.

    Per Deadline, actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo—best known for The Magnificent Seven’s 2016 reboot and Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer—has signed on for a starring role. (Sadly, he probably won’t be a public defender for dinosaurs or a dinosaur cowboy, two things this franchise could use.) Details on his character are currently under wraps, but he joins Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey in the Gareth Edwards-directed film. For Garcia-Rulfo, who’s also headlining Netflix’s Pedro Páramo, this marks his biggest film role to date.

    Unlike the last Jurassic trilogy, this new flick doesn’t plan to bring back any returning actors from the previous runs like Chris Pratt or Laura Dern. At the moment, it’s not even fully clear what this’ll be about beyond the general premise of humans running away from dinosaurs that want to eat them. Written by Jurassic alum David Koepp, the movie’s been previously described as a “fresh take” on the material, whose last installment was Jurassic World: Dominion back in 2022. It’s expected to start filming in the UK in June, then in Malta from July all the way to September.

    Jurassic World 4 is currently dated to come out on July 2, 2025. (A busy month that’ll be, between that, Superman, and The Fantastic Four.) We’ll have more news on the film as things develops.


    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Reese Witherspoon Says Why It’s Important To ‘Edit Your Friendships’

    Reese Witherspoon Says Why It’s Important To ‘Edit Your Friendships’

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    Reese Witherspoon thinks some friendships need editing.

    On Friday, the actor shared her thoughts on how she has maintained her friendships over the years during a sit-down interview at Inbound 2023, an annual networking conference hosted by Hubspot in Boston.

    “Editing. Edit your friendships,” Witherspoon told host and NBC News Daily anchor Zinhle Essamuah. “Everybody out here over 40 knows. If you aren’t adding to my life, get the heck outta my life.”

    She continued, “My grandmother used to say, ‘People are either radiators or drains. Stick around the radiators and get rid of the drains.’”

    Earlier in the conversation, Essamuah read a statement by a friend of Reese who she likely doesn’t want to edit out of her life: fellow actor Laura Dern.

    Dern said in the statement, per Essamuah, that she believed Reese is the “Gold standard of what it means to be a champion. She has always been a champion of art and other artists, as well as, friends and family.”

    Reese Witherspoon photographed on stage at INBOUND 2023 on September 08, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts.

    Chance Yeh via Getty Images

    Reese and Dern, who co-starred in HBO series “Big Little Lies,” have celebrated their friendship on several occasions over the years.

    In a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, Reese called Dern her “sister.”

    “You know, you meet people, you’re friends with people, but I say about a few women in my life, they are my sisters,” she said. “I don’t have a sister and I found my sister in Laura. No one makes me laugh like Laura. She’s magical.”

    In March last year, Dern celebrated Reese’s birthday in an Instagram post, writing that it was “International I Love Reese Witherspoon Day.”

    “Happy birthday to my amazing sister,” she wrote.

    Reese announced in March that she and her now-ex-husband, Jim Toth, were calling it quits after 12 years of marriage.

    “We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with a deep love, kindness and mutual respect for everything we have created together,” a statement from the two read at the time.

    Reese and Toth finalized their divorce last month, according to TMZ. The former couple have one son together, 10-year-old Tennessee. Reese also shares two adult children, Ava and Deacon Phillippe, with her ex-husband actor Ryan Phillippe.

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  • Reese Witherspoon And Laura Dern Don’t Hold Back In Takedown Of THAT Viral Cocktail

    Reese Witherspoon And Laura Dern Don’t Hold Back In Takedown Of THAT Viral Cocktail

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    On Thursday, Witherspoon shared a short video on TikTok and Instagram in which she and Dern attempt to enjoy a Negroni sbagliato while out at a bar. The cocktail ― made with Campari, sweet vermouth and sparkling wine ― has become a social media sensation in recent weeks, thanks to a televised interview with “House of the Dragon” actors Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke that was featured on HBO Max’s TikTok account.

    Witherspoon’s video shows her playfully imitating D’Arcy’s cadence as she entices Dern to take a sip. However, it doesn’t take long for the “Big Little Lies” co-stars to determine that the Negroni sbagliato will never be their drink of choice.

    “That’s disgusting,” Dern proclaims with a wince, to which a giggling Witherspoon responds: “It is kind of gross.” Together, the pair then hand the drink off to an off-camera bartender.

    Of course, Dern and Witherspoon’s distaste will not likely diminish the Negroni sbagliato’s sudden popularity. As of Friday, HBO Max’s TikTok video in which D’Arcy enthusiastically praises the drink had been viewed more than 32 million times.

    D’Arcy has shrugged off much of the attention, suggesting that their zeal was simply the result of a tiring day of press coverage.

    “I feel so embarrassed,” the actor told The New York Times in October before quipping: “I’m obviously doing Campari’s next campaign.”

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