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☆ On ‘Bridgerton,’ a Bigger Role Means a Big Makeover
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-14 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When the actress Nicola Coughlan joined the cast of Shondaland’s period costume drama “Bridgerton,” as the young socialite and secret gossip pamphleteer Penelope Featherington, the hair and makeup artist Marc Pilcher informed her that the creative brief they had for her character was only one word: “dowdy.”Penelope, the demure youngest daughter of the domineering matriarch Lady Portia Featherington, was to be done up in garish pastel dresses and gaudy jewelry, with a hairdo clogged with curls — none of it particularly flattering. “For the first two seasons, the objective, in the nicest way, was not meant to make me look nice,” Coughlan said in a recent interview. “A lot of the Featherington aesthetic was a ‘more is more’ approach.”A supporting player through the show’s first two seasons, Penelope is the main character of Season 3, which begins streaming May 16 on Netflix. And as she has moved into the spotlight, her entire style has been altered: a transformation that fans of the show refer to as the “Bridgerton glow-up.”

Persons: Nicola Coughlan, “, Penelope Featherington, Marc Pilcher, ” Penelope, Portia Featherington, ” Coughlan, Penelope, ” Organizations: Netflix

☆ A New Fitness Craze With Big Drama
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The men in the starting line at Hyrox in Berlin in April practically hummed with nervous enthusiasm. A booming voice intoned a rallying cry, “This is the moment you’ve been training for!” Lights twinkled. For the founders of the fitness race Hyrox, Christian Toetzke, 55, and Moritz Furste, 39, this kind of kitschy spectacle was always part of the plan. The original brief, when they introduced the race in Hamburg, Germany in 2017, was “to create an event that is a 200,000-euro (about $214,000) production that looks like a 2,000,000-euro ($2,144,000) production,” Mr. Furste said. Hyrox’s “modern entertainment and light effects create a very special feeling,” Mr. Toetzke said, one that he hopes will create a “new proposition for mass participation events.”

Persons: Christian Toetzke, Moritz Furste, ” Mr, Furste, Hyrox’s, Mr, Toetzke, ” Locations: Hyrox, Berlin, Hamburg, Germany

☆ A.I. Made These Movies Sharper. Critics Say It Ruined Them.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In 1998, Geoff Burdick, an executive at James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, was hunched in front of a 12-inch monitor at a postproduction house, carefully preparing “Titanic” for release on LaserDisc and VHS. The computer could erase these blemishes using a kind of copy-paste tool, concealing the defects with information from another frame. “But there were a lot of folks who said, ‘This is not right! As the picture quality has improved, restoration tools have evolved with them, making it easier than ever for filmmakers to fine-tune their work using computers. “I think they look the best they’ve ever looked,” Burdick said.

Persons: Geoff Burdick, James Cameron’s, Burdick, we’d, ”, Cameron, “, ” Burdick Organizations: Entertainment

☆ Between ‘Star Wars’ Trilogies, a Golden Age of Video Games
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Though it sometimes feels as if there is a new “Star Wars” installment every couple of months, there was a time when all that fans of George Lucas’s sci-fi universe had were three movies and a lot of imagination. The 16-year gap between the end of that trilogy, 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” and the start of the divisive prequels, 1999’s “The Phantom Menace,” was a vast creative void — one that video games helped fill. Developers at LucasArts, the subsidiary of Lucasfilm known for its adventure titles Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, saw themselves as the standard-bearers of the “Star Wars” franchise for many years, said Jon Knoles, a longtime LucasArts designer. Unlike most games based on movies, its “Star Wars” games were not bogged down by market pressure or rushed to match a film’s release. “We had all kinds of creative freedom,” said Knoles, who worked on more than a dozen “Star Wars” games in the 1990s and early 2000s, first as a background artist, then as a lead animator and finally as a writer and director.

Persons: George Lucas’s, ”, Jon Knoles, “, Knoles Organizations: LucasArts, Lucasfilm, Wars

☆ ‘The Ones Who Live’ Picks Up Where ‘The Walking Dead’ Left Off. Where Was That Again?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The new six-part mini-series “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live,” the latest installment in the sprawling “Walking Dead” universe, premieres Sunday on AMC and AMC+. It finds Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reprising their longtime roles as Rick Grimes and Michonne, the weathered survivors of a postapocalyptic wasteland populated by flesh-devouring zombies. “The Ones Who Live” picks their story up where it left off in the original series, revealing what happened to the couple after they exited the show. But it also involves other characters, settings and organizations that have either appeared or been mentioned in “The Walking Dead” and its spinoffs, including the dystopian city the Civic Republic, its high-tech military the C.R.M., and the slippery villain Jadis, played by Pollyanna McIntosh. (For their part, Lincoln and Gurira have said that they didn’t keep up with the whole series either, so you’re in good company.)

Persons: Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Rick Grimes, Michonne, Rick, ”, Jadis, Pollyanna McIntosh, There’s, Gurira Organizations: AMC, Civic Republic Locations: Lincoln

☆ ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Is a Childhood Dream Streamed Out to the World
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Oct. 28, 2019, the animator and YouTube personality Vivienne Medrano celebrated a milestone: the release of “Hazbin Hotel,” a 30-minute pilot for an animated musical-comedy about a rehabilitation program that aspires to help Hell’s repentant demons get to Heaven. When she finally uploaded it to YouTube, Medrano was both relieved and excited — it felt like the culmination of something a long time in the making, and she was eager to show her work to her small but dedicated group of fans. She was not prepared for what happened next. Within months, it drew tens of millions of views and sent Medrano’s Patreon subscriptions skyrocketing; admirers coalesced into an ardent fandom that generated fan fiction, tribute art and elaborate costumes. (As of late January, it had nearly 95 million views.)

Persons: Vivienne Medrano, Medrano, Medrano’s Organizations: YouTube Locations: ”

☆ On This Comedy Show, You’d Better Not Laugh
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In early 2016, James Farrell, then the head of content at Amazon Studios for Japan, was looking for original programming that could help the streamer gain a foothold in the region. After months of searching, Farrell recalled recently, he was open to any concept, no matter how strange or unconventional. The last one to keep a straight face wins. But Farrell, who is now a vice president at Amazon Studios, based in Los Angeles, thought, “‘That’s it — that’s the one,’” he said. “I was so certain that this was the monster I was looking for.”

Persons: James Farrell, Farrell, Hitoshi Matsumoto, “, ’ ”, ” Organizations: Amazon Studios Locations: Japan, Los Angeles

☆ Harvard doctor: 3 unexpected health and wellness benefits of pickleball
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Renée Onque | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the U.S. especially among older individuals, according to the 2023 Sports & Fitness Industry Association Topline Participation Report. Like most sports, pickleball — which combines elements of tennis, ping-pong and badminton — is a great way to stay physically fit and tone your muscles. An ongoing study Apple is conducting published findings in October that analyzed over 250,000 pickleball and tennis workouts that were tracked via Apple Watch technology by study participants. Researchers concluded that playing pickleball was associated with helping players reach moderate to vigorous heart rate zones that have been linked to an improvement in heart health. However, pickleball's advantages exceed more than the commonly known perks of exercise like heart disease prevention and lower chances of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Persons: Pickleball, pickleball, Calum MacRae Organizations: Fitness Industry Association, Apple Watch, Apple, Harvard Medical School Locations: U.S

[1/2] Former UK finance minister (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Alistair Darling, poses for a photograph in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain, Aug 31, 2018. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsLONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Former British finance minister Alistair Darling, who steered the country's economy and banking system through the shock of the global financial crisis in 2007-08, has died aged 70 after undergoing treatment for cancer, his family said on Thursday. Darling was named chancellor of the exchequer by former prime minister Gordon Brown in June 2007, just as the crisis was brewing at leading financial institutions. "I never met anyone who didn't like him," Brown's predecessor as prime minister, Tony Blair, said. "Darling's passing is a huge loss to us all," said Britain's present prime minister Rishi Sunak, from the centre-right Conservative party.

Persons: Alistair Darling, Russell Cheyne, Darling, Gordon Brown, Brown, Margaret, Calum, Anna, Tony Blair, Lehman, Rishi Sunak, Muvija, Kate Holton, Andrew Heavens Organizations: REUTERS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Labour Party, Treasury, Western General Hospital, Loretto School, Aberdeen University, The Guardian, Lehman Brothers, Conservative, Thomson Locations: Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain, British, United Kingdom

☆ For These TV Procedurals, the Formula Still Works
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Waves slap gently against the shore along the southeast coast of Australia, the morning sun glittering on the horizon. This is the opening scene of a recent episode of “NCIS: Sydney,” the fifth series in the long-running crime procedural franchise, which premiered on CBS earlier this month. “There’s definitely a template that I’ve managed to extract from watching hundreds of hours of the show, a kind of typical ‘NCIS’ structure,” Morgan O’Neill, the creator and showrunner of “NCIS: Sydney,” said in a video interview. “That’s the overall architecture of the show, and it’s always going to be that.”“It still works,” O’Neill added. Through it all, one constant has been the popularity of procedural franchises like “NCIS” and “Law & Order,” which have thrived as purveyors of familiar predictability.

Persons: It’s, ”, “ There’s, ” Morgan O’Neill, “, it’s, ” O’Neill, ain’t Organizations: Sydney, CBS, “ Locations: Australia

☆ A Reclusive Horror Designer Pivoted From Religious Games
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Many times, in many ways, for many reasons, the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie almost never happened. It always came down to Scott Cawthon. A video game designer in his mid-40s, Cawthon is the sole creator of one of the past decade’s most successful indie franchises, a low-budget point-and-click horror series that has become its own sprawling empire. Five Nights at Freddy’s — or FNaF, as it is known to fans — has thrived under Cawthon’s exacting control over the product; he oversees everything, including graphic novel collections and licensed toys and merchandise. So when the game was optioned and set to be turned into a major movie, it was only natural that Cawthon wanted to be involved in almost every aspect of the production.

Persons: Scott Cawthon, —, Cawthon

☆ The Many Mustaches of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“It was my ritual every night after the shoot,” Yoshihara said recently in a video interview. “Me and the mustache sit together. The mustache became like a friend.”Yoshihara takes facial hair very seriously. The first iteration of Branagh’s Poirot mustache was created for “Orient Express” by the designer Carol Hemming, with whom Yoshihara worked closely as the head of the hair and makeup departments. The colossal gray swath of hair was meant to pay tribute to Poirot’s military background and the vogue after World War I.

Persons: Kenneth Branagh, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Wakana Yoshihara, ” Yoshihara, “, ”, Branagh, Yoshihara, Carol Hemming Organizations: Orient Express, “ Orient Locations: Venice

☆ Premier League clubs spend record 2.36 billion pounds in transfer window
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The transfer window, which was open from June 14 to Sept. 1, exceeded last year's record 1.92 billion pounds, with the top-flight clubs spending 255 million pounds on deadline day alone, it said. Premier League clubs were responsible for 48% of the spending across Europe's top five leagues including Spain's LaLiga, Italy's Serie A, Germany's Bundesliga and France's Ligue 1. "Nearly three-quarters of Premier League clubs (14) spent more this summer than the last, reflecting the increased intensity of competition. Champions Manchester City signed midfielder Matheus Nunes for 53 million pounds this week, having brought Jeremy Doku for 55 million pounds, defender Josko Gvardiol for 77 million and midfielder Mateo Kovacic for 25 million earlier. According to the report, almost half of the transfer fees received by Premier League clubs from overseas came from the Saudi Pro League club (SPL), which has the fourth-highest transfer spend of any league globally.

Persons: Chris Radburn, Spain's LaLiga, Tim, Todd Boehly, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Matheus Nunes, Jeremy Doku, Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic, Kai Havertz, Declan Rice, Rasmus Hojlund, Sandro Tonali, Harvey Barnes, Calum Ross, Pearl Josephine Nazare, Martyn Herman, Gerry Doyle, Hugh Lawson Organizations: Soccer Football, Premier League - Brighton & Hove Albion, West Ham United, American Express, Premier League, Deloitte, Serie, Bundesliga, Ligue, Deloitte's Sports Business, Chelsea, Clearlake Capital, Champions Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Saudi Pro League, Thomson Locations: Brighton, Britain, London, Bengaluru

☆ In ‘Ahsoka,’ a ‘Star Wars’ Fan Favorite Returns
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-19 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But over the years, the universe of “Star Wars” has expanded far beyond the realm originally imagined by George Lucas. The title of the latest “Star Wars” series, “Ahsoka,” premiering Aug. 23 on Disney+, may be unfamiliar even for viewers who consider themselves relatively knowledgeable about the franchise. The title character, played by Rosario Dawson in the series, has never appeared in a live-action “Star Wars” movie. (She was heard briefly in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” voiced by Ashley Eckstein.) A certain familiarity with the rest of the stuff that has happened in “Star Wars” outside of the three main film trilogies is, if not quite required, then certainly very helpful.

Persons: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han, Leia, George Lucas, “, ”, Rosario Dawson, Ashley Eckstein, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni —, Boba Fett, “ Obi, Wan Organizations: “, Disney, “ Star

☆ They Make CrossFit Documentaries. CrossFitters Can’t Get Enough.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The morning after he uploaded his new movie “Froning: The Fittest Man in History” to the iTunes store, in early October 2015, the director Heber Cannon received a phone call from somebody at iTunes, who sounded bewildered. “They called us and said, ‘Who are you guys? What’s going on?’” Cannon said in a recent video interview. But when we dropped the film, it was like wildfire.”Cannon and his creative partner Marston Sawyers, who work together under the name Buttery Bros, followed up “Froning” with a string of documentaries about athletes performing at the CrossFit Games. The films, which include “Fittest on Earth” (2016), “Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness” (2017) and “The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth,” (2018), depict the Games in all their arduous, sweat-soaked agony, focusing on every explosive muscle-up and hefty snatch.

Persons: Heber Cannon, “, ”, Rich Froning Jr, Cannon, Melissa McCarthy, they’d, ‘, ” Cannon, Marston Sawyers, Buttery Organizations: iTunes, CrossFit Inc, U.S, CrossFit, Alliant Energy Locations: ”, Madison, Wis

☆ The Long, Long Reign of ‘Big Brother’
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When she was first approached to host the CBS reality competition show “Big Brother,” in the summer of 2000, Julie Chen Moonves didn’t know what to think. “I was very confused, and as a journalist I had a million questions,” she said in a late July phone interview. I pictured it like ‘Survivor’ with air-conditioning.”“Big Brother,” which premiered on July 5, 2000, has just entered its 25th season. Chen Moonves is still the host, and “‘Survivor’ with air-conditioning” is still a pretty accurate description. Like that network peer, “Big Brother” has weathered vitriolic criticism, survived seismic changes to the landscape of television and endured countless trend cycles in both reality TV and network programming as a whole.

Persons: ”, Julie Chen Moonves, Chen Moonves, “, — Organizations: CBS, Reality, Paramount Locations: Netherlands

☆ How ‘Swagger’ Raised Its Game
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The first season of “Swagger,” a sports drama set in the high-stakes world of high school basketball in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Seat Pleasant, Md., was released in fall 2021 to moderate critical acclaim. The creator, Reggie Rock Bythewood, and his cast and crew were proud of what they had accomplished. But for the show’s second season, which premiered on Apple TV+ last week, Bythewood’s ambitions were much bigger. And he wanted to use the story of a prep school sports team to make a statement about the country. The second season jumps ahead to Jace’s senior year as the demands of budding fame and the pressure of mounting expectations reach a fever pitch.

Persons: “ Swagger, ”, Reggie Rock Bythewood, ” Bythewood, ‘ Swagger ’, Jace Carson, Isaiah Hill, Jace, Jenna, Shinelle, Quvenzhané Wallis, Ike, O’Shea Jackson Jr, Jace’s Organizations: D.C, Apple Locations: Washington, Seat Pleasant, Md

☆ Their Show Flew Under the Radar. TikTok Blew It Up.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Usually when you say ‘They took a chance on us,’ it means they took a chance because the show could have been bad,” Schulman said. “I got the feeling that this could be really special,” she said. While Marsden was initially intrigued by the idea, he said in a phone interview that his doubts set in once the production began. “It was on a brand-new streaming platform that no one had ever heard of, so I didn’t really think it was going to go anywhere,” Gladden said over the phone from Los Angeles. “I truthfully didn’t think anything was going to come from it.”

Persons: ” Schulman, Anderson, — hadn’t, “, ”, James Marsden, Marsden, ” Gladden Locations: Los Angeles

☆ ‘Ted Lasso’ Taught Phil Dunster How to Play Nice
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But his take on the character, informed by his deep soccer fandom, came to dictate much of how the character was written, he explained, right down to jokes that hinge on Dunster’s twanging accent. (One of the most memorable lines in Season 3 revolves around his singular pronunciation of a colloquial term for excrement.) “I don’t want to put it down solely to my performance as Oliver in a Year 3 production at school, but that laid the foundation of me being a show-off,” he said. “I flocked, man — I had someone who was looking after me, and I still managed to screw everything up,” he said. On the bus ride home, he was dismayed: “I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing?

Persons: Sudeikis, Dunster, ” Dunster, Oliver, ”, —, dryly, “, you’ve, ’ ” Organizations: Bristol Old Vic Theater School Locations: Reading, England, Brixton

☆ The Fast, the Furious and All of the Feuds
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Over the course of more than 20 years of the “Fast and Furious” — the 10th in the franchise, “Fast X,” arrives this weekend — battles have been fought, villains have been overcome, friends have become foes and lovers have been reunited. (There was even a case of alignment-altering amnesia.) Behind the scenes, though, the conflicts have been no less fractious, with stars variously attacking the producers, their castmates and the franchise itself. With so much drama onscreen and off, it can be difficult to keep track of who has feuded and who is still feuding. So in honor of “Fast X,” here’s a guide to the beefs of the “Fast and the Furious.”Brian vs. Dom

☆ ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ Taught a Master Class in Talking Smack
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

What Billy understands, and what the movie so beautifully expresses, is that streetball is about more than merely who is the most accomplished player. When Billy drains a three-pointer in a shootout, Sidney nonetheless derides his style: “No aesthetic beauty whatsoever,” he jeers. Or as one of Sidney’s friend puts it, after Sidney’s more elegant three in reply: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Only “White Men Can’t Jump” has captured the power of talking smack. “You’d rather look good and lose,” he tells him, “than look bad and win.” It’s an apt diagnosis, but it cuts both ways.

☆ How Chris Messina Forced Matt Damon to Up His Game in ‘Air’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But for “Air,” the director Ben Affleck had the idea to shoot both sides of the conversation simultaneously. He set up Damon and Messina in offices down the hall from each other, and had two sets of cameras rolling at the same time. I had to use Matt laughing because there wasn’t a take of him playing it straight. He tried to play it straight, and he just couldn’t.”Damon explained that “it was already really funny on the page.” But when Messina came up with threats, “it dictated how I had to play the scene,” Damon said. Every time he’s had the opportunity, he’s always done more than I envisioned or imagined.”

Prince William honored his father with a few words during Sunday night's concert - the first ever to be staged at Windsor Castle, home to monarchs for almost 1,000 years. Royals dance the night awaySeveral members of the royal family got their groove on throughout the concert. Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesMesmerizing drone displayA fabulous drone display lit up the sky over the coronation concert, earning audible gasps from the crowd below. Crowds watch illuminated drones creating a light display above Windsor Castle. But when Miss Piggy, dressed in a cerise pink evening dress and glittering necklace, recognized “Downton Abbey” star Bonneville she had other things in mind, thinking he was a real lord.

☆ ‘Ghosted’ Review: A C.I.A. Meet Cute
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

“Ghosted,” a frothy spy-thriller rom-com in the tradition of “Romancing the Stone” and “The Jewel of the Nile,” is one of the least convincing movies I have ever seen. I mean that “Ghosted” barely seems like a real movie. It has movie stars, in the figures of Ana de Armas and Chris Evans (and, as the villain, Adrien Brody). It has a competent director, Dexter Fletcher, whose hit “Rocketman” wasn’t half-bad. But this tedious, unfunny, screamingly unoriginal romantic adventure film is so flimsy and so insubstantial that it’s practically vaporous.

☆ The Best Actors of 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( The New York Times Magazine | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

There are no guarantees for a screen actor anymore. There are no guarantees for a screen actor’s audience. Perhaps that’s why we’ve turned, along with many an actor, to television, where the ground feels more fertile. There is enough outstanding work on television alone to fill a portfolio twice or three times the size of this one. We want to applaud, marvel at and salute the achievement of screen acting, the increasing miracle of it in challenging and confusing circumstances.

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