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A filmmaking tool or an existential threat: Cannes Film Festival weighs the rise of AI
CANNES, France | The Cannes Film Festival can function like a global water cooler for movies, with prevailing issues and anxieties tending to come to the surface at the event. This year, the topic du jour is artificial intelligence. The 79th Cannes may go down as the time the world’s grandest film festival for the […]
A new Swatch model is introduced, and a case study in overexcited ‘drop culture’ plays out
LONDON | In Paris, police deployed tear gas. In Milan, Italy, a fistfight erupted. In London, Singapore and New York, all-night queues snaked from the doors of Swatch stores — the latest examples of status-symbol “drop culture” to flash across the globe when status symbols and resale value collide. The company at the center of […]
Stephen Colbert’s long goodbye is coming to an end, leaving a void
NEW YORK | On his very first time hosting “The Late Show” back in 2015, Stephen Colbert ripped into Donald Trump while gorging on Oreos, likening his inability to resist the cookies to his inability to resist going after the then-presidential candidate. “Look, you don’t own me. I don’t need to play tape of you […]
Barney Frank, a liberal congressman and trailblazer for gay rights, dies. He was 86
WASHINGTON | Barney Frank, the longtime Democratic congressman and leading liberal who brought new visibility to gay rights and crafted the most significant reforms to the financial system in a generation, has died. He was 86. Frank died late Tuesday, according to Jim Segel, Frank’s former campaign manager and close friend. After representing broad swaths […]
Don’t sleep on ‘Is God Is,’ a primal scream of a movie inspired by Westerns and Greek tragedy
Aleshea Harris wrote “Is God Is” with the assumption that it would never be performed as a play, let alone turned into a movie. It was simply a story she needed to get onto the page: A tale of rage and revenge, an ancient Greek tragedy melded with Spaghetti Western tropes centered on contemporary Black […]
In Cannes standout ‘Fatherland,’ Sandra Hüller stuns again
CANNES, France | For Sandra Hüller, eruptions of emotion don’t come naturally. She prefers to be quiet and calm, and often her screen presence radiates intensity when she’s simply watching. But when she explodes — whether in grief or karaoke — she can be magnificent. “It’s not something that I like to do, particularly,” Hüller […]
Jane Schoenbrun’s queer slasher movie ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ jolts Cannes
CANNES, France | “A good electric chair” is how Jane Schoenbrun describes their first Cannes Film Festival premiere. “I really felt like my body was in a state of convulsion,” says Schoenbrun. The day after the premiere of “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” a bold, bloody queer slasher film starring Hannah Einbinder and […]
The UAE’s image as a Middle Eastern haven is tested by the Iran war
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates | The United Arab Emirates for decades has advertised itself as a haven for international business in a Middle East awash in violent upheaval. Those waves have now crashed into this nation, testing its economic model like never before. The UAE, a close ally of the United States and Israel, faced […]
Lettuce introduce you to the live frog found in this grocery store salad bag
MELBOURNE, Australia | When Australian farmer Rhys Smoker announced he’d found a live frog in a bag of lettuce, his housemates didn’t believe him. Smoker had been preparing a steak and salad dinner on Saturday for the three people who share his house in Esperance in Western Australia state when he spotted the frog among […]
Animal welfare groups say 3 South African zoo elephants are depressed and sue to move them
CAPE TOWN, South Africa | The mental well-being of three elephants in a zoo in South Africa is the subject of an unusual court case, with animal welfare groups saying they are depressed and should be moved to a larger conservation park where they can be happy. The case this week will ask a South […]