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      Mountainhead: first trailer for Jesse Armstrong’s topical Succession follow-up

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    Billionaires, starring Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef, meet amid an international crisis in HBO’s of-the-moment satire

    A summit of influential male billionaires is under way in the first teaser trailer for Mountainhead.

    HBO unveiled the extended look at the first feature from the Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on Tuesday, which stars Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman as a group of billionaire friends who meet at an alpine retreat during an international crisis.

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      ‘I did things I cringe at’: Alex Warren, rough-sleeper, viral prankster and now pop sensation

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April • 1 minute

    He slept in cars, found notoriety on social media and could be pop’s next superstar. The singer of Ordinary, the longest-running No 1 of the year, talks about his journey to breakout success

    At 18, Alex Warren was homeless, sneaking into the gym of a gated community in his home town of Carlsbad, California, to shower for job interviews and film TikTok videos of himself singing in the bathroom. Six years later he is one of pop’s next potential superstars. His bombastic ballad Ordinary has been No 1 in the UK charts for five weeks, the longest-running chart leader this year, and entered the US Top 10 last week. As soon as he heard the finished version, he was “freaking out – my wife and I listened to it on repeat for our entire drive home, for 45 minutes.”

    Ordinary may be Warren’s breakout hit but he’s been famous for a long time. He gained notoriety on social media in his teens by making hugely popular videos with titles such as “BROTHER WAKES UP IN MIDDLE OF LAKE PRANK!” In 2019 he co-founded the Hype House, a shared house of content creators (including the D’Amelio sisters and Addison Rae) known for Covid-era internet videos, as well as at least one controversial facemask-free influencer party and, eventually, a $300,000 (£226,000) lawsuit – which Warren wasn’t named in – which alleged property damage and unpaid rent.

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      Sinners: vampires, racial politics and a surprise cameo – discuss with spoilers

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    Ryan Coogler’s ambitious box office hit combines genres to come up with something wholly original and fascinatingly complex

    • This article contains spoilers for Sinners

    Ryan Coogler’s Sinners just notched the biggest opening weekend for an original movie since the start of the pandemic , which means the Michael B Jordan-starring, period-set vampire movie will be seen and talked about for weeks (and more) to come. Here are some absolutely spoiler-packed discussion points (seriously, multiple endings are spoiled!) for the film’s variety of layers, genres and readings.

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      UK jazz star Emma-Jean Thackray: ‘I had the word weirdo thrust upon me. So I’m reclaiming it’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    Autistic and with ADHD, the chart-topping musician always felt out of step – and then she had to face terrible grief. She explains how her new album helped her survive

    In her living room in south London, Emma-Jean Thackray triumphantly opens the gatefold sleeve of her new album, Weirdo , to reveal the liner notes inside. It’s a dizzying index containing the brass the UK jazz star is known for – trumpet, as well as flugelhorn, trombone and euphonium – along with vocals, guitar, drums, keys, production, mixing and art direction. Her name appears 123 times.

    “I thought it was funny, my name listed over and over,” she says. Similarly, in the video for new song Wanna Die , Thackray plays every member of her band, introduced – in a send-up of the infamous Fast Show sketch Jazz Club – by a turtlenecked Gilles Peterson, her label boss. But Wanna Die is about deep depression, and the multiple Thackrays are a serious statement of intent. The album, she says, “is about survival. If I hadn’t made this record, I would not be here.”

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      Heartstopper to end with feature film finale

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    Alice Oseman’s hit series starring Kit Connor and Joe Locke will end with a story based on the as-yet-unpublished sixth book, with the pair facing a long-distance relationship

    Heartstopper, the much-loved Netflix adaptation of Alice Oseman’s graphic novel series, is to conclude with a feature film directed by Wash Westmoreland, whose previous credits include Still Alice and Colette.

    Following three series of the adventures of Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) and their assorted schoolfriends, a film will wrap up their story, based on Oseman’s as-yet-unpublished sixth book.

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      ‘Funny, sexy and a bit weird’: inside the new wave of literary parties

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    Fancy getting poetry performances and DJ sets all in one place? A growing number of event organisers across the UK are putting their own spins on literature readings – and there are queues out the door

    On a Saturday evening in London’s Notting Hill, a large crowd of moderately tipsy young people are spilling into a tailor’s shop on Portobello Road. A passerby could easily assume they were walking past a fashion pop-up attracting a stylish herd of fanatics. But they’d be wrong. The buzzing crowd is here for a live reading event, and they’re eager with energy and anticipation.

    Soho Reading Series began in the summer of 2023 and was founded by Tom Willis, a writer and PhD student. He wanted to make a “scene where anyone could turn up, party, and have a killer time with literature as the centre,” he tells me over an extra-dry martini a couple of hours before one of the events.

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      Night Call review – locksmith opens the wrong door in impressively twisty crime caper

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April • 1 minute

    An inventive debut by Michiel Blanchart, this tightly wound thriller owes a debt to Michael Mann’s Collateral, but has a confidence all of its own

    Picturesque, bureaucracy-dominated Brussels is probably not on the top of many lists of cities likely to serve as a setting for an exciting crime film. But this Francophone drama just goes to prove that, given enough moody lamplit street scenes, well-designed stunts and chase sequences and a bit of imagination, any city will work. It’s even more impressive a feat in that it is co-writer-director Michiel Blanchart’s first feature, and yet it feels confident, inventive and as grippy as duct tape throughout.

    The protagonist is Mady Bala (Jonathan Feltre, displaying impressive subtlety and physical prowess), a young, independent locksmith who stays up all night on call in case he’s summoned to help a customer break into their own home. In order to ensure he’s not being used to commit a crime, Mady usually asks to see a callout client’s ID, or at least get paid 250 euros in advance. On the night this all takes place, he lets these precautions slide for Claire (Natacha Krief), a pretty girl who shares his taste for an old chanson he hums while working, who says her money and her wallet are inside the flat. Of course, that’s a big mistake and soon Mady is ensnared by a gang hunting down a stolen fortune, one led by icily efficient boss Yannick (Romain Duris), assisted by thugs Remy (Thomas Mustin) and Theo (Jonas Bloquet). The latter turns out to have just a smidge more humanity, or at least a weak spot, that gives Mady a chance to survive.

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      ‘Were they just voting on vibes?’: Oscars’ new compulsory viewing rule sparks backlash

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    The announcement that members must watch all films nominated in a category in order to vote for the winner, is met with disbelief that it wasn’t already the case

    A new rule introduced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to ensure voters have seen all the films in a category before they cast their ballots has provoked disquiet online, with many expressing surprise it wasn’t already a requirement.

    A raft of measures were announced by the Oscars governing body on Monday, including the stipulation that “Academy members must now watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars”.

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      ‘The audience chucked food at us!’ Emilyn Claid on angry shows, her ballet shame and gardening for Martha Graham

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April

    As she unveils The Trembling Forest with an ensemble of clay-covered performers, the great dance disruptor looks back on decades of radical and autobiographical shows

    Maybe it’s inevitable by the age of 75 that you’ve lived a number of lives. For Emilyn Claid , that’s meant the leap from ballet dancer in Toronto to the squats of grungy 1969 New York (via Martha Graham’s garden), to pioneering the New Dance scene in 1970s London, to artistic director, academic and psychotherapist (not to mention mother, grandmother), and then in her eighth decade, full circle to being a performer again.

    It was after realising “I was leaving three-quarters of myself out” that Claid made 2022’s comeback solo show Untitled , appearing strong, sensual, funny and provocative, dressed in leather vest and a fur cloak. She put the work in to get back on stage at 72 (“A lot of press-ups and sit-ups”) but at the same time, she says, it was absolutely natural, like coming home. “Not being at home like a comfortable sofa,” she clarifies. “The excitement of knowing a whole world that’s familiar to me and yet is always constantly changing.”

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