Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ reigns at box office
LOS ANGELES | “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” reigned over the weekend box office with a $56.5 million North American opening, according to studio estimates Sunday, giving a needed surge to an uncertain season in theaters.
The film from 20th Century Studios and Disney that built on the rebooted “Apes” trilogy of the 2010s had the third highest opening of the year, after the $81.5 million debut of “Dune: Part Two” in early March and the $58.3 million domestic opening of “Kung Fu Panda 4” a week later.
The strong performance for “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” comes a week after a tepid start for Ryan Gosling’s “The Fall Guy” signaled that the summer of 2024 is likely to see a major drop-off after the “Barbenheimer” magic of 2023.
“Planet of the Apes” easily made more than the rest of the top 10 combined.
“The Fall Guy” fell to No. 2 with a $13.7 million weekend and a two-week total of $49.7 million for Universal Pictures.
Zendaya’s “Challengers” was third with $4.7 million and has earned $38 million in three weeks for Amazon MGM studios.
The opening for “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” directed by Wes Ball, was the second best in the series, after the $72 million opening weekend of 2014’s “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.”
It’s the 10th movie in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise that began in 1968.
“Kingdom” came with strong reviews and positive buzz (80% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and a “B” CinemaScore). Mark Kennedy of The Associated Press called it “thrilling” and “visually stunning.”
A combustible Cannes is set to unfurl with ‘Furiosa,’ ‘Megalopolis’
The Cannes Film Festival rarely passes without cacophony but this year’s edition may be more raucous and uneasy than any edition in recent memory.
When the red carpet is rolled out from the Palais des Festivals on Tuesday, the 77th Cannes will unfurl against a backdrop of war, protest, potential strikes and quickening #MeToo upheaval in France, which for years largely resisted the movement.
Festival workers are threatening to strike. The Israel-Hamas war, acutely felt in France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Arab communities, is sure to spark protests. Russia’s war in Ukraine remains on the minds of many. Add in the kinds of anxieties that can be expected to percolate at Cannes — the ever-uncertain future of cinema, the rise of artificial intelligence — and this year’s festival shouldn’t lack for drama.
Being prepared for anything has long been a useful attitude in Cannes. Befitting such tumultuous times, the film lineup is full of intrigue, curiosity and question marks.
The Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, just days before his latest film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” is to debut in competition in Cannes, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. The film remains on Cannes’ schedule.
Arguably the most feverishly awaited entry is Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed opus “Megalopolis.” Coppola, is himself no stranger to high-drama at Cannes. An unfinished cut of “Apocalypse Now” won him (in a tie) his second Palme d’Or more than four decades ago.
Even the upcoming U.S. presidential election won’t be far off. Premiering in competition is Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump. There will also be new films from Kevin Costner, Paolo Sorrentino, Sean Baker, Yorgos Lanthimos and Andrea Arnold. And for a potentially powder keg Cannes there’s also the firebomb of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” The film, a rolling apocalyptic dystopia, returns director George Miller to the festival he first became hooked on as a juror.
“I got addicted it to simply because it’s like film camp,” says Miller, who became enraptured to the global gathering of cinema at Cannes and the pristine film presentations. “It’s kind of optimal cinema, really. The moment that they said, ‘OK, we’re happy to show this film here,’ I jumped at it.”
Cannes’ official opener on Tuesday is “The Second Act,” a French comedy by Quentin Dupieux, starring Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel and Vincent Lindon. During the opening ceremony, Meryl Streep will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or. At the closing ceremony, George Lucas will get one, too.
But the spotlight at the start may fall on Judith Godrèche. The French director and actor earlier this year said the filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager, allegations that rocked French cinema. Jacquot and Doillon have denied the allegations.
Though much of the French film industry has previously been reluctant to embrace the #MeToo movement, Godrèche has stoked a wider response. She’s spoken passionately about the need for changes at the Cesars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, and before a French Senate commission.
In that same period, Godrèche also made the short film “Moi Aussi” during a Paris gathering of hundreds who wrote her with their own stories of sexual abuse. On Wednesday, it opens Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
“I hope that I’m heard in the sense that I’m not interested in being some sort of representation of someone who just wants to go after everyone in this industry,” Godrèche said ahead of the festival. “I’m just fighting for some sort of change. It is called a revolution.”
It’s the latest chapter in how #MeToo has reverberated at the world’s largest film gathering, following an 82-woman protest on the steps of the Palais in 2018 and a gender parity pledge in 2019. Cannes has often come under criticism for not inviting more female filmmakers into competition, but the festival is putting its full support behind Godrèche while girding for the possibility of more #MeToo revelations during the festival.
“For me, having these faces, these people — everyone in this movie — gives them this place to be celebrated,” said Godrèche. “There’s this thing about this place that has so much history. In a way, it mystifies movies forever. Once your film was in Cannes, it was in Cannes.”
Some of the filmmakers coming to the festival this year are already firmly lodged in Cannes lore. Paul Schrader was at the festival almost 50 years ago for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which he wrote. After a famously divisive response, it won the Palme in 1976.
“It was a different place. It was much more collegial and lower key,” said Schrader during a break from packing his bags. “I remember quite well sitting on the terrasse at the Carlton with Marty and Sergio Leone and (Rainer Werner) Fassbender came by with his boyfriend and joined us. We were all talking and the sun was going down. I was thinking, ‘This is the greatest thing in the world.’”
For the first time since his 1988 drama “Patty Hearst,” Schrader is back in what he calls “the main show” — in competition for the Palme d’Or — with “Oh, Canada.” The film, adapted from a Russell Banks novel, stars Richard Gere (reteaming with Schrader decades after “American Gigolo”) as a dying filmmaker who recounts his life story for a documentary. Jacob Elordi plays him in ‘70s flashbacks.
After the Cannes lineup was announced, Schrader shared on Facebook an old photo of himself, Coppola and Lucas — all primary figures to what was then called New Hollywood — and the caption “Together again.”
“I’ll be there the same time as Francis. There’s a question of whether either of us get invited back for closing,” Schrader says, referring to when award-winners are asked to stay for the closing ceremony. “I would hope that either Francis or I could come back closing night for George’s thing.”
Who ultimately goes home with the Palme — the handicapping has already begun — will be decided by a jury led by Greta Gerwig, fresh off the mammoth success of “Barbie.” But this year’s slate will have a lot to live up to. Last year, three eventual best picture nominees premiered in Cannes: Justine Triet’s Palme-winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
What tends to really define a Cannes, though, is emerging filmmakers. Among those likely to make an impression this year is Julien Colonna, the Corsican, Paris-based director and co-writer of “The Kingdom.” The film, an Un Certain Regard standout, is a brutal coming of age about a teenager girl (newcomer Ghjuvanna Benedetti) on the run with her father (Saveriu Santucci), a Corsican clan leader.
“We wanted to propose a kind of anti-mob film,” Colonna says, referencing the prevalence of “Godfather”-inspired gangster dramas. “As a viewer, I’m quite bored of this. I think we need to move to something else and propose a different prism.”
“The Kingdom,” Colonna’s debut feature film, arose out of his own anxieties around the birth of his child six years ago. It’s an entirely fictional movie but it has personal roots for Colonna, who was inspired by the memory of a camping trip that he realized years later was “an entirely different matter for my father.” He shot the most of the film in Corsica within a few miles of his hometown.
“This is where I grew up,” says Colonna, smiling. “This is where I learned to swim. The shower where her kiss takes place is the shower where I kissed for the first time.”
Switzerland’s Nemo wins 68th Eurovision Song Contest
MALMO, Sweden | Swiss singer Nemo won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest early Sunday with “The Code,” an operatic pop-rap ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing a nongender identity.
Switzerland’s contestant beat Croatian rocker Baby Lasagna to the title by winning the most points from a combination of national juries and viewers around the world. Nemo, 24, is the first nonbinary winner of the contest that has long been embraced as a safe haven by the LGBT community. Nemo is also the first Swiss winner since 1988, when Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion competed under the Swiss flag.
“Thank you so much,” Nemo said after the result from Saturday’s final was announced soon after midnight. “I hope this contest can live up to its promise and continue to stand for peace and dignity for every person.”
At a post-victory news conference, Nemo expressed pride in accepting the trophy for “people that are daring to be themselves and people that need to be heard and need to be understood. We need more compassion, we need more empathy.”
Nemo’s victory in the Swedish city of Malmo followed a turbulent year for the pan-continental pop contest that saw large street protests against the participation of Israel that tipped the feelgood musical celebration into a chaotic pressure cooker overshadowed by the war in Gaza.
Hours before the final, Dutch competitor Joost Klein was expelled from the contest over a backstage altercation that was being investigated by police.
Nemo — full name Nemo Mettler — bested finalists from 24 other countries, who all performed in front of a live audience of thousands and an estimated 180 million viewers around the world. Each contestant had three minutes to meld catchy tunes and eye-popping spectacle into performances capable of winning the hearts of viewers. Musical styles ranged across rock, disco, techno and rap — sometimes a mashup of more than one.
Israeli singer Eden Golan, who spent Eurovision week in Malmo under tight security, took the stage to a wall of sound — boos mixed with cheers — to perform the power ballad “Hurricane.” Golan shot up the odds table through the week, despite the protests that her appearance drew, and ended in fifth place behind Nemo, Baby Lasagna, Ukrainian duo alyona alyona & Jerry Heil, and French singer Slimane.
Eurovision organizers ordered a change to the original title of her song, “October Rain” — an apparent reference to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel and triggered the war in Gaza.
The show was typically eclectic Eurovision fare, ranging from the pop-zombie folk hybrid of Estonia’s 5Miinust x Puuluup to the folk-inflected power pop of Greece’s Marina Satti and Armenia’s Ladaniva and the goofy 1990s nostalgia of Finland’s Windows95man, who emerged from a giant onstage egg wearing very little clothing.
Britain’s Olly Alexander offered upbeat dance track “Dizzy,” while Ireland’s gothic Bambie Thug summoned a demon onstage and brought a scream coach to Malmo, and Spain’s Nebulossa boldly reclaimed a term used as a slur on women in “Zorra.”
Nemo had been a favorite going into the contest, alongside Baby Lasagna, whose song “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” is a rollicking rock number that tackles the issue of young Croatians leaving the country in search of a better life.
The contest returned to Sweden, home of last year’s winner, Loreen, half a century after ABBA won Eurovision with “Waterloo” — Eurovision’s most iconic moment. ABBA did not appear in person in Malmo, though their digital “ABBA-tars” from the “ABBA Voyage” stage show did.
A trio of former Eurovision winners — Charlotte Perrelli, Carola and Conchita Wurst — performed “Waterloo” in tribute.
Though Eurovision’s motto is “united by music,” this year’s event has proven divisive. Protests and dissent overshadowed a competition that has become a campy celebration of Europe’s varied — and sometimes baffling — musical tastes and a forum for inclusiveness and diversity.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched for the second time in a week on Saturday through Sweden’s third-largest city, which has a large Muslim population, to demand a boycott of Israel and a cease-fire in the seven-month Gaza war that has killed almost 35,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Several hundred gathered outside the Malmo Arena before the final, with some shouting “shame” at arriving music fans, and facing off with police blocking their path. Climate activist Greta Thunberg was among those escorted away by police.
Klein, the Dutch performer, was ejected from the competition after a female member of the production crew made a complaint, competition organizer the European Broadcasting Union said. The 26-year-old Dutch singer and rapper had been a favorite of both bookmakers and fans with his song “Europapa.”
Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, one of dozens of public broadcasters that collectively fund and broadcast the contest, said that as Klein came offstage after Thursday’s semifinal, he was filmed without his consent and in turn made a “threatening movement” toward the camera.
The broadcaster said Klein didn’t touch the camera or the camera operator, and called his expulsion “disproportionate.”
Tensions and nerves were palpable in the hours before the final. Several artists were absent from the Olympics-style artists’ entrance at the start of the final dress rehearsal, though all appeared at the final.
Several competitors made reference to peace or love at the end of their performances, including France’s Slimane, who said: “United by music for love and peace.”
Nemo said the Eurovision experience had been “really intense and not just pleasant all the way.”
“There were a lot of things that didn’t seem like it was all about love and unity, and that made me really sad,” Nemo said. “I really hope that Eurovision continues and can continue to stand for peace and love in the future. I think that needs a lot of work still.”
700 hotel union workers launch 48-hour strike at Virgin Hotels casino
LAS VEGAS | About 700 workers walked off the job at a hotel-casino near the Las Vegas Strip at dawn Friday, in what union organizers said would be a 48-hour strike after spending months trying to reach a deal for new five-year contract with Virgin Hotels.
The Culinary Union, the largest labor union in Nevada, said the action marked its first strike in 22 years. The union authorized a citywide strike late last year, but it reached agreements with all the major hotel-casinos on the Strip for about 40,000 workers before the end of the year, and with most downtown and off-Strip properties in early February for 10,000 workers.
Guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry and kitchen workers were among those walking a picket line in front of Virgin Hotels, formerly the Hard Rock Las Vegas, just west of the Strip, union organizers said.
Virgin Hotels filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ahead of the anticipated strike, accusing the union of failing to negotiate in good faith “despite our sincere efforts to meet and negotiate.” It said union officials were engaged in “unlawful ‘take it or leave it’ bargaining.”
“Because the Union has not told us what agreements it believes are necessary to avoid a strike, we have asked the Union to join us in mediation as soon as possible,” Virgin Hotels said. “The goal of mediation is to reach an agreement without disrupting our guests and our team members’ lives with a work stoppage.”
While the weekend strike is far smaller in scale than the union’s planned strikes last year on the Strip, the hotel-casino is still a notable Sin City landmark because of its proximity to the Strip and the airport, and because an 80-foot-tall (24-meter-tall) neon guitar sign stood on the plot for decades before it was removed for the property’s transformation into Virgin Hotels.
The last time Culinary Union members went on strike was in 2002 at Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.
Earlier this year, union members at other Las Vegas-area properties reached deals giving them a roughly 32% salary increase over five years, including 10% in the first year.
Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, said they had called off a strike deadline at Virgin Hotels in February when the looming Super Bowl helped put pressure on other hotel-casinos to come to the bargaining table in order to give management more time to address its financial situation and reach a settlement at the 1,500-room hotel-casino.
But he said they had waited long enough and were hopeful the 48-hour strike would help expedite a new agreement on wage and benefit increases.
“It’s been nearly one year since the contract at Virgin Las Vegas expired on June 1, 2023 and workers are still working without a contract,” he said in a statement.
Pappageorge told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that the complaint to the NLRB had no merit.
“The charge is just a company stunt, and it’s unfortunate and sad that they’ve waited until the eve of the strike to even have that kind of discussion,” Pappageorge said.
—From AP reports
