John Mayall, the musician and bandleader often referred to as the godfather of the British blues — and whose long-running group the Bluesbreakers incubated some of rock music’s biggest talents, including Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Mick Fleetwood — died Monday at his home in California, according to a statement posted by his family on his official Facebook page. He was 90.
The statement didn’t specify a cause but attributed the death to the “health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career.”
Mayall, who’d been performing on the road as recently as 2022, was due to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October as a recipient of the organization’s Musical Influence Award. On its website, the hall hailed Mayall’s “rugged individuality and distinctive voice and style” and said he “continually experimented with and stretched the blues.”
“The blues is such an everlasting source of inspiration to me,” he told The Times in 1990. “It’s quite inexhaustible, really.”
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A guitarist, keyboardist, singer, harmonica player and songwriter, Mayall released dozens of albums and played innumerable gigs in a career that stretched over more than half a century. Yet he’s best remembered for helping to launch the blues revival of the 1960s that would go on to make pop stars of Clapton, the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac.
His 1966 LP “Blues Breakers,” which featured Clapton on guitar (not long after he’d left the Yardbirds), is widely considered a classic of the form and earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Mayall was born in 1933 near Manchester, England, where his father collected records and played music as a hobby. At age 3, he “got addicted” to the music of the Mills Brothers, he told The Times; after being discharged from the British Army in his early 20s, he formed his first band “strictly for my own satisfaction.”
By the time he was 30, though, he’d moved to London to pursue music professionally and found a thriving blues scene he described in The Times interview as “the south’s answer to the north, to the Liverpool pop-rock thing dominated by the Beatles.” Beyond Clapton, the Bluesbreakers eventually attracted Peter Green, who left the band to form Fleetwood Mac; Jack Bruce, who played with Clapton in Cream; and Aynsley Dunbar, who played drums for Frank Zappa, among other artists.
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Mayall moved to Los Angeles in 1969 and spent the ’70s expanding his playing into jazz. But he reformed the Bluesbreakers in the mid-1980s and soon got back to averaging 120 dates a year.
“There would be more, but I put a ceiling on it,” he told The Times. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t get any home life, and that’s very important to me.”
Mayall is survived by six children, Gaz, Jason, Red, Ben, Zak and Samson; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His family’s statement said he “is also surrounded with love by his previous wives, Pamela and Maggie, his devoted secretary, Jane, and his close friends.”
Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, Jonathan Tittel, Ignacio Gasparini, Richard Roxburgh, Paul Gleeson, Thiago Moraes, Nicholas Denton, Tim Ross, Antonio Alvarez and Benjamín Gorroño.
SYNOPSIS:
Based on a factual account of a group of outsiders who settle on a remote island only to discover their greatest threat isn’t the brutal climate or deadly wildlife, but each other.
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Based on true events, esteemed director Ron Howard (fallen on hard times, especially given both the quality of his last film and what it led to…) seems unsure of what tone to take with Eden, a look at a power struggle on Floreana, a Galapagos Island, circa World War I.
Divided into three groups, they have all escaped civilization for one reason or another, with Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) dedicating time to a manifesto for a new, supposedly more sensible and humane brand of social norms. He is also a quack convincing his wife, Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), that this self-imposed exile will also give him the peace and time necessary to focus on curing her multiple sclerosis. His rules for a more respectable society contain everything from vegetarianism to the usual clichéd rambling about pain functioning as a necessary ingredient to growth and happiness.
That quiet isolation is impeded upon, first with the arrival of the Wittmer family, looking to escape the war, poverty, and live freely, growing their garden. Sydney Sweeney slides right into the more traditionally conservative wife role of Margaret, currently pregnant and somewhat docile toward her husband, Heinz (Daniel Bruhl), a man she married not out of love but for a severe lack of experience, and that she was asked to take his hand. That does not mean that this is a boring role for Sydney Sweeney; even if she isn’t entirely convincing regarding looks (there are times that, even in the period piece clothing, she resembles a contemporary woman) and accent, the back half allows her character ample opportunity to show that, while often quiet and passive, her character bears much intelligence and is capable of making risky choices under pressure.
Soon after Dr. Ritter intentionally settles them into a plot of land he deems will make gardening impossible and them want to leave within a few weeks, a spoiled and flirty baroness (Ana de Armas) unexpectedly shows up with a couple of young and handsome sycophants (Jonathan Tittel and All Quiet on the Western Front’s Felix Kammerer) to do everything from make her feel important, cook her canned food, steal some more canned food (somehow, she stupidly assumes what she brought would be enough to last a lifetime, and is too entitled to eat anything homegrown on the island), fornicate, and last but not least, manipulate her way into control over the island as she is looking to build a ritzy hotel solely for the rich.
Dr. Ritter couldn’t give a damn about any of these people, quick to place them into unfortunate circumstances, pitting them against one another. The joke is on him, though, as these people are either more suited for this lifestyle or competent than he or his wife, causing him to start breaking the rules going into his manifesto. Each of them (more so the baroness) knows what buttons to push to bring out his anger and insecurities.
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A solid idea for a psychological triple threat match, Ron Howard’s (co-writing alongside Noah Pink) approach to this is a clunky blending of tones that never gels. Anything involving the baroness is played over the top and campy, at odds with the more serious attempts at character study. Ana de Armas isn’t bad here, but she is in another movie entirely, and one that might have worked if that tone was consistent across the board. Giving confidence to this belief is that, once her character exits the story for reasons that won’t be spoiled, the dramatic rift between the other two groups suddenly becomes compelling, with a layer of deadly intrigue and darker impulses. At a little over 2 hours, Eden is also a film that benefits from such a running time, allowing for lengthy sequences dedicated to each group and letting their characters breathe outside the larger picture.
Eden has one last piece of frustration in store once the ending credits start, noting that there are two different perspectives to these factual accounts. How Ron Howard and Noah Pink arrived at the story they have told here is anyone’s guess (presumably trying to find the truth in the middle), but that piece of information suggests a much more narratively creative and ambitious approach to the story. That’s not to guarantee it would have been better, but, aside from the intriguing curiosity of essentially every Hollywood IT actress in one movie playing mental mind games for superiority over an island, this veers between dry and overly wacky, never finding a working middle ground until it’s too late.
It takes a lot for sweet-tempered 28-year-old Nick Darnell to transform himself into Christmas’ most sought-after sourpuss.
There’s colored contacts and facial prosthetics, a protruding belly and at least an hour of makeup. But for the devout Christian and preternaturally cheerful young actor, the real metamorphosis is psychological.
“People today love to connect with the villain,” said the viral Grinch impersonator. “The world is just a darker world now.”
Darnell called the chartreuse baddie he portrays “the modern-day Santa.”
Dr. Seuss’ holiday parable “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” has been a seasonal favorite since it was published in 1957, ranking among the most popular and profitable of the author’s iconic rhyming picture books.
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The story’s sassy, brassy antihero has likewise adorned Christmas trees and school library shelves for generations. His hornlike fur forelocks and pathological refusal to assimilate have led some critics to call the Grinch ambiguously antisemitic, but those concerns have largely been glossed over by years of nostalgia.
Experts say 2025 heralds the Grinch’s ascent from Yuletide bit player to Christmas A-lister. He now crowds out Kris Kringle in store displays, social media feeds and holiday meet-and-greets.
Unlike Santa, who ho-ho-hos his way through the holiday season, Grinches twerk and pout and scream in kids’ faces. Compilations of their antics on YouTube and TikTok routinely rack up millions of views.
“I do the things that people think,” Darnell said of the role. “I’m not restrained.”
Despite the Grinch’s anti-consumerist zeal, the market for his visage has exploded in recent years.
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Target touts its “Grinchmas,” while Walmart has “WhoKnewVille.” McDonald’s sells Grinch fries, Starbucks features a “secret menu” frappuccino. Hanna Andersson, a popular purveyor of holiday pajamas, boasts roughly a dozen different Grinch patterns, compared to three Hanukkah options and just one Santa design in two colorways.
“I’m not restrained,” Grinch impersonator Nick Darnell, 28, says of his role.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Ownership of the Grinch’s likeness is guarded as jealously as the villain protects his lair: Dr. Seuss Enterprises holds the rights to the children’s book, Warner Bros. Discovery the 1966 animated TV special, and Universal Studios the 2000 live-action Jim Carrey film, which ranks among the highest-grossing Christmas movies of all time.
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But impersonators, academics and even working Santas agree: Americans’ embrace of the Grinch in 2025 goes far beyond consumerism.
“It’s definitely more popular,” said ‘Santa’ Ed Taylor, the famed Los Angeles Santa behind the Worldwide Santa Claus Network, a training camp for the art of Christmas cheer. “It’s a little yin and yang. Maybe we need a little bit of both.”
Costume companies across Los Angeles say they’ve seen a deluge of demand for the Grinch this year. At Etoile Costume & Party Center in Tarzana, nearly half of Christmas costume rentals are now furry green villains.
“It’s about equal to Santa,” one employee said. “Maybe 40% Grinch and the rest Santa.”
Ryan Ortiz, dressed in a Grinch costume, stands next to his 1969 Volkswagen Bus in San Diego on Dec. 21.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
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Fans of the hirsute sourpuss seek him out for his in-your-face edge — the opposite of Santa’s remote joviality. Santa enforces his regime of goodness through lists and surveillance. The Grinch will get in your face and yell at you to shut up.
“[Santa]’s supposed to be mysterious and unknown,” said Darnell’s fiancee JadaPaige. “He’s supposed to just come in the night and you’re never supposed to see him.”
“I grew up obsessed with Santa Claus — I did not grow up obsessed with the Grinch,” Darnell said. “I was the kid waiting up in the middle of the night, peeking, wondering if Santa’s down there. A lot of modern day kids aren’t having that journey.”
Instead, many Gen Alpha youths look to the Grinch for his views on “corruption or poverty or the oversaturation of commercialism,” Darnell said.
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“Santa is looked at more like a godly figure, while the Grinch is a more everyday man,” the actor explained. “The world is so sinister and negative. [The Grinch] tells you how it is, rather than telling you everything is going to be fine.”
TikTok turbocharged that trend, with the infamous green meanie matching or beating his red rival in holiday clout.
“He has aura,” Darnell said.
Grinch impersonator Nick Darnell said the character he plays has become popular because, “He has aura.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
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Today’s professional Santas are often retirees with a bit of a belly and some time on their hands. Grinches, by contrast, are more likely to be working actors like Darnell, who look reverently to Carrey’s performance as a blueprint for the character’s slapstick antics and snarky reads.
Still, experts say the Grinch’s 2025 glow-up likely owes as much to holiday exhaustion and broad consumer pessimism as it does vertical video virility.
“The Grinch is the opposite side of Christmas,” said Oscar Tellez, who owns Magic Dream Costumes and Party Rentals in East Los Angeles and says he’s seen a spike in Grinch requests even as overall holiday rentals have sagged.
“Especially with the Latino community, I don’t think they feel the enthusiasm to celebrate,” Tellez said. “They are more worried about what’s gonna happen next.”
Pop culture experts agreed.
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“The economy is in big trouble, our political situation is chaotic, there’s a lot of hate — it’s no wonder that we would seek to express that through the embodiment of a monster like the Grinch,” said Michael M. Chemers, director of the Center for Monster Studies at UC Santa Cruz.
“You’ve seen these nativity displays popping up all over the country that have the Jesus figures removed and it says ‘ICE was here,’ ” he added. “I think there’s just a lot of Grinchy feeling right now in the world.”
Chemers and other scholars say the emergence of the Grinch as a foil to Santa is less a departure than a return to form: the Grinch is a “PG version” of the mythical Krampus, a shaggy, fork-tongued Germanic goat man who beats and even abducts naughty children, working as an enforcer for Father Christmas.
An “organillero,” or traditional street musician, dressed as the anti-Christmas character known as the Grinch plays on a central street in Mexico City on Dec. 9.
(Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)
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“He’s been called the Christmas devil,” said Jeff Belanger, author of “The Fright Before Christmas,” a compendium of so-called “Yuletide monsters.”
“[Krampus] represented the consequence of bad behavior, while St. Nick rewards good behavior,” he said.
Krampus likely evolved from older, pre-Christian deities, just as Christmas absorbed solstice and midwinter customs, the author explained. The Christmas most Americans grew up with only emerged as a national holiday in the wake of the Civil War, he said, about a decade after the formal introduction of Thanksgiving in 1863. It was around this time that Christmas trees became popular in the United States.
“In 1867, Charles Dickens came over to Boston and that’s when he read his ‘Christmas Carol’ for the first time in America,” spurring President Ulysses S. Grant to declare Christmas a federal holiday, Belanger said. “It was truly on the back of that story.”
The holiday’s corpulent, white-bearded dandy arrived even later, his schmaltzy persona skimmed from bony St. Nicholas between Reconstruction and 1931, when Coca-Cola debuted its iconic, brandy-flushed Santa Claus.
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“That’s when Christmas turned purely commercial, and there was no room for consequences anymore,” Belanger said.
Seuss’ Grinch sits somewhere in the middle — cuddlier than Krampus and pricklier than Santa — making him the perfect avatar for a moody, uncertain age.
Workers check Grinch inflatables ready for export at a factory in Suixi County in central China’s Anhui Province on March 19.
(Wan SC/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Grinch boosters point out that the villain repents and reforms at the end of the story, shedding his pathological hatred of Christmas.
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“I always tell people, ‘Don’t you just love how his heart grew three sizes?’ ” Taylor, the famous Santa, said of his increasingly popular crossover events.
Others note that it’s never the repentant Grinch who marauds through schools and holiday parades or blows up on social media.
“Once he’s rehabilitated, he’s no fun anymore,” Chemers said.
That makes it hard for the holiday villain to visit sick kids in the hospital, as legions of Santas do every year, or comfort children who confide in him about bullying.
“The message is one of encouragement and positivity and acknowledgment of accomplishments and encouragement to strive harder,” Taylor said. “It’s these beautiful personal development messages that Santa gets to be the conduit for.”
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The Grinch, by contrast, can affirm where you are, without ever asking you to be better.
“He can hear you and know what you’re thinking, because he has the same thoughts,” Darnell said of his beloved version of the character. “People want to know his heart and his mind, and that’s something they wouldn’t be able to ask Santa.”
Jack Black, left, and Paul Rudd in a scene from “Anaconda.”
| Photo Credit: Matt Grace
How many times have we watched 1997’s Anaconda, about a documentary crew going down the Amazon in search of a legendary snake? Alongside Jennifer Lopez (before she became JLo), Owen Wilson and Ice Cube, Jon Voight chewed up the scenery as an Ahab-esque hunter with a bizarre accent. The unkillable snake was hilarious, especially its habit of gobbling humans like chocolate éclairs from Universal Bakery in Secunderabad.
Anaconda opens with Doug McCallister (Jack Black) giving a narration of what appears to be a horror film, as there is a snake chasing someone in the sewers. It is only when the camera pulls back to reveal his puzzled-looking audience that we realise Doug is a wedding videographer, and he is pitching to clients who just want a photo of the happy couple jumping in tandem.
At Doug’s birthday party, arranged by his wife, Malie (Ione Skye), he meets his childhood friends, Griff (Paul Rudd), an actor, Kenny (Steve Zahn), who is mostly wasted, and Claire (Thandiwe Newton), a lawyer who is recently divorced from her philandering husband.
Anaconda (English)
Director: Tom Gormican
Cast: Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, Selton Mello
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Runtime: 99 minutes
Storyline: Friends reunite to reboot their favourite movie, Anaconda, only to find reel life turning real when a giant bloodthirsty snake hunts them
When Griff shows the horror film Doug made when they were all children, the gang remembers the good old days. Griff says he has the rights to Anaconda (there is a complicated story of how he got them or did not), and they should shoot a reboot/reimagining/spiritual sequel as a tribute to the film that afforded them so much joy.
After some initial hesitation from Doug, the friends head off to the Amazon, where they meet the snake wrangler, Carlos (Selton Mello), who cares very much for his snake. There are also some shady characters following a lovely maiden, Ana (Daniela Melchior).
Jack Black, left, and Paul Rudd in a scene from “Anaconda.”
| Photo Credit:
Bradley Patrick
As the shooting progresses, things go wrong with Carlos’s snake meeting a sticky fate and another impossibly huge snake slithering about, popping humans into its giant jaws like crisp bondas. Black is the beating heart of the film, with Rudd, Zahn and Newton giving ample support. There is a jolly charm about the film that seems just right for the season.
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Watching the friends repeat dialogues from the earlier film, especially Voight’s teeth-gnashing Paul Serone growling, “You get the privilege of hearing your bones break before the power of embrace makes your veins explode,” you cannot help but grin happily. And if you are enough of a creature feature bhakt, you might well be repeating the dialogues under your breath!
With its silly snake, likeable cast, goofy humour (including astute jibes about IP), welcome cameos, and over-the-top action, Anaconda is the perfect holiday movie to watch with friends after a gargantuan feast or to get over a grand hangover.
