Entertainment
DNC ratings thump Trump as 29 million TV viewers watch Harris' acceptance speech
![DNC ratings thump Trump as 29 million TV viewers watch Harris' acceptance speech DNC ratings thump Trump as 29 million TV viewers watch Harris' acceptance speech](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c7e4922/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x3150+0+425/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5d%2F8a%2Fafc982ff4200a595299b5f18043c%2F1472058-na-0821-dnc-rcg-51982-enhanced-nr.jpg)
The momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign helped push the ratings for the Democratic National Convention past the Republican festivities for former President Trump.
Nielsen data showed that Harris’ well-received acceptance speech was watched by 29 million viewers across 15 networks.
The figure is 14% higher than for Trump’s speech, which scored 25.4 million viewers July 19. Harris also drew substantially more than the 24.6 million viewers who watched Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the convention in 2020 and about the same as the 29.8 million viewers who tuned in to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris helped herself by keeping her speech to 37 minutes. Trump’s 90-minute-plus stem-winder went on well past midnight on the East Coast.
The speech caps a successful week for the Democratic National Convention, which topped the audience for the GOP’s gathering every night this week.
Harris being thrust to the top of the ticket after President Biden decided to end his reelection campaign on July 21 — one of the wildest political twists in U.S. history — has energized Democratic voters who were unhappy to have a rematch of the 2020 campaign.
Harris used the speech to reintroduce herself to the public, going heavy on biographical details and her work as a prosecutor in California.
Harris may have also gotten a boost from false rumors that music superstars Beyoncé and Taylor Swift were coming to the United Center in Chicago to perform at the event.
The rumblings — which tabloid news website TMZ reported as fact in the case of Beyoncé — were repeated by several network anchors.
The Harris campaign is likely to feel encouraged by how her speech outperformed Trump’s in a number of cities in the swing states where the election will be decided in the electoral college.
Harris averaged 50% more viewers than Trump in Philadelphia, 36% more in Detroit, 31% more in Raleigh, N.C., and 21% more in Atlanta, according to Nielsen.
Harris underperformed Trump by 10% in Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention was held.
MSNBC, the home team channel for liberal voters, saw its largest audience ever for a Democratic convention, averaging 6 million Thursday and 5.2 million viewers over four nights.
CNN was second for the week with 3.6 million viewers, followed by ABC (3.3 million), NBC (2.5 million), CBS (2.2 million) and Fox News (2.4 million).
MSNBC also had the most viewers in the 25-to-54 age group most coveted by advertisers, edging CNN by around 10,000 viewers in the category — a first.
CNN had won the demographic audience segment by much wider margins in 2016 and 2020.
Fox News, which injects conservative, pro-Trump commentary into its coverage, made a concerted effort to book more Democratic politicians this year — four times as many as it did in 2016. But the network has never been a first stop for the party’s conventions.
After Harris completed her speech, Trump called into Fox News to criticize it. Several times he pressed the keys on his phone as he ranted to anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
(Fox News was the most watched network for the Republican convention by a wide margin, averaging 6.6 million viewers over the four nights and 9.8 million viewers on the final session.)
Harris’ speech was probably watched by millions more people on streaming platforms.
Fox Corp.’s LiveNOW, an ad-supported free streaming site that presents raw news video without any commentary, peaked at 117,000 concurrent viewers Thursday, and 75,000 throughout the week with continuous convention coverage.
CNN does not reveal data for its live stream on parent company Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max platform. But the network said the four days of the convention rank in the top 10 in daily usage since the service was launched last fall.
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Movie Reviews
'Powder' movie review: Diganth clicks in a rib-tickling dark comedy
!['Powder' movie review: Diganth clicks in a rib-tickling dark comedy 'Powder' movie review: Diganth clicks in a rib-tickling dark comedy](https://images.deccanherald.com/deccanherald%2F2024-08-23%2Fpsiqp44f%2FPowder.jpg?rect=0%2C20%2C513%2C269&w=1200&ar=40%3A21&auto=format%2Ccompress&ogImage=true&mode=crop)
Director Janardhan Chikkanna, who created waves with his cybercrime thriller ‘Gultoo’ (2018), is back with his latest offering, ‘Powder’, a youthful dark comedy.
A rib-tickling tale of three small-town friends who hatch a plan to become rich by selling a highly sought-after powder.
The film begins with a peddler in China plotting a smuggling operation in India, using talcum powder bottles. Two rival smugglers in Karnataka handle the consignment, while a corrupt cop secretly works to divert the powder for personal gain.
In a twist, a massive shipment of powder worth over Rs 400 crore goes missing due to human error. The three protagonists stumble upon the powder, unwittingly becoming the target of a frantic search by the peddlers.
In the melee, they embark on a series of misadventures. Will they manage to sell the powder and achieve their dreams of instant wealth? The rest of the story guarantees non-stop laughter.
A betrayed woman, a middle-aged man yearning for companionship, a young man trying to rekindle an old romance and a son facing rejection by his father for being unable to study medicine. The movie explores the tragic backstories of these characters, each searching for meaning and purpose.
As the narrative unfolds, the characters’ paths intersect leading to a heartwarming and hilarious exploration of human connection.
From the opening scene to the final frame, which teasingly hints at a sequel, the film is captivating. It offers clever references to movies like ‘KGF’ and ‘99’. Even the controversial pontiff Nithyananda makes an appearance!
The ensemble cast delivers outstanding performances, bringing their characters to life. Each actor shines in their respective role, making the narrative even more engaging and relatable. Vasuki Vaibhav’s music deserves a mention. Although the film defies logic and reasoning, it is certainly a delightful weekend family entertainer.
Published 23 August 2024, 22:19 IST
Movie Reviews
Film Review: The Killer – SLUG Magazine
![Film Review: The Killer – SLUG Magazine Film Review: The Killer – SLUG Magazine](https://www.slugmag.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Killer-Main-2024.jpg.webp)
Film
The Killer
Director: John Woo
A Better Tomorrow Films and Atlas Entertainment
Streaming on Peacock: 08.23
In late 2023, I had the opportunity to chat with legendary director John Woo, who began his career in Hong Kong, went to Hollywood and changed the face of action filmmaking around the world. One of the key points we discussed was his own cinematic influences, as well as the many younger filmmakers who have been influenced by his work. The reason that I bring this up is because as I watched The Killer, the director’s English language reimagining of his 1989 Hong Kong classic, I couldn’t help but view it through this rather specific lens.
Nathalie Emmanuel (Fast X, Game of Thrones) stars as Zee, a notorious assassin feared throughout the Parisian underworld and known as The Queen of the Dead. Zee is sent on a hit at a Paris night club by her boss and mentor, Finn (Sam Worthington, Avatar), with a strict understanding that no witnesses can remain alive. When a young singer, Jen (Diana Silvers, Space Force, Booksmart) is caught up in the melee, injured and blinded, Zee has a crisis of conscience and spares her life. This doesn’t go over well at all with Finn or his client, and after it’s made clear that the job will be finished with or without her, Zee goes to the hospital where Jen is set to be eliminated, rescues her and runs. Zee’s actions attract the attention of a sharp police investigator, Sey (Omar Sy, Jurassic World, Lupin), and Zee finds herself pursued by from all sides as she uncovers a dark criminal conspiracy and is forced to confront her own past.
The original version of The Killer was was designed to be Woo’s homage to the gangster films of Martin Scorsese, set in the Hong Kong underworld, and just as Woo was inspired by Scorsese, he has inspired other filmmakers. Woo makes more nods here to those directors who have come after than those before him. It’s hard to watch this intriguing new take on The Killer without spotting Woo’s obvious new homages to Quentin Tarantino (Zee fighting villains in a night club with a Samurai sword), The Wachowskis (lots of all black outfits, including sunglasses and trenchcoats), Steven Soderbergh (split screen sequences explaining careful planning of missions) and more. Above all else, in context, this new film is Woo taking charge of Hollywood’s longstanding desire to remake his film, doing it himself and turning it into less of a direct remake than a wistful look back at a career spanning over 50 years—an aging filmmaker’s way of metaphorically singing My Way. A sequence inside a church that creatively addresses Woo’s trademark use of doves and the original meaning of it, symbolizing spiritual peace and innocence, is surprisingly touching. It’s far more accurate to call it a reimaging of The Killer than a remake, because apart from the basics of the plot set up, this film bares little resemblance to the original. In their new take on the premise, Woo and his screenwriters, Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential) and the team of Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken (10 Cloverfield Lane) have gone with a vastly different approach, giving it an international flavor and more of a spy movie feel—there’s at least as much of the John Woo who directed Mission: Impossible 2 on display here anything else—and they’ve made the title character a woman and significantly reduced the swaggering machismo factor, as well as addressed the problematic and somewhat condescending portrayal of the singer—the only significant female character in the 1989 version—as a naive and helpless waif. The significantly more complicated plot is convoluted and loses much of the simple appeal of the story, yet it’s not meant as a replacement for that film. In the context of acknowledging a Hollywood career that included Face/Off, there’s something about the added silliness of this version that only enhanced the fun for me.
Emmanuel is irresistibly charming as Zee, not even trying to fill the shoes of Chow Yun-fat and creating a new character who is hard underwritten yet more morally grounded and easy to get behind. Sy is likable as the police inspector, and the interplay between the two is quite stong. Silver gives a very satisfying performance as Jen, the one character that is hard to question as being superior to the original version. Worthington’s Irish accent is cringeworthy and cartoonish, though his acting is solid enough, particularly in the context of such a gleefully over-the-top film, and Angeles Woo (John’s daughter) adds a fun presence as Chi Mai, another assassin. The film is packed with far too many characters to keep them all straight, though most of the cast does solid, if forgettable, work.
The Killer runs a bit long, and it’s certainly nothing particularly new, but it’s a fun guilty pleasure movie that I thoroughly enjoyed as a longtime Woo fan who took joy in seeing all of his distinctive signature elements packed into over big rollicking adventure. If you can turn off your brain and view the movie as what it is, rather than holding it to the same standards as an original than was quite groundbreaking for its time, it’s a lively and diverting ride. –Patrick Gibbs
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Film Review: Alien: Romulus
Entertainment
Review: Weighed down by too much muck and not enough myth, a slackly remade 'The Crow' flops
![Review: Weighed down by too much muck and not enough myth, a slackly remade 'The Crow' flops Review: Weighed down by too much muck and not enough myth, a slackly remade 'The Crow' flops](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ba7b78f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3600x1890+0+0/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7b%2F08%2F7404d9be46b99891e8142c8b7ef4%2Fyf-09730-r2-copy.jpeg)
The dirty secret of urban hellscape movies drenched in rain and blood is that when it comes down to it, they don’t so much trigger worries about future blight as they do tourism fantasies. (When are theme parks going to figure out that “The Blade Runner Experience” would surely break attendance records?)
Alex Proyas’ 1994 fever dream “The Crow,” adapted from James O’Barr’s graphic novel, understood that appeal implicitly, serving up tactile gothic vengeance in a dashed Detroit with the panache of a circus grotesque. But in our current glut of movie dystopias, we’ve gotten away from that kind of immersive showmanship. Case in point, the dreary, pedestrian and ho-hum retelling of O’Barr’s story, also called “The Crow,” this time directed by Rupert Sanders. It’s like an anti-entertainment protest.
This time around, the wraithlike Bill Skarsgård is our back-from-the-dead avenger. But before he gets to ring his eyes with black paint for a slaydate with crow-powered destiny, he’s given an interminable amount of screen time to be broken, glum Eric, a loner still depressed about the death of his childhood horse (seriously) and whiling away his days in a remote rehab institution where the regulation clothing color is, for some reason, pastel pink. There, he meets musician Shelly (FKA twigs), who’s going through some things herself, namely the fact that some people are trying to kill her. Appealing to his angsty sensitivity, she breaks through his tattooed shell and Eric, smitten and protective, returns the favor by breaking them both out of the facility.
Their holed-up bliss — it’s like some insufferable audition for “Euphoria” — is halted when the henchmen of Shelly’s supernaturally evil benefactor Mr. Roeg (Danny Huston, who else?) catch up to the lovers, killing them both. Eric emerges, though, in an abandoned-rail yard netherworld teeming with crows, a dismal space where a middle-aged guide (Sami Bouajila) informs Eric he can rescue Shelly from Hell if he goes back and gets his fury on. Big plus for our boy: can’t be killed. Big minus for us: zero stakes, plus it’ll be more than an hour before any retaliation begins.
By then, when the flat gray murk of Steve Annis’ cinematography and Robin Brown’s production design have dulled your senses, you’ll be hungry for stunts and what a samurai sword can do. For the carnage queens out there, the film’s opera-house set piece probably won’t disappoint (it won’t transcend, either), but the part where invincible Eric is nonetheless supposed to feel pain — something the late Brandon Lee made so palpably human — is an afterthought.
Bill Skarsgård and FKA twigs in the movie “The Crow.”
(Larry Horricks / Lionsgate)
The love story supposedly generating all this ultraviolence is hardly captivating, and the motive behind Shelly’s killing even less so. For all we know, Eric’s payback may be as much about that horse as Shelly, a thinly realized character who will ultimately neither help nor harm twigs’ brand as an entrancing art polymath. Huston’s ready-made villainy won’t suffer either, although I’m pretty sure a shot of him closing his eyes — ostensibly in monstrous reverie — is really just an attempt to remember better gigs.
The one who should worry is Skarsgård, a talented actor with a commanding physicality and haunted eyes, but who’s still trapped in the star-tryout phase of his post-“It” breakout success. With a weak, unimaginative script by Zach Baylin and William Schneider doing him no favors, Skarsgård looks as lost as the pre-reborn Eric, never mustering enough mythic power. Despite the high body count, consider this a murder of “The Crow.”
‘The Crow’
Rating: R, for strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality/nudity, and drug use
Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Playing: In wide release Friday, Aug. 23
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