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How 'Priscilla' reexamines an iconic love story

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How 'Priscilla' reexamines an iconic love story

The romance between Priscilla and Elvis Presley was not all fireworks, or at least that’s the dramatic story Sofia Coppola paints in “Priscilla,” where the director tunes into the psyche of the young woman who married the iconic singer. “Sofia was looking for something intimate,” cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd says about the film that sees Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi play the famous couple who first meet in Germany when Priscilla was 14. The use of color conveys the period locations, with Europe being cast in muted grays whereas their time in America bursts in a kaleidoscope of pastels. Le Sourd sought to convey Priscilla’s emotional state through subjective framing to connect the audience to her feelings. “Sofia knew what she wanted with ‘Priscilla.’ She would concentrate on Cailee, and if you look, a few times, you won’t see a reverse [shot] on Jacob. She was not interested at all. She wanted to stay with Priscilla,” he says. Heightening the point of view, Le Sourd would frame “closer to Cailee and wider on Jacob,” pulling the audience in with her instead of him. “Another decision was to frame Jacob from the back. It’s a minor decision but a strong decision about the film. It’s more about her than him.”

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Zoe Saldaña becomes the highest-grossing actor of all time

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Zoe Saldaña becomes the highest-grossing actor of all time

After another impressively profitable weekend in theaters, James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” helped crown its star Zoe Saldaña the queen of the box office.

The third “Avatar” movie boasted $21.3 million in North American sales last week, bringing it to a global total of $1.23 billion. With those impressive stats, Saldaña officially surpassed Scarlett Johansson as the highest-grossing actor of all time.

The Oscar winner has grossed more than $15.47 billion at the international box office, according to box office tracking website the Numbers. Johansson only recently gained the title after surpassing her “Avengers” co-star Samuel L. Jackson with the release of last summer’s “Jurassic World Rebirth.”

What helped buoy Saldaña to the top is the fact that the 47-year-old actor stars in the three highest-grossing films of all time: 2009’s “Avatar” ($2.9 billion), 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” ($2.8 billion) and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” ($2.3 billion).

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Saldaña is also the only actor to appear in four movies that brought in over $2 billion worldwide. (2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” grossed $2.05 billion.)

Last year proved that Saldaña’s talent exceeded the realm of popcorn movies when she nabbed her first Academy Award for her supporting role in the controversial musical “Emilia Pérez.” Her win marked the first time an actor with Dominican roots had won an Oscar.

“I am a proud child of immigrant parents, with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands,” she said through tears while accepting the award for supporting actress. “And I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”

Saldaña cemented her Oscar win while side-stepping criticisms of the film — namely regarding its portrayals of Mexicans and transgender people — as well as the scandal that surrounded “Emilia Pérez” co-star Karla Sofía Gascón, when her offensive tweets with anti-Muslim, anti-diversity and racist language resurfaced.

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Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: A fond, funky & fun throwback to old-school masala films

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Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: A fond, funky & fun throwback to old-school masala films

Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Synopsis: Even as he keeps up an appearance of following in the footsteps MGR in front of his grandfather, a die-hard fan of the legend, Ramu is actually a corrupt cop, who’s helping in a mission to nab activists exposing the government. What happens when an incident triggers the Vaathiyaar in him? Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: In his interviews about the film, director Nalan Kumarasamy repeatedly stressed on the fact that he planned Vaa Vaathiyaar as an attempt at recreating the old-school masala film in his own style. And that’s exactly what he delivers with his film. The simplicity of the MGR film formula meets the new-age-y plot device of Maaveeran in this fond, fun, funky throwback to the masala films of an earlier era. The film does take a while to get going with the beats of the initial set-up coming across as little too familiar. The narrative rhythm, too, is slightly off, with far too many songs popping up at frequent intervals. Though, it helps that Santhosh Narayanan’s songs are short and groovy. And the composer delivers a score that superbly elevates the emotional moments. But once we get into the main conflict, things perk up. An anonymous group of hacker-activists exposes a shootout plot by power broker Periasamy (Sathyaraj) and the chief minister (Nizhalgal Ravi) at a Sterlite-like protest. The government decides to nab them before they can cause further damage to a 142 million euro business deal. How does Ramu – a corrupt cop, who is keeping up a facade of being a do-gooder for the sake of his grandfather (Rajkiran, who has become the default casting choice for such well-meaning boomer roles), a die-hard MGR fan – gets involved in this and where does the OG Vaathiyaar figures in this scheme of things?Vaa Vaathiyaar shows that in this age of hyper-masculine action – and even romantic – films, it’s still possible to make a rousing commercial entertainer with a star without relying on guns and gratuitous bloodshed. The film’s action set-pieces have the hero taking on dozens of henchmen (and cops, too!), but it’s all done in swashbuckling MGR style. And in Karthi, it has an actor who is brave enough to take on a risky role, given the stature in which MGR is held by the Tamil people. Rather than merely mimicking him, which would have ended up as a spoof, the actor wonderfully captures the spirit of the legend’s onscreen image and creates moments that are genuinely heartfelt. Credit should also go to Nalan for finding the right pitch at which the actor should play these portions. While there are quite a few throwbacks to iconic MGR scenes, the filmmaker even succeeds in his modern take on the iconic song, Raajavin Paarvai Raaniyin Pakkam.The film would have been even better with a stronger villain. The film initially builds up Periyasamy to be ruthless and powerful, and with someone of Sathyaraj’s calibre playing this role, we expect more only to be deceived in the end. There’s also some build up to Nivas, a rival cop, who’s keen on nailing Ramu, but this arc, which could have added tension, is left incomplete after a while.That said, Nalan’s bold move to call back to MGR’s real-life hospitalisation and resurgence in the climax leaves the film on an emotional high.

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Audience for Golden Globe Awards telecast drops 7% from last year

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Audience for Golden Globe Awards telecast drops 7% from last year

The Sunday telecast of the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on CBS suffered a ratings setback with an audience decline of 7% compared with last year’s show.

Nielsen data showed the live event, hosted by comic Nikki Glaser at the Beverly Hilton, averaged 8.66 million viewers. The big winners of the night included “One Battle After Another” and “Hamnet” on the feature film side. Medical drama “The Pitt” and comedy series “Hacks,” both from HBO Max, were the big TV winners.

The data, which include livestreaming, mark the second straight audience decline for the Golden Globe Awards, which scored 9.2 million viewers in 2025. That edition dropped slightly from its bounce-back year of 2024, when the program delivered 9.4 million viewers — a 50% lift over its final year on NBC.

Like all awards shows, the Golden Globes no longer deliver the kind of ratings that once made it one of the most-watched programs of the year. The show has suffered from the changing habits of viewers, many of whom have turned to social media for trophy-show clips.

The Golden Globe Awards also had to come back from a scandal over the lack of diversity in the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which operated the event for decades. A Los Angeles Times investigation brought attention and raised concerns about its ethics and financial practices in 2021.

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The 83rd Golden Globe Awards may have been hurt by some production elements that did not go over well based on the harsh response from viewers posting on social media.

Marc Malkin, senior culture and events editor for Variety, was paired with “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Kevin Frazier to provide running chatter off-camera during the long and winding trip to the stage for winners seated in the crowded hotel ballroom. They were not well received.

“Do you think Golden Globes commentators Marc Malkin and Kevin Frazier are going to go home tonight utterly haunted for the rest of their days over the mind-numbing inanities they uttered all night?” wrote film critic Dustin Putman.

A post from another viewer compared Malkin’s commentary to “your mom talking about who she just ran into at the supermarket.”

Viewers were also put off by on-screen graphics featuring data from the prediction market app Polymarket showing the win probability of the nominees ahead of their categories. “Just push me in front of a bus at this point,” sports podcaster Bobby Wagner wrote on X.

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The Golden Globe Awards presented the data as part of a partnership deal with Polymarket, which gives users the opportunity to bet on the outcomes of events in sports, culture, politics and other areas. The deal included an advertising buy on the broadcast.

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