Hollywood

DARTH Vader’s lightsaber has been sold for £2.7million — making it the most expensive Star Wars prop in history.

The fake weapon, made from an old flash camera attachment, beat pre-sale expectations by £100,000.

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It was famously used in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back in the battle where baddie Vader chops off Luke Skywalker’s hand — then reveals that he is, in fact, his opponent’s father.

Brandon Alinger, of auction house Propstore in Los Angeles, said: “The result marks a landmark moment for the entire world of film collecting.”

“To see a Star Wars lightsaber – the symbol of one of cinema’s greatest sagas – become the highest-valued piece of the franchise ever sold at auction is incredibly special.”

He added: “It speaks to the enduring cultural power of Star Wars and the passion of fans and collectors who see these artifacts as touchstones of modern mythology.”

The 1ft (32cm) green lightsaber was used in scenes by Darth Vader actor David Prowse and stunt performer Bob Anderson.

In the pre-auction process it was described as “one of the most significant cinema artefacts ever.”

Other items sold on Thursday night included the Spider-Man suit worn by Tobey Maguire in the 2002 superhero film, which went for $289,800 (£214,000).

Harrison Ford‘s eight-foot bullwhip, belt and whip holster from Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) beat its pre-sale estimate to sell for $485,100 (£360,000).

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Warner Bros. Discovery has joined a key copyright infringement case that could test the legal bounds of using artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of well-known characters.

The company on Thursday filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court against AI company Midjourney Inc., alleging its image generator produces blatant rip-offs of Warner’s well-known and copyright-protected characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Scooby-Doo.

With the suit, Warner Bros. Discovery joins a legal fight brought in June by Walt Disney Co. and Comcast’s Universal Pictures. The Disney and Universal lawsuit marked the first salvo by major studios to elevate the legal struggle over AI-enabled intellectual property, calling it content theft.

The addition of Warner Bros. Discovery could boost Disney’s and Universal’s case. The three entertainment industry leaders control much of the most valuable intellectual property in Hollywood.

Disney’s stable includes Star Wars, Woody the Cowboy, Winnie the Pooh, the Simpsons and Disney princesses. Universal boasts such beasts as the Hulk, Shrek and the Minions.

Warner Bros. controls characters from DC Comics , Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera .

It sued on behalf of Warner Bros. , DC Comics, Turner Entertainment Co., Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., and the Cartoon Network. The company, which asked for a jury trial, is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction.

The companies allege the four-year-old San Francisco firm Midjourney, which has millions of paid subscribers, built its business off decades of hard work by Hollywood artists, writers and studios.

Midjourney, on its website, describes itself as “an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.” Midjourney offers its subscribers use of an image generator to create high-resolution digital depictions, including famous characters like Batman.

Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Universal allege that Midjourney trained its generative AI programs by using their copyrighted works. They contend that Midjourney-enabled creations are almost identical to their original copyrighted cartoons. Warner Bros.’ lawsuit included side-by-side renderings of its characters and Midjourney’s reproductions to illustrate the identical details, such as the color of Scooby-Doo’s collar and fur.

Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement. “Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.”

Warner Bros. Discovery pointed to the value of its franchises, including its DC Comics movies. Films featuring the DC Extended Universe, which were released from 2018 through 2023, generated more than $7 billion in global ticket sales. Each film earned an average of $479 million, the lawsuit said.

“Only Warner Bros. Discovery has the right under U.S. Copyright law to build a business around reproducing, preparing derivative works, distributing, publicly displaying, and performing images and videos featuring its copyrighted characters,” the company said in its lawsuit.

Such exclusive rights and protections allow Warner Bros. Discovery and other studios to make massive investments in content, the lawsuit said, adding: “That is the cornerstone of the U.S. Copyright Act.”

Hollywood performers and writers in recent years have voiced grave concerns about the rapid development of generative AI. The technology is expected to revolutionize the film industry and lead to fewer jobs.

Curbs on the use of generative AI became a sticking point in the historic 2023 strikes by actors and writers.

Disney and Universal applauded Warner Bros. for joining their legal battle.

“Disney is committed to protecting our creators and innovators, and we’re pleased to be joined by Warner Bros. Discovery in the fight against Midjourney’s blatant copyright infringement,” Disney said in a statement.

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES

(15) 135mins

★★★★☆

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FOR over a decade, the Conjuring franchise has been scaring us silly with its “true stories”.

But this will be the final haunted hurrah from parapsychologists Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson).

The married couple are as devoted to keeping bad spirits at bay as they are each other.

The film begins with a flashback to 1964, where a haunted mirror causes Lorraine to go into early labour.

The birth is traumatic and the demon that wants to get her young baby, Judy, almost wins, with the tot being stillborn.

Evil presence

But after begging the Lord to make the baby breathe, Lorraine wins that battle and we see the loving family grow up with happiness around them.

All while ghostbusting, of course.

But demons don’t rest and Judy, who has visions like her mum, often feels that she is being watched.

Fast-forward to 1986 and the Warrens are retired due to Ed having a heart condition.

But that pesky mirror turns up again, this time in the family home of the Smurls in Pennsylvania.

There are some seriously creepy goings-on and this is a demon not to be messed with. The Smurls have been so violently attacked by a powerful evil presence that they all live in terror.

As usual in these films, what you don’t see is far more terrifying than what you do.

Every usual horror trope is thrown out with a vengeance. But hey, if it ain’t broke. . . 

And it certainly feels like it’s not, as my palms grew clammy and heart rate shot up countless times.

The performances by Farmiga and Wilson are as extraordinary as always, bringing believable calm to the roles.

The climax of the supernatural events includes daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her boyfriend Tony (Brit actor Ben Hardy), are both tense and unsettling.

Directed by Michael Chaves, who was also the director for the three previous entries in the franchise, the film has a hand-held camera effect that tunes into the 1980s feel very well indeed.

There’s also a nice rounding off at the end with some familiar faces that superfans will appreciate.

A spine-tingling finale to a series of films that will likely haunt generations of fans to come.

ON SWIFT HORSES

(15) 119mins

★★☆☆☆

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THIS odd beast of a film from Daniel Minahan is adapted from Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel.

It opens with Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her soon-to-be husband, Lee (Will Poulter), chasing the Californian dream after his return from the Korean War.

Their plans for a fresh start are almost derailed by the arrival of Lee’s magnetic younger brother, Julius (Jacob Elordi), who departs for Las Vegas the next day.

There, Julius finds work in a casino and falls into a secret romance with his charismatic coworker, Henry (Diego Calva).

Back in California, Muriel begins her own double life, gambling at racetracks and discovering an unexpected passion with her neighbour, Sandra (Sasha Calle).

On paper, this is rich material, but on screen, Minahan never quite delivers the goods.

The film certainly looks the part – Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography bathes everything in a golden haze – but beneath the gloss there isn’t enough here to truly hold it together.

In the end, On Swift Horses aspires to be a sweeping saga in the vein of East Of Eden, but it never gets out of a slow trot.

All style, with little substance.

LINDA MARRIC

THE COURAGEOUS

(12A) 83mins

★★★★☆

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JASMIN GORDON’S debut feature film is an honest portrait of survival, love, and dignity.

Set against the beautiful landscape of Switzerland’s Valais region, it follows Jule (Ophelia Kolb), a rebellious single mother of three who refuses to give up on her family despite poverty, past mistakes and the indifference of the welfare system.

Kolb, best known for the hugely popular series, Call My Agent!, gives a career-defining performance. She captures Jule’s contradictions with remarkable depth.

Gordon directs with sensitivity, as she blends social realism with poetic imagery in a film that never feels needlessly moralising.

Her film never resorts to cliché or sentimentality; instead, it shines a light on the often invisible battles of the working poor in a modern Swiss society where destitution is often a taboo subject.

This is a powerful, heartfelt drama about love, resilience, and the complexity of being a flawed human.

Gordon’s sensitive direction and Kolb’s mesmerising performance combine to create a film that is both socially aware and profoundly moving.

It may be her first ever feature, but Gordon has made a film that feels both mature and hugely engaging.

LINDA MARRIC

LOCK, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star Jason Flemyng has been banned from driving after being caught speeding — at 24mph.

The 58-year-old was pinged in a 20mph zone in his Kia Sorento.

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It was the fourth time Flemyng had been caught speeding in the past year.

He already had 12 points on his licence but had not been banned because of a justice system administrative error.

The actor admitted speeding near his home in Clapham, South West London, on December 5.

He was banned for six months and fined £775.

He told Lavender Hill JPs: “I don’t want to waste the court’s time. I accept what has happened.”

Asked whether he wanted to claim exceptional hardship, the actor, wearing a black suit, said: “Well, my work and what I do for a living, and my charity work, all depend on me driving.

“Maybe I should have thought about that before I drove 24mph in a 20mph zone.”

Flemyng played Tom in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and has appeared in Snatch and From Hell with Johnny Depp.

In 2009, the actor joined the cast of the ITV science fiction cult drama series Primeval during its third series, as maverick ex-policeman Danny Quinn and he reprised the role in 2011.

He has been married to actress and producer Elly Fairman since 2007, best known for Blitz, and has also starred in BBC drama series Casualty.

ACTRESS Emily Atack says she has been sexually assaulted while making TV shows and movies throughout her career. 

The former Inbetweeners star, 35, believes the use of “intimacy co-ordinators” on the set of her latest show Rivals has heralded a welcome shift in behaviour. 

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The mother of one revealed she has previously been the target of sexual abuse at work and wants to explore the issue in a documentary. 

Of intimacy co-ordinators, she said: “I’ve seen people roll their eyes about them and say, ‘I don’t need one.’

“There’s a defensiveness about it, because they feel like they’re being accused of something they haven’t even done yet. 

“Intimacy coordinators are there for support if you feel uncomfortable, whether you’re a man or a woman.

“I’ve been sexually assaulted at work throughout my career, whether it’s on the actual set, or at a wrap party. 

“And since the #MeToo movement, it shows that people are listening and that there has to be a shift in behaviour on sets.” 

She recently revealed her joy at working on Disney+ show Rivals, which includes many sex scenes but also has a team on standby to ensure everyone is comfortable. 

Emily, who plays Sarah Stratton, told the Radio Times: “I’m really proud of the Rivals gang because, throughout my life, I haven’t felt safe all the time, and we’re all so respectful of each other.  

“We have to do a lot of sexual scenes and we’re very looked after — it’s a really positive thing.” 

Emily, who is now engaged to materials scientist Dr Alistair Garner, launched her acting career 18 years ago with small parts in dramas including ITV’s Heartbeat. 

She then made her breakthrough as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in The Inbetweeners, which ran from 2008 to 2010 on Channel 4 and is one of Britain’s best-loved comedies. 

She also appeared in Only Fools And Horses prequel comedy Rock & Chips on BBC One in 2010, the 2013 gangster film Get Lucky and the 2016 movie remake of Dad’s Army.

She finished second on I’m A Celebrity in 2018. 

The Sun revealed she is to host ITV game show Nobody’s Fool, with Rivals co-star Danny Dyer. 

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Want to get Generation Alpha into movie theaters? Look to video games.

Kids still like to go to the movies, according to a high-profile new research report. But the franchises they care about are not the traditional Hollywood popcorn fare.

Seven of the top 10 entertainment franchises that the youngest generation of moviegoers cares about are video game properties, according to a recent study by National Research Group (NRG).

The top five titles that Gen Alpha kids, generally considered to be those ages 12 and under, say they talk most about were Roblox, “Minecraft,” “Fortnite,” “Grand Theft Auto” and “Pokémon,” all of which originated from the world of video games. The highest-ranked non-video game property was Marvel and Walt Disney Co.’s “The Avengers,” at No. 6.

Studios have started to catch on. Spring’s “A Minecraft Movie,” based on the popular game where users build and explore different worlds, was such a huge success. The film, adapted by Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment for the big screen, grossed $955 million at the global box office, according to Comscore. Young fans packed the theater, cheering during scenes important to gamers.

“Gaming is a deeply important part of Gen Alpha culture because it provides an essential venue for socialization,” said Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, NRG’s vice president of trends and futures. “Social gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite give them the opportunity to spend time with their friends, build communities, and develop a sense of their own identity.”

That could present a shift in the way theaters and studios cater to Gen Alpha, a key demographic born 2013 onward, to their future survival. Compared with millennials and Gen X, a higher percentage of Gen Alpha members (38%) said they would see a movie in a theater instead of waiting for it to come to a streaming service if their friends were talking about it, NRG said.

Nearly 60% of Gen Alpha members said they enjoy watching movies in theaters more than at home, according to NRG, which surveyed more than 6,000 U.S. moviegoers in May and June of this year. The majority of kids surveyed ages 6-to-12 said the reason why they go to the theater is to spend time with friends and family and “to make seeing the movie feel like a special event,” according to NRG.

“We are seeing the signs within this demographic that they do really value the experience of watching movies in theaters,” Navaratnam-Blair said. “The fact that they have grown up surrounded by phones, tablets, other sorts of devices, if anything, that seems to have made them more appreciative of the opportunities that they do get to switch up from all of that.”

Stories that resonate with Gen Alpha can come from franchises they are already familiar with, like “Minecraft,” or ones such as “Wicked” that inspire them to create fan fiction or show off their fandom by dressing up like the characters, he said.

Already, studios are marketing their films to reach younger consumers on platforms they frequent including Roblox and TikTok.

Movie theaters can help cater to Gen Alpha by making the viewing an experience, such as selling food that is matched to what characters are eating on screen, Navaratnam-Blair said.

Younger audiences also can still be attracted to seeing a movie in a theater if it’s a special event that happens after the title has started streaming. For example, many people attended sing-along showings of the popular animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” in theaters even after streaming it first on Netflix. The sing-along version of the film was the No. 1 movie domestically during the weekend it was briefly in theaters, with an estimated $18 million in ticket sales.

“This is a generation that does offer hope for the future of theatrical moviegoing,” Navaratnam-Blair said. “We just need to understand what it is they’re looking for, that experience, and play into it in a way that gives them what they’re looking for out of that.”

This summer, I read my way around Los Angeles and highly recommend the experience.

There were plenty of freshly published L.A. novels to dive into: My literary journey began in pre-Eaton fire Altadena (“Bug Hollow”) and ended in a run-down Hollywood mansion crawling with influencers (“If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You”); other novels transported me to West Adams Heights post-World War II (“The Great Mann”), Laurel Canyon of the mid-’60s (“L.A. Women”), contemporary Glendale (“The Payback”) and, farthest afield, Salton Sea (“Salt Bones”). And while the novels varied greatly, each was engagingly local. The familiar L.A.-ness of narratives populated with malls, dreamers and celebrities real and fictionalized added to those books’ appeal, while others set in less familiar (to me) communities enriched my understanding of the area.

To help you choose your next L.A. literary adventure, we asked five authors to tell us why they set their latest novels in and around SoCal, along with their favorite local spots to visit.

(Phoebe Lettice Thompson)

‘L.A. Women’

Ella Berman

The title of this retro novel telegraphs its setting while echoing an earlier work by Eve Babitz, a famous L.A. scenester who contributed to Movieline magazine when I worked there decades ago, though as a newcomer to the city I did not appreciate it then. Berman’s novel centers on two, rather than one, woman: A pair of frenemies — reminiscent of Joan Didion and Babitz — circle each other in the Laurel Canyon creative scene during the mid-’60s to early-’70s, navigating relationships with rock stars and visits to the Troubadour and Chateau Marmont as the free love vibe begins to sour.

Why L.A.? “This story couldn’t have been set anywhere other than Los Angeles,” says Berman. “The central relationships, conflict and emotional stakes are all a product of this beautiful city during this period of cultural upheaval.” To get the period details straight, she relied on a friend “who had lived in Hollywood since the late 1950s,” writing the first chapter from a hotel room in West Hollywood after lunch with her. “Later, I walked up to the Canyon Country Store immortalized by Jim Morrison in ‘Love Street’ and I felt a sense of wonder for the ghosts of the past.”

Fave hangout spots: “I love anywhere that feels like I’m time traveling so a classic margarita at Casa Vega, the eggplant parmigiana at Dan Tana’s, a show in the close-up gallery of the Magic Castle or a martini at Musso & Frank’s always deliver,” says Berman, who also loves to browse the Rose Bowl Flea Market for midcentury treasures and vintage band T-shirts.

‘The Payback’

Kashana Cauley

Once a Hollywood costume designer, Jada is working in an unspecified mall that seems suspiciously like the Glendale Galleria when Cauley’s novel begins, but that job doesn’t last either. Sticky fingered and bogged down with college debt, she ends up recording ASMR videos to make money while fleeing the debt police — until she and her pals come up with a scheme to erase their financial woes. The storyline will surely resonate among those saddled with their own college debt or just feeling pinched by rising costs at the grocery store.

Why Glendale? “I wanted my main character, Jada, to feel truly kicked out of Hollywood, as she is,” the writer with credits on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” explains. “So part of me was like, well, where’s the farthest place, vibe-wise, you can get from Hollywood, and still, in Jada’s case, feel very L.A., and the Glendale Galleria fit.” Cauley much prefers the Galleria to the Americana and says fellow transplant Jada feels the same.

Favorite spot: “These days I’ve been hanging out at Taqueria Frontera in Cypress Park because I’m unable to fight my massive addiction to their carne asada queso-taco. It’s perfect. The meat is tender and just the right amount of salty. The cheese is present without being overwhelming. It comes with a handsome scoop of quality guac and a charming green salsa,” she says. “But also the restaurant itself is a vibe. It feels more outdoor than indoor because of a big row of stools out front that’s alongside the kitchen. And it attracts a large, laid-back crowd that feels like a party.”

‘Salt Bones’

Jennifer Givhan

Far from L.A.’s suburban sprawl, a Salton Sea butcher is haunted by the disappearance of girls in a novel suffused in Latina and Indigenous cultures. The water that once sustained the community is horribly polluted and younger characters dream of escape; Mal, the mother of two daughters, is visited by a shapeshifter in her dreams. A book for fans of mysteries and magical realism, it illuminates the environmental hazards of agrifarming in Southern California.

Why Salton Sea? Growing up in the area, her mother warned her that the water was poisonous. “We could smell for ourselves the fish die-offs, the weeks-long stink of toxic algal blooms,” she says. Visiting later, Givhan heard from a friend that the Salton Sea was drying up and releasing toxic chemicals like arsenic from decades of pesticide runoff and “became increasingly concerned about the fate of the place that raised me.” When activists encountered apathy from Sacramento politicians, “I knew I had to tell this story,” she says. “My soapbox may have been slippery, but people tend to love murder mysteries. So I wrapped my heart in one.”

Fave SoCal spots: “Anything by the water; I love hanging out on the beach and eating tacos. As I write in all of my novels, the water haunts me,” Givhan observes. “Many of the pages of ‘Salt Bones’ were drafted while we were living in Chula Vista and making trips back to the Salton Sea and surrounding communities for research. I started this novel at Imperial Beach, where we couldn’t go into the water because of the sewage problem and the signs warning No Nadar! Then I moved to Coronado Beach. On the way onto the peninsula, we’d stop at a great little burrito place for breakfast burritos, and I’d haul my portable typewriter to a picnic bench, set it up with the ocean spread before me and start tapping away.”

‘If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You’

Leigh Stein

Back in Hollywood, influencers have set up shop in a crumbling mansion with an infamous past, desperate to go viral; the owners of the property are looking for sponsorship money to pay for its repairs. In steps photographer turned entertainment journalist Dayna, who gets dumped on Reddit in humiliating fashion as the book opens. Stein’s novel, in case that description does not make clear, has much to say about Hollywood, social media and the creator economy; at its heart is a gothic horror story wrapped up in a mystery with satirical undertones.

Why Hollywood? “Like ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ my novel is about fears of aging and irrelevance in an industry that runs on youth and beauty,” Stein says. “I’m obsessed with how the creator economy is completely reshaping the media and entertainment industries.” The mansion is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Feliz, which has appeared in movies including “Blade Runner” and also has a troubled legacy. “The more research I did, the more it seemed cursed,” she says.

Fave L.A. haunts: “I’m originally from Chicago and I first fell in love with Los Angeles through Francesca Lia Block novels, where everything is magic and draped in curtains of bougainvillea,” the author says. “My ideal day in L.A. would be taking the Berendo Stairs to Griffith Park, checking out the staff recommendations at Skylight Books and going to Erewhon to get their spicy buffalo cauliflower and some overpriced adaptogenic beverage that promises to change my life.”

‘Loved One’

Aisha Muharrar

Less overtly L.A. than the rest of the novels on this list, “Loved One” unfolds in L.A. and London following the death of Gabe, a 29-year-old indie musician who was the first love of Julia, a UCLA law student who became a Hollywood jewelry designer. Eager to reclaim his prize possessions for her and Gabe’s mother’s sake, she meets Gabe’s girlfriend Elizabeth in England. Through a series of flashbacks, key moments in Julia’s relationship with Gabe — and her life in L.A. — are revealed.

Why L.A.? Muharrar initially resisted the idea of setting her book in L.A., but ultimately felt moving there would just be the logical next step for a musician like Gabe, who has “a passion and then, career-wise, it turns out L.A. is the best place to pursue it.” Julia, she notes, arrives in L.A. for school with one career goal in mind and then ends up doing something else.” In the end, “it’s just a place people live.”

Fave L.A. hangout spots: “I love the bookstores: Reparations Club, Chevalier’s, Skylight. And I also love Silver Lake Library. It closed in July for several months of renovations and won’t be open until 2026 and I am, no exaggeration, devastated,” she says. “Also: Above the Fold in Larchmont. Is it the last newsstand in L.A.? I think it might be.”

Editor’s note: The newsstand has since closed.

A Hollywood producer bilked film and business partners out of $12 million, claiming he was using their money to work on movies or other legitimate enterprises, but instead using it to buy expensive cars, houses and even a surrogate, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

David Brown worked for years as a producer of indie Hollywood productions, burnishing his credentials as a producer of the film festival darling “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega, which won the narrative feature competition at South by Southwest, as well as of “The Apprentice,” the movie about the rise of Donald Trump.

But even as Brown seemed to be putting together a successful producing career, federal prosecutors said, he was also defrauding numerous victims by siphoning funds that belonged to production companies and transferring the money to himself or businesses he controlled.

In an email to The Times for a 2023 article that documented the trail of fraud allegations that dogged him, Brown said he had made mistakes in the past, but denied defrauding anyone.

“I had to work really hard to get where I am today,” he said. “I had to overcome a lot. I had to fight for my place. … I’m not some bad guy.”

Brown was indicted Wednesday on 21 counts of wire fraud, transactional money laundering and aggravated identity theft. He had his first court appearance in South Carolina.

Prosecutors alleged that Brown, who lived in Sherman Oaks, used a series of tactics to defraud his business partners out of their money.

He convinced one victim to put money into a company called Film Holdings Capital, which was supposed to finance film projects. But Brown instead took the person’s money and used it for “maintaining his lifestyle and repaying prior victims … in a Ponzi-like scheme,” prosecutors said.

In other instances, Brown used production company funds to pay Hollywood Covid Testing, a company he controlled, “for services never rendered or already paid for,” prosecutors said.

He also told one victim that they could pool money and make a business flipping houses. He contributed little to the business and used some of the victim’s money for other purposes, prosecutors said.

Brown made sure to conceal his checkered past from potential business partners. He tried not to let them know about the 2023 article in The Times, or about the extensive litigation filed against him, according to federal prosecutors.

The 2023 article — for which The Times interviewed more than 30 people — detailed a series of allegations against Brown from his film partners, including that he forged Kevin Spacey’s signature and told film investors that Spacey had agreed to act as a main character in a film for just $100,000. But Spacey had not signed on to the film and did not even know what it was, his former manager told The Times. Brown denied forging Spacey’s signature.

Brown used the money he stole from his victims to make extravagant purchases, prosecutors said.

He bought a 2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and three Teslas, including a 2024 Cybertruck, prosecutors alleged. He used the funds to make mortgage payments on his home and to remodel the home and used about $100,000 to install a pool, prosecutors said.

He even bought a house for his mother using the ill-gotten cash, prosecutors alleged.

On top of that, Brown also allegedly used stolen money to pay $70,000 for surrogacy, private school tuition for his child and other services.

In all, he stole more than $12 million from his victims, prosecutors alleged.

Brown is in federal custody in South Carolina and will enter a plea to the charges at his arraignment in the coming weeks, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.

Corn is no stranger to Broadway musicals. In “Oklahoma!,” the crop is “as high as an elephant’s eye,” according to the lyrical measurements of the show’s opening number, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.”

But in “Shucked,” the hilarious countrified musical that brought “Hee Haw”-style comedy in a modern guise to Broadway, corn finally gets top billing. The North American tour production, which opened Wednesday at the Hollywood Pantages, is a folksy farcical riot, wholesome enough for widespread appeal but with just enough flamboyant oddity to tickle the funny bone of urban sophisticates.

The book by Robert Horn (who won a Tony for his exuberantly witty book for the musical version of “Tootsie”) employs two narrators. Storyteller 1 (Maya Lagerstam) and Storyteller 2 (Tyler Joseph Ellis) are our guides to this “farm to fable” tale about “a simple place that time forgot,” Cob County. The exact coordinates of this backwater are a bit hazy, but Storyteller 2 helpfully pinpoints the locale as “a place where being from somewhere is who you are.”

Cob County, as the name suggests, is corn crazy. The town’s livelihood depends on a flourishing crop, but just as the local sweethearts, Maizy (Danielle Wade) and Beau (Jake Odmark), are about to tie the knot, the corn starts shriveling up. Maizy halts the wedding until the crisis is resolved. Beau assures her that he’ll eventually figure it out, but time is not on Cob County’s side.

Maizy proposes to do the unthinkable: leave town to consult an outside expert.

Maya Lagerstam as Storyteller 1, left, and Tyler Joseph Ellis as Storyteller 2 in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

As far as her alarmed friends and family members are concerned, she might as well be volunteering to go to Mars on an Elon Musk rocket ship. Beau is dead set against the idea, but Maizy won’t take no for answer and heads for the biggest metropolis she can imagine, Tampa, Fla., where she meets a seductive foot doctor, Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp) who caters to lonely women and is desperate to pay off a gambling debt.

Easy marks don’t come any easier than naïve, trusting Maizy, whose bracelet of rare stones has caught con man Gordy’s predatory attention. She explains that her grandfather made it from the rocks that a flood washed under their home. And that is how a quack who treats the tender corns on pedicured toes suddenly becomes a world-renowned corn doctor in a show that seemingly never met a pun it didn’t like.

Danielle Wade as Maizy, left, and Miki Abraham as Lulu in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The humor, at once simple and clever, innocent and off-color, amiably wants to get a rise, and Horn isn’t too proud to go low in his genial wordplay. Peanut (Mike Nappi), Beau’s kindhearted, witless brother, is a geyser of potty-minded quips. “I just passed a huge squirrel, which is odd because I don’t remember eating one,” he tells his brother, who merely asked, “What’s going on?”

All of the elements of “Shucked” are perfectly calibrated to shamelessly win us over. First and foremost among these is Jack O’Brien’s precise and invigorating direction, which treats the characters as our country cousins, never condescending to them, even at their laughable worst.

The fresh look of the production, incorporating Scott Pask’s bucolic cartoon set, prevents the show from coming across as dated. Tilly Grimes’ sexy, small-town costumes lend an updated “Flashdance” feeling.

The sunshiny score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, a blend of country, blues and Broadway pop, is intent on making theatergoers smile. “Corn,” the opening number celebrating the miracle and many uses of this magical plant, starts things off riotously, building sensationally to a chorus line of corncobs that choreographer Sarah O’Gleby sets into zesty motion.

The cast contains a wide range of gorgeous voices. Wade’s Maizy sounds like an ingenue Dolly Parton, exquisite to listen to, especially when her heart is in play, as is the case with “Maybe Love,” a number so good it returns in the second act as the jumbled romances get sorted out.

Odmark’s Beau, the boyfriend who gets shucked, if you will, never loses his country charisma. He performs with an affectionate twinkle in his eye, offering understanding even when his jealousy is put to the severest test. But, as he reminds himself in the handsomely performed hearbreak song “Somebody Will,” he knows his worth and that his innate goodness will carry him through.

Another vocal standout is Miki Abraham, who plays Lulu, Maizy’s whiskey-making street-savvy cousin, who sees straight through Gordy, even if she can’t help being enticed by his rakish game. Abraham practically brings the house down with “Independently Owned,” an anthem to her character’s emancipated spirit. But Lulu might protest too much: She’s clearly not so hard-nosed about love as she makes herself out to be.

“Shucked,” like “& Juliet” at the Ahmanson right now, are two clever contemporary shows that deliver the kind of delight you can’t find anywhere else but the musical stage. I might have enjoyed “Shucked” 15% more if it were 15% shorter. And I missed the uncompromising individuality of the original Broadway cast, which has been slightly homogenized for the North American tour.

On Broadway, Alex Newell, who played Lulu, became the first out nonbinary actor to win a Tony for performance. Kevin Cahoon was nominated in the same category for his captivatingly eccentric performance as Peanut.

The sense of a community fully able to express itself in all its variety is thankfully still an integral part of “Shucked,” lending warmth to the intoxicating silliness of a musical that made this city slicker long to move to corn country.

In the tangled family of Hollywoods, Hollywood would be the obvious golden child, West Hollywood its ritzy older sister and East Hollywood its indie-cool younger brother. North Hollywood, however, is harder to classify. Perhaps you can call it the elusive half-sibling — sharing the family name but somewhat lacking in family resemblance.

Separated from its siblings by sprawling mountains, the oft-slighted San Fernando Valley neighborhood has been described as a bedroom community and a way station for fledgling actors. It’s a socio-architectural liminal space, one in which a historic train depot is home to a hip coffee shop and downtown streets are immediately bordered by suburbia.

Get to know Los Angeles through the places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to discover now.

North Hollywood’s lingering sense of fragmentation is consistent with its slew of past lives — from late-1800s wheat titan to modern cultural center — punctuated by infrastructure milestones like the 1913 completion of the L.A. Aqueduct and the 2000 extension of the Metro Red Line.

The neighborhood has even gone by a few different names: first Toluca, then Lankershim, for the real estate pioneer Isaac Lankershim, who helped catalyze the development of the San Fernando Valley. North Hollywood adopted its current moniker in 1927, as film studios poured into the area and residents at the behest of enterprising developers petitioned to rebrand their town as a Hollywood hot spot. It was, as Tom Link wrote in his 1991 book about the neighborhood’s history, “like a new movie star discarding an old name in order to appear more attractive.”

Today, North Hollywood is an eclectic nook with its cultural epicenter in the Noho Arts District. Dotted with petite theaters, boutiques and pie shops, the 1-square-mile patch was revitalized at the turn of the century with the northward extension of the Metro Red Line and the concurrent opening of the North Hollywood Metro Station. At a critical time for its development, the Metro made North Hollywood an anomaly: a hip and walkable L.A. suburb.

Especially for a locale beyond the hills, North Hollywood is remarkably central, nestled among popular neighbors Burbank and Studio City but boasting reported monthly rent averages hundreds of dollars cheaper than both. And while it’s already home to a high population of young, single professionals, it’s poised to draw even more millennial and Gen Z renters with a transit-oriented development projected to create swaths of affordable housing units in the next decade. Surely, the barcades and artisan coffee shops will be glad to see them come in.

Whether you get there by car, train or bike, here’s how and where to spend your time in North Hollywood, the enigmatic neighborhood whose charm sneaks up on you. — Malia Mendez

A JAMES Bond favourite has taken himself out of the running after believing he’s “not the right person” for the role. 

Ever since Daniel Craig said goodbye to the role in 2021 release No Time To Die, the role of super spy 007 has been up for grabs, with speculation rife over who should take over. 

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Over time, bookies have placed their bets on a string of Hollywood A-listers to take on the role, including Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Idris Elba and Henry Cavill. 

With Amazon acquiring the 007 franchise from the Broccoli family, this was then extended to American stars including Patrick Schwarzenegger, Timothée Chalamet and Jacob Elordi. 

But one emerging favourite – Top Gun 2 and Anyone But You star Glen Powell – has shut down speculation he could take his martini shaken, not stirred. 

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Glenn said simply: “I’m a Texan. My family and I joke around, I can play Jimmy Bond, but I should not be playing James Bond. 

“Get an authentic Brit for that job. That’s who belongs in that tuxedo.” 

In the 63 years James Bond has been on screen, seven actors have played the character – all of whom white men from the UK and Ireland. 

Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig have portrayed the spy in the film series, with David Niven taking on the role in a non-official adaptation in 1967. 

Debate has since spread over whether the franchise should deviate from tradition when it comes to the character, with James Bond and 007 code names that can be taken on by anyone. 

At one stage, Gillian Anderson was being considered as the first female Bond, while Idris Elba has held firm as a favourite to become the first Black star to portray the spy. 

However, some actors have noted they don’t want to play such an iconic character, as doing so would mean that they could be defined as “Bond” for the rest of their career. 

The White Lotus star Theo James previously ruled himself out for that reason, telling The Guardian in 2024: “I do think there are better people for that job. 

“And, honestly, it would be terrifying: if you do that, there’s no going back. You’re opening Pandora’s box there.” 

The new favourite for the role is relative unknown actor James Nelson-Joyce, who played James ‘Yatesy’ Yates in BBC drama, Little Boy Blue, and Michael Kavanaugh in the gangster drama, This City is Ours.

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Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett join the cast as Emily Atack says she loved playing sexy Sarah Stratton: ‘I am her. I’m a flawed woman’

When the adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster Rivals hit screens last year, it quickly became Disney’s best performing TV drama. Now Rupert Everett and Hayley Attwell are to join the cast for the much-anticipated second series, playing lead character Rupert Campbell Black’s former showjumping boss and his bitter ex-wife – who are now married to each other.

Atwell, best known for her roles in the Marvel and Mission Impossible films, will be playing Helen Gordon, mother of Rupert’s two children, Marcus and Tabitha – who will also appear this time around.

Everett, who starred alongside Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, takes on the role of her husband Malise Gordon, Campbell Black’s former show-jumping coach and mentor.

READ MORE: Expert for The Jury: Murder Trial believes second series reaches ‘wrong verdict’ next week

In Cooper’s original story Helen was treated badly by her ex-husband and remains very bitter towards him after their divorce. She is now married to the former chef d’équipe of the British showjumping team, Malise.

Speaking in a session at the Edinburgh TV Festival yesterday where the castings were announced, Emily Atack joked that her character Sarah Stratton, the regularly unfaithful wife of an MP, had not been much of a stretch. “I had to dig real deep,” she quipped.

But the actress, who found fame with hit series The Inbetweeners, said she had no qualms about playing a flawed temptress.. “I’ve been typecast my whole life and I’ve loved every minute,” she declared. ” I’ll carry on playing these sexy women for as long as I can.”

Emily said that shooting the infamous naked tennis scene alongside Alex Hassell as Rupert had been great fun. Alex said that many discussions had taken place over whether or not he should wear a prosthetic over his privates for the scene, but in the end he’d decided to go without.

Emily declared that she had had a bit of help for that particular scene. “I had a stick on muff,” she laughed. “A murkin, it’s called. A proper 80s bush – I felt like I had furry knickers on. It’s so jarring seeing yourself like that.”

But the actress said she’d soon got used to it. “I didn’t want to put my clothes back on! I did a couple of cartwheels.”

Emily, 35, said part of the appeal of playing Sarah, was that while she is flawed, she also also has vulnerabilities that were recognised. “These types of women are never written with nuance,” she said. “I am her, I am a flawed woman, I’ve made terrible decisions in my love life – so I wasn’t scared to identify with her. Her bad behaviour isn’t being celebrated, but it’s being understood.”

Bella McClean, whose character Taggie O’Hara found love with Rupert in the final episode of series one, revealed she was so pleased with her audition as Taggie – and chemistry with Alex – that she walked straight into a wall afterwards.

The actress she had enjoyed playing a character who was so wholesome and good, it had made her take a look at her own life and decisions. She loved the long, simmering build-up to the romance between Taggie and Rupert, saying: “They see though all the crap and just adore each other for who they are,” she explained. “It’s about their love.”

The show’s creator Dominic Treadwell-Collins said that Jilly Cooper had told him early on how she expected the male heroes of her 1980s books to behave. He said: “She told me ‘my men don’t cry’. My men are macho.”

Dominic added: “We are utterly thrilled to have Hayley and Rupert join us to play Jilly Cooper’s legendary characters Helen and Malise Gordon. Alongside our other new wonderful actors and truly brilliant returning cast, Rivals series two absolutely showcases the best of British and Irish talent. We can’t wait for everyone to see what’s next for the residents of Rutshire.”

Disney boss Lee Mason said he was also thrilled that Everett and Atwell were joining the cast. “They are a perfect match for the world of Rutshire, so lovingly created by Dame Jilly and the team at Happy Prince.”

Rivals is filming in the UK until February and is expected to return, for an extended season of twelve episodes, later in 2026.

Set against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside and the glamorous, high-stakes world of 1980s British television, the second run will see the return of the all-star cast including Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson, Aidan Turner and David Tennant.

Next time around viewers will find that many careers, marriages and reputations hang in the balance as personal and professional lives collide in a world where secrets can’t stay hidden for long.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

THERE can be no cooler claim to fame than to be name-checked in one of the greatest pop songs ever written.

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, released at the height of the Swinging Sixties, featured a couple referred to only by their first names — Terry and Julie.

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Julie was Julie Christie, the drop-dead gorgeous actress, and Terry was Terence Stamp, her real-life boyfriend.

The accomplished actor died yesterday morning, aged 87, and last night his family led the tributes to him.

They said in a statement: “He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer, that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come.”

Along with a handful of other leading men from humble backgrounds such as Michael Caine and Albert Finney, Stamp epitomised a new breed of screen star.

Ruggedly handsome, uncompromising and from a tough working-class background, he shot to fame with his first movie.

But as the Sixties drew to a close, it looked as though the sun was also setting on his career — and it was almost a decade before he triumphantly reappeared.

The oldest of five children, he was born Terence Henry Stamp on July 22, 1938, in Bow, East London, to mother Ethel and father Thomas, a £12-a-week tugboat stoker.

‘I was in pain. I took drugs – everything’

That made him, according to the saying, a genuine Cockney — “born within the sound of Bow bells”.

His first home had no bathroom, only a tub in the backyard which he would be dragged into on Friday evenings.

He later remembered: “The first one in would get second-degree burns — and the last one frostbite.”

In 2016, he said of his childhood: “The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning. We were really poor.

“I couldn’t tell anybody that I wanted to be an actor because it was just out of the question. I would have been laughed at.

“When we got our first TV, I started saying, ‘Oh I could do that’ and my dad wore it for a little bit.

“After I’d said, ‘Oh I’m sure I could do better than that guy’, he looked at me and he said, ‘Son, people like us don’t do things like that’.”

As an 18-year-old, he tried to evade National Service — a year and a half of compulsory duty in the military — by claiming to have nosebleeds but was saved when he failed his medical because of fallen arches.

Determined to realise his dream, Stamp left home and moved into a basement flat on London’s Harley Street with another promising young Cockney actor — Michael Caine. The pair became firm friends and ended up in repertory theatre, touring around the UK together.

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Stamp’s performances soon brought him to the attention of acclaimed writer and director Peter Ustinov, who gave him the lead role in the 1962 historical drama movie Billy Budd. He was an overnight success.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, he also won the hearts of millions of female fans. And with his first Hollywood pay cheque, the image-conscious actor celebrated by buying himself a Savile Row suit and bleaching his hair blond.

Stamp heeded the career advice Ustinov gave him — to only accept job offers when something he really wanted came his way.

That may explain why he made only ten movies between 1962 and 1977.

His most famous role was as Sergeant Troy in Far From The Madding Crowd in 1967 — where he met and fell in love with co-star Julie Christie.

While Stamp was fast becoming a screen icon, his younger brother Chris was making waves in the music biz.

I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything

Terence Stamp

Stamp Junior managed The Who and Jimi Hendrix, and was friends with many music legends of the time.

Talking about The Kinks’ classic Waterloo Sunset, written by frontman Ray Davies, Terence said: “My brother was quite friendly with him.

“He asked Ray Davies about that lyric and Ray Davies told my brother that, yes, he was visualising Julie and me when he wrote the lyric.”

But by the end of the decade, Stamp’s career was on the wane — and he was devastated when his “Face of the Sixties” model girlfriend Jean Shrimpton walked out on him — beginning what he called his “lost years”.

He said: “I’d lost the only thing I thought was permanent.

“The revelation came to me then — nothing is permanent, so what was the point trying to maintain a permanent state?

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“I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything.”

He clung on to a feeling that “the call would come” — but the wait was a long one.

It finally came in 1977 when he was offered the part of General Zod in Superman.

He took it — mainly because it gave him the chance to appear alongside his acting hero Marlon Brando.

The part brought him to the attention of a new audience — and last night fans paid tribute to his portrayal of the banished alien villain.

In a nod to his role as the evil leader who demanded his enemies show him deference, one fan wrote on X: “Thank you Terry . . . we will kneel today in your honour.”

Another wrote: “Terence Stamp was much more than Zod but at the same time one of the best comic book villains ever.”

‘My present was a box of Star Wars stencils’

Making up for lost time after the 1978 release of Superman, Stamp made dozens of films from then until 2021, showing off his huge range.

He won universal praise for his portrayal of an East End villain in The Limey (1999) and transgender woman Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Stamp also played Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, although the director George Lucas did not give him a huge payday.

He once cornered a producer during the shoot and complained about the pay.

He recalled: “I said, ‘Listen, you’re not paying much money and it’s making hundreds of millions. What goes down? What happens?’

“She said, ‘If the actors are really good, George gives them a present’.

“I thought, ooh, that’s all right. So when I leave the studio I go into my dressing room and there’s a box. It was a box of Star Wars stencils.

“That was my present. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought, may the Force be with you, George. I didn’t keep my stencils. I left them in the dressing room.”

Around that time, he said: “I moved from England some time ago because I wasn’t getting any work.

“I’m getting work in America and my films appear in France but for some reason I’m not getting any offers in Britain.”

But he kept himself busy by launching a successful parallel career as an author, writing five bestselling memoirs and two cookbooks.

He continued to select interesting roles and made a series of memorable cameo appearances, most recently, in 2021, in Edgar Wright’s psychological thriller Last Night In Soho.

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Although he dated some of the world’s most beautiful women, including Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and sisters Joan and Jackie Collins, he married only once — to Elizabeth O’Rourke.

The pharmacist was 35 years his junior and the marriage lasted from 2002 to 2008.

He admitted he was upset by the split but added: “I always said I’ll try anything once, other than incest or Morris dancing.

“I’d never been married and I thought I would try it, but I couldn’t make a go of it.”

Looking back on his career, he once said: “I’d be lying if I said I was completely indifferent to the success of all my contemporaries. There are parts I would love to have had a stab at, but I see the decisions I made as invaluable.

“I’m not just chasing an Oscar. I am learning how to die — how to build something within myself that does not become dust.”

This week, we are chatting with Ada Tseng and Jon Healey about their new book, “Breaking Into New Hollywood.” We also take a look at what our critics read, and visit a bookstore that has become a social beehive in Culver City.

The entertainment industry is experiencing a massive transformation, as traditional jobs are vanishing and artificial intelligence increasingly upends the way media is created. Thankfully, former L.A. Times editors Ada Tseng and Jon Healey are here to help. The duo, with extensive experience covering show business, have written a new book for anyone who’s ever dreamed of working in Hollywood. Tseng and Healey interviewed hundreds of insiders who work in front of and behind the camera to provide a thorough look at how to break in, and what it’s like when you do find that dream job.

I sat down with authors to discuss “Breaking Into New Hollywood.”

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

✍️ Author Chat

Tseng and Healey are here to help you pursue your Hollywood dreams with their book, “Breaking Into New Hollywood.”

(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

This is the most comprehensive how-to guide for Hollywood careers I’ve ever read. Where did the impetus for the book come from?

Ada: The book started as a Hollywood careers series at the Los Angeles Times, when Jon and I were editors on a team that specialized in writing guides and explainers. As we were thinking about how to be useful to L.A. Times readers, I pitched a project to help people who were interested in getting a job in Hollywood. A lot of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with big dreams, but the film and TV industry can be pretty brutal.

As journalists, we’re Hollywood outsiders, but we had access to hundreds of professionals who were generous enough to share what they wished they knew when they were starting out. We see it like this: On behalf of the people who don’t have connections in the industry, we cold-emailed people, asked for informational interviews, picked their brains, listened to stories of what they did to build a career — and did our best to consolidate their most practical pieces of advice into an actionable guide.

Jon: A lot of folks I interviewed had similar origin stories in this respect: They knew that they wanted to work in the industry in some capacity, but they didn’t know what exactly they could do. So it made sense to do a book for that sort of person — a guide that would show an array of possible career paths to people who didn’t know what role they wanted to fill.

I feel like “How to Break into the Business” books in the past have tended to focus on positive outcomes rather than the struggle. Did you want to temper expectations, or at least make sure people think things through very thoroughly before jumping in?

Ada: We just wanted to be honest. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. But if you’re going to work in the industry, you need to navigate the day-to-day reality of it. I don’t think we were trying to encourage or discourage anyone. I’d hope that some people would read the chapters and think, “This seems doable, and now I can make a plan,” while others would read it and think, “If I’m honest with myself, I’m someone who needs more stability in my life.” Because it’s not just a career choice. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Jon: Right, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did in this project were of Foley artists. An expert I interviewed said there were 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners in the U.S., and 100 to 200 folks trying to get into the field. That’s a very tough nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks — they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.

Your book also covers jobs above and below the line. I think many people don’t even realize how many different career opportunities exist.

Ada: There are two things we heard over and over again. People would say, “It’s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.” And they’d also say, “So many people — even our own colleagues in the industry — don’t understand what we do.” So we wanted to encourage newcomers to learn about all different types of jobs in Hollywood and how they work together.

Jon: Talking about the emotional components is about setting expectations too. The vast majority of people who work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That’s a tough life of highs and lows, and you have to prepare for that mentally as well as financially. People have to hustle for years to establish themselves, and that takes an enormous capacity for rejection. On top of that is the physical toll the work can extract, especially on the folks involved in setting up and tearing down sets. Part of the point of the book is to tell people with Hollywood dreams that they’ll need to gird themselves emotionally and physically for the work.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Karin Slaughter’s new book series, which launches with “We Are All Guilty Here,” is not for the squeamish.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Mark Athatakis finds much to like in “Ready for My Close-Up,” David M. Lubin’s book about the classic 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard.” “Though the book has its shortcomings,” he writes, “[Lubin] rightly sees the movie as a kind of passkey into the history of the first half-century of Hollywood itself.”

Robet Allen Papinchak weighs in on Phoebe Greenwood’s Middle East satire “Vulture,” finding it “a darkly comic, searing satire grounded in historic politics.”

Emma Sloley’s novel “The Island of Last Things” envisions a future where animal life, and then entire ecosystems, are wiped out, but Ilana Masad writes that Sloley also highlights “the small moments of beauty, joy and care that emerge even during … horrible times.”

And Paula L. Woods has a chat with master thriller novelist Karin Slaughter about her new book, “We Are All Guilty Here,” and TV series.

📖 Bookstore Faves

“Books are an antidote to the constant distractions in our lives,” says the owner of Culver City’s Village Well bookstore.

(Jennifer Caspar)

Four years after it opened its doors to the public, Village Well Books & Coffee has become a community locus in its Culver City neighborhood. Owner Jennifer Caspar has created a vibrant space with a full-service cafe, allowing her customers to linger for as long as they please while perusing Caspar’s ample and well-curated selection of new books. I chatted with Caspar about her store and what’s selling right now.

Why did you open the store?

I wanted a place where people can facilitate connections with others, because I think that’s what people need. Everyone is so overwhelmed by their phones and technology, and we tend to take the easy path, which is to not get out and see people.

What’s selling right now?

“Atmosphere,” Taylor Jenkins Reid; “Martyr,” Kaveh Akbar; “The Emperor of Gladness,” Ocean Vuong; “All Fours,” Miranda July. There’s been a real increase in books about activism and the Middle East situation. We’re launching an activism book club here, starting with “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)” by Dean Spade. It will be interesting to see who comes out for that.

Why books now? Why not the Substack, social media, etc.?

Books are an antidote to the constant distractions in our lives. People need to connect offline, and books give us a chance to settle down and focus. Studies show that what we learn from books stays with us longer. You can read a Kindle, and I do, but there is something about sitting down with words on paper. For me, it’s great physical therapy for my emotional state.

Village Well is located at 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City.

Doctor Who star, Alex Kingston, got married to Jonathan Stamp back in 2015 in Rome.

She is joining the Strictly Come Dancing class of 2025, but what do we know about her spouse?

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Who is Alex Kingston’s husband Jonathan Stamp?

Jonathan travelled the Mediterranean under a UNESCO International Arts Scholarship after he completed his master’s degree in classical studies at Oxford University, where he received a first-class honours.

He originally started as a journalist at The Economist and began a career in TV as a documentary maker, his speciality was history subjects.

The journalist started with Channel 4 and then with the BBC, where he made 20 documentaries and even won three Emmys for his work.

In 2000, he was appointed the Director of Development in the BBC’s History Department.

Strictly Come Dance 2025 lineup

Strictly Come Dancing news and the latest line up

In 2002, he was appointed the BBC’s Head of Archaeology.

Two years later, he left the Beeb to become a historical consultant and co-producer on Rome, a drama set in the last days of the ancient Roman Republic.

He was a historical consultant for TV projects with HBO, Showtime and Amazon, feature films with Sony and MGM Studios and console games with Ubisoft.

Since his work as a historical consultant, he has continued to work in TV and film, primarily as a graphic designer and art director.

More recently, he has written his own material for future TV projects.

This includes Ellis a period drama based on Ellis Island in 1902, and District IV, a cop show set in Caligula’s Rome.

He has also completed his first feature script, Lords of Florence, inspired by a true story about a painting competition between Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Do Alex Kingston and Jonathan Stamp have children together?

The couple do not have a child together; however, Alex Kingston has a daughter called Salome Violetta Haertel with her ex-husband, Ralph Fiennes, a fellow actor who has appeared in films like the James Bond franchise.

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What has Jonathan’s wife Alex said about her Strictly announcement?

Speaking about if she had any “signature moves” to the show’s hosts, Alex teased: “My hips don’t lie.”

TO celebrate Alfred Hitchcock’s 126^th birthday, Sun Bingo wants to know how many of his films you have seen.

The renowned twentieth-century film director was born on 13^th August 1899 in Leytonstone, England.

Within his lifetime, he directed 53 fictional films.

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The famous director was known for his particular personality, which included phobias of the police and eggs.

His films redefined the boundaries of filmmaking, including breaking the Hays Code (a set of industry guidelines that enforced self-censorship) multiple times.

Such defiant moments included filming a flushing toilet in Psycho.

Despite never winning a directorial Oscar or Cannes award, Hitchcock did receive other accolades.

These included the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967. Hitchcock’s acceptance speech was just two words long – thank you.

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The London-born director also received a BAFTA Fellowship in 1971, an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1979 and, later that same year, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Fans of Hitchcock films will know to look out for his cameos, with the director appearing in 39 of his own films.

Only ever small, background roles, Hitchcock has been a pedestrian, public transport passenger and even a poster boy for a weight loss product.

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The list of 53 films below that give director credits to Alfred Hitchcock does not include the 1926 film The Mountain Eagle.

That’s for a very good reason.

This is considered a lost film. All prints of the movie have disappeared.

All that is left is a few production photos and a lobby card. Hitchcock was apparently pleased with the film’s disappearance, calling it “a very bad movie”.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BINGO BONUSES

That didn’t stop it from topping the British Film Institute’s Most Wanted list of lost films. 

Fortunately, the rest of Hitchcock’s feature films have survived for our viewing pleasure.

How many have you seen?

Sun Bingo wants to cast a shadow of doubt on the wannabe Hitchcock fans and find the (wo)man who knew too much.

There’s one film title that’s repeated, we aren’t trying to sabotage you, but in fact Hitchcock made two films with the same name some 20 years apart.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PICKING A BINGO ROOM

Will you prove a Hitchcock film psycho or is it all downhill from here when it comes to your bragging rights?

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Alfred Hitchcock films

How many of these 53 films have you seen?

• The Pleasure Garden (1925)
• The Lodger (1927)
• Downhill (1927)
• Easy Virtue (1927)
• The Ring (1927)
• The Farmer’s Wife (1928)
• Champagne (1928)
• The Manxman (1929)
• Blackmail (1929)
• Juno and the Paycock (1929)
• Murder! (1930)
• The Skin Game (1931)
• Mary (1931)
• Rich and Strange (1931)
• Number Seventeen (1932)
• Waltzes from Vienna (1934)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
• The 39 Steps (1935)
• Secret Agent (1936)
• Sabotage (1936)
• Young and Innocent (1937)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• Jamaica Inn (1939)
• Rebecca (1940)
• Foreign Correspondent (1940)
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
• Suspicion (1941)
• Saboteur (1942)
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• Lifeboat (1944)
• Spellbound (1945)
• Notorious (1946)
• The Paradine Case (1947)
• Rope (1948)
• Under Capricorn (1949)
• Stage Fright (1950)
• Strangers on a Train (1951)
• I Confess (1953)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• To Catch a Thief (1955)
• The Trouble with Harry (1955)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
• The Wrong Man (1956)
• Vertigo (1958)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Psycho (1960)
• The Birds (1963)
• Marnie (1964)
• Torn Curtain (1966)
• Topaz (1969)
• Frenzy (1972)
• Family Plot (1976)

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MEGHAN Markle’s heavily criticised Netflix show has been renewed for a second season as a new trailer dropped.

Footage showed the Duchess of Sussex alongside a host of famous guests ahead of the release of the second series of With Love, Meghan on August 26.

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The first season of Meghan’s eight-part Netflix show saw her bee-keeping, making homemade candles and cooking with celeb pals, including Mindy Kaling and make-up artist Daniel Martin.

Now, the show’s second series promises to be “fun and heartwarming” as a plethora of celebrity guests are due to make their appearance.

This includes stars Chrissy Teigen, Christina Tosi, Jamie Kern Lima, and Tan France.

Describing the new season, Netflix said: “Meghan returns with a fun and heartwarming new season, welcoming celebrity chefs, talented artists, and beloved friends for hands-on adventures filled with laughter and discovery.

“From playful cooking challenges to DIY projects, Meghan and her guests explore bold flavors, experiment with new techniques, and discover simple ways to add beauty to everyday life.

“It’s all about embracing playfulness over perfection and finding joy in creating together.”

Meghan can be seen laughing alongside guests at her Montecito home in the trailer, even joking at the end about Prince Harry’s lack of love for lobster.

Speaking to Chef Andrés, she says: “You know who doesn’t like lobster? My husband.”

In response, the chef light-heartedly retorts: “And you married him anyway?”

This comes after Harry and Meghan announced yesterday they had signed a new “multi-year, first look deal” with the American streaming giant to produce “film and television projects”.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have previously released a number of shows on the platform, including a 2022 documentary on their lives and lifestyle show With Love, Meghan this year.

They had secured a lucrative five-year contract – thought to be worth more than $100 million (£74 million) – with Netflix after quitting as senior working royals in 2020.

However, this new deal has been signed for “much less”, an insider told Page Six.

Meghan said in a statement: “We’re proud to extend our partnership with Netflix and expand our work together to include the As Ever brand.

“My husband and I feel inspired by our partners who work closely with us and our Archewell Productions team to create thoughtful content across genres that resonates globally, and celebrates our shared vision.”

Netflix will only pay for projects they want to screen, rather than pay in a single multi-million pound agreement like the one signed in 2020, The Sun understands.

The Sun can also reveal, however, that the streaming giants will cover Archewell Productions’s overheads, including all costs for its offices and staff.

The new deal was also described as a “downgrade” by PR expert Mark Borkowski.

He told the Mail: “I think Netflix has done a very neat job of pivoting away from two very expensive people who didn’t deliver, and they’ve taken that deal off the table, and they’ve given them a modest one. 

“It’s not like they’re gradually uncoupling – it’s a downgrade. Netflix are not going to expose themselves to those budgets again. It’s Netflix saying, ‘Let’s have a look at your content, but we’ll pick and choose, mate’.”

On top of Season 2 of With Love, Meghan – which will drop later this month – the couple will also film a “Holiday Celebration” Christmas special.

“Join Meghan in Montecito for a magical holiday celebration,” the announcement read.

“Together, friends and family deck the halls, create holiday feasts, craft heartfelt gifts, and share lots of laughs – with simple how-tos to follow at home. It’s a holiday wonder with warmth, tradition, and a generous dose of joy.”

The couple will also release a short film called “Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within” which will look at Uganda’s Masaka region and the HIV/AIDS crisis there.

This has echoes of Harry’s mum Diana’s work, who pioneered social change on perceptions of HIV/AIDS.

She famously shook the hand of a man suffering with the illness without gloves, publicly challenging the idea that HIV/Aids was passed from person to person by touch.

There is also “active development” on other projects with Netflix which “span a variety of content genres”, including a feature adaptation of the bestselling romantic novel by Carley Fortune, Meet Me At The Lake.

Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, said: “Harry and Meghan are influential voices whose stories resonate with audiences everywhere.

“The response to their work speaks for itself — Harry & Meghan gave viewers an intimate look into their lives and quickly became one of our most-watched documentary series.

“More recently, fans have been inspired by With Love, Meghan, with products from the new As Ever line consistently selling out in record time.

“We’re excited to continue our partnership with Archewell Productions and to entertain our members together.”

It was previously thought that the Sussexes’ £74million deal with the streamer was not going to be renewed.

Harry’s vanity project, Polo, about the sport, was watched by just 500,000 people.

But it was also understood that bosses were mildly infuriated by Meghan making her As Ever brand a priority.

The With Love, Meghan viewing figures have reportedly been “dismal”.

Lifestyle and cookery show With Love, Meghan only ranked at number 383 in Netflix’s six-monthly engagement report this year, with just 5.3million viewers across the globe.

Described by one critic as an “exercise in narcissism”, it was beaten by reruns of the first four seasons of legal drama Suits, which also starred the Duchess in her pre-royal days.

Once judged by some as Britain’s greatest soft power asset since Princess Diana, Meghan was filmed for her show making ladybird-shaped canapes from cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls.

In truth, the show is a smash hit compared to her husband’s vanity docuseries Polo, blasted as “a dull indulgence about a rich person’s pursuit”.

In the first six months of the year the programme attracted a disastrous 500,000 views globally, ranking it at number 3,442 out of around 7,000 shows.

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ACTRESS Zendaya stretches out to show off her new sneaker range — but doesn’t lose her trainer thought.

She teamed up with Swiss sportswear brand On for her Cloudzone Moon footwear with fashion guru Law Roach.

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The 28-year-old also showed off her abs as she posed in a track jacket and matching shorts.

The new shoes are said to be about “balancing standout style with all-day comfort”.

Zendaya, who is engaged to British Spider-Man big screen hero Tom Holland, 29, say: “Movement has always been a part of how I connect with myself, and movement looks different for everyone.”

Meanwhile the apparel collection, features lightweight, breathable materials designed for everyday versatility.

They include a bomber jacket, a bodysuit and a track jacket with matching shorts.

Zendaya is currently in Glasgow, doubling as New York, to shoot Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

It’s amazing her head isn’t spinning.

The blockbuster film, due to be released next year, has generated excitement amongst locals over the last few months.

The eagerly awaited sequel will see Tom reprise his iconic role.

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The road to find steady work in Hollywood is more fraught now than ever before. The entertainment industry is in the throes of a seismic transformation, as traditional jobs are vanishing, and AI threatens to completely upend the way visual media is made and consumed. Fortunately, Ada Tseng and Jon Healey are here to help.

The writing team, both former Times editors with extensive experience covering show business, have written “Breaking Into New Hollywood,” a how-to guide like no other. Healey and Tseng interviewed hundreds of insiders both above and below the line — gaffers, casting directors, actors, writers, stunt people and many others — to provide an extensive, wide-screen view of how to break in, and what it’s like when you actually do find that dream job.

I sat down with Healey and Tseng to discuss their new book.

Ada Tseng, left, and Jon Healey.

(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

This is the most comprehensive how-to guide for Hollywood careers I’ve ever read. Where did the impetus for the book come from?

Ada: The book started as a Hollywood careers series at the Los Angeles Times, when Jon and I were editors on a team that specialized in writing guides and explainers. As we were thinking about how to be useful to L.A. Times readers, I pitched a project to help people who were interested in getting a job in Hollywood. A lot of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with big dreams, but the film and TV industry can be pretty brutal.

As journalists, we’re Hollywood outsiders, but we had access to hundreds of professionals who were generous enough to share what they wished they knew when they were starting out. We see it like this: On behalf of the people who don’t have connections in the industry, we cold-emailed people, asked for informational interviews, picked their brains, listened to stories of what they did to build a career — and did our best to consolidate their most practical pieces of advice into an actionable guide.

Jon: A lot of folks I interviewed had similar origin stories in this respect: They knew that they wanted to work in the industry in some capacity, but they didn’t know what exactly they could do. So it made sense to do a book for that sort of person — a guide that would show an array of possible career paths to people who didn’t know what role they wanted to fill.

I feel like “How to Break into the Business” books in the past have tended to focus on positive outcomes rather than the struggle. Did you want to temper expectations, or at least make sure people think things through very thoroughly before jumping in?

Ada: We just wanted to be honest. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. But if you’re going to work in the industry, you need to navigate the day-to-day reality of it. I don’t think we were trying to encourage or discourage anyone. I’d hope that some people would read the chapters and think, “This seems doable, and now I can make a plan,” while others would read it and think, “If I’m honest with myself, I’m someone who needs more stability in my life.” Because it’s not just a career choice. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Jon: Right, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did in this project were of Foley artists. An expert I interviewed said there were 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners in the U.S., and 100 to 200 folks trying to get into the field. That’s a very tough nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks — they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.

Your book also covers jobs above and below the line. I think many people don’t even realize how many different career opportunities exist.

Ada: There are two things we heard over and over again. People would say, “It’s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.” And they’d also say, “So many people — even our own colleagues in the industry — don’t understand what we do.” So we wanted to encourage newcomers to learn about all different types of jobs in Hollywood and how they work together.

Jon: Talking about the emotional components is about setting expectations too. The vast majority of people who work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That’s a tough life of highs and lows, and you have to prepare for that mentally as well as financially. People have to hustle for years to establish themselves, and that takes an enormous capacity for rejection. On top of that is the physical toll the work can extract, especially on the folks involved in setting up and tearing down sets. Part of the point of the book is to tell people with Hollywood dreams that they’ll need to gird themselves emotionally and physically for the work.

You also broach the subject of money and who makes what. Another novel idea for a book like this.

Ada: We consistently heard from people that it takes 5 to 7 years to make a living — and that’s if you’re successful. So unless you come from wealth, how you pay your bills when you aren’t booking gigs is an integral part of breaking into — and achieving longevity — in Hollywood.

Also, the money varies widely — depending on experience, how big the project is and other factors, but it’s good to understand the basic minimums dictated by the unions, as well as whether you’re interested in a career path where you can expect to have yearly full-time work – or if 30 weeks of employment a year is considered a really good year.

Jon: The hardest parts to write for me, and probably for Ada too, were the sections telling people in certain fields that they were expected to work for free. Happily, the industry seems to be getting better about that, albeit because it’s been forced to do so.

Ada: Although, it’s not even that you aren’t making money. You have to spend a lot of money, whether you’re taking classes, buying equipment, submitting your work for fellowships — getting your own plane tickets and hotel rooms to go to events to network or promote your work. You’re basically investing in yourself as a business.

Your sections on AI are eye-opening. It is not necessarily a career killer but, in fact, might boost employment, right?

Jon: I like to give a super long answer to this question that cites the long history of industrial revolutions, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that technology has always been crucial to the film and TV industry, and innovations over the years have ended some livelihoods while creating others. AI tools can allow filmmakers to be more efficient, just as digital cameras and LED lights have done. That inevitably means fewer jobs per project, but also should result in more projects being green-lit. And as digital tools and streaming services eliminate barriers to entry in music, so can AI eliminate barriers to entry in film. Advocates of AI believe there will be a net increase in jobs, and time will tell whether they’re right. But there’s no question that the jobs in film and TV will be different.

Ada: This was another hard part to give advice about, because AI is rapidly evolving and there’s a lot of well-founded fear about the jobs of our generations that will be eliminated. But this book is for the next generation, and aspiring creatives need to treat AI as part of their toolkit.

Was there any common thread that runs through all of the interviews you conducted with professionals?

Ada: Everyone is deeply committed to their crafts, but what they’re most passionate about is storytelling. What I mean by that is: A costume designer, of course, is passionate about clothing, but if their main priority was beautiful clothing, they’d be a stylist or a fashion designer. Costume designers are passionate about using clothing to create a character and tell a story. Similarly, if a set decorator’s main passion was creating beautiful homes, they’d be an interior designer. But a set decorator wants to use the furniture, decor and objects to help you understand the protagonist’s backstory.

Jon: Even the most accomplished crew members and producers we talked to said they looked at their jobs as advancing someone else’s vision, not their own. They learned early on not to get invested emotionally in their best ideas because someone else — the director on a film, the showrunner on a TV series — would be the judge of which ideas to use. That’s really humbling.

What do you think is the most profound change in Hollywood as it continues to transition from theatrical and TV into streaming?

Jon: Streaming has proven to be a huge boon to long-form storytelling, at least from the viewer’s vantage point. You’d still have “Succession” without streaming, but you don’t have the quantity of “Succession”-level shows without the investment and competition from the likes of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. But the economics of streaming series are very different from those of a long-running broadcast TV show. There are fewer episodes, which means less pay for writers, actors and crew members over the course of a year. And residuals are lower for those who are entitled to them. Meanwhile, after a steady rise in the number of scripted shows released in the U.S., the volume fell sharply in 2024. So it appears that peak TV may have peaked.

For movies, the pandemic gave studios a preview of the post-theatrical world to come. Nevertheless, the industry is still struggling to come up with a coherent approach to streaming. So much of a movie’s marketing is still tied to theatrical releases, and multiplexes and studios continue to fight over how long a new movie should wait before it hits the streamers. And I wonder if there isn’t a lingering stigma for movies that are available immediately for streaming, similar to the one for movies that went straight to DVD.

Ada: It’s not just streaming. Everything that we consume from our phones — from social media content to podcasts to gaming livestreams — is not only competing with mainstream Hollywood but also becoming part of the same big entertainment ecosystem.

But on the flip side, it’s never been more possible for aspiring creatives to bypass traditional gatekeepers, make their own projects, connect directly with audiences and build their own revenue streams — even if it’s never going to be easy.

Preorder “Breaking Into New Hollywood” and read Tseng and Healey’s original Times reporting that led to the book.

WEAPONS

(18) 128mins

★★★★☆

THINGS that go bump in the night have long been a horror-story theme. But what about things that disappear in the night?

That is the opening of this fascinating thriller when 17 kids run out of their houses at 2.17am in a US town.

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No one knows why, or where they have gone. They ran down the street, arms spread like aeroplanes, and then vanished.

They are all in the same primary school class, taught by Justine (Julia Garner). Only one little boy remains, Alex (Cary Christopher).

We meet the pair a month after the disappearances, where tensions in the small town are running high.

The devastated parents think Justine and Alex must know more than they are telling police and become crazed with frustration.

The eerie feeling of the quiet suburban streets — and an entire town after one teacher — builds the feeling that more very bad things will happen soon.

And boy, they really do.

There’s an ensemble cast and the film is divided into several chapters.

Justine is the stressed teacher who is relying heavily on vodka, and Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) is the broken father who watches the CCTV of his son running out of the house on loop and will do anything for answers.

There’s also a troubled police officer, thieving junkie and the school’s head teacher who have their own different journeys around the horror of the town.

Oh, and Alex — the boy who was left behind — played superbly by young Christopher. His flat answers to questions and slow blinks have your palms a bit clammy.

The few horror tropes that are used — dream sequences and jumps — are done with class and control.

Written and directed by Zach Cregger, following on from his breakout and brilliant Barbarian, this often funny and ferocious film is intriguing until the end.

While most of the film gives you little to no clue of what is behind the children’s sudden disappearance, Cregger truly lets loose in the final half hour.

The foot is slammed on to the horror pedal and I found myself watching much of it through my fingers.

It’s both weird and wild — and certainly does not attempt to wrap an explanation up in a nice little bow for the audience.

You’ll leave with a slightly furrowed brow and a palpitating heart.

FREAKIER FRIDAY

(PG) 111mins

★★★☆☆

IN 2003’s Freaky Friday, therapist Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her guitar-playing daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan) temporarily inhabit each other’s bodies and lives.

In this sequel two decades later, Anna is a music producer and single mother to teen Harper (Julia Butters), while Tess records podcasts and plays pickleball.

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Anna’s forthcoming marriage to Eric, who has daughter Lily, will create a blended family – but it’s a union only the bride and groom are happy about.

Then fortune-teller fun – which sees Anna switch bodies with Harper, while Tess and Lily swap – allows them to see things through each other’s eyes.

Comical silliness and heart-warming schmaltz ensues, with typical Boomer, Millennial and Gen X characteristics teased for decent laughs.

The teens are forced to use Facebook and listen to Coldplay while the adults relish regaining their youthful metabolism.

It’s best when the elders play younger personas, and Jamie Lee Curtis is a treat throughout, flexing her funny bones.

A comfortable and entertaining Lohan is her perfect feel-good foil.

THE KINGDOM

(15) 112mins

★★★★☆

ORGANISED crime on the French island of Corsica makes for both a bloodthirsty and beautiful backdrop for Julien Colonna’s gripping Mob drama set in the 1990s.

Mafia racketeering in Sicily has often been portrayed on screen, but this location, along with some standout performances, feels like a fresh take on the much-told gang wars narrative.

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And Colonna knows his stuff – he comes from a Corsican family with Mob connections.

Teenager Leisa (a brilliant Ghjuvanna Benedetti) is the daughter of widowed faction boss Pierre-Paul.

She is enjoying carefree days at her aunt’s house, playing on the beach with her cousins and flirting with boys.

But without warning she is taken off to spend time with her father, who is planning revenge after a failed attempt on his life.

Leisa bonds with him by fishing, shooting boar, practising her rifle aim and sharpening her awareness of underworld politics.

The pace may be slow at times, but the captivating performances, along with a plot of murders, family dynamics and revenge, will hold your attention to the end.

Laura Stott