matthew mcconaughey

For years, Matthew McConaughey wouldn’t tell his mom, Kay, anything of substance during their weekly phone calls — her love of spreading news had cost her his trust.

“We had about an eight-year period where I had to have short conversations with her on our Sunday phone calls because she was sharing a lot of information,” Matthew told People in a joint interview with his mother. “I’d tell her something on Sunday between son and mom, and Tuesday I’d read about it in the news or see it in the local paper.”

Kay called the period a hiatus, which started after she took the media on a tour of Matthew’s childhood home without his consent. In her defense, she didn’t think he would find out.

“I was so proud that I was just telling the world,” she said.

The hiatus came to an end when Matthew felt stable enough with his fame. When the two hit red carpets together after that, Kay would ask if there were any rules she had to follow, but he let her tell the raunchiest stories at will.

“My mom can say whatever the hell she wants,” Matthew said. “Let’s take the lasso off and just go for it, Mom.”

Matthew and Kay co-star in the upcoming film “The Lost Bus,” where she plays his mother. The movie, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+, also stars Matthew’s oldest son, Levi.

Hear the sound of fingers crossing? That might be Levi hoping his dad learned a thing or two from Grandma.

Disasters are real — also, these days, frighteningly common, be they epic confluences of nature and negligence or the murderous and preventable kind. And when it comes to disaster movies, it’s hard to know what the acceptable level of exploitation is.

Of course, director Paul Greengrass could never be confused with the unseriousness of producer Irwin Allen (“The Towering Inferno”) or filmmaker Roland Emmerich (“The Day After Tomorrow”), ringmasters who preferred heaping helpings of A-listers on slick, expensive calamities. Rather, when Greengrass, coming from documentaries, tackles dark days of mass casualty, they tend to be true stories like “United 93” and “Bloody Sunday.” His stripped-down, jagged style, absent marquee names and focused on such issues as terrorism and community, brings intelligent urgency to the unfathomable.

With his new film “The Lost Bus,” however, starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, about the real-life effort to save a busload of schoolchildren from the 2018 Camp fire, a wildfire that would destroy most of Paradise, Calif., Greengrass is trying to merge the two sensibilities. This time he mixes star heroism with you-are-there spectacle and the results can be galvanizing if awkwardly framed.

“The Lost Bus” is not as potent as Greengrass’ “Captain Phillips,” in which Tom Hanks anchored a re-created reality no less pulse-pounding than any action blockbuster. Instead the director seems to be in a programmatic mode. There are scenes of nerve-jangling terror that weld you to your seat, but they’re sandwiched in between a lot that feels very much sculpted for three-act character arc effect by Greengrass and co-writer Brad Ingelsby.

McConaughey plays Paradise bus driver Kevin McKay, whose life is almost comically scripted to come off as especially challenged before one lick of flame gets near it: strapped for cash, dying dog, recently dead father (no love lost), sullen teenage son (love lost), ex-wife (also unhappy) and a memory-ailing mother. But on the afternoon of Nov. 18 as the fires reach eastern Paradise, Kevin’s is the only bus that can meet a request from his dispatcher (Ashlie Atkinson): Pick up stranded elementary schoolkids and evacuate them to safety.

A failed dad feeling the weight of sudden responsibility, Kevin corrals as co-chaperone a schoolteacher (America Ferrera). Though Mary is a mother eager to get to her own child, she’s willing to help. The occasional cut to Yul Vazquez as the fire chief spearheading rescue efforts, however, is this movie’s barometer of increasingly bad news. As smoke quickly darkens the day and the unstoppable, town-hopping fire hems in the bus, cutting off routes, the journey takes a dystopian turn, raising the stakes and alarm levels to unimaginable heights. (Eaton and Palisades survivors, fair warning — you were never going to watch this anyway.)

McConaughey is solid casting, his unshowy working-class fortitude slightly tinged with fear. In his and Ferrera’s sturdy presence and in the serrated frenzy of Greengrass’ editing style, a shorter, tighter “The Lost Bus” would still hold plenty of dread and dramatic resilience. The fire sequences alone, captured in the hellish fuzz of Pål Ulvik Rokseth’s cinematography, are pinnacles of this practical-meets-digital-effects discipline. But Kevin’s dippy redemption arc, doled out midperil in tortured glances and forced dialogue, drags us out of the intensity.

It’s also odd that the activist-minded Greengrass didn’t do more with so corporate a villain: legally responsible utility PG&E, represented in the movie by an ineffectual suit who is briefly yelled at. Forget that redemption story — Greengrass could have leaned even more into those action tropes and, as a final touch, had McConaughey punch PG&E in the jaw.

Apple TV+ has implemented an 11% price rise but there are ways to watch hit shows like Severance, Slow Horses and The Morning Show for less.

Apple TV+ has quietly increased the price of a monthly subscription, but there are several ways to get it cheaper if you know where to look. Last month, the streamer upped its subscription fee £8.99 to £9.99 for both new and existing customers.

This 11% rise may not seem like a huge increase, but it makes Apple TV+ one of the more expensive platforms compared to the basic subscription tiers of Netflix (£5.99), Disney+ (£4.99) and Prime Video (£8.99). However, each of these plans has adverts, while Apple TV+ is ad-free.

Apple told the BBC that while the new price applies immediately for new users, existing subscribers have until 30 days after their next renewal before they start paying more. It comes as Apple TV+ is gearing up for the return of hit shows including The Morning Show (September 17) and Slow Horses (September 24).

Also on its 2025 slate is Matthew McConaughey survival drama The Lost Bus (October 3) and Pluribus (November 7), a new sci-fi series from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. With this in mind, we’ve pulled together several ways to get an Apple TV+ subscription for less.

Watch for free with a seven-day trial

New Apple TV+ members can watch everything on the platform without paying a penny by signing up for a seven-day free trial. This is ideal for those only wanting to watch a particular series as it allows members to binge every episode in one week, just remember to cancel the trial before it moves to a paid subscription.

However, there is a way to reduce the cost for those happy to stick with the service.

Apple TV+ Annual Plan

£119.88

£89

Apple TV+

Get Apple TV+ here

Apple TV+ members can save £30.88 by paying for a year up front.

Save £31 with an annual plan

Members who have no intention of cancelling their subscription anytime soon may want to consider an Apple TV+ annual plan. Paying for a year’s access up front has not increased so still costs the usual £89, while 12 monthly payments will now end up costing £119.88 on the new rate.

This means those who are loyal to Apple TV+ can save £30.88 if they’re happy to make the commitment.

Get 3 months free with an eligible device

Apple offers three months of Apple TV+ access to shoppers buying an eligible Apple device including iPhones, iPads and MacBooks. They don’t have to be bought from Apple, with new devices bought from retailers including Sky Mobile and Amazon usually eligible for the deal.

One of our favourite options at the moment is Sky Mobile’s iPhone 16e deal, which is down to a record low price of £18 when spreading the cost. The catch with this plan is that it only comes with 100MB of data, but larger allowances are available for those happy to pay a little more.

Sky also offers the new MacBook Air 13” M4 for £20. Other options include Amazon’s £101 discount on an iPhone 16 for £698, or £70 discount on the latest iPad Air M3 for £529.

Save 44% with Apple One

This option is ideal for customers subscribed to multiple Apple services such as Apple TV+, Apple Music and iCloud. An Apple One bundle rolls all of these into one monthly subscription offering discounts up to £28.99 per month compared to paying for each service separately – a saving of 44%.

A subscription can also be shared by up to five people on select plans, perfect for cutting costs for the whole family. Apple One comes in a choice of three plans:

• Individual (£18.95) – TV+, Music, Arcade, iCloud+ 50GB.
• Family (£24.95) – TV+, Music, Arcade, iCloud+ 200GB.
• Premier (£36.95) – TV+, Music, Arcade, iCloud+ 2TB, Fitness+ and News+.