Oliver

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish says talks have taken place with Oliver Glasner about extending the contract of the Eagles manager as the two parties look to “align their interests”.

Glasner will be out of contract at the end of the season and there is uncertainty about the 51-year-old’s future at the club.

Sources have told BBC Sport the Austrian was offered a new deal earlier this summer, but he has yet to sign the contract.

“We’ve had some early conversations,” Parish told Talksport. “We would love to keep Oliver, we’re building something. I think for Oliver it’s about the conditions being right.”

Glasner took over as Palace boss in February 2024 and guided them to victory in last season’s FA Cup – the club’s first major trophy.

Their triumph meant they qualified for the Europa League, but they were demoted to the Conference League for breaching multi-club ownership rules – American businessman John Textor owns a stake in the Eagles and is the majority owner of French club Lyon, who had also qualified for the Europa League.

Glasner also led Palace to victory against Liverpool in the Community Shield in August and has steered them to sixth in the Premier League following a promising start to the season – four points off top spot.

“It’s about everything being in a way that he enjoys his work and he finds the conditions favourable to achieve,” added Parish.

“Oliver wants to win things, he makes no secret of that. That’s what he’s in football for.

“So if we can align those interests then hopefully we can make something happen.”

Before Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to ABC, the dialogue about the indefinite pause on his late-night show had continued to heat up.

Protesters packed the Hollywood block where Kimmel’s show is taped and sounded off both online and in public displays since the announcement of the suspension last week, and a horde of actors, writers, musicians and artists made their opinions on the matter clear.

Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Kerry Washington, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and more than 400 other artists signed an open letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union calling for the defense of free speech in the wake of Kimmel’s benching.

The letter, which was published Monday, says Kimmel’s suspension marks “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and said that the government’s “attempt to silence its critics” runs “counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”

“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter continues. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

The letter came together over the weekend, according to Jessica Weitz, director of artist and entertainment engagement at the ACLU. The list of names continued to grow after the letter was published, she said.

“Behind those signatures are teams of people who made their own calls to their networks to ask people to join, feeling strongly that this attack on free expression must be called out,” Weitz said in a statement to The Times. “When speech is being targeted with so much precision, it takes courage from every single person to speak out — and the creative community is meeting the urgency of this moment.”

Kimmel’s late-night program, which airs weeknights on ABC, has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The decision came after two major owners of ABC affiliates said they were dropping the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Late-night hosts were quick to respond to the news, with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon each commenting on Kimmel’s situation in their Thursday episodes.

Over the weekend, HBO talk shows “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” weighed in on the controversy, beginning with Maher, who focused on Kimmel in his monologue Friday. Maher referred to “Politically Incorrect,” his late-night show that was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.” Kimmel’s show replaced Maher’s slot.

“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher said. “This s— ain’t new. It’s worse. We’ll get to that. But you know, ABC, they are steady. ABC stands for ‘Always be caving.’ So Jimmy, pal, I am with you. I support you. And on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”

Maher, who is a self-described “old-school liberal” and has been critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, said he disagreed with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected killer but believed he shouldn’t lose his job over them.

“You have the right to be wrong or to have any opinion you want, he said. “That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about.”

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver zeroed in on Kimmel’s suspension and the Federal Communications Commission during his Sunday night episode. He blasted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, directly addressed Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and dove into the implications of the suspension in a nearly 30-minute-long segment.

“Kimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump’s attacks on free speech. He’s just the latest canary in the coal mine — a mine that, at this point, now seems more dead canary than coal,” Oliver said. “This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point, and not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse.”

In addressing Disney head Iger, Oliver urged him to understand that “giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time.”

Oliver said his show is “lucky” to be in a different situation than Kimmel’s because neither HBO or its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns broadcast networks, meaning they are “much less susceptible to pressure from the FCC.” He then cut to a news segment about how Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which Oliver followed up with repeated expletives.

The women who host ABC’s “The View,” which is known for not shying away from hot-button topics, had been silent on the issue last week, but addressed Kimmel’s suspension Monday.

“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” host Whoopi Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”

FCC head Carr has indicated that “The View” might be the next subject of a future investigation.

The panel, including Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also weighed in before Goldberg said, “We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”

TORONTO — The smile is beatific, blissed out, even at an ungodly hour on our Zoom call from France. A week later, when I finally meet 43-year old filmmaker Oliver Laxe in person at a private Toronto celebration for his new movie “Sirât,” he radiates serenity. He’s the happiest (and maybe the tallest) person in the room.

“One of the first ideas that I had for this film was a sentence from Nietzsche,” he says. “I won’t believe in a God who doesn’t dance.”

Laxe goes to raves — “free parties,” he clarifies, indicating the ones you need to hear about via word of mouth. He’s thought deeply about what they mean and what they do to him. “We still have a memory in our bodies of these ceremonies that we were doing for thousands of years, when we were making a kind of catharsis with our bodies.”

It’s almost the opposite of what you expect to hear on the fall festival circuit, when directors with big ideas make their cases for the significance of the art form. But the body, the return to something purely sensorial, is Laxe’s big idea.

Steadily, “Sirât” has become, since its debut at Cannes in May, a growing favorite: not merely a critic’s darling but an obsession among those who’ve seen it. (The film will have an awards-qualifying run in Los Angeles beginning Nov. 14.) A dance party in the desert set at some vaguely hinted-at moment of apocalypse, the movie is something you feel, not solve. Its pounding EDM beats rattle pleasurably in your chest (provided the theater’s speakers are up to snuff). And the explosions on the horizon shake your heartbeat.

“I really trust in the capacity of images to penetrate into the metabolism of the spectator,” Laxe says. “I’m like a masseuse. When you watch my films, sometimes you’ll want to kill me or you’ll feel the pain in your body, like: Wow, what a treat. But after, you can feel the result.”

An image from the movie “Sirât,” directed by Oliver Laxe.

(Festival de Cannes)

Laxe can speak about his influences: cosmic epics by the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky or existential road movies like “Zabriskie Point” and “Two-Lane Blacktop.” But he is not a product of a typical grad-school trajectory. Rather, it’s his escape from that path after growing up in northern Spanish Galicia and studying in Barcelona (he tried London for a while) that’s fascinating.

“I was not good,” he recalls. “I didn’t find I had a place in the industry or in Europe. I was not interested. I had bought a camera, a 16-millimeter Bolex, and I knew I was accepting that my role was to be a kind of sniper that was working in the trenches but making really small films.”

At age 24, Laxe moved to Tangier, Morocco, where he would live for 12 years at a monastic remove from the glamour of the movies, collaborating with local children on his films. The experience would grow into his first feature, 2010’s “You Are All Captains,” which eventually took him all the way to the prize-winning podium at Cannes, as did his second and third films, all of which came before “Sirât,” his fourth.

“Slowly, the things we were making were opening doors,” he says. “In a way, life was deciding, telling me: This is your path.”

Path is what “Sirât” means in Arabic, often with a religious connotation, and his new movie takes a unique journey, traversing from the loose-limbed dancing of its early scenes to a train’s tracks stretching fixedly to the end of the line. There’s also a quest that gets us into the film: a father and son searching among the ravers for a missing daughter, potentially a nod to “The Searchers” or Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore,” but not a plot point that Laxe feels especially interested in expounding on.

“Obviously I have a spiritual path and this path is about celebrating crisis,” he says. “My path was through crisis. It’s the only time when you connect with your essence. I just want to grow. So that’s why I jump into the abyss.”

“My path was through crisis,” says director Oliver Laxe of his steady rise. “It’s the only time when you connect with your essence. I just want to grow.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Laxe tells me he didn’t spend years perfecting a script or sharpening dialogue. Rather, he took the images that stuck with him — trucks speeding into the dusty desert, fueled by the rumble of their own speaker systems — and brought them to the free parties, where his cast coalesced on the dance floor.

“We were telling them that we were making ‘Mad Max Zero,’ ” he recalls, but also something “more metaphysical, more spiritual. A few of them, I already knew. There are videos of us explaining the film in the middle of the dance floor with all the people dancing around. I mean it was quite crazy. It’s something I would like to show to film schools.”

Shot on grungy Super 16, the production drove deep into craggy, sandblasted wastelands, both in Morocco and mountainous Spain, where the crew would make hairpin turns along winding cliff roads that would give even fans of William Friedkin’s legendary 1977 misadventure “Sorcerer” anxiety.

“It was my least dangerous film,” Laxe counters, reminding me of his “Fire Will Come,” the 2019 arson thriller for which he cast actual firefighters. “We were making the film in the middle of the flames, so I don’t know. I’m a junkie of images and I need this drug.”

There is a Herzogian streak to the bearded Laxe, a prophet-in-the-wilderness boldness that inspires his collaborators, notably longtime writing partner Santiago Fillol and the techno composer Kangding Ray, to make the leap of faith with him. But there also seems to come a point when talking about “Sirât” feels insufficient, as opposed to simply submitting to its pounding soundscapes, found-family camaraderie and (fair warning) churning moments of sudden loss that have shaken even the most hardy of audiences.

“The film evokes this community of wounded people,” he says. “I’m not a sadistic guy that wants to make a spectator suffer. I have a lot of hope. I trust in human beings, even with their contradictions and weaknesses.”

For those who wish to find a political reading in the movie, it’s there for them, a parable about migration and fascism but also the euphoria of a headlong rush into the unknown. “Sirât” is giving odd comfort in a cultural moment of uncertainty, a rare outcome for a low-budget art film.

Its visionary maker knows exactly where he is going next.

“I got the message in Cannes,” Laxe says. “People want to feel the freedom of the filmmaker or the auteur. What they appreciate is that we were jumping from a fifth floor to make this film. So for the next one —”

Our connection cuts out and it’s almost too perfect: a Laxian cliffhanger moment in which ideas are yanked back by a rush of feeling. After several hours of me hoping this was intentional on his part, the director does indeed get back to me, apologetically. But until then, he is well served by the mystery.

MOSCOW has weighed in on the case of a missing British three-year-old amid fears the child has been “kidnapped” by his Russian mother.

A pundit on the country’s state media said the kid is “Russian” and demanded the Kremlin “protect the mother’s right” to be with her child.

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Oliver Pugh has been the subject of a frantic police search since he went missing in Marbella, on the Costa del Sol.

He has a British father and a Russian mother, who are now separated.

The family lived in Spain, where are court order had barred the child from being removed from the country.

Spanish cops fear Oliver was taken to Russia – where he would be out of reach of the father. 

Russian authorities have not officially commented on whether the child is in the country.

But state media propagandist Vladimir Kornilov said today on Telegram: “It is suspected that she took her son to Russia. 

“This, of course, is not yet a fact. 

“But if this is indeed the case, it seems to me that we must do everything possible to protect the mother’s right to be with her Russian child.

“Well, if London can call him British, why can’t I call him Russian by the same logic?”

He added: “How [do] you determine that the boy is British if his mother might think otherwise?”

Oliver is described as being 2ft 7in tall, with blond hair and distinctive grey eyes. 

Spain‘s National Police are urging anyone with information to contact them. 

A spokesperson said: “We are treating this as a parental abduction. 

“We believe the mother has left Spain and has taken the boy to her homeland, which is Russia.”

Neither the mother or the father has been named.

The Foreign Office is “supporting the family of a British child who has been reported missing in Spain”.

Diplomats have been in contact with the Spanish authorities. 

It is unclear whether the child has joint Russian citizenship, or whether an international arrest warrant has been issued for the mother. 

Russia always refuses to extradite its own citizens.

Spain’s Ministry of Interior published a picture of Oliver shortly after his disappearance.

He is last believed to have been seen in Marbella on July 4.

If you’re just hearing about the British underdog who has caught Wimbledon’s imagination, then there’s one thing he would like you to know – he’s Ollie, not Oliver, Tarvet.

“I usually only get called Oliver when my mum is annoyed at me. So you know, I try to avoid it at all costs,” the 21-year-old said.

He added that when he heard “Oliver” being shouted from the stands of court four during his first-round victory on Monday, it made him think he had “done something wrong”.

The fans could be forgiven for not knowing – after all, he is the world number 733 making his Grand Slam debut.

But he is quickly carving a name for himself and is unfazed by what lies ahead in the second round – namely, defending champion Carlos Alcaraz on Centre Court on Wednesday in front of 15,000 fans.

Should the US college student win, it would mark the biggest upset in Wimbledon history. But he is not ruling out his chances, choosing to see it as an opportunity not an experience.

“I don’t really like the word ‘experience’ because I feel like then you’re just there to almost just spectate; you don’t really have the expectation to win,” he told BBC Sport.

“And, obviously, I’m not saying that I expect to win. But at the same time I feel like I’ve been quietly confident this whole tournament and it’s got me to where I am.

“A big thing for me is just playing the ball, not the player.”

For his father Garry, it is a moment he can scarcely believe.

“What a mouth-watering prospect,” he said.

“A week of qualifying, a round one win. And this is just too much. It is going to be fun because Ollie has played in front of big crowds – 700 or 800, maybe 1,000. To go in front of 15,000, that is quite a step up, isn’t it?”

MEGAN McKenna and Oliver Burke looked loved-up in pics from their joint stag and hen party ahead of their upcoming wedding.

The former Towie star and country singer, 32, and her footballer fiancée Oliver, 27, decided to have joint celebrations. 

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Sharing an update to her Instagram fans, Megan wore a gorgeous white shirt dress, alongside a veil and a bride-to-be sash. 

Oliver wore a black top with a pair of white trousers and both of them held glasses of what looked like sparkling bubbly.

In another snap, Oliver lovingly held her in his arms as he twirled her in front of a swimming pool.

She captioned the post: “It’s nearly time, also my family are to cute, thanks guys I love you.

“Me & Oli came downstairs for the evening to ‘chapel of love’ playing… video will be posted soon.”

Fans were quick to leave comments supporting the couple and one said: “The most beautiful bride to be.”

“So cute,” said another.

And a third said: “Stop it sooo cute so excited for the wedding pictures seeing your dress and little Landons suit.”

While a fourth added: “I hope we get to see u in ur wedding dress, I bet u will look beautiful!.”

Earlier in the year, Megan teased details about the couple’s wedding as she went for a wedding dress fitting after spending three weeks apart from Oliver.

Megan captioned the Instagram post: “Hadn’t seen Oli in 3 weeks, this is how our day went… don’t worry guys Oli hasn’t seen my wedding dresses.

“They are in Italy atm being made! Eeek. I had to pop in to get my measurements taken again as my baby weight is dropping off me!!!! Not long now.”

Her latest update comes after Megan was left heartbroken after a devastating loss to her family. 

The star shared that her beloved dog, who she referred to as her “first baby” has died, after 17 years as her trusty sidekick. 

Sharing a slideshow of photographs of her beloved pooch, she wrote: “I’ve been putting this post off for a few weeks because it becomes real when I do. But I lost my first baby Daisy and it hit me so hard. 

“She passed away with me holding her in my arms. My sister and mum next to me. I sang her to sleep like I always did when she needed comforting.” 

“It breaks my heart even typing this out,” Megan said. “Daisy, Thankyou for being by my side through every tear, every laugh and every milestone from my teenage years into my 20’s and even 30’s. 

“Thankyou for teaching me how to be a mummy. I’m a pro with Landon because of you, your little dinners, bath time, walkies and cuddles. 

“You was the best Daisy. You was my baby. You will always be in my heart. I will miss you forever.” 

Loved ones and followers quickly flocked to her comments section to pay tribute and share their condolences to Megan after her heartbreak. 

MAFS star Ella Morgan said: “I’m so sorry Meg. Sending you all my love, thoughts and hugs in what I can only imagine is an incredibly emotionally tough time for you all” 

“I miss her so much. She’ll be loved forever,” added her sister Milly. 

Friend Lauren added: “She really was the best, what an amazing mummy you were to her! Love you so much I know how hard this has hit you. But she’ll always be with you xx” 

Her fiancé Oliver also shared his condolences, posting two love hearts. 

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“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is a catchy, provocative title for writer-director Laura Piani’s debut feature, but it is a bit of a misnomer. Her heroine, Agathe (Camille Rutherford), may harbor that fear deep inside, but it’s never one she speaks aloud. A lonely clerk working at the famed Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, she gets lost in the love notes left on the store’s mirror and complains to her best friend and coworker Felix (Pablo Pauly) that she was born in the wrong century, unwilling to engage in casual “digital” connection. Highly imaginative, Agathe perhaps believes she’s alone because she won’t settle for anything less than a Darcy.

Good thing, then, that Felix, posing as her agent, sends off a few chapters of her fantasy-induced writing to the Jane Austen Residency. And who should pick up Agathe from the ferry but a handsome, prickly Englishman, Oliver (Charlie Anson), the great-great-great-great-grandnephew of Ms. Austen herself. She can’t stand him. It’s perfect.

“Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” is the kind of warm romance that will make any bookish dreamer swoon, as a thoroughly modern woman with old-fashioned ideas about love experiences her own Austenesque tumble. While Agathe initially identifies with the wilting old maid Anne from “Persuasion,” her shyly budding connection with Oliver is more Elizabeth Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice.” A pastoral English estate is the ideal setting for such a dilemma.

The casting and performances are excellent for this contemporary, meta update: Rutherford is elegant but often awkward and fumbling as Agathe, while Anson conveys Oliver’s passionate yearning behind his reserved, wounded exterior with just enough Hugh Grantian befuddlement. Pauly plays the impulsive charlatan with an irrepressible charm.

But it isn’t just the men that have Agathe in a tizzy. The film is equally as romantic about literature, writing and poetry as it is about such mundane issues as matters of the flesh. A lover of books, Agathe strives to be a writer but believes she isn’t one because of her pesky writer’s block. It’s actually a dam against the flow of feelings — past traumas and heartbreaks — that she attempts to keep at bay. It’s through writing that Agathe is able to crack her heart open, to share herself and to welcome in new opportunities.

“Writing is like ivy,” Oliver tells Agathe. “It needs ruins to exist.” It’s an assurance that her past hasn’t broken her but has given her the necessary structure to let the words grow. The way the characters talk about what literature means to them — and what it means to put words down — will seduce the writerly among the viewers, these discussions even more enchanting than any declarations of love or ardent admiration.

If you’ve read any Austen (or watched any of the films made from her novels), Piani’s movie will be pleasantly predictable in its outcome, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an enjoyable journey. It’s our expectations, both met and upended, that give the film its appealing cadence. It never lingers too long and is just sweet enough in its displays to avoid any saccharine aftertaste or eye-rolling sentiment.

There’s a salve-like quality to “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” a balm for any battered romantic’s soul. It may be utter fantasy, but it’s the kind of escape you’ll want to revisit again and again, like a favorite Austen novel. And, as it turns out, our main character is wrong. Jane Austen didn’t wreck her life, rather, she opened it up to the possibilities that were right in front of her.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes has left the team less than a year after being appointed to the role.

A statement by Alpine on Tuesday said Oakes had resigned and that the team had “accepted his resignation with immediate effect”.

The team said Flavio Briatore would continue in his role as executive adviser and would now also cover the duties Oakes had performed.

No explanation was given for Oakes’ departure. The team said no further comment would be made and Oakes declined to comment when contacted.

A source told BBC Sport that it was Oakes’ decision to leave. Others said that it came as a surprise inside the team.

Oakes, who moved to Alpine from his Hitech team that competes in the junior categories, was widely considered within F1 to have little power at the team, with former Renault team boss Briatore the real controlling force.

Briatore’s controversial return to F1 as a team leader 15 years after he was found guilty of fixing the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix as Renault team boss was orchestrated by Renault Group chief executive officer Luca de Meo in July last year.

Oakes’ departure comes just a day after it emerged that Alpine were poised to drop Australian Jack Doohan after just six races this season and replace him with Argentine former Williams driver Franco Colapinto.

Oakes was appointed in July last year after Alpine, who are owned by Renault, removed their previous team principal Bruno Famin and placed him elsewhere in the company.

And it continues a turbulent few years at the team that have seen a continuous flux in senior management amid a run of disappointing results for Renault’s factory team.

Renault also decided last year to end their F1 engine programme, which had been involved since 1977 with only a couple of brief breaks. Alpine will use Mercedes engines next season.

Famin also lasted less than a year in his role as team boss after replacing Otmar Szafnauer in July 2023. The American lasted just 17 months.

Shortly before Szafnauer’s departure, Alpine chief executive officer Laurent Rossi was also dismissed. He had been with the company for just two and a half years.

Alpine finished sixth in the constructors’ championship last year.

Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner says he will continue to select his strongest squad for Premier League matches, despite the threat of injury to top players before the FA Cup final against Manchester City.

MATCH REPORT: Crystal Palace 1-1 Nottingham Forest

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