Kevin Costner Sued by ‘Horizon 2' Stunt Performer Over Alleged Unscripted Rape Scene
A female stunt performer has sued Kevin Costner over claims she was required to participate in a 'violent unscripted, unscheduled rape scene' while filming the second installment of the award-winning actor's four-part Western movie series, 'Horizon: An American Saga.'
Devyn LaBella filed the lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, accusing Costner and the film's production companies of a host of complaints, including sexual discrimination and harassment, creating a hostile work environment, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, and breach of contract.
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San Francisco Chronicle
18 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Rarely performed Sondheim musical speaks volumes in our tariff era
To feel the scourge of imperialism, listen to a song that doesn't dictate feeling at all. In the musical 'Pacific Overtures,' an unlikely governor in Japan ticks off the Western imports that have wormed their way into his life since Americans forced open his country to trade in 1853. 'It's called a bowler hat,' Kayama (Nick Nakashima) sings in Kunoichi Productions' show, his eyes wary yet curious as he regards the foreign object. Two verses later: 'It's called a pocket watch.' Before long, the samurai is looking for his own bowler hat, drinking too much white wine and replacing his sword with a pistol. Stephen Sondheim's lyrics stay light and jagged, and his music sounds like waves heaving back and forth, thrashing the passage of time. Suddenly, a way of life is gone, a man transformed, and all it took was a song. That's one of the finest moments in the rarely performed show, which opened Friday, May 30, at Brava Theater. Another comes shortly before, when nobles warn Lord Abe (Lawrence-Michael C. Arias) about the growing population of Westerners in their midst. Their method is to have a storyteller deliver a fable, in the ritualized style of traditional Japanese theater, about a young king on a hunting party who thinks he's encountering a tiger, only to be confronted by a pack of beastly men. Herein, actor Ryan Marchand glides about the stage in swooshing steps, sweeping his arms in surgically precise arcs. In a drawn-out chant, his voice mines the lower depths of his body cavity, resounding like a hollow redwood, and ratchets up in pitch to transport the whole stage to some kind of liminal space, like we're listening to an emissary from the beyond. His hyper-focused gaze practically has physical force. It's as if he pictures very specifically all the long-term ramifications of opening borders to the West, and he's holding you in place till you see it, too. The show isn't an easy one, though. Often, Sondheim's score doesn't ingratiate itself with the ear. If you're not well schooled in dissonant music, it can be difficult to pick out what distinguishes his chords from a random mashing of fist against keys. And while Nick Ishimaru's direction contains some flashes of genius, including othering the infringing Americans as caricatures by costuming them in garish masks, staging feels incomplete. When Kayama and his wife Tamate (Sarah Jiang) fret about his impossible-seeming mission to keep the Americans offshore, lest they taint sacred Japanese soil, it's as if the actors haven't been told to either move or stay still, so they hover in an unsatisfying in-between state. Singers muddle their pick-ups and cut-offs. Breath support staggers, the musical equivalent of water instead of soup. In the repetitive song 'Someone in a Tree,' the actors fail to justify why one character, recalling his observation of the first meeting of the Japanese and Americans, sings that he was 'younger then' six times. Sitting in the audience, you start to dream up possibilities. Maybe he's senile. Maybe he's overexcited or fond of hearing his own voice. Maybe his listener would be indulgent at first, since she yearns to hear his tale, only to grow confused, then impatient, then exasperated. But the actors don't explore these possibilities or any other, probably better ones. Each iteration feels the same. Still, in our own era of tariffs and isolationism frankensteined to would-be imperialism (see Greenland, Canada and the Gulf of Mexico), the 1976 musical makes for a provocative revisit. Closed borders relegate the rest of the world to 'somewhere out there.' Open borders sully or sever connection with heritage. But history, 'Pacific Overtures' suggests, tends to move only in one direction. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, so open with care.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
ISIS claims first attacks against forces loyal to new government in Syria
ISIS has claimed two attacks on Syrian security forces – the first since the transitional government under former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa took office. The terror group, also known as Islamic State, said it had killed and injured seven members of 'the apostate Syrian regime' with an explosive device that was detonated on a road in southern Syria. It said the attack took place in the remote desert area of Talul al Safa in the southern Syrian province of Suwayda. A military source in the Suwayda region told CNN that a reconnaissance unit from the Free Syrian Army was ambushed Wednesday while tracking ISIS movements in the area. One fighter had been killed and three injured. Units of the Free Syrian Army are supported by the US military in what is called the al Tanf Deconfliction Zone close to the borders with Jordan and Egypt, where the US has a small outpost. The source added that the Talul al Safa area is 'extremely rugged and dangerous area, as ISIS had been exploiting its terrain for a long time.' ISIS lost almost all the territory it controlled in Syria by the end of 2017 but has maintained a foothold in Syria's vast central desert. ISIS claimed another attack in the same area several days ago. CNN has reached out to the government in Damascus for comment. Last week, the Syrian Interior Ministry said security forces operating in an area not far from where the attacks took place had seized 'a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as well as weapons' at locations belonging to a terrorist cell affiliated with ISIS. The Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War says the group has likely maintained cells in southern Syria despite not carrying out any attacks there for at least two years. The US and other Western governments have urged the new Syrian government to prevent a resurgence of ISIS and other terror groups on Syrian soil. But the government has struggled to extend its authority to Suwayda, where there have been clashes between Druze and Sunni groups.
a day ago
The country that made smoking sexy is breaking up with cigarettes
PARIS -- PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot lounged barefoot on a Saint-Tropez beach, drawing languorous puffs from her cigarette. Another actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, swaggered down the Champs-Élysées with smoke curling from his defiant lips, capturing a generation's restless rebellion. In France, cigarettes were never just cigarettes — they were cinematic statements, flirtations and rebellions wrapped in rolling paper. Yet beginning July 1, if Bardot and Belmondo's iconic film scenes were repeated in real life, they would be subject to up to €135 ($153) in fines. After glamorizing tobacco for decades, France is preparing for its most sweeping smoking ban yet. The new restrictions, announced by Health Minister Catherine Vautrin, will outlaw smoking in virtually all outdoor public areas where children may gather, including beaches, parks, gardens, playgrounds, sports venues, school entrances and bus stops. 'Tobacco must disappear where there are children,' Vautrin told French media. The freedom to smoke 'stops where children's right to breathe clean air starts." France will ban smoking on all beaches, in public parks, forests and some other public areas as part of a national anti-tobacco plan presented by the health minister on Tuesday. Tobacco products cause 75,000 avoidable deaths a year in France, Minister of Health and Prevention Aurélien Rousseau said on BFM television. The government will introduce legislation at the start of next year to enlarge the scope of places where fines can be levied for smoking, he said. 'Beaches, parks, around schools -– lots of places had started these experiments and now, it's true, we're heading to a general rule to show our determination,' he said. Legislators also intend to outlaw single-use disposable e-cigarettes, with an initial vote on a draft law to ban them expected in the National Assembly next month. 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(AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file) Judge refuses to temporarily block the Trump administration from removing Copyright Office director White House acknowledges problems in RFK Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' report Patriots say they will handle video of receiver Stefon Diggs internally Trump has long warned of a government 'deep state.' Now in power, he's under pressure to expose it Paul Maurice, Rod Brind'Amour skipped player handshakes after East final. It was for a good reason The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world's population sees AP journalism every day. The Associated Press Careers Advertise with us Contact Us Accessibility Statement Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information Limit Use and Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information CA Notice of Collection More From AP News About AP News Values and Principles AP's Role in Elections AP Leads AP Definitive Source Blog AP Images Spotlight Blog AP Stylebook Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. twitter instagram facebook notification icon">public health priorities, it also signals a deeper cultural shift. Smoking has defined identity, fashion and cinema here for so long that the new measure feels like a quiet French revolution in a country whose relationship with tobacco is famously complex. According to France's League Against Cancer, over 90 percent of French films from 2015 to 2019 featured smoking scenes — more than double the rate in Hollywood productions. Each French movie averaged nearly three minutes of on-screen smoking, effectively the same exposure as six 30-second television ads. Cinema has been particularly influential. Belmondo's rebellious smoker in Jean-Luc Godard 's 'Breathless' became shorthand for youthful defiance worldwide. Bardot's cigarette smoke wafted through 'And God Created Woman,' symbolizing unbridled sensuality. Yet this glamorization has consequences. According to France's public health authorities, around 75,000 people die from tobacco-related illnesses each year. Although smoking rates have dipped recently — fewer than 25% of French adults now smoke daily, a historic low — the habit remains stubbornly embedded, especially among young people and the urban chic. France's relationship with tobacco has long been fraught with contradiction. Air France did not ban smoking on all its flights until 2000, years after major U.S. carriers began phasing it out in the late 1980s and early '90s. The delay reflected a country slower to sever its cultural romance with cigarettes, even at 35,000 feet. Strolling through the stylish streets of Le Marais, the trendiest neighborhood in Paris, reactions to the smoking ban ranged from pragmatic acceptance to nostalgic defiance. 'It's about time. I don't want my kids growing up thinking smoke is romantic,' said Clémence Laurent, a 34-year-old fashion buyer, sipping espresso at a crowded café terrace. 'Sure, Bardot made cigarettes seem glamorous. But Bardot didn't worry about today's warnings on lung cancer.' At a nearby boutique, vintage dealer Luc Baudry, 53, saw the ban as an attack on something essentially French. 'Smoking has always been part of our culture. Take away cigarettes and what do we have left? Kale smoothies?' he scoffed. Across from him, 72-year-old Jeanne Lévy chuckled throatily, her voice deeply etched — she said — by decades of Gauloises. 'I smoked my first cigarette watching Jeanne Moreau,' she confessed, eyes twinkling behind vintage sunglasses. 'It was her voice — smoky, sexy, lived-in. Who didn't want that voice?' Indeed, Jeanne Moreau's gravelly, nicotine-scraped voice transformed tobacco into poetry itself, immortalized in classics such as François Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim.' Smoking acquired an existential glamour that made quitting unimaginable for generations of French smokers. France's new law mirrors broader European trends. Britain, Spain and Sweden have all implemented significant smoking bans in public spaces. Sweden outlawed smoking in outdoor restaurant terraces, bus stops and schoolyards back in 2019. Spain extended its bans to café terraces, spaces still exempt in France—at least for now. an electronic cigarette that is still exempt from the new ban and shrugged.
