Life-size mannequin of Jeff Bezos lying on a giant Amazon box dropped into Venice canal in wedding protest
Clutching dollar bills, the figure drifted past gondolas, amusing onlookers while making a pointed statement about wealth and inequality.
The stunt, orchestrated by activist group Borne Media, used a remotely controlled motorised raft to carry the fake Bezos.
His wedding to Lauren Sánchez has sparked backlash from Venetians and activists, who see it as a symbol of the growing divide between rich outsiders and local residents struggling with rising costs and overtourism.
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The Guardian
18 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Map That Leads to You review – sugary Amazon romance works best as travelogue
A book-loving American woman in her 20s decides to spend time in Europe before she settles into the safety of a finance job in New York City, but she ends up falling for a man who is harbouring a tragic secret about his future. She's played by an in-house Netflix star, he's played by a non-American actor known for his role in a hit TV show. The film is based on a novel and is premiering on a streaming platform this month. While this might not be dramatically similar enough to become a Dante's Peak/Volcano situation, it's hard not to watch Amazon's The Map That Leads to You, out this week, and frequently think about Netflix's loosely similar My Oxford Year, released at the start of August. What immediately separates the two, and often separates Netflix and Amazon movies in general, is the aesthetic. My Oxford Year is every bit a TV movie while The Map That Leads to You is as glossy and sweeping as one deserving of a big screen release. That's both the Jeff Bezos budget bump but also the benefit of having a director like Lasse Hallström at the helm. The Oscar-nominated Swedish film-maker was once Hollywood's master of the middlebrow movie, behind Sunday afternoon specials like Chocolat and The Cider House Rules. But it's his later Nicholas Sparks adaptations Dear John and Safe Haven that made him the ideal choice here, smoothly guiding an adaptation of JP Monninger's sappy 2017 novel The Map That Leads to You (the book is even adorned by a Sparks quote). Trusty hands help in making the film feel grander especially when the emotion of the story, adapted by Dante's Peak's Les Bohem and Don't Make Me Go's Vera Herbert, can't quite get us there. We meet Heather (Madelyn Cline) and her two friends as they near the final stretch of their Eurotrip, perfectly bullet pointed to the final detail. Heather is a type A over-thinker, whose Notes app schedule for her post-graduation and pre-first job in the city hurrah did not include having a meet-cute with Jack (Riverdale's KJ Apa), a handsome New Zealander and fellow Ernest Hemingway fan. He's everything she isn't – impulsive and unplanned – and she finds herself changing her plan, and herself, as the pair start to fall in love. Apa is a likable enough actor but he struggles to sell a lot of Jack's manic pixie dream boy shtick, blandly insisting on the power of living in the moment and saying things like: 'I really believe that your thoughts help create your future,' with a straight face. The film's reheated messaging about the importance of following heart over head is ultimately a sneaky way to push the female lead off her course and on to his, as she relinquishes control to let him lead the way. Their jaunt around Europe, now on his terms, is a simple, seductive watch less for their burgeoning relationship, although they have decently sparky chemistry, and more for the crisply captured scenery, a lush and transporting late summer trip for us stuck at home, from Spain to Portugal to Italy and so on. Hallström knows exactly how to make his films look and feel delectable and at a time of ongoing streamer tinniness, it's a pleasure to be led by someone who truly knows where he's going. It's just a shame that we're being led somewhere so familiar. Not just because My Oxford Year recently took us there too (the 'reveal' is almost identical) but because so many romantic dramas have taken us there before. Both films try to avoid the standard cliches that come with the territory but neither manages anything truly new or, more importantly, poignant enough to bring the tears that should be cascading by the finale. Cline, as she recently showed in the I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel, is an incredibly engaging young star but one hopes her career leads her somewhere more unconventional next. The Map That Leads to You is available on Amazon Prime Video on 20 August
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Map That Leads to You review – sugary Amazon romance works best as travelogue
A book-loving American woman in her 20s decides to spend time in Europe before she settles into the safety of a finance job in New York City, but she ends up falling for a man who is harbouring a tragic secret about his future. She's played by an in-house Netflix star, he's played by a non-American actor known for his role in a hit TV show. The film is based on a novel and is premiering on a streaming platform this month. While this might not be dramatically similar enough to become a Dante's Peak/Volcano situation, it's hard not to watch Amazon's The Map That Leads to You, out this week, and frequently think about Netflix's loosely similar My Oxford Year, released at the start of August. What immediately separates the two, and often separates Netflix and Amazon movies in general, is the aesthetic. My Oxford Year is every bit a TV movie while The Map That Leads to You is as glossy and sweeping as one deserving of a big screen release. That's both the Jeff Bezos budget bump but also the benefit of having a director like Lasse Hallström at the helm. The Oscar-nominated Swedish film-maker was once Hollywood's master of the middlebrow movie, behind Sunday afternoon specials like Chocolat and The Cider House Rules. But it's his later Nicholas Sparks adaptations Dear John and Safe Haven that made him the ideal choice here, smoothly guiding an adaptation of JP Monninger's sappy 2017 novel The Map That Leads to You (the book is even adorned by a Sparks quote). Trusty hands help in making the film feel grander especially when the emotion of the story, adapted by Dante's Peak's Les Bohem and Don't Make Me Go's Vera Herbert, can't quite get us there. We meet Heather (Madelyn Cline) and her two friends as they near the final stretch of their Eurotrip, perfectly bullet pointed to the final detail. Heather is a type A over-thinker, whose Notes app schedule for her post-graduation and pre-first job in the city hurrah did not include having a meet-cute with Jack (Riverdale's KJ Apa), a handsome New Zealander and fellow Ernest Hemingway fan. He's everything she isn't – impulsive and unplanned – and she finds herself changing her plan, and herself, as the pair start to fall in love. Apa is a likable enough actor but he struggles to sell a lot of Jack's manic pixie dream boy shtick, blandly insisting on the power of living in the moment and saying things like: 'I really believe that your thoughts help create your future,' with a straight face. The film's reheated messaging about the importance of following heart over head is ultimately a sneaky way to push the female lead off her course and on to his, as she relinquishes control to let him lead the way. Their jaunt around Europe, now on his terms, is a simple, seductive watch less for their burgeoning relationship, although they have decently sparky chemistry, and more for the crisply captured scenery, a lush and transporting late summer trip for us stuck at home, from Spain to Portugal to Italy and so on. Hallström knows exactly how to make his films look and feel delectable and at a time of ongoing streamer tinniness, it's a pleasure to be led by someone who truly knows where he's going. It's just a shame that we're being led somewhere so familiar. Not just because My Oxford Year recently took us there too (the 'reveal' is almost identical) but because so many romantic dramas have taken us there before. Both films try to avoid the standard cliches that come with the territory but neither manages anything truly new or, more importantly, poignant enough to bring the tears that should be cascading by the finale. Cline, as she recently showed in the I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel, is an incredibly engaging young star but one hopes her career leads her somewhere more unconventional next. The Map That Leads to You is available on Amazon Prime Video on 20 August
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Pierce Brosnan: I would play Bond again in a heartbeat
Pierce Brosnan has said he would reprise the role of James Bond as part of Amazon's reboot of the British spy franchise. The Irish-American actor played 007 in four Bond films in the 1990s and early 2000s including GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough. Now 72, Brosnan admitted that the world might not be ready for a senior citizen 007, but that he would seize the opportunity if Denis Villeneuve, the new Bond director, came knocking. He told Radio Times: 'I don't think anyone wants to see a craggy, 72-year-old Bond but if Villenevue had something up his sleeve I would look at it in a heartbeat. 'It could be lots of laughs. Bald caps, prosthetics… who knows?' Brosnan was 51 when he appeared in his last Bond film – 2002's Die Another Day – before he moved he went on to star in other Hollywood films including The Thomas Crown Affair, Dante's Peak and Mamma Mia! Roger Moore was considered by some to be too old to play the spy during his run of seven Bond films. The British actor was 57 when he made his final Bond film, View To A Kill, in 1985. Sean Connery, who many Bond aficionados believe was the best 007, was in his 30s when he starred in the role in the 1960s and 1970s. Even when Connery reprised the 007 role for the non-official Bond film, Never Say Never Again, in 1983, he was still a sprightly 53. Brosnan, who will star in the new Thursday Murder Club film, said he had been keeping a close eye on who the next Bond will be after Daniel Craig bowed out in 2021 after five films. 'My wife Keely [Shaye Smith] and I have been listening to the drumbeat of expectation of who's going to be the next James Bond,' he told Radio Times. 'There are many great candidates out there, and I'm sure they're going to make it a spectacle of delight.' Bond must be a man Brosnan recently reaffirmed his view that Britain's most famous fictional spy had to be played by a man after an 2019 interview resurfaced in which the actor claimed it was time 'to put a woman up there'. At the time, he also said a female Bond would be 'exciting' and 'exhilarating'. But Brosnan is now back behind a male Bond. He said: 'I'm so excited to see the next man come on the stage and to see a whole new exuberance and life for this character,' he told Saga Magazine. 'I adore the world of James Bond. It's been very good to me. It's the gift that keeps giving. 'And I'm just a member of the audience now, sitting back saying: 'Show us what you're going to do'. Brosnan also wished Amazon MGM Studios – which paid $1 billion for the rights for creative control of the 007 franchise – all the best for the new films. Amid concerns about what Amazon is going to do to one of the world's most famous franchises, Dame Helen Mirren also urged Amazon not to mess with the formula amid concerns about Amazon's takeover of the franchise. 'I'm such a feminist, but James Bond has to be a guy. You can't have a woman. It just doesn't work,' she told Saga Magazine. 'James Bond has to be James Bond, otherwise it becomes something else.' Aaron Taylor-Johnson, known for 28 Years Later and Bullet Train, is among the favourites to succeed Craig. Though Idris Elba, 52, ruled himself out of contention saying he felt he was 'too old' for Bond, his name is still being touted as a possible replacement. Theo James (White Lotus), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses) and Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts) have also all been linked to the role.
