
Arnold Schwarzenegger feels the strain of playing an action hero at 75
They don't make movie stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger anymore. So it makes a twisted kind of sense that he's the star attraction in Fubar (Netflix), the kind of dumb and dumber kick-ass action comedy drama that went out of style with The A-Team.
Still, what goes around comes around and maybe the time is right for flag-waving fist-pumping adventures where subtlety takes a distant second place to smart wisecracks and blizzards of bullets. If only Fubar (an acronym, with military roots, for F--ked Up Beyond All Recognition, in case you were wondering) was better at what it's trying to be.
Arnie's mighty shoulders do their best to carry an eight-episode slog, swamping what might have made a half-decent two-hour action movie, but at 75 even he is feeling the strain of playing a convincing action hero. So you get long Arnie-less stretches filled with a carnival of back-up characters who do their best to patch together what feels like five TV shows all going on everywhere, all at once.
This is the second run for Fubar and when we left Arnie and co last time out, they were setting off on the run, dastardly baddies on their tail. When we pick up the story, they've been holed up in a safe house for months, nerves in tatters, and duly primed for a fresh bash at saving the world from imminent destruction.
Enter Carrie-Anne Moss, sporting a wobbly accent and a killer bob, as ex-East German spy Greta, an old adversary and on-off squeeze of Arnie's undercover CIA operative Luke Brenner. When these two are renewing rivalries, grinding out a tango (Arnie with a rose in his mouth!) and playing out a cat and mouse game of Grumpy Old Spies, Fubar hints at the show it could be.
With bittersweet nods at the unkind passing of time, Luke and Greta reminisce about the good old espionage days, exchanging wry reflections on how getting old sucks. 'Yes,' she says. 'Sometimes I walk into a room now and I forget… who I came to kill.' If Fubar had the guts to lean into that kind of world-weary comedy, it would have made for a much more entertaining animal.
But, even though it's strewn with shoot-outs galore, gory deaths which stray into Midsomer Murders territory – watch out for the meat slicer – and frequent dives into the most basic of toilet humour, Fubar somehow comes off as slightly dull. Which is some going for an overstuffed plot which includes a comedy pig, the threat of nuclear armageddon and an extraordinarily high body count.
That's largely down to the total lack of jeopardy: you can guess from the outset that each of the good guys survives and a happy ending for everyone is all but guaranteed.
Rising above this saccharin formula, former Hollyoaks favourite Guy Burnet chews the scenery as the type of typically morally ambiguous Brit US shows love, switching sides at the drop of his Union Jack boxers. Burnet steals the show as Theodore Cripps, a Bond goodie/baddie in the making. He keeps you guessing in a series which otherwise runs on all too familiar tracks – Arnie included.
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The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘People didn't like women in space': how Sally Ride made history and paid the price
A week before Sally – a documentary about the first American woman to fly into space – landed at the Sundance film festival in January, Nasa employees received emails informing them how Donald Trump's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rollbacks would take effect. Contracts and offices associated with DEI programs were to be terminated. Staff were given Orwellian instruction to inform the government of any attempt to disguise inclusion efforts in 'coded or imprecise language'. In the weeks to follow, Nasa would take back its promise to send the first woman and person of color to the moon's surface. Meanwhile, employees are reported to be hiding their rainbow flags and any other expressions of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, allegedly because they were instructed to do so though Nasa denies those claims. 'The pride flag flew in space a couple years ago,' says Cristina Costantini, the director of Sally, on a Zoom call with the Guardian. 'Now all Nasa employees are being asked to take down any representations of pride.' Costantini calls the developments sad, especially because such harmful silencing contributes to the very atmosphere that made her film's subject hide her own queer identity throughout her celebrated career. Sally Ride, who made history when she rode the space shuttle Challenger into the stars on 18 June 1983, was a lesbian. The public, and so many who knew Ride personally, only found out that part of her legacy after she died of cancer in 2012. Ride's obituary identified Tam O'Shaughnessy as her partner of 27 years. O'Shaughnessy is a key voice in Sally, a National Geographic documentary revisiting everything we thought we knew about Ride – from her astronomic accomplishments to the infuriating sexism she confronted at Nasa and in the media, with reporters questioning how she would dress, whether space travel would affect her ovaries and if she would buckle and cry in the face of daunting challenges. But now there's the extra dimension, the part of Ride kept tragically buried because of the institutionalized homophobia we see resurfacing today. 'We made this movie not thinking it was particularly controversial,' says Costantini. 'We had no idea it would be this relevant.' Costantini is speaking from her Los Angeles office in Atwater Village, a photo of a space shuttle and another of Ride on the Challenger mission hovering just behind her. The investigative reporter turned film-maker – who grew up wanting to be a scientist and made her feature debut co-directing the Sundance audience award winner Science Fair – describes Ride as a major influence on her life. She remembers researching the astronaut as a young child on an old Encarta Encyclopedia CD-Rom for a book report. In grade three, Costantini contributed to a class mural where the students in her Milwaukee school painted their heroes on a wall. Ride is drawn standing alongside Brett Favre and Michael Jordan – a small sampling of the heroes that fed childhood aspirations in the mid-90s, says Costantini. With Sally, Costantini is returning to her icon's story with a canvas bigger than either a book report or mural, but an even more challenging story to tell. 'The film is really two stories interwoven,' says Costantini. 'It's the public and the private Sally. The public Sally is so well-documented that it's a problem. We had to bring in 5,000 reels from the Nasa archive and sort through and sound sync all of them. That was a monumental task. 'And then the other task is the private story, maybe the more interesting story, which has no documentation at all. There are only five really good pictures of [Sally and her partner, Tam] together that we had. You can't build a love story out of showing people the same five pictures over and over again. For that we had to kind of invent our own cinematic romantic language.' Costantini's doc pairs narrations from O'Shaughnessy and others who were close to Ride with animation and 16mm visuals. They express the love, the excitement of first relationships, the heavy toll from keeping these feelings secret and the sting when Ride – whose noted emotional reserve is making more and more sense – would behave inexplicably. 'Sally is a very confusing central subject in some ways,' says Costantini, remarking on how Ride didn't always make for a picture-perfect feminist hero, the uneasiness going a long way to make her even more compelling. The director refers to a story recounted by fellow astronaut Kathryn Sullivan. During the race to become the first American woman to go to space, Ride sabotaged a Nasa exercise Sullivan was working on. Talking heads mull whether that was an example of Ride's prankster sense of humour, or a cutthroat competitive nature that flew in the face of female solidarity and sisterhood. 'She didn't leave tell all diaries or an audio journal of how she was feeling in every single moment. So we're left to interpret later on what her choices were, and why she did what she did.' Costantini also points to Ride's five-year marriage to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley. The union in retrospect can be seen as a betrayal of who she was, and the LGTBQ+ movement that she never publicly aligned with. But it was also a necessary and sacrificial career move to make her dream possible, deflecting any suspicions about sexual orientation while making Ride a more ideal candidate to make history and inspire young women. 'People didn't like women in space,' says Costantini. 'And they especially didn't like single women in space. Some of the male astronauts were, like: 'Well, it was a good look for her not to be single and in space.'' When Ride does climb above the atmosphere on her historic mission, there's a cathartic moment where the tense conflicts within her – or put upon her – are either resolved or abandoned, if only temporarily. 'I loved being weightless,' says Ride, while in space, her recorded words packing new mean considering all the burdens we now understand. 'It's a feeling of freedom.' 'She escaped Earth's orbit – Earth's gravity – metaphorically too,' says Costantini, on that pivotal moment in American history and Ride's personal life. 'Looking at the Earth from space, she started to, for the first time, really think about the imaginary lines that we have. She was struck by the fact that all these countries have known borders around them. These are human constructions. As Tam says in the film, the lines between genders, the lines between race, the lines between countries, who we're allowed to love, those are meaningless constructs. 'Space was transformative for her. When she came back to Earth, she finally allowed herself to be who she really is, and love who she really loved.' Sally premieres on National Geographic on 16 June and is available on Hulu and Disney+ on 17 June


Times
20 minutes ago
- Times
Waves of police, YouTubers and little fanfare as Club World Cup begins
It's Saturday afternoon in Miami and as usual traffic is crawling up the northbound side of Highway 95. Even in the 'Express Lane', where locals pay a small fee to supposedly dodge traffic, there is gridlock. As they sat in their air-conditioned cars those locals noticed the huge billboard advertising the opening game of Fifa's new $1billion Club World Cup tournament between Inter Miami and Al Ahly, which would take place later that evening at the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL side Miami Dolphins. Alongside a picture of the glowing gold trophy that 32 teams from six continents are fighting for was an image of Lionel Messi in a Miami shirt and the words: 'It's Showtime.' The billboard flickered to the next advert, from the Mexican beer Modelo.


Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Meghan and Harry's new approach is 'fresh nightmare for royals'
Following the Sussexes' viral Baby Momma dance video, a PR expert explains why the rumours of a royal reality show could be bad news for their extended royal family The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could be set to film their own fly-on-the-wall documentary series which, given their history of spilling the beans, could spell trouble for the royal family. After Meghan released her now-viral twerking video, experts say there's more signs than ever that the couple are 'breaking the mould' of royal life and are ready to take steps into the lucrative world of reality television. 'It looks very much like they would love to do a reality show,' says PR guru Dermot McNamara. 'She's sharing far more of her personal, fun life with Harry and the children, and focusing on the fun and light-hearted side of themselves. Meghan is as popular as she is polarising and that makes TV gold because everyone has an opinion on her. In this throwaway, digital society we want big pop culture moments – and Meghan and Harry deliver those, so the channels will be very keen to sign them up.' READ MORE: Marks & Spencer's 'lightweight' basket bag is perfect for holidays and 'looks so expensive' While Meghan is set to release the second season of her very polished With Love, Meghan series later this year, a reality show would be the first of its kind for the California-based couple. But given their history of dropping bombshells when the cameras start rolling, a source tells us that a Kardashian-esque programme could spell bad news for the UK royals. 'We can see that Meghan and Harry don't feel they have to stay silent any more, it's clear in the interviews they've done, and the other shows,' our source claims. 'So if they go on to film more, and especially if they discuss their relationship with William and Kate, for example, it would probably be a nightmare for the rest of the family.' Meghan's twerking video, which lasts just under 90 seconds, shows a heavily pregnant Meghan, 43, and Prince Harry, 40, dancing to the Starrkeisha song The Baby Momma in an attempt to kick off her labour with Lilibet, now four. At the time of going to press the twerking reel had amassed over 46 million views, making it Meghan's most-watched video on her account by a long way. Only her launch video for As Ever, which was posted back in February, comes anywhere close with 27.8m views so far. The clip inevitably created a storm online, with some followers calling it 'cringe'. One person accused the couple of 'ruining the reputation and respect of the royal family, one Instagram post at a time'. Following the backlash, a national newspaper quoted a source saying that Meghan 'doesn't care about the haters in Britain' and that the clip had gone down a storm and was seen as 'relatable' in the US. The BBC 's former royal correspondent Jennie Bond, however, told the Mirror it was 'utterly bizarre' of Meghan to release the clip, and that King Charles would have been 'horrified' if he'd watched it. Dermot agrees that as working royals, Kate and William have certain standards to uphold and an 'image to portray and maintain', which would likely be at odds with a reality-style show. 'Reality shows and Netflix documentaries are embarrassing for the royals because they can't and haven't ever done them. Yes we see them being more outgoing, talking about mental health and things, but Meghan's labour video, with her twerking and Harry 'dad dancing', goes beyond that.' The fact that TV producers would no doubt welcome the couple discussing their fall-outs on camera complicates things further, he says, adding, 'It often happens that one side is seen to be fighting more than the other, and no one really comes out of it looking great.' When they stepped back as working royals and moved to the US in 2020, it was widely presumed that this was driven by the couple's desire for privacy. However, when their first joint Netflix series was released two years later and they were accused of hypocrisy, they hit back via an official statement from their global press secretary. This read, 'The Duke and Duchess have never cited privacy as the reason for stepping back. This distorted narrative was intended to trap the couple into silence.' According to Dermot, With Love, Meghan made it clear that there's an appetite for the couple sharing their personal life – and that appetite is growing. 'Meghan is very happy with parts of her public life being out there and she knows there's great interest in her life. She's learned that this is what people are interested in, this is what she can commercialise.'