Six great reads: tradwives v radwives, hollowed-out London and the last musical genius?
Scores of Christian men in the United States have been raised on ideas of abstinence and 'purity' – what, asked Jessica Bateman, does that mean for their sex lives later on?
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The Prince Charles Cinema is beloved by film-lovers and counts the like of Christopher Nolan as a fan. But its future is at risk due to a David v Goliath battle with its billionaire owner. Writes Will Coldwell: 'To many, what was happening to the Prince Charles Cinema was about something bigger than a negotiation over rent. It was about the persistent threat of closure that so many cultural and community spaces in London face, the impact of rampant commercialism on the city's cultural diversity, and the seemingly unchecked power that developers wield.'
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In pop, which equates genius with innovation, recent artists have not pioneered new forms like those from the 60s. Has, asks Rachel Areosti, the digital age sidelined invention and promoted the derivative for ever?
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'Height is often seen as a dealbreaker when it comes to romance, particularly within heterosexual relationships. But when Tinder recently said that it was trialling a feature that allows some premium users to filter potential matches by height, it quickly proved controversial. 'Oh God. They added a height filter,' lamented one Reddit thread, while an X user claimed: 'It's over for short men.''
What is behind the '6ft fixation' in dating – and could it be scuppering the chance of true connection? Leah Harper set out to find out.
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Slick Rick, writes Alexis Petridis, 'remains the rapper's rapper, the most-sampled hip-hop artist in history'. In this brilliant interview the British-born artists explains why it's been more than quarter of a century since his last album and why he was inspired by the production techniques of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
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'For the uninitiated: the tradwife is a married woman, usually conservative and/or Christian, usually white (though not always), of the belief that her place is in the home. She is feminine, usually kempt, often dressed like Betty Draper, but increasingly workout gear in neutral tones too. Though at home, she is not a stay-at-home mother, rather someone who performs as if she is, documenting her life in dizzying, up-close fashion for us to wonder: who's doing the potty training?'
Morwenna Ferrier isn't, she writes, the first wrung-out mother to take umbrage with this sort of performance. But, as the cost of living crisis squeezes, the fantasy of escaping into being a wife and mother becomes more vivid and, for realistic mothers whose life is a delicate balance between task and failure, app-reliance and guilt, maybe we should lean in to the term 'radwife'.
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Telegraph
13 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Gal Gadot blames anti-Israel sentiment for Snow White's £84m loss
Gal Gadot has partly blamed anti-Israel sentiment for the £84m flop of Disney's remake of Snow White. The film, released in March this year, was a live-action remake of the original 1937 feature-length cartoon made by Walt Disney. It was marred by controversy after Rachel Zegler, the film's lead actor, said on social media she has been 'public with a pro-Palestine stance since 2021'. Israeli Gadot, 40, who was cast as the evil stepmother, has now broken her silence about why she thought the film failed. Speaking to Israeli TV station Keshet 12's The A Talks programme, she said: 'I was sure this movie was going to be a huge hit. 'And then October 7 happened. What's happening in all kinds of industries, and also in Hollywood, is that there's a lot of pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel.' Zegler, 23, was criticised after she shared the trailer for the studio's live-action remake online last summer, with the comment: 'And always remember, free Palestine.' The New York Times said Mark Platt, the film's lead producer, flew to Los Angeles to have a 'heart-to-heart' with Zegler after her post caused a 'severe rift' with Gadot, it was reported at the time. While Gadot stayed silent on the issue at the time, she has now said: 'I can always explain and try to give context about what's happening here, and I always do that. But in the end, people make their own decisions. And I was disappointed the movie was so affected and it didn't succeed at the box office. But that's how it goes.' Posting on her Instagram account on Sunday, Gadot added: 'Of course, the film didn't fail solely because of external pressures. There are many factors that determine why a film succeeds or fails and success is never guaranteed.' Among the films controversies was a flip-flop decisions about casting actual dwarves or CGI representations. Bringing in Zegler as Snow White was also criticised because she is not white, despite the original German fairytale describing the character's 'skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony'. Disney scaled back a lavish Hollywood premiere and cancelled planned interviews with the media following the fallout. Talking about her role, Zegler also suggested her character was a feminist, prompting commentators to criticise the actress for trying to make the beloved fairytale into a 'woke' retelling. Zegler also suggested the feature film was based on a different version of the 1812 Brothers Grimm fairytale. She said David Hand's 1937 original animated film was 'extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power' and admitted she has only seen it once. 'The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so,' she told Extra TV in 2022. 'There's a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. So we didn't do that this time.'
Daily Mail
13 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
She played a stunning spy who trekked through the war-torn jungle with the biggest action hero of the '80s... can you guess who?
She's the dark-haired, Singapore-born beauty who broke barriers in the '80s, landing a breakout role opposite the decade's biggest action star. This actress made her film debut as a savvy intelligence agent in a brutal jungle war and was the one behind the male lead's now-iconic red headband in the second chapter of a legendary five-part action saga. As a glamorous model-turned-actress, she stole hearts opposite Hollywood heavyweights throughout the '80s and '90s. In 1987, she became the third wife of a wildly successful actor-singer, but their union would become strained over his struggles with alcohol until they split in 1993. After decades on screen, this striking star announced she would be stepping away from Hollywood in March 2025. Can you guess who? This actress made her film debut as a savvy intelligence agent in a brutal jungle war and was the one behind the male lead's now-iconic red headband in the second chapter of a legendary five-part action saga This actress made her film debut as a savvy intelligence agent in a brutal jungle war and was the one behind the male lead's now-iconic red headband in the second chapter of a legendary five-part action saga It's Julia Nickson! Since she retired earlier this year, Nickson has rarely been seen in public until Tuesday, when she stepped out in Los Angeles, 40 years after the release of the wildly successful movie Rambo: First Blood Part II. The 66-year-old Singapore-born actress was captured in exclusive Daily Mail photos running errands close to her home in Los Angeles. Dressed in a sleek, all-black ensemble - including a long-sleeve top, flared leggings, sneakers, and a baseball cap - Nickson was spotted strolling down a bustling Los Angeles street lined with construction crews. Slung over one arm was a red and blue heart-covered tote stamped with the word 'love,' paired with a practical black crossbody bag. When she was 17 years old, the actress left Singapore to attend the University of Hawaiʻi, where she pursued acting, eventually landing a part in Magnum P.I. But it was her acting in Rambo as the unforgettable and courageous Co Bao opposite Sylvester Stallone that kick-started her decades-long career. Playing the Vietnamese intelligence agent who helps break Rambo out of a prison camp, she's credited with the main lead's iconic red headband - a symbol forever linked to the franchise's second of five installments - which was taken from her dress after her character's death. Nickson then achieved critical acclaim playing Princess Aouda, opposite Pierce Brosnan, in the 1989 miniseries Around the World in 80 Days. She would shock fans with her secret equestrian career, snagging trophies as an amateur jockey in Asia. In the late '80s, she married Starsky & Hutch heartthrob David Soul, whom she met on the set of the 1987 TV movie Harry's Hong Kong, a thriller about a private detective caught between a Chinese syndicate and the authorities while investigating a friend's mysterious death. The two had a daughter named China Soul, a talented singer-songwriter. But their marriage would ultimately end in 1993, due partially to Soul's excessive drinking, as he told the South China Morning Post: 'The relationship was strained because I was drinking. Julia and I would fight over that. 'In 1989, she persuaded me to enter a rehabilitation clinic. Julia told me, "You're destroying yourself with your drinking - you've got to do something".' The actress would also get roles in films, including Glitch! (1988), China Cry (1990), K2 (1991), Sidekicks (1992) and White Tiger (1996). But her journey in Hollywood would come to a close in March of this year, when Nickson took to Instagram to announce her retirement. 'I have retired for personal reasons. I grew up in Singapore, where most of our moms didn't have careers. 'Working over 40 years in the US has been an extraordinary journey with many ups and downs. 'Feeling extraordinarily grateful for so many talented actors I have had the opportunity to be with on the screen. Forever grateful.'
Times
43 minutes ago
- Times
‘His beauty was a curse' — Terence Stamp's five best films
Terence Stamp, who died on Sunday, was a gorgeous and gifted acting anomaly. His professional prowess was somehow lived backwards, with his best movies and his strongest roles arriving, belatedly, in his knockout autumnal years, while the glossy burst of stardom that defined his early career was often just that — glossy, admittedly beguiling, yet always hinting at a maturation that had yet to come. His beauty, of course, was the curse. He tended, early on, to be shot by enthusiastic directors in long glacial close-ups, where cameras and audiences alike could swoon before that famous blue pellucid gaze (one that was making waves off screen too as a 'Swinging Sixties' icon, arm in arm with Jean Shrimpton). When he eventually spoke, sometimes haltingly, stiffly, from the back of his throat, still only in his early twenties (was he nervous? Shy?), it seemed as if he was breaking that magic. In Billy Budd, in 1962, his choice of a broad Somerset accent was surprising, but also oddly distracting. He was better, seemingly calmer and more assured, when paired with the great beauties, and so bounced sweetly, joker-style, off Monica Vitti in Modesty Blaise in 1966. And he found his perfect screen partner in Julie Christie in 1967's Far From the Madding Crowd. Their standout scene foregrounds delicate comedic timing when her dress is snagged on his spur and he stares deeply into her eyes and cheekily purrs, 'I'll unfasten you in no time!' • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews When the work famously dried up for Stamp at the end of the 1960s and he retreated from cinema he said, 'It was a mystery to me. I was in my prime.' And yet this wasn't true. His prime began in 1994, at the age of 56, when he donned a wig and a frock to play the trans cabaret performer Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He was utterly commanding in the role, and heartbreaking too, hiding a lifetime of grief beneath lipstick and one-liners. He was still, of course, striking looking, but the wrinkles, the thinning hair and the heavier, harsher delivery allowed him access to instant gravitas, as if he had returned from the professional wilderness with supercharged performance powers. He was remarkable too in The Limey, playing a Cockney criminal in LA, out to avenge his daughter's murder. In that film's endlessly re-watchable and effortlessly iconic moment, after eliminating some enemy heavies, Stamp's antihero emerges bloodied from a warehouse and yells aloud to anyone in the vicinity associated with his mobster nemesis, 'You tell him, you tell him I'm coming. I'm f***ing coming!' It played like a clarion call, or an announcement to anyone who had underestimated a once forgotten Swinging Sixties poster boy. Tell them he's coming! And he did, and was always interesting, always the character that captivated on screen, in everything from Bowfinger to Full Frontal, The Adjustment Bureau, Song for Marion and Big Eyes. A gifted and richly rewarding performer, till the end. This is the one, the role. Stamp had already proven his 'returning' chops on Priscilla, yet here he adds layers and depth, wit and humour. As a criminal from London over to wreak havoc in LA, he is funny and self-deprecating, even in constant deadpan. And he's gentle in places too, and always impeccably cool. But mostly he's scary, and brilliantly so. He somehow, repeatedly, turns the simple introductory statement 'My name is Wilson' into a terrifying threat. This is Stamp at his most expressive, and yet controlled, and with nothing to lose. He's come back, effectively, from the professional doldrums, and plays the role of trans cabaret performer Bernadette in defiant deadpan throughout, even when she's kneeing a local bigot in the crotch and quipping, 'Now you're f***ed!' Stamp played Superman's nemesis, General Zod, as a leather-clad intergalactic aristocrat. And yet the role really works because Stamp's tougher, angrier, east London accent keeps bursting out during key scenes. Such as, 'Come to me, Superman! If you day-are!' This is later-era Stamp at his most assured. He plays the grumpy, maudlin husband of a woman dying from cancer. And yet, midway through the film, he begins to crack open emotionally by singing his pain. Have hankies for the scene where he launches, unaccompanied, into The Most Beautiful Girl. Leave it to Ken Loach to pull the most moving and impactful performance out of Stamp's early career. He plays Dave, the dream boyfriend to luckless single mum heroine Joy (Carol White). He's also, alas, an ex-criminal, and so when the law catches up to him he must remain, in Joy's heart (and in the hearts of cinema-goers everywhere), an unattainable phantasm. Stamp here also does a deeply lovely rendition of the Joan Baez song Colours.
