Sydney Sweeney stars as ‘heroin addict' in new drama Echo Valley opposite Julianne Moore
Fresh from her head-turning red carpet appearances, Sydney Sweeney takes centre stage as a heroin addict as she stars opposite Julianne Moore in a harrowing new drama.
ECHO VALLEY
***1/2
Streaming on Apple TV+ from Friday.
This harrowing drama about the enduring bond between a mother and daughter is a tough, tough watch from start to finish.
The great Julianne Moore plays Kate, a divorced mother eking out a solitary existence as the proprietor of a failing farm.
The occasional visit from her only child Claire (Sydney Sweeney) is invariably more a cause for concern than celebration. Claire is a heroin addict that has been bouncing between states of recovery and relapse for a number of years.
The constant mistrust passing between the pair multiplies when Claire becomes a target for retribution from a drug dealer to which she is indebted.
Jackie (a convincingly unhinged Domhnall Gleeson) is not the kind of guy you want taking an interest in your whereabouts. Claire's junkie boyfriend is already dead, and the odds are she will be next. Unless Kate can do something.
Something that might not come easily to a caring, cautiously supportive mother of a drug addict. If the whole ordeal stops short of overwhelming the viewer – and there will be some for whom it is all too much – then it is all down to the intense commitment displayed by the two leads.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (PG)
Director: Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch)
Starring: Mason Thames, Gerard Butler, Nico Parker, Nick Frost.
Rating: ***1/2
Making a soar point in fine style
Released between 2010 and 2019, the original trio of How to Train Your Dragon movies form one of the most popular animated franchises of the 21st century.
With worldwide box-office grosses of just under three billion dollars and consistently strong viewing figures on streaming platforms, it was inevitable that producers would return to the well once more.
Taking a leaf out of the contemporary Disney playbook, the move made here has been to journey back to where it all began. Only this time, the origin story first drawn from the best-selling book by Cressida Cowell is told in a live-action setting.
With a similar reimagining of Lilo & Stitch already one of the runaway successes of the year, a real-world re-tooling of How to Train Your Dragon could not have been timed any better.
The good news , however, is that the whole exercise could not have been executed any better.
While steadfastly resisting any temptation to stray from its very familiar roots as a fantasy adventure, the new How to Train Your Dragon is just as engrossing, exciting and entertaining as its animated predecessor.
Young newcomer Mason Thames makes a great match for the lead role of Hiccup, the teenage Viking misfit who finds his true calling by taming and educating the most enigmatic of all dragon species.
A Night Fury dragon such as Hiccup's trusty charge Toothless is regarded as a deadly threat to all Viking hordes, who live in perpetual fear of fiery attacks from above.
The most vocal of the anti-dragon cohort is Hiccup's father Stoick (Gerard Butler), which means his son's unprecedented achievements in befriending a Night Fury must be conducted in strict secrecy.
There is no real need to delve into the finer plot points, as the pleasing simplicity of this admirable underdog yarn remains wholly intact.
All that really matters about the new How to Train Your Dragon – especially to those who truly loved the original movies – is how convincing the all-important aerial sequences turn out to be.
There is no cause for worry on this crucial front. From the moment Hiccup and Toothless take off on their maiden flight, a genuine sense of exhilaration keeps kicking in whenever the movie hits the skies.
Overall, a quality family-friendly offering which signals it can only be onwards and upwards for further instalments.
How to Train Your Dragon is now showing in general release.
TITAN: THE OCEANGATE DISASTER (M)
****
Now streaming on Netflix.
In the wake of the Titan submersible tragedy in 2023, there has been a wide array of hot-button, clickbait-ish takes on the sorry subject.
This fascinating new documentary from an impeccably credentialled filmmaking team marks the first exploration of the debacle that is worthy of proper consideration.
For those arriving late to the story, the Titan was a small, dome-shaped sub constructed along radically experimental lines for a deep-sea vessel.
The most controversial aspect of the Titan design was a shell made from carbon fibre, a substance which flexed (and sometimes partially cracked) in ways that high-grade metals such as titanium did not. The decision to stay the distance with carbon fibre – even when early testing indicated it was suspect beyond depths of 1,000 metres – rested with maverick inventor and aspiring entrepreneur Stockton Rush.
He went on to be on the five people that perished during an ill-fated, impromptu mission for the Titan in the North Atlantic.
Just as the doco shows proper respect for those who perished, it also gives voice to those who pushed back against Rush's fatal folly (and were attacked mercilessly by this mercurial man for doing so).
Best of all, the doco is able to back up its sobering findings with on-the-spot footage (including earlier fraught journeys aboard the Titan) that often beggars all belief.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Sex workers expose ugly truth of living at notorious Moonlite Bunny Ranch
Two decades after the headline-hitting HBO docuseries brought prostitution into America's living rooms, sex workers who appeared on the show are accusing its producers of exploitation and misrepresentation. Cathouse, which began airing in June 2005, took a lighthearted look at the lives of employees at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Mound House, Nevada. An instant ratings smash, it ran for two seasons and spawned 10 specials. The prurient program portrayed the world's oldest profession as empowering and depicted the brothel as a makeshift sorority house where glamorous gal pals bonded by profiting off of horny, harmless, men. But the reality, exposed in the six-part special Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, premiering June 12 on A&E, was far more sinister. The documentary paints a picture of desperate women humiliated, intimidated and manipulated by the brothel's notorious owner, Dennis Hof, who was later accused of rape by a former employee. Several women who worked at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch claim Cathouse tacitly encouraged young female viewers to pursue a career in prostitution, buoyed by the show's fun and fizzy tone. 'It enticed these young girls and we did get a lot of them,' Cathouse star Shelly Dushell told The Post. 'As soon as they turned 18, [they] were trying to work there… I mean, the show really was good for recruiting.' 'I would say to HBO and Cathouse [producers] shame on you,' former Bunny Ranch employee Bekah Charleston declared in an interview with The Post. 'Shame on you for making something look glamorous and fun when that's not the reality. It wasn't glamorous and fun. It is disgusting and horrific work in the middle of nowhere.' HBO did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A powerful pimp Hof had a starring role on Cathouse. In the mid-2000s, at the time of the show's airing, he was portrayed in mainstream media as a pioneering entrepreneur getting rich in light of legalised prostitution. But far from being a benevolent boss, the Bunny Ranch was more like Hof's house of horrors, with employees saying they lived in fear of him. Dushell told The Post that Hof, who owned six other legal brothels, regularly pressured her into sex. 'Dennis wanted to sleep with me the first night that I got there,' she claimed. 'I didn't say no to him, so I wasn't raped, but I was put in a position where I felt like I could not say no to him…. So I just went along with it and I thought, 'OK, well, maybe he makes all the girls do this,' and I was right.' 'For the most part, he tried out most of the girls that would let him,' she added. 'And then he apparently he did it even when girls didn't want him to.' Per The Las Vegas Review Journal, Hof was accused of raping a prostitute at one of his brothels in 2005. He was also accused of sexually assaulting women in 2009 and 2011. Hof ran as a Republican candidate for the Nevada Assembly in 2018. He died of a heart attack in October of that year, but his name was left on the ballot at elections the following month. He was posthumously elected to the seat. 'If Dennis had lived, he probably would have ended up in prison because of all the accusations he had against him,' Dushell said of the pimp-turned-politician. Meanwhile, on Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, several employees claim that Hof financially exploited them. He allegedly underpaid numerous workers, stripping them of their agency and effectively keeping them confined to the remote brothel. Charleston, who worked briefly at the Bunny Ranch in the early 2000s, told The Post that some of the employees were trapped there 'for years at a time without leaving.' 'I was the only person at that time that I remember who actually had my own vehicle there,' she shockingly stated. As for Hof: 'He was just was a disgusting, vile human being that just profited off of other people's backs and bragged about it.' Moonlite Bunny Ranch has released a statement regarding the new A&E special, stating: 'As the documentary series Secrets of the Bunny Ranch has not yet aired, and we have not been provided with an advance copy, it would be premature for us to address any specific allegations without first reviewing the actual content and claims being made. That said, we note that allegations against Mr. Hof are not new.' 'During his lifetime, Mr. Hof publicly addressed and denied similar accusations through official statements and media responses, including detailed rebuttals available on his website,' the statement continued. 'We find it particularly concerning that these matters are being revisited now, when Mr. Hof is no longer alive to personally respond to or defend himself against any claims. The timing raises serious questions about fairness, as the accused party cannot provide their perspective or defence.' Empowerment or exploitation? Hof wasn't the only one making a pretty penny from the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Cathouse quickly became a ratings smash for HBO, garnering millions of curious viewers. Dushell became one of the show's stars and was immediately recognized in public, but fame didn't come with a fortune. 'HBO wasn't much better than a pimp, because I was barely paid anything,' she claims in the Secrets of the Bunny Ranch documentary. 'I made between $300 and $350 per sex scene,' Dushell further explained to The Post. 'And that was all they paid me for.' 'I got actual pay stubs from HBO and W-2s mailed to me, and it was exciting to get an envelope that said 'HBO' on it with a paycheck, but the paycheck was just a few hundred dollars, so it was pretty embarrassing to be honest with you,' she said. 'They didn't pay me for just normal scenes, and it was just a ridiculously low amount of money. People seeing me on TV thought that I had gotten rich,' Dushell added. A different time Cathouse premiered a year after HBO aired the finale of Sex and the City — another envelope-pushing series in which women unabashedly discussed their sexual proclivities and activities. In the mid-2000s, pop culture seemingly promoted sex positivity at every turn, making it seem that women were profiting from their provocative pursuits, from Britney Spears in her raunchy video clips to Paris Hilton in her infamous sex tape. But in the wake of the #MeToo movement, many women are reassessing how much agency that era actually brought about. For posterity, the New York Post's 2002 review of the original Cathouse, which is referenced in Secrets of the Bunny Ranch, has aged far better. 'There hasn't been a portrayal of hookers this one-dimensional and phony since Pretty Woman,' our acid-tongued TV critic Linda Stasi savagely wrote. Cathouse is no longer available on HBO platforms. 'Even when we were filming it, I knew it wasn't a true representation,' Dushell admitted to The Post, saying the HBO show omitted the gritty reality of life at the brothel. 'They wanted to sell the show, they wanted to make money off the show, and they wanted to make money off the girls having a great time. They just didn't want to show the ugly side of it,' she further says in Secrets of the Bunny Ranch. Despite the veneer of glamour and empowerment that Cathouse presented, many of the employees were desperate women who had fallen on hard times. In the Secrets of the Bunny Ranch special, Dushell reveals that she was sexually abused as a child, saying: 'I probably would never have thought about working at the Bunny Ranch if I hadn't had an old man touching me when I was a little, bitty kid.' Charleston, meanwhile, told The Post that she was a teenage runaway when she got into prostitution. 'The vast majority of people that find themselves in prostitution are disenfranchised people that come from impoverished backgrounds, homelessness, the foster care system,' she said. 'I mean, I was a runaway kid living on the streets, vulnerable and hungry and so I think it's really important to keep that in mind.' Several years after leaving the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Charleston was arrested for tax evasion and served 13 months in federal prison. It was later determined she had been a victim of sex trafficking and was granted a full pardon by President Trump in 2020. She has obtained both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and is now a public speaker raising awareness about human trafficking. Both she and Dushell also want to raise awareness about not believing everything you see on TV. ' Cathouse did exploit the girls,' Dushell said. 'I really expected more from HBO. They came across with a great show, though. I mean, people loved it. It just wasn't real.'
News.com.au
4 hours ago
- News.com.au
Naomi Watts' daughter reveals struggles with her identity
Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber's trans daughter, Kai, always had a vision for her future. 'I want to be a supermodel. Period,' Kai, 16, said in a Q&A with Interview Magazine published Wednesday when asked to share her dream career. 'I've been practising my walks in the kitchen for years; my mum can show you all the videos I forced her to film,' she continued. 'Struggling with gender identity from a young age most likely had something to do with it.' The teenager added, 'I always wanted to grow up and be a beautiful, glamorous, influential woman, like Marilyn.' Kai also told Interview that she looks up to 'the older generation of transgender people.' 'People like Alex Consani, Hunter Schafer, Hari Nef, Dara, Richie Shazam, Colin Jones, and so many more,' she said, listing her fashion role models. 'It's so great that there's a strong community of us in the fashion world; it's really a doll takeover.' Kai, who is the second child of Watts and Schreiber, made her runway debut for Valentino at Paris Fashion Week in March. The following month, the model appeared in the fashion brand's chic pre-fall campaign — with her mum celebrating the achievement on social media. 'Congratulations @kaischreiberrr — so exciting!! ï¸�,' the King Kong actress, 56, gushed on Instagram, adding, 'Beaming with pride.' Last month, Schreiber discussed Kai's transgender identity publicly for the first time in an interview with Variety. 'Kai was always who Kai is,' the Perfect Couple actor, 57, told the outlet. 'But I suppose the most profound moment was her asking us to change her pronouns,' he explained. 'To be honest with you, it didn't feel like that big of a deal to me only because Kai had been so feminine for so long.' He described his fashionable daughter as being 'as feisty and outspoken as they come.' 'Kai is such a fighter,' he added. 'It's important that she goes, 'Hey, I am trans,' and, 'Look at me.'' Schreiber and Watts began their relationship in 2005 — welcoming son Sasha in 2007 followed by Kai in 2008. The former couple split in 2016 after 11 years together, but they've continued to amicably co-parent their children. The blended family came together for Sasha's graduation last week, with Watts' husband, Billy Crudup, and Schreiber's wife, Taylor Neisen, in attendance. This story originally appeared on Page Six
News.com.au
6 hours ago
- News.com.au
The Beach Boys pay tribute to Brian Wilson
After Wilson's family announced on Wednesday that he had died at the age of 82, The Beach Boys shared a sweet tribute to the musician. "The world mourns a genius today, and we grieve for the loss of our cousin, our friend, and our partner in a great musical adventure," the band began the caption, sharing a vintage photo of Wilson alongside it. "Brian Wilson wasn't just the heart of The Beach Boys-he was the soul of our sound. Together, we gave the world the American dream of optimism, joy, and a sense of freedom-music that made people feel good, made them believe in summer and endless possibilities."
