Netflix reveals details about Lady Gaga on ‘Wednesday,' ‘Squid Game' and ‘Stranger Things' finales
The streaming giant assembled actors including Jenna Ortega, Oscar Isaac, Lee Jung-jae, Drew Starkey, Sofia Carson, Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for its annual Tudum event Saturday in Inglewood, Calif. Musical performances bookended the show, with Hanumankind opening with 'Run It Up' and Gaga closing with a medley and the announcement of her latest acting gig.
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Toronto Sun
a minute ago
- Toronto Sun
A$AP Rocky rap battle on with Denzel Washington: 'This guy's a pro'
Published Aug 13, 2025 • 5 minute read A$AP Rocky, left, and Denzel Washington pose for a portrait to promote "Highest 2 Lowest" on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in New York. Photo by Drew Gurian/Invision / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK — A$AP Rocky had no idea Denzel Washington was going to throw Nas at him. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Midway through Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest , a New York riff on Akira Kurosawa's High to Low , wealthy music executive David King (Washington) has cornered aspiring rapper Yung Felon (Rocky) after he tried to kidnap King's son. They meet in a music studio. A rap battle ensues. While the scene was scripted, much of what Washington freestyled — mixing in lines from Nas, Tupac, DMX and others — startled his professional rapper co-star. 'I'm like: How does this man know who Moneybagg Yo is?' Rocky says, sitting alongside Washington. 'And I'm 70,' Washington says with a grin. Highest 2 Lowest , which A24 releases in theaters Friday, two weeks before it lands on Apple TV+, is a heist thriller that hits hardest when Washington and Rocky are going at it. Washington, o ne of the mightiest of living actors, is, of course, an imposing presence. Even though Rocky might usually have the upper hand in the studio, he's just beginning to prove himself as an actor. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Denzel is such a powerful force. Not a derogatory term, but he's a beast,' Lee said. 'Rocky is from Harlem, uptown. So I knew that he's not going to punk out. He's going to stand there, feet planted to the ground, as a heavyweight fight, blow to blow to blow. If you got somebody who don't got it, Denzel is going to slaughter them. SLAUGHTER.' But in Highest 2 Lowest , Rocky proves that he can go toe-to-toe with a titan like Washington. In the annals of movie face-offs between the veteran and the up-and-comer, the scene is a riveting showdown. Not that Rocky is claiming victory. 'I had to go with the flow with him,' Rocky says. 'You've got to realize this guy's a pro. He's a wordsmith for real. It's not a joke. So when he went, I caught his drift. But I lost a rap battle to this man. And I'm a professional f—— rapper.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. With that Washington roars and slams the table. 'But I'm using other people's material,' he adds. 'And I've been practicing.' 'It doesn't matter,' replies Rocky. 'I lost, man. It's unfortunate that that's my profession in real life.' Washington's rapping skills But as he showed in a recent interview, Washington's envy for his co-star's day job is more than for show. Washington's hip-hop affection runs deep. Asked how he approached the big scene with Rocky, Washington takes out his phone and begins playing Nas' 'N.Y. State of Mind' and raps along: 'I keep some E&J, sittin' bent up in the stairway.' 'All right, would you ever in a million years expect the Denzel Washington to be able to recite classic quotes and lines from hip-hop?' exclaims Rocky. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But Washington was just getting started. He grandly spat a verse of DMX ('Lucky that you breathing, but you dead from the waist down'), a few bars of Outkast ('Yes, we done come along way like them slim-ass cigarettes') and cackled joyfully at a line from Samara Cyn and Smino's 'Brand New Teeth': 'Spent my rent money on these brand-new teeth.' 'For me on the outside looking in, it was like this guy was Method acting,' Rocky says. 'He was just being himself. He should have been a rapper.' Washington shakes his head. 'No, I play one on TV.' Yet Washington has as much facility with Wizkid as he does Shakespeare or August Wilson. Pushed to explain his mentality going into the scene, Washington still demurs. 'I can't, man. I don't have one,' he says. 'I just flow. I can't tell you what I'm going to do, because I don't know. I never know how it's going to go. I don't plan. But I have been practicing for a long time, and nobody knew! I never had the platform.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In Highest 2 Lowest , Lee — in his fifth film with Washington — surveys a changing entertainment industry. Washington's once supreme music executive is losing his grip on what sells — and what sells matters less than how many followers someone has. The movie weaves in some of Lee's other obsessions — the New York Yankees; New York, itself — but it casts the moral questions of Kurosawa's classic against a media landscape where authenticity can be hard to find. Asked if he identified with his character's quandary, Washington pauses to consider the question. 'If I had an ego, I'd say no, because I'm still on top,' says Washington. 'And I'm getting better.' Rocky, though, sees some of himself in Yung Felon. It's a moniker Rocky, himself, suggested replace the scripted name, MC Microphone Checka. Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, shot Highest 2 Lowest in the run-up to his recent trial over a 2021 incident in which Rocky was accused of firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a former friend and collaborator known as A$AP Relli. Rocky was found not guilty in February on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The verdict gave Rocky a new lease on life just as his film career might be taking off. He also co-stars in the upcoming 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,' a hit at Sundance. Meanwhile, he's preparing his long-awaited fourth album, Don't Be Dumb . RECOMMENDED VIDEO Who are 'the new rappers'? For Rocky, the music industry backdrop of Highest 2 Lowest rings true. Music sales, he notes, are way down. Artificial intelligence is taking over. 'They've got to figure out how to regulate it,' Rocky says. 'People in music are already doing it. Not to put nobody on the spot, there are people with No. 1 records and it's not even them. It's not even their voice on the track.' 'This is a smart kid here,' says Washington. But Washington is resistant. 'People trying to sound like me don't sound like me, to me,' he says, doubting artificial intelligence's potential. He peppers Rocky with questions. Rocky, 36, already sounds like an old-timer. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The kids, they don't want to be rappers anymore,' Rocky says. 'They don't want to be ballers. They want to be streamers. It's basically another word for 'YouTuber.' They all want to be YouTubers, I promise you.' Washington: 'How will they make money doing that?' Rocky: 'They make all the money now.' Washington: 'From what? What do they do? Without the talent, without the thing to go see…' Rocky: 'What's the substance? That's what I'm saying is the big question. The performers are obsolete. Nobody's watching. Nobody cares. They'd rather watch an 18-year-old with millions of viewers open up a bag of chips and tell you how good it is. These guys are the new rappers.' But for now, at least in 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Rocky and Washington are still the performers. They're the rappers, even the two-time Oscar winner. Rocky, who grew up watching Washington in 'Malcolm X,' can hardly believe it. 'He gives you that confidence he walks around with,' Rocky says. 'A lot of times, people tell me that I embody this self-confidence — I see it all in him. Just him embracing me, them embracing me, it was so chill. I waited my whole life for this.' 'Me too!' bellows Washington, with a laugh. 'And that's the truth! I've been a closet rapper for 40 years. Finally I get the chance.' Toronto Maple Leafs Columnists World Celebrity Editorial Cartoons
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Weinstein could be sentenced next month, but only if there's no retrial on an unresolved rape charge
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein faces sentencing and a possible retrial in his New York City sex crimes case, but when they'll happen — and whether he'll be back in front of another jury — is still up in the air. Manhattan Judge Curtis Farber said Wednesday he could sentence Weinstein on Sept. 30 — but only if there's no retrial on a rape charge that the last jury failed to reach a verdict on. Weinstein, 73, was convicted in June of forcing oral sex on TV and movie production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006. The charge carries a possible sentence of up to 25 years in prison. At the same time, the jury acquitted him of forcing oral sex on another woman, one-time model Kaja Sokola, but couldn't decide a charge that he raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in 2013. Manhattan prosecutors told Farber that they're ready to take Weinstein to trial for a third time on the rape charge, which is punishable by up to four years in prison. That's less time than Weinstein has already served. Mann is on board to testify again, they said. Prosecutors requested a January trial date, citing witness availability and their own caseload. Farber balked at that, saying a January date is too far away and conflicts with another, unrelated trial he's already scheduled. He proposed having the trial in the fall. 'The case needs to be tried this year,' Farber said. Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala agreed, telling Farber he'd prefer a trial at 'the earliest the court can accommodate us.' Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said she would ask Mann and other witnesses about their availability for a trial in the fall. If a fall trial happens, it would likely put Weinstein's high-profile #MeToo case back in court as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is in the final throes of his reelection bid. Bragg, a first-term Democrat who made prosecuting sex crimes cases a priority, has expressed satisfaction with Weinstein's conviction on a criminal sex act charge in the Haley assault and has been resolute in wanting the Oscar-winning studio boss retried on the Mann rape charge. 'The jury was not able to reach a conclusion as to Ms. Mann, and she deserves that,' Bragg said in June. 'This work, first and foremost, is about the survivors and that's why we're prepared to go forward.' Aidala told reporters outside court that, in his view, it's on prosecutors to resolve the rape charge — either by dropping it and clearing the way for sentencing, or promptly taking it to trial again. Weinstein sat in court in a wheelchair while wearing a blue suit and black-rimmed glasses. The 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Shakespeare in Love' producer is committed to fighting the rape charge at another trial, Aidala said, though the lawyer didn't rule out the possibility of reaching a deal with prosecutors to end the case. For now, the trial date remains unresolved, leaving Weinstein's possible Sept. 30 sentencing in limbo. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. At Weinstein's first trial in 2020, jurors convicted him of raping Mann and forcing oral sex on production assistant and producer Miriam Haley. Then an appeals court overturned those convictions and sent the case back for retrial because of legal issues involving other women's testimony. This spring, a new jury convicted him again of sexually assaulting Haley and acquitted him of doing the same to another woman who wasn't part of the first trial. But amid fractious deliberations, the majority-female jury got stuck on the charge related to Mann. Mann has testified that she also had a consensual, on-and-off relationship with the then-married Weinstein, but that she told him 'I don't want to do this' as he cornered her in the hotel room. She said he persevered with advances and demands until she 'just gave up.' Weinstein already stands convicted of sex crimes in California. He denies all of the allegations against him.
Toronto Star
2 hours ago
- Toronto Star
TIFF pulls documentary on 2023 Hamas attack from festival lineup, citing footage rights issue
NEW YORK (AP) — The Toronto International Film Festival has pulled from its lineup a documentary on Hamas' 2023 attack into Israel over what the festival says was a footage rights issue. Organizers for the festival acknowledged Tuesday that they withdrew Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich's 'The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue' after initially offering the film a spot in the upcoming edition of TIFF. The film chronicles the story of retired Israeli Gen. Noam Tibon, whose efforts to save his family and others during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack was profiled in a '60 Minutes' segment.
