Latest news with #1930s
Screen Geek
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Screen Geek
Peter Sarsgaard Says 'The Bride' Is "Controversial"
We've seen some interesting cinematic reinterpretations of classic monsters in the last few years, and that includes the upcoming movie The Bride from director Maggie Gyllenhaal. The upcoming monster movie is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein with influences from the 1935 movie Bride of Frankenstein , and according to star Peter Sarsgaard, the film will be 'controversial.' Sarsgaard, who is married to Gyllenhaal, stars in the movie alongside the likes of Jessie Buckley as Frankenstein's bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein's monster. While speaking with Deadline, he dropped some interesting details about the film, which will be a crime story set in the 1930s. Here's how he opened his statement about The Bride being controversial: 'I'm going to say that it's going to be controversial,' Sarsgaard plainly begins. 'I mean, it's very punk. It's very radical in some ways, and the main characters in it are very imperfect. It's also a love story, basically. It's about the monster in all of us.' There have been rumors regarding the project in the past, including reports that it could be a musical, which Sarsgaard denied. However, he did admit that there was some dancing involved in the film, and he had this to say on that front: 'I will certainly dance if given the opportunity,' he laughs. 'I'm known as the first one on and the last one off the dance floor. I shake it until my moneymaker's wet.' In addition to Buckley, Bale, and Sarsgaard, The Bride also stars Penélope Cruz, Annette Bening, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Linda Emond, Louis Cancelmi, and Matthew Maher. In addition to directing the film, Gyllenhaal also wrote the screenplay, which was produced for a budget of $80 million at Warner Bros. It'll certainly be interesting to see how the picture pans out, especially if it's as 'controversial' as Sarsgaard suggests. Of course, he most likely means that as a compliment, which adds another interesting layer to what Gyllenhaal must be cooking with this new take on Frankenstein . The Bride is currently scheduled to hit theaters early next year on March 6, 2026. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding the film as we have them.
Daily Mail
08-07-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE People are only just realizing the REAL inspiration behind Machine Gun Kelly's stage name... and the sickening true story behind it
It's a crime we rarely hear about today, but kidnapping famously wealthy Americans for ransom was an epidemic between 1925 and 1934. According to the March 3, 1932, edition of the New York Times, 'Abduction for ransom has become a big money crime taking its place beside the liquor, vice and drug trafficking among the prominent rackets of the country.'
Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
My wise 100-year-old friend Frances: ‘I used to pursue people who didn't like me. I don't have to do that any more'
Frances and I were time travellers. She was born in 1925, and was 94 when we met. Starting with Calvin Coolidge, she lived through 17 American presidents. Frances had more friends – and more stories from the last American century – than anyone I knew. After I watched the film noir Born to Kill (1947) she told me she knew the film's roguish star Lawrence Tierney. He was a piece of work in the film and, she told me, he was no cakewalk in real life either. In my mind, we were friends before I was born. I see pictures of Frances as a young woman, and I think, 'I know her, too'. I imagine us both aged 35, laughing our heads off in PJ Clarke's on 3rd Avenue, circa 1959. Frances Ballantyne, who died on June 10th aged 100, had quite a life. She used to say, 'I have a lot of acquaintances, Quentin, but very few friends.' I took that as a hint, not that she was icing me out of her knitting circle, but that she counted me among those she held dear. I was honoured to be included among her friends. Grace Kelly 's father taught her how to play poker, and she once appeared in newspaperwoman Dorothy Kilgallen's New York Evening Journal Voice of Broadway column as 'the girl in the red raincoat with the sad eyes'. But Miss Frances didn't have sad eyes for very long, not for most of her 100 years, anyway; she had curious eyes even when she lost her sight. She had eyes burning with a fire that consumed books, jazz, politics and Life – not the magazine, but that thing that is all around us, all the time. I called her almost daily during lockdown and, at 7pm every evening, we listened to a tentative, faraway trumpet together on the telephone, sounded in honour of medical workers. She thought it was a child on the trumpet. I guessed it was a young adult still learning how to play. READ MORE She 'saw' me, even though she was blind by the time we met each other. I loved seeing myself through her eyes. I felt good about myself when I was around her. It's funny to have a friend who has never seen your face. I endeavoured to help her out with that: 'How do I describe myself? Do you know Brad Pitt?' She'd shake with laughter. She knew that I didn't look anything remotely like Brad Pitt. Born into an Irish-American family in Connecticut, she never liked cod or porridge because she ate so much of it during the Great Depression. Frances Ballantyne and Quentin Fottrell on the Upper West Side We signed up for tap-dancing classes on 72nd Street. Frances asked, 'Quentin, what colour is your tutu?' Every week I described a different colour; sometimes they were shorter and had more ruffles. She got a kick out of that and, the greatest compliment of all, she got a kick out of me, the good and the bad and the exasperating, which meant a lot, because she was a pretty tough customer. Once she ordered me to call a fellow, who I had nothing in common with, to cancel a planned second date. She was fair and she was kind. As someone with little time left, she didn't want me to waste any of it. She moved to New York in the 1940s, and hung out on the stoop of her brownstone in Hell's Kitchen in the 1980s, where her neighbour, a young actor called Kathy Bates, would shoot the breeze and have a beer. She slept in Central Park with other New Yorkers in the era before air conditioning. They carried gas cylinders up the stairs to the tenement flat; the smell of gas got into their clothes. Wiseguys from a nearby Italian restaurant protected Frances and her girlfriends from men who tried to harass them. New York city, I knew from her personal experience, could be a glamorous place, but also dangerous for women in a world before CCTV. When Frances turned 100, I told her she was my only 'centurion' friend. I meant to say 'centenarian', but I didn't correct the record. 'You are a centurion,' I said. She fought the good fight for more years than I have been alive. In the 1980s, during the height of the Aids epidemic in New York, she recalled how some people jumped up from a park bench if a person with symptoms of Kaposi sarcoma sat down. It was important for her never to forget. She had in-depth knowledge of JFK's domestic and foreign policies, and did not put him on a pedestal like other Irish-Americans. I had never before had a friend like Frances, and I probably never will again. 'Quentin, New York is my home. My roots are here. Your roots are in Ireland. That's your home.' Photograph: Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty She was patient, funny, smart and a politically active New Yorker. Frances could argue her point, but she never lost her cool. We talked about sex, relationships and politics. Although she was a Democrat, she did have friends who were Republican. Even from behind her dark glasses, which protected her eyes from the light, she believed in dialogue over judgment. When a person who 'sees you' disappears into the divine, ethereal nothingness of time, or the afterlife, they leave a void, but she embarked on that journey, willingly and with dignity. Such was her strength, it took weeks for her to finally slip away. Covid was one of the strangest eras she lived through, she said, but McCarthyism remained one of the darkest. She left us during the protests in LA, but she passed the baton during her lifetime. When Frances wanted to make a change, or file a complaint, she wrote directly to the chief executive officer. She trained as an actor, appeared in a TV comedy pilot, and among her many career trajectories, worked for an organisation that found housing for people with low income. She described herself, jokingly, as 'shanty Irish' and me as 'lace-curtain Irish', even though she had a well-known penchant for Campbell's loose tea. I, meanwhile, scoured the internet for Barry's. She also taught me the difference between being alone and loneliness, and that the latter is an inside job She taught me about friendship, letting the right ones in, letting go of needing to be liked by others, and the importance of liking and accepting yourself for who you are. 'Once upon a time I used to pursue people who didn't like me,' she told me. 'If I finally had them in my life, what did I do? I had people in my life that I was so upset about and I had to pretend that I liked them, and pretend that I was whoever it was they wanted me to be. I don't have to do that any more. This is who I am. The people who do like me are the people I want in my life and I am delighted to have them.' She spoke in a slow, considered manner, in those aged, earthy tones. She also taught me the difference between being alone and loneliness, and that the latter is an inside job. 'I'm not uncomfortable being alone and I'm never bored,' she said. 'I accept my life a day at a time.' I felt guilty leaving New York, and our coterie of friends on the Upper West Side, but she said, 'Quentin, New York is my home. My roots are here. Your roots are in Ireland. That's your home.' I left a lot behind when I left Dublin, and I left a lot behind when I left New York. But her words made my decision easier. She knitted hats and scarfs for prisoners, and I took a couple of those, knitted with love and dedication, with me. [ Quentin Fottrell on a Dublin scam: After more than 10 years in New York, nothing like this had ever happened to me Opens in new window ] In school she was scolded by the nuns for having friends outside of her 'own kind'. She was friends with people of all religions and cultures – gay, straight, black, white, Jewish, Christian – and when she told the nun that the Bible preached inclusivity and generosity of spirit, the nun slapped her. But that slap only propelled her forward. Her parents weren't thrilled either, but she found her own family in the Metropolis. She married three times and her first husband was black; interracial marriage was not at all common in the 1940s, but she lived by her own moral compass and her own social mores. Of course, she still voted. She moved to New York at the end of the second World War, and she hung out in the West Village. When he missed the train home, James Baldwin crashed on her sofa. That was before he was a celebrated writer and cultural icon. But it was just a side note for Frances in a rich life that will mostly be known only to her. 'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,' Baldwin said. Frances never stopped learning and listening to jazz. She had a ferocious curiosity. When she could no longer read, friends read to her and she rented countless audiobooks from the library. Frances Ballantyne and Beth in Cafe Arte, New York During one of our last dinners, I told her I had to have potentially life-saving heart surgery . At the end of our meal, our friend Beth, Frances and I all held hands. We sat in silence. I needed calm, and I needed courage. We had more than 200 years between the three of us. And yes, it made a difference. The quiet moments with loved ones are filled with a powerful, healing energy if you choose to seek it. Here was a woman with a life force in the 0.02 per cent – that's roughly how many people live for a full century. She was cool as a cucumber with bad news, and she was cool as a cucumber with good news. She did regret never visiting Ireland, so memorialising her here is my gift to her. I'm not sure if Frances believed in an afterlife, but she talked about going to her cloud and, as our friends Beth and Kathrina reminded me, the first thing she wanted to do was apologise to anyone who needed an apology from her during her lifetime. In a world of selfies, Frances thought of how she could be of service to others, no matter their political beliefs. She worked hard to maintain humility. It was a daily practice. 'I am still interested in growing,' she said. 'I do have character defects that I'd like to get rid of. I need to change because I want to change.' She may indeed now be on her cloud and, even if it's only in my mind's eye, it makes me fear death that little bit less She did not complain, although she had plenty of reason to; she asked for help when needed and offered it to others when asked. She couldn't see, but she cooked every day and lived independently. But finally her time came. After days of semi-consciousness she had a lucid day and, when Kathrina put me on speakerphone, Frances said, 'Did you purchase your house yet?' Those were her last words to me. How could she care at a time like this, or even remember at a time like this that I was househunting? Because, simple as it seems, she was genuinely, wholeheartedly invested in other people. Some of Frances's ashes were scattered by friends near the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park. She may indeed now be on her cloud and, even if it's only in my mind's eye, it makes me fear death that little bit less. If she can exit so gracefully, perhaps so can I. That's the hope, anyway. For Frances to have a spiritual connection, she needed a human connection. That might be why her landline almost never stopped ringing. There's one way I can keep her around, and make sure she is never far away during my own lifetime. Whenever I am faced with a challenging situation, I can ask, 'What would Frances do?' Frances Ballantyne, a New Yorker, was born on March 5th, 1925 and died on June 10th, 2025
Forbes
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Where To Stream 'Sinners' Online As 2025's Best Movie Finally Starts Streaming Today
Sinners There have been quite a few excellent films in 2025, but few as compelling or memorable as Ryan Coogler's Sinners, which finally comes to streaming starting today. Once you're done with your 4th of July festivities, wind down your evening with one of the best movies of 2025. Of course, this isn't exactly a wind-down movie. The story is set in the 1930s in Mississippi and follows twin brothers, 'Smoke' and 'Stack' who have returned home after years spent as mobsters up north during the prohibition era. They've come home with their ill-gotten gains in the hopes of starting a juke joint for the local black community. Things don't go quite according to plan. Both Smoke and Stack are played by Michael B. Jordan. They're joined by Hailee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, Omar Benson Miller, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Delroy Lindo and Jack O'Connell, who plays a mysterious stranger with his own plans for our heroes. The KKK makes an appearance as well, though they're far from the most terrifying foes our heroes encounter. This is a great movie on so many levels. Terrific action, brilliant performances, a tightly wound story that's at once scary, sexy and bloodsoaked. Like other black horror films such as Jordan Peele's Get Out, it takes a hard look at America's past and the ways racism shaped this nation. Sinners was a commercial and critical success, earning over $360 million worldwide against a production budget of around $90 million. This is an enormous hit for an R-rated original film, especially in a day and age when big franchises like the MCU dominate the box office. The film boasts a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score with both critics and audiences. 97% of critics recommend the movie, while Sinners earned a 96% from audiences. This is one of those rare films that both groups seem to love equally. Sinners is available now on HBO Max. Of course, if you want to watch it in all its 4K glory with the best sound possible, I recommend you order the 4K Blu-Ray version. Physical media still gives you the best picture and, more importantly with this movie in particular, the best sound. As action-packed and terrifying as Sinners is, it's the film's music and the way the music ties into the story that sets it apart from the rest of 2025's offerings. The 4K Blu-Ray releases on July 8th. You can read my review of Sinners right here. Have you seen Sinners yet? What did you think? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and cult
Telegraph
04-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
How a homeware designer transformed a drab en-suite
While most people approach home renovations with a sense of dread, bracing themselves for dust, delays and design fatigue, Alice Palmer thrives in the chaos. For the London-based homeware designer, it is a chance to bring a space to life through colour, texture and wit. Her love for renovations is such that she has successfully embarked on several projects, most recently her current home – a 1930s house in north-west London – which she moved into last October with her husband Nicholas and three young children, following an 18-month overhaul. 'I do really enjoy renovating,' says Palmer. 'I love seeing the transformative effect it can have.' Her five-bedroom home, while tired, was bursting with potential. Palmer is best known for her signature lampshades and joyful, exuberant patterns so it is no surprise that she approaches even the smallest of rooms with gusto. Nowhere is this more evident than in her en-suite bathroom. Once a clinical space lacking in soul, it is now full of character, cleverly combining punchy print with calming colour. Here's how she achieved it – and her tips for creating something similar. Take inspiration from your holidays Palmer's design influences come from her travels, particularly to Morocco and India. 'I love the aesthetic and the architecture,' she says. Rather than create an entire Moroccan look that would appear incongruous in a 1930s London home, she took a more considered approach. 'I decided to go for an English country house-meets-Morocco vibe and incorporate elements I love.' The most standout ones are the decorative arches that replace the doorway and are also used to house the shower and create a cosy bath nook. 'I printed out a template of the arches on paper and my builder created them by cutting two bits of MDF and plastering round it,' she explains. 'I wanted it to feel like you are transported away every time you walk in.' Forget tiles: envelope the bathroom in wallpaper instead Palmer's deployment of block-printed fabrics and wallpaper goes beyond their conventional use. 'People can be wary of using wallpaper in the bathroom but if it is not directly near water, there shouldn't be a problem,' she says. In this case, she used her own Palm Grove wallpaper on the walls that are set away from the bath and incorporated it within the bath panelling and the front of the vanity unit. She also took the wallpaper across the entire ceiling: 'I think that works really well in a small room as you feel more immersed in it.' Clash your patterns for more interest As well as the botanical print on the bathroom walls, Palmer weaved in other patterns, such as the herringbone floor and decorative bin, to engage the eye. 'Mixing the different patterns and textures helps lift a room,' she says. 'The key to doing it effectively is using the same colour or complementary colours throughout.' In this bathroom, Palmer has chosen a harmonious earthy palette of greens and pinks which exudes warmth. Use textured wall finishes for a tactile effect Instead of installing wall-to-wall tiles in the main wet area around the bath, Palmer chose a soft pink tadelakt, a traditional Moroccan waterproof plaster, which gives a less conventional look. 'It adds texture and I didn't feel that tiles would work in the same way,' she says. 'This gives the space a more calming feel.' Play around with the bathroom layout – but keep the existing one if it works It is always worth rethinking an inherited bathroom layout, insists Palmer. 'But in the end, the existing layout turned out to be best,' she adds. 'There's a dressing room behind it and we were going to use that to expand the bathroom, but we decided it's more useful having a dressing room.' A potential issue was the bathroom's long and narrow dimensions; however, Palmer was able to cleverly reshape it by framing the bath with the arch. 'It helped square up the room and made it feel bigger.' Layer the lighting for atmosphere Perhaps unsurprising for a designer known for her lampshades, lighting is key to Palmer's designs. Rather than relying on harsh overheads, here she layers different lights for atmospheric effect. 'At the mirror I have a pair of clip lights which are more flattering for doing make-up for instance, and wall lights by the bath can help create a relaxing mood,' she says. Fabric lampshades – by Palmer's own brand – add softness and a personal touch. 'I went for a plain sheer pendant which diffuses the light and balances out the busyness of the rest of the bathroom.' Keep the en suite visually connected to the bedroom When designing an en suite it is important to ensure it still visually links to the bedroom for a harmonious look, rather than decorating it in isolation. In this case, Palmer stuck to the same colour palette in both spaces, using pink tadelakt walls in the bedroom as well, and painting its woodwork and decorative cornicing in Farrow & Ball's Vert de Terre to pick up the green in the bathroom. Palmer also repeats the bathroom wallpaper in the bedroom, using a fabric version for the headboard and cushions. 'I am about to install the curtains which will also have a trim of that green pattern,' she adds. 5 tips for creating a stylish en suite Bring in colour and pattern 'People often think painting an en suite white will make it appear bigger, but it is more likely to look dull and lacking in personality,' says Palmer. 'It's not a room for guests so you can make it as personal and playful as you want. Even if you don't want to cover the walls in wallpaper, you can add pattern and colour through other elements like lampshades.' Create as much storage as possible Never underestimate how much storage is required in a bathroom, says Palmer: 'I always like to choose a vanity unit that goes all the way to the floor to maximise storage. 'Floating' vanities look nice but the unused floor space can be a waste. Cupboards are also very useful for hiding electric sockets for charging your toothbrush, for instance.' Be experimental with floor tiles 'I think you can be very playful with flooring and mix different patterns,' says Palmer. She has used terracotta herringbone floor tiles here, while inside the shower is clad with green chequerboard. 'I love Moroccan tiles because they are uneven and not completely uniform, which feels really organic,' she says. Add cafe curtains Instead of blinds, try cafe curtains, which cover only the lower half of a window and bring warmth to utilitarian spaces. 'They are a nice way of getting in natural light and softening the room, while providing privacy,' says Palmer. Curate an art collection Artworks are an essential element of the bathroom decor for Palmer, and are best placed far away from any splash zones. 'They add character and help the bathroom feel more like a room,' she says. 'They don't have to be expensive to have an impact.'
