Latest news with #Bessie
Western Telegraph
3 days ago
- General
- Western Telegraph
The Dyffryn Arms, Pembrokeshire, named Pub of the Week
The Dyffryn Arms, affectionately known as "Bessie's," in Pontfaen, Pembrokeshire, is a one-room pub with no bar counter. Beer is served through a sliding hatch, and the absence of Wi-Fi and TV makes conversation the main form of entertainment. Built as a house in 1845, the pub was later converted and has remained a central part of the secluded valley community. (Image: Supplied) It is listed in CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors and boasts a Grade II Listed status. The pub's interior, featuring a mix of high-back settles and benches, is described as having "outstanding national historic importance" by CAMRA. The Dyffryn Arms is one of only two pubs in Wales that serves beer from the cask via a jug, and offers Bass poured from a jug and a variety of bottled beers. The pub has retained its old-world charm and welcoming atmosphere, with its lack of food service and outside toilets. (Image: Supplied) Until December 2023, the pub was run by Bessie Davies, who had worked there for 72 years, and it is now managed by her children. Over the decades, Bessie became a beloved figure in the community, with her dedicated service and warm hospitality earning her the admiration of both locals and visitors. The pub, lovingly known as 'Bessie's' in her honour, is a testament to her enduring legacy. The Dyffryn Arms is a proud representation of the Gwaun Valley community, which has lived in relative isolation for centuries and continues to uphold old Welsh traditions that have disappeared in most parts of the country. The pub's unique aesthetic and charismatic landlord have gained it a loyal following. The Dyffryn Arms is open every day of the week (11 am - 10 pm, Sunday-Friday; 1 pm - 10 pm Saturdays) and is cash-only.
Perth Now
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Bessie Carter 'doesn't care' she's accused of being a nepo baby
Bessie Carter doesn't consider herself to be a 'nepo baby'. The 31-year-old actress - who is the daughter of actors Dame Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter - has brushed off suggestions that she's a so-called 'nepo baby', insisting she's not used her parents' fame and success to further her career. Speaking to The Independent, Bessie explained: "I have a lot of drive to make stuff happen myself, instead of waiting for the phone to ring." The actress - who plays Prudence Featherington on the hit Netflix series 'Bridgerton' - insists that she's worked hard for her success. She reflected: "Some people might use that phrase (nepo baby), but I don't really care. I believe in myself and my trajectory being what it is, and I've never used my parents, ever, to get any work." Despite this, Bessie still enjoys working in the same industry as her mother. She said: "It's really nice when I'm in hair and makeup and the makeup artist says, 'I worked with your mum.' Who wouldn't like that?" Imelda has enjoyed a hugely successful career, starring on stage and screen for decades. But Bessie only became truly aware of her mother's success when she was cast in the 'Harry Potter' film franchise. The actress shared: "Like most children, I grew up reading them and going to the bookshops at midnight, so that was quite exciting." Meanwhile, Bessie believes the timing of 'Bridgerton's release was one of the keys to its success. The hit TV show - which is set during the Regency era in England - was released in December 2020, following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Bessie noted that fans were quick to attach themselves to the programme. The actress - who has starred on the show alongside the likes of Jonathan Bailey and Nicola Coughlan - told the BBC: "It was December 2020, and I believe the world was ready to escape into something that was joyous, hopeful, and had a happy ending. And so ... that's the honest answer. "I just think it was a delightful thing to look at, and hopefully a bit funny and a bit romantic."
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut leaves Cannes theater weeping
CANNES, France — It's not easy for a Marvel star to avoid being the center of attention, but Scarlett Johansson seemed to be using every ounce of her being to step out of the spotlight — even as an entire theater rose to applaud her entrance at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday afternoon. The actress was at the world premiere of her directorial debut, 'Eleanor the Great,' but seemed determined to make sure this day was entirely about her film's delightful 95-year-old star, June Squibb. Even as they were filming, Johansson told the crowd, she'd had a vision of this very moment. 'I said, 'If I do my job right, my dream is to see June on the Croisette in Cannes,' and here we are,' she said. 'So this really is a dream come true.' Squibb, who had arrived in a sparkly floral caftan holding Johansson's hand, couldn't stop beaming. She had last been to Cannes 12 years ago for Alexander Payne's 'Nebraska,' in a supporting role that earned her an Oscar nomination — and there's already talk that this film, only the second lead role of her career after last year's action-comedy 'Thelma,' might have her competing with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence for best actress. The film opens in the modest Florida retirement community where two Jewish best friends of 70 years, Squibb's Eleanor Morgenstern and Rita Zohar's Bessie Stern, share an apartment, sleeping side-by-side in twin beds. Eleanor is a very funny spitfire and compulsive liar who sees nothing wrong with skillfully dressing down a teenage grocery-store clerk to get Bessie the kosher pickles she wants or fibbing about Bessie's family donating a wing to the hospital to get her better care. That lifelong friendship, which also includes sharing stories of the darkest times in their lives over sleepless nights in their kitchen, is the throughline of Johansson's movie, which is essentially about what happens when you lose the most important person in your life. When Eleanor loses Bessie and moves in with her adult daughter (Jessica Hecht) in New York, she finds herself starting over. In one fateful moment, having stumbled into a support group for Holocaust survivors, she tells one of Bessie's stories as her own as a way to remember her friend. But there are many sweet, and dark, twists in store. It's in that group that Eleanor strikes up a wonderful and unlikely friendship with a college journalism student (newcomer Erin Kellyman), who wants to write an article about her. Nina, who recently lost her mother, is the first person Eleanor's found who might help fill the void that Bessie left, and soon Eleanor is in so deep that she keeps compounding her lies. More than a few times during the premiere, a woman next to me whispered, 'Oh, Eleanor, no!' As the consequences of Eleanor's lies finally came to bear, the theater echoed with sobs and sniffles. Johansson's film is at the festival as part of the prestigious Un Certain Regard competition for first- and second-time filmmakers, alongside debut films from fellow actors-turned-directors Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson. Judging from the abundant laughter and crying in the theater, there's a commercial audience for this movie. It just doesn't feel as though it belongs alongside the more daring, visually inventive fare that one associates with Cannes. Indiewire's Kate Erbland found the film 'funny' and 'sweet' but with wild and 'often baffling' tonal shifts, as it mixes the romps of Eleanor and Nina's budding friendship with Bessie's harrowing Holocaust stories. 'It's a little predictable, a little bizarre, a little funny, and very sad, but it's also an ambitious swing at what movies can still be (and what sort of stars can populate them),' Erbland writes. Variety's Owen Gleiberman called it 'sentimental,' 'earnest' and an 'awards-season wannabe,' none of it in a good way. Lovia Gyarkye of the Hollywood Reporter was mixed, writing, 'It's a bold premise that could have worked better.' And Gregory Ellwood of the Playlist wrote that the script, from another first-timer, Tory Kamen, simply has too many plotlines. Visually, Ellwood wrote, he was also hoping for more. 'Considering the lineage of filmmakers Johansson has worked with over her 25-year career, [is it wrong] we dared to expect something more?' The audience, though, sincerely loved it, and Squibb basked in a six-minute standing ovation, with roars of 'brava!' rising from the orchestra seats to the balcony. Squibb is in the middle of an amazing late-career renaissance. And, while 'Eleanor the Great' is an independent movie of roughly the same scale as 'Thelma,' it's likely to attract the attention of Oscar voters curious to see Johansson's first film. After giving Squibb and Kellyman huge, long hugs, Johansson took the microphone and told the crowd that she felt 'naked' showing the movie, because it had been such an intimate shoot, but was so grateful to present it to the world. 'It's about Jewish identity, it's about friendship, but most importantly it's about forgiveness, which is something we could use a lot more of these days.' Mostly, though, she just held Squibb's hand and smiled, hearing the crowd roar for her star. She had been the director, but it was Squibb's night.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Eleanor The Great' Review: June Squibb Is Quietly Powerful And Touching As A 94-Year-Old Woman Caught Up In A Lie In Scarlett Johansson's Impressive Directorial Debut
Don't let the title fool you. Eleanor the Great is not some royal costume epic set in 1566. Instead Scarlett Johansson's wonderful and richly textured feature directorial debut is a small but beautifully realized story of a 94-year-old woman named Eleanor Morgenstern who, at the point in life where most have just given up, instead packs her bags and moves from Florida to New York City to be closer to her daughter and grandkids. RELATED: More from Deadline Scarlett Johansson On Why The Script For Her Directorial Debut 'Eleanor The Great' Made Her Cry: 'It's About Forgiveness' – Cannes Cover Story Scarlett Johansson's Directorial Debut 'Eleanor The Great': Watch Exclusive First-Look Clip Sebastián Lelio Talks Musical Film 'The Wave' About Chile's 2019 Feminist May Protests: "It Was An Iconic Moment" She is played by 95-year-old June Squibb, who has done the impossible: start a whole new career in her mid-90s as a leading motion picture star. After last season's hit Thelma, in which she showed her action chops in the title role, now she finds a very different kind of title role as a woman who is determined to be on her own but caught up in a little white lie that careens out of control. The Sony Pictures Classics and TriStar Pictures release had its world premiere today in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. Grieving after the sudden death of her roommate, Bessie (a riveting Rita Zohar), with whom she lived for 11 years, she now feels so alone in the big city despite a daughter (Jessica Hecht) looking to put her in a home. She is too independent for that and one day, looking for people to talk to, she accidentally stumbles into a Jewish Holocaust survivors group. Bessie was one of those survivors, and Eleanor had heard her devastating story of the camps and Nazis many times. Eleanor did not grow up in the Jewish religion but did convert when she married her husband, but when invited in to sit with the others, she doesn't resist the opportunity to tell Bessie's story. Only one small problem: She makes it her own, and here is where a lie can roll down the hill with no one to stop it. RELATED: As it turns out, there is also a young student, Nina (Erin Kellyman) who is doing an article on this group for her college class and approaches Eleanor to be the highlighted survivor after hearing her (actually Bessie's) life experience. At first reluctant, the lonely Eleanor thinks perhaps Nina could be a friend, so she agrees to interview sessions. Taking this all one step further is the fact that Nina's father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), happens to be a top local news anchor. After seeing his daughter's article on Eleanor, he decides to make it a featured report on the news, giving the lie even wider exposure. From this point on, it gets even more complicated. Johansson, working with Tory Kamen's screenplay, keeps this all very delicate and a reminder of those wonderful contained New York City-set movies about the human condition, and with the expertise of her cinematographer Helene Louvart, she really captures the city. The most recent example I can think of a NYC tale like this one was Melissa McCarthy starring in Can You Ever Forgive Me? which was about a writer who started falsifying letters from famous people. That one got a few Oscar nominations, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a lot about Eleanor the Great during awards season, especially when it comes to Squibb, whose moving performance is simply exquisite; there is no other word for it. She completely inhabits this character, and you really feel for her because all she is really doing is keeping the memory of Bessie alive, her grief over her loss so deep. It just gets out of hand. RELATED: Zohar as Rita has a couple of scenes near the beginning but gets a stunning monologue telling her own story to Eleanor in a flashback later on. As Nina, British actress Kellyman sparkles in the role of an eager young journalist who befriends who she believes is a Holocaust survivor. Ejiofor plays her dad with reserved power, never letting his own pent-up and unresolved grief over the loss of his wife and her mother surface. In some ways he and Eleanor are both in denial and each processing their grief in ways that will have consequences. Props to casting directors Ellen Lewis and Kate Sprance for their work here including, at Johansson's urging, the request to have actual Holocaust survivors cast as the members of the group Eleanor joins. Using Shoah Foundation recommendations, they did just that, and it gives this lovely movie even more of a sense of authenticity. There won't be a dry eye in the house for this one. Producers are Jessamine Burgum, Kara Durrett,Trudie Styler, Celine Rattray, Johansson, Jonathan Lia, Keenan Flynn RELATED: Full List Of Cannes Palme d'Or Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery Title: Eleanor the GreatFestival: Cannes (Un Certain Regard)Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics (in association with TriStar Pictures)Director: Scarlett JohanssonScreenwriter: Tory KamenCast: June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rita Zohar, Erin Kellyman, Jessica HechtRunning time: 1 hr 38 min Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds All The 'Mission: Impossible' Movies In Order - See Tom Cruise's 30-Year Journey As Ethan Hunt Denzel Washington's Career In Pictures: From 'Carbon Copy' To 'The Equalizer 3'
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
5 ways HBO's 'Bessie' is utterly queerconic
Courtesy HBO TK CAPTION Like a perfectly timed high note in a torch song, Bessie doesn't tiptoe into queerness as filmmaker Dee Rees gives us a love letter to Black, bisexual brilliance. After all, when history forgets our queer queer forebears, we have to remind the world they were here singing, loving, and living out loud. Grab your feather boa, pour something substantial, and let's sashay through the five ways Bessie is queerconic as ever. HBO Tika Sumpter as Lucille, Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith From the moment Queen Latifah's Bessie Smith is in bed with Lucille (Tika Sumpter) under the daytime glow, we're told–no, shown–that the "Empress of the Blues" loved loudly across the gender spectrum. Director Dee Rees folds several of Smith's real-life girlfriends into Lucille's composite character to keep the focus tight, but the point is crystal clear: this woman's desire wasn't a footnote. Latifah herself doubled down on authenticity, waving off pearl-clutchers who fretted over the film's authentic portrayal of bisexual intimacy. HBO Mo'Nique as Ma Rainey Enter Mo'Nique's Ma Rainey, with all her gilded swagger and gravitational pull. Instead of reducing the great Mother of the Blues to a cameo, Bessie lets Rainey mentor, mother-hen, and downright flirt her way across the screen. It's a reminder that Black queer women have continuously innovated the cutlure they later get minimized if not entirely erased. Rainey takes Smith under her wing, teaching her everything from negotiating her pay to stepping into her theater presence, though the friendship gradually HBO Director Dee Rees attends the HBO Bessie 81 Tour at Stephan Weiss Studio on April 30, 2015 in New York City. Behind the camera, Rees–a Black lesbian filmmaker–renders 1920s rent-party decadence with the intimacy of a whisper and the bravado of a brass band. Her lens lingers on the tensions between nightclub euphoria and Southern violence, honoring how Black queer artists carved glittering sanctuaries in hostile terrain. That specificity helped the movie snag several awards, from wins at the Primetime Emmys and Critics' Choice to GLAAD Media Awards. It was proof that representation rings truest when it comes from within the community. HBO Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith Bessie doesn't sanitize the Prohibition-era nightlife. It bathes the scene in sweat, gin, and coded blues lyrics that once telegraphed queer desire to those in the know. The film makes queerness feel less like a plot twist and more like the pulse of the era. Frank Masi/HBO Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith, Tika Sumpter as Lucille By skipping the typical "coming out" arc and focusing on a woman who already owns her sexuality, Bessie expanded the possibilities of queer stories. No wonder it remains a "must-stream" on LGBTQ+ lists: the plot isn't about shame or revelation, but rather about talent, hustle, and bedroom freedom. In other words, it's queer, Black, and gloriously complicated. Bessie would damn sure be proud. Frank Masi/HBO Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith Sometimes, the most radical act isn't bursting out of the closet. It's kicking back in a velvet dressing gown, lighting a cigarette, and daring the world to keep up with your tempo. Bessie is a queer-conic film that rings true to our truest identity.
