Latest news with #Cuddle
Time of India
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Willem Dafoe to star as professional cuddler in Barbara Paz's fiction debut ‘Cuddle'
Picture Credit: X Hollywood actor Willem Dafoe is reuniting with Brazil's Barbara Paz in the near-future drama , 'Cuddle'. The film marks Paz's fiction feature debut. Dafoe was an associate producer of the documentary 'Babenco: Tell Me When I Die', which Paz directed as an ode to her late husband, Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco , reports 'Variety'. The film also represented Brazil at the 93rd Academy Awards. Dafoe's ties to Paz and Babenco began with 'My Hindu Friend', Babenco's semi-autobiographical 2015 swan song, in which Dafoe portrayed a dying filmmaker closely modeled after Babenco himself and Paz played a small but pivotal role. As per 'Variety', in 'Cuddle', Dafoe plays Dante, a professional cuddler who offers platonic comfort to strangers craving connection. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo His clients range from the overwhelmed to the emotionally fragile, people searching for human touch in a world where affection has become rare and transactional. Behind his calm exterior, Dante struggles with a painkiller habit and a lonely existence, softened only by the quiet company of his dog. But when a surprising encounter disrupts his routine, it opens the door to a fragile and unexpected kind of intimacy. The actor said, "Beyond an exploration of loneliness, the need for human touch and conquering challenges, this story captures the zeitgeist of our times". He added that he very much looked forward to working with Paz again. To add to the Oscar pedigree of the project, Brazil's Conspiracao , behind the recent Best International Feature Oscar winner 'I'm Still Here', joins Infinity Hill, producer of the Academy Award-nominated "Argentina, 1985," as co-producers alongside Paz's company, BP. 'Cuddle' marks the first time that Infinity Hill has collaborated with Conspiracao, but it's their second co-production with Brazil. Check out our list of the latest Hindi , English , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , and Kannada movies . Don't miss our picks for the best Hindi movies , best Tamil movies, and best Telugu films .
Japan Today
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
A boom in matching apps for married women
By Michael Hoffman Whoever you are, whatever you do, whatever you're looking for, there's an ap for you. What's the one thing everyone wants besides money and power? Love. A capricious flower, love. It blossoms or doesn't, withers or doesn't, hovers out of reach until, just when you least expect it, it lands in your lap – or doesn't. There's marriage. All cultures have it. Its forms vary but not its purpose. It channels the sex drive, presides over child-rearing, and governs inheritance. Some marriages begin with love, others end in love, others still have little or nothing to do with love. All cultures attach some degree of sanctity to it, fading in our own desanctified time but still felt. There are marriage apps, pre-marriage apps, post-marriage apps and extra-marital apps. Together they form a community of apps known in Japanized English as 'matching' apps – whose latest version, profiled by Shukan Gendai (April 28), has sparked a veritable 'boom' (yet another one), catering to married women in search of love, marriage having let them down without quite breaking down. The author of the report is its main character – a man of 52 with frankly confessed (under cover of anonymity; for convenience we'll call him Tetsuo) marital problems of his own. His 22-year marriage has run its course. It's dead in all but name. Must he die with it? But he's so very much alive! Where to go, what to do? Life and love, if not inseparable, are so closely intertwined as to make the loveless life a thin, dim, shadowy prospect, a joyless trudge into the questionable refuge of old age in which such things cease to matter. Meanwhile… what? Anything? Nothing? An extra-marital relationship? Why not? Divorce is foreseeable – after the couple's teenage daughter is grown; not before. Should he wait? Why? Life is here, now. To suppress it till there, then is surely to diminish it. He can force himself to wait, maybe, but it – life – won't wait with him, or for him. Confiding in a friend over drinks, he heard for the first time of matching apps. Tell me more, he said. He listened eagerly. Check it out, said the friend. Maybe I will, he thought. A little online research gave him the general picture. The first organized 'matching' events for the unhappily married, circa 2018, were non-app, non-virtual, face-to-face get-togethers: dinners, parties, outings – modern jauntier equivalents of the traditional omiai arranged marriage events. The COVID-19 epidemic put a stop to them, and apps arose to fill the vacuum. The three leaders in the field – 'Kikonsha Club' (kikonsha means 'already married'), 'Cuddle' and 'Healmate' – boast a combined client base of some 1.2 million, men as a rule paying a monthly fee of about 10,000 yen, women not charged. 'I started this service,' Healmate founder Taeko Isono tells Shukan Gendai, 'for those who want to experience the full richness of life. There are those who feel it's immoral for married people to engage in extra-marital relationships, and I understand their feelings. But those who feel differently have a right to choose accordingly.' A dead marriage is an awful thing. Some couples try in all earnestness to bring it back to life. Sometimes they succeed; more often not. Years take their toll. Love feeds on freshness, surprise; it withers in familiarity and routine. Some of her clients, says Isono, are reanimated, reinvigorated by the encounters her service fosters. Others, she says, find themselves going back to their spouses with fresh appreciation of their charms and virtues. Life is full of surprises – sometimes. Tetsuo urged himself on: 'Let's see what happens.' He had doubts. Yes, he owed it to himself – but didn't he owe something too to his wife and child? He felt them looking on, disdainful and reproachful, as he filled in his profile. Would it bother them to know? 'But they won't know.' Perhaps they'd laugh at him? Perhaps they'd have reason to. Mustering his courage, he stated in his profile a preference for a 'second partner' in her 20s or thirties. No one replied. It stung. It was a blow to his masculine pride. He put the best face he could on it. 'Well,' he thought, 'to a woman that young a man my age may well seem past it. I'm not, but…' – seeming trumps reality. He yielded. 'Alright, the 40s and 50s then.' There came a message signed Kayo. Real name? Not? Does it matter? No. Age? 54. They chatted, clicked, met for dinner, clicked again, had a few drinks, grew lively, checked into a nearby love hotel, and clicked there too. Tetsuo awakened to a smartphone sounding. Kayo slept on. It was her phone. He shook her awake. He caught his breath. Her husband? 'What?' Kayo asked sleepily. 'Your phone. Your husband?' 'What if it is?' 'But…' 'I don't care if he finds out.' You'd think Tetsuo would have been pleased – but no, quite the contrary, these were deep waters, maybe deeper than were good for him, it's one thing to look forward to doing something like this, another to face one hardly knows what but the human imagination is a vigorous thing, conjuring all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of complications, and his was already going into overdrive. He blocked Kayo's messages and never saw her again. A sad, perhaps unnecessarily sad ending – with one consolation: a reporter's consolation rather than a lover's. He got his story. © Japan Today
Daily Mirror
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Is Fortnite down? Server downtime schedule and what's new in Chapter 6 Season 3
The Galactic Battle has come to Fortnite, and on the other side of this bout of downtime is a fountain of Star Wars-themed adventures. Fortnite downtime has arrived to signal the arrival of the incoming Star Wars season, and once it's over, we'll bear witness to an all new era of battle royale battlling. It's finally time – Fortnite downtime has finally arrived to drag the game from a Lawless season into one filled with great evil, X-Wings, midichlorians and Darth Jar Jar. It's going to be a little chaotic, to say the least. Galactic Battle has arrived, and it's set to show players the many POIs, NPCs, skins and more up its sleeve once the downtime bridging the gap between it and Chapter 6 Season 2 has concluded. It's sad to be saying farewell to a season that, by most accounts, has been a total blast for players everywhere, but it's a price we have to pay in order to start swinging lightsabers over our heads. Fortnite is no stranger to Star Wars collaborations, but as the Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3 early patch notes indicate, there's a lot of newness to soak up, like a collection of Jam Tracks and a heaving Battle Pass featuring a new look for Evie and Cuddle Team Leader. We're going to have to wait for the changeover before we can get our hands on it, though, and with Fortnite downtime in the way, it's safe to expect a number of hours of waiting. But when precisely does the game shut off? Here's what you need to know about the Galactic Battle Fortnite downtime. Is Fortnite down? Fortnite downtime begins at 11pm PDT on Thursday, May 1, and 2am EDT / 7am BST on Friday, May 2, as confirmed via a tweet from the @FortniteStatus account. Based on the heaving Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 2 downtime, we can expect the downtime to last for around five hours, taking the game's return time to 4am PDT / 7am EDT / 12am BST on Friday, May 2 as we investigated when we took a look at the Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3 start time, but it remains to be seen. Regardless, we're going to be scratching at the game's door early in order to be among the first into the new season. We'll see you on the island. What's new in Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3 The Fortnite downtime will give way to heaps of new Star Wars-themed content, with a number of reveals coming directly from Fortnite itself. As we explored in the Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3 early patch notes, here's what we know is coming to the season: Four new POIs, including bases for the Resistance and First Order, Vader Samurai's Solitude and Outpost Enclave A new Star Wars Battle Pass, boasting Poe Dameron, Emperor Palpatine and more Star Wars Jam Tracks, featuring the Imperial March, Jabba's Palace's theme, and three new original tracks A chance to watch the first two episodes of Tales of the Underworld, with a free Loading Screen for the players that do Rumoured appearances from Jango Fett and the potential arrival of Lightsaber Pickaxes It's a lot to prepare for, so hold onto your hats. This season is going to be a biggie, and you won't have long to enjoy it with a reduced Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 3 length, so make the most of it.
