Latest news with #Darius
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
He's the visual genius that auteurs like Ari Aster trust. But cinematographer Darius Khondji is chasing a feeling
The day before our interview, cinematographer Darius Khondji tells me he went to see a Pablo Picasso exhibit in uptown New York City. And though he would never compare himself to the Spanish painter, Khondji says he found a kinship in the way he described his artistic practice. 'About his style, he said that he was like a chameleon, changing completely from one moment to another, from one situation to another,' Khondji, 69, recalls via Zoom. 'This is exactly how I feel. When I'm with a director, I embrace that director completely.' Backlit, with natural light coming from the large windows behind him on a recent afternoon, Khondji appears shrouded in darkness, at times like an enigmatic silhouette with a halo of sunshine around his fuzzy hair. The Iranian-born cinematographer speaks animatedly, with hand movements accentuating every effusive sentence. 'Sometimes I talk in a very impressionistic way,' Khondji says, apologetically. 'I might be confusing but I try to be just honest and say what I feel.' Khondji's eclectic resume flaunts an exceptional collection of collaborations, some of the best-looking movies of their moments: David Fincher's gruesome but gorgeous 'Seven,' Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's darkly whimsical and richly textured 'Delicatessen' and 'The City of Lost Children,' Michael Haneke's unflinching love story 'Amour,' James Gray's old-school luxurious 'The Immigrant,' the Safdie Brothers' nerve-racking and kinetic 'Uncut Gems,' and now Ari Aster's paranoid big-canvas pandemic saga 'Eddington,' in theaters Friday. Khondji stands simultaneously as a wise member of the old guard and a hopeful champion for the future of film. Sought in decades past by the likes of Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Bernardo Bertolucci, he's now lending his lensing genius to a new generation of storytellers with ideas just as biting. 'Darius understands the human soul and he masters the tools to express it,' says filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu via email. 'All the technical choices — framing decisions, uses of color and lighting techniques — he is able to apply them, but always subordinated to the director's vision and, most importantly, to the needs of the film itself.' Khondji earned his second Oscar nomination for his work on the Mexican director's surrealist 2022 film 'Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.' The motion picture academy first acknowledged his artistry with a nod for Alan Parker's sumptuous 1996 musical 'Evita.' 'Darius is kind of a poet — everything is feeling-based with him,' says Aster via video call from Los Angeles. 'He is an intellectual but he is also decidedly not.' If you were to dissect the pivotal memories that shaped Khondji's creative mind, the array of touchstones would include a photograph of Christopher Lee as Dracula that his brother would bring him from London. Also in prime of place: an image of his older sister, Christine, whom he considers an artistic mentor. You would also find the intense orange color of persimmons squashed in his family's garden in Tehran during winter — the only sensory memory he has from his early childhood before his family moved to Paris when he was around 3 1/2 years old in the late 1950s. 'Sometimes I look at my granddaughter and grandson and say, 'OK, they are 3, almost 3 1/2, so this is the amount of language I had, but it was probably mostly in Farsi,'' he says. Khondji returned to Iran only once, as a teenager in the early 1970s, with a Super 8 camera in hand. He has been watching movies since infancy. His nanny, an avid moviegoer, would take him to the cinema with her. And later, his father, who owned movie theaters in Tehran and would source films through Europe, brought him along to Parisian screening rooms as a kid. 'These are all stories told to me and a mix of impressions and feelings of things that I remember,' Khondji explains. That visceral, heart-first way of perceiving the world around him might be the defining quality of his approach to image-making. It's always about how something feels. 'Cinema is a strong force,' he says. 'You cannot limit it only with aesthetic taste or things that you like or don't like or rules. You just have to go with the flow and give yourself to it. You need a lot of humility.' At that last thought, Khondji laughs. When he started making his own Dracula-inspired short films on Super 8 as a teenager, Khondji had little idea about the distinct roles of a film production. Slowly, he started noticing that the directors of photography for the movies he liked were often the same artists. 'I was discovering that some films looked incredible — they had a very strong atmosphere,' Khondji recalls. 'Then I found that the same name of one person was on one movie and then another movie, and I thought, 'OK, this person really is very important.'' He mentions Gregg Toland, the legendary shooter of Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane.' But it wasn't until Khondji attended NYU for film school that he dropped his aspirations for directing and decided on becoming a cinematographer. His film exercises leaned more toward the experiential than the narrative. He refers to them as 'emotional wavelengths.' 'It's really the director and the actors that trigger my desire to shoot a movie,' says Khondji. 'The script is, of course, a great thing, but once I want to work with the director, I really trust them.' Hearing Khondji speak about directors, it's clear that he puts them in a privileged light — so much so that he makes a point of creating what he calls a 'family' around them to ensure their success. This means he ensures the director feels comfortable with the gaffer, the dolly grip, the key grip, so that there's no one on set that feels like a stranger. With Aster, for example, their bond emerged from a shared voraciousness for film. The pair had several hangouts together before a job even entered the equation. Khondji is a defender of the polarizing 'Beau Is Afraid,' his favorite of Aster's movies. 'Eddington' finally brought them together as collaborators for the first time. 'Ari and I have a common language,' he says. 'We discovered quite early on working together that we have a very similar taste for dark films, not dark in lighting but in storytelling.' While scouting locations in Aster's native New Mexico, he and Khondji came across the small town where the Coen brothers' 'No Country for Old Men' was filmed. And though they both revere that arid 2007 thriller, they wanted to get away from anything tied to it, so they pivoted again to the community of Truth or Consequences. Khondji recalls Aster describing his film, about a self-righteous sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) in a grudge match against the mayor (Pedro Pascal), as 'a European psychological thriller on American land.' For the cinematographer, the movie is 'a modern western.' 'We wanted the exterior to be very bright, like garishly bright, like the light has almost started to take off the color and the contrast a little bit because it's so bright, never bright enough,' explains Khondji about shooting in the desert. For Khondji, working Aster reminded him of his two outings with Austria's esteemed, ultra-severe Michael Haneke, with which the cinematographer made the American remake of 'Funny Games' and 'Amour,' the latter on which he discovered a 'radically different kind filmmaking' where 'everything in the set had to have a grace of realness.' ''The color is vivid in a way that it isn't in any of his other films,' says Aster about the quality that Khondji brought to 'Amour,' Haneke's Oscar-winning film. Still, after working with some of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers on features, music videos, commercials and a TV show (he shot Nicolas Winding Refn's 2019 'Too Old to Die Young' and became infatuated with the San Fernando Valley), Khondji prefers to be reinvigorated by younger artists challenging the rules. ''Uncut Gems' was like turning a page for me in filmmaking,' he says, calling out to Josh and Benny Safdie. 'These two young filmmakers were making films in a different way. And the fact that I could keep up with them — they are in their 30s — psychologically, it gave me a lot of strength.' Khondji also shot Josh Safdie's upcoming 'Marty Supreme,' out in December. Is there a visual signature that defines Khondji's work? Perhaps, even if he doesn't consciously think of it. A lushness, a preference for olive greens and blacker-than-black shadows. An intense fixation on color in general. There are also aesthetic preferences that Aster noticed from their work on 'Eddington.' 'Darius and I hate unmotivated camera movement,' Aster says. 'But there are certain things that never would've bothered me compositionally that really bothered Darius, and now they're stuck in my head. For instance, Darius hates it when you cut off somebody's leg, even if it's at the ankle. A lot of Darius's prejudices have gone into my system.' Khondji concedes to these particularities, yet he doesn't think in rigid absolutes. 'You have a rule, and then you decide this is the moment to break the rule,' he says, citing the rawness of the films of French director Maurice Pialat or how actor Harriet Andersson looks directly into the camera in Ingmar Bergman's 1953 'Summer with Monika.' He recently watched Ryan Coogler's box-office hit 'Sinners' without knowing anything about its premise beforehand. 'People who know me know that I don't like spoilers,' he says. 'I'm very cautious with film reviews. They are very important, but at the same time, I don't want to know the story.' Khondji had never seen one of Coogler's films, but was impressed. 'I really enjoyed it,' he says. 'After I watched it I wanted to know who shot the film, but I enjoyed the actors so much and I love just being a real member of the audience.' It might surprise some to learn that Khondji's initial interest in seeing a film is unrelated to how it looks or who shot it. 'When I watch a film people say, 'Oh, did you notice how it was shot?' And I don't really go for that,' he says. 'I mostly go to watch a film for the director.' These days, his wish list includes the opportunity to shoot a proper supernatural horror film (Aster might be handy to stay in touch with) and for a company to make a modern film-stock camera. Khondji is not precious about format but believes shooting on film should stay an option as it is the 'natural medium' of cinema. He tells me how much he loves going to the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. 'It's really like a shrine for me,' he says, recalling seeing Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' there on true VistaVision. 'It was an incredible emotion,' he adds. 'Like the emotion I had when I grew up with my dad, when they would take me to see big films in the cinemas where the ceiling had stars to make you dream even before the film started.' That dream is what Khondji is still chasing, in the cinema and on set.
Perth Now
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Country star Darius Rucker pulls gig mid-set: 'I just can't sing'
Darius Rucker was recently forced to cut his set short, telling the crowd, "I just can't sing". The 59-year-old country star was performing at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City on July 12, when he told fans he physically couldn't perform any longer. The musician - who shot to fame as the frontman of Hootie and the Blowfish - was left devastated after being forced to abandon his gig mid-set, and vowed to make it up to his fans and offer them a refund. He said onstage in a viral clip on TikTok: "I'm going to play one more song. I promise you, we are going to figure this out. You're going to get your money back. I just can't sing. "This [has] never happened. I physically can't sing, and I promise you on everything that I stand for I will make this up to you. The audience then helped him by singing the lyrics to Wagon Wheel. Apologising to the crowd, he said: "I'm so sorry." Darius only managed to fully perform three songs (Life's Too Short, It Won't Be Like This for Long and For the First Time) - the fourth being Wagon Wheel, for which head the crowd's assistance. He has not yet addressed why he could no longer sing. Darius is next due onstage on Saturday (19.07.25) in Florida. Last year, Darius shocked fans when he took a tumble onstage at his Riverfront Revival concert in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. He was performing his solo hit Alright when he appeared to trip before being helped back up by venue staff. He quipped to the crowd: "I'm old as f***." Laughing it off, Darius later said: "We've been doing this all summer. I hadn't [fallen] once. But I busted my a** in my hometown."
Metro
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Frontman abruptly ends concert mid-set after declaring ‘I can't sing anymore'
Three days into his tour, country singer Darius Rucker announced he 'can't sing anymore' in a shock on-stage confession. The rest of the concert at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Atlantic City, was scrapped, with only a few songs performed at that point. Darius previously scared fans when he almost fell off the stage after catching his foot on a wire while performing in Charleston, South Carolina, last year. He rose to fame as the lead vocalist in Hootie & The Blowfish, known for tracks like Hold My Hand, Let Her Cry, and Only Wanna Be with You. In a heartbreaking video posted to TikTok, the 59-year-old star attempted to continue for 'one more song' before conceding he could no longer sing. 'I'm going to play one more song. I promise you, we are going to figure this out. You're going to get your money back. I just can't sing.' Darius, clearly frustrated, said he has 'never done this before' and promised to 'make this up to you', but confessed he was unable to continue. 'This never happened,' he said. 'I physically can't sing, and I promise you on everything that I stand for I will make this up to you.' Powering through, Darius continued with his 2013 track Wagon Wheel as the audience belted back the lyrics to him. 'I'm so sorry,' he said, giving the audience more promises that they would 'figure this out' before he exited the stage. Darius has not made any public statements about the show as devastated fans shared their support in the TikTok comments. 'Darius had to end the Atlantic City show a few songs in,' wrote original posted CaroTheBlondie. 'Feel better Darius, we love you!' 'He looked so upset when he left the stage,' commented Indigobabs2.0. Arthur H. Bonney added it 'looked like his hands were shaking' due to his emotions, saying he 'feels so bad for him'. Gina Appollonio Smith said: 'Oh man, I love him and hope that he's OK. As disappointed as I would've been his health is the most important thing. Unfortunately, I've never seen him in concert but his music plays as a backdrop for a big portion of my life and always will.' Grow Food noted they had seen him perform the Friday before, and he 'sounded like he was not feeling well'. More Trending It's unclear if Darius will be returning for his other scheduled gigs, with his next show scheduled for Saturday, July 19 in Florida. He is due to tour at various gigs and festivals in the US across the summer,including touring with Mumford and Sons, plus a short visit to the UK in September. Metro has reached out to Darius' reps for comment. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Outrage over My Chemical Romance's 'demonic' show points to a bigger problem MORE: 80s rock band sue each other after on stage punch-up ended reunion tour MORE: Country star Conner Smith charged after knocking down and killing woman, 77
Business Wire
30-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
AstroNova Announces Executive Leadership Change
WEST WARWICK, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AstroNova, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALOT), a leading innovator in data visualization technology, announced today that Darius G. Nevin, a member of the AstroNova Board of Directors, has been appointed as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 29, 2025. The Board will initiate a search for a successor to former President and Chief Executive Officer, Gregory A. Woods, who resigned from the role. The search will evaluate both internal and external candidates. Richard S. Warzala, Lead Independent Director of AstroNova, stated, 'These actions reflect an acceleration of our succession plans, and we are fortunate to have had Darius recently join the Board and to step into this interim role. In addition to his extensive public company executive experience, Darius has the talent, capabilities and time to devote to leading AstroNova while the Board conducts a search to identify and select his replacement. We expect that Darius can effectively address the situation the Company is tackling with the MTEX acquisition and the many changes the Company is implementing under new Product Identification segment leadership.' In addition to relinquishing his role as President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Woods also resigned from AstroNova's Board of Directors. Mr. Nevin's experience includes having served for nine years as Chief Financial Officer at then publicly traded Protection One, Inc., one of the largest security monitoring companies in the United States. He was instrumental in orchestrating a comprehensive financial turnaround of the business that significantly enhanced operational efficiency and ultimately culminated in the successful sale of the company. He is a director on the boards of (Nasdaq: ALRM), a global leader in internet-of-things security and automation solutions, and drug testing company Psychemedics Corporation, where he also serves as Chairman. Previously, he was on the Board of Directors of WCI Communities, Inc., a luxury homebuilder, from its initial public offering on the NYSE in 2013 until its sale in 2017. Mr. Nevin received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. As a result of this material change to the Company's Board of Directors and management, the Company's Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which had been scheduled for July 9, 2025, has been postponed and will be rescheduled. The Company will announce the new date for the Annual Meeting as soon as practicable. About AstroNova AstroNova (Nasdaq: ALOT), a global leader in data visualization technologies since 1969, designs, manufactures, distributes and services a broad range of products that acquire, store, analyze, and present data in multiple formats. Its strategy is to drive profitable growth through innovative new technologies, building its installed base to expand recurring revenue while strategically sourcing its replacement products. The Product Identification segment provides a wide array of digital, end-to-end product marking and identification solutions, including hardware, software, and supplies for OEMs, commercial printers, and brand owners. The Aerospace segment provides products designed for airborne printing solutions, avionics, and data acquisition. Aerospace products include flight deck printing solutions, networking hardware, and specialized aerospace-grade supplies. Data acquisition systems are used in research and development, flight testing, missile and rocket telemetry, production monitoring, power, and maintenance applications. For more information please visit: Forward-Looking Statements Information included in this news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact but rather reflect AstroNova's current expectations concerning future events and results. These statements may include the use of the words 'believes are ,' 'expects,' 'intends,' 'plans,' 'anticipates,' 'likely,' 'continues,' 'may,' 'will,' and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, including those concerning AstroNova's anticipated performance, involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond AstroNova's control, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors include, but are not limited to (i) the risk that the changes we have made to our Board and executive leadership team will not lead to the improved results we expect; and (ii) those factors set forth in AstroNova's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2025, and subsequent filings AstroNova makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AstroNova undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The reader is cautioned not to unduly rely on such forward-looking statements when evaluating the information presented in this news release. Important Additional Information In connection with its 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, AstroNova has filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC and caused it to be mailed, together with an annual report and proxy card, to each of our shareholders. The proxy statement and a copy of the other materials that we file with the SEC from time to time, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2025, may be obtained free of charge via the Internet at and through the Investor Relations page of our corporate website, In addition, investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the proxy statement, the annual report and other proxy materials by directing a written request to ALOTproxy@ The proxy statement and other relevant materials we have made or will make available contain important information about the director nominees and the other matters to be voted upon by shareholders at the 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. AstroNova urges shareholders to read the proxy statement, and any other relevant materials we make available, before making any decision with respect to the matters to be voted upon at the 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, including the election of directors.
Perth Now
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Keke Palmer wants another child
Keke Palmer "would love" to have another child. The Nope actress is currently single but she admitted she is always thinking about the possibility of having a sibling for her two-year-old son Leodis, who she has with former partner Darius Jackson. Asked if she wants more children, she told People magazine: "I would love to. It's one of those things I think about all the time. It's like, when that's going to happen, if that's going to happen, how that's going to happen." Despite their public break-up last year, Keke and Darius are on much better terms now and she thinks they have "grown a lot". Discussing how the split inspired her new album, Just Keke - which she shared with her former partner first - she said: "I think we both have grown a lot. "Life is funny that way. Sometimes things happen, and they teach you about yourself, good or bad, and then you have to decide what to do with it." The 31-year-old star insisted the most important thing when it comes to co-parenting with Darius is being "at your best for the baby" and putting their differences aside for the sake of what is best for their son. She said: "If the interpersonal drama becomes bigger than that, well, then they're not co-parenting. They're just being selfish. "For us, that was the big thing. 'Can we get on the same page? Can we co-parent? Can we actually put Leo first?' And then the closure piece is like, 'I'm okay with that being all that it is. Because I don't want to be in something that makes me unhappy, or you either.' You can't make people who you want them to be. You have to accept them for who they are." Although it was Father's Day earlier this month, Leodis didn't get to spend it with his dad because of Darius' work commitments. Keke explained: "We celebrated with my dad. His dad, Darius, is in the military, so he's not able to be as around, but [he's] making sure he's getting what he needs to get and doing good for our son."
