Latest news with #DeYoung
West Australian
23-05-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Coles, Woolies debate number of fake discount products
The nation's supermarket giants will barter with the competition watchdog on the number of items to be interrogated in court over allegations they misled customers with fake discounts. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has launched court actions against Coles and Woolworths, alleging they broke consumer law by bumping up prices on certain products for brief periods before lowering them again as part of Woolworths' "Prices Dropped" and Coles' "Down Down" promotions. Those promotional prices - including dairy, pet food, personal care, coffee, medicine, lollies, cereal and household cleaning products - were lower than during the price bump, but higher than or the same as the regular price, it alleges. A Federal Court hearing in Melbourne on Friday heard disagreements over the number of sample products from both supermarkets that would be included as evidence in the trial. Coles had agreed with 12 products - six chosen by the ACCC, three class products and three of their choosing, barrister Nicholas De Young told the court. "We submitted and believe that was a reasonable proposal, but a minute before court, we heard they want to add an additional four," he said. Mr De Young said the additional products could mean three or four more witnesses who will need to talk in detail about the price increase and promotional discussion journeys those items had. He questioned what attributes the four items have that the existing 12 don't. Woolworths had proposed six products, but barrister Ruth Higgins told the court the ACCC had submitted 20 on Thursday morning before reducing the number to 12 by that night. "What we've been doing this morning is trying to work out why those additional products are proposed and what difference those products make," Dr Higgins said. Barrister Michael Hodge said the ACCC had proposed a compromised position of 12 products for both companies, which would ensure everything could be captured. Justice Michael O'Bryan urged the parties to compromise, giving them until June 13 to finalise a list of agreed items. "If we're south of 20, or even better, south of 15, then we're in what I regard as sensible territory for conducting an efficient trial," he said. The consumer watchdog is seeking a significant penalty for the alleged breaches, which they say took place over 15 months. Coles and Woolworths, which control a combined two-thirds market share, deny the allegations and say the legal cases are misconceived.
Perth Now
23-05-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Coles, Woolies debate number of fake discount products
The nation's supermarket giants will barter with the competition watchdog on the number of items to be interrogated in court over allegations they misled customers with fake discounts. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has launched court actions against Coles and Woolworths, alleging they broke consumer law by bumping up prices on certain products for brief periods before lowering them again as part of Woolworths' "Prices Dropped" and Coles' "Down Down" promotions. Those promotional prices - including dairy, pet food, personal care, coffee, medicine, lollies, cereal and household cleaning products - were lower than during the price bump, but higher than or the same as the regular price, it alleges. A Federal Court hearing in Melbourne on Friday heard disagreements over the number of sample products from both supermarkets that would be included as evidence in the trial. Coles had agreed with 12 products - six chosen by the ACCC, three class products and three of their choosing, barrister Nicholas De Young told the court. "We submitted and believe that was a reasonable proposal, but a minute before court, we heard they want to add an additional four," he said. Mr De Young said the additional products could mean three or four more witnesses who will need to talk in detail about the price increase and promotional discussion journeys those items had. He questioned what attributes the four items have that the existing 12 don't. Woolworths had proposed six products, but barrister Ruth Higgins told the court the ACCC had submitted 20 on Thursday morning before reducing the number to 12 by that night. "What we've been doing this morning is trying to work out why those additional products are proposed and what difference those products make," Dr Higgins said. Barrister Michael Hodge said the ACCC had proposed a compromised position of 12 products for both companies, which would ensure everything could be captured. Justice Michael O'Bryan urged the parties to compromise, giving them until June 13 to finalise a list of agreed items. "If we're south of 20, or even better, south of 15, then we're in what I regard as sensible territory for conducting an efficient trial," he said. The consumer watchdog is seeking a significant penalty for the alleged breaches, which they say took place over 15 months. Coles and Woolworths, which control a combined two-thirds market share, deny the allegations and say the legal cases are misconceived.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Friendship' Director Andrew DeYoung on Shooting His Tim Robinson Cringe Comedy with ‘High-Arthouse Aesthetics'
Are the guys OK? So rarely do we get smart, subversive screen comedies about male friendship these days, and writer/director Andrew DeYoung's feature directing debut 'Friendship' turns the genre inside out. Casting Paul Rudd as forlorn weatherman Austin Carmichael, neighbor to Tim Robinson's anxiously neurotic Craig Waterman, in his A24 movie will immediately bring to mind another male friendship comedy, 'I Love You, Man.' 'Friendship' is like the dark mirror of John Hamburg's 2009 cult classic, as the desperately friendless Craig strikes up (or even forces) a bond with the charismatic man across the street who keeps getting his packages. It proves ruinous for all, including Craig's wife Tami (played by Kate Mara), who is obsessed with an ex and oh-so eager to get Craig out of the house. More from IndieWire Simon Pegg Has a Comedy Reunion with Edgar Wright in the Works - but It's Not a 'Shaun of the Dead' Sequel WME Plans to 'Vigorously Defend' Itself Against 'Together' Copyright Lawsuit The Los Angeles-based DeYoung, who has directed episodes of you-name-it every beloved single-camera streaming comedy series from 'PEN15' to 'Dave' and 'Our Flag Means Death,' was inspired by his own brush with a male companionship that wasn't gelling. 'It was less of an established friendship and more of a wanting,' he told IndieWire. 'I thought there was a friendship blossoming, and that person didn't seem to be as interested as I thought. And I'm like, wow, you see the romance version of it constantly. I've never seen the middle-aged version between two straight men. That's happening all the time. Men have friendships, and they have issues with their friends, and I know it's most predominantly portrayed in 'I Love You, Man,' but what's my version of that that's closer to my reality? And so that's where it started from.' The arthouse-cringe, let's call it, comedy of 'Friendship' is filled with the familiar and not-so-familiar iconography of male buddy comedies: Craig is trying to bond with his son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer) over the latest 'Marvel,' Craig and his corporate co-workers at a company that makes their clients' products more addictive hang out in the garage over beers, and Craig and Austin seek bond-forming adventure in the most unlikely of places (here, a sewer system, for one). But Craig's agonized fixation on finding a new friend only turns alienating for Austin, who has it all figured out, unlike his neighbor, who's no longer having sex with his wife since she had cancer. 'Tim's a friend, and as I wrote, I was imagining him and I never told him about it until I finished it and sent it to him,' said DeYoung, who next directs 'I Think You Should Leave' star Robinson in HBO's half-hour comedy pilot 'The Chair Company.' 'The Austin character was kind of an amalgamation of all kinds of different archetypes and people in my head, so I never knew who that quite would be, but when Paul's name came up, I was like, that guy is perfect.' DeYoung said that Rudd 'asked to be in the movie more' and 'it really made the movie even better. I imagined in my head I was going to get someone totally on the drama side. [Paul] has a little bit or a lot of everything he could do. He's this handsome guy who's really funny, but also such a good actor and will be able to play off Tim in such an incredible way and knows the comedy moves without winking at it.' DeYoung shot 'Friendship' in Yonkers, giving his A24 buddy comedy a wintry, folksy twinge that wouldn't have been possible had he shot the film in California, where he's from. 'I grew up in Fresno, California. It was a gift to have to shoot in Yonkers during the dead of winter because I'm a California boy — it just sounds like pure pain, but it added all these gifts with the coats and the snow. There's an underlying sadness and grief to it, and the weather really helps set that tone in place. Split-level homes were a new thing that I didn't know, and I just had to embrace that.' 'Friendship' is unusual for a studio-adjacent comedy in that it's rife with moments of portentous dread, cinematographer Andy Rydzewski's camera slowly zooming at times like a horror movie. In one sequence of the film, Craig takes a strange drug trip after licking an amphibian, which sends him into a hallucinated Subway franchise brick-and-mortar. Meanwhile, there's Tami, lost for half the movie in the sewers underground after Craig leads her down there trying to spice things up. (Whoever thought that would end well?) There's even some straight-up horror violence toward the film's end that feels ripped out of A24's arsenal of chillers. With Rudd and Robinson on board, DeYoung said he had the 'leverage' in terms of pitching the movie, and at a moment where he was 'so kind of disappointed by the overall state of cinema that I'm like, 'I'm not going to make anything that's not exactly what I'm going to make,'' he said. 'We're going to shoot it with these high-arthouse aesthetics.' He pitched the film as in a vein more like 'The Master,' 'The King of Comedy,' 'Toni Erdmann,' or 'Force Majeure' than 'I Love You, Man,' 'all movies that are successful and work. So I'm not pointing to things that are shaky.' ('Friendship' was produced by Fifth Season and BoulderLight Pictures, with A24 acquiring it out of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film premiered.) DeYoung added, 'Paul and Tim have massive cult followings, and to me it [felt] so safe. I never tried to soften the movie. I only tried to make it feel scarier to financiers, to be honest, to see who is actually down to get in the mud with me and try something different.' I asked why DeYoung is 'disappointed by the overall state of cinema,' and he said, 'I just feel like there are a lot of safe choices that don't respect the audience. It's so nice to feel respected by a filmmaker, even if I don't like the movie or agree with what it's trying to do. If it feels like it's trying to do something and treat us as the intelligent people that I like to imagine we are, I'll respect it. A lot of films really sell out the audience and treat us dumber than we are.' DeYoung pointed to Sean Baker as one such filmmaker whose smart work 'sneaks through' and doesn't pander to audiences. Beyond his work, the Oscar-winning director's recent comments about the financial headwinds faced by indie filmmakers resonated with the 'Friendship' director, too. 'If I didn't have TV, I would be trying to slum it in the commercial world or flipping houses, I don't know,' DeYoung said. 'Some working at the highest levels [are] still getting fucked over financially. People project onto us as having a certain kind of financial life, but it's actually not the case. The system's rigged against us, and I love A24, truly such good partners, but the culture is rigged against the filmmaker. And there's a lot of people who didn't do much on these movies who are getting paid more than the filmmaker.' Speaking of filmmakers pulling it in financially, there's a running gag throughout 'Friendship' in which Craig is just dying to see 'the new Marvel' because it's apparently so good that it's driving people crazy. 'I have to choose my words wisely because I know these things bring a lot of joy to people,' DeYoung said. 'The reason why maybe talented filmmakers go to bigger tentpole projects is kind of none of my business, and I hope they're getting paid to do it regardless, but it just doesn't interest me… [Marvel is] almost boring to make fun of. But I think a character who likes it is interesting, and it's a way to comment on it without the usual tearing down of it. All those arguments have already been made.' 'Friendship' is now in select theaters from A24. It goes into wide release Friday, May 23. Best of IndieWire The 19 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in May, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal' Martin Scorsese's Favorite Movies: 86 Films the Director Wants You to See Christopher Nolan's Favorite Movies: 44 Films the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
19 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About "Friendship," One Of The F-U-N-N-I-E-S-T Movies I've Seen In A Looooooong Time
In case it hasn't landed on your radar yet, Friendship is a new ~wild~ comedy film from A24 starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. The quick pitch is: Suburban dad, Craig (Robinson) falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor (Paul Rudd), but Craig's attempts to make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives. And let's just say, if you're a fan of the show I Think You Should Leave, this will be 1000% up your alley because the film feels like an extra-long episode of that show. And it's great, 10/10 would recommend. Because I enjoy a good deep-dive into things I like, here are some interesting behind-the-scenes facts about the film I just learned: is writer-director Andrew DeYoung's debut feature film. His previous credits include directing for shows like Our Flag Means Death, Pen15, and Shrill. the writing and jokes seem ~very~ Tim Robinson, he was shockingly not a writer (or even co-writer) on it. DeYoung says that Tim did come to mind while writing his script. "Thankfully, he said 'yes' when I sent it [the script] to him," he told Entertainment Weekly. and Robinson are actually good friends IRL, which maybe explains why DeYoung was able to capture Tim Robinson's comedic voice so well in the film. might think there was a ton of improv in the film, but apparently, Robinson doesn't like improv. According to DeYoung, they did do it [improv], as Rudd is "exceptional" at it. But while a few things made it into the movie, for the most part what you see was written on the page. of DeYoung's inspiration was his own friendship "issues" IRL. He explained, "A few years ago, I had my own Friendship issues that I was trying to resolve, and I realized that I'd never seen a breakup story about two middle-aged men. It's something that's happening all the time. It's tragic but it's also deeply funny." interestingly, DeYoung wrote the script in 2020 during the pandemic. surprising inspiration for the film was actually Paul Thomas Anderson's film The Master — a dramatic story about a guru who becomes dangerously entangled with one of his acolytes. Robinson was immediately on board with that concept. DeYoung said, "When I finished the Friendship screenplay, I told Tim that I had written it for him and that I wanted to shoot the story like it was The Master. He got right back to me and just said, 'Great, let's do it.'" the supporting role of Austin was a smaller part, which DeYoung says "made attracting talent trickier than expected." the part of Austin was actually rewritten for Paul Rudd. DeYoung explained, "It [the script] got to Paul Rudd, and it was just clear how amazing that would be." fact, Paul Rudd's character was originally named Brian. But then Rudd pointed out that "Brian" was the name of his character in Anchorman, who is ALSO a news guy. it was Paul Rudd who pitched the name "Austin" instead of Brian. for the role of Tami, played by Kate Mara, DeYoung wanted Robinson to act against someone not traditionally known for comedy. fact, Mara was one of the first people pitched to DeYoung. He told Entertainment Weekly, "I met her and immediately was like, 'Yeah, you're perfect. Let's do this.'" 16."Spiritual emptiness" is a theme DeYoung wanted to really emphasize in the film saying that in today's society, "capital has replaced religion." He continued, "I wanted to point to that, and to the almost religious grasp that companies like Marvel have on our culture." that empty feeling, they actually filmed in ice-cold weather — upstate New York in January and February for 23 days. despite the film being a comedy, DeYoung didn't want the audience to feel "safe or settled." to emphasize that uneasy feeling, the filmmakers used as much natural lighting as possible. In fact, they took inspiration from the 2018 psychological thriller Burning. In particular, they looked to a scene where the characters in that film are sitting outside at sunset. "We were reaching for something similar and to bring it into a comedy, where everybody's guard is down," said DeYoung. Friendship opens in theaters on May 9. And if you wanna see more, you can check out the official trailer here: Unless otherwise noted, facts were sourced from the film's production notes.
Buzz Feed
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Friendship Comedy Movie Behind The Scenes Facts
In case it hasn't landed on your radar yet, Friendship is a new ~wild~ comedy film from A24 starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. The quick pitch is: Suburban dad, Craig (Robinson) falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor (Paul Rudd), but Craig's attempts to make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives. And let's just say, if you're a fan of the show I Think You Should Leave, this will be 1000% up your alley because the film feels like an extra-long episode of that show. And it's great, 10/10 would recommend. Because I enjoy a good deep-dive into things I like, here are some interesting behind-the-scenes facts about the film I just learned: This is writer-director Andrew DeYoung's debut feature film. His previous credits include directing for shows like Our Flag Means Death, Pen15, and Shrill. Although the writing and jokes seem ~very~ Tim Robinson, he was shockingly not a writer (or even co-writer) on it. However, DeYoung says that Tim did come to mind while writing his script. "Thankfully, he said 'yes' when I sent it [the script] to him," he told Entertainment Weekly. DeYoung and Robinson are actually good friends IRL, which maybe explains why DeYoung was able to capture Tim Robinson's comedic voice so well in the film. You might think there was a ton of improv in the film, but apparently, Robinson doesn't like improv. According to DeYoung, they did do it [improv], as Rudd is "exceptional" at it. But while a few things made it into the movie, for the most part what you see was written on the page. Part of DeYoung's inspiration was his own friendship "issues" IRL. He explained, "A few years ago, I had my own Friendship issues that I was trying to resolve, and I realized that I'd never seen a breakup story about two middle-aged men. It's something that's happening all the time. It's tragic but it's also deeply funny." And interestingly, DeYoung wrote the script in 2020 during the pandemic. Another surprising inspiration for the film was actually Paul Thomas Anderson's film The Master — a dramatic story about a guru who becomes dangerously entangled with one of his acolytes. And Robinson was immediately on board with that concept. DeYoung said, "When I finished the Friendship screenplay, I told Tim that I had written it for him and that I wanted to shoot the story like it was The Master. He got right back to me and just said, 'Great, let's do it.'" Originally, the supporting role of Austin was a smaller part, which DeYoung says "made attracting talent trickier than expected." And the part of Austin was actually rewritten for Paul Rudd. DeYoung explained, "It [the script] got to Paul Rudd, and it was just clear how amazing that would be." In fact, Paul Rudd's character was originally named Brian. But then Rudd pointed out that "Brian" was the name of his character in Anchorman, who is ALSO a news guy. And it was Paul Rudd who pitched the name "Austin" instead of Brian. As for the role of Tami, played by Kate Mara, DeYoung wanted Robinson to act against someone not traditionally known for comedy. In fact, Mara was one of the first people pitched to DeYoung. He told Entertainment Weekly, "I met her and immediately was like, 'Yeah, you're perfect. Let's do this.'" "Spiritual emptiness" is a theme DeYoung wanted to really emphasize in the film saying that in today's society, "capital has replaced religion." He continued, "I wanted to point to that, and to the almost religious grasp that companies like Marvel have on our culture." Echoing that empty feeling, they actually filmed in ice-cold weather — upstate New York in January and February for 23 days. And, despite the film being a comedy, DeYoung didn't want the audience to feel "safe or settled." Finally, to emphasize that uneasy feeling, the filmmakers used as much natural lighting as possible. In fact, they took inspiration from the 2018 psychological thriller Burning. In particular, they looked to a scene where the characters in that film are sitting outside at sunset. "We were reaching for something similar and to bring it into a comedy, where everybody's guard is down," said DeYoung. Friendship opens in theaters on May 9. And if you wanna see more, you can check out the official trailer here:
