Latest news with #IronClaw
Daily Record
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Netflix adds 'incredible yet devastating' true story film that leaves fans in floods of tears
Netflix fans have been left 'heartbroken' after watching the biopic about a famous wrestling family, starring Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White. Netflix has added a heartbreaking biopic about a famous wrestling family which has left viewers in floods of tears. The Iron Claw, which features a series of Hollywood stars including Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White, tells the devastating story of the Von Erich brothers as they made history in the highly competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. The 2023 film, which was released in UK cinemas in February 2024, has scored an impressive 89 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and landed on Netflix over the weekend. Zac Efron takes on a leading role as Kevin Von Erich, one of the siblings who achieved fame as a professional wrestler whilst Harris Dickinson plays David, Jeremy Allen White plays Kerry and Stanley Simons plays Mike. A synopsis for the sports drama reads: "The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s." Despite their wrestling success, the Von Erichs faced endless amounts of tragedy outside of the ring. The family was struck by a series of tragic deaths, which are depicted throughout the film, with their misfortune becoming known as the 'Von Erich Curse'. The film was already so sad that the director was forced to make the tough decision to leave one major detail out of the film in case it was too upsetting for viewers. Despite this, Netflix fans have been left highly impressed by the biopic, although they have warned it is a difficult watch. One IMDb reviewer wrote: "The Iron Claw is incredible yet devastating. It's an emotionally haunting film that is going to stick with me for a while." Meanwhile another fan on Reddit wrote: 'This movie completely broke me and I don't say that often but damn. 'I knew very little about the family going into it but had heard it was based on a true story and depressing. But this movie was more depressing than I had imagined lol especially the last 15 minutes absolutely brutal.' A third added: "Watching the final scene of The Iron Claw and I think someone must have been cutting onions next to me. Seen it like 5 times and it always hits like a punch to the gut." Referencing the missing detail of the film, another reviewer on Letterboxd wrote: 'Crazy they actually made the story less sad in order to make it more believable.' Throughout the course of the film, tragedy strikes the family multiple times and Kevin is the only brother who lives through it all. The first is when the Von Erich's older brother, Jack, died at the age of six. How he passed away was one of the many tragic details left out to make the film watchable as Jack was electrocuted by an exposed wire and drowned in a puddle. The next of his brothers to die was David Von Erich, who passed away at 25 on a trip to Japan after health complications caused his sudden death. Later in the film, Mike and Kerry Von Erich both take their own lives. Mike sadly becomes disabled to due to an in-ring accident and Kerry loses his leg the night he won the family's first World Championship. All of this happened in real life except one major detail was missed out - there was another brother who also died of suicide. Chris Von Erich was left out of the film with Mike being a combination of the two real life brothers. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Chris suffered from asthma and brittle bones but attempt to wrestle anyway, which proved to be a huge fail. He killed himself with a shot to the head in 1991 at the age of 21. When speaking about the decision to leave out Chris, director Sean Durkin said: 'There was a repetition to it, and it was one more tragedy that the film couldn't really withstand.' He confessed that Chris had been in the script for five years and taking him out was an 'impossible choice.' Durkin stated that Kevin, who is the only son of Fritz Von Erich to live past their 20s or 30s, said he 'understood' when he told him of his decision.
Daily Mirror
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Netflix viewers in tears after watching heartbreaking biopic with Hollywood star
Netflix fans have been left in tears after watching The Iron Claw on Netflix, which stars Zac Efron in a role that is worlds away from the Disney Channel film that made him famous Netflix fans have been left in tears after The Iron Claw made its debut on Netflix. The 2023 film stars Zac Efron as wrestling legend Kevin Von Erich, and was released on the streaming platform on Friday, almost two years on from when it first came out in cinemas. The film charts lives of the Von Erich brothers and their careers, and High School Musical star Zac, 37, stars alongside the likes of Jeremy Allen White, Harrison Dickinson, Lily James and Maura Tierney. A synopsis for the sports drama reads: "The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s." Critics were immediately grabbed by the film's premise, with Rolling Stone's David Fear writing: "It's a messy movie about messy lives, occasionally in ways you wish it wasn't. But The Iron Claw is also a story of redemption… That's partially why Efron's performance is the one that sticks with you." It comes as BBC viewers cringe at Kemi Badenoch's 'fields of wheat' moment. READ MORE: Zac Efron looks unrecognisable on set with Phoebe Dyvenor as they hold hands for new film One critic said: "Zac Efron really gives it his all in this heartbreaking wrestling film about the Von Erich family. The biopic details the complexity of the family," whilst another added: "As a wrenching American heartland saga, The Iron Claw is certainly compelling, and to anyone unfamiliar with the Von Erichs' history, each jolt of fresh anguish delivered to the family will be startling. " A third shared: 'The Iron Claw looks and feels like a pre-streaming TV movie – and not just any old TV movie but a strangely entertaining, darkly tragic, completely gripping TV movie." Fans have also been quick to flood social media with their opinions after the film arrived on Netflix. One said: "The ending of the iron claw has just ripped my heart out," and another said bluntly: "Haunting good story, that left me in an emotional wreck. Excellent performance from Zac Efron. Really just hits different." A third said: "Watching the final scene of The Iron Claw and I think someone must have been cutting onions next to me. Seen it like 5 times and it always hits like a punch to the gut." One viewer, who had been particularly moved by the events depicted in the film, said: "The Iron Claw is the saddest fkn film I've ever seen. Who can be happy again after seeing this?! WHO MADE THIS??!!!" and another wrote: "Watching the Iron Claw knowing fully well I would cry but the AMOUNT of crying was underestimated." The film has also caused a stir on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where it has managed to reach a score of 89%. One reviewer said on the famed movie website: "A tragic story, told impeccably well. More wrestling biopics please! Didn't think this would be one of the best films I've seen, really surprised me... No popcorn needed! Maybe just tissues.' An absolutely fantastic film that had to be dialled down to make it believable. Tragic family story that was worse in real life but too unbelievable to put all in the movie.' A second film buff added: "Phenomenal movie. Amazing performances from the actors. I've lost people close to me so I really felt this one. Truly beautiful movie," and a third said: "Wow. Incredible acting from all performers. It's more about family, masculinity, grief, loss, and mental health than wrestling. One of the best movies I've seen in years actually!" Zac previously reflected on his difficult training for the sports flick. He told USA Today: "You think you're getting the hang of it, and you speed up a few times and your confidence gets built up. Then you slam into one of those things just an inch too high and your rib is like gone. You can't breathe for a couple days. I don't know how these guys do it, man ... it's shocking that first time you do it. You're like, 'This is not as easy as it looks on TV.'" And around the same time, he explained to Deadline: "Nothing could prepare me for the wrestling. The physical preparation and the training, that's something that I've always found very interesting. I've always admired people's transformations, in particular for movie roles. I just find that dedication fascinating and special when I see it. "So in training for this, I got to train essentially for my championship, my belt match. It all came down to, how precise is my training? How dedicated am I to this? How hard can I push? I think I shed a skin somewhere in those seven months where Kevin was really at the wheel. It felt honest, it felt real. "I felt like I was physically there; I felt mentally there, as a direct result of the training, and then from there, the wrestling, surprisingly, was fun."
The Herald Scotland
09-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The Scots who were the world's first Black Sabbath tribute group
ON a Sunday night in mid-November 1969, a new heavy metal band, Black Sabbath, played a gig at a venue in Dumfries. Earlier that month, the group, which had recently changed its name from Earth, had recorded their self-titled debut album at a London studio. Rugman's Youth Club in Dumfries was a small, railway-tunnel shaped venue, some 80 feet long with two-feet-high stages at either end, on which bands played. In the audience of between 80 and 100 teenagers that evening was Alex Wilson, a young man in flared trousers who was there to record another band on his Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder via a Grundig 4 channel Magic Eye mixer. He wasn't to know it then, but the events of November 16 would change his life, and not just because he happened to make the earliest known recording at that time of a live gig by Black Sabbath – Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. What would follow was one of the most curious episodes in Scottish rock music: the story of Iron Claw, a band which Alex was already in the process of forming. Encouraged by the experience of seeing Black Sabbath live and talking to them informally afterwards, Alex created a musical project by writing original songs with sledgehammer riffs and powerful interplay between lead guitar, bass and drums. Such was the motivation that night that Iron Claw learned to play all the early Sabbath songs and in the process of performing them live became the world's first Sabbath tribute band, in 1970. Iron Claw didn't make it into the big time in those pre-internet days, mostly because they were based in Dumfries and not in London, the then music capital of the UK, but also because the only financial input into the band was from Alex himself. The Iron Claw songs written and recorded at the dawn of the Seventies would not see the light of the day for nearly 40 years. A double vinyl album was released in 2009, covering the recordings made between 1970 and 1973, its 16 songs including Clawstrophobia, Sabotage, Skullcrusher, Pavement Artist and Winter. And – irony of ironies – that record, Iron Claw, has just been described as one of the 200 greatest heavy rock albums. The earliest version of the band consisted of four highly talented musicians: Jimmy Ronnie (16) on guitar, Ian McDougall (16) on drums, Mike Waller (17) on vocals and Alex Wilson (21) on bass. Alex, now 77, takes up the story. 'I was 20 when I started in 1968 assisting in the management of a local band, Amplified Heat, and used to record them regularly. After the best part of a couple of years I thought, I could do better than this – I can't sculpt, I can't paint, but I could maybe make some music. 'I went to see Led Zeppelin on their first tour, 1969. It was at Newcastle City Hall, that June. Fifteen pence to get in, and it wasn't even sold out! That was the first really big band I had seen, and of course I noticed right away that they didn't make any mistakes during a set. That showed me the standard that you've really got to achieve if you want to make a record'. Alex began putting together the eventual Iron Claw in the summer of 1969 choosing their name after a line in a King Crimson song. ('We liked the sound of it', Jimmy Ronnie told Psychedelic Baby magazine in 2011. 'It sounded heavy'). Between them, the quartet made a powerful outfit. Jimmy himself was something of a guitar prodigy. 'He had come up to me at an Amplified Heat open-air show in 1969 and asked if he could have a shot on my guitar', Alex recalls. 'I had a Gibson SG Standard which I had loaned to the Amplified Heat guitarist to use and I told Jimmy, 'aye, sure'. I heard him play, and he was impressive so I took a mental note. 'Jimmy said, 'I live in the flats just behind you'. And I thought, right enough: when I was going to work at eight in the morning I could hear this guitar being practised. Then I found Ian, who'd asked for a shot on Amplified Heat's drums at a Rugman's gig. He was very good; another mental note. Ian was only 15 at the time. Mike had previously been in Amplified Heat and was only 17 when he joined.' Iron Claw learned how to gel together, playing blues songs by the likes of Free, Taste and Johnny Winter. 'And then, one night', says Alex, 'Amplified Heat were backing Black Sabbath at Rugman's. I used to record Amplified Heat every night so that we could iron out any mistakes. Sabbath started off and I thought, My God! They were as good as Zeppelin, I thought. I was absolutely astonished, so I recorded their second half. Black Sabbath were all younger than me. Ozzy never swore that night. He was a really well-mannered guy, and so was [guitarist] Tony Iommi. They were all great lads. 'I was talking to them afterwards and they said they were writing their own stuff. They were on the blues circuit at the time, '68-69, and I thought, well, if they can write their own songs … the songs were quite basic but I loved the power of them'. Iron Claw were really taken with the Sabbath sound. 'We were the first Black Sabbath tribute band', is how Alex terms it. 'It was quite an interesting period. We got really tight and we learned all their songs. 'In those days there was no internet, of course. There was no radio or TV exposure. If you wanted to get anywhere you had to play live. That was it. We learned a good 30, 40 songs or whatever, and practiced, recording rehearsals to ensure no mistakes. Writing Iron Claw material, we recorded firstly in Edinburgh and then in London on very primitive equipment, in 1970. The last studio recordings we made were in Newcastle in 1973. 'That was it, basically. The rest of the boys were getting older and settling down, you have to remember. I was five years older than most of them and was the only one with a regular job'. The first of the line-up changes occurred when Mike Waller departed in 1972, Alex recruiting Willie Davidson and Donald McLaughlin, briefly, from Amplified Heat. Iron Claw hung together until 1974, when the band went their separate ways. Alex was the one who was left with all the Iron Claw bills to pay, and, seeking to recover some of his outlay, brought out, in 1976, Remains to be Heard, a self-produced cassette of Iron Claw songs. It went on sale locally, and sold out. 'About twenty years later, some German bootleg company got hold of a cassette copy and brought it out on CD. They actually brought it out twice – the first time under the Iron Claw name, and, the second time, under a fake name, Antrobus. That's how Rockadrome got to hear of the music, really'. Rockadrome is a specialist US record label and store that released the double Iron Claw album on vinyl and CD in 2009. The songs were remastered from Alex's original tapes. One critic, writing for the online magazine Terrorizer, noted at the time: 'This Scottish band is just ridiculously heavy and I think it's a travesty that the 16 songs they wrote around 1970/1971 never got an official release until 2009. This whole album is just breathtaking'. Read more On the Record: And what of that recent accolade? It came in a new publication from the makers of Uncut. At number 77 in The 200 Greatest Heavy Rock Albums … Ranked! is that 2009 Iron Claw album, ahead of some records by such renowned acts as AC/DC, Rush, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin and, yes, Black Sabbath. 'Inspired by Zep and Sabbath', the magazine notes, 'Iron Claw were formed in Dumfries in 1969, but didn't receive their due until this fab 2009 release of 16 tracks from the early 70s. Monolithic riffs emerge though the murk as stoner rock is born and promptly forgotten'. Alex is clearly happy with such recognition, as belated as it is, and has posted the news on Iron Claw's Facebook page. He writes: 'There will be some eye-rolling at some albums included BELOW No77!)... All opinions of course, but I still think it's a great honour to be included in such company!' To which one fan has succinctly responded: 'This is f——- great news! Congrats. Well deserved'.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Mindhunter' May Return as Three Movies, Star Holt McCallany Reveals
There is hope, Mindhunter fans. Holt McCallany, who starred in the Netflix series for two seasons alongside Jonathan Groff, recently told CBR about the long-awaited possibility of a revival and how he's spoken to the show's executive producer/director David Fincher about the series returning as possibly three films. More from The Hollywood Reporter Don't Expect Netflix to Save U.S. Broadcast Networks Somebody Listen to Phil Kathryn Bigelow's 'A House of Dynamite' Sets Fall Release for Theaters and Netflix 'I had a meeting with David Fincher in his office a few months ago, and he said to me that there is a chance that it may come back as three two-hour movies, but I think it's just a chance,' said the Waterfront star. 'I know there are writers that are working, but you know, David has to be happy with scripts.' He continued, 'I recently wrote a script that he was kind enough to give me notes on. I was in script revisions with David for two and a half years.. but [he] was very meticulous, which is why I think he's the best director in Hollywood,' The Iron Claw star said before adding, 'He gave me a little bit of hope when I had that meeting with him, but the sun, the moon and the stars would all have to align.' Mindhunter dropped on Netflix in 2017 and 2019 and followed Bill (McCallany) and Holden (Groff) investigating the psyche of serial killers. Netflix decided not to renew the series primarily because of high production costs, according to Fincher. 'It's a very expensive show, and in the eyes of Netflix, we didn't attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment' for a season three, he said in 2023. However, six years later, the fans and its passionate fanbase have continued to ask for more. Previously, in 2021, Groff also told The Hollywood Reporter he would return and gushed about his love of working with Fincher. 'To me, Mindhunter is Fincher. The whole experience for me was the honor and privilege of getting to work with him. This was the main draw for me,' Groff said. 'The minute he says he wants to do another one, I'll be there in a second. But I trust his vision and his instincts, and so I leave it always in his hands, as ever.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
Jordan News
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Jordan News
Israel Requests Former Military Spokesman Daniel Hagari to Return to Service - Jordan News
Israel's Channel 7 reported that the Israeli army has requested former military spokesperson Daniel Hagari to return to active duty. According to the report, Hagari has been called back to assist with the military information system in light of the launch of Operation 'Iron Claw' in Iran. اضافة اعلان
