Latest news with #MardiGras
Sydney Morning Herald
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie just had to do Together, together
When Dave Franco read the script of Together, a comedic horror film about a codependent couple whose bodies begin to fuse, he was immediately on board – and not just for himself. 'I was blown away by all of these insane set-pieces that were like nothing I had ever seen before, and I turned to Alison and said I think we should do this one together,' he says. 'And then I read the script and was not at all insulted that Dave compared our relationship to that of the characters in the movie,' says Alison Brie, Franco's partner of 15 years and wife of eight. In truth, she says, she wasn't at all insulted because she felt they were so different from the characters in the movie. Adds Franco, 'I think if we were struggling as much as they are, we would not have said yes'. Franco plays Tim, a man in his mid-30s who still harbours a fantasy of making it big with his occasionally gigging band. Brie is Millie, a teacher who lands a new job in the country and thinks of it as the gateway to the next chapter in their lives – the cute house, the small community, the pitter-patter of little feet. He is, of course, terrified. After a walk in the woods near their new home goes awry, things get truly weird. Strange smells in the house. Sticky substances that seem to emerge whenever they are close to each other. An inability to leave each other's orbit for very long, or at all. Franco and Brie met at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It was, she jokes, 'a one-night stand that never ended'. Though she felt their relationship was sufficiently different to the film's couple, Brie also appreciated that 'the meta quality of us being in a long-term relationship would add a lot to the movie. For us as actors, there was a lot of work that we didn't have to do to have the theme [of codependency] be infused with that history that's already there.' For writer-director Michael Shanks, though, there was nowhere to hide. Tim is, he readily admits, '100 per cent' him – or at least him as he was in his mid-20s when he first had the idea for what would become Together. 'I've been in a relationship with my partner for over 16 years,' he says. 'We met at schoolies the week after high school – a friend's parents had a little shack an hour out of Melbourne, we went there and drank ourselves into oblivion for a week, and got awfully sunburnt.' They have been together ever since, he continues, 'and there was a point where I realised we have all the same friends, we eat the same food, we listen to the same music, we breathe the same air, and I started to freak out. I was realising that, without her, I wasn't a complete person any more because we'd been growing in the same direction so much that our lives had become intertwined.' It wasn't just them, either. 'My friendship group is a series of tragic monogamists, most of whom have been together since high school,' Shanks says. 'Some of those relationships have thrived, and some you look at and go, 'I don't think you guys are still together because you love each other. I think you're just used to each other. You're so intertwined you can't extricate yourselves'.' When Shanks told his partner, Louey, about his idea, she was taken aback but also understanding. 'She said to me, 'I'm a little upset you're writing this, but it's a good idea'.' Shanks wrote his first draft of the screenplay in 2019, when he was in his late 20s. The following year, Screen Australia funded a second draft, and in 2021 it funded a third. (Shanks was already on the agency's radar thanks to his YouTube channel, which had garnered more than 64 million views before going into hiatus; in 2016, the agency backed his self-made Lord of the Rings parody Wizard of Oz.) That timeline has become critically important in recent months, for reasons that Shanks finds painful to discuss. The film was shot in just 21 days in early 2024, with the star American couple setting up house in Melbourne. 'We loved snagging that window seat at Napier Quarter,' says Brie of the cosy Fitzroy wine bar they frequented. 'Melbourne makes us feel at home,' adds Franco. 'It's one of the few places we've ever shot that we could actually imagine ourselves living in.' For the rest of the year, Shanks did whatever VFX work he could manage himself, though the big set pieces were farmed out to Framestore. 'It was amazing to work with real visual effects people,' he says, somewhat modestly. He worked day and night and at weekends. 'And that was the way we managed to get it done in time to submit to Sundance.' The film festival is the world's foremost showcase of indie cinema. Loading 'I've been a film nerd my whole life, and you dream of going somewhere like Sundance,' Shanks says. 'Making the film was a dream. Getting into Sundance was the next dream.' Park City, Utah, where the festival has been held, is more than 2100 metres above sea level. It's not uncommon for visitors to contend with altitude sickness – and Shanks had it bad. He had a virus too. 'I spent two days leading up to the screening just vomiting, unable to keep food down. The day of the screening, I was in an emergency room and had a drip and oxygen – it was awful,' he recalls. Somehow, he forced himself into the 2000-seat cinema where he was due to introduce his film. 'And as soon as I walked into that room, the adrenaline hit.' Only a very small group of people – producers and editors and a handful of crew – had yet seen Together. They thought it was 'quite good', but no one knew how it would play to an audience. 'My partner had flown over for it, and my mother had flown over to see a film she was almost certainly going to hate – it's sticky and gross, and it has some nasty moments, and she typically doesn't watch any film that doesn't star Judi Dench.' Five minutes in, he got his first laugh. After another five minutes, the film's first scare landed too. 'And from then, they just reacted exactly the way we always hoped they would.' At the after-party, he was mobbed by well-wishers while Louey was playing dice games with Brie and English actor Dan Stevens. Even his mum liked it … ish. 'She came up and said, 'I thought that was quite good'.' Within hours, a bidding war broke out for the film, which cost about $US5 million to make. Two days later, distributor Neon landed it – reportedly paying $US17 million for worldwide rights, the biggest sale of the festival and one of the biggest in its history. And that, more or less, is when the trouble began. Loading According to a lawsuit filed in May, Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale, producers of Better Half, were alerted by friends about alleged similarities between their movie and Together. They attended a screening of Shanks' film on January 30 'to assess the extent of the similarities. As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding,' the suit claims. 'Scene after scene confirmed that Defendants … stole virtually every unique aspect' of their film. The lawsuit lodged on behalf of their company, StudioFest LLC, claimed that Patrick Henry Phelan, the writer and director of Better Half, had sent his screenplay to Franco and Brie via their agents, WME, in August 2020. Shanks and Franco first met on Zoom in 2021, after another Shanks script, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, was included on The Black List 's annual roundup of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays. During that meeting, the pair bonded over a shared love of horror, and Shanks mentioned another screenplay he had written, Together. 'I wasn't thinking he would turn around and say, 'I want to be in it',' says Shanks, 'more that he might read it and go, 'Oh, this guy can write. Maybe we can write something together'. But obviously, secretly hoping he'd be like, 'Yeah, I want to do it'. And then, even more absurdly, secretly hoping he would show … Brie the script, and they might want to do it together. Loading 'I didn't even dare think that was a possibility,' he continues. 'But two days later, I got a call from my agent saying, 'hey, just so you know, Dave wanted to ask, how would you feel if he starred in the film, would that be OK with you? And also, he gave it to his wife Alison, and she really loves it, and how would you feel about them coming on and doing it together?'' 'OK, yeah, I think that could work.' Shanks can't really talk about the lawsuit other than to say he thinks it is easily disproven by a fully documented timeline (which establishes, among other things, the existence of his first draft long before the agents for Franco and Brie were sent, and rejected, Phelan's screenplay). But he will talk about the impact it has had on him. 'It's been a real bummer, to be honest,' he says. 'I sort of sank into a bit of a depression. This is such an indie film. It was made for no money, Dave and Alison and myself did it gratis, almost, because we believed in the project. And then to have some stranger that none of us ever met or heard of turn us into these public villains, it's been very emotionally challenging.' At the end of the day, though, the lawsuit and the online venom it spawned is but 'a minor roadblock'. 'Now that the film's coming out, we're remembering, 'Oh my God, we've made a movie that people really like, it's 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, people bought it because they know people are going to watch it',' he says. As for Tim, the commitment-phobic antihero of his film, Shanks admits 'I wrote him as a therapeutic, dark reflection of myself. We've all got that friend who still thinks they're going to be an actor or a rock star in their early 30s'. Or a filmmaker? 'Exactly,' he says, laughing. 'They're the last person to know that they should give it up, to realise there's actually more to life than these fantasies.' But aren't you glad you didn't give it up? 'Oh my God, yeah.' Loading Together is on general release from July 31.
The Age
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Why real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie just had to do Together, together
When Dave Franco read the script of Together, a comedic horror film about a codependent couple whose bodies begin to fuse, he was immediately on board – and not just for himself. 'I was blown away by all of these insane set-pieces that were like nothing I had ever seen before, and I turned to Alison and said I think we should do this one together,' he says. 'And then I read the script and was not at all insulted that Dave compared our relationship to that of the characters in the movie,' says Alison Brie, Franco's partner of 15 years and wife of eight. In truth, she says, she wasn't at all insulted because she felt they were so different from the characters in the movie. Adds Franco, 'I think if we were struggling as much as they are, we would not have said yes'. Franco plays Tim, a man in his mid-30s who still harbours a fantasy of making it big with his occasionally gigging band. Brie is Millie, a teacher who lands a new job in the country and thinks of it as the gateway to the next chapter in their lives – the cute house, the small community, the pitter-patter of little feet. He is, of course, terrified. After a walk in the woods near their new home goes awry, things get truly weird. Strange smells in the house. Sticky substances that seem to emerge whenever they are close to each other. An inability to leave each other's orbit for very long, or at all. Franco and Brie met at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It was, she jokes, 'a one-night stand that never ended'. Though she felt their relationship was sufficiently different to the film's couple, Brie also appreciated that 'the meta quality of us being in a long-term relationship would add a lot to the movie. For us as actors, there was a lot of work that we didn't have to do to have the theme [of codependency] be infused with that history that's already there.' For writer-director Michael Shanks, though, there was nowhere to hide. Tim is, he readily admits, '100 per cent' him – or at least him as he was in his mid-20s when he first had the idea for what would become Together. 'I've been in a relationship with my partner for over 16 years,' he says. 'We met at schoolies the week after high school – a friend's parents had a little shack an hour out of Melbourne, we went there and drank ourselves into oblivion for a week, and got awfully sunburnt.' They have been together ever since, he continues, 'and there was a point where I realised we have all the same friends, we eat the same food, we listen to the same music, we breathe the same air, and I started to freak out. I was realising that, without her, I wasn't a complete person any more because we'd been growing in the same direction so much that our lives had become intertwined.' It wasn't just them, either. 'My friendship group is a series of tragic monogamists, most of whom have been together since high school,' Shanks says. 'Some of those relationships have thrived, and some you look at and go, 'I don't think you guys are still together because you love each other. I think you're just used to each other. You're so intertwined you can't extricate yourselves'.' When Shanks told his partner, Louey, about his idea, she was taken aback but also understanding. 'She said to me, 'I'm a little upset you're writing this, but it's a good idea'.' Shanks wrote his first draft of the screenplay in 2019, when he was in his late 20s. The following year, Screen Australia funded a second draft, and in 2021 it funded a third. (Shanks was already on the agency's radar thanks to his YouTube channel, which had garnered more than 64 million views before going into hiatus; in 2016, the agency backed his self-made Lord of the Rings parody Wizard of Oz.) That timeline has become critically important in recent months, for reasons that Shanks finds painful to discuss. The film was shot in just 21 days in early 2024, with the star American couple setting up house in Melbourne. 'We loved snagging that window seat at Napier Quarter,' says Brie of the cosy Fitzroy wine bar they frequented. 'Melbourne makes us feel at home,' adds Franco. 'It's one of the few places we've ever shot that we could actually imagine ourselves living in.' For the rest of the year, Shanks did whatever VFX work he could manage himself, though the big set pieces were farmed out to Framestore. 'It was amazing to work with real visual effects people,' he says, somewhat modestly. He worked day and night and at weekends. 'And that was the way we managed to get it done in time to submit to Sundance.' The film festival is the world's foremost showcase of indie cinema. Loading 'I've been a film nerd my whole life, and you dream of going somewhere like Sundance,' Shanks says. 'Making the film was a dream. Getting into Sundance was the next dream.' Park City, Utah, where the festival has been held, is more than 2100 metres above sea level. It's not uncommon for visitors to contend with altitude sickness – and Shanks had it bad. He had a virus too. 'I spent two days leading up to the screening just vomiting, unable to keep food down. The day of the screening, I was in an emergency room and had a drip and oxygen – it was awful,' he recalls. Somehow, he forced himself into the 2000-seat cinema where he was due to introduce his film. 'And as soon as I walked into that room, the adrenaline hit.' Only a very small group of people – producers and editors and a handful of crew – had yet seen Together. They thought it was 'quite good', but no one knew how it would play to an audience. 'My partner had flown over for it, and my mother had flown over to see a film she was almost certainly going to hate – it's sticky and gross, and it has some nasty moments, and she typically doesn't watch any film that doesn't star Judi Dench.' Five minutes in, he got his first laugh. After another five minutes, the film's first scare landed too. 'And from then, they just reacted exactly the way we always hoped they would.' At the after-party, he was mobbed by well-wishers while Louey was playing dice games with Brie and English actor Dan Stevens. Even his mum liked it … ish. 'She came up and said, 'I thought that was quite good'.' Within hours, a bidding war broke out for the film, which cost about $US5 million to make. Two days later, distributor Neon landed it – reportedly paying $US17 million for worldwide rights, the biggest sale of the festival and one of the biggest in its history. And that, more or less, is when the trouble began. Loading According to a lawsuit filed in May, Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale, producers of Better Half, were alerted by friends about alleged similarities between their movie and Together. They attended a screening of Shanks' film on January 30 'to assess the extent of the similarities. As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding,' the suit claims. 'Scene after scene confirmed that Defendants … stole virtually every unique aspect' of their film. The lawsuit lodged on behalf of their company, StudioFest LLC, claimed that Patrick Henry Phelan, the writer and director of Better Half, had sent his screenplay to Franco and Brie via their agents, WME, in August 2020. Shanks and Franco first met on Zoom in 2021, after another Shanks script, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, Hotel, was included on The Black List 's annual roundup of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays. During that meeting, the pair bonded over a shared love of horror, and Shanks mentioned another screenplay he had written, Together. 'I wasn't thinking he would turn around and say, 'I want to be in it',' says Shanks, 'more that he might read it and go, 'Oh, this guy can write. Maybe we can write something together'. But obviously, secretly hoping he'd be like, 'Yeah, I want to do it'. And then, even more absurdly, secretly hoping he would show … Brie the script, and they might want to do it together. Loading 'I didn't even dare think that was a possibility,' he continues. 'But two days later, I got a call from my agent saying, 'hey, just so you know, Dave wanted to ask, how would you feel if he starred in the film, would that be OK with you? And also, he gave it to his wife Alison, and she really loves it, and how would you feel about them coming on and doing it together?'' 'OK, yeah, I think that could work.' Shanks can't really talk about the lawsuit other than to say he thinks it is easily disproven by a fully documented timeline (which establishes, among other things, the existence of his first draft long before the agents for Franco and Brie were sent, and rejected, Phelan's screenplay). But he will talk about the impact it has had on him. 'It's been a real bummer, to be honest,' he says. 'I sort of sank into a bit of a depression. This is such an indie film. It was made for no money, Dave and Alison and myself did it gratis, almost, because we believed in the project. And then to have some stranger that none of us ever met or heard of turn us into these public villains, it's been very emotionally challenging.' At the end of the day, though, the lawsuit and the online venom it spawned is but 'a minor roadblock'. 'Now that the film's coming out, we're remembering, 'Oh my God, we've made a movie that people really like, it's 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, people bought it because they know people are going to watch it',' he says. As for Tim, the commitment-phobic antihero of his film, Shanks admits 'I wrote him as a therapeutic, dark reflection of myself. We've all got that friend who still thinks they're going to be an actor or a rock star in their early 30s'. Or a filmmaker? 'Exactly,' he says, laughing. 'They're the last person to know that they should give it up, to realise there's actually more to life than these fantasies.' But aren't you glad you didn't give it up? 'Oh my God, yeah.' Loading Together is on general release from July 31.
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'I watched Come Dine With Me with Americans and they were shocked by one detail'
Come Dine With Me has been a firm favourite with British fans for years, but what do Americans make of the show? In a city renowned for Mardi Gras, gumbo, and extravagant hospitality, I was curious how New Orleans locals would react to a programme that seems completely opposite: Come Dine With Me. The enduring British cult series features strangers taking turns hosting dinner parties, whilst secretly rating each other in competition for £1,000. So, I gathered three locals - all proud Big Easy dwellers - and pressed play. First was Brad Collins, a French Market business owner, who confessed he mainly watched for Channel 4 star Dave Lamb's sharp-tongued commentary. "That voiceover guy is savage!" he chuckled. "He says what everyone's thinking, but way more brutal. It's so British - sounds polite, but they're low-key scheming and roasting each other behind their backs. Like smiling while they plan your downfall." However, not everything went down smoothly for him: "Some of the food? I had no clue what I was looking at. I'm like, is that dessert or dinner? And sometimes I had to put the subtitles on because I didn't know what they were saying. But I kept watching - it's addictive," reports the Express. Next was mum-of-two Izzy Althans, 36, who works as an advertising operations coordinator. After tuning into the show, she rapidly became captivated. Izzy revealed: "Come Dine With Me is such a fun way to see British at-home entertaining. In the US, it's all about a theme - props, photo booths, curated playlists - but the Brits seem more focused on good ingredients and proper courses. "It felt structured but relaxed, without all the over-the-top effort." She was particularly impressed by the presenting approach on the Channel 4 programme, saying: "In America, it's very 'make yourself at home' - we want to have fun as hosts too. "But the show felt more like, 'how can I take care of you?' It's not that this doesn't exist in America, but it's definitely a declining part of our culture." Whilst she adored the programme's British appeal, she also valued its sharp edge. "They can be so catty towards each other - but in this incredibly emotionless way. I loved it! And I'm obsessed with watching them shop at these cute speciality stores. In short, I think it is a brilliant show that I plan to continue watching it," she explained. Finally, there was Jenny Collins, a local teacher, who was captivated by the authentic, unvarnished approach. She enthused: "After watching a few episodes I realised why I was so drawn to the show. It was the realism; from the appearance of the individuals, to the unedited conversations." She also spotted a stark difference in style, saying: "I felt like it was real. In the States, even series that are supposed to be reality TV, are severely edited as not to offend anyone. "Even the participants who we are expected to see as every day people, go in to make up like celebrities to improve their appearance prior to filming. I felt that I was seeing a true slice of the people who were hosting each meal." Despite the cultural differences - Yorkshire puddings, passive-aggressive banter, and sarcastic hosting - the consensus was clear: Come Dine With Me had charmed them. It appears that all it takes is a bit of sarcasm, some peculiar fish pies, and a ruthless narrator - and even one of the most renowned food cities in America will take a seat at the dinner table.
CBS News
4 days ago
- Automotive
- CBS News
Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix speeds into final weekend
There was a lot of zooming and whirring at Schenley Park on Saturday. It's the final weekend of this year's Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. Spectators and participants call it a motoring "Mardi Gras." "It's kind of exciting to hear that roar, isn't it?" Saundra King from Waynesburg said. Some watch for fun while others have vested interests. "We have a car out there, so we want to see it run," Gary Boffo of Wellsville, Ohio, said. It's a rare time for these people to get to watch people race in Schenley Park. "We were here about 7 o'clock this morning," John Black of Moon Township said. Of course, some like to just display their prized possessions. They mean a lot to people like Black. "Some of us can't afford to buy a fast car, so we make them," Black said. This Grand Prix also means a lot to the charities that benefit. "This represents a significant portion of the money we use to help our community," Jesse Torisky, president and CEO of Autism Pittsburgh, said. Those funds derive from people in their "candy store." "Most of us like fast cars," Black said. This is a venue where they nurture their love. Sunday is the last day of the race weekend. Festivities begin at 8:30 a.m. and run until 5 p.m.
Ottawa Citizen
7 days ago
- General
- Ottawa Citizen
Pellerin: New mounted unit saddles police with a not-so-fresh challenge
Article content It seems weird to think that we would bring police officers on horseback to the streets of Ottawa without thinking it through to the end, so to speak. Yet here we are, struggling to find a way to deal with what, inevitably, comes out of the horses. Article content It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the city was caught with its breeches down. Article content Article content At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, horses — especially Clydesdales, which we are using — are huge animals that eat copious quantities of food and, well, they are healthy with a metabolism to match so let's just say you can usually tell where they've been. Article content Article content This means manure where it shouldn't be. Streets, sidewalks and parks. For some reason, this isn't popular with the good residents of Ottawa. One councillor was in the news lately saying she'd never received so many poop pictures as she did after the mounted unit had paid a visit to one of her ward's neighbourhoods. Article content In response to media reports about the steaming piles of natural byproducts, the city said it was working on a plan to clean up, but that this was evolving. Which is complete and utter balderdash. If the city really did have a plan to clean up after the horses, there wouldn't be so much horse poop left behind for people to complain about. It's only after the calls to 311 came in that they assigned a staffer to walk behind the horses with a pail and shovel. Some dream job this ain't. Article content You've heard about closing barn doors once the horses have bolted. This is worse. Article content Article content We can't default to constables doing the cleaning because it may not always be safe to dismount or leave the horse unsupervised. Also, these are cops, not recreational riders. We need their attention on the policing part of the job. Sure, if they can help clean up sometimes, all the better. But that can't be plan A. Article content Article content Sgt. Reginald Moses, Mounted Unit Commander with the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, says that in some cases, such as private events in and around New Orleans, riders themselves will dismount and clean up after horses. But for big street parties during Mardi Gras, people kind of get used to what is colloquially known as street 'gravy' (you can google if you're feeling brave, or just imagine what pools on the ground when you mix big crowds, lots of alcohol and very large mammals). Wise and experienced revellers know to wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes.
