Latest news with #Minotaur
Mint
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
MYTHICAL ANIMALS
Bulls are revered across cultures as symbols of power, virility, and strength, seen in figures like India's Nandi and the Taurus constellation. Yet, in myths like the Greek Minotaur, they also embody danger and chaos. Credit : UNSPLASH Page 2
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' Review: Tom Cruise Flies High in a Thrillingly Doom-Laden Series Grand Finale
In the don't-try-this-at-home climax of 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,' the thrillingly doom-laden last chapter of the 'M:I' series, Tom Cruise does something you expect — he's featured in the kind of elaborate stunt sequence that's become this 30-year-old series' trademark — but he also does something you may not expect. He tops himself in the most outrageous way. He literally flies beyond all the stunts he's done before, leaving us in an exhilarated state of awe. Cruise, as the unstoppable IMF agent Ethan Hunt, is trying to catch up with Gabriel (Esai Morales), the film's serviceably sinister villain, who wants to gain control of the Entity, the film's apocalyptic projection of artificial intelligence and everything it's capable of — like initiating global nuclear war, just because it can. Hanging around Gabriel's neck is the digital 'poison pill' created by Ving Rhames' tech wizard Luther. If Ethan can get his hands on that device and slip it into the podkova (a gadget the size of a cell phone that contains the Entity's source code), he can trigger the end of the Entity's power. The two men are in primitive propeller planes. Gabriel is flying a yellow-and-black one, and Ethan…well, he has climbed aboard a red one with a bad-guy pilot, and as the planes zoom through a sunlit canyon and then out into the open air, he attempts to gain control of it. More from Variety 'Loveless' and 'Leviathan' Filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev Sets Next Movie 'Minotaur' With MK2, CG Cinema (EXCLUSIVE) Quentin Tarantino Gives Advice to Young Filmmakers at Cannes: 'You Only Have So Much Time' on Set. 'How You Use' It 'Will Define You' Sylvie Pialat, Producer of Cannes' Opening Film 'Leave One Day,' Sets Projects With Directors Emmanuelle Bercot, Atiq Rahimi and Gustav Kervern (EXCLUSIVE) This means walking on the wing and dangling from a thin bar and wriggling his way from the passenger seat into the cockpit, all while the plane is rocketing forward. When I've seen barnstorming daredevil plane sequences, like in 'The Great Waldo Pepper,' the stunt people up there tend to be quite staid. But Tom Cruise, filmed in drop-dead close-up, scrambles around that plane as if it were a set of monkey bars, his face mashed into rubber by the G-force of the wind, the grassland stretching out a mile below him. After tossing out the pilot, he slithers onto Gabriel's yellow plane, and that's when the action becomes too dizzying for words. Cruise is crawling over the plane, and now it's tilting sideways, nearly upside down, so he's hanging off it, and I was literally gawking at the screen going, 'How in God's name did he do this?' Because what we're seeing looks…impossible. And here's what fuses it all. Two years ago, when Cruise took that motorcycle sky dive off a cliff in 'Dead Reckoning Part One,' it was impressive, to be sure, but all I remember experiencing was the abstract physical daring of it. In 'The Final Reckoning,' Cruise is doing something on that plane that no stunt person could do as well — he's acting. He bends his limbs around the metal with every fiber of his fear and desire, showing us the ferocity of Ethan's will to defeat evil, which matches up with Cruise's own will not just to entertain us but to leave us in a state of rapt disbelief. In 'The Final Reckoning,' Tom Cruise is out to save movies as much as Ethan Hunt is out to save the world. He's doing what he does on that plane so that we don't have to. Up until then, 'The Final Reckoning' is more of a churning slow burn. Yet the film is good enough to remind you how much fun it is when something is truly at stake in a high-flying, twisty-plotted, solemnly preposterous popcorn movie. There are moments when 'The Final Reckoning' is preposterous — I'd say knowingly so, though at the screening I attended there was derisive hipster laughter. No one would claim that this is the breeziest of the 'M:I' films. The sequences that I remember most fondly from the series have a nimble sense of play — Cruise hanging from a wire in that breathless heist in the first 'Mission: Impossible,' his vertiginous suction-cup scaling of the Burj Khalifa in 'Ghost Protocol,' all the trap-door tuxedo-party deceptions. 'The Final Reckoning' is two hours and 49 minutes long, and it grinds along with a furrowed-brow anxiety about the precariousness of civilization in the age of omnipotent technology. Yet that gravitas works for the movie. A.I. was merely a creeping threat in 'Dead Reckoning.' Here it's a specter whose time has arrived, and that's part of what makes this a more potent adventure. A line that keeps getting repeated by members of the IMF team (and becomes a running joke) is 'We'll figure it out.' And that means: When the world hangs by a thread, necessity will always be the mother of split-second espionage invention. 'The Final Reckoning' is an ode to winging it. By now we've seen more than enough movies turn on the prospect of the planet being destroyed, and that doesn't automatically mean there's anything at stake in them. (Just think of such empty vessels of end-of-the-world action as 'Armageddon' or 'X-Men: Apocalypse.') But in 'The Final Reckoning,' Cruise and his 'M:I' partner and director, Christopher McQuarrie, ratchet up the doomsday fervor with enough conviction — and obsession — to carry you along on hairpin turns of suspense. The film glances back, in several quick-cut montages, to all seven of the series' previous films, taking Ethan's defining trait — his propensity to go rogue, which of course is what he does when he can't accomplish his mission any other way — and folding that into the film's symphonic sense of peril. The Entity, which is presented as the logical culmination of A.I. (i.e., a force that isn't necessarily going to be on our side), is out to control everything, to tap into the world's nuclear-weapons systems and destroy the human race. Total power is the outgrowth of its intelligence. But Ethan is almost a cousin of A.I. — over and over, he has been someone willing to gamble with the fate of the world. 'The Final Reckoning' has a few patchy moments, but I think it's the most enveloping entry in the series since 'Ghost Protocol,' because it finds a new way to make the impossible elating. Instead of fooling us with rubber masks and digital illusion, the film is all about pushing outlandish situations to the wall, where Ethan has to act at a split second's notice. Early on he's captured, along with Hayley Atwell's debonair Grace, and as they sit in a dungeon in handcuffs, he teases out a fake molar that will toxify him if he bites into it; that proves to be the way out. After a while, Ethan comes in from the cold, appearing at a meeting led by the U.S. president, Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), as the IMF-head-turned-CIA suit Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and other dour brass look on disapprovingly. Ethan asks to be given control of an aircraft carrier (named after George H.W. Bush — a bit of we-didn't-know-how-good-we-had-it nostalgia geared to the age of Trump), and the president gives him the approval…on the sly. It's here that the film turns into a very different sort of mission, a dense action caper set in the frozen sea. William Donloe (Rolf Saxon), a defrocked CIA analyst who was exiled after Ethan's heist in the first film, returns. He's the one who knows the exact location of the Russian submarine that was tricked by the Entity into blowing itself up at the start of 'Dead Reckoning' — and that's where they'll find the Entity's source code. The sequence where Ethan dives deep into the Bering Sea to burrow into the carcass of that submarine has the kind of quiet floating logistical majesty I loved as a kid in the underwater sequences of 'Thunderball.' The submarine, jogged by Ethan's weight, keeps creaking and falling and turning, spilling water around inside, which gives the sequence, slow as it is, a spectral enchantment. But the film also has plenty of down-to-the-wire tension, as when Benji (Simon Pegg) directs a bomb defusion through the fog of his collapsing lung. And it's the hellbent jacked sincerity of Cruise's movie-star performance that makes it all mean something. Ethan's loyalty has become a major theme (he won't leave one of his team members behind), but despite the game contributions of Atwell and Rhames, whose Luther delivers the series' moving sendoff, Ethan has rarely been out on his own the way he is here. Is this truly the series' final reckoning? We're now in an era where John Wick can snap back to life, and where even the death of James Bond, in 'No Time to Die' (a movie that feels like a cousin to this one — though I think 'Final Reckoning' is better), came off like a parlor trick. I expect 'The Final Reckoning' will prove to be one of the must-see movies of the summer, and at the end of it Ethan Hunt is very much alive. Yet an element of the film's power is that it's genuinely saying goodbye to these characters, to that reconfigured 1960s chicanery, to Ethan's more-Bond-than-Bond mojo. Besides, what's Tom Cruise going to do for an encore? In 'The Final Reckoning,' he's more than just the top gun of danger junkies. He has turned the spectacle of doing his own stunts into a popcorn art form. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Loveless' and ‘Leviathan' Filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev Sets Next Movie ‘Minotaur' With MK2, CG Cinema (EXCLUSIVE)
MK2 Films and Charles Gillibert's CG Cinema, which each have multiple movies playing in Cannes' official selection, have joined forces on 'Minotaur,' the next film by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the two-time Oscar-nominated Russian filmmaker of 'Loveless' and 'Leviathan.' 'Minotaur,' with a plot that remains under wraps, is being described as a 'powerful drama exploring the emotional and moral collapse of a businessman under the strain of personal and political crises.' More from Variety Quentin Tarantino Gives Advice to Young Filmmakers at Cannes: 'You Only Have So Much Time' on Set. 'How You Use' It 'Will Define You' Sylvie Pialat, Producer of Cannes' Opening Film 'Leave One Day,' Sets Projects With Directors Emmanuelle Bercot, Atiq Rahimi and Gustav Kervern (EXCLUSIVE) Piper Perabo on Her Eco-Anxiety Rom-Com 'Peak Everything' and Speaking Out Against Trump: 'I'm Not Concerned About Career Blowback' 'Minotaur' was written by Zvyagintsev and Semen Liashenko. Zvyagintsev's last two movies, 'Loveless' and 'Leviathan,' world premiered in competition at Cannes and won the Jury Prize and best screenplay, respectively. 'Minotaur' is produced by MK Prods., the production arm of MK2 Films, which is at Cannes with six movies in competition; as well as CG Cinéma, which presents Bi Gan's 'Resurrection' in competition, Kirill Serebrennikov's 'The Disappearance of Josef Mengele' at Cannes Premiere and Kristen Stewart's 'The Chronology of Water' at Un Certain Regard; and Zvyagintsev, in association with Leaf Entertainment. The film is co-produced by Razor Film in Germany and Forma Pro films in Latvia. It will be distributed in France by Films du Losange, and has already received the support from Arte France Cinéma. 'Andrey Zvyagintsev is one of the greatest directors working today, and with 'Minotaur' he delivers a powerful political fable, blending elements from both crime thrillers and classical,' said MK2 Films in a statement. Its sales team, headed by Fionnuala Jamison, will introduce the project to buyers at Cannes. CG Cinema said, 'We are thrilled to cooperate with MK2 and work with a leading voice in world cinema. Andrey Zvyagintsev is working here on a film that will undoubtedly have a major impact.' The movie reteams the Russian director with his regular crew, notably cinematographer Mikhail Krichman and production designer Andrey Ponkratov. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Sharjah 24
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sharjah 24
Children join author CG Salamander on mythical quest at SCRF
'My biggest advice to upcoming authors is to have fun with whatever you like; make sure you write about what you love and not what the market expects,' said the Netherlands-based author, editor and journalist, whose bestsellers include the comic series Maithili and the Minotaur. He gave children from various UAE schools an overview of mythical creatures from various countries before challenging them to come up with a story based on a mythical character. To their credit, the children in the 10-14 age group seemed well-versed with mythical characters like minotaur from Greek mythology or an Indian version of Boogeyman. He then sent them on a mythical quest where they had to create 'a hero, their quest and purpose, and their interaction with the monster' and present it as a story. The engineer-turned-author from the Indian city of Chennai -- whose real name is Andrew Prashanth – confessed he liked the freedom of being able to write and he had taken up writing for a living in 2012 at the age of 21. His first published comic was a 'matchbox' one that had just five lines. 'My first book, Frank Goes to the Market, gave a magical and lovely feeling. It is about a child who gets lost in a crowded market and has to find his way back to his mother. It was inspired by my visit to an old colonial market in Chennai while moonlighting as a tour guide,' he replied to a student's query. One from the Maithili series was also based on an incident from his childhood, when he and his cousins got lost in a forest for 10 hours, he revealed. The young author and commissioning editor told them he was influenced by Manga comics and the Indian epic Mahabharata while his favourite books as a kid included the Tintin and Asterix comics as well as Terry Pratchett novels. He credited his co-creator and illustrator Rajiv Eipe for the success and continuity of his characters and plot. 'A good story is something you take a lot of time with. The biggest takeaway is to spend a lot of time editing your story and breaking it down,' he pointed out, and mentioned the intense research that went into writing his book on 100 Indian mythical creatures From Makaras to Manticores. According to him, 'a story can be made interesting by using subversion -- when you know something is certain, you make the opposite happen.' Salamander stated that 95% of his books don't have a structure beforehand. 'I never have an outline when I write a story. It's a lot more fun for the writer and the reader when you don't have one,' he observed. Taking place until May 4 at Expo Centre Sharjah, the 16th edition of SCRF promises an immersive experience under the theme 'Dive into Books'. Organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), this year's agenda features 133 guests from 70 countries, and 122 Arab and international publishing houses from 22 nations.
New York Times
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Thrillers Suffused With a Dark Sense of Dread
Sometimes the scariness in a book lies in the uncertainty between what is real and what is imagined. A dark sense of dread pervades two of this month's thriller offerings; the third is a rollicking but suspenseful story about, of all things, the illicit trade in rare birds' eggs. Your Steps on the Stairs An unnamed man, recently relocated to Lisbon from New York, is waiting for his beloved wife to join him in their new apartment. 'I'm using my time to make all the preparations for when Cecilia arrives,' he says. So begins YOUR STEPS ON THE STAIRS (Other Press, 298 pp., paperback, $18.99), an anxious, unconventional thriller by Muñoz Molina, a literary superstar in Spain. The earth is getting hotter everywhere, and the narrator sees his new home as a refuge, physically as well as emotionally. 'If the world is going to come to an end, there's no better place to wait for it to end than here,' he says. He still hasn't recovered — and who has, really? — from the trauma of being in downtown Manhattan during the attack on the World Trade Center. As he falls deeper into his own mind, his unease fueled by the news, the internet and the books he's obsessively reading, he begins to conflate Lisbon and New York, to lose track of where he is. Similarly, the past spills into the present. Is it a coincidence that the absent Cecilia is an expert on how fear affects memory and a sense of time? 'I have a good memory for things but not always in the order in which they happened,' he says. Maybe that's why he never fully explains why he was summarily fired from his high-paying job. 'Cecilia says that sometimes I lack the ability for self-reflection,' he says. Reading this book, which has been elegantly translated by Curtis Bauer, feels like hearing a constant alarm ringing in a neighbor's house. You'll want to read the ending more than once. Something in the Walls Weird things are happening in the English hamlet of Banathel, where a teenager named Alice Webber might (or might not) be possessed by a witch. Her symptoms include vomiting up clots of hair, bile and sewing pins; making scary pronouncements in a guttural voice that is not her own; and being unusually attractive to wasps, whose carcasses litter her bedclothes. There have also been some unexpected deaths, and a heat wave has made the neighbors irrational and suspicious. 'Maybe the heat is melting our brains,' Alice's worried mother, Lisa, says. SOMETHING IN THE WALLS (Minotaur, 291 pp., $28) invites us to consider uncomfortable issues: the possible existence of the supernatural, the pathologizing of female adolescence, the interplay between fame and infamy — and whether the living can make contact with the dead. These questions are filtered through Mina, a newly minted child psychologist who comes to town to get to the bottom of Alice's strange behavior but who is grappling with her own inner demons. It's hard not to feel uneasy as you read Pearce's beautifully written book, which brought to mind the sort of creepy tales that used to thrill me as a child. The ending is both satisfying and not altogether definitive. The Impossible Thing Who wants to read a novel about the trade in rare birds' eggs that thrived in England in the first half of the 20th century but is now illegal? Not me — or at least I didn't until I encountered THE IMPOSSIBLE THING (Atlantic Monthly Press, 327 pp., $27). This suspenseful, charming tale begins in Yorkshire in 1926, when young Celie Sheppard daringly plucks a guillemot egg — coveted by collectors for their unusual shape and gorgeous, unique shell designs — from the side of a cliff. It's a blazing red, which makes it very rare, and it becomes the object of near-frenzied desire by collectors. It also pulls Celie's family from poverty and provides her with a future she has never dreamed of. Meanwhile, a different sort of drama is unfolding in present-day Wales. A local youth named Nick has just been robbed by a pair of nasty intruders in ski masks who tied him up and absconded with something from the attic: an old wooden box belonging to his father and containing, yes, a mysterious red egg. How these two stories converge — or, more to the point, how one leads to the other — is the focus of Bauer's attention. She is a sympathetic, playful writer, and she populates her book with as colorful an array of characters as you could hope for: intrepid climmers, as the egg-gatherers were called; unscrupulous and unhinged collectors; an obsessive museum curator; a gung-ho bunch from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It's very exciting, especially in the moments when seemingly downtrodden characters rise up to challenge the powerful. My favorite character, or at least the one I cheered for the most, was the guillemot. The book's final moment belongs to her.
