Latest news with #Nonnas
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How far would you go for friendship?
The relationships between friends are an integral part of many movies. In Friendship, Nonnas and Another Simple Favor, friends are everything. 'Men shouldn't have friends' is the tagline for the comedy Friendship, which follows a lonely man named Craig (Tim Robinson) in his attempt to befriend his charismatic neighbor, Austin (Paul Rudd). Kate Mara plays Craig's often-ignored wife, whose many meaningful friendships are showcased in a pivotal party scene to contrast how bizarre and alone Craig is. Mara told Yahoo Entertainment that the movie feels so funny because its absurdity is strangely accurate, especially in its portrayal of male friendship. 'My relationships with my girlfriends are so honest and we talk about our feelings all the time,' she said. 'With men, conversations are much shorter and less emotional. … I think some of that is probably beneficial! Men move on very quickly from quarrels.' All that Craig's male acquaintances seem to want to talk about is 'the new Marvel' movie, which he hasn't seen yet, so he goes all in on Austin, who takes him to explore underground tunnels and introduces him to his ancient tool collection. Craig pays $100 to lick a toad in the back room of a cellphone store to investigate Austin's interest in ayahuasca. Ultimately, Craig's investment in furthering their bond threatens to ruin both of their lives. Men weren't laughing as much as women at the screening of Friendship that Geoffrey Greif attended, he told Yahoo Entertainment. Greif is a social work professor at the University of Maryland who has written widely about male friendship. He described it as 'cringey,' but also felt that it accurately portrayed how 'men have shoulder-to-shoulder friendships and women have face-to-face friendships.' 'Men get together and do things facing out, while women feel more comfortable sitting down and talking and looking at each other while they do this,' he explained. Friendship takes that to the extreme, but Greif said that 'extremes often get at what's going on.' 'Men do not feel comfortable pursuing other men for friendships. … They don't like for other men to come across as too needy,' he continued. 'Whether or not it will have universal appeal to all men, I doubt it. But if you move the needle 5 or 10% for men who see the movie and say, 'You know what, this helps me understand my friendships a little better.' … I think that can have a benefit.' Another recent film, Nonnas, shows men going to extremes for friendship, though it has a much more lighthearted tone. The movie centers around a man named Joe (Vince Vaughn) who hires real-life Italian grandmothers to make home-cooked meals at his restaurant. His relationship with his best friend, Bruno (Joe Manganiello), is central to the success of his business venture, though he struggles to express that at times. 'Men are terrible communicators, especially Italian men who have machismo. They have to kind of battle against that, but I think Italians have great capacity to have heart,' Manganiello told Yahoo Entertainment. 'They've got to kind of like wear themselves out before they get to the heart.' Bruno and Joe are longtime pals, and they see each other constantly, but they rarely go deep on their feelings. That makes it hard for them to reconcile after they fight. 'They don't even know how to look at each other,' Nonnas director Stephen Chbosky told Yahoo Entertainment. 'Just being a guy from Pittsburgh, it was very easy for me to relate to.' Though they struggle to communicate fully, their love for one another transcends their social conditioning. At the end of the movie, Bruno makes a major sacrifice for Joe to be able to keep the restaurant in business. Nonnas screenwriter Liz Maccie told Yahoo Entertainment that she wanted to show 'how good we can really be to each other.' Vaughn is something of an expert on male friendship, given how many buddy comedies, including Swingers and Wedding Crashers, he's starred in, . 'A good friend is loyal. … You can trust a friend,' he told Yahoo Entertainment. 'But a real friend will also let you be who you are. They're not trying to make you fit into your life. They'll accept you for whatever you are.' Nonnas aims to break the stigma that male friendships face onscreen and off. Sekoul Krastev, a decision scientist, told Yahoo Entertainment that the intimacy gap in male friendship 'isn't innate, it's learned.' 'Studies show that boys are just as emotionally expressive as girls until around age 6,' he said. 'After that, societal norms begin nudging boys toward independence and emotional restraint, leading to adult friendships that are often less verbally intimate.' Media portrayals can reflect and reinforce these friendship norms, he explained, 'sometimes encouraging closeness, and other times stigmatizing it.' In contrast with the male friendship movies of the moment, Another Simple Favor goes all in on exposing the many bizarre, unspoken rules of female friendship — especially between moms. In the original movie A Simple Favor, Anna Kendrick plays a mommy blogger named Stephanie who offers to help Emily (Blake Lively), the fabulous parent of her son's friend, with a basic task. It spirals out of control and Stephanie ends up putting Emily behind bars. That's why it's so bizarre when, in the sequel, Emily shows up at Stephanie's book signing to ask her to be her maid of honor at her destination wedding. Stephanie agrees, saying it'll be great content for her fans, but it's clear that she also feels an emotional bond with Emily that makes her willing to go to great lengths — in this case, a possibly mob-affiliated wedding in Capri — to uncover what's really going on with her. Paul Feig, who directed A Simple Favor, Another Simple Favor and other seminal works about female friendship like Bridesmaids and The Heat, told Yahoo Entertainment he became fascinated with the concept because he grew up with mostly girls and women as friends, and as an only child, was very close to his mother. 'I just find female friendships to be really wonderful and interesting,' he said. 'There's something fascinating to me about it versus male friendship, which … can be great too, but there's a 'bro-iness' about that kind of thing that I'm not interested in.' 'I'm such a sensitive person that I think I just enjoy [female] relationships — I find them very fun and funny. The way women bond and interact with each other is really lovely. … It doesn't tend to be as aggressive as male friendship and bonding can be,' he added. He's not the only person who sees the gender divide. As a clinical psychologist and mental health researcher, Ehab Youssef sees how deeply friendship can shape people's emotional well-being and how differently it plays out for men and women. 'Female friendships tend to be emotionally expressive, built on shared vulnerability and verbal connection, while male friendships often emphasize shared activities and loyalty through action rather than words,' he said. 'Neither is better, just shaped by cultural norms and socialization.' Seeing these dynamics portrayed onscreen — even if they're taken to extreme lengths — 'reflect or challenge what we experience in real life,' he said. 'When films capture the raw honesty, humor or heartbreak of real friendships, especially ones that defy stereotypes, it resonates,' Youssef said. 'It helps us feel seen, and sometimes, it even shows us new ways of being with the people we love.'
Tom's Guide
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
3 best new Netflix movies you (probably) missed this month
Netflix adds a lot of new movies every single month, and naturally, when dozens of new additions flood the streaming service's library, some will get lost in the shuffle. May 2025 has been a slow month for new Netflix original movies, and the few that did arrive, like 'Nonnas,' went straight to No. 1, so they enjoyed plenty of attention. However, Netflix also added a bunch of older library titles this month, and a few of these didn't quite receive the interest that I had expected. So, if you think you've exhausted the 'new arrivals' section, here are three new movies added to Netflix this month that you (probably) haven't watched yet. I was a little surprised that 'Hanna' didn't make more of an impression on Netflix subscribers this month. Netflix viewers seem to gobble up action-thrillers with glee (even the bad ones, like the awful 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' which went to No. 1), and yet this 2011 assassin thriller didn't even manage to rank in the top 10 list. That's a real shame, as it's a well-crafted globe-trotting ride that packs a breakthrough performance from a young Saoirse Ronan. The eponymous Hanna (Ronan) is a 15-year-old with extraordinarily lethal skills after a childhood of training under the watch of her stern father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana), an ex-C.I.A. operative. Hanna's upbringing has shaped her into a lethal assassin, but she is forced to question everything she knows when she's dispatched to eliminate a target with ties to Erik's past, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). What follows is a deadly cat-and-mouse game, and as Hanna gets closer to some hidden truths about her past, her primary objective begins to shift. Watch "Hanna' on Netflix now The enigmatic Coen Brothers are most fondly known for their work on movies like 'The Big Lebowski,' 'Fargo' and 'No Country for Old Men.' Those are all fantastic flicks and have earned deserved plaudits, but for my money, 'Burn After Reading' is the directing duo's most overlooked film. This black comedy packs an all-star cast with George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt all in the mix. Plus, it boasts a charmingly irreverent tone and the Coens' usual habit of writing laser-sharp scripts. It's a real hoot and a half. Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) is a retired CIA analyst who decides to write his memoir. Meanwhile, his wife (Swinton) is having an affair with U.S. Marshal Harry (Clooney). When a CD with Osbourne's first memoir draft is left behind in a gym locker room and found by two bumbling employees (Pitt and McDormand), the pair think they've found the perfect get-rich-quick scheme. They plan to blackmail Osbourne for the return of what they believe to be classified government information. It all leads to a messy knot of hilarious mix-ups, melodrama and unexpected consequences for all parties involved. Watch "Burn After Reading' on Netflix now 'Train to Busan' is another case where I'm more than a little surprised that the movie didn't make a real impact on the Netflix top 10 list. Perhaps it's the fact that this is a Korean movie, so it does require watching with subtitles, but that's a tiny barrier that shouldn't deny anybody entry. For those who have watched, they'll know it's a titan of the zombie genre for good reason, delivering past-faced thrills and a frighteningly plausible vision of the apocalypse. The 2016 movie sees Soek-Woo (Gong Yoo) board a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan with his daughter. As they make their way to their destination, an apocalyptic event breaks out, and flesh-eating zombies emerge. The train journey becomes a non-stop nightmare as passengers face a battle for survival against threats both inside and outside the train. Rarely dropping the intensity levels for a moment, 'Train to Busan' is a first-class action-horror. Watch "Train to Busan' on Netflix now
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How far would you go for friendship?
The relationships between friends are an integral part of many movies. In Friendship, Nonnas and Another Simple Favor, friends are everything. 'Men shouldn't have friends' is the tagline for the comedy Friendship, which follows a lonely man named Craig (Tim Robinson) in his attempt to befriend his charismatic neighbor, Austin (Paul Rudd). Kate Mara plays Craig's often-ignored wife, whose many meaningful friendships are showcased in a pivotal party scene to contrast how bizarre and alone Craig is. Mara told Yahoo Entertainment that the movie feels so funny because its absurdity is strangely accurate, especially in its portrayal of male friendship. 'My relationships with my girlfriends are so honest and we talk about our feelings all the time,' she said. 'With men, conversations are much shorter and less emotional. … I think some of that is probably beneficial! Men move on very quickly from quarrels.' All that Craig's male acquaintances seem to want to talk about is 'the new Marvel' movie, which he hasn't seen yet, so he goes all in on Austin, who takes him to explore underground tunnels and introduces him to his ancient tool collection. Craig pays $100 to lick a toad in the back room of a cellphone store to investigate Austin's interest in ayahuasca. Ultimately, Craig's investment in furthering their bond threatens to ruin both of their lives. Men weren't laughing as much as women at the screening of Friendship that Geoffrey Greif attended, he told Yahoo Entertainment. Greif is a social work professor at the University of Maryland who has written widely about male friendship. He described it as 'cringey,' but also felt that it accurately portrayed how 'men have shoulder-to-shoulder friendships and women have face-to-face friendships.' 'Men get together and do things facing out, while women feel more comfortable sitting down and talking and looking at each other while they do this,' he explained. Friendship takes that to the extreme, but Greif said that 'extremes often get at what's going on.' 'Men do not feel comfortable pursuing other men for friendships. … They don't like for other men to come across as too needy,' he continued. 'Whether or not it will have universal appeal to all men, I doubt it. But if you move the needle 5 or 10% for men who see the movie and say, 'You know what, this helps me understand my friendships a little better.' … I think that can have a benefit.' Another recent film, Nonnas, shows men going to extremes for friendship, though it has a much more lighthearted tone. The movie centers around a man named Joe (Vince Vaughn) who hires real-life Italian grandmothers to make home-cooked meals at his restaurant. His relationship with his best friend, Bruno (Joe Manganiello), is central to the success of his business venture, though he struggles to express that at times. 'Men are terrible communicators, especially Italian men who have machismo. They have to kind of battle against that, but I think Italians have great capacity to have heart,' Manganiello told Yahoo Entertainment. 'They've got to kind of like wear themselves out before they get to the heart.' Bruno and Joe are longtime pals, and they see each other constantly, but they rarely go deep on their feelings. That makes it hard for them to reconcile after they fight. 'They don't even know how to look at each other,' Nonnas director Stephen Chbosky told Yahoo Entertainment. 'Just being a guy from Pittsburgh, it was very easy for me to relate to.' Though they struggle to communicate fully, their love for one another transcends their social conditioning. At the end of the movie, Bruno makes a major sacrifice for Joe to be able to keep the restaurant in business. Nonnas screenwriter Liz Maccie told Yahoo Entertainment that she wanted to show 'how good we can really be to each other.' Vaughn is something of an expert on male friendship, given how many buddy comedies, including Swingers and Wedding Crashers, he's starred in, . 'A good friend is loyal. … You can trust a friend,' he told Yahoo Entertainment. 'But a real friend will also let you be who you are. They're not trying to make you fit into your life. They'll accept you for whatever you are.' Nonnas aims to break the stigma that male friendships face onscreen and off. Sekoul Krastev, a decision scientist, told Yahoo Entertainment that the intimacy gap in male friendship 'isn't innate, it's learned.' 'Studies show that boys are just as emotionally expressive as girls until around age 6,' he said. 'After that, societal norms begin nudging boys toward independence and emotional restraint, leading to adult friendships that are often less verbally intimate.' Media portrayals can reflect and reinforce these friendship norms, he explained, 'sometimes encouraging closeness, and other times stigmatizing it.' In contrast with the male friendship movies of the moment, Another Simple Favor goes all in on exposing the many bizarre, unspoken rules of female friendship — especially between moms. In the original movie A Simple Favor, Anna Kendrick plays a mommy blogger named Stephanie who offers to help Emily (Blake Lively), the fabulous parent of her son's friend, with a basic task. It spirals out of control and Stephanie ends up putting Emily behind bars. That's why it's so bizarre when, in the sequel, Emily shows up at Stephanie's book signing to ask her to be her maid of honor at her destination wedding. Stephanie agrees, saying it'll be great content for her fans, but it's clear that she also feels an emotional bond with Emily that makes her willing to go to great lengths — in this case, a possibly mob-affiliated wedding in Capri — to uncover what's really going on with her. Paul Feig, who directed A Simple Favor, Another Simple Favor and other seminal works about female friendship like Bridesmaids and The Heat, told Yahoo Entertainment he became fascinated with the concept because he grew up with mostly girls and women as friends, and as an only child, was very close to his mother. 'I just find female friendships to be really wonderful and interesting,' he said. 'There's something fascinating to me about it versus male friendship, which … can be great too, but there's a 'bro-iness' about that kind of thing that I'm not interested in.' 'I'm such a sensitive person that I think I just enjoy [female] relationships — I find them very fun and funny. The way women bond and interact with each other is really lovely. … It doesn't tend to be as aggressive as male friendship and bonding can be,' he added. He's not the only person who sees the gender divide. As a clinical psychologist and mental health researcher, Ehab Youssef sees how deeply friendship can shape people's emotional well-being and how differently it plays out for men and women. 'Female friendships tend to be emotionally expressive, built on shared vulnerability and verbal connection, while male friendships often emphasize shared activities and loyalty through action rather than words,' he said. 'Neither is better, just shaped by cultural norms and socialization.' Seeing these dynamics portrayed onscreen — even if they're taken to extreme lengths — 'reflect or challenge what we experience in real life,' he said. 'When films capture the raw honesty, humor or heartbreak of real friendships, especially ones that defy stereotypes, it resonates,' Youssef said. 'It helps us feel seen, and sometimes, it even shows us new ways of being with the people we love.'
Perth Now
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Vince Vaughn gives promising Dodgeball 2 update
Vince Vaughn has a "pretty good" idea for a 'Dodgeball' sequel. The 55-year-old actor played Average Joe's Gym owner Peter LaFleur in cult classic 2004 comedy 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story', and he has given an update on a follow-up two years after a sequel was announced, albeit without much progress since 2023. He told The Hollywood Reporter: "There's always talk of these. 'Dodgeball', actually, there's an idea that's pretty good, but nothing for sure." He explained that after new Netflix film 'Nonnas', his next project is another season of 'Bad Monkey' followed by "another thing" he's working on. He added: "I'm going to start the second season of 'Bad Monkey', which is great, and then I have another thing I'm going to do, but I would definitely… "It's always about if the story's right, if the extension is something that makes sense. "There are ideas that are good with some of these, but you never know what transpires and if it makes sense for everybody. "But I'm definitely open to it. I love a lot of those movies and definitely open if something comes to pass." The original movie followed a group of misfits who enter a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament in a bid to save their gym from a corporate chain by winning the prize money. Alan Tudyk - who played Steve 'The Pirate' Cowan in the original movie - recently revealed a 'Dodgeball 2' script "has been written", but speculated that "there has to be something holding it back". He told 'This is what's been reported, that I've read at least online, and I've kind of heard rumors around. "It's written, Vince likes it, I guess that's all I know. I don't know that I'm in it. "All I know is this: I threw out my shoulder doing that movie, and now I'm 54, so how am I gonna do that? I don't know.' Vaughn previously insisted everyone involved has no desire to make the film unless it's "funny". Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2022, he said: "They've always talked about these things forever and I had an idea that was fun and the studio likes it, so we'll see where it goes. "I think Ben [Stiller] is open to doing it, I think he's in the same boat as me actually which is if it's a really fun and great idea then that's fun, but if it's just something to go do it again then why? "I think for all of us if it feels right and it's funny, it would be something to go back to, and if it's not, it's just another idea getting kicked around." Meanwhile, co-star Justin Long revealed a few years ago that Ben Stiller might be having reservations about a sequel. He told "Of course I would love to do it and I hope that it ends up happening, but I think Ben is a little, what he told me on that podcast was that he's a little trepidatious about doing a sequel to something so beloved, something that people enjoy so much that. "It's very risky, you don't wanna s*** on the original, you want something just as good. "So I think [Ben is] a little wary of that, of trying to recreate something that was very specific to that time, but I hope he comes around on it."
IOL News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Cooking up comfort: 'Nonnas' blends grief and family in a heartfelt tale
Susan Sarandon as Gia, Brenda Vaccaro as Antonella, Lorraine Bracco as Roberta and Talia Shire as Teresa in 'Nonnas'. Image: Jeong Park/Netflix © 2025. Through a lens of love, nostalgia, and self-discovery, "Nonnas" is a heart-warming Netflix film that explores grief with tantalising recipes as a backdrop. It's the kind of offering that you want to watch with the family, especially for its life lesson on the importance of bonds, whether it's by blood or choice. Directed by Stephen Chbosky, the biographical comedy drama boasts a heavyweight cast of Vince Vaughn, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Linda Cardellini and Susan Sarandon. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad Loading The film opens with a flashback to Joe Scaravella's (Vaughn) childhood in 1980s Brooklyn, where his mother and nonna (grandmother) would whip up the most tantalising meals for their get-togethers with family and friends. In particular, the taste and aroma of his grandmother's sauce remain vivid in his memory. The nostalgia is triggered by the passing of his mother. His way of coping with the grief is by cooking up his favourite dishes. Pressured by his supportive best friend Bruno (Manganiello) and Bruno's wife Stella (De Matteo) to utilise his late mother's life insurance for his own benefit, Joe grapples with this suggestion. A chance encounter with his high school crush, Olivia (Cardellini), accompanied by her elderly neighbour Antonella (Vaccaro), at a food market in Staten Island, sets in motion a chain of events that includes him buying a rundown closed restaurant. His spontaneous decision doesn't still well with his friends, but Bruno, who works in construction, agrees to help fix the place. Vince Vaughn as Joe Scaravella in 'Nonnas'. Image: Netflix
