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Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Paul Rudd is the dream buddy in a superb Fatal Attraction for blokes
Making new friends in middle-age is hard for men — just ask Elon Musk about Donald Trump. Or ask the pair at the centre of Andrew DeYoung's darkly comic film Friendship. Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) is a socially awkward suburbanite who drops off some misdirected mail to a new neighbour, Austin Carmichael. A charismatic TV weatherman and self-proclaimed 'man's man', Austin is played — of course — by Paul Rudd, who has been playing the dream-buddy-next-door for so long now, from The 40-Year-Old Virgin to I Love You, Man, that his nice-guy energy has become axiomatic, like Tom Hanks's trustworthiness or Keanu Reeves's powers of Zen. The difference with DeYoung's film is that here it's played for something a little darker. It's a bromance cringe comedy with one foot in the psych ward. Austin invites Craig into his life, asks him along to a gig and then a soulful beer-and-a-singalong with his buddies that leaves Craig's eyes wide with longing. Craig is a gaping suckhole of midlife male need — so hungry for the barest glimmers of acceptance that he lunges into every situation, and then extracts scalding rejection from the social awkwardness that results. He's a one-man self-esteem spiral, incapable of dealing with even a scuff on his padded anorak ('Ow, I got water on me!'), so when Austin pulls away, alarmed by an evening that takes a turn, Craig goes to pieces. 'One strange thing and I'm toast?' he wails on Austin's porch during their break-up. 'You made me feel accepted way too fast! You can't do that! People need rules!' There's a raw honesty to his outburst that pushes the film beyond mere comic caricature. The Saturday Night Live alumnus Robinson has crafted a superb comic creation: his Tourettic social interactions hide deep pools of hurt and need, as well as bottomless anger at the alienation he inevitably provokes. The film is like a male version of Play Misty for Me, Fatal Attraction or any one of those slightly misogynistic bunny-boiler thrillers where a woman is pushed into Madame Butterfly territory by the casual cruelty of a male ex. • The best films of 2025 so far Numb with grief, Craig pushes his family and workmates into agonisingly ill-judged replays of the bonding sessions he briefly enjoyed with Austin — 'This is a non-Marvel spoiler garage,' he tells a hastily convened beer party with incredulous and openly mocking work colleagues — and when these efforts, too, rebound on him, his hurt metastasises into something more dangerous. You may not entirely buy a lot of what follows. The film has been crafted solely as a vehicle for one performance and one performance alone: when Rudd disappears to make way for the disintegration of Craig's marriage to his wife, Tami (Kate Mara), the movie loses its focus and becomes a more diffuse, at times hallucinogenic voyage into the bad neighbourhood of one man's psyche. But as a vehicle for Robinson's solipsistic monomaniac, it's a trip. ★★★☆☆15, 101min Pierce Brosnan spent so long perfecting the manner of a twinkling, poolside sophisticate for Remington Steele and Bond that his own Irish accent now sounds as affected as Richard Burton's Welsh accent did in The Last Days of Dolwyn. In Polly Steele's adaptation of Niall Williams's bestseller Four Letters of Love, Brosnan plays William Coughlan, a civil servant who one day quits his job, on the advice of God, to become a painter. 'It's about beauty and mystery and your spirit and something in you which can't be denied,' William tells his son, Nicholas (Fionn O'Shea), as he hauls his easel across the beaches of Donegal, where his long hairpiece is windswept with divine mysteries. Even on the bus he looks like a man in a wind tunnel. • Pierce Brosnan: 'I don't live a Hollywood lifestyle' Hair is destiny in Steele's film, a heartfelt piece of purest blarney. Growing up in another part of Ireland is Isabel (Ann Skelly), who lives with her parents (Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne) and disabled brother — until she is sent away to convent school, where her unbridled soul and cascade of red curls soon drive her into the arms of a local ne'er-do-well, Peadar (Ferdia Walsh Peelo). What do Isabel and Nicholas's stories have to do with one another? Quite a lot, thematically: kept apart by fate then drawn together by a series of coincidences — sorry, miracles — their destiny is written in the stars, or, the next best thing, the film's voice-over narration. Everyone feels this couple should be together — the seagulls, God — everyone except the audience, who experience their final union as nothing more than an 11th-hour Hail Mary. There's more chemistry between Brosnan and his wig. ★★☆☆☆12A, 110min Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out moreWhich films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments below and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wendy Ide's pick of other films: Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Gold Songs and Smurfs
Friendship (101 mins, 15) Directed by Andrew DeYoung; starring Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara The minefield of male friendship has long been a rich source of inspiration for film-makers, to the extent that a whole new term – the bromance – gained currency in the early 00s to describe a certain kind of boys ' club buddy movie. I Love You, Man, starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, was the classic example, but there are numerous others. Friendship, the squirm-inducing feature film debut from TV comedy director Andrew DeYoung (Dave, Our Flag Means Death) shares some DNA with the blustering broad comedy of the bromance, but it's a grotesquely deformed mutation of the genre. This is the kind of humour that is as likely to have you chewing your fists to bloody nubs from second-hand embarrassment as it is to generate laughter. Tim Robinson stars as Craig, an unpopular dork with a soul-crushing office job, a wife (Kate Mara) who is drifting into a relationship with another man and a wardrobe consisting of the shade of brown that you find when you unclog the kitchen sink. When Craig meets his new neighbour, local news weatherman Austin ( Rudd), it seems that he might finally have found a friend. Unfortunately, Craig's negligible impulse-control and non existent social skills inevitably make things weird. It's entertaining enough, in a The Cable Guy-meets-The Office, teeth-grindingly uncomfortable way. But Craig is an extreme and unlovely creation. Four Letters of Love (110 mins, 12A) Directed by Polly Steele; starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne The country of Ireland is treated to another misrepresentation by a movie industry that seems compelled to filter all depictions through an emerald-green lens and a thick layer of whimsy. This adaptation of Niall Williams's best selling romantic novel features a bingo card full of Irish clich es, including meddlesome ghosts, rebellious convent schoolgirls and a character who plays his penny whistle so vigorously he lapses into a catatonic state. Feisty west coast islander Isabel (Ann Skelly) and forlorn, waxy-looking youth Nicholas (Fionn O'Shea) are destined to be together. But his unreliable, aspiring artist father (Pierce Brosnan) and her meddling mother (Helena Bonham Carter) keep getting in the way. There's also the small problem that Isabel is married to a feckless fellow she met while playing truant from her Catholic school. Fans of wide shots of vintage buses trundling through the most scenically blessed corners of the island may find much to admire, but this is a saccharine and insincere slog. Gold Songs (93 mins) Directed by Ico Costa; starring Domingos Marengula, Neusia Guiamba Love is a luxury for young people in the small, rural town in Mozambique where this slow-burning story starts its journey. And despite the heady attraction between them, Neusia (Neusia Guiamba) and Domingos (Domingos Marengula) find themselves priced out of the market for romance. She's still at school; he toils at a car wash for a boss who regularly fails to pay his workers. Both know that to build a future, they first need a financial foundation. So Domingos leaves, travelling to the north of the country to join his uncle hauling sacks of earth out of the precarious pits that pass for gold mines. The spark between Neusia and Domingos falters as time and distance take their toll. The melancholy and rather lovely second feature from Portuguese director Ico Costa (Alva) , the film's use of non-professional actors blurs the boundaries between fiction and real life – Gold Songs was developed with the participation of local people who shared their stories. The growing gap between the two characters is elegantly captured by the shooting styles of their diverging stories. Domingos, on his fruitless quest for a better life, is in constant motion, with the agitated camera trailing behind him like a stray dog. Back in the village, Neusia finds herself pregnant, her sadness and stillness captured by a subdued and watchful lens. Deep down, they both know that the further they grow apart, the less likely they are to find each other again. Smurfs (92 mins, U) Directed by Chris Miller, Matt Landon; starring Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman Belgium's small, blue and inexplicably popular cultural gift to the world gets a reboot in this revamped Hollywood animation directed by Chris Miller (Puss in Boots). Smurfs has an all-new voice cast (Rihanna takes over the role of Smurfette from previous incumbents Demi Lovato and Katy Perry) and a tone that veers between knowing irony and wigged-out surrealism. But the excitable colour palette, roster of familiar evil-doers and rigidly enforced nominative determinism remains unchanged. This provides a premise: while Clumsy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf and the others have a unique defining characteristic, No Name Smurf (James Corden) has yet to find his 'thing'. A wish tacked on to an underwhelming musical number imbues him with magical powers, but no sooner has No Name learned to shoot fireworks from his fingers than he inadvertently summons the forces of evil in the form of malevolent wizard Razamel (JP Karliak). The picture borrows unashamedly and blatantly from Inside Out and the Spiderverse films, and the dimension-hopping plot line is tiresome. But the summer holidays are almost upon us and needs must, I suppose. Photographs by A24; Vertigo
The Sun
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Bad Bunny and LeBron James spark bromance as pair party hard with lots of women at swanky Puerto Rico hotel
BAD Bunny and LeBron James have sparked a bromance after the friends partied hard with women at a swanky Puerto Rican hotel. An insider close to the festivities exclusively told The U.S. Sun that the unlikely pair enjoyed each other's company during the opening weekend for Bad Bunny's residency in his native island. 5 5 The performer is at the start of a once-in-a-lifetime run of 30 sold-out shows in his hometown at the iconic Coliseo de Puerto Rico. The source, who was an eyewitness to much of the revelry, revealed just how invested Bad Bunny, 31, has been in ensuring these concerts benefit the island and serve its people. "It's an elaborate thing where he is making the tickets available at a low price, you have to prove you're a fan and a Puerto Rican resident, like people have to get the tickets at the supermarket he worked at when he was a kid." The insider said LeBron, 40, was not only at the concert and vibing to the music, but he also hung out with the singer for much of the lead-up to the first show. "LeBron was at the concert, there were a bunch of videos of them together, but before that, they had hung out and played golf together all day," the insider said of the performer and the Los Angeles Lakers player. The insider added that the NBA star is still a newbie at golfing and has been enjoying the sport lately. "After all that they partied their a**es off at the St Regis property nearby with a lot of beautiful women." "They have this fun new bromance energy going on," the source added. Bad Bunny started his residency on July 12, and has a whirlwind of 30 dates over the next month, before he kicks off his world tour, which notably does not include any shows in the 50 states. The Puerto Rican icon is very single, and clearly ready to mingle, as he has not had any serious public relationship since his split from Kendall Jenner last year. LeBron is married to his wife of 12 years, Savannah James. BAD SPLIT Fans noticed the couple had split when they both appeared at the US Open, separately, in September. Fans noticed the duo sitting apart during the match, leading many to speculate that it was a sign their relationship had come to an end. "Bad Bunny and Kendall definitely broke up - they are sitting separately," one person wrote in a popular online thread, starting the discussion. "To be honest they always seemed like a hot fling kind of thing. I can see them going back and forth for fun but unsure if anything serious will come out of it," someone else said, after having brought up that the pair dated previously and had split in December of 2023. Before the U.S. Open sighting, the pair hadn't been seen together since June at Paris Fashion Week, which had further fueled the rumor at the time. 5 5 5
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The deplorable and the adorable: Merz gives top bantz after blasting Brexit
It wasn't quite le bromance of last week's press conference with Emmanuel Macron. Then Keir Starmer and the French president had made no effort to conceal their affection for one another. A thousand ways to say je t'aime. They had even concluded their hour in front of the cameras with an awkward hug, unsure if a kiss on the cheek would be out of place. Exactly a week on, it was time for the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to share a platform with the prime minister at the Airbus factory in Stevenage. This one ended with a formal handshake and little eye contact. That wasn't the only difference between the two pressers. The one with Macron had started an hour late, a sure sign that Starmer had been trying and failing to secure a better deal on the returns agreement with France. This one began as scheduled. Most of the details had been signed off days, if not weeks ago. The one-day visit of the German chancellor merely a matter of protocol. But it was, in its way, an equally significant occasion. The first friendship and bilateral co-operation treaty between the UK and Germany. A coming of age. A relationship of equals with no place for tabloid stereotypes. Keir got things under way with a quick resume of what had been agreed. A defence partnership. New investments. Ease of access between the two countries for both schoolchildren and frequent travellers. Cooperation on irregular migration. A new rail route between England and Germany. Albeit a reannouncement of one that had already been announced. Though it would be churlish to make a fuss of this on a good news day. A commitment to continue to be appalled by the situation in Gaza. But not to be so appalled that either country would actually do anything about it. Then it was over to Merz. He began by speaking in English, saying how proud he was to have signed the newly named Kensington treaty. Then he switched to German. To spare Keir's blushes. Because in his next breath he said how much he deplored Brexit. Even Macron hadn't gone that far a week ago, merely expressing regret. Starmer does his best to forget Brexit. Likes to pretend it never happened. That for some unknown reason we found ourselves outside the EU. He went on to talk about Ukraine and the newly formed alliance of the E3. Germany, France and the UK. Time for the questions. First up was Sky's political editor who talked and talked and talked. Almost as if she thought this was a three-way press conference with her, Starmer and Merz. Every time you thought she had come to an end, she came up with yet another long-winded question. By the third minute, Starmer was beginning to look a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps he wondered if she would ever stop. Merz, though, was a revelation. He was loving it. 'Thank you for your brief questions,' he smiled. He would love to answer them all. He had nothing better to do with his life than stand around in the factory for the rest of the day. It was top bantz. His answers turned out to be a great deal shorter than the questions. Friedrich not only had a decent sense of humour, he was modest with it. He may look like a technocrat but he also has a charm that becomes more and more obvious the longer you spend in his company. For Keir, the main domestic question was his decision to suspend the whip of four backbenchers. Why bother? Why not let them do what they wanted? Much like Tony Blair had done with the 47 Labour MPs who had voted against his welfare bill in 1997. After all, it wasn't as if his majority was ever under threat. So why not live and let live? Give the appearance of being a broad church where a variety of opinions can be tolerated. For the only time during the press conference, Starmer looked a bit rattled. 'We were elected to change the country for the better,' he said, somewhat testily. The suspension of the whip hadn't been for the party's benefit, he went on. It had been for the country. Which was strange. It hadn't looked that way. It had seemed a sign of petulance. Weakness even. The unofficial version was that the MPs had been suspended for persistent knobheadery. Though you could say knobheadery cuts both ways. Something for Labour to consider. But if Keir couldn't tolerate some of his own MPs who had voted differently to him, earlier in the day he had been all in favour of widening the franchise. In response to an urgent question from the Conservative Paul Holmes, the junior democracy minister Rushanara Ali had announced the government would be extending the vote to 16-year-olds, as well as restricting the influence of foreign money in UK elections. Needless to say the Tories weren't at all happy about this. Right now, they would prefer to restrict voting eligibility to the over-75s. And even then they wouldn't be guaranteed to win an election. Holmes couldn't quite bring himself to say that no self-respecting 16-year-old would be seen dead voting Conservative, so he rummaged around for ever more specious reasons to say lowering the voting age was a bad thing. You couldn't buy cigarettes or alcohol until you were 18 so why should you get to vote? Perhaps he felt you needed to be pissed to enter a ballot box. Holmes hadn't quite grasped that you could join the Tory party at 15 and vote for a leader. Talking of which, the Tories are in no position to give lectures on voting ethics. They were the party that foisted Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak on us, without giving us a chance to say what we thought about it. The Lib Dems' Sarah Olney was all in favour of lowering the age limit but wondered if the government might go further. To something like proportional representation. Ali closed that door swiftly. The Lib Dems had had their chance and blown it. End of. You could have too much of a good thing with democracy.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Jimmy Butler's Gesture for Steph Curry Goes Viral on Monday
Jimmy Butler's Gesture for Steph Curry Goes Viral on Monday originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Ever since Jimmy Butler came on board a few months ago, he and Stephen Curry have been building what you could easily call a bromance. On the court, Butler has quickly become Steph's go-to guy, someone the front office is counting on to help deliver another ring to the Bay. Advertisement But Butler's loyalty doesn't stop when the buzzer sounds. He proved just how deep that support runs with a simple but powerful gesture for Curry this week and let's just say, fans loved it. His move went viral on Monday and showed everyone that Butler's got Steph's back, no matter what. Steph Curry is taking part in the American Century Championship, a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe. And while he was walking onto the course he ran into a familiar face, Jimmy Butler. The two men exchanged a few words, and hugged it out before Curry went back to work. The video captured blew up online too; the original clip from NBC Sports and the re-post by Warriors World have racked up nearly a million views combined. Fans also shared their feelings reacting to the video as well. Advertisement One fan said, 'Jimmy's a real one.' Another fan added, 'Dray trying to cancel everything to be here right now after this.' 'Jimmy butler is not the answer. He couldn't win one game without Steph'- commented a fan making his feelings very clear. Another fan added, 'Four hour dive one way. What a teammate!' A fan commented, 'Sure didn't do it in the playoffs' 'Chemistry at its finest'- added another fan. Steph Curry gave it his best shot at the American Century Championship in South Lake Tahoe, but came up just short this time around. The 2023 champ finished fifth overall with a final score of 58, while Joe Pavelski finally snagged his first ACC win after a few close calls. Advertisement Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry (30).© Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images Curry actually had a solid run, climbing from ninth to fifth with four birdies on Sunday, but a rough double bogey on the 18th did him in. Still, you know, Steph's fire won't cool off. Now, it's back to the hardwood, where he'll be chasing another ring for the Warriors. Related: Steph Curry Sends Message After Al Horford to Warriors Report This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 15, 2025, where it first appeared.
