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Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Jesse Armstrong's Mountainhead: Succession's successor sharply satirizes a new class of billionaire
Before he transformed the idea into a hit HBO television series, the British screenwriter Jesse Armstrong first wrote Succession as a film. I've always been curious what kind of movie Armstrong's original screenplay – which landed on the so-called 'Black List' of best unproduced screenplays of 2010 – would have resulted in. Armstrong's new HBO film that premieres in Canada on Saturday night on Crave (8 p.m. ET) may be the closest we'll ever get to seeing what that would have looked like. While not a Succession spin-off per se, Mountainhead certainly seems to exist in an expansion of its universe – where the characters and the satire are both extremely rich. The film begins with a bit of exposition, efficient if not all that elegant, that sets up the background of the story through news footage. Traam, a social media site used by billions around the world, has introduced a new suite of artificial intelligence features. Without any moderation, they have led to bad actors to create real-time deepfakes that have quickly sparked violent and even genocidal conflict all around the globe. Despite this worldwide chaos he's created, Traam's cocky owner Venis (Cory Michael Smith) – the richest man in the world and, from a brief glimpse of his parenting style, at least partly modelled on Elon Musk – is headed off on a weekend retreat with his tech-bro besties. An oversized SUV, private jet and helicopter ride away is a new mountaintop mansion in the Canadian Rockies that has been built by Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), who, with a net worth of merely $500-million, is considered the poorest of his billionaire pals. Indeed, he's nicknamed Soupy, short for Soup Kitchen, for that reason. (Yes, Hugo has named his retreat Mountainhead in an apparently non-ironic homage to objectivist novelist Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.) Also joining on this jaunt are Randall (Steve Carrell), described as a 'Dark Money Gandalf' and unwilling to admit that all the wealth in the world cannot cure the type of cancer he has; and Jeff (Ramy Youssef), who has a modicum of ethics compared to the others and a rival AI platform that quickly could undo all the damage that Traam is doing – but only if Venis names the right price. Full of poetically garbled tech jargon and inventively profane put-downs, Armstrong's screwball dialogue in this film is as enjoyable – and unquotable in this newspaper – as Succession's at its most absurd. His satire is sharpest in the ways he parodies tech-bro libertarian stances. In self-serving denial of the effect of Traam is having, Venis recalls that when the Lumière Brothers showed their first movie of a train, the audience jumped for cover. 'The answer to that was not stop the movies,' he says, with the type of specious argument one normally has to pay big bucks to hear at a Munk Debate. 'The answer was show more movies.' Randall follows up with his own risible reasoning to ignore the suffering of others, delivered in a sarcastic tone: 'There will be eight to 10 cardiac arrests during the Super Bowl. Stop the Super Bowl!' For all its line-by-line dark pleasures, Mountainhead would quickly grow tiring were it not for the fact that Armstrong's plotting of shifting power dynamics among these four is pretty clever as well. Venis has to dance around how to get Jeff's AI without compromising his pride, while Randall goes deeper and deeper into dangerous delusion as he imagines that perhaps Traam's 'creative destruction' might speed up the eventuality of transhumanism and the ability for his consciousness to be uploaded to the mainframe. Then, there's insecure Hugo who will go along with any plan as long as someone invests in his meditation app that he hopes might finally push him over a billion in net worth. There is, however, an unresolved tension at the heart of Mountainhead, as there was in Succession, between how much the audience hates these characters and also enjoys spending time laughing at (with?) them – and how to balance the fact that the ultra-rich are beyond the reach of consequences, while satisfying the desire to punish them. Unable to really have his characters develop or truly grapple with the implications of their actions without humanizing them, Armstrong returns to his old underwhelming stand-by – scenes in which his monsters stare into the distance miserably, or look at themselves in the mirror as if try to the find shreds of humanity behind their mask. Ultimately, with so much of Mountainhead's action taking place in a single location, you see how Armstrong's style of writing is suited for a TV screen over a big one – and why it's for the best Succession didn't happen as a movie. Indeed, you could even see Mountainhead dropped on a stage, with minimal edits to the script. Finally, male actors who wanted to explore the depths of toxic masculinity and American capitalism would have a more up-to-date work than David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross (incidentally, now on in New York starring Kieran Culkin).
CNBC
19-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
BlackRock's Rick Rieder says this is the 'sweet spot' in bonds right now
With the tariff-induced volatility in the rearview mirror, BlackRock's Rick Rieder has once again set his sights on high-yield bonds. Yet, he is sticking with those that have maturities of three to five years. That is because he expects more volatility in long-end rates. Yields on 10- and 30-year Treasurys spiked on Monday after Moody's downgraded the U.S. credit rating one notch to Aa1 from Aaa late Friday. The 30-year hit a high of around 5.03%, while the 10-year at one point topped 4.5%. Rieder, Blackrock's chief investment officer for global fixed income, had recently reduced some of the high-yield exposure in the exchange traded fund he manages, the iShares Flexible Income Active ETF (BINC) . The bonds were hit in early April after President Donald Trump announced his tariff policy, sending many investors fleeing to safer assets. BINC YTD mountain iShares Flexible Income Active ETF in 2025 Still, Rieder is convinced that any economic pullback will be short lived and thinks the U.S. economy is in good shape. He is now adding more higher-yielding assets back into his portfolio. "U.S. high yield is still attractive — but higher quality," he said. BB-rated bonds, the highest rated of the non-investment grade tranche, trades rich since it gets crossover buyers from investment grade, Rieder said. He doesn't own any CCC-rated bonds, which he said could see defaults if there is an economic slowdown. The B-rated segment is the "sweet spot," he noted. "You get yield," he added "Credit is in as good a shape as I've seen it in 30 years." BINC, which began trading publicly on this date two years ago and now has more than $9 billion in assets, currently has nearly 40% of its portfolio in high-yield corporates and loans. Of that, the majority is in U.S. high-yield corporate bonds. The exchange-traded fund has a 30-day Securities and Exchange Commission yield of 5.57% and a net expense ratio of 0.4%. Rieder likes agency mortgage-backed securities on the other side of high yield as a barbell approach. The assets are debt obligations backed by the government, meaning there is little credit risk. Their cash flows are tied to the interest and payment on pools of mortgages. "When rate volatility picks up, it can cheapen up mortgages," he said. "So we added some mortgage paper." Rieder has also recently been adding European sovereign bonds from Germany, as well as some peripheral sovereigns such as France, Ireland, Spain and Italy. He's focusing on the five- to 10-year part of the curve. "As a dollar investor, because of the FX [currency] swap … European rates are pretty interesting," Rieder said. After several years of negative interest rates, "now you're getting to buy yields with a steep yield curve," he added.
Fox News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Charlize Theron suffers on-set injury after performing dangerous stunt work without harness
Charlize Theron is on the mend after suffering an on-set injury. The Oscar-winning actress has revealed that while filming her latest action-packed project, "Apex," she sustained a painful injury after doing some of her own dangerous stunt work—without protective equipment. "Our crew delivered a really impressive movie, and yours truly did some stunts and action — without a harness, sometimes," Theron said at Netflix's 2025 upfront presentation earlier this week, according to Entertainment Weekly. "Don't tell Netflix." "It's actually a miracle that I'm here today," she noted. The "Mad Max: Fury Road" actress continued to detail the risks involved while she worked on her physically demanding role. "Apex only wrapped like a week ago, so I'm fresh off the mountain. I still have some Australian dirt under this pretty manicure, and my cute boot is hiding a fractured toe… I can go on and on and on, but I won't." Despite the physical toll, Theron, 49, remained in good spirits as she recovered. "I can honestly say that shooting 'Apex' was one of the most incredible experiences of my life," she added. Theron went on to say that she never imagined she could top the intense stunts she performed in previous projects. "I actually never thought that I would be able to outdo the action that I did in 'Old Guard 2,'" she remarked. "Back to me almost dying, I'm really proud to share a little of this mammoth movie that I got to work on…" She's set to star in the action-packed film alongside actor Taron Egerton. When describing "Apex," Theron said the movie focuses on "a woman trying to rediscover herself only to be hunted by a ruthless and unforgiving human predator." Reps for Theron did not immediately respond back to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Theron isn't the only Hollywood star that's recently sustained injuries. Earlier this week, Jennifer Lopez suffered a facial injury during rehearsals just weeks before hosting the American Music Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada. The "Let's Get Loud" singer took to social media Tuesday to share a photo of her icing one of her eyes. "So this happened…" Lopez, 55, posted on her Instagram Story. She shared a second selfie without the ice pack, explaining that the injury happened while she was rehearsing for the American Music Awards, set to take place on May 26. Lopez is booked to host the show. A visible cut is seen at the top of Lopez's nose and a slight discoloration is visible around her eye. Lopez posted a third photo next to plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Diamond and in her caption she wrote, "Thank you for stitching me up Dr. Diamond. A week later and a whole lotta ice, I'm good as new." It's unclear what caused the injury.
CTV News
06-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
Backcountry skier survives more than 240m fall down U.S. mountain
Watch A U.S. skier is lucky to be alive after spending 8 hours injured in the forest after falling more than 240 metres down a mountain in California.
