Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Birdman’
The director Alejandro G. Iñárritu narrates a sequence from “Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton
Mary Miller started her term as an Illinois representative on 3 January 2021
It's been 40 years since Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement with a televised interview.
Eli Ade/AMCNegan better watch his back, because Maggie Greene is back in town. On Sunday night, The Walking Dead returned to close out its super-sized penultimate season with six more episodes—and kicked things off by giving Maggie a chance to explain what she and her son, Hershel, have been up to, and why it’s been so long since she touched base with Team Family. But the real question of this week has less to do with where Maggie’s been, and more to do with who the hell she’s managed to antagonize. It seems we’ve got a new villain on our hands, and they apparently have it out for her.It’s a rough week for Maggie: First, she comes face-to-face with Negan, who’s now at large in Alexandria after Carol sprung him from prison. Then, the onetime leader of Hilltop expressed her desire to return home there with her son and a group of survivors only to find out that the place has been reduced to a pile of rubble and bodies. And then, Maggie has to hear from Carol that Negan was actually with the Whisperers when they leveled Hilltop. “Alpha needed to die, and Negan was our best chance,” Carol explained. “We were gonna lose everything; Negan’s the reason we didn’t.”Maggie seems sympathetic, but she’s understandably not thrilled.But the group must press on—so Maggie, Daryl and Kelly head out for the settlement where Maggie’s been staying, along with her friends from the camp, Elijah and Cole. After a long day of walking (and murdering some walkers to take refuge in a storage container) Maggie reveals to Daryl that, like her old friends, she’s borne witness to a lot of tragedy over the past couple years.When Maggie first left Hilltop, she’d set out with a woman named Georgie, whose group helped nascent communities learn the farming and engineering skills required to make it in the apocalypse. “But it’d always go sideways,” she said. The group had been helping a community in Knoxville, Maggie continued, but when Georgie left to check out another community, things collapsed and she and Hershel ran. When Daryl asked what happened to the village Georgie had built, Maggie simply replied, “Not now.”“It’s actually good to say some of it out loud. Just can’t say all of it,” she said. “I almost came home after Knoxville; maybe I should have. Maybe I should have.” After the collapse, Maggie said, she brought Hershel to a place that used to belong to her grandmother on the coast—a place, she said, where she and Glenn had talked about visiting after her sister, Beth, died in Season 5. One night, she and Hershel stayed up late talking about his family. “He asked how his daddy died,” she said. “I knew he would; I knew it was coming. I told him that a bad man killed him. He wanted to know if that man got what he deserved. He wanted to know if that man was dead.”“The truth is I left home because I couldn’t have Negan taking up any more space in my head,” Maggie said. “And when I realized I didn’t want to bring Hershel back to that, the next morning we met a whole community of people who needed us as much as we needed them. And it felt like it was meant to be. But that’s over, too.”Daryl emphasized that things remain up in the air with regard to Negan—a thread that will certainly return later this season and, perhaps, beyond. Because the next morning, Maggie and the group arrive home—only to find it burned to the ground.Turns out, there’s a group called the Reapers hunting people down one by one in the woods now. We see several people Maggie had been staying with shot down before a man comes for Maggie—only to be surrounded by her group. But the man, dressed in military fatigues, refuses to answer any of Maggie’s questions. Instead, he tells her, “Pope marked you”—and then proceeds to blow himself up.There is no group called The Reapers in the Walking Dead comics; there isn’t even a group that seems particularly analogous, from what we’ve seen so far. It’s fascinating, given that we’re just on the verge of truly meeting the Commonwealth—another yet-unexplored community that appears to be the show’s endgame—that the show has now introduced another group to content with. They could be, as The Wrap posits, affiliated with the Civic Republic—villains of the spin-off World Beyond. But so far, it’s hard to guess at who these people are or what they really want.Lauren Cohan returned to Walking Dead during what would have originally been its season finale last year, after a brief trip to ABC for the now-defunct Whiskey Cavalier. Despite how long this series has floundered, both before and especially after her absence, Cohan’s presence feels like a refreshing return to form for the zombie drama—especially as it shuffles toward its final season. (She was always, and remains, one of the most emotive and compelling performers in the cast.) Nothing will ever fully atone for Glenn Rhee’s poorly executed, excruciatingly graphic death in Season 7. But it’s still somehow a little sentimental to see his son walk into Alexandria hand-in-hand with his mother. That said, however, in light of this week’s brief scare—which found Maggie racing through the woods looking for her son after finding the camp burned to the ground—I will say this: If Hershel dies, as so many children on this series have, we riot.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Two former resident assistants told BuzzFeed News they warned women in their dorms not to go on drives with Cawthorn because "bad things happened."
Texas's grid operator on Friday shut Griddy Energy LLC's access to the state's power network for unpaid bills and shifted its 10,000 customers to other utilities, as new signs of a financial crisis rose after a state-wide blackout. Griddy was the power marketer that sold consumers electricity at wholesale rates, which rose to $9,000 per megawatt hour as cold weather struck the state last week. Grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) "effectively shut down Griddy," the electricity marketer said in a statement on its website.
Villagers living on both sides of the Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region of Kashmir welcomed an agreement between long-time foes India and Pakistan to stop shelling from each side, but some were sceptical it would hold. The nuclear-armed neighbours signed a ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) in 2003, but that has frayed in recent years and there have been mounting casualties. In a joint statement on Thursday, India and Pakistan said they would observe a ceasefire.
After a white van advertised COVID-19 vaccines to a central-Indian slum, many of its residents feel duped after finding out they were in a trial.
The couple's royal love story began in 2016 when they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend.
A member of the Oath Keepers militia group charged with plotting with other extremists in the attack on the U.S. Capitol disavowed the anti-government group in a court hearing Friday, telling the judge she is “appalled” by her fellow Oath Keepers and “humiliated” by her arrest. Jessica Watkins, one of nine members and associates of the far-right militia group charged with planning and coordinating with one another in the Jan. 6 siege, said she plans to cancel her Oath Keepers membership and has disbanded her local Ohio militia group. Judge Amit P. Mehta said Watkins was “not just a foot soldier” but actively involved in the planning and organizing of the attack and is too dangerous to be released.
Facing damning evidence in the deadly Capitol siege last month — including social media posts flaunting their actions — rioters are arguing in court they were following then-President Donald Trump's instructions on Jan. 6. “This purported defense, if recognized, would undermine the rule of law because then, just like a king or a dictator, the president could dictate what’s illegal and what isn’t in this country," U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said recently in ordering pretrial detention of William Chrestman, a suspected member of the Kansas City-area chapter of the Proud Boys. Chrestman’s attorneys argued in court papers that Trump gave the mob “explicit permission and encouragement” to do what they did, providing those who obeyed him with “a viable defense against criminal liability.”
In a new interview as part of The Hollywood Reporter's Actor Roundtable series, Affleck spoke about Garner and the three kids they share.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday called for an independent investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against Governor Andrew Cuomo made by a former aide to the governor who is now a candidate for Manhattan borough president. Lindsey Boylan, who first made the accusations on Twitter in December, wrote a detailed essay published on the web platform Medium on Wednesday that the governor had made several "inappropriate gestures" towards her while she worked for the state government from 2015 to 2018, ranging from sending her a rose on Valentine's Day to kissing her on the mouth. Cuomo denied the accusations in December and issued another denial on Wednesday.
A jihadist message, "Islamic State endures", is still graffitied on the front gate of Thanoun Yahya, an Iraqi Christian from the northern city of Mosul, scrawled by Islamist militants who occupied his home for three years when they ruled the city. He refuses to remove it, partly in defiance of the militants who were eventually beaten by Iraqi forces, but also as a reminder that Iraq's scattered and dwindling Christian community still lives a precarious existence. "They're gone, they can't hurt us," said the 59-year-old, sitting in his home which he reclaimed when Islamic State was driven out in 2017.
The problem in 2020 was with the Republican candidate. That won't change in 2024 if Trump stays on top.
From "fake snow" to Bill Gates, conspiracy theories about the Texas storm are spreading. Right-wing pundits and politicians aren't helping.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has extended partial coronavirus curbs in the capital until the end of March, as the country awaits the arrival of vaccines, the presidential spokesman said on Saturday. With southeast Asia's second-highest tally of infections and deaths, the Philippines has suffered lengthy, strict lockdowns in Manila and provinces, hitting an economy that was among Asia's fastest growing before the pandemic. Curbs will stay for another month in Manila, which accounts for 40% of national economic output, the spokesman, Harry Roque, said in a statement.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via GettyDemocrats are one big step closer to achieving their first major goal of the Joe Biden era. Early Saturday morning, the U.S. House approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a nearly party-line vote.The 219-212 vote allows the U.S. Senate to formally take up the legislation, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) intends to do immediately. But the party is under the gun: Many Democrats regard March 14—the day that extended unemployment benefits run out for millions—as a de facto deadline for getting the so-called American Rescue Plan on Biden’s desk.The legislation would replenish relief for the jobless by extending a weekly $400 check through August. It also fulfills a number of other promises Democrats campaigned on in 2020: $1,400 direct stimulus checks to supplement the $600 checks that went out in December, billions of dollars to hasten vaccine distribution, funds for schools, and aid for state and local governments. The House’s bill passed with an increase to the federal minimum wage—but the Senate’s procedural enforcer found that the proposal did not conform to the rules of fast-tracking a bill in the upper chamber. It effectively kills the prospects for a clean wage hike as part of the COVID legislation.Prior rounds of major COVID legislation passed the House with bipartisan support, but Friday’s vote all but confirmed Biden’s first relief effort will travel a starkly partisan path. The GOP, beset with infighting in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack and Donald Trump’s impeachment, have found cause for unity in opposing the relief plan, which they slammed as a bloated vehicle for liberal wish-list items. Democrats held out hope that at least a few Republicans would vote for the plan, but not a single GOP lawmaker backed the legislation, and its odds for picking up many Senate Republicans look dim.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Tom Cruise is perhaps most famous for doing almost all of his own stunts, which have intensified throughout his career. In the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, he climbed part of a 2,000-foot cliff in "Mission: Impossible 2" and then climbed 1,700 feet up the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, in "Ghost Protocol." In "Rogue Nation," Cruise did not one, but two dangerous stunts. First, he hung off the side of a plane that took him up 1,000 feet in the air. He then had to hold his breath underwater for about six minutes, a stunt that required military-style preparation. In "Fallout," he jumped 25,000 feet out of a plane and filmed a helicopter stunt that required him to get 2,000 hours of training and learn how to do a 360-degree corkscrew dive. Outside the "Mission" franchise, he filmed a scene on a real zero-gravity plane instead of a soundstage in "The Mummy" and learned how to do action in an 85-pound suit in "Edge of Tomorrow." He is soon set to return to one of his most iconic roles in "Top Gun: Maverick." “The Mummy” Is Now Available On Demand
Retail power marketers in Texas are appealing multi-million dollar bills from last week's blackout that they say could cripple them and unravel Texas' nearly two-decade-old experiment as the most deregulated U.S. electricity market. Wholesale prices, which last year averaged $26 a megawatt hour, soared to $9,000 per MWh for days as grid operators tried to quench a severe shortage that left up to 4.3 million residents shivering in the dark last week. "The state will likely experience the largest number of failures of retailers ever seen," said Patrick Woodson, chief executive of Green Energy Exchange.
Comedian Jourdyn Parks shared her hack for getting flavorful mashed potatoes every time by boiling the potatoes in meat or chicken stock.