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Elvis biopic: Austin Butler praised, but mixed reviews for film

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Many critics praised actor Austin Butler’s portrayal of Elvis Presley in a new biopic of the singer, which has received generally positive reviews.

The film, directed by Baz Luhrmann, had its world premiere on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival. Butler “throws himself into the performance,” according to The Wrap, and Total Film predicted an Oscar nomination.

Vanity Fair, on the other hand, called Butler “the only thing that works,” while IndieWire called the film “deliriously awful.” “Yes, it’s a bright and splashy jukebox epic with an irresistible central performance from Austin Butler,” wrote Robbie Collin of The Telegraph, who gave the film four stars.

“But it veers in and out of fashion on a scene-by-scene basis, in that signature Luhrmann way: it’s the most impeccably styled and blaringly gaudy thing you’ll see all year, and all the more fun for it.”

Elvis is “easily Luhrmann’s best movie since Romeo + Juliet,” according to Kevin Maher of the New York Times, in another four-star review. “The musical numbers have a lot of power because of Butler’s performance, but also because of Luhrmann’s editing, which has the kind of frenetic rhythms that are almost impossible to resist (feet will tap),” he said.

When Butler was cast as Elvis Presley in 2019, he reportedly beat out Harry Styles, Ansel Elgort, and Miles Teller.

Butler’s performance was praised by Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent, who wrote that the actor “makes a compelling argument for Elvis’ power, at a time when the musician’s arguably lost a little of his cultural cachet.”

“Butler has the looks, voice, stance, and wiggle down pat,” she said, “but what’s truly impressive is that indescribable, undistillable essence of Elvis-ness – magnetic, gentle, and fierce all at once.”

Steve Pond of The Wrap described the star’s performance as “wildly physical but never cartoonish or disrespectful.”

Total Film’s Jordan Farley said: “Some may be offended by the length of the film, which clocks in at over 150 minutes, but a lack of action isn’t the issue; there’s enough to Elvis’ story to fill 150 hours.

“The problem is that well-edited montages or a time jump bridged by a newspaper headline to fill in the gaps miss a lot of interesting material. Most of Elvis’s Hollywood years, as well as his initial rise to chart-topping fame, are relegated to one of these montage.

“In the end, nothing in Elvis’ life happens gradually – this is a fast-paced life story, but such is the energy that Luhrmann cultivates. At the very least, it’s never dull.”

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News Trending War

Ukraine war: Russian soldiers’ bodies are dumped near Kyiv

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Villagers in Zavalivka called the authorities after their dogs began digging incessantly in the woods.

The topsoil was carefully removed by a Ukrainian military team wearing white protective suits. They discovered a man’s body, lying face down with his legs twisted strangely beneath him. His uniform indicated that he was a Russian soldier.

Russian troops’ remains are still being discovered in and around the villages they passed through or occupied near Kyiv, weeks after they failed to seize Ukraine’s capital. However, Ukraine claims that Russia is uninterested in returning them.

The body was taken from its grave in the woods to a refrigerated train on the outskirts of Kyiv, which now serves as a mobile morgue for the Russian dead. The white plastic sacks are labelled with numbers rather than names, and on the day we visited, there were at least 137 stacked inside two carriages.

The Ukrainians try to identify the dead: the forensics team discovered two bank cards and badges for a Russian motorised rifle brigade on the body that was just brought in.

“At least this one has a chance of getting home,” the man in charge said as he displayed the finds, which included a soiled T-shirt with the Army of Russia logo printed on it.

I confirmed that the man I had just seen exhumed was a young, married soldier from Siberia a few moments later. A carefully posed black-and-white photograph from his social media profile stared out from my phone next to his body bag.

“We don’t abandon our own,” Russia proudly proclaims. It’s a big part of President Vladimir Putin’s pretext for invading Ukraine, where he falsely claimed Russian-speakers required protection.

This pledge does not appear to apply to Russian soldiers.
“The bodies we’ve discovered show they treat people like garbage, like cannon fodder,” Col Volodymyr Liamzin told the BBC. “They don’t require their troops. They throw them here, then flee, leaving the bodies behind.”

Russian soldiers are being urged to surrender and save their lives, while Ukrainian children are being sacrificed.

After the battle, the village elder claims he and others buried the Russians “for sanitary reasons.” When I ask why, he says most of them were blown to bits.

He wasn’t allowed to show us the graves because they are a crime scene until Col Liamzin’s team visits and exhumes the site. However, his to-do list is already lengthy.

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Entertainment News Trending

Heard’s team has changed their mind about Johnny Depp’s testimony

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According to a source close to Amber Heard, her team will not call Johnny Depp to the stand in the high-profile trial’s final days.

Ms. Heard’s team had planned to question Mr. Depp further on Monday, but at midday, they abruptly changed course. Mr Depp, 58, is suing his ex-wife for $50 million (£40 million) over a column she wrote in which she claimed to have been the victim of domestic abuse. Ms. Heard, 36, has filed a counterclaim.

This week is expected to be the end of the case. In the remaining days of the defamation trial, British supermodel Kate Moss, a former girlfriend of Mr Depp, is expected to testify.

Ms Heard’s team called several witnesses, including psychologist David Spiegel, to testify in court on Monday in Fairfax, Virginia.

Mr. Depp, according to Dr. Spiegel, “has behaviours that are consistent with both someone who has substance use disorder and someone who is a perpetrator of intimate partner violence.” Dr. Spiegel told jurors that 40-60% of intimate partner violence is committed while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

On cross-examination, Mr. Depp’s lawyers tried to discredit this testimony by pointing out that Dr. Spiegel reached his conclusions without speaking with Mr. Depp.

On Monday, a hand surgeon testified that Mr Depp’s finger was unlikely to have been cut in the way he described during a fight with Ms Heard in Australia.

When Ms Heard threw a vodka bottle at him, Mr Depp claims the tip of his middle finger was severed. Dr. Richard Moore told the jury that the damage to Mr. Depp’s finger was more consistent with being pinched by a closing door.

At the time of the accident, Dr Moore did not examine Mr Depp physically. Mr Depp’s team is expected to rest its case early this week, giving Ms Heard’s team one last chance to persuade the jury.

Mr Depp, according to Ms Heard, was prone to alcohol and drug binges, was easily triggered by jealousy, and was frequently consumed by violent rages.

Mr Depp, for his part, claimed he was a victim of Ms Heard’s erratic behaviour, telling jurors he was subjected to her verbal, emotional, and physical abuse on a regular basis.

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Miss. Tic, a 66-year-old French street artist, has died

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Miss. Tic, a well-known French street artist, died in Paris at the age of 66, according to her family. Her family said in a brief statement that the artist, whose real name was Radhia Novat, died on Sunday after suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Miss. Tic is regarded as a pioneer of stencil art, and her enigmatic female figures became a common sight in Paris thanks to her graffiti. In 1997, she was briefly detained on charges of vandalism to public property. Her work, however, was eventually shown in galleries in France and abroad. She’s also worked with fashion houses like Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

From all over France, tributes have been paid to the artist.

Miss. Tic’s “iconic, resolutely feminist” work “will continue to poetize our streets for a long time,” France’s newly appointed Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak wrote on Twitter.

Christian Guemy, aka C215, a street artist, was hailed as “one of the founders of stencil art.” He wrote on Twitter that the walls of Paris’s 13th arrondissement, where her images are common, “will never be the same again.”

Miss. Tic was born in 1956 in Paris’s Montmartre neighbourhood to a Tunisian immigrant father and a Normandy mother.

Before moving to California, she studied applied arts and street theatre. In an interview with AFP in 2011, she said, “I had a background in street theatre, and I liked this idea of street art.”

“At first I thought, ‘I’m going to write poems’. And then, ‘we need images’ with these poems. I started with self-portraits and then turned towards other women,” she said.

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Elon Musk advertises a Tesla job on Twitter, and the response is hilarious

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Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, recently posted a job advertisement on Twitter, and internet users couldn’t help but troll him.
Elon Musk announced on Twitter a day after sexual harassment allegations against him surfaced, which he denounced as “completely false,” that his company would be forming a “hardcore litigation department” to “directly initiate and execute lawsuits,” with the team reporting to him.

“My commitment: we will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win [and] we will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose,” Mr Musk said in a Twitter threat. “I’m looking for hardcore streetfighters, not white-shoe lawyers,” he continued, adding that “there will be blood.”

Mr Musk requested that applicants submit three to five bullet points demonstrating “evidence of exceptional ability.” As a result, Twitter users decided to have some fun, with some mocking Mr Musk for using social media to find the best legal minds in the world, while others pitched hilarious points, just as the Tesla CEO had requested.”Because if I wanted to assemble a team of the world’s best legal minds, the first place I would go would absolutely be Twitter,” one user wrote. Another shared three bullet points: “1. I drank 69 beers in one day in July 2017 2. I know everything there is to know about Arizona dive bars 3. A Tier 1 law school awarded me Magna Cum Laude. These are ranked from most important to least important.” Another user claimed to have “a lot of experience stealing coffee from Harvard Law.”

Meanwhile, according to Business Insider, SpaceX paid $250,000 in 2018 to settle a sexual harassment claim filed by an unnamed private jet flight attendant who claimed Mr Musk exposed himself to her. According to the article, an anonymous source claimed to be a friend of the flight attendant.
Elon Musk, on the other hand, denounced the “completely false” claims the next day. “It never happened,” he said, and he challenged the anonymous person to describe something that isn’t widely known.

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News Trending War

Ukraine war: One Russian’s anti-war protest on the side of his shopping centre

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You can reach Russko-Vysotskoye by driving eight hours north of Moscow.

Apart from the chicken farm and the church that was reduced to rubble during WWII, there isn’t much to see here.  However, there is one feature of this town that stands out: the local shopping centre.

The building is owned by Dmitry Skurikhin, and you should see what he’s done to the front. “Peace to Ukraine, Freedom to Russia!” he writes in huge letters. He’s written the names of Ukrainian towns that have been attacked by the Russian army in bright red paint.

Mariupol, Bucha, Kherson, Chernihiv, and other cities are among them. Dmitry explains, “I thought this would be a good way of getting information out.”

“Because our people had no idea what was going on during the first few weeks of the war. They assumed that a special operation was underway to remove drug addicts from the Ukrainian government. They were completely unaware that Russia was shelling Ukrainian cities.” Dmitry has even transformed his store’s roof into a massive yellow and blue Ukrainian flag. Dmitry pulls out a paint pot and brush and begins to add more names.

Irpin, Borodyanka, Odesa… The excess paint drips blood red down the wall, amplifying the impact of this statement.

Dmitry is well aware that his actions are fraught with danger. Protests in Russia frequently result in prosecution or threats. Or both. His door has already been defaced with the word “traitor.” The cops have also paid us a visit. He was fined later for smearing the Russian military.Paint, Dmitry Skurikhin knows, will not bring peace. But, he believes, if his protest causes people in the town to stop, think, and even question, it will have been worthwhile.

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Russia has cut off gas deliveries to Finland

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Russia has stopped supplying natural gas to Finland, according to Gasum, the Finnish state-owned energy company.

Finland has refused to pay in roubles for its supplies. However, it comes after Finland’s announcement that it will apply to join NATO. Gasum said the move was “regrettable,” but that customers would not be inconvenienced.

Despite the conflict in Ukraine, Russia continues to provide gas to a number of European countries. Following Western sanctions over the war, Russia announced that “unfriendly” countries must pay for gas in Russian currency, a move the EU regards as blackmail.

Many consumers are experiencing a cost-of-living crisis as a result of their reliance on Russian energy. The majority of Finland’s gas is imported from Russia, but gas accounts for less than a tenth of the country’s total energy consumption.

“It is extremely unfortunate that natural gas supplies under our supply contract will now be halted,” Gasum CEO Mika Wiljanen said. “However, we have been meticulously preparing for this situation, and we will be able to supply all of our customers with gas in the coming months assuming there are no disruptions in the gas transmission network,” he added. “It is obvious that nobody is going to deliver anything for free,” a Kremlin spokesman said when asked about the situation.

Russia also cut Finland’s electricity supply on Sunday. If Finland applied to join Nato, it had threatened retaliation.

Separately, Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft announced on Friday that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had informed them that he would no longer serve on its board of directors.

Mr. Schröder’s lucrative role has sparked growing public outrage. He has refused to criticise Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, whom he considers a personal friend, over the conflict.

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News Trending War

Russian soldier pleads guilty in first war crimes trial of Ukraine conflict

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In the first war crimes trial in Ukraine since the conflict began, a 21-year-old Russian soldier admitted to killing an unarmed civilian.

A few days after the invasion began, Vadim Shishimarin admitted to shooting a 62-year-old man. He is facing life in prison. Handcuffed and flanked by heavily armed guards, the prisoner was led into the tiny Kyiv courtroom. He kept his head bowed and appeared nervous.

The widow of the man who was killed was only a few metres away.
As the soldier entered court, she wiped tears from her eyes and sat with her hands clasped as the prosecutor laid out his case, describing Kateryna’s husband, Oleksandr Shelipov, being shot in the head.

The judge inquired, “Do you accept your guilt?” Shishimarin replied, “Yes.”

“Totally?”

From behind the glass of his grey metal-and-glass cage, he replied quietly, “Yes.”

Shishimarin was commanding a unit in a tank division when his convoy was attacked, according to prosecutors. He and four other soldiers stole a car and encountered the 62-year-old on a bicycle near Chupakhivka, according to them. Shishimarin was ordered to kill the civilian, according to prosecutors, and he did so with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

The Kremlin previously stated that it was unaware of the situation.

Shishimarin’s trial was postponed shortly after the civilian’s widow heard the Russian soldier admit to the murder for the first time. On Thursday, the high-profile hearing will resume in a larger courtroom.  Before leaving the court for the day, Oleksandr’s widow spoke to the BBC about how she was coping.

“I pity him [Shishimarin],” she expressed her sorrow. “However, I cannot forgive him for such a crime.”  Ukraine has identified more than 10,000 possible Russian war crimes so far.

Although Moscow has denied targeting civilians with its troops, investigators have been gathering evidence of possible war crimes to present to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is sending a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts, and support personnel to Ukraine. In the meantime, Ukraine has established a team to preserve evidence in order to facilitate future prosecutions.

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Ivan Kuliak: Russian gymnast given one-year ban for wearing pro-war symbol on podium next to Ukrainian

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Ivan Kuliak, a Russian gymnast, was given a one-year suspension for wearing a national war symbol on the podium at a competition in Qatar in March.

Kuliak took bronze in the Apparatus World Cup parallel bars final in Doha, wearing a letter ‘Z’ taped to his chest as he stood next to Ukraine’s Illia Kovtun, who won gold. Kuliak must now return his medal, but he has 21 days to file an appeal.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the letter Z became symbolic. It was painted on the sides of tanks and military vehicles, and it was worn by pro-war Russian politicians.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) investigated the incident, and Kuliak was sanctioned by the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation (GEF) disciplinary commission for violating FIG rules.

For the next 12 months, the 20-year-old is not permitted to compete in any FIG-sanctioned event or competition hosted by an affiliated FIG member federation. “If the protective measures preventing Russian athletes from competing are still in place on 17 May 2023, the ban shall continue and expire six months after said measures are removed,” the statement added.

Kuliak must also repay his prize money of 500 Swiss francs (£403) as well as a 2,000 Swiss francs (£1,612) contribution to the proceedings’ costs. Valentina Rodionenko, the head of the Russian delegation, and coach Igor Kalabushkin were found not to have broken any FIG rules.

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Amber Heard In Her Testimony: “I Filed For Divorce From Johnny Depp Because…”

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On Monday, Amber Heard testified that she filed for divorce from “monster” Johnny Depp in May 2016 because she was afraid for her safety.
“I had to leave him,” the 36-year-old actress Heard told the jury during her former husband’s defamation trial. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive otherwise.”

“I was terrified it was going to end badly for me,” she explained. Heard described filing for divorce as “the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.” “I’d tried everything I could to make this relationship work.”

“It was difficult because I adored Johnny,” she explained. “I was in love with him.”

Heard claimed that when the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star drank, he turned into a “monster,” and that her efforts to stop him from using drugs and alcohol had failed. “The monster was this thing that had become the norm rather than the exception,” she explained. “The violence had become routine.”

Heard claimed she sought a temporary restraining order the same week she filed for divorce after an argument in which Depp threw a cellphone at her, striking her in the face.

During his four days on the witness stand, the 58-year-old Depp denied ever striking Heard and claimed she was the one who was frequently violent.

Depp sued Heard in December 2018 after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Depp sued Heard for implying he was a domestic abuser and is seeking $50 million in damages. Heard, who had a starring role in “Aquaman,” did not name Depp in the op-ed.

Heard, who was born in Texas, countersued for $100 million, claiming she had been subjected to “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.

Heard also testified about an incident that occurred while the couple was vacationing in France at a chateau.

She claimed they were watching a pre-release trailer for “London Fields,” in which the filmmakers had “unbeknownst to me” included a sex scene involving a body double.

She explained, “Johnny freaked out because it looked like me.” “So I have an extremely envious man who is already angry with me for breaking the rule that I must have a sex scene.

“It wasn’t me, I’m telling him. That scene was not shot by me “she said. “He was enraged, and among other things, he called me a liar and a whore.

She said Depp punched her in the jaw and slapped her across the face.

On Monday, Heard’s lawyers are expected to finish questioning her before handing her over to Depp’s legal team for cross-examination.

Judge Penney Azcarate has scheduled the case’s closing arguments for May 27, after which it will be decided by a jury. Depp’s lawyers have called experts to testify that he has lost millions as a result of the allegations, including a $22.5 million payday for the sixth instalment of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Depp filed the defamation suit in the United States after losing a separate libel case against The Sun in London in November 2020 for calling him a “wife-beater.”Depp and Heard, a three-time Oscar nominee, met on the set of “The Rum Diary” in 2009 and married in February 2015. Two years later, their divorce was finalised.

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