‘The New Look’: Apple TV+ explores Dior-Chanel rivalry with flair

‘The New Look’ is on Apple TV+. (YouTube)
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Updated 22 February 2024
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‘The New Look’: Apple TV+ explores Dior-Chanel rivalry with flair

CHENNAI: Apple TV+ offering “The New Look” features a lot style and sheen in the 10-part series as it explores the rivalry between Coco Chanel (Juliet Binoche) and Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) in wartime France and later.

In one scene that encapsulates the friction between the pair, Chanel, who is trying to come back at the age of 70 after an eight-year exile, rages about Dior: “You think Dior is fashion? His designs are extravagant – I have no time for extravagance … the dress shouldn’t wear the woman, the woman should wear the dress.”

“Dior ruined French couture and I’m coming back to save it,” she says with great flourish.

“The New Look” is superbly fictionalized and created by Todd A. Kessler. It has less of a focus on fashion than one might expect and more screentime is dedicated to the tension that engulfs the two pioneers in the world of haute couture. We learn how Chanel and Dior survived the dark and depressing days of the war: There is even a full episode on how the Third Reich asked Chanel to carry a message to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, possibly to broker a peace accord. On the other hand, Dior played it cool and saved himself from brutal criticism by stating that he was merely carrying out the orders of his boss, Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich with an amusing wig).

The work is well-paced, exciting and lovely to look at. The gowns are simply divine and the colors magnificently lush while the performances are first class. Binoche conveys the acidity and wit of Chanel, and Mendelsohn carefully treads the line trying to make Dior a gentleman, soft spoken, cultured and exceedingly well mannered. The script though is not couture, not quite, but it is still a pleasure to watch.


Inside season two of ‘The Last of Us’: Newcomer Kaitlyn Dever on the return of the hugely successful video-game adaptation 

Updated 04 April 2025
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Inside season two of ‘The Last of Us’: Newcomer Kaitlyn Dever on the return of the hugely successful video-game adaptation 

  • The HBO series will return for a second season on Apr. 14, streaming in the Middle East on OSN+

DUBAI: For Kaitlyn Dever, stepping into the role of Abby in season two of HBO’s acclaimed adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video-game franchise “The Last of Us” – returning for a second season to the Middle East on streaming platform OSN+ on Apr. 14 – was both a dream and a test. 

“Stepping into a role like this… I knew it was going to be challenging, but I was so up for that challenge,” the 28-year-old US actress tells Arab News. “She’s a woman who has gone through so much, and I consider her to be very, very strong and brave. She is someone who has suffered and gone through grief. I wanted to make sure that I got that right.” 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Abby is one of the most polarizing characters in the game’s universe — a complex and controversial figure who sparks a major emotional and physical shift in the story. Laura Bailey, who voiced Abby in the game, even received death threats. But Dever says she didn’t think twice about taking the role. 

“I hope that people are able to separate the person from the game or the show. We’re not these characters — we’re playing them,” she says. “The backlash was never going to stop me from playing Abby. It was such a great opportunity for me as an actor. I really do want to make the fans proud with my portrayal of Abby, but what is most important to me is tackling her emotional journey so that her arc really shines.” 

Dever says she also enjoyed the physical demands of the role — in the game Abby is a respected and feared fighter. “There was a lot of running, a lot of new stunts, a lot of wire work. That was a challenge because it was so new to me, but also very cool,” Dever says. 

In fact, joining “The Last of Us” has been a deeply rewarding experience all round for Dever. 

“It’s a really big deal to be a part of this show,” she says. “This franchise is so loved by so many people. I feel very fortunate to be a part of this group. The people that I get to work with and bond with are really something special. They’re truly such incredible artists all around and wonderful human beings.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Dever’s connection to the world of “The Last of Us” runs deep. She played both the first and second games and was immediately hooked. “I was kind of obsessed with the narrative,” she says of the first game. “I had never played a game that had such good storytelling… It was so beautiful to look at.” 

Playing the sequel with her dad made the experience even more personal. “That was what we really bonded over — just how beautiful it looked.” 

But when Abby’s character took center stage in the second game, it was a moment Dever never forgot. “It’s a very drastic shift — really jarring,” she says. “Almost like Abby and Ellie (Bella Ramsey’s character and the games’ main protagonist) are mirrors of each other.” 

She was also in the running to be cast in a mooted movie adaptation of “The Last of Us” almost a decade ago, she reveals. And while that version never materialized, she remained a fan, watching the TV version as soon as it premiered.  

Neil Druckmann — studio head of the game’s developer Naughty Dog, who co-runs the show with Craig Mazin — is as effusive about Dever as she is about the rest of the cast and crew.  

“Abby is a very complex character, as you’ll see throughout the season, and hopefully going forward. We felt fairly confident (Dever) could execute Abby extremely well, but it’s still like you’re taking some of it on faith. But the moment she stepped into the scene you didn’t see Kaitlyn anymore; you just saw Abby. It didn’t feel like a new actor or some junior actor coming in, it felt like a veteran acting with their peers,” he says. 

“I feel like I have very big shoes to fill. I put a lot of pressure on myself to get this role right and to do the story justice,” says Dever. “But the nerves went away, especially when I got on set and I got to play the scenes out with the cast. It was a very cool thing to be a part of.” 


REVIEW: Seth Rogen sends up Hollywood in ‘The Studio’ 

Updated 03 April 2025
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REVIEW: Seth Rogen sends up Hollywood in ‘The Studio’ 

  • Apple’s star-studded new comedy takes aim at the movie business 

LONDON: At a time when the movie industry is constantly being forced to pivot and evolve to counter the influence of streaming networks, it’s something of a surprise to see a show come out about the inner workings of the Hollywood machine — and even more of a shock that said show is being made by one of the aforementioned streamers. 

But then, perhaps that’s why “The Studio” works so well. Apple TV’s new satirical comedy stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of a major Hollywood studio who wants, above all else, to return the production house to its halcyon days of making amazing movies. Trouble is, he’s also got a boss who cares only about making money, a former boss who blames him for taking her job, a roster of actors and directors all wanting to manipulate him, and a team around him who each seem to embody the very worst Tinseltown stereotypes. 

So even though “The Studio” is a TV show about the movie business, it still manages to skewer both industries. At every turn, Matt is confronted by the inherent silliness of the movie business, and we get to watch it in a series of episodic, bingeable installments, each bursting with cameos and a satirical swipe at everything from celebrity culture to pretentious auteur filmmakers. 

Rogen’s affable exec has to do the majority of the show’s heavy lifting, but the actor is more than up to it — his trademark calamitous buffoonery has perhaps never been better suited to a role. Among the extensive supporting cast, Bryan Cranston and Kathryn Hahn stand out, but everything is pretty much pitch perfect, from the whipsmart cameos to some carefully choreographed, good ol’ fashioned slapstick humor.  

There are enough industry deep-dive references to appease ardent movie buffs and enough zip about the episodes (two of which are available at launch) to keep casual viewers entertained. That, coupled with the depth of Apple’s production pockets in pulling in those cameos — Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Steve Buscemi, Paul Dano and Peter Berg for the first episode alone — means “The Studio” has something for everyone. Here’s hoping for a sequel or three. 


Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun’ and Batman star with an intense approach, dies at 65

Updated 02 April 2025
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Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun’ and Batman star with an intense approach, dies at 65

  • Val Kilmer: ‘I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets’
  • Director John Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: ‘Climb Mount Everest and work with Val Kilmer again’

LOS ANGELES: Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in “Top Gun,” donned a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors,” has died. He was 65.
Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, said in an email to The Associated Press. The New York Times was the first to report his death on Tuesday.
Val Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies.
“I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed,” he says toward the end of “Val,” the 2021 documentary on his career. “And I am blessed.”
Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984’s spy spoof “Top Secret!” followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including “MacGruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
His movie career hit its zenith in the early 1990s as he made a name for himself as a dashing leading man, starring alongside Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in 1993’s “Tombstone,” as Elvis’ ghost in “True Romance” and as a bank-robbing demolition expert in Michael Mann’s 1995 film “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
“While working with Val on ‘Heat’ I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” director Michael Mann said in a statement Tuesday night.
Actor Josh Brolin, a friend of Kilmer, was among others paying tribute.
“You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker,” Brolin wrote on Instagram. “There’s not a lot left of those.”
Kilmer — who took part in the Method branch of Suzuki arts training — threw himself into parts. When he played Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” he filled his bed with ice for the final scene to mimic the feeling of dying from tuberculosis. To play Morrison, he wore leather pants all the time, asked castmates and crew to only refer to him as Jim Morrison and blasted The Doors for a year.
That intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation that he was difficult to work with, something he grudgingly agreed with later in life, but always defending himself by emphasizing art over commerce.
“In an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life into a myriad Hollywood moments, I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,” he wrote in his memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry.”
One of his more iconic roles — hotshot pilot Tom “Iceman” Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise — almost didn’t happen. Kilmer was courted by director Tony Scott for “Top Gun” but initially balked. “I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me,” he wrote in his memoir. He agreed after being promised that his role would improve from the initial script. He would reprise the role in the film’s 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.”
One career nadir was playing Batman in Joel Schumacher’s goofy, garish “Batman Forever” with Nicole Kidman and opposite Chris O’Donnell’s Robin — before George Clooney took up the mantle for 1997’s “Batman & Robin” and after Michael Keaton played the Dark Knight in 1989’s “Batman” and 1992’s “Batman Returns.”
Janet Maslin in the Times said Kilmer was “hamstrung by the straight-man aspects of the role,” while Roger Ebert deadpanned that he was a “completely acceptable” substitute for Keaton. Kilmer, who was one and done as Batman, blamed much of his performance on the suit.
“When you’re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down,” Kilmer said in “Val,” in lines spoken by his son Jack, who voiced the part of his father in the film because of his inability to speak. “You also can’t hear anything and after a while people stop talking to you, it’s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit, and it was frustrating until I realized that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.”
His next projects were the film version of the 1960s TV series “The Saint” — fussily putting on wigs, accents and glasses — and “The Island of Dr. Moreau” with Marlon Brando, which became one of the decade’s most infamously cursed productions.
David Gregory’s 2014 documentary “Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau,” described a cursed set that included a hurricane, Kilmer bullying director Richard Stanley, the firing of Stanley via fax (who sneaked back on set as an extra with a mask on) and extensive rewrites by Kilmer and Brando. The older actor told the younger at one point: “‘It’s a job now, Val. A lark. We’ll get through it.’ I was as sad as I’ve ever been on a set,” Kilmer wrote in his memoir.
In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ran a cover story about Kilmer titled “The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate.” The directors Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who finished “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” said he was difficult. Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: “Climb Mount Everest and work with Val Kilmer again.”
Other artists came to his defense, like D. J. Caruso, who directed Kilmer in “The Salton Sea” and said the actor simply liked to talk out scenes and enjoyed having a director’s attention.
“Val needs to immerse himself in a character. I think what happened with directors like Frankenheimer and Schumacher is that Val would ask a lot of questions, and a guy like Schumacher would say, ‘You’re Batman! Just go do it,’” Caruso told the Times in 2002.
After “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” the movies were smaller, like David Mamet human-trafficking thriller “Spartan”; “Joe the King” in 1999, in which he played a paunchy, abusive alcoholic; and playing the doomed 70’s porn star John Holmes in 2003’s “Wonderland.” He also threw himself into his one-man stage show “Citizen Twain,” in which he played Mark Twain.
“I enjoy the depth and soul the piece has that Twain had for his fellow man and America,” he told Variety in 2018. “And the comedy that’s always so close to the surface, and how valuable his genius is for us today.”
Kilmer spent his formative years in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. He attended Chatsworth High School alongside future Oscar winner Kevin Spacey and future Emmy winner Mare Winningham. At 17, he was the youngest drama student ever admitted at the Juilliard School in 1981.
Shortly after he left for Juilliard, his younger brother, 15-year-old Wesley, suffered an epileptic seizure in the family’s Jacuzzi and died on the way to the hospital. Wesley was an aspiring filmmaker when he died.
“I miss him and miss his things. I have his art up. I like to think about what he would have created. I’m still inspired by him,” Kilmer told the Times.
While still at Juilliard, Kilmer co-wrote and appeared in the play “How It All Began” and later turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” for the Broadway play, “Slab Boys,” alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.
Kilmer published two books of poetry (including “My Edens After Burns”) and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for spoken word album for “The Mark of Zorro.” He was also a visual artist and a lifelong Christian Scientist.
He dated Cher, married and divorced actor Joanne Whalley. He is survived by their two children, Mercedes and Jack.
“I have no regrets,” Kilmer told the AP in 2021. “I’ve witnessed and experienced miracles.”


Yara Shahidi talks ‘The Optimist Project’ podcast

Updated 01 April 2025
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Yara Shahidi talks ‘The Optimist Project’ podcast

DUBAI: Actress and podcast host Yara Shahidi is part of National Geographic’s list of 33 “visionaries, creators, icons, and adventurers” from across the globe and she spoke to the publication about the project that landed her on the list.

In 1888, the National Geographic Society was founded by 33 pioneers in Washington. The “bold thinkers … aimed to reimagine how we encounter our world. Much has changed since then, but the mission that guided them — to expand knowledge and promote understanding—drives us still. In that spirit we introduce the National Geographic 33, a collection of visionaries, creators, icons, and adventurers from across the globe,” the publication explained of its new list.

Part-Middle Eastern star Shahidi, whose father is Iranian, was named on the list in the Creators subsection that celebrates “out-of-the-box thinkers developing innovative solutions.”

The “Black-ish” and “Grown-ish” actress was highlighted due to her podcast “The Optimist Project.”

Shahidi, 25, launched the podcast to explore how to live a more fulfilling life with various special guests hosted on each episode.

Shahidi, a Harvard graduate, says she was inspired by the dynamic conversations she has with members of her diverse family. The actress has two brothers — one is an actor and the other works in fashion — while her father Afshin Shahidi is a cinematographer. Meanwhile, her cousin is the rapper Nas and her grandfather was a Black Panther activist. Shahidi and her mother, Keri Shahidi, who together run their own media company called 7th Sun Productions, decided to take their musings to a wider audience with the podcast, which launched in 2024.

“We feel so fortunate to be having these conversations,” Keri, who is Shahidi’s co-producer, told National Geographic “But equally, we felt the drive to make sure other people had the opportunity to hear what we were hearing.” 

The podcast’s guests so far have included “Saturday Night Live” star Ego Nwodim, Tony award-winning actor Courtney B. Vance, and Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University. 

“Having to pour so much thought into basic survival doesn’t give your brain space to think about, Well, why are we living?” Shahidi said. “What would make me excited to wake up the next day?”

In her conversation with National Geographic, she went on to acknowledge that this is a challenge moment for the next generation of leaders. “It’s overwhelming to think about how broken some of these systems are, how imperfect some of our tools for change are … but with that comes an onslaught of very inspired, very motivated young people.”


Review: Nicole Kidman’s ‘Holland’ is an underwhelming thriller

Updated 30 March 2025
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Review: Nicole Kidman’s ‘Holland’ is an underwhelming thriller

LONDON: If you think there’s something unnervingly familiar about “Holland,” then you’re in good company. In this new thriller from Prime Video, directed by Mimi Cave (2022’s excellent “Fresh”), Nicole Kidman plays a permanently frowning wife who just can’t quite shake the feeling that something about her picture-perfect life isn’t quite right – which, when you think about it, could also be the logline for the actor’s turns in “The Stepford Wives,” “Big Little Lies,” “Expats,” “The Perfect Couple” and probably a half dozen others.

This time, Kidman’s Nancy suspects that her optometrist husband Fred (Matthew Macfadyen) may be having an affair. We don’t really ever find out why she thinks this, beyond the fact that she has ‘a feeling’ and suffers from weird, surreal dreams in which the town they live in — the titular Holland, Michigan — merges with the model village Fred is building in their garage. So, despite having no obvious reason to do so, Nancy and her work colleague-turned-extramarital crush Dave (Gael García Bernal) decide to follow Fred to find out what he’s up to.

The setup for discovering Fred’s secret takes up the majority of the movie. Macfadyen, here simply playing a more homely version of his character in “Succession,” makes for an entertaining enough man of mystery while, for the most part, Kidman and García Bernal are fine as co-workers with an obvious attraction and a shared interest in what Fred is really up to. The main problem with “Holland” is eccentricity for eccentricity’s sake — Cave plays up the town’s Dutch colonial traditions seemingly because they just lend an air of unfamiliarity and weirdness, Nancy’s feelings of dread manifest in those surreal dreams, but none of it has any real-world relevance beyond making for some odd-looking visuals.

The twist, when it inevitably comes, feels disproportionate and overblown given the small-town buildup. Elements, such as Dave’s experience as the only immigrant in town, or Nancy’s issues with their babysitter, are mentioned once and never touched on again. The film suffers from too many vague ideas at the outset, before dumping most of them to make way for the most shocking story arc. Turns out, not only have we seen this film a bunch of times before, we’ve seen it done a lot better too.