Category: 5. Entertainment

Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this new column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples—or, occasionally, friend pairs—who give us hope for our own romantic futures as we try to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.

I’ve only wanted the best for Katie Holmes since my inaugural viewing of the iconic 2004 rom-com First Daughter (is it effectively the same movie as Chasing Liberty, which was released that same year, presumably because studio execs don’t communicate with each other? Absolutely, but how lucky were we to have a spare?), so it follows that I’m extremely dialed in to her various projects—the latest of which is a new film trilogy called Happy Hours. Also featured in it? None other than her former Dawson’s Creek costar and real-life ex, Joshua Jackson.

Obviously, Holmes is a fashion icon and screen legend and alumna of the Tom Cruise Sham Hollywood Marriage Program, class of 2012, so there is a lot to say and appreciate about her at any given moment. But…am I extremely washed for caring so much about her reunion with Jackson? The plot of Happy Hours allegedly revolves around “two people navigating their relationship within the challenges of careers and family responsibilities and the pursuit of love, despite life’s inevitable obstacles” (likely thing for them to do!), and I, for one, can’t wait to see Holmes and Jackson as those selfsame two people.

“Working with Josh after so many years is a testament to friendship,” Holmes wrote on Instagram after news of the project broke. “We can’t wait for everyone to see what we make.”

Holmes and Jackson’s relationship was decades ago, at this point; it also took place in the late 1990s (a decade teeming with romantic regret) while they were filming Dawson’s Creek, and yes, Holmes did say that she and Jackson became “best friends” after breaking up in 1998. But I can’t help it; when I look at these two laughing it up on a park bench, I want them to be in love! Is that so wrong?

As far as we (okay, I; I don’t know who the royal “we” was meant to refer to) know, Holmes and Jackson are possibly both single right now; Jackson split from his wife and co-parent Jodie Turner-Smith in 2023 and Holmes ended her relationship with Grammy-nominated musician Bobby Wooten III the year before. Still, just because two adults are both single and look good as hell on a bench doesn’t mean they’re necessarily destined to find romantic love. In fact, I kind of love the fact that Holmes and Turner are back in each other’s lives as colleagues. I mean, who knows you better than your ex-onscreen-boyfriend, who just happens to also be your ex-boyfriend, who also just so happens to be your bestie? Counting down the moments until Happy Hours is my new Before Sunrise!

NEW YORK — MrBeast’s new CEO hit Wall Street Wednesday as YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson’s media empire looks to develop long-term brand partnerships and, in turn, unlock more funding for its charitable content.

Venture capitalist Jeff Housenbold took over MrBeast leadership last summer with a mandate to professionalize an ever-growing entertainment company. YouTube’s most popular creator had reached record audience levels far outpacing its startup days, while vowing to reassess its internal culture amid multiple controversies. But, despite joining Nasdaq’s closing bell ceremony on Wednesday, Housenbold said their strategic plan does not currently include a public offering — or any active funding rounds.

“Do I want to make banger content? Yeah. That’s cool,” Housenbold told The Associated Press. “But what can we do with that banger content? Generate profits, make a sustainable business that gives us greater ability to impact people’s lives around the world.”

“We’re marching quickly to profitability, so we don’t have to raise additional capital,” he added.

Instead, MrBeast is focused on securing multi-year exclusive advertising deals as opposed to single-video brand partnerships. With 416 million subscribers and legions of impressionable young fans, Housenbold argued that MrBeast is uniquely positioned to deliver more bang for companies’ marketing bucks by pointing that “firehouse of attention” at them.

Along the way, Housenbold said he is encouraging Donaldson to tout the channel’s charitable works — which often feature quantifiable stunts such as building wells, removing ocean plastic or covering cataract surgery costs. The company, in his view, “can do good while doing well.”

“The more people who like us ’cause we do good, the more people watch our videos,” he said. “The more people watch our videos, the more we’re able to drive in fees from our advertising partners… the more we can invest in more content to do more good in the world.”

New projects such as the Amazon Prime reality show and a James Patterson novel from HarperCollins aim to diversify the genders and ages of his audience. Housenbold said that base has historically consisted mostly of 8-to-25-year-olds and men.

But Housenbold acknowledged missteps in last year’s production of “Beast Games,” which prompted allegations of “unsafe” conditions from some contestants who said an unorganized set led to injuries, irregular food provision and lacking access to medication. While describing most of those reports as “inaccurate,” Housenbold said they were “better prepared” for the second season’s recently wrapped shoot.

“Building sets for a 10-episode show is different than a 22-minute YouTube video,” he said. “The scale, the size, the sophistication, the safety, the security, the cost effectiveness of doing that. We didn’t staff up enough for Beast Games.”

Ringing Nasdaq’s closing bell Wednesday with Housenbold was the winner of the $10 million grand prize awarded in that inaugural “Beast Games” season.

Jeffrey Allen, the father of a child with creatine transporter deficiency, has promised to put some of his winnings toward existing treatments and research for a cure to the rare genetic disorder. He said the Association for Creatine Deficiencies, where he is a board member, added 1,000 new donors in the weeks following the final “Beast Games” episodes’ release.

He hopes Wednesday’s visit will draw more attention and money to all rare diseases.

“This is where companies that are bringing true change to the marketplace come to listen to other companies,” Allen said. “So, there’s no better place for a budding rare disease nonprofit to come and show, ‘Hey we’re trying to change the world, too.’”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Eddington, writer-director Ari Aster’s polarizing new black dramedy, opens with a troubling sight: an unhoused and clearly distressed man walking through the New Mexico desert, bleating an incoherent ramble of modern buzzwords.

Troubling not for the man, but for the content of his ramble and the time: late May, 2020. TikTok. My immediate reaction was a derogatory “oh no”. Aster has specialized in gut-twisting, unworldly horror, the kind of brain-searing, highly symbolic shocks that linger for weeks; I watched large stretches of his first two features, the demonic family parable Hereditary and Swedish solstice nightmare Midsommar – through my fingers. But in Eddington, he took on not one but two insidious bogeymen haunting our psyches: phones in movies and Covid.

Nearly every character in Aster’s black satire of Covid-era upheaval possesses a device essential to modern life but often incompatible with cinematic storytelling. People trawl Instagram for updates on their crush, sell crafts on Etsy, watch videos on the Bill Gates microchip conspiracy, receive updates via Pop Crave. Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), the walking ego bruise of a protagonist in Aster’s vision of a small western town, announces his snap campaign for mayor against nemesis Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) on Facebook Live. In one of many blows to his tenuous dignity, he discovers message boards of pedophilia panic frequented by his wife, Louise (Emma Stone); he’s awakened from a depressed, drug-tinged sleep binge by frantic iMessages from his two hapless deputies.

Such verisimilitude to how most of the movie-going public live our lives – online, on screens, absorbing toxic dosages of information in our own private bubbles – usually spells disaster for a Hollywood project. Decades into the internet era, most movies and TV shows still cannot get the internet right. Second screens are inherently un-cinematic, and the tighter the internet’s hyper-loops of viral attention coil, the harder it is to capture in cinematic projects that usually spans years from conception to audience. Something almost always feels off – the interface distracting, the tone askew, the liminality and speed incongruous with the story. I can probably count on two hands the films that have captured digital life in a way did not feel inaccurate, didactic or self-important, let alone seamlessly woven it into story – Eighth Grade, Sweat, Tár, Dìdi, Past Lives. I remember them because it’s still so rare; it is difficult to incorporate the mundane minutiae of screen life, tie oneself to time-stamped events, or tap into the propulsion of social media and succeed. It is just as tricky to burrow into an identifiable cultural moment without coming off as horrifically smug – both the climate emergency satire Don’t Look Up and billionaire-skewering Mountainhead were so politically self-satisfied as to be nearly unbearable.

Much has and will be said about Eddington’s portent precarious ambiguity, its mid-act tonal shift and descent into violence, about Aster’s divisive transformation from horror wunderkind to high-minded auteur. (I personally found the shift dubious and the second, should-be thrilling half a tedious slog, though in the hands of cinematographer Darius Khondji, everything looks fantastic.) But on this front – the task of handling real events on a real timeline with a real sense of the vanishing boundary between online and off – Eddington is a success. Aster’s film touches so many of the third rails of modern cinema – the internet, screenshots, Zoom, celebrities, political figures, bitcoin, 9/11 – and yet somehow survives.

It does so by grounding this admittedly bloated satire of political and social turmoil in a hyper-specific moment in late May 2020. Whereas the winners in the digital culture film canon usually succeed by using the phone screen as a window into one character’s psyche – think the surveilling Instagram Live that opens Tár, or the Instagram scroll montage in Eighth Grade – Eddington aims for a specific cultural moment; phone lock screens keep time during a week deep in US lockdown, as frustration, anger, fear and outrage fester into outright chaos. My particular brand of brain worms means that I remember, in crystal-clear chronological order, the concerned Atlantic articles, to NBA cancellation, to Tom Hanks coronavirus diagnosis death spiral, to New York completely shutting down on 11 March, as well as the beginning of the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd on 25 May. What I chose not to remember, at least until watching a scene in which the sheriff refuses to wear a mask in a grocery store, prompting a showdown with frazzled employees, was the lost etiquette of 2020 – standing 6ft apart, silently judging those who wore their masks on their chins and those who policed, constantly assessing others’ propensity for a fight. Traversing fault lines everywhere.

Eddington’s characters implode and tangle and lose their minds against this chillingly familiar backdrop – half-masked high-schoolers gathering in clumps outside, mask mandates handed down from the governor, virtual town halls. Some tumble down internet rabbit holes into delusion. (A too-broad, conspiratorial wellness guru, played by a too-intense Austin Butler, makes an unfortunate IRL appearance in Eddington.) Others follow Instagram to the growing ranks of BLM protests across the nation. Neighbors doubt neighbors, and even the mention of Black lives exposes barely hidden racial tensions. Everywhere, at least for the film’s superior first half, there’s a feeling of trepidation – a familiar disorientation from the rapid blurring of right and wrong, a deluge of high-octane headlines and a potent confusion of sympathies that cannot be resolved.

Aster is not always fair in his rendering, sometimes stacking its deck in favor of the needling center that is Sheriff Joe. But the internet is going to flatten everyone into statements and identities, and Eddington takes swipes in all directions. Tár is nimbler at skewering so-called “social justice warriors”, though at least Aster captures how some white leftist activists are primarily driven by ego, how much of the body politic is straight-up id. About a quarter of the way through the movie, Joe confronts an onslaught of national anger with his own projection; he dismisses concern from deputy Guy (a savvily cast Luke Grimes from Yellowstone) about the Black Lives Matter protesters (or “looters”) seen on TV with a blanket “that’s not a here problem”.

Except, of course, it is. Five years on, we have only just reached some critical distance from the rupture that, judging by the lack of retrospectives this March, no one wants to remember. In Eddington, that upside-down, unreal reality begins to come into focus. There is no such thing as a “here problem”. Everything is an everywhere problem. At any point, the worst parts of the internet – which is to say, the worst parts of people – can descend on your town at terrifying speed. To see that environment rendered believably on screen is, ironically, the most thrilling part of it all.

After relocating to the United Kingdom last year, former talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi have decided to part with their historic Cotswolds estate, known as Kitesbridge Farm. Formerly based in California, the couple purchased the 43-acre property a little over a year ago and spearheaded a 4.5-month renovation, per the Wall Street Journal. Despite their decision to sell, the pair won’t be returning to the United States, DeGeneres told the outlet, as they’ve already acquired a new, larger residence in the area with enough space for de Rossi’s horses.

Stone walls are a hallmark throughout the historic property.

On the market for £22.5 million, or about $30.5 million, the farmhouse is set in the quiet village of Swinbrook, in Oxfordshire, a bucolic area of rolling landscapes and wildflower-filled meadows. About two hours from London by car, the property comprises a main house from the 1700s containing six bedrooms, as well as a two-bedroom guest house, heated indoor pool, workout room, helicopter hangar, and a barn-turned-bar. In total, there’s about 16,600 square feet of living space.

A glass-walled living area.

Once they bought the compound, DeGeneres and de Rossi undertook a comprehensive overhaul, focusing on giving the finishes an update while retaining the overall period charm. Among the hallmarks of the revamped interiors are preserved stone walls, beamed ceilings, wide-plank floors, and farmhouse-style furnishings.

The party barn includes a bar and kitchenette.

While some British historic structures lack natural light inside, the main house at Kitesbridge Farm is organized around a large central courtyard with tall grasses, meandering pathways, and several paved lounge areas. This configuration allows for ample sunlight to flow throughout the interior spaces while offering an English take on easy indoor-outdoor living.

The estate has its own heated indoor pool.

With its natural beauty and sense of seclusion, the Cotswolds is a popular spot for British celebrities such as David and Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss—even King Charles III has a private residence, Highgrove House, nearby. Kitesbridge Farm is listed with Andrew Barnes of United Kingdom Sotheby’s International Realty.

An outdoor lounge area in the courtyard of the main house.

Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.

I love internet. I love screen. I love laugh. I’m a certified eight-hour-a-day screen user. I’m like a little iPad kid except I’m a six-foot-two, 31-year-old woman.

Getting access to the family computer at 10 years old sparked something in me. It unlocked the deep, dark and wonderful world of the internet and my profound desire to explore every corner of it.

Unfortunately for me, my algorithm at the moment is feeding me the worst the internet has to offer. My show I Watched Someone Die on TikTok forces me to watch, save and muse on mostly distressing digital content. Fortunately for you, though, gorgeous internet stranger, this list is all the delightful and joyous things I’ve witnessed on the internet. Please enjoy my curated list (and then please buy tickets to my show. I promise the show itself is not distressing and is in fact very sexy, fun and fresh.)

1. Patti LaBelle – Where my background singers?

This is a classic. It’s the embodiment of everything going so wrong during a live performance but you having the chutzpah to power through and publicly call out everyone around you for it going downhill. A masterclass in diva-ism. I never call for “line” onstage. I simply say, “Where my background singers?”

2. AI food eating itself

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Look, is it funny? No. Is it delightful, soothing, scary, awe-inspiring, never before seen, adorable, bus, club, another club, the absolute best use of AI? Everyone in my life says no.

3. Kim Cattrall scatting

Another true diva. What I like about this video is Kim’s earnestness as she delivers this showstopping scat. Personally, I’m requesting that “well he bit all the he-dogs and winked at all the she-dogs” be sampled into a DJ mix and played at my funeral.

4. Very Important People (specifically Zeke’s episode)

Vic Michaelis is a genius and they are, in fact, very important. This talkshow consists of improvised interviews with comedians playing surreal characters. You can watch the full eps on Dropout or via the very generous free official shorts platform on YouTube. I love this little freak made out of rocks so much.

5. Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles tribute to Laura Dern

A choir of 30 gay men singing about moments in film you didn’t realise were gay. If you’re ever feeling depresso, please watch this three-minute clip to immediately make you feel better. I love when so much time, resources and talent go into creating a piece so SILLY.

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6. Jake Schroeder

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Jake’s topical and ultra-silly ballads are everything right about TikTok and gen Z. He takes the overwhelming feeling of world-ending despair circulating in our feeds and turns it into little ditties that soothe your rotted brain.

7. Caleb Hearon on Ziwe

Caleb is one of my favourite comedians and his interview with Ziwe is incredible. He’s so witty and talented it makes me sick.

8. The TikTok AI sway dance filter

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What we know: AI poses extreme risks to society and humanity. What we also know: when someone puts this AI filter on a dog I immediately feel very good. My friend’s dog recently passed and I thought sending her videos of her dog with this filter on it would cheer her up. Again, everyone in my life said no.

9. Fergie doing cartwheels

Fergie has had some iconic live performances (notably the 2018 national anthem performance). For me, this one takes the cake for most insane and most impressive.

10. Jack McBrayer visiting Chicago’s Wieners Circle

One of the best Conan segments was getting the sweetest, most polite man alive (Jack McBrayer) and putting him in confrontational situations. This video is peak late night to me. I went to the Wieners Circle in 2015 to see if the staff actually act like this and when I ordered a hotdog they said, “You want a dick in a bun?” Being a 20-year-old virgin at the time, the only response I could muster was “no onions please”.

• Charlotte Otton is an award-winning theatre maker. Her show I Watched Someone Die on TikTok has picked up five-star reviews in Perth and Melbourne and is heading to Pact for Sydney fringe festival from 3 to 13 September

Molly Gordon and Geraldine Viswanathan are getting ready for a night out. Beauty products take over every surface and the sounds of Chappell Roan and Clairo fill the rare moments of silence. Yet the best-friend duo isn’t primping for any old GNO: a crew of hair stylists and makeup artists, publicists, and friends—namely, actor Owen Thiele and his boyfriend, stylist Jared Ellner—have assembled to get Gordon and Viswanathan ready for the New York premiere of their new film, Sophie Brooks’s Oh, Hi.

Their friendship began, as so many do, online. Before they first worked together on the 2020 film The Broken Hearts Gallery, Gordon was taken by Viswanathan’s performance in the 2018 sex comedy Blockers. “I thought she was so amazing and I wanted to be a friend, so I feel like I manifested this friendship,” Gordon says.

From her perch in the living room, hair in the clutches of a curling iron, Gordon tries to recall if she reached out to Viswanathan via DM, or with a much more public tweet. “Ger?” she calls into the kitchen, where Viswanathan is getting her glam done. “Did I tweet at you?”

When Viswanathan confirms this, Gordon groans. “I tweeted at her. Even more embarrassing.”

Oh, Hi stars Gordon as Iris, a young woman on her first romantic getaway with the guy she’s been seeing, Isaac (Logan Lerman). Isaac, however, doesn’t want a relationship right now, so after a post-coital fight—when Iris decides to leave him handcuffed to their bed—she calls Viswanathan’s Max and her boyfriend, Kenny (John Reynolds), for help. Half-hearted murder plots are hatched, potions are brewed, and magic spells are cast naked in the moonlight. (“I had a butt double in the movie,” Viswanathan admits. “They sent me a photo of an ass, and they were like, ‘Do you approve of this ass?’ And I was like, ‘This is the most incredible ass that I’ve ever seen.’”)

It didn’t take too much imagination for the duo to embrace their roles; both have helped the other through breakups and heartache in real life. “We’ve both shown up at each other’s doorsteps in a mess and have put each other back together,” Viswanathan says.

“Rejection is the hardest thing to face,” Gordon adds. “But we’ve all been friends for so long now, so we’ve all helped each other fall more in love with ourselves, too.”

Occasionally going through it has only deepened their friendship—creating some unforgettable moments along the way. “Geraldine and I had a really funny experience doing mushrooms and taking these nude photos in Joshua Tree together, and I was like, ‘I’ve never looked more hot in my entire life,’” Gordon says. The sober light of a new day, however, changed their minds. “We see the Polaroids the next morning, and they’re truly the most disgusting pictures I’ve ever seen in my entire life. They’re horrifying.”

“Who’d you send them to, Molly?” Viswanathan chimes in.

“I then, by accident, sent a picture of Geraldine and me showing off our asses to a male actor that I worked with once, because I am really bad at phone stuff,” Gordon continues. “But Geraldine forgave me and we’re still friends.” Thank goodness for that.

Below, Molly Gordon and Geraldine Viswanathan get ready for the premiere of Oh, Hi.

Note to new couples: Best not to define a relationship while one is chained to the bed after a bit of experimentation. Granted, neither thought they needed to have this conversation, but it quickly becomes clear that they both heard things differently. Iris thought they were exclusive. Isaac thought it was perfectly clear that they weren’t and aren’t. But why, Iris asks, are they doing this at all after four months? Why are they on this trip? Why did he make her scallops? It’s enough to make anyone go a little mad, which Iris does, deciding that she’s going to keep Isaac chained up until they talk it through to her satisfaction.

It’s a kind of over-the-top, Misery-styled meditation on entrenched gender cliches in heterosexual dating. The women are crazy and needy. The men are jerks and aloof. And no amount of rational discussion on either side will end the stalemate. Iris believes that if he just gets to know her a little better, perhaps he’ll change his mind. She goes long on her biography in a funny little sequence, but the monologuing doesn’t help Isaac figure out how to escape. It just goes on.

Oh, Hi! follows this path to extreme ends as Iris involves Max and her boyfriend Kenny (John Reynolds), who are all trying to figure out how to get out of the situation without going to jail. It’s admirable how ardently they commit to making this outlandish premise as realistic as possible.

The film loses the plot a bit when Max and Kenny get involved and things get extra silly. It might have been better had it stayed with Iris and Isaac to the bitter end. Gordon, who co-wrote the story with Brooks, is a huge reason it works at all. She somehow keeps Iris grounded and relatable throughout, which is no small feat after she makes her big mistake. At times, that epic misstep made me think that Oh, Hi! might be the female Friendship. And while Lerman gets substantially less to do, you come out feeling for both characters, trapped in anxieties of their own making and a social structure in which neither romance nor commitment seems to be a priority. At least this film lets us laugh about it a little bit.

And lest you think people in relationships have it easier, just wait until Together arrives next week.

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‘Oh, Hi!’ is released in theaters on July 25, 2025.