Josh Brolin says his latest project, Weapons, is a refreshing change from what he describes as repetitive, uninspired content dominating streaming platforms.
Speaking to Collider, the Oscar-nominated actor said he was drawn to the horror mystery directed by Zach Cregger because it defies genre conventions.
“Right now, with so much content, you’re just watching things on whatever streaming service you’re on, and you’re just going, ‘Why is this so boring, man? Why?’” Brolin said. “It’s all the same,” he continued.
“And then somebody not only takes the horror genre, but then messes with it and does something on the edge of absurdity — sort of humorous — so it’s keeping you off balance enough for it to have an emotional impact.”
Weapons, which co-stars Julia Garner, follows a small community thrown into chaos when all but one child from the same class vanish on the same night at exactly the same time. The mystery forces the town to confront what — or who — is behind the disappearances.
The film opened to strong box office results, earning $42.5 million in its first weekend — more than $10 million above industry projections — and has received positive reviews from both critics and audiences.
Cregger, whose 2022 film Barbarian was widely praised, told The Hollywood Reporter that horror remains one of the few genres still allowing large-scale creative risks. “Without horror, you go to the theatre and you get people in tights for $200 million, and there’s not a lot of room for risk in those movies,” he said.
“I dearly wish that we could have cool, edgy weird comedies back in theatres. Or dramatic fare for adults. I feel like there’s not a lot of movies for grown-ups anymore.”
Samsung Electronics today announced a strategic partnership with KT Studio Genie, a leading content studio in Korea, to bring a curated selection of Genie TV Originals to Samsung TV Plus. The collaboration will bring more Korean dramas, films, original titles and dedicated channels to viewers in Korea and around the world — entirely free and with no subscription required.
Samsung TV Plus is the company’s free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service, available without sign-up on Samsung Smart TVs, Galaxy devices, Smart Monitors and Family Hub refrigerators. Offering more than 3,500 live channels and 66,000 on-demand titles globally, the platform delivers premium content to a growing international audience with instant accessibility.
Global Debut of Fan-Favorite K-Dramas on Samsung TV Plus
As part of the agreement, select Genie TV Originals will be made available to international audiences on Samsung TV Plus, effectively expanding the reach of these programs to a broader audience outside Korea. Leading the lineup are three standout series: “Lies Hidden in My Garden,” a thrilling drama where two women’s seemingly perfect lives unravel due to a series of mysterious events; “New Recruit,” a military comedy-drama that follows the daily lives and struggles of a group of new army recruits; and “Dear Hyeri,” a romantic drama centered on a news announcer who develops dissociative identity disorder and must navigate the complexities of her two very different lives.
Additionally, select series such as “New Recruit” and “Love Is for Suckers,” the slice-of-life workplace comedy, will be featured as an exclusive FAST offering on Samsung TV Plus for three months.
Samsung TV Plus offers 24/7 channels in Korea, giving viewers an easy way to jump into a show at any time — no searching, scheduling or episode tracking required.
With episodes airing in order around the clock, the format supports a variety of viewing habits — whether it’s catching an episode after a long day, relaxing with back-to-back chapters over the weekend or simply dropping in to rediscover a favorite scene. It’s a seamless, flexible way to enjoy K-dramas whenever it fits your routine.
Furthermore, the platform enriches its international appeal by curating a monthly selection of acclaimed Korean series. Each month, beloved titles — such as “Moon in the Day,” which is inspired by the widely loved webtoon — are thoughtfully highlighted, enabling fans to immerse themselves in their favorite stories anytime and anywhere.
A Growing Global Hub for Korean Content
KT Studio Genie joins a growing list of content partners, including CJ ENM and NEW ID, helping expand K-content offering on Samsung TV Plus, which spans drama, film, music, variety shows and live events. With operations in 30 countries and counting, Samsung TV Plus continues to evolve as a key destination for Korean entertainment on the global stage.
“Our partnership with KT Studio Genie reflects Samsung TV Plus’s ongoing commitment to delivering exceptional content and new viewing formats to global audiences,” said Yong Su Kim, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display (VD) Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’re proud to help bring the richness of Korean storytelling to more viewers worldwide — free, easy to access and ready to stream.”
Colton Haynes has signed with Innovative Artists Entertainment for representation in branding, voice over, and talent.
Haynes is known for starring in the CW series Arrow and the MTV series Teen Wolf.
In the Arrowverse, Haynes plays Roy Harper (Arsenal), a vigilante who is inspired by Oliver Queen and is involved in an on-and-off relationship with Thea Queen.
On Teen Wolf, Haynes played the role of Jackson Whittemore, the captain of the Beacon Hills lacrosse and swim team. Haynes reprised his role in the Paramount+ film Teen Wolf: The Movie.
Haynes’ other acting credits include Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens (2016) and American Horror Story: Cult (2017), as well as The Grinder (2016) and Hulu’s Dollface (2022). In 2022, he starred in the TV film Swindler Seduction, where he played identical twin brothers who turn to a life of con artistry.
In film, Haynes has credits in San Andreas (2015), Rough Night (2017), Bigger (2018), and Triumph (2021).
Haynes released his memoir, Miss Memory Lane, in 2022, where he opened up about his struggles with sobriety.
The actor will continue to be represented by Prime Talent Media and Ziffren Brittenham.
Innovative Artists Entertainment recently announced a strategic partnership with Coral Tree Partners, which assumed a minority stake in the agency in late March, putting Innovative on a greater growth path. As part of that announcement, Innovative unified all departmental brands under the singular banner Innovative Artists Entertainment.
Recent signings include Abigail Cowen, Mel Rodriguez, Bobby Soto, Melissa Joan Hart, Benjamin Hollingsworth, and Edwina Findley.
Art Fein, a Los Angeles music-scene renaissance man who worked as a journalist, publicist, manager and television host over a six-decade career, has died. He was 79.
Fein died of heart failure on July 30 while recovering from surgery for a broken hip, according to Cliff Burnstein, co-founder of Q Prime Management and a longtime friend.
Arthur David Fein was born June 17, 1946. Growing up in Chicago, he was transfixed by a Chuck Berry concert at age 10 and devoted his life to discovering, championing and preserving rock music. After moving to Los Angeles in 1971 to pursue a career in music journalism, he got a job in Capitol Records’ then-nascent college promotion department. There, he befriended John Lennon and Yoko Ono, while coordinating interviews with college radio stations for Ono’s latest album, “Approximately Infinite Universe.”
After leaving Capitol, he wrote music reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Herald-Examiner, Billboard and others before being hired as music editor at Variety. “By the time I got this job, I was sick of the new, aggravating profession of rock criticism,” he recalled in his 2022 memoir “Rock’s in My Head.” “It was about writers, not the music. I wasn’t interested in being terribly critical. I was an advocate. I wanted to help the music along; rock critics wanted to help their sense of superiority.”
He returned to the label world with stints at Elektra/Asylum and Casblanca but pivoted to management, incubating a proto-punk scene that would yield influential L.A. acts like the Cramps, the Blasters and the Heaters. A compilation he assembled, 1983’s “(Art Fein Presents) The Best of L.A. Rockabilly,” became a bible for bands inspired by X and Social Distortion, which drew from vintage rockabilly but amped it up for the punk age.
His public access cable TV show, “Lil Art’s Poker Party,” featured interviews and performances with his favorite musicians and ran in SoCal for 24 years. Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos recalled that “for years we had a weekly poker game either at his house or mine. I was there the night [music critic] Lester Bangs was playing. We started the first hand, started talking music, and never played another hand.”
In 1990, Fein published “The L.A. Musical History Tour: A Guide to the Rock and Roll Landmarks of Los Angeles,” a compendium of locations guiding readers to grave sites of stars such as Roy Orbison and Ritchie Valens, and sites where Sam Cooke, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, Tim Hardin, Dennis Wilson and Darby Crash died.
Fein also developed a complicated relationship with producer Phil Spector, to whom Lennon had introduced Fein as the man who “knows all about music.” Fein became part of Spector’s inner circle, even into his deeply troubled years when he was convicted of murdering House of Blues hostess Lana Clarkson. Fein maintained contact with Spector even after he was sentenced to life in prison.
The Blasters’ lead guitarist Dave Alvin wrote on Facebook that “Back in the early days of The Blasters, when few outside of Rollin’ Rock Records knew or cared who we were, Art cared deeply. In early 1980, I was a wannabe poet working as a fry cook in Long Beach … Art Fein played ‘Marie Marie’ to a Welsh rock ‘n’ roll singer named Shakin’ Stevens, who quickly recorded my song and made it into a huge international hit. … Thanks to Art Fein, I was soon able to quit my job as a cook and pursue music. I can never, ever thank you enough for all you did for me, Art.”
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Rosie Flores added that “back in ‘94 when I was touring with Butch Hancock in Europe, I took a bad fall, at the end of our month-long tour. I slipped in the rain on a cobblestone street in London and severely broke my wrist. Three months later I was invited to sing at the Elvis [annual birthday] bash at The House of Blues … It was normal protocol to donate all the money from the proceeds of the show and give it to an organization or a charity. This year, Art surprised me and handed me a stack of money to the tune of $1,500 for my medical bills. I didn’t expect that at all [and] it brought tears to my eyes.”
In the closing lines of his memoir, Fein wrote that “I can’t say anything terribly pithy or canny about the state of record sales, or streaming, or new delivery systems. Or how YouTube or TikTok are shaping contemporary music.”
“It turns out I didn’t want to be in the music business; I wanted to be in the music,” he wrote. “There I remain.”
Fein is survived by daughter Jessie and wife Jennifer.
Writing about Hooper in his autobiography, director Hal Needham claims the film pioneered the concept of outtakes. Subsequent films would feature flubbed line readings, misbehaving props, actions gone wrong and various other bloopers in their credits sequences. But Hooper – a film about, as its tagline proclaims, “the greatest stuntman alive!” – uses its final minutes to showcase extra stunts that didn’t make the final cut.
Instead of leaving them on the cutting room floor, these outtakes instead make the stunt performer’s (typically effaced) labour not only visible, but a point of celebration. An original ditty, Nothin’ Like the Life (Of A Hollywood Stuntman), was even commissioned as the soundtrack.
In film production, the success of the stunt performer is paradoxically predicated on their invisibility. They do the work of constructing the star’s image while maintaining the illusion that they were never there at all. In return, stars do interviews and claim – almost always falsely – that they “do their own stunts”.
It’s this idea that Hooper – starring megastar Burt Reynolds, hot off the success of his and Needham’s previous collaboration, Smokey and the Bandit – lays out, turning the spotlight on the unsung profession and foregrounding the stunt performer as not a faceless entity but the film’s star. Needham, a former stuntman and perhaps the first in Hollywood to move from rigging wires to sitting in the director’s chair, shoots the film with a palpable reverence for the profession, informed by his experience on more than 300 films and 3,000 episodes of television. (In Reynolds’ own autobiography, he claims that Needham was so good at vehicle stunts that he earned the nickname “the master of suspension”.)
Hooper seems to live a relatively glamorous life as a stuntman. Clocking off from his role as stunt performer and coordinator on the fictional Bond riff The Spy Who Laughed at Danger, he returns to his ranch to be met by his girlfriend, Gwen (Sally Field), a fistful of beers and a horse to drink them with.
All the brewskis are part of the problem; Hooper’s an addict and an alcoholic, whose tendency to mask the pain of his many falls with pills and booze keeps him at arm’s length with his sweetheart. He embodies an archetype Gwen’s all too familiar with: her own father, Jocko (Brian Keith), is an ageing stuntman himself, equally in the wars. “You should drink more,” Jocko tells Hooper. “Nothing hurts when you’re numb.”
‘The spectacle of the stunt almost becomes secondary to the amusement of hanging out with Hooper and his buddies.’ Photograph: Ronald Grant
As his doctor informs him, Hooper’s next accident could be his last – a danger accentuated by his director’s desire to flout safety precautions. Making matters worse, Hooper has to contend with new blood personified in the hotshot Ski (Jan-Michael Vincent). Ski’s affection for aerial antics and coiffed hair brings to mind none other than Tom Cruise, whose own turn towards stunting stardom – via high-profile, high-pressure capers – remains a high point of the latter-day Mission: Impossible films.
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Contrastingly, much of Hooper’s pleasures come from its lax and loose structure. The spectacle of the stunt almost becomes secondary to the amusement of hanging out with Hooper and his buddies: a post-bar brawl party at Hooper’s house isn’t a rambunctious rave, but a sleepy screening of his stunt reel, the room silent but for the flicker of the projector. A scratchy print showcases a bi-plane gag of Hooper’s own.
The film-within-a-film’s director is a thinly veiled dig at New Hollywood auteur Peter Bogdanovich, whom Needham worked under, found pompous, and wrote skewering dialogue for. He takes glee in making the character bluster. “Films are tiny pieces of time, and we captured it!” goes one stuffy comment – but I like to think there’s some truth in there. Every stunt recorded is a small miracle – and Hooper captures the magic.
Hooper is available to stream on HBO Max in Australia and available to rent in the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
Reggaeton singer-songwriter Jhayco has been arrested in Florida after allegedly being found in possession of drugs, according to reports.
The Latin urban star, born Jesús Manuel Nieves Cortés, was arrested in Miami early Aug. 12 and charged with cocaine possession and cannabis possession of 20 grams or less after being pulled over by police during a traffic stop, according to Rolling Stone, Variety and NBC 6 South Florida.
Before his arrest, Jhayco, 32, was reportedly driving at 5 mph and took over a minute to resume driving after coming to a complete stop, per Rolling Stone and NBC 6.
When police approached the singer’s car, a deputy reportedly observed a “strong odor of cannabis” coming from the vehicle, and that Jhayco had “white powder” on his pants and nose, Rolling Stone and NBC 6 report. He was allegedly unable to provide the police with a driver’s license during the stop.
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Authorities subsequently found two pouches of suspected cannabis with approximately seven grams each in Jhayco’s car, per NBC 6. Additionally, police discovered that the Grammy-nominated singer had “clear baggies with suspect powder cocaine,” totaling about two grams, in his pockets, according to Rolling Stone and NBC 6.
USA TODAY has reached out to the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office and representatives for Jhayco for comment.
Following the incident, Jhayco was booked at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to Variety. His bond was set at $3,000, the outlet reported alongside Rolling Stone and NBC 6.
Jhayco becomes reggaeton heavyweight with A-list collaborations
Jhayco, formerly known as Jhay Cortez, started pursuing music in his teens after taking inspiration from the Puerto Rican-bred genre reggaeton and one of its leading artists, Don Omar, according to the singer’s biography on the official Universal Music Latino website.
After writing songs for the likes of Tito El Bambino, Zion & Lennox, Ozuna and Nicky Jam, Jhayco launched his solo career with the release of his 2019 debut album “Famouz.” The album featured the J Balvin and Bad Bunny collaboration, “No Me Conoce,” which peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart and was later certified diamond for sales of over 5 million.
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Jhayco and Bad Bunny have teamed up over the years for additional hits, including 2022’s “Tarot.” The EDM-inflected reggaeton banger, featured on Bad Bunny’s record-selling “Un Verano Sin Ti” album, helped earn Jhayco a Grammy nomination for album of the year in 2023.
Jhayco’s latest album, “Le Clique: Vida Rockstar (X),” was released in September 2024. The hit record has since been certified double platinum.
When I close my eyes and think of instant noodles, I’m brought back to afternoon tea at my grandparents’ public housing flat. I imagine my yeye (grandfather) pouring the herbal pork bone broth my grandmother had made the previous night into the noodle-packed styrofoam cup. It was the ultimate comfort food.
But for this taste test comfort wasn’t the end goal. Instead I gathered 21 brands of instant chicken noodles that could satisfy hungry office workers on a deadline. The criteria: it needed to be a hot lunch you could make with only boiling water – and it needed to be quick.
I served my colleagues a tasting menu of instant noodles at their desks. I only included cup noodles that were chicken flavoured (sorry, Indomie Mi Goreng, you will always have a place in my heart) and tasters were asked to rank the noodles based on aroma, texture and flavour.
Testers sample the noodles. Photograph: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/The Guardian
Instant noodles are really a blank canvas. It’s what you add to them that makes them a meal – some eggs, maybe kimchi or fresh veg, even actual shredded chicken. My tasters had none of these add-ons, though some of the packets came with dehydrated herbs and vegetables.
Overall, we found that a delicious smell didn’t equate to a delicious feed, and that mushroom is a divisive flavour. Nothing on this list was truly disgusting nor was anything a wonder for the taste buds – all the options were truly mid.
Noodles being scored on aroma, texture and flavour. Photograph: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/The Guardian
Best overall
Lian Pho Ga Vietnamese Style Instant Rice Noodles, 70g, $2.80 ($3.57 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.6/10
Rice noodles aren’t common in instant cup noodles but even at a restaurant pho is usually served fairly instantly so it stands to reason that it would translate well. While the instant pho broth was almost universally enjoyed by the testers, the rice noodles were sometimes too delicate, though some found them “eminently slurpable”. As the images on the packaging suggest, it would be immensely improved by the usual suspects that are served with pho: onion, herbs and lemon. With those additions, it could be considered “not from a cup” or “legit cooked”, according to our tasters.
Best value
Choice Chicken Flavoured Noodle Cup, 70g, $1 ($1.41 per 100g), available from Aldi
Score: 5.5/10
“Pretty average run-of-the-mill noodle,” wrote one tester, summing this one up well, as did another comment: “Like a Justin Bieber song.” Some thought it was both “salty and bland”, though the sodium content was near the middle of the bunch. If you had only a single gold coin for lunch, this wouldn’t be a sadway to spend it.
The rest
Suimin Chicken Noodle Cup, 70g, $2.40 ($3.43 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.2/10
This product was given full marks by a taster who described it as “finger-licking good”. He wasn’t the only one to describe it that way. The taste and aroma made it seem as though you were walking by a KFC, though a few commented they thought it smelled like beef. Tasters who scored this one highly said they liked its smoky aromatic notes.
Samyang Buldak Hot Chicken Flavour Ramen Cup, 70g, $2.50 ($3.57 per 100g),available at major supermarkets
Score: 6.6/10
Famous for being spicy, this was a “nostril and palate burner”, according to reviewers. Overall, we found the spicier cups had thicker, chewier noodles, which divided our tasters, but they were all united in the burn left behind by the “fire-engine-red soup”.
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Nissin Chicken Noodle Cup, 73g, $2.80 ($3.43 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 6.3/10
No list about instant noodles is complete without Nissin. Its founder, Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese Japanese businessman, invented the first modern instant noodles in 1958. So how does the OG stack up? Testers commented on its aroma, which comes in strong with wafts of umami, but they also wrote that it was “missing punch”. This product had probably the most extras in the packet, including corn and carrot but that didn’t boost its score.
Kang Shi Fu Soup Noodle Mushroom Chicken Flavour, 104g, $1.99 ($1.91 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 6/10
Mushroom is not a unifying flavour. Many found this one woody and earthy but whether those attributes were seen as positive really varied. Considering there is no chicken in this product it’s unsurprising then that one person said it “smells overwhelmingly like mushroom”.
Yoodles Brown Rice Noodles Chicken Flavour, 70g, $2.30 ($3.29 per 100g), available at Woolworths
Score: 5.7/10
“Inoffensive” is how one taster described this gluten-free and vegan option. It wasn’t particularly loved by anyone, though one taster said it was “like the ones mum used to make”. Like most rice noodles, these ones rehydrated quickly but, unless they were eaten just as fast, they disintegrated into the soup.
Ve Wong Instant Noodle Chicken Sesame Flavour, 85g, $2.49 ($2.90 per 100g), available at select grocers
Score: 5.6/10
The smell of the sesame oil made me hungry as I was preparing this one. It was one of the few that didn’t include any dehydrated vegetables – not that any of our tasters noticed. It had a generous amount of fragrant oil and Chinese cooking wine, a divisive flavour among our tasters. One noted it “smells and tastes like genuine chicken broth”, which made some suspicious, but it was the texture of the noodles – too thin – that lost it marks from many of them.
Nongshim Shin Ramyun Spicy Chicken Bowl, 114g, $3.75 ($3.29 per 100g), available at Woolworths and select grocers
Score: 5.5/10
As spicy as it is divisive, Nongshim’s cup is a staple in many pantries. Our bravest tasters said it was “spicy but not debilitating”, noting that it tasted a bit like the Mexican spice mix Tajin. Another said the spice “blew my socks off”. While the quintessential chicken smell was there, not many could taste it.
Sunrice Yum Asian Style Chicken Instant Noodles, 62g, $3 ($4.84 per 100g), available at major supermarkets
Score: 4.3/10
The aroma of this cup received near universal approval but it fell over when it came to the eating. The noodles are gluten-free, vegetarian and organic, with one of the lowest sodium levels of the list, but their taste and texture underwhelmed our testers. The flavour was a pass for most, with one tester reminded “oddly of soap and celery”. While other rice noodles we tested rehydrated quickly in boiling water, these took longer and even then it was “like chewing pipe cleaners”, according to one tester.
Products cut for brevity
Urban Eats Thai Style BBQ Chicken Noodle Bowl 6.4/10 Maggi 2 Minute Noodles Chicken 6.1/10 Fantastic Chicken Noodles Cup 6.1/10 Yum Yum Instant Noodles Chicken 6/10 Coles I’m Free From Gluten Free Brown Rice Noodle Cups Chicken 5.8/10 Nissin Chu Qian Yi Ding Chicken Bowl 5.5/10 Coles Chicken Instant Noodles 5.4/10 Suimin K Pow Korean-Style Spicy Noodles Flaming Cheesy Chicken 5.4/10 Simplee Instant Cup Chicken Noodles 5/10 Paldo Dosirac Instant Noodle Chicken Flavour 4.9/10 Fantastic Noodles Cup Gluten Free Chicken 4.9/10
What, like it’s hard? Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Prime Video will revisit the world of Legally Blonde with a prequel series, Elle, set to follow Elle Woods’ high school years.
The series was first ordered in May 2024, as exclusively reported by Deadline with Witherspoon taking the stage at Prime Video’s Upfronts to share the big news.
Everything we know about the ‘Elle’ prequel series lies below, including cast, release window and more.
When will the Elle prequel series come out?
No specific date has been set yet, but as of now, the show is expected to arrive at some point in 2026.
Is the Elle prequel in production?
Hello Sunshine and Prime Video revealed the series had wrapped production on August 8.
Who is in the Elle prequel series?
Lexi Minetree (The Murdaugh Murders) will step into Witherspoon’s pink high heels as Elle Woods. Minetree beat out Madison Wolf (True Detective, Mayfair Witches) in testing for the lead role in the series. Witherspoon welcomed Minetree to the project with a great sit-down chat.
Deadline broke the news that June Diane Raphael will portray Elle’s mother and role model, Eva. Tom Everett Scott, (The Summer I Turned Pretty, That Thing You Do) will portray Elle’s dad, Wyatt.
Deadline first reported that Gabrielle Policano (Baby Girl), Jacob Moskovitz (Y2K) and Chandler Kinney (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin) joined the cast as series regulars as Liz — the anit-Elle Woods, the school’s star athlete Miles and sharp-tongued senior Kimberly who is not Elle’s biggest fan, respectively.
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Next came the casting of Zac Looker (Geek Girl), Jessica Belkin (American Horror Story: Hotel) and Logan Shroyer (This Is Us) as Elle’s classmate Dustin, Elle’s best friend Madison and Elle’s crush Josh.
Amy Pietz joined the series in the role of Donna, the no-nonsense high school secretary.
Lisa Yamada (The Bold and the Beautiful), Chloe Wepper (The Rookie), David Burtka (How I Met Your Mother), Brad Harder (Supernatural) and Kayla Maisonet (The Rookie) will play key recurring characters. Yamada will play Bel-Air high school friend Amber, Wepper will play chemistry teacher and high school cheer team choreographer Ms. Burke, Burtka will appear as Elle’s family neighbor Chad and Maisonet will play another Bel-Air high school friend of Elle’s, Tiffany.
Daniel Chand will play Shannon, and Matt Oberg will portray Principal Anderson, according to the above-mentioned wrap video.
And last but certainly not least, James Van Der Beek has been cast as school district superintendent Dean Wilson, the city’s new mayoral candidate.
Who else is behind the Elle prequel series to Legally Blonde?
Laura Kittrell (High School, Insecure), created the series and served as its showrunner. Kittrell also executive produces with Hello Sunshine’s Witherspoon, Lauren Neustadter and Lauren Kisilevsky as well the Legally Blonde movie franchise producer Marc Platt. The series is produced by Hello Sunshine and Amazon MGM Studios.
Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) directed the series.
RELATED: ‘Legally Blonde’ Prequel Series Drops First Image Of Lexi Minetree As Elle Woods
Katherine Dutson lives with scoliosis of the spine and an undiagnosed genetic condition which impair her physical movements
A disabled woman who hasn’t been able to shower in her own home for four years says a lack of urgency in addressing her needs is “demoralising”.
Katherine Dutson, 41, cannot walk or stand and has to use an adapted chair to move around her house in Grangetown, Cardiff.
But her reduced mobility now means the equipment she needs won’t fit in her bathroom, despite requests to the council and housing association for a solution.
Cardiff council has previously said that it was “exploring all avenues” to find suitable accommodation “as a matter of urgency”, but that the process was taking “longer than we would have liked”.
Mrs Dutson says her mobility issues, which she has experienced since childhood, worsened in her 20s, and she now has to use a hoist to move between her bed and chair.
She was previously able to use the shower in her home, but her deteriorating health, including an undiagnosed genetic condition and scoliosis on the spine, now means she needs a specially adapted shower chair which can extend horizontally.
However, as she is 6ft 6in (1.98m), the only piece of equipment long enough for her won’t fit in her bathroom alongside her carers.
Due to Mrs Dutson’s height and mobility issues, the adapted chair that she would need to shower cannot fit in the bathroom of her house
“It’s been really hard and really demoralising,” she said.
“It’s just been four years of hell, and no hope that we can find a bathroom that’s going to work for me and give me that dignity.”
It means Mrs Dutson now relies on bed-washing from carers, but says that comes with a “high infection risk” for someone in her condition.
She and her husband James were told by their housing association that extending their current property would be too costly, while they’ve also been waiting years for alternative council accommodation.
For the last four years Katherine Dutson has had to rely on her carers “bed-washing” her, a situation she describes as “degrading”
“They’re not understanding the suffering that I go through on a daily basis,” said Mrs Dutson.
“I think it’s been normalised, to allow bed-washing as an acceptable solution.
“A lot of able-bodied people wouldn’t like to just have a wash in a bowl every day, and I think there’s a lack of urgency to find me somewhere.”
Katherine Dutson and her husband James have been campaigning for better accessible housing for disabled people in Wales
Charity Disability Wales says housing is one of the main concerns among people who contact them for advice and assistance – and that Mrs Dutson’s experience is all too common.
“It’s quite often around general accessibility issues,” said Leandra Craine, the charity’s business and membership officer.
She added: “If you can’t have a home where you can actually thrive and be independent, then it’s difficult to go out and about and live an independent life as a whole.”
The “limited capacity” at many councils to cater for people needing accessible housing is a “huge issue”, she added.
Leandra Craine says housing is one of the main concerns raised by those who contact Disability Wales
But more disabled representation is also needed “across all sectors”, with work ongoing to engage with the Welsh government on an action plan, she said.
“If you don’t have access to the lived experience, you sometimes don’t understand how big of a priority issues are, and how serious they are,” said Ms Craine.
“A really common theme when we talk to disabled people is that feeling that they’re forgotten and pushed aside, being made to feel a burden to society, when all they want is to live with a bit more dignity.”
Three years ago, Mrs Dutson began documenting her struggles on TikTok, and says her videos encouraged other disabled people to share similar stories of housing difficulties.
But she still feels “no hope on the horizon of finding a suitable home”, despite Cardiff council acknowledging in a letter sent 16 months ago that the process was taking “longer than we would have liked”.
The letter in April 2024 also said the council was “currently exploring all avenues” to find suitable accommodation “as a matter of urgency”, but admitted that “this will not be resolved in the short term”.
That has left Mrs Dutson feeling as if she’s “not a priority”.
“I think having a can-do attitude to find solutions is what’s needed, not apathy and being put in a ‘too difficult’ pile,” she said.
“It’s a horrible feeling when… people with more complex needs are often the ones that are left with no help, because it’s too difficult and it costs a lot of money.
“You need to be taking an active approach to this situation, and understand how much suffering this situation it’s causing.”
Cardiff council and Linc Cymru housing association have been contacted for comment.
