Category: 5. Entertainment

@Joey2Steezy

How do I get to Cardiff for the Oasis gigs?

Andrea Riseborough, Peter Dinklage, Renée Zellweger and – inevitably – the late Sean Connery will be among the big names on show at the Edinburgh international film festival, which announced its programme today.

A clutch of world premieres at the festival includes a remake of trash classic The Toxic Avenger, starring Dinklage alongside Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood and Julia Davis, while Riseborough appears opposite Brenda Blethyn in Paul Andrew Williams’s Tribeca festival hit Dragonfly. Zellweger appears in a behind-the-scenes role, with the world premiere of her directorial debut, an animated short film called They. And in what appears something of a coup, the festival will screen 4K restorations of Connery’s six “official” James Bond films: Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever.

Connery’s name is now firmly imprinted on the festival, with its main feature-film prize named after him and screenings of short films developed through the Sean Connery Talent Lab, an offshoot of the actor’s foundation and the National Film and Television School Scotland. Festival director and CEO Paul Ridd said: “The legacy of Scotland’s biggest global star is central to what we’re trying to do, connecting it with the future generation of film talent and all the philanthropic work the Connery Foundation do across film and various other causes is of vital importance to us. To have access to those six wonderful James Bond films and showing them on the big screen is very special.”

The 2025 edition marks the third event since the dramatic collapse of the Centre of the Moving Image, the festival’s then parent organisation, in October 2022, which also resulted in the closure of Edinburgh’s celebrated Filmhouse cinema and its sister cinema in Aberdeen. Helped by the wider international festival that takes over the city every August, a short-notice scratch event was put together for the summer of 2023, while Ridd was installed as the head of a new organisation for 2024, which returned the festival to something comparable to its former status. And in a piece of good news for both the festival and the city itself, the Filmhouse in Edinburgh reopened in June after a high-profile campaign.

Ridd says the festival is looking to consolidate its revival. “We are thinking about this as year one with last year being year zero. We were really pleased with what we brought together last year, so for 2025 we are looking at what worked previously and not deviating really away from that. What’s different, I guess, this year is that we’ve had a significantly higher volume of submissions sent to us, which is fantastic.”

This year the festival’s competition (for the “Sean Connery prize for feature film-making excellence”) comprises 10 world premieres, including Campbell X’s “queer road movie” Low Rider, Swedish documentary Once You Shall Be One of Those Who Lived Long Ago about a physically collapsing mining town, and In Transit, a drama about an artist and her model starring Jennifer Ehle. An Out of Competition section includes high-profile films such as the Dardenne brothers’ Young Mothers, a study of a centre for pregnant teenagers, Jan-Ole Gerster’s Islands, with Sam Riley as a washed-up tennis coach, and The Memory Blocks, a new film from experimental documentary-maker Andrew Kötting.

The festival is also leaning into a resurgence of interest in archive and back catalogue films; alongside a retrospective of westerns by famed genre director Budd Boetticher (including 1957 classic The Tall T), Edinburgh is staging a series of screenings of films nominated by their in-person guests, all of whom will introduce their picks as well as taking part in an In Conversation event. The Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald, who will appear alongside his brother, Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald, has chosen Soviet war classic The Cranes Are Flying; Candyman’s Nia DaCosta will talk about Doug Liman’s 90s drug deal comedy thriller Go; and Ben Wheatley, whose new film Bulk is leading the festival’s Midnight Madness strand, has gone for Ealing comedy classic The Man in the White Suit.

Equally as important as the programme was the decision to move the festival back to its August time slot, having been shifted to June in 2008 as a strategic decision by the UK Film Council, then in charge of industry policy, as a way of giving space between the Edinburgh and London film festivals (with the latter taking place in early October). This has reunited the film festival with the energy of the international and fringe festivals, as well as potentially adding some purchase in the autumn awards season. Ridd says: “I’m very conscious that August is a strategic position for a lot of film distributors to launch their films going into that awards period. So I think August is a pure positive for us.”

He adds: “This is a beautiful city, and you’ve got all of this other art going on all around you. It’s a unique feeling and I know what a big opportunity that represents to us, to emulate that spirit of discovery.”

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Ridd says he is particularly pleased with the reopening of the Filmhouse, even if the umbilical connection between the festival and venue is no longer there. “We’re a completely new organisation, which has emerged Phoenix-like from a difficult situation. But it’s obviously had a significant impact on the city, and I think everyone’s very, very excited to see it back.”

The Edinburgh international film festival, which previously announced Sundance hit Sorry, Baby and Irvine Welsh documentary Reality Is Not Enough as its opening and closing films, runs from 14-20 August.

Grab your gal pals! Romy and Michele: The Musical will premiere off Broadway this fall, with performances beginning October 14 ahead of an October 28 opening at Stage 42.

The show is adapted from cult classic 1997 movie Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, which stars Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow about two unsuccessful best friends invited to their 10-year reunion. They invent fake careers for themselves to impress the people who once bullied them, but it spectacularly backfires.

“Romy and Michele have been icons of friendship, fashion, and individuality from the moment we first met them,” said producers Barry Kemp and Stephen Soucy in a statement. “Bringing their story to the New York stage is the perfect home for their bold and quirky spirit to be reborn. We can’t wait for audiences to enjoy this hilarious and heart-filled new musical.”

Robin Schiff, who wrote the original screenplay, has adapted it for the musical, which also features an ’80s and ’90s-inspired original pop score by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay (Orange Is the New Black), direction by Tony Award nominee Kristin Hanggi (Rock of Ages), and orchestrations by Keith Harrison Dworkin.

Cast and additional creative team members for the production have yet to be announced.

Check back for information on Romy and Michele: The Musical tickets on New York Theatre Guide.

When we think about what makes an audiobook memorable, it’s always the most human moments: a catch in the throat when tears are near, or words spoken through a real smile.

A Melbourne actor and audiobook narrator, Annabelle Tudor, says it’s the instinct we have as storytellers that makes narration such a primal, and precious, skill. “The voice betrays how we’re feeling really easily,” she says.

But as an art form it may be under threat.

In May the Amazon-owned audiobook provider Audible announced it would allow authors and publishers to choose from more than 100 voices created by artificial intelligence to narrate audiobooks in English, Spanish, French and Italian, with AI translation of audiobooks expected to be available later in the year – news that was met with criticism and curiosity across the publishing industry.

In Australia, where there are fewer audiobook companies and where emerging actors like Tudor rely on the work to supplement their incomes, there is growing concern about job losses, transparency and quality.

While Tudor, who has narrated 48 books, isn’t convinced that AI can do what she does just yet, she is worried that the poor quality may turn people away from the medium.

“I’ve narrated really raunchy sex scenes – AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like,” she says. “Birth scenes as well – I’d love to know how they plan on getting around that.”

The audiobook boom

According to a 2024 report by NielsenIQ Bookdata, more than half of Australian audiobook consumers increased their listening over the past five years. Internationally there was a 13% increase in US audiobook sales between 2023 and 2024; in the UK audiobook revenue shot up to a new high of £268m, a 31% increase on 2023, the Publishers Association said.

As demand for audio content grows, companies are looking for faster – and cheaper – ways to make it. In January 2023 Apple launched a new audiobook catalogue of audiobooks narrated by AI. Later that year Amazon announced that self-published, US-based authors with works on Kindle could turn their ebooks into audiobooks using AI “virtual voice” technology – and there are now tens of thousands of these computer-generated audiobooks available through Audible.

And in February this year, as part of a more general shift towards audiobooks, Spotify said it would be accepting AI audiobooks to “lower the barrier to entry” for authors hoping to find more readers.

Audible says its aims are similar: to complement, not replace, human narration, allowing more authors and more titles to reach bigger audiences. In the US Audible is also testing a voice replica for audiobook narrators, to create dupes of their own voices that will “empower participants to expand their production capabilities for high-quality audiobooks”.

“In 2023 and 2024, Audible Studios hired more [human] narrators than ever before,” an Audible spokesperson told the Guardian. “We continue to hear from creators who want to make their work available in audio, reaching new audiences across languages.”

But robot narrators will always be cheaper than humans – and people in the voice acting and book industries fear a move to AI could pose a threat to workers.

Volume or quality?

Dorje Swallow’s career as a narrator took off after he began voicing novels by the Australian bestselling crime author Chris Hammer – and the actor has now narrated about 70 audiobooks. Swallow believes AI narration is a tool created by people who “don’t understand the value, technique and skills” required to produce quality audiobooks.

“We’ve done the hard yards and then some to get where we are, and to think you can just press a button and you’re going to get something of similar, or good enough quality, is kind of laughable,” he says.

Simon Kennedy, the president of the Australian Association of Voice Actors, says there has always been a battle over how much a narrator deserves to be paid in Australia. For every finished hour of an audiobook, a narrator might spend double or triple that time recording it – and that doesn’t include an initial read to understand the book and its characters.

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“My personal opinion is that [introducing AI narrators] is going for volume over quality – and it’s looking to cheapen the process,” he says.

Kennedy founded the Australian Association of Voice Actors in 2024 in response to the threat being posed by AI. In a submission to a parliamentary committee last year the organisation said 5,000 Australian voice acting jobs were at risk.

He was hardly surprised about Audible’s announcement but says he thinks it’s a “pretty dumb move”.

“An audiobook narrator has such a special and intimate relationship with the listener that to try and do anything that is less connective is a foolish move,” he says.

As for the opportunity to clone their own voices, he says voice actors should have the right to engage – but they shouldn’t expect “any near the same pay rate, and they risk turning their unique timbre – their vocal brand – into a mass-produced robot voice that listeners get sick of listening to pretty quickly.”.

“If an emotionless narration at a consistent volume is all you need for ‘high-quality’, then sure,” he says. “But if engaging, gripping, edge-of-your-seat storytelling is your version of high-quality, then don’t hold your breath for AI to give you that.”

Another major concern is Australia’s lack of AI regulation. While the EU has its own AI Act, and China and Spain have labelling laws for AI-generated content, Australia is falling behind.

“There are no laws to prevent data scraping or non-consenting cloning of voices, or of creating deepfakes of people,” Kennedy says. “There are also no labelling laws or laws to mandate watermarking of AI-generated content and its origins; no laws to mandate transparency of training data; and no laws to dictate the appropriate use of AI-generated deepfakes, voice clones or text.”

This year the Burial Rites and Devotion author, Hannah Kent, was one of many acclaimed Australian writers shocked to discover their pirated work had been used to train Meta’s AI systems. She says while her initial reaction to the introduction of AI into creative spaces tends to be “refusal and outrage”, she’s curious about Audible’s AI announcement – specifically its plans to roll out beta testing for AI to translate text into different languages.

“I think it’s fairly obvious that the main reason to use AI would be for costs, and I think that’s going to cheapen things in a literal sense and cheapen things in a creative sense – in that sense of us honouring the storytelling, artistic and creative impulse,” Kent says.

Tudor and Swallow believe big companies will struggle to replace human narration completely, partly because many Australian authors will oppose it.

But whether or not listeners will be able to tell the difference remains to be seen.

“The foot is on the pedal to drive straight into dystopia,” Tudor says. “Can we just listen to people instead of robots?”

James Cameron has described Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s multi-Oscar-winning 2023 biopic about the atomic scientist Robert Oppenheimer, a “moral cop-out”.

Speaking to Deadline about his forthcoming project Ghosts of Hiroshima, about the effects of the bomb in that city, Cameron said he disagreed with Nolan’s narrative choices. “It’s interesting what he stayed away from,” said Cameron. “Look, I love the film-making, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop-out.”

In Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy stars as the scientist who led the development and design of the atomic bomb during the second world war. The film covers its inception, testing and deployment in Japan in 1945, when the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the deaths of as many as a quarter of a million people by the end of that year – as well as hastening the end of the conflict.

The film depicts Oppenheimer after the war as increasingly wracked by the legacy of his invention, and haunted by images of suffering. However, Cameron said he was among those viewers who felt the film did not go far enough in depicting the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

“It’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects,” he said. “I don’t like to criticise another film-maker’s film, but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience, and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him.

“But I felt that it dodged the subject. I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.”

Oppenheimer was released in 2023 and won Oscars for best picture, director, leading actor (for Murphy), supporting actor (for Robert Downey Jr), and three others. It also made $975m (£720m) at the box office.

At the time of its release, Nolan responded to criticism similar to that put forward by Cameron by explaining he wanted to represent Oppenheimer’s subjective experience. “It was always my intention to rigidly stick to that,” he told Variety. “Oppenheimer heard about the bombing at the same time that the rest of the world did.

“I wanted to show somebody who is starting to gain a clearer picture of the unintended consequences of his actions. It was as much about what I don’t show as what I show.”

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Deadline’s Mike Fleming put a rhetorical rebuttal to Cameron, saying Nolan may have reasoned a different film-maker would tell the story of the victims of the bombings in Japan. “Okay, I’ll put up my hand,” said Cameron. “I’ll do it, Chris. No problem. You come to my premiere and say nice things.”

Cameron’s film, which has not yet begun formal production, will be an adaptation of Charles Pellegrino’s forthcoming nonfiction book Ghosts of Hiroshima, which brings together testimonies from victims and survivors of the attacks.

Before then he will release the latest Avatar film, Fire and Ash. His first entry in that franchise is the highest-grossing film of all time, while the sequel is the third. Avengers: Endgame is the second highest-grossing film, but Cameron’s 1997 disaster movie Titanic is the fourth.

In a candid interview on Elizabeth Day’s “How to Fail” podcast, Melinda Gates shared the pivotal moment when she knew her marriage to Microsoft founder Bill Gates was beyond repair. Reflecting on her relationship, Melinda revealed that she initially ignored the warning signs, attributing them to external factors outside their marriage.

“I kept pushing it away,” Melinda admitted, recalling moments when doubts surfaced. Despite these feelings, she continued to believe in their shared work, particularly the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which they co-founded and which remains a cornerstone of their legacy.

However, as Bill’s infidelity became known, Melinda acknowledged that she could no longer ignore the reality of her situation. “At some point, I had to turn towards it, and I just knew it in my soul,” she confessed, marking the point when she realised their relationship had come to an end.

She emphasized the difficulty of leaving, as she takes marriage seriously, noting that it wasn’t just about the two of them but also their three children—Jennifer, 29, Rory, 26, and Phoebe, 22. “It’s two people who’ve come together, hopefully in love… so pulling it apart later is really hard,” Melinda said, reflecting on the emotional toll.

Melinda, 60, also encouraged others to trust their intuition, even when it means facing painful decisions. The couple married in 1994 but announced their separation in May 2021, finalising their divorce by August. The separation followed reports of Bill’s affair with a Microsoft employee.

Since the divorce, Melinda has found new love with tech entrepreneur Philip Vaughn, while Bill, 69, is dating Paula Hurd, widow of the late Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd.