Irina Shayk was photographed on Thursday carrying a suitcase and puffy coat out of her house in LA and made her way to the airport. Her getaway comes as news broke that she and Bradley Cooper broke up after four years together.
Shayk, 33, kept a low profile in sunglasses and a beige jumpsuit. Her daughter, Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper, whom she shares with now-ex Cooper, didn’t appear to be traveling with her.
Ahead of their split news, Page Six exclusively reported earlier this week that Cooper and Shayk’s relationship was “hanging by a thread,” with a source adding that neither one was happy.
The “A Star Is Born” actor and Russian supermodel began dating in 2015. She previously dated soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo while Cooper had been linked to Suki Waterhouse.
Granger Smith’s 3-year-old son River’s cause of death has been announced.
River died in a drowning accident at home, Smith’s rep confirmed to People. The 39-year-old country singer and his wife announced the tragic news on social media on Thursday, saying that their family is “devastated and heartbroken.”
They didn’t share River’s cause of death in their announcement but said “he was unable to be revived.”
Morgan Beck, whose 19-month-old daughter Emeline Grier drowned in a pool last June, sent her support and condolences to the Smith family.
On her Instagram Stories Thursday, Beck shared Smith’s photo that announced his son’s death and captioned it, “My heart breaks. Another baby gone too soon.” She then implored parents to protect their children by adding safety measures to their pools and having their kids take swim lessons.
“Understand that almost 70% of drownings occur when your children are not expected to be near the water. When you think they are in the playroom or on the sofa watching tv,” she captioned a picture of Emelie a few months after she passed away. “Always be aware of water and place as many barriers between your child and those bodies of water as possible (locks, door alarms, pool fences).
“None of us are immune to this devastatingly life changing statistic. It can happen so fast and forever change your world.”
Beck, who is married to Bode Miller, also shared footage of her 8-month-old son Easton floating on his back in their pool, which is part of his swim safety program called Infant Swimming Resource’s Self-Rescue.
Nicole Curran, the wife of Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, said Thursday that she received death threats on social media and even deleted her Instagram account after what some considered a less-than-cheerful reaction from Beyonce to Curran talking with Jay-Z courtside.
A brief clip showed the famous couple courtside during Wednesday night's NBA Finals game at Oracle Arena. In it, Beyonce and Jay-Z are seen smiling and waving, when Curran leans over to talk to Jay-Z. Beyonce's smile goes away as the camera cuts back to the game. The clip went viral on a number of social media sites, with Curran portrayed as upsetting the superstar singer.
Curran said she was asking Jay-Z and Beyonce if they wanted a drink, because the Warriors had invited them to the game. She told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne that Jay-Z asked for a vodka soda, and she leaned over -- into the space near Beyonce, because of the loudness of the crowd -- to ask him if he wanted a lime with it. At that point, Beyonce is seen looking serious, and then down at the floor.
"There was no hostility," Curran told Shelburne. "I was trying to be a good hostess."
She added: "I've never experienced cyber bullying like this. I can't believe our players go through this. That kids go through this."
Curran said that Beyonce and Jay-Z had been guests of hers and the Warriors three or four times in the past without incident.
Arguably, the biggest shockwave in recent Marvel films and series wasn't a snap from a comics villain but a click of Disney CEO Bob Iger's pen. One by one, we've seen the reverberations of Disney's Fox acquisition from last year, mostly in the form of Netflix series wrapping up so that Disney can move full steam(boat Willie) ahead with its own films and streaming service. This week sees an arguably bigger conclusion: the end of the latest X-Men cinematic series.
Dark Phoenix sees the rug getting pulled from under the series' teen-reboot incarnation, which began life in 2011's X-Men: First Class and became an overwhelming mess in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse. That last entry wrapped a bow on an apparent trilogy, but this week's one-more-time film is a bummer for a surprising reason. Dark Phoenix starts with a glimmer of hope that this central cast could go somewhere interesting if given one more shot. Much of the film plays out like an incredible, self-contained graphic novel, with legitimate surprises, compelling intra-X conflict, and a tighter focus on relationships that the last film lost sight of.
If you're the kind of series fan who can have your wind knocked out by a lousy ending and neatly wrapped bow, Dark Phoenix's best bits may not be good enough. But up until that annoying conclusion, the film does its best to redeem the half of X-Men that never had a Hugh Jackman or Sir Patrick Stewart to lean on—and the result is a pleasant surprise in a crowded superhero-film ecosystem.
X-Women to the rescue
No, this isn't a promo still from a bad virtual reality advertising campaign.
Dark Phoenix's best content revolves around a trio of badass leads: Jean Grey (Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones), Mystique (Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence), and a mysterious newcomer (Academy Award-winner Jessica Chastain). I can point to a single, cringe-worthy line of over-serious dialogue and delivery from each actor listed, which, for a lore-filled series like X-Men, is like shooting four-under-par on a single hole in a golf course.
Turner in particular steps up to the plate to juggle childhood trauma, coming-of-age anger, and endearing vulnerability, all while making sense of her complicated past. The film opens with Jean flashing back to the childhood moment when her life turned upside-down, at which point a certain Dr. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, Glass) shows up with an interest in her apparent, mutant gifts.
The timeline then fast-forwards to the year 1992, when a core cast of seven familiar heroes (Jean Grey, Mystique, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Quicksilver) blasts off into space to save the day. This focused action sequence sees each hero trot out a superpower with some incredible VFX work applied, particularly the wisp-of-smoke warps that Nightcrawler leaves in his wake, while the inevitable "something's not right" twist plays out with logical rationale for every character involved.
Jean suffers the most intense consequences from this mission, but we also see showdowns among other characters, all clashing with their own interpretations of what life as an American mutant should mean. For some of the cast, the answer is to just be kids—and we get some welcome comic relief as a result, along with a few sequences that balance teenaged melodrama with superhero stakes. The result reminded me of my favorite parts in Spider-Man Homecoming, in which young characters have to contend with the usual coming-of-age trope of new powers versus old insecurities—though Dark Phoenix spreads that responsibility across more characters and, as a result, occasionally feels more like Dawson's butt-kicking Creek.
McAvoy also does well to portray Xavier's sometimes skewed priorities while still making his character likable and respectable—a fact that fuels a particularly interesting showdown between his character and Lawrence's. (Her reminder that "the women are always saving the men around here" may seem cheesy out of context, but in the heat of the film's moment, the line fuels an impressive showdown of X-Men leadership.)
It’s a bird (er, a phoenix), it’s a train
Enlarge/ Still images don't do justice to how cool Nightcrawler's smoke-explosion effects look in action.
20th Century Fox
But the best relationship in Dark Phoenix is between Xavier and Jean, thanks to how their similar mind-reading powers collide at dramatic moments. That's all the more impressive when you consider that for some of their most intense conversations, the actors aren't staring each other down but instead having their conversations thrown against the wall of mind-reading CGI effects. The resulting glob of chopped-and-screwed memories, whizzing and blurring across a theater screen, could have been a dizzying, even obnoxious way to cut corners. Instead, Dark Phoenix's effects team delivers cohesive visual themes to sell these vignettes.
In even better visual news, the film's battle sequences pare down the usual open-sky, zillions-of-lasers paradigm that Marvel Cinematic Universe films have beaten us over the head with for the past five years or so. Focused camera angles stick with a particular point of impact long enough before cutting away to the next hero or conflict. Characters face off in clever ways, usually with each mutant's strength or weakness paired nicely with an ally or foe. And early events make clear that no fight's outcome is predictable, lending more weight and tension to each showdown.
An end-of-film train sequence does a particularly good job of selling the hierarchy of each mutant's strength. Weaker and stronger characters face off in ways that rationally make sense without diluting the tension of what's to come next—and this fact is carried forward by a solid variety of in-the-car and above-the-train camera angles, and major action moments to sell each.
Ultimately, none of this visually arresting stuff matters if we don't care about Jean, a superhero who spends much of the film peeling back onion layers of deception and tragedy. She and Mystique are the focal points, with every major male character failing the reverse version of the Bechdel Test by obsessing over them. The result is both a refreshing gimmick and a masterwork in execution. These two characters push the limits of what the X-Men organization should be, and they both suffer—and nobly carry—great heartbreak along the way, affording viewers the opportunity to attach our own coming-of-age metaphors. (I would argue this is executed well-enough to possibly surpass the best similar stuff in Captain Marvel.)
Without spoiling the whole thing, however, I'll just say that this specific praise all but crumbles once the film ends. Jean, Xavier, and a few other characters end Dark Phoenix with the kind of "nope, there's no sequel coming" tidiness that spits in the face of surviving and living through tragedy—a point that would have been wonderful to leave hanging for one more film in this X-Men universe. Alas. If this were a graphic novel, I'd rip out the final few pages and feel pretty good about having experienced the whole thing, and I urge anyone who likes this fork of the X-Men series to do the same, either at theaters or an eventual home-viewing experience in a few months.
DC Universe has canceled the show after a single season, and the news comes after only one episode of the series has aired.
Based on the DC Comics characters created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, the one-hour drama series followed CDC researcher Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed), who returns to her childhood home of Houma, Louisiana, in order to investigate a deadly swamp-borne virus. She develops a surprising bond with scientist Alec Holland, only to have him tragically taken from her. But as powerful forces descend on Houma, intent on exploiting the swamp’s mysterious properties for their own purposes, Abby discovers that the swamp holds mystical secrets, and the potential love of her life may not be dead after all.
Virginia Madsen, Andy Bean, Derek Mears, Henderson Wade, Maria Sten, Jeryl Prescott and Will Patton all also starred.
Mark Verheiden and Gary Dauberman served as writers and executive producers on the series, with James Wan and Michael Clear executive producing via Wan’s Atomic Monster banner. Rob Hackett of Atomic Monster was a co-producer, and Atomic Monster produced the series in association with Warner Bros. Television.
This was not the first time Swamp Thing has come to the small screen. Aside from appearances on various animated DC shows, USA Network previously aired a live-action “Swamp Thing” series for three seasons from 1990-1993. Dick Durock starred in the series, reprising the role he had played in the films “Swamp Thing” and “The Return of Swamp Thing.”
DC Universe’s other shows include “Doom Patrol,” “Young Justice: Outsiders,” and “Titans,” all of which have aired one season to date.
Just before Team Magneto and Team Professor X duke it out in the streets of New York, both factions pursuing the Phoenix-empowered Jean Grey, Xavier begs his old friend to call off the hunt. Fighting won’t solve anything. Blood doesn’t need to be spilled. Mutants need to come together, for the future’s sake. It’s a classic X-Men movie reprise, to which Magneto delivers a frank response.
“There’s always a speech ... and nobody cares.”
He said it, not me.
Dark Phoenix is yet another speech. It’s less a disaster, as word of reshoots and calendar-hopping signaled to devotees, than a let down. Pegged in the post-Avengers: Endgame weeks as the “final battle” of 20th Century Fox’s X-men franchise, the film brings Xavier and his band of crime-fighting mutants to their bleakest moment, dealing with trauma inflicted on one of their own by one of their own. Secrets are unraveled, foes become allies in showdowns between friends, and a series known in the last decade for colorful, comic book camp takes a psychological turn that would shatter expectations if the characters contained even an ounce of depth beyond their genes. In the end, a story about treating “others” as people can’t find a human element for its core characters, 12 movies in.
[Ed. note: the following contains light plot spoilers for Dark Phoenix]
20th Century Fox
From writer-director Simon Kinberg (who takes another crack at the Phoenix saga after adapting it for 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand), Dark Phoenix barely acknowledges the existence of X-Men: Apocalypse as it jumps ahead to the year 1992, a time when mutants and the powerless are living in harmony and the X-Men are celebrated as heroes. So much so that when a nasty space cloud threatens NASA’s Endeavor mission, the president himself rings Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) on the Oval Office X-Phone to request the team’s assistance. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) questions the professor’s judgment: At what point is launching a bunch of twenty-somethings into space child endangerment? Xavier brushes off the condescension: Helping the un-mutated is the only way to find acceptance.
Dark Phoenix tugs at these existential questions in a way the movies haven’t since First Class, and, in the space-set rescue mission that kicks off the movie, mines true spectacle from the inquisition. Mystique knows this is wrong, but she caves, allowing Nightcrawler to jump aboard the ship, Quicksilver to gather the astronauts, Cyclops to patch up the hull of the shuttle (with an energy beam periscope!), and Jean Grey to eventually sacrifice herself to keep the crafts from rupturing under the bombardment of a nasty space cloud. The scene is dangerous, and makes Mystique’s case without endlessly pontificating on the X-Men’s core metaphor. But for most of the movie, we get just that.
There’s always a speech ... and nobody cares.
We experience most of Dark Phoenix through the eyes of a transformed Jean. Through Kinberg’s lens, the alien entity wrapped around the telepath’s genetic makeup becomes a form of empowerment. Phoenix Jean knows what she wants: alcohol, sex, and for Charles Xavier to get out of her goddamn head. The gender politics are messy, but intriguing. There’s enough innuendo in the movie that one could read Jean’s awakening as a carnal evolution that the men in her life aren’t comfortable with. Jean worries about hurting people she loves, then hurts people she loves. Charles doesn’t handle himself well when confronted by his overbearing relationship with his foster student. The movie morphs into chamber drama as the professor drinks his 18th whiskey in a two-hour movie. On-the-nose dialogue and clunky action plotting rip the promising, existential exoskeleton right out from under the movie’s skin. The end credits roll over a husk of what could have been.
20th Century Fox
The highs of Dark Phoenix, and pretty much every X-Men movie, come from the cast, who bend overwrought material to their will. Sophie Turner and Michael Fassbender, technically playing a 62-year-old Magneto, spend a large chunk of the movie hand-gesturing at CG objects. They’re masters at it, with Fassbender delivering a top-five metal-crunching moment in the movie’s climactic set piece. McAvoy clearly tastes the meat of the movie’s opening 30 minutes, delivering those notorious X-speeches in the face of Nicholas Hoult’s Beast, who finally gets to lock horns with his leader.
Lawrence is clearly the “nobody” of Magneto’s battle-ready diss. She sleepwalks through a fourquel that could use her female energy to complicate Jean’s arc, and flexes a contractual superpower over the logic of when we would and wouldn’t see Mystique in full makeup. It’s one of the highest-profile DGAF performances of all time.
On the opposite end of the investment spectrum is Jessica Chastain, as a villain who wants Jean’s nasty space cloud energy so that she can [literally every villain plot], who’s stunted not by personal energy — she nails the Terminator run — but by a patchwork script and a commitment to Hal 9000 monotone. Chastain deserves Fassbender-level wickedness, or at least the Power Rangers wackiness of Oscar Issac in Apocalypse. Instead, her character Vux feels as faceless as her army of CG goons that Storm uses for target practice.
Thanks to the reboot-inverting Days of Future Past, Dark Phoenix wraps up a single continuity that began with 2000’s X-Men. At least on paper. The major flaw in this grimdark tale of identity and sacrifice is that no character carries with them the baggage of the previous installment. The X-verse doesn’t need to be an interwoven narrative like the MCU, but to invest in the Professor X/Magneto/Jean narrative is to understand how each of them got here (see: Logan). Dark Phoenix, which contains multiple flashbacks to scenes earlier in the movie, builds only on itself, when implicitly promising to culminate a 20-year journey.
But Magneto is wrong: people still care about the X-Men, but the people running the show didn’t care about them enough to make this moment momentous.
Is the name "X-Men" outdated? Marvel Studios' Executive Vice President of Production Victoria Alonso thinks so. During an interview about Captain Marvel's home video release, Alonso is asked about the future of the X-Men at Disney and goes on an interesting tangent.
"I don't know where the future is going," Alonso told Nuke the Fridge. "Its funny that people call it the X-Men... there's a lot of female superheroes in that X-Men group; I think it's outdated."
Alonso has worked as a producer on all of Marvel Studios' films, originally handling visual effects but has now grown to oversee the complete production of each film.
"I don't know where it's going to go. They just now have joined," she continued. "They have a movie coming out soon under that banner, their last film. We'll see what time will tell."
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