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I’m sure by now you might have seen a lot of discussion around the Tales of the Jedi short “Resolve” and the Ahsoka novel by E.K. Johnston. The word “retcon” is being tossed around a lot. I wanted to take a few moments to discuss what is happening and why some fans are very upset by this.

It’s about a certain character and why she’s important. This isn’t even really about retconning at all. It’s about active choices being made by the creators at Lucasfilm over and over again.

In one of the possibly biggest mistakes from Lucasfilm after the Disney acquisition (in my opinion at least), they came out and said that everything in canon was important. From the movies to the comics, it was all going to function equally together in a big Star Wars tapestry of storytelling. It’s natural for fans to think,...

Halle Berry is a phenomenal actress who has appeared in over 60 films. Throughout her ongoing acting career, Berry has played some of the most iconic characters in film. She portrayed Storm in the original live-action adaptation of X-Men and underwent extensive training and physical transformation for the poorly received film Catwoman. If Halle Berry is in it, she is guaranteed to give her all.

Halle Berry became the first Black woman to win an Academy Award and remains the only one to this day. In her illustrious career, Berry has portrayed many incredible characters in some of the greatest movies. Among her many remarkable roles, some of the films stand out more than others.

Bulworth Follows a Politician With Nothing Left To Lose Until He Meets a Beautiful Woman Role: Nina

Bulworth is about a politician down on his luck and disillusioned by his hypocritical career, so he hires a hitman to kill himself.

Tonight, we’ve got the latest on everything – the bonus puzzle, all answers and contestants – that you need to know about tonight’s episode of Wheel of Fortune!

The post is updated as soon as it airs, so stay on TV Regular for all the latest on Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and all the latest TV news and previews.

Wheel of Fortune Contestants & Winner – Wednesday, 20 November 2024 WinnerOther Contestants Damon SaylesBeth Amodio, Mia Mena Wheel of Fortune Prize Puzzle & All Solutions – Wednesday, 20 November 2024 $1,000 Toss-Up: Electric Carving Knife (In the Kitchen)

$2,000 Toss-Up: Dutch Apple Pie (Food & Drink)

Round 1: Process Of Elimination (Phrase)

Round 2: Family Recipe For Disaster (Before & After)

Round 3 (Prize): Friendly Flight Attendant (Person)

Triple Toss-Up 1: Updating My Username (What Are You Doing?)

Triple Toss-Up 2: Creating A New Password (What Are You Doing?)

Triple Toss-Up 3: Unlocking My Account (What Are You Doing?)

Round 4: An...

Get the latest scoop on everything you need to know about today’s Jeopardy! episode airing on Wednesday, 20 November 2024 including the Final Jeopardy, contestants and today’s winner!

Today’s Final Jeopardy 11/20/2024 (Figures of Myth) – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Ovid says he “toppled, beating wild with naked arms the unsustaining air … shrikeing for succour from his sire”

Today’s Final Jeopardy Answer – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

The Final Jeopardy Answer is: Icarus

Final Jeopardy Explanation – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

The passage describes the tragic fate of Icarus from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” In this ancient myth, Icarus is the son of Daedalus, the master craftsman who created the Labyrinth. Together, they attempt to escape from Crete using wings that Daedalus fashioned from feathers and wax. Daedalus warns his son not to fly too close to the sun or too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight.

However, Icarus, overcome by the exhilaration of flying,...

Find out everything you need to know about the Jeopardy! Wednesday, 20 November 2024 episode, including the Final Jeopardy, answer and who won Jeopardy tonight!

Today’s Final Jeopardy – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

The Final Jeopardy for the Wednesday, 20 November 2024 episode is as follows:

Today's Final Jeopardy Figures of Myth - Ovid says he "toppled, beating wild with naked arms the unsustaining air ... shrikeing for succour from his sire" Today’s Final Jeopardy Answer – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

The answer for Today’s Final Jeopardy for the Wednesday, 20 November 2024 episode is:

Final Jeopardy Answer Who is Icarus? Who Won Jeopardy Tonight? – Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Looking to find out how the contestants did on Wednesday, 20 November 2024? Find out all the contestant scores below.

Returning ChampionContestantContestant Mikey McCullough

Baltimore, Maryland

Librarian

1 Day Winnings of $18,200

Final Score: $2,600

Round 2 Score: $7,600

Round 1 Score: $2,400Elizabeth Little

Los Angeles, California

Writer

Final Score: $3,800

Round 2 Score: $3,800

Round 1 Score: $4,600Mehal Shah

Seattle, Washington

Software Engineer

Winning...

Within the context of film discourse, the quote ‘every frame a painting’ is a figurative saying that refers to the fact that a movie is stunningly photographed to the point that each still image in isolation could stand as an artwork in and of itself. However, in the breathtaking work of Polish directors, Dk and Hugh Welchman, this takes a more literal meaning, as every frame of their films is indeed an oil painting handcrafted by a crew of around a hundred artists.

The Welchmans first used this arduous but incredibly rewarding animation technique in their previous film, the Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent” (2017), which paid tribute to van Gogh by emulating his own brushwork, with the added difference of movement. Moreover, the color palette used for the film also resembled that found in the work of the late artist—different tonalities of blues, yellows, and greens. This time around, the filmmakers...

A Discovery of Witches is taking on a new life after its addition to Netflix in the U.S, with its fantastical story prompting many viewers to wonder about the real history behind the series. The show offers a dramatic look at a world that has a secret supernatural underbelly, complete with longstanding political battles between witches, vampires, and daemons on their governing board, The Congregation. The show tackles very human themes through a supernatural lens, occasionally shedding some light on actual historical events. A perfect example of this is the School of Night.

The School of Night in A Discovery of Witches is explored when the show's story travels back to Elizabethan England. After tragically losing her parents as a child (and being spellbound) prevents her magic from awakening until adulthood, Diana realizes she needs to learn to wield her powers wisely. As it turns out, she is one...

How often do you think about ancient Rome? If you're director Francis Ford Coppola, the answer is apparently "quite a lot." HIs latest film is "Megalopolis," a passion project that he had to finance himself in order to have full creative freedom, and it takes place in a crumbling city called New Rome, following an architect named Cesar (Adam Driver) as he seeks to build a more sustainable future. It's some wacky stuff, and Coppola has bought in completely.

The very first batch of reviews and reactions to "Megalopolis" are coming out of Cannes Film Festival in France, where the film made its world premiere. Given the movie's troubled production and absolutely wild teaser trailer, it should come as no surprise that the reviews are as intense as they are mixed, though most praise the unique sci-fi epic for its audacity and willingness to fully commit to its ideas and world.

After months of speculation, the critical book has finally been opened on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. The early word? Predominantly positive, with some very high highs and inevitably a few low lows.

Below, we run through some of the first reactions.

Deadline’s Damon Wise praised the movie, calling it a “mad modern masterwork that reinvents the possibilities of cinema”. He said the film is “something of a mess; unruly, exaggerated and drawn to pretension like a moth to a flame. It is also, however, a pretty stunning achievement, the work of a master artist who has taken to Imax like Caravaggio to canvas. It is a true modern masterwork of the kind that outrages with its sheer audacity.”

He continued: “Halfway through, there’s a very audacious gimmick that tears down the fourth wall in ways younger filmmakers can only dream of. Coppola breaks many of the cardinal...

Netflix may get most of the attention, but it’s hardly a one-stop shop for cinephiles looking to stream essential classic and contemporary films. Each of the prominent streaming platforms caters to its own niche of film obsessives.

From the boundless wonders of the Criterion Channel to the new frontiers of streaming offered by the likes of Ovid and Peacock, IndieWire’s monthly guide highlights the best of what’s coming to every major streamer, with an eye toward exclusive titles that may help readers decide which of these services is right for them.

Here is your guide for April 2024.

Ike Barinholtz has made Jeopardy! history with his appearance in the Tournament of Champions.

The actor and comedian is the first winner of Celebrity Jeopardy! ever to be invited to participate in the tournament, and his fans are happy to see it.

The 47-year-old father of three qualified for the Tournament of Champions following his Celebrity Jeopardy! win last year, winning $1 million for charity.

Ike was admittedly thrilled about the opportunity and recently told Vulture that he “still can’t believe” it happened.

Ike revealed that growing up, he would watch Jeopardy! with his parents, who were huge fans of the trivia show, and he grew to love the show just as much.

So when Jeopardy!’s executive producer, Michael Davies, asked him to appear in the Tournament of Champions, he responded, “Yes, sir!”

Ike Barinholtz says a Stanley Kubrick film is to thank for his Jeopardy! victory

Ike opened up about his Final Jeopardy!

Netflix may get most of the attention, but it’s hardly a one-stop shop for cinephiles looking to stream essential classic and contemporary films. Each of the prominent streaming platforms caters to its own niche of film obsessives.

From the boundless wonders of the Criterion Channel to the new frontiers of streaming offered by the likes of Ovid and Peacock, IndieWire’s monthly guide highlights the best of what’s coming to every major streamer, with an eye toward exclusive titles that may help readers decide which of these services is right for them.

Here is your guide for March 2024.

Jeopardy!‘s Tournament of Champions is bigger than ever this year.

To celebrate its 40th season, the American trivia institution invited a record-breaking 27 contestants to its hallowed annual tourney featuring the previous season’s best champions. (It also certainly didn’t hurt that the show needed to add some extra tournaments for ToC eligibility due to the Hollywood writers strike messing with its usual production schedule).

The expanded contestant count has given Jeopardy! the opportunity to invite back some intriguing contenders who didn’t hit the required benchmark of at least five wins in their initial run. It’s also meant that the show has gotten to try something it’s never done before: bring on a Celebrity Jeopardy! champion to contend with the “real” trivia masters.

Said Celebrity Jeopardy! champ on this year’s ToC is comedic actor Ike Barinholtz, who you may know from his time on Mad TV,...

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Percy Jackson & the Olympians episode 3.

Medusa's backstory in Percy Jackson & the Olympians highlights her tragic past involving Athena and Poseidon. Medusa's interest in Percy is due to his father's role in the conflict between her and Athena. The Olympian gods in the Percy Jackson universe only care about themselves, disregarding mortals and even their own children.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians has officially introduced Medusa, and the Disney+ series puts a tragic spin on the creature from Greek mythology, giving her a backstory that weaves Athena and Poseidon into the origin of her Gorgon transformation. Medusa is a well-known figure from Greek mythos, and it's no surprise that she shows up in Percy Jackson episode 3. Percy and his friends encounter Medusa on their quest in Rick Riordan's books, and the movie features the Gorgon as well. However, Disney's Percy Jackson show makes changes to Medusa, pushing...

Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium,” Episode 3 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”

This story also contains a discussion of sexual assault.

For fans of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” books, Medusa represents one of Percy’s first big victories: After being tricked into spending time with “Aunty Em,” he beheads the snake-haired woman, and her cursed, dead eyeballs are later used to turn another enemy into stone.

But for those with a deeper knowledge of Greek mythology, and for many women, Medusa is a symbol of something darker.

In many tellings of the original myth, Medusa is a human woman who takes a vow of celibacy out of devotion to Athena, the goddess of wisdom. However, Medusa eventually enters a relationship with sea god Poseidon that becomes sexual one night. Some interpretations, beginning with the Roman poet Ovid’s,...

American Horror Story season 12, Delicate, is based on Danielle Valentine's book Delicate Condition and follows Anna Alcott, a young actress who suspects a sinister conspiracy to keep her from having her child. Kim Kardashian's character, Siobhan Walsh, has been theorized to have links to Greek mythology, specifically the goddess Arachne, known for her weaving skills and rivalry with Athena. Cara Delevingne's character, Ivory, is believed to be an Anansi, a trickster from Akan mythology who stalks Anna and hides something sinister, injecting her with spiders in the trailers. The spider mythology in Delicate could link to past seasons Coven and Cult.

Many details about American Horror Story season 12, Delicate, are still unknown, including what Kim Kardashian’s role in the story really is, but a theory explains what it is about through mythology. Although its most recent seasons haven’t been as successful as past ones, American...

Hazy Shade of Winter: Honore Deals with a Death in the Family in Sincere Coming-of-Age

Christophe Honoré has built an intricate filmography on the backs of characters consumed with loss and exploring their identities for the past two decades, only occasionally breaking from familiar themes to explore the inherent decadence and taboo of classic literature (such as his adaptations of Georges Bataille or Ovid). His latest, Le Lycéen (Winter Boy), unites coming-of-age tropes paralleled with loss, guilt, and sexuality through a semi-autobiographical lens in his particular talents for loquacious wisdom punctuated by observational sensibilities defining complex human relationships.

Honoré hands relative newcomer Paul Kircher the reins for this quietly poignant narrative about not taking those we love for granted and the inherent power in re-defining ourselves after tragedy shatters the fragile reality of preconceived notions.…...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "An Elephant Sitting Still"

Where You Can Stream It: Ovid, Kanopy.

The Pitch: The first thing you may notice about Hu Bo's excellent, devastating, aggressively depressive 2018 film "An Elephant Sitting Still" is how grey it is. The sky provides no light or color. The buildings have been blasted by nature into a uniform shade of ash. The small, cramped apartments are shaded like clay or putty. There is a sense that the world is...

The post The Daily Stream: An Elephant Sitting Still Displays Glorious and Profound Suffering appeared first on /Film.

The moment comes just a little past the halfway mark of the two-hour “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) have yet to acknowledge their growing desire when they are brought to an evening gathering of the women who live on the isolated island in Brittany. As the two soon-to-be-lovers exchange glances across the bonfire, a low, slow chant starts to rise as the rest of the women gather to sing.

The song grows, clapping starts, and they begin to repeat a lyric. When she was a guest on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, director Céline Sciamma talked about how she looked for an 18th century song to adapt, but wasn’t able to find one that fit her needs.

“I listened to a lot of old melodies from the time; some of them we are still singing to our kids to bed,” said Sciamma.

Thomas Imbach’s “Glaubenberg” is Switzerland’s sole entry in main international competition at this year’s Locarno Festival, although the director insists that aside from geography, there is little that is uniquely Swiss about the film.

Imbach has been in the international competition before at Locarno with “Happiness is a Warm Gun” in 2001, and 2013’s high-profile “Mary Queen of Scots,” still considered to be one of the most ambitious features to come out of the small land-locked nation.

“Glaubenberg,” set mostly in and around the Glaubenberg Pass in the Emmental Alps, follows 16 year-old Lena, a girl who’s love for her brother Noah is more than sisterly. Lena escapes into daydreams and fantasy at first, but eventually moves to more practical means of satiating her desire, manipulating the people around her.

“I know this story from my personal life,” Imbach told Variety in an interview before the festival. “And...

Relationships are essential to any show, but especially to The 100. The bonds that characters form push the plot in different directions and it creates a better story in the process.

Characters are nothing without relationships, both platonic and romantic. Each season The 100 introduces new characters and through that new bonds are formed that raise the stakes, but that also make you feel even more than you thought you could.

There is something special about rooting for different relationships and loving someone else's love. Whether it is found family, new romance, soulmate connections, friendships, partnerships, or even something that fits in the middle of that, The 100 delivers every single time.

Which is why I compiled a list of all the relationships that stood out the most so far based off strong writing, great acting, and even just the feeling that it created within the fandom.

These are the connections to look...

It might seem silly to say this now — now that “God of War” has emerged from nearly a decade of slumber to rapturous acclaim — but when Kratos and Atreus took those first halting steps into the swirling snows of fantasy Norseland back at E3 2016, there were some that wondered if Sony’s Santa Monica Studio could really stick the transition. After all, translating the ashen-skinned “Ghost of Sparta” from the series’ baroque vision of mythic Greece to an entirely different culture proved to be a lot harder than just sticking a pair of Viking horns on his head and calling it a day.

As creative director Cory Barlog recalls, the northward shift was the logical endpoint of a lengthy research cycle that involved Barlog and his fellow writers delving into as many mythological systems as they could get their hands on, sifting through the likes of the ancient Mayans and...

Europa, Europa: Honore Eloquently Updates Ovid for Masterful, Playful Adaptation

There really isn’t a modern counterpart (even if Francois Ozon might come close) for the style and sensibility of director Christophe Honore’s Metamorphoses, an adaptation of Ovid’s classic text, updated for the 21st century.

Continue reading...

“Metamorphoses,” the newest film from Christophe Honoré (“Love Songs,” “The Beautiful Person”), promises an enchanting and mythical time in its exclusive trailer and poster.

A modern-day retelling of Ovid’s Roman poem of the same name, “Metamorphoses” follows Europa, a girl who decides to skip class and winds up meeting Jupiter, a young man who takes her on a journey to his world of powerful gods who are capable of transforming humans into plants or animals. As the confrontation between seductive, yet vengeful gods and innocent mortals unfolds, Europa grasps a greater sense of life and love.

Read More: 6 Must-See French Films and Special Events From Rendez-Vous With French Cinema

An official selection at Venice Days at Venice Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam, the film stars Amira Akili, Sébastien Hirel, Mélodie Richard, Damien Chapelle, and George Babluani.

“Metamorphoses” opens theatrically in New York on...

A version of this article originally appeared on ew.com.

Emma Watson loves to read.

The actress has that in common with her brainy Harry Potter character Hermione as well as bookish Belle, who she plays in the much-anticipated film Beauty and the Beast, out March 17. In addition to being a bookworm, Watson is also an outspoken feminist and as well as a Un Women Goodwill Ambassador and promoter of the organization’s HeForShe movement, which is dedicated to recruiting men into the movement for gender equality. As a response to her work with the Un, she launched the feminist...

Gem Wheeler Jan 12, 2017

Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone are comedy trio The Lonely Island. Here are just some of their finest songs and sketches...

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping was – yep, it’s time to call it - the funniest film of 2016. For those who blinked a little too long and didn’t catch it on its brief appearance in UK cinemas, the DVD release is your chance to find out what you’ve missed: a hilarious parody of current pop music’s excesses that blends acerbic criticism of predatory gossip shows and social media mobs with a sweet story of three feuding rappers struggling to mend their friendship. The fact that this touching tale also features Seal fending off a pack of wolves, Justin Timberlake dressed as a fish, and a bagpiper playing a lament at a beloved pet turtle’s Viking-inspired funeral comes as no surprise...

Les Malheurs de Sophie

Director: Christophe Honoré

Writers: Christophe Honoré, Gilles Tourand

One of France’s most underrated directors (at least judging on the level of attention he receives overseas) is Christophe Honoré, who is perhaps best known for his 2007 film, Love Songs, which played in the Main Competition at Cannes. A unique and utterly charming musical, Honore followed up his collaboration with Alex Beaupain with less success for 2011’s Beloved, which closed the Cannes Film Festival. Usually casting either Louis Garrell, Chiara Mastroianni or both in nearly all his features, his latest, Metamorphoses (2014), an adaptation of the famed text by Greek poet Ovid, premiered at Venice Days with little fanfare. Honore’s also responsible for the provocative George Bataille adaptation, Ma Mere (2004) which features an infamous performance from Isabelle Huppert. His tenth feature film, Les Malheurs de Sophie (Sophie’s Woes), is loosely based on a famed children’s...

Midas Flesh #1-4 (2014)

Written by Ryan North

Art by Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb

Published by Boom! Studios

Midas Flesh is a high concept science fiction saga with down-to-earth protagonists from the creative brain of writer Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and frequent artistic collaborators Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb (Adventure Time). The story is about the house shaped ship Prospect and its three freedom fighters: the human scientist Fatima, the kindly dinosaur scientist Cooper, and their straight shooting, yet intelligent leader Joey as they discover a planet completely made of gold, which supposedly has some kind of weapon that can take out the evil Federation. Midas Flesh #1 reveals this doomsday weapon to be the finger of the not so mythical King Midas, whose golden touch ended up ending life on Earth as we know because the gold particles transmuted through the air.

From this premise, Midas Flesh...

Métamorphoses director Christophe Honoré agrees in a way with Wild Life (Vie sauvage) director Cédric Kahn Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

La Vie Est Un Roman by Alain Resnais, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, and Rita Hayworth as a goddess are conjured up by us at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Pina Bausch's Café Müller seems to have unconsciously influenced the performances of Erwan Larcher and Vimala Pons. Working with animals and the mythical cast of Métamorphoses that includes Amira Akili, Sébastien Hirel, Mélodie Richard, Damien Chapelle, George Babluani, Coralie Rouet, Matthis Lebrun, Gabrielle Chuiton, Jean Courte, Rachid O., and Keti Bicolli.

Christophe Honoré, true to the first Ovid fables, starts with nature. Water, springs, rain on lakes, sunshine on rivers, the transformation of the world has already begun. Then we meet a hunter,...

Erwan Larcher (Hippomène) and Vimala Pons (Atalante) in Christophe Honoré's Métamorphoses

Métamorphoses director Christophe Honoré discussed with me why myths and cinema make a rare happy coupling, with a few exceptions. La Vie Est Un Roman by Alain Resnais, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, and Rita Hayworth as a goddess are conjured up by us inside the Furman Gallery at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Pina Bausch's Café Müller seems to have unconsciously influenced the performances of Erwan Larcher and Vimala Pons. The mythical cast includes Amira Akili, Sébastien Hirel, Mélodie Richard, Damien Chapelle, George Babluani, Matthis Lebrun, Gabrielle Chuiton, Jean Courte, Rachid O., and Keti Bicolli.

Christophe Honoré with Anne-Katrin Titze: "For myths, there is one filmmaker working today whom I admire tremendously and that is Apichatpong Weerasethakul…" Photo: Anne-Katrin...

On My Skin: Barraud Explores the Essence of Monstrosity

There are moments within Antoine Barraud’s sophomore feature Portrait of the Artist that tend to feel enlivened with an arresting strangeness. There is the peripherally entertaining notion of provocative body horror shadowing us while we follow a filmmaker creating his latest project, simultaneously losing his grip on reality. But more often than not, the film feels like a thriller version of Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery. Barraud’s French language title, Le Dos Rouge (basically The Red Back) was perhaps too literal of a title, and the allusion to Joyce’s classic text (though this is really more ‘as a middle aged man’) gives it a certain extra textual density since Joyce’s novel is an allusion to Daedalus, the man responsible for constructing the Labyrinth which entombed the deadly Minotaur in Greek Mythology.

Bertrand (Bertrand Bonello) is a filmmaker...

Les Malheurs de Sophie

Director: Christophe Honoré // Writers: Christophe Honoré, Gilles Taurand

One of France’s most underrated directors (at least judging on the level of attention he receives overseas) is Christophe Honoré, who is perhaps best known for his 2007 film, Love Songs, which played in the Main Competition at Cannes. A unique and utterly charming musical, Honore followed up his collaboration with Alex Beaupain with less success for 2011’s Beloved, which closed the Cannes Film Festival. Usually casting either Louis Garrell, Chiara Mastroianni or both in nearly all his features, his latest (see trailer below), Metamorphoses (2014), an adaptation of the famed text by Greek poet Ovid, premiered at Venice Days with little fanfare. Honore’s also responsible for the provocative George Bataille adaptation, Ma Mere (2004) which features an infamous performance from Isabelle Huppert. His tenth feature film, Sophie’s Woes, is loosely based on a famed children’s novel by the Countess of Segur,...

Some eight fifteenths of the way through Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the epic poem relates the tale of an unnamed boy who was turned into a partridge. Flung from Minerva’s high temple by his jealous uncle Daedalus, the nascent inventor free falls into his new form as the Goddess intervenes, spinning his arms into wings. In observance of his near-death experience, Perdix the partridge, as he is identified in a recent translation, “declines the lofty trees, and thinks it best/To brood in hedge-rows o’er its humble nest.” (Pear trees, you’ll note, are conveniently low to the ground.)

Folded into twenty-eight lines of dactylic hexameter, Perdix’s snapshot of a story speaks to primordial self-absorption and condemnation as much as it does the whimsy of divine intervention. One could easily argue that 2006 years later, these two stanzas have been cracked open and scrambled into Pascale Ferran’s Bird People,...

Exclusive: Paris-based company adds trio of Japanese titles to slate.

French MK2 has picked up sales on Japanese director Naomi Kawase’s An about the friendship between a baker and an old lady who bond over a passion for traditional red bean pastries.

The Paris-based company has also acquired Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s supernatural love story Journey To The Shore, about a dead man who takes his wife on one last trip together, and Masa Sawada’s documentary I, Kamikaze, revolving around the memoirs of Fujio Hayashi, one of the last surviving coordinators of Japan’s Second World War suicide missions.

The company has also added French director Christophe Honoré’s Metamorphoses - a re-telling of Ovid’s classic poem set in contemporary France using a young, unknown cast - to the slate.

MK2 is also handling Kawase’s Still the Water, a coming of age tale set on a remote Japanese island, which will premiere...

Metamorphoses

Director: Christophe Honore

Writers: Christophe Honore

Producer: Philippe Martin

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: George Babluani, Damien Chapelle, Sebastien Hirel

While his last film, 2011’s Beloved was unfairly criticized for being more of the same from the musically inclined provocateur, whose films sometimes feel like (in tone, not visual style) a sexually playful Jacques Demy, his latest effort, an adaptation of the Roman poet Ovid’s epic mythological narrative, sees Honore changing it up a bit. Continuing his penchant for adapting difficult literary works (his 2004 Isabelle Huppert headlined Ma Mere was an unfinished novel by Georges Bataille and 2008’s The Beautiful Person was inspired by a novel by Madame de La Fayette), Honore’s cast consists of mostly unknown actors, his first film in over a decade not to star either of his muses, Louis Garrel or Chiara Mastroianni. With such lofty aspirations, the enigmatic Honore’s latest...

Feature Juliette Harrisson 24 Sep 2013 - 07:00

A beginner's guide to the myths behind new adventure show, Atlantis, starting this Saturday on BBC One...

If there’s one thing we know about BBC One’s forthcoming Saturday night drama Atlantis, it’s that the characters we see week to week on the show won’t necessarily bear a lot of resemblance to their mythological Greek forebears. We can only assume that they will, nevertheless, have one or two things in common; we can at least confirm that Medusa will still end up with snakes for hair. And so, to whet your appetite for all things Atlantean, cast your eyes over our quick idiots’ guide to Atlantis’ main characters and their mythological counterparts.

The first rule of Greek mythology is that there are dozens of different versions of every story and numerous different tales attached to every hero or heroine, with no...

Following its acclaimed 16-week run at the Lookingglass Theatre Company this fall, Metamorphoses brings the mythical tales of Ovid to life at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, 10 years after the Broadway premiere. BroadwayWorld has a video of Mary Zimmerman and Arena Stage's Technical Director, Scott Schreck, talking about construction of the production. Check it out below...

Company You Keep: Greenaway’s Latest a Beguiling, Sumptuous Cinematic Film

One seems to forget that Peter Greenaway has been prophesying the death of cinema (for well over a decade now) after watching his visually sumptuous new film, Goltzius and the Pelican Company, which sees the auteur in top form, combining his arresting visionary panache with his signature taboo baiting subject matter in the realm of the high brow. The subject matter is a hard sell, and those unfamiliar or unaccustomed to Greenaway’s unclassifiable narratives (or lack thereof) will most likely be as baffled as ever, but fans of the director and/or offbeat, striking cinema will hopefully embrace one of the infrequent working Greenaway’s best films to date.

Hendrick Goltzius (Ramsey Nasr), a late 16th century Dutch printer and engraver of erotic prints, takes his employees, known as the Pelican Company, to visit the Margrave of Alsace...

Lookingglass Theatre Company opens its 25th Anniversary Season with Metamorphoses, based on the Myths of Ovid, written and directed by Lookingglass Ensemble Member Mary Zimmerman. The show will play tonight, September 19 September 28, 2012. The return of Lookingglass seminal production, coinciding with the 10th Anniversary of the Broadway run, will open at Lookingglass in the fall of 2012 and will then move to Washington D.C.s Arena Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the production below.

On the occasion of Joseph Nechvatal's upcoming exhibition at Galerie Richard in New York (April 12 through May 26), the recent publication of his new book Immersion into Noise, and a concert of his remastered viral symphOny in surround sound. Taney Roniger is an artist and writer who lives and works in Brooklyn.

Bradley Rubenstein: We really want to get into the new book, as well as the upcoming show, but can you take a minute and give us a little backstory? You have always slipped in and out of categories: actions, painting, sound art, writing....

Joseph Nechvatal: Well, when I was going to undergraduate art school at Southern Illinois University (Siu), I was making drawings and little gouaches and smaller-type paintings on paper, generally. And they were well-received. I was not so interested in painting on canvas at the time. You have to put it in the perspective of the...

Matthew Barney: Djed Gladstone Gallery Through October 22, 2011

The opening pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses describe a time before the ages of silver, bronze, and iron, when Spring was everlasting and nectar flowed in streams; mankind was "without a law," did right always, and lived contentedly. This was definitely not the times described in Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, the libretto for Matthew Barney's project of the same name, which he has been working on since 2007. We might be wise to take the writer's words with grains of salt, however. The novel, though not without moments of wit and brilliance, is on about the same level as a certain Bangles song we can name, but won't, when it comes to Egyptology. The exhibition of Barney's project avoids being pinned down quite so hard by being 1.) an element of his larger series of performances and installations, and 2.) quite beautiful.

read...

Matthew Barney: Djed Gladstone Gallery Through October 22, 2011

The opening pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses describe a time before the ages of silver, bronze, and iron, when Spring was everlasting and nectar flowed in streams; mankind was "without a law," did right always, and lived contentedly. This was definitely not the times described in Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, the libretto for Matthew Barney's project of the same name, which he has been working on since 2007. We might be wise to take the writer's words with grains of salt, however. The novel, though not without moments of wit and brilliance, is on about the same level as a certain Bangles song we can name, but won't, when it comes to Egyptology. The exhibition of Barney's project avoids being pinned down quite so hard by being 1.) an element of his larger series of performances and installations, and 2.) quite beautiful.

read...

10 Critical Thoughts About... True Grit Highly specific observations on the Coen Brothers' Western with Jeff Bridges. By Ray Rahman After losing her father to the notorious Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) undertakes an improbable trek toward justice. Seeking the help of men with "true grit," she strings along Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Laboeuf (Matt Damon) to accompany her through Indian Territory, where she believes her father's murderer is hiding. 1. It's based on the book True Grit, not the movie True Grit. But since it's the Coen brothers, it's probably also based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Faulkner, the Book of Deuteronomy, Bless Me, Ultima, the Crimean War, the 1992 Chicago Cubs, Barton Fink, leaked diplomatic cables, Wishbone, Laos, McCarthyism... 2. It's a mighty fine Western movie. As far as Westerns go, this one's as good as it gets. [...]...

Former Page 3 Girl and glamour model Keeley Hazell is set for an improbable journey into the world of magic in a short film to be released online in January of 2011.

Venus And The Sun is reportedly a new take on the ancient 'Venus And Adonis' poem from Ovid's Metamorphoses, wherein the beauteous goddess, infatuated with the equally attractive Adonis, tries to steer him away from his perilous passion for hunting. The synopsis for Venus And The Sun reads:

...Keeley who thinks she's solved all her problems by taking up an unexpectedly high-brow hobby: translating Latin. The language has given her magical powers, enabling her to ward-off the frenzied attention of her adoring fans, and the British Library offers an ideal refuge.

But when she meets Adam, the one Sun-reader in the country she hadn't bargained for, Keeley is given a lesson in not judging books by their covers.

London, May 7 – Harry Potter star Emma Watson thinks she is the worst student in her acting class.

Watson, who has been playing the role of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, put her career on hold to enrol at Brown University in America, where she also studies European women’s history and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

And despite performing in Hollywood over the past decade, Watson remains modest about her abilities.I think I’m actually the worst person in the class,” the Telegraph quoted her as telling Vanity Fair magazine. (Ani)...

Emma Watson has said that she is the worst person in her university acting class. The Harry Potter star told Vanity Fair that she is studying European women's history, Ovid's Metamorphoses and acting as a liberal arts student at Brown University. Of her acting lessons, Watson quipped: "I think actually I'm the worst person in the class." She added that used to be very similar to Harry Potter's Hermione Granger, explaining: (more)...

"It was just awful," she recalls thinking at first, during freshman week. "I was like, I must be mad. Why am I doing this?" And what was with all the party-hearty stuff? She nervously attended her first frat party, hoping she might get into the swing of things. "I felt like I'd walked into an American teen movie. I picked up the red cups. I was like, Wow, they really do drink from these." Then she started meeting people: a roommate who had no interest in Harry Potter (phew!), some really friendly rower guys, and eventually one Rafael Cebrian, who's a rock musician and actor in his native Spain and has reportedly become her boyfriend. After shopping classes, she settled on European women's history, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and acting. "I think actually I'm the worst person in the class," says Watson...

Just because fantasy is everywhere doesn't mean it has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. We must keep sight of its roots in ancient storytelling and its power to transform

There are few things people love more then a well-told tale. We've been gathering around the fire (or that 20th-century equivalent, the television set) and telling each other stories for as long as we've had language. And to judge by the narratives that have filtered down to us through oral traditions and early written records, fantasy has always been essential to those stories.

Stories from the ancient world are infused with the fantastic, from Ovid's Metamorphoses to Beowulf, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Myth, legend, folk and fairytales have fired our imaginations for thousands of years. We have used the fantastic to take mundane reality and transform it, sometimes for escapist pleasure, and sometimes to find meaning in...