YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul will seek another fight later in 2025 after his opponent Gervonta Davis was issued with a civil lawsuit.
Published On 4 Nov 20254 Nov 2025
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Jake Paul’s exhibition boxing match against lightweight champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis was scrapped on Monday, with Paul planning a different bout before the end of 2025.
Their highly anticipated fight was scheduled for November 14 in Miami, Florida, though Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), Paul’s promotional organisation, said on Saturday that it was looking into the matter after a civil lawsuit was filed against Davis in Miami-Dade County last week.
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Nakisa Bidarian, MVP’s CEO, said in a statement that Paul would headline another event to be streamed on Netflix later this year, with details on an opponent, a date and a location to be provided when finalised.
The bout was originally slated for Atlanta, but was moved to Florida, where it was sanctioned despite the huge weight difference between the boxers. Paul usually fights at cruiserweight, about 50 pounds (23kg) above the 135-pound (61kg) limit, where Davis holds a title belt.
The fight had drawn significant global interest due to the novelty of the matchup. The contest pitted the much larger Paul (12-1, 7 KOs) – who first became famous for his YouTube boxing exploits and then became a household name after fighting former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson in 2024 – against Davis (30-0-1, 28 KOs), a current WBA champion and one of the most famous boxers in North America.
Spectators who bought tickets to the event via Ticketmaster will be refunded, MVP said.
Jake Paul, left, shot to worldwide fame after he fought retired heavyweight legend Mike Tyson on November 15, 2024, in Arlington, Texas, US [Julio Cortez/AP]
Jack DeJohnette, the prolific and versatile jazz drummer who played with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis — including on Davis’ groundbreaking 1970 album “Bitches Brew,” which helped kick off the jazz fusion era — died Sunday. He was 83.
His death was announced in a post on Instagram, which said he died at a hospital in Kingston, N.Y., near his home in Woodstock. DeJohnette’s wife, Lydia, told NPR the cause was congestive heart failure.
As a member of Davis’ band in the late ’60s and early ’70s — a group that also counted Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett and Billy Cobham among its members — DeJohnette pumped out psychedelic rock and funk rhythms that put Davis’ music in conversation with that of artists like James Brown and Sly Stone. In addition to “Bitches Brew,” which was inducted this year into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, DeJohnette played on Davis’ “At Fillmore,” “Live-Evil” and “On the Corner” albums, the last of which was panned by critics when it came out but now is regarded as a jazz-funk landmark.
DeJohnette won two Grammy Awards on six nominations; in 2012, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment of the Arts.
Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, who played on DeJohnette’s 1992 album “Music for the Fifth World,” called DeJohnette “the GOAT” on social media on Monday and wrote that his “influence & importance to Jazz, and contemporary improvised music can not be overstated.”
DeJohnette was born Aug. 9, 1942, in Chicago. Encouraged by an uncle who worked as a jazz radio DJ, he learned to play piano as a child and went on to play with Sun Ra as he circulated among the forward-looking artists of Chicago’s Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He moved to New York in the mid-’60s and joined Charles Lloyd’s quartet before collaborating with Evans and then with Davis.
“We couldn’t wait to play,” he said of his tenure in Davis’ band in a 1990 interview with The Times. “Miles developed our talents by allowing us to progress naturally, having us play his music and accept the responsibility that goes with discipline and freedom. He learned from us, and we learned from him.”
After leaving Davis’ band, DeJohnette continued collaborating with Jarrett, the influential pianist; the two formed a long-running group known as the Standards Trio with the bassist Gary Peacock that focused on material from the Great American Songbook. The drummer also led the bands New Directions and Special Edition and formed groups with Ravi Coltrane and with John Scofield.
In 2016, he released “Return,” a solo-piano album that served as a sequel of sorts to 1985’s “The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album.” According to the New York Times, DeJohnette’s survivors include his wife, who also managed his career, and their two daughters.
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state’s U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat to help President Trump’s efforts to retain GOP control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
The new boundaries approved by the state House could thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The state Senate already approved the plan in a party-line vote on Tuesday.
Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is unable under state law to use his veto stamp on redistricting maps. So the GOP’s proposal can now be implemented unless likely litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops it. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.
Republican lawmakers made the intent of their proposed changes crystal clear — it’s an attempt to satisfy Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need just three more seats to flip House control.
“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after an hour.
Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown, an African American who represents an eastern North Carolina county, made an impassioned floor speech in opposition, saying “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”
“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said.
Republican-led Texas and Missouri already have revised their U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans win additional seats. Democratic-led California reciprocated by asking the state’s voters to approve a map revised to elect more Democrats, and Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.
“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.
North Carolina’s replacement map would exchange several counties in Davis’ current 1st District with another coastal district. Statewide election data suggests this would favor Republicans winning 11 of 14 House seats, up from the 10 they now hold, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024.
Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics suggested this latest GOP map could be challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.
Davis is already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Davis on Tuesday called the proposed map “beyond the pale.”
Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week, blasting GOP legislators for doing Trump’s bidding with what they called a power grab through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.
“If you pass this, your legacy will be shredding the Constitution, destroying democracy,” Karen Ziegler with the grassroots group Democracy Out Loud, told senators this week. She accused the state GOP of “letting Donald Trump decide who represents the people of North Carolina.”
Democrats said this map is a racial gerrymander that will dismantle decades of voting rights progress in North Carolina’s “Black Belt” region. Republicans counter that no racial data was used in forming the districts, and the redrawing was based on political parties, not race.
Based on last week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case, the Democrats may lose this line of attack. A majority of justices appears willing to neuter a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has protected political boundaries created to help Black and Latino residents elect favored candidates, who have tended to be Democrats.
State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president — albeit narrowly last year — and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate “under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”
Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis were set to throw down on November 14 in AtlantaCredit: NETFLIX
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But Paul and his promotional company have withdrawn event permits and rule waivers requests required to stage the bout in GeorgiaCredit: GETTY
The fight, which has been maligned due to the immense height and weight differences between the pair, was slated to take place at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
But it’s seemingly now in need of a new venue after Most Valuable Promotions, which was founded by Paul and his business partner Nikisa Bidarian, withdrew event permits and rule waivers required to stage the bout in the state.
Chairman of the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission Rick Thompson revealed the news.
He told USA Today: “I believe it’s in the public’s interest to know that because they’ve been promoting something they should not have been.”
Despite MVP’s withdrawal of the necessary event permits, tickets for the fight are still available and it’s still listed on State Farm’s official website.
But Robert A. Sinners, the Communications Director for the Office of Secretary of State, insisted: “[The fight] will not be happening here.”
Neither Paul, nor Bidarian have commented on the major issue.
Bidarian, however, has teased an imminent announcement regarding the fight.
He wrote on X early on Monday morning: “Major Jake Paul vs Tank Davis event announcement this Wednesday.”
Former Disney star Paul was last in action in June against ex-WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, over whom he laboured to a decision victory.
Dillon Danis calls out Jake Paul after slamming ‘joke’ Gervonta Davis fight and says rival is ‘stealing people’s money’
And ‘The Problem Child’ is champing at the bit to share the ring with Davis.
He said: “Gervonta is an angry little elf who has been disrespecting my name for too long.
“His nickname might be ‘Tank’, but I’m an FPV drone and I’m about to disable his a**.
“Yes, he is one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world, but my motto is anyone, anytime, anyplace, against all odds.
“And I like my odds. First, I am going to kill David, then I will go on to slaughter Goliath.”
Great Britain took a big step towards next year’s Davis Cup qualifiers as Cameron Norrie and Arthur Fery both won to give them a 2-0 lead over Poland.
World number 34 Norrie survived a scare against world number 545 Tomasz Berkieta to win his nation’s opening World Group 1 match 7-6 (11-9) 6-4 in Gdynia, Poland.
Fery, ranked 227 in the world, then battled to a 6-4 6-2 victory over Olaf Pieczkowski, ranked 484.
The 23-year-old was making his Davis Cup debut after British number three Jacob Fearnley pulled out with a rib injury.
Britain need one more win on Saturday to reach February’s first round and therefore have a shot at winning the title in 2026.
The world’s number one doubles pair, Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash, will make their debut in Saturday’s doubles, which will be followed by two reverse singles.
The rich, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different. In California, they lose a lot of very expensive, very high-profile political races.
Over the past 50-plus years, a half-dozen fabulously wealthy men and women — William Matson Roth, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina among them — have clambered atop their hefty cash piles and, despite any significant political experience, tried to launch themselves into the office of governor or U.S. senator.
Every last one of them failed.
Others with at least some background in elected office — Michael Huffington, Jane Harman, Richard Riordan to name a few — sunk a goodly chunk of their fortunes and came up similarly short in their efforts to win one of California’s top two political posts.
That history is worth noting as the very-well-to-do Rick Caruso eyes a possible entry into the wide-open race to succeed Gavin Newsom. Caruso recently told my colleague Julia Wick he was “very seriously considering” both a gubernatorial run and a second try for Los Angeles mayor.
“I’m running down two parallel paths,” the billionaire developer said. “As we speak, there are teams very busy working on both of those paths.”
There’s a common disclaimer in the field of investment — “past performance is no guarantee of future returns” — which certainly applies here.
Still, as waiting-for-Caruso replaces waiting-for-Kamala among political gossips, it’s worth asking whether there’s something — floating in the air, mixed in the water or soil — that has made California such an inhospitable place for so many lavishly monied candidates. Unlike, say, Illinois or New Jersey, which elected billionaire neophyte JB Pritzker and multimillionaire Frank Lautenberg, as, respectively, governor and U.S. senator.
Part of the reason could be the particular political climate.
“If you’re the rich outsider, you have to show up in an election cycle where people want the outsider,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who worked for Meg Whitman’s failed 2010 gubernatorial campaign, which cost a cool $180 million.
(Yes, $180 million. The former tech CEO coughed up most of that sum at a time California’s median household income was about $61,000.)
All that lucre couldn’t override the prevailing sentiment among discontented voters who were ready, after nearly eight years of the uber-outsider Arnold Schwarzenegger, to embrace the tried-and-true experience of the reemergent Jerry Brown.
That said, there’s a lengthy enough record of futility to suggest more is at work than the changeable mood of a fickle electorate.
“Part of them kind of admires someone who went out and made a killing in our capitalistic society … and walked away filthy rich,” South said of voters’ dueling impulses. “But they also have a suspicion that, because of their wealth and because of the benefits that it confers on that person, they don’t really know how the average person lives.”
Call it an empathy gap.
Or, perhaps more aptly, an empathy canyon.
“If somebody has $150 million sitting around they can dump into a campaign for public office,” South said, channeling the skeptical sentiment, “what understanding do they have of my day-to-day life?”
Bill Carrick, a consultant for Harman’s 1998 campaign, agreed it’s incumbent on a rich candidate to “have something substantive to say and be able to articulate why you’re going to make people’s lives better.”
That’s no different than any other office-seeker. But unlike less affluent, more relatable candidates, a billionaire or multimillionaire has a much heavier burden convincing voters they know what they’re talking about and genuinely mean it.
A lot of California’s failed rich candidates, Sipple said, appeared viable — especially to political insiders — “because of their money. And they really didn’t have anything to offer beyond that.”
“It’s the same as somebody who goes out and tries to earn a job,” he went on. “You never deserve it. You’ve got to out and work for it. And I think voters make the distinction.”
Of course, wealth confers certain advantages. Not least is easy access to the extraordinary sum it takes to become well-known in a place with more eligible voters — nearly 27 million, at last count — than the population of all but a handful of states.
California is physically immense, too, stretching approximately 800 miles from north to south, which makes costly advertising the only realistic way to communicate in a statewide top-of-the-ticket contest.
There’s another old aphorism about wealth, credited to the burlesque star and actress, Sophie Tucker. “I’ve been rich,” she famously said, “and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”
That’s undeniably true, so far as it goes.
The singer and comedian never tried to be governor or a U.S. senator from California.
YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul will face off against Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in an exhibition bout at State Farm Arena on November 14.
Jake Paul will fight the unbeaten Gervonta Davis on November 14, at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, in an exhibition bout that will be streamed live on Netflix, promoters said on Wednesday.
Davis has been the WBA lightweight champion since Devin Haney vacated the belt in 2023, but the American’s title will not be on the line against YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul due to the size difference between the two boxers.
Paul, a cruiserweight, weighed in at 199.4 pounds (90.45kg) ahead of his win over Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in June, while Davis fought Lamont Roach at 133.8 pounds (60.7kg) in March.
No details have been provided on the weight limit for the fight.
“Yes, he’s one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world, but my motto is, anyone, anytime, anyplace, against all odds. And I like my odds,” Paul wrote on X.
Davis is undefeated in 31 fights as a professional, winning 30 and drawing one, while Paul has a record of 12 wins and one defeat.
Before Wednesday’s announcement, Paul had been tipped to fight Anthony Joshua, a former two-time unified heavyweight world champion and Olympic gold medallist, and the sides had been holding discussions.
Paul’s most famous boxing match was against former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, which took place on November 15, 2024.
Jake Paul will take on WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis in an exhibition fight in Atlanta, Georgia on 14 November.
Davis’ title will not be on the line because of the huge gulf in weight between the two men.
Paul weighed 200lbs for his last bout with Davis currently campaigning at 135lb.
Youtuber-turned-boxer Paul found fame on the Disney Channel and then as an influencer before stepping into the world of boxing and has a record of 12 wins and one defeat as a professional.
“Yes, he is one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world, but my motto is anyone, anytime, anyplace, against all odds,” Paul wrote on X, external.
Paul added “first David, then Goliath” in what could be seen as a reference to reports he was in talks over a fight with British heavyweight Anthony Joshua.
Britain’s Alfie Davis stunned defending champion Gadzhi Rabadanov to win the PFL lightweight tournament by unanimous decision in Charlotte, North Carolina.
London’s Davis landed the more damaging strikes to edge a close contest with all three judges scoring it 48-47 in the 33-year-old’s favour.
Davis was overcome with emotion as the result was read out as he won $500,000 (£369,000) – a prize he described as “life-changing”.
“I don’t know what to say, I’ve worked so hard for this,” said Davis.
“To be a champion like Gadzhi, I respect him and have watched him for so many years – he and his team are amazing. To beat someone like that is a dream come true.”
Davis reached the final after enjoying the best spell of his 11-year career with wins over Clay Collard and Brent Primus.
In Russia’s 32-year-old Rabadanov, however, he was facing last year’s champion and a fighter on a 12-fight win streak.
Davis said he had suffered from a lack of confidence in the past, but has put that behind him with a string of impressive displays.
His new-found confidence was on full display as he danced his way to the cage, before being introduced as someone whose “charisma can be seen from space”.
Alfie Davis reflects on one fight in particular when he points out one of the most difficult moments of his career.
Fighting Alexander Shabliy in 2021, the Londoner admits he was “outclassed” as the Russian cruised to a unanimous decision win.
The 33-year-old says that while his preparations for the bout were hampered by a bacterial infection in his foot, the main reason for his defeat was psychological.
“I just didn’t pull the trigger and I think I choked under the pressure that he is this big star I felt I shouldn’t have been in there with,” Davis tells BBC Sport.
When a person doubts their ability and achievements it is sometimes described as impostor syndrome – a psychological experience where someone fears being exposed as not competent at their profession.
Confidence and bravado play such important parts in many fighters’ mindsets that it is uncommon for them to voice doubts about their standing in the sport.
Davis says throughout his career he has performed to his exciting potential in the gym, but has sometimes struggled to replicate it during fights.
This year however, things have changed. His career has reached new heights.
Having won two fights in 2025, Davis faces Russia’s Gadzhi Rabadanov in the PFL lightweight tournament final in Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday – with the winner securing a $500,000 (£372,000) pay day.
Davis puts his change in fortunes down to two factors. The first is a swap of gym and coaches, which he says have allowed him to “express myself a bit more”.
The second is altering the way he thinks about competing. Davis appears calm and confident as he envisions the fight with 32-year-old Rabadanov.
“I think I used to put too much pressure on myself, but when I just go in there and go with the flow, not concentrating on the result too much, I get into my flow state. Before, I was overthinking,” he adds.
“I feel this guy I’m fighting now, if he was in the gym, I’d make easy work of him – I’ve just got to prove that under the big lights.”
Michael Lewis of Denton, Texas, reached a deal with Marion County, Ind., prosecutors before pleading guilty Monday to one felony count of stalking and one misdemeanor count of harassment.
Lewis will receive credit for the 197 days he has already served behind bars since his January arrest. He allegedly sent the then-22-year-old Clark hundreds of “threats and sexually explicit messages” via social media between Dec. 12 and Jan. 11.
Days before his arrest, Lewis told police who were making a welfare check to his Indianapolis hotel room that he was in “an imaginary relationship.” He continued to message the WNBA star after the police visit.
“This resolution ensures that the defendant is held accountable for his threatening actions, the fear he instilled, and the disruption he caused,” Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears said Monday in a statement. “… The victim will be able to have peace of mind while focusing on what matters to her.”
As part of the ruling, Lewis was ordered to have no contact with Clark and to stay away from Gainbridge and Hinkle venues in Indiana, as well as all events associated with the Fever or Indiana Pacers. He is also not allowed to have internet access while serving his sentence.
Judge Angela Dow Davis also recommended that Lewis seek mental health treatment. According to WTHR-TV in Indianapolis, Davis frequently had to stop and correct the behavior of Lewis, who at one point prophesied the end of the world.
It was similar behavior to when he first appeared in court after his arrest earlier this year. Davis repeatedly told him to “stop talking” because he kept interrupting the proceedings.
Warning: This article discusses spoilers for the twisty new horror film “Barbarian.” If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our nonspoilery review here and more with the cast and director here.
That one-word title looms large over “Barbarian,” one of the most delightfully twisted horror films of 2022, in which a woman named Tess (Georgina Campbell) stumbles into a nightmare when she finds her rental house already occupied by a stranger.
It’s a roller-coaster horror ride filled with suspense, scares, surprising laughs and some of the most delicious cinematic twists since last year’s “Malignant.”
What Tess discovers in the basement leads her into a labyrinth of unimaginable horrors — some closer than you might think. But who’s the real monster in filmmaker Zach Cregger’s Airbnb-of-horrors solo feature debut?
Bill Skarsgard stars in “Barbarian.”
(20th Century Studios)
The nice guy and the meet-cute from hell
At first, signs point to said handsome stranger, Keith (“It” star Bill Skarsgard, also an executive producer, cannily playing off his Pennywise persona), who turns up the charm to get Tess to lower her guard and spend the night, else brave the storm outside. After a few nice gestures and good conversation, she ignores her instincts and says yes — even as Cregger’s script and Skarsgard’s delivery create a sizzling ambiguity around Keith’s motivations.
“My only note to Bill [Skarsgard] was, ‘Don’t lean into creepy. Lean into nice,’” Cregger said. “The nicer you are and the more disarming and friendly and appealing and nonthreatening that you behave, the more the audience is going to be convinced that you’re bad.”
Inspired in part by security expert Gavin de Becker’s book “The Gift of Fear,” “Barbarian” conjures a minefield of misogynist red flags for its heroine to navigate even before she crosses paths with shouting local Andre (Jaymes Butler), sitcom actor AJ (Justin Long) and a violent tunnel dweller known as the Mother (played expressively by Matthew Patrick Davis).
“[Keith] insists on bringing her luggage in, he makes her tea that she said she didn’t want, he says, ‘Pretty name,’” said Cregger. “These are not appropriate things to be doing in this situation. But he’s not aware of it, because he thinks he’s being nice.”
Is there something more sinister about Keith that Tess can’t see? Does it have anything to do with the doors that open and close in the middle of the night? The question hangs in the air as Tess makes a series of chilling discoveries in the basement, where a hidden door leads to a shadowy hallway and a secret room where very bad things have clearly occurred.
Beyond lies yet another door leading to the subterranean lair of the film’s apparent titular monster — the volatile Mother.
A creepy basement, or bonus square footage? Hidden rooms lead to unexpected terrors in “Barbarian.”
(20th Century Studios)
The mother under the stairs
“She was described as being 7 feet tall, naked, her face looking like it was the product of inbreeding, and having an impossible strength,” said Davis, the 6-foot-8-inch actor and musician behind the most surprising character in “Barbarian.” He was cast after a Zoom audition in which he stripped to his underwear and mimicked biting the head off a rat with a pickle he found in his fridge.
“I was very aware that this could be funny in the right way or the wrong way,” Davis said of his “Barbarian” performance. “When you’re in it, you have no idea how it’s going to be perceived. You’re aware that it’s a big swing and that it is bonkers and that, you know, you’re sitting there naked in Bulgaria with boobs taped to your chest. Are people going to buy this?”
Before filming began last summer, he received advice from legendary creature performer Doug Jones, including the fine line between physical expression and nonverbal overacting and another handy pro tip: Get prescription creature contacts made, else risk biting it while chasing your co-stars through those dark tunnels.
You’re sitting there naked in Bulgaria with boobs taped to your chest. Are people going to buy this?
— “Barbarian” star Matthew Patrick Davis
But Mother’s backstory is also the film’s most tragic. To inform her emotional state, Davis studied profiles of feral children and adults, diving deep into “a dark, disturbing YouTube rabbit hole” of research. As he sat in a chair for three hours getting into prosthetics and makeup each day, he watched the videos to prepare.
“It opened me up to the reality of the lives of people that have been deeply abused, raised in cages, raised like animals, kept in the dark and never spoken to in their formative years,” he said. “It allowed me to have empathy for this character. This is not just a scary character for scariness’ sake. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that she’s a victim.”
“I think that she’s the most empathetic character in the movie. She has never had a chance,” echoes Cregger, who also credits Davis with inspiring him to write certain gestures into Mother’s well-worn maternity VHS tape, which come full circle in the film’s bittersweet final scene. “And Matthew plays it with such tenderness.”
The sins of the father
After introducing Mother, the textbook horror movie monster we expect, Cregger challenges us throughout the film to reconsider who the actual barbarian of the story is. First seen in a Reagan-era flashback, Frank (Richard Brake, who starred recently in Amazon’s “Bingo Hell” and killed Bruce Wayne’s parents in “Batman Begins”) is her inverse — an average suburban family man on the outside and a true monster within.
Borrowing from serial killer films “Angst” (1983) and “Elephant” (both Gus Van Sant’s 2003 feature and the 1983 Alan Clark short of the same name), Cregger builds unease as the camera follows Frank to the store, where he stocks up on a suspicious grocery list, and as he stalks a young woman to her home.
It is revealed that he has kidnapped, raped and impregnated several women in the secret chambers beneath his house without repercussions for decades, and that Mother is the daughter of another of his victims, born into miserable captivity.
But it’s telling that it’s not Tess who learns Frank’s horrible truth in the film. Instead, it’s AJ (Long, playing deftly against type) whoruns from Mother to a section of the tunnels where even she dares not follow.
Justin Long stars as AJ, the owner of the rental house, in “Barbarian.”
(20th Century Studios)
Enter the Hollywood actor
Introduced cruising carefree down Pacific Coast Highway singing along to Donovan’s “Riki Tiki Tavi,” the narcissistic Hollywood star has recently stepped into his own version of a nightmare: an accusation of sexual assault that threatens to unravel his successful career.
“Because I’m an actor, and I know the world of actors very well, I was writing from an amalgam of people in my life,” Cregger said of conceiving the character of AJ. “I was trying to think of, ‘What’s this guy’s horror movie?’ Before he gets into the real horror movie — what’s the horror movie that he thinks he’s in? The collapse of your career and reputation due to your own bad behavior. This guy thinks his world is ending.”
AJ, who at first appears to be a ridiculous comedic figure, is revealed to be arguably the scariest character in the film. In Detroit to liquidate his rental home to cover his impending legal fees, he is the embodiment of male privilege and casual misogyny, his puffed-up bravado masking an inherent cowardice and refusal to take accountability for his actions. (Although not explicitly addressed in the film, Cregger says he deliberately wrote the men of “Barbarian” to be white males.)
When AJ discovers the ailing Frank and judges him by his brutal crimes, the audience is invited to wonder: Just how different is he from the monster staring back at him?
Frank, at least, seems to know he can’t escape what he’s done. AJ’s brief moment of clarity reverts to gaslighting self-preservation as he commits one final heinous act, attempting to hide his true nature behind a well-practiced nice guy veneer — a quality Long borrowed from watching men deliver empty apologies on “The Bachelorette.”
“There’s a glimmer of accountability,” said Long, “and I just love that Zach refuses to take the conventional way out.”
As for Tess, it’s her innate sense of empathy — the one that repeatedly sends her toward danger to help others, at her own peril — that helps her understand Mother before she sets them both free. “She’s someone that is used to traumatic situations and is able to understand how to survive in this situation,” said Campbell. “By the end of the film, I feel like she gets her own agency and is able to get out of the pattern she found herself in again and again and again.”
The modest but pungent survey of paintings by Noah Davis at the UCLA Hammer Museum is a welcome event. It goes a long way toward demythologizing the Seattle-born, L.A.-based artist, who was heartbreakingly struck down by a rare liposarcoma cancer in 2015, when he was barely 32.
The show affirms his gift for what it was: Davis was a painter’s painter, a deeply thoughtful and idiosyncratic Black voice heard by other artists and aficionados, even as his work was in invigorating development. Talented artists often come into a steadily mature expression in their 30s, the moment when Davis’ accelerating growth was brutally interrupted. The show’s three dozen paintings are understandably uneven, but when Davis was good, he was very good indeed.
That intriguing capacity resonates in the first picture, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” which hangs alone in the show’s entry to mark the start of his career. Davis was 24 and had studied at Cooper Union in New York and the artist-run Mountain School of Arts in L.A.’s Chinatown. The 2007 painting is not large — 2½ feet tall and slightly narrower — but it casts a spell.
In Western art, a man on a horse is a classic format representing a hero, but here Davis sits a young Black man astride a mythic unicorn — notably white — its buttery beige horn shining amid the painting’s otherwise neutral palette. It’s easy to see the youth as signifying the artist, and the replacement for an art-historical horse likewise standing in for a mule. That animal was famously promised to thousands of formerly enslaved people near the end of the Civil War, along with 40 acres of Confederate land on which they had worked, uncompensated and abused, making the white planter class rich.
Noah Davis, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” 2007, acrylic and gouache on canvas
(Anna Arca)
The 1865 pledge to redistribute confiscated lands as restitution to African Americans for their enslavement didn’t last a year before being annulled — reparations as rare, unique and desirable as a unicorn, offered by an untrustworthy white ruling class. (Had the 1865 redistribution happened, imagine where we might be today, as racist cruelties initiated by the federal government are running rampant.) Davis, placing his at least symbolic self on the unicorn’s back, plainly asserts his social and cultural confidence. Art is imagination made real, and as a Black American artist, he’s going to ride it forward.
Perhaps the canvas’ most beautiful feature is the rich skin of black acrylic paint within which he and his steed, both rendered in soft veils of thin gouache, are embedded. The luminous black abstraction dominating the surface was visibly painted after the figures, which feel like they are being held in its embrace.
Thirty-nine paintings on canvas and 21 on paper are installed chronologically, the works on paper selected from 70 made during Davis’ lengthy hospitalization. The layering of topicality, color sensitivity, art-historical ancestors and figuration and abstraction in “40 Acres and a Unicorn” recurs throughout the brief eight-year period being surveyed. (The traveling show was organized by London’s Barbican Art Gallery with Das Minsk, an exhibition hall in Potsdam, Germany.) The most abstract painting is on a wall by itself in the next room, and it demonstrates Davis’ unusual exploratory strategies.
Titled “Nobody,” a four-sided geometric shape is rendered in flat purple house paint on linen, 5 feet square. The layered difference in materials — an image built from practical, domestic paint on a refined and artistic support — is notable. The irregular shape, however two-dimensional, seems to hover and tilt in dynamic space. It suggests a 2008 riff on the long, rich legacy of Kazimir Malevich’s radical, revolutionary geometric abstractions from 1915.
Noah Davis, “Nobody,” 2008, house paint on linen
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles)
The reference to the Russian avant-garde recalls that Malevich’s art was dubbed Suprematism, which bumped aside the academic hierarchy of aesthetic rules in favor of “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling,” most famously represented as a painted black square. Here, it twists into an inevitable jab at an ostensibly liberal Modern art world, still in fact dominated by unexamined white supremacy.
“Nobody” weaves together art and social history in surprising ways. It’s one of three geometric abstractions Davis made, their shapes based on the map contour of a battleground state in the revolutionary election year that brought Barack Obama to the presidency.
Colorado, a state whose shape is a simple rectangle, flipped from George W. Bush in 2004, while the secondary color of Davis’ choice of purple paint was created by combining two primary pigments — red and blue. The color purple also carries its own recognizable, resonant reference, embedded in popular consciousness for Alice Walker’s often-banned Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg’s hit movie of the book, a record holder of dubious distinction, tied for the most Oscar nominations (11) without a single win. Davis’ torqued purple rectangle looks to be in mid-flip.
That Davis exhibited but ultimately painted over the other two works in his geometric series might suggest some dissatisfaction with their admittedly obscure nature. (“Nobody” almost requires footnotes.) He returned to painting the figure — “somebody” — but often embedded it in visually sumptuous abstract fields. The hedge behind “Mary Jane,” a young girl in a striped pinafore, visually a cousin to the little girl engulfed in billowing locomotive steam clouds in Édouard Manet’s “The Railway,” is a gorgeously writhing arena of spectral green, gray and black forms.
Noah Davis, “Mary Jane,” 2008, oil and acrylic on canvas
(Kerry McFate)
So is the forest of “The Missing Link 6,” where a hunter with a rifle sits quietly at the base of a massive tree trunk, virtually secreted in the landscape, like something rustling in the dense foliage in a Gustave Courbet forest. The missing-link title declares Davis’ intention to join an evolutionary chain of artists, the hidden hunter adding an element of surprise.
Art history is threaded throughout Davis’ work. (He spent productive research time working as an employee at Art Catalogues, the late Dagny Corcoran’s celebrated bookstore, when it was at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center location.) The tension between established and new art, which seeks to simultaneously acknowledge greatness in the past while overturning its rank deficiencies, is often palpable. Nowhere is the pressure felt more emphatically than in the knockout “1975 (8),” where joyful exuberance enters the picture, as folks cavort in a swimming pool.
The subject — bathers — is as foundational to Modern art as it gets, conjuring Paul Cézanne. Meanwhile, the swimming pool is quintessentially identified with Los Angeles. (Another fine pool painting, “The Missing Link 4,” has a Modernist Detroit building as backdrop, painted as a grid of color rectangles reminiscent of a David Hockney, an Ed Ruscha or a Mark Bradford.) Bathers are an artistic signal for life crawling onto shore out of the primordial ooze or basking in a pastoral, prelapsarian paradise.
For America, the swimming pool is also an archetypal segregationist site of historical cruelty and exclusion. Davis seized the contradiction.
Draining public swimming pools to avoid integration in the wake of civil rights advances happened in countless places. It showed the self-lacerating depth to which irrational hate can descend, as policy advocate Heather McGhee wrote in her exceptional book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” People were willing to harm everyone in a community by dismantling a popular public amenity rather than accept full equality. In “1975 (8),” the title’s date is within just a few years of the Supreme Court’s appalling ruling in Palmer vs. Thompson, which gave official blessing to the callous practice McGhee chronicled.
Noah Davis, “The Missing Link 4,” 2013, oil on canvas
(Robert Wedemeyer)
The 2013 painting’s composition is based on a photograph taken by Davis’ mother four decades earlier. A bright blue horizontal band in an urban landscape is dotted with calmly bobbing heads. A leaping male diver seen from behind dominates the lower foreground, angled toward the water. The soles of his bare feet greet our eyes, lining us up behind him as next to plunge in.
Davis suspends the aerial diver in space, a repoussoir figure designed to visually lead us into the scene. Like the unicorn rider, he assumes the artist’s metaphorical profile. A moment of anticipatory transition is frozen, made perpetual. Waiting our turn, we’re left to contemplate the soles of his feet — a familiar symbol of path-following humility, whether in Andrea Mantegna’s Italian Renaissance painting of a “Dead Christ” or countless Asian sculptures of Buddha.
The marvelous painting was made at a pivotal moment. A year before, Davis and his wife, sculptor Karon Davis, joined four storefronts on Washington Boulevard in Arlington Heights to create the Underground Museum. Their aim was to create a self-described family-run cultural space in a Black and Latino neighborhood. (Money came from an inheritance from his recently deceased father, with whom Davis was close.) A year later, the ambitious startup expanded when the project took on the internationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Art as an organizing partner. One room in the show includes mock-ups of classic sculptures — imitations — by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson and Jeff Koons, which Davis made for an exhibition to reference the classic 1959 Douglas Sirk movie about racial identity, “Imitation of Life.” The appropriations ricochet off the feminist imitations of Andy Warhol and Frank Stella paintings that Elaine Sturtevant began to make in the 1960s.
Not all of Davis’ paintings succeed, which is to be expected of his youthful and experimental focus. An ambitious group that references raucous daytime TV talk programs from the likes of Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, for example, tries to wrestle with their trashy exploitation of identity issues as entertainment — DNA paternity tests and all. But a glimpse of “Maury” with a crisp Mondrian painting hanging in the background just falls flat. The juxtaposition of popular art’s messy vulgarity with the pristine aspirations of high art is surprisingly uninvolving.
Still, most of the exhibition rewards close attention. It handily does what a museum retrospective should do, securing the artist’s reputation. At any rate it’s just a sliver of some 400 paintings, sculptures and drawings the artist reportedly made. Whatever else might turn up in the future, the current selection at the Hammer represents the brilliant early start of Davis’ abbreviated career. Forget the mythology; the show’s reality is better.
Noah Davis, “Imitation of Jeff Koons,” 2013, mixed media
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
‘Noah Davis’
Where: UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood When: Through Aug. 31. Closed Monday. Info: (310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu
There’s an oft-repeated Disneyland creation myth: Artist and animation art director Herb Ryman was given 48 hours to draw an early, heavily detailed and romanticized map of the theme park, which would be used to help sell the project to investors. Although that’s all true, Ryman’s work — one of the most famous and important Disneyland drawings — was far from the first map of Disneyland, as it is often colloquially referred to.
Ryman’s work was in fact an iteration of sorts, based upon years of master planning from Walt Disney and early collaborator Marvin Davis, a cinematic art director responsible for much of Disneyland’s early designs. Some never-before-seen work of Davis and other Disneyland designers will be unearthed in the new book “The Happiest Place On Earth,” from animation producer Don Hahn and theme park designer Christopher Merritt. Both Hahn and Merritt have over the years morphed into theme-park historians, and the book is being released July 15 to coincide with Disneyland’s 70th anniversary.
“Marvin Davis claimed that, as he sat there, probably in a room by himself at the studio with Walt standing over him poking him in the shoulder, he did 133 revisions of these maps to get to the Disneyland layout by 1955,” Merritt says. “A few of these maps have been shown before but a lot of these have not been seen before.”
The archives at Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive division of the company responsible for theme-park experiences. Found in the archives were multiple maps from Marvin Davis that explore Disneyland’s roots.
(Walt Disney Co.)
The book will trace the development of Disneyland, starting in the early ’50s when Disney flirted with the idea of placing the park next to the studio in Burbank — concepts drawn by Harper Goff — to many of Davis’ gradual advancements of the theme-park form. Study them, and they reveal how many of Disneyland’s core ideas were in place by the early 1950s, although they morphed. Alice in Wonderland, for instance, was once envisioned as a walk-through attraction, to be placed across the way from an archery in Fantasyland.
Hahn makes the case that many of the early seeds for Disneyland were planted during a 1948 trip that Disney and animator Ward Kimball took to Chicago. There, the two attended the Chicago Railroad Fair, which had, among its attractions, Abraham Lincoln reenactments and a re-creation of a frontier town.
“His first memo he did when he got home from the Chicago Railroad Fair was all about trying to create these certain regions,” Hahn says. “If you look at the early Burbank parks, there was a western village, there was a stagecoach, there was a railroad station, there was a Tom Sawyer-ish island. A lot of those things came from the Railroad Fair.”
And there was a lot of early experimentation and many a discarded idea. One of Merritt’s favorite rejected concepts was a Tomorrowland exhibition dedicated to hunting for uranium. The attraction has been referenced by Disney and others over the years as a “lost” attraction, but “The Happiest Place on Earth” will feature some never-before-seen concept art from Imagineer Claude Coats.
“Uranium Hunt was an attraction strangely enough to be placed in Tomorrowland, although Claude designed it with Southwestern rock work,” Merritt says. “It was kind of outside rock maze, and the idea was they would hand you Geiger counters, and there was going to be real radioactive uranium embedded in the rock work that you would measure. In the end, they would give you a souvenir uranium to take home with you, which is just crazy-pants.”
Not all of the early Disneyland ideas are as outlandish. What follows are a few of the maps — and some early designs — that led to what would become Disneyland as we know it today.
Early sketches reveal an opera house, general store and more
A Harper Goff-drawn concept for a Disney theme park in Burbank. This is believed to have been drawn in 1951.
(Walt Disney Co.)
An early 1950s sketch layout of Disneyland, focusing on merchandising outlets.
(Walt Disney Co.)
Disney first considered a theme park across from its studios in Burbank, land that is today occupied by Walt Disney Animation Studios and the West Coast headquarters of ABC. The idea, in its early conceptions, included much of what would later make its way to Disneyland — a train, a steamboat and less detailed versions of Main Street and a Frontierland.
Of particular note here is the second photo, unearthed in “The Happiest Place on Earth” for the first time. The focus is on merchandising locations, but those who study the image will spy an opera house and a general store, believed to be the first time such concepts appear. There’s also a spaceport, a haunted house and a re-creation of London’s Tower Bridge. Shops are said to be themed to properties such as “Cinderella” and “Pinocchio.”
“It shows the holistic thinking, too, of not just the attractions but commerce,” Hahn says. “Where the stores would be, where the cafes would be, and kind of a guest-experience mentality. That was a real theme-park innovation, where you’re transported in time to Frontierland but the food and the costumes add up to Frontierland as well. You see the beginnings of that in a map like this.”
The beginnings of Frontierland and the Storybook Land Canal Boats
An early Disneyland map drawn by Marvin Davis. This map was likely drawn around 1953.
(Walt Disney Co.)
These early Disneyland schematics from Davis begin to capture Disneyland’s “hub” idea, that is, a central area that leads to and from its themed spaces. There’s a large theater space, believed to be designed in the hopes of Disneyland becoming a television production locale, and a significant plot dedicated to a river with surrounding attractions — the map calls for a space for otters, as well as a swamp area.
The Frontierland concept is still present, complete with a pony ranch and a stagecoach, as is a haunted house and a land themed to miniatures, a concept that would ultimately become the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Merritt notes that this design is location-agnostic, as Anaheim had not yet been decided upon for Disneyland.
Of particular note here is an introductory land like a Main Street, U.S.A., leading to a central hub. “These maps are revelatory when you look at them all in sequence,” Merritt says.
Davis’ early maps also highlight a residential street with large Victorian homes. The second image, in particular, mentions a town hall and a church. Hahn and Merritt believe this land was heavily influenced by the look and tone of “Lady and the Tramp.”
Main Street starts to materialize
An early Harper Goff design that influenced the look of Frontierland.
(Walt Disney Co.)
Some early Harper Goff designs for what would become Disneyland.
(Walt Disney Co.)
Early Disneyland concept art from Harper Goff
(Walt Disney Co.)
These, says Merritt, are a selection 1951 drawings from Harper Goff. The work is exploratory, in that it could have been envisioned for multiple parts of the park. While Goff’s impact on Frontierland is well documented — and Hahn notes, perhaps, an influence from Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Town in these images — it’s also believed some of these designs were kicked around as a potential Main Street, U.S.A., concept.
Main Street, says Hahn, is often noted as being largely influenced by Disney’s time as a child in Marceline, Mo. While that isn’t really doubted these days among Disney’s fan base, Hahn says that theory wasn’t arrived upon immediately. He notes that some of Goff’s early concept work has a slight Victorian bent, which Goff drew from both “Lady and the Tramp” and his own childhood.
“It’s really the childhood of nobody,” Hahn says of Main Street. “It’s an idealized America. Goff grew up in Colorado, and a lot of these are his Victorian memories of his Colorado hometown. These are set designers who were bringing their movie chops to Disneyland.”
Welcome to the park’s destination: Anaheim
A pivotal early Disneyland map drawn by Marvin Davis.
(Walt Disney Co. )
Merritt and Hahn believe this third early schematic of Disneyland from Davis — the drawing is undated — is perhaps the first to envision Anaheim as the park’s destination. The image needs only to be rotated and one can see many of the pieces that would comprise the park — a Main Street, a central hub and, for the first time since Goff’s drawings of the Burbank park, a train that encircles the grounds.
Zoom in, and one will see there’s a large “emporium” to greet guests — and shoppers — on Main Street, U.S.A., as well as a castle-like moat to mark the entrance to Fantasyland. Still present are TV production spaces at the front of the park, and the map lists a host of attractions, including a horse-drawn carriage, train rides and boat rides.
Maps begin to show the Disneyland attractions we know today
A fall 1953 map of Disneyland from Marvin Davis.
(Walt Disney Co.)
A September 1953 map of Disneyland from Marvin Davis.
(Walt Disney Co.)
A September 1953 map of Disneyland from Marvin Davis.
(Walt Disney Co.)
These three Davis maps are from September 1953, made just days apart. The bottom drawing is a bit more simplified, as it was designed to be shown to TV networks and financiers. One can see a ride inspired by Disney’s “True-Life Adventures” on the right side of the park. This would ultimately become the Jungle Cruise and be flipped to the left side of the park.
All three maps, however, were instrumental in the final design of Disneyland, envisioning Anaheim as the ultimate destination. Of note in the middle image is a Recreation Land, home to a ball field, a mini-golf course and a bandstand. At this time, Disneyland was still envisioned as housing a circus, a concept that was explored in the actual park after opening but soon discarded. Yet Fantasyland, a Land of Tomorrow, Frontierland and what would become Adventureland are all present.
Fantasyland is home in these drawings to attractions themed to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Peter Pan,” “Alice in Wonderland,” Pinocchio” (denoted as Pleasure Island) and “Fantasia.” Also present is what would become Autopia, signifying that Disneyland in late 1953 had many of its early attractions solidified. Still, many, such as a Mother Goose area, would pop-up and then disappear from the maps.
Says Merritt, “You’re going to want to get your magnifying glass to look at some of this stuff.”
