Lowering his head, Yamamoto said to Osamu Yada, “Thank you for everything this year.”
Yamamoto figured his season was over. He’d thrown 96 pitches over six innings, and he half-joked in the postgame news conference that he wanted to cheer on his team rather than pitch again the next day. Manager Dave Roberts had the same thought, saying Yamamoto would be the only pitcher unavailable in Game 7.
The trainer had other ideas.
“Let’s see if you can throw in the bullpen tomorrow,” Yada said.
By just being in the bullpen, Yada said, Yamamoto could provide the Dodgers a psychological edge over the Toronto Blue Jays.
“That’s how I got tricked,” Yamamoto said in Japanese with a laugh.
Yada’s guiding hand transformed Yamamoto into a legend on Saturday night.
When he forced Alejando Kirk to ground into a game-ending double play, Yamamoto removed his cap and raised his arms toward the heavens. Catcher Will Smith rushed the mound and picked him up from the waist.
“I felt a joy I never felt before,” Yamamoto said.
Dodgers catcher Will Smith picks up Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto after the final out of a 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Yamamoto pitched a complete game in Game 2. He pitched six more in Game 6. His contributions in Game 7 increased his series total to 17 ⅔ innings, over which he allowed only two runs.
The throwback performance earned him the series’ most valuable player award, as well as universal admiration.
“I really think he’s the No. 1 pitcher in the world,” Shohei Ohtani said in Japanese. “Everyone on the team thinks that, too.”
“I mean, he pitched last night, started,” Freeman said. “He threw the most innings out of our pitchers tonight.”
Freeman pointed out that in addition to pitching in three games, Yamamoto also warmed up to pitch in a fourth. Two days after his complete game in Game 2, he prepared in the bullpen to pitch a potential 19th inning in Game 3. The Dodgers won that game in the 18th inning.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Freeman said.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Yamamoto’s Game 7 performance, “For him to have the same stuff that he had the night before is really the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever seen on a major league baseball field.”
Did Friedman think any other pitcher could have done what Yamamoto did in this series?
“No, I don’t,” Friedman said. “In fact, yesterday morning I didn’t necessarily think Yama could either.”
Friedman said he didn’t think much of it when he was notified after Game 6 that Yamamoto was receiving treatment from Yada at the team hotel with the intention of perhaps pitching in Game 7. Friedman was told the next morning that Yamamoto received another round of treatment.
The possibility of Yamamoto pitching in Game 7 became real to Friedman after he performed his trademark javelin-throwing routine and played catch at Rogers Centre. Yamamoto still wasn’t convinced.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, left, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani and teammates after a 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series at Rogers Centre on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“I didn’t think I would pitch,” Yamamoto said. “But I felt good when I practiced, and the next thing I knew, I was on the mound (in the game).”
The superstitious Sonoda wears the same pair of lucky underwear on days Yamamoto pitches. He wore the rabbit-themed boxers for Game 6. Sensing Yamamoto might pitch again, Sonoda wore the same boxers for Game 7.
“Just in case,” Sonoda admitted, “I didn’t wash them.”
Yamamoto had never pitched on consecutive days as a professional, in either the United States or Japan. When was called on to relieve Blake Snell in the ninth inning, he was uncertain of how he would perform.
Inheriting two baserunners from Snell with one out, Yamamoto loaded the bases by plunking Kirk. He forced Dalton Varsho to ground into a force out at home, only to throw a curveball to Ernie Clement that was driven to the wall in left field. Defensive replacement Andy Pages crashed into Kiké Hernández on the warning track but held on to the ball, preventing the Blue Jays from scoring the walk-off run.
Yamamoto pitched a 1-2-3 10th inning and went into the bottom of the 11th with a 5-4 lead, courtesy of a homer by Smith in the top of the inning.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started the inning by pulling a 96.9-mph fastball for a double and advanced to third base on a sacrifice bunt by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Yamamoto walked Addison Barger to place runners on the corners, setting up the game-ending double play by Kirk.
“I really couldn’t believe it,” Yamamoto said. “I was so excited I couldn’t even recall what kind of pitch I threw at the end. When my teammates ran to me, I felt the greatest joy I’ve felt up to this point.”
Clayton Kershaw, whom Yamamoto wanted to send into retirement with another championship, embraced him harder than he’d ever embraced him. Roberts swallowed him an embrace.
Yamamoto was moved to tears.
Overwhelmed by the moment, Yamamoto didn’t sound as if he grasped the magnitude of what he’d just done. In time, he will.
On the night the Dodgers solidified their dynasty, Yamamoto made this World Series his.
It was one of those performances that will be spoken about for years.
Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani delivered a night for the ages in the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the clinching fourth game of the National League Championship Series on Friday night.
After slumping throughout the postseason, the Japanese sensation hit three home runs and pitched six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts at Chavez Ravine to advance the Dodgers to the World Series.
Yes, the Dodgers are advancing to their second-straight World Series, where they’ll face either the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays, beginning Friday.
They will attempt to become the first Major League Baseball team to win consecutive crowns since the New York Yankees’ threepeat from 1998 to 2000.
However, the night became a celebration of Ohtani, as documented by my sports colleagues.
Let’s take a look at some of what made Friday such a magical evening.
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Los Angeles, can you understand the singular greatness that plays here? Fall Classic, are you ready for another dose of Sho-time?
Ohtani and the Dodgers are back on baseball’s grandest stage, arguably the best player in baseball history concocting arguably the best single-game performance in postseason history.
The final score was 5-1, but, really, it was over at 1-0, Ohtani’s thunderous leadoff homer after his thundering three strikeouts igniting a dancing Dodger Stadium crowd and squelching the Brewers before the first inning was even 10 minutes old.
How far did that first home-run actually travel? Back, back, back into forever, it was the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in baseball history, regular season or postseason, a feat unmatched by even the legendary Babe Ruth.
The unicorn Ohtani basically created the same wizardry again in the fourth inning and added a third longball in the seventh in carrying the Dodgers to their second consecutive World Series and fifth in nine years while further cementing their status as one of baseball’s historic dynasties.
Ohtani took one of the best rounds of batting practice anyone in attendance had seen, getting into the real work of trying to fix a swing that had abandoned him for much of this postseason.
In 32 swings, Ohtani hit 14 home runs. Many of them were moonshots. One even clanged off the roof of the right-field pavilion.
Over his previous seven games, going back to the start of the NL Division Series, he had two hits in 25 at-bats.
He had recorded 12 strikeouts and plenty more puzzling swing decisions. And he seemed, at least in the estimation of some around the team, unusually perturbed as public criticisms of his play started to mount.
Then, two days later, a tour de force performance that will be talked about forever.
“He woke up this morning with people questioning him,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, during an alcohol-soaked celebration in the clubhouse afterward. “And 12 hours later, he’s standing on the podium as the NLCS MVP.”
Up next for the Dodgers is the World Series and perhaps some more Ohtani magic.
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Rory McIlroy tells BBC Sport that if Europe were to beat the USA in this week’s Ryder Cup it would represent one of the “greatest accomplishments” of his career.
The five-time major winner is part of the European team for the eighth time.
Read more of what McIlroy and other Ryder Cup players had to say about this year’s contest at Bethpage Black on BBC Sport’s dedicated page for the event here.
But 23-year-old Hodgkinson remains determined to add the crown to her Olympic and European successes.
Given that the Leigh athlete also wants to break the 42-year-old world record in her event, then the sky really is the limit for the next decade.
Asked if she could become the greatest track-and-field star Britain has ever produced, World Athletics chief Lord Coe said: “Yeah, she absolutely could.
“I have no doubt about that. Absolutely, for sure. She could end up at the top of the heap internationally if she goes on.
“Touch wood, she’s got many athletics seasons ahead of her. And she’s also got good coaches in Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter.
“Those guys know what they’re doing. It’s a really good example of British coaching at its best.
“I have spoken to her enough times to know that, mentally, she’s mahogany hard. She really is.
“She wants to end her athletics career at the top of the heap — and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t.”
Hodgkinson opened her season on August 16 having not competed for 376 days following two hamstring injuries.
Keely Hodgkinson wins BBC SPOTY 2024 as Olympic gold medallist pips Luke Littler to top prize
And her time of 1min 54.74sec in Poland — the best in the world so far this year — was described by Coe as “unbelievable”.
In her next appearance, four days later in the driving rain of Lausanne, Switzerland, she posted a winning mark of 1:55.69.
British middle-distance legend Coe, 68, a double 1500m Olympic champion himself, admitted: “You just have to marvel at how she has come back.
“To be out injured and then basically you first set foot on the track and you’re running 1:54…
“We’ve been saying for a long time, she is the real deal. What was clever was doing two races back to back.
“She was clearly testing out a thesis: did she have enough in the tank to go back-to-back? That is what she’s going to be asked to do in Tokyo.
“The answer was a resounding ‘Yes’. She’s in good nick.”
The nine-day World Championships begin on Saturday and are being staged in the same national stadium which hosted the Covid-hit Olympics four years ago.
However, Coe insists there are contingency plans in place in case the event is impacted by typhoons in the Far East.
Severe weather saw three matches cancelled during the Rugby World Cup in Japan six years ago.
The British boss added: “Let’s hope there isn’t one!
“We do have full meteorological prediction and predictive teams out there at the moment.”
One of the greatest films of the decade is apparently now on Netflix after a TikTok reviewer shed light on the movie in a recent post – and it’s just over 90 minutes long
You can give this movie on Netflix a go(Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A movie fan has named one of the “greatest films” of the decade – and it’s on Netflix. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of shows go viral, including the ‘most addictive’ Netflix series that people are raving on about.
Now we all know TikTok is the best place for advice on pretty much everything so how about you check this film out? EccyReviews, who boasts 350,300 followers, recently named “one of the greatest films of the decade” in a clip which garnered 1,300 likes. He used his platform to urge fans to watch the drama movie Hard Truths.
The 2024 drama was written and directed by Mike Leigh with a cast which includes Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, and David Webber. Set in London, its plot follows the story of a depressed woman and the relationship with her sister.
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It was named one of the top 10 independent films of 2024 by the National Board of Review, meanwhile Jean-Baptiste received Best Actress nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, BAFTA Film Awards and the Gotham Awards.
As for IMDB, the 12A film has a rating of 7.2/10.
And recently the TikTok video revealed why it was the greatest film to watch right now.
The user said: “So Netflix has just dropped one of the greatest films of the decade and you need to go and check it out immediately.
“It’s raw, it’s emotional and it’s one of the most human films you will ever see.
“The film is called Hard Truths, this film is just over 90 minutes long, it’s set in London, tells a raw and emotional story of grief and depression.
“It’s such a gripping film if you’ve ever grieved for anyone in your life, you will resonate with this film so much, it’s such a passionate and beautiful story which more people need to see.”
Speaking about the performances, the reviewer claimed they were “truly unbelievable” and not “spoken about enough”.
“It will make you laugh, it will make you cry,” he continued.
“It’s genuinely a film that will stay with you for a very long time.”
The reviewer concluded: “Please get this film on your watch list, get it watched and make sure you tag your friends so they can check out this hidden gem.”
Since the recommendation was shared on TikTok earlier this week, it racked up a lot of attention from viewers eager to give it a go.
One said: “Thank you for giving news about films going to watch now. Hard Truths.” Another added: “I watched this last night, was captivating.”
A third commented: “Loved it. Sad, but funny and so truthful.” While a fourth admitted: “Cheers, on it now.”
THERE can be no cooler claim to fame than to be name-checked in one of the greatest pop songs ever written.
Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, released at the height of the Swinging Sixties, featured a couple referred to only by their first names — Terry and Julie.
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Terence Stamp with lover Julie Christie in 1967’s Far From The Madding CrowdCredit: Alamy
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Down the boozer with drinking buddy Michael Caine, who he shared a flat with in London before they found fameCredit: Alamy
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Stamp in Paris for the premiere of comedy-drama Song For Marion in 2013Credit: Getty – Contributor
Julie was Julie Christie, the drop-dead gorgeous actress, and Terry was Terence Stamp, her real-life boyfriend.
The accomplished actor died yesterday morning, aged 87, and last night his family led the tributes to him.
They said in a statement: “He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer, that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come.”
Along with a handful of other leading men from humble backgrounds such as Michael Caine and Albert Finney, Stamp epitomised a new breed of screen star.
Ruggedly handsome, uncompromising and from a tough working-class background, he shot to fame with his first movie.
But as the Sixties drew to a close, it looked as though the sun was also setting on his career — and it was almost a decade before he triumphantly reappeared.
The oldest of five children, he was born Terence Henry Stamp on July 22, 1938, in Bow, East London, to mother Ethel and father Thomas, a £12-a-week tugboat stoker.
‘I was in pain. I took drugs – everything’
That made him, according to the saying, a genuine Cockney — “born within the sound of Bow bells”.
His first home had no bathroom, only a tub in the backyard which he would be dragged into on Friday evenings.
He later remembered: “The first one in would get second-degree burns — and the last one frostbite.”
Superman defeats General Zod, played by Terence Stamp, in Superman II
In 2016, he said of his childhood: “The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning. We were really poor.
“I couldn’t tell anybody that I wanted to be an actor because it was just out of the question. I would have been laughed at.
“When we got our first TV, I started saying, ‘Oh I could do that’ and my dad wore it for a little bit.
“After I’d said, ‘Oh I’m sure I could do better than that guy’, he looked at me and he said, ‘Son, people like us don’t do things like that’.”
As an 18-year-old, he tried to evade National Service — a year and a half of compulsory duty in the military — by claiming to have nosebleeds but was saved when he failed his medical because of fallen arches.
Determined to realise his dream, Stamp left home and moved into a basement flat on London’s Harley Street with another promising young Cockney actor — Michael Caine. The pair became firm friends and ended up in repertory theatre, touring around the UK together.
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Stamp in the title role of his first hit, 1962’s Billy Budd
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In the 1966 spy comedy Modesty Blaise with Monica VittiCredit: Alamy
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Stamp as an alien in Superman II with Sarah Douglas and Jack O’ HalloranCredit: Alamy
Stamp’s performances soon brought him to the attention of acclaimed writer and director Peter Ustinov, who gave him the lead role in the 1962 historical drama movie Billy Budd. He was an overnight success.
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, he also won the hearts of millions of female fans. And with his first Hollywood pay cheque, the image-conscious actor celebrated by buying himself a Savile Row suit and bleaching his hair blond.
Stamp heeded the career advice Ustinov gave him — to only accept job offers when something he really wanted came his way.
That may explain why he made only ten movies between 1962 and 1977.
His most famous role was as Sergeant Troy in Far From The Madding Crowd in 1967 — where he met and fell in love with co-star Julie Christie.
While Stamp was fast becoming a screen icon, his younger brother Chris was making waves in the music biz.
I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything
Terence Stamp
Stamp Junior managed The Who and Jimi Hendrix, and was friends with many music legends of the time.
Talking about The Kinks’ classic Waterloo Sunset, written by frontman Ray Davies, Terence said: “My brother was quite friendly with him.
“He asked Ray Davies about that lyric and Ray Davies told my brother that, yes, he was visualising Julie and me when he wrote the lyric.”
But by the end of the decade, Stamp’s career was on the wane — and he was devastated when his “Face of the Sixties” model girlfriend Jean Shrimpton walked out on him — beginning what he called his “lost years”.
He said: “I’d lost the only thing I thought was permanent.
“The revelation came to me then — nothing is permanent, so what was the point trying to maintain a permanent state?
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Stamp as tough ex-con Wilson in Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 crime thriller The LimeyCredit: Imagenet
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Stamp with Guy Pearce, left, and Hugo Weaving in Priscilla, Queen Of The DesertCredit: Alamy
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Stamp in 1964 with model Jean Shrimpton, who left him devastated when she ended their three-year relationshipCredit: Getty
“I was someone who was desperately unhappy. I was in pain. I took drugs — everything.”
He clung on to a feeling that “the call would come” — but the wait was a long one.
It finally came in 1977 when he was offered the part of General Zod in Superman.
He took it — mainly because it gave him the chance to appear alongside his acting hero Marlon Brando.
The part brought him to the attention of a new audience — and last night fans paid tribute to his portrayal of the banished alien villain.
In a nod to his role as the evil leader who demanded his enemies show him deference, one fan wrote on X: “Thank you Terry . . . we will kneel today in your honour.”
Another wrote: “Terence Stamp was much more than Zod but at the same time one of the best comic book villains ever.”
‘My present was a box of Star Wars stencils’
Making up for lost time after the 1978 release of Superman, Stamp made dozens of films from then until 2021, showing off his huge range.
He won universal praise for his portrayal of an East End villain in The Limey (1999) and transgender woman Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Stamp also played Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, although the director George Lucas did not give him a huge payday.
He once cornered a producer during the shoot and complained about the pay.
He recalled: “I said, ‘Listen, you’re not paying much money and it’s making hundreds of millions. What goes down? What happens?’
“She said, ‘If the actors are really good, George gives them a present’.
“I thought, ooh, that’s all right. So when I leave the studio I go into my dressing room and there’s a box. It was a box of Star Wars stencils.
“That was my present. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought, may the Force be with you, George. I didn’t keep my stencils. I left them in the dressing room.”
Around that time, he said: “I moved from England some time ago because I wasn’t getting any work.
“I’m getting work in America and my films appear in France but for some reason I’m not getting any offers in Britain.”
But he kept himself busy by launching a successful parallel career as an author, writing five bestselling memoirs and two cookbooks.
Talking about The Kinks’ classic Waterloo Sunset, written by frontman Ray Davies, Terence said: ‘My brother was quite friendly with him’Credit: Supplied
Although he dated some of the world’s most beautiful women, including Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and sisters Joan and Jackie Collins, he married only once — to Elizabeth O’Rourke.
The pharmacist was 35 years his junior and the marriage lasted from 2002 to 2008.
He admitted he was upset by the split but added: “I always said I’ll try anything once, other than incest or Morris dancing.
“I’d never been married and I thought I would try it, but I couldn’t make a go of it.”
Looking back on his career, he once said: “I’d be lying if I said I was completely indifferent to the success of all my contemporaries. There are parts I would love to have had a stab at, but I see the decisions I made as invaluable.
“I’m not just chasing an Oscar. I am learning how to die — how to build something within myself that does not become dust.”
WATERLOO SUNSET (extract) by RAY DAVIES
Terry meets Julie Waterloo Station Every Friday night But I am so lazy Don’t want to wander I stay at home at night
Millions of people Swarming like flies ’round Waterloo underground But Terry and Julie Cross over the river Where they feel safe and sound
And they don’t need no friends As long as they gaze on Waterloo sunset They are in paradise
The Body Snatcher – as he is affectionately known for his work to the midsection – has also developed one of the most dangerous left hooks in that time.
But the punch – especially as a counter while catching the opponent’s shot on the gloves – is harder to land on a southpaw due to the angle of stances.
Trainer Mark Tibbs – who had four years and 11 fights with Whyte before their split in 2020 – recognises his former boxer is at risk of being debilitated against leftie Itauma.
Tibbs said on SunSport’s No Glove Lost episode: “Unless Moses is throwing a big hook, catch and whip, Dillian loves doing that, catching the shot and whipping the hook.
“But, he’s got to get the right hand off as well, in my opinion.”
The highly-touted Moses Itauma faces the biggest test of his fledgling career as he steps into the ring with Dillian Whyte on Saturday night.
Itauma, 20, has great expectations on his shoulders – he has been compared to Mike Tyson and is expected by many to dominate boxing’s heavyweight division over the next decade.
But the Slovakian-born star – who sits at 12-0 (10KOs) is yet to face a test anywhere close to what Whyte can offer.
The Body Snatcher is now 37 and has not looked great in his last couple of fights, but the former world title challenger knows an upset win would catapult him right back to the top table.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the fight…
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Anthony Yarde – who lost in his two brave light-heavyweight titles challenges to Sergey Kovalev and Artur Beterbeiv – was in agreement.
And he looked to fellow guest on the panel, Derek Chisora, as an example of how Whyte should approach the bout against Itauma.
Yarde, 34, said: “For him to be catching and countering Moses, it has to be fast.
“For him to give Moses trouble or upset Moses, I personally think he’s just got to be a veteran.
“Derek will now, you drag them down. Even (Chisora’s) last fight against Otto (Wallin) I was thinking, is that Derek? Because he put it on him.
“Every time it was, bap, bap, bap, let him have it! Take that and see how you like it. It’s calculated.”
With Whyte’s famous left hook potentially being nullified – Tibbs believes the right hand will need to be more deadly than ever before.
He said: “I’d like Dillian to try get his lead foot on the outside the best he can and get his right hand off because he’s fighting the southpaw.
“But he will have to use that left hand as a bit of a shield and get in mid range as early as possible.
“They don’t call him The Body Snatcher for nothing, so we’re going to have to get round that body and try and unsettle and not let Moses be pretty.
“But Moses is fleet-footed, it’s a difficult task but Dillian’s got the experience, I’m sure he’s got the desire and he’s a fighting man.
“Unless Moses is throwing a big hook, catch and whip, Dillian loves doing that, catching the shot and whipping the hook.
“But, he’s got to get the right hand off as well, in my opinion.”
Tibbs – who never cornered Whyte against a southpaw – called on him to try and drag Itauma into a fight the youngster has never experienced before.
The trainer said: “He’s got a difficult task but if I was Dillian, he’s got to do his utmost to edge him back and put him on his heels. Not too many men can fight on their heels.
“But Moses, like Derek says, is a fresh, fresh lion. He’s a sharp shooter, a great counter puncher, but it’s a cracking match.
“Moses needs a Dillian Whyte right now to see where he’s at. The fans need to see where he’s at, we need to see where Moses is at.
“He’s 12 fights in, it’s not a great deal. It’s a cracking match and what makes it a cracking match is Dillian’s mentality – like I’ve said before – and equally Moses’ mentality.”
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Mark Tibbs formerly coached WhyteCredit: Getty
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Moses Itauma takes on Whyte in Saudi ArabiaCredit: Getty
The feature film will tell an extraordinary true crime story
The creative team behind popular docuseries Don’t F*** With Cats have dropped their brand new title on Netflix about the ‘world’s greatest diamond heist’.
Stolen: Heist of the Century releases on the streaming platform from Friday (August 8). It is produced by the company RAW, not only known for the hit true crime series but also American Nightmare and The Tindler Swindler.
Their latest entry is said to tell the story of the ultimate true-life crime caper, the world’s greatest diamond heist. According to the synopsis provided by Netflix, the Antwerp detectives who cracked the case along with the alleged criminal mastermind are gathered for the first time to give a blow-by-blow account of what really happened.
The feature length documentary is said to reveal the secrets of ‘The Heist of the Century’. Unlike the previous limited series released, this will be a film coming in at around one hour and 35 minutes in length.
The detectives and those involved in the heist will reveal what really happened(Image: Netflix)
On the morning of February 17, 2003, detectives from Antwerp’s infamous Diamond Squad were called to investigate the brazen night-time robbery of an allegedly impregnable vault in the middle of the City of Diamonds.
It is estimated that between $100 million and half a billion dollars worth of diamonds were stolen. An ingenious gang of master thieves from Italy, known as The School of Turin were said to be behind the audacious heist.
Now, after more than 20 years, the world will finally learn how they pulled it off.
Sharing the same director as Don’t F*** With Cats, the new film is based on the book Flawless, which was written by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell.
Fans were full of praise for Don’t F*** With Cats, with one person claiming it was ‘the best documentary ever made’. Another fan posted online saying: “A really excellent crime and investigation series based on true events, the only downside is that at first it feels a little dry and uninteresting, but if you can tolerate the beginning, this is a masterpiece series.”
Between $100 million and $500 million worth of diamonds were stolen(Image: Netflix)
Someone else stated: “Don’t F**k with Cats” is a gripping rollercoaster of a documentary that will leave you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.”
It means that Stolen: Heist of the Century has been set a high bar of expectations if it is to be as well received. Anticipation has been building for its release ever since Netflix shared the trailer online.
Replying to the teaser on its YouTube page, one user claimed it looked like a real life version of action movie Den of Thieves. Another said: “These guys pulled off something so wild, I thought it was straight out of Grand Theft Auto.”
Stolen: Heist of the Century is streaming on Netflix.
India beat England by six runs to win fifth Test on its final day at the Oval and level the five-match series at 2-2.
Mohammed Siraj has been inspired as India have taken the last four wickets in under an hour to bowl England out for 367 and win an astonishing final Test by six runs to draw the series.
Siraj was India’s hero on Monday, dismissing Jamie Smith and Jamie Overton before bowling Gus Atkinson to complete a five-wicket haul at The Oval in London.
After Prasidh Krishna had bowled Josh Tongue for nought, Chris Woakes walked out to bat wearing a sling to protect his dislocated shoulder with 17 runs still needed.
Atkinson hit Siraj for six to give England brief hope and cleverly protected Woakes from the strike, but Siraj produced another brilliant yorker to earn India their narrowest ever Test win.
“With 60-, 70-odd runs to win with seven wickets in hand, you don’t get to see many games like this,” India captain Shubman Gill said. “Very happy to get this over the line, a little bit of luck for us.”
Gus Atkinson of England is bowled by Mohammed Siraj of India on day five of the fifth Test [Stu Forster/Getty Images]
England, 301-3 at one stage, lost their last seven wickets for 66 runs, a collapse prompted by Harry Brook’s reckless dismissal after he had made a superb century.
India suddenly had a chink of hope, and they took full advantage, removing Jacob Bethell and Joe Root (105) before bad light and rain ended the fourth day early.
England still needed 35 runs to complete their second highest Test run chase and by far the largest for any team on this ground.
The Oval was full for the final act of a series that fluctuated wildly over seven weeks and under grey skies in an atmosphere of unremitting tension as one of the most dramatic endings to a Test match duly played out.
Chris Woakes of England grimaces after making a run as he bats with his arm in a sling [Shaun Botterill/Getty Images]
It was fitting that Siraj was the main man for India because he had stepped over the boundary cushion after dropping Brook on 19 on Sunday, an error that looked likely to cost his team the game.
Woakes was the not-out batsman, having not faced a ball but running bravely in obvious pain.
“I didn’t expect him to come out like that, batting with one hand. Kudos to him,” Gill said after his team did a lap of honour.
Fans of India celebrate their team’s victory with the players after the match [Stu Forster/Getty Images]
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Writer-director Ari Aster has refashioned himself from a maker of art-house horror films like “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” into a more overt social satirist with “Beau Is Afraid” and his latest film, “Eddington,” which opens this week.
Pointedly set in the spring of 2020 in a small town in New Mexico — a moment when uncertainty, paranoia and division over the response to COVID were maximally disorienting — the film’s story concerns a sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) who tosses his hat in the ring to run against an incumbent mayor (Pedro Pascal). Each spouts their own complicated, spiraling rhetoric as the race between them becomes more intense, and they seem swept away by circumstances much larger than they can understand or control.
Joaquin Phoenix in the movie “Eddington.”
(A24)
In her review of the film Amy Nicholson wrote, “Aster’s feistiest move is that he refuses to reveal the truth. When you step back at the end to take in the full landscape, you can put most of the story together. (Watch ‘Eddington’ once, talk it out over margaritas and then watch it again.) Aster makes the viewer say their theories out loud afterwards, and when you do, you sound just as unhinged as everyone else in the movie. I dig that kind of culpability: a film that doesn’t point sanctimonious fingers but insists we’re all to blame.
“But there are winners and losers and winners who feel like losers and schemers who get away with their misdeeds scot-free. Five years after the events of this movie, we’re still standing in the ashes of the aggrieved. But at least if we’re cackling at ourselves together in the theater, we’re less alone.”
Carlos Aguilar spoke to acclaimed cinematographer Darius Khondji, a former collaborator of David Fincher, James Gray and the Safdies, about working with Aster for the first time on “Eddington.”
“Ari and I have a common language,” Khondji said. “We discovered quite early on working together that we have a very similar taste for dark films, not dark in lighting but in storytelling.”
‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’ restored
Francis Ford Coppola in the documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”
(Rialto Pictures / American Zoetrope)
The 1991 film “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” is widely thought of as among the greatest behind-the-scenes documentaries ever made. Directed by Fax Bahr with George Hickenlooper from documentary footage directed by Eleanor Coppola, the film explores the epically complicated production of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” A new 4K restoration of “Hearts of Darkness” will have a limited run at the American Cinematheque beginning Sunday, with Bahr in-person for multiple Q&As.
When Eleanor Coppola went to the Philippines in 1976 with her husband and their three children for the production of his hallucinatory Vietnam War saga “Apocalypse Now,” he enlisted her to shoot doc footage in part to save on additional crew and also to give her something to do.
Drawing from Eleanor’s remarkable footage, surreptitious audio recordings she made and her written memoir of the experience, “Notes: On the Making of ‘Apocalypse Now,’” “Hearts of Darkness” becomes a portrait of the struggle to maintain creativity, composure and sanity amid chaos as everything that could possibly go wrong seemingly does. Military helicopters are redeployed during takes, star Martin Sheen suffers a heart attack, monsoons destroy sets, Marlon Brando is immovable on scheduling and the ending of what all this is leading toward remains elusive.
Frederic Forrest, left, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen and Albert Hall in “Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut.”
(Rialto Pictures )
“I think it’s really held up and survived,” said Bahr of the documentary in an interview this week. “It works as a complement to this extraordinary film that Francis produced. Of course, [‘Apocalypse Now’] would be what it is without this, but I do think for people who really want to go deeper into the ‘Apocalypse’ experience, this is really a necessary journey to take.”
When “Apocalypse Now” first premiered at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola infamously said, “The way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.”
The years between the lengthy production of “Apocalypse Now,” its turbulent release and the subsequent years before the “Hearts of Darkness” project came to be likely eased the Coppolas into participating with such candor and full-fledged access.
Eleanor Coppola in “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”
(Rialto Pictures / American Zoetrope)
“I think having almost 10 years after ‘Apocalypse Now’ was helpful,” said James T. Mockoski, who oversaw the restoration for Coppola’s company American Zoetrope. “It would’ve been a much different documentary when it was supposed to come out. It was supposed to support the publicity and the marketing of the film at that time. ‘Apocalypse’ was very difficult, as we have seen, obviously. I don’t know how much they would’ve had the hunger to revisit the film and go right into a documentary. It was a rather difficult, challenging time for them. And I think 10 years gave them a perspective that was needed.”
“He gambled it all and he won,” said Bahr. “And what I hope we really achieved with ‘Hearts’ was showing the despair that really all artists go through in the creative process. And even though you go there, if you keep at it and your goal is true then you achieve artistic greatness.”
According to Mockoski, Francis Ford Coppola has seen his own relationship to the documentary change over the years. While at times unflattering, and certainly showing the filmmaker racked by doubt and in deep creative crisis, “Hearts” also shows him as someone, improbably, finding his way.
“It’s a very hard relationship with the documentary, but he has grown over the years to be more accepting of it,” said Mockoski. “He doesn’t like the films to ever be shown together. If anyone wants to book it, they shouldn’t be on the same day. There should be some distance. And he doesn’t really want people to watch the documentary and then just figure out, where’s Francis and what is his state of mind at this point? They’re two separate things for him. And he would rather people watch ‘Apocalypse’ just for the experience of that, not to be clouded by ‘Hearts.’”
Martin Sheen in the movie “Apocalypse Now.”
(Rialto Pictures)
In his original review of “Hearts of Darkness,” Michael Wilmington wrote, “In the first two ‘Godfather’ movies, Coppola seemed to achieve the impossible: combining major artistic achievement with spectacular box-office success, mastering art and business. In ‘Apocalypse Now,’ he wanted to score another double coup: create a huge, adrenaline-churning Irwin Allenish spectacle and something deeper, more private, filled with the times’ terror. Amazingly, he almost did. And the horror behind that ‘almost’ — Kurtz’s Horror, the horror of Vietnam, of ambition itself — is what ‘Hearts of Darkness’ gives us so wrenchingly well.”
“What ‘Hearts’ is great about is that it shows you a period of filmmaking that’s just not seen today,” said Mockoski. “You look at this and you look at [“Apocalypse’] and there’s just no way we could make this film. Would we ever allow an actor to go to that extreme situation with Martin Sheen? Would we be allowed to set that much gasoline on fire in the jungle? Hollywood was sort of slow to evolve, they were making films like that up from the silent era, these epic films, going to extremes to just do art. It just captured a moment in time that I don’t think we’ll ever see again.”
‘Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair’
The event’s poster.
(Vista Theater)
Having premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and screened only a few times since, Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” will play twice daily at the Vista Theater from July 18-28.
Clocking in at over 4 hours and screening from Tarantino’s personal 35mm print (complete with French subtitles), it combines the films known as “Kill Bill Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill Vol. 2” into a single experience with a few small changes. The main difference is simply taking it all in as “The Whole Bloody Affair,” an epic tale of revenge as a woman mostly known as “The Bride” (Uma Thurman in a career-defining performance) seeks to find those who tried to kill her on her wedding day. (I’ll be seeing the combined cut for the first time myself during this run at the Vista.)
Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 2.”
(Andrew Cooper / Miramax Films)
Manohla Dargis’ Los Angeles Times reviews of the two films when they were first released in October 2003 and April 2004 still make for some of the most incisive writing on Tarantino as a filmmaker.
Dargis’ review of “Vol. 2” inadvertently helps sell the idea of the totalizing “The Whole Bloody Affair” experience by saying, “An adrenaline shot to the movie heart, soul and mind, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill Vol. 2’ is a blast of pure pop pleasure. The second half of Tarantino’s long-gestating epic, ‘Vol. 2’ firmly lays to rest the doubts raised by ‘Vol. 1’ as to whether the filmmaker had retained his chops after years of silence and, as important, had anything to offer beyond pyrotechnics and bloodshed. Tarantino does have something to say, although most of what he does have to say can be boiled down to two words: Movies rock.
“In a world of commodity filmmaking in which marketing suits offer notes on scripts, this is no small thing. Personal vision is as rare in Hollywood as humility, but personal vision — old, new, borrowed and true blue to the filmmaker’s inspirations — shapes ‘Vol. 2,’ giving it texture and density. Personal vision makes Tarantino special, but it isn’t what makes him Quentin Tarantino. What does distinguish him, beyond a noggin full of film references, a candy-coated visual style and a deep-tissue understanding of how pop music has shaped contemporary life, affecting our very rhythms, is his old-time faith in the movies. Few filmmakers love movies as intensely; fewer still have the ability to remind us why we fell for movies in the first place.”
Points of interest
‘2046’ in 35mm
Tony Leung in the movie “2046.”
(Wing Shya / Sony Pictures Classics)
Showing at Vidiots on Friday night in 35mm will be Wong Kar-wai’s “2046,” the 2004 follow-up to his cherished “In the Mood for Love.” Loosely connected to both “In the Mood for Love” and Wong’s earlier “Days of Being Wild,” “2046” stars Tony Leung as a writer in late 1960s Hong Kong who has encounters with a series of women, played by the likes of Maggie Cheung, Faye Wong, Gong Li, Carina Lau and Zhang Ziyi. (He may be imagining them.) Fans of Wong’s stylish, smoky romanticism will not be disappointed.
In her original review of the film, Carina Chocano called it “a gorgeous, fevered dream of a movie that blends recollection, imagination and temporal dislocation to create an emotional portrait of chaos in the aftermath of heartbreak.”
‘Lost in America’ + ‘Modern Romance’
Albert Brooks in the movie “Lost in America.”
(Geffen Film Company)
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the New Beverly will screen a 35mm double bill of Albert Brooks’ 1985 “Lost in America” and 1981’s “Modern Romance.” Directed by, co-written by (with Monica Johnson) and starring Brooks, both films are fine showcases for his lacerating comedic sensibilities.
A satire of the lost values of the 1960s generation in the face of the materialism of 1980s, “Lost in America” has Brooks as an advertising executive who convinces his wife (Julie Hagerty) to join him in quitting their jobs, selling everything they own and setting out in a deluxe RV to explore the country, “Easy Rider”-style.
In a review of “Lost in America,” Patrick Goldstein wrote, “Appearing in his usual disguise, that of the deliriously self-absorbed maniac, Brooks turns his comic energies on his favorite target — himself — painting an agonizingly accurate portrait of a man imprisoned in his own fantasies. … You get the feeling that Brooks has fashioned an unerring parody of someone who’s somehow lost his way in our lush, consumer paradise. Here’s a man who can’t tell where the desert ends and the oasis begins.”
Kathryn Harrold and Albert Brooks in the movie “Modern Romance.”
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
“Modern Romance,” features Brooks as a lovelorn film editor in Los Angeles desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold).
In his original review of ”Modern Romance,” Kevin Thomas wrote, “You have to hand it to Albert Brooks. To put it mildly he’s not afraid to present himself unsympathetically.”
In a 1981 interview with Goldstein, Brooks said, “As a comedian it’s really my job to be the monster. People either love me or hate me. If I wanted to be a nice guy, I’d make a movie about someone who saves animals.”
(Brooks would, of course, go on to appear as a voice actor in “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory.”)
In other news
‘The Little Mermaid’
A mermaid named Ariel contemplates what it would be like to be human in “The Little Mermaid.”
(Walt Disney Pictures)
For the next installment of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.’s ongoing series at the Egyptian, there will be a screening on Thursday, July 24, of 1989’s “The Little Mermaid” with directors Ron Clements and John Musker present for a Q&A moderated by Carlos Aguilar.
“The Little Mermaid” received LAFCA’s inaugural award for animation, the first of its kind among critics groups.
The slider was sizzling. The hitter was frozen. The strikeout was roaring.
With an 84-mph pitch on the black in the sixth inning against the Chicago White Sox Wednesday at a rollicking Dodger Stadium, Clayton Kershaw struck out Vinny Capra looking to become the 20th player in baseball history to record 3,000 strikeouts.
As impressive as the pitch itself was the cementing of a truth that has taken nearly two decades to become evident.
How dare you diss our Sandy! Koufax won more championships! Koufax never choked in the postseason! Koufax was more dominant!
All true, Koufax being a tremendous human being worthy of every syllable of praise. But as Wednesday so clearly proved in front of a history-thirsty crowd at Chavez Ravine, Kershaw has done something that any defense of Koufax can not equal.
He’s endured. He’s taken the ball far more than Koufax while outlasting him in virtually every impact pitching category.
The Dodgers’ 5-4 victory Wednesday was the perfect illustration of the grinding that has lifted Kershaw to the Dodger heavens. He didn’t have his best stuff, he was battered by one of baseball’s worst teams for four runs on nine hits, but he fought through six innings to dramatically record his third strikeout and end his quest for 3,000 on his final hitter with his 100th pitch.
“I made it interesting, for sure,” Kershaw said afterward. “I made it take too long.”
When he took the mound at the start of the sixth, just one strikeout shy of 3,000, the crowd erupted in deafening screams previously only matched by a World Series win. When he breathtakingly struck out Capra — this was his last hitter regardless — he stalked off the mound and sighed and offered the thunderous crowd a sweaty wave.
“It’s a little bit harder when you’re actually trying to strike people out,” said Kershaw with a chuckle. “Running back out there in the sixth and hearing that crowd roar was up there for me, special moments…It was an amazing night.”
A young Dodgers fan holds up a sign that reads “3,000” to celebrate Clayton Kershaw’s strikeout milestone.
(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
In all, it was pure Kershaw, and it has been unmatched even by his legendary predecessor.
Koufax was a meteor, streaking across the sky for the greatest five seasons of any pitcher in baseball history.
Kershaw, meanwhile, has become his own planet, looming above for 18 years with a permanent glow that is unmatched in Dodgers lore.
Koufax was an amazing flash. Kershaw has been an enduring flame.
When this was previously written, manager Dave Roberts waffled on the question of whether Kershaw was the greatest Dodger pitcher ever.
This time, not so much.
“Obviously, Sandy is Sandy,” he said Wednesday. “You’re talking about 18 years, though, and the career of the body of work. It’s hard to not say Clayton, you know, is the greatest Dodger of all time.”
When one talks about the GOAT of various sports, indeed, a key element is always longevity. Tom Brady played 23 seasons, LeBron James has played 22 seasons and Babe Ruth played 22 seasons.
One cannot ignore the fact that Kershaw, in his 18th season, has played six more seasons than Koufax while pitching 463 more regular season innings. With his 3,000 strikeouts he has also fanned 604 more batters than Koufax, the equivalent of 22 more games composed solely of strikeouts, an unreal edge.
In the great Koufax debate, Kershaw is clearly being punished for his postseason struggles, and indeed his 4.49 postseason ERA doesn’t compare to Koufax’ 0.95 ERA.
But look at the sample size. Kershaw has pitched in 39 postseason games while Koufax has appeared in just eight. Kershaw has had 13 postseason starts that have lasted past the sixth inning while Koufax has had five.
Kershaw has pitched in multiple playoff rounds in multiple seasons, while Koufax never pitched in more than one playoff round per season, greatly increasing Kershaw’s opportunity for failure.
Kershaw has indeed stunk up the joint in some of the most devastating postseason losses in Dodger history. But he has taken the mound for nearly five times as many big games as Koufax and, in the end, he has just one fewer World Series championship.
“I’ve been through it, a lot, ups and downs here, more downs that I care to admit,” said Kershaw. “The fans … it was overwhelming to feel that.”
In the end, the strongest argument for Koufax supporters is the seemingly obvious answer to a question. If you had to win one game, would you start Koufax or Kershaw?
Of course you’d pitch Koufax … if your parameters were limited to five years. But if you wanted to pick a starter and you had to do it inside a two-decade window, you would take Kershaw.
Then there are those rarely recited stats that further the argument for Kershaw over Koufax: Kershaw has a better career ERA, 2.51 to 2.76. Kershaw has a better winning percentage, .697 to .655. And despite playing in an era where individual pitching wins are greatly cheapened, Kershaw has 51 more wins than Koufax.
How rare is 3,000 strikeouts? More pitchers have won 300 games. Only three other pitchers have done so left-handed. Only two pitchers in the last 100 years have done it with one team.
Now for the intangibles. If this is indeed the golden age of Dodger baseball — as Andrew Friedman so deftly described it — then the guardian of the era has been Kershaw.
The clubhouse culture is borne of his constantly present professionalism. The work ethic starts with him. The accountability is a reflection of him. For 18 years, through injury and embarrassment as well as fame and fortune, he has never complained, never blamed, never pointed fingers, never brought distraction.
And he always shows up for work. Every day. Every game. Every season. Clayton Kershaw has always been there, which is why he will be there forever on a statue that will surely be erected in the center field plaza next to the bronze figures of Jackie Robinson and, yes, of course, Sandy Koufax.
It is unlikely the Dodgers would ever script the words, “The greatest Dodger pitcher” on the base of his statue. They are understandably sensitive to Koufax and his legacy and importance to a legion of longtime fans.
But they know, just as those fans lucky enough to be at Dodger Stadium Wednesday know it.
They weren’t just watching greatness. They were watching The Greatest.
The movie widely regarded as one of the best sci-fi films ever made and is an absolute must-watch for any fans of the dystopian genre
Theo begins the movie as a detached civil servant(Image: Universal Pictures )
This year has seen a significant rise in dystopian thrillers, with series like The Last of Us gripping telly viewers and films such as 28 Years Later set to grace the big screen this June. With an abundance of options, it’s easy to feel swamped, but if you’re on the hunt for a true classic of the dystopian genre, I wholeheartedly suggest Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.
I only recently had the pleasure of viewing Children of Men and was riveted from the opening scene. It swiftly climbed the ranks to become one of my all-time favourite films, and I was particularly taken by its peculiar optimism amidst the bleak post-apocalyptic setting.
What Children of Men is about
The movie has a very hopeful message despite its bleak setting(Image: Universal Pictures )
The world has descended into utter chaos as humanity grapples with impending extinction. The United Kingdom stands as one of the few remaining countries still operational, albeit under an authoritarian regime.
Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a disenchanted former activist, has ceased his resistance and now meanders through life as a civil servant. He’s so disconnected from the world that he barely registers the bombings, caged refugees, and public executions he encounters on his commute.
One day, Theo is abducted by his ex-wife Julian, who heads a rebel faction known as The Fishes, battling against the government for refugee rights. Julian implores Theo to safeguard Kee, a young African refugee, and assist her in escaping the country safely.
However, Theo soon discovers that Kee is astonishingly pregnant, carrying the world’s sole known unborn child. Driven by the need to protect this miracle, he risks everything to keep Kee’s condition under wraps and get her safely to the enigmatic Human Project, scientists seeking a cure for the global fertility crisis.
So why should you watch Children of Men?
Despite its stark backdrop, the film’s protagonist embodies hopefulness in his unwavering dedication to the prospect of a rejuvenated world.
The outpouring of support for Kee amidst such turmoil underscores a compelling truth: even in the bleakest circumstances, human kindness endures, proving that we have not strayed from our compassionate nature.
One of the captivating aspects of Children of Men is how palpably real and weathered its universe feels, peppered with background information gleaned from transient news reports, advertisements, and leaflets—a testament to the environment’s rich storytelling texture.
Packed with nuances, Children of Men invites viewers to engage deeply, promising new discoveries upon every viewing.
What critics are saying about Children of Men
This movie quite literally starts with a bang(Image: Universal Pictures )
Boasting an impressive 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating from over 250 critic reviews, Children of Men was also in the Oscar race for three categories (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing) back in 2007.
Brian Tallerico of UGO hailed it as “feels more relevant than almost every film set in the present day and is better than almost every other film made this year.”
Kathi Maio from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction remarked: “This is one movie that will have a lasting impact even if you are forced to watch it on a ten-inch black and white Zenith.”
Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone at the time, placed it as the runner-up in his best films of the 2000s list, commenting: “No movie this decade was more redolent of sorrowful beauty and exhilarating action. You don’t just watch the car ambush scene (pure camera wizardry)-you live inside it. That’s Cuarón’s magic: He makes you believe.”
Where to watch Children of Men
The film can be streamed on Apple TV’s £8.99 monthly subscription or via Now TV’s £9.99 a month Cinema membership. You can also purchase Children of Men on Amazon Prime for £5.99.
Strumming a black acoustic guitar to match his black tuxedo pants and jacket, Hugh Jackman strolled onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl and let the audience know precisely what it was in for.
“Little bit of Neil Diamond,” he said as the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra revved up the go-go self-improvement jive of “Crunchy Granola Suite.”
A dedicated student of showbiz history, the Australian singer and actor was starting his concert Saturday night just as Diamond did half a century ago at the Greek Theatre gig famously captured on his classic “Hot August Night” LP.
Yet Diamond was just one of the flamboyant showmen Jackman aspired to emulate as he headlined the opening night of the Bowl’s 2025 season. Later in the concert, the 56-year-old sang a medley of tunes by Peter Allen, the Australian songwriter and Manhattan bon vivant whom Jackman portrayed on Broadway in 2003 in “The Boy From Oz.” And then there was P.T. Barnum, whose career as a maker of spectacle inspired the 2017 blockbuster “The Greatest Showman,” which starred Jackman as Barnum and spawned a surprise-hit soundtrack that went quadruple-platinum.
“There’s 17,000 of you, and if any of you did not see ‘The Greatest Showman,’ you might be thinking right now: This guy is super-confident,” Jackman told the crowd, panting ever so slightly after he sang the movie’s title song, which has more than 625 million streams on Spotify.
The success of “Showman” notwithstanding, Jackman’s brand of stage-and-screen razzle-dazzle feels fairly rare in pop music these days among male performers. (The theater-kid moment that helped make “Wicked” a phenomenon was almost exclusively engineered — and has almost exclusively benefited — women such as Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Chappell Roan and Laufey.) What makes Jackman’s jazz-handing even more remarkable is that to many he’s best known as the extravagantly mutton-chopped Wolverine character from the Marvel movies.
Before Jackman’s performance on Saturday, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins, played a brief set of orchestral music that included selections from John Ottman’s score for “X2: X-Men United.”
The ascent of Benson Boone, with his mustache and his backflips, suggests that Jackman may yet find inheritors to carry on the tradition he himself was bequeathed by Diamond and the rest. But of course that assumes that Jackman is looking to pass the baton, which was not at all the impression you got from his spirited and athletic 90-minute show at the Bowl.
In addition to stuff from “The Greatest Showman” and a swinging tribute to Frank Sinatra, he did a second Diamond tune — “Sweet Caroline,” naturally, which he said figures into an upcoming movie in which he plays a Diamond impersonator — and a couple of Jean Valjean’s numbers from “Les Misérables,” which Jackman sang in the 2012 movie adaptation that earned him an Academy Award nomination for lead actor. (With an Emmy, a Grammy and two Tonys to his name, he’s an Oscar win away from EGOT status.)
Hugh Jackman with members of the L.A. Phil’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles on Saturday night.
(Timothy Norris)
For “You Will Be Found,” from “Dear Evan Hansen,” he sat down behind a grand piano and accompanied himself for a bit; for the motor-mouthed “Ya Got Trouble,” from “The Music Man” — the first show he ever did as a high school kid, he pointed out — he came out into the crowd, weaving among the Bowl’s boxes and interacting with audience members as he sang.
“I just saw a lot of friends as I went through,” he said when he returned to the stage. “Hello, Melissa Etheridge and Linda. Hello, Jess Platt. Hi, Steph, hi, David, hi, Sophia, hi, Orlando — so many friends. Very difficult to say hello to friends and still do that dialogue.” He was panting again, this time more showily. “It’s like 53 degrees and I’m sweating.”
The show’s comedic centerpiece was a version of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” that Jackman remade to celebrate his roots as an “Aussie boy.” There were good-natured jokes about shark attacks and koalas and Margot Robbie, as well as a few pointed political gibes, one about how “our leaders aren’t 100 years old” — “I’m moving on from that joke fast,” he added — and another that rhymed “Life down under is really quite fun” with “I never have to worry: Does that guy have a gun?”
The emotional centerpiece, meanwhile, was “Showman’s” “A Million Dreams,” for which the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra was joined by 18 members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. The song itself is pretty cringe, with a lyric bogged down by cliches and a melody you’ve heard a zillion times before. But Jackman sold its corny idealism with a huckster’s sincerity you couldn’t help but buy.
Cherki is only the latest talent fresh off the Lyon production line, but may be the best yet.
He joined Lyon at the age of seven from AS Saint-Priest and, aged 16 years and 140 days, Cherki became the youngest goalscorer in the Ligue 1 side’s history in a French Cup tie back in January 2020.
Before that in November 2019, a Champions League debut came against Zenit, while he also helped France reach the quarter-finals of the European Under-21 Championships in 2023.
Previously linked with Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea, in 2020 he admitted to Lyon TV “my dream is to play for Real Madrid”.
His footballing idol is Cristiano Ronaldo, can play as a winger but his preference is a more central number 10 role.
Cherki has just enjoyed a break-out campaign in Ligue 1, providing 11 assists, 22 big chances – the most in the league – 13 through-balls and 48 successful dribbles.
A return of 12 goals in all competitions is by far the best of his short career, but it is his work and understanding of the game off the ball that has arguably improved the most this term.
French football expert Julien Laurens, speaking on the Euro Leagues podcast, said: “He has been incredible this season. Since he was 16 – even before that – the talent is there, left foot or right foot.
“A player at this level who takes corners with each foot depending on which side of the corner it is, to be an inswinger every time is just incredible.
“He is one of the greatest technicians in Europe right now.”
The stats support Cherki’s ambipedal qualities. Of the 44 shots he took with his feet in Ligue 1 last season, 22 came with the left and 22 with the right.
Cherki’s growing reputation was only enhanced by Thursday’s stunning international debut on Thursday against Spain, where he sparked France’s comeback from 5-1 down.
Three days later he made his full international debut as Les Bleus beat Germany 2-0 in the Nations League third-place play-off.
Laurens certainly isn’t Cherki’s only admirer.
France legend Thierry Henry has previously said he has “never seen a player in history who dribbles as quickly as him”, while Lyon’s captain Alexandre Lacazette described him as “special”.
The former Arsenal striker added: “This season, he has managed to raise his level. I would put [Mesut] Ozil in a different category but, with time, Rayan can get close to him.”
Cherki, also part of the France squad that finished runners-up at the 2024 Olympics, scored in both legs for Lyon against Manchester United in a Europa League quarter-final defeat last season.
Speaking to BBC Sport in April about him, Lyon’s former Arsenal player Ainsley Maitland-Niles said: “He is the best natural talent I’ve ever seen. An absolute master, a wizard with the ball.
“He is taking chances, assists and dragging us up the pitch by taking people on and nutmegging them – he is a genius.”
There are portraits that precede greatness, snapshots of youthful genius. The boy with the indie-band bangs celebrating on Ronaldinho’s back. The bleach-blonde teen with blaugrana braces leaving a trail of Inter defenders in his wake.
Almost exactly 20 years separated Lionel Messi’s first goal for Barcelona and Lamine Yamal’s sensational Champions League semi-final strike on his 100th appearance for the Catalan giants last month.
Yamal did it again to clinch Barcelona another La Liga title earlier this month, cutting inside on to his left foot and emphatically delivering what is becoming his trademark finish against rivals Espanyol.
That made it two league titles already for Yamal, and the 17-year-old is still a month younger than Messi was when he lobbed the goalkeeper from Ronaldinho’s scooped assist to become La Liga’s then youngest scorer in 2005.
Yamal has also won a Copa del Rey and Super Cup with Barcelona, and a European Championship with Spain just for good measure.
“I don’t want to compare myself with the best player in football’s history,” said the forward last month, but conjecture around whether he can emulate Messi is natural.
The stats show Yamal’s trajectory since his debut aged 15 years and 290 days is rising faster than that of either Messi or the other superstar of his generation, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Yamal, not 18 until July, has already played 105 games at club level and scored 24 goals. By the same age, Messi had scored once in nine senior games for Barca while Ronaldo had netted five goals in 19 games for Sporting.
Yamal also has four goals in his 19 appearances for Spain. Neither Messi nor Ronaldo made their international debut until they turned 18.
“Lamine is Lamine. Leo is Leo,” Barca sporting director Deco told BBC Sport. “Leo was the best player in the history of this club, and, for me, the best player in history.
“So it’s not easy to compare these kinds of things. But Lamine in terms of quality, he can, in the same way, make history like Leo.”
It took Messi, who made his debut at 16, until shortly before his 21st birthday to hit the 100-game mark in Barcelona colours, scoring 41 goals in the process.
But they were the first of an incredible 672 goals for the club, to complement the eight Ballons d’Or, one World Cup, two Copas America, four Champions Leagues and a huge haul of domestic silverware.
“It is not normal,” says former Barcelona midfielder Mark van Bommel of Yamal’s rise. “That’s why everyone is talking about him. [But] to reach the number of Messi, that’s not easy. Even for a guy playing at 17.”
The BBC is set to deliver a Regency drama that’s certain to leave viewers weak at the knees, reports Surrey Live.
Audiences have lavished praise on the period piece, with one eager fan sharing their Rotten Tomatoes review: “Seen this in a movie theater elevates it to another level.
“The top of the top in the romance/drama/comedy genre, and one of the best movies of all times [sic].”
Another elated watcher wrote a glowing second review: “I would have to say, personally, this is the greatest movie I have ever watched.
“The story was so compelling, the characters like no other.”
Further praise came from a third delighted viewer who admitted: “I love every single minute of this movie.”
Netflix will be remaking Pride and Prejudice(Image: FOCUS FEATURES)
Joe Wright’s cinematically gorgeous 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice is slated for arrival on BBCiPlayer this month, just in time for its 20th anniversary celebrations and synchronising with what would have been Jane Austen’s 250th birthday.
This cinematic rendition sparked debate among die-hard Pride and Prejudice aficionados, especially as it followed a decade after the BBC’s much-cherished 1995 series featuring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle as the definitive Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.
Firth’s embodiment of Mr Darcy transcended the pages when he later mirrored the iconic role in Bridget Jones’s Diary, amassing an even wider fanbase and solidifying his portrayal as the ultimate Mr Darcy for many.
However, Matthew Macfadyen stepping into the prestigious shoes of Austen’s beloved hero for the 2005 film did stir some dissent among admirers, especially as the actor was known then for his work on Spooks.
Pride and Prejudice (2005) featured an all-star cast(Image: FOCUS FEATURES)
However, his performance alongside Pirates of the Caribbean and Bend It Like Beckham star Keira Knightley, who played Elizabeth Bennet, managed to win over even the most doubtful critics.
Wright’s Hollywood rendition boasted stunning cinematography, featuring expansive shots of the English countryside, including a memorable scene of Lizzy perched on a cliff in the Peak District.
Complementing the striking visuals was the enchanting score by Italian composer Dario Marianelli.
For those unfamiliar with Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice follows the spirited Lizzy and her sisters as they navigate societal expectations to secure their futures through marriage.
Despite their mother Mrs Bennet’s, portrayed by Brenda Blethyn of Vera fame, frantic attempts at matchmaking, several of the Bennet sisters do find a match.
Amidst all this, Lizzy defies convention by seeking a marriage based on love rather than wealth.
Her initial awkward interaction with Mr Darcy sets them both on a transformative journey that challenges their preconceived notions and changes them irrevocably.
Pride and Prejudice (2005) remains a firm favourite(Image: FOCUS FEATURES)
Pride and Prejudice boasted an impressive cast including Rosamund Pike, the late Donald Sutherland, Carey Mulligan, Talulah Riley, Jena Malone, Tom Hollander and Rupert Friend.
The film is certainly worth revisiting before Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which will feature Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet, Jack Lowden as Mr Darcy and Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet.
Netflix has assured that the upcoming series will be a true-to-source, classic adaptation of the novel, with Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love, handling the scriptwriting.
Filming for Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice is set to take place in the UK this year.
Pride and Prejudice (2005) will be streaming on the BBC iPlayer from May 26
Listen. That’s the low hum of the highway you hear behind me, offset by the rumble of the ice machine down the breezeway. We gather today to celebrate the motel, a uniquely American creature, conceived in California through the unholy embrace of the automobile and the hotel.
Since that beginning in 1925, motels have multiplied like bunnies. They have been implicated in countless crimes and liaisons. They have been elevated by some savvy architects, undercut by assorted chain operations and frequently left for dead by the side of the road.
The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.
Yet certain survivors have done some dramatic social climbing, especially lately. Plenty of motels have moved from budget to boutique, often renaming themselves as inns, lodges or hotels and capitalizing on their vintage looks. Like turntables, typewriters, tiki bars and film cameras, these midcentury motels are back, seducing millennials, Gen Z and baby boomers like the character Johnny Rose on the beloved TV series “Schitt’s Creek.”
“I always saw motels as a last resort, a dreaded pit stop,” said Rose, played by Eugene Levy, pitching Wall Street investors. “But I was wrong. Motels have the potential of offering a window into the unique charm of small-town life.”
He vows “to revitalize the classic roadside motel for a new generation.”
Out here in the real world, it’s happening.
Nowadays you can spend $1,000 a night in a born-again California motel. You can order “eight-minute eggs” with your Champagne brunch (Le Petit Pali, Carmel), browse in a curated bodega (Hotel Wren, Twentynine Palms), nosh on caviar (Skyview Los Alamos), borrow a small car (Surfrider Hotel, Malibu), or ease the planet’s miseries by reaching for tree-free toilet paper (Pearl Hotel, San Diego).
The cursive yellow sign at the Pearl reverberates with ’50s vibes.
(Megan Morello / For The Times)
Yet if you’re nervous about money in these nerve-racking times, you can still find a mom-and-pop operation with high standards, a long family history and — sometimes — rates that dip under $100. You can even find one of those that features concrete teepees (San Bernardino’s Wigwam Motel, run by a family with roots in India).
In other words, it’s a wide, wide motel world out there, too broad to fit into one road trip. And so, in honor of the motel centennial, I took a road trip. Well, a few road trips.
All told, I covered about 2,500 miles, all within California, stalking properties born between 1925 and 1970, avoiding the big chains, sleeping in a new room every night. The way I defined a motel? If a lodging’s guest rooms open directly to the outdoors and there’s a parking lot handy, industry experts say, it probably was born as a motel or motor lodge. Especially if it’s a low-rise building with fewer than 60 rooms, brick walls and a VACANCY sign visible from the street. But owners can call their lodgings what they like — or turn them to other uses.
On the way, I found a few landmark motels that don’t take overnight guests at all. I also learned how the state’s Project Homekey — conceived to house people at risk of homelessness — bankrolled the purchase and conversion of more than 30 Southern California motels and hotels from 2020 to 2024, with mixed results.
Now, buckle up and let’s roll the montage of old postcards, weathered neon signs and swooping Googie rooflines, then zoom to the spot where motel history began.
The Mo-Tel is born
The first stop, I knew, needed to be a scruffy lot alongside U.S. 101 at the eastern edge of San Luis Obispo.
This is where a car-loving Pasadena architect named Arthur Heineman opened his first roadside lodging in December 1925, less than a year before Route 66 connected Chicago to Los Angeles. Having seen the first vacation camps and motor courts spring up across the country, Heineman hatched the idea of building one midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
After a few false starts, he called his place the Milestone Mo-Tel, combining motor and hotel. Later it became the Motel Inn. Heineman gave the buildings Mission Revival features and planned to build 18 statewide, his own mission system.
That never happened. But Heineman’s lodging endured for decades and the word motel caught on. As the automobile transformed American life and roadside commercial culture lit up like a new neon light, that word spread.
But we’re not lingering at the Motel Inn. It shut down in 1991 and much of the old complex has been leveled. Despite a proposal for a new hotel that got local planning commission approval in 2023, the site remained idle as of March 7. An uninspiring sign still stands, along with a Mission-style office building, bell tower and a single wall from the old restaurant. For someone who prizes roadside Americana, this is the visual version of the sad trombone sound.
Fortunately, the Madonna Inn — the visual version of an accordion orchestra — is just three miles away. Under a big pink sign.
When one California castle is not enough
At he Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Alex Madonna drew on his Swiss background and gave the inn a mountain-chalet look.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Nowadays the Madonna Inn is a vast enterprise with restaurants, bakery, bar, stables next door and 110 guest rooms — each different, each with its own postcard in the inn’s three gift shops. It’s so ornate, so frothy with kitsch, you have to smile. But when Alex and Phyllis Madonna opened in late 1958, the inn was a 12-room experiment.
The timing must have seemed right. Motels had been multiplying nationwide for more than 30 years, often adding swimming pools to lure more families or adopting elaborate themes to stand apart.
On Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, a circular Villa Roma motor hotel rose up (until it was leveled in the ’80s). Farther north in Crescent City, a man named Tom Wyllie built the 36-room Curly Redwood Lodge out of a single redwood tree in 1957. You can still sleep there, often for less than $80.
But here’s what gave the Madonnas a crucial boost on their motel in San Luis Obispo: Earlier that year, the state of California had opened the ornately furnished Hearst Castle in nearby San Simeon as a tourist attraction. Once the Madonna Inn opened that December, a traveler from L.A. could sleep at one lavishly decorated only-in-California castle on the way to another. Legions still do.
Scenes from the Madonna Inn. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
(Nic Coury / For The Times)
“It is the grandest motel of them all,” roadside design expert John Margolies once wrote, “and it is the definitive expression of an individually owned and operated hostelry — light-years removed from the almost scientific sameness of the large franchised chains.”
Boom, bust and boom again in San Francisco
From San Luis Obispo I drove on to San Francisco, ignoring Union Square, North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf, heading for the straight part of Lombard Street. That’s the part that carries U.S. 101 traffic through the Marina district on its way to the Golden Gate Bridge, and it’s full of old motels. In their vintage signs and often-weary façades, you can see proof of the industry’s boom and the decline that followed.
How ubiquitous did motels get? By 1964 there were 61,000 motels across the U.S. It’s hard to imagine there were ever so many, until you peek at @deadmotelsUSA or @merchmotel on Instagram or you’ve come across Heather M. David’s splendid 2017 coffee table book, “Motel California.”
Alas, by 1964, they were already beginning to get less interesting. Once the first generation of mom-and-pop motels prospered, the first chain operations arose and followed, targeting travelers who wanted no surprises. Two of the biggest chains, in fact, were born in Southern California — Motel 6 in Santa Barbara and Travelodge in San Diego.
As the national freeway system grew through the 1960s and ’70s, more chain operations positioned themselves to collect freeway drivers. Along the now-much-quieter highway, the old mom-and-pop operations died off or were gobbled up and “reflagged” by the chains.
By 1980, the freeway system and the chain hotels were thriving. Motels, not so much.
But in 1987 — in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, of all places — a 26-year-old Stanford MBA named Chip Conley tried something that changed the motel narrative. He bought a bedraggled old place called the Caravan Lodge and dubbed it the Phoenix, with Miss Pearl’s Jam House as its on-site restaurant and bar. Then he positioned the property as a hotelier’s version of Rolling Stone magazine, all wrapped around a playfully painted pool. And he offered free massages and bus parking to touring musicians’ road managers.
The Phoenix Hotel is part of the hipster-friendly Bunkhouse hotel group. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
And lo, the bands came, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sinead O’Connor, M.C. Hammer, k.d. lang, Laurie Anderson, Etta James, David Bowie, Bo Diddley and Deborah Harry. As the Phoenix flourished, Conley revived dozens more motels and small hotels, conceived a brand called Joie de Vivre, then sold it to Marriott.
The Phoenix has less momentum now. Its restaurant opens only for special events and the Tenderloin’s crime and blight persist. If I were in the city with children, I’d sooner stay near Lombard Street at the Motel Capri or Hotel Del Sol (which charges a staggering $45 for parking but has a pool).
Then again, a new owner took over the Phoenix last August — Michel Suas, a celebrated Bay Area pastry chef. If any Phoenix can rise from the ashes twice, it’s this one.
Rethinking rooms for a new generation
Meanwhile, up and down California, there’s a new generation of motel entrepreneurs and designers following Conley’s lead, rethinking what it means to be a motel. Though the nationwide number of motels dwindled to an estimated 16,000 by 2012, reclamation projects have been multiplying.
Kenny Osehan’s Ojai-based Shelter Social Club manages six reclaimed California motels in Ojai, Santa Barbara, Los Alamos and Solvang.
The Beverly Hills-based Kirkwood Collection includes 11 redone California motels and hotels.
The Southern California-based brand Casetta has opened four redone Southern California motels and hotels, with two more opening soon in Los Angeles and Taos, N.M.
The San Luis Obispo-based Nomada Hotel Group has relaunched five motels and hotels along the Central Coast.
None of those companies existed before 2012. All are still growing and trading on the idea that a lodging with 30 rooms feels friendlier than one with 300.
Drive south from San Francisco with a motel geek — which you’re now doing, by the way — and the born-again motel variations roll past like Kodachrome images in a slide show.
At the Glen Oaks Resort Adobe Motor Lodge in Big Sur, the rooms huddle at the edge of a thick forest. You turn an old-school metal key in your door and find a room full of stylishly recycled furnishings — woodsy but luxe, with yoga mats leaning in a corner.
A vintage-style key at Glen Oaks Motor Lodge in Big Sur.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
At the Cambria Beach Lodge, where once you might have found a bedside Gideon Bible or a Magic Fingers vibrating mattress, now you borrow a bike to ride by Moonstone Beach or bathe with some of the motel’s goat’s milk soap.
Rolling through Paso Robles, you confront a generational motel choice. You can seek reassurance at the Melody Ranch Motel with its tidy, basic rooms, Gideon Bibles, second-generation family management and rates around $100 a night. Or you can head to Farmhouse Paso Robles or the River Lodge, both of which have been updated dramatically by the Nomada Group.
“It’s not that we set out to refurbish motels, necessarily,” Nomada partner and creative director Kimberly Walker told me. “One thing we are passionate about is giving old buildings a new chapter. We can’t ever see ourselves buying a piece of land and starting from scratch.”
Clockwise, from above: In April 2024, River Lodge reopened as a retro-chic boutique lodging.(Jacob Tovar / For The Times)Melody Ranch Motel has a prime spot on Spring Street, the main artery of Paso Robles.(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)A cocktail at the River Lodge.(Jacob Tovar / For The Times)
With the best old motels, “There was just so much personality and thought put into what these buildings look like that they’re able to be reconceptualized again,” Walker said. “You can always find one thing to start your design journey with, and then build off of that.”
Two of the biggest challenges, Walker said, are parking and bathrooms. At the River Lodge, Skyview Los Alamos and Hotel Ynez in Solvang, Walker’s team moved the parking area farther from rooms, making more space for greenery and patios. In small bathrooms, the team has deployed fancy tiles, lots of light and glass partitions instead of shower curtains.
Especially at Skyview, the combination of Modernist and farmhouse design elements yields entertaining results. Agrigoogie, anyone?
And then there’s the question of those cool old signs that say motel.
“When we first bought Skyview, and I hate that I did this, but I was like, ‘Maybe we should change the sign from “motel” to “hotel,”‘” Walker confessed. “I’m so glad that I didn’t follow through with that, because the motel sign is the beacon. Guests love taking their pictures with the sign.”
In Cayucos, design veterans and hospitality newbies Ryan and Marisa Fortini faced a similar question when they bought and renovated an old motor inn on the main drag. They chose to lean even harder into the m-word and called their project the Pacific Motel. It opened in 2022.
And now the Fortinis are doing it again. In 2023 they bought the nearby Cayucos Motel. So far, that still-open property remains as beach-rustic-plain as the Pacific Motel is beach-rustic-chic. But more changes are coming and Ryan Fortini shared with me a new word that may help describe them.
The Pacific Motel in Cayucos. (Jacob Tovar / For The Times)
(Jacob Tovar / For The Times)
Motel variations: Hot springs, beachfront perches and iconic signage
The farther south you go, whether on the coast or in the desert, the wider the variety seems to get.
At the Surfrider Malibu, guests ordinarily have exclusive access to a roof-deck restaurant, several loaner surfboards and a pair of Mini Coopers — but some amenities are on hold as the hotel accommodates many guests displaced by the Palisades fire in January.
In the boulder-strewn hills between San Diego and Calexico, the revivers of the once-moribund Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel have rebuilt that resort (which opened in 2023) with geothermally heated pools and a global desert theme.
On a pier in San Diego’s Pacific Beach, there’s been no dramatic rebirth — because none was necessary. The tidy cottages of the Crystal Pier Hotel, run by the same family since 1961, still look much as they did in the 1930s, tide lapping below, reservations required months ahead. (And you have to make them by phone or in person.)
“The motel thing is coming back,” said general manager Julie Neal, sounding surprised. “It’s actually kind of cool now.”
Out in the desert, where Midcentury Modern design has never gone out of style, there were revived motels left and right.
The most subdued of those was one of the most tempting: Hotel Wren in Twentynine Palms, which only opened in March, a 12-room, high-end retreat with muted colors, enormous rooms, custom furniture and poolside mountain views.
The least subdued? That would be the former Ruby Montana’s Coral Sands Inn, in Palm Springs.
My family and I booked most of the place with friends several years ago, and I was struck then by how entertaining it was to sleep, read and play in a seven-room motel that had been painted pink and filled with thrift-shop tchotchkes and vintage furnishings.
Well, Ruby’s gone now, and the Trixie Motel (its name since 2022) is proof that even if one hotelier goes wild, there’s still room for the next one to go wilder. Especially if that next owner is a drag queen.
The motel is still pink, but now staffers wear pink outfits, every room has its own custom thematic wallpaper (Atomic Bombshell, Pink Flamingo, Yeehaw Cowgirl). Barbie dolls cavort in the office and trendy persons fill the motel’s Barbara bar. Next to all this, the Madonna Inn looks like just another Ramada.
Drag queen Trixie Mattel, David Silver and Team Trixie (including interior designer Dani Dazey) bought the motel, renovated and reopened it in 2022. It’s now pinker than ever.
(David Fotus / For The Times)
(David Fotus / For The Times)
The road ahead runs through the middle of nowhere
Because the point of a motel is to help you toward someplace else, there’s no perfect way to end a motel journey. But Amboy works.
It’s a 20th century ghost town along Route 66, about 45 miles northeast of Twentynine Palms. Roy’s Motel & Cafe stands there like a forgotten stage set, topped by an iconic 1959 sign whose promises are all false.
Roy has been gone for decades. With potable water in short supply, neither the cafe nor the motel nor its six roadside cottages have been open since the 1980s. But Roy’s has gas, snacks and souvenirs, which is enough to attract film crews, selfie snappers and legions of drivers (especially desert-smitten Europeans) on their way between Las Vegas and Joshua Tree.
With Route 66 turning 100 in 2026, Roy’s owner Kyle Okura and manager Ken Large are doing their best to somehow get the six roadside cottages up and renting before that year is over. (Who can resist a centennial?)
It’s too soon to tell if that rebirth will happen. Still, the road warriors come, including off-duty trucker Chris Birdsall, 51, of Omaha, who turned up shortly before sunset one recent day.
“I want to see the sign lit up,” he said.
Soon after, Roy’s assistant manager Nicole Rachel called Birdsall into the old motel office, showed him the three switches that control the 50-foot sign and invited him to do the honors.
Birdsall did his bit, then grinned like a kid as the motel sign blinked to life in red, blue and yellow like a neon mirage or a road-tripper’s dream.
Rachel often invites visitors to throw the switches, she told me. But even if you don’t get that privilege, I can’t think of a better place to stand on the blacktop and imagine what might be down the road.
