Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 6. Merkley began an anti-President Donald Trump filibuster Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 22 (UPI) — Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., passed the 14-hour mark Wednesday morning in his filibuster speech on the “grave threats to democracy” he said President Donald Trump poses.
Merkley began his speech at 6:24 p.m. EDT Tuesday and was speaking as of about 10 a.m. Wednesday. The record for a Senate filibuster was set in April this year by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who spoke for 25 hours and 5 minutes.
The senator from Oregon used the speech to warn about what he described as Trump’s shift toward authoritarianism and weaponization of the Justice Department. He said it was “an incredible threat to our nation.”
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells,” Merkley said in his opening remarks. “We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War.
“President Trump is shredding our Constitution.”
Merkley took issue with the level to which Trump has used executive actions and powers, the mass deportations carried out by his administration, the deadly strikes used against suspected drug cartels in South and Central American waters, federal troop deployments to U.S. cities, and his work to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to Newsweek.
“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Ore., in my home state, is full of chaos and riots,” Merkley said. “Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation.”
Merkley’s filibuster comes days after thousands of “No Kings” protests were held across the country. The anti-Trump demonstrations addressed many of the same issues as Merkley’s speech.
The Senate, which has yet to pass a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government after a 22-day shutdown, will be unable to carry out any business on the Senate floor until Merkley concludes his speech.
Protesters gather in Times Square for the “No Kings” demonstration and march down Seventh Avenue in New York City on October 18th, 2025. Photo by Peter Foley/UPI | License Photo
It’s easy to miss the confidence of Billy Wilder or Frank Capra whenever some brave soul tries to make a comedy that takes America’s temperature by straddling cynicism and optimism. Those Hollywood masters could handily juggle the sweet, sour and satirical and, in Wilder’s case, even leave you believing in a happy ending.
With his writing-directing feature debut, “Good Fortune,” however, Aziz Ansari, who stars alongside Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves (as an angel named Gabriel), swings big, hoping to capture that jokey truth-telling vibe about the State of Things. His subject is a fertile one too: the gig economy fostering our crushing inequity, but also the desperation of the have-nots and how oblivious the wealthy are about those who made them rich. So let’s stick it to the billionaires! Let Keanu help the downtrodden!
Ansari’s high-low morality tale, set in our fair (and unfair) Los Angeles, is a friendly melding of celestially tinged stories (“Heaven Can Wait,” “Wings of Desire”) and body-swap comedies (“Trading Places”). But as agreeable as it is, it can’t square its jabs with its sentimentality. It’s got heart, kind eyes, a wry smile and some funny lines, but no teeth when you really need things bitten into, chewed up and spit out.
Ansari plays Arj, living a serious disconnection between his professional identity — wannabe Hollywood film editor — and how he actually exists: task-gigging for scraps and living in his car. When a garage-reorganizing job for Jeff (Rogen), a Bel-Air venture capitalist, turns into an assistant position, Arj feels secure enough to use the company card for a fancy dinner with occasional colleague and romantic interest Elena (an underused Keke Palmer). Jeff clocks the charge the next day, though (a realistic detail about the rich watching every penny), and immediately fires Arj.
All along, Arj’s sad situation has touched Reeves’ long-haired, khaki-suited angel, whose life-saving purview (he specializes in jostling distracted drivers) is low in the hierarchy overseen by boss guardian Martha (Sandra Oh). Gabriel wants a big healing job to show Arj, with a little role-reversal magic, that being Jeff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Except, of course, it is. (David Mamet’s line “Everybody needs money — that’s why they call it money” comes to mind.) The newly luxe-and-loving-it Arj shows no signs of wanting to switch back (which is apparently his call to make in the rules of this scenario), leaving out-of-his-depth Gabriel in the position of convincing a sudden billionaire why he should go back to being poor.
Which is where “Good Fortune,” for all its grasp of how Depression-era screwball comedies made the filthy rich mockable, struggles to match its issue-driven humor with its fix-it heart. While it’s funny to watch Rogen’s freshly desperate character suffer food-delivery humiliation, buying the script’s changes of heart — and the film’s naïve idea of where everyone should be at the end — is another matter. That’s why screwball comedies didn’t try to upend capitalism, just have some clever fun with it and let a simple love story stick the landing. Ansari’s ambition is admirable but he’s better at diagnoses than solutions.
His gold-touch move is giving the hilariously deadpan Reeves one of his best roles in years: a goofy meme brought to disarming life and the movie’s beating heart. Doing good can be hard work; understanding humans is harder. Plus, Reeves makes eating a burger for the first time a sublimely funny reaffirmation that sometimes, indeed, it is a wonderful life.
“We’ve been doing this for a while now,” laughs Channing Tatum, “and every once in a while a new thing comes out I haven’t heard.”
Tatum’s responding to the latest revelation of the press tour for his new film “Roofman”: Director Derek Cianfrance’s claim that he was the fastest checker in Walmart history. (“They gave you a raise if you got 18 rings a minute,” says Cianfrance. “I averaged 350.”)
The point, for Cianfrance, is that the characters at the heart of “Roofman” — good-hearted thief and unauthorized Toys “R” Us tenant Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) and working mother Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) — are his kind of people.
And “Roofman,” which in its themes of personal responsibility, community and acceptance holds much in common with the work of Frank Capra, is his kind of film. The director behind the 1946 Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” loomed over Cianfrance’s film from the start. “As we were selling this movie, trying to get it financed, I was pitching it to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing is, ‘We don’t make those movies anymore.’”
Cianfrance always knew he wanted “Roofman” to be a Christmas movie, which often features characters rediscovering themselves in a small town and magical happenings like, as he says, “a fish shows up with wings.” Or, in this case, that Manchester — on the lam after escaping prison — ends up falling in love with Leigh and being embraced by her family and community.
Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester in “Roofman.”
(Davi Russo / Paramount Pictures)
“I love the populist filmmaker who’s making movies about regular people,” says Cianfrance. “You never feel like Capra’s ever judging people, or being snobby about the people he’s making movies about. He’s making movies about the people who go to the movies.” And while the film’s true-life tale is certainly stranger than fiction, Cianfrance avoided turning “Roofman” into Hollywood escapism. Instead, he says, he wanted to illustrate his respect for working people’s dreams and aspirations: “The thing that transformed it for me was when Leigh told me that Jeff was the greatest adventure of her life, and that she didn’t regret a thing.”
With that in mind, he urged the cast to live their characters’ suburban North Carolina lives. He encouraged actor Peter Dinklage, who plays the Toys “R” Us store manager, to actually manage the store. Dunst’s Leigh, a new hire, was given an actual job interview by Dinklage himself. “He would not give me an inch in that interview,” says Dunst. “I respect him so much as an actor, I think I was also just intimidated by him as well.”
Cianfrance calls the set “an aquarium for actors” — a place where, to pull another Christmas reference he drops, everyone was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the island of misfit toys. Actors like Emory Cohen and Juno Temple expanded their characters beyond the page. Cohen, who plays bullied employee Otis, conjured up his character’s love for peanut M&M’s, while Temple, who plays the girlfriend of one of Manchester’s friends, saw her character as a hairdresser.
Even a scene where the Toys “R” Us is decorated for Thanksgiving gave Cianfrance and production designer Inbal Weinberg the opportunity to debate where to have Dunst place an inflatable turkey. “I was like, we’re gonna let the actors decide. Kirsten came to set. She got the turkey. And she started to decide where it went, and she put it where my production designer wanted it,” Cianfrance says. “And Peter Dinklage came out and was like, ‘No, the turkey goes here.’”
“As we were selling this movie, trying to get it financed, I was pitching it to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing is, ‘We don’t make those movies anymore,’’’ says “Roofman” director Derek Cianfrance.
(The Tyler Twins / For The Times)
Dunst had been wanting to work with the director since auditioning (unsuccessfully, the pair joke) for his 2016 feature “The Light Between Oceans.” “I would have done this movie without reading any script,” she says. “How he makes a set — he wants to capture all the nuance and the things that make us humans interesting.”
Tatum concurs. He knew immediately the role would challenge him as a performer. The actor had heard stories of how Cianfrance worked with performers to get authentic responses, like giving Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams — playing a married couple in 2010 drama “Blue Valentine” — contrasting information in scenes to heighten tension.
Dunst recalls a similar moment on “Roofman,” where Jeff scares Leigh by driving a car too fast with her and her daughters inside. “Derek held my arms and he was like, ‘Push against me as hard as you can,’” she says. “I did that and he held tight and then we went into the scene immediately after. It brought up emotions of being trapped and a feeling like everything was out of your control … but that really helped me a lot.”
Share via
“I only told [Cianfrance] no one time,” says Tatum, “and that’s when he wanted me to sing.” That might surprise viewers considering Tatum has an extended nude sequence where Jeff tries to escape from Dinklage’s Mitch — the first time Dinklage and Tatum met, as it happens.
“[Derek] always jokes, ‘You read the script,’” says Tatum. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know I read the script. I just assumed you had a plan … a blocking plan.” The scene itself, which involved Tatum running through the toy store and leaping onto a small roof, took 15 takes to accomplish over almost eight hours. Tatum, Dunst and Cianfrance laugh about how the director broached the subject of keeping Tatum’s nudity tasteful. “He’s like, ‘You want me to blur it?’” says Tatum. “I’m like, ‘Don’t blur it. That’s even weirder.’”
As Dunst, Tatum and Cianfrance discuss the production, the conversation seems to be as much about the memories they made on set as the making of a film — which underscores Cianfrance’s approach to directing.
“I’ve always tried to make sure [the actors] have environments … so that they can have these accidents and surprises. Moments can happen one time that you can’t replicate, and they become the moment that you watch forever. They become immortalized because of that.”
You have to look long and hard for stability and continuity in this era of transfer mania, but Beaumont football coach Jeff Steinberg is proud to point out that 26 of his 27 players in the starting rotation have been at Beaumont since their freshman seasons. The only one that didn’t came as a sophomore.
That kind of loyalty and confidence in a program produces community pride and helps build community support every time Beaumont plays.
The team is 5-1 and is favored to win the Citrus Belt League and be a factor in the Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.
Linebacker Matt Casas is a tackling machine with 52 tackles. Beaumont owns wins over Cathedral and Chaminade. Its only loss was 21-14 to Vista Murrieta.
Imagine how many fans from the Beaumont area will show up to playoff games. Can you say sellout?
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
Jeff Siegel, a major player on the Southern California horse racing scene for more than half-a-century, died at his home in Duarte on Saturday after an extended battle with cancer. He was 74.
There are few roles in horse racing, besides trainer or jockey, that Siegel didn’t perform since he first got a job in the publicity department at Hollywood Park in 1974.
Siegel’s last job in racing was both serving as a host on XBTV, a service, owned by The Stronach Group, that specializes in horse workout videos. He was also the morning-line maker for both Santa Anita and Del Mar. He continued doing the job until his health no longer allowed it earlier this year.
But what made Siegel a must-know personality in racing was his ability as a handicapper. Andy Beyer, the legendary Washington Post handicapper and namesake to Beyer speed figures, called Siegel the “World’s Greatest Handicapper” in his 1993 book “Beyer on Speed.” Siegel gave Beyer six horses to bet on a day’s card of Southern California racing. All six won, according to Beyer.
Siegel was born in Los Angeles on Oct. 8, 1950, and grew up in Southern California. He attended Fairfax High, where he ran track, and he worked at the school newspaper at L.A. Valley College. He later went to San José State, where he was pointed to radio and television journalism. He came home and got a job at radio station KLAC, where he worked with Jim Healy, who had a top sports commentary show for many years. Healy knew Siegel liked racing and got him a job at Hollywood Park without even asking Siegel, who said he liked his current job. Healy told him he would like the Hollywood Park job even more.
And he did. Siegel never looked back.
Because of his access to trainers, jockeys and owners, plus an ability to see things others didn’t, Siegel was a valued public handicapper and soon his picks were featured in many Southern California newspapers, including The Times, the Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, Orange County Register and San Diego Union-Tribune.
“Jeff has been my primary mentor in this game,” said Bob Ike, a long-time public handicapper in Southern California. “He made performance ratings before there were published Beyer figures. He videotaped gate workouts in the mid-1980s. His overall knowledge of pace, pedigree and European form is unsurpassed. As a public handicapper, he’s the GOAT.”
“I had total respect for his opinions and thoughts on horses,” Baffert said. “When [Triple Crown winner] Justify broke his maiden, Jeff told me the horse was going to win the Kentucky Derby.
“He just loved being part of the game and I respected his handicapping. If he picked your horse first, second or third, you knew you had a good chance of winning. He could see a horse run and he knew right away. After he saw [Triple Crown winner] American Pharoah run for the first time, he came up to me and said ‘You’ve got a real good one there.’
“I’m going to miss talking to him. I’d ask him what he thought and he might say, ‘I don’t think he can go that far.’ And he was right. On top of all that, he was such a nice man. His passion for the sport was unequaled. Nobody knew horses better than him. It’s a sad day and I will really miss listening to him.”
Siegel also co-founded partnership stables Clover Racing and Team Valor, the most successful partnership at that time, with his friend Barry Irwin.
“He was the best handicapper I’ve ever met.” Irwin said. “What separated him from his peers, is his ability to add horsemanship to his handicapping. He knew a lot of what went into training. He wasn’t just a nuts and bolts guy, he understood the animal.”
Irwin remembers a time he was at Siegel’s house to talk about buying a horse.
“I asked if he had any old Racing Forms so I could look up a horse,” Irwin said. “He said, ‘Go look in the bathroom.’ He had Racing Forms stacked to the top of the shower where the water comes out. His entire life was dedicated to horse racing and handicapping. Nobody ever met a kinder or nicer guy.”
Never deterred by the amount of work on his plate — unless it conflicted with UCLA football or basketball games — Siegel decided to try broadcasting. So, he joined HRTV, a horse racing channel, in 2004 and stayed for almost a decade as an analyst.
“In addition to all the great work he did on camera, he was a true fan and dedicated student of the game,” said Becky Somerville, senior director of production at FanDuel TV. “He was passionate about it, which came through in everything he did, and that passion was infectious, lifting up everyone around him.”
Somerville worked closely with Jeff at HRTV from 2004 to 2015, including producing his show “First Call.”
Siegel is survived by his brother, Barry Siegel; sister, Michelle Weiss; nieces Caryn and Mara; nephew Robert; grand nephews Kai, Beckett and Roman; and grand niece Monroe.
TORONTO — In introducing the Saturday night TIFF world premiere of “Good Fortune,” his feature debut as a writer-director, comedian Aziz Ansari told the audience the three words that are scary in Hollywood right now: original theatrical comedy. But the one word that is never scary is Keanu.
Speaking from the stage of the festival’s Roy Thomson Hall, Ansari recalled that his star Keanu Reeves broke his kneecap early in production.
“I found out he broke his kneecap and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ansari continued, Reeves himself standing onstage just a few feet away. “It was like, ‘Oh, my God, what is Keanu going to say? Is he going to need some time off? Is he going to drop out of the movie?’”
“And you know what Keanu said?” Ansari added. “Nothing. He just kept showing up to work and never complained, not once,” Ansari said. “He worked through what surely must have been excruciating pain and delivered a hilarious, touching performance, and he is the soul of this movie.”
The film opens with Reeves standing atop L.A.’s iconic Griffith Observatory with a small pair of angel wings on his back. Reeves, in a change of pace from his recent action work in the “John Wick” movies, plays Gabriel, a low-level angel given the task of stopping people from texting and driving. That is until he sees Arj (Ansari), who is struggling to make ends meet while working both at a big-box hardware store and as a food delivery driver.
Hoping to show him the grass isn’t always greener, Gabriel switches Arj’s life with that of Jeff (Seth Rogen), an ultrarich tech investor whose days seem to largely consist of going back and forth between his sauna and his cold plunge.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Arj much prefers Jeff’s life to his own and is reluctant to switch back. The situation becomes more complicated for Gabriel as he loses his job as an angel and must learn the tribulations and joys of being human, while still trying to fix the problem with Arj and Jeff.
For all the film’s gentle humor and quietly humanist spirit, “Good Fortune” is also rife with a palpable anger at the income inequality that motivates its story, the reality that robots are replacing the work of humans and that the excesses of the few seem predicated on the deprivation of many.
Aziz Ansari, left, and Keanu Reeves in the movie “Good Fortune.”
(Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)
The day after the film’s premiere, 42-year-old Ansari is upbeat and dapper in a gray plaid coat, black turtleneck and black slacks as he sat down for an interview in Toronto to discuss the movie and all that led up to it. After the end of his Emmy-winning series “Master of None” in 2021, Ansari had begun shooting a feature called “Being Mortal” that was shut down in 2022 a few weeks into production over allegations of misconduct by its star Bill Murray. Then production of “Good Fortune,” Ansari’s pivot away from “Being Mortal,” was delayed by the Hollywood labor strikes of 2023. Seemingly at long last, Ansari’s debut opens Oct. 17.
When “Being Mortal” got shut down, did you feel like, “Am I ever going to get to make a movie?”
I didn’t feel that way. Steven Spielberg has this story of — what’s the movie he did? “1941.” That didn’t do well and he was like, just immediately throw yourself in another thing. And I really thought about that, and that’s what I did. I just immediately went into “Good Fortune.” I mean, I had a couple of days where I was like,“Oh, no” and it was also so shocking. I think your mind doesn’t process it because it’s not really sinking in that this is what’s really happening. It probably still a piece of me [in which] it hasn’t really sunk in. It was definitely disappointing, but part of me is like, this is what needed to happen. This is the movie that should be out first.
“Being Mortal,” it’s funny, but it’s heavy. The Atul Gawande book, it’s about end-of-life issues. So it’s like, “Oh, OK. It’s another heavy drama thing.” People may have just gotten pissed, like, “What’s this guy doing?” So “Good Fortune” is definitely, to me, if you like those first two seasons of “Master of None,” I feel like what you’d hope I’d do is kind of evolve that style into a feature film and raise the level of it by having Seth and Keanu and Keke [Palmer] and Sandra [Oh], and as a feature film rather than a show.
As sweet and funny as the movie is, there also is a real righteous anger behind it. Where does that come from?
I think I got it from when I was interviewing all these people about the subject matter in the film, when I was doing research to write the Arj character. That attitude seeps in there.
“It was definitely disappointing, but part of me is like, this is what needed to happen,” Ansari says of “Being Mortal,” his first attempt at directing a feature, one that ran into production troubles with its star, Bill Murray,
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
During the opening credits of the movie, you say the line“The American Dream is dead.”
But that’s a frustration a lot of people like that guy Arj feel.
But then, you are a very successful entertainer —
Oh, yeah. Me and Seth are Jeff, no question.
How do you reconcile that? Are you concerned some people might dismiss the movie out of hand for that simple reason?
If you’re writing, you have to be able to write outside your own experience — for someone who’s like Arj, who doesn’t have the platform to tell these stories. When I did “Master of None,” we did an episode called “New York, I Love You.” And there was a segment about taxi drivers, a segment about a doorman and a segment about a woman who’s deaf. And doing that episode taught me a process of interviewing people and figuring out how to get these stories right when they’re not your experience. We did an episode in Season 3 about a woman going through IVF. I’d never done that or anything, and it had never been a part of my life. But I talked to all these people, and from the feedback I got, we got it right. And that’s what I did with this.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but for a movie coming out from a Hollywood studio, Seth gives a speech at the end that is politically radical, about how rich people can’t expect to have so much without others getting angry.
It’s kind of nuts. Some of the stuff that’s in there, I’m like, “Whoa, we really got away with something here.” Some of the stuff that’s in there, and the trailer kind of hides a little bit of that stuff, I think there are people that’d be like, “Oh, s—.”
At the premiere, there was big applause for the line, “F— AI.” Is that your feeling as well?
I’d rather say that I’m pro-human. I’m pro-people.
Keanu Reeves, left, Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari in the movie “Good Fortune.”
(Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)
The movie is very ambitious in combining the character stories and the attention to the notion of income inequality. Was it hard for you in balancing the characters and that theme? Was the work of that more when you were writing it or when you were editing what you’d shot?
It was both. And that’s the difference between a TV show and a movie. You have a different canvas. But it was a tough thing to do. And it was my first time doing it. I remember writing a second one while I was editing, and it was such a great help because you kind of see a few moves ahead. You’re like, “Oh, wait a second, I should get to this faster.” You kind of can see your mistakes a little bit in an earlier stage because you have more experience. This is another reason I really want to get into it again and start working on the next thing because I feel like I learned a lot from it.
That’s the thing that’s so interesting about doing stand-up and doing filmmaking. Stand-up, it’s so easy to “get to the gym,” right? If I really wanted to go to do stand-up tonight, I could do it. I could go find a club in Toronto and jump on a show. But If I wanted to go direct, that’s a big journey to get to the gym. So you have fewer opportunities to kind of get the reps in.
Shooting a movie is in L.A. has become such an economic and political issue for the city. Was that a consideration in making the movie in Los Angeles?
I wanted it to be in L.A., I felt like this movie had to be set in L.A. Jeff’s not going to be living in whatever place that gives you the tax credit. And L.A. really is the perfect backdrop for the story to me. And it was challenging, but you also get the benefit of working with some of the greatest technicians in the world in L.A. And I also just love being a part of the lineage of films that are set in L.A. I watched that documentary, “Los Angeles Plays itself,” and that was so fun to watch that and just see how every movie has its own L.A., whether it’s “Heat” or “Tangerine” or “Chinatown.”
And I feel like “Good Fortune” has its L.A., and it’s exciting to show some of these neighborhoods, to see people responding to seeing Eagle Rock or Los Feliz. Whenever I was writing the movie, I always thought about that taco place in Hollywood — it’s across the street from Jitlada. I always thought about that place. I thought there was something so cinematic, and it was a hard location to clear. And our guy [location manager] Jay Traynor, he made it happen. And finding Jeff’s house was so hard. But it all came together, and I loved showing Koreatown and that Gabriel works at a Korean barbecue restaurant. Just showing all these parts of L.A.
I want to be sure to ask you about working with Keanu. People are really responding to this role. And I’m having a hard time putting my finger on what that is about.
No, I’m feeling this. Even since [the premiere], I’m feeling it. I knew people would like him, but it’s hitting on another level.
Why do you think that is? What is the alchemy of Keanu in that role?
I was thinking about this when I was eating lunch. If you look at the roles he’s done that are comedic, whether it’s in “Bill & Ted” or in “Parenthood,” there’s this innocence, this sweetness and this kindness that’s in there. And then Gabriel, to me, is the progression of that. And it’s also that you have Keanu at 61, where when I first met him, I was like, “Hey, there’s something about you that people are responding to and who you are as a real person that I don’t think I’ve seen onscreen. And I think you can show some of that with Gabriel.”
It also has all of his comedy superpowers just dialed to the max. And we were just having so much fun. It just became playtime. We were coming up with bits all the time: Oh, he’s never used the internet before. Let’s just write a quick scene where he’s using the internet for the first time. What’s he gonna do? He’s gonna look at photos of baby elephants. It became such a fun joke bag. You could just make him do anything. And it was funny, the guy’s never done anything — if he takes a bite of a taco goes, “Wow!” It’s really the funniest character I’ve ever written for.
TORONTO — Welcome to a special daily edition of the Envelope at TIFF, a newsletter collecting the latest developments out of Canada’s annual film showcase. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
Have you seen the images from our photo gallery? Staff photographer Christina House and her crew are truly capturing the best of the fest.
There are wonderful shots up now, including Elle Fanning, Ethan Hawke, Channing Tatum and more, but this link will be updated periodically with others.
Expect Cillian Murphy, the cast of Rian Johnson’s ‘Wake Up Dead Man,’ Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Cillian Murphy and more surprises!
The day’s buzziest premieres
‘Good Fortune’
Aziz Ansari, left, and Keanu Reeves in the movie “Good Fortune.”
(Eddy Chen/Lionsgate/Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)
A low-level guardian angel righting a wrong feels like the set-up to a classic comedy. But amid a premise motivated by income inequality, there’s a distinctly current edge to “Good Fortune,” the debut feature of writer-director-star Aziz Ansari.
A struggling film editor who makes ends meet as a food delivery driver, Arj (Ansari) is at the end of his rope when said angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) switches his life with Jeff (Seth Rogen), a wealthy, self-important tech investor.
Except, instead of realizing things are tough all over, Arj decides he likes Jeff’s life better and doesn’t want to switch back. Which is only the beginning of the complications for these three lost souls.
Looking for hope in an out-of-balance world while laced with a righteously indignant anger (and set against distinctly L.A. locations), “Good Fortune” is social satire with a big heart. — Mark Olsen
‘Canceled: The Paula Deen Story’
Paula Deen in the documentary “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story.”
(TIFF)
Hungry for a brisk, witty documentary that’s as easy to enjoy as a plate of hot biscuits? Filmmaker Billy Corben analyzes the tabloid feeding frenzy that chewed up celebrity TV chef Paula Deen when she admitted to using a racial slur.
Going in, I only knew two things about Deen: the 2013 scandal and her staunch devotion to butter. Her full story is fascinating, especially buttressed by contemporary interviews with Deen and her two sons, Bobby and Jamie, who all specialize in Southern-fried zingers: “It came on like a snowball full of chainsaws,” says Jamie of the media blitz.
A complex schematic of the cancelation machine, “Canceled” argues that Deen was punished double that summer because Trayvon Martin’s killer wasn’t punished at all. The great archival footage makes you get why audiences once loved Deen — and it’s evident how much her family and friends still do, even if Corben greases her mea culpa to the point that you feel a little queasy. — Amy Nicholson
‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’
Josh O’Connor, left, and Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson’s movie “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” having its world premiere as part of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
(Netflix)
One of the real pleasures of the witty, surprising films made by writer-director Rian Johnson starring Daniel Craig as Southern gentleman detective Benoit Blanc is that, within the confines of the murder mystery, they could take place just about anywhere: a patriarch’s creaky mansion, a billionaire’s private island and now a small town’s historic church.
Or at least that’s the best we know from the scant details made public about the new “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” ahead of its TIFF world premiere tonight. Craig returns as Blanc but joining the cast this time are Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Daryl McCormack, Cailee Spaeny, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott and Glenn Close.
The festival has been a good luck charm so far, with the previous two “Knives Out” movies premiering at TIFF in the same theater, day and time slot and both going on to Oscar nominations for their screenplays. — Mark Olsen
They couldn’t stop talking, even before the cameras for ‘Poetic License’ were rolling
Andrew Barth Feldman, left, Cooper Hoffman and Leslie Mann in “Poetic License,” having its world premiere as part of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
(TIFF)
Mark Olsen has a fun interview with the banter-ific Andrew Barth Feldman and Cooper Hoffman, costars of Maude Apatow’s new movie “Poetic Licence.” They were friends before they shot the film and their verbal mutual affection — honed to a crazy degree of anticipation — is something to behold. They’ve raised bromance to an art form.
His apocalyptic art film ‘Sirât’ dances in the face of oblivion. That’s why people love it
Director Oliver Laxe, photographed in the Los Angeles Times Studios at RBC House during the Toronto International Film Festival.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Director Oliver Laxe has made a truly unique art film about a restless group of ravers who drive out in the the desert on the eve of what could be the end of the world. Since its debut at Cannes, “Sirât” is acquiring superfans — critics and audiences alike — wherever it plays. On the occasion of his first TIFF screening, Laxe spoke to me about his commitment to risk.
JEFF Bezos is mourning the loss of his mother, Jacklyn “Jackie” Bezos, who has died at the age of 78.
The Bezos Family Foundation announced the news, revealing she passed away peacefully at her Miami home today.
2
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos poses on the red carpet with his parents Mike and Jackie in 2016Credit: AFP
2
Jackie Bezos has died at the age of 78Credit: Getty
While no cause of death was given, the Foundation said she was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in 2020.
In an emotional post, Jeff reflected on how his mom’s life as an adult began early, becoming a mother at just 17.
He said she “pounced on the job of loving me with ferocity,” later bringing his stepfather Mike into the family and expanding her love to his siblings Christina and Mark.
Bezos said her “list of people to love never stopped growing” and that she “always gave so much more than she ever asked for.”
He shared that after a long battle with Lewy Body Dementia, Jackie died surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and Mike.
“I know she felt our love in those final moments. We were all so lucky to be in her life,” he wrote, adding: “I hold her safe in my heart forever… I love you, mom.”
In a heartfelt tribute, the Foundation described Jackie as “the true meaning of grit and determination, kindness and service to others” — values she passed on to her children and grandchildren.
It praised her husband, Mike Bezos, for staying by her side “at every step” of her illness and thanked the healthcare team who cared for her.
Born December 29, 1946, in Washington, D.C., Jackie had Jeff at 17 with her first husband, Ted Jorgensen, before the couple split when Jeff was a toddler.
She later married Cuban immigrant Miguel “Mike” Bezos in 1968 — a lifelong partnership that lasted nearly six decades.
In 1995, the couple famously invested just under $250,000 into Jeff’s then-new venture, Amazon.
A devoted mother to Jeff, Christina, and Mark, Jackie juggled work, night school, and family life — making countless trips to Radio Shack for Jeff, supervising cheerleading practice for Christina, and hauling drums in the family station wagon for Mark.
She later earned her psychology degree at 45, proving, as the Foundation put it, “it’s never too late to follow your dreams.”
In 2000, she and Mike founded the Bezos Family Foundation, spearheading initiatives such as Vroom, which supports early childhood development, and the Bezos Scholars Program for students in the US and Africa.
She also played a major role in funding groundbreaking cancer research at Seattle’s Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
Her greatest joy, however, was family — particularly her 11 grandchildren, for whom she created “Camp Marmie,” a summer tradition of adventures, problem-solving, and laughter.
Jeff’s wife, Lauren Sánchez, re-shared the tribute on Instagram Stories with a broken heart emoji.
Jackie is survived by Mike, her children Jeff, Christina, and Mark, 11 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
The family is asking people to honor her memory by supporting a meaningful nonprofit or performing a simple act of kindness.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.
