mind

I was warned in the waiting room of Pasadena’s WeFly: “This is not an arcade,” said flight trainer Corry Joyce. No, what WeFly offers is a professional-grade simulator, one that is traditionally used to train pilots. I am not a pilot, or a pilot-to-be, but I wanted a sense of how planes work, and maybe a chance to fly over my hometown. Only once I strapped into my seat, I found myself to be incredibly nervous. There was no danger here. Joyce, thankfully, would intervene at any mistake, and would helpfully remind me that, unlike real planes, “This one has a pause button.”

And yet to set foot in a WeFly cockpit is to be alternately in awe and overwhelmed. I was in a near 1:1 replica of the insides of a Boeing 737 Max. Buttons, knobs, switches and flashing lights surrounded me. And to fly a plane, I would have to let go of everything I knew about driving a car. Turning in the air, for instance, is much different than turning on a runway. And do I watch the screen, or look out the windshield? Often the former, even though I enjoyed buzzing Long Beach’s Queen Mary, flying under the Golden Gate Bridge and circling Chicago’s Wrigley Field. When it came time to land however, my palms got a little sweaty. Navigating height, winds and the steadiness of my plane was a challenge, one akin to handing a grade-schooler a calculus book, summarized Joyce. Let’s just say I needed his co-piloting skills. And I’m not great at math.

Typically, WeFly’s clientele, says Joyce, are a mix of aviation aficionados or non-commercial pilots. The space also gets a fair share of those with a fear of flight, arriving at WeFly with the hopes to conquer it. “They want a sense of control,” Joyce tells me. But WeFly is also ideal for anyone who is amazed by air flight, or those who may someday dream of being a pilot. Though it uses “Microsoft Flight Simulator,” it is no game. Sessions for 30 minutes start at $129, and WeFly’s trainers will tailor it toward one’s experience. I made sure, for instance, that crashing was turned off. But I forgot, however, to turn with the brakes when it came time to land. Yet the plane was intact, and, as Joyce reminded me, “At least you’re on airport property.”

Serena Williams has added another stop to her comeback tour: the Berlin Tennis Open.

Just a day after announcing her return to professional tennis, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion has been added to the 16-team doubles field at Germany’s WTA 500 event.

“Every tournament I add to my schedule right now feels special, and Berlin is no exception,” Williams said in a statement shared by the event on Tuesday. “I’m excited to compete in front of the German fans and continue building momentum throughout the grass-court season.”

Williams is set to play in the doubles tournament at the HSBC Championships at London’s Queen’s Club, which kicks off June 8. On Thursday, 19-year-old Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko confirmed on Instagram that she’ll be Williams’ partner at the event. The Berlin Tennis Open will begin June 13 and Williams’ partner has yet to be named.

The 44-year old tennis great is returning to the sport after almost four years away from competition. She firmly denied rumors of her return on social media just last year.

Williams appeared to poke fun at her own turnaround with a short ad video posted to X on Thursday captioned “I changed my mind.”

Despite prior rumors, Williams’ sister Venus seemed just as surprised as everyone else that Serena was returning to the competitive circuit.

“I think she hits every now and then,” Venus Williams, who also still competes professionally, said during a recent interview at Roland-Garros. “I never see her on the court that often, so I don’t know when she’s been practicing, honestly.”

Despite not having seen her practice first-hand, Venus Williams is not worried about how Serena will play at the upcoming competitions.

“She’s, I think, a little bit of a natural,” she said with a laugh. “She has a pretty good record. She knows what she’s doing. She’s very tenacious. I’m not worried about how she’s going to play, even though I really haven’t seen her play. It’s so crazy.”

Born in Rosario, Argentina, Bielsa hails from a family of educated minds, with his brother having worked in politics and his sister a renowned architect.

Both of those professions require analytical thinking – a gift Bielsa also possessed from childhood. However, he was drawn to football, not necessarily playing it but absorbing the tactics.

Every day he would send his mother to the local newsagent to buy football magazines and newspapers, spending hours reading up as much as he could about how teams played and how different managers worked.

Bielsa was still a capable but limited footballer. A defender but lacking in pace, he came through the youth system at his boyhood club Newell’s Old Boys before frustrating spells in the lower leagues of Argentinian football meant he decided to call time on his playing career at the age of 25 to focus on coaching.

His post-playing career started with the Buenos Aires university football team and, after two years there, he secured a position back at Newell’s as a coach of the reserve team.

Bielsa’s frustration with his limitations as a player played a significant part in his coaching philosophy, as he focused on ensuring that any player he coached was able to get the maximum out of their ability.

His training sessions were intense, with lots of focus on repetition – if a player did not have the talent to make something happen naturally then he would be sure to drill the processes into their minds.

Bielsa was appointed Newell’s manager in 1990 and his methods brought instant success as they won the Argentinian championship.

A spell in Mexico followed before Bielsa returned to Argentina in 1997 to manage Velez Sarsfield. There he would be labelled ‘loco’ (crazy) as he insisted on fielding two teenage centre-backs. He would have the last laugh, however, as he immediately helped them to win the league title.

Bielsa, who has said his nickname of ‘El Loco’ actually predates his time at Velez Sarsfield, very briefly became manager of Spanish side Espanyol but left them when he was offered his first international post in 1998 – as Argentina boss.

“Survivor 50” castaway Joe Hunter has made it to the final tribal council of the grueling competition show twice, but walked away with slim to none when it came to jury votes.

On Wednesday night, four-time “Survivor” player Aubry Bracco was crowned sole survivor and won the not $1-million but $2-million prize (thanks to a twist that involved a coin toss and MrBeast), and Jonathan Young came in second. Hunter, a firefighter and fan favorite, lost on an 8-3-0 vote.

According to Hunter, jury members had made up their minds before the remaining three castaways even had a shot to sweeten their chances at the final tribal council.

“I sit down in that chair for final Tribal, right? I’m thinking alright, here we go,” Hunter told “Entertainment Weekly.” “Right away, the second before any word was said, I went, ‘Oh, that one hates me, this one hates me, hate me, hate me, hate me.’ And I thought, ‘There’s zero chance.’”

Hunter was somewhat optimistic leading up to the tribal council and said that he thought some of the jury members had come with an open mind. “I’ll give credit to Emily, Rick Devens, Christian, Dee,” he said.

“I just felt it was very transparent based on the questions and responses that, before this thing started, I think it was a wrap.”

During the series finale, “Survivor” legend Cirie Fields put Hunter on blast, saying that castaways felt like they had to babysit him and jokingly calling it the “Joetation” when it was a player’s turn to sway Hunter to vote alongside them.

Hunter chalked up the babysitting remark to his own naivete when it came to being vulnerable with other players he thought were his friends on the island. “I just put that vulnerability in the wrong hands,” he told the outlet. “That’s really what it is. And that’s part of the game.”

Hunter also spoke with “Entertainment Tonight” and admitted that yes, he’d blocked a select few “Survivor” players on social media. “So, 751 players,” Hunter said, “yeah, there’s two.

“I’ll tell you this, each one of them is not random,” he said. “Actually, there’s three. It is not random. … All of which I would love to talk to and solve it, and have tried.”

Last week, former “Survivor” players Kelley Wentworth, who’s been a castaway three times, Savannah Louie, who won Season 49 and was on the same tribe as Hunter in Season 50, and Tiffany Ervin, who competed on Seasons 46 and 50, all said they’d been blocked by Hunter.

It’s not merely trendy psychologizing to salute the qualities of a sturdy tree: a humbling reminder of time’s immensity, but also a living embodiment of shelter, change and growth. Leave it, then, to a massive gingko on the grounds of a medieval German town’s college to cosmically center the three-pronged, multi-generational character study “Silent Friend” from Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi.

Enyedi, from her mesmeric, calling-card period lark “My Twentieth Century” to the eccentric love story “On Body and Soul,” has always been preoccupied with that realm in which the everyday meets the all-seeing and possibility is awakened. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she’d give a starring role to a 200-year-old tree, which just may inspire the needed answers. And why not? Our living, “breathing,” sky-reaching neighbors have considerable communication skills with each other.

Our entryway is a modern day neuroscientist played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai (and called Tony), who arrives at the University of Marburg as a visiting professor ready to further his groundbreaking research into the mysteries of infant brain development. The gig becomes a lonely endeavor, however, when the pandemic hits and he’s confined to a depopulated campus, sent unwillingly into a kind of monkhood.

It’s as if the nearby natural world, photographed by Gergely Pálos and edited by Károly Szalai, was just waiting for such a solitary moment to draw Tony’s undivided attention into the prospect of green intelligence.

In tandem, Enyedi transports us to 1908 to meet aspiring botanist Grete (Luna Wedler), the university’s first female student, subjected to cruelly patronizing treatment by smug male elders, yet driven to see plants anew when introduced to the light-capturing rigor of photography. The movie’s third woven-in protagonist is a wide-eyed, resourceful farm boy, Hannes (Enzo Brumm), in 1972. While his fellow students spark to the winds of political change and sexual freedom, he becomes fixated on what a lone geranium, imaginatively monitored on its windowsill, might have to convey if given the chance.

The fluid, idiosyncratic charm of “Silent Friend” — which never feels like two and a half hours — is in Enyedi’s heartfelt belief that curiosity is simply a garden that grows progress. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that this veteran dreamweaver’s key cast are entrancing, inviting specimens themselves, led by an inner glow of compassion in Leung that feels like its own natural energy source. When his character contacts Léa Seydoux’s French plant expert, it becomes almost too much rapturously intelligent star wattage for one quietly poetic movie, even if these god-tier actors are just zooming and talking shop.

Hardly anything is overdone here and, in one essential way, Enyedi is also making the case for movies themselves as phenomena to protect and treasure: ecosystems of light, texture, wonder and nourishment. Visually, the film toggles between intimate 35mm black-and-white, grainy 16mm color and multi-purpose digital cameras that visually represent distinct eras. Needless to say, that gingko tree is sublime and majestic in all of them.

Vardy was released by his boyhood club Sheffield Wednesday for being too small, but the documentary unearths footage of his blistering goalscoring form in his Stocksbridge days while also working in a factory making medical splints.

However, in the first of a series of problems in 2007, Vardy admits in the documentary he had “no stability” in his life. He had been convicted of assault when out drinking and had to wear an ankle tag for six months.

He also had a 6pm curfew which meant he had to leave matches early.

Moves to Halifax Town – where Vardy met his long‑time agent John Morris – and later Fleetwood Town followed, before his £1m move to then‑Championship club Leicester City.

Woven throughout are “The Inbetweeners” – a nickname given to Vardy’s small, all‑male social group from Sheffield – who act as his main support, alongside his wife.

“If one of us is having a problem, then get it in the group. Might get abused for a bit but at least it’s us lot keeping an eye on each other,” Vardy says.

They were needed, as former Foxes midfielder Andy King says Vardy experienced an initial “culture shock” at Leicester, where the striker admits he initially felt not good enough.

Physiotherapist Dave Rennie also corroborates accounts of Vardy’s struggles with alcohol, worsened by the pressure of the move, including “manufacturing his own Skittles vodka at home”.

Vardy would arrive at training hungover and, on one occasion, uncontactable to his then-pregnant Rebekah, or Becky as he affectionately calls her.

There was a feeling he was going to throw away his career, but the work of a “good psychologist”, the patience of manager Nigel Pearson and his own efforts to grow up after the birth of his daughter Ella kept him going.

Fame still brought further problems. A 2015 Sun on Sunday story showed him on video using a racial slur against a Japanese man in a casino.

He later described it as “a massive, massive learning curve”, explaining he was never taught which terms he could and could not use.

The film also highlights “one of the harder things” Vardy experienced when he rushed home from a team‑bonding trip to Helsinki after being told a tabloid was publishing a story about his secret biological father, who he had no prior knowledge of.

Still, Vardy became the poster boy and top scorer for Leicester’s Premier League title‑winning campaign in 2015‑16, went on to lift the FA Cup and fulfilled his agent’s prediction, made when he signed for Halifax, that he would one day play for England.

Asked whether he could have achieved more internationally after retiring from England in 2018, Vardy replied: “Possibly. We’ll never know.

“I’ll be honest, going away with England is unbelievable – you want to play for your country – but the mental side of it was tough. That changed when Gareth [Southgate] came in, but before that you were stuck in your room all day.

“You trained and then you were just back in your hotel room, pulling your hair out. There’s only so much time you can spend on a PlayStation or speaking to the kids on video calls. You’ve already not seen them and now you’re getting pulled away for another two weeks. It’s tough.

“At the time, after the World Cup, I just wanted to protect [my legs] as much as possible, prolong my club career, and as I’m still going now, it was obviously the right decision.”

How’s Lee Cronin doing? Fine. You know, still making movies. This one’s his third feature. Somebody — perhaps it was Lee Cronin himself, probably not — wanted us to know that his latest project, “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” was no mere mummy movie. Certainly not the one you have in mind: bandaged dead guy, ominous hieroglyphics, maybe Brendan Fraser. This is not that mummy movie. This is “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.”

As for what that possessive credit means, we’re still in a haze. Cronin’s previous outing was “Evil Dead Rise,” a sequel heavily devoted to the gooey game plan mapped out by Fede Alvarez’s 2013 rethink of Sam Raimi’s gross-out comedies. In our current moment, when horror seems to be mining an especially rich vein (we’ve even seen an Oscar go to an unforgettable witch in “Weapons”), Lee Cronin represents the safe old ways of dutiful stewardship, getting the job done for a generic night out.

There are worse sins in the world. And sometimes the best way to introduce an ancient Egyptian curse is via a prologue that’s tonally very much like the one in “The Exorcist.” Who is the spooky, smiling woman beckoning to a young girl at the edge of her garden? No matter. The kid goes missing and, eight years later, her American family, since relocated to suburban New Mexico, is still feeling the loss: TV reporter Charlie (Jack Reynor), his haunted wife Larissa (Laia Costa) and their two semi-surly children, Maud (Billie Roy) and Sebastián (Shylo Molina).

When their precious Katie (a game Natalie Grace) is somehow returned to them, though, nearly catatonic with wrinkled, desiccated skin and gnarly toenails that would make a pedi technician shriek, it’s hard to blame them for feeling euphoric. Working from his own screenplay, Cronin barrels over the gaping plot holes — a doctor might have some thoughts here — and gets to the good stuff with the family at home in squirm-inducing close quarters, a live-in demon resting in her bedroom.

“Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” works best as a variation on Ari Aster’s career-making “Hereditary,” slicker and less guilt-ridden, with Grace’s Katie prone to jaw-snapping clicks and faraway looks, a spin on Milly Shapiro’s hypnotic turn as a doomed host. Eventually, things get more obvious: a levitating wheelchair, some skittering around on the ceiling. If Cronin does have a signature — more of a penchant, really — it’s for juicy gore, Katie’s skin peeling off in sheets. She goes to town on her own teeth.

All these moments are good for audience groans and there’s an enjoyable bad movie here for the seizing — that is when Cronin isn’t steering the action back to Egypt for an underpowered mystery thread involving a one-dimensional Cairo detective (May Calamawy) pursuing the root of the trouble. Why deploy a plummy archaeology professor (Mark Mitchinson) if you’re only going to give him a single scene to cut loose? He’s the kind of character who usually makes it to the big finale.

The film is tangled in its mess of references: a possession thriller that also wants to dish out some grainy video footage à la “The Ring” or “Bring Her Back” along with the expected mouth-to-mouth vomiting. Ironically, an honest-to-goodness mummy movie consumed with exotica (the first one from 1932 was released in the wake of the global mania over King Tut’s tomb) makes a lot of sense right now, with America straying into foreign deserts.

Was that in mind at any point? You’d have to ask Lee Cronin. It’s his movie and these are his mummy issues.