With Love Island series 12 just around the corner, here is everything we know so far on the latest series, including ‘confirmed’ islanders, return date and the gorgeous host
Jessica Clarke Digital Reporter
20:11, 25 May 2025Updated 20:11, 25 May 2025
It’s confirmed, Love Island will be blessing our TV screens once again for a summer of drama, scandals, and most importantly, love!
The official Love Island Instagram page recently dropped a teaser for the latest season, claiming that it is ‘coming soon’. The teaser displayed a pink printer which printed, “Attention: Love Island is coming soon. Attendance mandatory. Signed, CEO of love, Maya x.”
Love Island is coming back ‘soon’
Fans were sent into a frenzy, with many sharing their hopes and dreams for the new series. One fan commented, “Please bring back the ‘step forward if you fancy’ at the beginning!!”, while another added, “The population has been waiting for this”.
As the first islander has been ‘revealed’, fans are keen to know as much information as possible. So, let’s dive into what we know so far…
Who are this year’s islanders?
Does a personal trainer who is 6 feet and 5 inches tall sound good? Well, that’s how tall Londoner Aaron Buckett is, and he is the first islander who is ‘confirmed’ to join the 2025 series of the popular dating show. Aaron isn’t short on muscles or followers as he boasts hundreds of thousands of fans on Instagram and TikTok.
A source claimed to The Sun: “It’s a fact of life that girls go crazy for a tall lad and Aaron is a man mountain. He’s got great chat too.” They continued, “Aaron is in the mix for this year’s cast but execs are still finalising whether he’ll be in the opening line-up or as a tempting bombshell.” Other islanders are yet to be ‘confirmed’.
Londoner Aaron Buckett is the first islander who is ‘confirmed’ to join the 2025 series(Image: Instagram)
When will Love Island return?
Unfortunately, all we know is that Love Island series 12 will be starting ‘soon’, so we all have to sit and wait impatiently. Last year’s series began on Monday 3 June, so we imagine the date won’t differ too much this year.
This year’s Love Island is expected to return to its usual stomping ground in Mallorca, Spain, where islanders will be surrounded by the iconic fire pit, rectangular pool and large kitchen. It is also expected that the terrace and the hideaway will be making a welcome return, as that is where most of the drama goes down.
It has been confirmed that Maya Jama will be returning to her hosting position(Image: Dave Benett/Jed Cullen/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Gordon’s Premium Pink )
Who is hosting the series?
It has been confirmed that Maya Jama will be returning, delighting fans. Ever since stepping into the role in 2023, fans have found her to be a perfect fit to host the show.
What channel is Love Island on?
Love Island will be returning to ITV and ITVX.
Who won last year’s Love Island?
Mimii Ngulube and Josh Oyinsan were crowned the winners of the 2024 summer series(Image: Getty Images for the NTA’s)
Mimii Ngulube and Josh Oyinsan stole the hearts of the nation and were subsequently crowned the winners of the 2024 summer series. The sweet couple made history as the first Black couple ever to win the UK’s franchise.
Sadly, the couple decided to go their separate ways after a few months and announced their split in an emotional statement.
Mimi said: “I know a lot of you gave been wondering about Josh and I and why we haven’t been making appearances. The truth is we have been trying to figure it out since leaving the villa, but unfortunately things aren’t going to work between us right now.”
UCLA softball is heading to its 33rd Women’s College World Series after rallying from a game down to win the Columbia Super Regional, defeating South Carolina 5-0 in the series decider at Beckham Field on Sunday.
After Jordan Woolery kept UCLA’s (54-11) season alive with a walk-off home run in Game 2, she picked up right where she left off with a first-inning RBI single off South Carolina (44-17) starting pitcher Sam Gress. The Bruins failed to tack on runs with the bases loaded, but Kaitlyn Terry made sure the early tally was enough.
Terry threw 5 ⅔ innings of two-hit shutout ball with four strikeouts before giving way to Saturday’s starting pitcher, Taylor Tinsley.
Woolery delivered a critical insurance run in the fifth inning when she poked an infield single through the right side of South Carolina’s infield shift to bring Jessica Clements around after her one-out double.
After Tinsley pitched out of a jam with the tying runs on base in the sixth, UCLA added three runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach thanks to back-to-back RBIs from Rylee Slimp and Alexis Ramirez.
UCLA will play fellow Big Ten school Oregon on Thursday in Oklahoma City.
Amazon Prime Video is home to a number of hit series and movies, as well as some hidden gems, but one show which is set to leave the streaming service is Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams
Sci-fi fans on Amazon Prime Video have less than a month left to devour the star-studded anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.
The show, which first aired on Channel 4 in 2017 before making its way to the streaming giant, draws inspiration from ten of the author’s short stories.
Its debut episode took cues from his tale The Hood Maker, plunging viewers into an alternate 1970s London rife with mind-reading citizens, societal unrest, and escalating distrust that culminates in riots.
Other episodes dive into themes like interstellar travel and the lives of synthetic beings endowed with human-like intelligence and emotions.
The cast list reads like a who’s who of television royalty, featuring Richard Madden of Game of Thrones fame, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi, Anna Paquin, Terrence Howard, and Holliday Grainger.
Cranston not only graced the screen but also put on the producer’s hat for the series, working alongside writers such as Jack Thorne, Tony Grisoni, and Dee Rees.
Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video(Image: Amazon Prime Video)
Upon its release, the series was met with critical acclaim, drawing parallels to the cult favourite Black Mirror and earning a solid 72% on Rotten Tomatoes.
One person praised: “Just recently discovered this series. Too bad each episode was a standalone. Several of these episodes would have made a good complete series on their own.”
Another said: “This show is absolutely phenomenal! Every episode makes you think and scares you that it could be our future. They’re so well filmed, scripted and acted. I want more!!!!!
“So sad to see it was only one season. Bring us more! Shocked not all 5 star reviews!
“Each episode is a different short story. They feel like mini movies that are so detailed and intense that when they are over you want more. They really put your “what if” mind to use.”
Viewers have been raving about the series
“Every episode I’ve seen of this show is just incredible. It makes you think. Sometimes about humanity and sometimes about sci-fi tropes and conventions and how we should be breaking those more often. Electric Dreams is immersive and beautifully made,” a third said.
Back in 2017, executive producer Ronald D. Moore expressed his enthusiasm for the project, saying: “Philip K. Dick’s stories have inspired a lot of us, especially those of us who have loved science fiction since childhood. From Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Man On The High Castle, there’s so much material.”
Moore added: “So when the opportunity came to work on it, I did jump at it because I knew this is a rare opportunity to do something with one of the master’s works.
“I wasn’t familiar with the short stories at all, but I instantly realised we could definitely do a series like this and the more we talked about the nature of the project – that each show would be individualised as an anthology but have a diversity of viewpoint and give artists an opportunity to bring their own vision – the more exciting the project got.”
Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who longs for the expansion of dirty soda chain Swig so we can feel better equipped to deal with #MomTok drama (IYKYK).
It’s been a week since the second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” dropped on Hulu, but die-hard reality TV watchers have likely already inhaled all nine episodes with the same unwavering commitment as the cast member trying to make us believe that her husband is related to Ben Affleck. (Spoiler alert: He is not. But we sure hope the actor watches while sipping on a 44-ounce iced coffee.) Taylor Frankie Paul, the self-proclaimed founder of #MomTok, the TikTok infuencer group that unites them, stopped by Guest Spot to talk about the new season of friendship and backstabbing.
Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our resident true-crime expert Lorraine Ali tells you why a docuseries about 1982’s unsolved Tylenol murder case is worth watching, and TV critic Robert Lloyd dives into the pleasures of watching professional surfers chase giant waves. Be sure to also find time to take in Lloyd’s tender tribute to “quintessential Regular Guy” George Wendt, who died this week at age 76; it’s linked below.
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Actor George Wendt, best known for his role as Norm in NBC’s long-running sitcom “Cheers,” holds a glass of beer in a barroom in Los Angeles on June 13, 1983.
Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
Professional big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara in HBO’s “100 Foot Wave.”
(HBO)
“100 Foot Wave” (Max)
The continuing story of big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara, his family and friends becomes a trilogy with the third season of Chris Smith’s great HBO docuseries, crazy to contemplate yet beautiful to behold. Garrett, a maverick who put the Portuguese town of Nazaré on the map for its massive waves, set a record there, surfing a 78-footer — imagine an eight-story office building coming up behind you. But with the spot well-established and many records having been matched, the series has become less about competition than community and compulsion. (A middle-aged adolescent with a seemingly high tolerance for pain, Garrett, despite age and injury, cannot stop surfing.) Back again, with a cast of top big-wave surfers, are charismatic Nicole McNamara, Garrett’s level-headed wife and manager and mother to their three, one might say, “other children,” and her brother C.J. Macias, suffering from surfing PTSD after breaking his arm at Nazaré. The climax of the season is a surfing safari to Cortes Bank, 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, where an undersea island creates huge waves with no land in sight. — Robert Lloyd
A still showing Tylenol pills from the Netflix documentary “Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders.”
(Netflix)
“Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders” (Netflix)
If you’re not ready to switch to Advil, stop reading here. Netflix’s three-part, true-crime docuseries deftly chronicles one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history involving the 1982 murder of seven victims in Chicago who died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol tablets laced with cyanide. No one was ever charged with their murders.
Directed by Yotam Guendelman and Ari Pines (“Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes”), the series includes interviews with family of the victims, investigators, police and prosecutors who were directly involved in the case. Together their accounts recall the bizarre and terrifying nature of the crimes, the national panic caused by the tainted pills and the stunning lack of scrutiny on the medication’s manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson.
Private citizen James W. Lewis eventually emerged as one of two main suspects in the case, and he served 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” But authorities couldn’t pin the murders on Lewis. The documentary features an exclusive interview with Lewis before his death in July 2023 in which he proclaims his innocence yet appears to still revel in the media attention. The series also calls into question the culpability of Johnson & Johnson and the possibility that the poisoned capsules may have come straight from the factory before landing on drugstore shelves, where they were purchased by the unwitting victims. The murders ultimately led to an overhaul on the safety packaging we see on today’s over-the-counter medication.
Also worth your time is “This is the Zodiac Speaking,” Netflix’s riveting 2024 docuseries chronicling a family of siblings who were intimately involved with the top suspect in the still unsolved Zodiac killings of the 1960s and ‘70s. Sleep tight. — Lorraine Ali
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Mayci Neeley and Taylor Frankie Paul in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
(Fred Hayes / Disney)
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” feels like the new wave of soapy reality TV in the way it builds off social media personas to create ridiculously addictive drama. The Hulu reality series follows the lives of a group “momfluencers” who push against traditional Mormon norms — they’re the breadwinners, some are divorced, many drink, and at least one faced the dilemma of promoting a sex toy brand. Taylor Frankie Paul, the founding member of #MomTok, stopped by Guest Spot to discuss what makes great reality TV versus social media content and the scripted show that reminds her of her life. — Yvonne Villarreal
The women spend a lot of the season saying #MomTok has veered away from what it was initially conceived to be about — women supporting women. How do you think the reality show — this additional layer of sharing your personal life with an audience — has both helped its evolution and threatened its survival?
I think it’s threatened the survival because when you share, you get vulnerable and, unfortunately, when doing so it could eventually be used against you. With that being said, it helps the evolution by doing the same thing — being vulnerable can bring people closer together as well.
What have you learned makes great reality TV and how is that different from what makes great social media content?
What makes great reality TV is sharing as much as you can — both pretty and ugly — so they [followers] can see [the] bigger picture. What makes great social media content is leaving some mystery. It’s ironic that it’s opposite!
Viewers had a strong reaction to how your family engaged with you about your relationship with Dakota, particularly at the family BBQ. What struck you in watching it back?
Watching the scene at my family BBQ made us all cry because my family loves me dearly and the approach was maybe not the best (including myself), but everyone’s emotions were heightened. A lot was happening and all I remember is feeling overwhelming pain. But I do know my family has my best interest [in mind] even if that moment doesn’t show that. I know and that’s all that matters. I don’t like seeing the backlash because they are my village and I love them so much.
I notice that I come off intimidating or harsh, however I’m very soft and forgiving. I typically need to feel safe to show more of that. I feel like I’m always on defense, and I need to give people the benefit of the doubt — not everyone is going to cause pain; in other words, [I need to] open my heart more.
What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?
My current go-to watch is “Tell Me Lies” [Hulu]. I’m not a reality TV girl, ironically. I’m obsessed with this show. It’s so toxic and so good. It’s a lot like my life, so it’s entertaining to watch someone else’s life.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Kelly Inouye-Perez was thinking about one pitch.
Even with her team three outs from elimination, needing at least three runs to stay alive in Game 2 of the Columbia Super Regional, she was still just thinking about one pitch.
Superstar slugger Jordan Woolery found it, hitting a walk-off home run to give UCLA an improbable 5-4 victory that set up a winner-take-all Game 3 on Sunday at Beckham Field.
“You never want to put yourself in a position to have a game feel like it’s out of your reach,” Inouye-Perez said. “It’s not about three outs or the bottom of the seventh or what the score is. Give us one pitch and anything can happen. And I think that’s the brilliance of our sport. It’s not a timed sport, you have an opportunity if you have one pitch.”
Just getting to the point where one pitch could win the game seemed improbable for most of the day. South Carolina (44-16) took the lead in the first inning and never gave it up until Woolery’s swing, leading 4-1 heading to the bottom of the seventh with Jori Heard on the mound.
Pinch hitter Taylor Stephens worked a lead-off walk and came around to score on Kaitlyn Terry’s one-out triple. That line drive into the gap made it 4-2 and brought the tying run to the plate, but Heard followed it up by striking out Jessica Clements.
South Carolina was one out from its first trip to the Women’s College World Series since 1997, but Savannah Pola kept the game alive with an RBI single.
With Woolery coming to the plate in a one-run game, South Carolina made a pitching change. Sam Gress, who started the game and allowed one run in four innings, reentered the circle.
Woolery was 0 for 2 against Gress earlier in the game, but the pitching change was a blessing in disguise.
“I was just happy to have more time to take some breaths in between, honestly,” Woolery said. “I was happy to take a little timeout, catch my breath and get in the right head space. Both pitchers did a great job the last two days, so I have a lot of respect for both of them.”
One pitch later, she crushed her 23rd home run of the season, one with more importance than the first 22 combined. Down to its last breath, Woolery kept UCLA’s season alive.
“Coach always says the game comes back around,” Woolery said. “I’ve had a rough two days, so it was just trusting that was eventually going to come through. I just wanted to have my teammates’ backs today.”
Woolery’s heroics ended the game, but pitcher Taylor Tinsley made it possible. Tinsley threw a 137-pitch complete game with four runs allowed, but pitched out of a couple of key jams to keep the Bruins afloat. Tinsley stranded runners on the corners in the first inning, got out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning and held the deficit at 4-1 with two runners on base in the seventh.
The sixth-inning jam did feature one big break with a South Carolina base running blunder. Second baseman Karley Shelton grounded out to her counterpart Pola with the bases loaded, but thought the inning was over after Pola fired home to cut down the lead runner. In reality, there were only two outs, but Shelton trotted off the field like the inning was over. Once she hit the dugout, she was automatically out.
It was far from a conventional double play, but it was exactly what UCLA needed to stay within three runs.
“Credit to Taylor Tinsley,” Inouye-Perez said. “She has been just a leader, she has been tough, she has had success, she has had disappointment. But she has prepared for this moment and was so locked in.”
Still, it would have been a clutch performance in a losing effort if not for one final rally. The type of miracle comeback that will earn a place in UCLA’s steeped softball lore if the Bruins can come back to win tomorrow.
“One thing that I told the team was we were going to have an opportunity to get the last punch,” Inouye-Perez said. “And we have a thing. We believe in Bruin magic. And great things can happen when you come together and play as a team.”
Four runs to save the season, three of them down to the final out. Magic might be the only explanation.
“The Bruin magic is literally just the belief that we will win this game,” she continued. “That’s something that has been a big part of the history of this part of this program. We’ve seen it, we have experience in it. But to see this team do it in this big moment is a big part of why you come to UCLA.”
Game 3 of the series is scheduled for Sunday, with the start time and broadcast information to be revealed later Saturday night.
Keiran Culkin is joining “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” as eccentric host Caesar Flickerman.
An adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel of the same name from her hit franchise, “Sunrise on the Reaping” hits theaters Nov. 20, 2026. It is the second prequel to the original “Hunger Games” series, following “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.”
“Kieran’s scene-stealing presence and undeniable charm are perfect for Caesar Flickerman, the sickeningly watchable host of Panem’s darkest spectacle,” Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-president Erin Westerman said in a press release. “Stanley Tucci made Caesar unforgettable — and now Kieran will make the role entirely his own.”
Culkin is on a hot streak, most recently winning the Oscar for supporting actor for the dramedy “A Real Pain” and an Emmy for his role as Roman Roy in HBO’s drama “Succession.” He is currently starring in the revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross” on Broadway.
When is ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ set?
“Sunrise” takes place 24 years before the events of the first novel featuring Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film franchise) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), and 40 years after “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” It focuses on Haymitch Abernathy’s plight during the 50th Hunger Games, known as the Second Quarter Quell, when he became District 12’s second victor. Abernathy, played by Woody Harrelson, is mentor to Katniss and Peeta in the original series.
Who else is cast in the film?
In the prequel, Joseph Zada will play Abernathy. Other previously announced cast members include Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee, Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Lili Taylor as Mags, Ben Wang as Wyatt, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Molly McCann as Louella, Iona Bell as Louella’s Capitol-assigned look-alike Lou Lou and Ralph Fiennes as the main antagonist, President Snow.
How have fans responded to the casting choices?
Fans of the series have been largely enthusiastic about the casting decisions, noting the strong physical likeness between the new stars and their older counterparts in the original series. On Wednesday’s Instagram post announcing Culkin’s casting, several users commented that the casting decisions were in line with fans’ visions for the new film.
“Sirens,” premiering Thursday on Netflix, is an odd sort of a series, an interesting mix of hifalutin ideas, family drama and what might be called dark farce.
Set over Labor Day weekend on a Cape Cod island peopled by rich folks whose taste runs to pastels and floral prints, it stars Julianne Moore as Michaela, formerly a high-powered attorney who has given that up for marriage to hedge-fund billionaire Peter (Kevin Bacon) and a life dedicated to rescuing birds of prey. The queen of all she surveys, she speaks in moony aphorisms, is posing for Vanity Fair and orchestrating a fundraising gala, among minor entertainments.
Meanwhile, in Buffalo, we meet Devon (Meghann Fahy) a working-class hot mess, making her entrance out a police station door, wearing a short black dress, looking the worse for wear. Struggling to care for her father Bruce (Bill Camp), diagnosed with dementia, she goes in search of her sister, Simone (Milly Alcock), who has been working as Michaela’s personal assistant. After traveling 17 hours — carting, for reasons of comedy, the giant edible arrangement Simone has sent in lieu of an actual response to her call for help, still wearing her night-in-jail clothes — Devon will discover that her sister has been transformed: She’s removed the matching tattoos they got together, had a nose job and presents as something like the Disney version of “Wonderland’s” Alice, minus the curiosity. (“You’re dressed like a doily,” says Devon.) Ingmar Bergman fans will note the meant-to-be-noted crib from “Persona,” underlining Devon’s observation that Simone loses herself in other people.
Simone, for her part, is delighted that she gets to call Michaela “Kiki,” “which is really a special honor,” and faithfully amplifies Michaela’s mercurial requests to the staff, personified by Felix Solis’ Jose, who hate her. (They maintain a text chain to joke about her.) For all that she’s loyal to Michaela, and considers her a best friend, she’s been hiding both her working-class roots and the fact that she’s been sleeping with Ethan (Glenn Howerton), Peter’s also-rich pal and neighbor.
Ethan (Glenn Howerton), Simone (Milly Alcock) and Devon (Meghann Fahy) during a gathering at Michaela’s home.
(Netflix)
Though Michaela worries he might be having an affair, Peter, for his part, comes across as an essentially good guy, for a hedge fund billionaire. He’s friendly with the help, who worked for him before his marriage to Michaela — there are a first wife and adult children offstage — can cook for himself and hides away from the pastel people in the mansion’s tower, where he strums a guitar and smokes a little pot. But room has been left for surprises.
“Sirens” is the sisters’ shared special code for “SOS,” which seems less practical than, you know, SOS, but ties into the vague Greek mythological references with which the series has been decorated — more suggestive than substantial, I’d say, though it’s possible that is my lack of classical education showing. The house Siri system is called Zeus. One episode is titled “Persephone,” after the goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld; Simone does indeed say to Michaela, “You are literally a goddess” — she does dress like one, in flimsy, flowing gowns — while Devon thinks that something’s gone dead behind Simone’s eyes, that she’s been zombified: “You’re in a cult.”
It was the sirens’ sweetly singing, of course, that drew sailors to their deaths in the old tales, and at one point Michaela looks out over the ocean and muses on the boats of whalers crashing bloodily on the rocks. (She is particular about the blood.) There is, in fact, a sailor in the series, Jordan (Trevor Salter), who captains Ethan’s yacht and whom Devon picks up in a hotel bar, but he is perhaps the least likely character in the show to crash into anything. And Michaela is attended by a trio of women (Jenn Lyon as Cloe, Erin Neufer as Lisa and Emily Borromeo as Astrid) who, suggesting the title creatures, speak in harmony and act as one, but they are more the embodiment of a notion, a throwaway joke, than active participants in the story. Michael Abels’ score features a choir of female voices, opts for something that one might well identify as ancient Greek music even with no notion of what ancient Greek music might have sounded like.
Kevin Bacon plays Peter, a hedge fund billionaire married to Michaela.
(Macall Polay / Netflix)
The core of the series is the struggle between Devon and Michaela for the soul of Simone, though there are ancillary battles that will help decide the fate of the war. For a viewer, it’s natural to side with Devon, who, after locking horns with Michaela, will go undercover at the mansion, dressing according to the house rules while she pokes around. (There is the suggestion of a murder mystery.) However hot a mess she may be, she isn’t pretentious; she has energy, boldness and consistency, and whatever she gets wrong, she lives in the world that most of us do. (I am assuming you are not a billionaire with a mansion on a cliff, a birdhouse full of raptors and a large staff to tend to your needs and whims, but if you are — thanks for reading!) That isn’t to say that Michaela doesn’t have her troubles — indeed, her neediness, which expresses itself as caretaking, resembles Devon’s. “I take care of everything in my orb,” says Michaela, “big and small, prey and predator.”
I hadn’t known when I watched “Sirens” that it was based on a play, the 2011 “Elemeno Pea,” by Molly Smith Metzler, who created the series as well, but I thought it might be. It had the scent of the stage in the way characters — including Bruce and Ray (Josh Segarra), Devon’s boss and adulterous occasional hookup — kept piling in, along with its farcical accelerations, its last-act revelations and reversals.
At “only” five episodes, it stays more focused than most limited series, though the tone shifts a bit; some characters come to seem deeper and more complex, which is good on the face of it, but also can feel a bit manufactured. Some bits of business are planted merely to bear practical fruit later. The ending I found half-satisfying, or half-frustrating, from character to character, but there are great, committed performances along the way, and I was far more than halfway entertained.
With the contract between USC and Notre Dame set to expire and one of college football’s most storied rivalries in serious danger of ending, officials at USC extended an offer to Notre Dame earlier this month in hopes of continuing the historic series for at least one more season — through the fall of 2026 — a person familiar with the negotiations not authorized to discuss them publicly told The Times.
The future of the rivalry beyond that, in the eyes of USC’s leaders, hinges in large part on what happens with the format of the College Football Playoff — namely, the number of automatic qualifiers guaranteed to the Big Ten in future playoff fields. And until those questions are answered, USC leaders agree the best course forward for its century-old rivalry with Notre Dame would be to continue their arrangement one season at a time.
Anything else would be “a strategically bad decision,” a USC source said.
That timeline is where the two rivals find themselves at an impasse. Notre Dame is seeking a long-term extension of the series, and in an interview with Sports Illustrated earlier this week, Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua not so subtly suggested that it was USC putting the rivalry at risk.
“I think Southern Cal and Notre Dame should play every year for as long as college football is played,” he told SI’s Pat Forde, “and SC knows that’s how we feel.”
The two blueblood programs have played 95 times since 1924, when the story goes that the wife of legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne convinced her husband to schedule the series so she could visit Southern California every other year. In the century since, only World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic have stood in the way of USC and Notre Dame meeting on the football field. Between them, the two rivals boast 16 national titles, more than any other teams that play an annual college football series.
They’re scheduled to meet again in October in South Bend. What happens to the historic series after that matchup may come down to who blinks in a high-stakes game of chicken between the two schools.
USC has no plans to budge on its position without clarity over whether the Big Ten will have four automatic qualifiers in any future playoff format, a source told The Times. With nine conference games already built into the schedule and the possibility of an annual crossover matchup with the Southeastern Conference still on their radar, USC officials see no reason to commit long term to the Notre Dame matchup without assurances they wouldn’t be punished for scheduling such a marquee nonconference matchup.
The demands of Big Ten travel have also been a part of the conversation at USC, to the point officials broached the potential with Notre Dame of moving the game to the first month of the season. The hope was to better balance its future slate of travel to the Midwest and East Coast. Last season, in their Big Ten debut, the Trojans lost all four of their Big Ten road trips.
But Notre Dame was not receptive to the idea of moving the game, which traditionally has been played in the latter half of the football season.
The Irish agreed earlier this month to a 12-year home-and-home scheduling agreement with Clemson. But while that deal seemed like a precursor to moving on from the USC series, Sports Illustrated reported this week that it was not expected to stand in the way of continuing with the Trojans.
Uncertainty has loomed over the rivalry since last summer when USC coach Lincoln Riley was first asked about its future at Big Ten media days.
“I know it means a lot to a lot of people,” Riley said. “The purist in you [says] no doubt. Now if you get in a position where you got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship vs. keep that [game], shoot, then you got to look at it.
“And listen, we’re not the first example of that. Look all the way across the country. There have been a lot of other teams sacrificing rivalry games. And I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen. But as we get into this playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we’re in this new conference, we’re going to learn something about this as we go and what the right and the best track is to winning a national championship, that’s going to evolve.”
Those comments led many to point fingers at Riley for laying the groundwork for the rivalry’s possible demise. But as the two sides now stand at an impasse, a person familiar with the discussion at USC insisted that any decision on the series and its future would come from athletic director Jennifer Cohen.
She’ll have plenty to weigh on that front in the coming months, with both schools likely to dig in their heels for the long haul, slinging mud at one another in the meantime.
Netflix viewers are divided after binging the gripping new series that was given a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score
Kelly Smith Screen Time Reporter
13:01, 20 May 2025
Fans have two things to say about Netflix series with 100% Rotten Tomatoes score(Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A new Netflix docuseries, that currently holds a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, has been rocketing up the streaming platform ladder – and fans have two things to say about it.
The binge worthy series American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden has proved to be popular with viewers, especially those who had already watched its sister series American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing.
It delves into the counterterrorism efforts in the US following the 9/11 attacks, including the manhunt and capture of Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the terrorist attack.
The three-part series has been built using real life footage from the archives while talking to government officials who were in charge of decision making at that time.
By using real-life footage, directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy were hoping to create an immersive series, taking viewers on a journey as they witness officials learning an attack on America iss about to happen as they attempt to find the perpetrator.
The way in which intelligence is uncovered throughout the series leads viewers to make up their own minds as to what they would do if they ever faced in the situation.
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden is now avialble to stream on Netflix (Image: Netflix)
Speaking to Netflix Tudum, the directors commented: “For us, the best way to understand history is to truly experience it. Being thrown into the driver’s seat after the worst attack in American history would rattle anyone, even these brave men and women who had devoted their lives to protecting Americans by assessing geopolitical threats and sounding alarms that were often ignored.”
They added: “But the intelligence analysts didn’t have time to grieve or reflect. They had a mission at hand: to figure out who did this and stop them before the next attack.
Netflix fans raise one important issue
“American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden does not tell the story of the United States and the War on Terror,” stated Daniel and Mor. It tells the story of the people tasked to find the world’s most wanted terrorist and bring him to justice. It [was] a hunt that changed their lives, America, and the world as we know it.”
Most Netflix viewers have been full of praise offering up rave reviews about the miniseries on X while others have raised one important issue.
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden is climbing up the streaming site rankings
One online user commented: “American Manhunt Osama Bin Laden was a riveting documentary series. Just 3 episodes, most of which I’ve seen bits and pieces over several documentaries/movies. But it was put together so well, especially the 3rd episode was nail biting cinema! Hard hitting! Must watch!”
A second fan agreed: “That Osama Bin Laden American Manhunt installment is soooo good. 10s to whoever produced & directed it.”
However, some viewers did note that they felt the documentary had felt one-sided, describing it as jingoistic at times. One comment read: “Watching the American manhunt for Osama bin Laden on Netflix rn, and it feels like the main point of the show is to make people sympathise with the CIA and the intelligence officers for their years-long intelligence failure. It’s an overkill at this point.”
Another shared the same sentiment, commenting: “Netflix has released American Manhunt Osama Bin Laden which seems to feature the “heroic” CIA Officers who worked in Alec Station?
“FBI & Congress blamed those clowns for actively concealing the presence of known Al Qaeda terrorists in USA before the 9/11 attacks. Not heroes. Idiots.”
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden is available to stream on Netflix.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
This year’s edition of the Cannes Film Festival launched this week. The winner of last year’s Palme d’Or, Sean Baker’s “Anora,” went on to win five Oscars including best picture. Numerous other Cannes premieres from 2024, such as “The Substance,” “The Apprentice” “Emilia Peréz” and “Flow,” went on to successful awards season runs as well.
This year’s lineup features many titles we could be talking about all year long, including Lynne Ramsay’s “Die, My Love,” Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Ari Aster’s “Eddington,” Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” and Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest.” The festival will world-premiere the feature directing debuts of Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson, with “The Chronology of Water” and “Eleanor the Great” respectively. Read all of our coverage as it unfurls right here.
The festival also saw the premiere of Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” the fourth movie he has made in Tom Cruise’s venerable action-espionage franchise. Amy Nicholson was at the film’s world premiere, writing, “Cruise is the reason audiences will, and should, see “Final Reckoning” on a large and loud screen. His Ethan continues to survive things he shouldn’t. … Yet, what I’ve most come to appreciate about Ethan is that he doesn’t try to play the unflappable hero. Clinging to the chassis of an airplane with the wind plastering his hair to his forehead and oscillating his gums like a bulldog in a convertible, he is, in fact, exceedingly flapped.”
‘Minority Report’ in 35mm
Samantha Morton and Tom Cruise star in the movie “Minority Report.”
(DreamWorks LLC / 20th Century Fox)
As audiences prepare themselves for the upcoming release of “Final Reckoning,” folks may want to revisit not only other films in the “Mission: Impossible” series but also other titles from the now nearly 45-year career of Tom Cruise.
On Sunday, the Egyptian Theatre will have a 35mm screening of 2002’s “Minority Report,” which paired the star with director Steven Spielberg for the first time. Adapted from a novella by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick and set in 2054, the story finds Cruise as an officer for a “pre-crime” unit that uses clairvoyant humans to stop crimes before they occur. When he discovers possible faults in the system and finds himself accused of a crime he has yet to commit, Cruise must go on the run.
In a review at the time, Kenneth Turan wrote that the film “finds Hollywood’s preeminent director more convincingly at home with unapologetically bleak and unsettling material than he was with Kubrick’s ‘A.I.’ ‘I wanted to make the ugliest, dirtiest movie I have ever made,’ Spielberg told cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and there’s little doubt he’s succeeded. … But the road to self-knowledge can be an uneven one, and as impressive as this disturbing, even haunting film can be, it does not feel all of a piece.”
Turan added, “A word must be said for Cruise. Though his is the starring role, it is in some ways a thankless one, needing him to be the tireless turbine that powers this expensive cinematic machine and nothing more. It’s not the kind of work that wins awards, but without Cruise’s intensity almost willing our interest in Spielberg’s unrelentingly dark world, ‘Minority Report’ wouldn’t have nearly as much life as it does.”
More ‘Old Man’ films from ‘You Must Remember This’
Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen on set of the movie “Rich and Famous” in 1981.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
The American Cinematheque has a series underway to celebrate the recent season of the podcast “You Must Remember This.” A few months ago, I featured an interview with the show’s writer, producer and host Karina Longworth to talk about “The Old Man Is Still Alive,” a season examining the late careers of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Minnelli, Billy Wilder and others who had enjoyed decades of success only to find themselves floundering amid the cultural changes happening in Hollywood during the 1960s and ’70s.
The Cinematheque series, playing Tuesdays throughout July at the Los Feliz 3, features some of the most intriguing titles from that podcast, many of them rarely screened and all worthy of the reappraisal Longworth invites. This Tuesday will be Howard Hawks’ 1965 film “Red Line 7000,” about young stock car racers.
In a published transcript from the episode covering Hawks, Longworth said the film was “a bizarre, low-budget experiment that grafts Hawks’s longstanding interest in gender warfare onto a semi-documentary sports movie about low-rent race car champions, starring a very young, very hot James Caan. Hawks’ ’60s romantic comedy, ‘Man’s Favorite Sport?’ could have been made in the 1930s and ’40s as basically the same movie. The same goes for each of the other films he made in his last decade as a filmmaker, none of which took place in contemporary America, except for ‘Red Line 7000.’ ‘Red Line 7000’ is a movie that could have only been made in 1965.”
Kevin Thomas reviewed the film on Nov. 26, 1965, writing, “‘Red Line 7000’ takes off like a streak of lightning, zooms through a thicket of romantic entanglements and winds up a winner at the finish. … Plenty of action plus a cast of attractive unknowns assures another success for veteran director Howard Hawks.”
That will be followed on May 27 by a 35mm screening of George Cukor’s 1981 “Rich and Famous,” starring Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset as friends who become competitive over their literary careers. Noting Pauline Kael’s withering New Yorker review of the film, Longworth added, “What Kael sees as reason for derision, I see as worthy of praise.”
Thomas spent time on the set while the film was in production. Cukor told him, “It’s a great pleasure to read a really good script. And with such wit and style. It’s very contemporary and devastatingly accurate, with a bold, impertinent wit and gaiety. There are two extraordinary parts for women, and the man has a good one, too. So it’s up to us to make it work. I don’t think wit is the coin of the realm right now — it’s ‘Star Wars’ and all that.”
In an October 1981 profile of the film’s writer, Gerald Ayres, who also did Adrian Lyne’s 1980 “Foxes,” the writer says of Cukor, “He put bite and energy into it. His work survives so well because of that squeeze of lemon he puts in his films.”
James Coco and Dyan Cannon in the movie “Such Good Friends.”
(American Cinematheque)
On June 17, there will be a screening of Otto Preminger’s “Such Good Friends,” a satirical dramedy about middle-class sexual escapades starring Dyan Cannon (nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance) that featured a screenplay worked on by the likes of Joan Micklin Silver, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion with Elaine May receiving final screen credit under a pseudonym.
On the podcast, Longworth said of the film, “In the midst of a cultural moment that was obsessed with the idea of a sexual revolution but at the same time refused to acknowledge the ways in which that revolution mostly benefited men while imposing on women a whole new set of impossible standards, ‘Such Good Friends’ is the rare Hollywood movie of its time to portray the imbalance between men and women in terms of acceptable levels of desire and anger.”
A January 1972 Times profile of Preminger by Wayne Warga found the journalist tagging along to Preminger’s tastefully luxurious office on the Paramount lot (which the filmmaker would soon be losing), as well as to local TV appearances hosted by Tom Snyder and Regis Philbin. Cannon canceled a promotional tour for the film due to a dispute with Preminger and said for the record, “I have absolutely no words for him. I will come up with a word for him one day. It hasn’t been invented yet.”
Lola Falana and Roscoe Lee Browne in the 1970 movie “The Liberation of L.B. Jones.”
(American Cinematheque)
Other films in the series include Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 “Frenzy,” Billy Wilder’s 1964 “Kiss Me, Stupid” in 35mm, Vincente Minnelli’s 1962 “Two Weeks in Another Town” in 35mm and Stanley Donen’s 1967 efforts “Two for the Road” and “Bedazzled.”
Among the most exciting titles in the series is a 35mm screening of William Wyler’s 1970 “The Liberation of L.B. Jones,” starring Roscoe Lee Browne, Lee J. Cobb, Anthony Zerbe and Lola Falana in a story of a successful Black businessman who finds his life complicated by his wife’s affair with a local white police officer.
Longworth called the film “uncompromising and unforgiving,” adding that, “‘The Liberation of L.B. Jones’ feels like Wyler leapfrogging over the ’60s entirely, skipping straight from a nostalgic cinematic universe in which nothing very bad ever happens to a ’70s of disillusionment and failed ideals.”
In a review from the time of the film’s release, Charles Champlin echoed those sentiments when he wrote the film was “unsentimental, unsparing, unforgiving, also brutal, credible, powerful, deeply disturbing and depressing and superbly well-acted. It reaffirms — not that it needed reaffirming — the immense power of the film as a social document. It will enrage as few pictures this year will enrage, and we’ll all have to hope that truth is its own purgative.”
Points of interest
‘Going Down’
A scene from the 1983 Australian film “Going Down.”
(Muscle Distribution)
The first theatrical re-release from the new company Muscle Distribution, 1983’s “Going Down” from Australian filmmaker Haydn Keenan will play in a 4K restoration on Friday and Saturday at Vidiots. The film has never had a U.S. release until now and is just the kind of off-beat, undiscovered title the current rep-revival scene is set up to embrace.
“Going Down” is similar to the early Susan Seidelman films “Smithereens” and “Desperately Seeking Susan” for the way it serves as a snapshot of a specific time and place — the clothes, the décor, the music — as well as being a portrait of a series of personalities. Capturing the early ’80s alternative scene of Sydney, the film follows four young women (played by Tracy Mann, Vera Plevnik, Julie Barry and Moira Maclaine-Cross) as they are all trying to establish their own identities and launch their lives, while also making their way across the city to find an envelope of missing money.
U.S. premiere of Chung Mong-hong’s ‘The Embers’
A scene from Taiwanese filmmaker Chung Mong-hong’s “The Embers.”
(American Cinematheque)
This weekend American Cinematheque is launching a series on the Taiwanese filmmaker Chung Mong-hong, including the U.S. premiere of his latest film “The Embers.” Aside from writing and directing all of the films in the series, Chung is also his own cinematographer. The filmmaker is scheduled to appear in person at all the shows.
Writing about him in 2022, critic Carlos Aguilar called Chung “one of the most infuriatingly underappreciated storytellers of our time.” This series should help bring his work to a broader audience.
“Parking,” from 2008, tells the story of a man trying to win back his estranged wife and is screening in 35mm. 2016’s “Godspeed” finds a cab driver mixed up with a drug dealer, while 2019’s family drama “A Sun” was Taiwan’s submission to the Academy Awards.
On Sunday, Chung will also introduce a 35mm screening of Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 “Stranger Than Paradise.”
Lars von Trier’s ‘Nymphomaniac’
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jamie Bell in “Nymphomaniac: Volume II.”
(Christian Geisnaes / Magnolia Pictures)
On Wednesday, Brain Dead Studios will be screening both volumes of Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac” combined as a single 242-minute experience. The films were released separately but both tell a continuing story, as Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) recounts to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) the story of her sexual awakening and ongoing struggles as a sex addict. The cast also includes Stacy Martin, Shia LeBeouf, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth, Willem Dafoe and Uma Thurman.
When the films were initially released in 2014, I reviewed both “Volume 1” and “Volume II” separately. As I said at the time, “Few other filmmakers are capable of quite the same walloping power, though the film’s digressive, chaptered style gives it an offhand quality that asks for easy dismissal. Von Trier is such a masterful filmmaker that every new project comes on with the expectation and air of a totalizing masterwork, [creating] the unsated sensation of having too much and wanting more.”
In another piece I wrote that considered the films within Von Trier’s larger body of work (noting the filmmaker’s turn toward pranksterish provocations such as his now-notorious Cannes news conference appearances), I added that with the “Nymphomaniac” films, “he further questions both himself and his audience, asking what we want from cinema and what cinema is capable of giving us back. … What the ‘Nymphomaniac’ project may represent most of all is Lars von Trier burning down his own house, clearing a path to get out of his own way. Provocative in every sense of the word, stirring the loins, the head and the heart, the cinema of Lars von Trier is not to be dismissed. And that’s no joke.”
In other news
Summer movie preview
Mia Threapleton and Benicio del Toro in director Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme.”
(TPS Productions / Focus Features)
As part of our summer preview, the LAT published an interview wth Benicio del Toro, star of “The Phoenician Scheme.” Del Toro’s unpredictable screen presence has long made him one of my favorite actors and it is exciting to see him in a lead role. Wes Anderson wrote the part specifically for Del Toro, playing a 1950s industrialist tycoon known as Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda.
As Del Toro said to Carlos Aguilar, the actor couldn’t quite believe what he was reading in the script pages Anderson would periodically send him. “I didn’t know if it was going to be another film like ‘The French Dispatch,’ where my character ends and then another story rolls up,” he said. “Little by little, I understood that it was the whole thing.”
Allison Williams and an animatronic M3GAN in a scene from the movie “M3GAN 2.0,” directed by Gerard Johnstone.
(Universal Pictures)
Joshua Rothkopf spoke to Adrien Morot and Kathy Tse, the creative team behind Morot FX Studio, who along with several puppeteers, technicians and 15-year-old actor Amie Donald bring the film’s unnerving robot doll to life in the upcoming “M3GAN 2.0.” (Morot and Tse also won an Oscar for their work on “The Whale.”) The doll for the new film has been altered somewhat to keep up with Donald’s own growth.
“In my naiveté, I never quite understood just how much this was basically an elevated Muppet movie,” said the film’s director Gerard Johnstone. He added, “I thought, Why are we making something that looks like a toy when these guys can make things that look human? Wouldn’t that be really fun if we went further into the uncanny valley than we’ve ever gone before? And Adrien and Kathy were the perfect people to partner up with on that.”
There is also a handy list of 18 films to look forward to this summer, including Celine Song’s “Materialists,” Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby,” Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing,” Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later,” James Gunn’s “Superman,” Zach Cregger’s “Weapons,” Joseph Kosinski’s “F1,” Akiva Schaffer’s “The Naked Gun,” Michael Shanks’ “Together” and Nisha Ganatra’s “Freakier Friday.”
Olympic triathlon double bronze medallist Beth Potter returned to action with second place in the World Triathlon Championship Series in Yokohama.
Potter, who was 14th for Great Britain over 10km in last month’s European Road Running Championships, finished four seconds behind Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair with Germany’s Lisa Tertsch in third, two seconds back.
Reigning Olympic and world champion Cassandre Beaugrand of France crashed out on lap six of the bike leg.
Therese Feuersinger of Austria held a narrow lead over Tertsch and Lehair after the swim, with Potter and Beaugrand 14 seconds behind.
Weather conditions resulted in a changed bike course and Potter and the chasing group caught up with the leaders by lap three.
Lehair went clear in the run and held on for victory, despite the Briton running the fastest run leg in the race.
In the Para races, Tokyo gold medallist and Paris bronze medallist Lauren Steadman was a comfortable winner of the women’s PT5 category, with Michael Taylor taking silver in the men’s PT4 behind French star Alexis Hanquinquant.
On the most basic level, “Stick” is about a prematurely washed-up golfer who takes a teen prodigy under his wing and on the road. Off they go in an RV to hit some big amateur tournaments, accompanied by the kid’s mother and the old pro’s irascible buddy. The kid gets to fall in love with a free-spirited lass. Adventures are had. Lessons are learned.
But very little about golf takes place on a basic level (except maybe in “Caddyshack”). The sport is rife with metaphors. Lay up or go for broke? (see also, “Tin Cup.”) Keep your cool under pressure or lose it in the sand trap? So it makes sense that “Stick,” premiering June 4 on Apple TV+, uses the game of golf to take a swing at the game of life.
The wash-up, Pryce Cahill (played by Owen Wilson), seeks redemption. Years back, he flipped out on the course, and his life has been in free fall since — he and his wife (Judy Greer) are getting a divorce, and their home is being sold. But then he meets the 17-year-old prodigy, Santi (newcomer Peter Dager), who he sees as the key to a second chance. Santi, meanwhile, knows he’s good; when he pummels a ball, it sounds like a sonic boom. But his first coach was his hard-ass, now-vanished dad, and Santi now has trouble taking golf seriously or respecting his elders.
These human elements intrigued series creator Jason Keller far more than anything that might happen on the links. “I love golf, but I’m not good at it,” he said. “I am routinely frustrated by it.”
Owen Wilson, left, Judy Greer and Peter Dager in a scene from “Stick.”
(Apple)
Frustration, of course, is a universal quality. So is disappointment. These are the elements that pushed Keller, who wrote the screenplay for the 2019 movie “Ford v Ferrari,” to create “Stick.”
“Long before the story was set on a golf course, I was really interested in exploring a character who had not lived up to expectations,” he said. “I was interested in characters that had great promise but ultimately didn’t achieve that promise. What happens to somebody afterward? How do they react to that? Do they let themselves be defined by not achieving that level, or do they try to reconcile that? Does it motivate them to excel in other areas of their life?”
Wilson, who also readily admits his golf game isn’t the strongest — “My dad and my brothers played, but I was always intimidated by it” — sees another key parallel to life: As much as you seek perfection, you can never achieve it.
“There’s a little bit of a chess thing with golf, in that you can never really master it,” he said. “That can feel like life too. People talk about Tiger Woods winning the Masters by like 12 strokes and deciding his swing isn’t quite right. Pryce talks about how the game takes and takes and takes. I think people feel that way about life as well.”
Mariana Treviño, the Mexican actor who plays Santi’s mom, Elena, agrees that “Stick” is about dealing with hardships. “Elena is in a moment in her life where she had a big disappointment,” she said. “Her family broke down. Sometimes in life when something very strong happens to you, you just kind of shut out from the world. You think that you’re going to protect that wound by just not moving too much from a place, or not directly confronting something that is painful.”
“Long before the story was set on a golf course, I was really interested in exploring a character who had not lived up to expectations,” said “Stick” creator Jason Keller.
(Matt Seidel / For The Times)
If this all sounds a tad serious, “Stick” really isn’t. As with most anything starring Wilson, whose Texas/California cool works just fine in the series’ Indiana setting (Keller hails from Indianapolis), “Stick” feels easy and breezy even when it gets into heavy-ish themes. The tone suggests a riff on “Ted Lasso” but with golf instead of soccer.
Wilson and Marc Maron, who plays Pryce’s grumpy, long-suffering best bud (who is dealing with grief of his own), keep up the steady banter of two guys who know each other’s foibles and try to resist the urge to poke them. Zero, Santi’s new friend and life guru played by Lilli Kay, is a self-described “genderqueer, anticapitalist, postcolonial feminist,” and the series manages to have fun with her without making fun of her.
Elena, meanwhile, is mildly suspicious of the whole endeavor, but she finds the aging white golfers amusing. She also likes the cash Pryce has thrown her way for the privilege of coaching her son.
Put them all together in an RV, and on a series of golf courses, and you’ve got the makings of a modern family comedy. Except most of the “family” aren’t related.
“They’re a sort of a found family, and they are all very different personalities,” Keller said. “But ultimately they are what each other needed, and none of them knew it. I think that’s the beauty and the fun and the heart of the show. We’re watching a group of people that don’t fit together at first, and then they realize they needed each other. I hope that warmth and the feel-good element of that is felt by audiences.”
“They’re a sort of a found family, and they are all very different personalities,” said Jason Keller about the characters. “But ultimately they are what each other needed, and none of them knew it.” Lilli Kay, left, Mariana Treviño, Judy Greer and Marc Maron in “Stick.”
(Apple)
But that sense of major disappointment, and the question of how to turn the page, still lingers over the story. Keller is intimately acquainted with that kind of challenge.
He was 25, newly arrived in Hollywood, when doctors discovered a benign brain tumor. It was successfully removed, but the subsequent nerve damage meant Keller had to retrain his brain to let him walk again. Now 56, he says he “didn’t realize what a gift that hard experience was. I became very grateful for being physically healthy.”
Keller used that sink-or-swim experience to write his “Stick” characters. “Everybody has a point in their life that just brought them to their knees,” he said. “It could be a divorce or the death of a loved one. We all face these personal tragedies or challenges. What do you do with them after you go through ’em and survive ’em? That’s the real question.”
Even Santi, the youngest character in “Stick,” has been burned by life. “He’s scared, and he has every reason to be,” Dager said. “His father left him.” And he responded by building a hard shell and walking with a swagger.
Dager embraced the whole package. “I fell in love with his past but also his soul and the way he protects himself with the humor he uses as a defense mechanism,” Dager said. “And then once we get to know him and he starts to fall in love and he starts to trust people, you really see the kid. You see who he actually wants to be.”
And if you do happen to be a golfer, if you know a birdie from an eagle, an iron from a wood, “Stick” doesn’t skimp on the sports stuff. It might even inspire you to go out to the garage and excavate that moldering set of clubs. Or not.
“The golfers I’ve shown it to have connected to it and appreciated it at the level of the sport,” Keller said. “And the others who have seen it who are not golfers seem to be responding to it at a purely emotional character level. I think they’re connecting to it. We’ll see if we got it right. I hope we did.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns to screens for a second season this week, taking viewers right back into the world of #MomTok
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The scandalous Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns in 10 new episodes this week
One of last year’s most viral reality series is back this week as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns for a brand-new season. The hit reality series plunges viewers into the world of #MomTok, following a group of mum influencers in Utah’s Mormon community.
During season one, their ‘scandalous’ world imploded when they were caught in the midst of a sex scandal that made international headlines. The eight-part series broke viewership records when it premiered in September, becoming the most-watched unscripted season premiere on Disney+ in its first four days on the platform.
Now it’s back for season two with 10 new episodes available to stream exclusively on Disney+ on Thursday, May 15. The series follows the lives of influencers Taylor Frankie Paul, Demi Engemann, Jen Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews and Whitney Leavitt.
A lot’s happened since we last saw the group, with Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley and Jen Affleck all announcing their pregnancies. Elsewhere, Taylor took to social media to confirm she is no longer dating Dakota. Season two will see new cast member Miranda McWhorter re-joining the group.
Disney+ now costs as little as £4.99 a month, but members can get 12 months for the price of 10 by paying for a year upfront on the ad-free Standard or Premium plans.
Disney+ is the only place to stream hit shows like Rivals, The Bear and Shōgun, plus blockbuster franchises like Star Wars and Marvel.
The official synopsis reads: “The scandalous world of Mormon #MomTok is back and bigger than ever. When an original swinger from their infamous sex scandal makes a surprise return, friendships threaten to unravel as secrets, lies, and allegations explode.
“In a battle for the soul of #MomTok, will betrayal shatter the sisterhood, or will the truth set them free?”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives centres around a group of influencers in Utah
Following the success of season one, Disney+ confirmed The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will return for 20 new episodes, suggesting a third season is already in the works. The latest instalment follows the return of Molly-Mae: Behind it All, the Love Island star’s hit docuseries that returned to Prime Videoearlier this month.
Disney+ dropped the final trailer for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in April, with fans flooding the comments in anticipation. One fan said: “I’m so ready for this wild new season.” Another said: “Finally, I just watched the entire first season and it was fire. I’m so excited for the new season.”
A third said: “I need this yesterday. ”Not everyone will be tuning in though, as other YouTube comments said ‘Why do people watch this’ and ‘None of the stuff seen in the show is real’. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season two will be available exclusively on Disney+ from May 15.
