“Of course, if we had the possibility to change everything, we would change everything for sure. But this is a hard day for us.”
Portugal boss Francisco Neto joined in the tributes to Diogo Jota as thousands of fans also paid their respects during the team’s Euro 2025 opener against Spain.
Liverpool forward Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, both died early on Thursday morning when the Lamborghini car they were travelling in crashed in the Spanish province of Zamora.
On an emotional evening, a heartfelt rendition of Portugal’s national anthem was followed by an impeccably observed minute’s silence before kick-off, during which a black-and-white image of Jota was displayed on the big stadium screens in Bern.
“It was a really tough day to play football, because this life is much more than a game, much more than football,” said Portugal forward Jessica Silva.
“Of course everyone is sad. It’s heavy, my heart is heavy – much more important things than playing a game.”
Portugal fans held up placards with messages paying tribute to the player who is also being mourned in Liverpool, while both sets of players wore black armbands.
Despite having relentless support from their fans throughout the 90 minutes, Portugal fell to a 5-0 defeat in Bern as world champions and tournament favourites Spain began their pursuit for a first European crown.
Speaking in his post-match news conference, coach Neto, who appeared to hold back tears during the minute’s silence, described Jota as a devoted supporter of the women’s side.
“Diogo followed our team because he loved the county,” said Neto, who explained he first met Jota while coaching at under-19 level.
“Diogo always, when I talked to him, always knew the result. He followed the team, some players and this is the culture we have in Portugal.
“Today is a really, really sad day because two of us lost our lives. So young. It is not a good day.”
Aidan Zingg, a motocross prodigy who recently signed with Kawasaki’s prestigious Team Green program, died Saturday at age 16 from injuries sustained during the Mammoth Mountain MX event in Mammoth Lakes.
During a 250cc B class race, Zingg “went down in a corner,” according to industry website Dirtbikelover.com and was run over by other bikes.
Zingg, who grew up in Hemet before his family moved to the state of Washington, won the American Motorcyclist Assn. 2024 Amateur National Championship in Supermini 2, held at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. He recently qualified for the championships for a seventh consecutive year.
Aidan’s sister Alex Zingg, 18, on Sunday posted a tribute to her brother.
“It’s been a day and I feel like it’s been a lifetime,” she wrote on Instagram. “My heart is completely broken. You used to joke that I was so old and that I’d die first, I would always joke that you were crazy and you’d be the first. Now I’m sitting here wishing with everything that I am that you were right so I’d never have to live a day without you.”
Zingg began racing in elementary school and soon dominated the 65cc, 85cc and Supermini classes. After signing with Kawasaki’s Team Green, he showed immense promise at the 250cc class. His other sponsors included Oakley, Bell, and Renthal.
“It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Kawasaki Team Green rider Aidan Zingg,” Kawasaki Racing posted on X. “Zingg’s dedication and kind demeanor will forever be remembered.”
Motocross journalist Donn Maeda was among those to pay tribute to Zingg on social media, writing that he was “one of those kids that made an impression on you from the moment you met him. I interviewed him for our race series years ago when he was on a 65 and when I asked him how long it’d be until he beat his dad [former racer Robert Zingg]. He smirked and said, ‘Soon, I’m sure.’
“After that, he always went out of his way to say hello, even recently when he grew into a fast big bike rider…. you know; the age when teens get cocky and cool. Not Aidan.”
Zingg’s last social media post came 10 days before his death. A joint Instagram post with MotoSport.com of Zingg racing read: “Remember the name… @aidanzingg.”
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Opening this weekend and winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Sorry, Baby” is the feature film debut for writer, director and actor Eva Victor.
Personally, it’s among my favorite films of the year for its complex mix of comedy and drama, offbeat whimsy and deep vulnerability. (I’d previously called it “fresh, inventive and invigorating” and that still feels right to me.) The story tells some five years in the life of Agnes (Victor), a teacher at a small East Coast college attempting to move forward following a traumatic event.
Director Eva Victor of “Sorry, Baby,” photographed at the Los Angeles Times Sundance studio in January.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
In her review for the paper, Katie Walsh called the film “a movie that lingers,” attributing that to “the profound and nuanced honesty Victor extracts from each moment.”
I spoke to Victor about the process of making the film. The story is rooted in Victor’s own experiences, so every stage, from writing to production to bringing it to audiences, has had its own nuances and contours.
“It’s a very personal film for a lot of people and there’s a sadness to that because it’s a community of people who have experienced things that they shouldn’t have had to,” says Victor. “It’s life-affirming for me to know that I wrote the film in a leap-of-faith way to be like: ‘Is anyone else feeling like this?’ And it’s nice to know that there are people who are understanding what that is.”
World premiere ‘Tombstone’ restoration
Val Kilmer, photographed at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan in 1993 circa the time of “Tombstone.”
(Joe Tabacca / For The Times)
On Saturday, the Academy Museum will screen the world premiere of a 4K restoration of 1993’s “Tombstone” as a tribute to actor Val Kilmer. Directed by George P. Cosmatos, the film tells the legendary story of the shootout at the O.K. Corral, which has become one of the foundational myths of the American western. Kilmer stars as Doc Holliday, who comes to the aid of his friend, retired lawman Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell). The cast also includes Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Charlton Heston, Jason Priestley and Dana Delany.
The role was a special one for Kilmer, who titled his memoir “I’m Your Huckleberry” after a line in the movie.
In his original review of the film, Peter Rainer declared the film the latest of the then-in-vogue “designer Westerns” and highlighted Kilmer’s turn, writing, “Val Kilmer’s Holliday is classic camp performance, although it may not have started out that way. His Southern drawl sounds like a languorous cross between early Brando and Mr. Blackwell. Stricken with tuberculosis, his eyes red-rimmed, Doc coughs delicately and matches Ringo line for line in Latin. He also shoots straighter than anyone else in the movie — his powers of recuperation make Rasputin seem like a pushover.”
The film will also be playing on July 26 at Vidiots.
‘Familiar Touch’
Kathleen Chalfant, left, and Carolyn Michelle in the movie “Familiar Touch.”
(Music Box)
Winner of three prizes at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, “Familiar Touch” is the narrative feature debut of writer-director Sarah Friedland. The sensitive and compassionate story follows Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), an 80-something retired cook, as she settles into an assisted-living facility while grappling with memory loss.
Friedland and Chalfant will be at select showings throughout the weekend for Q&As.
In his review of the movie, Robert Abele wrote, “The mystery of Ruth’s mindfulness — which ebbs and flows — is at the core of Chalfant’s brilliant, award-worthy performance. Hers is a virtuosity that doesn’t ask for pity or applause or even link arms with the stricken-but-defiant disease-playing headliners who have gone before her. Chalfant’s Ruth is merely, momentously human: an older woman in need, but no less expressive of life’s fullness because of it.”
Esther Zuckerman spoke to Friedland about shooting the film at Pasadena’s Villa Gardens retirement community in collaboration with staff and residents. The production held a five-week filmmaking workshop, involving the residents as background actors and production assistants.
“It came a lot from the anti-ageist ideas of the project,” Friedland says. “If we’re going to make this film the character study of an older woman that sees older adults as valuable and talented and capacious, let’s engage their capaciousness and their creativity on all sides of production.”
Points of interest
Tsui Hark’s ‘Shanghai Blues’ in 4K
Sylvia Chang in the movie “Shanghai Blues.”
(Film Movement)
Though he is best known to American audiences for his action movies, Hong Kong director Tsui Hark has been versatile in many other genres. Now getting a new 4K restoration from the original negative for its 40th anniversary is Tsui’s 1984 screwball romantic comedy “Shanghai Blues.”
Opening in 1937 Shanghai, the story concerns an aspiring musician, Do-Re-Mi (Kenny Bee), and a woman, Shu-Shu (Sylvia Chang), who, after a chance encounter, vow to meet again in the same spot after the war. Leaping forward to peacetime a decade later, the two find themselves living in the same building without realizing it, as he becomes involved with her roommate (Sally Yeh).
The film will be playing at the American Cinematheque at the Los Feliz 3 on Fri., Tues. and Sat., July 5. It will also play multiple Laemmle locations on Weds.
And expect more on Hong Kong cinema later this summer when Beyond Fest launches a series of new restorations of such classics as “Hard Boiled,” “The Killer” and Hark’s 1986 “Peking Opera Blues.”
‘Much Ado About Nothing’
Director-actor Kenneth Branagh, left, Keanu Reeves, Emma Thompson, Robert Sean Leonard and Denzel Washington at Cannes in 1993.
(Patrick Billard / AFP via Getty Images)
On Monday, Vidiots will screen Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” About a bunch of incredibly good-looking people having a great time in the Italian countryside, the film stars Branagh, Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Keaton, Robert Sean Leonard, Keanu Reeves and Denzel Washington.
Branagh and Thompson were married in real life at the time, and in his original review of the film, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Actors as well as athletes have a prime of life, a time when everything they touch seems a miracle. And the crowning pleasure of watching Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in this rollicking version of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is the way it allows us to share in that state of special grace, to watch the English-speaking world’s reigning acting couple perform at the top of their game. … Seeing them beautifully play off each other is an enormous pleasure for lovers of the romance of language as well as fanciers of romantic love.”
‘The Spirit of ’76’ live commentary
David Cassidy in the movie “The Spirit of ’76.”
(Philosophical Research Society)
On Thursday, July 3, as part of the 7th House screening series at the Philosophical Research Society, there will be a screening of 1990’s “The Spirit of ’76” featuring a live commentary by stars Jeff and Steven McDonald of the band Redd Kross.
The film is something of a singular object: a loving satire of the 1970s made from the perspective of the burgeoning ’90s, written and directed by Lucas Reiner, with a co-story credit to Roman Coppola, costumes designed by Sofia Coppola and a cast that includes David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Olivia d’Abo, Don Novello, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner and Devo.
From the extremely drab future of 2176, three adventurers are sent back in time to July 4, 1776 but mistakenly land in the year 1976. They meet two teenagers (the McDonald brothers) who help them navigate the present and find their way back to their own time.
In his original review of the film, Kevin Thomas did not catch the vibes, as he wrote, “Movies do not get more inane than ‘The Spirit of ’76’ … You have to wonder how this film ever got made, let alone released.”
In other news
Jerry Bruckheimer is still revved up
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, photographed at his Santa Monica office in June.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Among the big releases this weekend is Joseph Kosinski’s racing drama “F1,” starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. The film reunited Kosinski with screenwriter Ehren Kruger and producer Jerry Bruckheimer following their huge success with “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Josh Rottenberg spoke to the 81-year-old Bruckheimer about his legendary career working on movies such as “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Bad Boys,” “Armageddon” and countless more, making sleek commercial pictures that have been defining the Hollywood blockbuster for decades.
“It’s changed a lot,” Bruckheimer says of the movie business. “Streaming hit a lot of places hard. They spent too much money and now they’ve got problems with that. Some of the studios aren’t healthy. But the business, if you do it right, is healthy.”
Bruckheimer is not one of the doomsayers foretelling the end of movies.
“I’ve been doing this over 50 years and that doom has been there every time a new technology shows up,” he says. “And yet, look at what’s happened. Look at ‘Minecraft.’ Look at ‘Sinners.’ Look at ‘Lilo & Stitch.’ If you do it right, people show up.”
The former NBA great and current player for the Big 3’s L.A. Riot on Wednesday wrote on Instagram that his dog, Sunday, died in an apparent hit-and-run accident on June 18 in Suwanee, Ga. Howard said that he was visiting New York when he received the tragic news that his beloved Belgian Malinois “got loose and was hit by a car that kept going.”
“I’m devastated because you were the dog that never left my side, the dog that stuck to my hip at all times, and the one time you wander off without me being there someone takes you away from me,” Howard wrote. “Who could be so heartless to do this to such an innocent girl with no remorse.
“I’ve been trying to hold this in. … I really have but it’s killing me inside to get answers! I need answers and I won’t stop searching until I find out what happen to my beautiful Sunday.”
Howard implored his 3.7 million followers to share any information they might have about the incident. The majority of his post, however, was a tribute in words, photos and videos to a dear pooch who sounds as though she was one man’s best friend.
“From the moment I got you, Sunday, you were more than just my dog. … You were my peace. My protector. A reminder of everything beautiful and calm just like those early Sunday mornings,” wrote Howard, a three-time defensive player of the year who won an NBA title with the Lakers in 2020 and is set to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this fall.
“You hugged like no other. Barked at nothing like it meant everything. And every time I called your name, you came running full speed like your only mission was to love me. You waited at the door for me every single day, just to wrap your paws around me. And I’m gonna miss those hugs more than I can put into words.
“You were joy. You were warmth. You were my girl. And your life was cut short too soon. You helped me Smile through all the Storms I’ve been through but what do I do now that my Sunday Sunshine is gone.”
