TORONTO — It’s not everyday that we take photos of Oscar winners, unless we happen to be at the Toronto International Film Festival, when it is everyday.
On Friday, during our first session of operations alone, we had the pleasure of shooting Academy Award winners Michelle Yeoh and “Boyhood” mom Patricia Arquette, not to mention two-time Cannes Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu, most recently of the upcoming “Fjord.”
You should bookmark this link and check it regularly to see Jason Armond’s beautiful portraits. Courteney Cox? Jodie Comer? Sebastian Stan doing his serious face? It’s all here.
Our first wave of video interviews is live
Want a quick hit of festival buzz? How about Courteney Cox, Arquette and David Harbour getting scrappy over their favorite pizza toppings? They’re here to promote the Cox-directed “Evil Genius,” about the notorious pizza bomber incident.
Ten years after “The Love Witch” rocked audiences, writer-director Anna Biller is back with “The Face of Horror,” a medieval ghost story and a Technicolor-styled riot of design. She dropped by and mixed it up with our Mark Olsen.
Being a scream queen is a serious honor for Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe, in town with the excellent new slasher “River” but already our favorites for, respectively, “Evil Dead” and “Happy Death Day.”
What are we watching tonight?
‘Misty Green’
Rosalind Eleazar in the movie “Misty Green,” directed by Chris Rock.
(Merrick Morton / TIFF)
Misty Green is an actor — played with searing conviction by Rosalind Eleazar in a star-making performance — who may have missed her moment.
Though the industry has not made things easy for her as she suffers racist and sexist slights both big and small, Misty has not done herself any favors either, at times self-sabotaging with a careless attitude toward her undeniable talent and the work that must go with it.
The past few films Chris Rock has written and directed himself, including 2014’s “Top Five,” have felt distinctly personal, as if he is working out his own feelings about his career and the world.
“Misty Green” points toward redemption and hope on the other side of darkness: a pitiless examination of contemporary Hollywood and the difficulty of holding it all together. — Mark Olsen
‘Closing Night’
Sarah Paulson in the movie “Closing Night.”
(TIFF)
The first half of Cody Fern’s strong debut is about the sweet schadenfreude of watching estranged sisters Sandra (Sarah Paulson) and April (Naomi Watts) scream at each other.
The second half pivots to ask if it’s as cathartic to leave things unsaid. Sandra, a stern Broadway actor, has hit the end of her career. April, an anxious Michigan hairdresser, is in Manhattan to see her dopey son Theo (Toby Wallace) and his pregnant girlfriend Lucy (Odessa A’zion) — who, after the family’s controlling matriarch Diane (Dianne Wiest) shows up, should start having second thoughts about passing down their dysfunctional DNA.
Both Fern and his co-screenwriter Devon are actors themselves, so they’ve written their leads one show-stopper scene after another.
Impressively, Paulson even manages to steal the climax away from Watts’ flighty kleptomaniac as her hard luck character takes her lumps with the courage of someone facing down a firing squad, chin held high. — Amy Nicholson
‘Elsinore’
Andrew Scott in the movie “Elsinore.”
(Anthony Dickenson / Focus Features)
Already becoming a must-see out of Telluride and now Toronto, this extraordinary actor’s showcase (arriving in theaters Nov. 20) is carried by a fascinatingly complex turn by Andrew Scott, who just might finally earn some of the hardware he deserved for 2023’s “All of Us Strangers.”
Scott plays real-life Scottish actor Ian Charleson, the bright presence of “Chariots of Fire” and “Gandhi” who never quite had the movie career he deserved. But near the end of his career, in defiance of an AIDS diagnosis, he took on the stage role of Hamlet and left a burning impression.
It’s a performance that consistently elevates “Elsinore” from its recognizable trajectory. Scott deepens Charleson’s race against his own mortality with notes of humor, desperation, guilt, self-delusional avoidance and ultimately the deftness of someone who likes playing pretend. — Joshua Rothkopf
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RIYADH: The Hedayathon event — a hackathon organized by the Presidency of Religious Affairs in partnership with the University of Jeddah — recently concluded. Participants were asked to come up with ways to enhance services for visitors to the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque.
The Hedayathon aimed to foster innovation and harness scientific and technological capabilities to develop solutions that enhance religious services and enrich visitors’ experiences, according to a report by the Saudi Press Agency.
The event brought together innovators, developers, students, academics, startups, entrepreneurs, and people interested in outreach (da’wah) and religious guidance.
There were three winning projects. First place went to the Madaar team for their Maqam Platform project, which won SR30,000 ($8,000). Second place — and SR20,000 — went to the Tala team for Every Signal is a Recited Verse, an idea aimed at serving people with special needs. Echo Tech’s Sanctuary Translator — a project designed to develop legal translation — took third place, winning SR10,000.
Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, president of Religious Affairs at the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque, stressed the importance of leveraging technology and innovation to develop religious services and make them accessible to visitors.
In remarks shared on the presidency’s X account, Al-Sudais said: “Serving pilgrims of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque is a tremendous responsibility. It requires intensified efforts and mobilized capabilities to facilitate their access to religious services, enabling them to perform their worship with ease and tranquility.”
Obaid Al-Mudhaff, the university’s president, said the partnership with the presidency represents a model of integration between field expertise, scientific research, and innovation, helping develop quality solutions to serve the Two Holy Mosques and their visitors.
Salem Areej, general supervisor of the Hedayathon event, said the initiative was launched not only as a tech competition, but also to use technology to better serve pilgrims.
The hackathon’s objectives included enriching visitors’ religious experience, developing religious translation solutions, maximizing communications and media impact, developing religious guidance tools, building platforms for teaching the Holy Qur’an and delivering scholarly lessons, answering worshippers’ questions, and facilitating access to religious services for people with disabilities.
Activities included panel discussions, an exhibition, workshops, and consultations.
The presidency also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Translation Association to enhance cooperation and develop multilingual religious content.
The National Television Awards are back for 2026 and every year, the biggest TV talent takes on one another to win the top prizes in the coveted categories
20:15, 08 Sep 2026Updated 20:44, 08 Sep 2026
Clarkson’s Farm won Reality Docuseries (Image: Getty Images for The NTA’s)
The big award ceremony is back, with Joel Dommett hosting for a sixth year in a row. Every year, he rubs shoulders with national treasures, such as Ian McKellen, and ahead of the ceremony, he told The Mirror that “just to be part of that is really cool”.
“There was a moment where I was still on stage with Ian McKellen for seven minutes, watching the VTs,” he told us, “I was just panting, because I was running around before, but then I was watching the VTs with Ian, who was presenting an award next. We had a nice little chat and I loved that moment because he’s someone you would never meet in real life.”
The NTAs are also celebrating their first all-female drama performance shortlist – with Gavin And Stacey star Ruth Jones to compete with Ella Bruccoleri, Judy Parfitt, Sheridan Smith and Vicky McClure for the prize.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke holds up the Lombardi Trophy after his team beat the Bengals to win the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium in 2022.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
This is huge. This is landscape altering. This is like Southern California just added an expansion team led by one of the best owners in sports.
For the Angels, currently the second-worst team in baseball and on track to finish a league-worst 12th consecutive season out of the playoffs, this is downright life changing.
Kroenke builds. Kroenke spends. Kroenke wins.
The sale is not expected to close until early 2027, so change will come slowly, but buckle up, because a bumps-be-damned renovation is coming.
First, the Angels are getting a new stadium. Kroenke hasn’t confirmed it, but it’s surely happening. He’s a real estate guy at heart who loves turning empty lots into palaces and that’s what he’ll do in Anaheim.
You think SoFi is nice? Here’s guessing the new Angels stadium will be nicer, and surrounded by the sort of commercial baseball village sprouting up all over the major leagues. The stadium and its environs will offer everything the Dodgers can’t, and may just steal a few fans in the process.
Second, the Angels are getting new swashbuckling leadership. Don’t know who, but expect the new general manager to be the kind of leader who will boldly sacrifice the future to win now, because that’s what Kroenke does, he wins now. Think baseball’s version of Les Snead.
Third, the Angels are getting one of the game’s bright young managers. Don’t know who, but he will be a guy who’s big on analytics and even bigger on the human touch, and he’ll probably be very young and very anonymous and eventually very successful. Think baseball’s version of Sean McVay.
The overall theme of Kroenke’s leadership will be championship or bust. He hates finishing second, and has left no stone unturned in giving the Rams every opportunity to succeed.
When he brought the Rams back to Los Angeles in 2016, he gave the team all of 13 games before firing then-coach Jeff Fisher after going 4-9. Soon thereafter he made 30-year-old McVay the youngest coach in NFL history and they’ve since become arguably the most admired franchise in the NFL.
Kroenke wins both on the field and in the community. His entire operation, which also owns the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL, the Colorado Rapids of MLS and Arsenal of the Premier League, is led by Kevin Demoff, a lifelong Angeleno who understands and works the local market as well as any sports executive ever. The community has become saturated with Rams, and the same will be happening with the Angels as they increase their reach into Los Angeles County, something Moreno tried but could never pull off.
The name will remain the Los Angeles Angels, not because Kroenke doesn’t like Anaheim, but because he knows his investment must expand out of Orange County to eventually reap rewards.
“The Angels are a storied franchise anchored in a great market,” Kroenke said in a statement. “We look forward to an exciting future with the Angels organization.”
Storied. Anchored. Exciting. Those are words you rarely heard about the Angels under Moreno, whose 23-year stewardship began with a cheer and ended with a whimper.
Angels owner Arte Moreno has agreed to sell the team to Rams owner Stan Kroenke.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Remember how, in his first news conference after buying the team from Disney, he lowered beer prices? He was fun, he was innovative and he was the first Latino majority owner in major American team sports. It was all so cool, and the team responded with five American League West titles and two appearances in the American League Championship Series.
Celebrity Hunted aired a dramatic finale as four ‘fugitives’ successfully managed to outrun the hunters
The celebrity hunters were left feeling defeated as four fugitives managed to escape (Image: Channel 4)
The winners of Celebrity Hunted have been confirmed in a dramatic end to the series, while one fugitive was sent home.
On Tuesday evening (August 25), the grand finale of the Channel 4 show kicked off with five celebrities still on the run from the Hunters. Former EastEnders star Brian Conley and his daughter Lucy were still a team, remaining undetected, along with Strictly Come Dancing pros Amy Dowden and Carlos Gu. It comes as disability advocates JJ Chalmers and Sophie Morgan were caught on Monday’s episode.
And on Tuesday’s episode, television presenter Scarlette Douglas was on her own after her brother Stuart was caught in a previous episode, yet the end was in sight, and she made a bid for the extraction point. As she headed to the motorway in a car being driven by her friend, the Hunters were hot on Scarlette’s heels, and after she tried to run away on foot, she was captured moments later.
“I’m gutted that I didn’t get all the way to the end. But I managed to do three days without my brother, and that has made me super proud”, Scarlette said as she was eliminated from the series.
Across the country, the two remaining teams headed to Birmingham train station to retrieve details of the extraction point from a left luggage facility, and the Hunters wasted no time in following them.
Carlos and Amy tried to dress up in hopes of not being caught on CCTV, while Brian waited in a pub as his trusty daughter headed over to retrieve the information, but they were all captured on camera, and the Hunters closed in.
With details of the extraction point stored on a burner phone, the teams headed to Black Rock Sands beach in North Wales, where they stayed overnight in local B&Bs before heading for the checkpoint.
Amy, Carlos, Brian and Lucy concealed themselves in the sand dunes while they waited for extraction, which came in the form of a small aeroplane that could land directly on the beach.
The teams sprinted to the aircraft as the Hunters raced across the beach on foot and by car, with help from a helicopter.
Amy and Carlos jumped through the doors of the plane, followed by Lucy, but Brian struggled to run across the sand and was seen holding his lower back.
Thankfully, the 65-year-old made it into the aircraft, which began moving down the sand, ready to take off and complete the extraction.
The Hunters made one final push to cut them off, racing alongside the plane in their car, but they failed as the plane took off, leaving Brian, Lucy, Amy, and Carlos as the show’s winners and the Hunters at HQ annoyed.
Celebrity Hunted is available to stream on Channel 4
In the mixed doubles competition, Britons Henry Patten and Lloyd Glasspool will both seek to beat some of the sport’s biggest stars after coming through two qualifying matches on Monday.
The US Open mixed doubles was controversially revamped last year to include singles stars in a bid to attract more attention to the format.
Under the new format, the top six pairs with the best combined singles rankings received direct entry into the main draw, with another eight receiving wildcards.
The tournament now takes place over three days in the week before the main draw began, and features a shorter scoring system with only four games required to win a set in matches before the final, no ‘advantage’ scoring and 10-point match tie-breaks instead of a third set throughout.
Both Patten and Glasspool had to come through qualifying with their respective partners on Monday.
Patten, a two-time winner of the men’s doubles competition at Wimbledon, and Czech team-mate Katerina Siniakova defeated Americans Peyton Stearns and Christian Harrison in straight sets in their second qualifying match.
Next, Patten and Siniakova – the respective men’s and women’s world number ones in doubles – will take on 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic and top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the first round of the main draw.
After defeating El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and France’s Kristina Mladenovic, Glasspool and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe will face 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams and seven-time major winner Carlos Alcaraz.
Alcaraz will be playing his first match in four months after recovering from a wrist injury, while Williams is making her return to the sport after a four-year absence.
