Connect with us

movies

MS NOW Partners With FiftyPlusOne For Data As Midterms Approach

Published

on

MS NOW has partnered with FiftyPlusOne for polling data, approval ratings, election modeling and analysis in advance of the midterms.

The deal starts on Thursday, and MS NOW will be FiftyPlusOne’s exclusive national partner.

G. Elliott Morris, head of analytics at FiftyPlusOne, previously was editorial director of data analytics at ABC News, including oversight of FiveThirtyEight. FiftyPlusOne’s data will be used across MS NOW’s platforms and Morris will write a regular column for ms.now. The MS NOW Membership will feature FiftyPlusOne data in its Live Q&A feature. MS NOW earlier announced a partnership with the Associated Press for election results.

FiftyPlusOne features daily polling averages on upcoming elections and issues and forecasts on various contests.

Kabir Khanna, director of elections and analytics at MS NOW, said in a statement that FiftyPlusOne’s “expertise will give out journalists and audiences a deeper understanding of the polling landscape before and after Election Day.” Morris said that FiftyPlusOne provides “rigorous, transparent aggregation of public opinion polls and other electoral data that’s honest about what the numbers can and can’t tell us.”

>

Continue Reading

movies

Anime Director Masaaki Yuasa Set to Curate Toronto Fest Film Showcase

Published

on

The Toronto Film Festival is set to showcase classic films selected by Japanese anime director Masaaki Yuasa that influenced his celebrated animation.

Yuasa is known for surreal storytelling and a distinct anime visual style for films like Night is Short, Walk on Girl, Ride Your Wave, his directorial debut Mind Game and Lu Over the Wall, an Annecy award winner. He also directed an episode of Adventure Time and worked on Netflix’s DEVILMAN Crybaby.

In all, 17 features and four shorts selected by Yuasa, including movies by Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Sylvain Chomet and Rene Laloux, will feature as part of the Drawn Universes: Visions in Animation program. The series, to run Nov. 19 to Dec. 29 at TIFF Lightbox, will include conversations with Yuasa and the Japanese director introducing screenings of Richard Williams’ The Thief and the Cobbler: A Moment in Time and Isao Takahata’s Anne of Green Gables: Road to Green Gables.

Drawn Universes: Visions in Animation will launch with Paul Grimault’s The King and the Mockingbird on Nov. 19.

Akira

Toronto Film Festival

Yuasa said in a director’s statement released by TIFF: “In curating this series, I wanted to look back at films that sparked my own imagination and influenced both my predecessors and the generations that followed. The diverse lineup includes foundational achievements like Pinocchio and Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro; visionary masterpieces such as AKIRA, Fantastic Planet and Toy Story 3; and contemporary classics including The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Liz and the Blue Bird. Taken together, these films demonstrate boundless imagination, extraordinary technical skill, and world-building at the highest level, revealing the limitless potential of animated storytelling.”

Yuasa in 2013 co-founded Science SARU with Eunyoung Choi, left in 2020 and in 2025 he established ame pippin Inc.

The King and the Mockingbird

Toronto Film Festival

>

Continue Reading

movies

‘Stick’ Season 2 Trailer Sees Rhea Seehorn Coach Owen Wilson

Published

on

Those mourning the end of Ted Lasso Season 4 have some reprieve coming in the approach of Apple TV’s Stick Season 2.

The golf comedy series returns Wednesday, November 4 with two episodes, followed by one every week until December 30, 2026. The cast led by Owen Wilson, Peter Dager, Marc Maron, Mariana Treviño, Lilli Kay, Judy Greer and Timothy Olyphant will reunite, and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus) joins Season 2 in a supporting role.

SNL alum John Higgins, Billy Zane, Rex Linn, Sasha Alexander and Missi Pyle are also new to the ensemble for the sophomore season. The show also features return guest appearances from legendary broadcasters Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman, and golf enthusiasts Matt Scharff and Dan Rapaport.

In Stick Season 2, Pryce’s golf prodigy Santi (Dager) takes the next step in his pursuit of professional golf, but his talent thus far becomes baseline expectation, which changes the game for him. As Santi chases his dream, Pryce Cahill finds himself wondering what might still be possible for him.

Urged on by his former rival Clark Ross (Timothy Olyphant), Pryce decides to bet on himself, launching an improbable comeback in hopes of becoming the oldest golfer ever to win the U.S. Open. After the tempting offer, Pryce knocks on Clark’s door to see the ambitious former player wearing under-eye masks, agreeing to his proposition.

Seehorn will portray Coach Amanda, aka “the swing doctor” according to Clark, recruited to help Pryce get back on track to success. With trusted caddie Mitts (Marc Maron) in his corner, Pryce sets out to prove — to the golf world and, more importantly, to himself — that maybe he really was as good as everyone always said he was. Amanda snort laughs at first, thinking they are kidding when they visit her for her wisdom and expertise.

“We have to play to our strengths,” Amanda says as she whips Pryce into shape. “However few they are.”

L-R: Rhea Seehorn and Owen Wilson in ‘Stick’ Season 2

Apple TV

He tells her to relax as he pulls on some white golf gloves. Noah Kahan’s “Northern Attitude” plays towards the end of the clip.

The heartfelt, feel-good comedy about a found family and their relationships set within the world of golf debuted in June 2025. Wilson stars as Pryce Cahill, an over-the-hill, ex-pro golfer whose career was derailed prematurely 20 years ago. Now he wants to see if he really was as good as everyone said and thought he was before his flame out. After the collapse of his marriage to Amber Lynn (Greer) and getting fired from his job at an Indiana sporting goods store, Pryce hedges his bets, and future, entirely on a troubled 17-year-old golf phenom named Santi.

Hailing from Apple Studios, Stick is showrun by Jason Keller, who also serves as executive producer alongside Wilson, Ben Silverman for Propagate Content and Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady. The series is also executive produced by Christopher Moynihan, Rodney Ferrell, Howard T. Owens, Drew Buckley, Lee Eisenberg, and Bill Callahan.

RELATED: ‘Stick’ Creator Jason Keller Talks Crafting Heart, Casting Peter Dager And Exploring Pryce’s Past In Season 2

>

Continue Reading

movies

Andrew Scott Talks, ‘Heated Rivalry,’ Queer Joy and AIDS Stigma

Published

on

Hot on the heels of the European premiere of Elsinore, lead actor — and definitive awards frontrunner — Andrew Scott sat down for a career-spanning conversation at London’s BFI Southbank Thursday afternoon.

Scott’s tearjerker opened the 70th BFI London Film Festival Wednesday night, as the Irishman was joined by co-stars Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson and Joe Locke on the red carpet. He was emotional on stage following the feature’s screening and brought out the real-life people who inspired particular Elsinore characters, including Colman’s Professor Margaret Johnson, a pioneer of HIV/AIDS treatment in the late ’80s, as well as the National Theatre’s stage door keeper of 46 years Linda Tolhurst, and Ian Charleson’s sister, Lizzie.

Simon Stone’s Elsinore, from Pride‘s Stephen Beresford, follows the late Ian Charleson’s final weeks before his death from AIDS playing Hamlet at London’s National Theatre in 1989. The gala at this year’s London Film Fest was especially poignant for audiences, with the Royal Festival Hall just a stone’s throw from the NT.

Scott covered all bases in Thursday’s Screen Talk session, from playing James Moriarty in the BBC’s contemporary Sherlock revival to solidifying himself as an undeniably magnetic lead presence with his role as the Hot Priest in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. His recent credits include All of Us Strangers (2023), Blue Moon (2025), Wake Up Dead Man (2025) and Pressure (2026), some of which he also spoke about in depth.

One of the session’s most memorable moments was when Scott, who is openly gay, was probed on the discourse that queer joy is dominating cinematic storytelling. He said: “I welcome things like Heartstopper and Heated Rivalry and Red, White, and Royal Blue and all those things that are joyful. I really, really, really do. And I think the fact that there’s lots of different types of gay drama, so to speak, on film [and] television is extraordinary.”

He continued about those who lament the return to “sad gays” with a project like Elsinore: “It troubles me a little bit because I think people perhaps don’t want to go back to a time when you’re talking about the AIDS crisis, or you’re talking about [a time] when it was incredibly difficult for gay people. I think that sometimes comes from a place of shame. You go, ‘I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to see that anymore.’ There’s something a little troubling about that for me, to say: ‘I don’t want to go and see something that was a difficult time.’ Because the shame does not lie with the gay people. The shame lies with the governments who ignored the AIDS crisis and the stigma that was around people and the innate prejudice that was in society. That’s someone else’s shame,” said the actor defiantly as the room applauded.

Scott was beaming about Wednesday night’s premiere and described it as a “very, very, very special evening.” It is a surprisingly personal project for Scott, who is also a producer on Elsinore. He famously played Hamlet for 150 shows at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2017, and found the process grueling. “Everybody knows this, but [Hamlet] is three hours and 45 minutes long. We do it twice on a Wednesday and twice on a Saturday. I’ve played the part myself,” he said. “It absolutely knocks the stuffing out of you.”

He continued about the “Olympian” achievement of Charleson’s: “The idea that he did that when he had no immune system is so genuinely… the physical and psychological toll that must have taken on him. But in another way, it enlivened him, and I could sort of understand that.” Scott said one particular element he found so awful was Charleson’s swollen face from septicaemia, a common problem with AIDS patients. “I think he was concerned that people would be like, ‘Oh my god!’ because he was not recognizable necessarily at some stages, and that’s really heartbreaking and almost humiliating. I can imagine that he thinks this is going to be a humiliating experience to come out and have everybody facing the same direction — at you. The bravery of that, at a time when having that particular disease felt like there was some sort of blame attached to it,” said Scott.

Naturally, when discussing the likes of Sherlock, Fleabag and All of Us Strangers, he gushed over his co-creatives Benedict Cumberbatch, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Paul Mescal. He felt the same working with Colman: “Not just Olivia, but seeing all those people, Phoebe and Paul and Benedict… Actors are the loves of my life in some way,” said Scott. “I love actors… They’re fun and brilliant people. If you are feeling awful when you go on stage, the actors are always there. But Ian Charleson, I know without a doubt that when he told them about [his AIDS diagnosis], the outpouring of support from the theater community, when there wasn’t a lot of support for anybody, was extraordinary. And I’m proud of that. The film sort of addresses that.”

He’s still admittedly in disbelief over how huge Sherlock was, and how it changed his career. “I’d been in lots of things before — film, theater, everything, but that was just seen across the world. It was in 230 countries across the world. It was an instantaneous hit with the public, and also the critics seemed to like it. So it certainly change things for sure.”

Scott reflected on being torn between pursuing painting or acting as a 17-year-old, and confessed to feeling like his late mother was the most influential creative presence he’s ever had. “Audiences are very discerning, and she was just an example of somebody who loved the theater, loved films, and loved everything about it, but lived a sort of so-called small life. But [she] had a giant effect on somebody who did go into the arts — her son, and my sister is in the arts too — so I guess that local theater groups and art galleries and book clubs and all that stuff matters so much because it’s inspiring and the world might get bigger, but the passion is exactly the same.” Again, the room rewarded the actor’s rallying cry with ardent applause.

Understandably, Scott was also asked about his producing aspirations — he loved the experience and plans to do it again — and his “processes” as an actor. He doesn’t consider himself a method actor, but is able to draw on his “sensitivities” and enjoys diving into a character without knowing too much. “What’s so extraordinary about Fleabag and the Priest and the Godmother and all those characters,” he explained, “[is] they don’t even have a name. We don’t know anything about them. We don’t know their backstory. I think sometimes backstory is overpraised, and sometimes I like, depending on the project, to know as much as the audience does.”

The B70th FI London Film Festival runs Oct. 7-18.

>

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2017 Zox News Theme. Theme by MVP Themes, powered by WordPress.