The Guardian Culture

Claire Fuller: ‘Dylan Thomas showed me that writing could make me feel everything’

The novelist on being inspired by Shirley Jackson, discovering the brilliance of Denis Johnson, and finding comfort in Elizabeth StroutMy earliest reading memory When I was five and starting school, I would catch a coach from the Oxfordshire village where I lived. Twice a day I read the little metal plaque screwed to the upholstery, which gave the warning “Mind your head when leaving your seat”.My favourite book growing up In the late 1970s my dad had a copy of Phenomena by John Michell.

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘A beauty pageant in athletic form’: how cheerleading show America’s Sweethearts became a Netflix megahit

The film-makers and stars of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders docu-series explain the sisterhood and fights for fair pay behind the pompomsIt’s been 30 years since the Dallas Cowboys – who have long billed themselves as America’s Team – won the Super Bowl. But now, thanks to Greg Whiteley’s Netflix docu-series America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the most reliable and globally recognizable arm of the Cowboys brand may no longer be the men playing football, but the women dancing on

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘I’m a soldier. I don’t have a gun, but I have a pen and a camera’: Mahnaz Mohammadi on fighting the Iranian regime

The director and activist on her fictional drama Roya, drawing on her experience of imprisonment and torture, and why even in Europe she feels unsafeMahnaz Mohammadi is a survivor. The Iranian film-maker and women’s rights activist has been arrested on many occasions and imprisoned several times. In 2011, she was held for months in solitary confinement and tortured. In 2014, she was sentenced to five years and spent several months in prison. A few years ago, she met one of her first interrogator

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

Iranian Oscar Nominee Jafar Panahi Was on Karlovy Vary’s Guest List. Then Came the Travel Ban.

Given "his crucial involvement" in Nader Saeivar's competition title 'Hijamat,' which he produced and edited, "we wanted him to come," says Karel Och, the artistic director of the Czech film festival.

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Variety

Alexis Alexiou Completes Third Feature ‘Sea of Glass,’ Unveils First Look and Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)

Greek writer/director Alexis Alexiou has unveiled his third feature and his first since 2015’s award-winning “Wednesday 04.45.” “Sea of Glass,” now complete, is a country noir road movie following two women in an off-season Greek seaside resort who unexpectedly come together to confront the past, family stereotypes and the closed provincial community. The film has […]

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Candomblé: Sacred Rhythms in Brazil review | Ammar Kalia's global album of the month

(Flee)A treasure trove of field recordings are reshaped into pulsating floor-fillers and sparse baile funk by a range of producersThe Brazilian religious and musical tradition of candomblé is a rhythmic barrage. Originating in the 19th century among enslaved west Africans, candomblé manifested in music as a ritual practice of drumming circles, where polyrhythms were hammered out to induce possession by spirits. Athens-based archival label Flee presents a treasure trove of this ceremonial music f

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Glastonbury the Movie review – thirty years on, the sunset of a hippy dream in all its glory

Coinciding with a fallow year for the festival, these scenes filmed in 1993 record a youth culture innocent of camera phones and low on corporate hypeWith Glastonbury in a fallow year, anyone missing their dose of West Country bacchanalia will have to settle for this handsome documentary, remastered in 4K and rereleased for its 30th anniversary. Shot at the 1993 festival, it serves as a heady curative to today’s digital saturation: no mobile phones, no corporate logos, just tens of thousands of

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Downtown Boys: Public Luxury review – a joyful blast of bilingual political punk

(Sub Pop)The Rhode Island five-piece return with a ferocious rallying call to fight for your beliefs, with bouncing basslines, muted house chords and stomping drumsOptimism might feel outdated, but Downtown Boys are proud outliers. On Public Luxury, the Rhode Island band’s third and best album, they wear their politics proudly – while bringing new ambiguity, strangeness and shadow to their passionate, sax-blasted bilingual punk. Opener No Me Jodas (Don’t Fuck With Me) comes out roaring, fists up

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Variety

‘Bouchra’ Review: Animated Memoir Explores Diasporic Queer Identity and the Fraught Bonds Between Mothers and Daughters

In “Bouchra,” directors Merriam Bennani and Orian Bakri use animation to tell an intimate story taken from Bennani’s life, creating a distance from personal narrative. Instead of making a documentary where Bennani confronts her own family, or translating it into a drama with actors, they have created a world in which human emotion is told […]

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Variety

S.S. Rajamouli Says ‘Varanasi’ Imax Action Done, Interconnecting Scenes Remain and ‘Baahubali’ Belongs in Animation (EXCLUSIVE)

The films of S.S. Rajamouli have consistently pushed the scale of Indian filmmaking – with blockbusters such as “RRR,” before that the “Baahubali” films. His upcoming feature “Varanasi,” set to release in April 2027, is set to go even further – set across thousands of years and locations as remote and Antarctica, the plot seeing […]

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘I can out-dance Bowie and Jagger!’ Martha Reeves on Motown, Dancing in the Street and smashing crockery with Dusty Springfield

Now 84, the voice of Heat Wave and Jimmy Mack is releasing a new album. She answers your questions on Marvin Gaye, popularising the roundabout and why she hates cover versions of her songsYou were part of perhaps the richest and most exciting era of music since the German and Italian classics of the 19th century. How was it for you and what made it all tick? eamonmccWilliam Stevenson discovered me after I had won an amateur contest. It was like a dream come true that a producer would come and ap

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Strung review – far-fetched thriller awkwardly mixes Blumhouse and Tyler Perry

There are flashes of low-rent fun to be had here but a busy script makes it feel like a limited series inelegantly cut down to movie lengthStrung is a cautionary tale about following your gut. Directed by Malcolm D Lee – the under-heralded virtuoso behind Girls Trip, Barbershop and other fine franchises – the Peacock suspense thriller stars Chloe Bailey as Laila, a classical violinist with her sights set on a seat in the city philharmonic. A substitute music teaching gig leaves that dream feelin

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Variety

Peacock’s Horror Thriller ‘Strung’ Falters on Scares and Devolves Into Comedic, Campy Chaos: Review

From “The Best Man” director Malcom D. Lee and “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” scribe Alan B. McElroy, Peacock’s new horror thriller, “Strung,” is an absurd, campy film offering that leans fully into the ridiculous. “Strung” follows a naive violinist whose new role as a private music tutor for an affluent family leads […]

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

Bienvenue à ‘Paris Paris,’ a Poetic Exploration of Home and Displacement (Exclusive Trailer)

Belgian documentary filmmaker Isabelle Tollenaere's fiction feature debut world premieres in the Proxima competition program of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary film festival. 

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Dangerous, Dirty, Violent & Young by Zayd Ayers Dohrn review – child of the revolution

The son of fugitive leaders of the militant Weather Underground recounts his chaotic, peripatetic upbringingEvery aspect of a family’s life will seem normal to the small children within it; only hindsight can bring what was abnormal into relief. Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s earliest years were spent on the run from the FBI; his parents were members of the revolutionary Weather Underground faction, a group dedicated to the overthrow of the US government.By the age of three he had been coached by

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Jonathan Kuo: Java Dreams album review – young pianist brings unflashy exuberance to complex works

(Rubicon)The Indonesian musician impresses in his debut solo recording of Godowsky’s Java Suite and Stravinsky’s piano arrangement of Petrushka“Who is not at heart a globetrotter?” asked the Lithuanian-born US piano virtuoso and composer Leopold Godowsky in the foreword to his Java Suite, published in 1925 and inspired by what he had heard and seen on a lengthy concert tour of south-east Asia. He intended this 50-minute travelogue to be the first of a series entitled Phonoramas – Tonal Journeys

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

David Boreanaz, Former ‘SEAL Team,’ ‘Bones’ and ‘Angel’ Star, to Keynote Italian Global Series (Exclusive)

The veteran American TV actor has signed on to star in the pilot for NBC’s 'Rockford Files' reboot as private eye James Rockford. 

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Star Miranda Hope Releases Debut Country Song “FU4THAT”

The track is available on Spotify.

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

Variety

‘The Bear’ Ends: Where Does Carmy Go and What Happens to the Restaurant?

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “The Original Beef of Chicagoland,” the series finale of “The Bear,” now streaming on Hulu. The real restaurant was the friendships they made along the way.  That’s basically the hyper-earnest thesis of “The Bear,” which aired its series finale on Hulu on Thursday. Sure, the titular restaurant can […]

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026

The Guardian Culture

‘Elon Musk is dangerous and crazy. And I kind of used to like him’: Interpol on their political awakening – and making their masterpiece

They were a big 00s buzz band – but looked in danger of fading out. Empowered by fatherhood and anger at war and AI, the New Yorkers explain why they ‘really showed up’ againSuits. Gnomic poetry. Moody, insistent riffs. It used to be that you’d know what to expect from NYC rockers Interpol. The band’s first two albums, in the early 00s, were blockbuster successes, shifting half a million units each thanks to dramatic songs also fit for jerking around at an indie disco. Interpol duly jumped up to

entertainment  Jun 26, 2026