Beloved movie critic and arts reporter was known for bushy hair and mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns
Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the Today show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.
Shalit’s family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a statement that he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life”.
With more than 177,000 people forcibly disappeared since 2011, short doc Maybe Tomorrow captures ‘the violence of waiting’ experienced by family
When Wafa Mustafa was a child, she remembers her father playing the music of Umm Kulthum non-stop at home in Syria, humming along to the legendary Egyptian singer’s melodic tones. One day, in an effort to encourage his daughter to appreciate music, he asked her to take a pen and paper and write the lyrics of a song she loved. Wanting to impress him, Mustafa chose an Umm Kulthum song called “Aghadan Alqak”, which translates to: “Will I meet you tomorrow?”
“The lyrics are literally about someone who’s gone, about the waiting for them and the love you have for them,” says Mustafa. “It feels like I knew what was coming … as if I manifested my life since I was very young.”
Steven Spielberg’s alien conspiracy thriller looks great and boasts a dazzling Emily Blunt performance… but are its final 40 minutes really meant to be so goofy? Adam White digs into **MAJOR SPOILER** territory to unpack a movie that left him feeling cold
Responding to an incident in which she was verbally abused, the actor said that ‘evil forces are rising everywhere’, as well as expressing support for MobLand co-star Tom Hardy
Helen Mirren has commented on being called an “evil Zionist bitch” while being harassed in the street in London, saying she was “attacked by mistake by a man who was maybe a little over passionate or maybe mentally not quite stable”.
Footage circulated last month of an incident, believed to have taken place last year, while Mirren was walking with her husband, film-maker Taylor Hackford. They were approached and filmed by an unidentified person, who commented on Mirren’s support of Israel and then launched a volley of abuse at her.
Peter Weir, the director of Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, was presented with the inaugural lifetime achievement award from the Australian Film Television and Radio School on Wednesday night.
At an event hosted by Sydney film festival, the AFTRS council chair, Rachel Perkins, called the now-retired 81-year-old director and screenwriter “the greatest film-maker this country has produced”.
Singer and actor has denied all charges after more than 20 women made allegations against him dating back to 1990s
The French singer Patrick Bruel has been charged with rape and sexual assault in one of the biggest #MeToo cases in the French music industry.
The 67-year-old, a major figure in French pop culture, was placed under formal investigation over four cases that included alleged rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
The actor and director who have long been snubbed will finally take home Oscars at November’s Governors awards
Glenn Close and Ridley Scott are among the names set to receive honorary Oscars at this year’s Governors awards.
The two have long been snubbed at the Oscars, with Close receiving eight nominations and Scott receiving four. The pair will be awarded this November alongside animator Floyd Norman and producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler.
Nella serata del 9 giugno, al Parlamento europeo è stato proiettato “The Sea“, il film del regista israeliano Shai Carmeli-Pollack che racconta la quotidianità palestinese attraverso gli occhi di un bambino in Cisgiordania. Alla proiezione erano presenti gli eurodeputati del Movimento 5 stelle e anche organizzatori dell’evento, Danilo Della Valle e Valentina Palmisano. Con loro, oltre alla giornalista Giulia Innocenzi, distributrice della pellicola in Italia, anche il giornalista de Il Fatto Quotidiano, Alessandro Mantovani e il deputato Dario Carotenuto: entrambi hanno partecipato all’ultima missione della Global Sumud Flotilla raccontando gli abusi e le violenze dell’Idf, subite da tutti gli attivisti.
L’obiettivo del film all’Eurocamera era quello di denunciare “il silenzio delle istituzioni europee nei confronti del genocidio israeliano in Cisgiordania”. Un tema sostenuto da Il Fatto Quotidianoche già il 6 maggio ha realizzato in media partnership la proiezione del film in oltre 130 sale in tutta Italia. Nel cinema 4 Fontane di Roma ha presentato il film in sala la vicedirettrice de il Fatto Quotidiano Maddalena Oliva. Un grande successo nonostante l’iniziale timore di ripercussioni che aveva allontanato molti distributori internazionali. Grazie a Innocenzi e alla società di distribuzione “Moscalito Film”, la pellicola ha ottenuto uno straordinario riscontro: 40 mila spettatori in Italia e 30 mila in Israele.
Il lungometraggio racconta la storia di Khaled, bambino di 12 anni della Cisgiordania, a cui viene impedito di vedere il mare per la prima volta da parte dell’occupazione israeliana. Ha avuto enorme riconoscimento internazionale, come la candidatura agli Oscar 2026, nonostante i tentativi di ostacolarlo da parte del primo ministro di Israele Benjamin Netanyahu. Per questo, sulla locandina del film si legge: “Il film che il governo israeliano non vuole che tu veda”. Anche Mantovani, parlando all’Eurocamera, ha riflettuto sulla deriva autoritaria di Tel Aviv, ricordando che il film prima del 7 ottobre era stato finanziato proprio dal Ministero della Cultura che poi lo ha censurato. “Abbiamo il dovere di dare voce al popolo palestinese a cui vengono negati persino i diritti più semplici”, ha proseguito Valentina Palmisano, a cui ha fatto eco il collega Della Valle. “La Commissione Ue adotta in maniera inequivocabile doppi standard e né Kallas né von der Leyen hanno avuto il coraggio di condannare le violazioni del diritto internazionale commesse da Israele”. Ha poi rincarato la dose Dario Carotenuto che ha parlato di “sudditanza politica” nei confronti di Tel Aviv.
Star, 59, of 2000 blockbuster X-Men seeks to raise awareness of condition as he undergoes chemotherapy
The actor and former professional wrestler Tyler Mane has revealed he has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and is undergoing chemotherapy.
Mane, 59, a star of the 2000 superhero blockbuster X-Men, posted the news to Facebook in an attempt to raise awareness of a condition he said was rarely talked about.
Two new rape complaints have been filed against the 67-year-old singer and actor, who denies the claims
French singer and actor Patrick Bruel, facing sexual assault allegations from multiple women, was taken into police custody on Monday, as two new rape complaints were filed against him.
The 67-year-old, a major figure in French pop culture with multiple top-selling albums and more than 40 film appearances, is being questioned about 13 victims, the prosecutor’s office in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre said in a statement.
Matt Damon as Odysseus. Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
In an insightful opinion piece published in The Guardian on June 3, 2026, titled “What the Hellenic! Why is Christopher Nolan’s new Greek epic entirely devoid of Greeks?”, author Chris Cotonou critiques the conspicuous lack of Greek actors in the director’s highly anticipated blockbuster, The Odyssey.
With an all-star ensemble featuring Matt Damon as Odysseus, alongside Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Tom Holland, the film’s production team has repeatedly championed the cast as being meticulously chosen to “represent the world.” However, Cotonou points out a glaring irony: in the race to achieve universal global representation, the very country from which the story originates has been entirely unrepresented.
Cotonou highlights that while far-right culture warriors, including Elon Musk, have leveled bad-faith attacks against the casting of Black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy on the grounds of “authenticity,” they are focusing on the wrong target.
For the Greek community, both domestically and across the global diaspora, the frustration stems from a deeper cultural erasure. Cotonou notes that dinner-table debates from Patras to London have been flooded with alternative, Greek-inclusive casting ideas, with many left wondering why beloved diaspora stars like Billy Zane were bypassed entirely. To contextualize this frustration, Cotonou references Greece’s leading film critic, Thodoris Koutsogiannopoulos, who laments that Hollywood continues to perpetuate a “lazy cliché” that views Greekness through the simplistic lens of “Zorba rather than Achilles.”
Greeks secondary to their own story of Odyssey
More significantly, Cotonou argues that this complete omission carries a troubling broader implication. It suggests that Ancient Hellenic stories are viewed by Hollywood as part of a generic “shared Western inheritance,” rendering the actual Greek people incidental or secondary to their own history.
Cotonou draws a poignant parallel to the enduring geopolitical battle over the Parthenon Marbles, noting that the erasure feels as though modern Greeks are no longer viewed as worthy custodians of their ancestral mythology. While acknowledging that international audiences might dismiss the controversy under the guise that The Odyssey is merely fiction, Cotonou emphasizes how intimately interwoven these Homeric epics are with the modern Greek subconscious, identity, and sense of self.
He argues that excluding Greeks from The Odyssey is culturally equivalent to shutting out Hindus from an adaptation of the Mahabharata or stripping Polynesians from a film like Moana.
Ultimately, Cotonou connects the casting dispute back to the timeless, central theme of Homer’s poem: nostos, the deeply human yearning for homecoming after surviving grueling trials. In a Hollywood landscape that increasingly values diversity, Cotonou elegantly concludes that the Greek people are simply asking not to be written out of the journey.
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