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Gladiator II: Fact vs. Fiction

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Reality and Fiction in Gladiator II: These Who Are About to Lie Salute You

Keep in mind when Ridley Scott’s 2023 biopic Napoleon set off a firestorm amongst finicky French historians? How shocked, shocked they had been by the movie’s factual inaccuracies (zut alors, Bonaparte by no means led the cost at Waterloo!). Nicely, it seems just like the 86-year-old Oscar-winning director is at it once more (see web page 56), solely this time it’s students of historical Rome who’ll be storming Scott Free Productions. Though Gladiator II has been warmly obtained at early screenings, the 150-minute film, which opens Nov. 22, is clearly chock-full of historic whoppers — like that scene during which a flooded Colosseum is crammed with sharks. “Complete Hollywood bullshit,” snipes Dr. Shadi Bartsch, a classics professor on the College of Chicago who has levels from Princeton, Harvard and UC Berkeley and has written a number of books about historical Rome. “I don’tthink Romans knew what a shark was” (although naval battles had been held within the enviornment, she notes). The scene with rhinos charging into the Colosseum is form of true — “Martial wrote a poem in 80 A.D. a few rhinoceros tossing a bull as much as the sky,” Bartsch says — however not the two-horn breed proven within the movie, solely the one-horn kind, and there’s no proof that gladiators really rode them, as they do in Scott’s film. Some of the eyebrow-raising anachronisms includes the scene during which a Roman noble is proven sipping tea in a restaurant whereas studying the morning newspaper … 1,200 years earlier than the invention of the printing press. “They did have each day information — Acta Diuma — but it surely was carved and positioned at sure areas,” says Bartsch. “You needed to go to it, you couldn’t maintain it at a restaurant. Additionally, they didn’t have cafes!” So far as Scott is worried, historic nitpicking didn’t trouble him with Napoleon, and it doesn’t trouble him now. “By the point you get to 2024,” he admits, “it’s all hypothesis.” — Jordan Hoffman

South Pole Doc Makes use of AI to Convey Explorers Again to Life

Greater than a century in the past, legendary polar explorer Ernest Shackleton understood the internet-age precept of “pics or it didn’t occur.” Endurance, the brand new Nat Geo doc by Academy Award-winning husband-and-wife filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo, The Rescue), showcases beautiful movie footage that Shackleton’s males took throughout his 1907 expedition to Antarctica — together with photographs of his vessel being crushed by ice and leaving 28 males stranded on the backside of the world. Not surprisingly, there have been no images taken throughout Shackleton’s 800-mile lifeboat journey throughout the South Seas to hunt assist. To depict that harrowing a part of the documentary, the filmmakers relied on a mixture of re-creations — filmed with actors in Iceland and Los Angeles — and synthetic intelligence. Utilizing state-of-the-art software program to synthesize audio recordings of the survivors, long-dead crewmembers posthumously “learn” their diary entries aloud. Given the controversy stirred utilizing AI to carry Anthony Bourdain again from the useless in 2021’s Roadrunner, Chin and Vasarhelyi had been taking some dangers. However, like Shackleton, they’re explorers in their very own proper. “It’s an ideal device, [but] you need to be thought of and aware and moral about how you employ it,” says Vasarhelyi.

How Star Trek’s Jess Bush Turned a Bee Actress

On Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds, Jess Bush performs Nurse Chapel. Right here on twenty first century Earth, although, the 32-year-old Australian moonlights as an artist — generally known as ONEJESSA — and her newest exhibit is creating fairly the thrill in New York. Bush has entombed 1,000 useless bees in orbs of resin and strung them collectively in a floating sculpture hanging within the Glass Atrium foyer of Manhattan West, the brand new growth on Ninth Avenue and thirty second Avenue. “The inspiration was my very own sense of surprise and gratitude for Earth’s magnificence,” she says. As for the place she bought her arms on 1,000 useless bees: “Sadly, it wasn’t that tough. I’ve just a few beekeepers in Australia that I go to, and I decide up useless bees from the grass across the hive.” THR bought an early have a look at the exhibit, which opened to the general public Oct. 30, and can report that it’s undoubtedly a honey

This story appeared within the Oct. 30 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.

Entertainment

Jeri Taylor Dead: ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Co-Creator Was 86

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Jeri Taylor, the Emmy-nominated producer, author, director and showrunner who spent greater than a decade engaged on Star Trek: The Subsequent Era and Star Trek: Voyager, which she co-created, has died. She was 86.

Taylor died Wednesday evening of pure causes at an assisted residing facility in Davis, California, her son Andrew Enberg informed The Hollywood Reporter.

“My mom succeeded in a male-dominated business,” her son stated, “however she did it with out being tremendous aggressive. She did it with compassion and kindness. She was like a den mom to everybody.”

Earlier than embarking on her Star Trek voyage, the Indiana native wrote and produced episodes of such standard community crime fare as Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., Jake and the Fatman and Within the Warmth of the Night time. She was adept at writing about “character, of individuals and relationships and emotions,” she as soon as famous.

Taylor started writing for the syndicated Subsequent Era in 1990 throughout its fourth season. She graduated to co-executive producer alongside Rick Berman and Michael Pillar through the present’s sixth season and served because the showrunner of the Patrick Stewart starrer for its seventh and remaining marketing campaign (1993-94).

In 1994, she shared an Emmy nomination for excellent drama collection.

She, Berman and Pillar created Star Trek: Voyager, which bowed on UPN in January 1995, and he or she was that collection’ showrunner for its first 4 seasons, by way of 1998, and a artistic marketing consultant for its remaining three seasons.

It was Taylor’s concept to have a feminine lead on Star Trek, and Kate Mulgrew, who starred as Capt. Kathryn Janeway on Voyager, wrote on X that Taylor “was accountable, largely, for altering my life.”

“She was elegant, erudite and fiercely opinionated,” Mulgrew wrote. “She needed Kathryn Janeway to be a major a part of her legacy, and I feel there isn’t a doubt that in that endeavor she succeeded.”

One in all six children, Jeri Cecile Suer was born on June 30, 1938, in Evansville, Indiana. Her father, Robert, was a physician, and her mom, Ruah, a arithmetic trainer.

Taylor graduated from Wilmington Excessive College in Ohio (the place she was the valedictorian) and from Indiana College. She earned her grasp’s from Cal State Northridge, led an appearing workshop in L.A. and directed native stage productions earlier than moving into tv in 1979 as a author.

She started work for NBC’s Quincy in 1980 throughout its fifth season, and he or she would direct two episodes and function a producer on the present’s eighth and remaining yr.

She joined the writing workers of Subsequent Era after rewriting the fourth-season episode “All of the sudden Human.”

Alongside the best way, Taylor additionally wrote ABC Afterschool Specials, episodes of Little Home on the Prairie, The Unbelievable Hulk, Blue Thunder and Father Dowling Mysteries and the 1987 CBS telefilm A Place to Name Residence, starring Linda Lavin.

Of the 30 or so Star Trek episodes for which she acquired a writing credit score, Taylor was stated to be most pleased with the fourth-season Subsequent Era installment “The Drumhead,” which was set inside a courtroom.

She additionally acquired story by credit score on three episodes of the syndicated Star Trek: Deep Area 9 in 1993-94 and wrote three Star Trek novels for Pocket Books.

Taylor was married to famed sportscaster Dick Enberg from 1959 till their 1974 divorce and to writer-producer David Moessinger — they labored collectively on Quincy and different reveals — from 1986 till his 2018 loss of life.

Along with Andrew, survivors embody her different son, Alexander Enberg, who appeared on Voyager as Ensign Vorik, a Vulcan. Her daughter, Jennifer Jo Enberg, died in 2015 of ovarian most cancers at age 52.

On Instagram, Brannon Braga, who took over for Taylor as Voyager‘s showrunner, referred to as her “a cherished mentor.”

“Jeri was beneficiant together with her knowledge and her time, she nurtured a complete workers of younger writers, which is a testomony to her persistence,” he continued. “I’d not have a profession with out Jeri’s intricate steering. She taught us all a lot. Her reminiscence will reside on in some ways, however maybe most of all within the character of Captain Janeway, who mirrored the most effective dimensions of Jeri herself. Jeri Taylor, we had been fortunate to know you.”

Entertainment

Starfleet Academy Renewed for Season 2, Tatiana Maslany to Guest Star

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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has acquired an early season two renewal, and Tatiana Maslany is ready to visitor star in season one.

Each bits of reports had been introduced at New York Comedian Con in the course of the Star Trek universe panel, moderated by CBS Mornings and CBS Information nationwide correspondent Vladimir Duthiers, throughout which Robert Picardo made an surprising look.

The Star Trek: Voyager and Prodigy star launched a shock livestream from the set of Starfleet Academy season one, which is presently in manufacturing in Toronto. The video included govt producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman, who can also be directing the sequence. He shared the information concerning the second installment already being greenlit alongside castmembers together with Sandro Rosta, Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, George Hawkins, Karim Diané and Zoë Steiner.

It’s unclear for the time being who Maslany will probably be portraying within the teen-focused Star Trek present. Nevertheless, it’s identified she will probably be a recurring character within the first season. She’ll star alongside Paul Giamatti and Holly Hunter. The Oscar-nominated Holdovers actor will play the season’s central villain, whereas the Academy Award-winning Piano star is ready to tackle the position of the varsity’s captain and chancellor.

When the Billions actor joined Starfleet Academy, co-showrunners and exec producers Kurtzman and Noga Landau shared a press release: “Typically you’re fortunate sufficient to find that one of many biggest actors alive can also be an enormous Star Trek fan and assembly Paul was a kind of miraculous moments for us. The sheer delight with which he dove in on Starfleet Academy is just surpassed by the gratitude we really feel about him becoming a member of our unbelievable solid.”

In accordance with the outline, the upcoming sequence will comply with a younger group of cadets as they arrive of age in probably the most legendary locations within the galaxy and are available collectively to pursue “a standard dream of hope and optimism.”

Per the logline, “Beneath the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they are going to uncover what it takes to turn into Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a brand new enemy that threatens each the Academy and the Federation itself.”

Entertainment

How James Cameron Helped Zoe Saldaña Book ‘Star Trek’

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Zoe Saldaña has opened up about her considerations over being typecast as a sci-fi actor all through her profession however credit touchdown a kind of roles to her Avatar director, James Cameron.

Saldaña has confirmed a preferred alternative for out-of-this-world cinema within the twenty first century, bagging main roles in Cameron’s big-budget sci-fi eco-thriller, JJ Abrams’ Star Trek revival films and, later, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy as green-skinned alien warrior Gamora.

The actress, who most lately gained a shared greatest actress prize in Cannes for her efficiency in Emilia Pérez alongside Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, spoke at a BFI London Movie Pageant occasion on Saturday about Abrams visiting the Avatar set.

“I knew he was casting for Star Trek,” she started. “He and Jim have been speaking, they usually come to set, and Jim lets him maintain his little digicam that he constructed. And I bear in mind speaking to JJ, and he’s like, ‘I’m going to name you, I actually wish to have a dialog with you.’ After which he walks away. And Jim comes over and goes, ‘I simply booked your subsequent job.’”

Saldaña continued. “I went into Guardians with numerous worry of being typecast as a result of it will have been my third spherical within the universe, and I assume my crew was apprehensive for me. However studying that script, there was simply one thing concerning the anti-hero, the a-hole that saves the day, reluctantly, that I had by no means seen earlier than.”

She additionally revealed how Steven Spielberg “restored” her religion within the movie trade after a “unhealthy expertise” on the Pirates of the Caribbean set, helmed by Gore Verbinski. “The crew, the forged, 99 p.c of the time, are tremendous marvelous,” she mentioned. “But when the studio, the producers and the director… in the event that they’re not main the kindness and consciousness and consideration, then that massive manufacturing can grow to be a extremely unhealthy expertise. And you could tip overboard, and I form of did.”

Eight months later, Saldaña labored on The Terminal with Spielberg. “After I had performed Pirates, he restored my religion,” she famous.

She was seemingly emotional when discussing her win in Cannes, which the star mentioned she didn’t understand how a lot she wanted. “I didn’t even know the way I wanted it a lot,” she mentioned. “Generally you are feeling such as you’re simply throwing spaghetti on the wall within the hope that one thing sticks. That visibility let me perceive how invisible I had been feeling for therefore a few years and looking for a goal once more, in artwork and to like what I do. Generally you simply want an indication you’re getting in the fitting path.”

The BFI London Movie Pageant, which screens Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, runs from Oct. 9-20.