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Just like season 1, the second season of The Snow Girl ended on a cliffhanger, revealing that the famed journalist and author, Miren Rojo, has gone missing. [Spoiler Alert] In the season 2 finale, she was abducted and attacked by a psychopathic student named Nacho, who called himself the Raven of God. Police inspector Belen Millan and her partner, Chaparro, found a wounded Miren on an isolated beach, and we really don’t know what happened to her next. A year had passed, and her new colleague, Jaime Bernal, was still searching for her. The scene implied that Milen hadn’t returned to Diario Sur after that traumatic incident on the beach. In the season’s closing shot, we also saw a task force storming into a laundry shop in Madrid. In the basement, the police located a hidden chamber with shelves stacked with numerous DVDs. These DVDs with the “Slide” logo on them...

The first season of Netflix’s Spanish series, The Snow Girl, centers around a young journalist, Miren Rojo, who gets obsessed with a high-profile case involving the disappearance of a five-year-old girl. On 5th January 2010, Amaya Martin disappeared during the Twelfth Night Parade in Malaga. She was last seen in Constitution Square, where she attended with her parents, Ana and Alvaro. While interning for the media company Diario Sur, the lead protagonist, Miren, starts an investigation of her own to get to the bottom of the truth, only to unravel the buried secrets from her own traumatic past. In season 1’s ending, Miren finally solves the case, which is to say the second season of Netflix’s The Snow Girl will cover a totally different case. However, the trailer suggests the show will mostly revolve around the same characters, so in this recap I’ll focus more on Miren so...

2023 body-horror Infinity Pool's tale of cloning and murder tourism ends on an ambiguous note, but the deeper meaning is easily unveiled once certain scenes are explained. Infinity Pool is the third feature film by Brandon Cronenberg, son of the legendary body-horror master David Cronenberg. Like Antiviral and Possessor, Infinity Pool sees Brandon following in his father's footsteps. Full of bizarre horror sequences and visceral themes, the Infinity Pool ending explained little of its true purpose, leaving its most important themes up for audience interpretation as protagonist James is left to sit in a monsoon and think about his exploits.

Infinity Pool stars Alexander Skarsgrd as novelist James Foster staying with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) at a resort in the seaside country of La Tolqa. James meets Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth) and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). While on a drive, a drunk James runs over and kills a local man.

This week on the Nightmare on Film Street horror movie podcast, Kimmi and Jon are taking a dip into the sun-soaked nightmare of Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool (2023). What starts as a luxurious vacation for James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) quickly unravels into a dark, unsettling world where crime comes without the usual consequences—because if you can afford it, someone else will pay the price for you. Literally.

After a freak accident, James is introduced to a disturbing practice involving clones, where the wealthy can sidestep responsibility in truly horrifying ways. The deeper James goes, the more he’s drawn into a twisted world of excess, indulgence, and blood-soaked thrills that blur the line between punishment and pleasure (all shepherded by an unhinged Mia Goth).

Is Infinity Pool a sharp critique of the privilege money brings, or just an invitation to lose yourself in Cronenbergian chaos? Tune in as Kimmi...

Based on the video game series of the same name, Halo has been cancelled at Paramount+ after just two seasons.

Another one bites the dust as Paramount+ cancels Halo. The video game adaptation recently returned for a second season, but the powers that be have decided not to move forward with another season, as Deadline reports.

The first series streamed on Paramount+ in 2022 and while critics were mildly excited by it, fans criticised the show’s decision to have the central character Master Chief remove his helmet, something that’s a big no-no in the games.

The series follows a cybernetically enhanced super soldier Master Chief as he works to protect humanity from an alien alliance in the 26th century.

The second season had a slightly better reception and lead actor Pablo Scheiber said the second season of Halo was far superior to the first one.

“There’s no question...

Whether exploring post-apocalyptic wastelands or the far reaches of space, it’s easy to get lost in the visual language of a video game world. Transitioning that experience into a cinematic storytelling form is no easy task, but this season has seen more than a few production designers square up to the challenge.

Fallout takes some visual models from the Bethesda game series for an entirely new story, Halo grounds the sci-fi game universe with real world architecture, and although The Witcher exists as a video game series, the Netflix series version focuses on finding depth in Andrzej Sapkowski’s original fantasy novels.

Lucy (Ella Purnell) entering the town of Filly in Fallout

Fallout

While he had never played the Fallout games himself, production designer Howard Cummings took on the role of the eagle-eyed fan looking for anything out of place. “I knew the fans would tear me to shreds...

Infinity Pool.In the early 2000s, American filmmaker Eli Roth landed on a dark web page offering so-called “murder vacations,” an idea which became the key for his 2005 gore-fest Hostel, in which overseas tourists find themselves abused and killed in Bratislava. While the concept sits neatly within the “torture-porn” genre conventions for excessive, brutal violence, transposing an abstraction—or a scam premise—onto a real place has material consequences. Hostel, a controversial landmark of noughties horror cinema, had Slovaks complaining to the Ministry of Culture and has certainly reinforced already existing stereotypes of Eastern Europe as depraved, fraught with danger, and vengeful towards foreigners. What David Rimanelli and Hanna Liden in jest call “the evil New Europe” encompasses both the anxieties about the ex-Eastern Bloc that have germinated in the mass imaginary since WWII and the Cold War, and the latent fear of the Other which sits at the...

Christchurch (Nz), Aug 23 (Ians) New Zealand enhanced its coaching roster in the lead-up to the 2023 Odi World Cup with former England internationals Ian Bell and James Foster set to join the set-up for the next four months, where the team will have a hectic schedule.

Former skipper Stephen Fleming and Saqlain Mushtaq are among others to their coaching staff for the next four months and will take up different roles in the coaching staff.

Bell, a five-time Ashes winner who has been coaching since finishing his playing career in 2020, will join the BlackCaps as assistant coach for the upcoming T20I series against England starting later this month.

He will then step into Luke Ronchi’s position as batting coach for the four-game Odi series (September 8 – 15) and continue in the role for the three ODIs in Bangladesh (September 21 – 26).

Ronchi will grant head Coach Gary Stead a brief respite by stepping...

The Halloween season is almost here, which means a hectic Fall release schedule filled with horror looms just around the corner. Some of the year’s biggest horror releases are still ahead, including The Nun II, Saw X, The Exorcist: Believer, and Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Of course, they join countless movies already released these past eight months. As always, many titles might’ve slipped through the cracks, despite being available to stream now.

Whether you’re looking to get ahead on curating Halloween watchlists or catching up on 2023 horror before the year is through, here are twenty 2023 releases you can stream right now.

65 – Netflix

A high concept sci-fi effort from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writers behind A Quiet Place and writers/directors of Haunt. Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt star as the unlucky pair that find themselves on a hostile planet filled with creatures and obstacles. Driver...

Welcome to June, a hefty month for horror on streaming. As we rapidly approach the halfway point of 2023, this month’s new additions to various streaming platforms lean heavily on recent releases. That means an extra packed month, giving you plenty of time to catch up on many of 2022 and 2023’s biggest releases.

Here are thirteen noteworthy horror titles available for streaming in June 2023 on some of the most popular streaming services, along with when/where you can watch them.

Baby Ruby – Hulu (June 3)

Writer/Director Bess Wohl’s debut feature, Baby Ruby, uses psychological horror to put viewers in the shoes of a new mother unraveling after giving birth. Jo (Jumbo’s Noémie Merlant) exudes style and perfection. She’s an influencer with a blog so successful that she has a staff, including a close assistant. But her carefully curated idyllic life unravels when newborn Ruby enters the world.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Infinity Pool.

Media criticizing the upper class is about a dime a dozen these days, truth be told. From Best Picture nominee Triangle of Sadness and the popular Netflix original Glass Onion, to HBO’s fascinating series The White Lotus, there’s no shortage of media criticizing those who have too much time and money on their hands. On that note, Brandon Cronenberg just unleashed Infinity Pool to the masses this year. Bringing his unique spin of cyberpunk dystopia to the class criticism genre, Cronenberg crafts a world that is a warped reflection of our own while looking into the mirror on himself and people that come from a place of privilege.

Infinity Pool opens up in an unnamed country where struggling author James Foster and his wife Em (Alexander Skargard and Cleopatra Coleman) are on vacation. It’s your typical lavish resort that...

It's only February, but Infinity Pool is already a key contender for 2023's wildest horror. Empire asks director Brandon Cronenberg why he makes such unhinged cinema.

Read an extract from our exclusive Infinity Pool feature from our April 2023 issue below, or read the full article here.

Faces peeling away from skulls. A syringe containing a deadly virus piercing the skin. A man vomiting blood livestreamed across the world. Few filmmakers have burst onto the big screen with such strange and agitating creations as Brandon Cronenberg.

The first mental challenge for audiences came in the form of his body-horror debut Antiviral (2012), in which celebrities’ illnesses are sold to rabid fans. In his second film, 2020’s Possessor, an assassin takes control of other people’s bodies via brain implants before encouraging suicide. But the horror, lust and disquieting feeling that envelops you watching those has nothing on the nightmarish new sci-fi Infinity Pool.

As much as he is indebted to his father, David Cronenberg's legacy as one of cinema's most beloved horror directors, Brandon Cronenberg has still managed to forge a path as a sleek and stylish modern provocateur in his own right. His newest outing, "Infinity Pool" has pretty much everything you're looking for from the Cronenberg name — it's a sexy, bloody, and debaucherous satire of the upper class and their nihilistic amount of apathy.

Set in an idyllic resort in the fictional country of Li Tolqua, "Infinity Pool" follows a novelist named James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wealthy wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) who are on vacation searching for inspiration. They are soon joined by Gabi (Mia Goth), an aspiring actress (who coincidentally is a huge fan of James's only published novel), and her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert). Together, the two couples go to dinner and spend time by the...

A crew member who worked behind-the-scenes on the science fiction horror Infinity Pool promotes it by sharing one particularly unsavory prop used to achieve the movie's realistic visual effects. The movie follows struggling writer James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman), who vacation in the fictional seaside country of Li Tolqa. After spending time with two other tourists, played by Mia Goth and Jalil Lespert, their marital issues reach a point of no return when they uncover the truth about Li Tolqa's corrupt legal system and become entwined with its dark culture.

Following the theatrical release of Infinity Pool, one of the film's effects artists, Daniel Martin, takes to Twitter to share an image of a large jar of the artificial semen that was used in the film.

Reasons you should go see Infinity Pool, No.203: pic.twitter.com/cMnVlS9bTX — Dan. Just Dan. (@13fingerfx) February...

When Infinity Pool begins, novelist James Foster, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is headed to a beautiful retreat with his wife Em, but by the end, he is alone and irrevocably altered by his experience, with one horrifying mystery about the resort still lingering. A persuasive fan of Foster's work named Gabi encourages them to leave the grounds and explore unconventional realms of pleasure, but what they find is a group of tourists who actively engage in criminal and hedonistic activities, the consequences of which are transferred to a cloned version of themselves that is summarily killed.

After James accidentally kills a local man, the vacation proves too much for Em, and she leaves him to sink further into depravity, a new clone paying for his transgressions every time he crosses new boundaries. By the ending of Infinity Pool, when James heads to the airport, he contemplates the dark secrets he learned about the resort,...

Infinity Pool focuses on a cohort of tourists at a resort who use clones to get exculpated from debased criminal activities, and novelist James Foster (Alexander Skarsård) ends up having five clones made, one of whom possibly even goes home in his place. In Brandon Cronenberg's psychological thriller, James gets inspiration by observing how money and privilege allow the elite to get away with anything, only pulled deeper into their hedonistic quagmire once he accidentally runs over a local man and must be executed for the crime. After he gets over the initial shock of seeing his first clone killed for him, the movie shifts into an exploration of identity.

As James' journey continues, guided by the mysterious Gabi (horror icon Mia Goth), he discovers a world of sex, substances, and carnal delights that his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) wants nothing to do with. The more James embraces it,...

Brandon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool has all the hallmarks and tropes of body horror within its clone story, but fortunately, the focus of its surreal plot avoids a serious sci-fi mistake. When James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) travel to a beautiful island resort, they have no idea the unspeakable terrors that they're going to witness and become a part of. All around them, the wealthy elite partake in the most lurid crimes imaginable, but rather than get executed themselves, they have clones made to accept the repercussions of their hedonism.

Unable to be a party to what she sees, Em returns home, leaving James, a novelist, in the hands of Gabi (Mia Goth), one of his biggest fans and an alluring enabler to his debauchery. As James plunges further into the depths of a sordid fever dream filled with sex and violence throughout the sci-fi movie,...

Infinity Pool has been making waves on the horror scene since it was first announced, and the enthusiastic reception at this year's Sundance Film Festival suggests that excitement was not unfounded. From the crafty mind of Brandon Cronenberg (who has been responsible for Possessor and Antiviral), Infinity Pool has inspired reactions nearly as wild as the events it displays onscreen. The film delves into the deadly extravagance of the wealthy at the expense of the less powerful.

Like a warped The White Lotus, Infinity Pool follows James Foster (a deliciously confused Alexander Skarsgård) as he and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) take a trip to the imaginary island of La Tolqa, which seems to be a beacon for the upper class despite its very strange circumstances. An author who has been suffering from writer's block for the last few years, James feels emasculated in his marriage and instead finds inspiration when he meets Gabi.

After focusing on a wild stay at a decadent retreat, Brandon Cronenberg's surreal and horrifying Infinity Pool ends with the implication that the James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) who returns to the airport isn't the same one who left – literally. What was supposed to be a vacation with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) descends into decadent hedonism after Gabi (Mia Goth) cajoles them into seeking diversions beyond the resort grounds. The fun and games, where the darkest fantasies can be enacted seemingly without punishment, become serious when a horrible crime forces James into a predicament that leaves him irrevocably changed and scarred for life.

Emulating the filmography of his father, David Cronenberg's movies, classism and hedonism collide in Infinity Pool, especially on an island where orgies, illegal substances, and violence are encouraged by the wealthiest clientele. James doesn't quite fit in with their jet-setting cohort, but as a writer,...

Mia Goth explains how Infinity Pool taps into female rage and how this elevates the story in Brandon Cronenberg's third movie. Infinity Pool follows author James Foster as he and his wife (played by Cleopatra Coleman) vacation at an oddly security-conscious resort. James is hoping to find inspiration for his second novel, years after his first faced harsh criticism. The couple stumbles across two other tourists who are fans of James' first novel, much to his surprise and delight. When they leave the resort, explicitly against instructions, James accidentally kills a man and is arrested shortly after.

However, this island has strange laws, with the punishment for his crime being death, but an alternative is possible for a hefty price: a clone can be made and killed in his place. This sends James down a depraved and dangerous road after witnessing his double being killed. It awakens something inside of him.

Stars: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman | Written and Directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Looking to get inspiration for his next novel, writer James Foster and his wife Em take a holiday to a fenced-off resort on the fictional isle of Li Tolqa. They soon meet Gabi and her husband Alban, who convince them to leave the compound one day to visit a secluded beach. After getting into a car accident on their return, James soon learns the truth behind Li Tolqan law.

When you have a surname like “Cronenberg,” there’s automatically a lot riding on your ability to make a good movie. With his father casting cinematic shadows with films such as Crash, Videodrome, and Crimes Of The Future, Brandon Cronenberg has inadvertently been set up to be a sought-after nepo baby. Though two feature films are already under its belt, the 2023 hedonistic horror Infinity Pool proves exactly why...

At this year’s Sundance, the hills were alive with the sound of fucking.

Though mainstream movies have devolved into a sex-free enterprise, where superheroes and Xenu’s chosen one vie for maximum profit, the premier showcase for independent cinema is still letting its freak flag fly. Yes, the 2023 Sundance Film Festival — running from Jan. 19 to 29 — was delightfully horny, serving as a rebuke to an industry that has for years treated onscreen sex as a sin more damning than all matter of corporal violence; one dominated by striking Marvel and...

The Snow Girl (La chica de nieve) is a thriller series created by Jesús Mesas Silva and Javier Andrés Roig. It stars Milena Smit and José Coronado. Based on the novel by Javier Castillo.

Today this thriller comes to Netflix with José Coronado as main actor and very well matched with Milena Smit, they are a good team of veteran journalist and budding crime investigator.

This series has six episodes and it is about a disappearance, broken families and intrigue that will guide us along the streets in Málaga in a thriller with dark places in which we have a “revelation”: Milena Smit, who we already knew of in Libélulas and, of course, Almodóvar’s, film, Parallel Mothers . She is the real star of this series and just to watch her, the series is worth viewing.

This is a thriller with pauses, dialogues, discoveries and content that is more...

This post contains major spoilers for "Infinity Pool."

In Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises," war veteran Jake Barnes, who has suffered an injury leaving him unable to have sex, tells a friend who's sleeping with his beloved, "You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another." In Thomas Wolfe's 1940 novel "You Can't Go Home Again," protagonist George Webber, a novelist, returns to his hometown after writing about it in a successful book. The novel's contents have outraged his old neighbors and family, appalled by what had secretly laid within George's psyche.

In Brandon Cronenberg's latest film, "Infinity Pool," writer James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) learns about being caught between these two literary extremes in the most disturbing, humiliating, and embarrassing way possible. Now three films into his directing career, "Infinity Pool" further cements Cronenberg's auteurist signature style, his tropes, themes, and aesthetic.

It’s easy to imagine certain socially conservative audience members sitting in the audience for filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg’s latest, clutching their pearls until their knuckles bleed. But fans of extreme cinema like “Infinity Pool” are more likely to find it merely disappointing. It’s violent, sure, and it’s sexual, but it’s not a controversial exploration of challenging ideas. It’s a Souplantation salad bar of half-developed plot points and superficial graphic imagery, in service of a theme that’s about as generic as anything you’d find in a mainstream studio film.

The film starts the way so many films do, with a writer who has writer’s block, in search of inspiration. Alexandar Skarsgård (“The Northman”) plays James Foster, who wrote one book years ago and hasn’t published a damned thing since, even though he’s married to Em, the daughter of a publishing magnate.

I won’t be the first or last person to observe that Infinity Pool is pretty much The White Lotus with thick dollops of gore, hallucinatory visions, orgiastic sleaze, queasy cloning and state-sanctioned psychosis. If that sounds like your thing, dive right in. Though the family imprimatur is still very much in evidence, writer-director Brandon Cronenberg steps out from the shadow of his father more than usual with a sci-fi satire in which wanton violence, depravity and zero accountability are perks of the wealthy. Bound to be a gleefully warped thrill ride for some and an unpleasant ordeal for others, it’s not for the squeamish.

Cronenberg’s new film is less formally inventive and icy than Possessor, more narratively straightforward if no less disturbingly weird and grisly. But the go-for-broke extremity lacks the substance to make it more than an aggressive but shallow provocation. So many movies have needled...

By now the Cronenberg surname has become synonymous with bodily obsession. Like his father David’s wealthy oeuvre of anatomical grotesquerie, Brandon Cronenberg has taken the torch and developed his own small, corporeal-minded canon, blending a gory imagination with sharp socio-economic fables. More than his chilling, futuristic narrative concepts, it’s his sensory details that overwhelm and entrance, grounding science fiction in the earthly vulgarities and excretions that deliver genuine shocks instead of cheap thrills. That he can keep twisting the knife and warrant an appreciation for his detail and dexterity is a rare gift.

After all, it’s still hard to erase Sean Bean’s bludgeoned and oozing face (or the squishing sounds of his flattened eyeball) in Possessor, Cronenberg’s recent film about corporate assassins using mind transfer to eliminate their enemies. The abstracted, bright-colored flourishes and chamber-thriller structure––not to mention its punctuated moments of extreme carnage...

Not every horror film has something thoughtful to say. Infinity Pool is one such film. Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, Infinity Pool boasts enticing performances by Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård, but one can’t help but wonder about the film’s superficiality despite its off-the-wall depravity. It’s meant to shock and disgust — and it does — but while Infinity Pool starts off interestingly enough, its take on power, corruption, and privilege only goes so far.

James Foster (Skarsgård) is vacationing with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) at a resort on the fictitious island of La Tolqa. James is a writer who hasn’t published in six years and is struggling to find inspiration on his trip. His marriage to Em, a publishing heiress who supports James financially, is not exactly happy, but everything changes when James meets Gabi (Pearl and X star Mia Goth), a self-proclaimed fan of his book,...

For this writer, one of my favorite filmmakers working today is Brandon Cronenberg. Sure, comparisons to his father’s creative output are always going to happen (and their emboldened nature as storytellers is certainly a connective tissue between the two), but with just three features under his proverbial belt, Brandon has demonstrated time and time again that he’s blazing a path unlike anyone else—past or present—including his own dad. And with Infinity Pool, Cronenberg has crafted one of the most intoxicatingly perverse films of the last decade, a cinematic achievement that is shockingly audacious, completely unhinged, and excessively violent, and I could not have loved it more.

At the start of Infinity Pool, we are introduced to James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife, Em (Cleopatra Coleman), while they are on vacation at a hoity-toity private resort on the fictional island of Li Tolqa. Something of a failed writer,...

Jg Ballard meets Ben Wheatley in Brandon Cronenberg’s latest. Which is a bit of a surprise, since the two have already met: in 2015, in the latter’s dystopian satire High-Rise. There are (literal) shades of Nicolas Winding Refn, too, and a healthy smattering of body horror inherited from the old man, whose filmography Cronenberg Jr. raids to make an unlikely fusion of Videodrome and A History of Violence, two very opposing milestones in his father’s career.

Unexpectedly, so much mixing and matching has resulted in the younger director’s most original and ambitious film so far; seeming to ditch the intellectually intriguing but dramatically sterile precision of his debut film Antiviral, Cronenberg is now going all-in for the cinema of nightmares, with a film that gets under the skin and itches, invades the brain and plays havoc with the synapses.

The Wheatley connection is not as far-fetched as it sounds,...

In “Infinity Pool,” what happens in Li Tolqa stays in Li Tolqa, an impoverished country where, if they’re rich enough, foreign guests can literally get away with murder. But that’s not the half of it. Visitors hold grotesque, drug-addled orgies at which their genitalia appear to morph before your eyes. The locals host sick rituals, too, wherein miscreants are cloned and then forced to witness their own executions. And then there are the macabre Li Tolqan skin masks, which suggest generations of inbreeding, or maybe they’re just the half-salvaged faces of botched doubling experiments.

It would all be quite shocking were the film signed by anyone other than Brandon Cronenberg, the demented son of “Scanners” director David Cronenberg. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice guy in real life, but hoo boy, if you’ve seen “Antiviral” or “Possessor,” you know: The kind of images Kid...

Dubai, Jan 22 (Ians) Aggressive knocks from Chris Lynn and Shimron Hetmyer helped Gulf Giants chase down Desert Vipers’ mammoth score of 195/4 and extend their winning streak in the Dp World International League (Il) T20 at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday.

The Gulf Giants recorded their fourth successive victory with a five-wicket win while Desert Vipers crashed to their first defeat despite Alex Hales’ scintillating knock of 99 off 57 balls with 10 boundaries and five sixes. Lynn cracked 71 off 42 balls with eight boundaries and three sixes while Hetmyer smashed 70 off 35 balls with five boundaries and five sixes to win the match with three balls to spare.

Gulf Giants had won the toss and elected to bowl. Desert Vipers openers Rohan Mustafa and Alex Hales scored steadily with Mustafa scoring two boundaries off the second over from Liam Dawson. Hales, after hitting Richard Gleeson for two boundaries in the third over, went on...

For his third feature outing, Writer/Director Brandon Cronenberg returns to the deep well of surreal, grotesque sci-fi horror. Cronenberg doles out heady, warped horror at the resort-set Infinity Pool, with its title a clue to the vanishing edges of reality. While more accessible and linear than the filmmaker’s previous effort, it’s no less compelling, audacious, and extremely violent.

James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) hopes to find inspiration for his second novel at the all-inclusive resort in Li Tolqa with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman). Instead of jump-starting his writer’s block, the couple winds up lazing around the pool and enjoying the comforts of the resort nestled in a country dangerous for tourists. That is until he meets Gabi (Mia Goth), a massive fan of James’ sole novel. Gabi and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert) entice James and Em on a day trip beyond the barbed wire fences of the compound,...

Like his father before him, Brandon Cronenberg makes uncomfortable movies about characters descending into flesh-soaked circles of hell. But I'm not here to say that the two Cronenbergs make the same kinds of films. There are distinctions that separate their movies and prove that the younger Cronenberg is a filmmaker working on his own terms. Unlike father David, there's a distinct cosmic coldness to Brandon's work — the sense that everyone, and I mean everyone, is completely doomed. Sex and even romance play a part in David Cronenberg's films, but romance doesn't seem to be a concept that even exists in Brandon Cronenberg's worlds, and the sex on display is detached and sickly. It feels less about pleasure — something the older Cronenberg's films revel in — and more about distraction. It's as if there's no trace of humanity to be found anywhere in the younger Cronenberg's worlds.

Brandon Cronenberg made his...

The rich, they are not like you and me. They treat the world as their oyster and, except for their fellow modern-day aristocrats, its occupants as their servants and playthings. They summer in private estates or swank five-star hotels, spending the gross national product of a small nation on vacations. They have a weakness for not only cloning themselves when they run afoul of little things like manslaughter laws — it turns out some countries offer this perk if you’ve got six figures to spend on it; be sure to check with your local embassy!

Dubai, Jan 14 (Ians) Spin-bowling all-rounder Dhruv Parashar has been named as a replacement player for the Desert Vipers’ Dp World ILT20 campaign, replacing his injured UAE U-19 teammate Ronak Panoly.

Panoly’s left shoulder injury restricts his ability to field, which means he would not be able to operate at the capacity necessary for the tournament.

Desert Vipers Director of Cricket Tom Moody expressed his disappointment for Ronak and said: “Obviously a big setback for him. He was full of excitement as you would expect as an exciting young player out of the UAE, to join the Desert Vipers. But unfortunately, from a fitness standpoint, and for his own assurance to get his shoulder back in order the decision was made to release him.

“Ronak will stay with the squad to receive treatment and to feel part of the group. He is an impressive young man, and we hope to...

One of the firms has been USA-based private equity firm Lancer Capital, who picked a franchise in the ILT20 and named it ‘Desert Vipers’. Its chairman, Avram Glazer, is part of the family which owns the American football team Tampa Bay Buccaneers and English Premier League side Manchester United, marking it the firm’s first foray into the cricketing world.

To ensure that the side puts up a good show in their first outing in ILT20, the Vipers have roped in two-time Odi World Cup-winner and highly-experienced coach Tom Moody as the Director of Cricket. Moody, the former coach of Ipl 2016 winners Sunrisers Hyderabad, speaks exclusively to Ians on ILT20, building a team from scratch and much more.

Excerpts

Q. How do you think the upcoming ILT20 can boost the growth of cricket in the UAE?

A. I think it’s a very important step that’s been taken by...

Today, Family House San Francisco has announced its annual Rock The House Gala will honor multi-Grammy Award-winning band Train and lead singer Pat Monahan in recognition of their longtime support and dedication to the organization.

Now in its 39th year, the annual fundraising gala will take place virtually on Saturday, November 14, 2020 at 6:30pm to benefit Family House, a home away from home for families whose children are being treated for a serious illness at University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital.

This year’s Rock The House Gala, chaired by Kim Scurr VP Operations, at Ucsf Health, boasts an exclusive virtual performance from Train. The special event will also feature finely curated live and silent auctions offering extraordinary experiences and one-of-a-kind items, including Train memorabilia and more. Emmy Award-winning radio & TV personality Liam Mayclem will serve as Master of Ceremonies. All proceeds from the event will help...