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The annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival returns to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park from October 4th-6th, 2024. The three-day event features 70 artists performing across six stages, and the best part is that it’s completely free to attend.

Sleater-Kinney, Mavis Staples, and Patti Smith lead this year’s lineup, which also boasts sets from the likes of Emmylou Harris, Yo La Tengo, Jessica Pratt, Cunningham Bird (Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird) performing Buckingham Nicks, Cat Power (singing a set of Bob Dylan covers), Glen Hansard, Devandra Banhart, Ibibio Sound Machine, Levitation Room, Greensky Bluegrass.

There will also be collaborative sets, songwriter circles, and jam sessions galore. In addition to Cat Power singing Dylan and Cunningham Bird, Kelly Willis, Chuck Prophet, Ismay, and Steve Earle will honor the catalogue of Lucinda Williams, Aoife O’Donovan will perform with Hawktail and the San Francisco Girls Choir, and Steve Earle will play a...

Glen Powell garnered widespread appreciation after the success of Top Gun: Maverick. After a streak of playing minor characters, the actor finally got his breakout role as ‘Hangman’. Although the actor auditioned to play ‘Rooster’ in the 2022 blockbuster, it was given to Miles Teller and Tom Cruise offered Hangman to Powell after liking his performance.

Glen Powell in Top Gun: Maverick | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Top Gun: Maverick was a monumental success for everyone involved. The Joseph Kosinski directorial almost earned $1.5 Billion worldwide and was globally praised for reviving cinema after the pandemic. However, it also proved successful for many young actors who wanted to know more about movies from the A-lister.

Glen Powell learned the importance of good projects from Tom Cruise Tom Cruise in a still from Top Gun: Maverick | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Tom Cruise is undoubtedly one of the finest Hollywood stars of this era. The A-lister’s...

Glen Powell's role in Top Gun: Maverick was pivotal in his career, earning $1.4 billion globally. His character Hangman in the film was influenced by Powell, who initially auditioned for Rooster. Powell's appearance as Marine Sergeant Westcott in NCIS showcased a precursor to his big screen roles.

Glen Powell was a hit in Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick, but his Navy roots extend deeper than his Lt. Jake "Hangman" Seresin character. The movie was pivotal in Powell's career, and a box office hit. Top Gun: Maverick amassed $1.4 billion globally, cohesive with its reception on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is certified fresh, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96 percent and an audience score of 99 percent. The film was the first time he made it big, but Top Gun: Maverick wasn't Glen Powell's first stint portraying an officer in the United States Navy.

Although Powell made waves as Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick,...

July 3 will mark the latest installment in Illumination and Universal’s Despicable Me franchise, just in time for Independence Day weekend. Despicable Me 4, which premiered at the 2024 French Annecy International Animation Film Festival has recruited some new voices for its latest set of shenanigans, which began all the way back in 2010 with the first film.

The minions can’t be counted out either with two of their own film installments as well as a compilation of short film adventures in two volumes on Netflix. Through it all, Steve Carell and Pierre Coffin have reprised their voice roles of Gru and Minions, respectively.

Parents or others anticipating the release of the fourth Despicable Me film in theaters may be wondering how to watch the Despicable Me and Minions movies in order. Read on to find out.

How to watch the Despicable Me films in order:

Despicable Me, Gru (voice: Steve...

John Wayne's Western trilogy includes Rio Bravo, El Dorado, and Rio Lobo, each with their own unique charm and themes. Despite their varying reputations, each movie showcases Wayne's legendary career and iconic roles in the Western genre. The chemistry between Wayne and his co-stars, as well as the influence of these movies on future filmmakers, adds to their lasting impact.

Rio Bravo is viewed as one of the most influential Westerns of all time and a highlight of John Wayne's legendary career, but some fans might not realize it is part of a trilogy from the actor. Wayne is mostly linked to the Western genre and appeared in some of the most iconic films in the genre, including True Grit, The Searchers, Red River and The Cowboys. Even with the decline in popularity of the Western, he was making movies in the genre right until the end of his career,...

Being an actor means losing out on many, many roles, especially when you are just starting out. Glen Powell knows this agonizing truth all too well. The actor was initially known for his role in Scream Queens (2015-2016), where he played Chad Radwell. However, he gained worldwide fame and recognition only after playing Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick (2022). He then went on to star in his own rom-com, Anyone but You (2023) opposite the gorgeous Sydney Sweeney.

Glen Powell in a still from Scream Queens (2015-2016) | Prospect Films

If there is anyone in the film industry who greatly appreciates their rise in fame, it is Glen Powell. The actor came so close to playing many iconic roles in his career that would’ve given him recognition well before Maverick. This includes the time when he auditioned for The Longest Ride (2015).

Glen Powell Recalls his ‘The Longest Ride’ Audition The Longest Ride...

Top Gun 3 could replace Tom Cruise's beloved character, Maverick, with Miles Teller's Rooster as the new hero. Mission: Impossible failed to replace Cruise's Ethan Hunt, making Top Gun 3's potential twist unique. Killing off Maverick may be necessary for the franchise's longevity, as Cruise's presence dominates the series.

While Top Gun 3 may want to steer clear of one risky twist, this surprising reveal would allow the series to do something that Tom Cruise’s other franchise has never managed. For the longest time, it seemed like Top Gun would never spawn a profitable franchise. The original movie was a huge hit in 1986 and became a cult classic in the decades that followed, but its sequel spent an almost unprecedented 30 years in Development Hell before pre-production began in earnest. It was another six years before Top Gun: Maverick arrived, so hopes of the movie spawning another sequel were muted.

Hollywood star Miles Teller had a near-death experience on the set of the 2022 action drama Top Gun: Maverick. The sequel to the 1986 film, which brought back Tom Cruise as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell alongside Teller as Rooster, earned six nominations at the 2023 Academy Awards and won the Oscar for Best Sound.

Miles Teller in Top Gun 2

While it has become the most significant film of his career, it also marked a traumatic memory for the actor, as he has shared that a distressing incident during the filming of the movie left him fearing for his life.

Miles Teller Recalled the Harrowing Experience on Top Gun 2 Set

The cast of the 2022 action drama Top Gun: Maverick went through a rigorous five-month training course to prepare them for the demanding physical challenges, particularly the intense G-forces, they would face while handling their own cameras in the skies.

Miles Teller as...

Sometimes life presents those quintessential crossroads moments, where taking one path means making the best choice possible while the other would be a bullet dodged. That's for us normal people, at least. When you're up-and-coming star Austin Butler, these types of decisions tend to be more of a win-win variety.

In what feels like no time at all, the "Elvis" and "Dune: Part Two" actor has completely reinvented himself from the kid who first came up in this industry as a Nickelodeon/Disney Channel actor. While most audiences would point to director Baz Luhrmann's 2022 Elvis biopic as the leading role that put Butler on their radar for good, it was actually his supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" as a Charles Manson cult member that kickstarted his rapid ascension to the top of Hollywood at large. But that role might never have happened...

Director Joseph Kosinski defends Meg Ryan's absence as Carole Bradshaw in Top Gun: Maverick, arguing that it was in the best interest of the story. The director explains that Carole's absence is what gives power to the Maverick and Rooster arc and that it was a "hard" choice. The Maverick and Rooster arc is crucial to the emotional undercurrent of the movie and it makes the explosive ending that much more satisfying.

Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski defends Meg Ryan not being brought back as Carole Bradshaw for the 2022 sequel. Hitting theaters 36 years after the original film, Top Gun: Maverick sees Tom Cruise return as hotshot pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell to train a new batch of recruits for a dangerous mission. The film brings back Val Kilmer's Iceman from the original film, but there are a number of notable original character absences in the sequel.

During a...

Miles Teller played Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, but wasn't Goose's son in the original Top Gun. Many viewers may have forgotten that Rooster appeared in the 1986 movie before being reintroduced in the sequel. The original child actors who portrayed Goose's son, Bradley, were not approached to return for Top Gun: Maverick. The Weis twins have moved on from acting and are now teachers. They were not even credited in the original film and were considered as extras. Miles Teller was a great choice to play Rooster in the sequel. His performance was applauded, and he brought depth and emotion to the role. Bringing back the original actors would have hurt the impact of the movie and Teller's portrayal solidified his place in the role.

Miles Teller played Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, the son of Maverick's best friend, Goose, but Teller didn't star as Goose's son in the original Top Gun.

Several of the new characters introduced in Top Gun: Maverick, such as Manny Jacinto's role, had limited screen time and missed out on their own subplots. The character Phoenix, played by Monica Barbaro, had a brief appearance in the sequel, but her story addressing workplace sexism could make her a key character in Top Gun 3. Top Gun 3 should avoid turning Phoenix into a love interest and instead prioritize giving her the screen time she deserves without betraying her original role.

While Top Gun: Maverick didn’t make the most of all of its new stars, one supporting character’s perfect story was already set up by the 2022 sequel's plot. Top Gun: Maverick introduced a slew of new characters to the franchise, but not all of them got as much screen time as viewers might have hoped. In one particularly unfortunate instance, The Good Place star Manny Jacinto was announced...

Top Gun: Maverick wasted Jon Hamm's Cyclone, giving him a small role despite his potential as a compelling villain. Cyclone's off-screen change of heart sets up his potential redemption in Top Gun 3, hinted at by his nod of acknowledgment to Maverick. Top Gun 3 can give Jon Hamm's Cyclone a better story, transforming him into Maverick's confidante and replacing Iceman's role in the sequel.

While Top Gun: Maverick mostly wasted one of its supporting stars, the underrated character could prove pivotal to Top Gun 3. Thanks to the 36-year wait between Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick, many of the original movie’s characters didn’t return in the belated sequel. Fortunately, Top Gun: Maverick was full of memorable new faces whose subplots made up for the absence of figures like Meg Ryan’s Carole and Tom Skerritt’s Viper. That said, not all of these new characters got a moment...

System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who recorded the song “Patterns” together in 2000, have reunited for a new song that will help raise money for imperiled Armenians.

The tune was the brainchild of Cesar Gueikian, CEO of Gibson Brands. Gueikian, an Argentine member of the Armenian diaspora, teamed with Tankian and Iommi on a new song, “Deconstruction,” that’s coming out under the banner of the Gibson Band via Gibson Records as a charity single. The tune is a six-minute descent into psychedelic...

Rooster Teeth and Warner Bros.Discovery Access announced the finalists for their Rooster Teeth Digital Creators Program, now in its second year. Out of more than 400 applicants, eight aspiring and emerging digital talent content creators were selected to widen diverse, equitable, and inclusive representation.

The Rooster Teeth Digital Creators Program was established to provide underrepresented digital talent a platform to break through to new audiences, while also providing them with the tools and opportunities to succeed as content creators. The paid mentorship and training from Rooster Teeth and Warner Bros. Discovery will occur over three months, including a one-month residency in Austin. Chosen creators may also be eligible for a 1-year Rooster Teeth talent contract.

“We’re immensely proud to introduce the standout creators selected for year two of the Rooster Teeth Digital Creators Program,” said Jejuan Guillory, Rooster Teeth’s Head of Programming & Development. “This remarkable cohort epitomizes our commitment to fostering diverse voices.

Where to Watch Powered by Tom Cruise initially hesitated to make Top Gun 2 due to concerns about promoting war and skewing audience perceptions. The U.S. Navy heavily influenced the production of Top Gun, making changes to the script based on geopolitical circumstances. Tom Cruise was convinced to return for Top Gun: Maverick by the focus on the relationship between Maverick and Rooster, leading him to greenlight the film after a pitch from director Joseph Kosinski.

Top Gun: Maverick finally came out in 2022, being the long-awaited follow-up to the 1986 classic, and this massive time gap can be explained by Tom Cruise initially being hesitant to return for a Top Gun sequel. Despite the original Top Gun being one of Cruise's most iconic films, it took decades for a sequel to come out. Although the eventual Top Gun 2 was a hit, becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of all time,...

Tom Cruise's stunts in the Mission: Impossible franchise have become iconic, with his most recent film pushing boundaries even further. The video highlights some of Cruise's biggest stunts, including an underwater sequence and a Halo jump. It would be difficult for Mission: Impossible to continue without Cruise, as finding a suitable replacement and replicating his stunt work would be challenging.

A new Mission: Impossible video breaks down Tom Cruise's biggest stunts in the franchise. Playing Ethan Hunt for a couple of decades now, Cruise has done countless action scenes in the spy adventure film series. In its most recent installments, however, he and frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie have elevated the stunts in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which Cruise performs himself.

Cruise's biggest and most dangerous stunts in the franchise, including a few action set pieces from the critically acclaimed Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, are broken...

British actor Nicholas Hoult has established himself as a Hollywood star, even as he has missed out on the opportunity to play some truly iconic characters. The two-time Golden Globe nominee started out as a child actor with a heartwarming performance alongside Hugh Grant in the coming-of-age comedy About A Boy. As an adult, he attained mainstream popularity ever since he began playing the mutant scientist Hank McCoy/Beast in the X-Men movies, starting with 2011’s X-Men: First Class. Since then, he has gone on to appear as the lead in a number of movies, including Warm Bodies, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Tolkien.

He also effortlessly transitioned to TV with his Emmy-nominated portrayal of the Russian monarch Peter III in the historical satire The Great. Beyond his lead performances, Nicholas Hoult’s best movies like The Menu, The Favourite, and Mad Max: Fury Road also showcase his ability in supporting roles.

Prime Video's coming-of-age romantic drama The Summer I Turned Pretty is set in the idyllic beachside town of Cousins Beach, and a few filming locations were used to bring the setting to life. Based on the young adult book series by Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty focuses on Isabel "Belly" Conklin (Lola Tung), as she and her family spend summer at Cousins Beach with the Fisher family. The Summer I Turned Pretty season 1 chronicles the summer when Belly turns 16 and gets involved in a love triangle with the Fisher brothers: her long-time crush, Conrad (Christopher Briney) and his younger brother, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno).

Belly's mother Laurel (Jackie Chung) has been bringing her to visit Cousins Beach since she was a baby, so the town has a special place in Belly's heart. Belly counts down the days all year until the Conklins return to Susannah Fisher's (Rachel Blanchard) beach house.

Tom Cruise's need for speed returns in Top Gun: Maverick, and the movie features an incredible amount of real stunts and flying instead of fully Top Gun: Maverick CGI scenes. Over 30 years after he originally played Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in 1986's Top Gun, the release of the sequel comes at a point in time where Cruise has reinvented his Hollywood persona. Once it finally came time to make Top Gun: Maverick, one of the biggest questions surrounding the film was just how far Cruise's long-awaited sequel would go to make everything as real as possible. The original Top Gun featured great dogfights in the skies, and director Tony Scott captured much of the action in real life by using professional pilots.

The film easily could have tried to replicate the Top Gun dogfights by relying heavily on the advancements in visual effects over the last 36 years. However, the minimal...

While Top Gun: Maverick’s Rooster blames Tom Cruise's Maverick for his slow career progress, it is actually Top Gun’s Iceman who should be held responsible. While Goose’s tragic death is the saddest moment in the original Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick makes the moment even more poignant by depicting how the event impacted the lives of both Goose’s son Rooster and his friend Maverick. Top Gun: Maverick fleshed out the fallout of Goose’s Top Gun death by showing that Maverick spent the rest of his career attempting to run from his guilt, while Rooster followed in his father’s footsteps in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past.

Part of the reason that Rooster hates Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick is that he blames Tom Cruise’s roguish antihero for pulling his papers when he applied to Annapolis. In early drafts of Top Gun: Maverick,...

With their proven record of reviving a classic film franchise, the Creed movies can offer some valuable lessons on how Top Gun 3 should unfold. Top Gun: Maverick does an incredible job at upping the ante of its predecessor's aerial dog fights and adding more emotional depth to Capt. Pete Mitchell's overarching storyline. From dizzying, white-knuckling F-14 Tomcat sequences to awe-inspiring moments featuring Tom Cruise racing his Kawasaki across the runway, Top Gun: Maverick offers everything that one can expect from a sequel.

Its monumental box office numbers and positive worldwide reception are enough for it to be followed up with another installment, but the franchise must now tread carefully given that it took Top Gun 2 more than two decades to see the light of day. Like Top Gun 2, the potential sequel Top Gun 3 will have to be technically marvelous with its aerial maneuvers and aviation technologies. However,...

Top Gun: Maverick star Monica Barbaro has shared a large batch of behind-the-scenes videos from the hit film, showing the cast during training and goofing off during their downtime. Released 36 years after Tony Scott's original film, Top Gun: Maverick continues the story of Tom Cruise's hotshot pilot as he trains a new batch of recruits. Barbaro plays Phoenix, one of these new recruits, alongside Miles Teller's Rooster, Glen Powell's Hangman, Jay Ellis' Payback, Lewis Pullman's Bob, and Danny Ramirez's Fanboy.

Barbaro recently took to Instagram to share behind-the-scenes footage from the Top Gun: Maverick shoot and pre-production, when the cast underwent training.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Monica Barbaro (@monicabarbaro)

The videos show more of how Barbaro and the rest of the cast prepared for their roles, but also show how they had fun during their off-hours aboard an aircraft carrier.

“It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot.” When Miles Teller’s Rooster spits out that gem of a line toward the end of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the second-in-command action star certainly isn’t talking about Hollywood awards season. And yet, it’s an apt metaphor for the blockbuster Best Picture nominee and its spectacular ascent to Sunday’s Oscars.

A sequel to one of cinema’s most iconic fighter pilot movies was always flyable as a business idea: the metaphoric plane, if you will. But after the death of original “Top Gun” director Tony Scott — who passed in 2012 with his own unrealized vision of a follow-up in the works — recruiting the right people to pilot the tentpole for Paramount Pictures grew complicated. Not only did eventual director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer face the uphill battle of evolving a beloved property, but they also had to convince...

Top Gun: Maverick actor Tom Cruise details his emotional reunion with Iceman actor Val Kilmer during the sequel's filming. The Joseph Kosinski-directed sequel to 1986's Top Gun was a massive success at the box office and earned six nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. While there were doubts on whether Kilmer would reprise his role as Iceman for the sequel because of his struggles with throat cancer, the film integrated Kilmer's health condition into the character and crafted its most impactful scene, where Iceman tells Maverick (Cruise) that the Navy needs Maverick.

In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel Live, Cruise explained how emotional the reunion between himself and Kilmer got on the Top Gun: Maverick set.

While recalling how long their friendship has been, Cruise explained how quickly Kilmer got back into the character's spirit and performed that scene with such ease, making the entire process feel emotional.

A new Spider-Man Noir television show is in development at Amazon, starring the variant of the iconic Spider-Man character who lives in a 1930s-inspired reality within the Spider-Verse. However, it's also been confirmed that this Spider-Man Noir will not be Peter Benjamin Parker as seen in the comics or the version featured in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie (voiced by Nicolas Cage). As a result, Sony and Amazon may be looking for a new actor to play one of Spider-Man's most popular Spider-Verse variants.

Written by Orien Uziel with Into the Spider-Verse's Phil Lord and Christopher Miller producing, the live-action Spider-Man Noir series will reportedly feature a major change with Noir being a new character as opposed to Peter B. Parker. As such, it has yet to be confirmed if Nic Cage will be reprising his role for the new live-action series or if Sony is looking for...

If Top Gun 3 ever takes flight, there's a milestone release date it must land on. Audiences were kept waiting a very long time for Top Gun: Maverick, to the point where it appeared it would never happen. Tom Cruise himself was reluctant to return, as the original was a seminal moment in his career, and the passing of helmer Tony Scott made him question the need for a follow-up. While some legacy sequels can prove incredibly disappointing, Maverick - which earned many 2023 Oscar nods - certainly wasn't one of them. Just like Mad Max: Fury Road, it proved to be worth the three-decade-long wait.

It had all the exciting fighter jet action and music montages that made Top Gun a classic, but also a surprising amount of heart and emotion too. It also proved that movie theaters were alive and well following the pandemic, with Maverick soaring its way to over 1.4 billion worldwide.

America is full of inequalities, and most of them have been amplified since Covid-19 arrived. Oxfam reports that 99 percent of the world’s income fell in 2020, while the Earth’s 10 richest men saw their fortunes more than double. Underpaid essential workers toiled while white collar workers bought dumb shit online and worked at home in sweatpants, and 70 (70! It’s a lot!) congresspeople were caught dumping stocks before the rest of America really learned how bad Covid was about to get. It’s a fucked up system, and sometimes, it seems like there’s really no legit way out of it.

All of that is certainly considered in “Sprung,” the new Amazon Freevee series from “Yes, Dear,” “My Name Is Earl,” and “Raising Hope” creator Greg Garcia. The show’s 10 episodes follow three ex-cons released early because of Covid, who are promptly (and unceremoniously) dropped into society. Jack (Garret Dillahunt) spent...

Will NBC proceed with its new Bill Cosby family comedy? The Peacock last July announced plans to bring Cosby back to primetime in summer or fall of 2015 as the patriarch of a new family sitcom. As Deadline reports, "That plan may have been derailed by the resurfaced rape accusations against the veteran comedian.” Plus: Comedian Hannibal Buress is responsible for the Bill Cosby rape story going viral, another woman is accusing Cosby of rape, and Whoopi Goldberg is skeptical of the Cosby rape accuser. Parents TV Council blasts FX for showing graphic “Sons of Anarchy” sex scene The conservative watchdog called the opening 2 1/2 minutes of last week’s episode "the most sexually explicit content the (organization) has ever documented on basic cable,” adding that such content should be reserved for pay cable like HBO or Showtime. New “Peter Pan Live!” promo shows Allison Williams singing Watch Williams sing “I Won’t Grow Up,...