‘Amsterdam’ Review: Three Amigos Try to Save America in David O. Russell’s Ungainly Period Dramedy

Apparently, Kanye West isn’t too concerned about fashion brands severing ties from him amid his string of controversies.

Sophia Grace Brownlee is going to be a momma!

This is so special!!!! Perez is the happiest of Swifties today!!!!!

Drake and 21 Savage have announced the release date of their joint album, “Her Loss,” which will be on Friday, October 28.

A FORMER EastEnders star was arrested after allegedly being sent £80,000 by an OAP who thought they were dating. The actress, 48, who cannot be named, is being probed for alleged “catfishing” by pretending to be in her 20s. She is said to have offered online sexual services to the man, in his 80s, for cash.

STRICTLY Come Dancing fans were not impressed with the BBC centenary special this evening. The dance competition honoured the occasion with routines to classic BBC theme songs and references to popular shows.

FRIENDS superstar Matthew Perry has told about his extraordinary love life for the first time and revealed his flings with some of the world’s most beautiful ladies. He secretly dated Julia Roberts after she bombarded him with flirty messages, enjoyed a raunchy tryst with Gwyneth Paltrow in a cupboard and had such a crush on Jennifer Aniston it led to awkward scenes while filming the US sitcom. Now 53, Matthew says his life changed for ever when he was cast as wisecracking Chandler Bing.

MEL B is engaged to wed boyfriend of three years Rory McPhee after he proposed this week. The Spice Girl, 47, was “overwhelmed” when the Leeds-born hairdresser popped the question on Wednesday. And sources close to the star told how Rory, 36, and a long-time family friend, has helped repair the damage done by her ten-year domestic abuse hell.

STRICTLY Come Dancing fans were left furious at head judge Shirley Ballas this evening over 'inconsistent scoring’. Viewers branded her ‘jealous’ after she gave Kym Marsh low scores once again and many called for the 62-year-old to go.

THE MASKED Dancer final saw Scissors crowned the winner as Glee star Heather Morris after Hollywood actor Adam Garcia finished in second place as Onomatopoeia. The spin-off to The Masked Singer has kept everyone guessing for weeks, and tonight the answers were finally revealed.  The final saw the three masked celebrities remaining, Scissors, Onomatopoeia and Pearly King, dance to be crowned the winner. After each of them performed for the judging panel, the vote offs began with Pearly King going first, who was revealed as Strictly legend Bruno Tonioli.

ACID-tongued Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has branded Motsi Mabuse “a diva” in an outspoken interview. The Aussie choreographer, 57, also claimed that Anton Du Beke, 56, has a “big head” since winning a National Television Award for his role. He added former co-star Bruno Tonioli, 66, would have liked to have left with “more of a fanfare” and insists that head judge Shirley Ballas is not sexist.

STRICTLY Come Dancing viewers are convinced that Molly Rainford will be given the boot this week after revealing her previous dance experience. The CBBC star, 21, revealed that she went to Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, where she learnt performing arts and dance.

MOLLY-Mae Hague’s car was hit with a removal order today as she once again parked illegally. The 23-year-old, who is pregnant with her first child, was spotted returning to her £32k Range Rover just in time.

FORMER child star Sophia Grace Brownlee is pregnant with her first child. The 19-year-old, who rose to fame alongside Rosie McClelland when they performed on The Ellen Show, shared her news in a YouTube video.

THE MASKED Dancer fans were left stunned by Oti Mabuse and Davina McCall's showstopping outfits for the finale. The two judges have sported an array of stylish ensembles each week on the show and pulled out all the stops for tonight's grand finale, where they were joined by guest judge Dawn French. Davina, 55, wore a bright fuchsia one shouldered dress with fluffy feather sleeves.

SHE is officially off the market having tied the knot with Jeremy Parisi in a romantic ceremony in Italy this year. But Kelly Brook has shown she is just as keen as ever to hang out with her fans — on their walls at least. The model is doing her bit to warm up the autumn chill by releasing her 22nd calendar.

THE MASKED Dancer fans were in shock as Bruno Tonioli was unmasked as Pearly King. The spin-off to The Masked Singer has kept everyone guessing for weeks, and tonight the answers were finally revealed.  The final saw the three masked celebrities remaining, Scissors, Onomatopoeia and Pearly King, dance to be crowned the winner. But unfortunately, Pearly King was pipped at the final and was given the boot by the judges.

EMILY Atack has revealed that she's been having a "hard" time lately after her shock break-up. The actress and comedian, 32, who broke up with former reality star and tree surgeon Liam McGough last week, admitted she had been facing some "struggles". The Inbetweeners star said she has turned to poetry during her down days, including The Orange by Wendy Cope, which ends with the sentence: "I love you.

Gio van Bronckhorst insists he retains the backing of his players after another below-par performance from Rangers ended with booing and a 1-1 draw with Livingston.

Kilwinning boss David Gormley was left ruing 'fine margins' as Forfar brought an end to the West of Scotland League outfit's first-ever Scottish Cup adventure.

The 14th Annual Santa Fe International Film Festival has announced its juried award winners for the event which has run from Oct. 19-23.

Volatile ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith unleashed on Kanye West today, asking whether Jewish people helped him or hurt him in his business deals.

Boris Johnson has been accused of 'lying over having 100 backers for Prime Minister' after Rishi Sunak demanded proof.

Claudia Winkleman took a savage dig at the Tories during Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday night.

Scissors has been revealed to be Glee star Heather Morris, who has been crowned the winner of The Masked Dancer.

Stephen Robinson insists he's had no contact from Irish FA chiefs about taking over the Northern Ireland job.

The latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that in February 2022, nearly 12.5 millions people across the UK were receiving State Pension payments, including 1.1 million living abroad and 992,052 in Scotland.

Two Monklands roads will shut for most of the day over the next couple of weeks - with motorists warned there won't be any diversions during one of the closures.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A middling movie with a must-see performance at its core, “The Good House” does something interesting with the notion of the unreliable narrator. As the unfortunately named Hildy Good (blame novelist Ann Leary, not married filmmakers Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky for that decision), Sigourney Weaver brings deceptive self-confidence to the role of a small-town Realtor. We meet Hildy introducing a couple to the fictional New England fishing village of where the Good family has lived for so long, there’s talk of witches in their past. But Hildy can’t be trusted — not because her character is bad (she’s Good, get it?), but because she’s in denial. “I can walk through a house once and know more about its occupants than a psychiatrist … could in a year of sessions,” Hildy boasts, addressing the audience directly. In truth, she’s not talking to us so much as she is rationalizing things to herself. The slyly insightful way Forbes (“Infinitely Polar Bear”) and Wolodarsky (who spent years writing for animation) have constructed “The Good House,” watching Hildy throw down boss energy to clients and the camera is like being inside her head, where the first person she has to convince that she’s in control is herself. We buy it — for a time — but the characters don’t, and that mismatch is the crux of all that follows.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic What strange sorcery is this that “Hocus Pocus” — a so-so comedy turned campy cult favorite starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as absolutely fabulous Salem witch sisters — should be getting a sequel nearly three decades after its 1993 release? At the time, Variety speculated that, were it not for the film’s three stars, “‘Hocus Pocus’ wouldn’t seem out of place on the Disney Channel, and perhaps belongs there.” (Its director, Kenny Ortega, would go on to helm the “High School Musical” franchise for the cabler.) In a sense, that’s what’s happened with this follow-up, aimed to breathe some life into the graveyard that is Disney+. The sequel’s existence owes less to popular demand (the original earned a respectable $39.3 million stateside and went on to become a Halloween season staple) than the realization that the film had tapped into preteens’ fascination with witchcraft before Harry Potter came along. It can be no coincidence that the new feature lifts so much of its look and feel from that franchise — with eye of newt, a dead man’s head and some aspects of “The Craft” tossed in for good measure. In “Hocus Pocus 2,” the three teens called upon to save Salem from the Sanderson sisters’ return are themselves budding witches, which means the movie is less about scaring kids away from magic than indulging their post-Potter junior wizarding fantasies.

Amsterdam.” It’s a film from established auteur David O. Russell, whose reputation for delivering the goods allowed him to attract a murderer’s row of talent that includes Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift and Robert De Niro. And yet, the film, bolstering more stars than in the heavens, to quote an old line — and a budget that’s upwards of $80 million — is arriving in theaters having been pulverized by the critics who have published so far and hoping to rescue its investment by overcoming the reviews to be a commercial success.

problematic uncle in the industry family, certain to entertain and disturb in equal measure, depending on what one is willing to overlook when the sausage is being made (or even, considering some reports, when he’s away from the factory).That the Oscar-nominated writer-director is in the mix again with the period comedy-adventure “Amsterdam” after seven years away (since 2015’s lumpy “Joy”) indicates a willingness in Hollywood to endure the reminders of his behavioral issues and to bet on the recipe of star power, emotional smarts and provocative farce that forged “Flirting with Disaster,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle.”Only the first ingredient is in evidence with “Amsterdam,” however, and no amount of wattage from Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Zoe Saldana, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek or Robert De Niro — or even an A-list B-team of Taylor Swift, Chris Rock, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alessandro Nivola, Mike Myers and Michael Shannon — can lift this flat, unfunny genre-fluid whatsit from its performative stumbling toward contemporary relevance.At first, when it’s 1933 New York, we sense an eccentric buddy-picture in the making, centered on themes of integration and the treatment of veterans. Bale’s character (and semi-narrator) is Burt Berendsen, a scraggly, half-Catholic/half-Jewish doctor focused on new medicines for wounded Great War soldiers like himself (he lost an eye) and estranged from his status-conscious Park Avenue wife (Riseborough).

Christian Bale has said he had to stop talking to Chris Rock on the set of Amsterdam because he was too “bloody funny”.The Dark Knight actor said he had to start ignoring Rock after he started making him laugh on the set of the David O. Russell film, and Bale found he “couldn’t act”.“I remember his first day, I was excited to meet him, I’m a big fan of his standup,” Bale told IndieWire.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic A pioneering movie star intensely aware of his place in film history, Sidney Poitier published no fewer than three autobiographies during his life, generously sharing what he’d lived and learned with those who’d appreciated his work in films such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” But words can only reach so far in an era dominated by the moving image, and as such, we’re fortunate that Poitier was open to repeating himself one last time for “Sidney” — director Reginald Hudlin’s definitive portrait for Apple TV+ — before his death this year at the age of 94. Few movie stars have been more inspirational than Poitier, who was more than just a star, but also a symbol to so many — be they aspiring Black performers or the public at large, who saw their own views on civil rights embodied in the characters he played. But what of those who were born too late to fully appreciate what this remarkable actor meant to audiences deprived of role models? Produced by Oprah Winfrey (who appears frequently throughout) with the participation of Poitier and his family, “Sidney” puts that legacy in context, retracing a career that changed the way that Hollywood — and the world — saw the Black experience.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic African American boxing champ Muhammad Ali famously refused to fight for his country, justifying himself with the oft-quoted quip, “No Viet Cong ever called me n—–.” That’s one-half of American history, and an important one. “Devotion” tells the other, presenting the story of a Black pilot so determined to defend — and die for, if need be — the United States that he was willing to endure institutional bigotry to become the Jackie Robinson of the skies: Jesse Brown, the first aviator of color to complete the Navy’s basic training program. A square but satisfying social justice drama set against the backdrop of the Korean War, “Devotion” impressed on the biggest screen possible at the Toronto Film Festival two months before its Nov. 23 theatrical release. Featuring elements of both “Green Book” and “Red Tails,” the film is more than just a stirring case of Black exceptionalism; it also celebrates the one white officer who had Brown’s back, Tom Hudner, treating the bond these two men formed as something exceptional unto itself. Director JD Dillard dazzles with see-it-in-Imax airborne sequences, but the meat of the film focuses on the friendship between Brown (“Da 5 Bloods” star Jonathan Majors) and his white wingman, played by Glen Powell, the “Hidden Figures” actor who most recently appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick.”