1 week ago Down on dating? Here are five couples who fell in love this year

From ICU meet-cutes to holiday sparks, readers share the unexpected moments that brought them lasting love this yearAsk someone who is single about their dating life, and the answer might sound like Oliver singing “Where is love?”According to the headlines, nobody knows how to flirt, dating is dead, sex is over, and so is love. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Wicked: For Good director says he fought to keep one scene hidden from studio bosses

*** Spoilers ahead for the final scene of ‘Wicked: For Good’

Politics

2 w. ago ‘It hurts listening to Whitney Houston – I knew her so well’: Mica Paris’s honest playlist

The soul star and Prince collaborator could hardly reach the counter when she bought her first record, but which Busta Rhymes song gets her moving?The first song I fell in love with God Will Open Doors by Walter Hawkins. I grew up on the Hawkins gospel family. They were my teachers. I was raised by my grandparents, and my auntie fell in love with the gospel sound and imported records from America – although my grandparents thought it was a bit too secular, even though it was gospel.The song I inexplicably know every lyric to For some reason, out of all his songs, Adore by Prince always speaks to me. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago ‘Studio bosses were like: it sounds lovely. We’ll pass!’: Joel Edgerton and Clint Bentley on their Oscar

The actor and the director of Train Dreams – a quietly powerful tale of a logger in 1900s Idaho – on the slog of getting it made, the joy of motel living and why human-made things will always beat AIAmerica was built by men like Robert Grainier, the stoical lumberjack at the heart of Train Dreams. Grainier cuts the trees and tames the forest and lays the ground for railroads and towns. Technically, then, Train Dreams is a western. But he never once ropes a steer, shoots a bandit or circles the wagons ahead of a Comanche attack on the plains. The small print tells a different kind of story.It was a hard film to pitch, admits the actor Joel Edgerton: an uphill struggle; plenty of studio trepidation. “You go into the meeting and say: ‘Well, it’s a movie about a guy who’s not really making choices for himself. He’s kind of pushed around by life.’” Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago Celeste: Woman of Faces review – from chanson to prewar jazz, this timeless song cycle defies the easy sell

(Polydor)It’s a difficult second album for the chart-topping singer, in more ways than one – but her sombre songcraft ends up being spectacularIn theory, the making of Celeste’s second album should have been plain sailing. Boosted by a win in the BBC Sound of 2020 poll, and her single A Little Love appearing on the John Lewis Christmas ad the same year, her debut album Not Your Muse entered the charts at No 1, spawned two big hits – Stop This Flame and Strange – and ultimately went gold. That’s the perfect starting place from which to make a second album: success, acclaim and attention, but not on the kind of overwhelming scale that seems ultimately paralysing, where it’s impossible to work out how you can follow it up.And yet, the making of Woman of Faces has clearly been attended by some difficulty. Celeste has talked openly about butting heads with its producer, Jeff Bhasker, whose hugely impressive CV includes work with Harry Styles, Taylor Swift and Kanye West: she commissioned...

Events

4 w. ago Zac Efron fans left in disbelief after his 'REAL singing voice' exposed in leaked High School Musical clip

Almost 20 years after Zac Efron played Troy Bolton in High School Musical, longtime fans are in shock over what his actual singing voice sounded like - and they don't love what they are hearing.

Culture