27/09/2025

LYFE SATURDAY | SEPT 27, 2025 24 Timely satire?

F OR Leonardo DiCaprio, explaining the synopsis for his new action thriller film One Battle After Another is no easy feat. “I think it’s probably because it’s a complex thing to articulate, but at the heart of it, I think the movie’s a lot to do with humanity. “It’s a lot to do with polarisation in the world that we live in, extremism on both ends,” the Titanic actor said. The movie follows Bob Ferguson, played by DiCaprio, and his wife Perfidia Beverly Hills, played by singer Teyana Taylor. They are a loving but strained couple that embark on daring humanitarian missions in modern-day America. “It’s not a film where people are imposing any political beliefs on o New movie One Battle After Another complex to explain, says Leonardo DiCaprio

all your ideas, because he certainly doesn’t. But when you say that one good idea, I mean, the entire course of the movie may change.” One Battle After Another is playing in cinemas already. Film critics granted the film, distributed by Warner Bros, a 97% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with high praise for Anderson. – Reuters

anyone else. It’s satire on both ends. It’s a great film to have coming out in today’s world. I think it’s important,” DiCaprio said In the movie, Perfidia suddenly disappears soon after giving birth. Bob changes his identity and goes off the grid to raise their child as a single parent. When an enemy resurfaces after 16 years for revenge, Bob must work to rescue his kidnapped daughter. Writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson is known for his distinct style in films such as Licorice Pizza , There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights . According to DiCaprio, Anderson has “incredible flexibility” and can change whole sequences based on

Streaming platform seeks Money Heist successor Netflix co-CEO Sarandos (second from right) with (from left) Jason Bateman, Jude Law and Laura Linney at the streaming platform’s Black Rabbit New York premiere and afterparty recently.

DiCaprio. – REUTERSPIC

IN a cavernous studio outside Madrid teeming with TV industry stars, Netflix is blending old knowledge with modern technology to try to concoct a successor to its global hit Money Heist . The dystopia Billionaires’ Bunker , set in a gigantic underground fortress offering gyms, a garden and a fancy restaurant, is the US streaming giant’s latest Spanish superproduction. The aim is to conjure the magic of Money Heist , a series about a group of wily robbers who hold up the Spanish national mint, which was Netflix’s first non-English-language global success after launching in 2017. Migue Amoedo, visual artistic director of Billionaires’ Bunker , described Money Heist as “the turning point of the industry”, saying they now had“the recipe”for repeating its success. Almost 1,000 Netflix movies and series have been shot in Spain since 2017, highlighting the country’s role as a growing audiovisual production powerhouse. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said the company’s Spanish titles generated more than five billion hours of viewing in 2024 alone. Spanish screenwriters Alex Pina and Esther Martinez Lobato were behind Money Heist , its spin-off Berlin and Sky Rojo , productions that underline the potential for local settings to reach worldwide stardom. “I am always surprised by the huge power of how an exotic local story can be universal at the same

time,” Pina recently told reporters. “I don’t feel we had to change anything in terms of the programmes’ character, narrative or DNA,” he continued, saying Netflix demanded no adaptation. The site’s head of production Victor Marti, added: “We are very happy to work from this narrow angle in the world... and offer our local storytelling to a global audience.” R ecipe for success After bursting onto the Spanish market in 2015, Netflix inaugurated its first studios outside the US in Madrid’s northern outskirts in 2019, making it a major European hub. In June, Netflix announced more than €1 billion (RM4.9 billion) of investment in its Spanish productions through to 2029. The Tres Cantos studio harbours traditional physical decor together with cutting-edge technology such as digital plateaus within its almost 22,000 square metres of space. In a hangar, a giant plateau measuring 30 metres long and six metres high brings to life static or animated images: a sea of clouds, a panorama of skyscrapers or a country road. “We have a little bit of everything here to shoot and produce... we are testing a lot of technologies for the first time,” said Marti. The technology “allows us to reduce the gap” between Spanish and European cinema and the US, added Amoedo, who said 80% of Billionaires’ Bunker was shot indoors.

an actor’s suggestion. “Not to say that he takes

US Representative Ted Lieu (front, right) speaks during a protest against ABC’s suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show in Hollywood, California, recently.

Jimmy Kimmel defends free speech after TV return JIMMY Kimmel returned to US late-night television earlier this week, defending political satire against Trump administration “bullying”, six days after his on-air remarks about the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk led Walt Disney to suspend his show. company to an escalating crackdown by US President Donald Trump on his perceived media critics through litigation and warnings of regulatory action.

Brokerage Needham wrote in a client note that Walt Disney should shut down the ABC network rather than sell it and transfer the channel’s content to its streaming platforms to lower regulatory risks and unlock higher valuation. The recent “FCC intervention has made owning broadcasting licences too expensive and too volatile for Disney shareholders, in our view,” the brokerage said. Two major US broadcast station owners said they will not resume airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday on their ABC affiliates and will instead run other programming, after ABC parent Walt Disney said it will resume broadcasting the late-night talk show. Nexstar Media and Sinclair Broadcasting said they will not resume screening the show on their

Disney’s decision to cut short Kimmel’s exile for comments it initially labelled as “ill-timed” and “insensitive” marked a high-profile act of corporate defiance in the face of Trump’s escalating crackdown on perceived enemies in the media through litigation and regulatory threats. On Monday, Disney said it would return comedian Kimmel to late-night television, six days after his show was threatened with a regulatory probe and suspended over comments he made about Kirk’s assassination. Disney’s move to restore the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show to the line-up of its ABC network represented the highest-profile challenge yet from a communications

Kimmel.

70 owned and partner ABC stations, which are more than 25% of the roughly 250 ABC affiliates nationwide. The two companies reach about 23% of US households. – Reuters

Sarandos (third from right) with (from left) Kate Susman, Zach Baylin, Nne Ebong, Law, Bateman and Troy Kotsu. – PICS FROM AFP