Posts in category: Entertainment

Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI

Three and a half years after Armie Hammer was first accused of sexual misconduct (and possible cannibalism), the disgraced actor and oil scion can’t pay for gas. It’s the latest in a saga following his reportedly losing his wealthy family’s financial support, switching career paths, and taking on a job selling time-shares at a Cayman Islands resort. Why is it getting harder and harder to distinguish real life from The White Lotus?

In case you’re a little confused about how we ended up here — or if you made the wise choice to mute Hammer’s name on Twitter ages ago — we compiled a timeline of the allegations against the Call Me By Your Name actor, his alleged victims’ statements, and his whereabouts leading up to … him going viral for selling his truck. That includes his first interviews since the allegations came to light, in which he admits to being emotionally abusive and shares details about being “massively” broke. Let’s unpack, shall we?

July 10, 2020: By mid-2020, Armie Hammer has been acting for more than a decade and is best known for playing a rich asshole in Gossip Girl, millionaire twins in The Social Network, and a tender tan American man in the Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name — and also that bizarre video of his son sucking on his toes. Then, on July 10, he and his wife of ten years, Elizabeth Chambers, announce their divorce in matching Instagram statements. “Thirteen years as best friends, soulmates, partners and then parents,” Chambers writes. “It has been an incredible journey, but together, we’ve decided to turn the page and move on from our marriage.”

The couple had been quarantining in the Cayman Islands, but after announcing the separation, Hammer reportedly moves back to Los Angeles, according to legal documents obtained by the Blast. Chambers requests  primary physical custody of their two children and reportedly promises that she and the kids will soon return to the States.

October 7, 2020: Hammer takes on a new hobby: home renovation. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, he mentions moving back to the States and fixing up “an old motel out in the desert” with a friend. “Do you think I had anything else better going on?” he asks Kimmel.

October 15, 2020: Hammer’s divorce gets a little murkier. In a court filing, he requests joint custody, arguing that he hasn’t seen his kids since moving back to Los Angeles in July. “When I asked Elizabeth when she was coming home, however, she first told me that the airports were closed. Then I was informed through her attorneys that flights were merely limited but that she and our children would be back in Los Angeles on the first flight in October,” he writes, per People. “It is now several weeks into October and they have not returned.”

November 25, 2020: Hammer is supposed to return to the Cayman Islands to celebrate Thanksgiving with Chambers and their kids but has issues making it out of the States, a source tells People.

January 1, 2021: Hammer tweets this. I’m not sure it’s relevant, but it’s definitely foreboding.

January 12, 2021: An anonymous woman, @houseofeffie, comes forward on Instagram and claims to have had a four-year-long affair with Hammer, during which she says he sent her graphic and violent texts about cannibalism, rape fantasies, and his desire to drink her blood. She publishes a collection of texts and screenshots she reportedly received from Hammer and also messages that reportedly came from his other exes.

“Women approached me with their affair stories as we talked, overwhelmed with grief, for days and nights without sleeping or eating, with some ending up in the ER,” she writes in one Instagram Story.

January 13, 2021: A day later, Hammer voluntarily exits the J. Lo movie Shotgun Wedding and is replaced by Josh Duhamel. “I’m not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic,” he tells Variety in a statement. “Lionsgate is supporting me in this and I’m grateful to them for that.”

January 14, 2021: Courtney Vucekovich, an app founder who says she dated Hammer in 2020 from June to October, alleges to “Page Six” that the actor subjected her to emotional abuse, sexually coerced her, and made her feel unsafe.

“He did some things with me that I wasn’t comfortable with. For God knows what reason, he convinced me that these things were OK and he put me in some dangerous situations where I was not OK, where he was heavily drinking, and I wasn’t drinking that way and it scared me. I didn’t feel comfortable,” Vucekovich says. She doesn’t confirm the authenticity of @houseofeffie’s posts, but their claims are similar.

January 15, 2021: More screenshots start proliferating online — this time, screenshots from Hammer’s secondary Instagram account, including several photos and videos of women in bondage. (In a few now-resurfaced interviews from the years leading up to 2020, Hammer also discussed his penchant for BDSM.) In one caption, Hammer complains about having to stay in the Cayman Islands because “my ex (for a very good reason) wife is refusing to come back to america with my children.” He continues, “there are a few silver linings. Like f*cking Ms. Cayman again while I’m down there.”

Hammer confirms the account is his own when he’s forced to apologize to this real Miss Cayman and the Miss Cayman Islands Universe Committee. “I would like to clarify that the person in my video, which was stolen from my private Instagram, is not Miss Cayman,” he tells a local publication. “I am genuinely sorry for any confusion my foolish attempt at humor may have caused.” Still no comment on any of the cannibalism stuff, though.

January 25, 2021: Paige Lorenze, a 24-year-old ex-girlfriend of Hammer’s who reportedly dated him for four months in 2020, corroborates his exes’ stories. Lorenze tells “Page Six” that Hammer allegedly branded and bruised her, sexually coerced her, and took graphic photos of her without her consent. “I have gotten a DM saying Armie had sent me photos of me tied up that I didn’t know about. I didn’t even know the photos existed or what they look like,” Lorenze says. “He would talk about it like a traditional BDSM relationship, but it wasn’t. This was way outside and beyond that.”

One of Hammer’s lawyers denies the allegations, saying that “any interactions with this person” were “completely consensual.”

January 28, 2021: Hammer exits another project — this time, Paramount+’s Godfather spinoff, The Offer.

February 1, 2021: In an Instagram post, Chambers writes that she supports all victims of assault and abuse and asks for “kindness and respect” as she focuses on her priorities, including her children and her career. “I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know,” she writes.

February 3, 2021: The Los Angeles Police Department begins investigating Hammer — although this won’t be revealed until a little later. “We can confirm that Armie Hammer is the main suspect in an alleged sexual assault investigation that was initiated Feb. 3 of this year,” an LAPD spokesperson would tell Variety in March 2021.

February 7, 2021: Hammer’s talent agency, WME, drops him.

March 11, 2021: Vanity Fair publishes a bizarre bombshell article on the Hammer family, outlining Hammer’s upbringing in the Cayman Islands and revealing multiple disturbing details about his relatives. His grandfather, for instance, allegedly “killed a man inside his Los Angeles home over a gambling debt and supposed advances on his wife.” Yikes.

March 18, 2021: At a press conference with women’s-rights attorney Gloria Allred, a woman named Effie — possibly the same woman behind the @houseofeffie account, although Allred doesn’t confirm this — comes forward and alleges that Hammer violently raped her “over the course of four hours” in April 2017. “I thought that he was going to kill me,” Effie says. Hammer’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, says their relationship was “completely consensual.”

March 29, 2021: Hammer is dropped from yet another project, The Million Dollar Spy.

April 2, 2021: … And he exits the cast of the Broadway show The Minutes.

May 31, 2021: At the very end of May, Hammer reportedly leaves the Cayman Islands and checks into a treatment facility in Florida for “drug, alcohol, and sex issues,” multiple sources tell Vanity Fair. The insiders add that Chambers accompanied him to the airport and fully supports his decision to focus on his recovery.

July 14, 2022: After a relatively quiet year, Hammer’s name pops up once again when several Twitter users, including the writer Muna Mire, claim he’s working as a concierge at a Cayman Islands resort. There are some receipts, too, including photos of what appear to be Hammer in uniform and a flyer that promises “your personal concierge,” Armie Hammer, will “help you get the very best from your vacation.” The hotel in question tells Variety that Hammer doesn’t work there, but multiple sources argue otherwise.

“He is working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle,” one insider tells Variety. “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.” The source, who asked to remain anonymous, says he’s been working on the island to be near his children, who are still living in the Caymans with Chambers.

Another source, also anonymous, tells People that he is working at the resort “because he needs the money” and “his dad won’t help him anymore and he’s been cut off, so he got to work.”

What do Hammer’s reps have to say about any of this? In a statement to People, Brettler says that he “doesn’t know anything about” Hammer’s alleged gig but argues that if he is working at a hotel, “I think it’s shitty that the media seems to be shaming him for having a ‘normal job.’” He does confirm that the flyer is fake, though.

July 19, 2022: Hammer is spotted in L.A. with Chambers and his kids. According to “Page Six,” he’s been staying at Robert Downey, Jr.’s house for several weeks, a claim that could effectively negate the whole hotel-job theory. More soon, I’m sure.

September 2, 2022: Discovery+ releases a three-part docu-series House of Hammer that details Hammer’s relationships and family dynasty. The series interviews two of Hammer’s former girlfriends, Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison, and members of the Hammer household. The first episode focuses on Hammer’s romantic relationships and how they escalated through love bombing and manipulation. The second episode discusses Armand Hammer’s legacy and how the generational trauma affected the entire family. Lastly, the final episode attempts to bring some closure by uniting Vucekovich and Armie’s aunt Casey to discuss their experiences with the Hammer family. Major revelations include threatening notes allegedly left by Hammer in a victim’s car, accusations of wrongdoing from former employees, and the Hammer clan’s attempt to silence Casey.

September 4, 2022: One of Hammer’s first accusers, Effie, tells the Los Angeles Times that she refused to participate in the House of Hammer docuseries and found the production to be exploitative. “It is extremely inappropriate of you to exploit such a tragic, vulnerable time in many people’s lives with no regard whatsoever for our healing process and privacy,” she explains. Effie, who declined to share her last name citing concerns about harassment, launched the ongoing LAPD investigation after sharing her claims on her Instagram story in early 2021. At present, she is the only woman to publicly allege that Hammer raped her. Though she did not participate in the series, her claims appear throughout via Instagram screenshots and a clip of the 2021 press conference where she alleges, in tears, that Hammer raped her in April 2017. “The way they’ve been exploiting my trauma is disgusting,” she says. “When I keep screaming ‘no’ and they keep going, saying they don’t need my permission, they remind me of Armie.”

Elli Hakami and Julian Hobbs, the duo who began working on the show soon after the LAPD began investigating the actor, say that they did not interview Effie because they wanted to allow her case to play out and not get involved in an active investigation. They argue that they include Effie’s screenshots and videos because it’s “critically important” to the story and the timeline of events as the “match that lit the fire.” “We feel we actually have an obligation to tell the stories,” they tell the L.A. Times. “If you were to stop making films because someone said they didn’t want a film being made, you would never make a film. The reality is not everyone gets onboard films.”

September 7, 2022: The docuseries faces criticism after they use an image of an alleged bite mark onscreen. Accuser Courtney Vucekovich details her interactions with Hammer over a photo of what she claims to be a mark obtained during sexual acts — which include BDSM and biting. “I think Armie took that picture,” Vucekovich says over the image. “He bites really hard. And he tells you to wear them like a badge of honor, almost like he convinced me I’m lucky to have it.” Viewers began to question the veracity of the image when some noticed that the mark resembles a picture of a bite tattoo found on Pinterest. Following the speculation over the image’s authenticity, Discovery + replaced it with another photo provided by Vucekovich. “We take seriously the responsibility of representing victims’ stories,” a rep for Talos Films, the production company behind the series, told People on September 6. “When new information came forward about this series we immediately began investigating it and will make any appropriate changes as quickly as possible.” Vulture has reached out to House of Hammer reps for comment.

In response to the bite-mark snafu, Vucekovich explains that the photo mistakenly ended up in the docuseries because it was archived in her text thread with the Call Me By Your Name actor. “When you are love-bombed, you receive multiple images in rapid succession,” she tells People. “During my time with Armie, I received numerous messages, including countless images and videos. The bite mark shown was a photo sent by Armie within our archived text thread and over a year later, I believed it to have been a photo of me given that I have dozens of photos depicting his abuse on my body.” Andrew Brettler, a lawyer for Hammer, denies all allegations of misconduct and maintains that the actor’s relationships were “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory,” per a September 4 statement to Vanity Fair.

October 26, 2022: Hammer needs to put some serious alleged work in at the alleged time-share job, because American Express says he owes over $60 grand. People reports that the credit-card company is suing Hammer for $66,935.07 of unpaid “purchases, balance transfers, and/or cash advances” on his account. He opened the account in 2011. According to TMZ, the account with the almost $67,000 unpaid statement was co-owned with Elizabeth Chambers, and that “it’ll be resolved as they iron out the final details of the divorce.”

February 6, 2023: In an interview with Air Mail, his first in two years, the disgraced actor admits to being emotionally abusive but maintains that his sexual encounters were consensual. He claims that Effie, who accused him of rape, planned “all of the details” of the alleged rape over Facebook Messenger, which he describes as a “consensual non-consent” scene. Although Hammer says there was an “imbalance of power” in his relationships with accusers Courtney Vucekovich and Paige Lorenze, he denies their respective allegations of bodily harm and grooming. He then alleges a pastor sexually abused him at the age of 13, which led to his interest in BDSM.

Job-wise, he says he’s working as a sober companion after his time-share gig last summer got him “sucked into an immigration investigation” over his nonexistent work permit. In his own words: “My financial status is I am not only broke; I am massively in debt.” After the allegations surfaced, he claims he attempted suicide while quarantining in the Cayman Islands in 2021. That same year, he says Elizabeth Chambers asked her estranged husband to do a psycho-legal evaluation. In the report, obtained by Air Mail, Chambers alleges that Hammer groomed girls as young as 15 and describes him as a “psychopath.”

February 7, 2023: Elizabeth Chambers says she learned about the cannibalism and sex-abuse allegations against Hammer at the same time as the public. “I was like, ‘There are no words. What the fuck?’” she tells Elle in an interview. Chambers declines to comment on Hammer’s Air Mail interview, his sexual interests, or their own sex life. “I support Armie through his journey and I always will,” she says, though she often thinks about how this will affect their children’s lives. “Do I want my son to become this? Would I want my daughter to stay in a relationship like this?”

May 31, 2023: The LA District Attorney’s office issues a statement that it will not be pursuing charges of sexual assault against Hammer. “Due to the complexity of the relationship and inability to prove a non-consensual, forcible sexual encounter we are unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the statement, obtained by CNN, read. Hammer responded to the news on his Instagram, writing “I am very grateful to the District Attorney for conducting a thorough investigation and coming to the conclusion that I have stood by this entire time, that no crime was committed. I look forward to beginning what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name is cleared.”

July 5, 2023: Three years after announcing their separation, almost to the day, Elizabeth Chambers and Armie Hammer are divorced. TMZ reports that Hammer will be paying $1500 a month is child support, but that he has no income at the moment. The settlement also states that neither party will let the children meet “a new romantic interest unless he or she has been in a significant and exclusive relationship with that person for at least 6 months.”

November 1, 2023: Hammer shares a bizarre new video on Instagram from the inside of a moving train, set to the song “El Milonario” by Gitkin. His camera is trained on a laptop playing a clip of a man running beside a horse. The actor’s entire profile is completely scrubbed, save for the new, singular post on his grid. When pop stars play these kinds of Instagram games, it means they’re revving up for a new era. It’s unclear if Hammer’s video has a hidden message, though. Do you wanna know?

June 16, 2023: On an episode of the podcast Painful Lessons, Hammer addresses his acting career and says he has co-written a screenplay. “In terms of my career as an actor, I’m nowhere,” Hammer explains. “I’m not getting jobs. I’m not getting into rooms to meet with people. I’m not a viable commodity for the entertainment industry in terms of the Hollywood system. I’m not welcome to play in that sandbox — for right now.”

Despite the cannibalism and sexual-assault allegations effectively barring him from acting, Hammer is “grateful” for the resulting career nosedive, which allowed him to do some soul-searching. “I never knew how to give myself self-validation, but I had this job where I was able to get it from so many people that I never had to learn how to give it to myself,” he says.

The screenplay he’s “passionate about” mirrors his own life, he tells the podcast. “I’ve decided I’ll try to make my own sandbox — if you won’t let me play in yours, I’ll go play in mine,” Hammer says. “Writing the script has been incredibly cathartic. We took an original piece of source material that was then turned into a film. We looked at it and said, ‘There’s a lot of parallels here,’ albeit some more subtle and some more overt. We took that and made it much more autobiographical.” It’ll definitely be an interesting double feature with House of Hammer.

July 14, 2024: Hammer denies sexual-assault allegations on an episode of Bill Maher’s podcast, Club Random. “For two and a half years, [the LAPD] went through phones, emails, eyewitness reports in a time where if they could have nailed someone like me it would have been such a boon for the LAPD,” he states. “They came to the conclusion that there was no evidence that any crime had been committed.” Hammer also discusses the full psychological evaluation performed in the Cayman Islands connected to his custody battle with Elizabeth Chambers. The report was “glowing,” according to him.

July 19, 2024: Hammer denies ever having eaten human flesh while appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored. He addresses a message he sent about being a cannibal, arguing that it was not a serious admission. “I think that was just sort of like born out of like […] I want you so totally that it’s almost like I want to eat you. But I don’t think that’s any different than when someone looks at a baby and goes, Oh my god, look at those cute little fat legs, I just want to eat you up,” Hammer suggests. “There’s a part of the brain that controls cuteness aggression.” He maintains that his sexual encounters were consensual. Regarding the specific allegation that he branded a woman, her recalls taking the “tip of a small knife” to “kind of trace” the letter A as part of a scenario he claims was discussed in advance. “’I mean, there wasn’t even blood in the situation. It was more like a scrape,” he says.

Elsewhere in the lengthy interview, Hammer confirms that he’s still living in the Cayman Islands and working on a “pretty autobiographical” script. He also denies reports that Robert Downey Jr. paid for him to go to rehab, though he notes that the actor was helpful “in the way where [when] anyone in Hollywood who suffers from any sort of addiction issues — whether it be alcohol or process addiction or drugs — decides to get sober, that guy will find you, and he will help you.” According to Hammer, the best advice Downey gave him was, “Sit down, shut up, everything’s gonna be okay.”

August 28, 2024: Hammer posts an odd video on Instagram monologuing about selling his 2017 trunk, promptly going viral. “I have loved this truck intensely and taken it camping and cross-country multiple times and on long road trips,” Hammer says. “And I took it for one last road trip … to Carmax. This is not an ad for Carmax.” He goes on to explain that the truck’s gas bill is too high and he’s buying a hybrid car instead.

Throughout the video, Hammer emphasizes his kids. “My kids are not happy about this,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Dad, all of our memories in the truck!’” Currently, Hammer’s kids are in the process of moving from the Cayman Islands, per his ex-wife’s Instagram, though it’s unconfirmed where to. “Packing and moving my kids and me for the fifth time in almost 5 years,” she posted on an August 27 Instagram Story, the same day as Hammer’s car video.

October 31, 2024: What’s scarier than Armie Hammer with a butcher knife? Armie Hammer with a microphone. He started his own podcast this month, The Armie HammerTime Podcast, and his description on Instagram is very much something only he could have written: “Armie sits down with extraordinary people from all walks of life as he rebuilds his own. Don’t worry… we feed him before every episode.” His first two guests are comedian Tom Arnold and Hammer’s mother.

Well, if the podcast doesn’t end up working out, he has some sort of back up. He was recently cast in an independent Western film Frontier Cubicle, per Deadline.

This post has been updated.

Post Malone is also set to headline the festival’s Sunday nights

Three years after an on-set gun accident claimed the life of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the film premiered Wednesday at the EnergaCamerimage Festival in Poland. But many questions remain, including, why was the movie finished?

“It was not an easy decision,” admitted director Joel Souza in an interview with Variety at Camerimage, where he introduced “Rust” with Bianca Cline, the DP who finished the movie. “I initially said no, numerous times. But it started to become clear to me that this is what the family wanted, that it was going to benefit them. And so that aspect of it was sort of an initial psychological hurdle that I cleared. Maybe, if this is important and they want me to do this, how can I say no?”

The director, who was also struck by a bullet and injured in the accident, said he then started to consider the notion of “preserving everything that she did.” He added, “just honoring her final work, and the notion of somebody else doing that, I just couldn’t live with that. … At the end of the day, that was the only thing I could do.”

Star and producer Alec Baldwin, who was handling the prop gun at the time of the accident, was charged with manslaughter but the case was dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to turn over evidence. (“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed is serving an 18-month sentence for Hutchins’ death.)

Terms of the settlement with Hutchins’ family, including her husband and son, remain confidential, though it’s known that the cinematographer’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, received an executive producer credit as part of the agreement. Added Souza, “I don’t think I’ll be too out of line to say that it’s going to benefit [Halyna’s family] and that’s incredibly important. I don’t want people to think it was just some cynical money grab. The producers don’t get a penny from the movie.”

However Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey, who is suing the production and Baldwin, will not be at the Camerimage screening. In a statement issued by her lawyer, Gloria Allred, on Tuesday, Solovey said she regards the premiere as an attempt to profit from her daughter’s death.

In an eerie echo, “Rust” actually tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who, left to fend for himself and his younger brother following their parents’ deaths in 1880s Wyoming, goes on the run with his estranged grandfather (Baldwin) after he’s sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher in a gun accident.

For many, it might be impossible to watch the movie without thinking about the fatal accident, which occurred while filming a scene that led into the final action sequence, at a church at Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico. “The whole scene is gone from the movie,” reported Souza. “That was completely wiped out and then reconceived. So that also meant that I had to reconceive a couple of the scenes that went before it to make the new scene make sense. There’s nothing even reminiscent of it that remains.”

After the October 2021 accident at which point Souza said filming was nearly at its halfway point, production resumed in Montana during the spring of 2023 with Cline hired to finish the movie with Hutchins’ creative intention top of mind. Cline noted that while filming in Montana, “everything that we were doing” was “just in service of copying what she had done in New Mexico.

 “She wanted to tell the story in a slightly abstract way, which is unusual for the Western,” said Cline. “[She would make] photography that doesn’t necessarily impose itself on the characters, like with this film, in particular, the characters live in a gray zone where they’re not good cop, bad cop, the clear villain and hero. The photography reflects that,” she continued. “Everybody’s kind of lit the same as well, in kind of a duality, a lot of side lighting.

“There’s a lot of shadows in this and she was pushing towards a very dark kind of film,” she said. “The atmosphere around the whole thing is very heavy; it’s not a light Western … it’s a heavy subject, and the film is meant to be get into these really complicated characters, and she tried to mimic that with her photography.”

Of course, there were complications, included trying to match sets (sets were built in Montana to match those used in New Mexico), locations, and lighting, particularly day exteriors. Cline related that she also spent more time than she normally does color grading during the digital intermediate (DI) process, working with colorist Natasha Leonnet. Cline noted that the first gunfight in the film, set in front of a saloon, was among the most tricky to get right in terms of color and lighting. “That one was really complicated in the DI because the time of day was just all over the place.”

The production resumed without the same guns, while gunfire was added digitally in postproduction. “When we returned there was never going to be anything that could function in any way, shape or form,” asserted Souza. “There was nothing there that was capable of firing,” he said, adding that new armorer Andy Wert still “treated every single thing like it could fire.

“I don’t know what lessons this industry will have taken away from this, and we may not know for quite some time,” the director added. “[But] I think on movies where they have nothing but fake weapons, the armorer is completely as vital to provide a safe environment, to ensure that nothing slips by. I just hope there’s not a takeaway of that, ‘since we’re all going digital, we don’t need an armorer.’ …  It should be in the safety bulletin that they’re required for it, not just recommended.”

The film runs a lengthy two hours and 22 minutes, and Souza notes every effort was made to preserve Halyna’s work. “It was the number one consideration during the editing process. … the film itself serves the story. And this one didn’t just serve the story. The story had to serve the preservation of Helena’s footage. And so in the cut particularly, [it] very much became about, ‘I’m going to preserve every last frame of hers that I can’ … and how do I craft the story in a way that is going to fit that yet still work as a story.”

Visual effects also contributed to finishing the movie. Souza noted, for instance, that when filming resumed, there were a couple of cast members who didn’t return, including the part of the Marshall, originally played by Jensen Ackles, and later by Josh Hopkins. He said that for certain shots, they did digital head replacement in the footage as a way to keep a shot or scene in the movie.

He cites as another example of mixing scenes: “There’s a scene where the Marshall and his men are walking down the street to get into a gunfight, and the shot following behind them is a different town, three different actors, in a different state, a year and a half earlier than the reverse of that.”

Looking back, Souza admitted “I was very emotional and a bit of a wreck the whole time [when he returned to finish the movie.] The crew that we brought, there were some really stand up people and some amazing people. And to this day, I’m blown away that they came and did this for her.”

At Camerimage, a representative from the film told Variety that a theatrical distributor for the film might be announced as early as this week.

With the public knowing about accident and subsequent legal issues, how might that affect potential audiences? “Gosh, I don’t know,” Souza responded. “There’s this part of you, the filmmaker, that says, I want people to watch this as a movie and to be able to absorb it as a film and that and sort of not have that be colored by what happened. But these are people we’re talking about. People watch movies, and of course, it’s going to color how they see it and how they think about it. For some, maybe they have no interest in it; for others, they’ll think it will make it more poignant.

“Watching this, you can understand a little bit more about her,” he added. “You’re looking at that the way a cinematographer looks at the world. You look through their eyes for a little bit. I think that’s pretty amazing. And you can how she looked at her art, and how she saw it, and how she created it and unfolded in front of her. And I think that’s worthy of people’s time.”

As Kermit the Frog and the Hulk discovered: it’s not easy being green. Now another verdant character is gleefully brought to the screen by lyricist-producer Stephen Schwartz, screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, and director Jon M Chu in an adaptation of Schwartz’s Broadway musical, the first of two parts. It’s a sugar-rush fantasy with the overpowering star presence of Cynthia Erivo; it basically dunks you face-down in a hyperreal ball pit of M&Ms for two and three-quarter hours. I don’t have showtune-rapture in my DNA but this movie made a cleaner, sharper, cartoonier kind of sense to me than the stage show which I saw back in 2011.

This film is the prequel origin myth for Schwartz’s emerald supervillain-hero, stratospherically upping her status in retrospect: the green-faced Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 movie classic The Wizard of Oz, based on L Frank Baum’s children’s tale. It was a character shriekingly played in the original by Margaret Hamilton, terrorising Judy Garland’s Dorothy, and now we are given a backstory for the pointy hat, the broom-transportation, the inky cloak (though shrouding the protagonist’s biological father in mystery). It pulls off the cheeky trick of making us interested in someone we know is destined for an ignominious death by water.

How did she get to be so mean? Could it be that what we interpret as meanness is a mythological distortion of strength and defiance? We see her early life as Elphaba, a green-skinned woman who shows up at the Shiz University for witches in Oz and has to share a room with a legally-blonde Insta princess Galinda, who will grow up to be the Good Witch of the North. Both will have feelings for aristocratic classmate Prince Fiyero and both will meet their destiny on encountering the legendary, insidious Wizard of Oz himself.

The Wizard is played with his usual drolly syncopated line-readings by Jeff Goldblum; Michelle Yeoh is stately school principal Madame Morrible; Jonathan Bailey uncorks an outrageous scene-stealer as the heterocamp Fiyero, a performance to put alongside Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride; and Andy Nyman is winningly melancholy as Elphaba’s dad, the governor of Munchkinland. (The film rather fudges the identity-issue of the munchkins, making them hardly different in height from the rest of the cast, perhaps due to contemporary views of the offensiveness of the original film’s Munchkins.) Ariana Grande plays Galinda, an almost translucent figure of gauzy delicacy, appearing as if perched on top of an invisible Christmas tree and though not a natural comic like Reese Witherspoon or Alicia Silverstone, she gets the laughs like the smart player she is.

But the sledgehammer punch is delivered by Erivo as the wounded, angry, alienated Elphaba. In Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond famously said that the movies once only needed faces – and Erivo’s face is the ground zero of this film’s blast of entertainment power. She is the film’s Rushmore: charismatic, haughty and vulnerable. Her face exerts a planetary pull on everything else on screen and an impossible thing to look away from. She carries the big songs like The Wizard and I, and she and Grande are great in the mysterious scene in which Elphaba arrives at a party, is humiliated in her outfit, goes into a series of mysterious dance moves which may or may not be an attempt to style out some failed revenge-spell-castings and Grande’s Galinda finally joins her on the dancefloor mirroring her moves, the unlikely beginning to their friendship.

It’s arguable if Wicked could ever be a meaningfully persuasive prequel for the characters in The Wizard of Oz as we actually see them in the 1939 film, as this would involve cancelling their powerfully timeless, mythological aura, and instead substituting the more banal idea of human development. But this is the joke, and this is the story, and what an enjoyable spectacle it is.

This year marks 30 years of Nas’ immeasurable masterpiece ‘Illmatic’. Released on April 19th 1994 when the didactic storyteller was just 20 years old, the album quickly gained momentum, becoming a staple on the New York hip hop scene and shaping a generation of artists through Nas’ distinctive multisyllabic rhymes and vivid lyricism. In the 30 years that followed the album has become widely accepted as one of the greatest and most influential hip hop albums of all time and certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. 

In celebration of the momentous milestone, Nas has partnered with Umbro and Nicholas Daley, two British brands that combine the musical and cultural legacy of ‘Illmatic’ through Nas’ deep roots in New York sports and streetwear culture, and the resulting impact on the UK scene. 

“Nas and Illmatic represent a transformative moment not only for music but for culture as a whole. Collaborating with Nicholas Daley to capture that essence in an Umbro shirt allows us to celebrate Nas’s legacy with a piece of sportswear that speaks to fans worldwide,” states Umbro.

A limited-design jersey shirt pays homage to Nas’ New York upbringing and the city’s reciprocal influence on ‘Illmatic’. The shirt features distinctive Nas iconography on the front and back along with the number 94 to honour the album’s release date along with smaller Umbro and Nicholas Daley logos on the front. The design champions the strength of classic British craftsmanship with a soft ribbed crew neckline and 100% polyester micro eyelets. Set in carbon black with red and white detailing, the shirt recalls the original album artwork and the era that followed. 

“Curating this exclusive NAS 30th anniversary Illmatic style in collaboration with Umbro has been a true honour for one of Hip Hop’s legendary icons. Illmatic is one of my favourite albums of all time and the impact it has had both musically and culturally is so evident today. The collaboration is a celebration of hip-hop and the legacy of Illmatic, whilst incorporating the heritage of Umbro in a collection which I wanted to feel both classic and forward-looking,” states Nicholas Daley, designer and founder of Nicholas Daley.

Visit nicholasdaley.net and purchase the Illmatic jersey here.

As one quarter of the Swedish underground-ish rap collective Drain Gang, Bladee (pronounced Blade) spent his 20s on the frontlines of a hyper-online youth culture. But as his 30th birthday loomed, the musician born Benjamin Reichwald started to sweat. His anxiety about ageing, a serious depressive spell, and the mixed reception to his latest album, spiralled into a crisis: were he and his Drain Gang peers “permanently frozen as 20-year-olds because we came up at a certain time of our lives”, he wondered. Was he already past it at 29?

“I got so old, I got embarrassed to be even here,” Reichwald sings on his newest album, Cold Visions. Older readers may roll their eyes, but given Reichwald has built up one of the most ardent young fanbases in music, this was a valid worry. “I had a lot to get off my chest,” he says now. “I was thinking a lot about my position and I felt stuck – do I have to be perceived as an artist to feel fulfilled? I’m chasing that and it doesn’t give me anything. So why am I doing this?”

Reichwald has a reputation for being elusive (this is one of the very few solo interviews he has ever done) and frequently obscures his face. Lately he has favoured corpse paint, blood-red grills for his teeth and a chaotic assemblage of bandanas, sunglasses and Oakley hats. But during a two-hour conversation in a Brooklyn hotel room, in Gucci sneakers and a T-shirt with the logo of Norwegian black metal band Satyricon, he is thoughtful and forthcoming.

Despite his worries, being 30 has treated Reichwald well. In March he released Psykos, a rock-leaning collaboration with his fellow Swedish rapper and long-term friend and collaborator Yung Lean, who also featured on Cold Visions, which was released the following month. In October, they both appeared on Charli xcx’s Brat remix album, with Bladee reworking the song Rewind. “It’s a Bladee verse, I did my thing,” is how he modestly describes his contribution, but he speaks more effusively of Charli: “I have eternal respect for her. She put me in this context with all these other people” – Ariana Grande, Lorde and Billie Eilish all appear on the remix record – “and I’m very grateful to be involved.”

It caps a big year for Reichwald. Released a decade after his debut mixtape, Cold Visions is his most fully realised project yet. Made in two weeks in his house in Stockholm, the album is, he says, “really honest, more like a diary”. In the course of 30 songs, he purges his demons over raging, blown-out trap beats. Brain cells fried into oblivion, he navigates panic attacks and self-loathing, calls himself “the king of nothing matters” and raps about “violently drug abusing weed”. In one line he’s working out and getting tanned in LA, the next “I’m crashing down some like a wave over castles made of sand.”

Cold Visions was self-released after Reichwald split from Year0001, Drain Gang’s longtime label and management company. “I don’t really care any more about being a bigger artist,” he says. “The only thing that’s important is that I’m doing something that’s true to me.”

The Drain Gang collective – Bladee, Ecco2K, Thaiboy Digital, and Whitearmor – have been best friends since their teens, playing around with Auto-Tune, and freestyling in the vein of idiosyncratic US rappers such as Lil B and Chief Keef. Early Bladee tracks – overcast cloud rap about crushed hearts, pills and dreams – were so digitally processed that they passed through the uncanny valley and ended up somewhere strangely melodic and emotive. “I hated to hear my voice without the Auto-Tune,” Reichwald says. “It’s how we found our sound. Without it we wouldn’t have committed to doing it – it sounded too bad.”

The group cycled through a number of names before landing on Drain Gang, inspired by a nihilistically gothic sentiment later articulated in Bladee’s song Be Nice 2 Me: “Take a knife and drain your life.” They quickly found kindred spirits in Sad Boys, a local crew featuring Yung Lean. In 2014, Lean’s melancholic and memeable hip-hop was taking the internet by storm, and Reichwald quit his job at a kindergarten to join him on tour.

By April 2015, barely out of his teens, Reichwald was living with Lean in Miami, where working on music came second to partying and drug use. One evening, Lean suffered drug-induced psychosis; Reichwald called the ambulance which probably saved his life. Hours later, Barron Machat, Lean’s 27-year-old manager, died in a car accident on his way to the hospital; Xanax was found in his system. “Things were building to a point where something was going to happen because of how we were living,” Reichwald says. “We didn’t think that anything could go wrong, we were so in this drugs and rock star lifestyle. Someone was probably always gonna die with how we were moving. It was very reckless, but we were so young, we just didn’t know.”

Reichwald returned to Sweden and worked at a shampoo factory while suffering from PTSD and struggling to process Machat’s death and Lean’s deteriorating mental health. “I was not really OK,” he says. Reichwald says it took him a long time to understand that he and his friends had autonomy over their surreal new lives as successful rappers. “I sometimes felt like, ‘I shouldn’t be here, so I have to do what everyone says.’ I didn’t understand that I had any value in the situation. I didn’t understand why people would like my music. I thought there must be some kind of misunderstanding. But now, I’ve done it for so long and I actually know what I’m doing. I believe more in my ability.”

His music remained dark and dissociative for a good while, but the clouds began to part around 2020. While Reichwald’s persona had long swung between mall rat and mystic, his spiritual side became more pronounced as his music grew brighter. Fans started to wonder if he had experienced some sort of transformative near-death experience because, in 2019, he had mentioned that he’d been struck by lightning in Thailand. Or at least he thinks that’s what happened. “Either I had a random seizure from seeing the lightning or I got struck by it.” Whatever it was, “something definitely changed around that time”.

Drain Gang’s angst once enticed a considerable number of nihilistic, male online edgelords, but their fanbase has evolved as their music has become more euphoric, frequently going viral on TikTok during the pandemic. Most of the crowd at a recent show were dressed in distressed black clothes like Reichwald; they were mainly so young that fans older than 26 were given their own fast-track queue as if they needed elderly care.

Reichwald says that he is uncomfortable with being idolised, but understands the way that belonging to a subculture can be life-affirming. Even before his teens, he formed a punk band with Ecco2K after seeing someone with a studded leather jacket and thinking: “I want to be like that. But,” he adds, “you need to find yourself within all that.”

He allows himself a little pride in the way Drain Gang have built and maintained their singular corner of music. “We still don’t feel like someone is doing what we’re doing, better,” he says. “I would love to hear someone take it to the next level with a new perspective, someone young. I feel like that’s the point of it – you can keep the idea going.”

He’s now looking beyond Cold Visions to his own future. “I want to become a better person,” he says with a sweetly earnest laugh. “I want to have a brighter outlook and work on liking myself more. I’m sick of thinking about myself; I would like to be more outside my head.” After several years spent getting “sick all the time”, he is “trying to be sober and healthy”. Lately he’s been experimenting with songwriting in Swedish, and working on abstract paintings in his art studio. Ultimately, he finds solace in the act of creating. “Even in my sadder music,” he says, “I’m striving for joy.”