The Guardian Culture

‘I feel like I’m grieving’: staff on the devastating fallout of widespread layoffs at Xbox

Last month, Microsoft’s gaming division told its workforce it was cutting 3,200 jobs, which some say will have big ramifications for game development – as well as taking a huge personal tollOn the morning of 6 July, an email went out from Asha Sharma, the chief executive of Xbox, to all of the division’s employees around the world. Under the headline “Resetting Xbox”, it announced the most significant restructuring in the history of Microsoft’s console business: 3,200 staff would be laid off thr

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Summer box office 2026: what can we learn from the hits and misses?

It was a bumper season for Hollywood, almost back to pre-pandemic levels, with Tom Holland blockbusters winning out, but there was still a string of disappointmentsAs the world continued to burn and temperatures reached worrying highs, most of us decided to take refuge in the cinema this summer. It provided some relief for audiences, but even more so for the industry at large, with the season pushing past the magic $4bn mark to become the biggest since 2019, up 20% from last year. There were the

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Variety

Vicon Acquires Facial Capture Firm Captive Devices (EXCLUSIVE)

Vicon has acquired Captive Devices Ltd, a Manchester, U.K.-based maker of head-mounted camera systems for markerless facial performance capture. Vicon is the motion capture arm of Oxford Metrics. The founding team at Captive Devices has joined Vicon effective immediately. Ninja Theory, Nant Studios, Animatrik and Deep Silver Dambuster Studios are among the studios that already […]

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

In ‘Until the Day Ends,’ Two Serbs on Opposite Sides of a Deeply Divided Society Fall for Each Other (Exclusive Venice Trailer)

Jelena Maksimović's full-length debut, set against the country's anti-government protests, becomes the first female-directed Serbian narrative feature at the Venice Film Festival in decades.

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Variety

Isabelle Huppert, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Fan Bingbing, Michelle Yeoh on Guest List as Busan Unveils Galas, Asian Cinema Competition

The 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has unveiled a guest lineup headlined by Isabelle Huppert, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Fan Bingbing and Michelle Yeoh. Huppert brings her latest film, “All About Corinne,” to Busan audiences. Gyllenhaal makes her first visit to Korea with “Flesh Impact,” a project created to mark the centenary of Marilyn […]

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin review – this time-reversal melodrama is quantum hokum

A grieving couple who have lost their son find a way to a mirror universe where time runs backwards – but the narrative machinery is shonky and distractingThere is something farcical – grotesque, even – about life played in reverse. A child falling into a tree. A sandwich emerging from a mouth, bite by reconstituted bite. A doctor unstitching a wound. The world is strange in any order, but rewind helps us notice – makes the ordinary absurd.Novels that pick a fight with forward momentum tend to h

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The Extractor review – Indonesian hostage-rescue thriller has surprising thread of gentleness at its core

Iko Uwais directs and acts in the story of a band of elite soldiers who must rescue a group of researchers taken captive in the jungleCan an elite team of soldiers rescue a band of innocent hostages from a bunch of mean old terrorists? Yes, probably, since there are few (if any) action movies in which the hostages are wiped out and the terrorists win. Not to be confused with the Extraction action franchise starring Chris Hemsworth as a mercenary named Tyler, nor with action thriller Escape Plan:

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

‘Shadow Has Fallen’: Iwan Rheon, Brendan Coyle, Atandwa Kani Join ‘Has Fallen’ Season 3

Ritu Arya and Tewfik Jallab are back for the next installment of the StudioCanal, Urban Myth Films, Millenium and G-Base franchise, which is set in South Africa and has commenced filming.

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

‘Love Island USA’ Season 8 Reunion Sees Fiery Islander Confrontations, Tear-Filled Moments and More

Ariana Madix and Andy Cohen co-host the Peacock reunion special, which saw the season's winners, fan-favorite Islanders and bombshells reunite.

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Raygun: Breaking Badly review – the ridiculed Olympic B-girl gets the last laugh … and it’s a total joy

She spent the biggest moment of her career at the Paris Olympics thrashing around like a toddler having a tantrum – then went viral globally. Now, a new Netflix film reveals how the much-mocked breakdancer got over itNetflix’s Untold is ostensibly a series of sports documentaries. However, since its inception five years ago, it has been most successful when sport collides with the wider celebrity machine. There have been films about Caitlyn Jenner, Jake Paul and Vinnie Jones. The gold tends to c

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

‘The Varnell Hill Show’ Review: Tommy Davidson in Paramount+’s Amiable Throwback of a ‘Martin’ Spinoff

Martin Lawrence executive produces and guest stars on the comedy, which sees Davidson reprising the role of the late-night talk show host more than three decades since he was first introduced.

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

New York City Filming Locations: 48 Iconic Movie and TV Sites to Visit

From classic to modern films and shows, The Hollywood Reporter has compiled a list of real-world places that brought them to life.

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Variety

Mexico’s Martfilms Boards ‘Looking for Sam,’ Mariana Rondón’s Follow-Up to ‘Bad Hair’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Mexico’s Martfilms has boarded “Looking for Sam,” Mariana Rondón’s follow-up to hedr San Sebastian Golden Shell winner “Bad Hair.” A docu-fiction hybrid bound for San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, the drama follows two lead actors from Mariana Rondón’s 2013 San Sebastian Golden Shell winner “Bad Hair” (“Pelo Malo”): Sam Lange who played the child […]

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Scaring monkeys? Detecting bedbugs? Meet the elite working dogs – in pictures

John Fabiano has travelled the globe photographing dogs with jobs – from Italian truffle sniffers and Greenlandic sled dogs to Perla the hotel receptionist in Cologne Continue reading...

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Anita Brookner by Hermione Lee review – an enigmatic literary great given her due

A tireless account shines a light on the Booker-winning author’s mysterious early years and the undeserved criticism that accompanied with her success‘Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.” The first fictional sentence Anita Brookner ever published, aged 53, in A Start in Life, certainly set a tone. If people have heard of Brookner today, Hermione Lee says, they imagine a lonely, cardiganed woman yearning for an absent lover. “This,” says Lee (an emeritus Eng

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Pin de Fartie review – spoonerist remix of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame finds fresh absurdity in Argentina

Beckett’s masterpiece is given a postmodern cinema slant, with characters in different locations, music and humour in a free and fanciful interpretationRemember remixes? Where you take a song and swap out parts of it with new or pre-existing material, changing it just enough to be still recognisable? Argentinean director Alejo Moguillansky applies this quintessentially postmodern aesthetic to film with a funky cinematic remix, or even series of remixes, of Samuel Beckett’s one-act play Fin de Pa

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

TV tonight: join the jury as a teenager goes on trial for murder

The gripping series about controversial real-life verdicts returns. Plus: The Great British Sewing Bee gets bookish. Here’s what to watch today9pm, Channel 4 With trial by jury under scrutiny, this is a timely moment for the return of this gripping series, which reruns an actual criminal trial and follows the 12 jury members as they reach their verdict. This time, the case of brothers – one of whom is only 14 years old – accused of killing their stepfather causes instant polarisation. Debates ar

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The best theatre to stream this month: Bryan Cranston cranks up the tension in All My Sons

Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste lead a brilliant staging of Arthur Miller’s tragedy, a Shelagh Delaney deep-cut is released and Black Watch turns 20Ivo van Hove’s staggering West End production of Arthur Miller’s tragedy for “the common man” proved every bit as emotionally honed as his A View from the Bridge in 2014. Named best revival at this year’s Olivier awards, it brings together Bryan Cranston as compromised factory owner Joe Keller, Marianne Jean-Baptiste as his wife and Paapa Essiedu

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

Variety

Sandra Bullock Recalls First ‘Practical Magic’ Bombing After Thinking ‘People Are Going to Love It’: ‘And Then It Got Quiet’

The Owen sisters may be back in “Practical Magic 2” 28 years after Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock first played the sibling witches, but that doesn’t mean the first movie’s outing doesn’t still sting a little. The original “Practical Magic” was a critical and box office failure before earning cult classic status over the last […]

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The extraordinary untold story of Freddie Mercury: Mary Austin on her best friend – and love of her life

He was Queen’s flamboyant frontman. She was his shy girlfriend, dreaming of marriage until they both realised he preferred men. Thirty-five years after his death, in the week he would have turned 80, Mary Austin talks about their unbreakable bondThere were four silver trunks in Mary Austin’s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn’t opened since. It was too painful. Almost 40 years on, in 2022, she opened one. It was crammed with lyrics from songs written by Freddie Mercury – Don’t Stop

entertainment  Sep 1, 2026