Aaron Paul: Breaking Bad changed my life | Breaking Bad

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  14 minutes  |  2811 words  |  Valentine Belue

Aaron Paul: ‘I lived and breathed every moment of Jesse’s life – and then some.’ Photograph: Ramona Rosales/AugustView image in fullscreenAaron Paul: ‘I lived and breathed every moment of Jesse’s life – and then some.’ Photograph: Ramona Rosales/AugustThe ObserverBreaking BadInterviewAaron Paul: ‘Breaking Bad changed my life’Rhik SamadderAs the cult show’s wild-eyed crystal meth dealer, Aaron Paul became one of TV’s most unexpected anti-heroes. But then, as Rhik Samadder discovers, the actor is full of surprises [Read More]

Apex Legends: a parents' guide to the 'new Fortnite'

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1077 words  |  Kary Bruening

Online multiplayer gamesThe battle royale team game has won millions of players within weeks. How violent is it? What’s the age limit? And what does it cost? We answer your questions Surprise-released in February, Apex Legends has taken the world of online gaming by storm, attracting more than 50 million players within a month. But what is it about this Fortnite-style battle royale blaster that has made it such a huge success, and should parents be concerned? [Read More]

Dear Lee Anderson: Derek Bentley was innocent and hanged. We scrapped the death penalty for a reason

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  881 words  |  Kary Bruening

OpinionCapital punishment This article is more than 11 months oldDear Lee Anderson: Derek Bentley was innocent and hanged. We scrapped the death penalty for a reasonThis article is more than 11 months oldDuncan CampbellThere were moral and practical considerations to ending the barbarity of state executions in Britain. They are still relevant today On 28 January, people gathered at Southwark Cathedral for a brief ceremony in memory of Derek Bentley, who was hanged in Wandsworth prison in 1953, exactly 70 years earlier. [Read More]

Desmond Davis obituary | Movies

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1092 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

MoviesObituaryDesmond Davis obituaryDirector best known for the 1981 film classic Clash of the TitansDesmond Davis, who has died aged 95, was a British director widely known for his 1981 Hollywood film fantasy Clash of the Titans, a saga of Greek myths and legends, thrilling duels to the death, and fearsome creatures and visual effects that were brought to the screen by the great animator Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen’s creativity was matched by a stellar cast, with two film newcomers, Harry Hamlin as Perseus and Judi Bowker as Andromeda, joined by Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera and Maggie Smith as Thetis. [Read More]

Is A Way of Life, Like Any Other Hollywoods best coming-of-age tale?

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  342 words  |  Valentine Belue

Rachel Cooke's shelf lifeFictionShowbiz insider Darcy O’Brien’s story of a glittering world gone bad is narrated by an inimitable teenAt next month’s Bath literature festival, a panel will debate the coming-of-age novel, its talk of hormones and sudden self-awareness inspired by a 50-strong list of books that includes The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. Will Darcy O’Brien’s A Way of Life, Like Any Other perhaps get a mention? [Read More]

Israel is in a fight to the finish. Whatever comes next, it must change | Simon Tisdall

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1466 words  |  Valentine Belue

The ObserverIsrael-Gaza war This article is more than 2 months oldIsrael is in a fight to the finish. Whatever comes next, it must changeThis article is more than 2 months oldSimon TisdallThe country faces multiple crises under a leader who is unpopular at home and distrusted abroad. Can it repair the damage? While unprecedented in scale and horror, the Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October that killed more than 1,400 people were tactically and geographically limited. [Read More]

Like a very pungent office fridge: rare corpse flower blooms in San Francisco | California

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  482 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

California This article is more than 6 months old‘Like a very pungent office fridge’: rare corpse flower blooms in San FranciscoThis article is more than 6 months oldScarlet, as the flower is named, last bloomed in the conservatory in 2019 and its imminent blossoming is drawing throngs of people A rare flower with a smell that has been compared to rotting flesh and described as “worse than one thousand pukes” is bringing hundreds of spectators to San Francisco’s Golden Gate park. [Read More]

The police see us as disposable: what lifes really like in New Yorks maligned red lig

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  10 minutes  |  2107 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

New YorkAs rightwing media and the mayor target a Queens neighborhood, sex workers say they’re just trying to survive In 2000, Cecilia Gentili worked late nights as a sex worker on Roosevelt Avenue, a dusty corridor linking Queens’ most diverse communities, under the shadow of the clattering 7 train. It was the only way she could survive as a new immigrant. After coming out as trans, she had been shut out by employers in her native Argentina, and in New York, “I really thought that things would be different,” she says. [Read More]

Chief executive of collapsed crypto fund HyperVerse does not appear to exist | Cryptocurrencies

 Posted on April 4, 2024  |  9 minutes  |  1797 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

CryptocurrenciesChief executive of collapsed crypto fund HyperVerse does not appear to exist Exclusive: Steven Reece Lewis was introduced to investors with an impressive list of qualifications and achievements, but no organisation cited can find any record of him A chief executive officer whose claimed qualifications appear to have no basis in fact was used to promote the HyperVerse crypto fund, alongside celebrity messages of support, as part of a push to recruit new investors into the scheme. [Read More]

No laughing matter: the rise of the TV 'sadcom'

 Posted on April 4, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  923 words  |  Kary Bruening

TelevisionFrom Transparent and Master Of None to Fleabag and Flowers, the latest comedy series are ditching gags for harsh reality and breaking new ground in the process 'Am I still a feminist if I watch porn?' Meet Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the British Lena DunhamRead moreIn the final minutes of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s BBC3 series Fleabag, the young female protagonist delivers a tearful monologue about her self-loathing and isolation. It provides a coda to the show’s disturbing portrait of a lonely, tormented woman, something that – as the eponymous anti-hero is at pains to point out between sobs – “isn’t fucking funny”. [Read More]