Last time I checked (roughly four months ago) Portman was romantically involved with Tanguy Destable, a French music industry guy wih short gray hair and a closely cropped, salt-and-pepper beard.
Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? (Searchlight), a semi-biographical dramedy, will close the 2025 New York Film Festival with a world premiere screening on Friday, 10.10.25.
Pic is “inspired” by the early career moves of stand-up comic John Bishop, who broke into the biz in 2000 at age 34.
Bishop is called “Alex” in the film, and is played by the 55 year-old Will Arnett. Alex’s wife Tess is played by the 58 year-old Laura Dern. Cooper has directed the film as well as cowritten (with Arnett and Mark Chappell) and produced. He also plays Alex’s best friend Arnie.
Wiki excerpt: “Bishop performed stand-up comedy for the first time in Manchester in October 2000, and the following year, made it to the final of all the major new act competitions, including ‘So You Think You’re Funny’, the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards, the BBC New Comedy Awards, and the City Life North West Comedian of the Year Award, which he won.”
Posted by Matt Neglia on 7.30.25: “In a pair of galvanizing, deeply honest performances” — Neglia has apparenly seen it — “Will Arnett and Laura Dern play Alex and Tess Novak, whose marriage has reached an impasse. With amicable sorrow, the couple — parents of two young boys — mutually agree to split up.
“Yet in Cooper’s keenly observed comic drama, their separation leads to unpredictable midlife self-reckonings, most dramatically in Alex’s wild career pivot to become a confessional stand-up comedian in New York City’s West Village, where he finds new direction and camaraderie.
“This seemingly outlandish scenario — in a script by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell, inspired by the true story of British comedian John Bishop — is never played for easy laughs, while Cooper uses his penchant for naturalism to give the actors space to find their complicated centers. In his beautifully lived-in third feature following A Star Is Born and Maestro (NYFF61), Cooper confirms his dexterity for representing the complexities of human relationships, constructing a film that is both lacerating and sweet-souled, funny and tender.
“Is This Thing On? features a stacked, stellar supporting cast, including Andra Day, Christine Ebersole, Ciarán Hinds, Sean Hayes, Peyton Manning and Amy Sedaris, as well as charming assistance from New York stand-up standbys such as Chloe Radcliffe, Reggie Conquest and Jordan Jensen, supplying the film its downtown authenticity.”
Is Donald Trump about to cut a deal with Ghislaine Maxwell in which he either pardons her or reduces her sentence? The latter, I’m guessing.. I’m also predicting that the deal won’t be announced for at least a year, so that the quid pro quo can be “hidden”, so to speak. At that point, Maxwell will never say a word against Trump. Problem solved.
Jett: “Bring a bathing suit this weekend. Or u can borrow one of mine.” HE: “Okay. We’re going to the Jersey shore?” Jett: “No, pool.” HE: “Big public pool?” Jett: “Does it matter? We’re going to the public pool. Bring a suit.” HE: “Just wondering about low-rent kids urinating in the pool. You know…suddenly a patch of water gets a little warmer for a bit?” Jett: “Do u have to make everything unpleasant? We’re going to the pool with you or without you.” HE: “I’d like to go…great. And if nature calls, I’ll climb out and hit the men’s room.”
Earlier this year the Gold Derby “experts” embarassed themselves to death by all-but-unanimously predicting that The Brutalist‘s Brady Corbet would take the Best Director Oscar. This is because the GD members are easily intimidated sheep…no balls, no moxie, no backbone or belief, no critical integrity…a certain herd instinct manifests and then “baaaahh!”
Again, the Gold Derby guys know absolutely nothing. They’re on the Sinners train solely because of the social safety factor. They’re afraid not to predict a Sinners Best Picture win or at least a Best Director nomination for Ryan Coogler.
Friendo (speaking this morning): “But a Black director has never won a Best Director Oscar…how long can this continue?” HE to friendo: “The Best Picture Oscar that went to 12 Years A Slave in 2014 was obviously owned by the great Steve McQueen. 12 Years A Slave was and is an epic, humanistic masterpiece. Sinners is an under-lighted, sex-and-blood vampire exploitation film.”
HE can think of nothing better or more glorious than to die on this hill: A Sinners Best Picture win would raise high the banner for the progressive degeneration of cinema in the 21st Century…a process of decline which began to manifest in the ’90s and has been gathering more and more steam since….oh, 2010 or thereabouts, or the year of Ironman.
