‘The Palace’ Review: Roman Polanski’s New Year’s Eve Hotel Comedy About a Bunch of Wealthy Idiots Is a Laughless Debacle

Studiocanal has named Patrick Schweitzer as CEO of its UK-based It’s a Sin and Years and Years producer Red Production Company.  An industry veteran, Schweitzer has worked across high-end television drama for 30 years. Prior to joining Red, he spent five years at Tall Story Pictures and executive produced such series as ITV’S Grace, Redemption, Bancroft season 2 and The Bay.  

Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren has had emergency surgery following a fall in her Swiss home, her agent has confirmed.The 89 year old fell in her bathroom and sustained several “serious fractures” to different parts of her hip, including her femur, which needed “urgent surgery”, her agent Andrea Giusti said. Sophia’s representative also confirmed both her sons, Carlo and Edoardo Ponti, were at her bedside.The Academy-Award winning Italian actress was married to film producer Carlo Ponti Sr from 1966 until his death in 2007.

Peter Kay has expressed interest in bringing back Phoenix Nights for a feature film.The comedian co-created and starred in the Channel 4 sitcom about a working men’s club in Bolton, which ran for two seasons from 2001 to 2002. It later spawned the 2004 spin-off Max And Paddy’s Road To Nowhere for six episodes.In his new book TV: Big Adventures On The Small Screen, Kay said he still writes down ideas for Phoenix Nights and suggested he’s considering bringing it back for a film.“I had an idea only today of Brian getting Young Kenny to paint an enormous letter ‘H’ on the roof of the club so he can advertise they’ve got a helicopter pad,” Kay wrote (via The Daily Mail).

Yard Act have confirmed details of a huge UK and European tour to take place in 2024 – see the dates below and buy tickets here.The Leeds band returned this summer with new single ‘The Trench Coat Museum’ and promises of a follow-up to their Mercury Prize-nominated 2022 debut album ‘The Overload’.The new tour will begin in March next year with 11 UK and Irish dates ending at London’s Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith.Then, they will head to the continent for a series of gigs that begin in Nantes on April 4 and wrap up on April 28 in Brussels.Pre-sale tickets for the tour will go on sale here from 10am BST on Wednesday (September 27), with a general sale beginning at the same time on Friday (September 29).Buy your tickets here and see the full list of Yard Act tour dates below.MARCH 202413 – Norwich, UEA14 – Nottingham, Rock City15 – Glasgow, O2 Academy16 – Manchester, O2 Apollo17 – Newcastle, Northumbria University19 – Belfast, Mandela Hall20 – Dublin, Vicar Street22 – Liverpool, Invisible Wind Factory23 – Bristol, O2 Academy25 – Brighton, Dome27 – London, Eventim ApolloAPRIL 20244 – Nantes, Stereolux5 – Paris, Cabaret Sauvage6 – Bordeaux, Rock School Barbey8 – Lisbon, Lav9 – Madrid, Mon11 – Barcelona, La 212 – Lyon, Le Transbordeur13 – Bologna, Locomotiv Club14 – Milan, Santeria Toscana 3116 – Zurich, Mascotte17 – Munich, Muffathalle18 – Berlin, Festsaal Kreuzberg20 – Stockholm, Slaktkyrkan24 – Hamburg, Uebel & Gefährlich25 – Amsterdam, Paradiso26 – Nijmegen, Doornrosie27 – Cologne, Kantine28 – Brussels, Les Nuits BotaniqueYard Act spoke about their second album in an interview with NME earlier this year, with frontman James Smith saying it concerns “getting everything you ever wanted and realising that the misery and

SZA has teamed up with Jean Dawson on a new track called ‘No Szns’ – you can listen to it below.The song, co-written by SZA and Dawson, is a stripped-back, reflective collaboration featuring dreamy electric guitar and lyrics about the various feelings that come about throughout the year.“In the spring, you can’t hear a thing all the birds and bees/Nobody thinks/ In the summertime people off the brink/ In California, we ain’t got no seasons, it’s all the same to me,” the pair sing in the chorus.In SZA’s verse, the ‘SOS’ star looks back on “cryin’ in the summertime” and how her “anxious thoughts” can be triggered when she thinks of a certain person.‘No Szns’ arrives with an accompanying official video, which was directed by Dawson and Bradley J. Calder.

Despite icy blonde coming back into fashion for autumn/winter 2023, Tasha Ghouri has decided to ditch the bright bleach for something a little darker and more beige in tone for the new season. Debuting the new look on her Instagram page over the weekend, the Love Island 2022 finalist looks incredible as she poses for sunshine selfies.Though Tasha is still clearly blonde, she's completely changed the tone of her colour by knocking down her previous platinum for a more golden 'bronde' shade. "Did someone say bronde?! Huge thanks to @hairbybillyevans @hairbyjackkenneally," Tasha captions the carousel of snaps.

Stormzy is set to perform at the 2024 Formula One British Grand Prix.The grime artist will take to the stage at Silverstone on Friday, July 5 as part of an “unprecedented four-day festival line-up” at the legendary motor racing circuit.On Saturday (July 5), Pete Tong is due to present his Ibiza Classics set alongside Jules Buckley and The Essential Orchestra before Rudimental closes the weekend on Sunday (July 6).The headline and support acts for Thursday night’s Opening Concert will be announced in the coming weeks.Per a press release, the festival “will see Silverstone take its new-look music and arts offering to the next level – cementing the British Grand Prix as a summer highlight on both the British sporting and music calendar”.Nick Read, Silverstone’s Commercial Director, said: “Our long-term ambition has always been to establish Silverstone as a venue that attracts the biggest and best artists in the world to put on a spectacular show for the British fans.“It’s an honour to announce Stormzy, Pete Tong and Rudimental as the first names on our line-up for the 2024 British Grand Prix.”He continued: “We knew we had a massive job on our hands following the great success of this year’s music offering, so we are thrilled to be able to take things up another notch – with more huge global acts still to be announced!”Tickets for the 2024 British Grand Prix are available now – you can buy yours here.This year’s event saw performances from the likes of Calvin Harris, Tom Grennan, Cat Burns and Black Eyed Peas.Stormzy played his only UK show of 2023 last month as part of this year’s All Points East gig series in Victoria Park, London.His third and most recent studio album, ‘This Is What I Mean’, was released last November.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic You know you’re watching a true pop star when that person’s identity — their very existence — smashes boundaries. Elvis Presley was a country boy who mixed country and rockabilly and the blues, and with his sneer and black hair and mascara he looked like no human had ever looked before. Prince was a one-man band who mixed funk and rock with his own synth-pop bitches’ brew and sang, “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?” Lil Nas X, following in the footsteps of Elvis’s blue suede shoes and Prince’s James Brown-with-wings delirium, is a Black queer confessional pop hip-hop diva who put himself on the map with a viral single, recorded in about an hour, in which he appropriated the cowboy mystique of the Wild West — and did it with a wink of pure sincerity.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic A lot of the young men who became stock traders in the 1980s saw themselves as rebels. With their Porsches and drugs and (by the decade’s end) their idolization of Gordon Gekko, they put the kill into making a killing. They were the new swingers of greed.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Malia Obama, Oscar-winning directors The Daniels and “The Mandalorian” star Pedro Pascal were just a few of the notables who turned up in force for the first Los Angeles screening of A24’s holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” on Tuesday night. The intimate gathering at West Hollywood’s London Hotel was something akin to a bucket of ice water in a social Mojave, as the ongoing Hollywood strikes have shuttered red carpets and made party RSVPs into war room fodder for talent publicists and studio communications executives.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Somewhere, at any given moment, there’s a film director adapting a stage play to the big screen. Yet it’s rare, and fascinating, to see a filmmaker steeped to the gills in cinema as cinema who also has a grand obsession with the theater.

Ellise Shafer Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” received a spirited five-minute standing ovation on Tuesday night, as the director handed out high fives. The action comedy, which stars Glen Powell, received cheers from the beginning, with the crowd clapping throughout the film during various scenes. During the standing ovation, Linklater looked overwhelmed by the applause, mouthing “thank you so much” and holding his hand to his heart.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Is it something in the air? At this year’s Venice Film Festival, the unofficial theme appears to be hit men. David Fincher’s “The Killer” is all about an icy methodical professional executioner. Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance” turns on an act of murder-for-hire.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic If you’re looking for an inviolable law of cinema, one that you can more or less can take to the bank, the Venice Film Festival just confirmed an ironically delightful one. It is this: Murder agrees with Woody Allen. We already knew that, of course.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The last time Sofia Coppola made a movie about a teenage royal living in a rococo palace that turned out to be a lavish prison, it was 2006, and the movie, “Marie Antoinette,” was a stylized dream of history — the story of the young queen as naïve and isolated rock star. Coppola’s new movie dramatizes the relationship between Priscilla and Elvis Presley, and the parallels with the earlier film are there if you want to see them.

David Fincher spooked Venice with the world premiere of his latest movie “The Killer,” which stars Michael Fassbender as an assassin. The Netflix drama earned a respectable 5-minute standing ovation at its screening on the Lido on Sunday night. Fassbender and co-star Tilda Swinton couldn’t attend the premiere because of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In the bravura opening sequence of David Fincher’s “The Killer,” we watch the title character, a cold-as-dry-ice professional hitman who is never named, as he prepares to assassinate his latest victim. The hit is taking place in Paris, and the target is some sort of powerful corporate tycoon who we, like the killer, know nothing about. His home occupies the entire penthouse floor of one of those ornate block-long Parisian apartment buildings.

Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote of the film, “When I saw ‘The Palace,’ Roman Polanski’s garish debacle of an ensemble comedy, I was sitting in the Sala Darsena, which seats 1400 (and was full), and on the rare occasion when a line in the movie got laughs, it was literally coming from about six people. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a giant theater this deadly silent for a movie that’s working this strenuously to amuse you.” Polanski has a history at Venice, having premiered his film “Carnage,” starring Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster, at the festival in 2011, as well as 2019’s “An Officer and a Spy.” His return to the festival this year has been cause for controversy, as he has faced several sexual assault allegations over the course of his career.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Maestro,” playing the legendary American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, Bradley Cooper has a light in his eye — a glow of merriment and mischief, of gleeful cosmopolitan desire. His Lenny is a prodigy, a prankster, a seducer, a monk of creative devotion and, through it all, a man of epic contradiction. In public, he tends toward the proper and stentorian; in private, he’s recklessly exuberant enough to give new — or maybe old — meaning to the word gay.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In Michael Mann’s heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing “Ferrari,” there’s a quiet scene that takes place the night before the Mille Miglia, the spectacular 1,500-kilometer motorsport endurance race. Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), the Italian sports-car magnate who needs to win the race (the survival of the company that bears his name depends on it), has five drivers who are scheduled to compete. In a kind of calm-before-the-storm ritual, several of them write notes to their romantic partners, telling them how much they love them, just in case they don’t survive the race.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The title character of “Comandante,” Salvatore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino), is a submarine commander in the Italian Royal Navy who has a different spirit from the military machos we usually encounter in movies. He’s certainly tough enough — a bruiser with a dark edge. “Comandante” is set during the early days of World War II (September and October 1940), and as Salvatore leads the crew of the Cappellini, an iron hulk of an underwater vessel equipped with a dozen torpedoes and a pair of machine guns, he speaks about his dedication to blowing up his enemies.