Judge orders pause on Paramount-Warner merger after challenge from 12 states

$81bn merger halted for at least two weeks after US states sued to block deal, saying it would ‘extinguish competition’ A federal judge on Monday ordered Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery to halt their $81bn merger for at least two weeks, allowing states that are challenging the deal more time to see their case through in court. Twelve states, led by California , sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner last week – alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers across the US. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/M580hcA via IFTTT

The Locksmith review – Ryan Philippe holds the key to straight-ahead noir thriller

Philippe’s newly released con faces heavy pressure not to go straight as his family grows ever more estranged and the film runs low on fresh ideas

The plot manoeuvres in this léger noir are so boilerplate and predictable that viewers are likely to find themselves expecting much bigger twists than are actually delivered. Surely that nice guy will turn out to be a double-crosser, you assume? Or you might imagine one of the vampy women will turn out to be a triple-crossing femme fatale. But no, it’s all pretty much on the level, which makes the snippets of classic Hollywood crime thrillers such as Touch of Evil, just glimpsed on a TV set, feel seriously undermining, gesturing as they do towards much more sophisticated works of cinema than we have here.

Ryan Phillippe stars as Miller, the titular locksmith, who in the opening scene has been forced into doing a heist that goes very wrong and ends up sending him to prison for 10 years. When he gets out, his now-ex-wife Beth (Kate Bosworth) is a rising police officer and his daughter Lindsay (Madeleine Guilbot) barely knows him. At least old friend Frank (Ving Rhames) offers him a job, but it’s only a matter of time before the past comes round again with Miller under pressure to atone for past crimes by committing entirely new ones. Gabriela Quezada is on hand as a battered sex worker, the surviving sister of a man whom Miller got killed years back. There are good cops and dirty cops, and shootouts at motels that puncture the eerie quiet of what looks like a barely populated desert town.

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