Entertainment

Los Angeles and Adelaide – Twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou have come a long way from their backyard stunts in Pooraka, South Australia. Their debut feature Talk To Me (2023) transformed the once–YouTube pranksters into internationally acclaimed horror directors. Made for just US$4.5 million, the supernatural thriller grossed nearly US$100 million worldwide, becoming A24’s top‐earning horror film and earning accolades across Australia and beyond. As they prepare to release their follow-up, Bring Her Back, the brothers reflect on their creative evolution, the pull of home, and why they recently passed on big-budget Hollywood offers.

Stunt performer Devyn LaBella has filed a lawsuit in California against Kevin Costner and the producers of his Western epic Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2, accusing them of compelling her to perform an unscripted, “violent” simulated rape scene without adequate notice, consent or the presence of a mandated intimacy coordinator. The complaint, lodged on 27 May 2025, seeks damages for sexual harassment, a hostile work environment and breach of contract under the terms negotiated by the performers’ union SAG-AFTRA.

Metabolomics—the comprehensive analysis of small molecules (metabolites) in biological samples—has emerged as a transformative field in biomedical research. By profiling metabolites in biofluids such as urine, scientists can detect subtle changes linked to disease onset, environmental exposures, or therapeutic interventions. However, the sheer complexity of the metabolome—comprising thousands of analytes with often overlapping masses—poses a formidable challenge for confident compound identification.

Brooke Bellamy, founder of Brooki Bakehouse and author of Bake with Brooki, has posted her first video address on Instagram since cookbook author Nagi Maehashi publicly accused her of plagiarising two recipes. In a candid reel shared on the bakery’s official account, Bellamy acknowledged the controversy, defended her creative process and called for unity among women in the baking community.

In a dramatic conclusion to one of France’s most audacious celebrity crimes, a Paris court has found four men guilty of a meticulously planned, armed break-in at Kim Kardashian’s luxury Paris residence during Fashion Week in October 2016. Known by French media as the “grandpa robbers” due to the advanced age of their ringleaders, the gang stole jewelry valued at up to €10 million—making it one of the largest individual-target robberies in France in two decades.

Creative Australia, the federal government’s key arts funding and advocacy body, has been plunged into controversy since its board voted in February to rescind the 2026 Venice Biennale commission from Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino. That decision sparked widespread condemnation from artists, writers, academic institutions and political figures who accused the board of censorship and failing to uphold principles of artistic freedom. Two weeks after the vote, Creative Australia chair Robert Morgan and chief executive Adrian Collette faced a grilling at a Senate estimates hearing, where they admitted the board’s primary motivation was to avert “a prolonged and divisive debate” rather than address any substantive concern about the artwork itself.

Formed in Belfast in 2017, the Irish‐language rap trio Kneecap—comprising Mo Chara (Liam O’Hanna), Móglaí Bap (Mark O’Connell) and DJ Próvaí (Aaron Harrington)—has quickly become one of the island’s most provocative and politically outspoken musical acts. Drawing on the symbolism and cultural heritage of Irish republicanism, the group raps in Gaeilge about life on the margins, Catholic–Protestant divisions in Northern Ireland, housing affordability, language revival and a host of other social justice issues. Their breakthrough single “C.E.A.R.T.A.” (“Rights”) went viral, and they further cemented their reputation with Kneecap, a semi‐fictional feature film loosely based on the band’s origins. Their name—referring to the paramilitary punishment of kneecapping practiced during the Troubles—signals a readiness to court controversy.

Irwin, 21, the youngest son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, has reportedly stirred family tension after spending an evening out with an unidentified blonde woman while in Las Vegas for the annual Steve Irwin Wildlife Gala. The evening’s excursion, captured in paparazzi photos, comes just weeks before Robert’s highly anticipated debut on the US edition of Dancing With the Stars, and has left his mother, Terri Irwin, “deeply disappointed,” according to an insider.