The project that Beatles fans have anxiously awaited for years finally is set to arrive this week. The Beatles: Get Back, the three-part, six-hour docuseries directed by Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson focusing on the January 1969 sessions that yielded the Let It Be album, premieres this Thursday, Friday and Saturday on Disney+.
As previously reported, the series was created from dozens of hours of previously unseen footage shot for what became the film Let It Be, but while the 1970 movie zeroed in on the tensions between the band members during the sessions, Get Back offers a more well-rounded look at The Beatles’ relationships as they came together to create that music.
Jackson’s longtime film editor Jabez Olssen, who worked closely with Peter on Get Back, tells ABC Audio that it quickly became apparent watching the footage that the band was getting along much better than had been previously portrayed.
“This is four guys who still very much get on with each other, are joking around, having a good time,” Olssen notes. “They have…disagreements and constructive conversations, but this is not a breakup film and this was not a breakup period in The Beatles’ lives.”
Perhaps the centerpiece of the series is the entire 42-minute impromptu concert of The Beatles’ played on the roof of Apple headquarters on London’s Savile Row.
Olssen says the segment offers “the best footage of The Beatles playing live that there is,” explaining, “You’re in the front row. They’re playing great. You can see them really well…[It] feels so personal and in your face.”
He adds, “To see how well they play and how happy they are and the buzz that they come out of it with, it really is a moment of triumph for them.”
Jeremy Renner‘s Marvel movie hero Hawkeye gets his own eponymous small-screen spin-off starting with two episodes on Disney+ today.
The holiday-themed show that sees Renner’s archer Avenger reluctantly taking on a protégé in Hailee Steinfeld‘s headstrong Kate Bishop.
The series follows the onscreen events of Avengers: Endgame, during which Renner’s grief-stricken Clint Barton took out his anger over Thanos snapping away his family by going on an underworld killing spree as the masked vigilante Ronin.
After Tony Stark and Hawkeye’s other fellow Avengers saved Barton’s family — along with half of humanity — Renner’s character is trying to get back to a normal life as a dad.
“We start off with a very, very happy step forward into a family vacation into New York at Christmas and taking the kids to go see a musical, and then everything kind of goes sideways from there.” Renner said at a recent press conference.
“Sideways” is where Hawkeye fan Kate comes in. “[S]he’s inspired by him and motivated by him and wants to be at his level and is very overeager — and he puts up with a lot,” Steinfeld laughs.
Renner says Kate sees past Barton’s “veneer of grumpiness.”
“It comes from just the weight and the horrors and the tragedies and loss that come with the…superhero game. And the lightness…that Hailee’s character brings in kind of counteracts that. It’s really cathartic and I think, quite beautiful.”
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige sums it up: “Six episode, six days, will Clint make it home for Christmas? Which was fun and a breath of fresh air after world-ending stakes and Celestials bursting out of planets, and Multiverse shenanigans. This is, like Hawkeye himself, a grounded, family-based show.”
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(LUXOR, Egypt) — After more than seven decades of stop-start attempts to excavate a nearly 2-mile ancient walkway in the southern city of Luxor, Egypt will finally open the 3,000-year-old Avenue of Sphinxes to the public Thursday in a glitzy ceremony.
The full stretches of the 1.7 mile long and about 250 feet wide avenue, which connects Karnak Temple with Luxor Temple, have been uncovered in the ancient city of Thebes, with its distinctive sphinxes and ram-headed statues lined up on both flanks.
In recent years, Egypt has stepped up its efforts to promote its archeological discoveries as it strives to revive its ailing tourism industry, which took a fresh battering during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One element of this approach has been recreating ancient settings in flamboyant ceremonies, which were first introduced when Egypt held what was dubbed a “royal procession” to parade 22 mummies through the streets of Cairo as they were being conveyed to a newly inaugurated museum last April.
Construction of the Avenue of Sphinxes began during the New Kingdom era and was completed during the reign of 30th Dynasty ruler Nectanebo I (380-362 B.C.), but the road was buried under layers of sand over the centuries.
“The amount of rubble that was removed over the decades was up to 8 meters high. Every layer of sand tells us a story about that avenue,” Mostafa el-Sagheer, the head of Karnak’s Antiquities Department who oversaw the project to excavate the last stretch of the avenue, told ABC News.
The first trace of the avenue was found in 1949 when Egyptian archeologist Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim discovered eight statues near the Luxor Temple, el-Sagheer said, with 17 more statues uncovered from 1958 to 1961 and 55 unearthed from 1961 to 1964 — all within a perimeter of 250 meters.
From 1984 to 2000, the entire route of the walkway was finally determined, leaving it to excavators to uncover the road. It was never a walk in the park, however.
Urban development meant hundreds of homes, as well as mosques and a 115-year-old Evangelical church, had to be demolished to make way for the road.
The political turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising in Egypt further complicated efforts to complete the restoration project, stalling it for several years before it was resumed in 2017.
“From 2017 to 2021, the final 20 or 25% of the road was excavated,” el-Sagheer said.
Most of the original 1,057 statues in the avenue have been recovered. They are divided into three shapes, the first being a body of a lion with ram’s head that was erected over a nearly 1,000-foot area between the Karnak Temple and the Precinct of Mut during the reign of New Kingdom ruler Tutankhamen, famously known as King Tut.
The second shape is a full ram statue, built in a remote area during the reign of the 18th dynasty’s Amenhotep III before being later moved to the Temple of Khonsu in the Karnak complex.
The third shape, which comprises the biggest chunk of the statues, is one of a sphinx (a lion’s body and a human’s head), with the statues stretching over a mile from the Precinct of Mut to the Luxor Temple. They were erected during the tenure of Nectanebo I.
El-Sagheer said the ancient Opet festival would be also relived during Thursday’s celebrations.
The festival primarily involved a procession in which shrines of the “triad of deities” — supreme god Amun-Re, his consort Mut and their son Khonsu — were paraded by priests on wooden barques from Karnak to Luxor in a symbolic recreation of their marriage.
“During this journey, people of Thebes would line up on both sides, with military marches and music playing, dancers performing and oblations offered,” el-Sagheer said.
(WASHINGTON) — Kate Hendricks Thomas deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a member of the Marine Corps. She said she knew that choice carried risks, but she says she didn’t realize it would come back to haunt her nearly two decades later.
“I knew that deploying could cost me my life,” Thomas, now 41, told ABC News. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
Unknown to her at the time, she said, some of the air she was breathing while deployed was toxic, laced with thousands of chemicals.
The military used burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan as a way to get rid of trash. Regular household waste items were burned, such as food and clothing. But so were more toxic substances — paint, metals, plastics, styrofoam, rubber and human waste. She said these burn pits smelled like exhaust and asphalt on a hot summer day. She said they smoldered, with billowing black smoke.
She wasn’t the only veteran exposed to these toxic fumes. Roughly 3.5 million veterans who deployed post 9/11 could have been exposed, concerned members of Congress say.
“When I checked in at Fallujah, I originally was housed in this area where everybody was cleaning their air conditioners all of the time,” Thomas said. “And it was really as soon as I got there that I realized we were cleaning this chunky particulate matter out of the filters,” she later continued.
Thomas left the Marine Corps in 2008. She went back to school, earned her Ph.D., married, and had a son. But in 2018, at the age of 38, she received shocking news: she had stage 4 breast cancer.
“They said it looked like I had been dipped in something,” Thomas remembered. “I had metastases throughout my skeletal system from my skull to my toes.”
According to a 2021 VA-funded research proposal, “there is a notably high incidence of breast cancer among younger military women (20% to 40% higher). The incident rate of breast cancer for active duty women is seven times higher than the average incident rate of fifteen other cancer types across all service members.”
Kate says she’s met “a ton” of other female veterans who have had breast cancer.
“I actually ran into the only other woman in my unit in Iraq,” Thomas said. “And she and I started chatting, and the conversation turned to health. And it turns out, she has the exact same type of aggressive breast cancer that I do. And that’s anecdotal data, it’s anecdotal evidence, but to me, that felt like a big deal.”
But many of the medical conditions allegedly caused by these toxins weren’t recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Thomas immediately submitted a claim with the VA for coverage. She says she went back and forth with them for three years.
“They denied my claim, they denied appeals,” she said. “They said, ‘You know, we’re not — we’re not approving claims for burn pits right now.'”
Since then, Thomas and her family have paid thousands of dollars every year for private health insurance to pay for her medical treatments not covered by veterans’ benefits.
Expanding coverage
There are multiple ways to expand veterans’ benefits. The president can sign an executive order, Congress can pass legislation, which could then get signed into law, or the VA can choose to recognize more claims.
Last week, the Biden administration said it was establishing a new policy to help more veterans exposed to burn pits during their service overseas receive more benefits.
The Veterans Administration will now “create presumptions of exposure … when the evidence of an environmental exposure and the associated health risks are strong in the aggregate but hard to prove on an individual basis,” according to the White House. But veterans’ claims take time to be approved, and once when they are recognized it can still take months before payouts begin, according to a press conference earlier this month with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough. The Military Times reported that it could be until May 2022 until checks are actually put in the mail.
Congress, which controls the purse strings, could also pass legislation.
“Congress sent us to war, and they need to understand that paying the full cost of war includes the health care [of veterans],” Tom Porter, the executive vice president at the IAVA, said to ABC News.
There are two bills being considered to expand benefits for veterans, one in the House and one in the Senate.
The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., told ABC News that he believes “2021 will be the year that we get a comprehensive toxic exposure bill done.”
With little over a month left until 2022, there’s still a lot of work to be done.
Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., a co-sponsor of the House bill and a veteran herself, believes that if passed, the measure could be expansive enough to give affected veterans what they need.
“This bill is very comprehensive,” Luria told ABC News. “And it brings together about 15 different pieces of [previous] legislation that address all different aspects of toxic exposures.” She later added that she believes this is “probably the largest veterans benefit bill of our generation.”
While there has been bipartisan support for both of these bills in the House and the Senate, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, told ABC News there’s been some hesitancy over the cost.
“We have seen some push back by some of the Republicans that say we can’t afford to do this,” Tester said. “If we’re not willing to take care of our veterans when they get back home, then we shouldn’t send them off to war to begin with,” he later continued.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., says he has been working with the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee to make sure a full list of ailments is included in the bill.
“It is outrageous that the federal government has turned a blind eye to the men and women who honorably served their nation,” Rubio told ABC News. “If our bill becomes law, the worst thing that can happen is someone who served our country receives treatment for a rare, debilitating illness.”
While Congress negotiates, the VA is urging vets to file claims, even if they’ve been denied in the past.
“Don’t wait for legislation to be passed,” Ronald Burke, deputy under secretary for policy and oversight at the Department of Veteran Affairs, told ABC News. “Don’t wait for a claim for an item to be listed as a presumptive condition. Yes, file your claim.”
‘Six weeks is an eternity’
In July, after three years of denials, the VA finally recognized Thomas’ claim, acknowledging that her aggressive cancer was caused by exposure to toxic burn pits while she served overseas. But, the earliest appointment she could get was six weeks away.
“Six weeks is an eternity in the stage 4 setting,” Thomas said.
Thomas made the decision to keep her private insurance so she could receive quicker treatments.
While the White House’s expansion of benefits will help veterans to come — and the bills in Congress, if passed, would help too — it’s too little, too late for Thomas. Her doctors gave her five years to live. It’s been three.
Thomas has never regretted serving.
“I love the Marine Corps so much,” Thomas said. “It gave me so much — opportunities to lead, opportunities to travel the world, a sense of purpose. I felt like my work mattered.”
But she recognized there will come a time when there will be treatments she’s not willing to do.
“There will come a point where we say, ‘Okay, we’re going to have to let the cancer take its course,'” Thomas said. “But I’d really like my son to be a little bit older.”
So, she said she’s holding out hope for more time. Her son, Matthew, is just eight years old. She said she’s worried about him losing his mom at such a young age.
“And it’s interesting, because he knows,” Thomas said of her son knowing she has terminal cancer. “The other day we were talking about Jesus and heaven. And he had all these questions. And then he got very still. And his eyes filled up with tears. And he looked at me and he said, ‘Mom, it’s gonna be so sad.'”
ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos, Hannah Demissie, Tia Humphries, Luis Martinez and Nate Luna contributed to this report.
Avalon/PYMCA/Gonzales Photo/Nikolaj Bransholm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Slipknot‘s Knotfest Japan has been postponed once more.
The festival was originally scheduled for March 2020, and was one of the earliest rock events to be delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was first pushed back to January 2021, and then again to April 2022. Now, it’s been rescheduled for a third time, to April 2023.
“We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this has caused the fans that have been looking forward to the event,” the Knot says.
Knotfest has taken place twice in Japan previously, in 2014 and 2016.
Slipknot recently wrapped their Knotfest Roadshow North American tour, which was bookended by Knotfest Iowa and Knotfest Los Angeles. They plan to hold Knotfests in Finland, Chile and Brazil in 2022.
Judas Priest‘s classic 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, and in conjunction with the milestone, the metal legends are partnering with Z2 Comics on a graphic novel inspired by the landmark record.
Judas Priest: Screaming for Vengeance, which is expected to be released in July 2022, is being co-written by Rantz Hoseley and Neil Kleid, known for their work, respectively, on The Heroin Diaries and Savor, with illustrations by Hellboy artist Christopher Mitten.
The novel takes place 500 years in the future and focuses on a naïve engineer who lives in a ring of cities that orbit a desolate planet and are governed by an elite group of cruel rulers. When the engineer discovers an item called a Bloodstone that threatens the rulers’ power, he’s exiled to the planet’s surface, where he must either accept his fate or seek vengeance on his adversaries.
“I was already a fan of the band, when Screaming for Vengeance was released, but no one was ready for the impact it had,” says Hoseley. “That incredible cover art? Those songs? That album became my daily soundtrack and creative fuel…To be able to contribute to a project inspired by these songs…is an honor and a responsibility I take very seriously.”
The book, which you can pre-order now, will be available in hardcover and softcover, as well as deluxe and super-deluxe versions featuring an exclusive Screaming for Vengeance vinyl LP, prints and other items, including a collectible figure based on the metallic eagle that appears on the cover, aka “The Hellion.”
Released in July 1982, Screaming for Vengeance has been certified double=Platinum by the RIAA, making it Priest’s best-selling album in the U.S. It features the band’s classic song “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.”
Bloc Party has announced a new album called Alpha Games.
The first studio effort from the U.K. alt rockers in six years will arrive on April 29, 2022. You can listen to the first single, titled “Traps,” now via digital outlets.
“Alpha Games was conceived on the road, playing in front of amazing crowds on our last tour and then brought to life with the fire and the frustrations of 2020,” says frontman Kele Okereke.
Bloc Party’s most recent album is 2016’s Hymns.
Here’s the Alpha Games track list:
“Day Drinker”
“Traps”
“You Should Know the Truth”
“Callum Is a Snake”
“Rough Justice”
“The Girls Are Fighting”
“Of Things Yet to Come”
“Sex Magik”
“By Any Means Necessary”
“In Situ”
“If We Get Caught”
“The Peace Offering”
Mariah Carey is nearly synonymous with Christmas thanks to her music, television specials, recipes, merchandise and, of course, all those festive memes. But, in a new interview, the singer opened up about why she continues to make the holidays such a big deal.
She tells Entertainment Tonightthat she was unable to enjoy the lavishness of Christmas when she was a child because she grew up in poverty. But, instead of becoming bitter over what she didn’t have, it fueled her desire to make Christmas even more special.
“In my memoir [The Meaning of Mariah Carey,] I talk about how when I was a little kid, growing up with no money, growing up being mixed, not understanding, having identity issues, and then going through my career and the different things that have happened, that I never even talked about to even some of my best friends,” she confesses. “When I wrote about Christmas, I was like, ‘Oh wait, I don’t want to bring people down,’ ’cause this seemed like depressing stuff that happened.”
Mariah says that has “motivated” her to “really go all the way in every Christmas, every year.”
And, while she “wants my kids to have the best time,” the pop star admits that, when it comes to indulging in the holidays, “A lot of it is for me.”
The late Michael K. Williams would have turned 55 years old Monday, and his Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood celebrated his memory with a block party. It was sponsored by the We Build the Block police reform organization, which the Lovecraft Country star helped found.
An Instagram video was posted of Williams standing on a rooftop, overlooking his community, and talking about his pride in coming back to “inspire the youth.”
“Michael’s favorite & most important role was being an active member of his community,” NYC Together and We Build the Block founder Dana Rachlin wrote in an Instagram post. “To honor his life & legacy [we’re] hosting a block activation that will elevate love, joy, & community.” The party featured live music, voter registration, and a Thanksgiving dinner giveaway. Williams passed away from an accidental overdose on September 6. He was 54
In other news, Porsha Williams reveals in her memoir, The Pursuit of Porsha: How I Grew into My Power and Purpose, that she was involved with R. Kelly in 2006. In her final trip to his Chicago home, Porsha recalls that she heard screaming, and the sounds of a woman being beaten, according to Variety. She demanded to leave, and says the “Bump ‘N Grind” singer continued to call her, but she told him, “I’m done with you.” The book will be published on November 30, two days after her new show, Porsha’s Family Matters, premieres on Bravo.
Finally, Oscar and Grammy winner Jennifer Hudson will be honored with the Chairman’s Award at the Palm Springs International Film Awards on January 6, 2022, for her starring role in the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect.
On Paramount+, the cast of the groundbreaking The Real World: Los Angeles reunites tomorrow, in The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles.
Former reality-show stars Beth Anthony, Beth Stolarczyk, David Edwards, Glen Naessens, Irene Berrera-Kearns, Jon Brennan and Tami Roman are under the same roof of the same iconic Venice beach house from their series, which aired in 1993.
The Real World was groundbreaking for the time, and its Los Angeles season was only the long-running show’s second: It pioneered such reality-show staples as the “confessional,” rotating house guests, and more.
ABC Audio caught up with Jon and Irene to see what happened when people stopped being polite, and started getting real…again.
“It did start something different and new,” Irene said of the show. “And I think we have that bond that not too many people can say that they have.”
The cast have kept in touch over the years, she explained, but, “We don’t see each other very often, so when I did walk through the door and first saw [Jon], I mean, it was like I came back home.”
Jon recalled, “It’s definitely a crazy experience, and you walk down that sidewalk in 1993, and you get ready to walk into this house and there’s a camera pointed at you. None of us are movie stars or TV stars, so this is a really strange thing to happen to a young person. And, you know, you’re up for an adventure, so you just roll with it.”
He continued, “When we were doing it, we had no idea. We had the first season in New York to compare it to. But that was really it, and some of us hadn’t even seen that! And so it was uncharted territory.”
