Christopher Nolan’s nearly three-decade-long filmography has received a new highlight: The Odyssey, which has emerged as his highest-rated film to date. Among the entire star-studded ensemble, one actor’s performance has captured the spotlight remarkably.

Amid this three-hour-long imaginative journey packed with top-tier performers, Anne Hathaway, portraying Odysseus’s devoted wife Penelope, is generating significant chatter on the Oscar circuit.

Critic Erik Davis praised Hathaway’s ‘incredible’ depiction of the iconic Greek personality, while Nine.com.au described her role as ‘one of the best performances of Hathaway’s career.’

Enthusiasts on social media platforms are equally charmed, with one X user enthusiastically predicting, ‘Anne Hathaway is sure to earn a nomination for her work in The Odyssey.’

Another admirer applauded her ‘passionate and multifaceted act, woven with threads of sorrow, loneliness, fury, and fading hope, all anchored by a profound and impressive love.’

A third wrote, ‘The best work in the film belongs to Anne Hathaway, and it is the best work she has done in years, possibly the best of her career.’

Outside of Hathaway, Matt Damon is also being lauded for what many feel is the greatest performance of his career as the main character Odysseus.

However, one surprising star who is also winning acclaim is actor Elliot Page.

Page only has a small part in the film, playing the role of Odysseus’s cousin Sinon, but his role has caused widespread controversy online due to the fact that he’s playing a formidable Greek soldier despite being transgender and only 5’1.

But despite the bigoted backlash around Page’s casting, the Juno star has already been singled out by fans for his short but powerful performance. 

One moviegoer said that Page ‘silences every critic with a flawless performance in The Odyssey’ while critic Nina Starner said that she was, ‘thrilled to inform the haters, losers, and bigots that Elliot Page is SUBLIME IN THIS MOVIE’.

Online backlash has been brewing over The Odyssey’s diverse cast, which included multiple black performers like Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya and rapper Travis Scott in Nolan’s adaptation of a Greek epic. 

After months of mounting online fury, however, the professional critics rendered a resoundingly positive verdict on X ahead of the lifting of the official review embargo. 

With over 60 reviews in so far, The Odyssey has achieved a near-perfect score on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes with a current standing of 96%.

That score places Nolan’s 13th feature film at the top of the pile of his past movies with The Dark Knight trailing behind with a 94% critic score.

The reviews for The Odyssey are almost universal in their soaring praise and five star ratings.

The Daily Mail’s Brian Viner declared that ‘Nolan’s film – its star-studded cast led by Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Zendaya – is a glorious cinematic experience, a triumph both of story-telling and movie-making.’

Viner added ‘I rarely say this of movies nearly three hours long – one viewing simply isn’t enough.’  

In a five-star review, Metro’s Tori Brazier said, external The Odyssey was ‘a watershed moment for filmmaking’. 

Guy Lodge for Variety wrote that Nolan’s ‘take on Homer is thorough, robust and attentive both to scholarly detail and old-school moviemaking craft.’ 

Nolan’s movie of The Odyssey has been hotly anticipated for years, with an all-star cast including Damon as Odysseus and Hathaway as his wife Penelope.

Tom Holland features as the couple’s son Telemachus, while his wife and Spider-Man co-star Zendaya is playing the goddess Athena. 

Robert Pattinson plays the villainous role of Penelope’s suitor Antinous, with Charlize Theron and Samantha Morton respectively as the goddesses Calypso and Circe.

Jon Bernthal plays the Spartan king Menelaus and Benny Safdie has been cast as his brother Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae.

Adding to the tension, Iran is said to have directed Yemen’s Houthi rebels to ready themselves to shut down a vital passage in the Red Sea should U.S. forces hit Iranian energy facilities, according to Reuters. Experts warn that even if the Houthis can’t entirely close this gateway, any disruption could have severe implications for international shipping routes.

“This is a serious threat,” noted Nadwa Al-Dawsari from the Middle East Institute in a statement to News Media. She pointed out the recent volatility and warned that U.S. strikes on Iran might prompt Tehran to react by targeting the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

According to Reuters, three insiders revealed that Iranian authorities have deliberated on involving the Houthis to obstruct the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and recently communicated this strategy to the group. A source linked to the Houthis confirmed that missiles and drones are positioned close to this strategic location, just awaiting the green light to initiate assaults on vessels.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British ambassador to Yemen and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned in a recent News Media report that a full resumption of the Houthi maritime campaign could trigger wider fighting.

“It will be interesting if the Houthis do go all in, and resume their campaign against Red Sea shipping with full intensity,” Fitton-Brown said. “This will draw international anger and likely result in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Sana’a and Hodeida.”

“There is potential for a general escalation if this happens, albeit one in which the allies have a clear military advantage,” he added. 

Al-Dawsari said the Houthis have continued developing the weapons needed to threaten the narrow shipping corridor despite largely refraining from maritime attacks over the past year.

“While the Houthis have largely refrained from attacking shipping for about a year, they have continued to advance their maritime capabilities, including missiles, drones and sea mines,” she said. “They may not be able to fully close the strait, but they could significantly disrupt shipping and raise costs and risks for commercial traffic.”

The State Department said it was closely monitoring the situation. “The Administration’s National Security Strategy states that our core interests in the Middle East include ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the region as well as preventing the export of terrorism,” a State Department spokesperson told News Media. “In line with this strategy, the Administration has clearly demonstrated its commitment to defending these interests against Houthi and Iranian aggression.”

The spokesperson said the U.S. “continues to actively enforce the Trump Administration’s designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and disrupt Iranian funding and arms transfers,” while condemning “Iran’s flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and international law in threatening freedom of navigation and supporting their Houthi proxies.”

The State department added that Washington has “worked to cut off the Houthis’ access to financing and weapons at every opportunity,” including sanctioning “more than 200 entities associated with the organization to limit their ability to carry out their terrorist actions.”

Despite years of sanctions and military operations, experts say the Houthis remain capable of significantly disrupting shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb, even if they cannot completely close the strait. Its previous missile and drone campaign demonstrated that repeated attacks — or even a credible threat of them — can push major shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up insurance, fuel and freight costs.

The Bab el-Mandeb connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, making it one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. The consequences of renewed attacks would be especially severe because Iran has already disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, historically the principal route for roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies.

A substantial volume of Gulf oil has consequently been redirected through Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Reuters reported that the Bab el-Mandeb route now carries approximately 7% of global energy supplies and that Saudi Arabia has shifted about 70% of its energy exports through Yanbu.

The reported instructions also raise new questions about how much control Tehran exercises over major Houthi military decisions. 

“Any decision to escalate in the Bab al-Mandab would be strategic and tied more to the interests of Iran and the Axis of Resistance than to Houthi interests alone,” Al-Dawsari said. “Decisions of this magnitude are likely coordinated through the Axis’ joint operations room under IRGC oversight.”

A source close to the Houthis claimed representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Yemen would control the timing of any move against the strait, Reuters reported.

The latest warning follows earlier Houthi threats against maritime traffic. In the June 12 report, News Media reported that the group had announced a complete ban on Israeli-owned ships in the Red Sea and declared them “legitimate targets.”

A State Department spokesperson told News Media at the time that the actions of Iran and the Houthis were “unacceptable” and “dangerous,” warning that they could inflame regional tensions and further disrupt global supply chains.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has “repeatedly condemned” Houthis attacks against ships in the Red Sea and called on all parties Thursday to avoid further escalation, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told News Media.

“Any disruptions or attacks would endanger the safety and security of seafarers, freedom of navigation and the stability of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation in Yemen and beyond,” Dujarric said. “The Secretary-General underscores that U.N. Security Council Resolution 2722 (2024) must be fully respected in its entirety,” he said on the resolution condemning at least two dozen Houthis attacks on commercial vessels since November 2023 and demanding an immediate end to the attacks. 

The emerging threat has also renewed scrutiny of the Iranian weapons networks that helped build the Houthis’ missile and drone arsenal.

Amr Al-Bidh, foreign affairs chief of the Southern Arabian Transitional Council, said that the reported threat also exposed broader failures in the handling of Yemen’s security crisis. “The fact that individuals convicted of trafficking Iranian weapons to the Houthis and leading terrorist operations are now being released under a U.N.-brokered deal only underscores how poorly the Yemen crisis is being managed,” he said, “the main beneficiary of this vacuum is Iran, as seen in its credible threat to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”

In a July 15 letter obtained by News Media, the Southern Arabian Transitional Council formerly known as the Southern Transitional Council, a southern Yemeni separatist movement that seeks greater autonomy or independence for the territory of the former South Yemen, warned U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg that a U.N.-facilitated detainee agreement may include people the council says were convicted of assisting Iranian weapons transfers to the Houthis.

An annex identifies individuals the council alleges were members of a cell that smuggled drones, aviation fuel and heavy and medium weapons from Iran to Sanaa.

The Office of the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen said it received the letter only after the agreement had already been signed and stressed that it does not determine which detainees are released.

“We have received the letter after the agreement was signed,” spokesperson Ismini Palla told News Media. “The United Nations – as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – do not decide who is released and who remains in detention. Our role is limited to mediating the negotiations and ICRC leads on the implementation of the release operation.”

Palla added that “the names of those released are proposed and agreed between the parties under the framework of the Stockholm Agreement on prisoners’ exchange of 2018.”

News Media reached out to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations on the latest developments.

A Florida woman’s irritation allegedly escalated to violence when her friend denied her request to drink beer during their Uber ride. This incident reportedly ended with her stabbing him with scissors.

According to an arrest report available to Law & Crime, 32-year-old Lynn Marie Zamora was taken into custody on Monday night following the audacious attack. Both she and the male victim had been picked up by a rideshare vehicle from the Best Western Plus Kendall Hotel & Suites in Miami.

The duo was en route to a friend’s house when Zamora expressed her desire to enjoy a beer along the way.

Upon being informed by the victim that consuming alcohol was not permissible during the ride, Zamora allegedly grew irate, adamantly insisting she had the right to drink.

Despite the victim’s repeated attempts to dissuade her, Zamora allegedly retrieved scissors from her purse and stabbed him in the left bicep and calf, as reported by the media outlet.

The Uber driver immediately pulled over and jumped out of the car — the victim following close behind — before calling 911.

Police arrived on the scene and arrested Zamora.

The victim was taken to the hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Zamora was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to an arrest report obtained by Law & Crime.

According to Uber’s community guidelines, “drug use and open containers of alcohol are never allowed while using the Uber Marketplace Platform,” and riders are instructed to “never bring illegal drugs or open containers of alcohol into a car.”

The 32-year-old appeared over a video call in front of a judge on Wednesday from jail, where it was revealed that she was already on probation for a separate battery conviction against a person aged 65 years or older, video obtained by WSVN shows.

It was also revealed that Zamora had at least several other prior assault and battery convictions and a conviction for tampering with an electronic monitor.

Zamora’s attorney attempted to have her moved to a hospital, but the judge denied the request because of the probation violation that needed to be handled first in a separate court hearing.

Following the judge’s order to hold Zamora on probable cause with a bond set at $7,500, Zamora became visibly distressed, pleading with the judge despite the audio being muted before being escorted away by a bailiff.

She is scheduled to have her next court appearance for Monday’s arrest on Aug. 12.

A security guard at the Today Show has been dismissed following an alarming incident in which a trespasser breached the set, charging at anchor Craig Melvin while hurling a racist insult.

The security personnel, whose identity remains undisclosed, was let go on Thursday. This came after he allegedly failed to prevent a mentally unstable individual from entering Studio 1A at New York City’s Rockefeller Center around 9 a.m., during an off-air moment for the hosts, as reported by TMZ.

Security video obtained by Page Six reportedly captured two guards at the entrance when the break-in unfolded. One guard is seen briefly walking away, while the other allegedly failed to spot the intruder entering the restricted area. 

Authorities have not disclosed which of the two guards was terminated in the aftermath of the security lapse.

Sources revealed that staff members were disheartened by the news of the guard’s firing, describing him as a cherished colleague within the building, as noted by Page Six.

The decision to terminate the guard came just hours after the suspect, named Andrew Truelove, gained access to the NBC News and Today Show plaza, reportedly inquiring about Al Roker’s whereabouts, according to TMZ.

Once in the restricted area, he allegedly slipped past the two guards undetected, breached security at the headquarters and asked Melvin where he could find the network’s weatherman.

He reportedly moved toward Melvin when it became clear Roker was not reachable. As he did, he allegedly screamed the N-word, TMZ reported.

Truelove reportedly made it as far as the staircase inside the studio while approaching the host and the backstage area near the dressing rooms, though the exact location remains unclear.

According to sources who spoke with Page Six, Truelove didn’t reach the actual studio set before security and staff rushed in shortly after Melvin alerted them to the horrifying incident.

A photo obtained by TMZ from inside the studio appears to show Melvin surrounded by staff members moments after the incident unfolded.

He later returned to the air with his fellow hosts without acknowledging the incident. Police said they responded to a report of ‘a disorderly person inside 30 Rockefeller Center.’

Although the incident was not captured during the broadcast, Melvin and Roker returned to air about 15 minutes later, with neither hinting at the drama that had just unfolded behind the scenes. 

A statement from Today confirmed the ‘individual entered an unauthorized area in a vestibule near Studio 1A’ before approaching Melvin. ‘There was no altercation, and no one was injured,’ it added.

In a later statement, the morning program said it was ‘cooperating fully with law enforcement as they investigate the matter.’

‘NBC and TODAY take the safety and security of our employees, talent, staff and guests extremely seriously,’ the statement added.

The Today Show show also confirmed it is ‘reviewing the incident and our security protocols and remain committed to providing a safe and secure environment for everyone who works at and visits our studios.’ 

The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed that Truelove was arrested and booked on several charges, including hate crime menacing, hate crime burglary, hate crime criminal trespass and harassment, according to Page Six. 

A spokesman also confirmed to The Daily Mail earlier that the intruder was detained and arrested.

Melvin took to Instagram after the incident to update fans and confirm that he would not be taking any time off following the unexpected confrontation.

His caption read: ‘Hey everyone. I’ve heard from so many of you over the last few hours. I’m going just fine. Thanks for reaching out. I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow morning on the Today Show.’ 

Melvin, 47, replaced Hoda Kotb as one of the show’s permanent anchors early last year, with his profile growing significantly since taking on the role. 

Meanwhile, Roker, 71, remains one of the program’s most recognizable faces, having been a regular presence since 1996. 

This is a breaking news story…