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5 great 'Groundhog Day' stories from the 1993 comedy's best scene-stealer, Stephen Tobolowsky Yahoo Entertainment
Cricketer and Sara Ali Khan's rumoured boyfriend Ꮪhubman Gill knows how to keep his fans entertained. On Thursday, he dropped a hilarious reel video of himself and his friends and teammates, Ishan Kishan and Yuzvendra Chahal, as they recreated a famous scene from MTV's reality show Roadies. The video has left many in splits, including Nataša Stanković Pandya. Also read: Sonam Bajwa hilariously teases Shubman Gill about Sara Ali Khan as she refutes dating rumours
In the video, Shubman Gill, Ishan and Yuzvendra appeared in their blue team India jerseys. While Shubman played a contestant who was badly bashed during his audition, Ishan essays the role of Roadies judge Nikhil Chinapa who mimics a gorilla in their hotel room. Yuzvendra portrayed other judge Raghu Ram in the video and says, “Now you have pissed me.”
Ishan stands up from his chair and asks Shubman to show intensity and passion. Reacting to it, Shubman emotionally tells him, “I have that intensity. I have that passion. I will make it, I will definitely make it.” To this, Ishan mimics a gorilla pose, in an attempt to copy Nikhil from the episode and jumps on the bed.
He further tells Shubman to slap himself and he does. Ishan slaps Shubman as well and again asks him to repeat it. The two walk away with Ishan saying, “Better.” The scene is from the infamous audition round of Roadies. The show is popularly known for providing a platform to celebrities like Rannvijay Singha, Ayushmann Khurrana, Prince Narula, Bani J, Varun Sood and many others.
Meanwhile, Shubman recently made news when Sonam Bajwa teased him about Sara Ali Khan. Sara and Shubman are rumoured to be secretly dating for quite some time. Last month, Sonam rubbished dating rumours with Shubman by replying to a viral post with a ‘Sara’ tweet on her social media handle.
Sonam re-shared a photo of herself with Shubman from a show on her Twitter handle, and wrote, “Ye Sara ka Sara jhoot hai (This is completely false)." Her reply was in context to the actor. Besides this, Sonam also grilled the cricketer when he appeared on a show with her.
She asked him to name the fittest female actor in Bollywood. Shubman responded instantly, “Sara!” Then, Sonam asked him, “Are you dating Sara?” To this, Shubman replied with a “Maybe.” Sonam laughed and further questioned him in Punjabi, “Sara da sara sach bolo please (Please tell us the whole truth).” Shubman answered, “Sara da sara sach bol reyaan (I am telling the whole truth). Maybe, maybe not.”
There are a host of villains and supposed villains in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, ranging from a power-mad Big Jack Horner voiced by John Mulaney to a red-eyed, scythe-wielding wolf (Wagner Moura) who’s the literal personification of death. But as we see in one of the DreamWorks movie’s most affecting scenes, the feline hero’s real foe—the one he can’t tear down with even the sharpest of swords or claws—is his own anxiety.
Ever since the long-awaited sequel hit theaters in December, one of the most talked-about scenes is the one in which Puss has a panic attack. It comes after the caped kitty finds out he’s burned through eight of his nine lives and sets off on a quest to find the mythical Last Wish to (hopefully) restore them. In other words, the arrogant and fearless Puss in Boots is forced to confront his own impermanence. If it sounds like a lot for an animated movie to tackle, well, that’s kind of the point.
“It’s about him discovering mortality, but it’s also about him discovering vulnerability,” director Joel Crawford recently told The Daily Beast over Zoom. “He has this kind of immortal point of view; he’s like a superhero. And we really wanted to make sure he embraced his vulnerability. And that, I think, is best showcased in the scene where Puss in Boots has so much anxiety that it paralyzes him.”
The scene in question (which you can see above) finds Puss in Boots deep in the Dark Forest, terrified after spotting the Wolf (aka Death), who’s been relentlessly stalking him. Overcome with fear, he slumps against a tree while his vision gets blurry, his breathing gets heavier, and his pounding heartbeat drowns out every sound around him. That’s when his new pal, the adorably affable dog Perrito (voiced by Harvey Guillén), sees Puss suffering and silently lays his head down on the cat’s belly. After a few moments, Puss exhales, calmly pets Perrito, and is able to pick himself back up.
It’s a strikingly authentic depiction of a panic attack that the filmmakers achieved by collaborating through every step of the process, beginning with the script from Paul Fisher. His first draft, Crawford recalls, had more dialogue in the scene, but Crawford and his team agreed that it could and should be done with fewer words. Then the scene moved to storyboard artist Taylor Meacham, who had had a panic attack a few months prior and personally requested to storyboard the sequence so he could include intimate details like Puss’ blurred vision and racing heartbeat.
Next, it got to a team of four animators, including Prashanth Cavale, who recently shared a viral clip of the scene on Twitter and was the one who animated the moment when Perrito lays his head on Puss’ belly—a detail they reworked several times to achieve the right timing. In marrying visuals and sounds to convey the emotion needed, the process included cinematography—Chris Stover, head of layout, tapped into a shallow depth of field where even Puss’ nose was out of focus—to the sound department, which worked on fine-tuning Puss’ breathing.
“When Puss is in this state of panic, he can’t hear. All you can hear is his heartbeat and his shallow breath. We then match that with the visual of his vision getting blurred; he can’t see. To convey what was needed there, we used the one sense that Puss still had left. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, but he could feel and touch,” Crawford explains. “And it’s just such a beautiful moment when the dog, who has this pure heart, comes in and it’s instinctual. He just lays his head on the belly, and he’s not doing it because he thinks it’ll fix the situation. He just doesn’t know what to do, and he’s there for his friend. And that connection allows for Puss’ breathing to come down. So it was a constant reworking and finding those elements. But we’re so proud of how it turned out.”
The collaboration even extended to Antonio Banderas and his voice acting. According to Crawford, it was a scene that really hit home for the actor, who suffered a heart attack in 2017 that gave him a new outlook on life.
“Antonio was completely ready for this moment. From the very beginning, the first time we pitched where we were going to go in this movie to Antonio, he got really passionate about showing the world another side of Puss in Boots,” Crawford says. “We’ve only seen [Puss in Boots] as a fearless hero—he’s funny, he kind of stole the show in Shrek 2 when he was introduced. He, a lot of times, plays for comedy, or heroics. And Antonio was very honest with us about where he’s been in his personal life. Antonio had years ago experienced a heart attack, and that jarred him so much. And, really, [the feeling that] this experience of life is temporary, and to live in the moment and make the most of it was a personal agenda for Antonio.”
Not only were the sounds and visuals of the scene so crucial, but so was nailing the tone. This isn’t a scene that’s played up for laughs or ends with a punchline. Instead, Crawford and his team let the scene breathe—a refreshing yet risky decision for an animated movie with a tight runtime. The director recalls at one point having a conversation about whether or not Puss should rub Perrito’s belly in that moment, as a callback to an earlier, much sillier scene in which Perrito describes wanting to be a therapy dog who lifts his shirt up so people can rub his belly.
“It was making those choices to go, yeah, we’re going to depart from the expectation, especially in an animated movie, that we don’t play it for laughs,” Crawford says about “not watering down” the emotion. “We don’t literally connect it that [Perrito] got his belly rubbed. But he did so much more. He elevated himself to the situation, and did a natural thing. I have a dog myself, and you see the way dogs can just lay their head in your lap and look up at you. It’s pulling from real life.”
Surprisingly, the panic attack scene wasn’t included in one of the first internal screenings of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. According to Crawford, they added it back in after realizing it served an essential plot need; it would’ve felt contrived for Puss to take the big step of asking for help, like he does later in the movie, without a moment of putting him in a corner and forcing him to be vulnerable first. After he comes down from his panic attack, he’s able to open up to Perrito about how he’s on his last life and how he regrets the way he treated Kitty Softpaws (voiced by Salma Hayek) in the past. He lets his guard down by admitting aloud, “I am down to my last life and I am afraid,” and ultimately, he’s rewarded for it.
“It was important to us to make that believable. Sometimes when people need help, they’re not in a position to feel like they can ask, and that was the case with Puss in Boots,” Crawford says, adding that, like the Shrek films before it, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish leans into the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, “these cautionary tales that brought you into a dark forest, made you feel fear, but then brought you back out to the light, and in that contrast you can appreciate the brightness.”
That’s the panic attack scene in a nutshell, and it’s clearly struck a chord. In mid-January, clips of the scene started going viral on social media, with countless people praising the film—which has since been nominated for an Oscar—for its true-to-life portrayal of a panic attack.
“It’s not common to see an animated movie have scenes that are going viral that are deep and emotional, I’d say. You’re expecting comedic things, or action. So that was what was just so wonderful to see,” Crawford says.
“Because we make these movies to share a message, and I wholeheartedly believe in the message of this movie that our lives are special,” he adds. “And if we can allow ourselves to be real and really look at who we have in our life, and appreciate those people, it could be a ripple of positivity that makes the world a better place. For that positivity to be celebrated online is really special.”
A Memphis police report appears to contradict video released last week, which revealed that officers said they spoke with Tyre Nichols’ mother at the scene on the night he sustained fatal injuries at a traffic stop.
The encounter between city police and Nichols led to the firings of five officers who have also been charged with murder. Disciplinary actions have been taken against additional officers and three fire department employees.
All five were members of the department’s anti-crime unit, dubbed Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, or SCORPION for short. The unit has since been disbanded amid a storm of criticism and allegations of excessive force and questionable tactics.
Michael Scholl, a Memphis-based criminal defense attorney, said "Getting roughed up was the norm," during SCORPION arrests and that the unit had inadequate oversight.
TYRE NICHOLS VIDEO: MEMPHIS AUTHORITIES RELEASE FOOTAGE FROM DEADLY TRAFFIC STOP
Leaked incident report containing disputed details about the deadly Jan. 7 traffic stop involving Tyre Nichols, which led to murder charges against five Memphis police officers. (The Cussing Pastor/Facebook)
"I’ve had members of these units in court before," he told Fox News Digital. "It was a matter of time before this happened."
RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother, has said there is "no evidence to substantiate" the police claim that her son had initially been pulled over for reckless driving.
But a leaked incident report, first obtained by local radio host Thaddeus Matthews and posted online, alleges that she arrived on scene and told officers that her son "went out with friends" who "may have spiked his drink."
TYRE NICHOLS DEATH: MEMPHIS POLICE TO RELEASE MORE AUDIO AND VIDEO
A view from a camera mounted above the intersection where Memphis police caught up with Tyre Nichols, who died three days later. authorities released footage of the deadly encounter between Nichols and police Friday. (Memphis Police Department)
Shelby County authorities did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the document's authenticity, but District Attorney Steven Mulroy reportedly told the New York Times that his copy of the police report contained the same version of events.
WATCH: Bodycam footage shows officers standing over injured Tyre Nichols as he screams for his mother
The report accuses Nichols of resisting arrest, trying to grab an officer's gun and fighting detectives.
TYRE NICHOLS' FAMILY DISMISSES RUMOR IN MEMPHIS MAN'S BEATING DEATH AFTER POLICE STOP
Memphis officials released four videos Friday and announced they were disbanding SCORPION on Saturday. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who called the five officers' behavior "heinous, reckless and inhumane," had created the unit in 2021.
The videos show officers hitting him with pepper spray, stun guns, a baton and their fists and boots -- as their colleagues hold him down or from behind.
RowVaughn Wells and her husband Rodney Wells arrive for the funeral service for her son Tyre Nichols at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn., on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. (Andrew Nelles/Pool via Reuters)
None of the videos show any activity earlier than an officer responding to a stop in progress, backing up colleagues who are already struggling with Nichols at a red light when he arrives.
In some of the video, officers can be heard discussing his alleged driving, "swerving" and nearly hitting one of them, and claim that he reached for a gun from an officer’s belt.
Memphis police have released video showing a deadly Jan. 7 traffic stop that led to murder charges against four officers. (Memphis Police Department)
"The report being different from the video doesn’t surprise me," Scholl said. "That’s an effort to cover up the situation and make it look as though they were justified in doing these things."
TYRE NICHOLS DEATH: MEMPHIS POLICE 'PERMANENTLY DEACTIVATE' SCORPION UNIT
The special task force was assigned to high-crime areas of the city, where the department received the most 911 calls, he said.
"Further, police claim that my son left the scene on foot," Wells wrote in a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $1.3 million following her son’s death. "It turns out that he was just trying to get to my house for safety -- which was only a few blocks away from where the incident happened."
This photo provided by the Nichols family shows Tyre Nichols, who had a passion for photography and was described by friends as joyful and lovable. Nichols was just minutes from his home in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 7, 2023, when he was pulled over by police and fatally beaten. Five Memphis police officers have since been charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. (Courtesy of the Nichols family via AP)
In the videos, Nichols can be heard calling out to his mother before police beat him into a daze.
He was hospitalized with critical injuries and died three days later, according to authorities.
"He had never been in trouble with the law, not even a parking ticket," Wells wrote. "He was an honest man, a wonderful son, and kind to everyone. He was quirky and true to himself, and his loss will be felt nationally."
This combo of booking images provided by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office shows, from top row from left, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, bottom row from left, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. (Shelby County Sheriff's Office via AP)
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Tennessee court records reveal few police encounters prior to the Jan. 7 stop. He had a pair of traffic violations and was once late to pay a fine back in 2015. The charge was dismissed.
Five officers each face more than a half-dozen charges, including second-degree murder. They have been identified as Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills and Justin Smith.
Nichols was laid to rest at a funeral in Memphis Wednesday.
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