The superhero genre is wildly powerful, and and it requires actors to do some intense training and fight choreography. Fans who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order have seen this play out, including Hugh Jackman's tenure as Wolverine in the X-Men movies and beyond. While Jackman gets ripped to play Logan, it turns out that he's worked for months to pul off one part of his Radio City show.

While fans are wondering when the actor might return as Wolverine in upcoming Marvel movies, Jackman has been keeping busy with this residency at Radio City Music Hall. While promoting the show in a clip from The View, he revealed the wild amount of time it took for him to be prepared for a jump roping number. As he put it:

Talk about a commitment. Entire movies are filmed during this time, so it's pretty crazy that Jackman has spent that much time working on just one aspect of his Radio City Show. Luckily for him, he's also burning a ton of calories by doing this specific form of exercise. So on top of rehearsing the show, it's also keeping him in superhero shape for whenever Wolverine returns to the MCU. In the meantime, fans can re-watch his performances with a Disney+ subscription.

Jackman is a star of the stage and screen, both of which have showcased his musical talent and penchant for dance. The Radio City show allows him to keep flexing those muscles, without having to commit to eight shows a week like in The Music Man. And I have to assume that his new boo Sutton Foster was there to support him during performances.

Of course, musical theater nerds will know that jump roping as been used on the stage before. Specifically in the musical version of Legally Blonde, which open its second act with the jump roping musical number "Whipped Into Shape." I'msure that this came up at some point when Jackman was preparing.

As perviously mentioned, audiences are eager to see him once again play Logan on the big screen. Deadpool & Wolverine was a record-breaking success, so his return alongside Ryan Reynolds feels like an inevitability at this point.

It's currently unclear when Jackman will return to the MCU, but fans are hoping it might be in Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars. For now, the actor has a number of upcoming projects coming as part of the 2025 movie release list and beyond.

Let’s just admit what we’re all hearing. Bianca Belair is getting booed. It feels harsh to say that so directly about a superstar that’ll go down as one of the greatest women in the history of wrestling, but we need to say it out loud so we can get on the same page and talk out what to do about it. She’s getting booed. It’s now happened with multiple crowds, and unless something changes, it’s just going to continue through WrestleMania 41. Despite being a babyface, WWE fans have decided she’s the villain of the triple threat, and I’d be outraged if it wasn’t so obvious it was going to happen the entire time.

Look: popularity in wrestling is always relative. You can be a super over performer, but if you’re less over than the person you’re working with, you might find yourself in a position to get booed. The crowd can only root for one person, and this Bianca Belair thing is a perfect example of that. Put her in the ring with just about anyone on the roster, and when she fires up, it sounds like the Ultimate Warrior when he would shake the ropes. Unfortunately, she’s been paired with the two specific women on the roster currently more over than her. We’ve got Rhea Ripley, arguably the most popular woman in the history of the wrestling business, and Iyo Sky, probably the best in-ring worker and most loveable underdog in the entire division.

So, in essence, WWE has taken its third most popular woman (sorry, Liv, Jade, Tiffy and Charlotte) and put her in a program with the first and second most popular women. Even worse, on paper, all three of them are babyfaces; so, it’s not like Gunther or John Cena where you can support their brilliance by directly booing them. In theory, all three of Bianca, Rhea and Iyo want cheers. So, WWE has essentially left it up to the crowd to decide.

That choice was never going to go well for Bianca, but the actual beats of the story somehow make it even worse . We could spend 30 minutes going over every detail, but the basic idea here is that Rhea and Bianca see each other as the threats, while Iyo, the actual champion, is seen by the two of them as an inconsequential annoyance. That means we’re getting a lot of segments that involve Rhea and Bianca arguing and Iyo getting pushed out of the way, making her seem like an even more sympathetic underdog, thus making it even more likely fans will cheer for her.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, who cares? Every major star in the history of the wrestling business has been booed at some point. Hulk Hogan quite literally got pelted with trash by fans during his infamous nWo heel turn, but that was the reaction he wanted. In the storyline, he was supposed to get booed. You could say the same thing about John Cena right now or Bret Hart after his Hall of Fame match with Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13.

No, the booing itself isn’t the problem. It’s that she’s being presented as a babyface while getting booed. That makes her appear weak and like she’s less than Rhea and Iyo. That’s the part that’s a big problem, and that’s the part that makes me question what the plan was here to begin with. You always want your top performers to be in control of the crowd and of the reaction they’re getting, and right now, Bianca seems very out of control.

To me, the obvious option here is for Bianca to lean into the boos, and in fairness to Triple H, Bruce Prichard and the rest of the creative staff, maybe that’s been the plan all along. Maybe Bianca will proactively turn on the crowd and dress them down for not supporting her. Or maybe she’ll win at WrestleMania via underhanded/ cheaty tactics and then lean into the boos, which will be even louder after that. If this is where everything is going, then please carry on and stick with the plan. An unscrupulous Bianca willing to do anything to win, who is furious at the fans for supporting Rhea and Iyo instead of her, is a character I desperately want to see. That could be an all-timer.

But I’m just not confident WWE is planning to go there. Bianca Belair has been a straight up babyface and presented as wholesomely as possible for years. It’s like she’s taken the jorts from John Cena, as the person little kids are meant to root for. We all thought she might turn heel during the Jade Cargill injury storyline, and yet, it was Naomi who turned out to be the perpetrator. Instead, she’s back to playing the same character she always has, and while that character works, it’s just not as over as Rhea or Iyo, nor was it as over as Asuka at WrestleMania 39 when she got some boos too.

There are some subtle signs WWE may want Rhea Ripley to be the one to turn heel. She taunted Bianca at ringside and was the first one to act like Iyo doesn’t deserve to be in the match. Her mannerisms and behaviors have definitely been a bit colder the last few weeks, but if WWE wants fans to boo her and cheer Bianca, they need to actually turn her heel. She needs to attack Iyo or beat up someone sympathetic backstage like Maxxine Dupri. She needs to do everything but literally ask the audience to boo her, otherwise they are just going to keep cheering for her, given her overall popularity.

I love Bianca Belair. She’s one of my favorite performers on the entire roster, and I was absolutely stoked to see how fantastic she was in her segments with Naomi and Jade after Elimination Chamber. It was the best character work of her entire career, and I thought the next step in her evolution. Unfortunately, she was pulled away from that program and pushed into this feud with Rhea and Iyo, and just a few weeks later, she’s losing momentum as the fans are making it clear they don’t like her as much as the other two. If those boos are going to be used as cannon fodder to build something new and exciting for her character, I’m all for it. Boo away. But if she’s just going to pretend like they’re not happening and keep coasting along as a babyface, then I can’t help but feel like the writers really let her down. I can’t help but feel like this is all WWE’s fault since it was so obvious from the beginning.

Amelia Dimoldenberg answered many fans' prayers with the appearance of Paul Mescal on her popular Chicken Shop Date web series. As well as discussing the subjectivity of romance and alluding to those rumors that he runs away from his one night stands, in a game of "Shag, Marry, Avoid" (perhaps more familiarly known as "F--k, Marry, Kill" to non-Brits), Mescal chose to 'avoid' TV, opting to 'shag' movies and 'marry' theater.

This Chicken Shop Date moment left me dismayed, because there is one role that remains his best role – or at least my favorite of his work anyway. And it just so happens to be a TV show. Normal People.

One of my fellow CinemaBlend writers Jessica Tisdale deemed Aftersun Paul Mescal’s best role in our round-up of his work, but the Charlotte Wells movie doesn’t sit as highly in my book. 

Aftersun may have earned Mescal his first nod from the Oscars, but it's not his best performance. There, I said it.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me saying Aftersun is a bad movie. It’s not. I liked it. But I’ve watched almost everything else Paul Mescal has been in since his rise to fame with the Covid-phenomenon that was Normal People, and I will die on this hill that his embodiment of Connell Waldron from the Sally Rooney bestseller remains his most stunning role to date. 

Why? Because I think as Connell Paul Mescal put himself on the map as a male actor that embodies the vulnerability bursting at the seams and threatening society’s idea of masculinity, and it still holds up as one of his most sweeping and beautiful roles nearly four years on.

I Think Paul Mescal Is Wrong About His TV Impact, And  It Comes Down To Male Mental Health Awareness

The character of Connell is incredibly multifaceted in its vast encapsulation of the human experience, while happening in the comparatively narrow window of a young man aged 16 to 21. 

While there is clearly something of a theme in the roles Mescal portrays – dubbed “the sexy, sad genre” by Dimoldenberg during his Chicken Shop Date – even as his first role, I think his performance in Normal People highlights all the key themes and emotions he’s gone on to convey and earned critical acclaim for in his other work. Apart from, perhaps, the antagonistic Stanley in his theater run of A Streetcar Named Desire in London’s West End (the very role that’s bagged him a place on the cast list of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2).

Take Aftersun for instance. Charlotte Wells’ directorial debut sees Mescal portray Calum, the young father of Sophie (Frankie Corio) on holiday in Turkey and on the cusp of his 31st birthday. Amongst the themes of coming-of-age and father-daughter relationships, Mescal’s character spins a weighty battle with mental illness, Aftersun's ambiguous ending alluding to Calum’s eventual suicide. 

This is an undeniably powerful and moving depiction of mental health, but I found we went on even more of a journey with Connell in Normal People, initially moulded by the expectations of his peers and his small Irish-town upbringing, ultimately following him through periods of depression, anxiety, and loneliness as he battles with his sense of self and transitioning from high school to university. 

The scene in Episode 10 of Normal People, in which Connell attends counselling, following the suicide of his school friend Rob, is particularly poignant. He sits opposite Noma Dumezweni, who portrays Gillian, his therapist, working through the loss of Rob and the ways in which they did and didn’t click at school and yet ultimately accepted each other. 

Mescal’s performance is incredibly raw, offering up an image of a 21st century man able to openly cry and examine his feelings and relationships. This, in contrast to the character’s earlier inability to communicate with love interest Marianne (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) shows real change in his emotional maturity. 

It's An Honest Portrayal of a Teenager By A Twenty-Something I'll Never Get Over

It happens in a lot of TV shows and movies about teenagers – the actors are usually a good 5-10 years removed from experiencing that period in their lives. And, where that isn’t the case, the acting isn’t always, dare I say it, that… good. While Paul Mescal would’ve been around 24 when Normal People came out, his characterisation of a 16-year-old Connell turned back the years, so convincing that you’d barely guess at the eight year gap. Barely.

We see teenaged Connell wrestle with the desire to simply fit in and avoid the ridicule of his mates. While a bit of a wallflower, he’s also incredibly popular, so to like or in any way be associated with the uncool, decidedly oddball Marianne Sheridan is a no-go. He chooses, then, to keep their budding relationship a secret, coming to blows with his own mother and ultimately burns Marianne one too many times, with his failure to invite her as his date to “the debs” (a formal ball for high schoolers in Ireland) being the final straw.

In Episode 3 he learns the hard truth that his mates had always known something was going on between the two of them and that they wouldn’t have cared if he admitted to liking Marianne. By this point, though, it’s too late, and Connell has already pushed her away to the point of not attending the final weeks of school or answering any of his texts or phone calls.

The episode ends with Connell leaving Marianne an answerphone message while drunk and sobbing, desperately missing her.

Again, Mescal’s performance is unmatched. He manages to convey the crippling anxiety of trying to get through the most gruelling years of adolescence unscathed, as well as the inability we often have at that age to find the language to speak up for what we want and believe in for fear of being bullied, or simply wording it all wrong. This is something that comes up multiple times for Connell’s character and that Mescal hones in on in his portrayal of Connell’s hesitant disposition.

The Authenticity And Awkwardness Of Connell And Marianne’s Early Relationship Completely Moved Me

I can’t talk about how good Paul is as Connell without talking about his relationship with Marianne, and how Paul and Daisy conveyed this together. I mean, it’s literally the entirety of the book and its plot, seeing two characters wrestle with miscommunication and near-misses over the years, from teenagers to young adults in their early twenties. 

Simplified like that, it’s perhaps the most frustrating sell for a plot ever. Why can’t these two people who are clearly meant to be together just adequately express themselves and live happily ever after? Well, because that’s just not how life works, is it?

What is true to life, though, is Normal People’s portrayal of those early, yet life-altering, romantic relationships we experience. They are enrapturing, and Paul and Daisy’s chemistry spits and cracks off the screen.

What charms me the most about their performance, though, is the way they navigate Connell and Marianne’s physical intimacy, from the first kiss to the much-talked about sex scenes. 

Far from the perfectly tossed and quaffed hair, porno-worthy grunts and moans, and synchronized ease of Hollywood, there is much more, well, giggling. The nervous kind. There is the questioning of “Is this okay?” and the accompanying reassurances. There is – shock horror – birth control chat. And, you know what? It’s still sexy even with all those often perceived faux-pas. It is sincere and relatable and that carries throughout the show’s run, adding to and remaining true to Sally Rooney’s original text.

Admittedly, I also adored the chemistry between Paul and Andrew Scott in his latest triumph All of Us Strangers, with another ending that was completely gut wrenching and may very well give Aftersun a run for its money (an opinion piece for another day). But… but, but, but! It’s just nothing like the attachment I have to Normal People.

Much like Paul Mescal has a preference for acting in movies and on the stage, I have a preference for watching TV shows over films. It makes sense when you consider I’m also a fan of a chunky book, allowing me to spend prolonged amounts of time with the same characters so that they grow acutely familiar to me. So perhaps that plays into why I think Normal People is his best role.

While Mescal didn’t clarify his reasoning for why he chose to 'avoid' TV during his Chicken Shop Date appearance, one would suspect it comes down to the kinds of creative projects he’d put his name in the ring for. Arguably film and theater are deemed more superior art forms than TV. But still. Justice for Normal People.

These days every major studio has its own streaming service. There are also services dedicated to different genres of film or indie films, or just about any other specialty you could probably go looking for. However, since most of these services cost money one has to make decisions about which ones they want and which ones they want to let go.

Price is certainly a determining factor for a lot of people. This makes the new Disney Plus offer of $1.99 a month for three months, likely very attractive to a lot of people. But for me, Disney Plus is a great value at just about any price. It is by far my favorite of the various streaming services. It’s the one that I always look at first when trying to decide what I want to watch. Here’s why I won't be getting rid of my Disney Plus subscription anytime soon.

It’s Got The Best Menu System 

First off, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of a streaming service, the user interface. Every streaming service has thousands of available titles and being able to find what you're looking for, or even just be aware of what a given streaming service has available, has always been a challenge, but Disney Plus makes it about as easy as it can be.

Whereas a streamer like Netflix has to divide up content by genre, like “science fiction movies” or “Western TV shows” Disney first starts out with its five brand pillars, Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and Nat Geo. Whether you’re searching for something specific or just looking around this helps you focus your search so much better than more general topics that could lead you anywhere.

Even when I know what it is I want to watch, when using a TV remote, it’s usually faster to select the Marvel tab and then scroll through to find the MCU movie I want than it would be to enter a few letters in the search menu. And if you do go to the search menu, the first thing you’ll see is a bunch of different Collections, which divide up the titles into pretty specific groups, like a single Marvel character or all content related to Disney Princesses, which also makes navigating to what you need easy. 

A Wide Variety Of Disney Plus Originals 

One of the big ways that any streaming service attempts to woo subscribers is through original content, the stuff that can’t be found anywhere else. And Disney Plus has two of the biggest reasons to subscribe by virtue of the fact that it makes original series for both Marvel and Star Wars and to be sure, I love most of those shows, like the creative and unique WandaVision to the brand-new Ahsoka, as much as anybody, but there’s a lot more to enjoy.

As a lover of Disney’s theme parks, I have rewatched The Imagineering Story and episodes of Behind the Attraction multiple times. American Born Chinese was something very different for me that I may not have given a chance if it had appeared on a different streaming service. The documentary Howard, about the life of Howard Ashman, is something every Disney fan should watch. 

Lots Of Classic Content, Not Just The New Stuff 

Brand new original series are great, but The Walt Disney Company is 100 years old as of 2023, and that means they’ve been making cartoons, movies, and television for a really long time. I have been the first to argue in the past that I wish Disney Plus had even more of its classic content on the service, but the fact is it still has a lot more than a lot of other streaming platforms that seem to forget movies were made before 1975.

On September 5 Disney Plus added Trolly Troubles, a remastered version of the first official Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, 96 years after its original release, making it the oldest piece of Disney content on Disney Plus. Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, has been there since day one of course. Alongside them, you can watch old episodes of the original Mickey Mouse Club and a few episodes of the Disneyland series and its follow-up, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, featuring appearances by Walt himself.   

While we all have a tendency to focus our attention on modern movies and TV, the older stuff has a charm all of its own. And looking back at some of Disney's old stuff gives you a fresh appreciation for the new. It allows you to really follow the history of Disney as a studio. It's as much an education in filmmaking as any of the equally impressive documentaries on Disney Plus. 

Disney Plus Is The Best Comfort Viewing 

Between the old and the new, there is plenty of stuff on Disney Plus you probably haven’t seen, but let’s face it, what makes Disney Plus special is having access to all the stuff you haven’t just seen, but you know by heart. If you’re old enough to read this, chances are there is at least one Disney movie that you’ve grown up with or one of three Star Wars trilogies that particularly resonates with you. And it’s all there for you to watch, whenever you like.

Sometimes you don’t want to watch something new. Sometimes you want to curl up on the couch with some popcorn and watch that movie you’ve seen 100 times already. Maybe that movie is The Princess Bride, The Princess Diaries, or The Princess and the Frog, but either way, Disney Plus is where you go to find it. It has everything we all grew up with, a lot of which our kids will now grow up with and it will become comfort viewing for them as well.

Disney Plus doesn’t have “everything.” Even under the Disney banner, there’s a lot that will hopefully still be added one day, but the existing library has some of the absolute best TV and movies, from the major franchises that everybody is talking about, to the smaller, forgotten projects, and everything in between.