The Australian Open moved into its second week without a plethora of fancied women following the departures on Friday and Saturday of top-ten seeds Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Madison Keys, Karolína Plíšková, Elina Svitolina, and Belinda Bencic, and Caroline Wozniacki also said her goodbyes, retiring from the tour after her third-round loss to Ons Jabeur, but the men’s draw at least remained more or less intact. On Monday of the second week, fourth seed Daniil Medvedev joined Stefanos Tsitsipas, Matteo Berrettini, and Roberto Bautista Agut among the top-ten men left whimpering on the sidelines, as he was outfought in five sets by Stan Wawrinka, while another top seed in the women’s draw fell in the form of ninth-seed Kiki Bertens, beaten in straight sets by a resurgent Garbiñe Muguruza. Simona Halep and Dominic Thiem handily progressed to the quarter-final stage of the tournament, while Rafa Nadal managed his way past Nick Kyrgios in the featured bout of the fourth round.
Ons Jabeur had already made history, beating Wozniacki and then Serena Williams conqueror Wang Qiang to become the first Arab woman to make the quarter-finals of a major, but the semi-finals proved a step too far as she was defeated in straight sets by an impressive Sofia Kenin. Home favourite Ash Barty dispatched last year’s finalist Petra Kvitová in similar fashion, while Novak Djokovic made light work of a supposedly stern test in Milos Raonic, manhandling the big-serving Canadian over the course of three seamless sets. Roger Federer had already cut things close in the third round, with a last-gasp five-set victory over local hero John Millman, but in the quarters he pushed it further still, saving seven match points before finally ousting Tennys Sandgren. Halep and Muguruza strolled towards their semi-final matchup, but in two surprising results on the men’s side of the draw, youth prevailed as Alexander Zverev beat Wawrinka to reach his first Grand Slam semi-final, while Dominic Thiem proved more capable on the hard courts as in four sets – thanks to three tie-breaks – he avenged successive French Open final losses to Nadal.
Two close-fought semi-finals on the women’s side saw Muguruza and Kenin triumph over slight favourites Halep and Barty, the departure of the world number one ending Australian interest in the draw. Meanwhile Djokovic stormed past Federer and Thiem edged past Zverev in four sets. Muguruza then was the firm favourite heading into the women’s final: despite injuries, coaching splits, and mixed form reducing her to a low of 36 in the rankings, leaving her just outside of the seeds heading into the tournament, the two-time Grand Slam winner still had experience to fall back on while this was Kenin’s first major final, and in fact the first time in a Grand Slam that the 21-year-old had progressed beyond the fourth round. Still in keeping with the nature of the tournament, despite an ominous first set, Kenin rebounded to surge past Muguruza 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 and claim her maiden major. In the process she became the youngest Australian Open champion since Maria Sharapova back in 2008. It was a more familiar story in the men’s final, where Thiem showed real promise until the midway point of the fourth set. Then an at times disgruntled Djokovic took over despite the deficit, winning an astonishing and record-stretching eighth Australian Open title 6-4, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
* * *
An increasingly sprawling Sundance Film Festival continued this week from the hills and slopes of Utah, the largest festival of independent filmmaking in the United States coming to a close on Sunday after ten long nights and hectic movie-fuelled days. The opening days of the festival had been dominated by documentary features, including Miss Americana, an ostensibly intimate chronicling of several years in the life of Taylor Swift, the four-part Hillary Clinton documentary Hillary, and The Dissident, a searing investigation into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, as the festival continues to warily embrace streaming services. More controversial still was On the Record, a documentary by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering which tells the story of the women who have accused music mogul Russell Simmons of sexual assault. The film’s makers and subjects received multiple standing ovations as it premiered last Saturday at Sundance, and they also faced some tough questions following the recent withdrawal of executive producer Oprah Winfrey, whose departure – citing creative differences and ‘inconsistencies’ – also severed the movie’s ties with distributor Apple TV+.
Among the big-name dramas on show at Sundance were The Glorias, a biopic of the writer and activist Gloria Steinem which stars Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander at different stages of Steinem’s life, with Janelle Monáe, Timothy Hutton, Lorraine Toussaint, and Bette Midler among the supporting cast; The Father starring Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins, as playwright Florian Zeller adapts his story about dementia and family grief; and the Netflix thriller The Last Thing He Wanted starring Ben Affleck and Anne Hathaway, by Mudbound director Dee Rees. One of the most enticing films on display was by Miranda July, with Kajillionaire, the director’s first feature in nine years, starring Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, and Debra Winger as a family of criminals who tangle with a stranger, played by Gina Rodriguez, on their latest job. The boutique studio A24 boasted two films in the form of Minari, directed by Lee Isaac Chung about a Korean-American family moving to Arkansas in the 1980s, and Zola, a collaboration between Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris which takes its story from a viral Twitter thread about a Hooters waitress and a two-day Florida road trip.
There was horror in the form of Romola Garai’s directorial debut Amulet, Impetigore from Indonesian icon Joko Anwar, and La Llorona from Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante, comedy courtesy of Annie Clark and Carrie Brownstein’s mock-documentary The Nowhere Inn and Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s ski slope odyssey Downhill, and topical concerns as The Assistant starring Julia Garner dealt with workplace harassment, Never Rarely Sometimes Always by Eliza Hittman with teenage abortion, and Farewell Amor by Ekwa Msangi with Angolan immigrants who struggle to reconnect. There were curios too in Horse Girl, a film starring Alison Brie about mental illness which is soon to debut on Netflix, and Charm City Kings which delves into dirt-bike culture in Baltimore and features a fresh cast including Meek Mill. Meanwhile acclaimed experimental director Josephine Decker shone with her first all-star cast in Shirley, which stars Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg as the author Shirley Jackson and her professor husband Stanley Edgar Hyman.
After all the films had screened and the stars had done descending on Utah, on Sunday the big awards at Sundance went to Minari, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, and Boys State, which follows a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas as they attempt to form a representative government, and took home the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition. Both prizes in the Next programme for emerging talent went to Heidi Ewing’s I Carry You With Me, about a Mexican chef who seeks to cross the border for the sake of his career and his son after his sexuality becomes public. Directing honours went to Radha Blank and Maïmouna Doucouré, and Special Jury Prizes were claimed by Charm City Kings for best ensemble cast, and by Shirley for auteur filmmaking. Big deals were struck for Alan Ball’s comedy Uncle Frank, David Bruckner’s horror The Night House, and for Blank’s The 40-Year-Old Version, which went to Amazon, Searchlight Pictures, and Netflix respectively, but perhaps the biggest winner of all was the Andy Samberg comedy Palm Springs, which sold for a record-setting $17,500,000.69 to Neon and Hulu.
* * *
World Athletics, formerly the IAAF, announced this week that the 2020 World Indoor Championships have been postponed for twelve months due to the coronavirus. The championships were due to be held in Nanjing from 13-15 March. China continues to be rocked by the coronavirus, a viral respiratory disease which was identified in the city of Wuhan towards the end of December and manifests as fever, coughing, and shortness of breath with complications including pneumonia and in some cases death. By Sunday, 14,411 cases of the disease had been confirmed in China, with 146 additional infections spread across twenty-three countries worldwide. On Sunday the first death outside of mainland China was confirmed in the Philippines, as a 44-year-old man from Wuhan died in a hospital in Manila, while health experts warned of a potential pandemic.
In a statement World Athletics said that it had taken the decision to postpone the championships following advice from its medical team, adding that to relocate the event amid concerns over the spread of the virus would only risk further postponement at a later date. Instead, World Athletics hopes to reschedule the championships for Nanjing sometime early next year. The World Indoor Championships in athletics have taken place biennially since 2004, when successive meets in Birmingham and Budapest changed the schedule so that the event would fall outside of outdoor championship seasons. The last world indoor championships were held in Birmingham in 2018, with Christian Coleman, Kevin Mayer, Murielle Ahouré, Keni Harrison, and Genzebe Dibaba among the winners.
* * *
The 73rd British Academy Film Awards were held on Sunday from the Royal Albert Hall in London, a quaint and queer crossbreed of the awards season which attempts to pay tribute to British film while still positing itself as a major international player. The latest iteration courted controversy after failing to nominate a single female director in the Best Film and Best Director categories, nor a solitary actor of colour among the twenty acting nominees, prompting the British Academy of Film and Television to announce a review of its voting system.
There were few surprises on the night itself, as the industry reverted to type and the ceremony plumped for Sam Mendes and his First World War drama 1917 in the categories of Best Film, Outstanding British Film, and Best Director. The familiar quartet of Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Renée Zellweger (Judy), Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and Laura Dern (Marriage Story) held firm for the acting awards, while Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite picked up Best Original Screenplay as well as Best Film Not in the English Language, an award surely ripe for redefinition. Television presenter Graham Norton hosted the ceremony, and Brad Pitt and Cynthia Erivo were among the notable absentees, as Prince William took the stage to bemoan the lack of diversity and Joaquin Phoenix used the platform provided by his victory to call out ‘systemic racism’ in the film industry.
* * *
It was Super Bowl Sunday, as football fans steeled and steadied themselves and ordered in the chicken wings ready for the climax of the NFL season and the most-watched annual television broadcast in the United States. San Franciscans freed from the rolling hills and encompassing tech bubble and weary denizens of Kansas City out of town for the first time in fifty years headed to the sun-kissed and palm-strewn streets of Miami, Florida and the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens for Super Bowl LIV. Unusually close to call, the game pitted the steely defence and dynamic running game of the San Francisco 49ers against the all-out offensive capabilities of the Kansas City Chiefs, as Kyle Shanahan, Jimmy Garoppolo, George Kittle, and Nick Bosa faced off against Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and a trio of speedsters in Sammy Watkins, Damien Williams, and Tyreek Hill. After a 13-3 season, the 49ers dominated the Minnesota Vikings in the divisional playoffs before running wild over the Green Bay Packers to claim the NFC Championship, as running back Raheem Mostert recorded 220 yards and four touchdowns. The Chiefs had a tougher run to the Super Bowl, going 12-4 in the regular season and having to come back twice in the playoffs to secure big victories over their AFC rivals the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans, inspired by the hot hands and fleet feet of quarterback Mahomes.
The first half of Super Bowl LIV was a back-and-forth affair that finished all square at 10-10. A strong opening drive which showcased the talents of wide receiver Deebo Samuel looked ominous for the Chiefs, but the 49ers had to settle for a field goal. The Chiefs responded with a big drive of their own, with a couple of scrambles from Mahomes and a conversion on 4th down culminating in the first touchdown of the game. When the Chiefs got their defensive act together and pressed Garoppolo into throwing an interception, it looked like the Chiefs were in the driving seat, but a field goal allowed San Francisco to come back before the end of the half as Kyle Juszczyk dove for a fifteen-yard touchdown, and there was even time for another drive that brought the 49ers within field goal range before play was returned owing to a pass interference call on Kittle.
The halftime show starring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira almost made the football players look sluggish and out of shape as the duo, clad in Versace and tens of thousands of Swarovski crystals, engaged in a steamy yet decidedly crowd-pleasing celebration of Latin culture. An ode both to the diversity of Miami and to their Puerto Rican and Colombian-Lebanese roots, they ran through a medley of hit songs from ‘She Wolf’, ‘Empire’, and ‘Chantaje’ to ‘Ojos Así’, ‘Whenever, Wherever’, and ‘Hips Don’t Lie’, from ‘Jenny from the Block’, ‘Get Right’, and ‘Waiting for Tonight’ to ‘Booty’, ‘El Anillo’, and ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’, with snippets from Lopez’s daughter and an all-girl choir, and of ‘Kashmir’ and ‘Born in the U.S.A.’, as Bad Bunny and J Balvin provided a dash of reggaeton and a modicum of festivity albeit in the manner of a couple of inflatable tube dancers or underdressed sharks. Shakira brought the rock as she opened with a swaggering performance that climaxed in crowd surfing and zaghrouta, a tongue-flicking Arabic expression of joy, while Lopez writhed and rolled on a strip pole, a nod to the success of the movie Hustlers, before fronting the choir in double-pronged gesture of empowerment. For the final flourish, Shakira and Lopez came together for ‘Waka Waka’ and some salsa and swing, kissing off with words of thanks to the audience.
The San Francisco 49ers took control in the third quarter with a field goal and a touchdown run from Mostert, as Mahomes lagged marginally behind his wide receivers when they did manage to get loose and wound up throwing a couple of interceptions. With little more than nine minutes left in the game, the 49ers led the Chiefs 20-10. Then the Chiefs went on a tear, as urged on by Mahomes they scored three touchdowns inside six minutes. Big plays from Hill and Watkins, a touchdown reception by Kelce, and the powerful running of Williams put the Chiefs into an unassailable 20-31 lead, as the 49ers struggled to move the football, inexplicably transitioning away from their familiar running pattern. So the Kansas City Chiefs claimed their first Super Bowl in half a century, with Mahomes subsequently named the Super Bowl MVP, and popular head coach Andy Reid finally claiming a ring of his own after a long career including more than a decade in charge of the Philadelphia Eagles. As the NFL heads into the offseason, for Chiefs fans the celebrations commence.
