A film about sisterhood with fifty- and sixtysomething female leads is something to cheer – but would it have been made if its stars had aged like mere mortals since the 1998 original?

Would Hollywood have brought Practical Magic back from the dead if the intervening 28 years looked more visible on Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman? An awkward question, as it risks subjecting their faces to the invasive scrutiny older female actors already endure. Their return as leads in their late 50s and early 60s should count as progress. Yet it reveals a condition of female stardom: age can increase a female actor’s nostalgic value, provided it does not show too clearly on her face.

In Practical Magic 2, Bullock, 62, and Kidman, 59, return as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens. Dianne Wiest, 78, and Stockard Channing, 82, are back too. Joey King and Maisie Williams play Sally’s adult daughters, but Sally and Gillian remain central.

A nostalgia-bait return to the witchy 90s comedy is as strange and messy as the first but there are warm seasonal pleasures to be had

Much has changed in the universe, cosmic and otherwise, since the Owens witches last graced the big screen with their practical magic of sleeping draughts, midnight margaritas and generational love curses. For one, movies like the 1998 cult-ish classic Practical Magic – a compellingly bizarre mashup of genres, aspirational 90s fashion and sisterly affection starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in their movie-star primes as lovelorn sorceresses in Puritan-lite Massachusetts – largely stopped reaching theaters. For another, nostalgia cycles only intensified and tightened, our algorithms clogged with unsolicited sequels and dupes for Bullock’s impeccable vintage 90s Levi’s.

Which makes Practical Magic 2, reuniting both Kidman and Bullock, and Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as their lovingly eccentric aunts, somewhat of an anomaly, at once a seeming inevitability and, as a matrilineal romance comedy (though decidedly not a romcom) starring two 60-year-old women, an oddity. There’s no circumventing nostalgia bait, but Practical Magic remains so idiosyncratic in tone and, well, kookiness, that a sequel somewhat appeals.

Old favourites Shaun the Sheep, Dune, Jane Austen and Godzilla join Charles de Gaulle, the Peasants’ Revolt and queer identity in Spain

• See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here
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All release dates are UK and subject to change

Willem Dafoe is typically grizzled and poetic for this study of a near-retirement postal worker who, it turns out, was a beatnik rhymester of cachet – but no lasting renown – back in the day, and who has now been rediscovered by a new generation of literary hipsters. Director Kent Jones, adapting a novella by Arthur “La Ronde” Schnitzler, was the longtime head of the New York film festival; he might be in for a spot of late fame himself. AP
• 4 September

Cute, egoless canines offer a break from a world that feels dominated by ‘nepo babies’ and ‘Maga lady aesthetic’

What do Nicole Kidman, a pair of “nepo babies” and a beagle called Sansa Martínez Berlingeri have in common? They all appear on the covers of the all-important September issues of Vogue and Dogue. But the winner of the unofficial battle of the covers? The one with the keenest sense of smell and a penchant for playing with socks.

The September covers of British Vogue and Vogue US have come under intense scrutiny after their recent release, while their canine counterpoint, Dogue, has been almost unanimously celebrated.

Nicole Kidman geht spontan tanzen. Danger Dan singt über die Angst vor der Erblindung. Und Sebastian Fitzek hängt zu viel am Handy.

Actor, 59, reflects on high-profile marriages in Vogue interview, saying she felt ‘deeply vulnerable’ after split from Urban

Nicole Kidman has opened up about her divorce from Keith Urban and reflected on her marriage to Tom Cruise, saying she was warned being his wife would overshadow her career.

In a new interview with Vogue, the 59-year-old actor spoke about going through two divorces under intense media scrutiny: with Cruise, who she married in 1990 and divorced in 2001, and musician Urban, who she married in 2006.

Preceding a long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s supernatural suburban romance gets a big-screen rerelease. With its romcom quirk, buttery cinematography and stabs of black comedy, it remains a zany gem

With a sequel shortly to make an appearance – Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest (but not Evan Rachel Wood) all reprising their roles – the original Practical Magic from 1998 is now getting a rerelease. This is Griffin Dunne’s smalltown supernatural goof-fest, adapted from a bestseller by Alice Hoffman; the sequel is based on her own follow-up, The Book of Magic. A zanier adventure in occult romance can hardly be imagined, and the elements of grown up noir violence only make it weirder – it is as if The Witches of Eastwick took on something of Thelma & Louise with a decaffeinated David Lynch. Meanwhile, cinematographer Andrew Dunn bathes the daytime scenes in a golden, buttery light.

In a suburban American anytown, buttoned-up residents and frowning soccer moms are disapprovingly obsessed with the fact that the local Owens family womenfolk are witches. There is an amusing “prelude” scene showing a Salem-style public hanging of one of their ancestors; a stark stab of black comedy. In the present day, the Owens sisters Sally and Gillian, played by Bullock and Kidman, are intensely aware of their magical inheritance, as personified by naughty maiden aunts Frances and Bridget, played by Channing and Wiest.

Stagehands poured Coca-Cola on the floor, Ewan McGregor waved his lightsaber, and people did unspeakable things with the film’s Oscars at the post-awards-ceremony party. Director Baz Luhrmann, Jim Broadbent and more recall filming the record-breaking movie

Moulin Rouge! was a whirlwind of a film, an extravagant assault on the senses that reinvigorated the musical. The doomed love affair between Satine (Nicole Kidman), a glamorous cabaret star and courtesan, and Christian (Ewan McGregor), an impoverished English poet, in turn-of-the-century Paris plays out in feverish song-and-dance numbers made up of medleys of iconic pop songs.

By the time it was released in 2001, the Australian director Baz Luhrmann had already perfected his signature style with Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet – a blend of frantic editing, over-the-top visuals and contemporary music. Moulin Rouge! – the final film in his Red Curtain trilogy – took this up a notch.

Die diesjährige Met Gala mit den Sponsoren Jeff Bezos und Lauren Sánchez Bezos war die umstrittenste aller Zeiten. Der große Boykott blieb aus. Oder rebellierten viele Stars etwa, indem sie das Motto ignorierten?

Event chairs Nicole Kidman, Beyoncé, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour have guests dress to the theme ‘Fashion is art’ at the event controversially funded by new honorary chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos

Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams co-chair annual New York event alongside Anna Wintour; Bezos sponsorship has sparked criticism

• Why the Bezos-backed Met Gala is so controversial

Chloe Malle has been working at Vogue for 15 years, but tonight is her first as head of editorial content. Earlier this week she described her style as if “Katharine Hepburn was a librarian”. We’re sure the late actor would approve of this pretty egg-yolk dress with its delicate cap sleeves.

And we have our first actual art reference – from Lauren Sánchez Bezos no less. Her dress – by Schiaparelli designer Daniel Roseberry – is a homage to Madame X, the John Singer Sargent painting of socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau from 1884. Causing a scandal at the time for its raunchy nature because the original had one of the straps slipping off, Roseberry and Sánchez Bezos missed a trick there. A real art snob version of the dress would include this detail.

Die finnische Violinistin Elina Vähälä rettet ihr Instrument mit einer Ninja-Aktion, Nicole Kidman büffelt CIA-Begriffe, und Cristiano Ronaldo setzt auf die Kraft des schwarzen Kaffees.

Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film, which secured Kidman an Oscar for her depiction of Virginia Woolf, is a groundbreaking depiction of queer sexuality across the 20th century

Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Hours – inspired by Virginia Woolf’s seminal 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway – imagines one day in the lives of three women separated across time periods. The triptych follows Woolf in the throes of writing Mrs Dalloway; Laura Brown, a depressed housewife who is reading Woolf’s novel in postwar America; and Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker who acts as a contemporary embodiment of Woolf’s titular character.

Cunningham’s 1998 text, though widely acclaimed, was initially deemed unadaptable due to its nonlinear structure and stream-of-consciousness approach that paid homage to Woolf’s pioneering style. However, since its publication, The Hours (which takes its name from Mrs Dalloway’s working title), has been reinterpreted as an opera and, most notably, a 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry.

The Kissing Booth’s Joey King and Game Of Thrones’ Maisie Williams star alongside the original cast members as the next generation of the cursed Owens family

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The midnight margaritas are officially back on the menu. Within 24 hours of its debut, the first official teaser for Practical Magic 2 has surged into the Google Trends top 10, attracting millions of views and signalling an enthusiastic appetite for the return of the Owens family and all things witchy.

Academy Award winners Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman will return as sisters Sally and Gillian, with Kidman sharing a video of her and her fellow star on set last year, captioned: “The witches are back”.

Australian actor says the death of her mother in 2024 inspired the new direction

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Nicole Kidman has revealed her next role: death doula.

The Australian actor revealed she is now training to be a death doula – professionals who provide emotional, physical and psychological support to the dying – while speaking at the University of San Francisco.

Die Schauspielerin möchte Menschen bei ihren letzten Atemzügen begleiten, Dieter Bohlen kann sich ein weiteres Kind vorstellen, und Max Giesinger hat sich den Finger beim Kuhstreicheln gebrochen.

Ex-Bayern-Profi Zé Roberto hat eine späte Erklärung für schlechte Leistungen, Nicole Kidman findet Falafel-Atem zum Davonlaufen, und ein türkischer Pferdebesitzer findet seine Stute in einem Eintopf wieder.

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis – who exec produced this adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s novels – have terrific chemistry. But this trashy drama is just weird

Scarpetta has been a rather long time in the making. Demi Moore was attached to the role of Patricia Cornwell’s crack forensic pathologist in the 90s, as was Angelina Jolie in the 00s. In a recent interview, the author said she had even approached Jodie Foster and Helen Mirren along the way. Now it has finally come to our screens, thanks in part to Jamie Lee Curtis, who is both an executive producer and one of its stars, with Nicole Kidman in the title role, continuing her run as TV’s hardest-working A-lister. What a shame, then, after such a long wait, that it is so dire: a boilerplate mess that insists on stripping the original work for parts and putting a cynical techy spin on proceedings to boot.

There are – for no good reason, really – two timelines in the series. In the present, Kidman plays Virginia’s chief medical officer Kay Scarpetta – a little icy, professional but prone to overstepping, haunted by secrets from the past. She is called to a crime scene where a woman’s naked body – sans hands – has been bound together with rope. We flash back to the 90s, where young Scarpetta (Rosy McEwen) is on the trail of a similar killer, who leaves a strange, glittery residue on his victims. Initially, at least, it seems as though this could be an interesting proposition, despite all the to-ing and fro-ing between past and present, which wasn’t part of Cornwell’s original novel. The idea that Scarpetta and her colleague and brother-in-law Pete Marino (played by Bobby Cannavale) may have got the wrong man in the 90s – when DNA evidence was still in its infancy – could have been the basis for a smart whodunnit. Instead, we get a sluggish procedural that barely bothers to build tension. Moments of gore come out of left field; major revelations in the case come to Scarpetta as sudden, deus ex machina revelations; and the dead women are mere plot fodder in a way that feels positively retro and grubby. The tone is strange – sometimes it’s The Silence of the Lambs, sometimes Diagnosis: Murder.

Shirin David befindet sich nicht in Lifestyle-Teilzeit. Rihannas Wohnhaus in Los Angeles wurde beschossen. Und Cathy Hummels hat ihrer neugeborenen Nichte einiges zu sagen.

The next entry in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their favourite comfort films is a journey back to 1998 with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman

The VHS of Practical Magic was kept at the back of the cabinet, where the not-quite-child-appropriate films lived. The cover transfixed me: the ethereal faces of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, surrounded by burning candles. At eight years old, I was instantly drawn to something I didn’t yet understand. One day, I’d be ready.

Despite opening at No 1 at the US box office, Practical Magic failed to recoup its budget and was dismissed as tonally confused. Variety called it “part comedy, part family drama, part romance, part special-effects mystery-adventure … a hodgepodge”.