By Miranda Murray CANNES Independent film companies facing a market upended by the entry of streaming services are

Barbieheimer is dominating the world right now. After a record-breaking opening weekend for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, the idea of the two films colliding could potentially be a reality in the future. Barbie, which is said to have racked in $337 million (£293m) on the opening weekend, marks this year's biggest debut so far. And while the likes of Ben Shapiro wasn't a fan, Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy wants in on the action. Speaking to Cinéfilos, Cillian Murphy said, "Would I play a Ken in Barbie 2? Sure." The star continued: "Let's read the script and let's have a conversation." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "I can't wait to see it," he added about Barbie. "Can't wait to see the movie. I think it's great for cinema. You know, you've got all these great movies happening this summer." The two films performed so well, that Vue Cinemas reported their best weekend for UK cinema since Covid, selling out 4,000 viewings across the country for both films. Tim Richards, chief executive and founder of Vue International, said: "Vue saw its highest weekend admissions since Avengers: Endgame in 2019 with the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, proving that when the movies are there our customers will come to watch them on the big screen. "Barbie is tracking to become the biggest film of 2023 and has a good chance of getting into the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time. "It is an incredibly exciting moment for the industry, and we expect this trend to continue for the coming weeks." Odeon also shared that more than 200,000 advance tickets had been bought and more than 10,000 guests were expected to see both films during the opening weekend. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

If you’re anything like us, the first coffee of the day is the only thing that can get us up on a morning – and it turns out, there’s real science behind it. Everyone knows that coffee can give us a welcome caffeine hit, but it’s now been revealed that the drink also gives us an extra ‘special boost’ too. Scientists have claimed that the act of drinking a cup of joe gives the body a lift, making us more alert, which can’t be replicated merely with caffeine. In fact, new research shows that drinking hot coffee activates additional areas of the brain. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists from the University of Minho in Portugal and elsewhere looked into the effects of coffee outside of just caffeine content as part of a study – and they found that plain caffeine didn’t have the same impact. In fact, a cup of coffee also influenced working memory and goal-directed behaviour. “There is a common expectation that coffee increases alertness and psychomotor functioning. When you get to understand better the mechanisms underlying a biological phenomenon, you open pathways for exploring the factors that may modulate it and even the potential benefits of that mechanism,” study co-author Nuno Sousa explained. Experts said that drinking coffee actually increased the connectivity in the brain’s more advanced nerve network controlling vision, and other parts involved in working memory, cognitive control and goal-directed behaviour – something not found when participants only took caffeine. Researchers also said that if subjects wanted to not just feel alert but ready to go, caffeine alone might not do the job. “Acute coffee consumption decreased the functional connectivity between brain regions of the default mode network, a network that is associated with self-referential processes when participants are at rest,” study co-author Maria Picó-Pérez said. “The subjects were more ready for action and alert to external stimuli after having coffee,” she added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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