The Musicians (Les Musiciens) is a 2025 French comedy-drama directed by Grégory Magne. It follows a wealthy heiress who unites four virtuosos to play priceless Stradivarius instruments in the Champagne region to honor her late father. The musicians clash until they bring in the reclusive composer to save the performance.
Musicians, The
The enchanting new comedy of manners from acclaimed writer/director Grégory Magne (Perfumes), THE MUSICIANS stars Valérie Donzelli as a wealthy heiress whose plan to stage a landmark concert is derailed by the clashing egos of the virtuosos recruited for the performance.
Astrid Thompson (Donzelli) is determined to honour her late industrialist father’s final wish: unite four priceless Stradivarius-stringed instruments for the premiere recital of a new composition by his favourite artist, to be live-streamed for music lovers globally. With just six days to rehearse, a quartet is assembled, but the dream quickly unravels: the musicians, blinded by their differences, are seemingly incapable of working together. With the deadline fast approaching, Astrid tries to coax the reclusive composer of the score, Charlie Beaumont (Frédéric Pierrot), out from creative seclusion in the desperate hope of salvaging the event.
French language, English subtitles.
An impromptu jam is the best scene in “The Musicians,” an offhand, fireside performance of a classic American folk lament made famous by Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Robert Plant and Allison Krause, Nirvana and Lead Belly.
“In the Pines” is a tune every “musician” should and would know, plucked and bowed and sung with geniune soul here by musicians who know “classical music” didn’t end with Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.
Forget Flock. Now The Cameras Can Read Your Pockets Too.
The Leonardo Patent That Turns Your Devices Into a Location Fingerprint and Forecasts Where You’ll Go Next – The patent is US 12,236,780 B2, “Systems and Methods for Electronic Signature Tracking and Analysis.” It was granted on February 25, 2025, to Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions — the American arm of Leonardo, the Italian defense conglomerate.
It is the second patent in a family behind a product called ELSAG SignalTrace. And the specification describes, in the company’s own filing, two striking capabilities. The first: once the system has watched you a few times, it no longer needs the camera. In the patent’s words, it “will be able to detect the likely presence of a vehicle and its associated license plate without visual information, e.g., without the use of a camera.”
The license-plate reader is the training wheel. Once the model learns you, the reader can come off. The second is the one that moves this out of surveillance and into something closer to prophecy. The system, the patent says, “allows an investigator to forecast the presence of a violation type, vehicle, or group of vehicles across time and location.” Not where you were. Where you will be. Nobody reported this patent. The story that ran last month — and it was a good one — was about the first patent, and the product it powers. This is the part that came after…
Here is what that brochure says, in Leonardo’s own words. SignalTrace builds what it calls a “unique, trackable ‘electronic fingerprint’” from the devices you carry. Its list of “Tracked Device Types” is not vague. It names key cards. Wearables — “watches, fitness trackers.” Wireless headphones. Your car’s tire-pressure sensors and infotainment system. And, in a detail that reads like satire until you sit with it, your pet’s microchip…”
See also Proton – Forget Flock. Now The Cameras Can Read Your Pockets Too. A defence contractor called Leonardo has decided that reading your plate is no longer enough. Their new system, ELSAG SignalTrace, reads everything else you’re carrying. You drive past a sensor, and it doesn’t just photograph the car.
Instead, it grabs the wireless signals leaking out of every device inside it: your phone, your smartwatch, your earbuds, your fitness tracker, the car’s own Bluetooth, tyre pressure sensors, the key fob, and in some cases, even your pet’s microchip.
Then it ties all of that to your numberplate and stores these data for later. It is, as far as branding goes, refreshingly honest. The product page’s own subheading is “Identify Suspects by the Electronic Devices They Use.”…he system works because almost every device you own is shouting a more-or-less stable identifier into the air whether you asked it to or not.
As we have covered partially in a video before, these come in the form of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi requests, RFID, and the radios baked into your car. SignalTrace doesn’t have to break into any of it; it’s not hacking anything, just listening and storing…”
The Brand Ledger
Worse on Purpose: Tracking the brands that got worse on purpose — and the ones that didn’t. The Brand Ledger tracks 215 brands across tools, bags, apparel, eyewear, and footwear. Who owns them, what they used to be, whether they’re still worth buying. Updated as things change.
Search the Brand Ledger