‘It’s about a small fish about four inches long that aggressively followed me and poked me while I was swimming in the Bahamas. It freaked me out’
The song is about a high-school trip to the Bahamas. I was swimming in clear water and there was a small fish – about four inches, not dangerous at all – that was aggressively following me and poking me. It kept doing it – it freaked me out. I was like: “I have to get away from this fucking crazy fish.”
Continue reading...Micheline Roquebrune says the late James Bond actor’s dementia ‘took its toll on him’
Sean Connery had dementia in his final months, his wife, Micheline Roquebrune, has revealed.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Roquebrune said: “He had dementia and it took its toll on him. He got his final wish to slip away without any fuss.”
Continue reading...Pirates of Caribbean actor had sued newspaper publisher for damage to his reputation
The Hollywood actor Johnny Depp has lost his high-stakes libel action in the London courts against the Sun after the newspaper described him as a “wife beater”.
The high court dismissed the claim by the Pirates of the Caribbean star for compensation at the end of one of the most widely followed libel trials of the century. His lawyers said he would most likely appeal against the “perverse and bewildering decision”.
Continue reading...Gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration are all tackled in quest for international audiences
Once Nollywood might have meant films that were low budget and high drama and aimed mostly at a west African audience. But Nigerian cinema has evolved and this year a slew of new film-makers are tackling grittier subjects – and winning international acclaim.
A roster of screenings at autumn’s Film Africa festival in London reveal directors unafraid to look at issues such as gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration.
Continue reading...Bookshop.org, which launched in the US earlier this year, has accelerated UK plans and goes online this week in partnership with more than 130 shops
It is being described as a “revolutionary moment in the history of bookselling”: a socially conscious alternative to Amazon that allows readers to buy books online while supporting their local independent bookseller. And after a hugely successful launch in the US, it is open in the UK from today.
Bookshop was dreamed up by the writer and co-founder of Literary Hub, Andy Hunter. It allows independent bookshops to create their own virtual shopfront on the site, with the stores receiving the full profit margin – 30% of the cover price – from each sale. All customer service and shipping are handled by Bookshop and its distributor partners, with titles offered at a small discount and delivered within two to three days.
Continue reading...President claimed Bond actor helped him get planning permission for Scottish resort
It was less licence to kill and more dramatic licence. Donald Trump’s claim that the late Sean Connery assisted him in getting planning applications passed in Scotland fell apart quickly on Sunday when the chair of the planning committee said the James Bond star was not involved.
In a series of tweets, two days prior to the US election, Trump paid tribute to Connery, saying he was “highly regarded and respected in Scotland and beyond”. It was announced on Saturday the James Bond actor had died aged 90.
Continue reading...Acquisition is one of the most valuable modern prints ever donated to the museum
An American flag artwork worth at least $1m (£770,000) and made by one of the world’s most celebrated living artists has been donated to the British Museum.
With just days to go before the US presidential election, the museum announced that an edition of Jasper Johns’s Flags I (1973) had been gifted to them by New York-based collectors Johanna and Leslie Garfield.
Continue reading...A British art historian’s painstaking study of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela uncovered a medieval prank
He is a medieval in-joke, a male figure carved in the early 12th century for one of the world’s greatest cathedrals, but no one has known of his existence until now. The figure has gone unnoticed by millions of worshippers who have made the long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, north-western Spain over the centuries. He has looked down on them from the top of one of the many pillars that soar upwards, each decorated with carved foliage, among which he is concealed.
Now he has been discovered by a British art scholar who believes that he was actually never meant to be seen because he is a self-portrait of a stonemason who worked on the cathedral in the 12th century.
Continue reading...Coup 53, which charts MI6’s role in the shah’s restoration, has been blocked by makers of an 1985 show, who say it sullies their names
Coup 53 was heralded by critics this summer as a “powerful and authoritative” documentary “as gripping as any thriller”, and judged by historians as crucial to understanding Britain’s relationship with the Middle East.
Made over 10 years by Walter Murch, the celebrated editor of Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, in collaboration with the Anglo-Iranian director Taghi Amirani, it tells the story of covert British intervention in Iran after the second world war and stars Ralph Fiennes, left, as an MI6 spy in a reconstruction of a key incident.
Continue reading...The Scottish actor enjoyed a long and varied career but will for ever be associated with the role of James Bond
Sean Connery, one of Britain’s greatest screen stars, has died at the age of 90. The Scottish actor, forever linked with the role of James Bond and regularly saluted as the best to play the famous part, was mourned by the entertainment industry and his many fans on Saturday as the news broke.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said she was “heartbroken” to learn of the loss of the actor, also one of the most prominent campaigners for an independent Scotland: “Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons. Sean was born into a working-class Edinburgh family and, through talent and sheer hard work, became an international film icon and one of the world’s most accomplished actors.”
Continue reading...Multiple award-winning Scottish actor best known for 007 role in seven spy films
Sean Connery, the Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of James Bond, has died aged 90. His son, Jason, said he had died peacefully in his sleep, having been “unwell for some time”.
He was admired by generations of film fans as the original and best 007, and went on to create a distinguished body of work in films such as The Man Who Would Be King, The Name of the Rose and The Untouchables.
Continue reading...Jeanise Jones, 62, was unaware she was participating in comedy film while mentoring Borat’s fictional daughter
Sacha Baron Cohen, who stars in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, has donated $100,000 (£77,000) to the church of a woman who was featured in his comedy film believing it was a real documentary.
Jeanise Jones, 62, thought she had been recruited by her place of worship, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, to mentor Tutar, Borat’s fictional daughter who came to the US with him from Kazakhstan. But Jones didn’t find out until the film was released on Amazon Prime last week that Tutar was an actor and the man believed to be her father, Borat, was actually Baron Cohen.
Continue reading...She doesn’t believe in a stiff upper lip, or pretending – unless it’s for work. The actor talks about her split with Tim Burton, friendship with Johnny Depp, and playing the Queen’s sister
Ding-dong, it’s the doorbell. And look who’s standing on my rain-sodden doorstep, it’s Helena Bonham Carter. In her stompy, clumpy boots and dark floral ruffled dress, curls piled on top of her head, she looks so exactly herself – which is to say, like a Victorian goth drawn in charcoal – that she could be an actor playing a character playing Helena Bonham Carter. Which, to a certain degree, she is.
“I love dressing up and creating myself, as it were, according to the day and the mood. But it’s an illusion, because then the Daily Mail photographs you, and you see it and think, that wasn’t what I meant at all,” she says as we walk into my kitchen and I compliment her outfit. Her fashion sense – invariably described as quirky (“God, quirky,” she says, as if repeating a doctor’s fatal diagnosis) – has made her a favourite of the paparazzi, and photos of her mooching around London in her distinctive outfits have been a staple of the tabloids for several decades. Does she ever think, “I’ll dress normcore today – that’ll throw off the paps”?
Continue reading...In time for Halloween, Guardian writers have picked out their favourite underseen scary movies, from Brazil’s first horror film to a found footage gem
Continue reading...In this extract from her essay collection Upturn, the actor considers the disruptions of the pandemic and the renewed fervour for social and economic justice
The other day I had to go into town for a dental appointment. I put on all sorts of lovely clothes as if I were going out to dinner and an opening night. The prospect of being out and about was both exhilarating and daunting. I so desperately wanted to be among people and in the city, but I’d also completely forgotten what an event was. The dentist did not seem surprised by my sartorial over-commitment – but then, I was not the first patient he had seen since lockdown.
As a person working in the arts sector, the lockdown was strangely familiar on one level – a lot of actors get stuck in a kind of limbo waiting for someone else to give them permission to do what they are good at. It was as if we were all waiting by the phone for our agent to call. It was also strangely unfamiliar because the community that holds us together, the audiences, as well as the changing of the shows and the new releases, were all put on hold too. The flow between us all was severely affected, and I was both heartened and horrified when it began to surface online. Heartened because the urge to express ourselves and the desire to communicate seems undaunted by anything. Horrified because the worst place to rehearse and perform is alone in the mirror, and sometimes the phone is just a mirror.
Continue reading...They’ve been told to stick to makeup. But for RuPaul queens Latrice Royale, Peppermint and Alaska, and the legendary Lady Bunny, channelling drag’s revolutionary spirit is a must in 2020
Drag and activism have always gone hand in hand. In June 1969, Marsha P Johnson, a Black drag performer reputedly threw the first brick in the Stonewall uprising in New York City; the violence that followed inspired LGBTQ+ people the world over to stand up to oppression and discrimination. Now, 51 years later, drag is more visible than ever, due in no small part to the multiple Emmy award-winning reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race. The show has given a powerful platform to a new generation of drag, trans and non-binary performers. And, whereas early activists often had to contend with police batons, water cannon and prison cells, these queens have more freedom to speak their minds.
“Drag has always been a stronghold against shitty politicians,” says Alaska, in her trademark vocal fry. The ferociously witty winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season 2 says her political role models include Act Up (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power), the movement that advocates to end Aids, and Elizabeth Taylor, one of the first Hollywood icons to speak up during the Aids crisis in the 1980s, who “wasn’t technically a drag queen, but she kind of was, right?”
“Act Up had this badass element and ‘enough is enough’ attitude. It was during the Reagan presidency and they were, like: ‘This man doesn’t see us, we have a crisis, people are dying – we’re burying all our friends and the president won’t even acknowledge it.’ They had to take really drastic measures because it was the only way to get through,” she says.
Alaska has also found an effective medium to get her point across. The bi-weekly podcast Race Chaser, which she co-hosts with fellow Drag Race contestant Willam, features Let’s Get Political, a segment in which the queens share crucial information about registering to vote and engaging with good causes, while making no secret of their personal sentiments. Alaska recently said, “An empty suit on a hanger in a closet would do less damage than the current person in the White House.” With 1.2 to 1.5m downloads a month, their platform is not to be sniffed at.
Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth will be released this year, with the 86-year-old author also planning fresh theatre work after ‘continuous writing’ in lockdown
Wole Soyinka has used his time in lockdown to write his first novel in almost 50 years.
The Nigerian playwright and poet, who became the first African to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, published his widely celebrated debut novel, The Interpreters, in 1965. His second and most recent novel, Season of Anomy, was released in 1973.
Continue reading...Manuscript including lives of the Irish saints and a translation of Marco Polo was captured during a siege of Kilbrittain Castle in the 1640s
A 15th-century medieval manuscript, one of the “great books of Ireland”, is returning home almost 400 years after it was captured in a siege.
The Book of Lismore, which has been donated to University College Cork by the trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, was compiled for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh, the Lord of Carbery from 1478 to 1505. It consists of 198 large vellum folios containing some of medieval Irish literature’s greatest masterpieces, including the lives of Irish saints, the only surviving Irish translation of the travels of Marco Polo, and the adventures of the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Finn MacCool.
Continue reading...Model and author thanks strangers for reaching out – and hits back at those who accused her of oversharing about pregnancy loss
A few weeks after Chrissy Teigen made her harrowing stillbirth public in candid social media posts, the model and author has shared an intimate testimony about her experience, including her decision to have photos taken from her hospital bed during the event and what the public response to them has meant to her.
In an essay published on Medium, Teigen detailed how she and her husband, the musician John Legend, lost their third child just over halfway into the pregnancy. Teigen was admitted to hospital after persistent bleeding and multiple blood transfusions, and diagnosed with partial placenta abruption. She was induced to give birth to the infant, whom they had named Jack.
Continue reading...The Kazakh American Association has released a letter on social media accusing Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest Borat film of ‘justifying harassment’
A group of Kazakh-Americans has demanded that Amazon withdraw Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sacha Baron Cohen’s new satirical comedy which – like its 2006 predecessor Borat – identifies Kazakhstan as the home country of its fictional journalist character Borat Sagdiyev.
In a letter published on social media shortly before the film’s official launch, addressed to three senior Amazon executives, the Kazakh American Association says that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm “may cause irreparable harm to to Kazakhstan’s national image and people as its comedic nature may justify ethnicity-based harassment”. It adds: “This film incites violence against a highly vulnerable and under-represented minority ethnic group.”
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