Alan Parker, director of Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone, dies aged 76

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Admin

Director who first made his mark in the 1970s and had later hits including Fame and The Commitments, became the chair of the UK Film Council

•Peter Bradshaw on Alan Parker: a maker of glorious films with a gift for connecting with audiences
•A life in pictures

Alan Parker, the British director behind a string of hits including Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, and The Commitments, has died aged 76.

The news was announced by a representative, who said he had died on Friday “after a lengthy illness”.

Booker prize-longlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga arrested in Zimbabwe

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Admin

Author of This Mournable Body detained as part of sweeping crackdown by security agencies

Tsitsi Dangarembga, the award-winning Zimbabwean novelist who was nominated for the Booker prize longlist earlier this week, was arrested on Friday amid a sweeping crackdown by security agencies ahead of planned anti-corruption demonstrations.

Hundreds of police and soldiers remained on the streets of Harare, the capital, and others cities late into the evening, ordering inhabitants to go home and stay indoors.

Oprah Winfrey honors Breonna Taylor with September magazine cover

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Admin

First time magazine will not feature Winfrey on cover
Taylor, 26, was shot dead by police in own home in March

A portrait of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician shot dead by police in her own home earlier this year, will appear on the cover of the latest issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

It is the first time in the magazine’s 20-year history that the cover will not feature the magazine’s namesake: Oprah Winfrey.

Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to become members-only hotel

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Admin

Celebrity hangout will allow select group to own shares in ‘world’s best real estate’

The Chateau Marmont, a Hollywood hotspot and hangout for nearly a century, will be converted into a members-only hotel over the next year.

The owner, André Balazs, confirmed his plans to turn the 91-year-old building into a hotel at which a select group of members could buy into “a piece of a portfolio of the best real estate in the world”, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Seth Rogen: ‘I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel’

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Admin

Actor says when he was younger he wasn’t told Palestinians lived on land that became the Jewish state

Seth Rogen has said he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” as a young Jewish person, stoking controversy around the country’s sometimes fraught relationship with many North American Jews.

The Canadian-US actor, who attended Jewish camp and whose parents met on a kibbutz in Israel, said the fact that the Jewish state was created on land where Palestinians were living had always been omitted.

Again Once Again review – elegant meditation on the pains of motherhood

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Admin

This engaging, philosophical film unpicks the challenges faced by a young mother trying to reconnect with the life she had before her son’s birth

A woman leaves her boyfriend to visit her mum in Buenos Aires, taking their three-year-old son with her – not sure yet if it’s a holiday or a breakup. She hasn’t worked since her son was born and is having an emotional and intellectual crisis. She feels almost non-existent. “I don’t see myself. Who am I?”

This is an elegant, elusive debut from the Argentinian playwright Romina Paula, who picks away at the fantasy that motherhood leads to instant fulfilment. Her film is like an arthouse version of the sitcoms Motherland and Catastrophe, with fewer laughs and more philosophical introspection. It has the feel of a feminist essay that has been semi-dramatised for screen – with Paula starring as a fictional version of herself and her real-life mum and son Ramón playing themselves.

Emmys 2020: Watchmen and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel lead nominations

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Admin

The acclaimed HBO graphic novel adaptation leads the pack with 26 nominations, with the Amazon period comedy following behind

HBO’s acclaimed graphic novel adaptation Watchmen leads this year’s Emmy nominations with 26 nods.

‘Egregious’ distancing violations at Hamptons charity concert – Cuomo

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Admin

New York governor says event featuring Goldman Sachs CEO and Chainsmokers breached Covid-19 rules

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New York health authorities are to investigate a charity concert in the Hamptons, which included performances by the Goldman Sachs chief David Solomon and DJ duo the Chainsmokers, over “egregious” social distancing violations.

The drive-in event, Safe & Sound, had space for about 600 cars and was held in Southampton village on Saturday. It was the first in a series of such concerts planned for the US, according to the organisers’ website.

Mrs America’s Uzo Aduba: ‘It’s worth examining the shortcomings of our feminist heroes’

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Admin

She stole the show in Orange Is the New Black. Now the actor is playing the first black woman to seek the US presidency – and rejecting suggestions she gets a ‘Hollywood smile’

Shirley Chisholm was a woman of many firsts. She was the first black woman elected to Congress, the first black candidate to seek the presidency, and the first woman, full-stop, to participate in a US presidential debate. She introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, most championing racial, economic and gender equality, and is often credited as paving the way for Barack Obama. In doing so, she occupied a space that many black women recognise: the solitary seat as the only such face at the table.

Uzo Aduba, who plays Chisholm in the acclaimed new FX series Mrs America, says that this was a key factor in bringing this formidable politician to life. “That feeling of being the ‘only’,” she says, speaking via Zoom with a warm smile on her face. “It was important to get that right.”

Olivia de Havilland: Hollywood’s queen of radiant calm | Peter Bradshaw

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Admin

The Gone With the Wind star, known for her lifelong feud with her sister as much as the bewitching brilliance of her acting, and the last link to Hollywood’s golden age

Olivia de Havilland established herself for ever in the film world’s collective memory at the age of 22, as the wise, gentle and beautiful Melanie Hamilton in the colossal epic Gone With the Wind. The film appeared in 1939 as war was breaking out in Europe: the mighty theme of old orders being swept away was especially potent. De Havilland was an exemplar of radiant womanly calmness, a polar opposite to the capricious sexiness of Vivien Leigh’s bewitching belle Scarlett O’Hara. The role probably encumbered her with something stately and reserved, which she never entirely lost – though with a hint of mystery and suppressed emotional tumult, on screen and off. Because, however sedate her image, De Havilland was the subject of two of the juiciest scandals of Hollywood’s golden age: her relationship with longtime co-star Errol Flynn, and her lifelong feud with her sister and rival Joan Fontaine.

Olivia de Havilland, star of Gone with the Wind, dies at 104

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Admin

Double Oscar-winning actor, who won acclaim for multiple Hollywood costume dramas before moving to Paris, has died

Olivia de Havilland, the fragrant queen of the Hollywood costume drama, has died at the age of 104.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, her publicist said she had died from natural causes in Paris, where she lived.

‘It’s a ghost town’: tourism crisis hits British cities from Edinburgh to Bath

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Admin

The effects of coronavirus on both international and domestic visitor numbers have left former hotspots fearing for the future

On a typical July day, restaurateur Paul Wedgwood would see hundreds of people with wheelie suitcases – airline tags still attached – walking past the window of his restaurant on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. This Thursday, he has seen just two. “We would normally look outside and you wouldn’t be able to see any tarmac – now it’s bare,” he said. “It’s just a ghost town.”

Like other British cities which usually attract high numbers of international tourists throughout the summer, Edinburgh is quiet, and businesses are suffering. August’s festival had already been cancelled when news came last week that December’s Hogmanay party will not go ahead as usual.

Peter Green: Fleetwood Mac co-founder dies aged 73

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Admin

Green co-founded band with Mick Fleetwood in 1967 and was behind a string of hits

Tributes have been paid to Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green after he died “peacefully in his sleep” aged 73.

A statement from Swan Turton solicitors, acting on behalf of his family, said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Peter Green announce his death this weekend, peacefully in his sleep. A further statement will be provided in the coming days.”

Police investigate grime artist Wiley’s antisemitic tweets

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Admin

Rapper temporarily banned from Twitter and dropped by management firm after tirade

Police are investigating after the grime artist Wiley posted a tirade of antisemitic comments on Twitter and Instagram.

The musician has been dropped by his management company and temporarily banned from posting on Twitter after a series of social media posts were made on accounts belonging to him on Friday and Saturday.

Erdoğan leads first prayers at Hagia Sophia museum reverted to mosque

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Admin

Turkish president recites Qur’an at monument as Greece declares day of mourning

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has led worshippers in the first prayers in Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia since his controversial declaration that the monument, which over the centuries has served as a cathedral, mosque and museum, would be turned back into a Muslim house of worship.

The Turkish leader and an entourage of senior ministers arrived for the service in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district on Friday afternoon, kneeling on new turquoise carpets while sail-like curtains covered the original Byzantine mosaics of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

Mel Gibson was hospitalised with coronavirus in April

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Admin

The actor spent a week in a Los Angeles hospital after contracting the illness and was treated with the drug Remdesivir

The actor Mel Gibson spent a week in hospital after contracting coronavirus earlier this year, his representatives have confirmed. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph Australia, the spokesperson said: “He tested positive in April and spent a week in the hospital. He was treated with the drug Remdesivir, while in the hospital, and has tested negative numerous times since then as well as positive for the antibodies.”

News of the hospitalisation of Gibson, 64, emerges a month after the actor fought back against allegations of anti-semitism and homophobia by Winona Ryder. A representative for Gibson denied the allegations and accused Ryder of lying “about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and lying about it now”.

The Rifleman review – Latvian war epic aims high

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Admin

This trench-warfare tale is its country’s biggest box-office success, but it is guilty of some bad misfires

The Rifleman is the top-grossing film of all time at the Latvian box office and if you had to guess at the kind of film that would inspire such nationwide enthusiasm, you’d guess it was something like this: a lavishly mounted, lion-hearted first world war epic based on a book banned by the Soviets for 60 years.

Oto Brantevics stars as Arturs, a 16-year-old who signs up in 1915 to fight the Germans, alongside his brother Edgars (Raimonds Celms) and father Vanags (Martins Vilsons). Both Arturs and his dad are outside the required age range for the army, but rules are bent on account of the father’s exceptional marksmanship. Thus, three men of the same family set off to war, fighting sometimes for the Tsar, sometimes for the Red Army – but always, really, for each other.

Elton John’s ex-wife tells court she changed identity to shed ties to singer

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Admin

Renate Blauel claims damages as high as £3m for breach of privacy after the release of Rocketman

Sir Elton John’s ex-wife Renate Blauel adopted a new identity and went into hiding in a British village in an attempt to shed her connection to the singer, according to court filings in her multimillion pound legal case against the songwriter.

Blauel is seeking substantial damages from John, which could be as high as £3m, claiming he has caused her deep psychological distress by repeatedly breaching a 1988 divorce agreement to not discuss their marriage.

Kim Kardashian requests compassion for Kanye West’s bipolar disorder

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Admin

The rapper’s recent string of erratic tweets prompted his wife to comment on his mental health for the first time

Kim Kardashian West has spoken for the first time about her husband Kanye West’s bipolar disorder after he posted and deleted a string of erratic tweets regarding his family life after the launch of his presidential campaign in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday.

“Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories.

Roundup Newswires

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Category Archives: Culture

Alan Parker, director of Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone, dies aged 76

Booker prize-longlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga arrested in Zimbabwe

Oprah Winfrey honors Breonna Taylor with September magazine cover

Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to become members-only hotel

Seth Rogen: ‘I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel’

Again Once Again review – elegant meditation on the pains of motherhood

Emmys 2020: Watchmen and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel lead nominations

‘Egregious’ distancing violations at Hamptons charity concert – Cuomo

Mrs America’s Uzo Aduba: ‘It’s worth examining the shortcomings of our feminist heroes’

Olivia de Havilland: Hollywood’s queen of radiant calm | Peter Bradshaw

Olivia de Havilland, star of Gone with the Wind, dies at 104

‘It’s a ghost town’: tourism crisis hits British cities from Edinburgh to Bath

Peter Green: Fleetwood Mac co-founder dies aged 73

Police investigate grime artist Wiley’s antisemitic tweets

Erdoğan leads first prayers at Hagia Sophia museum reverted to mosque

Mel Gibson was hospitalised with coronavirus in April

The Rifleman review – Latvian war epic aims high

Elton John’s ex-wife tells court she changed identity to shed ties to singer

Kim Kardashian requests compassion for Kanye West’s bipolar disorder