Actor and producer Jing Wang acquitted of sexually assaulting woman at the Shangri-La hotel in 2018
A Chinese movie star and producer have been found not guilty of raping a woman inside a Sydney hotel room, ending the near two-year legal saga.
Actor Yunxiang Gao and producer Jing Wang were on Thursday found not guilty of a raft of charges and cleared of sexually assaulting the woman inside the Shangri-La Hotel in the early hours of 27 March 2018.
Continue reading...Judge rules against jury verdict in case over song Dark Horse, which had previously been found in favour of rapper Marcus Gray
Katy Perry has won an appeal in a copyright case involving damages of $2.8m (£2.3m).
In July 2014, Perry was accused of plagiarising the song Joyful Noise by a Christian rapper named Marcus Gray (AKA Flame), for her US No 1 hit Dark Horse, which was the second biggest-selling song worldwide that year. The songwriters sued, with Perry and her team defending themselves by saying they had never heard Joyful Noise.
Continue reading...Kay Rufai’s portraits of smiling black boys from south London came out of an initiative that investigated the lack of mental health provisions for black teenagers. The photographs will be on display at Brixton Village
Continue reading...On the day after 54 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Ireland, deserted streets and shuttered pubs stripped of cheers, speeches and marching bands marked a St Patrick’s day like no other.
Continue reading...Fifty London theatres and 250 throughout UK to close, says industry body
All major British theatre will cease and several cultural institutions will close or postpone shows as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the UK’s arts and culture sector grows following the government’s call for “drastic action” to halt its spread.
The Society of London Theatre (Solt) and UK Theatre, the industry body that represents nearly every British theatre, announced that, as of Monday night, all its members would close their doors. The groups represent about 50 London theatres and almost 250 others throughout the UK.
Continue reading...Disney chief says animated film will provide ‘fun and joy during challenging period’ while company halts production on live-action movies
Walt Disney will fast-track the release of the Frozen sequel to its streaming platform in a bid to spark “fun and joy” during the coronavirus outbreak, while at the same time joining US streaming giant Netflix in shutting down some of its productions.
The company said on Friday that Frozen 2 would be available on its digital streaming platform Disney+ from Sunday in the US, three months earlier than scheduled. The film, released in cinemas last year, is the sequel to its 2013 animated blockbuster.
Continue reading...In a new exhibition, Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager goes back to the late 70s to explore the highs and lows of the celebrity-packed hotspot
Ian Schrager has seen many things in his life, but nothing quite like this. The 73-year-old Studio 54 co-founder is freaking out on the phone.
“It’s funny after 40 years! Forty years!” he exclaims. “Doing an exhibition on Studio 54? In a world-class museum? I don’t think anyone would have believed that – but they were too busy dancing.”
Continue reading...Now postponed because of coronavirus, A Quiet Place 2 explores a world untethered by fear. Its star discusses parenthood, in film and real life, and her terror of doing SNL
Emily Blunt and her husband, John Krasinski, devised a rigorous self-care regime when the pair were making A Quiet Place, 2017’s harrowing self-isolation horror hit. “I always say that Macallan 12 sponsored A Quiet Place,” says Blunt. “John and I would just go home and drink a lot of whisky every night. And that sort of continued on A Quiet Place 2.”
You, too, might need a tumbler of scotch while watching the film. Blunt describes it as a “runaway train that grips you by the neck”, which is half-right. It also takes that neck and lays it on the tracks before running over it repeatedly. “I realised what an investment people had in this family from the first film,” says Blunt. “Everyone asked: ‘What happens next?’”
Continue reading...Shareholder owed £2.5m wants administrators brought in at firm now chaired by Lord Grade
Unexplained personal and business loans to the Duchess of York of more than £500,000 from an entertainment investment company were a “matter for investigation,” a high court judge has been told.
Gate Ventures loaned Sarah Ferguson at least £287,577 personally, and loaned £232,003 to Ginger & Moss, her upmarket tea, dinnerware and jewellery venture, court documents showed.
Continue reading...Kate Beckinsale claims disgraced movie mogul was enraged when she wore white suit rather than ‘tight dress’ to New York premiere shortly after 9/11
Kate Beckinsale has described an obscenity-filled rant by Harvey Weinstein in which he allegedly called her “stupid fucking cunt” after he objected to her choice of outfit for a film premiere in 2001.
In a post on social media, Beckinsale outlined events after a screening for the romcom Serendipity, in which she starred opposite John Cusack. She said Weinstein insisted on holding the premiere only a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, calling it “the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible”. Beckinsale said Weinstein had arranged for her to visit his home with her two-year-old daughter, and then launched a tirade at her when they were alone.
Continue reading...Themed around the Doomsday Clock, writers Anna Weiner, Daniel Lavery, Bruce Pascoe and Leslie Jamison will also be appearing
The 2019 Booker prizewinner, Bernardine Evaristo, Three Women author Lisa Taddeo and essayist Leslie Jamison are among the Sydney Writers festival lineup, which was announced on Thursday evening.
Joshua Wong – a student activist who played a pivotal role in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong – will be appearing via video link. The program also features Uncanny Valley author Anna Weiner; The Blazing World and Memories of the Future author Siri Hustvedt; Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe; and Australian actor Yael Stone.
Continue reading...From Agatha Christie to Gillian Flynn, readers love an untraceable method or a villain who wins. Author Peter Swanson says there are eight examples of the perfect murder
Is there such a thing as a perfect murder? In real life, the answer is probably yes, though how would we know about it? Perfection demands that the murder be unsolvable, maybe even unrecorded – a victim disappearing off the face of the earth, a body never found, a killer never caught. In our world of forensic science and DNA evidence, the perfect murder must be as rare as a reclusive celebrity.
But we have fiction, and this is where we find an abundance of perfect murder attempts. I say attempts because the allure of most detective fiction hinges on the existence of an investigator – a Holmes, a Poirot, a Lisbeth Salander – who is smarter than the smartest of criminals. The perfect murder – like a perfect sonnet or a perfect roast chicken – is an ideal that can be approached but never entirely reached. Detectives, and storytelling tradition, get in the way.
When I set out to write a book in which a bookseller publishes a blog about his favourite fictional murders, only to find out that someone else is using the list as a blueprint for real crimes, I knew that part of the process of writing was going to be a whole lot of reading. So I set out to find a definitive list of perfect crimes and came up with a final tally of eight (or rather, my narrator Malcolm Kershaw did).
Christie's use of thallium as a fatal poison in The Pale Horse caused a brief uptick in the toxin’s presence in real-life crime
Continue reading...Centre for the Moving Image proposes 11-floor building with screens, learning spaces and auditorium
The organisation behind the Edinburgh film festival has submitted a planning application for a £50m film centre that would be the first of its kind in the UK.
The Centre for the Moving Image has proposed an accessible and environmentally sustainable 11-floor building that it says would be a focal point for Edinburgh’s film community.
Continue reading...Defense team pleads for minimum sentence after Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on one woman and raping another
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers have petitioned the judge who presided over his trial and rape conviction in a New York court to sentence him to the minimum of five years in prison, controversially citing the fallen producer’s “remarkable accomplishments”.
The disgraced mogul’s defense team, led by Donna Rotunno, are pleading for the very lightest possible sentence. Judge James Burke will reconvene at the New York supreme court at 9.30am on Wednesday to hand down his sentence, which could be as severe as 29 years in prison.
Continue reading...Singer says senator is the ‘Real Deal’ who offers the big changes needed to beat Trump
Neil Young has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president, saying the Vermont senator is “the real deal” to win the Democratic nomination.
Writing on his personal website, the 74-year-old folk singer said that Sanders’ policies on climate change, student debt, healthcare and the minimum wage were the “big changes” required to beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Continue reading...As an artist and a celebrity, Warhol changed the world. But what really went on behind those shades? Ahead of Tate’s epic show, our writer unleashes his inner Andy
I am in agony. I’m sitting at home wearing a Breton top and a pair of shades, my hair freshly bleached, my belly swollen and sore. Perhaps that’s because I have just eaten five tins of Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup. Why would anyone do that? Well, I’m trying to live like Andy Warhol, the pop artist who died in the 1980s but is still a household name. And it’s not going smoothly.
Like the cafes of Paris or the skyscrapers of New York, Warhol is is so omnipresent in popular culture, the average person could probably draw a good likeness of him, despite knowing little about him. It’s the same with his work. Every framed tin of Campbell’s soup or colour-saturated portrait of Marilyn Monroe screams Warhol. And most people are familiar with his most famous quote: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Continue reading...Media companies linked to institute that also claims Leonardo da Vinci, Cervantes and Columbus were Catalan
The Catalan government had paid €3m (£2.6m) in subsidies to media companies with close links to a body that claims that Shakespeare, Cervantes and Columbus – among others – were Catalan.
The figures were revealed in a parliamentary answer given by Pere Aragonès, the Catalan vice-president, who said the money had been paid since 2012 to two media companies owned by Albert Codinas, the joint founder and current president of the New History Institute (INH) – one of which shares an address with it.
Continue reading...The veteran actor, best known for his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, as well as roles in Star Wars and Hannah and Her Sisters, has died
•Peter Bradshaw on Max von Sydow: an aristocrat of cinema who made me weep
•A life in pictures
Max von Sydow, the Swedish actor who made his name in a series of landmark films with Ingmar Bergman before progressing to international stardom, has died in France. He was 90.
Related: Max von Sydow: god of gravitas
Continue reading...A petition is calling on the site to prevent non-consensual videos being posted – and highlights the lack of industry regulation
The news that 350,000 people – and counting – have signed a petition calling on Pornhub – the world’s most popular porn site – to stop posting non-consensual videos and marketing them as “pornography” is not surprising to me.
Pornhub’s argument that “extremists” are lobbying to shut them down is ridiculous. I’m non-religious, liberal and sex positive and in no way “anti-porn”.
Continue reading...Petition highlighting failure of Pornhub to protect rape and revenge porn victims has attracted over 350,000 signatures
An online petition accusing Pornhub, the UK’s biggest open access porn site, from profiting from videos of rape and sexual abuse has reached over 350,000 signatures.
Pornhub is the world’s biggest porn site and was visited 42bn times last year. It is free to access, with no age restrictions, and raises revenue through advertising and paid-for promotions by porn producers.
Continue reading...