Category Archives: Culture

Rip Torn, cult actor, dies aged 88

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Star of a string of 60s classics fell foul of Hollywood because of his temper but found a fresh lease of life in comedy, from TV’s Larry Sanders Show to the Men in Black films

Rip Torn, America’s celebrated wildman actor, has died aged 88. Torn, who had been a constant presence on stage and screen since the mid-1950s, was arguably better known for his eccentric, and occasionally violent, antics when the cameras weren’t rolling – and on one notorious occasion, when they were.

His publicist Rick Miramontez confirmed Torn died Tuesday afternoon at his home with his wife, actor Amy Wright, and daughters Katie Torn and Angelica Page by his side. No cause of death was given.

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Woody Allen: ‘I never think of retiring’

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Allen says at Spanish press conference to launch production on his new film, starring Christoph Waltz, that he’ll ‘probably die’ on set

Woody Allen has no plans to give up film-making despite the years of controversy that has dogged his directing career. “I never think of retiring. It’s not just something that has occurred to me,” Allen said at a press conference in San Sebastian to launch production on his new film, which is set in Spain and funded by the Spanish media giant Mediapro. It stars Christoph Waltz, Gina Gershon and Elena Anaya, and is informally known as Rifkin’s Festival – though is still officially called Woody Allen Summer Project 2019.

Allen said: “My philosophy, since I started many years ago in show business, is that no matter what happens is to focus on my work … No matter what happens in my life with my wife, children, current events, politics or illness, I focus on my work, and that’s all that really absorbs my time and effort seven days a week.

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David Attenborough: polluting planet may become as reviled as slavery

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Naturalist tells MPs radical action needed to tackle crisis but attitude of young people gives him hope

The attitude of young people towards tackling the environmental crisis is “a source of great hope”, David Attenborough has told MPs, as he predicted that polluting the planet would soon provoke as much abhorrence as slavery.

Giving evidence to the business, energy and industrial strategy committee on how to tackle the climate emergency, the naturalist and TV presenter said radical action was required.

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Egypt asks Interpol to trace Tutankhamun relic auctioned in UK

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Cairo calls on international police agency to find head sold to unknown buyer for £4.7m

Egypt has called on Interpol to intervene and will sue over the sale at Christie’s auction house in London of a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun sculpture that may have been looted from a Luxor temple.

The 28.5cm brown quartzite head was part of a statue of the ancient god Amun with the facial features of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1323 BC. Similar statues were carved for the Temple of Karnak in the city of Thebes, now Luxor.

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The Mulan trailer is a dismal sign Disney is bowing to China’s anti-democratic agenda | Jingan Young

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Mulan has been transformed from life-affirming epic to patriotic saga, showing Hollywood is prioritising box office success

Disney have just released their hotly anticipated teaser trailer for their live-action remake of Mulan. The 1998 animated musical action film, following the triumphant story of an awkward young woman who takes her father’s place in a war by disguising herself as a boy, resonated globally. I was seven years old when it was released, and as a half-Chinese girl born and raised in pre-handover Hong Kong, the film had special importance to me, with its combination of east-west values, musical numbers (Honour to Us All, I’ll Make a Man Out of You and Reflection have aged extremely well), and female protagonist who kicks some serious butt while retaining her moral integrity and reinforcing family values. To this day, my Mulan sword, Mushu soft toy and Mulan dolls are somewhere safe in storage at home in Hong Kong.

To say I was excited by the prospect of a live action remake of Mulan is an understatement. The film joins the plethora of live-action remakes of Disney’s 90s renaissance hits, including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. All of these retain their musical numbers. Why then has Disney decided to make Mulan a gritty realist film? Particularly considering there are already Chinese versions of the legend: General Hua Mu-lan (1964) and Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009).

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British Museum to return Buddhist heads looted in Afghan war

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Stolen artefacts likely removed by Taliban will go on display before being sent to Kabul

Fourth-century Buddhist terracotta heads probably hacked off by the Taliban and found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow are to be returned to Afghanistan where they will be star museum exhibits.

The British Museum gave details on Monday of one of the most significant repatriation cases it has dealt with relating to the illegal looting of artefacts from Afghanistan and Iraq.

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David Chipperfield’s Berlin temple: ‘Like ascending to the realm of the gods’

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James Simon Gallery, Berlin
Twenty years in the making, this dazzling synthesis of the classical and modern takes Museum Island to new heights

Friedrich Wilhelm IV described his vision for Berlin’s Museum Island as a “cultural acropolis”; a sacred sanctuary for the arts and sciences that would cement the Prussian capital as the Athens of the north. Almost two centuries later, the kaiser’s classical aspirations have been fulfilled by British architect David Chipperfield, in the form of a dazzling white temple. Opening this weekend, after 20 years of planning, the James Simon Gallery stands as a €134m (£120m) Parthenon-on-Spree, forming a handsome new entrance to one of the world’s most important repositories of cultural treasures.

“We were quite nervous,” says Chipperfield, standing in the lofty new ticketing lobby, where stripes of sunlight flood in between the row of slender white columns outside. “The challenge was how to create something that was of its context and also of our time, in this incredibly sensitive location.”

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Brazil mourns death of musician João Gilberto

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Bossa nova legend, 88, earns warm tributes – but not from president Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil is mourning the death of João Gilberto, one of the country’s greatest musicians and composers, a reclusive genius in a nation of extroverts whose work recalled happier, more optimistic times for a deeply divided nation.

Related: João Gilberto obituary

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An evening with João Gilberto, the bright wallflower of bossa nova

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A rare concert in 1998 was a chance to see the great musical pioneer emerge from hiding – and why his glorious talent lifted him beyond pop fads

In 1998, I had the rare experience of seeing bossa nova pioneer João Gilberto live in concert in San Francisco. Gilberto, who died on Saturday at age 88, was a famous recluse known both for his magical music-making as well as his stage fright. If you had the chance to watch him perform live, you seized the opportunity because it might never happen again. This is my account of that memorable evening.

Related: Brazilian musician João Gilberto dies aged 88

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Nico in Manchester: ‘She loved the architecture – and the heroin’

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She had been a top model, then sang with the Velvet Underground, and in 1981 Nico moved to Manchester. Her friends there share their touching, alarming memories of ‘a true bohemian’

An imperious blond German ex-model with a voice once described as like “a body falling through a window”, Nico was already extraordinary by the time she leant her vocals to songs including Femme Fatale and All Tomorrow’s Parties on the Velvet Underground’s classic first album, produced by Andy Warhol.

Soon after that, she embarked on a solo career, and made records, such as The Marble Index, that were even darker, with despairing lyrics and a wheezing harmonium accompanying Nico’s Teutonic tones. By this time, she was no longer blond – she disdained her traffic-stopping looks – and was addicted to heroin.

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1MDB: Wolf of Wall Street producer charged with embezzling millions

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Riza Aziz, stepson of former Malaysian PM Najib Razak, accused of receiving $248m into Swiss bank accounts

The Wolf of Wall Street producer Riza Aziz, who is the stepson of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, has been charged with embezzling millions of dollars from the Malaysian government.

Riza, who ran a Hollywood production company Red Granite Pictures, appeared in a Kuala Lumpur court on Friday morning charged with five counts of money laundering, accused of receiving $248 million into Swiss bank accounts from the Malaysian state fund 1MDB, which was controlled by Najib. Each charge carries a five-year jail sentence.

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Tall tales: Paris Match explains Sarkozy’s growth spurt in photo

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After much derision, magazine says 5ft 5in ex-president was on step above wife, Carla Bruni

As soon as this week’s cover of Paris Match magazine featuring Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni was released, the questions began: how was the diminutive former French president seemingly taller than his towering wife?

The front-page photoshoot might have sparked speculation the 64-year-old rightwinger was thinking of a political comeback, coming hot on the heels of his new book called Passions, which has become a summer bestseller.

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Joss Stone ‘detained and deported’ from Iran

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Singer says authorities did not believe she would not be playing a public show

The British singer Joss Stone says she has been deported from Iran, claiming the authorities believed she would play an unsanctioned concert in the country, where there are strict restrictions on female musicians performing in public.

In a video posted on Instagram, the 32-year-old said: “We got detained and then we got deported,” while dressed in a white headscarf, adding that she was on a “blacklist” and that the authorities “don’t believe we wouldn’t be playing a public show” on what would have been the final leg of her world tour.

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Lifting the lid on Japan’s poo museum – in pictures

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Japan’s culture of cute has embraced poo, which gets a pop twist at the Unko Museum in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Visitors can play a poo-themed video game and pose on a variety of WCs. All the twisty ice-cream and cupcake shapes on display are artificial, and come in a variety of colours and sizes

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Beethoven’s Ninth – Farage turned his back on more than just music

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Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is a powerful symbol of love, humanitarianism and European unity. The Brexit party’s rejection of the EU anthem shuns our shared history

Yesterday, Brexit party MEPs led by Nigel Farage turned their backs while the anthem of the European Union played at a ceremony to mark the opening of the European Parliament. Their behaviour has been met with disdain by many, with #notinmyname trending on Twitter. This was an emotionally provocative act at a time of political sensitivity, and there is something about the shunning of the anthem itself, an instrumental arrangement of the Ode to Joy from the final movement of Beethoven’s iconic Ninth Symphony, that makes the demonstration particularly inflammatory.

The symphony has a long and chequered history: it has been a symbol of both dark and light. A favourite work of Hitler’s (he liked to hear it on birthdays), the Ninth was also used in Nazi propaganda films, and the closing choral section was performed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was also chosen as the national anthem of the Republic of Rhodesia under the racist administration of Ian Smith. This darkness has been appropriated in film soundtracks: the symphony is associated with extreme violence in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and is a recurring motif representing Alan Rickman’s cultured villain Hans Gruber in Die Hard.

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Toy Story 2 casting couch ‘blooper’ deleted by Disney after #MeToo movement

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Now removed scene features Stinky Pete engaging in sexual misconduct with Barbie dolls

A fake blooper scene from Toy Story 2 featuring a “casting couch” scenario has been quietly deleted by Disney from the latest home releases of the animated film.

A running gag in Pixar’s films are the faux outtakes that play alongside the closing credits, depicting the animated characters making mistakes, pulling pranks on each other, fudging their lines or speaking directly to camera as if they were real actors. The outtakes regularly make fun of Hollywood and the film industry more broadly.

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Stonehenge £2bn road tunnel project funding uncertain, MPs warn

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Public accounts committee says plan at mercy of spending review delayed by Brexit

A £2bn project to open a road tunnel beneath the Stonehenge world heritage site in 2026 is being put at risk by uncertainty over how it will be financed, MPs have warned.

Ministers have claimed the scheme is affordable, deliverable and will improve Stonehenge by taking the sight and sound of lorries and cars away from the ancient monument and reducing traffic congestion.

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Taylor Swift laments ‘worst case’ sale of back catalogue to mogul Scooter Braun

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  • Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquires Big Machine Label Group
  • Singer on Tumblr: sale worse than ‘worst nightmares’

Taylor Swift on Sunday lamented the sale of her catalogue to the manager and mogul Scooter Braun, writing in a scathing Tumblr post that she was sad and grossed out that her music now belongs to a man she accuses of subjecting her to years of incessant and manipulative bullying.

Related: Pop super-manager Scooter Braun: 'I was not going to let Justin Bieber die'

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Revelry and rebellion: is this the greenest Glastonbury yet?

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David Attenborough and the climate crisis take centre stage, while single-use plastic is banned for the first time. But have the festival’s environmental efforts gone far enough?

Twelve years ago, Sheryl Crow was laughed at for suggesting that green-minded people should use only a single square of toilet paper every time they go to the loo (or two to three sheets for “pesky situations”). Well, we’re not laughing now, are we?

On the day before the hottest day of the year so far (temperatures at Glastonbury hit 30C, elsewhere in the UK 35C), Crow knocks out hit after hit on the Pyramid stage under a giant globe, Glastonbury’s reminder that we’ve only got one planet, and dedicates Soak Up the Sun to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist and school striker. Thunberg’s spirit is embedded in Worthy Farm this year. There are murals of her face with the slogan: “What would Greta do?”

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