Actor makes dramatic bid for awards glory as UFC fighter Mark Kerr in biopic also starring his Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt
Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt aim for awards glory in the first trailer for fact-based sports drama The Smashing Machine.
The wrestler-turned-actor plays the MMA fighter Mark Kerr in the film inspired by the 2002 documentary with the same name. Kerr won multiple awards and medals in his career and also struggled with substance abuse.
Continue reading...Husband of murdered Labour MP says Belfast rappers’ talk of being unfairly targeted undermines their statement
Brendan Cox, the husband of the murdered MP Jo Cox, has said the Irish rap trio Kneecap have offered only “half an apology”, after criticism of comments in which they appear to call for politicians to be killed.
Kneecap apologised to Jo Cox’s family and that of the MP David Amess, who was also murdered, in the face of mounting criticism, including from Downing Street and Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader.
Continue reading...The American actor told Bill Maher’s podcast that he had asked Quincy Jones about the singer’s sexuality and felt he couldn’t ‘play that character 100%’
The actor Terrence Howard has said that he declined the role of Marvin Gaye in a film, because he didn’t want to kiss another man.
Speaking to Bill Maher on his Club Random podcast, the actor said the “biggest mistake” of his career was turning down the leading role in a separate biopic of the singer Smokey Robinson – which Robinson had personally asked him to play.
Continue reading...Perth will host huge exhibition of ancient treasures from first emperor’s tomb in June, with 40% of the artefacts leaving China for the first time ever
Two thousand years ago, in a bid to conquer death itself, China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang commissioned a city of the dead: a 49 sq km mausoleum guarded by an army of clay warriors, built to defend his tomb for eternity.
When farmers near Xi’an unearthed the first clay head in 1974, they cracked open one of humanity’s greatest archaeological mysteries, with more than 8,000 Terracotta Warriors discovered over the last 50 years. Now, fragments of that dream of immortality rise again – this time in Perth, where the largest exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors ever staged in Australia will head later this year
Continue reading...Noel and Liam believed to have filmed promo video at Mildmay club in Newington Green ahead of summer’s sold-out Oasis tour
Liam and Noel Gallagher have performed together for the first time in 16 years in a working men’s club in north London, according to reports.
The brothers were pictured arriving at the Mildmay club in Newington Green, north London, on Thursday where they are believed to have filmed a promotional video for this summer’s sold-out Oasis reunion tour.
Continue reading...David A Graham’s latest book considers the vast far-right plan to change US politics – and why its architects are playing the long game
David A Graham doesn’t say he read Project 2025 so you don’t have to, but it might be inferred.
The Atlantic staff writer’s new book, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America, is a swift but thorough overview of the vast far-right plan for a second Trump administration that achieved notoriety last year. Over just 138 pages, a passing dream next to the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page doorstop, Graham considers the origins of Project 2025, its aims and effects so far.
The Project is published in the US by Random House
Continue reading...Cheering crowd at 800-year-old cathedral enjoy Plague of Angels gig, which had been branded an ‘outright insult’
Protests at one of the most controversial concerts of the year failed to materialise on Friday evening, as a metal act performed to a cheering crowd of 1,400 people at York Minster.
The 800-year-old cathedral hosted a gig by Plague of Angels, which some of its congregation called an “outright insult” to their faith and said they would be protesting if the concert went ahead.
Continue reading...Cheering crowd at 800-year-old cathedral enjoy Plague of Angels gig, which had been branded an ‘outright insult’
Protests at one of the most controversial concerts of the year failed to materialise on Friday evening, as a metal act performed to a cheering crowd of 1,400 people at York Minster.
The 800-year-old cathedral hosted a gig by Plague of Angels, which some of its congregation called an “outright insult” to their faith and said they would be protesting if the concert went ahead.
Continue reading...In a statement, the 86-year-old director of the critical and box-office flop said the book confirms his feeling that ‘art can never be constrained’
Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s $120m passion project, was neither a box office nor a critical success on release last year. Largely funded by the sale of Coppola’s own vineyards, the sci-fi epic starring Adam Driver took around $14m at the global box office amid unconvinced reviews and rumours of abnormal on-set behaviour by its director.
A marketing campaign attempted to leverage bad critical notices by flagging that previous works by Coppola now acclaimed as masterpieces – including Apocalypse Now and The Godfather – had been dismissed by critics at the time. But this backfired after it emerged all of the sniffy historical reviews had been fabricated.
Continue reading...Korean retailers report strong sales for Light and Thread, featuring speeches, essays and poems by novelist
A book featuring Han Kang’s Nobel prize lecture sold 10,000 copies in its first day on sale online.
Light and Thread, which takes its title from Han’s December lecture, is her first book to be published in South Korea since she was announced as the winner of the Nobel prize in literature last October.
Continue reading...The Herds project from the team behind Little Amal will travel 20,000km taking its message on environmental crisis across the world
Hundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.
The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis.
Continue reading...‘Nobody has been harder … about Donald Trump than me,’ Maher says after fellow comedian compared his meal with US president to meeting Hitler
Bill Maher has responded to Larry David’s satirical essay in the New York Times that compared Maher’s glowing account of having dinner with Donald Trump to dining with Adolf Hitler.
Maher, a vocal critic of Trump in the past, had dinner with the US president and a group of his high-profile supporters, including their mutual friend Kid Rock, on 31 March. On an episode of his talkshow Real Time on 11 April, Maher described Trump as “gracious” and “much more self-aware than he lets on”, saying: “Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was – I swear to God – absent, at least on this night with this guy.”
Continue reading...Complaints about the book focus on cartoon sex scenes, one of which has been described by critics as ‘pornographic’ and ‘paedophilic’
Gender Queer, a graphic novel on gender identity, has been reapproved for sale in Australia following a conservative campaign against the book forcing the Classification Review Board to reconsider its initial decision.
The federal court last year ordered the board to reassess its decision to give the Maia Kobabe memoir an unrestricted M classification, after rightwing activist Bernard Gaynor challenged the ruling.
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Continue reading...Two Bayeux scholars at loggerheads over whether dangling shape depicts dagger or the embroidery’s 94th phallus
In a historical spat that could be subtitled “1066 with knobs on”, two medieval experts are engaged in a battle over how many male genitalia are embroidered into the Bayeux tapestry.
The Oxford professor George Garnett drew worldwide interest six years ago when he announced he had totted up 93 penises stitched into the embroidered account of the Norman conquest of England.
Continue reading...The US musician was a major influence on post-punk and alt-rock scenes thanks to his spirited, chaotic style
David Thomas, who fronted the wild and free-thinking American rock band Pere Ubu, has died aged 71.
A statement on Pere Ubu’s Facebook page said that he died “in his home town of Brighton & Hove, with his wife and youngest step-daughter by his side. MC5 were playing on the radio.” The statement continues: “He will ultimately be returned to his [family] home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be ‘thrown in the barn’ … We’ll leave you with his own words, which sums up who he was better than we can: ‘My name is David Fucking Thomas… and I’m the lead singer of the best fucking rock and roll band in the world.’”
Continue reading...The Holdovers breakout and Oscar nominee will head the cast of Tony, which will follow the food world legend in 1976
The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa has signed on to play Anthony Bourdain in a new biopic.
The casting had been initially rumoured last year, but the 22-year-old has now made it official, with the Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas also joining in a role that is being kept under wraps.
Continue reading...After two actors died in Owerri, Imo State, AGN head Emeka Rollas drew comparisons to events last year, when popular Nollywood actor Junior Pope drowned
The president of the Actors Guild of Nigeria has called for mass prayers and increased unionisation after the death of two actors in Owerri, the capital city of Imo State.
Posting on Instagram, Emeka Rollas advocated spiritual intervention and better workplace regulation to try to prevent future tragedies after the two men, who have not yet been named, died on Friday.
Continue reading...Billionaires, starring Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef, meet amid an international crisis in HBO’s of-the-moment satire
A summit of influential male billionaires is under way in the first teaser trailer for Mountainhead.
HBO unveiled the extended look at the first feature from the Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on Tuesday, which stars Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman as a group of billionaire friends who meet at an alpine retreat during an international crisis.
Continue reading...Videos tagged #ElectronicMusic attracted more than 13bn views worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023
It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world’s stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.
Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app.
Continue reading...Laurie Lee and Robert Graves among ‘English-speaking Quixotes’ in new book celebrating literary love for all things Spanish
Almost 200 years ago, the pioneering British travel writer Richard Ford offered an observation that has been happily ignored by the legions of authors who have traipsed in his dusty footsteps across Spain, toting notebooks, the odd violin or Bible, and, of course, their own particular prejudices.
“Nothing causes more pain to Spaniards”, Ford noted in his 1845 Handbook for Travellers in Spain, “than to see volume after volume written by foreigners about their country.”
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