Category Archives: Culture

Multiple crew members hospitalised after accident on set of Eddie Murphy film

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Two crew members were hospitalised when a car and truck collided during shooting of The Pickup in Atlanta, Georgia

Several crew members were injured and two were hospitalised when a car and truck collided during shooting of the Eddie Murphy film The Pickup in Atlanta, Georgia.

Amazon MGM Studios said in a statement that the scene that led to Saturday’s accident in Georgia had been rehearsed and all safety precautions were taken. Neither Murphy nor the film’s other stars, including Keke Palmer and Pete Davidson, were on the set at the time.

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Guitar played by John Lennon on Help!, lost for 50 years, going up for auction

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Guitar also played by George Harrison on Norwegian Wood could sell for millions in May auction, alongside other memorabilia including a book of Tupac Shakur’s handwritten lyrics

A guitar played by John Lennon and George Harrison in sessions for the albums Help! and Rubber Soul, which has spent the last 50 years lying in an attic, is to go up for auction alongside other memorabilia items such as a handwritten concert setlist by Kurt Cobain, a book of handwritten lyrics by Tupac Shakur and a Fendi dress worn by Amy Winehouse.

The 12-string acoustic guitar, a Hootenanny model made by Bavarian firm Framus in the early 1960s, was primarily played by Lennon and also appears in the movie Help!, used to perform You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. The studio version of that song also features the guitar, as well as Help!’s title track, It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen a Face. Harrison, meanwhile, used it to play the rhythm guitar part on Norwegian Wood, and it appears on another Rubber Soul song, Girl.

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Soiled nappies and karate: AI-rendered Putin biopic to be released

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Polish director Besaleel’s film will feature an AI-rendered Russian president and footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion

The “world premiere” of a new biopic of Russian president Vladimir Putin featuring an AI-rendered central character, has been announced for 26 September. In a statement released via PR Leap, Polish studio AIO said the film, titled Putin, will be released in 35 countries, and describes itself as “up close and personal with the Kremlin leader’s story”.

First announced in May 2022, Putin is the English-language debut of Polish director Besaleel, also known as Patryk Vega, who was responsible for a string of homegrown box-office hits characterised by grisly violence and glossy production values including Pitbull, Mafia Women and Botoks.

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Jerry Seinfeld says the movie business is over: ‘No longer the cultural pinnacle’

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In an interview promoting his Pop-Tarts movie Unfrosted, comedian says confusion and disorientation have taken film’s place

Jerry Seinfeld has said the film business is “over” and that movies are no longer “the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy” they once were.

In an interview with GQ magazine, Seinfeld talked about his experience on his feature film directing debut Unfrosted, saying that he admired the dedication of his collaborators on the movie, but that the industry itself was in crisis. “I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”

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Tulsi Gabbard repeats false Hillary Clinton ‘grooming’ claim in new book

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Ex-Democrat, reported contender for Trump running mate, sued Clinton for Russia remark but dropped case

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman, has repeated a discredited claim about Hillary Clinton that previously saw Gabbard lodge then drop a $50m defamation suit in a new book published as she seeks to be named Donald Trump’s running mate for US president.

Accusing Democrats of making up “a conspiracy theory that [Trump] was ‘colluding’ with the Russians to win the election” in 2016, Gabbard claims: “Hillary Clinton used a similar tactic against me when I ran for president in 2020, accusing me of being ‘groomed by the Russians’.”

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Joy in Taiwan – and praise from the president – as Nymphia Wind wins RuPaul’s Drag Race

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Drag star celebrated with massive support at home after taking top prize in the long-running US reality show

A drag queen has sparked national celebration as the “pride of Taiwan” and won praise and congratulations from the island’s president after winning RuPaul’s Drag Race at the weekend.

On Saturday, the long-running, Emmy award-winning US reality show, in which drag queens compete in challenges including lip-sync performances, revealed the winner of its 16th season as Nymphia Wind, the drag personality creation of Leo Tsao, a 28-year-old Taiwanese designer.

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Cher, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest among 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees

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Cher finally recognised 60 years after her first recordings, while Mary J Blige, Peter Frampton and Dave Matthews Band are among the other inductees

Cher, Ozzy Osbourne, Mary J Blige and A Tribe Called Quest are among the stars to be added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year – many of them rather overdue.

Artists can be added to the US institution 25 years after their first recording, but Cher – who once described her snub by the Hall as “kind of rude” – has had to wait until 60 years after her first releases with Sonny & Cher to be included.

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Arj Barker and a ‘gurgling’ baby: comedian’s request for mother to leave Melbourne show sparks furore

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Trish Faranda claims she felt ‘humiliated’ when asked by the comedian to leave but fellow audience member says child was disrupting performance

Comedian Arj Barker’s interaction with a mother who brought a seven-month-old baby to his comedy show in Melbourne on Saturday night has sparked outrage, sympathy and debate about the woman’s decision to bring her infant to the gig and his decision to ask her to leave.

The account of the incident is contested, with the mother Trish Faranda saying the baby was just “gurgling” during the show and that she felt “humiliated” when asked by the comedian to leave the theatre in front of 700 people.

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‘George’s machines’: museum devoted to George Wyllie opens on the Clyde

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The Wyllieum will showcase work of ‘social sculptor’ who used humour to make serious criticisms of climate crisis and capitalism

He was the artist who sailed a paper boat past New York, set a straw locomotive on fire over the Clyde, and inserted a question mark into the word sculpture.

George Wyllie, a prolific, self-taught “social sculptor” who worked with steel, stone, wood and paper, used humour to make deeply serious criticisms of the climate crisis, capitalism and Britain’s industrial decline.

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Does mysterious painting prove blue denim was around 200 years before Levi’s?

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Woman Begging With Two Children, by an unknown artist, shows what appears to be a denim skirt in 17th-century Italy

The origin of the world’s most enduringly popular fabric is in ­dispute, as a new exhibition spotlights a claim that firmly links denim with 17th-­century Italy and takes its history back 200 years.

Blue denim, that all-American ­symbol of informality and a life lived on the open range, is already also contentiously attributed to ­southern France, while modern jeans ­mythology still has it that Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, first came up with the idea of making workwear out of this sturdy cotton in San Francisco 150 years ago.

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Harry Styles stalker jailed for sending him 8,000 cards in a month

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Myra Carvalho sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment and banned from seeing singer perform

A woman who stalked Harry Styles has been jailed and banned from seeing him perform.

Myra Carvalho, who appeared at Harrow crown court sitting at Hendon magistrates court in London, was said to have stalked the singer by sending him 8,000 cards in less than a month.

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Joanna Scanlan among actors backing gender equality push in theatre

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Women in Theatre Lab will act as incubator for playwriting and acting talent and address gender inequality

Gemma Arterton, Joanna Scanlan and Stella Kanu are some of the figures backing an initiative to promote women in the theatre, who are being overlooked across the industry, according to the project’s founder.

Women in Theatre Lab will primarily act as an incubator for playwriting and acting talent. Its founder, Jennifer Tuckett, said the group would also put pressure on Arts Council England (ACE) to launch a review of gender inequality across the arts.

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Writers withdraw from PEN America literary awards in support of Gaza

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Authors and translators say PEN America has ‘had no criticism of American complicity in the bombardment of Gaza’, in stark contrast to other national centres of the organisation

Thirty-one authors and translators have withdrawn their work from consideration for or declined PEN America’s 2024 literary awards over the organisation’s “failure to protect” Palestinian writers in Gaza.

Nine out of 10 longlistees for the PEN/Jean Stein book award, worth $75,000 (£60,143), have withdrawn their books. Christina Sharpe, Catherine Lacey and Joseph Earl Thomas are among the withdrawing writers.

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Kanye West suspected of attacking man who allegedly sexually assaulted his wife

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Following reports of battery investigation into West against unnamed man, rapper’s team allege wife Bianca Censori was being assaulted

Representatives for Kanye West have alleged that a man physically and sexually assaulted his wife Bianca Censori in an incident in Los Angeles.

Sources previously told TMZ that West was being investigated as a suspect in a battery incident earlier this week, after the rapper was alleged to have struck a man who had grabbed Censori.

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Insider art: Vatican sets up Biennale pavilion at Venice women’s jail

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Pope Francis to attend installation that includes short film featuring Zoë Saldaña and Giudecca inmates

Originally a convent dating to the 13th century, and once a reformatory for prostitutes, the Giudecca women’s prison, set on an island in the Venetian lagoon, will this summer perform a quite different role: as the official pavilion for the Vatican at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Pope Francis is due to attend on 28 April – the first pontifical visit to the Biennale since it was founded in 1895. In the women’s prison he will see a work by Maurizio Cattelan, who notoriously created a hyper-real sculpture in 1999 depicting Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite.

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Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler to lead ‘brutal’ Romeo + Juliet on Broadway

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Acclaimed director Sam Gold will adapt the Shakespeare tragedy with new music from hitmaker and Taylor Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff

West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler and Heartstopper breakout Kit Connor are set to play Shakespeare’s tragic lovers Romeo and Juliet on Broadway.

Romeo + Juliet will premiere later this year from Tony award-winning director Sam Gold, who has previously taken on other Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth, Othello and King Lear.

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Artworks carried to safety as fire blazes at Copenhagen’s old stock exchange

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Spire collapses as fire engulfs Danish landmark, which houses one of country’s most valuable art collections

Firefighters at Copenhagen’s historic former stock exchange have been battling a huge blaze that has engulfed the 17th-century building’s roof, toppled its distinctive spire and threatened one of Denmark’s most valuable art collections.

“We are witnessing a terrible spectacle. The Bourse is on fire,” the Chamber of Commerce, which occupies the building next to Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish parliament, wrote on X. “Everyone is asked to stay away.”

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Artists refuse to open Israel pavilion at Venice Biennale until ceasefire is reached

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Curators protesting against Gaza conflict say ‘art can wait but women, children and people living though hell cannot’

The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.

A sign on the front of the Israel pavilion in the Giardini, or public gardens, in Venice, one of the main venues for the Biennale, conveyed the team’s decision – while the pavilion itself is guarded by three armed Italian military personnel.

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New York’s Vessel to reopen with steel-mesh safety measures after suicides

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Climbable sculpture in Hudson Yards in Manhattan closed in 2021 after four people died by suicide

The Vessel, the huge climbable centerpiece of New York’s upmarket Hudson Yards development that saw a number of suicides, is set to reopen later this year with new safety features, according to developers.

The 150ft sculpture, designed by Thomas Heatherwick and built at a cost of $260m, was closed three years ago after four people jumped to their deaths. Besides overall criticism of its design – including descriptions of it as a giant gold shish-kebab rotisserie – the construction was grimly described to the Guardian as “staircase to nowhere”.

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Rico Wade, key figure in Atlanta hip-hop scene, dies aged 52

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Tributes paid to music producer who helped write TLC’s Waterfalls and worked on albums by OutKast and CeeLo Green

Rico Wade, one of the architects of Atlanta’s “dirty south” hip-hop sound, who co-produced albums by OutKast, Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green and who co-wrote TLC’s 1994 hit Waterfalls, has died. He was 52.

Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens paid tribute to Wade, saying he had “led in the creation of a hip-hop sound that has spanned decades and genres. Rico left an indelible mark on music and culture around the world and for that, the south will always have something to say.”

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