Category Archives: Culture

Unseen ‘log fight’ footage from Bruce Lee film Game of Death to be released

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Scene which has long been the holy grail for fans will feature in a new box set marking the 50th anniversary of the star’s death

Long-lost unseen footage of the celebrated “log fight” scene from the Bruce Lee film Game of Death is to be released in a new box set marking the 50th anniversary of the famed actor and martial artist’s death.

Lee, who shot to fame around the world with the 1973 film Enter the Dragon, died on 20 July 1973 before he could complete shooting on Game of Death, which eventually emerged in 1978, incorporating some of the original footage in a largely reshot and rewritten version.

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Obama speaks out against ‘profoundly misguided’ book bans in school libraries

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Former president writes open letter to American librarians and appears in TikTok video decrying rightwing censorship push

In an open letter to American librarians, Barack Obama criticised “profoundly misguided” rightwing efforts to ban books from libraries in public schools.

“Some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” the former president wrote.

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Taylor Swift becomes first woman to have four albums in US Top 10 at once

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Singer is just third artist in history to have four albums in top 10 concurrently, with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) becoming her 12th album to reach No. 1

Taylor Swift has become the first woman, and only the third artist ever, to have four albums in the Top 10 of the US album chart simultaneously, while also beating a record set by Barbra Streisand to become the female artist with the most No 1 albums in history.

The 33-year-old’s latest album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), has debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200 with 716,000 album-equivalent units – a figure that combines physical sales with digital sales and streaming figures. It is the largest week for any album in 2023 and the best since her previous album, Midnights, was released last October.

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Jane Birkin, actor and singer, dies aged 76

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Best known for the sexually explicit 1969 hit Je t’aime … moi non plus, her adopted France took her to its heart

France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, the British-born singer and actor Jane Birkin, has died at her home in Paris aged 76.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Birkin, saying she “embodied freedom and sang the most beautiful words in our language”.

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Hollywood actors’ strike: entertainment desert looms and pain will spread wider

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The walkout by writers and screen stars won’t affect just the US film industry but production in UK and Europe

There will be no fresh helpings of The White Lotus, The Last of Us or even Emily in Paris beaming into front rooms when summer fades. Nor will a screen version of the musical Wicked, starring Ariana Grande, be showing in your local cinema in the spring. And all shooting on Gladiator 2 in Morocco is likely to be indefinitely paused. Already, the wails are almost audible.

On this, the first weekend of the American screen actors’ strike, the level of frustration registered by film and TV drama fans around the world has dwarfed earlier reactions to the equivalent writers’ strike, running since the beginning of May.

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French film-maker’s family fight to keep link to chateau that inspired his stories

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Marcel Pagnol based his famous movies on a Provencal manor he’d known as a child. Now his legacy is at risk, says his grandson

In 1941 the French novelist, playwright and film-maker Marcel Pagnol bought a chateau in a Provençal valley outside Marseille on the advice of his solicitor without even seeing it.

He proposed to transform the property into a “cinema city”, a French Hollywood set in the hills and lavender fields of southern France where he had holidayed as a child.

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Hollywood on the Tiber: stars return to Rome studios once home to Heston and Fellini

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Sprawling Cinecittà complex is in demand again thanks to tax breaks and boom in film and TV production

Walk through the 1930s-built, dusty pink gates of Cinecittà, the legendary film studios in Rome, and the magic of its golden era is immediately palpable. This is where Charlton Heston rode to victory in his chariot race in Ben Hur, which went on to win 11 Oscars. It is where the real-life love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton played out on the set of Cleopatra, and where Federico Fellini produced classics including La Dolce Vita and Amarcord.

The sprawling Cinecittà was opened with great pomp by Benito Mussolini in 1937, in part to make films promoting the dictator’s fascist propaganda. During the second world war it was first occupied by the Nazis and later became a refuge to the thousands made homeless by the allied bombing of the Italian capital.

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Fran Drescher’s fiery speech against Hollywood studios goes viral as actors strike

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The Nanny star turned Sag-Aftra union president wins praise for her passion as performers join writers in action expected to halt majority of US film and TV production

Fran Drescher has blasted Hollywood studios in a fiery speech after talks between the actors’ union and studios failed to avert a strike, calling them “disgusting” for claiming “they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs”.

In a speech that was widely circulated on Thursday – particularly among many who did not know The Nanny star was heading up Sag-Aftra, Hollywood’s biggest union – Drescher said actors were being “marginalised, disrespected and dishonoured” by a business model that has been drastically changed by streaming and artificial intelligence.

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Hollywood actors announce strike in first joint action with writers in over 60 years

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Simultaneous strikes by WGA and Sag-Aftra are expected to halt the majority of Hollywood’s film and TV production

The union representing Hollywood actors formally announced a strike on Thursday, expanding the standoff between Hollywood workers and studio executives over wages, AI technology and how to divide the profits of the new digital streaming era.

The strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) marks the first time in 63 years Hollywood writers and actors are striking simultaneously.

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Hollywood actors are going on strike. Here’s what that means

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Shooting for House of the Dragon, Andor and Gladiator 2 will be delayed and many award shows and premieres will be postponed

After negotiations between studio representatives the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the US actors’ union Sag-Aftra (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) failed to make a breakthrough, Hollywood actors are going on strike.

The decision means that actors will be joining writers on the picket lines, marking the first time in over six decades that both unions have taken simultaneous strike action.

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Pistoletto sculpture destroyed in suspected arson attack in Naples

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Venus of the Rags, one of the contemporary Italian artist’s most famous works, was burnt to cinders

One of the most famous works by Italian contemporary artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, Venus of the Rags, has been burnt to cinders in a suspected arson attack in Naples.

The installation, in which a statue of the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility stands next to a vast pile of coloured, discarded clothes, was destroyed where it stood on display near the town hall in the southern Italian city.

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Emmys 2023: Succession’s final season scores 27 nominations

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The acclaimed business drama leads the pack with The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Ted Lasso following

The final season of Succession has dominated this year’s Emmy nominations with 27 nods.

The acclaimed HBO series picked up 14 acting nominations including recognition for Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook. It marks the first time in Emmys history that three performers from the same show have scored lead actor nominations in the same category.

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Hungarian bookseller wraps LGBTQ+ books in plastic to stop people reading them

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Libri bows to pressure to comply with ‘child protection’ law after takeover by foundation linked to PM

Hungary’s largest bookseller has started wrapping books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in plastic to prevent customers from opening them in stores after it was taken over by a private foundation with close ties to Viktor Orbán.

Libri, which is also the country’s largest publisher, said in an email that the packaging was a request from the Hungarian consumer protection authority to follow the controversial “child protection” law that came into force in 2021.

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US vinyl sales up 21.7% for first half of 2023, report finds

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Vinyl boom continues with another major leap and Taylor Swift’s Midnights leading the pack

Vinyl sales in the US are up 21.7% for the first half of 2023 over the same period last year, according to a new music industry report.

The vinyl resurgence is itself not new – 2022 marked the 17th consecutive year that sales of vinyl records rose, according to Luminate’s music midyear report. But the growth rate this year has reassured experts that the vinyl market did not hit a natural plateau after surging during the pandemic, which caused a 108% increase in 2021.

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Philippines allows Barbie film but wants ‘childlike’ map lines blurred

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Country’s censors give green light for film to be shown amid South China Sea controversy

Philippine censors have allowed the Barbie film to be shown in the country’s cinemas after asking its Hollywood distributor to blur lines on a brightly coloured drawing of a world map allegedly showing China’s claims to the disputed South China Sea.

The fantasy comedy film about the famous doll, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is to open in the south-east Asian nation on 19 July.

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View to a killing: Roger Moore auction to sell James Bond memorabilia

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Famously suave actor’s family selling items ranging from Lamborghini skis to luxury watches, cufflinks and numerous silk ties

If you ever wanted to dress, schuss or tell the time like James Bond, now might be your only chance: a selection of items including dinner suits, silk cravats, Lamborghini skis and a special edition Omega Seamaster watch are up for auction, all from the personal collection of 007 himself, Roger Moore.

Moore, who died in 2017, played Bond in seven films between 1973 and 1985, beginning with Live and Let Die and ending with A View to a Kill. His family are selling 180 lots of Moore’s own memorabilia, with part of the proceeds going to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which appointed Moore as a goodwill ambassador in 1991.

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‘Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nom!’: first Barbie reactions suggest film is a doll

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Reviewers rave about Greta Gerwig’s ‘funny and smart’ satire, whose all-star cast includes Gosling as Ken alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie and singer Dua Lipa

Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s ambitious satire in which Margot Robbie’s titular blonde escapes Barbieland to experience the real world, has drawn ecstatic reactions from audiences at an early screening.

Variety’s social media editor Katcy Stephan called the movie “perfection” and added: “Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play.”

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Acropolis now: crisis as soaring visitor numbers overwhelm Greek treasure

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With cruise ships decanting thousands of tourists in Athens, tough new controls have been imposed at the country’s most visited site

It’s official: more than 25 centuries after it was built and nearly 200 years after it began attracting tourists, the Acropolis will adopt crowd control policies to ease the very modern plague of soaring visitor numbers.

Unprecedented queues at the foot of the site, a dramatic rise in sightseers since the Covid-19 pandemic and unruly scenes at the gateway to the sanctuary have spurred the Greek government to take action.

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K-pop megastars BTS release keenly awaited memoir

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Fans of boyband brave heavy rain to gather at Seoul bookshop for Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS

The K-pop megastars BTS have released their hotly anticipated memoir in South Korea, marking their 10th anniversary as a group.

Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS is the group’s first official book, and contains a chronological summary of their musical career as well as hints at their future endeavours.

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‘It’s like a hostile environment’: London’s creative core at risk as artists in poverty quit

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UK capital as ‘huge generator of wealth’ under threat as a third of visual artists struggle to pay for studios

What makes Britain’s capital city so magnetic? Familiar landmarks? The nightlife? Or its financial, fashion and art trades? Maybe. But behind the glamour and money a network of artists is giving London the crucial appeal of a place where new things happen, while working on the edge of poverty.

A survey released on 13 July is to reveal just how close many of London’s visual artists are to giving up on a career that has pushed them to the bottom of the pile. Close to a third of those asked said lack of funds might force them out within five years. And just under half said they cannot afford to build savings or pay into a pension plan.

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