Category Archives: Film

Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes and Eugene Levy among celebrities to lose homes in California fires

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Crystal ‘heartbroken’ after losing family home of 46 years in historic fires that have killed five and destroyed more than 1,100 buildings

Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Eugene Levy are among celebrities who have lost their homes in the wildfires tearing through several neighbourhoods of Los Angeles, which have killed at least five people and destroyed more than 1,100 buildings so far.

Six wildfires were raging across Los Angeles county. The affluent Pacific Palisades, where many famous Hollywood names live, has been devastated since the fires began on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, another fire broke out in Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, with the Los Angeles fire department ordering an immediate evacuation of parts of the neighbourhood.

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Wicked, A Complete Unknown and Shôgun lead Screen Actors Guild nominations

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This year’s SAG noms see a strong showing for music-led films while Nicole Kidman, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie are snubbed

Music-led films Wicked and A Complete Unknown and TV shows Shôgun and The Bear lead this year’s Screen Actors Guild nominations, it was announced this morning.

Blockbuster musical Wicked heads up the film side with five nominations including for actors Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey, as well as the ensemble. It was also nominated for stunt ensemble. The film, based on the long-running Broadway hit, has made more than $680m at the global box office.

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Awards success of cartel boss musical Emilia Pérez prompts outrage in Mexico

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The film about Mexico has just one main actor who is Mexican, and Mexicans say it’s heavy with stereotypes and treats violence with frivolity

A musical about a Mexican cartel boss who fakes their death, transitions and is reborn as a heroine searching for the forcibly disappeared is sweeping international film awards, but prompted amusement and outrage in Mexico.

Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard, has been largely praised by international critics, though some noted it risked trivialising extremely sensitive issues. It scooped the jury prize at Cannes before winning four Golden Globes on Sunday, including those for best musical or comedy and best non-English language film.

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Aubrey Plaza calls husband Jeff Baena’s death ‘an unimaginable tragedy’

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Actor and her late partner’s family issue joint statement thanking supporters and asking for privacy

Aubrey Plaza has released a statement after the death of her husband, Jeff Baena, who was found at his Los Angeles home on Friday after taking his own life.

“This is an unimaginable tragedy,” the actor and Baena’s family said in a joint statement shared with media on Monday. “We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support. Please respect our privacy during this time.”

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. 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 counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez and Shōgun triumph at the Golden Globes

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The low-budget immigration saga and the Netflix crime musical picked up major film wins while the historical epic dominated television awards

The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez and Shōgun won big at the 82nd Golden Globes, the unofficial kick-off to this year’s awards season.

The low-budget epic The Brutalist, a drama telling the story of a Holocaust survivor turned immigrant architect in the US, won three awards for best film – drama, actor for Adrien Brody and director for the actor-turned-film-maker Brady Corbet. At the end of his speech, Corbet paid tribute to the film-maker Jeff Baena, who died this week by suicide.

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Harlan Coben says ‘quite a bit of tragedy’ in his 20s made him a better writer

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Bestselling author and Netflix producer said extensive early experience of grief was ‘very cruel but effective teacher’

American thriller writer Harlan Coben said experiencing “quite a bit of tragedy” in his 20s made him a better writer.

The bestselling author, who wrote the Myron Bolitar thriller series and novels turned Netflix shows such as Fool Me Once and Missing You, said he was in his 20s when his father died of a heart attack at the age of 59 in 1988.

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Indie film-maker Jeff Baena dies aged 47

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Husband of actor Aubrey Plaza was known for writing and directing Life After Beth and co-writing I Heart Huckabees

Independent director and screenwriter Jeff Baena – who was known for quirky hits such as Life After Beth and was the husband of that flick’s star, Aubrey Plaza – has died, according to reports. Baena was 47.

The Los Angeles medical examiner said that Baena died on Friday at his home in that city at about 10.39am local time. Officials did not immediately provide Baena’s cause or manner of death.

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Baby Driver actor Hudson Meek, 16, dies after fall from moving vehicle

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Family plans to livestream memorial service for teenage actor who died two days after getting hurt in Vestavia Hills, Alabama

The teenage actor Hudson Meek has died after he fell out of a moving vehicle in Alabama, authorities said.

Meek, 16, was hurt on December 19 while on a street in Vestavia Hills, a suburb of Birmingham. He died two days later, according to the Jefferson county coroner’s office.

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Shyam Benegal, influential director of India’s ‘parallel cinema’, dies aged 90

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The film-maker challenged mainstream Bollywood and pioneered a new wave cinema movement in the 1970s that tackled social issues

Shyam Benegal, a renowned Indian film-maker known for pioneering a new wave cinema movement that tackled social issues in the 1970s, has died aged 90 after suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Benegal passed away on Monday at Mumbai’s Wockhardt hospital and his cremation took place on Tuesday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting his daughter Piya. “Benegal had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” Piya said.

Many paid tribute to the film-maker on social media platform X. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Shyam Benegal, whose storytelling had a profound impact on Indian cinema. His works will continue to be admired by people from different walks of life,” India’s prime minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

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Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning co-writer, dies aged 85

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Screenwriter co-wrote Annie Hall and Manhattan, penned the Jersey Boys musical, and wrote for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and The Muppet Show

Marshall Brickman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who wrote some of Woody Allen ’s best films, the Broadway musical Jersey Boys and a number of Johnny Carson’s most beloved sketches, has died aged 85.

Brickman died Friday in Manhattan, his daughter Sophie Brickman told the New York Times. No cause of death was given.

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Feminist hit movie Her Story touted as China’s answer to Barbie

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Directed by a woman with a cast of female leads, the film is the latest to be centred around female experiences and prove a box office success in China

The recent box office success of Her Story, a Chinese comedy directed by a woman with a cast of female leads, has led commentators to dub the movie China’s answer to Barbie.

The second feature film by Chinese director Shao Yihui, Her Story revolves around a newly unemployed single mother with a daughter and their young female neighbour, as they explore their experiences and struggles as women in Shanghai.

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Silvia Pinal, star of Mexico’s Golden Age of film, dies aged 93

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Over a career that spanned seven decades, Pinal was a muse to director Luis Buñuel, appearing in 60s classics such as Viridiana

Silvia Pinal, an actor from Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema and muse to the director Luis Buñuel, has died aged 93.

Pinal got her start in theatre in the 1940s, working with the director Rafael Banquells – the first of her four husbands. She became a star in 1950 aged 18, when she appeared opposite two of Mexico’s biggest comedic film stars: Germán Valdés (Tin-Tan) in The King of the Neighborhood and Mario Moreno (Cantinflas) in The Doorman. In 1952 she appeared alongside heartthrob Pedro Infante in A Place Near Heaven.

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Jim Abrahams, co-creator of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, dies aged 80

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Famed comedy writer and director, who was also involved in Ruthless People and Hot Shots!, died of natural causes

Jim Abrahams, the writer-director involved with hit comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died at the age of 80.

According to his son Joseph, who confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, he died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica.

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Glicked double bill may not match Barbenheimer buzz, experts say

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Gladiator II and Wicked filling up theatres but unlikely to replicate phenomenon of Barbie-Oppenheimer release

The great Barbenheimer clash of summer 2023 – when Barbie came out on the same day as Oppenheimer – will for ever be a part of cinema history for capturing the public imagination and bringing audiences back to cinemas in droves after years of Covid-induced antipathy.

So it’s unsurprising, that in an attempt to recapture some of the excitement, fans have come up with a new portmanteau: Glicked, used to refer to the face-off between Gladiator II and Wicked this week.

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The Apprentice actor Sebastian Stan says Hollywood stars are ‘afraid’ of Trump

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None of his peers would appear with him on a chatshow the actor claimed, setting an ominous precedent for the industry’s interactions with Trump after he comes into power

Sebastian Stan, who stars in The Apprentice, a biopic of Donald Trump focusing on his association in the 1970s with lawyer Roy Cohn, has said that other actors in Hollywood are too “afraid” of the president-elect to participate in press with him.

Stan claimed that he had failed to find a single peer who would appear opposite him in the Actors on Actors series run by industry magazine Variety, in which key awards contenders quiz each other.

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Mother of Rust cinematographer fatally shot by Alec Baldwin refuses to attend film’s world premiere

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Three years after Halyna Hutchins was killed on set, Olga Solovey says there has been ‘no justice for my daughter’ and claims Baldwin has not apologised

The mother of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was fatally shot on the set of the film Rust by actor Alec Baldwin, has refused to attend the film’s world premiere on Wednesday, alleging the star has still not apologised to her over her daughter’s death.

Rust will premiere at the Camerimage festival in Poland, an event focusing on achievements in cinematography, three years after the prop gun Baldwin was holding went off and fatally injured Hutchins, the film’s cinematographer, on the set of the western in New Mexico. Tickets to the premiere sold out quickly on Tuesday.

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Saoirse Ronan ‘absolutely right’ about women’s safety fears, says Gladiator combat trainer

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Paul Biddiss, who trained Paul Mescal and Day of the Jackal star Eddie Redmayne, says streetwise women are more aware of surveillance and harder to follow

He has trained would-be assassins and marshalled invading hordes, Napoleonic forces and Roman regiments, but movie military adviser Paul Biddiss found himself in the midst of his biggest Hollywood skirmish last month when the actor Saoirse Ronan made a powerful intervention about women’s personal safety.

Ronan, a guest on Graham Norton’s BBC chatshow sofa, sparked a nationwide debate about women’s security fears when she interrupted fellow actors as they discussed techniques that Biddiss had taught the casts of both Gladiator II and the new drama series The Day of the Jackal.

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Snow White star Rachel Zegler apologises for angry Trump post

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West Side Story actor soon to take on iconic Disney role backs down after re-election response led to backlash

The West Side Story and Snow White actor Rachel Zegler has apologised after criticising Donald Trump and his supporters.

The 23-year-old, currently starring in Broadway’s re-imagined Romeo + Juliet, had posted a lengthy response to the re-election of Trump and the “four years of hatred” he would bring about in America.

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Dick Van Dyke glad he ‘won’t be around’ for Trump’s second term as president

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The 98-year-old Mary Poppins star had previously endorsed Kamala Harris and Joe Biden

Mary Poppins star Dick Van Dyke has said he is glad he “won’t be around” to experience the full duration of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

In a video published by the Daily Mail, Van Dyke, 98, was stopped in a car park and asked: “Does the future look bright for America?” The actor replied: “I hope you’re right.”

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