Category Archives: Film

‘My soul is so tired’: Stormy Daniels stands up to Maga hate in new film

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The adult film star – at center of hush-money payments in run-up to 2016 election – is featured in the new documentary Stormy

Stormy Daniels, the adult movie star who received hush-money payments at the center of one of Donald Trump’s pending criminal cases, says she is “so tired” as she confronts the prospect of testifying against the former president, whose supporters have flooded her social media accounts with threats.

“I’m desensitized to some of it … but I’m also tired,” Daniels says in a new documentary premiering on Monday on Peacock, according to Slate, which reported viewing the film in advance. “Like, my soul is so tired. And I don’t know if I’m so much a warrior now as out of fucks, man. I’m out of fucks.”

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Cara Delevingne’s Los Angeles home reportedly destroyed by a fire

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The model and actor wrote on Instagram ‘My heart is broken’ after house in Studio City apparently collapsed after a fire broke out

A Los Angeles home that appears to belong to the model and actor Cara Delevingne was destroyed in a fire Friday.

One firefighter was taken to a hospital in fair condition with unspecified injuries, and a housesitter who was inside at the time was treated for minor injuries, a Los Angeles fire department spokesperson, Nicholas Prange, said.

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‘Irreplaceable’: will Hayao Miyazaki, Japan’s animation auteur, ever retire?

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The Boy and the Heron’s Oscar win has prompted debate over whether the 83-year-old could put down his pencil

It could have been the perfect send-off – recognition at the Academy Awards of the artistry of Japan’s peerless animator Hayao Miyazaki.

The moment The Boy and the Heron was named the winner of best animated feature in Los Angeles last weekend gave Japan a chance to reflect on Miyazaki’s towering influence, and contemplate whether the 83-year-old is truly finished making films.

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‘So angry with God’: Regina King says she’s ‘a different person’ after son’s suicide

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If Beale Street Could Talk star says sadness at death of son Ian in January 2022 ‘is a reminder of how much he means to me’

Regina King is “a different person” after her son’s death by suicide, the actor and director said in her first interview about her son since his death.

“Grief is a journey,” King told Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts in a segment that aired on Thursday morning. “I understand that grief is love, that it has no place to go. I know that it’s important for me to honor Ian in the totality of who he is.”

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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A Separation director Asghar Farhadi cleared of plagiarism claims, says agent

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The double Oscar winner’s film A Hero won the grand prix at Cannes in 2021 but was the subject of an alleged copyright infringement brought by a former student

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has been cleared of charges of plagiarism over his film A Hero brought by one of his students, the agency representing him said on Wednesday.

The film, about a prisoner in the Iranian city of Shiraz, won the grand prix at the Cannes film festival in 2021.

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Roman Polanski to face civil trial in LA next year for alleged 1973 rape of teen

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Film-maker is accused of rape, sexual battery and intentional affliction of severe emotional distress for alleged incident

Film-maker Roman Polanski will face a civil trial in Los Angeles in 2025 for allegedly raping a teenager in 1973.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented the victims of Jeffery Epstein and Bill Cosby, confirmed in a press conference on Tuesday that a judge has set Polanski’s trial for August 2025.

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‘Real awe’: wave of Irish jubilation greets Cillian Murphy’s Oscars win

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President of Ireland, artists, academics and friends pay tribute to actor, who dedicated award to ‘peacemakers’

Ireland used to take pride in begrudgery – a venerable tradition of belittling success – but Cillian Murphy’s win at the Oscars has ruined that legacy by uniting the country in delight.

The actor’s triumph in Los Angeles prompted a wave of tributes from Michael D Higgins, the president of Ireland, as well as the government, artists, academics, commentators and childhood friends, with no dissenter.

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Al Pacino to release ‘revealing’ memoir in October

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Sonny Boy, the actor’s first memoir, will cover his upbringing in New York, Hollywood career and thoughts on ‘love and purpose’

The Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino’s memoir Sonny Boy is set to release this October.

The book, launched by Penguin Random House, is the “memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide”, according to a statement from the publisher. “All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels.”

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Oscars 2024: your catchup with all the action from Hollywood’s biggest night

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From Billie to Barbie and Pacino to the pins, here’s where to get up to speed with the winners, the losers, the talking points and the dud moments

Just want to know who won? Here’s our list of winners and all those nominated, or you can relive every minute of the ceremony in our live blog.

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Oppenheimer wins best picture Oscar as Emma Stone pulls surprise win

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Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster picked up seven awards while Poor Things star won over Lily Gladstone for best actress

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer has triumphed at this year’s Oscars taking home seven awards including best picture, best actor and best director.

The drama, telling the story of the “father of the atomic bomb”, lost the box office battle to Barbie during last summer’s Barbenheimer showdown but has now won the awards war with Greta Gerwig’s Mattel comedy winning just one Oscar for best original song.

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Christopher Nolan wins his first ever Oscar for directing Oppenheimer

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Nolan wins prize at the Academy Awards after losing out in 2018 when he was nominated for Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan has won the best director Oscar for Oppenheimer at the Academy Awards, currently taking place in Los Angeles.

This is the first time Nolan has won the award, having previously been nominated for Dunkirk in 2018. He was considered the strong favourite for the statuette, having won a series of best director awards in the run-up to the Oscars, including a Golden Globe, Bafta, Critics Choice award and Directors Guild of America prize. At the Oscars, Nolan saw off a strong field, which included Martin Scorsese (for Killers of the Flower Moon), Justine Triet (for Anatomy of a Fall) and Yorgos Lanthimos (for Poor Things).

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Matthew Perry, Richard Lewis, Glenda Jackson and Alexei Navalny remembered at Oscars

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Annual sequence devoted to recently deceased figures in the film industry also recognised Tom Wilkinson and William Friedkin

Prominent figures from the Hollywood and global film industry were honoured in the Oscars’ traditional in memoriam segment at the 96th Academy Awards, currently taking place in Los Angeles.

The names and brief clips were soundtracked by Andrea and Matteo Bocelli singing It’s Time to Say Goodbye, and preceded by a short clip of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, who died last month.

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The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, wins Oscar for best animation

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Master Japanese director wins his second Oscar for story of a young boy searching for his mother during the second world war

The Boy and the Heron, supposedly the final film from Japanese master director Hayao Miyazaki, has won the Oscar for best animated feature film at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Inspired by Genzaburō Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live?, The Boy and the Heron is the loosely autobiographical story of a young boy during the second world war, searching for his mother in a mysterious fantasy world; on its UK release it was described as “a mysterious and charming fantasy that circles back to Miyazaki’s classic themes of childhood pain and grief” by the Guardian’s chief film critic Peter Bradshaw.

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The downwinders: New Mexicans sickened by atomic bomb testing fight for compensation

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New film First We Bombed New Mexico sheds light on effects of Oppenheimer’s nuclear project and locals’ battle for justice

Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández watched Oppenheimer – a top contender at Sunday’s Academy Awards and Christopher Nolan’s treatment on the physicist who guided testing of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico – months ago.

And soon after the scene where Cillian Murphy, as J Robert Oppenheimer, peered through safety goggles in a fortified shed at the huge mushroom cloud, the New Mexico Democrat realized “the untold story” lay on the cutting room floor.

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‘We don’t need another bar’: St Andrews film fans take on Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake

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Celebrity plan to turn a much-loved retro cinema into a sports bar faces stiff opposition from thousands of angry movie goers

In central St Andrews, the New Picture House (NPH) independent cinema, with its 1930s facade and distinctive pointed roof towering above nearby restaurants and houses, has stood relatively unchanged for the past 94 years.

Open every day of the week and boasting three screens, the category B listed building has showed blockbusters and independent films, as well as plays, community events and festivals, for the best part of a century.

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Tokyo offers toilet tours amid flush of excitement over Wim Wenders’s Oscar hopeful

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Shibuya district is offering tours of its architect-designed public facilities that feature in Perfect Days

Japan’s hi-tech toilets have long fascinated visitors who rave about their heated seats, bidet function, automatic flushing, and even background noises to mask the unwelcome sounds that can accompany the call of nature.

Now, international interest in the country’s public conveniences is surging thanks to the German director Wim Wenders, whose film Perfect Days – the story of Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho), a Tokyo toilet cleaner – is in the reckoning for best international feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

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Head of France’s cinema body to face trial over alleged sexual assault of his godson

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Activists call for Dominique Boutonnat to step down saying allegations undermine his ability to lead change

Dominique Boutonnat, the head of France’s top cinema institution, is to be tried in June on charges of sexually assaulting his godson, prosecutors have said.

The announcement came as French cinema reels from a renewed #MeToo reckoning in which several big names, including the actor Gérard Depardieu, have been accused of sexual abuse.

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Roman Polanski tried in France for alleged defamation of British actor

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Film-maker held to account for dismissing claim of 1983 sexual assault against Charlotte Lewis as ‘heinous lie’

The film director Roman Polanski has gone on trial for libel in Paris after accusing a British actor who claimed he abused her of “a heinous lie”.

Charlotte Lewis, who was in court in Tuesday at the opening of the hearing, said she had been the victim of a “smear campaign” after she accused the film-maker of sexually abusing her as a teenager.

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Paolo Taviani, acclaimed director of classic Italian films, dies aged 92

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The film-maker, who won the Palme d’Or for 1977’s Padre Padrone, was a towering presence for more than three decades, creating politically engaged works with his brother Vittorio

The Italian film-maker Paolo Taviani, whose gritty biopic Padre Padrone won top prize at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 92, Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said on Thursday.

For more than three decades Taviani and his brother Vittorio formed one of cinema’s greatest directorial duos. “Paolo Taviani, a great maestro of Italian cinema, leaves us,” Gualtieri said on X. The brothers “directed unforgettable, profound, committed films which entered into the collective imagination and the history of cinema”, Gualtieri added.

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Judith Godrèche calls out French film industry’s sexual violence before parliament

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Actor’s landmark address comes amid claims arts sector has shrugged off sexual abuse for decades

The actor Judith Godrèche has denounced France’s “incestuous” film industry and called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into sexual violence in the sector as she spoke in front of senators in the upper house of parliament.

The landmark hearing – the first time an artist has spoken to the senate about sexual and gender-based violence in the French film industry – comes amid claims that the world of arts has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades.

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