Category Archives: Film

‘Worth waiting for’: Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck get married in Las Vegas

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Lopez and Affleck married in a small ceremony on the weekend, culminating a relationship that has stretched over two decades and two engagements

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got married in a Las Vegas drive-through chapel late on Saturday night, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and headlined countless tabloid covers.

Lopez announced their marriage on Sunday in her newsletter for her fans, On the J Lo, with the heading “We did it”. Lopez initially made their engagement public in April on the same newsletter.

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Film based on Daniel Morcombe murder case is ‘selfish cash grab’, parents say

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Bruce Morcombe asks filmgoers to not see Thomas M Wright’s The Stranger, but producers say it does not name Daniel or depict his death

The father of murdered Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe has called for Australians to boycott The Stranger, a film based on the undercover police operation that led to the arrest of Morcombe’s killer, which is scheduled to premiere next month.

On Friday, Bruce Morcombe told Perth’s 6PR radio station that filmgoers should “save their 20 bucks” on a film ticket and instead donate it to the foundation set up in his son’s name.

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Country Queen: first Netflix series to be produced in Kenya hits the screen

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Streaming company’s family drama marks shift from locally made ‘edutainment’ to shows that reflect complex realities of Kenyan life

Kenya’s first homegrown Netflix series, the family drama Country Queen, has its premiere on Friday, marking the beginning of a significant investment in African film by the streaming company.

Shot in English, Swahili and a mix of other local languages, the series features a female lead character and chronicles the lives of ordinary Kenyans fighting against corporate power and land grabs. It explores urban and rural Kenya through characters intertwined by love, betrayal and conflict.

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Constance Wu says she attempted suicide after Twitter backlash in 2019

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In her first post in nearly three years, the Hustlers actor said she tried to kill herself after a negative response to tweets she had sent

Constance Wu has said that she attempted suicide after backlash to a series of “careless” tweets in 2019.

In a statement marking her first return to Twitter in nearly three years, the Hustlers actor announced her upcoming book, Making a Scene, and explained that she was “afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it: 3 years ago, when I made careless tweets about the renewal of my TV show, it ignited outrage and internet shaming that got pretty severe.”

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.

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Roman Polanski rape case testimony can be unsealed, LA prosecutor says

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District attorney George Gascón says his office has asked to unseal transcripts in effort to re-examine case

The Los Angeles district attorney’s office will no longer object to the release of documents in the 45-year-old rape case against the film director Roman Polanski, the office said on Tuesday.

George Gascón, the Los Angeles DA, said his office had reversed its position and asked to unseal the transcripts of the testimony of the former deputy district attorney Roger Gunson as part of an effort to re-examine the case against the 88-year-old film-maker.

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Amber Heard loses bid to dismiss $10m Johnny Depp judgment

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US judge Penney Azcarate rejects Heard’s claims after actor filed motion seeking to have defamation verdict against her set aside

A judge on Wednesday rejected a request from the actor Amber Heard to set aside the $10m defamation judgment awarded against her in favor of her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.

Depp won a suit against Heard last month in a high-profile civil trial. Heard won a $2m judgment on a counter-claim against Depp.

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Johnny Depp’s lawyers urge judge not to toss Amber Heard verdict

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Attorneys respond to request by Heard’s lawyers, who say the verdict was nonsensical and a juror was misidentified

Lawyers for Johnny Depp have urged the judge in the dueling defamation case with Amber Heard to leave his $10m judgment intact after attorneys for Heard requested that the verdict be set aside, including on grounds that one juror on the panel was misidentified.

In court papers filed on Monday, Depp’s lawyers dispute arguments from Heard’s team that the jury’s verdict was nonsensical and unfounded. They also say that the Heard team’s complaints about the juror’s identity are irrelevant.

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Top Gun: Maverick: ‘Conversations’ under way for sequel

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Miles Teller, who stars alongside Tom Cruise in the hit action blockbuster, says he is keen, but ‘it’s all up to Tom’

Top Gun: Maverick actor Miles Teller has said he is “having conversations” with the film’s producer-star Tom Cruise about a sequel to the hit action blockbuster.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight at a charity golf event, Teller was responding to a question about the likelihood of a third Top Gun film. “That would be great, but that’s all up to [Tom Cruise]. It’s all up to Tom. I’ve been having some conversations with him about it. We’ll see.”

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Jafar Panahi is third film-maker in a week to be arrested in Iran

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Berlin winner in 2015 detained while querying arrest of another director after protests over building collapse

The award-winning director Jafar Panahi has become the third Iranian film-maker to be arrested in less than a week, the Mehr news agency has said, as he visited prosecutors over the detentions last week of Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.

Panahi, 62, has won a slew of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for Taxi in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for 3 Faces in 2018.

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Florence Pugh hits back at ‘vulgar’ criticism of her body on social media

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Black Widow actor rails at ‘how easy it is for men to totally destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for everyone to see’

Florence Pugh has hit back at “vulgar” social media users who criticised her body, after she posted photographs of herself wearing a sheer dress at a fashion show.

“What happened to you to be so content on being so loudly upset by the size of my boobs and body?” said Pugh in an Instagram post on Sunday to her 7.4 million followers.

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‘The folklore lends itself to it’: Ireland’s horror films find mainstream success

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Country’s film industry makes 20 horrors in last six years, as directors channel the vampires and banshees of traditional tales

A century after Bram Stoker introduced Dracula to the world, Irish storytellers are again conjuring vampires – as well as zombies, ghosts, changelings and grisly, mysterious diseases – and this time on the big screen.

Young film directors are channelling Ireland’s dark folklore and contemporary social ills into a wave of horror films that are finding mainstream audiences overseas.

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‘You’re the coolest kid’: Paul Rudd writes letter to bullied schoolboy

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Ant-Man actor befriends Brody Ridder of Colorado, whose classmates refused to sign his yearbook

The actor Paul Rudd has sent a handwritten letter to a 12-year-old boy after he received just two signatures from fellow students in his school yearbook.

The pair also spoke on FaceTime after Brody Ridder, from Colorado, came home from school with the yearbook.

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The Spirit of the Beehive director Víctor Erice to make his first feature in 30 years

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Spanish auteur behind the 1973 arthouse hit will direct a new film, Cerrar los Ojos, due for release in 2023

Veteran Spanish director Víctor Erice, best known for 1973 classic The Spirit of the Beehive, is making his first feature film in 30 years, it has been revealed.

El Diario reports that the new project, titled Cerrar los Ojos (Close Your Eyes), is being funded by Canal Sur, the public broadcaster for the Andalusia region of Spain. No information has been divulged as to its content, other than that José Coronado and María León have been cast in the lead roles, and that it is due for release in 2023.

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Spain’s Ciudad de la Luz film studios to reopen 10 years after EU ban

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Complex in Alicante, sanctioned for breaking competition rules, to begin productions later this year

One of Spain’s most notorious and costly white elephants, the Ciudad de la Luz (City of Light) film studios in Alicante, is to get a new lease of life 10 years after it was forced to shut by the EU on grounds of unfair competition.

The Valencian regional government has announced that the studios will reopen, with productions expected to begin later this year. Brussels had banned it from operating until 2027 after production companies, including Pinewood Studios in London, complained that government subsidies broke EU competition rules.

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James Cameron defends three-hour Avatar sequel: ‘I don’t want whining’

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Director rejects fears that the sequel to record-breaking 2009 blockbuster will be met with apathy, since ‘people binge-watch TV for eight hours!’

James Cameron has pre-empted fears that his forthcoming sequel to 2009’s Avatar will be met with apathy when it’s released in December.

Speaking to Empire, Cameron addressed the frequent criticism of the original film that few can remember the name – Jake Sully – of its protagonist, played by Sam Worthington.

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Director Paul Haggis released from hotel detention following sexual abuse claim

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Director’s lawyer says prosecutors in Italy are deciding whether to investigate allegation he had sex with a woman without consent

A judge in southern Italy on Monday ordered the film director Paul Haggis released from detention at his hotel while prosecutors decide whether to pursue their investigation of whether he allegedly had sex with a woman without her consent over two days, his lawyer said.

Michele Laforgia told the Associated Press that his client Haggis, who is also a screenwriter and an Academy Award winner, was still in Italy. The ruling was made by Judge Vilma Gilli, based in Puglia, which is the region that forms the “heel” of the Italian peninsula.

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UK cinemas ban fans in suits from Minions: The Rise of Gru

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TikTok craze for dressing up linked to unruly behaviour among young people at screenings

Some UK cinemas have banned groups of young people wearing suits during screenings of Minions: The Rise of Gru.

The decision came after some young moviegoers were criticised for rowdy behaviour after a viral trend erupted on the social media app TikTok.

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Film-maker Paul Haggis arrested over sexual assault allegations in Italy

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Prosecutors say allegations involve ‘young foreign woman’ who was forced to have ‘non-consensual’ sexual relations over two days

Authorities detained Oscar-winning film director Paul Haggis on Sunday in connection with allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in southern Italy, Italian news media said, quoting local prosecutors.

The Canadian-born Haggis, 69, has been in Italy for a film festival that begins on Tuesday in Ostuni, a tourist town in Puglia, the region that forms the “heel” of the Italian peninsula.

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Heat: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino reunite to discuss their hit thriller

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At a special Tribeca film festival event, the stars of Michael Mann’s acclaimed crime saga reminisced while offering suggestions of who could play them in a remake

Any misgivings about terseness at a Q&A panel dedicated to Heat, a film in which men prefer to let their automatic rifles talk about their feelings for them, were quickly put to one side last night at the dazzling United Palace theater in Manhattan’s Washington Heights.

The Tribeca film festival event dedicated to the 1995 crime classic from Michael Mann – who couldn’t attend due to a positive Covid test, but took care to record a video message from the Italian set of his forthcoming Enzo Ferrari movie, wistfully recalling his initial pitch all those years ago at a Broadway Diner lunch – began with an out-of-the-gate standing ovation for the assembled talent: producer Art Linson, as well as stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, a couple of guys unable to get a cup of coffee in New York without a round of applause. Things only got rowdier from there.

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