White House says only person committing war crimes is actor ‘for his awful movies and terrible acting ability’
The long-running war of words between George Clooney and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning actor criticised Donald Trump’s threat to Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight”.
On Wednesday, in a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy, Clooney said the US president had committed a war crime with his threat.
Continue reading...BFI and National Portrait Gallery to mark centenary of the film star’s birth with ‘the summer of Marilyn’
Though often reduced to a sex symbol frozen in time, or a tragic figure at the centre of several scandals, Marilyn Monroe was something far more subversive, according to two exhibitions that will herald what has been nicknamed “the summer of Marilyn”.
To mark the centenary of her birth, Monroe is being celebrated by leading British cultural institutions as a performer of sharp comic intelligence, a canny architect of her own image, and a woman who reshaped the possibilities for female stardom on screen.
Continue reading...Astronaut calls fellow Canadian Ryan Gosling’s movie ‘extraordinary’ ahead of Artemis II crew’s lunar fly-around
The new space movie Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling has gotten a rave review from more than halfway to the moon.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said on Saturday that he and his Artemis II crewmates got to watch the film with their families before launching on the lunar fly-around. He said it was “a real treat” to view the movie while getting ready for his own space adventure.
Continue reading...Tolkan, known for portraying authoritarian figures, died ‘peacefully’ in Lake Placid, New York, his agent said
James Tolkan, known for his roles as an authoritarian figure in the Back to the Future and Top Gun films, has died. He was 94.
Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, New York, where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, said Saturday. A brief obituary published on the Back to the Future website said Tolkan died “peacefully”, but no cause of death was given.
Continue reading...Actor outside Kennedy Center urges Americans to ‘stand tall against authoritarianism’ and resist free-speech threats
The actor Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians and writers outside Washington’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in urging US citizens to “break your silence” and “stand tall against authoritarianism”.
At a damp but defiant rally hosted by Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment on Friday, around a hundred invited guests gathered to hear speakers and singers rail against book bans, political censorship and other threats to free speech under Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Grammy winner seeks more than $20m in damages over mistranslation of The Lion King chant
A Grammy-winning South African composer who wrote and performed the opening chant in Circle of Life for Disney’s The Lion King is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his standup routine.
Lebohang Morake’s lawsuit accuses the Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Mwanyenyeka, known as Learnmore Jonasi, of intentionally mistranslating the chant, which launches the 1994 movie and is central to staged versions as well as Disney’s 2019 remake.
Continue reading...Distributor says authorities warned screening Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania’s docudrama could harm India–Israel relations
The Indian release of The Voice of Hind Rajab, the Oscar-nominated Tunisian film about the death of a five-year-old girl during the Israel-Gaza war, has been blocked by the country’s ratings body, according to the film’s Indian distributor.
In a report by Variety, Manoj Nandwana of Mumbai-based Jai Viratra Entertainment said that he was told that if the film was released, it would “break up” India-Israel relations.
Continue reading...The final instalment in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy brings back Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Florence Pugh and introduces a nasty new villain
Timothée Chalamet may have finally escaped Oscar season, but not movie promotion – the first look at Dune: Part Three is here.
The first trailer released for the final installment in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy sees further war and political upheaval in the galaxy beyond Arrakis – plus a possible future child for Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Chani, the Fremen warrior played by Zendaya. “If we have a girl, what should be name her?” Chani asks, suggesting the two have reconciled since the end of Part Two.
Continue reading...Audiences draw parallels between the abduction plot of Feels Like Home and Viktor Orbán’s 16-year reign
It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and one of the most popular movie theatres in Budapest is full, not an empty seat in sight. The audience is not here for a Hollywood blockbuster, but a Hungarian film that barely had the budget to be made.
Feels Like Home (Itt Érzem Magam Otthon) has captured moviegoers not only with its striking visuals but also with its timing – its release coming before Hungary’s pivotal parliamentary elections on 12 April.
Continue reading...Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary epic took home six awards while Sinners scored four including for best actor
Paul Thomas Anderson’s counter-culture caper One Battle After Another has won the Oscars war, taking home six awards after a hotly contested season.
The big-budget comedy thriller, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, was named best picture and also won director, supporting actor for Sean Penn, adapted screenplay, editing and the first ever Oscar for casting, a category long-petitioned for within the industry.
Continue reading...Primary school teacher Pavel Talankin’s record of the indoctrination of his pupils to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine beats contenders
Mr Nobody Against Putin, a primary school teacher’s record of the indoctrination of his pupils to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has won the Oscar for best documentary.
Pavel Talankin, who is now in exile in Europe, picked up the award alongside the film’s US co-director, David Borenstein. It beat favourite The Perfect Neighbor to take the prize, along with other contenders The Alabama Solution, Come See Me in the Good Light and Cutting Through Rocks.
Continue reading...The actor and singer remembered her co-star in 1973’s The Way We Were, who died in September
Barbra Streisand has paid tribute to her friend and former co-star Robert Redford at the 98th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
The actor and singer, 83, sang a portion of the title song from their 1973 romantic drama The Way We Were, directed by Sydney Pollack, after remembering the pair’s respect and affection for one another.
Continue reading...Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework. Pavel Talankin’s undercover film about his school’s indoctrination drive won a Bafta and is tipped for an Oscar, but has left him in exile
In order to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary in which many of them have starring roles, pupils at Karabash School No 1 have had to source bootlegged copies, viewing the film in private, on their phones or their laptops.
Last week’s Bafta best documentary win for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been studiously ignored by Russian state media, and the prize the film won at Sundance last year was also met with silence. Staff at the school and government officials in the Kremlin seem united in their desire to pretend that they know nothing about the film.
Continue reading...Lindo speaks out after man with Tourette syndrome shouted slur while actor was on stage with Michael B Jordan
British-American actor Delroy Lindo expressed gratitude for “the support and love” he and Michael B Jordan have received after a man with Tourette syndrome (TS) shouted the N-word as the two men presented a Bafta award.
“We appreciate all the support and love that we have been shown,” Lindo – who, like Jordan, is Black – said on stage at the annual NAACP Image awards in Los Angeles. He called it “a classic case of something that could be very negative becoming very positive”.
Continue reading...A shout of ‘racist’ could also be heard during the segment at France’s version of the Oscars
A tribute to Brigitte Bardot at the Césars, France’s version of the Oscars, on Thursday was greeted with boos. In a video clip posted on social media, boos can clearly be heard among the applause as the tributes, and a shout of “racist!” is also audible.
Bardot, who died in December aged 91, became arguably the most celebrated figure in postwar French cinema for films such as And God Created Woman and Contempt, but after quitting acting in the early 1970s her later years were marred by increasing political activity on the far right, resulting in a string of convictions for inciting racial hatred.
Continue reading...Actor, who was diagnosed with MS in 2021, says taking her 15-year-old daughter to school has become her ‘favourite thing to do’
Christina Applegate has revealed that she is now largely confined to her bed, five years after she was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis.
In an interview with People magazine before the release of her memoir, the 54-year-old actor said she spends a lot of her days in bed due to the pain that comes with movement.
The Guardian will run an extract from Christina Applegate’s memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, on 28 February
Continue reading...Jeffrey Damnit says actor punched him and second man on Tuesday, calling both ‘faggot’ repeatedly
One of the men whom Shia LaBeouf allegedly battered and insulted with a homophobic slur on Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans on Tuesday, leading to his arrest, would like to see the actor face hate crime charges.
Jeffrey Damnit, who dresses in drag and was in makeup at the time of the encounter with LaBeouf, said on Thursday that the behavior attributed to the Transformers film franchise star was “a complete slap in the face to any alternative-culture person”.
Continue reading...Actor, whose credits also included RoboCop 2, Anomalisa and Heaven’s Gate, was also an accomplished playwright
Tom Noonan, the actor known for his Michael Mann collaborations, has died at the age of 74.
His death was confirmed by Fred Dekker, the director of 80s comedy horror The Monster Squad which saw Noonan play Frankenstein’s Monster.
Continue reading...Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi
My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book.
Continue reading...Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown
Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated cowriter of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.
Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.
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