Court hears testimony from actor’s ex-wife, who says he was abusive and violent
Johnny Depp threatened to carve and disfigure Amber Heard’s face if she left him, repeatedly demeaned her and often physically attacked her, she has told the high court.
Opening the defence case in the libel trial initiated by the Pirates of the Caribbean star, Heard said her former husband insulted her and on one occasion told her: “I’m going to have to watch you get raped.”
Continue reading...The star of the award-winning film Clemency talks about the US prison system, her enslaved great-grandfather and her hopes for Black Lives Matter
The focus of Black Lives Matter protests has inevitably fallen on the most visible injustice - instances of police brutality. More systemic racial disparities in the American penal system are too often hidden from plain sight. The US incarcerates more of its citizens – 2.2 million people – than any other country on Earth. African American adults are nearly six times more likely to receive a prison sentence than white adults. Nearly half of the 206,000 people serving life sentences in 2018 were black, though black people represent only 13.4% of the population; almost equal numbers of white and black prisoners are currently on death row – just over 1,000 of each ethnicity – but as the prosecution of capital punishment has declined, so the racial imbalance has increased.
If ever a film could bring home the buried trauma of those latter statistics it is Clemency. The film, which won a grand jury prize at Sundance last year, has been instrumental in catalysing again urgent debates around mass incarceration, capital punishment and race.
Continue reading...Wakaliwood’s Isaac Nabwana swapped directing shootouts to parody music videos to support rural projects hit by Covid-19
The helicopter and the bling are made of cardboard and the dollar bills carefully drawn on paper by local children. But the people are very real and the music is totally authentic.
A new video from Ugandan film director Isaac Nabwana is a move away from his previous output – movies heavy on blood and gore and ultra-low on budgets – which is gaining him an international cult following. And he says the pandemic’s impact in pushing film online, with the trend towards all-digital film festivals, has helped.
Continue reading...He was once the embodiment of youthful rage and rebellion. Now, the Clockwork Orange star is reconciled to a life of golf, gangster flicks and the odd glimpse of genius
Malcolm McDowell was the insolent prince of early-70s cinema, the Liverpool salesman who stormed the establishment’s barricades. You can see him on screen in Lindsay Anderson’s If…., kickstarting a bloody revolution inside an English public school. You can see him in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, hanging with his droogs at the Korova milk-bar, making up his rassoodock what to do with the night. The sky was the limit. The world was his oyster. One felt he could achieve pretty much anything.
If McDowell’s life was a movie, he would either have gone on to be crowned king or he would have exploded and vanished, ideally before he turned 30. But real life has a way of monkeying with the script, which may explain why McDowell is now a snowy-haired 77-year-old. He is a father of five, an avid golfer and a jobbing Hollywood actor specialising in baddies. His wild youth is behind him. He has made peace with his lot. “I had an incredible first few years,” he explains. “And of course that was the golden age. But you can’t keep playing the rebel for ever.”
Continue reading...São Paulo is transformed into a spooky fairytale landscape in this elegant, unsettling tale of a pregnant woman and her prospective employee
There’s an enjoyably inscrutable performance at the heart of this Brazilian fairytale for grownups. Clara (Isabél Zuaa), an unsmiling mystery women, arrives at the luxurious São Paulo apartment of pregnant Ana (Marjorie Estiano), to be interviewed for the position of nanny. But is that really the role on offer? And is Clara an entirely honest applicant?
The first third of this two-hour-plus film keeps us wondering. It’s clear that something is off between the women, but impossible to determine where the balance of power lies. Is this a Rosemary’s Baby-style horror about satanic foetus worship? A Parasite-like study of the subversive intimacy between domestic servant and employer? Or some unholy combination of the two? Then, with all the sprightly mischief of one of Ana’s country-music workout videos, the plot dances off again, in an entirely different direction.
Continue reading...Ex-partners Ryder and Vanessa Paradis say allegations against actor are ‘impossible to believe’
Two of Johnny Depp’s former partners, Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis, have said he was never abusive or violent towards them and that allegations he is a “wife-beater” were “impossible to believe”.
The two women had been due to give evidence at the high court in London on Thursday via remote video links from the US.
Continue reading...Kate James also says she often received abusive text messages from Johnny Depp’s ex-wife
Amber Heard’s former personal assistant has accused the actor of stealing her own experience of being a victim of sexual violence and twisting it into a different story.
In evidence given remotely from Los Angeles, Kate James also said she had regularly received a barrage of drunken, abusive and incoherent text messages from Heard between 2am and 4am.
Continue reading...Travolta says ‘Kelly’s love and life will always be remembered’ after revealing actor’s death after two-year illness
Kelly Preston, who appeared in the hit films Jerry Maguire and Twins, has died, her husband, John Travolta, said. She was 57.
Travolta said in an Instagram post that his wife of 28 years, who was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, died on Sunday.
Continue reading...Actor denies his behaviour was controlling as he sues paper for abuse allegations
Details of sex scenes Amber Heard was to play on screen were kept from her husband, Johnny Depp, court documents have revealed. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, who admits to having jealous feelings, told the judge hearing his London libel case against the Sun that he “was uncomfortable with the idea of her doing nudity”.
Evidence put together by lawyers working for Heard suggests that, during the last stages of their two-year marriage, trust had broken down to the extent that Depp wanted to prevent his wife wearing revealing outfits on the red carpet and from taking parts in films involving nude scenes.
Continue reading...Court hears allegation that film star was too intoxicated to recall assaulting Amber Heard
The film star Johnny Depp has been accused in court of suffering “blackouts” and having no recollection of his violent past because of his excessive drinking and drug-taking.
During his second day in the witness box at the high court in London, the 57-year-old actor faced allegations that his self-destructive behaviour and jealousy of his ex-wife Amber Heard led him to assault her repeatedly in the course of their four-year relationship.
Continue reading...The star of Young Guns made his name as one of the Brat Pack. Three decades on, while others have crashed and burned, he is dreaming of ‘reopening’ the entertainment industry after lockdown
In a quiet corner of his Los Angeles home, Dermot Mulroney grapples with a question that many actors’ egos would not allow them to entertain: why isn’t he a bigger star?
“Well, I had some alcoholism. That slowed me down. And I ... wasn’t six feet. Does that work? No, that’s a little flimsy. Let’s keep thinking.”
Continue reading...Libel case against Sun newspaper over term ‘wife-beater’ begins in UK high court
Amber Heard, not Johnny Depp, was the one who started fights during their marriage, the high court has been told at the start of a libel battle involving the divorced Hollywood actors.
It was Heard who was “the abuser” and who invented claims that her former partner was a “wife-beater”, according to an opening statement submitted to the court by Depp’s barrister, David Sherborne.
Continue reading...Morricone’s work helped define the western but he went on to work across all film genres
Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer whose symphonic scores backed everything from spaghetti westerns to romance, horror and sci-fi films, has died aged 91.
Morricone had broken his femur days ago and died during the night in a clinic in Rome. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Giorgio Assumma. In a statement, Assumma said that the composer “died at dawn on 6 July in Rome with the comfort of faith. He preserved until the final moment full lucidity and great dignity.
Continue reading...The world’s most relatable megastar talks about his Covid-19 experience, his fears for the future, and whether he’s really just so gosh darned nice
“Welcome to the future, Hadley!” Tom Hanks says from my computer screen, as he makes a quick glance to the right of his own to check my name. “Can you remember the last time you felt comfortable running around with other people?” he asks.
I tell him it was probably the last time I saw him, which was when we were at the Academy Awards in February, where he had ratcheted up his fifth Oscar nomination, for his performance as beloved US children’s TV host Fred Rogers, in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.
Continue reading...Armada 1588: Shipwreck and Survival tells turbulent tale on bucolic stretch of Irish coast
Streedagh beach was the setting for young love in the TV drama Normal People, but its latest screen depiction reveals a dark history of plunder and slaughter on the golden sand.
Instead of romance among the dunes, viewers encounter drownings, stabbings and hangings on this bucolic stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast. And unlike the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, it’s all true.
Continue reading...Pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, cinemas and theme parks reopen, and weddings and baptisms take place as the lockdown eases
Continue reading...Bermudian-born actor rose to prominence in the 1950s in films such as Pool of London and Sapphire, as well as appearing in the 007 film Thunderball
Earl Cameron, who with his debut role in the 1951 film Pool of London, became one of the first significant black actors in British cinema, has died aged 102. His agent confirmed the news to the Guardian, saying “he passed away peacefully at home surrounded by his wife and family” on Friday in Kenilworth in Warwickshire.
Cameron’s significance to the current generation of black British actors was underlined by tributes on social media. David Harewood described him as “a total legend”, while Paterson Joseph wrote: “His generation’s pioneering shoulders are what my generation of actors stand on. No shoulders were broader than this gentleman with the voice of god and the heart of a kindly prince.” Historian David Olusoga added: “A remarkable and wonderful man. Not just a brilliant actor but a link to a deeper history.”
Continue reading...The actor has pushed the envelope for portrayals of black women and been up close with the president and Harvey Weinstein. “You come at me crazy, it’s gonna be on like popcorn,” she warns
It is 8am and Vivica A Fox, the star of two Independence Day films, two seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, both parts of Kill Bill and, latterly, two Sharknado movies, has been awake for hours. She sprang out of bed at 4am, pottered around and “did a little social media post” about her podcast, Hustling with Vivica A Fox. It’s a spin-off from Every Day I’m Hustling, her memoir-cum-self-help manual which contains health tips (“Hydrate, girl!”), social media advice (“Use hashtags to join big conversations”) and underwear secrets (“I’m a G-string type of gal”). Once the podcast was online this morning, she explains, “I said to myself: ‘Let’s get some coffee on. It’s showtime!’”
First on the agenda is the droll new thriller Arkansas, in which she plays the mysterious “Her”, who works as go-between in a drugs ring and is first seen in curlers, toe separators and a jazzy kaftan; Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn and John Malkovich struggle in vain not to be outshone. Down the line from her villa in the San Fernando Valley, where she has a spectacular living room view of the Santa Susana mountains, Fox talks through the various traits of Her: the character’s serenity (“That came from my mother, who’s religious”); her cool control (“I brought in a presidential thing there”); her no-nonsense efficiency (“A lil’ bit of my gangsta style”). But we are done with Arkansas in under five minutes, which is roughly the combined length of her scenes in the film.
Continue reading...Director of Steve Martin comedies The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains was also famed for his collaboration with Mel Brooks
Carl Reiner, the veteran comic and film-maker renowned for his double act with Mel Brooks as well as directing a string of hit comedies including The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains, has died 98.
Variety confirmed the news, reporting that his publicist said he died of natural causes on Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills.
Continue reading...India’s film-makers accused of hypocrisy for supporting Black Lives Matter while keeping silent on bias for fair complexions
The Bollywood film industry is a global phenomenon built on glitz and glamour. But it has also faced accusations of being among the biggest purveyors of racism for glorifying fair complexions in its hyperbolic love stories and catchy songs. Now, amid anger over what some consider Bollywood’s hypocritical stance on Black Lives Matter, the industry has finally been forced to confront one of its most enduring taboos.
Bollywood has witnessed considerable liberalisation in recent years. But while taboos such as same-sex relationships have been relegated to a past in which stars hid behind a rose bush to steal a kiss, the industry’s determination to cling to colourism – prejudice against people of your own race on the basis of skin colour – has become a cause of anger and dismay.
Continue reading...