Cesar Barron had a heart attack during performance at the Roundhouse in Camden, according to industry reports
A former World Championship Wrestling star wrestler has died after collapsing during a show in London, it is reported.
Silver King – who played a villain called Ramses in the film Nacho Libre alongside Jack Black – was performing at the Roundhouse in Camden at the time.
Continue reading...The actor Alyssa Milano ignited a social media storm with a call for women to join her in a sex strike, to protest against strict abortion laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures.
Related: Abortion: judge strikes down Kentucky restriction but governor to appeal
Continue reading...The best picture Oscar and the Pulitzer for biography have been bestowed on problematic and inferior works on race
Art highlighting the marginalized, blacks, gays and others, is more fashionable than ever. For the gatekeepers of culture, however, it is not authenticity but stories that celebrate a superficial idea of progressiveness which exert the greatest appeal. Narratives exhibiting how “woke” we are resonate most. As long as a work captures how accepting whites are of blacks, how understanding straights are when encountering queerness, success is assured.
Related: Culture’s race war: 'Blackness is something to consume but not engage with'
Continue reading...The death of the SNL star 30 years ago robbed the industry of one its finest voices – but not before she had blazed a trail for women such as Tina Fey to follow
There is no shortage of excellent critical writing about the US comedy scene in the 80s, and Nick de Semlyen’s Wild and Crazy Guys, which is published in the UK next month, is a terrific contribution to the genre. De Semlyen frames his book by telling the stories of the men who forged that world, most of whom – including Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd – emerged from the comedy training ground of Saturday Night Live. But what De Semlyen’s book also shows is that this scene was dominated by men. Yet that wasn’t supposed to be the case.
This month is the 30th anniversary of the death of Gilda Radner, one of the original cast members of SNL, alongside Chase, Belushi, Aykroyd and others. Although she is comparatively little known today outside comedy circles, back then she was widely assumed to be the future megastar of that group. With her sharp parodies of celebrities and her skill at satirising her own femininity and neuroses, she set the mould for modern female comedians. Without Radner, it is hard to imagine the existence of many of the most beloved comic characters of the past 30 years, from Elaine Benes in Seinfeld to Liz Lemon in 30 Rock.
Continue reading...Winter is emptying the last of its sleet from the sky as Madhur Jaffrey opens the door to her home in upstate New York. The house, built in the 1790s, smells of ancient wood. Jaffrey and her husband, the violinist Sanford Allen, spend a few days a week here, driving up from the Greenwich Village apartment where they have lived for 52 years. At 5ft 2in, with her hair in a shiny bob, Jaffrey cuts an unfussily elegant figure.
We are here to talk about her newest venture, Madhur Jaffrey’s Instantly Indian Cookbook. A compendium of recipes for the Instant Pot, an electric pressure cooker that has won itself an army of devotees known as “potheads”, it is her 30th cookbook. What makes this particularly impressive is that, for Jaffrey, writing about food has always been a second career.
Continue reading...The man inside Star Wars’ Wookiee suit may not have been instantly recognisable, but his skills helped lay the groundwork for current blockbuster movies
Like Anthony Daniels in the gold shell of C3PO, or Dave Prowse in the cloak and mask of Darth Vader, Peter Mayhew, who played the lovable but formidable Star Wars Wookiee Chewbacca, did not achieve the face recognition that actors usually yearn for, and an acting career was not in any case what Mayhew particularly wanted before George Lucas chose him for Star Wars. But it was Mayhew’s destiny to become known and adored by a passionate connoisseur fanbase, his charm and good nature made him loved by his colleagues and his actual presence did make itself felt in hundreds of fan conventions over the decades. These fan conventions themselves evolved as a new phenomenon, a kind of auxiliary theatrical platform for franchise movies alongside cinema, TV and the web.
Continue reading...JRR Tolkien’s family have disowned the forthcoming biopic, starring Nicholas Hoult, but they are far from the only clan disenchanted with films about their loved ones
Julian Assange wrote a letter to Benedict Cumberbatch urging the actor not to play him in this WikiLeaks origin story, arguing that the project was “a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice”. If only it had been that interesting.
Continue reading...Actor says she would work with Allen again ‘in a second’ and that Polanski had ‘paid his price’ for his behaviour
Actor Anjelica Huston has come out in defence of under-fire film-maker Woody Allen, and expressed sympathy for other controversial entertainment industry figures including Roman Polanski and Jeffrey Tambor.
In an outspoken and wide-ranging interview published in New York magazine, Huston was asked for her thoughts on Allen, with whom she worked on his acclaimed 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Huston said she would work with him in again “in a second”, noting that “two states investigated him, and neither of them prosecuted him”. Allen is currently in a legal dispute with Amazon, which cancelled its four-film agreement with him in the wake of his daughter Dylan’s allegations of sexual abuse and his response to the #MeToo campaign.
Continue reading...Artem Tkachuk, 18, of Piranhas film is believed to have been attacked by a ‘baby gang’ in city
An actor who appeared in an award-winning film about child criminals in Naples has been stabbed by an alleged member of one of the Italian city’s “baby gangs”.
Artem Tkachuk, 18, originally from Ukraine, played a young mobster in The Piranhas, which told the story of the phenomenon of baby gangs, criminal groups led by youngsters, in Naples.
Continue reading...The Paolo Di Paolo: Lost World exhibition presents more than 250 largely unseen images from the photographer’s archive. Di Paolo chronicled life in his country as an economic boom followed the destruction of the second world war. Although those were the years of la dolce vita he was an anti-paparazzo – he shunned the salacious and respected his subjects. The exhibition is at MAXXI in Rome until 30 June
Continue reading...As the co-founders of Seret, the UK Israeli film and television festival, we are surprised that, yet again, there has been a call for a boycott on screening films from Israel here in the UK, from film-makers who believe that they are supporting the “Palestinian cause” (Letters, 26 April).
Israeli films are distributed globally, and the cinemas they are screened in are delighted and proud to show them to their audiences.
Continue reading...Three-day event makes late move to secret location in wake of row between LGBT and feminist groups
A pornography festival in London this weekend has been forced to relocate after protests.
Faced with the prospect of a picket, organisers of the London porn film festival, which describes itself as “celebrating queer, feminist, radical and experimental porn”, pulled screenings from the Horse Hospital, an arts venue in Bloomsbury. The three-day event will instead be held at a new location disclosed only to ticket holders.
Continue reading...The star of Hannibal, The Hunt and new film Arctic doubts frank conversation is possible in the wake of #MeToo. But is he really also sceptical about climate change?
Dogme 95, the notorious Danish DIY film movement that launched the career of – among others – Lars Von Trier, has been called a lot of things. “Revolutionary”, “amateur porn”, “shit” (the last one yelled by the critic Mark Kermode at a Cannes screening of Von Trier’s The Idiots). With its 10-point manifesto targeting “decadent film-making”, wobbly-cam aesthetic and tendency towards nudity, violence and cruelty, it has inspired rapture and revulsion in equal measure. Though not everyone, it seems, had such a visceral reaction.
“To be frank, I just thought it was silly,” says Mads Mikkelsen. “Sitting down and writing down 10 commandments of how to approach film-making? ‘The story is important’ – no shit, Sherlock! Seriously? Do you have to write that down? Was it not important before you wrote it down? All these things were common fucking sense to me.
Continue reading...Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007 will see the return of Léa Seydoux, as well as previously-confirmed Rami Malek
Fresh details of plot and cast for the 25th James Bond film have been revealed at an official launch at Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica. With the sea in the background, a platter of pears and papaya in front, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson as well as new director Cary Fukunaga told radio presenter Clara Amfo that the new film opens with Bond relaxing in “his spiritual home”.
“Bond is not on active service,” said Broccoli. “He’s enjoying himself in Jamaica.” The trio confirmed that MI6 regulars Ralph Fiennes (who took over from Judi Dench as M after 2012’s Skyfall), Naomie Harris (as Moneypenny), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter), Rory Kinnear (as Bill Tanner) and Ben Whishaw (as Q) will return, alongside Léa Seydoux, who played psychologist Madeleine Swann in 2015’s Spectre.
Continue reading...Lord of the Rings author’s estate declares it did not ‘approve of, authorise or participate in the making of’ new biopic
The family and estate of JRR Tolkien have fired a broadside against the forthcoming film starring Nicholas Hoult as a young version of the author, saying that they “do not endorse it or its content in any way”.
Out in May, and starring Hoult in the title role and Lily Collins as his wife Edith, Tolkien explores “the formative years of the renowned author’s life as he finds friendship, courage and inspiration among a fellow group of writers and artists at school”. Directed by Dome Karukoski, it promises to reveal how “their brotherhood strengthens as they grow up … until the outbreak of the first world war which threatens to tear their fellowship apart”, all of which, according to studio Fox Searchlight, would inspire Tolkien to “write his famous Middle-earth novels”.
Continue reading...Regarding Jeremy Beecham’s thoughts on Roger Waters (Letters, 19 April), I think we can take it as read Waters would not encourage Madonna to support the Assad regime by playing Damascus.
John Warburton
Edinburgh
• You failed to mention the two most important filmed rock concerts (Homecoming review – Beyoncé documentary is a triumphant celebration, 19 April): Monterey Pop and Woodstock. To write about seminal filmed rock gigs without mentioning them is like writing about influential 60s groups without mentioning the Beatles or the Stones.
Jon Ingram
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Family of Oscar-nominated film-maker, 51, thanked his fans and colleagues for good wishes
Oscar-nominated director John Singleton is in intensive care after suffering a stroke. The film-maker, known for movies including Boyz N the Hood, the 2000 remake of Shaft and 2 Fast 2 Furious, fell ill on Wednesday, his family said in a statement to the Press Association.
Singleton, 51, is now in hospital “under great medical care”, they said.
Continue reading...President’s campaign video featured Hans Zimmer music from The Dark Knight Rises
Warner Bros has launched legal action against Donald Trump after he used music from The Dark Knight Rises in a tweet.
The US president posted a two-minute video for his 2020 re-election campaign that featured Hans Zimmer’s Why Do We Fall? from the 2012 film. It also featured the film’s title cards.
Continue reading...The screening of a 1966 film about their country’s bitter colonial conflict has seen Algerians unite in peaceful protest
More than half a century since it was released – and promptly banned by French authorities – The Battle of Algiers, depicting the bloody struggle for Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, still has the power to shock.
On Friday night, the black-and-white, 1966 film relating Algerian anti-colonial guerrilla warfare and its brutal repression by the French military was screened in Paris. London-based musical activists Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) performed a live soundtrack.
Continue reading...Brunei’s introduction of new laws allowing stoning for adultery and sex between men has sparked international outrage. Elton John and George Clooney’s calls for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by the tiny south-east Asian kingdom have grabbed the spotlight. The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has condemned the “cruel and inhuman” measures, as have the EU, Australia and others.
The punishment is only one of many horrifying changes in a penal code which also covers apostasy, amputation as a punishment for theft and flogging for abortions. Lesbian sex is punishable by 40 strokes of the cane as well as jail. In some cases children who have reached puberty are subject to the same penalties as adults; younger ones may be flogged. The sharia code was first introduced in 2013, and was supposed to be enacted gradually; following an outcry the government did not bring forward its harshest elements until now. Many suspect that the impact of declining oil revenues on public spending has left Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the longest-ruling absolute monarchs, keen to bolster support among conservative elements.
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