Showing posts with label ENTERTAINMEN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ENTERTAINMEN. Show all posts

Monday, February 20, 2012

Twickenham film studios set to close



Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron LadyPost-production of The Iron Lady was completed at Twickenham


Twickenham Film Studios, recently used for The Iron Lady and My Week with Marilyn, has gone into administration.
The renowned studio, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, will be wound down between now and June.
Gerald Krasner, who is handling the administration, said the the business had lost money over the past three years.
"I doubt it will be retained as a film studio," he said. Half of the 17 employees have already left.
The remainder are working their notice, Mr Krasner added.
"We are selling it on," he told the BBC News website. "Everyone will then be paid in full."
Classic movies shot at Twickenham, which opened in 1913, include include Sherlock Holmes film The Missing Rembrandt, made in the 1930s, and the Beatles films Help and A Hard Day's Night.
Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Alfie starring Michael Caine and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning also made use of its facilities.
More recently War Horse and Horrid Henry: The Movie were made there, while director Phyllida Lloyd completed post-production on The Iron Lady at the historic studios.
The Beatles were presented with a Radio Caroline First Birthday Award at Twickenham Studios in the 1960s
Its old viewing theatre and wardrobe department was also seen in My Week with Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh.
"I think it is a real shame that Twickenham's closing," said key grip Rupert Lloyd Parry, who worked on both The Iron Lady and My Week with Marilyn. "It's one of our older studios.
"It's nice when you work where you feel like there's a real sort of tradition of the British film industry. It's like working at Ealing, places like that.
"The film industry is buoyant at the moment, there is work coming in. There doesn't seem like there is any reason for it to shut."
Built on the site of a former ice rink, St Margaret's Studios was set up in 1913 by Dr Ralph Jupp and was the largest studio in the UK at the time.
It was re-named Twickenham Film Studios in 1929 by its then-owners Julius Hagen and Leslie Hiscott.

China eases foreign film restrictions



Kung Fu Panda advertising outside a Beijing cinemaKung Fu Panda 2 was the second highest-grossing film of 2011 in China

China has agreed to ease restrictions on the number of foreign films shown there, and to increase the amount film studios can make from ticket sales.

A quota of 20 foreign movies, which are mostly US exports, remains. A further 14 Imax or 3D films will be allowed.
The Motion Picture Association of America said the "landmark" deal - brokered with the US - would allow 50% more Hollywood films into China.
Chinese box office receipts topped $2bn (£1.26bn) last year, US officials said.
Vendor selling pirated DVDs in ChinaPiracy has affected the sale of Hollywood movies in China
As part of the agreement, the amount of revenue foreign movies are allowed to collect from movies distributed in China will be increased from about 13% to 25% of ticket revenue.
Announcing the deal at the end of last week's visit of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, US Vice-President Joe Biden said it would "make it easier than ever before for US studios and independent film-makers to reach the fast-growing Chinese audience".
He said the move would support "thousands of American jobs in and around the film industry".
"At the same time, Chinese audiences will have access to more of the finest films made anywhere in the world," he added.
The US movie industry has long complained that the limit fuelled demand for pirated copies of films, which are widely available in China.
In December 2009, the World Trade Organization ruled that China should allow more imported films to be released in cinemas but little had changed before Friday's announcement.
"By promoting the growth of a legitimate marketplace for US movies in China, this agreement will also complement efforts to fight movie piracy and help protect the jobs of workers in both countries, whose livelihoods are dependent on a healthy entertainment industry," MPAA president Chris Dodd said.

Top grossing films in China in 2011

  • Transformers 3: The Dark Side of the Moon - $170m (£107.2m)
  • Kung Fu Panda 2 - $98m (£61.8m)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - $76m (£47.9m)
Source: Artisan Gateway
According to tracking firm Artisan Gateway, China had 10,500 cinema screens by the end of 2011. It said the figure could top 13,000 by the end of this year.
By comparison, the US has 40,000 cinema screens.
During Mr Xi's visit to California, US film giant DreamWorks Animation announced a $330m (£210m) joint venture with China.
Oriental DreamWorks will give the company further access to Chinese cinema-goers who have fallen in love with films including the studio's Kung Fu Panda 2.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Adele plays down 'five-year hiatus' remark



Adele performing at the GrammysAdele sang at the Grammys for the first time since her throat surgery


Chart-topping singer Adele has played down suggestions she is to take a five-year break from the music business.
The reports were prompted by a profile inVogue magazine in which she said she was considering a hiatus lasting "four or five years".
"Five years? More like five days!" she wrote on her blog following Sunday's Grammy awards in Los Angeles, which saw her walk way with six prizes.
Her UK spokesman said it was "just an off-hand comment".
Speaking ahead of the Grammys, however, her manager Jonathan Dickins said plans for a 2012 tour had yet to be properly discussed.
"We have to ease her back," he told Billboard magazine, referring to the throat problem and surgery that temporarily robbed the British star of her voice in 2011.
"I'm gonna [sic] let her enjoy this moment and not drive her mad," he went on. "We'll sit down and work out what we're doing going forward."
Adele made her live comeback at the Grammys ceremony, singing her hit Rolling in the Deep on a night that saw her showered with praise and accolades.
The 23-year-old is scheduled to perform at the Brit Awards in London on 21 February, where she is nominated in three categories.

Whitney Houston: Sony 'sorry' for album price hike



Whitney Houston in 1988Whitney Houston's funeral is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 18 February
Record label Sony has apologised for increasing the price of two Whitney Houston albums in the UK, hours after her death on Saturday.
The wholesale cost of the two LPs - Houston's Ultimate Collection and Greatest Hits - went up by about £3 each, causing an automatic price increase on iTunes.
In a statement, Sony said the albums had been "mistakenly mispriced".
It added the error was "immediately corrected" once it had been discovered.
Houston fans had taken to Twitter describing the price hike as "greedy" and "shameful".
Since Houston's death aged 48, her record sales have seen a major boost in the US and the UK.
Several of her songs are on course to re-enter the UK singles top 40 on Sunday with a greatest hits compilation heading for the top 10.
Houston's cover of the Dolly Parton single, I Will Always Love You, is likely to reach the top 10 on Sunday.
The single, which featured in The Bodyguard, previously spent 10 weeks at number one and was the biggest selling single of 1992.
Private service
Meanwhile, details of the singer's funeral have been announced.
She will be laid to rest during a private ceremony on 18 February in the New Jersey church where she sang as a child.
The New Hope Baptist Church in New JerseyFans have been laying tributes to Houston outside the church where her funeral is taking place
No plans for a public memorial service have been announced.
Funeral home owner Carolyn Whigham said: "The family thanks all the fans, the friends and the media, but this time is their private time."
Gospel singer and Grammy award-winner Marvin Winans will give the eulogy.
Winans, who is also a pastor, married Houston and fellow singer Bobby Brown in 1992.
"The loss, you can't place into words because it's like your sister," he told US TV network ABC.
"She became the sweetheart of America and it's hard to live up to those expectations."
The singer was discovered in a bath at a hotel in Beverly Hills. A post mortem is yet to determine the cause of her death.
Her body has since been flown to New Jersey and was driven to the funeral home in a gold hearse.

Nazi sci-fi film Iron Sky becomes Berlin talking point





A Finnish sci-fi comedy about Nazis invading Earth has become the most talked-about movie at this year's Berlin Film Festival.
Iron Sky is a B-movie spoof that has been screening at the festival's sidebar event, called Panorama.
The plot revolves around a group of Nazis who escape to the moon at the end of World War II to plan a new assault.
Interest in the film has raised eyebrows at the Berlin film gala, which is more used to heavyweight fare.
Last year A Separation - a compelling Iranian drama about the dissolution of a marriage - took home the festival's main prize, the Golden Bear.
The 2012 festival has seen the premiere of Angelina Jolie's directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, a film about the Bosnian war.
Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt are said to be among the stars who have caught Iron Sky during the screening.
Stephanie Paul in Iron Sky. Photo by Mika OrasmaaThe film features a fictional US president, satirically modelled on Sarah Palin
Iron Sky's plot is set in motion in 2018, when a Nazi soldier comes face to face with a US astronaut.
Added to the farce is a US President with more than a passing resemblance to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, and a navy cruiser called the USS George W Bush.
Its appeal has been hailed by some members of the international press as a sign that Germans are now at peace with their Nazi past.
Yet local journalists are more cautious. "Although I heard that audiences were laughing out loud, in my screening... it wasn't like that," said Kerstin Sopke of the Associated Press.
"It's still a delicate subject here, and you have to be really careful how it's done. I was a little bit wary, but actually I think they did the comedy well.
"The inclusion of so much US satire when there is a presidential election campaign was also holding up a mirror to our time."
Iron Sky's production team have appropriated the conspiracy theory that the Nazis had an advanced UFO project during World War II.
However, its director Timo Vuorensola - whose last work was a Star Trek pastiche called Star Wreck - still describes the film as a "stupid joke".
Udo Kier in Iron Sky. Photo by Tarja JakunahoGerman actor Udo Kier is the best-known member of the Iron Sky cast
Most of the funding for the £7m project was obtained after an online appeal to fans.
After successfully using the public to generate funding, its producers aim to launch a series of comics and licensed merchandise.
The Independent's Kaleem Aftab has praised Iron Sky, saluting its "over-the-top storytelling at its riotous and enjoyable best".
Yet The Guardian's Andrew Pulver called it "a giant damp squib" that was "not nearly as funny or cruel as its killer premise suggests".
London's Time Out magazine agreed with that assessment, calling it "a crude slapstick romp wholly lacking in charm, wit or excitement".
There is no doubt, though, that the film has whipped up an online buzz echoing that generated by another gaudy B-movie - 2006's Snakes on a Plane.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Men can inherit a form of heart disease from father via Y chromosome



Chromosomes of a manThe Y chromosome determines that a baby will be a boy


Men can inherit heart disease from their father say scientists who have tracked the condition to the Y chromosome that dads pass to sons.
By studying the DNA of over 3,000 men they found a particular version of the sex chromosome increases the risk of coronary artery disease by 50%.
As many as one in five British men carry this version of Y.
And the risk it confers is in addition to other heart risk factors like cholesterol, The Lancet reports.
Experts already know that men develop heart disease a decade earlier than women, on average. By the age of 40, the lifetime risk of heart disease is one in two for men and one in three for women.
Lifestyle factors like smoking and blood pressure are important contributors. This latest work suggests the male Y chromosome can also play a role in coronary artery disease - a common form of heart disease that kills thousands each year in the UK.
Passed down

Start Quote

Doctors usually associated the Y chromosome with maleness and fertility but this shows it is also implicated in heart disease”
Dr Maciej TomaszewskiLead researcher
Dr Maciej Tomaszewski, from the University of Leicester, and colleagues studied 3,233 biologically unrelated British men who were already enrolled in other medical studies investigating heart disease risk.
When they carried out genetic tests on the men they found that 90% possessed one of two common versions of Y chromosome - named haplogroup I and haplogroup R1b1b2.
And the risk of coronary artery disease among the men carrying the haplogroup I version was 50% higher than in other men.
The scientists say they now need to pinpoint precisely which genes on the Y chromosome are responsible.
But they believe they already know how they exert their effect - by upsetting a man's immune system.
Dr Maciej Tomaszewski, a clinical senior lecturer at the University's Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, said: "We are very excited about these findings as they put the Y chromosome on the map of genetic susceptibility to coronary artery disease.
"Doctors usually associated the Y chromosome with maleness and fertility but this shows it is also implicated in heart disease."
He said, ultimately, the discovery could lead to new ways to treat and prevent heart disease in men, as well as a genetic test to spot those greatest risk.
In the meantime, he said men should focus on risk factors that they already have the power to modify themselves, such as getting enough exercise and eating a healthy diet to keep their blood pressure and cholesterol down.
Dr Hélène Wilson of the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the work, said: "Coronary heart disease is the cause of heart attacks, which claim the lives of around 50,000 UK men every year.
"Lifestyle choices such as poor diet and smoking are major causes, but inherited factors carried in DNA are also part of the picture. The next step is to identify specifically which genes are responsible and how they might increase heart attack risk."

Naomi Watts lands Princess Diana role



Diana Princess of Wales and Naomi WattsWatts (r) said she looked forward to the "challenge" of playing the Princess (l)


British-born actress Naomi Watts is to portray Princess Diana in a new film believed to explore her relationship with the heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.
The pair had a discreet romantic affair that began in 1995 and ended a few months before her death in August 1997.
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, Caught in Flight is described as "a compelling portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales during the last two years of her life".
Watts, 43, said it was "such an honour to be able to play this iconic role".
"Princess Diana was loved across the world, and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen," she continued.
Hirschbiegel, who previously dramatised Hitler's final days in 2004 film Downfall, described Watts as "a truly exceptional actress who embodies the warmth, humanity and empathy of such a global icon".
Earlier reports had linked US actress Jessica Chastain to her part in the film, to be based on a screenplay by British playwright Stephen Jeffreys.
Watts, whose films include the remakes of King Kong, The Ring and Funny Games, received an Oscar nomination for her work in 21 Grams and was recently seen alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in J Edgar.
Produced by Ecosse Films, whose previous features include John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, the movie will begin shooting in the UK later this year.

Miro work fails to sell at London auction



Peinture (1933) and Painting-Poem (1925) by Joan MiroPeinture (l) failed to sell one day after Painting-Poem (r) set a new Miro record


A 1933 work by the Spanish artist Joan Miro failed to sell on Wednesday in a week that has seen other pieces sold for record prices at London auctions.
Miro's Peinture had been valued between £7m and £10m but went unsold at the Sotheby's event.
By contrast another Miro work, Painting-Poem from 1925, set a new record for the artist after selling for £16.8m at Christie's on Tuesday.
The same sale saw a Henry Moore figure go under the hammer for £19.1m.
The amount fetched by his Reclining Figure: Festival - a bronze piece commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951 - was the most paid for a British sculpture at auction since Damien Hirst's The Golden Calf went for £10.3m in 2008.
Another high-profile casualty on Wednesday was a 1901 landscape by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that failed to find a buyer willing to meet its £6m-£8m valuation.
Reclining Figure: Festival by Henry MooreThe Moore figure was commissioned for the Festival of Britain in 1951
After the Sotheby's auction, however, the painting - called Seeufer mit Birken, or Lakeshore with Birches - changed hands in a private transaction for £5.6m.
The highest price of the evening was set by L'Entree de Giverny en Hiver, a snowscape by Claude Monet that went for a cool £8.2m.
Overall the sale of impressionist and modern art raised £78.9m - a disappointing amount for an event expected to fetch as much as £113.3m.
Elsewhere in London this week, works by Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Marc Chagall went up for grabs at Bonhams auction house.
Picasso took top honours at the auction on Tuesday, where his 1954 painting Notre Dame de Paris sold for £864,450.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Elizabeth Taylor art sale fetches £14m



Van Gogh's Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-RemyVan Gogh's Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy, fetched the most money at the Christie's sale


Three paintings from Elizabeth Taylor's personal art collection have been sold for £13.7m at an auction in London.
The combined total of the Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas and Claude Pissarro artworks fetched more than double the £6.2m estimate at the Christie's sale.
Van Gogh's Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy (1889), fetched £10.1m, the highest price.
Taylor's father originally bought the piece on her behalf in 1963 for £92,000.
It had been hung on the star's living room wall in her Bel Air, California home until her death in March.
The other two paintings, a self-portrait by Degas and a large-scale landscape by Pissarro - called Pommiers a Eragny - sold for £713,250 and £2.9m respectively.
All three artworks featured in the global tour of highlights from the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor, which was displayed in both New York and London last autumn.
A further sale will offer 35 works from the late film star's fine art collection on Wednesday.
In December, a sale of Taylor's personal items such as jewellery, furniture and memorabilia, fetched $150m (£94m).
The Oscar-winning actress died in Los Angeles last year at the age of 79.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sir Paul McCartney to play Queen Diamond Jubilee gig


Sir Elton John, Dame Shirley Bassey and Sir Paul McCartneyMore acts will be announced at a later date

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Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and Brit-nominated Ed Sheeran will play at The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert on 4 June.
The event, which is a joint venture between the BBC and Gary Barlow, will take place near The Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.
Take That star Barlow said the gig will "transcend multiple decades of music".
A national ballot, which can be applied for online, will distribute free tickets to 10,000 people.
Members of the public can also apply by post anytime between 7 February and 2 March.

Gary Barlow: "I want the whole world to be on that stage"
Tickets are being allocated randomly and not on a first-come, first-served basis.
Ticket holders will also be able to attend a special Jubilee picnic, which will take place in the Buckingham Palace Garden.
'Magnificent concert'
JLS, Alfie Boe, Jools Holland, Jessie J, Tom Jones, Lang Lang, Annie Lennox, Madness and Cliff Richard have also been announced as part of the line-up with more names to be released nearer the time.
"The Diamond Jubilee concert will celebrate the 60 years of The Queen's reign with an amazing line-up of world-class artists coming together to play at one of the biggest and most exciting live music shows in recent years," Barlow said.
An artist's impression of the stageAn artist's impression of the stage, designed by architect Mark Fisher
The concert will include classic hits and one-off collaborations and the stage will be designed by world-renowned architect Mark Fisher, who has worked for U2, Robbie Williams and The Rolling Stones.
The concert will be broadcast live on BBC One, BBC One HD and on BBC Radio 2 in the UK and to millions around the world.
US viewers will be able to watch highlights on ABC the following day.
BBC One controller Danny Cohen said: "BBC One is honoured to be the broadcast host of this magnificent concert to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.
"This will be a musical event like no other, with Britain's greatest musical stars performing to celebrate this great occasion."