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9 articles from 2008

10 July 2008 12:37 AM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

The U.K government has been heavily criticised for wasting tax-payers' money on a magazine which claimed that Elvis Presley was a gypsy.

Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month magazine also suggests that Presley's ancestors were Sinti - German gypsies who emigrated to America in the 18th century.

The publication - for school pupils - also claims that film legends Charlie Chaplin and Rita Hayworth came from gypsy backgrounds.

The magazine was given a $140,000 (GBP70,000) grant by the British government .

But Schools Minister Lord Adonis has been criticised over the "politically correct" initiative.

Member of Parliament Philip Davies says, "This is a grotesque abuse of taxpayers' money. When families are struggling to pay their bills, for the Government to fund this magazine which speaks garbage is just another kick in the teeth."

The Department of Children, Schools and Families said the magazine was designed to increase understanding of travellers' cultural heritage.

A spokesman said: "It is not true that Andrew Adonis has approved or endorsed the distribution to schools of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month magazine.

"The department provided GBP70,000 of funding to the gypsy, Roma and traveller community. The aim was to produce material and events across the country to celebrate the culture of the gypsy, Roma and traveller community."

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4 June 2008 8:01 AM, PDT | From ifc.com | See recent IFC news

By Stephen Saito

When Steve Conrad's directorial debut went into production, it was originally called "Quebec," a reference to the hometown of the character played by John C. Reilly, a middle manager who competes with another middle manager (Seann William Scott) for the top job at their supermarket. It was a small detail, but more so than most, Conrad's films are about the accumulation of small details. Maybe that's the reason why in the few months since the oddball comedy, which is now called "The Promotion," premiered at the Sxsw Film Festival in March, it's been hailed as "a comedy that balances broad farce and actual humanity with wit, warmth, and weirdness" (Cinematical) and dismissed as something that should be "added to the Geneva Conventions' list of humanitarian abuses" (The Hollywood Reporter).

What's particularly odd about the extreme reactions to Conrad's film is that he explores a subject that's

Stephen Saito

13 May 2008 5:55 AM, PDT | From PEOPLE.com | See recent PEOPLE.com news

Gearing up for her latest movie, the Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru, Jessica Alba takes on the guise of screen comedy's first iconic figure, Charlie Chaplin – all for the June issue of Allure. In the course of the accompanying interview, the pregnant Alba, 27, opens up about her sexy public image and how she finally learned to feel comfortable with her body. Some highlights from the interview: On Her Steamy Public Image: "[Hollywood] always play[s] up your sexuality, because that's what gets men into the theaters. And I never really gave a s--- about all that stuff! It's nothing to be ashamed of.

Brian Orloff

9 May 2008 4:40 AM, PDT | From Digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news

The story of Swiss folk hero William Tell is to be adapted for the big screen.

The Adventures Of William Tell will be directed by Ian Quinn and star Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter Kiera as the title character's wife.

According to legend, Tell was forced to shoot an apple off his son's head with a crossbow to win freedom from Austrian occupiers in the 14th Century. . . .

Beth Hilton

1 May 2008 1:04 PM, PDT | From avclub.com | See recent The AV Club news

Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely stars Diego Luna as a Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator who toils in relative obscurity on the streets of Paris until one day, while entertaining at an old folks' home, he meets "Marilyn Monroe" (played by Samantha Morton). "Marilyn" invites "Michael" to join her at a Scottish commune where she lives with her husband "Charlie Chaplin" (played by Denis Lavant) and a host of other good-hearted celebrity wannabes. Meanwhile, in a Central American village—and in an entirely unrelated story—a group of skydiving nuns spreads the Gospel via airborne stunts and the occasional miracle. Mister Lonely isn't moviemaking in a conventional sense; it's more tableaux-building. Writer-director Korine apparently imagined how neat it would be to watch Buckwheat give the Pope a bath, or Madonna sob into James Dean's shoulder while a bunch of men in blue jumpsuits fire rifles into a livestock pen. Then he made it.

Noel Murray

30 April 2008 3:39 PM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

While DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg has pledged to make all of his studio's future films in digital 3-d, he may not find a lot of theaters in which to show them. In a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Katzenberg said that the conversion of theaters to 3-d has "dragged along, and it's been pretty disappointing." He noted that the addition of 3-d to the production of an animated film will cost the company $15 million more per film. But whether that additional investment will pay off, given the number of theaters that are currently equipped to show 3-d films, "is the thing up for grabs right now," he said. Meanwhile DreamWorks Animation said that its first-quarter profits came in at $26.1 million versus $15.4 million a year ago -- a 69-percent jump. Profits were driven by sales of Shrek the Third DVDs and the overseas ticket sales for Bee Movie. Note:In Tuesday's edition of Studio Briefing, we mentioned that United Artists was founded in 1919 by actors Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. We neglected to mention that a fourth founder was the director D.W. Griffith.

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29 April 2008 10:32 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Following a five-week run at New York City's Film Forum, a 90th-anniversary "tribute" to United Artists will go on the road beginning Friday, when the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Ma screens 20 restored Ua films that Film Forum described as "some of the most entertaining, adventurous, and Oscar-laden American (and foreign) movies of the last nine decades." While Ua was founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, the films being screened were mostly produced during the last half of the 20th century. They include Dr. No (1962), the first James Bond movie, starring Sean Connery; the original Pink Panther film, starring Peter Sellers; Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe; the fight films Raging Bull (1980) and Rocky (1976); and the political dramas The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). The restored prints are scheduled to make a cross-country road-show tour over the next year.

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20 April 2008 4:05 PM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Veteran British TV host Bruce Forsyth received the highest accolade the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) Academy can award at a ceremony in London on Sunday night.

The 80-year-old entertainer was presented with The Fellowship Award in recognition of his "outstanding body of work" at the Bafta Television Awards.

Forsyth joins director Ken Loach, screenwriter/director Richard Curtis, Lawrence of Arabia film editor Anne Coates and Hollywood star Sir Anthony Hopkins among the recipients of the coveted prize.

Upon receiving his award at the glitzy London Palladium prizegiving, Forsyth said, "This is quite overwhelming.

"(British comedy duo) Morecambe and Wise and Charlie Chaplin were the only light entertainment people to get this award before."

Other winners at the annual ceremony included comedian/TV presenter Harry Hill, who won the Best Entertainment Performance and Best Entertainment Programme for his show Harry Hill's TV Burp, and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who claimed the night's Best Feature honour for cookery show Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Sci-fi drama Heroes won the International Prize and The Street was named Best Drama Series for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, Dame Eileen Atkins won the battle of the dames - she beat Dame Judi Dench in the Best Actress category for her role in Cranford. Andrew Garfield was named Best Actor for his role in Boy A.

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15 April 2008 8:54 PM, PDT | From avclub.com | See recent The AV Club news

Over the past 150 years, San Francisco had been the base of operations for Eadweard Muybridge and Philo T. Farnsworth—inventors of the zoopraxiscope and television, respectively—as well as filmmakers as well-known as George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, and as lesser-known as avant-garde legend Bruce Conner. Gary Leva's documentary Fog City Mavericks tries to encompass them all, making a case for the city as a welcoming place for innovation and art. But while his argument is hard to dispute, the way Leva makes it is often confounding. Working non-chronologically, Leva starts with Muybridge's early experiments in high-speed photography, then jumps ahead to the founding of Lucas and Coppola's idealistic filmmaking collective American Zoetrope. From there, Fog City Mavericks keeps returning to the Zoetrope crew, while zigzagging around to pick up anecdotes about Charles Chaplin's brief stint in San Francisco, as well

Noel Murray

9 articles from 2008