Photos: Paul Walker, 1973-2013

Photos: Paul Walker, 1973-2013

Fast & Furious star Paul Walker died Sunday in a Southern California car crash at the age of 40. He had recently been filming Universal’s Fast & Furious 7 sequel. Read more here. Click on photos after the jump to launch a slideshow.

Related: ‘Fast & Furious’ Star Paul Walker Killed In Car Crash

Deadline.com

Sight & Sound, John Waters Name The Top Ten Films Of 2013

Sight & Sound, John Waters Name The Top Ten Films Of 2013

Here’s a pair of just-released Top 10 lists that make Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films of 2013 look downright pedestrian. Over in the UK, Sight & Sound Magazine picks Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing the best picture of the year while cult filmmaker John Waters names Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers #1. With the onslaught of end-of-year Top 10s yet to come, could this year’s crop of critical picks be leaning arthouse just as Oscar trends toward indie? See how yours stack up:

Sight & Sound:
1. The Act of Killing
2. Gravity
3. Blue is the Warmest Color
4. The Great Beauty
5. Frances Ha
6. A Touch of Sin
7. Upstream Color
8. The Selfish Giant
9. Norte, the End of History & Stranger By The Lake (TIE)

John Waters in ARTFORUM (via MCN):
1. Spring Breakers
2. Camile Claudel 1915
3. Abuse Of Weakness
4. Hors Satan
5. After Tiller
6. Hannah Arendt
7. Beyond The Hills
8. Blue Jasmine
9. Blackfish
10. I’m So Excited

Related: Will Oscar Be Going Indie? Spirit Nominations Celebrate LOTS Of Strong Academy Contenders

Deadline.com

Greenberg Traurig Receives Corporate Diversity Partner Award

Greenberg Traurig Receives Corporate Diversity Partner Award

Greenberg Traurig Receives Corporate Diversity Partner Award Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) November 25, 2013 The Los Angeles office of international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP received the Corporate Diversity Award at the 2013 Compete Sports Diversity Awards on Tuesday, November 14 held in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Shareholder Philippe Phaneuf accepted the Corporate... WN.com - Articles related to Soccer star Robbie Rogers dating Hollywood producer Greg Berlanti

R.I.P. Jean Kent

R.I.P. Jean Kent

British film and television actress Jean Kent has died after suffering a fall, per UK reports. She was 92. Kent made her name in the 1940s and 1950s starring in a number of melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures, including Fanny By Gaslight, Bees In Paradise, Madonna of the Seven Moons, and The Wicked Lady. On another Gainsborough film, 1946′s Caravan, she met actor and future husband Josef Ramart. They starred together again in the 1949 musical comedy Trottie True. Kent moved into television in the 1950s, appearing in shows including Epilogue to Capricorn, Sir Francis Drake, and Thicker Than Water. Notable film roles came opposite Marilyn Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl and in Otto Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse.

Deadline.com

‘Fast & Furious’ Star Paul Walker Killed In Car Crash, Deadline Confirms

‘Fast & Furious’ Star Paul Walker Killed In Car Crash, Deadline Confirms

2ND UPDATE: Paul Walker‘s official Twitter and Facebook page confirm the actor died while riding as passenger during a charity event for Reach Out Worldwide: “It is with a truly heavy heart that we must confirm that Paul Walker passed away today in a tragic car accident while attending a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide. He was a passenger in a friend’s car, in which both lost their lives. We appreciate your patience as we too are stunned and saddened beyond belief by this news. Thank you for keeping his family and friends in your prayers during this very difficult time. We will do our best to keep you apprised on where to send condolences. – #TeamPW”

UPDATED: Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker has died, his rep team has confirmed. He was 40. TMZ first reported Walker was one of two passengers killed in a car crash in Santa Clarita County, California. The Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff department has confirmed to Deadline that a fatal collision occurred Saturday afternoon at 3:30 PM on Rye Canyon Loop in Valencia where two victims inside a vehicle engulfed in flames were pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of the collision is under investigation. Walker first came to pro minence in the Gary Ross film Pleasantville. Then came Varsity Blues and shortly after, 2001′s The Fast And The Furious. Walker starred again in sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious and returned for the franchise’s fourth, fifth, and sixth installments. Filming had begun on Fast & Furious 7 with James Wan directing and Walker reprising his role of the speed-racing Brian O’Conner. Universal has set the sequel to be released July 11, 2014.

Deadline.com

OSCARS Q&A: Robert Redford On Returning To His Roots In ‘All Is Lost’

OSCARS Q&A: Robert Redford On Returning To His Roots In ‘All Is Lost’

For more than 50 years, Robert Redford has been at the top of his game, whether as an actor, Oscar-winning director (Ordinary People), producer or at Sundance, the festival and institute he founded. He won an honorary Oscar for his work with Sundance in promoting independent film, and that is where he met director J.C. Chandor, whose first film, Margin Call, premiered at the festival. But none of the many young directors whose films got big breaks at Sundance actually ev er dared to ask Redford to be in a movie. That is, until Chandor brought him All Is Lost. The result is an extraordinary tour de force performance in which Redford is the only actor on screen, playing a man trying to survive after his sailboat springs a leak. Incredibly, Redford has only been nominated for an acting Oscar once in his career, 40 years ago for the lighthearted The Sting. Betting odds are that All Is Lost is going to bring him his second best actor nom.

AwardsLine: What attracted you to such a physically and mentally challenging role?
Robert Redford: It was an opportunity for me to go back to my roots as an actor. That was how I began in this business, and it brought me great joy. As you move through your life, you create opportunities, and if you see new opportunities, you take them. Directing and producing, or creating opportunities for other filmmakers, feels great, but you’re not aware of how it’s taking you further and further away from what your basic joy isâ€"to act. This gave me that in a very big way because of the kind of role it was. Then there is that other thing that happens when you just go inâ€"and it’s impulseâ€"where you say, “I’m going to trust this.” That happened for me with J.C. We met, and very quickly, I thought, “Let’s just do it.”

AwardsLine: They say never work with kids, animals or on water, and here you are doing a movie that’s entirely on water.
Redford: When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, my family didn’t have much, so there wasn’t a car. But you find your way to the beach. Most of my childhood was on the water, by the shore. I’d be sitting on the sand and I’d look out and see this vast sea that seemed to go on forever. I remember thinking, “Where does that go?” Somehow that got me. When we were doing the film, I asked J.C. if (the character) has a moment or two (like that). I thought, “What does it feel like to be on a small boat in the middle of the ocean?” As far as you can see there’s nothing, so what are you going to think? You look out, and maybe the audience can have that experience with you. We are in the middle of nowhere here with no one to talk to.

AwardsLine: The character you play doesn’t have a name in the film. Did you create a backstory for him?
Redford: No, I didn’t. I was very drawn to what little was said (in the script). It allowed me to fill in on my own. J.C. was the director, and you want to know what’s on the director’s mind. I’d ask him questions, but he was evasive in a way that I thought, “Well, he’s a smart guy. He’s doing this on purpose.” Then I realized it was all connected to the way he wrote it. There is only so much you need to know, and then you fill in the rest. You remove as much as you can, then you provide a space for the audience to come in. As an actor, you hope that can happen, but then you have to do something that’s going to connect with the audience as well. You have to be pretty honest with yourself, with what you’re doing and what’s going on, and how you’re feeling.

AwardsLine: What was the toughest scene for you in terms of shooting?
Redford: It’s a tough film, there’s no question about it. I was in wet clothes that got pretty tiresome to wear all day long. (But with) a short budget and a short schedule, you have got to keep going. There was a particular scene where the water is rising, but I’m not alone in there. You want to create the feeling (of isolation), but you have a camera man, a sound guy, a prop person, and we’re all there and it’s feeling claustrophobic and crowded. At one point, the water got (too) high. The guy who was the setting adviser suddenly says, “Everyone off the boat!” and everybody got off and nobody thought about me. They were in a rush to be the first one off the boat, and they were diving off, and I said, “Gee, thanks a lot.”

AwardsLine: What’s significant about the sextant, a piece of navigational equipment, in your character’s emergency kit?
Redford: That ties into something else that really appealed to me. J.C. had developed a script about a good sailor, not a perfect sailor. I really liked that, because it meant you weren’t playing a superhero. You were getting a real person who could do very well, but there were also some things he wasn’t going to be able to do because he didn’t know. So he has to go back to the manual to map where he thinks he is. He hadn’t had to do that before. I thought that was a wonderful piece of writing, and as an actor, I liked it because it meant (my character) was not a superhero.

Deadline.com

Deadline’s Best TV Stories Of The Week

Deadline’s Best TV Stories Of The Week

A Dog Mystery: Is ‘Family Guy’s Brian Gone?
By Nellie Andreeva â€" Family Guy fans are up in arms this morning over the shocking death of the show’s talking dog Brian, hit by a car in last night’s episode. There is already a petition calling for the dog’s resurrection. While Brian was definitely positively dead and buried by the Griffins in the episode, some fans are suspicious.

MSNBC’s Next Headache: What To Do About Martin Bashir
By Lisa de Moraes â€" MSNBC‘s joint announcement today with Alec Baldwin’s camp that they had mutually decided to end Baldwin’s Up Late interview show leaves the cable news network with just one on-air talent headache: Martin Bashir, whose apology for graphic comments he made about Sarah Palin hasn’t ended chatter as to whether he should be punished.

Alec Baldwin Won’t Be ‘Up Late’ On MSNBC Any More
By Lisa de Moraes â€" MSNBC and Alec Baldwin‘s camp announced jointly that Baldwin’s Friday show is toast: “We are jointly confirming that Up Late will not continue on MSNBC,” MSNBC and Baldwin rep Matthew Hiltzik said. Added MSNBC: “This is a mutual parting and we wish Alec all the best.”

’60 Minutes’ Benghazi Fallout: Lara Logan, Producer Take Leave Of Absence
By Lisa de Moraes â€" Lara Logan, the reporter behind 60 Minutes‘ now-discredited story on the Benghazi attacks, has agreed to take a leave of absence from CBS News. Also taking a leave is producer Max McClellan.

‘Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary Special Scores In U.S. & UK
By Nancy Tartaglione â€" It turns out BBC America got some good news from the Doctor too: The network’s simulcast and later primetime replay of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor drew 3.6 million viewers Saturday.

Baz Luhrmann Circling HBO’s Stanley Kubrick-Scripted Napoleon Miniseries For Steven Spielberg
By Mike Fleming Jr. â€"  EXCLUSIVE: Back when he was in France to head the Cannes Film Festival jury, Steven Spielberg dropped a bombshell when he announced that he would turn an un-produced Stanley Kubrick screenplay about Napoleon Bonaparte into a miniseries. Well, here’s another bombshell: They are courting Baz Luhrmann to direct the mini at HBO.

A&E’s ‘Longmire’ Officially Renewed For Third Season
By Nellie Andreeva â€" It took a while but A&E and Warner Horizon finally closed a deal for a 10-episode third season of the network’s most-watched drama series ever, Longmire.

Reelz Picks Up Marie Osmond’s Talk Show
By Nellie Andreeva â€" ReelzChannel has picked up Marie!, Marie Osmond‘s Hallmark Channel talk show. Reelz will begin airing 80 of the 150 produced episodes on the show on January 6 at 10 AM with an option to buy more episodes.

Ex-‘Ray Donovan’ EP Escapes Jail Time; Gets Probation & Home Confinement
By Dominic Patten â€" Bryan Zuriff will serve 6 months home confinement and 2 years probation for his role in an illegal gambling group â€" but escaping the jail time the government recommended. Judge Jesse Furman today sentenced the former executive producer of Showtime’s Ray Donovan in federal court in NYC.

‘Naked & Afraid’ Employees Ratify IATSE Contract
By Dominic Patten â€" Naked And Afraid’s post production team voted today to ratify the deal the Editors Guild and producers Renegade 83 came to on Saturday for the Discovery Channel show.

Deadline.com

OSCARS: Banner Year For Acting Means Tough Decisions For The Academy

OSCARS: Banner Year For Acting Means Tough Decisions For The Academy

This is a year with such quality acting that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should seriously consider following the example set with the best picture category a few years back and expand to 10 potential nominees. It’s an embarrassment of riches with some history-making possibilities.

Consider the battle of the 77-year-olds: Robert Redford in All Is Lost and Bruce Dern in Nebraska. Neither has won an acting Oscar and both have only been nominated once before for their onscreen work. If either manages to take the gold, they would be the oldest ever to win in the best actor category. Or consider that on the 50th anniversary of Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking best actor victory in 1963 for Lil ies Of The Field, there’s such a diverse list of candidates this year, including African-Americans Forest Whitaker (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) and Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station) and the UK-born Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) and Idris Elba (Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom). You could even throw in another fine performance from April’s 42, in which Chadwick Boseman memorably starred as Jackie Robinson. We could also see two-time winner Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks) and never-been-nominated Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud) grabbing nominations in both lead and supporting.

On the best actress front, another record could be set with a potential nominee lineup filled with previous Oscar winners: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks), Judi Dench (Philomena), Meryl Streep (August: Osage County) and Kate Winslet (Labor Day< /em>) are the names on most voters’ lips. It would be a very rare Oscar royal flush if five of these six make the final cut, recalling the supporting actor race last year in which all five nominees were previous winners (Christoph Waltz prevailed in the end for Django Unchained). There’s also a very diverse cast of supporting actresses this year, including Kenyan newcomer Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years A Slave), Oprah Winfrey (Lee Daniels’ The Butler), Brit Naomie Harris (Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom) and Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station).

In other words, a year that many think is already an extraordinarily rich one for movies also is boasting an incredibly dense and exciting field among the actors. Here’s the play-by-play on where the early odds are landing. But remember: It’s a long season, and this is just a first pass. There are still films such as American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street  that are just now starting to be widely seen and both have an impressive list of actors who are no stranger to Oscar campaigns.

BEST ACTOR
This category has to start with Redford. As the only actor onscreen for nearly two hours in All Is Lost, his physically and mentally grueling performance is all the more formidable because it was all done on water. Although Redford has won a directing Oscar for 1980’s Ordinary People and an honorary award for creating the Sundance Institute, he has only been nominated once for acting, and that was 40 years ago for The Sting, not even one of his most memorable portrayals. Joining him in the category is likely to be McConaughey vying for his first nomination after a string of acclaimed roles over the past two years. Losing 47 p ounds to play an AIDS activist is obvious Oscar fodder, and McConaughey pulls it off brilliantly in Dallas Buyers Club. Ejiofor will almost certainly grab a slot here for his strong and dignified work in the critics’ darling 12 Years A Slave. And how do you deny Dern his moment of glory as lead actor in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska? Dern has been on the campaign trail since early summer, tirelessly appearing at numerous small screenings on the circuit that it will almost certainly pay off with a nomination. The fifth slot probably has Hanks’ name on it for Captain Phillips, although voters could decide to reward him instead in supporting for playing Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks. I have a hunch he can pull off the rare twofer.

If any of the above falters, or fortunes change, the list could include Whitaker for The Butler, Elba as the title character in Mandela, Jordan in Fruitvale Station or Oscar Isaacâ€"coming up on the outsideâ€"in the hapless title role in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. The oft-told tale of his ability to pull off singing and acting with equal aplomb is a huge plus with the actors branch that votes in these categories. Christian Bale in American Hustle as well as Out Of The Furnace  and Leonardo Di Caprio in The Wolf Of Wall Street   are late to the race in major December releases but their track records precede them, so either could be a spoiler here. Add to the mix Joaquin Phoenix in love with his operating system in Her, a powerful and emotional Hugh Jackman in Prisoners, Mark Wahlberg in the true-life war story Lone Survivor, Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight an d Ben Stiller in the Christmas Day release The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, and you’ve got quite a competitive pool.

BEST ACTRESS
This list is almost certain to be dominated by those who already know what it’s like to give an Oscar acceptance speech, some more than once and one more than twice in the case of Streep, vying for her 18th nomination and fourth win as an overbearing matriarch in August: Osage County. She expertly and gloriously chews the scenery like no other in this one, and voters can’t get enough of her. Blanchett had a summer head start on the rest of the crowd in Woody Allen’s July release, Blue Jasmine, and quite frankly, many voters to whom I’ve spoken already have engraved her name on a second Oscar without even seeing the rest of the fiel d. But not to be overlooked are the likes of Dench, heartbreaking and perfect in the true-life story Philomena; Thompson as the difficult author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, in Saving Mr. Banks; Bullock for her extraordinarily difficult and tricky work in space in Gravity; and Winslet, a frequent visitor to the category in the romantic and dramatic Labor Day.

However, if voters want to inject some freshness into the category, and perhaps some youthâ€"such as with last year’s best actress winner Jennifer Lawrenceâ€"they could do a lot worse than Brie Larson, who is simply sensational in the small indie Short Term 12 or the impossible to pronounce but equally impossible to forget Adele Exarchopoulos for her daring and demanding work in the French-language Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Blue Is The Warmest Color. Other potential nominees include Berenice Bejo, returning two years after The Artist gave her a first supporting nomination and now gradu ating to lead in The Past, or four-time supporting nominee Amy Adams, going for her first lead nom in the yet-unseen American Hustle. Also in the mix is Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who proved she has the stuff for the big screen in the romantic comedy, Enough Said, Julie Delpy in Before Midnight and Felicity Jones as The Invisible Woman (a period piece, not a bad sci-fi movie as the title might suggest).

Related: Brie Larson On Indie Drama ‘Short Term 12?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
In addition to Hanks, frontrunners here include Dallas Buyers Club’s Jared Leto as the transgendered AIDS fighter Rayon, and Michael Fassbender as the evil but complex slave owner in 12 Years A Slave. The long list continues with Steve Coogan in Philomena, Barkhad Abdi as the head Somalian pirate in Captain Phillips, David Oyelowo in Lee Daniels’ The Butler, John Goodman in Inside Llewyn Davis, Will Forte in Nebraska, Geoffrey Rush in The Book Thief, George Clooney i n Gravity, Jonah Hill in The Wolf Of Wall Street, Bobby Cannavale in Blue Jasmine, Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners, McConaughey in Mud, Chris Cooper as the male standout of August: Osage County, Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper in the March release The Place Beyond The Pines, Bradley Cooper again in American Hustle, Jeremy Renner from the same film, Casey Affleck in Out Of The Furnace, Josh Brolin in Labor Day and veteran Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey in 42. Ford has been nominated only once in his career for Witness so there could be the sentimental factor at play such as with Redford and Dern. Sentiment also could come into play in a posthumous nod for James Gandolfini in his unexpected role in Enough Said, the finished version of which he never got to see.

Lastly, two who stand out and should not be left out in the cold are Daniel Bruhl, brilliant as race car Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda in Ron Howard’s criminally overlooked Rush, and from summer, the always great Sam Rockwell, who indeed rocked as the waterpark manager in the terrific The Way, Way Back.

Related: Daniel Bruhl Talks ‘Rush’ & ‘The Fifth Estate’

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
This packed category includes 12 Years A Slave sensation Nyong’o, The Butler’s force of nature Winfrey, past winner Spencer, fine again in Fruitvale Station, and Harris, very powerful as Winnie Mandela in Mandela. But attention must be paid to the wonderful 84 year old character actress June Squibb, who puts up with her sometimes senile husband, Woodyâ€"portrayed by Dernâ€"in Nebraska.   She’s just sensational. There’s also fine work from Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine and the always great Melissa Leo, who is almost unrecognizable in Prisoners. From the large August: Osage County ensemble, Jul ia Roberts is going for supporting (but could fit into lead, too) as Streep’s long-suffering daughter and veteran Margo Martindale, a ray of light in the same film. Jennifer Garner does the best work of her big-screen career and subtly balances Dallas Buyers Club, as does Emily Watson in The Book Thief. Lea Seydoux is the other half of a torrid lesbian affair with Exarchopoulos in Blue Is The Warmest Color, and she is just as effective as her costar. Last year’s best actress Jennifer Lawrence is back in a change of paceâ€"and hairstyleâ€"in American Hustle  and wowing early viewers of the film. And could Oscar voters really decide to make history this year and nominate Scarlett Johansson for playing Joaquin Phoenix’s operating system in Her? She makes us believe he could fall head over heels for her and does it remarkably well using only her voice. It would be one of many firsts this Oscar season (although the HFPA for some reason ruled her ineligible for a Golden Globe for the role). For that matter she also makes us believe porn addict Don Jon could fall for her in that Joseph Gordon Levitt film too.

Related: June Squibb On The Road To ‘Nebraska’

Deadline.com

RATINGS RAT RACE: Garth Brooks Rules, ‘Grimm’ & ‘Raising Hope’ Dip, ‘Dracula’ Flat

RATINGS RAT RACE: Garth Brooks Rules, ‘Grimm’ & ‘Raising Hope’ Dip, ‘Dracula’ Flat

He may have spent most of the last decade in retirement and semi-retirement, but Garth Brooks still has a things or two to show to his younger colleagues. The two-hour  Garth Brooks Live From Las Vegas special dominated primetime last night with a 1.8 rating in adults 18-49, and a very impressive fo r the night after Thanksgiving 8.8 million viewers. Brooks doubled the demo rating for Lady Gaga’s Thanksgiving special with the Muppets and almost tripled her viewership. CBS won the night in 18-49 and total viewers. NBC was the only network to air an all original lineup last night with Dateline (1.2, 7.2 million) up a tenth from last week in 18-49 and hitting a season high in total viewers. Grimm (1.3) fell 19% from its most recent episode while Dracula (0.9) held steady at a series low. Fox aired two more Raising Hope originals (0.6), down 25% from last week. Raising Hope feels wasted on Friday. It was a rock on Tuesday last season and is more deserving than others to be part of the network’s comedy block.  The CW’s Nikita (0.2) matched its rating from last week as it whimpers to the finish line, holding onto half of its lead-in from Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer — a special the C W’s predecessor the WB ordered 13 years ago.

Deadline.com

R.I.P. New York Observer Editor Peter Kaplan

R.I.P. New York Observer Editor Peter Kaplan

Sad holiday weekend news today. Peter W. Kaplan, the longtime editor of The New York Observer, has died at age 59 of cancer, The New York Times confirmed. Kaplan’s accomplishment was this: he took a salmon-colored weekly and made it a must read dissection on the glitter of Gotham power players. He injected the publication with relevance and invested his personal stamp, a love of dogged reporting on niche subjects like media, high finance and publishi ng, down to who sat where at lunch in Manhattan’s most important restaurants and who was getting fired in the magazine business and why. In transforming his publication into a must read, Kaplan’s tenure at The Observer reminded me of when Kurt Anderson, Graydon Carter and Tom Phillips launched Spy Magazine. They took a much more acerbic and satirical look at the subjects, but both were imprinted by the vision of editors. Kaplan could dish out the snark in pieces that were long, stylishly written and provided dish on inside baseball subjects. He unleashed writers including Sex and the City columnist Candace Bushnell, political journo Joe Conason, Frank DiGiacomo, and of course Nikki Finke, who honed her edgy reporting style under Kaplan  before founding this website. This was during the last golden age of newspapers before the web changed everything, and Kaplan moved in 2010 to become editorial creative director at Conde Nast Traveler and then editorial director of Fairchild Fashion Media.

Deadline.com

Reasons to Live: Dog Day, Heavy Blinkers, No Joy

Reasons to Live: Dog Day, Heavy Blinkers, No Joy


It's not too early to declare one of the best albums of 2013, is it? TORONTO STAR | ENTERTAINMENT | MUSIC

‘Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom’ Breaks South Africa Box Office Record

‘Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom’ Breaks South Africa Box Office Record

Just ahead of its U.S. bow today, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom has set a record in South Africa where it opened on Thursday — and where moviegoers reportedly took the day off work to attend screenings in cities and in the countryside. The Videovision Entertainment release (through United International Pictures) was No. 1 at the box office with 751,000 rands ($ 73,747) for a per-screen average of 8,620 rands ($ 858). That’s about 23,000 admissions and is a record for a non-holiday Thursday according to Videovision. Starring Idris Elba, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom chronicles Nelson Mandela’s journey from his childhood in rural South Africa to his inauguration as the country’s first democratically elected president. The Weinstein Co releases the film today in New York and Los Angeles.

Related: Thanksgiving Box Office: ‘Catching Fire,’ ‘Frozen’

Deadline.com

Global Showbiz Briefs: Angela Lansbury Coming To London Stage For First Time Since 1974; ‘The Grandmaster’ Leads Asia-Pacific Film Festival Awards; More

Global Showbiz Briefs: Angela Lansbury Coming To London Stage For First Time Since 1974; ‘The Grandmaster’ Leads Asia-Pacific Film Festival Awards; More

Angela Lansbury To Topline ‘Blithe Spirit’ On London Stage
Angela Lansbury is set to appear on the London stage for the first time in nearly four decades in a new production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. The 88-year-old Brit will play Madame Arcati, a role she played on Broadway in 2009, winning a Tony Award. The show will open March 18 for a limited 15-week run at the Gielgud Theatre. The former Murder, She Wrote star and MGM contract player, who won an Honorary Oscar this year, most recently trod the West End boards playing the lead role in Gypsy in 1974.

‘The Grandmaster’ Leads With Asia-Pacific Film Festival Awards Nominees
Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster leads the field with nine nominations at the 56th Asia-Pacific Film Festival awards. The film, which premiered at Cannes, is up for best picture against Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo, Kore-Eda Hirokazu’s Like Father, Like Son, Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs and Ge orgia’s In Bloom. Missing among the best pic nominees is Snowpiercer, which has the second-most nominations with seven. The Lunchbox is third with six. The awards will be presented at during a ceremony December 15 in Macau. A full list of nominations is here.

Bertelsmann Exec Thomas Hesse Leaving Company
Thomas Hesse, president of Corporate Development and New Businesses at Bertelsmann and a member of its executive board, is leaving his posts effective at year’s end. The company said he is exiting to pursue new opportunities in the digital business sector. He will remain affiliated with Bertelsmann as a consultant to the board, which he joined in February 2012. Before that he was he was President in charge of Global Digital Business, US Sales and Corporate Strategy at Sony BMG and then Sony Music Entertainment. Hesse came to Sony from Bertelsmann as a result of the 2004 merger between BMG and Sony Music.

Deadline.com