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James Horner obituary
1 hour ago
Oscar-winning film music composer best known for Titanic
James Horner, who has died aged 61 in a plane crash in California, was one of the most successful and admired composers of film soundtracks in Hollywood. He wrote music for more than 100 films, and his extensive list of awards included two Academy Awards and two Golden Globes, as well as 10 Oscar nominations, seven nominations for Golden Globes and three for Bafta awards.
Horner’s music was an integral part of some of the most successful films of recent decades. His score for James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) won an Oscar for best original dramatic score, and he also won best original song for My Heart Will Go On, the love theme from Titanic, which was co-written with Will Jennings and sung by Celine Dion. It became a huge hit in its own right, selling 15m copies. The recording of Horner’s Titanic score also sold 27m copies. »
- Adam Sweeting
Tom Holland named as next Spider-Man
2 hours ago
The 19-year-old star of The Impossible and Wolf Hall will swing into action as New York’s favourite super-son with a cameo in Captain America: Civil War
Tom Holland, of Kingston upon Thames, Surrey will be the next actor to play New York’s favourite web-slinging son, Spider-Man, according to Variety.
Holland, who co-starred with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in Boxing Day tsunami drama The Impossible, was one of six teenage actors being considered for the role, three of whom were British. Among those he swung ahead of was rumoured front-runner Asa Butterfield, star of Hugo and Ender’s Game.
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- Henry Barnes
Meryl Streep urges Congress to back equal rights amendment
2 hours ago
Hollywood star sends letter and book calling for constitutional changeStreep to play Emmeline Pankhurst in forthcoming film Suffragette
Movie star Meryl Streep sent a letter to each member of Congress on Tuesday urging them to revive the battle to add the equal rights amendment, guaranteeing parity for women under the law, into the Us constitution.
Streep will be seen on screen in October playing the British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.
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- Joanna Walters in New York
Dwayne Johnson set to take on a gorilla, a lizard and a wolf in 80s arcade movie
2 hours ago
The San Andreas star will headline video game adaptation Rampage, reuniting him with his earthquake movie producer
Even though he’s only just finished surviving an earthquake in this summer’s disaster hit San Andreas, poor Dwayne Johnson will have to protect America from a gorilla, a lizard and a wolf in an adaptation of 80s arcade game Rampage.
According to Deadline, Johnson will reteam with San Andreas producer Beau Flynn for the action film, set to start production next summer. The script will come from Ryan Engle, who wrote the Liam Neeson airborne thriller Non-Stop. The project is still seeking a director.
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- Benjamin Lee
Stan Lee: Spider-Man should stay white and straight
5 hours ago
The creator of the web-slinging superhero has responded to the latest leaked Sony emails, saying he agrees with the decision to keep the character’s ethnicity and sexuality unchanged
After a new set of leaked Sony emails revealed a restrictive set of rules for Spider-Man’s on-screen persona, the character’s creator, Stan Lee, has spoken out in support of the controversial stipulations.
Related: Animated Spider-Man movie on the way from Lego Movie team
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- Benjamin Lee
Fantasy manager: Michael Keaton plays with Imagine Agents adaptation
5 hours ago
Birdman actor producing and starring in a film version of Boom! Studios comic about an agency tasked with policing imaginary friends
Following his Oscar-nominated role in Birdman as an actor struggling to move past his work in a comic-book adaptation, Michael Keaton will star in and produce Fox’s new adaptation of a Boom! comic entitled Imagine Agents, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Fox recently acquired the rights to the comic, but is still looking for a director and writers to adapt the material. Set to produce alongside Keaton are Michael Sugar (The Fifth Estate) and Boom! Studios founder Ross Richie, with Stephen Christy, Eli Selden and Doug Wald as executive producers.
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- Joanna Mason
Johnny Depp to boycott Australia following dog death threat
5 hours ago
Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, says the couple are not likely to return to the country after the Department of Agriculture threatened to have their terriers put down
Actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are set to boycott Australia, after the row that saw them accused of illegally bringing two dogs into the country.
Speaking to Australia’s Sunrise TV show, Heard told a press conference: “I have a feeling we’re going to avoid the land down under from now on, just as much as we can, thanks to certain politicians there.”
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- Guardian film
Jurassic World claws victory from Potter and Bond to make UK box office history
6 hours ago
The all-conquering fourth instalment in the dino-franchise becomes only the second film ever to rake in £10m-plus on its second weekend of UK release
After its giant opening of £16.84m (plus previews), you’d expect Jurassic World to take a big tumble in its second session – that’s the typical pattern, especially for a franchise picture. So Universal should be delighted with a drop of 34%, the smallest decline of any film in the top 10 except Secret Cinema’s Empire Strikes Back event.
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- Charles Gant
Iron Man to conman: Downey Jr taking on 'world's greatest' swindler story
6 hours ago
The Iron Man star will produce – and potentially star in – a film about conman Phil Kitzer in a film pegged as ‘Wolf of Wall Street meets Goodfellas’
Robert Downey Jr is set to produce a new adaptation of David Howard’s book proposal Chasing Phil: The World’s Greatest Con Man, Two Undercover FBI Agents, and Their Amazing Around the World Adventure, with his production company Team Downey, says the Hollywood Reporter.
Downey Jr may potentially play the lead role of Phil Kitzer, a Minnesota conman and mastermind behind an international crime ring known as ‘the Fraternity’ and ran dozens of multimillion dollar schemes. This would be an exciting contrast for Downey Jr, who has starred as heroes Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man. The project has been described as “Wolf of Wall Street meets Goodfellas”.
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- Joanna Mason
Titanic composer James Horner in one of his last TV interviews: 'You have to touch people's hearts' – video
7 hours ago
In one of the last TV interviews before his death in a plane crash in southern California, Oscar-winning composer James Horner talks about the success of Titanic and his musical score to the film. The interview was recorded in London in April following the Titanic Live event at the Royal Albert Hall. He also talks about the Avatar sequels with director James Cameron
Watch the full interview here Continue reading »
- Guardian Staff
Marc Forster plans Us civil war epic based on Kubrick's The Downslope
9 hours ago
The anti-war tale based on Stanley Kubrick’s unfilmed script will be the first in an ambitious trilogy that charts American history from the wild west era onwards
Marc Forster, the German director of The Kite Runner and World War Z, is to take charge of the first in a trilogy of movies based on Stanley Kubrick’s unfilmed American civil war screenplay The Downslope.
The historical epic centres on the fierce rivalry between Union general George Armstrong Custer and Confederate colonel John Singleton Mosby, nicknamed the Gray Ghost for his stealth and cunning on the battlefield. The screenplay was written by Kubrick in 1956, after the American director’s little-seen 1953 debut feature Fear and Desire and prior to his 1957 first world war period piece Paths of Glory.
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- Ben Child
James Horner was a virtuoso: subtle, stirring – and astonishingly prolific | Peter Bradshaw
9 hours ago
What an extraordinary legacy the Oscar-winning composer has left – a huge library of work that drove and deepened some of the finest mainstream films yet made
Related: James Horner, Oscar-winning Titanic composer, dies aged 61 in plane crash
In 1997, James Cameron’s Titanic made its sensational appearance at the cinema, and with it a colossally popular soundtrack album of that movie’s powerhouse orchestral score by James Horner, which won him Oscars for original score and song. The album sold 30m copies – and continues to sell – featuring the song which he co-wrote, My Heart Will Go On, sung by Celine Dion. Horner’s aria of emotional defiance and survival, hurled like flotsam from the oceanic swell of his overall composition, was a key moment of the film, a moment which existed both inside and outside its narrative. When we saw Leo and Kate at the prow of the ship, when we »
- Peter Bradshaw
James Horner: Celine Dion and Russell Crowe pay tribute to late composer
10 hours ago
The Oscar-winner has been remembered by stars including fellow composer Alexandre Desplat and Ron Howard, with whom he worked on A Beautiful Mind
Related: James Horner, Oscar-winning Titanic composer, dies in plane crash aged 61
The news of Oscar-winning composer James Horner’s death has led to a series of tributes by those who knew his music and those who worked with him.
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- Benjamin Lee
Song of the Sea: watch the first six minutes of the Oscar-nominated animation - exclusive video
11 hours ago
Oscar-nominated at this year's Academy Awards, Song of the Sea tells the story of two Irish kids discovering the mystical properties of a magical sea horn after the disappearance of their mother. In this opening clip, Ben (David Rawle) is left in charge of his mute sister, Saoirse (Lucy O'Connell), as she gets drawn towards the water. Song of the Sea is released in UK cinemas on 10 July Continue reading »
- Guardian Staff
Ralph Fiennes to direct – but not star in – Rudolf Nureyev drama
11 hours ago
Tale of iconic Russian dancer and famous defector will be based on a screenplay by David Hare, writer of the Oscar-winning 2008 film The Reader – but unlike Fiennes’ first two films as director, he won’t also take the leading role
Ralph Fiennes will direct a film detailing a major incident in the life of legendary Russian ballet dancer and famous defector Rudolf Nureyev, reports Screen Daily.
The untitled drama will be based on a screenplay by David Hare, the British writer of 2008 Nazi-themed romance The Reader. Fiennes, who will not take the starring role, has secured rights to Julie Kavanagh’s authorised biography Nureyev: The Life and hopes to shoot in 2016.
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- Ben Child
Ava DuVernay reportedly set to direct Marvel's Black Panther film
22 hours ago
Selma director will reportedly become the first black female director to take charge of a Marvel superhero film as the franchise continues diverse recruitment
Reports were circulating on Monday that Ava DuVernay would direct Marvel’s new Black Panther film.
The Selma director has long been rumoured to be a strong candidate, and would follow in the footsteps of Kenneth Branagh, Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon as a high-profile, but counter-intuitive, director of a big-budget superhero film.
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- Guardian staff
The Marriage of Reason and Squalor review – Jake Chapman's impressively disorienting cinematic oddity
22 June 2015 9:58 AM, PDT
The artist best known for his work with his brother, Dinos, has turned out an unexpectedly entertaining adaptation of his own novel that is both gruesome and plausible
Here we have a true cinematic oddity, in every sense. Originally conceived as a feature film, eventually realised as a four-part TV series (which Sky Arts are currently mid-way through broadcasting), this adaptation by Jake Chapman of his own novel has now been cut together as a single entity for international release. Hence the screening that the Edinburgh film festival managed to secure is likely to be a one off, at least as far as UK filmgoers are concerned.
And it’s fair to say the film itself is a one off, too. Chapman, who is half of the stellar Yba brother-artists (his sibling, Dinos, isn’t entirely excluded from this project, having contributed music to the score); and he has become »
- Andrew Pulver
Inside Out's success should turn Hollywood upside down
22 June 2015 8:13 AM, PDT
In this week’s round-up of the global box-office scene:
• $91m opening for the coming-of-age animation is biggest of any original Pixar property – and could fire Hollywood’s imagination
• Jurassic World on course for quickest ever $1bn
• Big-opening crime thriller shows China still needs Hong Kong industry
Jurassic World hasn’t only got bulk, it’s got pace, too. Tight-clawed second-weekend holds in the Us (down 51%, for $102m, the second highest non-debut weekend ever, behind The Avengers) and overseas (-52%) have set it running at the head of the blockbuster pack: $981.3m in 12 days makes it a dead cert to break Furious 7’s 17-day record for hitting $1bn. Avengers: Age of Ultron will be surrendering its No 1 Us spot ($451m) for 2015 to the dinosaurs round about this time next week, but how far up the all-time domestic chart can the Universal blockbuster – one of the rarefied breed, these days, »
- Phil Hoad
Harmony Korine on Kids: 'It would be impossible to make that film now'
22 June 2015 7:15 AM, PDT
In 1995, photographer-turned-director Larry Clark and a bunch of novice actors made Kids. On its 20th anniversary, writer Harmony Korine and actor Leo Fitzpatrick remember the film dubbed a ‘wake-up call to the modern world’
The way that 19-year-old aspiring writer Harmony Korine met director Larry Clark sounds like a typical New York success story, told at bars in Kansas to make bright-eyed kids move to the Big Apple with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams. “I used to walk around with these movies that I made in high school in my backpack – films that I shot on 16mm – and I would put my grandma’s phone number on top of the VHS tape and if I saw someone I recognized, I would hand them the film,” explained Korine.
“I gave one to Larry and he called me the next day and I went to his place and started talking about making a movie together. »
- Melissa Locker
Automania 2000: watch the Oscar-nominated Halas and Batchelor animation - video
22 June 2015 5:06 AM, PDT
The British-based animation team Halas and Batchelor are best known for their adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, but they made a string of brilliant short films too. Here is their consumerist satire Automania 2000, about a scientist whose inventions cause environmental havoc, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1964.
• The Halas & Batchelor Short Film Collection is released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 29 June Continue reading »
- Guardian Staff
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