Godfather of Rap, Gil Scott-Heron – the Musician and Poet dies aged 62 (Guardian,. 28 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 28 May 2011
Gil Scott-Heron dies aged 62

Poet and songwriter was hailed as 'Godfather of Rap' after penning The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

By David Sharrock

The musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron – best known for his pioneering rap The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – has died at the age of 62, having fallen ill after a European trip.
Jamie Byng, his UK publisher, announced the news via Twitter: "Just heard the very sad news that my dear friend and one of the most inspiring people I've ever met, the great Gil Scott-Heron, died today."
Scott-Heron's spoken word recordings helped shape the emerging hip-hop culture. Generations of rappers cite his work as an influence.

Finale of Oprah Winfrey's Show devoted to fans, her 'safe harbor' (Associated Press, 25 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 25 May 2011

Winfrey finale devoted to fans, her 'safe harbor'

By CARYN ROUSSEAU

CHICAGO (AP) -- There were no free cars or vacations. No favorite things or makeovers. No celebrity guests on stage - though there were plenty in the audience.

The finale of Oprah Winfrey's talk show, taped Tuesday and aired Wednesday, was all about the one thing that made her a billion-dollar success: the unique connection she made with millions of viewers for 25 years. In what she called her "love letter" to fans, she made clear that to her, all those TV friendships went both ways.

"Something in me connected with each of you in a way that allowed me to see myself in you and you in me," Winfrey said. "I listened and grew, and I know you grew along with me."

"The Tree of Life", Brad Pitt reflects on paternal side, on screen and off (Associated Press, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 18 May 2011

Pitt reflects on paternal side, on screen and off

By DAVID GERMAIN

CANNES, France (AP) -- You won't catch Brad Pitt doing fatherhood in a small way, on screen or in his real family life with Angelina Jolie.

In Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life," which premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, Pitt plays a father of three in a drama that deals with the biggest of questions about our place in the cosmos.

In his home life, Pitt and Jolie are parents of six - three biological children, three adopted. For Pitt, who was childless into his 40s after his marriage with Jennifer Aniston broke up, it all happened in just a few years.

"I know it seems extreme from the outside, but I've always kind of operated this way. When I know, I know, and why mess around?" Pitt, 47, said in an interview.

"I had a friend who had a big family when I was a kid. I just loved the chaos around the breakfast table and the fighting and the ribbing, and the mom making pancakes for everyone or the dad making pancakes. And I just decided then if I was ever going to do it - this left some indelible mark on me - if I was ever going to do it, that's the way I was going to do it."

The whole Pitt-Jolie clan came to Cannes. Days before they walked the festival's red carpet for "The Tree of Life," Jolie was in the French Riviera resort with Jack Black to promote their animated sequel "Kung Fu Panda 2."

Jolie and Pitt have become Cannes regulars, he with "Babel" and "Inglourious Basterds" and she with "Changeling" and "A Mighty Heart," on which Pitt was a producer.

Pitt had figured on being at Cannes a year ago with "The Tree of Life," but Malick needed more time to finish his rumination on existence, a film so expansive its intimate family drama plays out against the backdrop of the universe's creation and the era of dinosaurs.

"This is a great place to air this kind of movie out, certainly," Pitt said. "It's kind of the only place, isn't it?"

Opening in U.S. theaters May 27, "The Tree of Life" had Cannes crowds buzzing, some adoring it, some hating it, and nearly everyone perplexed by it. It follows the impressionistic, nonlinear structure typical of Malick, who made only four previous movies over a nearly 40-year career.

The press-shy director skipped the public appearances usually expected of filmmakers at Cannes. That left Pitt, also a producer on the film, as Malick's ambassador.

The actor charmed a roomful of reporters for the film's press conference and thrilled fans by shaking hands and signing autographs before walking the red carpet with co-stars Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain.

Malick's last Cannes film was "Days of Heaven," which earned him the festival's directing prize in 1979. It was nearly 20 years before he released another film, "The Thin Red Line." By then, Pitt said, Malick was ill-suited to be the sort of filmmaker-pitchman Hollywood had come to expect.

"When he began making films, there wasn't this pressure to sell them. ... He really is a craftsman at heart. He's almost a carpenter, and he takes a couple decades off and then comes back, and the business has shifted," Pitt said.

"We all have to get out and get the film some notice, so we can keep making films like this, and it's just antithetical to who he is. He's a very humble, humble, sweet, sweet man. He's just not made for it."

Pitt clearly is, though. For rising star Chastain, Pitt was a mentor from the time they shot the film three years ago right up to Monday night's premiere.

"He's helped me a lot on this experience," said Chastain, who plays Pitt's wife. "He is such an expert on it by now. Even during the red carpet, when I was holding Brad and Sean's hands, I was really scared, and I was really shaking, and I just kept thinking, smile, smile, smile. And they would speak to me and tell me what was going on as it was going on.

"They would say, 'Now we're going to go up the stairs, and we'll stop and take a photo.' So I always had a guide, and who's better than Brad, who's excellent at it all?"

Pitt, an Academy Award nominee for 1995's "Twelve Monkeys" and 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," has built his career on commercial hits - the "Ocean's Eleven" capers and his and Jolie's thriller "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" - and challenging sagas such as "Babel" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford."

Due out late this year is the baseball tale "Moneyball," in which Pitt plays Oakland A's boss Billy Beane, who reinvented the cash-driven game by scouting diamond-in-the-rough players on a shoestring budget.

Pitt just finished shooting the crime thriller "Cogan's Trade" with his "Jesse James" director Andrew Dominik, and he's about to start on "World War Z," about the sociopolitical upheaval that ensues after a zombie outbreak.

He and Jolie also are looking to reunite on screen.

"We're not ones to repeat ourselves, but we'd like to, because right now, we're hopscotching with films so one can be with the kids and one's free to work," Pitt said. "And why aren't we doing them together? Why aren't we doing everything together?"

Family man Pitt said he settles on film roles differently now. While Jolie has the "Kung Fu Panda" flicks for their kids to see, Pitt was a voice star for last year's animated adventure "Megamind," and he takes the children into account on all future projects.

"I think my focus before was more irreverence, by nature," Pitt said. "I'm a dad now. It's more important to me that if I'm going to do the film, there's something I can bring to it, it's not generic. And most of all, I'm painfully aware that my kids are going to see these when they're older, and I want them to understand something about their dad, and I want them to be proud of their dad."

And maybe remember some chaos around the breakfast table, said Pitt, who cooks pancakes for his kids.

"Breakfast is pretty much my specialty," Pitt said. "And barbecue."

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Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru dies in balcony fall (Associated Press, 16 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 16 May 2011

Olympic marathon champion Wanjiru dies in fall

By TOM ODULA

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Kenyan Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru died in a fall from a balcony after a domestic dispute involving his wife and another woman, police said Monday.

One police official said Wanjiru committed suicide, while another said he jumped to stop his wife from leaving the house after she discovered him with another woman.

The 24-year-old runner died late Sunday after jumping from a balcony at his home in the town of Nyahururu, in the Rift Valley, said John Mbijiwe, the police chief in Kenya's Central Province.

"The fact of the matter is that Wanjiru committed suicide," national police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere also said initial reports indicated Wanjiru killed himself, though a local official offered a different account.

"Wanjiru came home with another woman friend at around 11:30 p.m. and then when his wife came home and found them she inquired who the lady was," area police chief Jasper Ombati said. "They got into an argument. His wife locked them in the bedroom and ran off.

"He then jumped from the bedroom balcony. He is not here to tell us what he thinking when he jumped. We do not suspect foul play. In our estimation we think he wanted to stop his wife from leaving the compound."

Ethiopian distance running great Haile Gebrselassie, a two-time Olympic 10,000-meter champion and world record-holder in the marathon, said on his Twitter feed that he was "totally shocked" by the news.

"My thoughts are with his family and all his friends and colleagues," Gebrselassie said.

"Of course one wonders if we as an athletics family could have avoided this tragedy," he said.

American marathon runner Ryan Hall posted on Twitter: "Incredibly sad news about Sammy. I am shocked and saddened."

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Wanjiru became the first Kenyan to win a gold medal in the marathon, finishing in an Olympic-record 2 hours, 6 minutes, 32 seconds.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Wanjiru was "steadily developing into our country's running phenomenon."

He offered condolences to family, friends, Kenya and the entire world athletics community, calling the death "a big blow to our dreams."

Olympic 5,000 and 10,000-meter champion Kenenisa Bekele said he looked up to Wanjiru as a great athlete.

"I was looking forward to meet him in the future at the marathon distance and to race against him," the Ethiopian said.

Wanjiru had a history of domestic problems. Last December, he was charged with wounding his security guard with a rifle and threatening to kill his wife and maid. The runner denied all charges and was released on bail.

Jos Hermens, the manager of Gebrselassie and Bekele and one of the most respected long-distance experts in the field, said Wanjiru had too much success too early in his career.

"It is incredibly sad. An Olympic champion at 21, he was poised to become the world-record holder in the marathon. He could not deal with all the luxury. It all went too fast, too much money," Hermens said. "You could not say anything bad about him. He just could not deal with it all. He was a lion of a man, and he departed us in much the same way."

Wanjiru made an early start to his career, moving at age 15 to Japan, where he attended school in Sendai - a city hard hit by this year's tsunami - and won several major cross-country events while also competing in track competitions.

Moving to Europe to advance his promising career, Wanjiru won the Rotterdam Half Marathon in 2005 in a world record time. He twice improved on that record before stepping up to the full marathon in 2007, winning the Fukuoka Marathon back in Japan.

The following year he finished second in the London Marathon, and then claimed the biggest prize of his career by taking Olympic gold in Beijing.

Wanjiru became the youngest runner to win four major marathons. In addition to the Olympics, he won in London in 2009 and in Chicago in 2009 and 2010, running the fastest ever time recorded in a marathon in the United States.

"Sammy Wanjiru was an accomplished runner who will be remembered for winning the first Olympic gold medal for Kenya in marathon and setting a new Olympic record in the process," the International Olympic Committee said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends."

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Cannes 2011: Neil LaBute turns his macabre hand to Agatha Christie (Guardian, 15 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 15 May 2011
Cannes 2011: Neil LaBute turns his macabre hand to Agatha Christie

American director promises 'a good romp and a cracking yarn' in film version of The Crooked House

By Charlotte Higgins in Cannes

Neil LaBute has carved a career from seriously disturbing plays and films – In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things – that plunge deep into the American male psyche and find it to be damaged, selfish and brutal.
But now the writer and director is turning to a gentler, politer and certainly more English material: Agatha Christie. And, he says, he promises "a good romp and a cracking yarn".
LaBute is to direct a film of Christie's novel The Crooked House, with a screenplay adapted by Julian Fellowes, of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey fame. Though LaBute has ventured into period drama once before – Possession, the AS Byatt novel whose adaptation he directed, flips between the 19th and 20th centuries – he is certainly more associated with dystopian urban fables than the tinkling tea-cups and well-appointed drawing rooms of Christie's classic murder mysteries.

"I have always liked whodunnits," LaBute said. "And I mean real whodunnits, not mystery-slash-thriller-slash-horror whodunits. I thought, 'When did I last see one of those? And in fact it was probably Gosford Park: at least a nominal portion of Gosford Park had a whodunnit running through it."
As LaBute points out, The Crooked House is "atypical for Christie: often there is a small Belgian or an elderly lady solving the crimes". This novel, by contrast, features neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, but is a standalone story with a young man called Charles Hayward attempting to solve the mystery of the murder of the wealthy Aristide Leonides, with whose daughter, Sophie, he is in love. The entire extended family – the inhabitants of the "crooked house" – falls under suspicion.
Matthew Goode, who played Charles Ryder in the 2008 film of Brideshead Revisited, is to play Charles Hayward, with Gemma Arterton – who last year charmed Cannes with her performance in the title role of Tamara Drewe – as Sophia. Julie Andrews will play Aristide's bitter, repressed sister-in-law Edith de Haviland, and Gabriel Byrne, Sophia's elder brother Roger. The film is set to start shooting in September.
LaBute said of the character of Hayward: "To have someone so hellbent on finding out the truth and is asked huge moral questions – I don't often ask these questions of my boy-men characters, who are generally cowardly, duplicitous and selfish."
LaBute, whose work usually feels more akin to noir thriller writer Patricia Highsmith than Agatha Christie, said the novel was "twisted enough for me".
He added: "Christie may be even more twisted than I am. I think I may have met my match." In this book, he said, she was "in the vanguard of bad seeds".
But the writer and director – whom the New York Times has described as a specialist in "two-legged wolves and pigs who wear the camouflage of business suits and golf sweaters" – also declared himself an unlikely fan of the classic film adaptations of Christie novels of the 1970s. "I love what Sidney Lumet did with Murder on the Orient Express," he said. "And I love the almost kabuki-like performance of Albert Finney as Poirot."
He also expressed his admiration for David Suchet's bustling interpretation of the role for television, and Peter Ustinov's "bumbling" Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978).
LaBute declared himself enthusiastic about the period setting, and said that he wanted to introduce a feel of his favourite 1940s and 50s films. He namechecked Douglas Sirk, Powell and Pressburger, and said he was fan of "domestic noirs such as Mildred Pierce and especially Leave Her To Heaven". He wanted to create a feel, he said, of "deep Technicolor and dark shadows".
LaBute's cinematic and theatrical career has had its ups and downs. After a startling film debut with In the Company of Men, he hit a low point with a critically disastrous remake of The Wicker Man (2006). Known for his depiction of human, particularly male, cruelty, his latest play, In a Forest Dark and Deep is playing at the Vaudeville Theatre in London, with Matthew Fox, who starred in the television series Lost, and Olivia Williams. The Mercy Seat (2002), told the story of a man who uses his proximity to the September 11 attacks to disappear from his suburban life.

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Pirates of Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Johnny Depp steers 'Pirates' into critical seas of Cannes (AP)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 14 May 2011

Depp steers 'Pirates' into critical seas of Cannes

By DAVID GERMAIN

CANNES, France (AP) -- Johnny Depp chuckled when asked if he was worried about the notoriously harsh critics at the Cannes Film Festival, where his new swashbuckler "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" played amid far more sober fare.

Depp said his family - French actress and romantic partner Vanessa Paradis and their two children - are the only critics he needs.

"My family have seen more of my movies than I have. In fact, a lot more, including this one," Depp said at a news conference Saturday before the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel screened. "They've been angels through this process, because I started out secretly testing characters on them to see how the reactions would be. When my daughter was little, we'd be playing Barbies, and I'd start doing these voices. Finally, she just said, `Stop.'

"So they go and see the movies, and basically, I can tell by their reaction if I did all right or not. So I'm very lucky in that way. They seem to enjoy them so far. I haven't been fired by my kids."

And the Cannes critics? Depp, 47, who spent the first two decades of his career in quirky little movies that rarely found much critical support, was not exactly quaking in his pirate boots.

"Yeah, I've always feared the critics," Depp said, laughing. "They really scare me."

The fourth movie in the "Pirates" franchise inspired by the Disney theme-park ride, "On Stranger Tides" casts Depp's boozy, woozy buccaneer Jack Sparrow alongside a female pirate (Penelope Cruz) and her notorious dad, Blackbeard (Ian McShane), in search of the fountain of youth.

Geoffrey Rush reprises his role as Sparrow's foil, Barbossa, with Jerry Bruckheimer back as producer on the blockbuster franchise and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall taking the wheel as director. The movie sails into theaters worldwide starting Wednesday.

It was a reunion for Depp and Cruz, who previously costarred in 2001's crime story "Blow."

While the characters of "On Stranger Tides" are obsessed with finding eternal youth, the 37-year-old Cruz said she does not fret about growing old.

"Birthdays are always something to celebrate. I'm looking forward to every step of the way," Cruz said. "Maybe because I'm from Spain, that's looked at in a different way there than, for example, a place like Los Angeles ... there are a lot of things that I keep from my roots. And that's one of them, the way we look at that. I never want to be afraid of that. Change is good."

At Disney, the studio that bankrolls the "Pirates" franchise, change was not always seen as good. As the first movie was in production - "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" - Disney executives had hoped for a more conventional swashbuckling hero than Depp's Sparrow, whom the actor patterned on a cross between rocker Keith Richards and the cartoon skunk Pepe LePew (Richards reprises his role as Sparrow's father in "On Stranger Tides").

Sparrow mumbles, minces, prattles and prances. He wears heavy eyeliner and a mess of baubles in his braided hair and beard. His clothes resemble a gypsy's castoffs as much as the attire of a dashing pirate.

"There wasn't a group of Disney upper echelon who had any enthusiasm whatsoever for what I was doing," Depp said. "They almost subtitled me."

But with $2.7 billion in worldwide box office for the first three "Pirates" movies, no one at the studio gripes about Sparrow's idiosyncrasies now.

Bruckheimer has a script for a fifth "Pirates" movie in the works, and Depp said he's on board to keep playing Sparrow as long as the right ingredients go in.

"If you are surrounded by such an amazing and creative force such as Jerry, such as Rob, such strong actors like these guys, I think the possibilities are endless," Depp said. "But really, ultimately and truly, these films are made for the people who go in and they pay their hard-earned money to see these things. And if the people get tired of it or something, that's when it stops."

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Gilles Jacob: The Man Behind the Success of Cannes (Spiegel International, 13 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Spiegel International, Germany", 11 May 2011
'A Stairway Going Higher and Higher': The Man Behind the Success of Cannes
For over three decades, Gilles Jacob has presided over the Cannes Film Festival, turning it into the world's top celebration of global cinema and himself into the most powerful man in European film. He is not always universally admired in the US, but when he calls, the stars come flocking.
By Lars-Olav Beier
When the stars, the directors, the actors and the actresses have stepped out of their limousines in front of the Festival Palace in Cannes and have made their way through the cheering crowds, when they have survived the frenzy of hundreds of flashing cameras and have climbed the steps to the palace, they have only a few more meters to go before reaching the hallowed halls of cinema. They will have almost made it.
But there is still one man left to pass: Gilles Jacob.

Jacob has been in charge of the festival for more than 30 years and stands at the top of the stairway every evening, perhaps the most famous stairway of the modern age, the stairway to fame.
He stands there dressed in a tuxedo, looking very slim and erect, and runs his gaze across the crowd, across the stars below. It is the exacting gaze of a patriarch, proudly observing what he has created.
"The steps are a religious metaphor," says Jacob, 80. "At the festivals in both Venice and Berlin, the entrance to the theater where the premiers are played is at ground level, as it is at the Oscars. Only here in Cannes do people have to climb a stairway, going higher and higher."
The Danish director Lars von Trier allegedly said: When you have climbed the steps in Cannes and have finally made it to the top, you've arrived in paradise -- or not.
'When God Calls, You Have to Come Immediately'
"People always ask: What do you think about up there?" says Jacob. "About the friendships with the filmmakers who are climbing the steps up to where you are? Or do you have erotic fantasies when the actresses climb those steps? The truth is that I'm thinking of only one thing: Can we start on time? When God calls you to him, you have to come immediately. But it's a little different when I call."
But these days the actors and directors whom Gilles Jacob and his artistic director, Thierry Frémaux summon to Cannes -- a group including such luminaries this year as Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt, Jodie Foster, Pedro Almodóvar and Nanni Moretti -- make a concerted effort to arrive on time.
Even those who don't consider Jacob to be a deity know that he is the doorman at an extremely exclusive cinema club.
Today, as one of the most powerful men in European film, Jacob can afford to leave the task of choosing the competition films -- 20 out of some 1,700 submitted -- to Frémaux. But as the president of the festival, Jacob keeps a close eye on the empire, which he has steadily expanded since taking office as program director in 1978.
Year after year the festival, with more than 4,000 accredited journalists in attendance and several hundred TV crews filming along the entire length of the opulent Promenade de la Croisette 24 hours a day, is one of the world's biggest cultural events.
Saving 10 Years for Tarantino
Jacob turned Cannes into a global village for the first time in 1979, when he drummed up 1,100 journalists to attend the press conference for Francis Ford Coppola's war film "Apocalypse Now." In the ensuing decades, Jacob discovered directors like Jane Campion, Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke. He promoted Quentin Tarantino by showing his debut film "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992, and helped him achieve a breakthrough by including "Pulp Fiction" in the competition in 1994. Jacob saved me 10 hard years of my life, says Tarantino.
In 1992, he opened the festival with Sharon Stone's "Basic Instinct" and celebrated the actress, who had had little success until then, as the new sex goddess.
Stone is still treated like a major star in Cannes today, though she hasn't been one for a long time, as few have watched the films she made after "Basic Instinct." But her Cannes appearances brought Stone lucrative contracts with French cosmetics companies that support the festival. When Stone collects donations for her AIDS foundation in Cannes, she routinely raises millions.
"A few years ago, I took a picture of Sharon Stone as she walked across the red carpet and climbed the stairs to where I was standing. She looked completely surprised to see me standing there with a camera, and yet she was smiling confidently." As Jacob tells this story, he clearly seems pleased that Stone satisfies his standards for a modern star


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William and Kate: Dream Royal Wedding (Spiegel International, 30 April 2011)

Courtesy: "Spiegel International, Germany", 30 April 2011
Windsor Wonderland: William and Kate Celebrate Dream Wedding

Photo: AFP

Britain celebrated the royal wedding of William and Kate with a grand patriotic spectacle. Friday's ceremony also sent out a message: With these two at the helm as the future king and queen of England, the monarchy will be less distant from its subjects in the years to come -- and also a little more human.

By Marco Evers, Barbara Hans and Carsten Volkery in London

Princess Diana and Kate Middleton (Spiegel International)

Courtesy: "Spiegel International, Germany", 29 April 2011
The Un-Diana: Why Kate Middleton Has a Better Shot at Success
Critics have disparaged the British royal house as a "fur-lined coffin," but that doesn't appear to bother Kate Middleton. The future princess has passed every test to become Prince William's future wife with aplomb. In contrast to Princess Diana, the commoner has a better chance of standing up to the intense pressure of royalty than the future king's mother. By Carsten Volkery
Kate Middleton sought to come across with as much modesty and innocence as she could muster. "I don't know the ropes really," she said in her first television interview after the announcement of her engagement to Prince William in November. She spoke of the complicated public life of being a royal and of her enthusiasm for her future role.

Royal wedding: London prepares for global audience

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 29 April 2011

Royal wedding: London prepares for global audience
Massive police operation swings into action before Prince William marries Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey

By Stephen Bates and Sandra Laville

The police and intelligence services have launched an unprecedented security operation as London prepares to celebrate the royal wedding in front of an estimated worldwide television audience of up to two billion.
The marriage of Prince William, the second in line to the throne, and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey will be among the first global news events of the social media age. It will also be the most important – and, courtiers hope, positive – event for the future of the monarchy in nearly 30 years.