Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli dies at 96 - BBC News

Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli has died aged 96, Italian media report.

The Florence native directed stars including Elizabeth Taylor in the 1967 film Taming of the Shrew and Dame Judi Dench on stage in Romeo and Juliet.

Italian media said Zeffirelli died after a long illness which had grown worse in recent months.

The two-time Oscar nominee also served in the Italian senate for two terms as a member of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.

He is perhaps best known to many as the director of the 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet – starring a then-unknown Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.

It was viewed by generations of school students studying the Shakespearean drama.

The illegitimate son of a merchant, his mother gave him the surname "Zeffiretti" – meaning "little breezes" – which was misspelled on his birth certificate.

The original meaning came from a Mozart opera – and Zeffirelli would go on to become a prolific creator of opera himself, staging more than 120 in his career.

• Obituary: Franco Zeffirelli
• Listen to Zeffirelli's appearance on Desert Island Discs

"Franco Zeffirelli, one of the world's greatest men of culture, passed away this morning," tweeted Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence. "Goodbye dear Maestro, Florence will never forget you."

Zeffirelli initially studied architecture, but said that after seeing Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944), he was inspired to make a career in theatre.

In 1945, he started work as a set designer at Florence's Teatro della Pergola, and concentrated on theatre throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

At the Pope's request, in 1970 Zeffirelli staged "Missa solemnis" in honour of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

His first film was a Shakespeare adaptation, of The Taming of the Shrew. While initially intended to star two Italian actors, but was heavily funded by Hollywood couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – who eventually assumed the two leading roles.

Another notable adaptation of the bard's plays would come in 1990s Hamlet – starring Mel Gibson in the title role, with Glenn Close and Helena Bonham Carter among the supporting cast.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48648278

2019-06-15 11:47:14Z
52780315041934

Jennifer Aniston opens up about her 'silver fox' co-star - CNN

"He's just better with age," she said about her co-star on Apple's yet-to-be-released series, '"The Morning Show."

"He's like a silver fox now," Aniston, 50, said of the 56-year-old. "He just came in and no one expected -- everybody was so cute, and he's so shy and fantastic."

The actress dished on 'The Talk' on Friday and said everyone on the set of her new show has a crush on him.

In addition to Aniston and Carell, actress Reese Witherspoon is also part of the cast of '"The Morning Show."

The show pulls back the curtain on "the power dynamics between men and women in the high-stakes world of morning news shows," according to Witherspoon. She said the show's release date will fall be 2019.

The series will air on Apple TV+, a new streaming service featuring "original shows and movies across every genre," according to Apple, also coming this fall.

Aniston, who marks her return to TV with the project, said it will tackle the conversation people are "a little too afraid to have unless they are behind closed doors."

CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter is a consultant on the show.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/15/entertainment/jennifer-aniston-crush-steve-carell-talk-morning-show/index.html

2019-06-15 09:27:00Z
52780314683990

Rob Kardashian to Block Dream from Appearing on Blac Chyna's Reality Show - TMZ

Rob Kardashian You're Dreaming Blac Chyna If You Think Dream's Goin' on Your Show

6/15/2019 1:00 AM PDT

EXCLUSIVE

Rob Kardashian's pumping the brakes on his 2-year-old daughter becoming a big TV star ... or at the very least he's making sure it doesn't happen on Blac Chyna's new reality show.

Rob's lawyer, legal pit bull Marty Singer, fired off a threatening letter to Chyna, telling her their daughter, 2-year-old Dream, CANNOT appear on her show, "The Real Blac Chyna," without Rob's consent, and he will NOT give consent.

As we reported, Rob and Chyna share 50/50 joint custody, and Singer says there's no way Dream's mother can turn a TV camera on Dream without Rob being on board.

According to the letter, Chyna sent Rob an appearance release for Dream to appear on the series, and he's not gonna sign.

We're told Rob has several reasons for withholding consent. He's seen all the drama with Chyna ... most recently, getting into a crazy fight with her former hairdresser while Dream was in the house and an explosive fight with her mom. We're told Rob feels her life is way too tumultuous and a reality show would just exacerbate the situation.

Beyond that, Rob's had his own experience with reality shows, and for the most part, the experience wasn't good. He doesn't want his daughter subjected to the long hours, the lights and the drama. 

The letter ends with a threat to the network that's airing the show ... "Should The Zeus Network proceed with releasing any episodes of the Series or related materials containing Dream's likeness, it will be acting at its own peril and exposing itself to significant liability."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.tmz.com/2019/06/15/rob-kardashian-rejects-blac-chyna-dream-reality-show-release/

2019-06-15 08:00:00Z
CAIiEPF_eqOPI8gQNTCtkb7VnwgqFQgEKgwIACoFCAowwGUwkAMwgO7lBQ

“You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift Review - Pitchfork

In her latest decree as pop’s current Glenda the Good Witch, Taylor Swift has told an unnamed group of online haters to “calm down.” If that seems like an unhelpful appeal in the midst of everything fucked up about social media, it is. But since she took off her Reputation villain costume, Swift is all about spreading self-love, touting the joys of spelling and showering in rainbow sludge. In the Lover album era, she would release an anti-bullying ally anthem so positive it’s almost unnerving.

At its core, “You Need to Calm Down” is well-intentioned. Like, yes, of course it’s good to take the high road, kill them with kindness, and other clichés that moms like to tell tweens. But Swift aggressively avoids anything more nuanced, adopting internet speak to fight internet haters. “You’re taking shots at me like it’s Patrón,” she says with all the flair of someone who just listened to a rap song for the first time. In an effort to “brush off the haters” and display resilience, she doesn’t reveal any of the uncertainty and vulnerability that previously lay at the heart of her songwriting. Instead, the words are penned with the energy of a nail-painting emoji and delivered with a plastic smile.

Swift dedicates the second half of the song to prove her allyship to the gay community, which again, deserves some props. But her way of showing alliance is confounding: “Why be mad, when you can be GLAAD,” she sings, upping the LGBTQ-centering media organization, but also parroting a literal Tupperware slogan. And when she says “shade never made anyone less gay,” she adopts slang with queer black origins in an attempt to create a mic-drop moment, but ends up sounding like another corporation proving they’re “down for the cause” during Pride Month. All of this, coupled with a hook that’s mostly vowels, makes for a song that’s somehow bewildering and underwhelming at the same time. “You Need to Calm Down” is like one of those fancy unicorn cupcakes, an impossibly cute confection designed to distract you from the fact that it’s a mediocre dessert. I cannot think of something I would rather buy into less.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/taylor-swift-you-need-to-calm-down/

2019-06-14 15:57:00Z
52780314018502

Netflix’s Murder Mystery: Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are a lot of fun - Vox.com

Every week, new original films debut on Netflix and other streaming services, often to much less fanfare than their big-screen counterparts. Cinemastream is Vox’s series highlighting the most notable of these premieres, in an ongoing effort to keep interesting and easily accessible new films on your radar.

The premise: To celebrate their 15th anniversary, New York detective Nick (Adam Sandler) and his wife Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) head to Europe. On the plane, they meet a mysterious and handsome stranger, Charles Cavendish (Luke Evans), and accept an invitation to stay on Charles’s family’s yacht for the weekend, where a group of his relatives and friends have gathered. But soon, someone turns up dead — and Nick and Audrey decide to take it upon themselves to figure out whodunit.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

What it’s about: Murder Mystery is part of Adam Sandler’s ongoing lucrative partnership with Netflix, which thus far has produced mostly rough and forgettable comedies (what do you remember about 2015’s The Ridiculous 6, or 2017’s Sandy Wexler?). So the bar is fairly low for Murder Mystery.

Happily, the film clears that low bar with some room to spare. Murder Mystery, oddly enough, has a screenplay penned by James Vanderbilt, best known for writing Zodiac. It’s a self-conscious (and at times explicit) homage to Agatha Christie’s mysteries, which probably helps explains Sandler’s mustache, though he’s no Hercule Poirot. The yacht party attendees include not just Audrey, Nick, and Charles but a bevy of familiar types for a mystery like this: the family patriarch and his much younger fiancée (who may or may not have her eyes on his wealth); the socialite; the spurned son; the foreign dignitary; the world-class athlete who seems to not speak English; the stolid bodyguard; and so on and so forth.

But Murder Mystery is also a comedy about romance and marriage, and about a couple who’s seeking adventure, trying to recapture a spark that hasn’t gone out but is certainly dimmer than it used to be. There’s been a bevy of these comedies released in the past decade or so, some of them better than this one (2018’s Game Night springs to mind, or 2010’s Date Night). It starts out very clunky, with a scene that feels ripped straight from a rom-com made decades ago, as women complain about their husbands and the general helplessness of men while sitting in a hair salon. And though it gets a little more limpid once Sandler and Aniston start sharing the screen, it’s still formulaic.

But it’s helped along by the comic pairing of the two leads, whose sensibilities seem to balance one another well. (The pair are longtime friends and last teamed up for the 2011 film Just Go With It.) Aniston’s pitch-perfect timing and Sandler’s schlubby bull-in-a-china-shop schtick make them a convincingly loving couple and an energetic comedic pair as they romp a bit haplessly around Europe.

Murder Mystery does feel like a very specific sort of direct-to-Netflix offering, designed to ape other movies you’ve already seen and enjoyed without straying too far from the formula or doing anything particularly innovative. But it does so cleverly enough to make watching it a pleasure; it’s just the kind of movie to pop on one night when you’re looking for something fun, silly, and a little mysterious.

Critical reception: Murder Mystery has a score of 40 on Metacritic. In his review at the Guardian, Benjamin Lee writes that the film is “a surprisingly nimble summer comedy that finds both Aniston and Sandler at their most charming.”

Where to watch: Murder Mystery is streaming on Netflix.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/14/18677530/murder-mystery-netflix-review-jennifer-aniston-adam-sandler

2019-06-14 14:10:00Z
52780314353920

Taylor Swift Cancels Homophobia On Prideful New Single 'You Need To Calm Down' - HuffPost

HuffPost is now part of the Oath family. We (Oath) and our partners need your consent to access your device, set cookies, and use your data, including your location, to understand your interests, provide relevant ads and measure their effectiveness. Oath will also provide relevant ads to you on our partners' products. Learn More

How Oath and our partners bring you better ad experiences

To give you a better overall experience, we want to provide relevant ads that are more useful to you. For example, when you search for a film, we use your search information and location to show the most relevant cinemas near you. We also use this information to show you ads for similar films you may like in the future. Like Oath, our partners may also show you ads that they think match your interests.

Learn more about how Oath collects and uses data and how our partners collect and use data.

Select 'OK' to allow Oath and our partners to use your data, or 'Manage options' to review our partners and your choices. Tip: Sign In to save these choices and avoid repeating this across devices. You can always update your preferences in the Privacy Centre.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-swift-cancels-homophobia-on-prideful-new-single-you-need-to-calm-down_n_5d03948de4b0985c419bfb83

2019-06-14 14:01:00Z
52780314018502

Farewell, Jessica Jones: the last woman standing in the Marvel-Netflix era - The Guardian

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Farewell, Jessica Jones: the last woman standing in the Marvel-Netflix era  The Guardian

With Marvel's owner, Disney, preparing its own streaming *service*, Netflix is throwing in the towel. But Krysten Ritter's street-level superhero always knew how to ...

View full coverage on Google News
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/14/jessica-jones-netflix-marvel-season-three

2019-06-14 13:17:00Z
CAIiEMtb9dwLj3YXR7nq5fhjEBUqFggEKg4IACoGCAowl6p7MN-zCTCOvRU