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Grease title animator John D Wilson
44 minutes ago
Animator and founder of Fine Arts Films whose credits include Lady and the Tramp, Petroushka and Grease
The pioneering animator John David Wilson, who has died aged 93, launched his studio, Fine Arts Films, in 1955 and found success with his first short subject, an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, Tara the Stonecutter, which was screened in America with Teinosuke Kinugasa's Oscar-winning samurai drama Jigokumon (Gate of Hell, 1953). Next came Petroushka (1956), for which Igor Stravinsky (despite negative feelings towards animation following Disney's Fantasia) was persuaded by Wilson to prepare a shortened score for the film and conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the soundtrack. Petroushka won several festival awards and was the first animated film to be accepted by the Venice film festival.
Wilson's diverse productions ranged from innovative TV commercials for Instant Butter-Nut Coffee, made with the actor and humorist Stan Freberg, to a groundbreaking 15-minute film, Journey to the Stars, »
- Brian Sibley
Ruthless targeting bears fruit
1 hour ago
Hollywood is reaping a decent harvest from a tight focus on broadly appealing fare – in spite of the gloomy predictions of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas about an 'implosion'
Boisterous summer box office continued to demonstrate the iron-clad credentials of broadly appealing studio fare as Monsters University held its top berth and the top five movies each grossed over $20m. Despite the recent gloomy prognostications of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, by the half-way point, blockbuster season 2013 has shown little sign of cracking up.
What is interesting about the remarks about an "implosion" by the moviemaking duo at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in June is how, well, uninteresting they actually were. There was nothing in their dark predictions that any savvy industry watcher hadn't already accepted as inevitable.
There will come a time when several summer tentpoles will come crashing to earth within the space of several months. »
- Jeremy Kay
Enter the Dragon star Jim Kelly dies at 67
2 hours ago
Karate ace and actor, who starred in the martial arts hit opposite Bruce Lee, had been suffering from cancer
The martial artist and actor Jim Kelly, best known for his nonchalant turn in the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon, has died at the age of 67.
After making a name for himself on the karate circuit by winning four tournaments in 1971, Kelly was picked to star in the martial arts classic two years later. He plays the arrogant, insouciant Williams, who competes alongside Lee in a sinister competition organised by the mysterious Mr Han on a James Bond-style island. Kelly's impressive afro, sideburns and good looks made him the perfect choice for a film shot at the height of blaxploitation.
Kelly has since become a huge cult figure, though his acting career never quite took off despite a good deal of success in similar 1970s fare. Appearances in films such as Black Belt Jones, »
- Ben Child
Zach Braff to star in Bullets over Broadway musical
2 hours ago
Scrubs star to make Broadway debut in Woody Allen's own adaptation of his 1994 film
A critical mauling in the West End clearly hasn't put Zach Braff off theatre. The Scrubs star will make his Broadway debut next year, starring in a musical adaptation of Woody Allen's film Bullets Over Broadway.
Twenty years after he made his film debut in Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery, Braff will play an aspiring playwright in 1920s New York, who has to cast a gangster's talentless girlfriend in his new show to get it produced on Broadway. The role was originally played by John Cusack.
Allen has adapted the film he co-wrote with Douglas McGrath and set it to a score featuring songs from the 1920s setting. Five-time Tony-winner Susan Stroman will direct.
Braff told the Associated Press: "If you would have asked me a couple months ago: 'What are your dreams as an actor? »
- Matt Trueman
How cinema sold its soul – but didn't get paid
2 hours ago
The unctuous Fox-produced movie about Google is a giant free advertisement for its corporate mentor, and a disturbing trend
Fancy shelling out your hard-earned cash to watch a two-hour corporate video? If so, you've a treat in store. The Internship isn't billed as a commercial: it's supposed to be a wacky comedy in which the one-time Wedding Crashers gatecrash a tech giant's intern scheme. However, the film isn't set in a fictional workplace, as you might expect: the firm involved is explicitly Google, and the search monster pretty much steals the show from Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
Much of the action takes place and some of it was shot at the hallowed Googleplex in Santa Clara. To accommodate other sequences, Google's creative team assisted with the design of a set and verified its accessories down to the most minute detail. Over two years, they lent props, advised on internal slang, »
- David Cox
David Cameron: I want to be Harry Potter
5 hours ago
Pm tells students in Kazakhstan that he would like to be Jk Rowling's hero but hints that some might view him as the villain
David Cameron has joked that anyone with "any sense" would like to be Harry Potter, though he acknowledged that the British people would probably see him as the malign Voldemort.
In a question and answer session with students in the Kazakhstan capital, Astana, the prime minister showed a good knowledge of the Jk Rowling books by not actually mentioning Voldemort's name. The evil character is famously known in the Harry Potter novels as He Who Must Not Be Named.
Speaking at Nazarbayev University – named after the authoritarian president who flew the prime minister on his private jet on Sunday – Cameron also said that he misses his wife Samantha "desperately" on overseas trips. He also admitted that some of his Oxford tutors write to him to »
- Nicholas Watt
Lone Ranger shot down in early reviews
6 hours ago
Johnny Depp's Tonto widely seen as pushing 149-minute revival out of shape
It is being billed as a reunion for the team behind the multi-billion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean film series – star Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski. But the first reviews for The Lone Ranger are unlikely to help the movie mirror the success of its predecessors and recoup a reported $250m (£164m) budget.
At time of writing, the film holds a rating of 29% "rotten" on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with several negative Us trade verdicts yet to be counted. The consensus is that Verbinski's over-long (149-minute) film tries too hard to recapture the franchise-launching magic of the first Pirates movie, Curse of the Black Pearl, while Depp's turn as heavily-made-up Native American Tonto ends up distracting attention from its title character, played by the rather less famous Armie Hammer.
Writes Todd McCarthy »
- Ben Child
Letter: Jim Goddard was an impressive director of The Black Stuff
6 hours ago
As producer of Alan Bleasdale's The Black Stuff, I was immensely impressed by Jim Goddard's direction. Although it was transmitted as a BBC Play for Today, it was in fact a feature-length film. I recall Jim working in west London with the team of actors led by Bernard Hill playing Yosser Hughes, walking back and forth in a rehearsal room, to measure out a long tracking shot which was to be filmed on the roads of the north-east. With the actors in mind, Jim took full advantage by combining old-style television rehearsal with the economic need to keep the film camera turning.
This valuable preparation gave the team of actors the freedom of spirit which subsequently Michael Wearing and Philip Saville inherited when producing and directing, with newly introduced lightweight cameras, Bleasdale's compelling series The Boys from the Blackstuff.
DramaDrama
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. »
Bert Stern obituary
7 hours ago
Photographer and film-maker who took some of the last shots of Marilyn Monroe
In the summer of 1962 Bert Stern, who has died aged 83, took more than 2,500 photographs of Marilyn Monroe over three sessions held in a Los Angeles hotel. The images captured Monroe in a sometimes pensive but mostly playful mood as she posed nude, variously covered by bedsheets, a chinchilla coat, a stripy Vera Neumann scarf and a pair of chiffon roses. Despite their air of carefree humour, the portraits are inescapably wistful because – along with George Barris's subsequent pictures of Monroe at Santa Monica beach – they are among the last photographs taken of the star. She was found dead at her home several weeks later.
The shoot was for Vogue, which had Stern on a contract that required him to fill 100 fashion pages a year and afforded him an additional 10 pages for personal projects. Stern proposed Monroe as a subject, »
- Chris Wiegand
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp reborn as publishing arm targets smartphones
7 hours ago
Chief executive says company aims to 'own the second screen' through deals such as Sun's Premier League highlights service
News Corporation, the newly devolved publishing division in Rupert Murdoch's global empire starts, launches on the New York and Sydney stock exchanges on Monday with the aim of dominating the smartphone market for news, entertainment and information.
Robert Thomson, the chief executive of new News Corp, told investors in Sydney the company would retain "Murdochian magic" and would have "a permanent startup sensibility" with globalisation and digitisation its biggest opportunities for growth.
"One of our foremost ambitions outside Australia is to own the second screen," he said in an investor roadshow whether this was "a football match or a British election".
He said the media sector was "still at the early stage of a second great migration, from print to web from web to mobile" and it was working on »
- Lisa O'Carroll
Gromit sculpture vandalised
8 hours ago
Five-foot replica of Wallace's dog, on display in Bristol fundraising event, has tail broken off
A giant statue of Aardman Animations' beloved Gromit, which was designed by actor Joanna Lumley for a charity drive, has been vandalised in Bristol.
The five foot sculpture of Wallace's canine best friend is one of 80 on display in the city as part of the 10-week Gromit Unleashed arts trail, which aims to raise funds for Bristol Children's hospital. It had its tail broken off on Friday night, according to organisers, and police are now investigating.
"We're very sorry to say that late Friday night, one of our Gromit Unleashed sculptures was damaged," said organisers of Wallace and Gromit's Grand Appeal in a statement. "We are dismayed that anyone would want to damage one of the Gromit sculptures, which have been created to raise money to treat sick children in hospital and to provide »
- Ben Child
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