Notizie

Britain, the 1980s. Thatcher. Black Monday. Riots. Strikes. Racism. In 1984, George Orwell’s 1984 became a bestseller again, slotting right into the nightmarish dystopia it had predicted. As unemployment figures soared, heroin addiction spread, as did HIV and AIDS. It was bloody miserable.

Then: 1988. Ecstasy, a drug promoting love and togetherness, arrived in the U.K., brought back from Ibiza — legend has it — by members of the Mancunian rock band New Order. The Second Summer of Love began. Two years later, Thatcher’s 15-year prime ministerial reign was over. Brit-pop happened.

The late Princess Diana would have been 64 years old today on July 1. The young and beautiful Princess passed away on August 30, 1997. Her death occurred after a high-speed car crash in Paris. Resulting from being chased by the paparazzi with a drunk driver behind the wheel.

Princess Diana Passed Away at Age 36

Diana was 36 years old on the day of her untimely death, and much of the world still remembers where they were when they found out about her tragic passing.

After Diana’s separation from Prince Charles, the royal was often alone as her two young sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, were away at boarding school.

Diana was lovingly known as “The People’s Princess,” a title that was never more evident than on her final birthday. She had received cards by the truckloads and at least 70 bouquets of fragrant flowers before her staff had to stop counting.

Royal...

Now/then, now/then… The past and the present exist in perpetual tension in the gory second sequel to Danny Boyle’s zombie horror franchise. “Time didn’t heal anything,” goes the tagline, and as we learned from the recent pandemic, mankind isn’t always prepared for the worst.

By far the most political of the three films, 28 Years Later is particularly scathing about Brexit Britain and its little-islander mentality. But it does have global relevance at a time of rising tensions across the world, bringing to mind the possibly apocryphal quote attributed to famed German physicist Albert Einstein: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

It’s a moot point whether the film is set precisely in the present day, since the original 28 Days Later was made in 2002, which makes this two years early.

Scottish broadcaster and journalist Kirsty Wark will receive this year’s BAFTA Fellowship, the British Academy’s top accolade.

The BAFTA Fellowship is given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the industry. Wark will join other journalists to receive the honor including Jon Snow and Kate Adie.

She presented the BBC’s landmark news show Newsnight for 30 years, holding politicians and public figures to account. Making her reputation as a journalist and producer on BBC Scotland, Wark was one of the first television journalists to arrive on the scene when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up in the skies above Lockerbie in 1988. She famously locked horns with British Pm Margaret Thatcher in 1990, in one of several headline-making interviews that propelled her into the spotlight.

She has also presented BBC arts programs The Late Show and The Review Show. Notable interviews in the cultural space include with Madonna, Harold Pinter,...

Who doesn’t love a good celebrity success story? More so, who would not love the money that comes with it? There is, of course, plenty of money to be made in Hollywood, and celebrities can’t deny that they have the art of raking in cash nailed down to the tee.

While most of us are figuring out whether shelling out for another streaming service is actually worth it, the big peeps of the entertainment industry are, perhaps, much more concerned about how to add another comma to their net worth. Call it Russ Hanneman’s Tres Comas.

Nevertheless, how does one even calculate this? Ranking them by earnings project-based earnings? That seems like a splintering headache in the making and does not fit the variety of celebrities and projects out there. Paydays come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they? Do you then go by the total money made throughout their careers?...

“The Cell” is back in action.

Tarsem Singh’s somewhat controversial 2000 thriller is getting the 4K treatment thanks to a new, limited edition release from Arrow Video.

“The Cell” stars Jennifer Lopez as a psychologist working with some cutting-edge technology, who is tasked by the FBI to go inside the mind of a serial killer (Vincent D’Onofrio) who has fallen into a coma. While there, she has to battle the demons of his subconscious, along with an FBI agent (Vince Vaughn). Watch a clip from the new restoration below, with Lopez’s character communicating with the ghostly version of the killer’s dog – an all-white German shepherd.

When the movie was released in 2000, it was somewhat controversial, with some claiming that Singh’s imagery, which borrowed from Damien Hirst and H.R. Giger, to name a few, and was honed during Singh’s time making influential commercials and music videos (like...

Former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, have moved to the United Kingdom in response to Donald Trump‘s win in the presidential election.

DeGeneres and de Rossi are now living in the Cotswolds in South West England – almost two hours from London.

In this area, they will have neighbors like David and Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Patrick Stewart, Elizabeth Hurley, Jeremy Clarkson and Damien Hirst.

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The area is also home to King Charles and Queen Camilla, who own Highgrove House in Gloucestershire.

Last week, DeGeneres and de Rossi visited Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog, in the area.

In an Instagram clip that actress Lisa Hogan shared, the couple was seen sipping on drinks as they enjoyed live music at the pub.

The comedian and her...

Madonna’s net worth in 2024 ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

One of the top pop divas in the Hollywood industry, Madonna is one of the best-selling recording musical artists and entertainers. Popularly known as the Queen of Pop, Madonna rose to fame in the 1980s and quickly became an iconic figure in the music world. Her bold personality, daring style, and catchy pop hits like Material Girl, Vogue, and Like a Virgin revolutionized the music industry and symbolized female empowerment.

With her successful career in the music industry, Madonna has boasted a net worth of $850 million, as per Celebrity Net Worth. Her journey began in the early 1980s with the release of her debut single, Everybody, followed by her self-titled album. Madonna’s ability to combine catchy pop melodies solidified her position as a pop icon. She released more albums, including Like A Virgin, True Blue, Like a Prayer, Erotica, Bedtime Stories,...

Exclusive: He was one of the most feared and revered British art critics of his generation — and now, nearly a decade after his death, Brian Sewell could be about to wield his pen once more.

Deadline understands that London’s historic Evening Standard newspaper has been making plans to revive its former writer using artificial intelligence.

Two sources said AI Sewell has been assigned to review The National Gallery’s new Vincent van Gogh exhibition, titled Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers.

One person said the plans were discussed at the highest level of the Standard and in consultation with Lord Lebedev, the newspaper’s proprietor. Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of the Standard, did not respond to requests for comment.

It is not clear how the AI will work or if the Standard has permission from Sewell’s estate. The critic was survived by his partner, the artist Dean Marsh.

The idea...

What could possibly go wrong when an art world insider decides to cash in on a cryptocurrency frenzy? More than you might think, as anyone who watches The Stormtrooper Scandal will discover. The documentary tells the story of Ben Moore, a once well-regarded London curator who organized a fun charity project decorating Star Wars stormtrooper helmets by top artists. But then Moore spotted an opportunity to make a fortune from non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, without considering the legal or ethical complexities.

In 2013, Moore’s “Art Wars” exhibition saw creative talents like Damien Hirst and the Chapman Brothers customizing iconic helmet designs. It proved a success while raising money for good causes. But Moore grew tired of the non-profit grind. During 2021’s speculative Nft boom, images of the helmets seemed like digital assets just waiting to be tokenized and made tradable online. Moore struck partnerships to mass produce artwork and auction photographs through cryptocurrency,...

Growing up in Mexico City, Eugenio López Alonso’s path was preordained: He was destined to become the fruit juice king of Latin America.

As the only child and sole heir of beverage billionaire Eugenio López Rodea, he was expected to take the reins of Grupo Jumex, the family’s mammoth empire, the largest purveyor of fruit juice in South and Central America. Not exactly glamorous, but it sure was a lot of guava.

Ultimately, though, López chose a different path, and today, at 56, he’s one of the most prominent, well-connected figures in the L.A. art scene, where for the past three decades he’s not only championed emerging Latin talent in the U.S., he’s also assembled one of the most extensive private modern collections in the world, built himself one of L.A.’s most iconic modern homes, befriended some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and,...

Filmmaker/Photographer Aleksandra Kingo’s debut short film An Ode To Procrastination is a fun and playful look at the art of doing nothing. The film explores procrastination in all its forms, opening up the conversation around fundamental fears that every artist has experienced at one point or another. On a visual level, Kingo’s background in photography and commercial filmmaking comes through in the whimsical cinematography, diorama-like production design and soft colour palette. It’s a film Dn was delighted by when we first saw it at Conero Film + Adv last year and are now excited to present to audiences through its online premiere. You can also learn more about the making of An Ode to Procrastination through our conversation with Kingo below where she delves into working with trusted collaborators, her exacting approach to set design, and the process of using her phone to shoot an entire rehearsal prior to production.

“Ntf:wtf?,” the upcoming documentary from BAFTA-winning filmmaker David Shulman about the world of Non-Fungible Tokens and their impact on the art market, has been acquired by Netflix for the U.K.

The feature — which features interviews with the likes of Damien Hirst — explores how NFTs changed lives, alongside the course of art and entertainment. From the worlds of CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and celebrity collectors, to current industry leaders and the community of collectors, the film talks exclusively to the key architects of the Nft movement. It also features its founders, including early adopters such as Snoop Dog and digital artists like Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), whose Everydays collection was bought by an Nft investor for $69 million, and Mad Dog Jones.

In the film, co-produced by Josh Berger’s Battersea Entertainment and Atomized Studios (“Real Mo Farah”), Hirst discusses his Nft project The Currency, which was launched as a series...

The actor, musician and troublemaker known for everything from Trainspotting to Fat Les opens himself up to your interrogations

Keith Allen: where to begin? You might know him as the guy who moves into the flat in Shallow Grave and then dies of a drug overdose, leaving a suitcase full of money and three flatmates on the prowl. Or as the dealer in Trainspotting who buys £16,000 worth of heroin from Renton and the gang. More recently he appeared as the dad in Eddie the Eagle and as the baddy in Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London opposite Frankie Muniz, as well as in Kingsman: The Golden Circle and Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins.

Maybe you caught Allen as a beardy Scrooge in Mark Gatiss’ stage 2023 adaptation of A Christmas Carol. He’s been in The Young Ones, Spaced and Doctor Who. He co-wrote and appeared in the video for...

This February, Christie’s will present the iconic property from music legend Elton John’s former Atlanta home in a series of landmark sales at Christie’s Rockefeller Center. Beginning with an evening sale on Wednesday, February 21, the series will be comprised of 8 sales in total, both live and online. The auctions of this extraordinary collection represent a turning point in the celebrated singer’s personal journey and offers collectors a rare opportunity to own a piece of its rich history.

The city of Atlanta played a crucial role in John’s life, becoming the hub he would return to throughout his numerous tours within the United States. He solidified this connection to Atlanta in 1992 when he acquired the condominium in Park Place, on Peachtree Road. His unexpected choice of Atlanta as a residence was driven by personal reasons. After becoming sober in 1990, he found solace and support in the warm...

Elton John is bringing some of his iconic memorabilia to auction, with Christie’s presenting property from his former Atlanta home in a series of landmark sales at Christie’s Rockefeller Center.

Beginning on Feb. 21, the series will be comprised of eight sales in total, both live and online, with items crafted specifically for his home on Peachtree Road. The collections features photographs and artwork, including Damien Hirst’s “Your Song” — signed and inscribed with a note to John and his husband David Furnish — with an estimated value of $350,000 to $450,000, as well as a portrait of John by Julian Schnabel, estimated to be worth $200,000 to $300,000.

John’s on-stage looks, including an ivory and gold ensemble designed by Annie Reavey in 1971 that’s estimated at $8,000 to $12,000, will also be up for auction, as well as Versace upholstery, clothing and home decor, a grand piano (estimate $30,000 to $50,000) art glass collections, antiques and artifacts from his travels.

David Beckham’s production outfit has made an access-all-areas Amazon Prime Video feature doc about Ronnie O’Sullivan, the greatest snooker player alive today.

Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything will drop on Prime Video on November 23 and in select cinemas the following day.

O’Sullivan, a maverick sportsman who holds the record for the most ranking titles and the joint record for most world championships, was followed in 2021 by a camera crew as he was on the verge of winning his seventh world title.

Featuring interviews with snooker legends along with The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood and Damien Hirst, the doc from Maradonna ’86’s Sam Blair explores how one of the most revered and accomplished British sporting heroes is able to function at the highest level despite a constant battle with his inner demons. The film focuses on understanding O’Sullivan’s genius, illuminating his past through never-before-seen archive...

Exclusive: Former Warner Bros. UK and Spain boss Josh Berger has launched Battersea Entertainment and landed its debut project, a feature doc about Nft art and Damien Hirst.

Berger has opened film, TV, theater and media investor Battersea Entertainment, with film division Battersea Pictures behind Nft: Wtf?

Directed by BAFTA-winner David Shulman and co-produced by Real Mo Farah outfit Atomized Studios, Nft: Wtf? will feature contributions from the likes of Hirst and others who have been hugely influential in an industry that has captured millions.

From the worlds of CryptoPunks, The Bored Ape Yacht Club and celebrity collectors, to current industry leaders and a community of collectors, the film surveys how the biggest shake-up to the art market has changed lives and the course of the art market forever. Hirst is being interviewed and will discuss his Nft collection, The Currency.

Berger, who most recently produced Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,...

Cannes, May 26 (Ians) At 11:30 p.m. on Thursday in the South of France, the amfAR Cannes gala quietly welcomed one of the biggest movie stars in the world to dinner in a tent off the Mediterranean Sea, writes ‘Variety’.

Leonardo DiCaprio had been missing for several years at the glitzy charity auction that marks the end of partying at the Cannes Film Festival, but this year, he brought a date — his mom, Irmelin Indenbirken.

Leo, who came to Cannes with Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, took the back entrance into the party, skipping the red carpet packed with European influencers and socialites taking selfies in ballgowns that looked like prom dresses, continues ‘Variety’.

At around midnight, the charity devoted to raising money for AIDS research unveiled a one-of-a-kind portrait of DiCaprio. Two men rolled the large canvas of art onstage, as if they were handling the Mona Lisa.

Stars posed up a storm on the amfAR Cannes gala red carpet on Thursday, but Leonardo DiCaprio, as per usual, chose to keep his entrance on the down low.

According to Variety, the “Titanic” actor made an appearance at the star-studded bash alongside his date for the evening; his mom, Irmelin Indenbirken.

DiCaprio — who came to Cannes for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” premiere — was said to have taken the back entrance into the bash to avoid attention.

Read More: ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Trailer: Leonardo DiCaprio And Robert De Niro Star In Martin Scorsese’s New Epic

Variety reported that he sat quietly in his trademark baseball cap at Table 15 and watched the auction take place at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

They added that he’d applauded musical acts such as Halsey, but disappeared as a huge Damien Hirst portrait of himself was auctioned off...

amFAR, the organization founded by the late Dr. Mathilda Krim and Dame Elizabeth Taylor (the International founder), dedicated to funding AIDS research since 1985, held its annual Cannes Gala at the Hotel du Cap tonight as it has done for the past 29 years tied to the end dates of the Cannes Film Festival each May.

Queen Latifah was the enthusiastic host for a very tony crowd that included the likes of Alex Pettyfer, Eva Longoria, Fan Bingbing, Heidi Klum, James Marsden, Jeremy O. Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Kate Beckinsale, Matt Smith, Odell Beckham Jr, Petra Nemcova, Rebel Wilson, Sadie Frost, Shay Mitchell, Storm Reid, Teyana Taylor and many more. The live musical performances were by Adam Lambert, Halsey, Bebe Rexha and Gladys Knight, who looked like she stopped time with “Midnight Train To Georgia.”

It was such an honor getting...

“To sing is to pray twice,” said St Augustine. It’s a haunting line – perhaps celebrating the miracle of human hope over any expectation of divine attention– that Tracey Thorn quotes with aching resonance on Fuse, Everything But the Girl’s first album in 24 years. It’s an album that makes a church of its elegant electronica: all vaulting arcs of yearning melody and glimmers of stained glass that dance upwards, to the familiar urban spire of Thorn’s beautiful, hangdog voice.

“I’ve always been an atheist,” Thorn wrote in a column published in the third month of the pandemic. But, taking her daily walks around a London graveyard, she found her questions and her internal dialogue with her mother (who’d been dead for a decade) beginning to feel “a bit like prayers. How long, oh lord, how long?” Perhaps it’s strange to say, but Ebtg have...

There was once a time – many, many moons ago – when Keanu Reeves star, before reinventing what it even meant to be a streamlined, teeth-gritted action star.

Over the last three decades he’s found a way to be both soft and rough, cosmic and earthy. He has the spaced-out aura of The Dude until the very moment a switch flips in his head, and he goes into the I-must-break-you mode which has left piles of bad lads beaten in his wake. He is Ted; he is Neo. He is a doofus; he will kill you using a library book. And tying it all together is the sense that, underneath it all, he very earnestly believes in whatever his characters are doing. Keanu Reeves doesn’t do irony, but he does slowly dawning disbelief like nobody else. His superpower isn't dodging bullets – it's really meaning it. From his action classics, to...

Pete Townshend has released a new song, “Can’t Outrun the Truth,” his first solo single in 29 years. The track was composed and produced by Rachel Fuller (Townshend’s wife and sometimes collaborator) under the name Charlie Pepper, and reflects on the lack of human interaction caused by the pandemic.

The song is accompanied by the Who guitarist’s first solo video in 40 years. The video was shot in a series of one-take performances by a creative team of Michael Nunn and William Trevitt.

“Can’t Outrun the Truth” was...

In an airy but compact studio high in a converted Victorian bus factory in Islington, the artist known as Slawn is showing me around the kind of work that led to his being tapped to design this year’s Brit Awards statuette.

His north-London space is filled with people (unidentified hipsters on beanbags tapping at laptops), boxed superhero figurines, canvases stacked against the wall and depictions of the 22-year-old’s nemesis: the Nigerian policeman. There are also two man-sized sculptures of rabbits, shaped like penises, which might be a shock for the London fashion store that commissioned them to mark the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. And there’s some royal porn.

Not pictured: the aeroplane “in some airfield somewhere” that features daubings of dicks “on the underside of the wing. It hasn’t flown yet, but I tried to get them to fly over the palace.”

Sir Peter Blake...

"Spice World" debuted 25 years ago, signalling the absolute zenith of the Spice Girls' celebrity and the phenomenon of Girl Power.

They've got fire in their eyes, hunger in their bellies, and great big shoes on their feet. For any girl who grew up in the '90s, there was one quintet of sassy, stomping women who embodied the era more thoroughly than anyone else. The Spice Girls weren't just a pop band: they were a genuine phenomenon. They sold millions of records and defined a kind of fierce young feminism that seemed tailor-made for the turn of the millennium. While their star burned briefly, it was bright and continues to cast a shadow over 25 years later. For some of us, Ginger, Scary, Posh, Sporty, and Baby Spice symbolized a brand of endless possibility and feminine force that felt like someone had blown the doors off the entire decade. And for one film,...

During the time she was married to Joe Strummer starting in 1995, Lucinda Tait would often hear her late husband at work in the kitchen of their house in Broomfield, in southwest England. “He had a typewriter, an old-fashioned one that would go ‘clack clack,'” Tait recalls. “When I went to sleep at night, I’d be upstairs and hear him tapping away at the kitchen table.”

Strummer’s wildly influential former band, the Clash, were long in the rear-view mirror by then, and Strummer had recently formed his latest combo,...

Staff at Mschf — the hard-to-categorize Brooklyn-based collective infamous for weekly product drops that have included Lil Nas X’s controversial Satan Shoes (made using real blood), Guns 2 Swords (a gun buyback program that offered a sword made from donated and melted firearms) and Severed Spots (a collection of 88 dots fashioned from a chopped up Damien Hirst painting) — rarely do interviews.

The press-shy strategy has worked well over Mschf’s five-year history, as much of what they create sells out, goes viral, causes controversy or dominates the cultural conversation. Sometimes it’s all of the above. But they ...

Staff at Mschf — the hard-to-categorize Brooklyn-based collective infamous for weekly product drops that have included Lil Nas X’s controversial Satan Shoes (made using real blood), Guns 2 Swords (a gun buyback program that offered a sword made from donated and melted firearms) and Severed Spots (a collection of 88 dots fashioned from a chopped up Damien Hirst painting) — rarely do interviews.

The press-shy strategy has worked well over Mschf’s five-year history, as much of what they create sells out, goes viral, causes controversy or dominates the cultural conversation. Sometimes it’s all of the above. But they ...

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), essentially digital versions of physical collectibles like baseball cards, are the swag du jour for Hollywood franchises looking to gin up fan excitement.

WarnerMedia’s DC announced that will give away — for free — NFTs of comic-book covers (in three different levels of rarity) for superheroes including Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn. The Nft drop, set for Oct. 5, is designed to drive signups for the DC FanDome event: Users who register for FanDome at dcfandome.com (which takes place Oct. 16) can receive one free Nft, which is allocated randomly, and can unlock a second free collectible if they share their first Nft on social media.

For example, fans of the Princess of Themyscira (aka Wonder Woman) can collect Nft covers designated as “common” (1987’s Wonder Woman No. 1 by George Peréz), “rare” (2021’s Nubia and the Amazons No. 1 by Alitha Martinez), and/or “legendary...

For a little over a year, Drake has maintained a heart-shaped design at the front of his hairline. He’s sported the unrepentantly goofy hairstyle with the vigor of a method actor unwilling to abandon their character. On social media, the 34-year-old musician appears in a variety of photos with the cartoonish embellishment affixed atop his head like a Looney Toons character. It reads as the rapper’s longtail public relations effort for his sixth studio album, Certified Lover Boy, which was released last week. In another playful turn, the album’s cover art,...

The brutish life of a British dairy cow is the subject of this unusual, gripping documentary from director Andrea Arnold. “Cow” screened in the new Cannes Premiere section at this year’s festival, where Arnold is also serving as head of the Un Certain Regard jury and where she has previously won awards for “Red Road,” “Fish Tank” and “American Honey.” Even her debut short, “Wasp,” was garlanded here on the Croisette.

Safe to say, Arnold has form — but her probing camera takes a different, risky slant here, being mostly attached to a beast called Luma. The gamble pays off handsomely and results in a uniquely fascinating experiment.

Although there are similarities with Russian film maker Victor Kossakovksy’s 2020 farmyard doc “Gunda,” Arnold’s film is far grittier and concerned with only one species and indeed one animal, although a couple of her calves are roped in for good measure.

Palm Nft Studio, whose founding partners include film producer and owner of Heyday Films, David Heyman, and the founder of leading art house publisher Heni Group, has named Straith Schreder to the new role of executive creative director.

Schreder previously held the same title at Vice Media, based in Los Angeles. She’ll report to chief content officer Matt Mason and oversee creative output at Palm Nft Studio focused on developing projects with artists, IP owners, Nft marketplaces and content platforms running on Palm.

Palm belongs to a fast expanding, sometimes confusing Nft ecosystem set up to create and sell so-called “non-fungible tokens” — unique digital works based on underlying IP or art, using blockchain technology. Initial projects launching on Palm include Damien Hirst’s The Currency and Candy Digital’s collectible program with Major League Baseball.

“The blockchain is an artistic medium with massive potential,...

May 14th will see the release of a new Gang of Four tribute album, The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four, in honor of the post-punk band’s pioneering lead guitarist who died in February 2020.

On Wednesday, the full tracklist for the compilation was announced, featuring renditions of Gang of Four’s songs from Tom Morello, Serg Tankian of System of a Down, Idles, Gary Numan, Flea, John Frusciante, La Roux, the Dandy Warhols, Warpaint, and more. Additionally, the compilation’s cover, designed by artist Damien Hirst,...

Ronnie Wood is one Stone who’s never alone. Although he’s been in the Rolling Stones since 1975, he’s the only member who continually gets called out to reunite with one of the other classic rock groups he helped shape: The Birds, The Jeff Beck Group, The Faces (with Rod Stewart), and The New Barbarians. He was such a busy player it took until 1974 until he realized I’ve Got My Own Album to Do. Eagle Rock Entertainment’s upcoming documentary Somebody Up There Likes Me will trace Wood’s 50-year musical journey. Directed by Mike Figgis, this is the first in-depth film biography of the iconic musician. Somebody Up There Likes Me will be available in North America as a Virtual Cinema release starting Sept. 18 and running through October. The DVD, Blu-ray and deluxe hardback book release date is Oct. 9.

Wood has made countless contributions to the cultural zeitgeist as an artist,...

This ruminative collection of vignettes steeped in everyday reality was inspired by newspaper accounts of bizarre tragedies

Not a Bond film. In Damien Hirst’s celebrated creation, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was a tiger shark suspended in a tank. In this brief, ruminative piece from Thai film-maker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, that impossibility is something else – it’s the formaldehyde that the shark’s floating in, or that we’re all floating in, or it’s the banal glass tank itself, or it’s the people milling around the artwork in the gallery, peering at it, shrugging, and then leaving to get on with their day.

This feature is a collection of short stories or realist vignettes, based on or otherwise inspired by newspaper stories about tragic or bizarre deaths. A story about a female student killed by a truck that careered off the road – a woman who,...

In 1997, Tony Blair was the U.K. prime minister, and Oasis, Blur, Pulp, the Spice Girls, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, “Trainspotting” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral” were among the cultural touchstones of what was dubbed “Cool Britannia.” And bestselling writer Nick Hornby was making his first movie, an adaptation of his hit novel “Fever Pitch” — and earning his first mention in Variety. Hornby has since gone on the write yet more popular books — “About a Boy,” “Juliet, Naked” and “Funny Girl” are a few — and more movies, including “Wild,” “An Education” and “Brooklyn.” He’s now downsizing with Sundance TV’s “State of the Union” — ten, 10-minute episodes directed by Stephen Frears and starring Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd as a couple working on their marriage. Each episode takes place in a pub 10 minutes before the characters are due to meet their marriage counselor, and delivers laughs and...

A two-day auction of George Michael’s art collection earned over $15 million, which will be used toward the late singer’s philanthropic efforts.

During his lifetime, Michael amassed dozens of works by contemporary British artists – like Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Michael Craig-Martin and Marc Quinn – who formed the Young British Art movement.

“Through visits to galleries and artists’ studios, [Michael] developed friendships with many of the Yba artists whose work he deeply admired,” Christie’s auction house in London said of Michael’s collection, which 12,000 people visitors viewed at a pre-auction exhibition.

The photographer made his name with a series showing his dysfunctional parents, Ray and Liz, in their squalid Black Country flat. Now he’s turned their story into an award-winning film

It is just about 30 years since Richard Billingham picked up a camera and focused it on his alcoholic father, Ray, and his violent mother, Liz, and the Black Country council flat in which they lived. The pictures were intended as studies for paintings, but they took on a life of their own. A tutor on Billingham’s art degree course at Sunderland University came across the photographs in a plastic bag and Billingham ended up displaying them in all their flash-lit squalor: toothless and shirtless Ray cradling pop bottles of home brew; Liz, with her lavishly tattooed slabs of arms and vast floral print frocks, lost in her jigsaw puzzles or TV dinners. Taken together – “Ray’s a Laugh...

Commerce and greed are killing the art industry, literally, in “Velvet Buzzsaw,” a tarted-up throwback to a certain kind of trashy ’70s horror movie — à la “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” or “Theater of Blood,” in which cooks and critics got their just deserts — from the satirist responsible for “Nightcrawler.” Writer-director Dan Gilroy reunites Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo in this made-for-Netflix genre entry, in which (nearly) everyone who profited from exploiting a dead artist’s oeuvre must pay the price. The film premiered Sunday night in Sundance and hits the streaming service five days later — before the paint can even dry.

A fitting companion piece to “Nightcrawler,” which took place in a world of bottom-feeders, “Velvet Buzzsaw” circulates among a relatively rarefied group of elites: those who possess great wealth, great taste, or great ambition — although none seem to have great talent. The film opens at Art Basel Miami Beach,...

On 5 December, 2018, in Miami, (Red), Sotheby’s and Gagosian came together to raise $5.5 million to support the fight against AIDS.

Larry Gagosian, Theaster Gates, Bono and Sir David Adjaye OBE at the third (Red) Auction

The third (Red) Auction totaled nearly $11 million, including matching funds by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Curated by art and architecture stars Theaster Gates and Sir David Adjaye OBE in collaboration with musician and activist Bono, the auction featured contemporary art and design donated by Jenny Saville, Sean Scully, Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson, Jennifer Guidi, Frank Ghery, Christo, Jeff Koons and many more prominent creators. In addition, Sir David Adjaye and Theaster Gates created unique pieces for the sale.

Centered on the theme of light and the color red, the auction was led by Theaster Gates ‘A Flag for The Least of Them,’ which achieved $807,000, an auction record for the artist. Additional...

One of Kylie Jenner's favorite artists had his work vandalized, and cops say a bad boy street artist is a suspect in the crime. The newly opened Maddox Gallery in West Hollywood was covered in graffiti over the weekend, and law enforcement sources tell us street artist Retna is a suspect in the investigation. Sources tell us ... Retna allegedly twice vandalized the art gallery with spray paint, first targeting the work of celeb-fave Damien Hirst...

Back in October, the fifth issue in the comiXology Originals series Elephantmen 2261: The Death of Shorty was released online, and it marked the 50th Elephantmen cover by artist Boo Cook. To celebrate the milestone, Daily Dead was recently provided with a Q&A with Cook for our readers to enjoy. In his wide-spanning reflection on his work, Cook discusses the creative approach to his artwork, collaborating with writer Richard Starkings, and he selects his five favorite covers that he's done for the Elephantmen series.

"Boo, you've been the cover artist on Elephantmen for 50 issues now. What's that mean to you, having such consistency with a series?

Boo Cook: In all honesty, I was quite surprised to discover I’d notched up 50 covers for Elephantmen! Life as a freelancer is kind of a blur plunging from one job to the next, radically changing tack with each new cover or strip,...

Richard Billingham’s bleak feature-directing debut captures the claustrophobic loneliness of a couple cut off from everyone, including each other

Photographer and artist Richard Billingham makes his feature-directing debut with the bleak Ray & Liz. It was developed from earlier video works and his 1996 collection of photographic studies, entitled Ray’s a Laugh, after the old Ted Ray radio comedy. They were stark, uncompromisingly painful shots of his hard-drinking dad, Ray, and hard-smoking mum, Liz, and originally formed part of Charles Saatchi’s Yba exhibition Sensation with Damien Hirst et al.

Ray and Liz were, of course, depressed – not a diagnosis we were encouraged to make back in the ironic Cool Britannia 90s. This film version makes it clearer and expands the images’ implications into grim and sometimes funny vignettes, fragments of a fragmented family life. The whole film is like an incomplete fragment, intriguing if frustrating.

Patrick Romer plays Ray as an old man,...

“Everyone coming together to do something cool,” Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea tells Rolling Stone about the annual Silverlake Conservatory of Music fundraiser, “it’s fuckin’ awesome.”

On September 29th, the Los Angeles music education and community outreach center that Flea co-founded in 2001 will hold its annual fundraiser and art auction, hosted by comedian Marc Maron and featuring performances by k.d. lang, Lindsay Buckingham and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The art auction will feature works by Damien Hirst, Shepard Fairey, Ed Ruscha, Raymond Pettibon, Cecily Brown, Kenny Scharf and more,...

Film sells to UK, Japan, Italy.

Hermann Vaske’s provocative and highly unusual new film Why Are We Creative? has racked up early deals for sales agent Celluloid Dreams in advance of its Venice Days premiere today.

Sky has taken UK TV and SVoD rights to the film, while further deals have been done for Japan (New Select), Greece/Cyprus (Feelgood Entertainment), Italy (I Wonder Pictures), Poland (Mowi Serwis) Cis (Inoekino) and Turkey (Filmarti.) As announced already, Rise And Shine is handling German distribution.

The feature documentary, made over many years, includes interviews with multiple artists and celebrities, among them David Bowie,...

Why are you creative? It’s the titular question, and it’s a good one. Why. That one word makes the question, that really makes you stop for a second and think. Our question for you is, have you ever wondered what makes your favorite creatives create? Well, if the answer to that is yes, look no further.

Read More: 55 Must-See Films: The 2018 Fall Movie Preview

In a new documentary focusing on that exact question by Hermann Vaske, he conducts some 50 candid interviews with people such as David Bowie, Quentin Tarantino, Ai Weiwei, Björk, Wim Wenders, Philippe Stark, Yoko Ono, John Hegarty, David Lynch, Yohji Yamamoto, Damien Hirst, Angelina Jolie, Nobuyoshi Araki, Tarantino, Bono, Nick Cave, Neo Rauch, Stephen Hawkins, the Dalai Lama, Peter Ustinov, Marina Abramovic, Diane Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jimmy Page, Vivienne Westwood, Takeshi Kitano, and many others.

Continue reading ‘Why Are You Creative’ Trailer Features David Bowie,...

The documentary features some 50 candid interviews with world-renowned luminaries in their fields.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for German filmmaker Hermann Vaske’s documentary Why Are We Creative? ahead of its world premiere in Venice Days.

Vaske spent some 30-years globe-trotting and tracking down world-renowned luminaries in their fields to quiz them on what drives their creativity.

The resulting documentary features some 50 candid interviews with David Bowie, Quentin Tarantino, Ai Weiwei, Björk, Wim Wenders, Philippe Stark, Yoko Ono, John Hegarty, David Lynch, Yohji Yamamoto, Damien Hirst, Angelina Jolie, Nobuyoshi Araki, Tarantino, Bono, Nick Cave, Neo Rauch, Stephen Hawkins, the Dalai Lama,...

Art imitates life “Ray & Liz,” the autobiographical debut feature by Turner Prize-nominated artist Richard Billingham; that’s nothing new. But it’s the way art imitates, reflects and recomposes other art — specifically, Billingham’s much-discussed photography — that lends complex layers of memoir and mimesis to this singular spin on the British kitchen-sink drama, preserving both the director’s childhood and his creative evolution in gorgeous, grainy amber. Collating multiple visual and thematic preoccupations from the director’s fine-art oeuvre (notably his bleakly intimate portraiture of his working-class parents) and filtering them through the ingenious compositional eye of d.p. Daniel Landin, “Ray & Liz” is formally arresting and rigorous, though not at the expense of its direct emotional force. Commercially, this Locarno competition entry is an uncompromisingly hard sell, though festival bookings will come thick and fast.

Familiarity with Billingham’s photographic output is by no means vital to an appreciation of “Ray & Liz,...

Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s documentary conveys the outrageous glory of the designer’s work and poignantly unpicks his inner issues

Since the fashion designer Alexander McQueen took his own life at the age of 40 in 2010, he has been mythologised in a colossally successful exhibition in London and New York entitled Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and there has been a projected movie – now reportedly on hold – to which Jack O’Connell and Andrew Haigh were once attached as star and director. Now there is this sombre, thorough, intelligent and informative documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui giving us the moving story of a working-class boy with fierce and original talent who began as a tailor’s apprentice in Savile Row before getting mentored into the big league by fashion writer and salonnière Isabella Blow, and whose increasingly outrageous and confrontational shows made him one of the fashion world’s biggest stars.