Denis Villeneuve to direct next James Bond film
The untitled film will be the first since the studio took creative reins of the storied film franchise after decades of control by the Broccoli family. Producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman had maintained that before the next Bond is cast, they would develop a screenplay and find a director first. Now they have one of the most respected blockbuster makers in Hollywood who's coming off a pair of widely acclaimed Dune films. In a statement, Villeneuve said he grew up watching Bond movies. 'I'm a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he's sacred territory,' said Villeneuve. 'I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor.'
Since taking creative control of Bond in February, Amazon MGM has worked quickly to get the next movie going. The studio is also trying to win over fans skeptical of the new corporate leadership of 007 and the likelihood of future spinoffs. 'James Bond is in the hands of one of today's greatest filmmakers,' said Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. 'With Pascal and Heyman lodged as producers and Villeneuve behind the camera, the next Bond movie will have an enviable brain trust.' Villeneuve beat out a field of directors floated for the movie, including Edward Berger (Conclave), Paul King (Paddington 2), Edgar Wright (Baby Driver), and Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of Westworld and brother to Christopher Nolan. 'Denis Villeneuve has been in love with James Bond movies since he was a little boy,' said Pascal and Heyman. 'It was always his dream to make this movie, and now it's ours, too.'
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Asharq Al-Awsat
10 hours ago
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Terence Stamp, Actor Who Played Superman Villain Zod, Dies at 87
Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a teacher in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the "Superman" film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015. After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in "Superman" and "Superman II" turned the full glare of Hollywood's limelight on the Londoner. Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passers-by with a command of: "Kneel before Zod, you bastards," which usually went down a storm. He died on Sunday morning, aged 87, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately known. "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come," the family statement said. 'I WOULD HAVE BEEN LAUGHED AT' Terence Henry Stamp was born in London's East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life. As a child he endured the bombing of the city during World War Two and the deprivations that followed. "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor," he said. He left school to work initially as a messenger boy for an advertising firm and quickly moved up the ranks before he won a scholarship to go to drama school. Until then he had kept his acting ambitions secret from his family for fear of disapproval. "I couldn't tell anyone I wanted to be an actor because it was out of the question. I would have been laughed at," he said. He shared a flat with another young London actor, Michael Caine, and landed the lead role in director Peter Ustinov's 1962 adaptation of "Billy Budd", a story of brutality in the British navy in the 18th century. That role earned him an Academy Award nomination and filled him with pride. "To be cast by somebody like Ustinov was something that gave me a great deal of self-confidence in my film career," Stamp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. "During the shooting, I just thought, 'Wow! This is it'." Famous for his good looks and impeccable dress sense, he formed one of Britain's most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in "Far From the Madding Crowd" in 1967. But he said the love of his life was the model Jean Shrimpton. "When I lost her, then that also coincided with my career taking a dip," he said. After failing to land the role of James Bond to succeed Sean Connery, Stamp sought a change of scene. He appeared in Italian films and worked with Federico Fellini in the late 1960s. "I view my life really as before and after Fellini," he said. "Being cast by him was the greatest compliment an actor like myself could get." 'A LOT OF ACTION GOING ON' It was while working in Rome – where he appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Theorem" in 1968 and "A Season in Hell" in 1971 - that Stamp met Indian spiritual speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968. Krishnamurti taught the Englishman how to pause his thoughts and meditate, prompting Stamp to study yoga in India. After landing the role of General Zod, the megalomaniacal leader of the Kryptonians, in "Superman" in 1978 and its sequel in 1980, both times opposite Christopher Reeves, he went on to appear in a string of other films. Other films included "Valkyrie" with Tom Cruise in 2008, "The Adjustment Bureau" with Matt Damon in 2011 and movies directed by Tim Burton. He counted Princess Diana among his friends. "It wasn't a formal thing, we'd just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we'd have a long chat for an hour. Sometimes it would be very quick," he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2017. "The time I spent with her was a good time." Asked by the Stage 32 website how he got film directors to believe in his talent, Stamp said: "I believed in myself. "Originally, when I didn't get cast I told myself there was a lack of discernment in them. This could be considered conceit. I look at it differently. Cherishing that divine spark in myself."
Arab News
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Actor Terence Stamp, star of Superman films, dies aged 87
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Asharq Al-Awsat
12 hours ago
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Art in Mind… Wry Reflections that Blend Art and Reality
In the Brick Lane area of East London, a mischievous creative spirit reigns, expressing itself through graffiti on every wall, door, and window. Words and slogans mingle with imaginary or even realistic drawings. Here, creativity is vibrant and boundless, making the area attractive to young and old alike. The streets are crowded, and the bagel shops for which the area is famous attract passers-by, while the scattered art galleries offer visitors a place to consume sandwiches and to chat. Amid this buzz, a group exhibition is currently being held at the Brick Lane Gallery, featuring artists who lack notoriety, but make up for it in talent and creativity. The exhibition showcases eight artists, whose works range from landscape painting to photography and portraits. Some of the works appear amateurish, but others exude strong artistic talent and distinctive style. The show explores the different ways artists express visions that blend abstract nature, landscapes, and dreamlike fantasies. It explores the works of artist Shelley Hordiyuk, who chose to display her canvases without frames to evoke the idea of liberation from constraint. Her paintings, entitled "Drawn by the Light", depict a world of trees and branches. She chooses to depict her trees from the perspective of a person standing beneath a web of branches. She chooses a uniform color background for each painting. One has a green background, where the trees appear almost devoid of leaves, and then there is a painting with a yellow background mixed with brown patches, reflecting warmth. "Drawn by the Light" paintings by Shelley Hordiyuk. (Asharq Al-Awsat) She says of her paintings, "I feel a love for the impossible tree or the sky painted in unrealistic colors. I also like to exaggerate these colors and lines, to take shapes from reality and gradually transform them into abstract pictures." On a separate wall, the paintings of English artist Bryn Haworth are distinguished by their calm, confident brushstrokes and vivid colors. They also have an air of mystery that prompted visitors to ask the artist what they meant. One of them explained, "I sense a sarcastic tone in the paintings. They appear serious and traditional, but the artist has a distinct sense of humor that provokes discussion about what he depicts." In an introduction to his work, Haworth discusses two paintings entitled "Remoaner Lisa" and "Something Rotten." The first takes Leonardo da Vinci's smiling Mona Lisa, removing her smile and transforming it into a sulky pout. Behind her, instead of a Tuscan landscape, he depicts the reality of Britain after its separation from the European Union (Brexit). Behind the Mona Lisa, we see the Eurostar train tunnel, its entrance closed, and the white cliffs of Dover with the word "Goodbye" written over them, a reference to a cover from the pro-Brexit newspaper The Sun. The painting combines seriousness with bitter irony. It was first presented in Paris as part of an exhibition on the stance of British artists towards Brexit. Haworth explains that he was keen for the Mona Lisa to resemble former Prime Minister David Cameron, whom many blame for the Brexit referendum. Art by Bryn Haworth. (Asharq Al-Awsat) The political dimension extends to another painting inspired by the French artist Chardin's painting "Ray." In it, a ray fish hangs above a kitchen table, but it appears grey, as if mold has begun to invade it. The artist used the features of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to express the confusion that characterized his term in office during the COVID-19 pandemic. The two paintings are the beginning of a parodic series the artist is working on, creating an alternative to the portraits that line the main stairway in 10 Downing Street. From da Vinci and Chardin, the third piece is based on Renaissance artist, Sandro Botticelli, and his iconic work, "The Birth of Venus." In the original, the goddess emerges from the depths of the sea, radiant with breathtaking beauty, standing on a shell. Here, we see her as reimagined by Haworth, sitting on her shell as she watches a scene unfold near the Uffizi Museum where she resides. It's a scene from Italian history: the trial of the extremist priest, Girolamo Savonarola. From her position above the scene, Venus witnesses the brutal end of a period of religious extremism to which Botticelli himself fell victim, to the point that he burned several of his paintings in the so-called bonfire of the vanities – a pivotal moment in the history of art. The "Remoaner Lisa" by Bryn Haworth. (Asharq Al-Awsat) "The Price of Bananas" is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the art market and on the sale of "Comedian" in particular. Created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, this was a real banana attached to the gallery wall by duct tape, which sold for more than $6 million at auction. Haworth's version borrows from Andy Warhol in its depiction of four bananas against colorful backgrounds. However, he chooses to place the current price from various local markets under each banana, ending with the art market. The work attracts visitors with its ironic touch and its colorful brilliance. In a nearby corner, Russian photographer of Turkish origin, Daniel Buyukotsun, displays a number of photographs entitled "Street Layers", a black-and-white series in which the photographer experiments with layering different scenes on top of each other without resorting to digital technology. He superimposes a shot of one London street over a view of vehicles from a different street. Buildings, pedestrians, and vehicles blend within a single frame, giving the image an experimental feel, but also representing an emotional record of the capital's streets. A work by Daniel Buyukotsun. (Asharq Al-Awsat) Buyukotsun notes that he deliberately created one sequence of shots, but in other images the arrangement of layers was accidental: "My aim is not to record city life as it is, but to explore how life can feel within those layers." It's the kind of feeling the visitor to Brick Lane will instantly recognize, a combination of urban reality with flights of the imagination. *"Art In Mind" exhibition at Brick Lane Gallery, London runs until 25 August.
