NEWS OF THE WEEK: Kevin Spacey speaks out at Cannes against blacklisting
The Better World Fund Gala has handed out its Award for Excellence in Film and Television to two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey at Cannes. While Spacey was accused of several allegations of sexual misconduct, he was found not liable in a 2022 New York lawsuit, and was acquitted by a jury of sexual assault charges in a 2023 London court. The American Beauty Best Actor Oscar-winner has yet to be invited back to any major studio Hollywood productions. "I'd like to congratulate Manuel (Collas de La Roche, president and founder of the Better World Fund) for the decision to invite me here tonight to accept this award,"
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
U2 singer Bono lays his life bare in one-man stage show Stories of Surrender
"All this saving the world, is it really service, duty, righteous anger, or is it just a childlike desire to be at the centre of the action?" Bono wonders backstage at his sold-out, one-man show at New York's Beacon Theater in 2023. "Desire and virtue is a whole dance." What: U2 singer Bono lays bare his life and career in a one-man stage show, part spoken-word and part solo music performance. Starring: Bono Director: Andrew Dominik Where: Streaming now on Apple TV+ Likely to make you feel: Like falling in love with U2 again — if you're a fan Across a 45-year career as a globe-straddling superstar and activist, the U2 singer has danced the fine line between rock 'n' roll icon and enduring public nuisance. He's been both the voice of one of the biggest bands of the late 20th-century and — to some, at least — a blowhard palling around with celebrities and world leaders. But as the new movie Bono: Stories of Surrender shows, there's a complicated, endearingly contradictory man behind the often-outsized public profile; one whose idealism is frequently troubled by self-doubt, and whose pursuit of stardom stems from a past steeped in loss. Filmed over several nights of his New York residency, Stories of Surrender vividly captures Bono's one-man adaptation of his best-selling 2022 memoir, Surrender, translating the book's revealing candour to the stage with the singer's typically self-reflexive humour. As he quipped to Jimmy Kimmel recently: "I play an aging rock star on a massive ego trip." There are no mirror-balls or giant lemons or jumbotrons broadcasting prank calls to The White House, just a starkly lit stage and a few empty pieces of furniture to stand in for key figures in his life — including the rest of U2, who are nowhere to be found. It begins, as many such stories do, with a health scare that prompts a crisis of faith and life evaluation. "How did I get here?" Bono asks, echoing the words of his contemporary David Byrne, after an operation on his "eccentric" heart in 2016. Still, it's hardly a sombre opening: the star is in full-tilt carnival-barker mode, part preacher, part game-show host, a pair of wraparound shades short of his Zoo TV MacPhisto. Bono's brand of ironic bravado, in which every sincere moment is inevitably chased by a self-deprecating shot, will do little to convince detractors who regard him as the epitome of anti-cool. For U2 fans, however, it's a wonderful reminder of just how adept he is with a pithy turn of phrase or ready-made pop graffiti — he's perhaps the only songwriter to land the line "you're turning tricks with your crucifix" on a major motion picture soundtrack aimed at children. Much of Bono's humour appears to originate from his late father, Bob Hewson, a man who looms over the show despite appearing only as an empty chair and a glass of Black Bush whiskey. Playing both father and son, Bono recreates infrequent pub meetings with his Da, who remains hilariously unimpressed with his kid's success (labelling him "a baritone who thinks he's a tenor"), nor his phone calls from Pavarotti (Bono's impression of the Italian opera giant is among the film's funniest moments). Their relationship was complex. After a 14-year-old Bono lost his mother, who collapsed at his grandfather's funeral ("It sounds almost too Irish, I know," he jokes), his father never spoke of her again. Her death haunted almost every aspect of the rocker's life and career. At the very same time, he would meet his future wife, Ali, and the musicians — The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr, and Adam Clayton — with whom he'd rocket to mulleted 80s stardom. The stories of U2's early adventures are invariably charming, as the teenage band fumbles about to land on their signature sound — at one point Bono urging The Edge to make his guitar "sound like an electric drill into the ear". It's Bono's reckoning with fame that proves to be the real revelation, however, as he and his band mates wrestle with their spiritual beliefs in the wake of new-found celebrity. "Fame is currency," Bono reasons. "You wouldn't need charity if the world was just, so — get the cheque." If the humanitarian act borders on Vegas schtick, Bono is the first to admit it. "I am an over-paid, over-regarded, over-rewarded, over-fed rock 'n' roll star," he says in voiceover, commenting on the action. And whenever the self-therapy pauses for a burst of music, it's hard to resist those soaring pipes, still stirring after all these years and audible wear and tear. 'With Or Without You', delivered here in thorny tribute to his wife, remains as sad and gorgeous as ever, while 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' takes on a new, ghostly power in a stripped back, slowed down performance. Meanwhile, U2's 1988 hit 'Desire' emerges as both a pivotal point in the band's career and a key text in Bono's life, tapping into the tension between the sacred and the profane that the band would toy with on 90s highlights Achtung Baby and Zooropa. "For love or money, money, money," Bono sings, throwing theatrical shapes and channelling late-period Elvis. Even 'Beautiful Day' — arguably the beginning of U2's long decline into musical irrelevance — becomes a moving elegy for the dead, as Bono teases out the melancholy beneath the song's radio-friendly chorus. It's a lovely moment, a tribute to those we've lost and to all the strange little things that somehow keep us going along the way. Haters will burn with renewed fire, but if you've ever had a soft spot for U2, Stories of Surrender may just make you fall in love with them all over again.
News.com.au
4 hours ago
- News.com.au
Rock icon's bizarre on-stage farewell
A rock icon left fans stunned after making his stage exit in a coffin. The huge black casket was wheeled out in front of the crowds at London's Alexandra Palace as the show wrapped. Yet gig-goers at American vocalist Iggy Pop's Lust For Life concert were then gobsmacked to see the 78 year old topless inside. He was then wheeled off to a host of cheers. The Michigan-born star, a former member of punk band the Stooges, posted the dramatic clip to his page on X with the caption: 'London was a hoot! How you exit is equally important to how you enter.' One fan was quick to comment: 'Only Iggy … may he long reign.' A second posted: 'Fantastic! You are Master!' as a third gushed: 'Always that smile…mischievous charmer.' One then put: 'F**kin love you Iggy!!' The wild man of rock, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2010, played the venue on May 28. He kicked off the gig with Stooges track TV Eye and rattled through 20 tracks. He wrapped with tune Funtime after a cover version of The Dee Jays track Real Wild Child. Iggy previously revealed the way he relaxes off-stage - and it has nothing to do with a coffin. Last year, he opened up about the two things that gave him pleasure during his rock prime - Baths and rubber ducks. He said: 'I like baths, sometimes with a rubber duck and bubbles – yeah definitely bubbles.' The punk icon made the revelation at a listening party at Cannes Film Festival, hosted by Magnum, adding: 'Sometimes I get really upset if it's getting late in the day and I think to myself that I haven't done anything I really like.' 'And music is what gives me pleasure you know, well music and the sea.' 'That's my default setting, so I'm always putting my pleasure first – I can get really desperate to seek pleasure – and when that happens usually it means someone takes me to the beach.' 'Chill for me is about 95 per cent of life, I'm chill all the time.' Iggy went on to confirm the two main elements he now needs to make him feel euphoric – love and privacy – adding: 'If I get both of those in one day, then it's WOW.'
News.com.au
8 hours ago
- News.com.au
Interview with Len Wiseman and Ana de Armas ahead of the upcoming film Ballerina
Interview with Len Wiseman and Ana de Armas ahead of the upcoming film Ballerina. Starring Ana de Armas, Ballerina takes place in the John Wick Universe and follows a ballerina-assassin trying to avenge her father's death.
