Follow live updates of tributes to actor and comedian Robin Williams, who has been found dead, aged 63.
Live Blog Live coverage: Robin Williams tributes
Live coverage: Robin Williams tributes
Robin Williams dies in suspected suicide
Robin Williams, the Academy Award winner and comic supernova whose explosions of pop culture riffs and impressions dazzled audiences for decades and made him a gleamy-eyed laureate for the Information Age, has died after an apparent suicide. He was 63.
Police in Marin County, California, released a statement saying the 63-year-old was pronounced dead at his home at 12.02pm on Monday, (NZT 7.02am Tuesday).
$15,000 prize winning artwork shatters
It won a $15,000 prize and later shattered.
But that was something artist Deanna Dowling considered with her artwork Tell Someone if Something Happens, which won the National Contemporary Art Awards.
Dowling grew up in Hillcrest and is currently completing a Master of Arts in Fine Art at Massey.
And her fine, handmade plaster tube precariously balanced – or not – on a wooden shelf won this year’s competition.
“The slightest touch or bump of the wall could send it over the edge,” Dowling’s artist statement said of her work.
It had when the Waikato Times visited the Waikato Museum on Sunday.
Her statement almost provokes a shattering: “I have dropped one, and god, the sound is so satisfying . . . Go on. I dare you. The sound is better than glass.”
Dowling said she would not deliberately write text which provoked people to break the art work.
She’s provided a limited number of handmade tube replacements, but viewers should look with care.
When Otorohanga’s Gillian Dampney first saw the tube in pieces, her instinct was to tell someone something had happened.
Then, after reading the text, she thought she’d been tricked.
So she was interested to hear the tube had in fact fallen off.
The contemporary art wasn’t what drew Dampney to the museum but she said it was “thoroughly enjoyable”.
“It’s probably not my old-fashioned idea of art, but it’s contemporary art. It’s thought-provoking. You really have to look at them,” she said.
So she appreciated having the artwork blurbs to provide a bit of background.
Other finalists and winners in the awards range from cut and draped carpet to dripped ink on canvas and beer bottles to woollen bottles.
And the works gave punters plenty to think about.
Hamilton student Tom Hendry said some of the art was hard to comprehend – although he wasn’t reading the accompanying notes.
“I don’t know what that is for . . . the metal thing,” he said of a sculpture.
“I don’t really understand it.”
With him was fellow student Sheen Huang, who found the art “pretty interesting”.
One which caught her eye was the dripped ink on canvas work by Greg Chaston.
Other out-of-towners were Ernie and Janet Fraser from Whitianga, who came across the contemporary art on a visit to the museum.
For Janet Fraser, the recurring thought was: “Well gee, who’d think of that”
She and Ernie spent some time puzzling over Ina Johann’s photo collage before deciding the picture must have been inverted so it was like looking up at buildings from lying down.
“We enjoy what we’re seeing but sometimes it does look quite different really,” Ernie Fraser said. [email protected]
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– Waikato Times
Teen Choice Awards were ‘rigged’, winner claims
The Teen Choice Awards, an annual event which hands out publicly-voted awards to television, film and fashion personalities, is under fire for allegedly “rigged” results.
The accusation came, somewhat unexpectedly, from one of the winners.
Vine video blogger Cameron Dallas, who won the award for most popular Vine personality, tweeted that he had been told six days prior to the event that he had won.
The tweet was later deleted but screen captures of it, and other deleted tweets, have since surfaced online.”It’s funny how they told me I won the Viner award six days before the voting ended and made the runners up still vote to tweet for them,” Dallas wrote on his Twitter account.
Another nominee, Vine video blogger Matt Espinosa, added: “Basically they picked the people almost six days before voting was done and used all of us for promotion.”
As a result of the chorus of protest which followed the tweets on social media, the hashtag #TeensDontHaveaChoiceAwards began trending worldwide on Twitter overnight.
Then protest turned to incandescent rage when a screen capture of the program’s closing credits surfaced on Twitter.
It read, in part: “Votes are tabulated electronically and winners are determined based on the nominees in each category with the highest number of eligible votes. [Production company] Teenasaurus Rox reserves the right to choose the winner from the top four vote getters.”
The brouhaha has turned an awkward spotlight on one of Hollywood’s rarely-discussed realities: that celebrities at B-tier awards events are often tipped the outcome ahead of time to ensure the winner, at least, attends.
Among the higher-profile winners were the Kardashian family and singer Taylor Swift.
The boy band One Direction also won, but did not attend. Instead, in a footnote which did not escape notice on social media, they pre-taped an acceptance speech wearing the same clothes they wore to a PR event in New York several days prior to the close of voting.
The producers have not commented on the scandal.
The event, which is held in Los Angeles, featured actresses Megan Fox and Lea Michele, singer Jennifer Lopez and reality television personality Kim Kardashian as presenters. It also featured musical performances by Demi Lovato and Jason Derulo.
It was broadcast in the US on the Fox network.
Full list of winners for the 2014 Teen Choice Awards:
VINER
Cameron Dallas
SUMMER SONG
Demi Lovato, Really Don’t Care feat. Cher Lloyd
MOVIE ACTOR – DRAMA
Ansel Elgort, The Fault in Our Stars
MOVIE BREAKOUT STAR
Ansel Elgort, The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent
TV – DRAMA
Pretty Little Liars
TV ACTOR – DRAMA
Ian Harding, Pretty Little Liars
SUMMER TV STAR – MALE
Tyler Blackburn, Pretty Little Liars
REALITY SHOW
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
MOVIE ACTOR – SCI-FI/FANTASY
Josh Hutcherson, Catching Fire
TV ACTRESS – SCI-FI/FANTASY
Nina Dobrev, The Vampire Diaries
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MOVIE ACTRESS – ACTION/ADVENTURE
Shailene Woodley, Divergent
CANDIE’S STYLE ICON
Zendaya
TV ACTRESS – DRAMA
Lucy Hale, “Pretty Little Liars”
MOVIE – DRAMA
The Fault in Our Stars
CHEMISTRY
Ansel Elgort, Shailene Woodley and Nat Wolff, The Fault in Our Stars
WEB STAR – FEMALE
Bethany Mota
WEB STAR – MALE
Tyler Oakley
ULTIMATE CHOICE
Selena Gomez
MALE HOTTIE
One Direction
TWIT
One Direction
SOCIAL MEDIA KING
One Direction
MUSIC GROUP
One Direction
SUMMER TOUR
One Direction, Where We Are Tour
SONG – GROUP
One Direction, Story of My Life
BREAK-UP SONG
One Direction, Story of My Life
LOVE SONG
One Direction, You & I
COUNTRY ARTIST
Taylor Swift
OLAY FRESH EFFECTS BREAKOUT STAR
Odeya Rush
WEB STAR – FASHION/BEAUTY
Zoella
WEB STAR -MUSIC
Shawn Mendes
WEB STAR – COMEDY
Our2ndLife
WEB COLLABORATION
Troye Sivan & Tyler Oakley, The Boyfriend Tag
BREAKOUT GROUP
5 Seconds of Summer
SUMMER MUSIC STAR – GPOUP
5 Seconds of Summer
VILLAIN – MOVIE
Donald Sutherland, Catching Fire
MOVIE ACTOR – COMEDY
Kevin Hart, Ride Along
COMEDIAN
Kevin Hart
TV BREAKOUT SHOW
Faking It
FEMALE ARTIST
Ariana Grande
SONG – FEMALE
Ariana Grande, Problem feat. Iggy Azalea
TV ACTRESS – COMEDY
Lea Michele, Glee
MOVIE LIPLOCK
Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, The Fault in Our Stars
MOVIE SCENE-STEALER
Nat Wolff, The Fault in Our Stars
MOVIE – ACTION
Divergent
MOVIE ACTOR – ACTION
Theo James, Divergent
MOVIE – SCI-FY/FANTASY
Catching Fire
MOVIE ACTRESS – SCI-FY/FANTASY
Jennifer Lawrence, Catching Fire and X-Men: Days of Future Past
MOVIE – COMEDY
The Other Woman
MOVIE ACTRESS – COMEDY
Emma Roberts, We’re The Millers
HISSY FIT
Jonah Hill, 22 Jump Street
TV REALITY PERSONALITY – FEMALE
Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance
BREAKOUT GROUP
Fifth Harmony
SUMMER MUSIC STAR – GROUP
Fifth Harmony
BREAK-UP SONG
5 Seconds of Summer, Amnesia
R&B/HIP-HOP ARTIST
Iggy Azalea
R&B/HIP-HOP
Iggy Azlea Fancy, feat. Charlie XCX
TV SHOW – FANTASY/SCI-FI
The Vampire Diaries
TV SHOW – COMEDY
The Big Bang Theory
TV ACTOR – COMEDY
Ross Lynch, Austin & Ally
TV SHOW – ANIMATED
The Simpsons
TV SHOW – REALITY COMPETITION
The Voice
VILLAIN – TV SHOW
Dylan O’Brien, Teen Wolf
TV REALITY PERSONALITY – MALE
Adam Levine, The Voice
TV REALITY PERSONALITY – FEMALE
Shakira, The Voice
TV SCENE STEALER – MALE
Tyler Hoechlin, Teen Woolf
TV SCENE STEALER – FEMALE
Candice Accola, The Vampire Diaries
TV BREAKOUT STAR – MALE
Brett Dalton, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
TV BREAKOUT STAR – FEMALE
Sasha Pieterse, Pretty Little Liars
SUMMER TV STAR – FEMALE
Ashley Benson, Pretty Little Liars
FEMALE HOTTIE
Selena Gomez
– Sydney Morning Herald
The 11 most bizarre things Courtney Love said in latest interview
Courtney Love is the personification of drama. Her life in the spotlight has been peppered with drug addiction, suicide, bitter fights, money issues and more lawsuits than hot dinners, however the Hole front woman is a consummate performer on stage and especially in front of the media.
Just this year alone she made headlines for suggesting there may be a Kurt Cobain biopic in the works, 20 years after his death and weighed in on the MH 370 disappearance, claiming she knew where the plane was. Love said she was “making reporters do their jobs better. I was only trying to help with the plane,” in an op-ed for
Antiques Roadshow home run with $1m find
The American version of the British TV series Antiques Roadshow has hit a home run with a collection of 1870s Boston baseball memorabilia.
A trove of signatures and rare baseball cards from Boston Red Stockings players was appraised for insurance purposes on the show at US$1 million (NZ$1.15m), series producer Marsha Bemko said.
She said it was the largest sports memorabilia find in the history of the 19-year-old public TV show, which travelled America looking for varied heirlooms and treasures.
The collection was brought to an Antiques Roadshow taping Saturday (NZT Sunday) in New York City. The owner inherited it from her great-great-grandmother, who ran a Boston boarding house where the team lived in 1871-72, PBS said.
The owner’s identity was kept private for security reasons, broadcaster PBS said Monday. The collection had not been formally valued before, but the owner had once received a US$5000 (NZ$5910) offer, PBS said.
According to Antiques Roadshow’ appraiser Leila Dunbar, the ”crown jewel” of the items was a May 1871 letter to the Boston landlady that included notes from three future Hall of Fame members: Albert Spalding, the future sporting good magnate, and brothers Harry and George Wright. The letter included the players’ appreciation for their host’s cooking.
The baseball franchise was now the Atlanta Braves.
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– AP
Capturing a city
Phil Dickson has rambled Wellington and climbed its surrounding hills since he was a small boy growing up in the Hutt Valley. A predilection for art and geography led him to be a cartographer – “the saying goes there is ‘art’ in cartography,” he says – and now he has produced a very personal book of art, including maps, evocative of his 69-year love affair with his city.
Dickson’s sketches and oil and watercolour paintings cover the oddly familiar in Wellington – Sunday in Bowen St, a morning view from Thompson St, the Hutt Rd cycleway with a lonely couple of cyclists and a passing train, Brooklyn Galleria with the Penthouse Cinema in the background, a wet day in Aro St, the city and harbour from Brooklyn on a winter afternoon, a couple of lady artists sketching tulips in the sun in the Botanic Garden.
They are everyday scenes barely recorded in passing by long-term Wellingtonians. Dickson says he sees them as “taking joy from the ordinary”.
Slightly further afield he pictures trampers on the skyline walkway, and scenes from the Hutt Valley, the Rimutaka Range and the Orongorongo River valley, rambling places that he knows well and that fit his personal version of “greater Wellington”.
Wellington, he says, its geography, and even its weather, has always been of more interest to him than any other part of the world. “A lot of people I know do lots of overseas trips but they’re geographically illiterate of their own land.”
His tramps, which began when he was a Scout, have taken him on only a few of the South Island’s tourist- pitched tracks, “because they’re not me”. The Orongorongo Valley, the Tararua Range and Wellington’s city peaks have always been more important. Every day for 50 years or so he has kept a record of Wellington’s weather, “keeping an eye on my own backyard.”
Not for him trying to chart global warming or chasing overseas thunderstorms – “just day-to-day weather, though I can see trends, watching it year after year”.
Dickson could have chosen art over cartography as a career but, although he had been drawing since he was a toddler, he chose the practical. Dickson worked for the government mapping agency, the then Department of Lands and Survey.
Anyway, he says, an understanding of graphic art is conducive to a nice map and his job required him to make forays into the open air, “field checking”. This included checking urban walkways.
In Wellington, he’s wandered these walkways, many of which are no longer mapped.
“As a city, Wellington is so steep and so many streets are interconnected with other streets. It’s too expensive to do, putting people on the ground. A lot are picked up from previous editions. You can pick up a lot from Google maps if you zoom in enough.”
Dickson never formally studied fine art, though “I’ve done a few art courses and run a few over the years”. Aspects of art, like perspective, can be taught, he believes, “but inspiration is very personal”. He is an elected artist member of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, was a recent guest artist at a Watercolour New Zealand national exhibition, and belongs to the Wellington Art Club.
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He often walks to the club’s Miramar base from his Brooklyn home. “Walking is my wife’s and my default mode of travel.”
These days he does much of his painting in his studio.
“I did a lot of painting plein air, outdoors, when I was younger, and for a long time found it difficult painting in a studio without the inspiration on the spot.”
For years he contemplated the idea of a book of his paintings “but never had the confidence”.
His only writing experience was club newsletters.
His encouragement came from Wellington publisher Graham Stewart, who had bought one of his paintings and shares his love of Wellington’s history, particularly its transport history.
– Phil Dickson’s Wellington (Grantham House Publishing, $45) is released this month. The book will be launched at Wellington’s CQ Hotel on August 20.
– The Dominion Post
Game of Thrones actor dies
Veteran actor JJ Murphy has collapsed and died just four days into filming his first scenes for the iconic HBO drama Game of Thrones.
He was 86.
Murphy, who also starred in the film Cal and the television drama Angela’s Ashes, had been cast in the series as Ser Denys Mallister, the oldest member of the Night’s Watch.
In the Game of Thrones narrative, the Night’s Watch is a military order which guards “the Wall”, a fortification on the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms.
According to media reports, he was due to film more scenes in the coming months.
Murphy had not yet been seen on air; his character was to debut in the new season of the series, which is currently filming in Belfast, Ireland.
The show’s producers, DB Weiss and David Benioff, have said the role will not be recast.
“We will not be recasting JJ Murphy,” a statement from the pair said. “He was a lovely man, and the best Denys Mallister we could have hoped for. And now his watch is ended.”
Murphy also filmed a role in the upcoming film Dracula Untold.
His agent, Philip Young, said he had “never encountered a man with more spirit, passion and love for his craft. At this time our thoughts are with his family.”
Murphy’s character in Game of Thrones, Mallister, was one of nine new characters joining the show for its fifth season.
They include Alexander Siddig as Doran Martell, the ruling lord of Dorne, Toby Sebastian as Trystane Martell, Prince Doran’s son, Nell Tiger Free as Mycrella, the eldest child of Cersei Lannister, Keisha Castle-Hughes is Obara Sand, a “fearsome warrior”, and Jonathan Pryce as the evangelical figure, the High Sparrow.
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– Sydney Morning Herald
Re-creating the excess of the 80s
It’s Wembley. The crowd are going wild. There’s anticipation, there’s lights, there’s music.
It’s exciting stuff and a good opening for two-part drama INXS – Never Tear Us Apart (Thursday, 8.30pm, TV3) that follows the fortunes of the Aussie band.
The Wembley scene is a reminder of just how big they were back in the day. But all too soon we’re back in the early days. When hair was very curly and the preferred style was the ubiquitous “mullet”. It’s Perth, 1979, and a band called the Farriss Brothers are playing pub gigs. A swarthy band promoter tells them the key to success:
“You have to play covers, covers from the radio . . . do I make myself clear” Of course, he’s wrong. We know that right away. And of course, with the benefit of hindsight we know it’s a pivotal moment. Even before one of the band hammers home the idea by saying “So this is the moment . . .”
And that kind of sets the tone for what’s to come. Because what’s to come is a bit cliched. There are tough times. There are crazy times. There’s parental disapproval. There are women and drugs. There are one-dimensional characters. Hutchence is an irresponsible but charming womaniser, a man almost constantly framed by female flesh. Songwriter Andrew Farriss is all serious and career orientated.
The 80s “names” that appear don’t fare much better. Look, that must be Adam Ant because he’s got a Cockney accent and weird make up. And here’s Kylie Minogue with big teeth and big hair. It’s like someone raided a really bad waxwork museum.
At times the dialogue descends into the downright cheesy. “I can’t do this . . . I can’t just sit around and wait for you . . .” wails one of Hutchence’s romantic interests. “But it’s the band, Michelle . . .” he replies. For a moment I thought I’d fallen through a rabbit hole into trite soap land.
Oh look, it’s all watchable enough in a sort of lightweight, made-for-television movie way. And perhaps things will pick up in the second part. But it left me in mind of that school report cliche: “Must try harder.”
By contrast, Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story (Sunday, 8.30pm, TV One) is extremely heavyweight.
It’s based on the ordeals of rape victim Louise Nicholas and her fight for justice.
From the opening scenes on a bleak, grey-green coastline it’s relentlessly grim. But it’s skilfully done with an ominous undercurrent of violence that comes not from graphic rape scenes or obvious physical abuse. Credit instead skilful story-telling, a powerful and understated performance from Michelle Blundell as Nicholas and a tight script that never resorts to melodrama.
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It also reveals a dark side to small communities. When a young Louise asks one of the cops in her small town to have a word with her abuser, she’s told, “I can’t. He’s senior to me. Just try and keep out of his way.”
It’s uncomfortable viewing. But it’s also an excellent drama that leaves you thinking. One to watch.
– Stuff
Musician gets ‘life story’ guitar back after 7 years
It could be a tale from a blues cliche – except this story of love lost has a happy ending.
Wellington bluesman Dave Murphy had his prized Dobro resonator guitar stolen seven years ago.
Then, about two years ago, fellow Wellington muso Rob Joass unwittingly bought it from a reputable “friend of a friend” who had bought it at a deceased estate auction a couple of years earlier.
“The price was a very reasonable $1200 and I snapped it up,” Joass said. “I used the guitar live occasionally, and it featured on a Shot Band recording and video with the wonderful Katie Thompson last year to promote a national tour we did.”
On that tour they played a house concert in Wellington. “I was playing the Dobro, and Dave Murphy, sitting front row, was obviously giving it a very close look. When we took a break he asked to have a closer look, and then told me a story.”
It turned out it was the same guitar stolen from Murphy seven years ago – a prized treasure he had saved and hunted for as a young man and eventually tracked down in a Perth guitar shop.
To Joass, there was no question Murphy should get the guitar back. “I have had a couple of guitars stolen, and I know what kind of a hole it can leave. To me it is a beautiful guitar, but for Dave, it’s part of his life story.”
Joass, whose income comes solely from music, could not afford to take the $1200 hit by simply handing the guitar back to Murphy. That is when mutual friend Dougal Spier hatched the plan to do a benefit gig. On Saturday night a group of Wellington musicians – including Joass and Murphy – got together for the gig, raising enough to get Joass a replacement guitar, while returning the original to Murphy. To even up matters, Murphy handed Joass a replacement resonator guitar.
This Saturday, Joass is releasing his solo album, Black and White, at Thunderbird Cafe in Featherston St He plans to take his new resonator guitar out for its initial performance then
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– The Dominion Post