4VF News – Daily News Channel

A dying Clive James has revealed his love of the hit TV show Game of Thrones and joked that it’s his ambition to live long enough to see the current season released on DVD.

The Australian also admitted it was “inevitable” he’d be better remembered for his work on TV rather than for his poetry.

The writer, TV presenter and critic – who has advanced leukaemia and emphysema – appeared on stage in London at the inaugural Australia and New Zealand Festival of Literature and Arts.

James told a packed theatre of 400 fans he’d previously believed “it’s vital to have nothing to do with any art form which has dragons in it”.

But that changed when his family encouraged him to watch Game of Thrones.

“You do have to see it because it has this wonderful, primitive appeal, this extraordinary, complex, simplicity, by which you are taken back to the raw stuff of life and shown – made to live – how intricate it is, the connections of family and ambition,” the 74-year-old said.

The intellectual joked that Thrones also dealt with “the place of the dwarf in modern society”.

James watches the hit series on DVD rather than TV so is yet to see the fourth season.

“One of my ambitions, at this age and in this condition, short of breath and perhaps not long for this world, is to live until box four of Game of Thrones.

“It’s good to have target in life.”

The Sydney-born poet said one of the downsides of the show, however, was “the drawback of life itself”.

“People on the show that you have tremendous affection for can suddenly be moved,” he noted.

“You can have a one-man massacre in Game of Thrones.”

James’s epic translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy was published in 2013.

He said the first part, Inferno, was more like Game of Thrones than anything else.

“It’s full of wild action,” the writer said.

“It’s got three-headed dogs, rivers of blood, centaurs … and this flying dragon you can ride on.”

James was subsequently asked to reflect on his role as Robert the postman in Neighbours almost 20-years-ago.

“It’s the biggest audience I’ve ever reached,” he replied.

“Neighbours left Game of Thrones in the dust.”

The one-time actor joked the Aussie soap opera was based on the tension and thrill of whether Kylie Minogue, having borrowed a lawnmower, would remember to return it.

Then, becoming serious, he noted that producer Reg Grundy realised the red-brick bungalow on a quarter-acre grassed block wasn’t the cliche the progressive intelligentsia thought it was.

Rather, James said, it was what everybody in the world wanted.

He went on to describe Australia as a “dreamland” that he was “blessed” to have grown up in during the mid-20th century.

Finally, James was asked by an audience member if he regretted that he’d be remembered more for his television shows and reviews than his poetry.

That, he replied, was always inevitable because TV was the “mass medium” while poetry was a “minority thing”.

“(But) television paid for the groceries,” he said.

“It kept my family going. As a poet I would have starved.”

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– AAP

DJ Tuini wants to lower the boom on her fellow TV star and estranged friend, singer Jade Louise.

The stars of hit reality show The GC will square off in the boxing ring next month, on the undercard of the Joseph Parker v Brian Minto fight.

Tuini (real name Elyse Minhinnick) was braced for a “really tough fight” in the grudge match, which has brewed since she and Jade Louise (Harawira) fell out over their co-star, The GC hunk Tame Noema.

The TV show followed the lives and loves of a group of tanned, toned and trendy young Maori working and playing hard on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

“I’m working my a— off in training,” Tuini told Sunday News.

“I obviously care about the outcome … I’ll go for the knockout.”

Tuini said she has copped name-calling since she kissed Noema, who Jade Louise had earlier broken up with, at a nightclub.

“We [she and Jade Louise] have a beef that goes a long way back,” Tuini said.

“She said several times on the show she wanted … to knock me out … I thought, all right then let’s settle it.”

Tuini started hitting the punching bags in earnest and has been in three boxing bouts over the past year. Her record is one win by knockout, one loss and one split decision.

In April, Tuini put up a Twitter post urging Jade Louise to get in the boxing ring and “lay our s— to rest”.

Jade Louise said she initially thought the tweet was a joke but was now in serious training mode.

“I’ve never boxed before so I’m still learning all the fundamentals and I’ve only just started training,” Jade Louise told Sunday News.

Although she’d never pulled on the boxing gloves before, Jade Louise said she had been in “a few scrapes” on the streets of the Gold Coast.

“I’m not scared of anything or anybody,” she said. “Her [Tuini’s] experience might get the better of me but I’m pretty tough.”

The tale of the tape has both at 58kg and 175cm.

Jade Louise said she had nothing to lose.

“I reckon anything’s possible. If Tuini loses to me she’ll look bad. I’m going to give it my best shot and do anything I can to win.”

Tuini said she was training two hours a day, six days a week.

The bout was a chance to prove her detractors wrong, she said.

“I feel like I’m fighting for respect. She [Jade Louise] made me look bad on national TV. Her and other [The GC] cast members were … bagging me out. I’m quietly confident I can get one back.”

The Hydr8ZERO Heavyweight Explosion Joseph Parker v Brian Minto fight will be held on Saturday, July 5, at Vodafone Events Centre, Manukau.

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– Sunday News

The New Zealand producer of a $23 million film to begin shooting in Auckland was to make a film with Philip Seymour Hoffman before his death.

Film industry executive Richard Fletcher will co-produce The Wonder, a feature-film venture between New Zealand and Chinese production companies that will kick off in Auckland in September and is expected to employ up to 100 local actors and crew.

Karl Urban and young Hunger Games actress Willow Shields are in discussions to star in the teen fantasy, which follows a group of schoolkids transported by rainbow to China.

In a separate project last year, the New Zealand Film Commission funded Fletcher, Hoffman and producer Sara Murphy $15,000 from the Early Development Fund to make a film called Petrol Head.

Hoffman was found dead from a drug overdose in his New York apartment at age 46, on February 2. Fletcher said Hoffman had read the script for Petrol Head and was enthusiastic.

“Certainly he had read drafts, and he loved the film.”

He had met with Hoffman’s studio, Cooper’s Town Productions, while in Cannes last week, and they were still keen on developing the project.

The screenplay for Petrol Head is the work of Auckland writer Rochelle Bright, and is set in Hamilton during the 1981 apartheid protests.

It follows Charlie, a 13-year-old punk, who has been abandoned by her parents and has to negotiate being a teenager against the tense background of the tour.

Fletcher is joint-managing director of Libertine Pictures, formed in 2013.

He has worked on films including Boy, Under the Mountain, In My Father’s Den and also River Queen.

He is co-producer on The Wonder which qualifies for the recently upped New Zealand Screen Production Grant, which would see it recompensated for 40 per cent of its budget spend in this country.

The film has been described by scriptwriter Robert Sidaway as “a techno-fantasy story about troubled young people causing a major natural disaster by hurting nature and then having to put it right in a race against time”.

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– Sunday Star Times

A man who accosted Brad Pitt on a red carpet pleaded no contest to battery and was ordered to stay away from the actor and Hollywood red carpet events.

Vitalii Sediuk entered the plea during a court appearance, two days after he leaped from a fan area and made contact with Pitt at the Maleficent premiere. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to attend a year’s worth of psychological counselling.

Sediuk, 25, was also ordered to stay away from Pitt’s partner Angelina Jolie and stay 500 yards (457 meters) away from the Hollywood block where movie premieres and the Academy Awards are hosted. He was also ordered to stay away from LA Live, a downtown entertainment complex where Sediuk crashed the Grammy Awards in 2013.

He was charged earlier Friday with four misdemeanors, including assault and two counts governing conduct at sporting and entertainment events. He also pleaded no contest to unlawful activity at a sporting or entertainment event and the remaining counts were dropped.

Sediuk is a former journalist for the Ukrainian television station 1+1, which fired him roughly three weeks ago.

He has been jailed since Wednesday night and appeared in court in the sport coat and jeans he wore to the “Maleficent” premiere, which stars Jolie. He smiled at times during the hearing and politely answered questions from a judge. His hands remained cuffed for the hearing, and the right sleeve of his sport coat was ripped.

Sediuk was released from custody later Friday. His attorney Anthony Willoughby said he expected the stay-away orders against his client to be lifted after a year if his client behaves.

Sediuk’s antics have repeatedly brought him too close for comfort to Hollywood’s elite. In 2011, Sediuk presented Madonna with a bouquet of hydrangeas at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, prompting the singer to express her disgust for the flowers. The following year, he attempted to kiss Will Smith on the mouth on a red carpet in Moscow, prompting a slap from the actor.

In 2013 he grabbed a microphone before Adele accepted a Grammy Award, which led to Sediuk’s arrest. He later pleaded no contest to trespassing and earned him a three-year probation sentence.

He hugged Bradley Cooper’s crotch earlier this year at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and streaked down a runway in a G-string at a show during February’s Fashion Week in New York City. No charges were filed after either incident.

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– AP

REVIEW:

The curse, the spinning wheel, the deep sleep and the handsome prince remain, but the second modernisation inside 12 months of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale offers up an otherwise strange world.

Chasing hard after the animated charms of Frozen, Disney’s live-action Maleficent presents two kingdoms side-by-side, one human, the other peopled by weird CGI animations and a fairy queen, Angelina Jolie, with razor-sharp cheekbones and an improbable English accent.

Jolie’s title character is a fairy queen who turns sour when a double-crossing human (Sharlto Copley, who played the lead in the Peter Jackson-produced District 9) cuts off her wings to win his country’s throne. Maleficent’s revenge is to curse King Stefan’s first born daughter, Aurora (Elle Fanning), in the traditional manner, then spend the next 16 years regretting her intemperance.

The central conceit is that Maleficent is a much more complex character than the original, but the run time of a mere 97 minutes and the emphasis on special effects means the film itself doesn’t offer the necessary complexity of plotting to carry off its premise.

Instead, it flies along at the same speed as its female lead, rushing to fit in every plot point – but if you accept it’s nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, there’s lots of fun to be had. It is truly beautiful, the denouement is crafty and there’s some decent dialogue.

Given a good line to deliver, Jolie can do deadpan marvellously, but is less convincing – particularly in locating her accent – when it comes to delivering sweeping speeches. Fanning gurns, and Copley makes a rather too rapid descent into sweaty madness. Best in show, then, is Sam Riley, who plays Jolie’s familiar, a kind-hearted raven named Diaval, followed by Imelda Staunton, who leads a trio of dim-witted pixies that provide comic relief.

What Maleficent does best, in true Disney style, is deliver a sense of majesty and occasion: And it’s that which will seduce your kids.

Maleficent (M) 97mins

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– Sunday Star Times

REVIEW:

Because I watch too many movies, it’s not often I’ve read the book of an eagerly awaited cinematic adaptation.

By chance, I did in fact read this latest addition to the queasily-termed genre of “sick-lit” earlier this year and, like its legions of young adult fans, I had imagined a Hazel and an Augustus in my mind’s eye long before I clapped eyes on the movie poster.

The Fault in our Stars is a terrific teen novel despite – or perhaps because of – its desperately sad topic: The frank rendering of young people experiencing and succumbing to cancer. John Green’s book rapidly won hearts and became a bestseller across the Western world.

Following the plucky protagonist path well-trodden long before Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior came along, our heroine is Hazel Grace Lancaster who, oxygen tank in tow, falls for the smartly quirky Augustus Waters at a support group meeting for children with cancer.

Bonding via youthful cynicism and a witty way with words, Hazel and Augustus venture tentatively into a love affair which is guaranteed to touch a reader of any age. The book could have been subtitled “Adventures in the Art of Dying”, as the youngsters talk frankly about the reality of living with death, before they embark on a journey to have a Last Wish fulfilled.

As with any beloved book, if you’re going to shine it onto a big screen, you’d better get it right. Luckily, film-makers Scott Neustadter and Josh Boone (who adapted the novel and directed the film respectively) have done so. Shailene Woodley (hair shorn from Divergent and memories of The Descendants now distant) was not my imagined Hazel, but she brings her to life entirely plausibly – just the right amount of pretty, an appropriate dosage of frail, a dash of sardonic wit to give her some steel.

Similarly, Ansel Elgort acquits himself charmingly in the tricky role of Augustus (who I’d imagined more like a young Adam Driver even though he would, of course, have been too old for the part). Woodley and Elgort engage us from the moment their eyes meet across a church hall, and from then on we’re swept up, just like Hazel, onto a roller coaster of wellness and illness, joy and tragedy. (Erm, at this point it pays to gloss over the fact that the pair played brother and sister in Divergent – but perhaps this previous work accounts for their immediate ease with each other.)

With sensitive support from a surprisingly touching Laura Dern and Sam Trammell (True Blood) as Hazel’s parents, pleasingly portrayed just as they were written, moments of inevitable pathos translate effortlessly from the page to the screen, causing the audience and I to weep silently more than once. Even the difficult character of Peter Van Houten, one of the few dud notes in the book but nonetheless one you have to persevere through for the narrative’s sake, is saved by Willem Dafoe who manages to bring him to life as plausibly as is possible for a character so unlikeable.

Fault isn’t just for the kids, though they might naturally be more forgiving of any criticisms of Green’s plotting. But on its own merits the film is well-written, well-paced and crucially its performances are universally delightful, with Hazel and Gus inviting us to share their beautiful heartbreak and leaving us feeling honoured that they did.

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The Fault in our Stars (M) 125 mins

– Sunday Star Times

A dial tone. Four rings. A pause. Mannered, measured and baritone-deep: “Hello.”

What to call him How to address the lawyer turned drag artist with the obligatory over-the-top stage name

“Gateau,” he says, “is great.” And the smile comes all the way down the phone line. Sometimes he’ll be met at an airport by a driver holding a sign that says “Mr Chocolat”. Fellow passenger reaction “It’s very funny.”

Le Gateau Chocolat – bearded, boa-feathered and prone to skin-tight Lycra. He’s sung for the Queen, performed at the Sydney Opera House and the Glyndebourne Opera. Boy George is a fan and a friend. Next week, he performs in the Auckland International Cabaret Season.

“I always go in with the understanding that it might be an exercise in being lost in translation,” says Gateau. “There was a festival I booked for Poland, and my first thought was this is not going to work. But it’s one of the best I’ve done.

“My job is to go beyond the drag immediately. To go beyond the obvious, to subvert the expected.”

This, he says, is the most talking he’s done in daylight this week. Straight after this interview, he’s going back to bed. The instrument – that voice – needs rest.

Gateau is midway through a season at London’s Soho Theatre. His show, Black, is more theatrical than the work he’s bringing to Auckland. An autobiographical exploration of the feeling of being black. A feeling, argues Gateau, that anybody can relate to.

“That’s absolutely the point. At some time in your life, you would have felt black; you would have been black. And that ranges from someone who has depression, or being someone who has been excluded for whatever reason, or feels like an outsider, or they haven’t met the expectations their parents put on them, or someone who is single and still striving to find a partner.

“From black sheep, to black dog, to black performer, to black music, to black and blue – so even though it’s deeply personal, the universal themes would have been something you would have experienced at some point.”

Nigerian-born and UK-based he trades in the labels he’s collected: Gay, overweight, depressed. But at the June 4-8 Auckland festival (which features seven acts, including local performers Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Julia Deans, and internationals like Michael Griffiths and Lady Rizo) he says audiences will see a “softer” show.

“If we approach it like a chocolate box, it gives you a taste of the different flavours that I am. Black focuses more heavily on the dark side.”

Gateau says he came to singing by mistake. He originally studied law. As he told the Guardian two years ago, “I went to a cabaret night in Brighton called Dynamite Boogaloo, became a punter, then a regular, then a door person and eventually I was singing on stage . . . Now I spend my weekends going through customs with a suitcase full of Lycra.”

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Back then, he described his mum as one of his closest friends, but this past week confirms she still doesn’t know about his sexuality or the details of his work – Nigeria criminalises homosexuality, and, he explains, there would be no support for her.

Gateau has appeared twice at the Christchurch World Buskers Festival, and performed in a post-earthquake charity gig. He says he got a warm response in a city some label conservative.

“I think when people see drag, the normal connotations spring to mind, about being crude, and lip-synching. But the music is very engaging and very beautiful, from Puccini through to Radiohead. I ask that the audience opens their heart and their ears to begin with – and then if you want to open your eyes and your mind, that can come after.”

Drag, he says, puts an audience at ease.

“I think at the beginning, it’s an icebreaker. They don’t start at zero. The dial is never at zero with heightened performance . . . which makes my job really interesting. I’m either winning them over, or entertaining the people already on board.”

But the wigs, the makeup and the costumes (72kg worth will travel through customs) also serve the performer.

“It’s weird. I’m deeply empowered by putting on drag. It’s almost like painting on war paint or becoming invincible – putting on a mask – but what’s interesting for me is the irony of putting on a mask, only to reveal the person behind it.”

Those performances, he says, feed more conventional outings. “Last year I did an opera at Glyndebourne with a contemporary composer . . . if I get the opportunity, I always jump at it, because the technicality and the education I get from being onstage in a different genre fuels this. And this fuels that.”

He admires this country’s pre-eminent soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. “She came at a time when opera singers didn’t look like that. Opera singers were renowned for not being as aesthetically beautiful as she was, but I also think her instrument is incredible. It’s a combination of those two things that made her the star she is.”

The same week as this interview, Gateau – and Te Kanawa – had waded into the debate sparked by UK reviews of a female Irish opera singer. While her voice was praised, her physicality was judged “dumpy” and a “chubby bundle of puppy fat”.

“It’s misjudged, it’s deeply unprofessional,” Gateau says. “It’s something that used to be a feature of reviews, where the press really attacked the performers, but not in 2014. If she didn’t sing it well, then absolutely say she didn’t sing it well. But if you’re going into ‘chubby bundle of puppy fat’ – I think you’ve missed the point.”

His fear: “If you attack the young singers who are tackling this incredible material, our opera houses will be peopled by admittedly beautiful people, but people who aren’t singers; who aren’t singers in their core.”

Le Chocolat Gateau performs June 6-7 in the Auckland International Cabaret Season (June 4-8), at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall.

– Sunday Star Times

Charlize Theron doesn’t Google herself. Which is just as well, given what’s being said about her today.

The Oscar-winning actress caused an online furore after comparing press coverage of her private life to rape. The comment came during a Sky News interview in the UK, where she was promoting her new film

Suri Cruise did not ask for fame. Yet she’s been chased by cameras practically from birth, with no choice in the matter, because her parents are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Kristen Bell is exasperated just thinking about it. “Suri Cruise is not fictional. She’s a real little girl … and it’s just not fair,” Bell says.

The 33-year-old actress and mother has been leading a growing movement among Hollywood stars aimed at reducing media demand for paparazzi images of celebrity kids and she’s using the plight of 8-year-old Suri as an example.

Launched in January, Bell’s No Kids Policy gained almost instant traction by hitting the entertainment media where it hurts: celebrity access, which translates into viewers, readers and profits.

Bell got a bunch of stars, from Jennifer Aniston to Jennifer Lawrence, who agreed to decline interviews with TV and text outlets that use paparazzi photos or video of children that were taken without their parents’ consent. Then she met with entertainment media executives and told them either agree to her No Kids Policy or celebs will stay away.

Now, through upcoming media interviews and meetings with “mommy bloggers,” Bell is taking her cause direct to consumers, asking them to consider the circumstances around the starry images that beckon at grocery check stands.

“There is no way for a child to wrap their head around the fact that they are a cog in this machine,” Bell said in a recent interview. “All they experience is the predatory sense of being hunted.”

And the actress would sooner quit the business than subject her 11-month-old daughter, Lincoln, to such a media scrum.

“I like being an actress very much,” she said, “but I love being a mother and it is a very clear decision which one I would choose.”

Bell and her famous colleagues can’t outright refuse interviews as they leverage the power of celebrity to stomp out invasive imagery of kids; contracts typically obligate them to promote their movies and shows. But they can be picky about which outlets they’ll work with.

Star-driven shows and magazines such as Entertainment Tonight and Us Weekly, which rely on images from freelance photographers and independent photo agencies to help illustrate their stories, say it’s easy to support Bell’s effort. But their interpretations of compliance vary.

Entertainment Tonight executive producer Brad Bessey said he would not use paparazzi-generated photos of celebrity kids under any circumstances, while Us Weekly editor-in-chief Mike Steele might consider such images in cases of breaking news involving the children.

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Steele said the new policy hasn’t impacted editorial operations at the magazine, other than requiring an extra step to get consent from celebrity parents before publishing images of their kids. Some agree and some don’t, he said.

Like other entertainment news outlets, Us Weekly also uses social media for pictures of star children, which are inherently approved when posted by their celebrity parent.

So with varying sources for kid photos – approved or not – how does Bell monitor compliance She and her publicist are doing it themselves, they say, and it isn’t easy.

Tuan, a freelance paparazzo who shoots for the Phamous Photo agency, said he hasn’t seen any change in demand for his pictures, which sometimes include unauthorized images of celebrity kids.

“We have these long lenses and keep our distance. We let them enjoy their weekend,” Tuan said. “The kids generally don’t know what’s going on.”

Two major celebrity-photo agencies, Splash News and x17, also continue to distribute paparazzi images of children. Both declined to be interviewed for this story.

Weekly magazines Life & Style, OK! and In Touch, and websites such as TMZ, haven’t signed on to Bell’s policy and continue to publish paparazzi pictures of kids. TMZ and OK! did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Bauer Media Group, which publishes Life & Style and In Touch, did not grant an interview, but said in a statement that its editors follow “rigorous guidelines.” The company did not elaborate.

In Touch magazine runs a weekly feature called “oh baby!” filled with images of celebrity kids. A recent issue included various shots of Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom’s 3-year-old son, Flynn.

It is not illegal in California to photograph a minor in public, but such photos can’t be used commercially without a release. And steps are being taken in the California legislature against photographers who harass children of the famous.

Yet the power of celebrity and a mother’s drive could be the most effective force of all.

Says Bell: “I’ll argue until my dying day that my daughter should not be affected by my career choice.”

– AP