February 22, 2013
‘Ip Man: The Final Flight’ to open Hong Kong festHONG KONG (AP) — “Ip Man: The Final Fight,” about the latter years of the Wing Chun master Ip Man, will open the Hong Kong International Film Festival next month.
The martial arts master has been portrayed many times on the big screen, most recently by Tony Leung in Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster.”
Anthony Wong, the new film’s leading man, said comparing the roles was hard because he plays a different time in Ip Man’s life. He plays Ip Man from his arrival in Hong Kong in 1949 until his death.
“There are photos of Ip during this time of his life, there is a video of him practicing with wooden sticks for me to portray,” Wong said at a news conference Thursday to announce the festival’s lineup. “However, how he talked, how he behaved, no one really knows. That left a lot for the imagination, but in comparison, there are references for the Ip Man that I portray.”
The festival starts March 17.
Nielsen to begin counting broadband viewing homes
By David Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The company that measures television viewership said Thursday it will soon begin counting people who watch programming through broadband in addition to the traditional broadcast or cable hook-up.
Nielsen’s move is a significant step toward recognizing a world where the definition of TV viewing is swiftly changing and toward satisfying clients concerned that the company isn’t keeping up with those changes. Separately, Nielsen is developing ways to track content on tablets and mobile phones.
For many years, roughly 99 percent of homes in the U.S. had televisions that received service through broadcast, cable or satellite signals.
Now the number of homes without such service is 4.2 percent — and growing each year. An estimated three-quarters of those homes still have TVs, however, and their owners watch programming through game consoles or services like Netflix and Amazon. Starting September, Nielsen will have meters that can monitor viewership in those homes, said Brian Fuhrer, a senior vice president at Nielsen.
This will add roughly 160 homes to Nielsen’s current sample of 23,000 houses nationwide with meters monitoring viewing habits.
More significantly, Nielsen will return to its sample to find homes that have cable or broadcast, but also separate TV sets hooked up through broadband. This will add an estimated 2,000 more broadband sets, significantly increasing the sample size, Fuhrer said.
“Consumers are accessing content in new ways that fall outside of our traditional definitions and if we don’t expand … we could be missing an emerging trend,” he said.
The changes aren’t likely to quickly boost the ratings of your favorite program, however. Most of the programs shown through broadband don’t have the same encodings as shows watched traditionally, primarily because they often have different advertisements. As a result, Nielsen will be limited in tracking what particular shows are being watched, at least until more universal encoding standards are developed.
Some broadband services have the ability to measure how much individual programs are seen but keep that information private. It is why, for example, there have been no estimates of how many people have seen Netflix’s well-reviewed new series “House of Cards.”
Even without those specifics, Nielsen will be still able to collect information such as who in the household is watching through broadband, and how much they watch. That is data that will at least be valuable to advertisers and marketers trying to target specific consumer groups. Nielsen’s change was first reported in The Hollywood Reporter.
Nielsen must also develop a separate metering system for tablets and mobile devices, and Fuhrer said that work is ongoing.
DGA enthused over Congressional Creative Rights Caucus
LOS ANGELES–The Directors Guild of America released the following statement upon the announcement of the launch of the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus, which will serve to educate Members of Congress and the general public about the importance of preserving and protecting the rights of the creative community in the United States, by Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA) and Congressman Howard Coble (R-NC).
“We welcome the creation of the Creative Rights Caucus, as a significant recognition of the importance of the creative community to American innovation, culture and the economy. The works created by DGA members – the films, television shows and commercials seen by billions around the world – are the result of their unique creative vision, hard work, and dedication to storytelling.
“We believe that the creation of this Caucus reflects the very special role of creators in our culture and we thank Congresswoman Chu and Congressman Coble for spearheading this effort and we look forward to working with them, as the chairs of the Creative Rights Caucus, on legislative issues affecting the creative community and our members.”
Students replace models as Oscar trophy carriersBy Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — You know those tall, leggy beauties that normally carry the Oscar trophies so the stars can present them?
They’ve been replaced this year by aspiring filmmakers. Six college students from across the country won a contest to help present the Oscar statuettes this year.
“This tradition of the buxom babe that comes out and brings the trophy to the presenter to give to the winner seemed to be very antiquated and kind of sexist, too,” said Neil Meron, co-producer of this year’s Academy Awards. “They’re just there to be objectified. Why can’t we have people who actually care about film and are the future of film be the trophy presenters?”
So he and co-producer Craig Zadan developed a contest directed at college students that asked: How will you contribute to the future of film? More than 1,100 students submitted essays and videos, and six were chosen to appear on the Oscar telecast.
They attended their first rehearsal Wednesday.
“I’m still in shock,” said ChaRon Brabham, 20, of Brooklyn, a theater major at State University of New York, Pottsdam. “I can’t believe it, but it’s real!”
The winning students each turned in an essay and a 30-second video about their aims in the film industry, and all said the opportunity to appear on the Oscar show is life changing.
“Hollywood has always been a dream that was so far away,” said Hearin Ko, 19, a sophomore at Boston’s Emerson College who hails from Seoul, Korea. “To finally be here and see everything, it brings the dream closer to me. This can really happen if I try hard. It’s not as far as I thought it was.”
Abe Diaz of DePaul University in Chicago is a chemistry major who always considered film a hobby.
“This is the fork in the road right now,” said the 18-year-old son of two doctors. “It’ll definitely help in making me more aware if this is something I can do.”
All six winning students will walk on the Oscar stage during Sunday’s ceremony. They’re each getting a makeover and formal tuxedo or gown for the event as well.
“For a film student to be at the Oscars is huge,” said Jennifer Brofer, 30, a Marine Corps veteran who is now a film student at the University of Texas at Austin. “This is where we aspire to be one day.”
Other student presenters include AJ Young, from Columbia College Chicago, and Tatenda Mbudzi, a Zimbabwe native studying at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Meron said he hopes the student-presenters become an annual Oscar tradition.
“There’s a legacy that we bring,” he said. “And if we never do the show again, we would love for this to continue.”
Acclaimed Russian film director Alexei German dies
By Irina Titova
ST.PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Alexei German, a Russian film director best known for his works offering a bitter view of life in the Soviet Union under dictator Josef Stalin, died Thursday, his son said.
German, 74, died of heart failure at a hospital in his hometown, St. Petersburg, his son, Alexei German Jr., said in a blog post.
German came to prominence internationally for his 1983 production “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” about a police investigator battling a criminal gang. Censors blocked the film’s release for two years because of its realistic depiction of Soviet life in the wake of the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s.
The release of the film heralded the era of reforms launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and was aired on Soviet television in 1986 to much clamor and public debate.
The production of “Khrustalyov, My Car,” a grotesque narrative centered on Stalin’s final days, endured multiple delays due to Russia’s post-Soviet economic meltdown. It received a hostile reception at its Cannes premiere in 1998, but later attained cult status.
In a 2012 article, critic Anton Dolin observed that “to many Russian critics, cinephiles, and viewers, German is their national cinema’s foremost figure after (Andrei) Tarkovsky.”
“Others insist that, in fact, he is more important and more original,” Dolin wrote.
German’s output was typically starkly shot and marked in its emphasis on mood and oppressive atmosphere over traditional linear narrative. His films are unified by an unflinchingly critical view of Soviet history.
His first solo directorial work, “Trial on The Road” — made in 1971 but barred from release until 1986 — was based on a war story by his father, a famous novelist, and told the story of an escaped prisoner of war compelled to win back the trust of his comrades during World War II.
Although structurally conventional, the film drew the authorities’ disapproval for German’s unusual decision to make a hero of a character initially viewed as a Nazi collaborator.
Alexei German Jr., who is also a celebrated director, said work on his father’s sixth and final film was all but done.
“The film ‘It Is Hard to Be a God’ is in effect finished. All that remains is the audio dubbing. Everything else is ready. It will be completed in the foreseeable future,” he said.
German Jr. said his father worked on the film despite his failing health.
“The making of the film was long and painful,” German Jr. said in a post on Ekho Mosky radio station’s website. “It was made without government money.”
Even before its release, the film has generated a lot of public expectations and intense discussion, with some seeing it as a stinging satire on President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, full of grim predictions for the future.
The Lenfilm studio, with which German worked over his entire career, said his funeral would take place Sunday in St. Petersburg.
German is also survived by his wife, Svetlana Karmalita.
On Twitter, a peanut gallery mocks the Oscars
By Jake Coyle, Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — You can simply tune into the Oscars. Or you can watch them with the peanut gallery on Twitter.
While Hollywood parades in tuxedos and gowns, grandly celebrating itself, a freewheeling cacophony of quips and sarcasm — something like a digital, million-times multiplied version of those balcony Muppet onlookers, Statler and Waldorf — will provide a welcome and riotous counter-narrative to the pomp.
The second-screen experience is never better than on Oscar night, when a separate (and some might say superior) entertainment experience plays out on social media. The running commentary, in which comedians and others parody the glamorous stars and their sometimes laughable speeches, has become as central to the Academy Awards as the red carpet.
“Following the Oscars on Twitter is like watching the show with one hundred million of your drunkest friends,” says Andy Borowitz, the humorist and author who’s often been a standout tweeter on Oscar night. Last year, he succinctly summarized the previous two best-picture winners, “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist,” as “an English dude who couldn’t speak” and “a French dude no one could hear.”
Live tweeting major TV events, from the Super Bowl to the Grammy Awards, has become engrained in our viewing by now, forming a virtual water cooler that has boosted ratings. But the Academy Awards stream is particularly captivating because it provides an antidote to the on-screen, buttoned-down glamour. It’s as if there’s not an “SAP” button on your remote, but a “YUKS” one, bringing you play-by-play from some of the funniest people in cyberspace. Comedians assemble as if by duty.
“You gotta say something. Someone has to say something,” says comedian Billy Eichner. “To just stand by and watch it happen is almost too tense. It’s cathartic. You’ve got to just get it out on Twitter because if not, we’re all going to be bottled up thinking about how awkward Anne Hathaway made it for one billion people in real time. I don’t begrudge her the award; I’m just saying she’s a ridiculous person.”
As host of Funny or Die’s “Billy on the Street,” which airs on Fuse, Eichner aggressively and comically interviews passersby about pop culture. So he’s particularly adept at expressing all-caps mockery when it comes to the stars of Hollywood. In the awards circuit leading up to the Oscars, he’s zeroed in on Anne Hathaway, the odds-on favorite to win best supporting actress for her performance in “Les Miserables.”
In Hathaway, Eichner recognizes a great actress, but also a striving theater geek. Nothing is funnier, he says, “than the mix of ego and lack of self-awareness, like Jodie Foster’s Golden Globes speech.”
“Ultimately, it’s just fun because the whole thing is so ridiculous,” says Eichner. “It’s like, why not comment on it? What is it even there for other than to be commented on?”
The Oscars has become one of the biggest social media events of the year. Last year’s telecast at one point set a then-record for 18,718 tweets-per-second. A statuette could be handed out for a new award: most tweeted tweet. In 2011, that honor went to The Onion, which lamented: “How rude — not a single character from Toy Story 3 bothered to show up.”
Last year, “The Artist” may have won best picture, but Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” easily bested it with 110,179 tweets to 78,509 for “The Artist,” according to Twitter metrics analyst TweetReach.
This year, the academy has partnered with Twitter to track the top categories with an index measuring the percentage of positive tweets about the nominees. Leading as of Tuesday wasn’t the favorite “Argo,” nor was it Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” but rather David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook.” So if the film, widely considered the dark horse in the best picture race, wins on Sunday, Twitter will have predicted it.
Mark Ghuneim, chief executive of social media measurement firm Trendrr, says that during the Oscars, Twitter is “‘Mystery Science Theater 3000,’ for real,” referring to the cult TV show in which a man and two robot sidekicks wisecrack their way through B-movies.
“It’s really like you’ll never watch TV alone ever again, if you don’t want to,” says Ghuneim. “It’s a natural evolution in television and that’s why it’s so prevalent.”
With real-time data from services like Trendrr, the Oscar conversation can be tracked, revealing which moments resound and provoke audiences. Last year, Angelina Jolie’s leg-barring pose as a presenter immediately put Twitter in hyper-drive, spawning parody accounts from the perspective of her right leg.
It’s such moments where Twitter becomes Oscar’s dance partner. Viewers celebrate with — and chortle at — Hollywood’s self-seriousness, combining together for a TV experience greater than the sum of its parts.
When the 85th annual Academy Awards air Sunday on ABC, countless comedians and others at home will be ready on their mobile phones and laptops with tweets to skewer.
“I just pray we all survive Anne Hathaway’s acceptance speech,” says Eichner. “And, to be honest, I have my doubts.”
Film on hunger comes with food donation to US kidsNEW YORK (AP) — The backers of a documentary on hunger in the United States are teaming up with an organic food producer and a book publisher to make a food donation to needy children.
Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media are releasing “A Place at the Table” on March 1 in theaters and on iTunes and On Demand.
The companies, along with Plum Organics and the Perseus Books Group, announced Wednesday that a packaged “Super Smoothie” will be donated to an infant or toddler for every ticket sold to the film, every online download of it, or each purchase of a copy of the film’s companion book. The Plum Organics smoothie is made of fruit, vegetables and grains.
The film was directed by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush and features actor Jeff Bridges.
Young actress from Congo granted visa for OscarsNEW YORK (AP) — The 16-year-old star of the Oscar-nominated “War Witch” has been granted a visa to travel from Congo for the Academy Awards.
The film’s distributor, Tribeca Film, said Wednesday that Rachel Mwanza (MWAHN’-zuh) will be able to attend upcoming award shows, including Sunday’s Oscars.
“War Witch,” directed by Montreal filmmaker Kim Nguyen (WIN), is nominated for best foreign language film as Canada’s submission.
Shot entirely in the Congo, Mwanza was cast despite no prior acting experience. She had been living at her grandmother’s house and on the streets before Nguyen picked her to play a child soldier caught up in an unspecified African revolution.
Mwanza won best actress at both the Berlin Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival last year. “War Witch” opens in New York theaters March 1.
Hirsute in a huff over Gillette ads in Brazil
SAO PAULO (AP) — Hate that hair? In Brazil, beware.
A self-regulatory council for Brazil’s advertising industry is looking into complaints against razor maker Gillette for running body-shaving commercials.
Council spokesman Eduardo Correa says 20 consumers have filed complaints that the campaign “encourages prejudice against hairy men.”
The online commercials show beautiful women telling men they should shave their chests to please their girlfriends.
The council’s ethical committee is expected to rule on the case in 30 days.
Elaine Moreira is a spokeswoman for Gillette parent company Procter & Gamble. She says the campaign was “an irreverent way to say that women prefer hairless men and that the company never meant to offend consumers.”
IDC Sound launched under aegis of Ryan FagmanNEW YORK–International Digital Centre (IDC) and Soundscribe Studios have collaborated to form IDC Sound, featuring three fully equipped Pro Tools suites and a vocal booth for voiceover recording and casting.
Award-winning sound engineer Ryan Fagman will head up the new audio division, housed at IDC’s midtown facility, in the position of co-founder/senior audio engineer. Previously, he was the founder of Soundscribe Studios and has 10-plus years of experience working with some of the top talent in the industry as a sound engineer, producer, and voiceover director/engineer/producer.
IDC Sound will be seamlessly integrated into IDC’s Avid and Final Cut Edit suites, Unity storage system, central equipment and Gigabit bandwidth to provide clients one-stop postproduction and digital distribution solutions.
Bob Schieffer to receive NAB Distinguished Service AwardWASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) announced today that Bob Schieffer, renowned broadcast television journalist for CBS, will receive the NAB Distinguished Service Award (DSA) during the 2013 NAB Show. Schieffer will accept the award at the opening keynote session, sponsored by Blackmagic Design, on April 8 in Las Vegas.
“For more than 50 years, Bob Schieffer has been an eyewitness to history’s biggest stories and respected as a preeminent journalist of his generation,” said NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith. “In recognition of his dedication and profound impact on journalism, we are proud to present him with the Distinguished Service Award.”
Each year the NAB DSA recognizes members of the broadcast community who have made significant and lasting contributions to broadcasting. Previous award recipients include Michael J. Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, President Ronald Reagan, Edward R. Murrow, Bob Hope, Walter Cronkite, Oprah Winfrey and Charles Osgood, among others.
2013 marks Schieffer’s 56th year as a reporter and his 44th year at CBS News. He is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the nation’s capital – the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill. Schieffer has also moderated three presidential debates.
Schieffer has served as the moderator of “Face the Nation,” CBS News’ Sunday public affairs broadcast, since 1991. He anchored the “CBS Evening News” from March 2005 to August 2006. He is also CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent, a post he has held since 1982.
Schieffer has received virtually every award in broadcast journalism, and in 2005 his alma mater, Texas Christian University, created the Schieffer School of Journalism.
Krantz upped to worldwide creative director at The Brand Union
NEW YORK–The Brand Union (TBU), a WPP-owned brand strategy and design consultancy, has promoted executive creative director Wally Krantz to worldwide creative director, corporate branding. In his new role, Krantz’s responsibilities will span across TBU’s 23-office network.
During his six-year tenure with The Brand Union, Krantz has played a leading role in the development of brand identities and visual identity systems for several of the agency’s largest, most recognizable client brands, including Bank of America, Time Warner Cable, Vodafone, Brand USA, Shazam, SNR Denton, and Lahey Health System.
Prior to the The Brand Union, Krantz began his career as a branding and identity designer at Landor Associates (both in San Francisco and New York), with projects spanning brands as diverse as FedEx, Visa International, the American Red Cross, the NFL, LG Electronics, Japan Airlines, Panasonic, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Movie effects innovator Petros Vlahos dies at 96LOS ANGELES (AP) — Petro Vlahos, a two-time Academy Award winner whose blue- and green-screen technique on movies like “Mary Poppins” and “Ben Hur” made the modern blockbuster possible, has died. He was 96.
His family said he died on Feb. 10, according to The Los Angeles Times. The Hollywood Reporter said Vlahos’ company, Ultimatte, also announced the death. No details were released.
The night before his death, an ailing Vlahos was on the minds of many at the Scientific and Technical Oscars ceremony, where he’d been a constant presence through the years and where his acolytes in so-called “composite photography” took home most of the trophies.
“He created the whole of composite photography as we know it at this time,” visual effects supervisor and one of the night’s top winners Bill Taylor said of Vlahos, drawing a line from his early work to recent technical marvels like “Life of Pi.” ”Whenever you see Mary Poppins dancing with penguins, when you see Pi in a boat in the middle of the ocean … you are seeing … Vlahos’ genius at work.””
Others had tried “composite photography” before, combining separately filmed actors and sets into one shot, but results had been spotty, and actors often appeared with a halo of light around them that killed the effect.
Vlahos took huge leaps forward in the process with the chariot race in the 1959 Charlton Heston epic “Ben Hur” and in Julie Andrews’ and Dick Van Dyke’s romp through a chalk-drawing wonderland in 1964’s “Mary Poppins.”
He kept up his partnership with Disney in effects-heavy films like 1969’s “The Love Bug” and 1971’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”
When in subsequent decades sci-fi and fantasy films became dominant at the box office, Vlahos’ techniques became dominant in filmmaking, essential to movies like “Avatar” and to every film in the “Star Wars” saga.
He and his collaborators won an Academy Award for their composite processes in 1965, and he and his son Paul Vlahos shared another Oscar in 1995 for the blue-screen advances made by Ultimatte.
Quincy Jones launches music education applicationBy Jonathan Landrum Jr.
ATLANTA (AP) — Quincy Jones says he has co-created the music version of Rosetta Stone.
The 79-year-old composer-producer launched a new music education application Tuesday called Playground Sessions, which teaches users how to play the piano. He said the app will help children and adults learn how to read music and understand the mechanics of piano playing.
There’s “such a need for this,” Jones said in an interview last week. “The concept is brand-new. I have been praying for this for a long time. It has a learning concept similar to Rosetta Stone. I’m blown away by this.”
Playground Sessions is a musical app with real-time feedback and video tutorials from pianist David Sides. It features about 70 popular songs by Beyonce and Justin Bieber, and well-known tunes like Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”
Jones, who produced Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and other successful albums, hopes Playground Sessions will have an impact on music education programs in schools around the world. One of first schools that will use the app is Jones’ alma mater, Garfield High School in Seattle.
“Our kids in this country know less than any other country,” Jones said of music education in the United States. “We need something like Playground Sessions to push us forward.”
Chris Vance, who co-created the app and founded Playground Sessions, got together with Jones more than a year ago after working alone on the application for three years. He said Jones immediately saw a vision for the product and wanted to make learning music a fun experience.
Vance also said Sides was an easy pick when he was selecting a pianist for the project. Jones calls Sides a very talented piano player who has an engaging personality.
“I wish I had someone like him teaching me how to play the piano,” Jones said of Sides, known for his popular piano covers on YouTube, including his rendition of OneRepublic’s “Apologize,” which has garnered more than 10 million views.
Nike, Oakley move away from Oscar Pistorius
By Joshua Freed, Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP)–Two major sponsors, Oakley and Nike, distanced themselves from Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius on Monday after the South African sports star was charged with murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend.
Oakley, the eyewear maker, suspended its contract with Pistorius. And Nike, which sells shoes and other athletic gear, said it has no plans to use him in future ad campaigns.
Pistorius lost both of his legs in childhood. Racing on carbon-fiber blades, he was the first amputee athlete to run at the world championships in 2011, and he made history competing in the London Olympics last year. His success at overcoming hardship made him popular with South Africans, and a desirable pitchman for advertisers.
On Thursday, he was arrested and charged with shooting his girlfriend to death in his home in South Africa. His family has denied that he murdered his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp.
Pistorius’ agent has canceled the athlete’s future scheduled races.
Nike Inc. confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that it had no plans to use Pistorius in future campaigns. Nike spokesman KeJuan Wilkins declined to say whether Nike had previously had any plans for Pistorius, or whether it will remove current advertising that includes him.
A 2007 Nike Internet ad showing Pistorius starting to sprint in his blades with the caption: “I am the bullet in the chamber” had already been pulled.
Wilkins said the wording in the 2007 campaign “was in reference to Oscar’s speed and performance on the track. Nike felt it was appropriate to take the ad down from Oscar’s website recognizing the sensitivities of the situation.”
Later on Monday, Oakley, in an emailed statement, said that “in light of the recent allegations, Oakley is suspending its contract with Oscar Pistorius, effective immediately.” The California company, a unit of Italian glasses and sunglasses maker Luxottica Group, has been associated with Pistorius since 2009, according to the athlete’s website.
Pistorius’ website, which has been posting statements from his manager and his family, still shows other Nike ads, as well as logos from Nike, Oakley and other companies.
Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike, which spent $800 million on endorsements in its last fiscal year, has found itself in tricky situations with athletes before. It dropped Lance Armstrong in October 2012 after charges of widespread doping on his cycling teams. Armstrong has since admitted to doping and has been stripped of his seven Tour de France victories, and was also dropped by other sponsors.
But Nike stood by golfer Tiger Woods after he admitted to infidelities and went to rehab for sex addiction, and restarted a relationship with football player Michael Vick once he had served time for illegal dog-fighting.
‘We’ve All Been There’ wins at short film festivalSYDNEY (AP) — An Australian film about a woman in need benefiting from the kindness of others won top honors at the world’s biggest short-film festival.
“We’ve All Been There” director Nicholas Clifford received the Tropfest first-place award Sunday from judging panelist and “Avatar” actor Sam Worthington.
Worthington earlier said, “It’s not about budget, it’s not about box office, it’s about pure entertainment and that to me is what film should be about. Not all that other junk.”
Clifford joked later that he gets grief about resembling Worthington, so their meeting “is going to give everyone a bit more ammunition to throw at me.”
His film’s star, Laura Wheelright, was named best actress while Nick Hamilton was named best actor for the time-travel tale, “Time.”
For his first-place win, Clifford gets $10,000 cash, a trip to Los Angeles to meet with film executives and other prizes.
The outdoor film festival held since 1993 has grown to a large-scale event attracting thousands to a park near Sydney’s central business district.
The next Tropfest will be Dec. 8 in Centennial Park — an advanced date and new location to accommodate larger crowds and to attract fans and VIP attendees without having to compete for attention with the Oscars and other international events in February.
British actor Richard Briers dies at 79
By Jill Lawless
LONDON (AP) — British actor Richard Briers, an avuncular comic presence on TV and movie screens for decades, has died at the age of 79.
Briers’ agent, Christopher Farrar, said Monday that the actor died at his London home on Sunday. A former heavy smoker, he had suffered from emphysema.
Briers starred in the 1970s sitcom “The Good Life” as Tom Good, a man who decides to quit the urban rat race for a life of self-sufficiency in suburbia.
The show, which contrasted the back-to-the land Goods with their conventional neighbors the Leadbetters, made stars of its core cast — Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington — and is regularly voted one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time. Broadcast in Britain between 1975 and 1978, it aired in the U.S. as “Good Neighbors.”
Briars also starred in the comedy-drama “Ever-Decreasing Circles,” the Scottish Highlands drama “Monarch of the Glen” and a host of other shows.
In later life he became well-known for Shakespearean roles. He joined director Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 after deciding, he said, that “I had gone as far as I could doing sitcoms.”
For Branagh he took on roles including King Lear, Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” and the buffoon Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
He also appeared in several Branagh-directed films, including “Henry V,” ”A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” ”Hamlet,” ”Peter’s Friends” and “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”
Branagh remembered Briers as “a national treasure, a great actor and a wonderful man. He was greatly loved and he will be deeply missed.”
Briers also was the voice of rabbit Fiver in the much-loved animated animal feature “Watership Down,” and narrator 1970s children’s cartoon “Roobarb.”
On stage, he was associated with the work of British comic playwright Alan Ayckbourn, playing leading roles in “Relatively Speaking,” ”Absurd Person Singular” and “Absent Friends.”
Born Jan. 14, 1934, Briers trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and worked consistently in theater, film and television for more than half a century.
His latest film credit is in the recently released “Cockneys Vs. Zombies.”
He said he had no desire to retire, but complained in one of his final interviews that the chronic lung disease emphysema was slowing him down.
“The ciggies got me. I stopped 10 years ago, but too late,” he told the Daily Mail newspaper last month.
“It’s totally my fault. So, I get very breathless, which is a pain in the backside.”
In 1989, Briers was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts.
Among his peers and fans, Briers was much appreciated for his humor and self-deprecating wit. He said of one run in the title role of “Hamlet”: “I may not have been the best Hamlet of my generation but I was certainly the fastest.”
“On the opening night I took 24 minutes off the running time, and I think it must have been the only ‘Hamlet’ in recent times where people were able to get out to the pub afterwards for a drink,” he said.
Briers married the actress Anne Davies in 1956. They had two daughters.
Blacklisted screenwriter Richard Collins dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A blacklisted screenwriter who later named names to Communist hunters during the McCarthy era has died in California. Richard Collins was 98.
His son, Michael Collins, tells the Los Angeles Times that Collins died Thursday of pneumonia in Ventura.
Collins was one of 19 writers and directors called by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 in a probe of supposed Communist subversion in Hollywood. He wasn’t asked to testify but 10 who refused to answer questions about their beliefs were jailed in what has widely been called a witch hunt.
Collins was subpoenaed again in 1951 and identified more than 20 colleagues as Communist sympathizers. He later expressed regrets.
He went on to have a three-decade career in TV writer and producer on shows including “Bonanza” and “Matlock.”
