lifestyle MONDAY, MAY 19, 2014 MUSIC & MOVIES Virus-hit McCartney cancels two Japan concerts

(From Left) Australian actress Miranda Otto, Danish actress Sonja Richter, US actor and director Tommy Lee Jones and US actress Hilary Swank pose during a photocall for the film “The Homesman”. —AFP

Paul McCartney greets fans and journalists upon his arrival at the Haneda air- port in Tokyo on May 15, 2014. — AFP x-Beatle Paul McCartney cancelled fans down.” Both yesterday and today’s a scheduled concert in Tokyo for concerts were called off, but McCartney Jones brings ‘women’s Western’ Ethe second night in row yesterday is expected to go ahead with the tour’s after contracting a virus, saying he was two remaining concerts at Tokyo’s “sorry” for letting fans down. The 71- Nippon Budokan hall on Wednesday and year-old English pop veteran had already at the Nagai stadium in Osaka on cancelled a planned performance at the Saturday, organizers said. with Swank, Streep to Cannes National Stadium on Saturday, the day “Doctors have ordered Paul complete after coming down with an unspecified rest and he has been doing all he can to ommy Lee Jones yesterday premiered his strung up with a noose for squatting another Reprising his irascible screen character, Jones virus. He had planned to play a concert get better,” a spokesperson for the former Cannes contender “The Homesman”, a man’s house. She agrees to cut him free if he’ll often bristled at reporters’ questions, snapping at at the same stadium yesterday and Beatle said. “Paul has only ever had to Twomen-driven Western starring fellow accompany her on the dangerous journey to one point “I don’t know what ‘genre’ means” when another today to make up for the can- reschedule a handful of shows in his Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Meryl Streep that Iowa. Loaded into the wagon are the three asked about his unconventional take on the celled Saturday show. entire career and is so upset about this turns the genre on its head. The film, which drew women who had gone West with their new hus- Western. Swank, who picked up Academy Awards “Unfortunately my condition has not situation, he hates to let people down.” warm applause and largely positive reviews after bands with the promise of prosperity and adven- for her roles in “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Million Dollar a press preview, marked Jones’s second directorial ture but once settled, had their sanity stolen by Baby”, said she was eager to play another “intense, improved overnight. I was really hoping McCartney flew into Tokyo after a short outing at the world’s top film festival, following tragedy, deprivation and violence. strong” woman. that I’d be feeling better today,” rest at home in London following a stren- 2005’s “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”. Jones said the myths of American life were a This is a film about “ultimately, how much a McCartney said in a message posted on uous South American tour. In an earlier Like that film, “The Homesman” takes a critical driving issue behind the film, which he also co- person can take,” she said. Reviewer Peter the official Facebook site of his Japan tour of Japan in November last year, he look at the defining narratives of US history wrote, including the white supremacy that fuelled Bradshaw of London’s Guardian called the film tour, “Out There Japan Tour 2014.” “I’m so was seen singing 39 songs non-stop including Manifest Destiny, the notion that the massacre of the native population. “I won’t try “hugely watchable and enjoyable” while Canadian disappointed and sorry to be letting my without retreating backstage. —AFP Americans had a divine right and obligation to to hide the fact that a consideration of American critic Cedric Belanger hailed Swank’s performance settle the continent. Swank plays a pious unmar- imperialism on the west side of the Mississippi... as “excellent”: “It’s not a Palme d’Or but a pleasant ried woman who keeps a farm on her own in the was the underlying theme,” he said. two hours of cinema,” he said, referring to the top Nebraska Territory in the 1850s. prize at Cannes. “After Clint Eastwood’s farewell to Already 31, she is considered too old and ‘Objectified or trivialized’ the genre in ‘Unforgiven’, Tommy Lee Jones is “plain” to be wife material. In a humiliating put- He said women had paid a high price as part among a handful of actor/directors (Kevin Costner, Billboard Awards down, a local yokel rejects her proposal of mar- of that history, which he described as “the origin Robert Duvall etc) who still believe in the Western riage, calling her “too bossy”. When the local pas- of the female condition today”. “I don’t think and have the clout to make films in that genre,” tor (John Lithgow) tells her about three women there’s a woman in this room who’s never felt Britain’s Screen Daily said, calling it “beautifully can use Michael driven mad by the harsh life on the plains, she objectified or trivialized because of her gender. crafted”. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune agrees to take them back East to a minister’s wife There’s a reason for that, there’s a history of that, said “The Homesman” was “not up to (Jones’s) (Streep, who did not attend the post-screening and I think that’s an interesting thing,” he said. superb ‘Three Burials’ but worth seeing”. “Though it Jackson hologram press conference) who will return them to their “The journey in this movie is the inverse of what falls through on its feminism by keeping the focus families. you usually see in a movie that has wagons and on Jones rather than Swank, it’s nevertheless fairly Before she leaves, she comes upon an old horses in it. The subject matter is women, insane effective, and does pack a real punch by the end,” boozer (Jones) perched on a horse who has been women, and so-called heroic men.” US movie website Indiewire concluded. — AFP In this Feb 24, 1988 file photo, Michael Jackson leans, points and sings, dances and struts during the opening Stallone, Schwarzenegger performance of his 13-city US tour, in Kansas City, Mo. — AP revive old rivalry in Cannes

(From left) Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren, US actor Kellan Lutz, US actor Glen Powell, Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, US actor Kelsey Grammer, US actor Sylvester Stallone, federal judge ruled Friday that the response Friday, saying the holographic Austrian actor Arnold Billboard Music Awards can use a performance had been planned for months Schwarzenegger, US hologram of deceased pop icon and was discussed with Alki David, who actress Ronda Rousey and A British actor Jason Statham Michael Jackson at this weekend’s show, owns the rights to the technology that cre- pose during a photocall for rejecting efforts from tech companies seek- ates and projects lifelike images to appear the film “The Expendables ing to block the digital performance. Judge alongside live performers through 3” at the 67th edition of Kent Dawson said there wasn’t enough evi- Hologram USA and Musion. Plaintiff’s attor- the Cannes Film Festival in dence to show the planned 3-D image ney Ryan G Baker said his clients were dis- Cannes, southern France, would violate patents held by Hologram appointed with the ruling, but the lawsuit yesterday. —AFP USA Inc and Musion Das Hologram Ltd. The will continue. companies own rights to technology ne-time rivals Sylvester down the famed Croisette seaside Schwarzenegger in a room packed larly low rating of four percent on known for digitally resurrecting deceased A digital rendition of Jackson Stallone and Arnold promenade, pushing away people full of journalists. Asked whether one movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. rapper Tupac Shakur at the 2012 Coachella “It’s only the very beginning of a case OSchwarzenegger grabbed the who jumped in the path of the tanks, would have liked to have played the “Didn’t you have a baby in a music festival. that will continue to be prosecuted by my opportunity of their testosterone- seemingly oblivious to the very role of the other, Stallone responded movie?” Stallone retorted to general “The court’s decision is not surprising,” clients, and ultimately they are confident fuelled promotion of “Expendables 3” strong risk of being flattened. Inside that he should have been the hilarity, referring to 1994 comedy attorney Howard Weitzman, who repre- that they will prevail and will recover all in Cannes to poke fun at each other the luxury Carlton hotel where a Terminator-Schwarzenegger’s “Junior” in which Schwarzenegger sented Jackson’s estate and dick clark pro- available damages for the defendants’ in a rollicking press conference yes- press conference subsequently took famous role as a cyborg. plays a scientist who gets pregnant-a ductions, wrote in an email. “The request to infringing conduct,” Baker said. terday. Sly and former California gov- place, similar chaos reigned as eager “But a Terminator doesn’t have a film not generally well-rated. Wading stop this extraordinary Michael Jackson Hologram USA obtained the rights to ernor Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, film buffs, photographers and crooked mouth, crooked eyes nor into the famed, intense rivalry that Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford and celebrity spotters struggled to get a speak with a slur, so I don’t fit. Who pitted the two musclemen against event was ludicrous.” Plans to use the holo- the patents after the bankruptcy of Florida Wesley Snipes made a spectacular glimpse of the all-star-if ageing-cast would pick a robot to look like me?” each other in the 1980s and 1990s, gram during the show emerged with the effects house Digital Domain, which creat- entry in the French Riviera resort on of the third installment of the suc- he asked. Schwarzenegger, 66, then Gibson joked that competition at the lawsuit, but they weren’t confirmed until ed the Shakur image to wide acclaim two board two tanks mobbed by hun- cessful franchise. joked that he may have wanted time was indeed “stiff”. “I think we can the hearing Friday afternoon. Show pro- years ago. dreds of fans. “We are children with arthritis,” Stallone’s role in “Stop! Or My Mom all agree that in 2014 it’s not so stiff ducers had been promoting only a “history- The lawsuit also named John C Textor, Stressed-looking French police- Stallone, 67, joked in his characteris- Will Shoot”, a widely panned 1992 now,” he said, to laughs and surprised making performance” at Las Vegas’ MGM the chairman of Florida-based Pulse men escorted the hulking vehicles tic deep, slurred voice, sitting next to cop comedy film that has a spectacu- gasps. — AFP Grand Garden Arena that would promote Entertainment Corp who was the former the singer’s latest posthumous album, head of Digital Domain. Pulse is accused of “Xscape.” using the hologram techniques without a Hologram USA and Musion said in their proper license. Textor said he could not emergency lawsuit Thursday that one of comment publicly on the case. their products was being used without The lawsuit names Atlanta-based Pulse authorization by a competitor to create a Entertainment Inc as a defendant. segment that depicts Jackson performing a Spokesman Ken S Johnson said the compa- new song, “Slave to the Rhythm.” Dawson ny was listed incorrectly because it had no noted that the lawsuit didn’t provide evi- connection the Billboard Music Awards. In dence that the company’s patents were March, Hologram USA sued Cirque du being used to create the Jackson holo- Soleil and MGM Resorts International over gram, and attorneys for the defendants its show, “Michael Jackson ONE” at said the techniques being used were in the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino. public domain. The show features a performance by a Technology and visual tricks that can digital rendition of Jackson, which the create holographic-type images have exist- company also contends is an unlicensed ed for decades, although the Shakur per- use of its technology. The case is being formance sparked more interest in creating handled in a Los Angeles federal court. realistic performances of dead celebrities. Cirque du Soleil and MGM Resorts have (From left) US actor Harrison Ford, US actor Sylvester Stallone and (From Left) Australian actor Mel Gibson, US actress Ronda Attorney Michael Feder, representing been granted an extension until May 23 to Australian actor Mel Gibson pose during a photocall for the film “The Rousey, British actor Jason Statham and US actor Harrison Ford the show and Jackson estate, filed a respond to the lawsuit. — AP Expendables 3”. pose on a tank.