New Amy Winehouse film to mark 10 years since singer's death

LONDON — A new documentary about Amy Winehouse, in which her mother will share details about her late daughter’s life, will be released in July, marking 10 years since the British singer’s death at age 27.

“Amy Winehouse: 10 Years On”, commissioned by Britain’s BBC Two and BBC Music, will be told through the narrative of the “Rehab” and “Back to Black” singer’s mother Janis, who has multiple sclerosis and wants to share her memories, the broadcaster said.

It described Janis as “a figure close to Amy whom we have yet to hear a lot from and whose version of events often differs from the narrative we have been told before”.

“I don’t feel the world knew the true Amy, the one that I brought up, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to offer an understanding of her roots and a deeper insight into the real Amy,” Janis Winehouse said in a statement on Wednesday.

Winehouse, a Grammy Award winner, died from alcohol poisoning at her London home in July 2011. She had struggled with drinking and drug problems through much of her career.

The documentary will feature previously unseen family archive material, the BBC said. “Janis will be aided by family, friends and those who knew Amy best to piece together the side of Amy rarely seen,” it said.

“The film will be a powerful and sensitive account of one of Britain’s best-loved and greatly-missed musical talents, offering a new female-driven interpretation of her life, her loves and her legacy.”

A 2015 documentary “AMY” about Winehouse won director Asif Kapadia an Oscar, although at the time the singer’s father Mitch Winehouse called it misleading and said the family had disassociated itself from the film.

Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Mark Heinrich

-reuters

The Beatles' great rock bromance

The Beatles rooftop concert in ‘Let It Be’ is a template for every great band reunion moment — and possibly every romcom — to come.

Forty-five years ago, the Beatles were kaput, having called it quits in a flurry of torts and acrimony. A final studio album, “Abbey Road,” meant to show them as a functioning unit in 1969, was overtaken by “Let It Be,” recorded earlier but released later as a documentary and album, awash in Phil Spector strings and choirs. (It still won an Oscar for Best Song.)

The documentary is one of life’s painful reminders that people — even Beatles — grow tired of one another. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Let It Be takes us behind the scenes as John, Paul, George and Ringo — but mostly Paul — try to pull an album together out of general ennui.

At this point in time, after the death of manager Brian Epstein, the end of touring, John’s recent infatuation with Yoko Ono and George’s commitment to spiritual detachment, there were few cheerleaders left in the Beatles. Paul, the task-driven Gemini, still fit the bill, and he is the one that takes up the reins on this project.

Lindsay-Hogg’s camera dotes on Paul. He’s there in the opening in a tight shot, vamping some Bach-like inventions on piano (just so you know he’s the “serious” musical Beatle); Paul also gets loving close-ups singing Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road, the kind of close-ups where he’s much too aware of the camera, trying to win it (us) over.

Underneath the surface, though, the rest of the Beatles are wary, weary, disaffected. Ringo sits next to Paul as he improvises on piano, looking miles away, but also appropriately supportive; George sits and previews a new song, I Me Mine, for Ringo and others, with this caveat: “I don’t care if don’t want it.” (After all, he was amassing enough solo songs to release a triple solo album, “All Things Must Pass,” a year later.) John abruptly stops a rough run-through of I Dig a Pony and sighs: “Has anybody got a fast one?”


Only Paul comes to the party prepared, full of esprit de corps for a group that is now more corpse than corps. His songs are meticulously detailed, and he’s determined that the band hammer them into shape — literally, in the case of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (which ended up instead on “Abbey Road”).

There is no narrative behind Let It Be, save for the narrative Paul tries to insert through short interview bits — telling Lindsay-Hogg that he and John wrote “hundreds of songs” back in Liverpool before becoming famous, and how some of these unrecorded gems were “brilliant.” It’s this urge to “get back” to those innocent days that is constantly at odds with the other musicians.

Tensions mount, and it’s fair to say the first half of “Let It Be” is a discordant bummer. There’s Paul “instructing” the band how to play the guitar break in I’ve Got A Feeling over and over again, as though he’s orchestrating the Wrecking Crew. There’s George getting sulky with Paul, then Paul lowering his voice as though to escape the cameras: “I’m trying to help you, but I always hear myself annoying you.” And George shrugging back, getting on with it: “I’ll play whatever it is you want me to play, or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play; whatever it is that pleases you, I’ll do it.”

Almost by design, the first half of the film proceeds without shape or form; the Beatles play raggedly, warts and all. In their nascent form, the songs fail to inspire, despite Paul’s loud declarations that this is all just another day in showbiz. Clearly, these are four men weary of one another.

Yet moments of light still shine through. It’s when the music catches fire, or sets them free, that you can actually believe these were the men that inspired Beatlemania. It’s there when John starts dancing with Yoko during a run-through of the waltz-like I Me Mine; it’s there when Linda Eastman’s little girl Heather (not Stella McCartney, as some believe) shows up to watch the band and laughs as John runs through a riotous Dig It with Billy Preston on keyboards; it’s there when Ringo does a comical reaction take as another child hits a nearby cymbal.

These unscripted bits are what remind us of the Beatles’ natural chemistry with one another, and with the camera’s eye. (They were movie stars, after all, in A Hard Day’s Night and Help.) It’s when they forget they’re on film that the film comes alive. Moments such as when John and Paul share a mic on a rock version of Two of Us (intriguing in itself); or when Paul and Ringo serve up a Jerry Lee Lewis duet on piano.

Other moments reveal a nurturing spirit: George is shown helping Ringo work out the chords for Octopus’s Garden on piano. And always — though not as intrusive as some remember — there is the figure of Yoko, quietly sitting by, listening to the band, but mostly to John.

But a shift occurs in the second half: in the classic rock bromance fashion, John and Paul resolve their differences; they come together through the power of music. When the movie really clicks is the final 20 minutes: a rooftop concert is staged at Apple headquarters, 3 Savile Row, and it provides a perfect antidote to the chaos that had been brewing earlier. Having worked out a rough “set,” the Beatles begin playing for the neighborhood passersby, and it’s as though the cool London air ignites them: crowds take to adjacent rooftops to hear the band run through Don’t Let Me Down, I’ve Got A Feeling, Get Back and One After 909. Magically, they find the connection that has eluded them in the studio setting; they are a band once again.

And it’s a moment that serves as a template for every great band reunion movie (and possibly every romcom) to come: that final scene from This Is Spinal Tap — where Nigel and David reunite onstage after bitter estrangement — takes its heart and soul from this moment in Let It Be. The only difference is, Spinal Tap went on to tour Japan shortly after reuniting (and even became an actual touring band in real life). The Beatles simply dissolved and went their separate, adult ways, their own reality show suddenly cancelled.

source: philstar.com

One Direction launch 3D behind-the-scenes documentary ‘This is Us’

LONDON | British boy band One Direction, one of the pop music industry’s biggest acts in the last two years, plan to show the world what they’re really like in a new 3D documentary that will premiere in London on Tuesday.

The five singers told a news conference in the British capital on Monday that “This is Us” allowed them to present themselves in a more realistic manner than they are depicted on videos, in concert and on the ubiquitous social media sites that track their every movement on and off stage.  




“There is only so much you can get across in terms of your personality, you know, social media and like 10-minute interviews you do with people,” singer Harry Styles said.

“So I think …(it’s) a way for us to get across what we are like and what we are like with each other for the fans to see.”

Band members Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Styles were all on hand to talk about the behind-the-scenes film and the media interest that has engulfed them since they first became a group on a British TV talent show in 2010.

The film, directed by “Super Size Me” documentary maker Morgan Spurlock, includes concert footage, life backstage and on the road. But Styles laughed off one reporter’s question about whether footage with groupies or drugs had been edited out.

“This is a family press conference,” Styles said.

Spurlock said the film would show that part of the band’s success stems from their down-to-earth personalities.

“Part of the reason I think they have been so successful with their fans is that they are so incredibly grounded and normal and that’s what comes off in the movie, there’s no air of superiority,” he said.

‘WE’RE NOT CELEBRITIES’

One Direction shot to fame as runners-up on “The X Factor” television singing competition and have conquered the global market with two albums and a string of catchy hit singles. They said in May they are working on a third “edgy” album and will embark on a world tour next year.

The band, whose members are aged in their late teens and early 20s, topped the Billboard 200 album chart twice last year with “Up All Night” and their second album “Take Me Home”. They were named Billboard’s top new artist/group in 2012.

In an interview with Reuters TV on Monday, Malik said certain aspects of fame took the band by surprise.

“We never wanted to have the title ‘celebrity,’ we just want to be normal lads in a music band. We’re not celebrities, we’re just in a band,” the singer said.

Horan added that the documentary helped the band members themselves process the phenomenon that One Direction has become.

“Because we live in this bubble … we don’t get to see exactly what it’s like because it’s happening to us,” he said.

Hundreds of fans have already started to camp out in London’s Leicester Square for a chance to see One Direction walk the red carpet at the film’s world premiere on Tuesday.

The band has a devoted following of fans around the world mainly comprising teenage girls, including 14 million Twitter followers, and Tomlinson said he felt a certain responsibility to the young fan base.

“Being put in this position, you almost feel with the likes of Twitter, you almost feel pressured to be that role model, and it’s kind of balancing that and meeting in the middle,” he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Sean Richard explores the Korean Wave in new Discovery Channel series

With the phenomenal global success of Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, a lot of attention is now focused on the equally popular K-Pop genre.

The so-called Korean Wave has been around for more than a decade, providing a diverse offering of increasingly popular entertainment. Unlike Psy, its most popular entertainer today, the Korean Wave is certainly far from being an overnight sensation.

This is what “Korea Next”, a new series from the Discovery Channel, aims to explore in detail in five documentaries that will air starting December 16. Created by the winners of Discovery Channel’s First Time Filmmakers (FTFM) Korea, the premiere of “Korea Next” will showcase the heart and soul of Korean culture, cuisine, medicine, entertainment and technology.

One of these filmmakers is Sean Richard, a half-British and half-Korean actor who only moved to Korea in 2007. Richard will present “Finding Hallyuwood”, an episode that zeroes in on the inner workings of the Korean entertainment scene. So why does he call it “Hallyuwood”?

“The word ‘Hallyu’ is Korean for “the Korean Wave”. I wanted to do a play on words. Instead of saying “Hollywood”, I wanted to say “Hallyu-wood”, because I do feel like Seoul is just like – you know, Hollywood for the States is this hub of entertainment in Asia,” Richard told InterAksyon and other Asian journalists during a recent roundtable teleconference to promote the show.

“I wanted to make a point of it. I didn’t want to just make a documentary about, ‘Look how popular everyone is, and let’s just show screaming fans in Europe for Super Junior, and things like that,” he added.

In his documentary, Richard talked directly and in a very intimate way with the actual artists who are responsible for this Korean Wave. They include rapper Tiger JK, singer Yoon-Mirae and the manager of popular girl group Kara, who happen to be the rivals of 2NE1, another all-girl group where Sandara Park (known as Dara in Korea) is a member.

These artists did not just talk about how popular everything is, but they also provided some criticism and concerns as to how the Korean Wave will continue in the future.

“So I think in that way it will give viewers, especially foreign audiences, some interesting insider’s looks into this phenomenon right now”, he concluded.






Richard, who immediately starred in Korean dramas that rapidly found thier way in dubbed format in other countries including, yes, the Philippines thinks there’s definitely something special going on right now in his country.

“I definitely don’t think it’s going to go away. It’s been a blessing for me to be a part of the Korean Wave. I came in 2007 when the wave was going on, like basically the TV drama wave was at its prime at that time. But then right after, a few years later we had the K-Pop boom.

“And so the thing about Korea is that it’s always reinventing itself, and always giving something new to the world. And so just they’re constantly changing and finding new things to show.”

Asked to comment what to make of the huge overnight success of Psy and “Gangman Style”, Richard said he’s not surprised that people think of it as a “definite phenomenon”.

“I just checked, Psy has about over 945 million views on You Tube. I mean, I don’t think it’s something anyone really even believes right now is definitely going on. Especially in Korea, just it’s Psy every day on the news. You know, everyone’s so proud of what he’s done,” he enthused.

Of course, Richard, who was raised in the US, also wanted to present a bigger picture of what the Korean Wave is also about. So he also followed the conceptualization and training process of B.A.P., a rising six-member hip hop South Korean all-male act.

He also investigated the creation and production of a Korean television drama that revealed a deeper truth and critique of the Korean attributes that have made Hallyu what it is today. In the course of filming the project, one thing stood out to him.

“There is something special about being Korean. Usually artists are about being individuals and expressing themselves, but it’s funny that no matter what kind of job you’re doing, like I said you could be a chef, an athlete or a singer or anything, but if you’re Korean, then it comes back to representing your country. And you don’t see that kind of mentality a lot but it’s really strong in this country,” he observed.

“That was interesting for me, because I came from the States, it’s like a melting pot, you don’t see American stars going around the world trying to promote their country, right?

“But Korean stars are very much – you know, it’s K-Pop, that’s like Siwon Choi from Super Junior, he said like the word intrinsically is so interesting, because ‘K-Pop’ means ‘Korean Pop’, it’s another representative of Korea, you know? So it was really interesting to immerse myself in that mentality when I was doing this documentary.”

“Korea Next” premieres on Sunday, December 16, with two 30-minute episodes airing back to back from 10PM. Encores every Monday at 9AM and 3PM, and Saturday at noon.

source: interaksyon.com