Thursday 24 July 2014

Music review: LA singer Ferreira brings splendour to the Prince

Reviewer rating:

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Sky Ferreira

Prince Bandroom

July 23

Had you walked into the Prince on Wednesday night knowing nothing about Sky Ferreira, you might be surprised to learn that she's a model.

Not that she's not attractive - she's gorgeous - doe-eyed and clear-skinned, with cupid's bow lips. She's just a little unvarnished, wearing the same black beanie, sweatshirt and skinny jeans she was spotted in earlier in the day, and no makeup.

Kids will be kids will be ... metal goddesses? Last week a YouTube user posted a video of 10-year-old Audrey completely slaying Slayer's "War Ensemble," a skill she picked up from the popular guitar-playing video game Rocksmith. Where's the banjo version?

In the clip, Audrey plays the song flawlessly with vocal help from who appears to be her younger sister. The entire video is pretty impressive, but some are skeptical. A quick glance at the comments and you'll see many don't believe the clip is real. What do you think? Vote in our poll below!

REVIEW: Deliver Us From Evil

DELIVER US FROM EVIL (MA)

Stars: Eric Bana, Sean Harris, Edgar Ramirez, Joel McHale, Olivia Munn

Director: Scott Derrickson

Screening: general release

Rating: ★

THE most recognisable thing about horror director Scott Derrickson is his penchant for imitating the classics. His new one, Deliver Us From Evil, is clearly modelled on The Exorcist.

Break-out electro-pop singer Kiesza is heading to Australia for the first time this year for a one-off show in Sydney.

The Canadian-born, London-based singer-songwriter has been well and truly on the international music radar after her first single Hideaway made waves this year.

The song, released in February, was soon a radio hit thanks to its sinewy synth and lush bass grooves, and in May charted at number one in the UK.

The Hi-Fi, Moore Park, July 23

What with Kelis Rogers' once-fearsome attitude ("I hate you so much right now!"), penchant for cutting-edge R&B (with a little help from Pharrell Williams' Neptunes from 1999 to 2003), capabilities as a rapper and more recent forays into the world of Electronic Dance Music (2010's pulsating Flesh Tone), it has often been easy to overlook the fact the 34-year-old New Yorker can sing with real soul.

It is something she addressed this year with the old-school sound of her sixth album, Food, and has economically applied to her live show. On this tour she is accompanied only by a bassist, drummer, keyboard player, lone backing vocalist and two-piece horn/woodwind section, and they supremely bring to life her warmer new material, from the optimistic swell of Forever Be to the sizzle and smoulder of Jerk Ribs.

The nominations for the National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMA) have been announced, lead by Melbourne blues rocker Dan Sultan who’s up for a total of five awards. Also acknowledged is singer Jessica Mauboy and musician Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

Sultan, Mauboy and Gurrumul Yunupingu are all up for National Artist of the Year against singer/songwriter Shellie Morris. Dan Sultan’s track The Same Man is nominated for Song of the Year, along with Gurrumul’s Marilitja and two Busby Marou songs – My Second Mistake and Get You Out Of Here.

Sultan, Gurrumul and Marou are all up for the prestigious Album of the Year award, while Sultan video’s for the Blackbird track Under Your Skin is also nominated. Victorian rapper and Shepparton local Briggs are up for National New Talent of the Year, while other categories include National Cover Art and Community Clip of the Year.

Griffin Theatre, July 23

Using a plot device made familiar by Alan Ball’s HBO series Six Feet Under, Peta Brady’s Ugly Mugs gives poignant and sharply expressive voice to the dead.

A pathologist wheels in a gurney. Lying on it is a woman (Brady), fully clothed save for a missing boot. As the Doc (Steve Le Marquand) cuts away her clothing and photographs her distinguishing marks - one of which is an image of a phoenix tattooed across her chest - the dead woman, a street prostitute, speaks to him. As the Doc performs his post-mortem examination, the woman ruefully recalls the circumstances of her final trick: the feel of leather car seats, the taste of menthol ciggies and whisky, the smell of Glen 20.

Parallel to this, Brady spins another plot depicting a twilight encounter between a girl with fierce footy skills (Sara West) and a boy (Harry Boland) who makes fumbling attempts to waylay her. As the scene develops, so does a sense of dread, which eventually materialises as the ugliest of all the mugs. For some men out there, any woman is fair game after dark.

A SECOND home for Mildura rockers Jackson Firebird is under threat thanks to the rise of a new apartment building.

Melbourne institution Cherry Bar in the aptly named AC/DC Lane needs soundproofing, with the noise from the iconic rock ’n’ roll venue having the potential to hit a sour note with new residents in a 189-apartment tower close by.

The bar holds a special place in the heart of Jackson Firebird drummer Dale Hudak and guitarist and singer Brendan Harvey.

In light of the closure of multiple live venues earlier this year, Hudak said it would be a shame if Cherry Bar closed or was forced to relocate.

London Grammar has nixed more live dates due to lead singer Hannah Reid’s poor health.

The British group has pulled out from their scheduled slot at this weekend’s Splendour in the Grass festival in Byron Bay, Australia and shows in Melbourne and Sydney have been postponed to March 2015.

The electronic pop outfit also missed Scotland’s T in the Park festival after Reid apparently lost her voice.

Splendour organizers Paul Piticco and Jess Ducrou have issued a joint statement in which they “send Hannah our best and hope she’s fighting fit again very soon.” The trio’s slot at Splendour will be filled by homegrown electronic dance outfit the Presets, while the rescheduled sideshows are slotted in for March 12, 2015 at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, and two days later at Melbourne’s Festival Hall.

Will The Voice Australia Series 3 winner Anja Nissen be a success or a failure?

The 18-year-old from New South Wales needed a Wild Card Save to make the final of the hit Channel Nine shot, but proved her popularity when being crowned the winner in Monday's night's final.

She walked away with $100,000 in prize money and a recording contract with Universal Music as a result of winning The Voice.

But will the singer's career be a success or failure with the backing of her mentor Will.i.am?

AN 11-metre tall Deep Sea Diver and a six metre tall Little Girl will walk the streets of Perth in February to commemorate the Anzac Centenary.

As part of the Perth International Arts Festival, French street theatre company Royal de Luxe will use The Giants to tell the true story of the little girl in Albany’s Breaksea Lighthouse who was the last human contact for many young troops departing for Gallipoli in 1914.

It will cost $5 million to bring The Giants to Perth, with the Crown Resorts Foundation donating $1 million and the State Government sinking $2 million into project.

Bindi Irwin has criticised the cameraman who filmed Steve Irwin's death, labelling his graphic public recount of the Crocodile Hunter's painful final moments hurtful.

Earlier this year Justin Lyons, a good friend of Irwin and the sole witness of his death, described for the first time how a massive stingray wildly stabbed the conservationist "hundreds of times" eight years ago.

Irwin had been filming a documentary series, Ocean's Deadliest, when the 2.4-metre ray struck out at the 44-year-old in shallow water as it was swimming away from him.

Southern Cross Austereo radio presenter Fifi Box has come under fire from a fellow Melbourne radio host for impersonating a disabled person.

Earlier this week, Box, who co-hosts the Fox FM breakfast show in Melbourne, recounted a story about parking in a disabled parking bay while shopping with her one-year-old daughter Trixie at 6am on Sunday.

“As you can imagine it is uninhabited, I had the carpark to myself, I parked out the front, then went inside to clear aisles and had a ball,” she said.

After shopping for about an hour, the radio host returned to her car and realised she had unintentionally parked in the wrong parking bay.

In response to federal budget cuts, publicly funded agency Screen Australia will cut up to AUD$3 million (US$2.83 million) in production investments and project development programs, and cap investment in feature projects at $2 million, down from $2.5 million.

The May budget cuts to the agency – which supports about 50% of Australian screen projects such as documentaries, feature films, TV drama and children’s drama - amount to about $38 million over four years. In response, Screen Australia has undertaken a major overhaul of its programs and operations, totaling about $5 million this fiscal year.

SPOILER ALERT
It was the kind of moment every television drama needs - when the life of its main character is turned upside down - but Offspring fans are not happy their beloved Nina has been taken for a ride.

In Wednesday night's explosive episode of the popular Network Ten series Nina, played by Gold Logie-winner Asher Keddie, is confronted with the fact her new lover Thomas (Ben Barrington) is not only married, but had been cheating on his heavily pregnant wife.

His secret came out when a birth complication forced Thomas and his unknowing wife to Nina's hospital instead of the maternity ward they had planned.

Check out the premiere of Lily Allen‘s latest music video for “As Long As I Got You“!

The 29-year-old English singer is seen walking around this year’s Glastonbury Festival in the brand new clip where she reflects on her past experiences at the big event where she met her husband Sam Cooper.

“Glastonbury has always been a huge part of my life, and I wanted to make this video there to celebrate the spirit of the festival and also to show how my life has changed since the last time I played there,” Lily said in the beginning of the visual. “From being there as a child with my Dad, to my wilder days in the 2000s, to this year when I was back on the Pyramid stage, and taking my husband and own daughters along!”

Just months after ending one engagement, Glee star Naya Rivera flocked to Mexico and married longtime friend Ryan Dorsey.

“We feel truly blessed to be joined as husband and wife,” Rivera and Dorsey told People. “Our special day was fated and everything we could have ever asked for.”

The pair wed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on July 19, surrounded by close family. According to reports, Rivera and Dorsey’s friendship grew into a romance. The couple met four years ago, but didn’t find romance together until after Rivera’s seven-month engagement to rapper Big Sean ended in April. “True love always prevails,” the couple said.

(Reuters) - Gun-toting thugs and a vicious Asian mob boss are no match for the brawn and brain of French director Luc Besson's super-powered heroine in his sci-fi, action thriller "Lucy."

Besson is known for creating strong female characters in "La Femme Nikita" and "The Fifth Element." But he goes a step further in "Lucy," which opens in theaters in the United States on Friday, with an American student in Taipei who becomes invincible after the full power of her brain is unleashed.

Scarlett Johansson ("The Avengers") is Lucy, a woman tricked by a boyfriend into delivering a suitcase and becomes one of several unwilling drug mules dispatched around the globe by Asian mobsters.

See Kristen Bell Dress Up as a Politically Active Mary Poppins for Funny or Die Parody

Mary Poppins Quits with Kristen Bell from Funny Or Die

Apparently, a spoonful of sugar helps the message go down.

That's what Kristen Bell and Funny or Die are hoping at least, with their new Mary Poppins parody about the minimum wage.

In the spoof, the Frozen star dresses up as Julie Andrews to sing a little ditty in support of raising the federal minimum wage.

"In every job that must be done, you must be paid in more than fun," Bell says.

The pop star debuted some new music on social media Wednesday, with all the video clips filmed in a recording studio.

Justin Bieber is such a tease — when it comes to releasing new music.

The pop star uploaded new music on Instagram Wednesday, adding 11 short video clips to his social media account in the span of an hour.

Bieber shows off a range of sounds in the clips, from acoustic guitar tracks to R&B-esque ballads to upbeat numbers with hip hop overtones.

Ariana Grande and her brother Frankie Grande are dealing with the loss of their grandfather.

The star and her brother, who is currently competing on "Big Brother," lost their grandfather to cancer on Tuesday.

"thank you for your continuous love & light over the past few weeks... we did lose my favorite person to ever exist yesterday, my grandpa," Ariana Tweeted on Wednesday.

(Reuters) - Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu opens this year's Venice film festival with the premier of "Birdman", a black comedy that heads a 55-strong selection leaning heavily toward war and recession, festival director Alberto Barbera said on Thursday.

As well as "Birdman", starring Michael Keaton as a fading action hero, 19 other films are in the main competition, including "Manglehorn", starring Al Pacino, "Good Kill" with Ethan Hawke as a disillusioned military drone pilot and Fatih Akin's "The Cut" with Tahar Rahim, star of Jacques Audiard's 2009 thriller "A Prophet".

Oscar winner Barry Levinson also directs Pacino in "The Humbling", showing outside the main competition.

Kelsey Grammer now has six kids and two July babies.

The "Frasier" star and his wife, Kayte Grammer, welcomed son Kelsey Gabriel Elias Grammer in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to Grammer's rep, Stan Rosenfield.

The "magnificent" little guy clocked in at 8:28 a.m., weighed in at 8 pounds 2 ounces, and measured 20.5 inches.

"We are blessed and excited to have this lovely young man join our family -- he is magnificent," the family said in a statement.

Alec Baldwin apparently landed in the courtroom of Manhattan's most easygoing judge Thursday.

Judge John Delury gave the "30 Rock" star a chance to clear his record when he adjourned Baldwin's case for riding his bicyclist the wrong way on a New York City street, reports the New York Daily News.

"Can you stay out of trouble, Alexander?" the judge asked Baldwin.

"Sure, sure," the actor replied.

"Be a good boy from now on," Delury said. "Have a good day."

Looks like someone is ready to go cowl tipping.
Is still far from a sure thing that “Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice” will make an appearance once Warner Bros. takes the stage at San Diego Comic-Con (or, if you prefer, “Batman V Superman V Star Wars: SuperJedi,” as teased by director Zack Snyder). But one thing is clear: Ben Affleck’s costume from the movie did make it to the convention floor, as revealed on DC Entertainment Co-Publisher Dan Didio’s Twitter feed:

It’s all part of the celebration of Batman’s 75th Anniversary, but certainly begs the question of whether Affleck made it with his suit, or is just somewhere in Michigan on set carousing in the nude.

Fifty Shades Of Grey trailer: Hilarious reaction from ridiculously emotional to overly excited in GIFs

If you missed the explosive new trailer for the bondage film, don't panic, it's here - and here's what you all thought of it

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It's got all the sex scenes, bondage and stunning actors and actresses you could wish for - and the new Fifty Shades of Grey trailer has sent the online world into a frenzy.

From overly emotional (to the point of tears), to giddily excited - it's been a big day for Fifty fans - and we have celebrated by looking at some of the most hysterical reactions in GIFs.

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