This photo — taken on May 26, 2017 — shows US singer Miley Cyrus performing on stage during NBC's 'Today Show' at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. AFP/Jewel Samad/Files
NEW YORK: Pop star Miley Cyrus on Thursday tearfully announced she was giving $500,000 to victims of Harvey, becoming the latest celebrity to donate after the mega-storm ravaged Texas.
The singer and actress, appearing on Ellen DeGeneres' television show, broke down in tears as she discussed seeing the devastation from the storm.
Explaining how she takes comfort in going home to her grandmother, mother and seven dogs, Cyrus said, "If I didn't have that anymore, it would just be really hard."
"I hope people understand and can put themselves in those people's shoes and just know what it feels like to have everything taken away from you," she said.
Cyrus' donation is among the most generous announced by the celebrity world.
Actress Sandra Bullock, who maintains homes in Texas and Louisiana, earlier pledged $1 million, while the Kardashian reality television family offered $500,000.
The experimental R&B singer Solange, who grew up in Houston, announced a benefit concert for September 28 at Boston's historic Orpheum Theatre.
Solange, who will be joined by the "arkestra" ensemble of late avant-garde jazz artist Sun Ra, said that all proceeds from the performance would go to Harvey relief.
Solange's better-known sister, pop superstar Beyonce, has promised a major charitable effort but has not yet announced the details.
Pop star Miley Cyrus on Thursday tearfully announced she was giving $500,000 to victims of Harvey, becoming the latest celebrity to donate after the mega-storm ravaged Texas.
The singer and actress, appearing on Ellen DeGeneres's television show, broke down in tears as she discussed seeing the devastation from the storm.
Explaining how she takes comfort in going home to her grandmother, mother and seven dogs, Cyrus said: "If I didn't have that anymore, it would just be really hard."
"I hope people understand and can put themselves in those people's shoes and just know what it feels like to have everything taken away from you," she said.
Cyrus's donation is among the most generous announced by the celebrity world.
Actress Sandra Bullock, who maintains homes in Texas and Louisiana, earlier pledged $1 million, while the Kardashian reality television family offered $500,000.
The experimental R&B singer Solange, who grew up in Houston, announced a benefit concert for September 28 at Boston's historic Orpheum Theatre.
Solange, who will be joined by the "arkestra" ensemble of late avant-garde jazz artist Sun Ra, said that all proceeds from the performance would go to Harvey relief.
Solange's better-known sister, pop superstar Beyonce, has promised a major charitable effort but has not yet announced the details.
Kim Kardashian arrives at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, U.S., August 28, 2016. Photo: Reuters File
LOS ANGELES: Kim Kardashian and her family on Tuesday donated a collective $500,000 to storm Harvey relief efforts, joining celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Dwayne Johnson, NFL player J.J. Watt and comedian Kevin Hart who have pledged funds to help the tens of thousands affected by the devastation in Texas.
Kardashian, her sisters Khloe and Kourtney and mom Kris Jenner made the pledges on Twitter, directing their funds to the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
"Houston we are praying for you! My mom, sisters & I will be donating $500,000," the TV reality star tweeted.
Tropical Storm Harvey, which hit land as a hurricane over the weekend, has brought catastrophic flooding to Texas, killing at least 11 people and paralyzing Houston. City officials on Tuesday prepared to shelter up to 19,000 people, with thousands more expected to flee the area.
"Ride Along" star Hart set the celebrity ball rolling on Monday with a $50,000 donation and social media challenge that called on stars to match him. Johnson, Lopez and rapper DJ Khaled each have pledged $25,000.
Houston Texans NFL player Watt launched his own online effort on Sunday with a $100,000 donation and a video plea. The fund quickly reached $1 million, and Watt tweeted on Tuesday his goal was now $4 million.
Houston's most famous export, Beyonce, who has recently moved from New York to Los Angeles, has said she is working on a plan to help her hometown recover
"Texas You are in my prayers," the singer posted on her Instagram page.
In statement to the Houston Chronicle on Monday, Beyonce added that she was working closely with her team and her Houston pastor "to implement a plan to help as many as we can."
British band Coldplay, who canceled a planned show in Houston on Friday because of the impending hurricane, wrote a new song for the city called "Houston #1," which they performed at a concert in Miami on Monday.
Bollywood's 'Bhaijaan' Salman Khan, while speaking to media, expressed a desire to work in more comedy movies, according to Times of India.
Salman, who wooed the audiences in comedy blockbusters such as Andaz Apna Apna, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, Judwaa and Ready, remarked that he is trying to work in a comedy movie but has yet to find any interesting scripts.
"If a script makes me laugh, only then I will take it up," he shared, adding that the last script to make him laugh was of Ready.
Salman Khan's last movie Tubelight bombed at the box-office as it failed to click with the audiences.
On the other hand, reprised version of cult-class Judwaa is going to release in September. It is expected that Salman Khan would make a special appearance in Judwaa 2. The new movie stars Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandes.
Director Alexander Payne arrives at the opening ceremony of the 74th Venice Film Festival and the premiere of the movie 'Downsizing' on August 30, 2017, at Venice Lido. AFP/Filippo Monteforte
VENICE: The Venice film festival kicked off Wednesday with Downsizing, a sci-fi-inspired drama starring a miniaturised Matt Damon, opening to effusive reviews.
Occupying a curtain-raising slot that has come to be seen as a launchpad for films with Oscar ambitions, Alexander Payne's part satirical, part save-the-planet new work was hailed as a breath of fresh air from the Sideways and Nebraska director.
The Hollywood Reporter said Payne had "hit the creative jackpot", while Variety welcomed a "ticklish and resonant crowd pleaser for grown ups".
London's Evening Standard was more reserved, praising the film as "often very funny" but bemoaning the abandonment of its initial satirical edge.
Set in the near future, the film is based on the premise that scientists have found a way to literally reduce humanity's environmental footprint by downsizing humans to 12.5-centimetre (five-inch) versions of themselves.
But it's not long before the technological breakthrough is exploited for different reasons, enabling people to access a much more luxurious lifestyle than they could ever afford in the big world.
A combination of ecological and material motivations for being shrunk appeal to Paul Safranek (Damon) — a frustrated but well-meaning therapist — and his wife Audrey, played by Kristen Wiig.
They sign up for the surgery but she gets cold feet at the last minute, leaving Damon to embark alone on his adventure in the miniaturised world.
Among those he meets are Christoph Waltz — who plays a louche, party-loving neighbour in his miniature condominium — and Vietnamese cleaner Ngoc Lan, played by Hong Chau.
She, it turns out, had been forcibly miniaturised after being imprisoned as a dissident in her homeland and has lost a leg below the knee as a result of being smuggled into the United States in a television box.
Damon strikes up a friendship with her, taking the film in an unexpected rom-com direction that allows Payne to tie up his themes about the search for a better life, impending environmental catastrophe and the need to live in the moment.
"It's like a journalist I was speaking to said, 'it is Alexander's most optimistic movie and it's got the Apocalypse in it,'" Damon quipped at the premiere press conference.
Scripted by two-time Oscar winner Payne and his frequent writing partner Jim Taylor, the film will be hoping to emulate the success of La La Land, Birdman, and Gravity, all Venice openers that went on to bag awards.
Taylor said the film had been in the works for over a decade, playing down suggestions it was a commentary on Donald Trump's controversial environmental policy.
"A lot of things caught up with the movie, we didn't realise we were going to be sharing the film with the world we are living in."
Also unveiled on the opening day was Nico, a biopic focusing on the final years of the Velvet Underground singer and Andy Warhol muse, shown in the festival's "Horizons" section dedicated to cutting-edge productions.
Redford and Fonda
Downsizing is one of 21 films competing for the Golden Lion — Venice's top prize — that will be handed out on September 9 along with other awards, including the first for virtual reality productions.
A total of 71 films on show range from big-budget Hollywood productions, like George Clooney's sixth directorial outing, Suburbicon, to new works by indie favourites Andrew Haigh and Warwick Thornton, via documentaries such as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's look at the global refugee crisis, Human Flow.
British director Haigh will be presenting Lean on Pete, his first film since the acclaimed 45 Years, while Thornton arrives in Venice next week to promote Sweet Country, a Western set in 1920s Australia that deals with the treatment of indigenous people.
Along with Clooney, major stars due on the red carpet include Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, who will pick up lifetime achievement awards while plugging their new film Our Souls at Night, a Netflix drama about a romance between two elderly neighbours.
Bloodied heart
Spanish superstar couple Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz team up again for Loving Pablo, in which Bardem plays Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar and Cruz his long-term mistress.
Bardem also stars opposite Jennifer Lawrence in mother!, one of the several thrillers vying for honours, by Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky.
Promoted by a Mother's Day-release of a poster showing Lawrence holding her own bloodied heart, the film tells the tale of a couple thrown into turmoil by uninvited guests.
Also expected to make waves, with an out-of-competition world premiere, is Victoria & Abdul", Stephen Frears' treatment of Queen Victoria's later-life friendship with an Indian clerk.
A steamroller was used to destroy a hard drive containing unfinished works by late British comic fantasy author Terry Pratchett in accordance with his wishes.
"One lousy steamroller, 10 unpublished novels and look at all the trouble I'm in!" Rob Wilkins, the writer's long-serving assistant, said on Twitter on Wednesday with a photo of him in front of the steamroller.
Before destroying the hard drive, Wilkins tweeted that he was "about to fulfil my obligation to Terry".
He used a six-and-a-half tonne vintage machine named "Lord Jericho" to roll over the hard drive at the Great Dorset Steam Fair last week, before a stone-crushing machine was used to finish it off.
Pratchett, who sold more than 85 million books worldwide in 37 languages, died in 2015 aged 66 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
His Discworld novels about a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants standing on a giant turtle are some of the best-selling works in English fiction.
He wrote the first book in the series, "The Colour of Magic", in the late 1960s although it was not published until 1983.
Pratchett finished the 41st book in the series in 2014 before succumbing to the final stages of his disease.
The remains of his hard drive will go on display next month at an exhibition about the author at Salisbury Museum, near where he lived.
The museum's curator Richard Henry was cautious about the hard drive's contents.
"I know there was 10 unpublished stories that Terry was working on and it was his request that they were run over by a steamroller," he told AFP.
"But what exactly is in the hard drive, I just honestly don't know. And as a fan of Terry Pratchett I quite like the idea of it remaining a mystery".
MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Wednesday insisted the arrest of top theatre and film director Kirill Serebrennikov over alleged embezzlement of state funding was not about politics or censorship of the arts.
Dmitry Peskov — President Vladimir Putin's spokesman — told journalists, "In this case, you should not waste your breath talking about some kind of politicisation, censorship and so on. Such discussions are absolutely inappropriate and have nothing to do with purely financial questions."
The Kremlin spokesman was giving his first in-depth comment on the case.
Serebrennikov — the creative director of the Gogol Centre Theatre in Moscow who has also staged productions at the Bolshoi Theatre — is under house arrest after being charged last week with defrauding the state of 68 million rubles ($1.15 million/977,000 euros) in funding for a theatrical project, for which he could face a decade in jail. He denies any guilt.
Peskov said the charge showed simply that "state funds need to be accounted for".
The case has caused an uproar in the art world in Russia and beyond, with many linking it to Serebrennikov's criticism of increasing state censorship of the arts.
Peskov, however, dismissed the support Serebrennikov has received from colleagues in the theatre.
"The support from colleagues… is very understandable, but probably you should not link this support directly to those questions that investigators have for Serebrennikov," he said.
Chulpan Khamatova — one of Russia's best-known actresses and philanthropists who once made a video supporting Putin's election campaign — spoke out against his arrest at an awards ceremony on Wednesday.
"My colleague, my friend, is under house arrest, in my view completely unjustly and unlawfully. I am very afraid," she said.
A court has detained Serebrennikov under house arrest in Moscow until October 19, despite numerous offers of bail from his supporters, including the sister of billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov.
Taylor Swift's vengeful new music video "Look What You Made Me Do," is smashing records on YouTube, garnering more than 43 million views in its first 24 hours of release.
YouTube said on Tuesday it was the biggest debut of any video in YouTube history, beating the 36-million mark set by South Korean singer Psy's "Gentleman" for that time frame in 2013.
"Look What You Made Me Do," in which Swift takes aim at those who have attacked her professionally and personally in the last 10 years, has been heavily scrutinized by fans and entertainment media since it was premiered at the MTV Video Music Awards show on Sunday.
Swift, 27, who has been absent from award shows and red carpet events in 2017 after highly publicized feuds with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, did not attend the ceremony.
YouTube said the video averaged over 30,000 views per minute in its first 24 hours, with hourly views reaching over 3 million. By Tuesday, YouTube views had surpassed the 53 million mark.
The music video starts with Swift crawling out of a grave and declaring her old self dead, portraying a hard-edged artist with nothing left to lose.
It ends with the singer reviving all the personas of her music career - from gawky, guitar-playing 16-year-old to poised Grammy winner - and having them bicker with each other for being fake, pretending to be nice and playing the victim.
The rapping, techno-beat single is the first from a new Swift album due for release in November called "Reputation."
Swift has some way to go before breaking the all-time YouTube music video, which is held by Latin singer Luis Fonsi's 2017 global hit "Despacito," which surpassed the 3 billion mark in early August.
BERLIN: Maham Suhail was among the 10 young talented musicians who showcased their talent and explored German music in the Pop-Kultur Nachwuchs programme, which brings together "young musicians, DJ's, producers, label-, club-, and festival-managers, journalists, bloggers and students of these disciplines consists of workshop" from around the world.
A young musician from Lahore, she came to Berlin to explore the German music industry wanted to find the best music genre which resonates well with her music style in western society.
This year, 837 young people from over 50 countries worldwide applied for the 250 spots in the programme. This was an increase of over 60% from last year.
837 young people from over 50 countries worldwide applied for the 250 spots in the programme
The third edition of Pop-Kultur festival attracted 10,000 visitors Kulturbrauerei in Berlin. In three days, more than 100 programme elements, including live concerts, DJ sets, talks, film screenings, readings, and exhibitions, took place.
The musicians travelled to Berlin in collaboration with Goethe Institut for a week before the beginning of the festival to take part in short internships at Berlin initiatives like Spex, Stil vor Talent, and SAVVY Contemporary e.V. What's more, at the Soda Terrassen, they were able to participate in exchange with the city's professional music and cultural scenes and with international guests.
Talking to Geo.tv, Maham said that the Goethe Talents Scholarship programme will enhance her music portfolio. Her performance was a hit at the festival. She sang the soulful poetry of Sant Kabir on classical piano tunes, which she composed in collaboration with a German pianist and a music composer from Taiwan. The performance fused folk music with electronic beats, resulting in a beautiful piece of music.
Maham says an important aspect of this experience was to engage with talented musicians from various genres and cultural backgrounds. "I expect to translate these interactions into collaborations with some of these artists," she said. The young musician was all praise for the "metropolitan culture" of Berlin, are said that the people are "open to diversity".
Beyonce, one of the most famous natives of Houston, has pledged generous but unspecified aid after the fourth most populous US city was ravaged by mega-storm Harvey.
The pop superstar, in a statement to the Houston Chronicle, said she was working out details with her team and her Houston pastor "to implement a plan to help as many as we can."
Beyonce -- whose net worth with her husband, rap mogul Jay-Z, is estimated at $1 billion -- said that Texas was "in my prayers" in a post to her more than 100 million followers on Instagram.
Elsewhere in the music world, leading rapper Drake -- a Toronto native who keeps a home in Houston -- said he was "working with local relief groups to aid and assist the people of Texas in any way we can and in the most immediate way possible."
"I encourage everyone to do what they can to assist the people of Texas knowing whatever effort you can make to help will go a long way," Drake wrote on Instagram.
Among more specific commitments, comedian Kevin Hart said he was donating $25,000 to the American Red Cross for relief in Houston and urged other stars -- a few of whom, including Beyonce and Jay-Z, he named -- to do the same.
"I am challenging a lot of my celebrity friends to follow my lead in donating $25,000," Hart said.
"I think that people are in bad shape and need help, and I'm going to lead the charge," he said.
A zombie dragon, an illicit romance and satisfying revenge helped drive the season finale of "Game of Thrones" to a viewership high, HBO said Monday, as the seventh season drew record ratings.
A total of 12.1 million viewers watched Sunday's seventh season finale, titled "The Dragon and the Wolf," up 36 percent from the 8.9 million viewers who watched the season six finale. Viewership from replays and streams on HBO's on-demand apps boosted the overall Sunday ratings to 16.5 million viewers.
The seventh and penultimate season of Emmy-winning "Game of Thrones" drew an overall 30.8 million viewers, up nearly 8 million viewers from last season and cementing it as the most-watched show on Time Warner Inc's premium cable network HBO.
The record ratings came after hackers stole data and content from HBO and leaked it online, including scripts and unaired episodes of "Game of Thrones."
The seventh season saw the show's lead characters head towards a great battle over the Iron Throne reigning over the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, while a zombie army of White Walkers, led by the undead Night King, march south and threaten mankind's destruction.
Characters Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen finally came together to join forces against the White Walkers, the remaining Stark children reunite at their home in Winterfell and enact a satisfying revenge against master manipulator Petyr Baelish.
The Lannister siblings also reunite in King's Landing in a tense meeting that puts their family ties to the test.
Medieval fantasy "Game of Thrones," based on George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books, has won numerous Emmy awards including best drama series last year. It is not eligible for this year's Emmy awards due to its summer premiere after production was pushed back to capture more winter landscapes for the storyline, but it will be back on the roster for next year's Emmy awards.
Ahead of the show's final eighth season next year, a series of spin-offs is being developed.
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife welcomed their second daughter -- August -- to the world on Monday with a post on the leading social network.
As they did with after the birth of their first daughter, Maxima, in late 2015, the couple wrote the girl a letter, but this one spoke of reveling in the wonder of childhood instead of visions of a better world on the horizon.
"You only get to be a child once, so don´t spend it worrying too much about the future," said the letter signed by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.
"You´ve got us for that, and we´ll do everything we possibly can to make sure the world is a better place for you and all children in your generation."
A Zuckerberg Chan Initiative established by the couple has pledged billions of dollars to improving life for their children´s generation with goals such as eliminating disease.
The Facebook co-founder is among billionaires who have vowed to donate most of their wealth to charitable causes.
"With all the advances in science and technology, your generation should live dramatically better lives than ours, and we have a responsibility to do our part to make that happen," the couple wrote, referring back to a letter written to their first daughter after her birth.
"But rather than write about growing up, we want to talk about childhood. The world can be a serious place. That´s why it´s important to make time to go outside and play."
And, like many parents, they expressed hope their new baby would sleep soundly and take frequent naps.
Pop superstar Taylor Swift showed a new dark, bad-girl image as she premiered her latest video Sunday during the MTV Video Music Awards.
The video for "Look What You Made Me Do," a dance track that quickly topped streaming charts after its release Friday, opens with imagery of a cemetery.
The camera zooms to a grave that says "Here Lies Taylor Swift's Reputation" - a theme that will apparently weigh heavily on Swift's newly announced album, which is entitled "Reputation" and comes out on November 10.
The video proceeds to show Swift in Halloween-like makeup and then crashing a car, with paparazzi quickly appearing to show her mishap to the world.
The 27-year-old singer, usually known for her squeaky-clean image, appears in the video smashing up a store with a baseball bat and riding on top of a motorcycle in a spiked leather jacket.
Swift heads into more expected territory as she leads a troupe of dancers to the house beat of the chorus to "Look What You Made Me Do."
When Swift released the song, fans immediately speculated that she was taking aim at the rapper Kanye West.
He outraged Swift with a song last year.
Swift reinforced the fans' theory on the song's meaning by ending the video saying she would "very much like to be excluded from this narrative" - a turn of phrase that she previously used to describe the feud with West.
Swift's last album, "1989," was one of the top-selling works of the past decade.
LOS ANGELES: Kendrick Lamar and Ed Sheeran won the top prizes at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) on Sunday, but an absent Taylor Swift and lifetime achievement honoree Pink dominated the show.
An angry Swift took on her critics in the world premiere of the music video for her first solo single in three years, "Look What You Made Me Do."
The satirical music video depicted Swift, 27, crawling out of a grave and declaring her old self dead in a portrayal of a hard-edged artist with nothing left to lose, drawing more than 470,000 views on Youtube within an hour of its premiere.
Lamar, who went into Sunday's event in Los Angeles with a leading eight nominations, kicked off the show with a medley that featured dancers in flames.
The California rapper went home with six statuettes, including the top award for video of the year and best hip hop video for "Humble."
British singer-songwriter Sheeran was voted artist of the year.
Despite days of fevered speculation, Swift herself was a no-show, though she won the only category in which she had been nominated - best collaboration for "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik.
Nevertheless, her new video quickly became one of the show's most talked-about moments, largely overshadowing performances by the likes of Sheeran, Fifth Harmony and Lorde.
The video ended with Swift reviving all the personas of her music career - from gawky, guitar playing 16-year old to poised Grammy winner - and having them call each other out for being fake, pretending to be nice and playing the victim.
Hosting the VMA show was Swift's long-time rival, Katy Perry, who made her entrance from the ceiling wearing a space suit and ended the three-hour event with a performance of single "Swish Swish" with Nicki Minaj.
Pink, the winner of the 2017 Vanguard Award, gave a speech about beauty and acceptance directed to her six year-old daughter Willow, who was in the audience, that moved many to tears.
"Baby girl, we don't change," the singer said. "We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl, and we help other people to change so they can see other kinds of beauty."
The event also showcased social issues.
Six transgender military service men and woman walked the VMA red carpet, and a group of suicide survivors stood silently on stage during a performance of the song "1-800 273-8255", the number of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Sony is planning to reboot 1970s cop series "Starsky and Hutch" with "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn set to oversee the project, US media reported Thursday.
Gunn will also write the "character-driven, hour-long procedural" with his brother, Brian Gunn, and cousin Mark Gunn, the Hollywood Reporter said, with all three executive producing.executive producing.
James Gunn may also direct, subject to availability, according to entertainment website Deadline.
Sony's television subsidiary already owns rights as worldwide distributor of the original series, while Warner Bros. distributed the 2004 film starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Snoop Dogg.worldwide distributor of the original series, while Warner Bros. distributed the 2004 film starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Snoop Dogg.
"Starsky and Hutch" started out in 1975 as a feature-length pilot on ABC and ran for 92 episodes starring David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser until May 1979.
It followed detectives David Starsky and Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson on their crime-fighting exploits in the fictional Bay City, aided by informant Huggy Bear, played by Antonio Fargas.
It will be the latest in a string of television reboots of favourite detective and other procedural properties from the big and small screen, including CBS's "MacGyver," and "Hawaii Five-O," as well as Fox's "Lethal Weapon."
Sources told AFP earlier in August NBC was working with action star Vin Diesel on a reboot of hit police drama "Miami Vice," which originally ran from 1984 to 1989.
Movie director Tobe Hooper, best known for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Poltergeist" horror films, died in California on Saturday, US media reported. He was 74.
The cause of the director's death in the town of Sherman Oaks was not announced, the Hollywood industry magazine Variety reported.
Hooper, a native of Austin, Texas, was a college professor and documentary producer before branching out in 1974 to direct "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," one of the most influential films of the horror genre.
The film, shot for less than $300,000, was banned in several countries for its extreme violence but nevertheless was one of the most profitable independent US films of the 1970s, Variety said.
Such bans only added to the film's aura, but it was Hooper's stylish directing that really got the box offices moving.
The movie was in part based on the true story of a serial killer, called "Leatherface" in the film, who skinned his victims and used some body parts as household decorations.
William Friedkin, who directed that other iconic 1970s horror movie "The Exorcist" described Hooper, in a tweet, as "a kind, warm-hearted man Who made the most terrifying film ever. A good friend I will never forget."
Hooper also directed the 1986 sequel, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2," which had a more lighthearted approach.
In 1982, Hooper directed the supernatural horror movie "Poltergeist," a film written and produced by Steven Spielberg. The movie had an $11 million budget and grossed $76.6 million, according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
With his beard, oval glasses and gentle smile, Hooper did not appear to be the kind of person to strike fear into anybody, but his films certainly did and his films have become classics of the genre.
He went for a very realistic cinematic approach, with the attention to detail as important as the violence on screen and the chilling soundtrack which accompanied it.
The name "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" told cinemagoers what they could expect, a technique repeated throughout Hooper's filmography which also includes titles like "Spontaneous Combustion" (1990), "The Mangler" (1995 and "Crocodile" (2000).
In the 1990s Hooper did a lot of work for television, including episodes of "Tales from the Crypt" and "Dark Skies".
He made his final film "Djinn" in 2013, a horror movie set in the United Arab Emirates and produced in both English and Arabic but which was released on video.
The late director is survived by two sons, Variety said.
Hampered by a hurricane and a high-profile boxing match, weekend box-office results in North America were the slowest in nearly 16 years, allowing previous leader "The Hitman's Bodyguard" to hold its top spot with an unimpressive $10.1 million take.
Harvey, the deadly hurricane-turned-tropical storm, led to some theater closings in Texas, while Floyd Mayweather's much-hyped bout against Irishman Conor McGregor proved to be one of the biggest pay-per-view shows in history, Variety.com noted.
That left the overall weekend box office around $65 million, its lowest since a weekend shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
"This," as website boxofficemojo.com summed it up, "was a miserable weekend."
"Hitman," an action comedy from Lionsgate, saw its estimated three-day take drop by about half from its $21.4 million opening a week earlier, industry website Exhibitor Relations reported.
The film tells the story of a famous bodyguard (Ryan Reynolds) hired to protect a notorious hitman (Samuel L. Jackson) who is about to testify in a high-profile trial. Salma Hayek plays Jackson's wife.
In second place for the weekend was Warner Bros.' horror flick "Annabelle: Creation," part of the popular "Conjuring" franchise. The film, starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Miranda Otto and Anthony LaPaglia, took in $7.4 million, adding to its worldwide gross of more than $1 billion.
Next was "Leap," a new release from Weinstein Co., at $5 million -- a remarkably small take for a third-place film. The animated family picture tells the story of a young orphan, voiced by Elle Fanning, who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer in 19th century Paris.
Fourth place went to "Wind River," another Weinstein production, at $4.4 million, improving on its 10th-place finish last week. It stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as federal agents trying to solve a murder on an Indian reservation in Wyoming.
Bleecker Street's "Logan Lucky," Steven Soderbergh's first film since his self-proclaimed retirement four years ago, also took in $4.4 million. The film stars Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Riley Keough in an unconventional heist comedy set at a NASCAR race.
LOS ANGELES: Rapper Kendrick Lamar should be the big winner at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), but long-time rivals Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are expected to steal the limelight at a show that thrives on controversy and surprises.
Lamar leads all comers with eight VMA nominations for his "Humble" music video, a searing critique on the excesses of fame and social media.
But the three-hour live show in Los Angeles will feature the world premiere of the music video for Swift's vengeful new single "Look What You Made Me Do," in which she takes aims at unnamed people who have tried to take her down, and declares her old self-dead.
It's not clear whether Swift, 27, who is launching a harder image and her first album in three years, will attend Sunday's VMAs, where Perry is hosting the show and will perform a medley of songs from her "Witness" album ahead of an upcoming world tour.
VMA organisers on Saturday sought to quash rampant speculation that Swift will perform, let alone use the VMA stage to reconcile with Perry and end a three-year feud between pop's leading female singers that stemmed from a dispute over backing dancers.
"She (Swift) has been on the show many times and performed with a new album coming, but not this time," executive producer Jesse Ignjatovic told People magazine. "I definitely wish she was coming on and performing."
The VMAs are known for memorable moments, like the onstage 2003 lip lock between Madonna and Britney Spears, and the raw meat dress that Lady Gaga wore on the red carpet in 2010.
In 2009, rapper Kanye West, thought to be one of the targets of Swift's new single, leapt on stage to interrupt Swift's acceptance speech. In 2015, the pair briefly made up when Swift presented West with a VMA lifetime achievement award, only to fall out again publicly over the lyrics of the rapper's 2016 single "Famous."
Swift has just one nomination on Sunday, for her "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" single collaboration with Zayn Malik.
Speculation over her attendance and the buzz over her new single has sidelined the rest of the line-up, which includes Britain's Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Pink, Demi Lovato, Lorde, Canadian rapper The Weeknd, girl group Fifth Harmony and best new artist contender Julia Michaels.
Lamar, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Lorde, Sheeran and Ariana Grande are competing for one of the top awards - artist of the year - which is voted on by fans online.
Lamar's video "Humble," The Weeknd's "Reminder," Bruno Mars' "24K Magic," Alessia Cara's "Scars to Your Beautiful," and DJ Khaled's "Wild Thoughts," featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller are the nominees for video of the year.
Bollywood's seasoned actor Rishi Kapoor knows the style of remaining in news, while turning a complete blind eye to the controversy his social media posts can potentially stir.
Recently, a police complaint was filed against the veteran actor for posting an indecent and offensive picture of a minor on his Twitter account, according to India media reports.
An NGO, Jai HO Foundation submitted the FIR against Kapoor at Mumbai's police station, stating that the case should be registered against the actor under relevant sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences and IT Act.
The actor had posted a naked child's picture and following the controversy deleted it from his account.
Although after a while he posted another video in which a young boy touches a girl standing next in line to him, who slaps another man in retaliation as she mistakes him as the offender.
Ali Abbas, 27, sits proudly for a photograph on a mock up of the Iron Throne.
A diehard Pakistani Game of Thrones fan, he says it is a "treat" to visit the cafe inspired by the hit American television series in the suburbs of Islamabad.
The restaurant, aptly named King´s Landing, was launched in January by four college friends who were surprised to see fans coming in with their families, despite the sometimes very violent and explicit nature of the series.
Abbas, on holiday from eastern Lahore, is surrounded by heraldic banners, dragon eggs and a menu that features homages such as ´Cersei´s Vanilla Poison´ -- a toast to the evil sovereign of Westeros.
Meanwhile in a tavern-like basement, a screen displays gory, blood-stained combat scenes and autopsies.
Abbas says he is thrilled to see it all "with my own eyes".
"I´m here on vacation so when I came to know about this cafe, so I thought that I should visit it because I´ve been following the show since the very start ... it´s a great experience," he told AFP.
The fantasy medieval saga produced by US cable network HBO tells the struggle of several families to conquer the "Iron Throne".
It has more Emmy Awards than any narrative show in history and has become a worldwide success, including a massive fan base among English-speaking Pakistanis.
"Game of Thrones is very big here," said another patron, Haseeb Mahmood, 25.
"When you come here to the cafe, you feel like you´re a character of the show.
"They have the Iron Throne, when you sit on it you feel like the king. When you see these dragon eggs, you feel like you´re part of the show and it´s something that´s very unique and very interesting."
The show, he says, "feels so real... That´s one thing I love".
The explicit and violent nature of the series has also not prevented customers from watching episodes in the cafe -- but with some precautions in the conservative Muslim country, admits one of the owners, Arsalan Sajid.
He says they edit some scenes to make it appropriate for all age groups.
"Initially the response was great," he adds, though he admits that after two or three months enthusiasm died down somewhat.
Luckily, however, the highly-anticipated finale of Season 7 will air on Monday -- at which point he expects his tiny cafe, which only seats around a dozen people, to be besieged with customers once more.
LONDON: The turbulent marriage of boxer Amir Khan took a turn seemingly for the better when an excited Faryal Makhdoom revealed that she is expecting her second child.
Makhdoom posted on social media early on Sunday that she was waiting to announce the special news.
The mommy-to-be is quite exhilarated, happily sharing her sentiments with her social media followers.
Her husband, boxer Amir Khan, is yet to share his opinion on the subject with his fans.
After an ugly Twitter spat that led to what appeared to be a split between the couple, the two now apparently rekindled their relationship.
Faryal Makhdoom had tried to patch things up with husband Amir Khan hours after the two took their fight to Twitter, with the British-Pakistani boxer accusing Makhdoom of cheating with fellow boxer Anthony Joshua.
"The screenshots sent to Amir were 'fake' and Amir thought Joshua and I were speaking… when we have never even met," Faryal had written in a social media post. "Anger took the better of him and he tweeted away without thinking there was absolutely NO truth to it."
"It's all cleared up with both teams now and again, there was NOTHING like that going on. Apologies for all this nonsense. Let's get on with life now…"
Amir appeared to have accepted her apology, as he tweeted Joshua her note acknowledging that there was no "truth to it" and wished him "all the best".
Palestinians attend the screening of '10 Years' at Samer Cinema in Gaza City on August 26, 2017. AFP/Mahmud Hams
GAZA CITY: Several hundred Gazans went to the cinema on Saturday for the first time in more than 30 years, albeit for one night only.
The long-abandoned Samer Cinema in Gaza City, the oldest in the strip but closed for decades, hosted a special screening of a film about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
About 300 people of both sexes attended, with men and women not segregated by gender and despite the lack of air conditioning on a hot and humid evening.
There are currently no functioning cinemas in the Palestinian territory where two million people live in cramped conditions under an Israeli blockade.
Ghada Salmi, an organiser, told AFP the one-night showing was "symbolic" of wider efforts "to bring back the idea of cinema to Gaza".
Jawdat abu Ramadan, a member of the audience, said he wanted to see a permanent cinema in Gaza. "We need to live like humans, with cinemas, public spaces and parks," he said.
The Samer Cinema was built in 1944 but shut in the 1960s.
The enclave's remaining cinemas closed in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian intifada or uprising.
There was a fire at one cinema in 1987 that was widely thought to have been the work of extremists who consider cinema ungodly.
"The rest of the cinemas were scared to show films after that," Salmi said.
Ironically, according to French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu's 2012 history of Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood's Gaza branch — from which Hamas sprang — held its founding conference at the Samer on the Islamic new year in 1946.
Ten Years, the feature-length film screened on Saturday, was made in Gaza with volunteer actors and tells the story of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Salmi said it does not focus on the wider politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, telling a human story instead.
Saturday's showing went ahead with the approval of Hamas.
Nermin Ziara, who appeared in the film, said she wanted to see a cinema open as "society needs to develop through films and documentaries".
Ziara said she did not think the extremist rulers should or would block such moves.
"I don't think there is a problem with opening a cinema with Hamas as it is a place of art," she told AFP. "We as Palestinians need to have a large space for art."
In May, a rare festival showcased films focusing on human rights issues, with outdoor screenings at Gaza City's port.
Other films have occasionally been shown in rented halls.
Gaza is still recovering from the last of three wars with Israel in 2014 when more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed and much of the strip was devastated.
Seventy-four people died on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.
KARACHI: The moment one enters the TDF Ghar, a restored house on MA Jinnah Road built in 1930 by Hanibai Motiram, you are immediately teleported into a Pakistan that once was.
Situated in the Jamshed Quarters, an estate developed by Karachi's first mayor Jamshed Nusserwanjee for the growing middle class of the metropolis, where Muslims, Hindus, Chrtistians, Parsis and Jews resided in harmony - the heritage building begins to tell its story.
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The yellow-painted house conserved by renowned architect Shahab Ghani under The Dawood Foundation, has many stories to tell to its visitors.
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As Frank Lloyd Wright put it, "a building is not just a place to be, but a way to be."
Type writers, old chess sets, vintage books, the classic high ceiling fans, old mosaic tiles, a gramophone – the accessories which have now become a distant memory – are the attraction of the museum, "The Living Room", in the house.
Where 'The Living Room' is a reflection of past, right across it, is 'Sehan Café' – with Old Irani bentwood chairs and benches, offering tea and snacks to visitors – with WiFi access and electricity sockets to plug in laptops is a place where the past, starts to meet the present.
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Ridhwan Khan, the administrator of the house said: "The purpose of adding a Café was to provide a platform to the young people of Karachi to socialise and spend their quality time."
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As one moves from the ground floor to the first, where the rooms are still quite bare with old wooden plank benches and a dresser, one is presented with yet another flashback of what Karachi once was, in the form of pictures from the early days.
Along with the museum and café, the finest attraction of the TDF Ghar is the rooftop, which gives a stunning scenic view of Mazar-e-Quaid. Even the chaotic traffic noise surrounding the area does not dampen the beautiful view. Moreover, three 'Numaish Halls' and a training room are being planned to be used for non-commercial activities.
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The entrance fee is a mere Rs50. The TDF Ghar is open to the public from 10 AM until 10 PM, seven days a week, except for the museum, which closes at 6 PM.
When inquired about the reasoning behind charging an entrance fee, Khan said, "the price is imposed because we want people to take ownership of the place. By taking Rs50 we won't be making any huge profit but it will give a sense of belonging to the people."
