Category: Новини

Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, his family said on Thursday, nearly a year after the “Die Hard” franchise star retired from acting because of aphasia that had hampered his cognitive abilities.  

“Since we announced Bruce’s diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruce’s condition has progressed, and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD),” his family said in a statement posted on The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration website.  

“Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.”  

The statement, to which the family attached a photo of a smiling Willis at the beach, said there are no current treatments for the disease. The family members said they hoped Willis’ diagnosis at age 67 would bring more focus to battling FTD.  

“As Bruce’s condition advances, we hope that any media attention can be focused on shining a light on this disease that needs far more awareness and research,” the statement said. 

Frontotemporal degeneration is caused by progressive nerve cell loss in the brain’s frontal lobes or its temporal lobes. 

Willis’ family believes that if the retired actor were able, he would use his voice to raise awareness about dementia and how to help others with it.  

Journalist Maria Shriver tweeted her “gratitude for shining a much needed light on this disease,” adding that “when people step forward it helps all of us.” 

The actor’s oldest daughter, actor Rumer Willis, also posted the announcement on Instagram and received support from others in the entertainment industry.  

“Love you so much my friend. Sending hugs to you and that beautiful family of yours. Your pops is such a damn legend,” “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul said on Instagram.  

Willis rose to fame in the 1980s comedy-drama TV series “Moonlighting,” and has appeared in about 100 films across his four-decade career, garnering acclaim for his roles in “Pulp Fiction” and “The Sixth Sense,” and winning a Golden Globe Award and two Emmys.  

But Willis is perhaps best known for playing the tough-as-nails New York cop who pursued bad guys in the five “Die Hard” movies, released from 1988 to 2013.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will join Hollywood actor Sean Penn by video link on Thursday at the opening of the Berlinale, Europe’s first major film festival of the year, as it spotlights the fight for freedom in Ukraine and Iran.

The 73rd annual event, traditionally the most politically minded of the three big European cinema showcases, will mark the Russian invasion’s first anniversary as well as anti-regime protests in Iran with new feature films and documentaries.

U.S. actor Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”), head of the jury for the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes, told reporters it was “an enormous opportunity to have a hand in highlighting beautiful things” in the face of global turmoil.

“It’s the job of an artist to take a disgusting and ugly thing and sort of transmute it and put it through your body and pump out something more beautiful…in response to the world that’s falling apart around us,” she said.

Artistic director Carlo Chatrian said the festival stood with “the suffering population, the millions who left Ukraine and the artists (who) have remained defending the country and continue filming the war,” adding that it was a “special honour” to welcome Zelensky digitally.

Penn will appear on stage at the opening gala in the German capital and introduce Zelensky who will speak via video stream, organisers said.

The two-time Oscar winner, who was filming in Kyiv at the start of the Russian onslaught, will on Friday premiere “Superpower”, tracking Zelensky’s transformation from comedian to president to war hero.

“Zelensky was two completely different creatures from one day to the next,” Penn told entertainment industry magazine Variety this week about the impact of the invasion. “He was a spirit in waiting.”

Beyond movie screenings, the Berlinale plans panel discussions with embattled directors and red-carpet protests in a show of “solidarity” with the people of Iran and Ukraine.

Animation back in force

The Berlinale has barred filmmakers, companies and reporters with direct ties to the Russian or Iranian governments from taking part in the event, including its sprawling European Film Market, a key movie rights exchange for the industry.

Hollywood actors Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei will later Thursday present romantic comedy “She Came to Me”, the first of nearly 300 new movies from around the world to screen during the 11-day event.

Nineteen films will vie for the main awards, including British-U.S. co-production “Manodrome” featuring Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody in a thriller about an Uber driver who is lured into a cult while he is expecting his first child.

Two Asian animated pictures will also join the running, “Art College 1994” by China’s Liu Jian and Makoto Shinkai’s “Suzume”, the first Japanese anime to compete at the Berlinale since Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” clinched the Golden Bear in 2002.

Gold for Spielberg

Three-time Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg is to collect an honorary Golden Bear for his life’s work, spotlighted in a retrospective.

British actor Helen Mirren will unveil the keenly awaited “Golda” in which she stars as Israel’s only female prime minister, Golda Meir.

And Vicky Krieps, the acclaimed Luxembourg-born actor from “Phantom Thread” and “Corsage”, will present her turn as renowned Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann in a biopic by veteran German director Margarethe von Trotta.

One-third of the films in competition are by women, who make up 40 percent of all directors represented at the festival.

“Love to Love You”, a documentary about disco queen Donna Summer, who defined an era on the dance floor and helped inspire Beyonce’s latest album “Renaissance”, will have its world premiere.

The film was co-directed by Summer’s daughter, Brooklyn Sudano, and features never-before-seen home videos.

The Berlinale ranks with Cannes and Venice among Europe’s top film festivals. It will hand out the top prizes on February 25 before wrapping up the next day with screenings of popular movies from this year’s selection.
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The UK is working on a new arrangement with Greece through which the Parthenon Sculptures could be seen both in London and in Athens, British Museum chair George Osborne said on Thursday, describing it as a win-win situation.

Osborne, a former finance minister, reiterated that the museum was having constructive talks with the Greek government about the marbles which have been a source of dispute between the two European countries for centuries.

“It’s a very hard problem to solve,” Osborne told BBC Radio. “But I think there is a way forward where these sculptures, the Elgin Marbles, the Parthenon Sculptures, could be seen both in London and in Athens, and that will be a win-win for Greece and for us.”

When asked if that meant loans, he said: “we’re talking to the Greek government about that, about a new arrangement and what I didn’t want to do is force the Greeks to accept things that they find impossible, and equally they can’t force on us things that we would find impossible.” 

The Greek government has said it was in talks over repatriation of the sculptures, which were removed by British diplomat Lord Elgin from the imposing Parthenon temple in Athens in the early 19th century.

But Osborne ruled out a scenario where the sculptures could be handed over permanently, saying it would need a change of UK law.

“If we wanted to send all the Elgin Marbles back then that would require an act of parliament, and that would be beyond my authority,” he said. “But what the museum can do is try and form a new relationship with Greece.”

“I’m reasonably optimistic.”
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When Raquel Welch donned a deerskin bikini for a 1966 caveman screen epic, she became one of the hottest sex symbols of her time, a role she never felt able to escape.

The film was mediocre, but the poster for “One Million Years BC” went round the world, taking her with it and making both of them an indelible part of cinema history.

“With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away,” Welch wrote in her 2010 autobiography Beyond the Cleavage.

“All else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol.”

With an auburn mane and lauded for her famous figure, Welch took over from the late Marilyn Monroe to become the universal sex goddess of the 1960s and 1970s.

The New York Times described her in 1967 as “a marvelous breathing monument to womankind” while Playboy magazine said she was “the most desired woman of the 1970s.”

Walk-on parts

Welch, who died Wednesday after a brief illness, was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago to a Bolivian aeronautical engineer and his American wife.

Growing up in California, she took ballet lessons and won the first of several teen beauty titles at the age of 14.

She married her high school sweetheart, James Welch, before she was 20, having two children with him before moving to Dallas to take on jobs as a model and barmaid.

Seeking stardom, she returned to Los Angeles in 1963, where she met her agent and next husband Patrick Curtis.

Her never-illustrious acting career started with a string of walk-on parts in minor films, including the 1964 musical feature “Roustabout” starring Elvis Presley.

But a break came when she was picked by the 20th Century Fox studio to star in the 1966 science fiction film, “Fantastic Voyage.”

Typecast

The same year she had a leading role in “One Million Years BC,” a fantasy film forgettable except for its bikini-clad cavewoman.

In 1967 Welch married Curtis in Paris in a famously skimpy white crochet dress, living it up in a lavish Beverly Hills villa with black marble swimming pool and Rolls-Royce.

However, by then she was typecast, and struggled to prove herself as an actress.

“Americans have always had sex symbols. It’s a time-honored tradition and I’m flattered to have been one,” she once said.

“But it’s hard to have a long, fruitful career once you’ve been stereotyped that way.”

Welch clocked up a series of films in the late 1960s and 1970s but remained restricted by her status as a beauty.

Titles included the western “Bandolero!” (1968), detective movie “Lady in Cement” (1968) and comedy “Animal” (1977).

In 1969 she was in Hollywood’s first interracial sex scene with Jim Brown in “100 Rifles.” Then came her most controversial role — a transsexual heroine in the explicit “Myra Breckinridge” (1970).

The swashbuckling “The Three Musketeers” (1973), in which she played the queen’s dressmaker, won her the Golden Globe for best actress.

While filming “Cannery Row” in 1982, Welch was fired for insisting on doing her hair and make-up at home. She sued MGM studios for breach of contract, ultimately winning a $15 million settlement.

Later roles

A lover of yoga, Welch later launched herself into the business of wellbeing, publishing her “Total Beauty and Fitness” program in 1984.

Having long hidden her Latino origins, as an elegant 60-something she took on Hispanic roles in the “American Family” series on PBS in 2002 and “Tortilla Soup” in 2001.

In 2008 at age 68, she divorced her fourth husband, Richard Palmer, who was 14 years her junior.
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This year’s New York Fashion Week is wrapping up after featuring genderless style, throwback 1990s fashion and colorful knitwear to fight sadness. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Producer: Anna Rice. Camera: Vladimir Badikov.
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