AP Entertainment
AP-Entertainment
Rihanna makes first court appearance at the trial of her partner A$AP Rocky, as accuser testifies
Superstar singer Rihanna has made her first appearance at the trial of her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky. The couple that has two young sons together arrived at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday morning. Before his trial started on Jan. 21, He is on trial for two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and could get more than 24 years in prison if he’s convicted. As Rihanna watched, his former friend and accuser testified that Rocky pulled out a gun, shot at him and injured his hands on a Hollywood street in 2021.
Some artists lost their life’s work in LA wildfires. Fellow artists are helping them recover
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles area residents woke up earlier this month to the news that thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods had been burned to ash in massive wildfires., devastating Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Although both neighborhoods are on opposite ends of the county, they are known hubs for many of the city’s creative community. Entire collections, and the tools of creating art, are gone. Now, artists are worried about what this means for the future of the art markets and infrastructure but are leaning on community to create change through donation centers and emergency triage efforts.
Movie Review: Graphic novel hero ‘Dog Man’ gets the Hollywood treatment and it’s ruff going
Whether or not you’ll enjoy the “Dog Man” movie is sort of dependent on how much you’re a fan of the graphic novels. Associated Press critic Mark Kennedy is split. Creator Dav Pilkey’s quirky, kinetic world has nicely made the visual leap to the big screen, but something is missing. The Hollywoodization — like a ray blasted from a typical Pilkey lumbering robot — has leveled-out the idiosyncrasy and overstuffed the narrative. Newcomers may be stunned — and not in a good way. Kennedy says the guerilla feel of the books has given way to a blockbuster, explosion-filled, deep message film about fatherhood, optimism and love.
With leaked footage from the inside, Sundance doc shows horrifying conditions in Alabama prisons
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is “The Alabama Solution,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, the film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is still early, the impact, Jarecki says, has already been seen, including a class action labor lawsuit.
Movie Review: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon collide in comedy ‘You’re Cordially Invited’
Are you with the bride or the groom? Hold on, scratch that. Are you with Reese Witherspoon or Will Ferrell? The new comedy “You’re Cordially Invited” unites these two once-ubiquitous box-office forces in a streaming-only wedding comedy that cross-pollinates “Father of the Bride” with “Wedding Crashers.” The combination works well enough, though it’d be fairer to deem “You’re Cordially Invited” a funnier-than-average wedding movie than it would be a top-grade Ferrell comedy, AP Film Writer Jake Coyle writes in his review. This is a movie that has Ferrell wrestling an alligator and Nick Jonas in a cameos as a singing pastor. It debuts Thursday on Prime Video.
‘Remarkably poor judgment’: Wall Street Journal takes a critical eye to start of Trump’s 2nd term
Not every outlet popular with conservative readers is cheerleading for President Donald Trump. The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has notably applied some brakes on its editorial pages during the new president’s first week in office. That contrasts the newspaper’s opinion journalists from advocates, one expert says At one outlet popular with conservatives, one writer says Trump has already exceeded Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln as the best Republican president. In some cricles, there is talk of putting Trump on Mount Rushmore. But the Journal has been critical of some early Trump decisions, including pardoning Jan. 6 rioters and stripping government security from some former aides.
The Sundance Film Festival goes online this week. Here’s how to watch the films
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Access to the Sundance Film Festival doesn’t require a trip to Park City, Utah anymore; Just an internet connection. Over half of the films that premiered this past week will be available to steam on the festival’s online platform starting Jan. 30. What started as a COVID-era necessity has become one of the Festival’s most beloved components, even for those who do brave the cold and the lines to see films in person. Film fans in the U.S. can access all the competition titles, including the Dylan O’Brien breakout “Twinless” and “2000 Meters to Andriivka.” It costs $35 for a single ticket.
FireAid, with Billie Eilish and Lady Gaga, is the latest in a long line of massive benefit concerts
FireAid, featuring Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others in a fundraiser for Los Angeles-area wildfire relief efforts, is the latest event to combine music and philanthropy. Thursday’s concerts at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, will be streamed on YouTube, Prime Video, Apple TV+, and numerous other sites, but whether the fractured cultural landscape will unite around them the way it has in the past remains to be seen. Benefit concerts have come a long way since George Harrison’s “The Concert for Bangladesh” at Madison Square Garden in 1971.
Valentino’s new designer showcases history and drama at couture debut in Paris
PARIS (AP) — Alessandro Michele’s Valentino couture debut was the most anticipated ticket of Paris Couture Week. The designer didn’t disappoint with a lavish spectacle at the Palais Brongniart, a fittingly historic backdrop for his past-meets-present storytelling. Known for his “more is more” aesthetic, Michele delivered a VIP-filled show brimming with historical reverence, theatricality, and his signature offbeat twists. Michele, who previously spent nearly eight years redefining Gucci with his eclectic, gender-fluid maximalism, has long drawn inspiration from history. His arrival was a significant shift from Valentino’s former designer Pierpaolo Piccioli, who was celebrated for his pared-down romanticism.
AI-assisted works can get copyright with enough human creativity, says US copyright office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could help clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields. The nation’s copyright office receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated. The report issued Wednesday clarifies the office’s approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the “centrality of human creativity” in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
