Entertainment News Roundup: Angelina Jolie wants kids to 'fight back' with new child rights book; Stars return to Venice red carpet as film festival opens and more

"Know Your Rights and Claim Them" - written with human rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren, one of the original drafters of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - aims to equip kids with the knowledge to safely challenge injustices. Stars return to Venice red carpet as film festival opens Decked out in a black and white Chanel gown, Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz led the comeback of movie stars to the red carpet of the Venice film festival on its opening night on Wednesday, as cinema hopes to shake off the gloom of the coronavirus pandemic.


Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 03-09-2021 02:33 IST | Created: 03-09-2021 02:30 IST
Entertainment News Roundup: Angelina Jolie wants kids to 'fight back' with new child rights book; Stars return to Venice red carpet as film festival opens and more
File Photo Image Credit: Instagram (angelinajolie_offiicial)

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.

Here they go again - ABBA reunite for first new album in 40 years

Swedish supergroup ABBA announced their first new album in four decades on Thursday and said they would stage a series of virtual concerts using digital avatars of themselves in London next year. Fans piled online to celebrate the long-awaited reunion of one of the world's most successful bands. "2021 has been saved by new ABBA music," @elliemiles23 said in one widely shared Twitter post.

Tom Cruise films 'Top Gun,' 'Mission: Impossible' delayed amid COVID wave

Paramount Pictures has postponed the release of Tom Cruise films "Top Gun: Maverick" until May 2022 and "Mission: Impossible 7" until September 2022, a spokesman for the ViacomCBS Inc studio said Wednesday, as COVID-19 infections rise. The "Top Gun" sequel, which has been delayed multiple times during the pandemic, had been set to debut in theaters on Nov. 19, just ahead of Thanksgiving, to kick off the holiday moviegoing season.

China cracks down on showbiz for 'polluting' society and youth

China ordered broadcasters on Thursday to shun artists with "incorrect political positions" and "effeminate" styles, and said a patriotic atmosphere needed to be cultivated, widening a crackdown on its booming entertainment industry. After years of runaway growth in the world's second largest economy, regulators have been to trying to strengthen control over Chinese society by tightening oversight over a broad swathe of industries ranging from technology to education and culture.

Move over Clooney? Pitt lands starring role with Italy's De' Longhi

Brad Pitt followed in the footsteps of his Hollywood friend and Nespresso star George Clooney on Thursday by becoming a brand ambassador for coffee machine maker De' Longhi. The Italian domestic appliances company said it had launched a global campaign for its home espresso coffee machines with a video directed by La La Land's director Damien Chazelle and starring Oscar-winning actor Pitt.

Italian director Sorrentino turns camera on own family tragedy

Italian film-maker Paolo Sorrentino turns personal with "The Hand of God", a movie about his own coming of age in 1980s Naples after losing his parents as a teenager. Presenting the film at the Venice film festival, Sorrentino said that as he turned 50 last year he had finally felt able to tell the story of his crowded, playful family and how his life was upended by his parents' accidental death.

Returning to film, Jane Campion says #MeToo was 'like the end of apartheid'

Acclaimed New Zealand director Jane Campion, back on the big screen after a 12-year hiatus, praised fellow female film-makers for a string of top awards over the past year, saying the #MeToo movement was like "the end of apartheid" for women. Campion, presenting her new film "The Power of The Dog" at the Venice festival on Thursday, pointed to colleagues Chloe Zhao - whose "Nomadland" won the top prize in Venice last year and went on to fetch three Oscars - and this year's Cannes winner Julia Ducournau.

'Our Mikis has gone': 'Zorba the Greek' composer Theodorakis dies at 96

Composer Mikis Theodorakis, whose music crossed international boundaries in his captivating score for the film "“Zorba the Greek", died on Thursday, plunging Greece into three days of mourning. A towering man with a brooding presence and a shock of wavy hair, Theodorakis's work evoked a progressive, democratic vision of the world, though his political struggles reflected a darker side of Greece rarely seen by visitors.

Coronavirus vaccine team and Southgate win at GQ Awards

Coronavirus vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert and England manager Gareth Southgate were among the winners at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards on Wednesday. The men’s fashion and style magazine named Oxford University professor Gilbert, biologist Catherine Green and the team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine as heroes of the year.

Angelina Jolie wants kids to 'fight back' with new child rights book

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie says she hopes to empower children around the world with tools to "fight back" for their rights with a book she has written with Amnesty International. "Know Your Rights and Claim Them" - written with human rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren, one of the original drafters of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - aims to equip kids with the knowledge to safely challenge injustices.

Stars return to Venice red carpet as film festival opens

Decked out in a black and white Chanel gown, Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz led the comeback of movie stars to the red carpet of the Venice film festival on its opening night on Wednesday, as cinema hopes to shake off the gloom of the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike rival Cannes, the world's oldest film festival did not skip the 2020 edition due to the health crisis but it is only this year that celebrities are returning in force to the Lido waterfront, in a show of support for an industry hammered by lockdowns.

(With inputs from agencies.)

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