Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai to head Shanghai film festival jury & other

Simple Minds - Simple Minds To Hit Studio For First Time In 27 Years

Reunited rockers SIMPLE MINDS are set to record together for the first time in 27 years - as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations.

Founding members Brian MCGee, Derek Forbes and Mick MCNeil will join existing members Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill to play at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in London in June (08), and they hope their stage comeback will inspire them enough to record some new material.

And the band are looking to have the new songs ready for the start of their reunion tour of the U.K. later this year (08) - as a special treat for their dedicated fans.

The group's original line-up parted ways in 1991, leaving just Kerr and Burchill to continue recording under the name.

And frontman Kerr is excited about hitting the studio with the original line-up.

He says, "Of course I am excited with the prospect of working with the original line - up once more. I had always believed that the day would come when we would get the opportunity to do so.

"We have a lot to live up to, but we intend to have some fun attempting to do just that."

The Simple Minds tour kicks off in Manchester, England on 27 November (08).

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Nick Parkin

Artist: Nick Parkin

   Genre(s):
Ambient

Discography:

Island Of Dust

Year: 1999
Tracks: 9

Descent

Year: 1996
Tracks: 9

Grant Threatens Paparazzo

Actor Hugh Grant came close to losing his temper with the paparazzi on Saturday when he reportedly threatened to throw one photographer through a window. The star, 47, was caught leaving London nightclub Nam Long-Le Shaker with a mystery woman in the early hours when he spotted the snappers taking his photo. Enraged by their presence, he allegedly raged to one paparazzo: "How about I push you through that window?" But Grant apparently lost his nerve and turned to run off - abandoning the leggy brunette outside the club.

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National Student Music Awards details revealed

Details of this year's National Student Music Awards have been announced, with three regional heats set to take place in March.
The awards, which have been previously won by Delorentos, offer Third Level student musicians the opportunity to perform before members of the Irish Music Industry including journalists, broadcasters, A&R personnel, agents and bookers.
A panel of industry experts will pick 12 of the best bands to perform at three heats around the country.
Four selected entrants will compete at each of the three regional heats which take place in UCD, Dublin (6 March); NUIG, Galway (13 March) and Cyprus Avenue, Cork (19 March).
The overall final will take place in The Village, Dublin on 24 April.
The prize up for grabs includes recording time, a cash prize, CD duplication, rehearsal time, a media interview, consultation with a music lawyer and a photography session.
Closing date for entries is 12 February and entry is open to any act that has at least one member in full-time Third Level education in Ireland.
Demos should be sent to National Student Music Awards, Suite 49, 184 Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.

Atonement star in new Dublin film?

'Atonement' star James McAvoy and his wife, 'Shameless' star Anne-Marie Duff, are in negotiations about playing the lead roles in a new movie which will be shot in Dublin.
The Hollywood Reporter says that the comedy thriller 'Perrier's Bounty' has been written by playwright Mark O'Rowe and will be directed by 'Paths to Freedom' director Ian Fitzgibbon.
The film tells the story of three people on the run in Dublin from a gangster named Perrier, who is out to save face following the accidental killing of one of his gang.
'Perrier's Bounty' is due to shoot in Dublin later this year.
McAvoy and Duff were among the stars at the BAFTAs in London on Sunday night. Visit our BAFTAs gallery here.

Ephel Duath

Artist: Ephel Duath

   Genre(s):
Metal: Death,Black
   Rock

Discography:

The Painter's Palette

Year: 2003
Tracks: 9

Rephormula

Year: 2002
Tracks: 13

Phormula

Year: 2000
Tracks: 8

One of Italy's to the highest degree ambitious toilsome metal bands, Padova's Ephel Duath coalesce the realms of end, black, and progressive metal (think Cynic meets Solefald), and were founded in 1998, ab initio as a studio apartment figure, by the multi-talented pair of Davide Tiso (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Giuliano Mogicato (vocals, guitars, basso). After marketing over 1,000 copies of their "Opera" demonstration (and topping MP3.com's wakeless metallic element charts with over 20,000 free downloads!), the geminate released 2000's anything merely formulaic Phormula to match amounts of raving and panning (but never less than amazed) reviews -- later augmenting and reissuing it as Rephormula later sign language with Earache Records subsidiary Elitist. Ephel Duath's side by side feat was 2003's wildly eclectic The Painters Palette, which arguably took even greater creative risks by incorporating electronics and loose malarkey, among other sonic accents. But, like its 2005 follow-up, Pain Necessary to Know, it found Tiso encircled by new collaborators, vocalists Luciano George Lorusso and Davide Tolomei, bassist Fabio Fecchio, and drummer Davide Piovesan, Mogicato having touched on to shape with Fields of Asphodel.

Tom Cruise’s Adolf Hitler film pushed back — again

Tom Cruise’s Adolf Hitler film, Valkyrie, has been pushed back yet again — and has this time been postponed until 2009.

The film, which tells the story of the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler, was initially postponed from summer 2008 to this fall; and is now not expected to appear until next year.

“We were originally expecting the film to be released in June,” said a senior executive at one of Britain’s leading cinema chains.

“I know there have been all sorts of problems with this production and we will not be screening it at all this year.”