Tinie Tempah's latest music video, which was filmed entirely in Dubai last month, has been released online. The British rapper told the crowd at his gig at White Dubai on the Meydan Racecourse rooftop that they were being filmed for the promo for the song Flash, and the crowd is seen several times during the four-and-a-half-minute film. In the rest of the video, the singer is seen in cars and boats travelling through the city, with landmarks such as Atlantis The Palm and Burj Al Arab clearly visible. He also filmed at the Fairmont The Palm hotel, where he stayed during his visit. For a link to the video, visit www.thenational.ae. – The National staff
Transformers leads Razzie nominations
Transformers: Age of Extinction has the dubious honour of leading the nominations at this year's Golden Raspberry Awards. The action sequel, starring Mark Wahlberg alongside morphing robots, got seven nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Sequel, Worst Screenplay and Worst Screen Combo (for any two actors, robots or robotic actors). Kelsey Grammer, who is nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Transformers, was also recognised for his supporting roles in The Expendables 3, Legends of Oz and Think Like a Man Too. The other Worst Picture nominees are Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas, Left Behind, The Legend of Hercules and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Razzies were launched in 1980 a spoof of Hollywood's awards season. The winners of the 35th annual Razzies will be announced at Hollywood's Montalban Theater on February 21, the night before the 87th annual Academy Awards. – AP
Silver 3-D model of SRK printed
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan has been immortalised in a life-size 3-D-printed model. The Happy New Year star was captured in his signature pose, arms spread. "It is overwhelming how technology has gone forward," said SRK. "I am grateful to be a part of this amazing technology. This is outstanding and I am dying to show it to my kids. It's a silver and shiny statue of mine in my classic pose." The model was created by special-effects group Red Chillies VFX, part of SRK's movie production company, and design and engineering software company Autodesk India. See SRK receiving the model YouTube – The National staff
Grammys date for Madonna and AC/DC
Pop icon Madonna and veteran hard rockers AC/DC will join younger stars in performing at the Grammys on February 8. Other acts chosen to play at the music industry's premier awards show, one of the year's most-watched concerts, include the English singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran, whose X is up for Album of the Year, and Ariana Grande, who is nominated in two categories. – AFP
Affleck and Fincher to team up again
Actor Ben Affleck and director David Fincher are teaming up again, this time for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. After last year’s critically acclaimed box-office hit Gone Girl, they will make a new version of the 1951 classic in which two strangers meet on a train and conspire to carry out murders for one another. The Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn is expected to write the screenplay, based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Fincher’s thriller will change the initial meeting place to a plane. Affleck will play Farley Granger, who was a tennis star in the original, but now he will be a Hollywood star in the middle of an Oscar campaign. – AP
Wahlberg ‘should not be pardoned’
A former state prosecutor who secured a civil rights injunction against a young Mark Wahlberg after he hurled rocks and racial epithets at black schoolchildren says he should not be pardoned for attacks on two Asian men two years later. Judith Beals, a former Massachusetts assistant attorney general, said she believes in “forgiveness and reconciliation” but Wahlberg’s request should be denied because he hasn’t acknowledged the racial element of his crimes. Wahlberg wants to be officially cleared of a 1988 incident in which he hit a Vietnamese man on the head with a wooden stick while trying to steal alcohol from a shop. Then 16, he punched another Vietnamese man in the face while trying to avoid police. He was jailed for three months but released after about 45 days. Beals said that two years earlier, he had been issued a court order leading to criminal charges in the event of another hate crime. According to court papers in that 1986 case, Wahlberg and two white friends chased three black siblings in Boston, throwing rocks and yelling racial insults. The following day, he and a larger group of white friends harassed a group of mostly black fourth-graders. – AP
Woody Allen to make TV series for Amazon
The Oscar-winning filmmaker Woody Allen is going back to his TV roots. In a deal with Amazon, Allen will write and direct his own series that will premiere next year.
The news comes as the world's biggest online retailer celebrates winning its first Golden Globe Award for its transgender-themed sitcom Transparent – a breakthrough in its efforts to catch up with streaming pioneer Netflix.
Amazon said the Untitled Woody Allen Project will run next year on its growing Amazon Prime Instant Video service.
“I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin,” said the 79-year-old Allen.
“My guess is that [Amazon Studios chief] Roy Price will regret this,” he added in his trademark wry humour.
The project is a coup for Amazon’s on-demand internet video streaming service, which alongside Netflix is upending the traditional broadcast television business model.
Amazon said the show would be the first TV series written and directed by Allen, but it is by no means his first experience with the small screen.
In the mid-1950s, as television began to take centre stage in America’s living rooms, Allen found lucrative work as a gag writer for comedian Sid Caesar and variety show host Garry Moore.
He wrote for and appeared on Candid Camera, turned up as a guest panellist on What's My Line? and recorded a one-off stand-up comedy special for British television in 1965, The Woody Allen Show.
In 1971, he directed and starred in a mock documentary for American public television, Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story, lampooning then-president Richard Nixon.
Its biting satire proved too much for TV executives, who banned it at the last minute, fearing Nixon might retaliate with a funding cut. It can now be seen on video websites.
The same year, Allen also did a turn as guest host of NBC television's The Tonight Show, a late-night talk show that he also wrote for in his youth.
In 2001, he wrote and directed a three-minute television comedy short called Sounds from a Town I Love about his beloved hometown New York after the September 11 attacks.
Amazon said Allen would deliver “a full season” of half-hour episodes that subscribers to its Prime Instant Video service will be able to watch in the United States, Britain and Germany. – AFP
Directors Guild nominations announced
Richard Linklater's 12-year project to make the film Boyhood has been rewarded with his first nomination from the Directors Guild of America.
Also nominated for their outstanding achievement in directing were first-time nominee Wes Anderson for the whimsical Grand Budapest Hotel and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for his dark, show business comedy Birdman. Inarritu was previously nominated for Babel.
Both Anderson and Inarritu lost out to Linklater for the best director award at the Golden Globes.
In an unexpected turn, rounding out the five slots were Morten Tyldum for his Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game and Clint Eastwood for his wartime drama American Sniper. This is Eastwood's fourth nomination. He previously won for Million Dollar Baby in 2004 and Unforgiven in 1992.
David Fincher (Gone Girl) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) were surprisingly shut out of the nominations. Both were nominated for a Golden Globe and a Critics' Choice Movie Award and were considered strong contenders for Directors Guild recognition.
Also noticeably absent were Angelina Jolie for the Second World War drama Unbroken, which she directed, Christopher Nolan for his space odyssey Interstellar and Bennett Miller for the true-crime drama Foxcatcher.
The awards are considered a strong predictor of the eventual winners of the Oscars, the nominations for which will be announced on Thursday, January 15. There have been only seven occasions on which the Directors Guild winner has not gone on to win the Oscar.
The most recent instance was in 2013, when Ben Affleck won the Directors Guild award for Argo, while Ang Lee won the Oscar for Life of Pi. Last year, Alfonso Cuarón won both awards for Gravity.
With nearly 16,000 members, including television and commercial directors, the Directors Guild nominees often reflect a more populist line-up compared with the selections of the nearly 400 members of the directors’ branch of the Academy.
Winners for the 67th annual Directors Guild awards will be announced at a dinner in Los Angeles on February 7, hosted by Glee star Jane Lynch. – AP