17January 2021
The opening notes of Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” feel irreplaceable over the title sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey. However, finding the right music for the film wasn’t as simple as you might expect. Even for the iconic opener, Kubrick originally commissioned veteran film composer Alex North, before notoriously ditching his score for the classical work.
Now, more than 50 years after the original release of
2001, another rejected track has made an appearance. Written by Kubrick’s long-time publicist, Mike Kaplan, the “lost” song is titled “2001: A Garden of Personal Mirrors”.
The filmmaker turned to Kaplan to write the song after turning down other promotional music, the publicist remembers in a recent interview with the
16January 2021
Ridley Scott’s upcoming Napoleon Bonaparte epic,
Kitbag, has been picked up by Apple Studios, and is set to premiere on its streaming service, Apple TV+. Joaquin Phoenixwas previously announced as the (frankly, perfectly-cast) French emperor and military leader back in October last year.
It isn’t Phoenix’s first time teaming up to portray an emperor in a Ridley Scott film, either. Twenty years prior, he played the Roman emperor Commodus in the director’s
Gladiator. “No actor could ever embody Napoleon like Joaquin,” Scott says in a recent interview with
Deadline. “He created one of movie history’s most complex Emperors in
16January 2021
In June 2020, a petition called for Tennessee’s racist monuments to be replaced with a statue of Dolly Parton, “a true Tennessee hero”. Now, a Tennessee lawmaker has backed a dedication for the country music legend, proposing a statue in the grounds of her home state’s Capitol.
The bill introduced by Democratic Rep. John Mark Windle on Tuesday (January 13) aims to honour Parton for “all that she has contributed to this state”. The Nashville statue, it adds, would be financed with gifts, grants, and other donations, handled by a dedicated Dolly Parton Fund.
Besides her prolific musical output, Parton has long been recognised for her philanthropy. Her Imagination Library program sends books across the world to help improve children’s literacy, while her $1 million donation to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped fund a COVID-19 vaccine.