McQueen to debut 3 films at festival
Three original films by Oscar winner Steve McQueen will debut at the New York Film Festival this year, organizers said Monday. The “12 Years a Slave” director will get the opening night slot for the 1980s-set music romance “Lovers Rock” in addition to two other premieres for films in his anthology series.
McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology features five films telling stories about London’s West Indian community from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.
“It’s an incredible honor and also very humbling to show three of my films at the New York Film Festival,” McQueen said in a statement. “It’s especially meaningful for me at this particular time to share these stories as a Black man of West Indian heritage.”
The other two films premiering are “Mangrove,” with actor Letitia Wright, which tells the true story of a group of Black activists called the Mangrove 9 who clashed with police in the 1970s, and “Red, White and Blue,” another true story about a man, Leroy Logan, who joins the police to try to inspire change from within. John Boyega stars.
“Steve McQueen is one of the essential artists of our time, and he reaches a new level of mastery with the Small Axe films,” said Dennis Lim, festival programming director. “These are works of historical drama that speak powerfully and urgently to our present moment of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism.”
Swift nabs 7th No.1 album: Taylor Swift’s surprise album “folklore” is dominating the music charts. Swift’s eighth album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 albums chart this week, marking the best first-week sales of the year and giving the pop star her seventh No. 1 title on the chart. According to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, the album sold 846,000 equivalent albums in the U.S. based on a combination of sales and streams.
The success makes Swift, 30, the first artist to have seven albums sell at least 500,000 albums in a single week.
With 289.85 million on-demand streams of its songs, “folklore” also marks the largest streaming week for an album by a female act this year.
Lowe series crosses Atlantic: Rob Lowe is jumping the pond to star as an American cop who loses his job and lands in England in “Wild Bill,” premiering on BritBox Tuesday. Lowe’s latter-day Bobby will shake things up at the East Lincolnshire Police headquarters in weekly episodes, which aired in England last year.
Lowe, who has proved his mettle from teen angst movies to important and gainful stuff such as “The West Wing” and “9-1-1: Lone Star,” started young.
“I remember when I saw a production of ‘Oliver,’ and they were kids, I said, ‘I want to do that.’ I was in the fourth grade. My folks signed me up for a children’s theater workshop. I’m certain they thought it was a lark and that next season it would be basket weaving.
“But I always saw in my mind’s eye doing exactly what I was doing,” he said.
Aug. 4 birthdays: Actor Tina Cole is 77. Actor Richard Belzer is 76. Actor Billy Bob Thornton is 65. Actor Kym Karath is 62. Actor Lauren Tom is 59. Producer Michael Gelman is 59. Actor Crystal Chappell is 55. Actor Daniel Dae Kim is 52. Rapper Yo-Yo is 49. Actor Marques Houston is 39. Actors Dylan and Cole Sprouse are 28.