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Marília Pêra: Actress starred in Brazilian movie classic 'Pixote.' Marília Pêra: Brazilian film, TV and stage star Remembering Brazilian stage, television, and film star Marília Pêra, whose acting and singing career spanned more than five decades. Pêra died of lung cancer on Dec. 5, '15, in Rio de Janeiro. Born Marília Soares Pêra on Jan. 22, 1943, in Rio, she was 72 years old. 'Pixote' prostitute Internationally, Marília Pêra is best known as the loud, vulgar prostitute Sueli, who becomes acquainted with São Paulo street kid Fernando Ramos da Silva in Hector Babenco's well-received social drama Pixote / Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco (1981),[1] a fierce indictment of Brazilian society's utter disregard for its disadvantaged members. In one pivotal – and widely talked about scene – she lets the titular character (da Silva, at the time 12 years old)[2] suckle her breast. In another, she pulls down her panties and sits in...

Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...

After last night's final performances, Team Usher's Josh Kaufman was declared the winner of season 6 of The Voice, beating out Team Adam Levine's Christina Grimmie and Team Blake Shelton's Jake Worthington.

At the top of the show, Carson Daly announced that there was a glitch with the iTunes charts. Noticably missing from the Top 10 yesterday was Josh Kaufman’s cover of Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain.” To ensure fairness, all of the iTunes downloads that were supposed to count as votes for the finalists were taken out of the final tally – meaning only online voting, calls, etc. counted as votes. According to Carson, taking the iTunes downloads out of the final tally did not affect the outcome. In other news, Adam publicly announced that he would sign Christina Grimmie to his record label after the show.

After a quick recap of Monday night’s final live performances,...

How did we come up with our chart? By tallying the votes of our pop writers – and here's what they plumped for

Tim Jonze

Albums

John Wizards – John Wizards

Disclosure – Settle

Paramore – Paramore

Hebronix – Unreal

Kanye West – Yeezus

Christopher Owens – Lysandre

Julia Holter – Loud City Song

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Sky Ferreira – Night Time, My Time

British Sea Power – From The Sea To The Land Beyond

Tracks

Julia Holter – Hello Stranger

Miguel and Mariah Carey – #Beautiful

Drake – Hold On, We're Going Home

Sky Ferreira – You're Not the One

Justin Timberlake – Suit and Tie

Jeffrey Lewis – Wwprd

Paramore – Still Into You

Disclosure feat. AlunaGeorge – White Noise

The 1975 – Chocolate

Stylo G – Soundbwoy

Tom Hughes

Albums

15-60-75 The Numbers Band – Jimmy Bell's Still in Town

Meat Wave – Meat Wave

The Drones – I See Seaweed 4

White Fence – Live in San Francisco

Ooga Boogas – Ooga Boogas

Superchunk – I Hate Music

Bits of...

Gary Lineker has defended Match of the Day from criticism of its football analysis and punditry.

The former England striker has presented the highlights show since Des Lynam's departure in 1999. It has in recent years been criticised by Stan Collymore and others for a lack of quality in its analysis.

"It's comfortably the most difficult thing in terms of football punditry on television," Lineker told Digital Spy.

"It's the most-watched show for a start - it's not an anoraky kind of show, we don't have hours.

"Our show is not aimed at people that think they're technically better than they are because they play FIFA or whatever.

"It's aimed at the general public who want to watch the highlights of their teams with a little of bit of a) analysis b) opinion and c) news stories of the day. We also have, obviously, very little time."

Gary's Great Ingredient...

Whew. That title is a mouthful. I know you already know what I mean though, you golden fiends. This very impromptu post is brought to you by a recent Tribeca revival screening of Martin Scorsese's indelible King of Comedy (1983) and this Movie Line interview with Sandra Bernhard herself -- to whom I'm dedicating the list -- who couldn't make it but definitely helped make the movie what it is. My one and only back and forth conversation with Sandra -- over Twitter, the sometimes leveler -- involved how freaking robbed she was for an Oscar nomination for that movie. I couldn't believe I was talking to her but I was not the least bit in doubt that she'd agree with me.

10 Best Non-Nominated Supporting Actress Performances of the 1980s

Honorable Mentions: I think Rosanna Arquette's "Surrender Dorothy" bit in After Hours was quite memorable though the rest of...

The challenge of recreating a beloved musician's greatest hits is a feat for any artist but this is especially the case when it comes to revisiting the work of a masterful musician and vocalist like Stevie Wonder.

Though Wonder's tunes have been revamped through the years by artists such as Jodeci ("Lately"), Mary J. Blige ("Overjoyed") and Intro ("Ribbon in the Sky"), members of the jazz ensemble Sfjazz Collective can add their names to the list of admirers who have reinterpreted the icon's music.

This month the eight-member modern jazz group has embarked on a 21-city national tour featuring the legendary singer's celebrated catalog of music.

"We have eight originals and then eight arrangements of Stevie Wonder's music," vibraphonist Stefon Harris explained to The Huffington Post. "Some of the arrangements include 'Superstition,' 'Visions.' There's a bit of 'Sir Duke' in there. So we're covering the classics."

The...

You can’t always get what you want, as Mick Jagger (and later, Crystal Bowersox) once sang, and that adage has certainly been applicable to most of American Idol‘s first 399 episodes.

On Wednesday, however, in celebration of the 400th installment of the reality-competition granddaddy, Uncle Nigel took a page from Burger King’s ad department and produced an episode that let the Idoloonie Nation have it their way: A Top 13 packed almost entirely with solid (and varied) vocalists. Specific, constructive critiques from the judges. A mentor with serious chops, good humor, and spot-on advice. A clear, unmuddied sound mix.

We've had multiple weeks focusing on whittling down our finalists into final finalists and no-really-this-is-actually-the-final-group-performance finalists, but this week's "American Idol" finally felt like the real deal, with the Top 13 tackling the legendary songs of Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. Mary J. Blige was on hand to offer vocal coaching with Jimmy Iovine, and though it seemed like a few of the contestants actually left their best performances in the practice room with the mentors, there were still a number of impressive vocals from both the boys and the girls (mainly Jessica Sanchez).

In a weird twist, it was revealed that Thursday's elimination would focus solely on the one male and one female artist with the lowest votes, rather than the three bottom contestants regardless of gender. But in the meantime, here's a rundown of the night's performances.

Joshua Ledet: "I Wish"

I'm not sure why the guys were...

Sanchez's take on Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' brings down the house as the guys tackle Stevie Wonder.

By James Montgomery

Jessica Sanchez on "American Idol"

Photo: Fox

"American Idol" swung for the fences on Wednesday night — and we're not just talking about Steven Tyler's decision to wear his Roy Lichtenstein pants. The girls tackled Whitney Houston songs (borderline blasphemy?) and the guys did Stevie Wonder, and, after two hours of performances that ran the gamut from "startlingly great" to "shockingly unhinged" — with the majority falling somewhere in the middling middle — well, perhaps it's best if producers reined it in a tad.

Still, there were some highlights (Jessica Sanchez!), and with eliminations coming Thursday night (March 8) — though, in classic late-era "Idol," they've added some unnecessary wrinkles to the proceedings — here's our grades for the Top 13. Who passed with flying colors? Who flunked out in flaming fashion?...

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The road to the American Idol crown, however, is littered with the wreckage of Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder songs done very, very wrong.

It’s a testament to the Season 11 Top 13, then, that on a night where the ladies were asked to cover Whitney, and the gentlemen tackled Stevie, we barely heard the sound of tires squealing and metal combusting against metal. Oh, sure, there were a couple of minor fender-benders (from contestants whose names rhyme with Man-In Da-Pain and Yer-Pain Moans), but for the most part, the current crop...

The "American Idol" Top 13 have been given the songs of Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston to sing this evening, so ... way to throw them in the deep end. With sharks. And a bleeding arm wound.

Between J.Lo's white pantsuit and Ryan's lack of tie, the judges are looking very disco this week. Do the hustle! And let us not forget Randy's terrifying dollhead on his lapel. Wtf is up with that?

Can you believe its been 400 episodes? And I honestly haven't missed a one since the Season 1 finale. Holy cow.

1. Joshua Ledet, "I Wish"

This is a wonderful choice for him. He actually sounds quite a bit like young Stevie on parts. The horn section is also awesome. The performance takes a little while to get to the chorus, though. That's the more exciting part, so it maybe could've come a little sooner. But his scatting on the bridge and the ending are fabulous,...

Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys and R. Kelly all performed musical tributes at Whitney Houston's funeral on Saturday (18.02.12). The Motown legend sat at the piano and sang 'Ribbon in the Sky', one of her favourite songs, and 'Love's In Need of Love Today', before paying a personal tribute to the late singer at the emotional service held at the New Hope Baptist Church - which Whitney attended and sang at as a child - in Newark, New Jersey,. Stevie said: ''I want to thank God for allowing me to be in this world at the same time as Whitney ... In my...

Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven For decades, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards have been considered a precursor of the Academy Awards. Movies, performers, directors — and later cinematographers and screenwriters — singled out by the Nyfcc usually have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, oftentimes the golden statuette itself. The New York critics awards also have the reputation of being "snooty" and "artsy." Are they? When it comes to serving as a precursor of the Academy Awards, the answer would have to be a resounding Yes despite a number of Nyfcc winners eventually bypassed by (most of) the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters. As for the Nyfcc's "artsy" choices … Well, that depends on your idea of "artsy." If choosing John Ford's box-office disappointment The Informer as Best Film of 1935 makes the New York critics artsy, then they were. If selecting a couple of non-Hollywood British actresses (Celia Johnson,...

Talk about an episode of The Vampire Diaries with a lot of heart.

Or hearts, I should say. Torn out of the chests of werewolves. Many, many hearts were torn out of the chests of werewolves.

But, aside from violent deaths, "Crying Wolf" crammed a great deal into one hour,  from a life-altering decision by Tyler to numerous planted seeds that will grow as the season progresses. Into what? That's the question. So let's try to answer it by unpacking the busiest installment in recent memory.

Werewolf Domination vs. Werewolf Armageddon. Stevie laid out the issue of the moonstone rather well for Tyler. I know I'm supposed to hate these wolves, but I find myself understanding their point of view. Let's face it: most vampires are Not like Stefan, or Damon when he's in a sensitive mood. These wolves have been feuding with their rival species for centuries, so it's...

As a follow up to the 'Streep at 60' posts I thought I'd leave an open discussion thread for each Streep nomination's competition through the years. Her first came for 1978's The Deer Hunter (my take on her role). The nominees were:

Dyan Cannon, Heaven Can WaitPenelope Milford, Coming HomeMaggie Smith, California Suite

Maureen Stapleton, InteriorsMeryl Streep, The Deer Hunter

The only nomination I've never understood from that shortlist is Milford's in Coming Home (a film I otherwise love). The Golden Globes differed slightly, skipping Smith and Milford to honor Carol Burnett in A Wedding and Mona Washbourne in Stevie. I know there was never a chance that Stockard Channing's classic rendition of "Rizzo" in Grease was going to be shortlisted but it's such a film stealing enduring delight I like to pretend that she was.

My vote would go to Maureen Stapleton, who served Woody Allen's Interiors perfectly,...