VIDEO: Ayub Khosa has the right cure for cellphone addiction

Renowned actor and director Ayub Khosa has got the right solution for turning e-social gathering into a real life assembly, ARY News reported.

In a video doing rounds on social media, the Operation 021 actor, who is known for lightheartedness and jolly personality, can be seen sitting with his friends and peers at a restaurant.

All are still busy with their mobile phones while sitting in a gathering at a public place, which prompts Khosa to do this. “Bro give me your mobile, you too please and brother give me your phone as well and this is mine,” he says while snatching the phones from their hands and puts all including his own in a plastic bag.

“Bro be present in the meeting and eat food… you all are engaged with mobile phones,” he says before snatching mobile phone of the last man who is filming all this.

It is a common sight in company of families, friends or office colleagues that every individual gets absorbed in social media, on screens of their handsets. Khosa’s act would serve as guidance for such assemblies next time.

Apart from several Pakistani flicks and dramas, Khosa has also worked in Bollywood’s ‘Welcome to Karachi’.

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Final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ to premiere in April

LOS ANGELES: HBO’s hit Emmy-winning drama “Game of Thrones” will debut its eighth and final season starting in April, the network announced in a trailer released online on Tuesday.

The video featured footage from previous seasons to recap the costly battles that preceded the coming showdown for control of the fictional kingdom of Westeros. The network did not reveal a specific date for the final season’s premiere.

“Game of Thrones,” which has won multiple Emmy awards, is HBO’s biggest hit ever with some 30 million viewers in the United States and an army of devoted fans worldwide.

Several spinoffs of the series are in the works. HBO, owned by AT&T Inc (T.N), said in June that it had given a pilot order to a prequel that will take place thousands of years before the events of the current series.

Read More: ‘Mrs. Maisel,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ win on night of Emmy upsets

“Game of Thrones” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” had won the top prizes at the Emmy awards, on September 18, a night of upsets for the highest honours in television and a triumph for streaming services.

Dystopian female show “The Handmaid’s Tale” and FX’s surreal hip-hop comedy “Atlanta” were the biggest losers, taking none of the most prestigious awards and making a disappointing night for stars Elisabeth Moss and Donald Glover.

HBO’s medieval fantasy “Game of Thrones” won a total of nine Emmys, including technical awards for special effects and stunts, and was named best drama series for a third time, beating last year’s champion “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

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Ranveer, Deepika finally tie the knot in Italy

Bollywood’s latest couple to tie the knot, Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh’s grand Italy wedding is one close affair. The couple has tied the knot in a Konkani-South Indian style marriage ceremony on Wednesday and would observe Sindhi rituals in the wedding ceremony on Thursday.

This should be noted that Ranveer belongs to a Sindhi family who migrated from Karachi to Mumbai following the partition of the sub-continent.

The venue for DeepVeer couple’s wedlock is Villa del Balbianello. Officially no picture of their wedding has been released though, but few pictures doing rounds on social media suggest that the two-day festivities are taking place on the coast of Lake Como. The theme of the wedding was white and golden on the first day.

The Ram-Leela hero got down to his knees and delivered an emotional speech for his co-protagonist of the movie, during the sangeet ceremony.

According to local Indian media reports, the Bajirao Mastani actress would be wearing a bright red lehenga for the Sindhi ceremony.

India Today reported, “The bridal lehenga will be a vibrant red with intricate threadwork; it will bear the designer’s signature touch. Ranveer, on the other hand, will be seen in a kanjeevaram sherwani with equally delicate threadwork.”

All eyes are glued on different social media platforms for just a glimpse of the astonishing duo of Ranveer and Deepika, as the absolutely highly anticipated wedding of the entire year, if not the decade, is underway.

Congratulations and best wishes are pouring in for the reel and now real life couple.

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Victoria’s Secret’s comments on trans, plus-sized models force CEO’s exit

NEW YORK: The CEO of American clothing and lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret has resigned amid flagging sales and controversy around a lack of diversity at the line’s iconic annual fashion show, a source said Wednesday.

A source familiar with the matter said CEO Jan Singer, who had been in the position since September 2016, would leave the company, but did not specify when.

American media outlets had reported the move without specifying the reason, and Victoria’s Secret parent company, L Brands, declined to comment.

The departure comes less than a week after the brand’s marketing director Ed Razek garnered anger for saying in a Vogue interview that Victoria’s Secret had thought about and decided against including transgender or plus-size models in their show, which this year was held in New York on November 8.

“We attempted to do a television special for plus-sizes (in 2000). No one had any interest in it, still don’t,” Razek told the magazine.

The director cited pop star Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty line, which carries plus sizes but said Victoria’s Secret didn’t want to include new models just to be “politically correct,” and that they are a “specialty business” which doesn’t market to everyone.

The comments sparked a surge of criticism on social media, to the point that Razek issued a public apology, saying that the brand wouldn’t object to hiring a transgender model.

Outside of that controversy, Singer’s departure as CEO comes at a difficult time for the lingerie company, which has suffered from a slow-down in recent years. Sales fell eight percent in 2017.

In the first half of 2018, L Brand, its parent company, was able to stabilize Victoria’s Secret, particularly thanks to the opening of several stores in China and to the growth of online sales.

Critics say the issues come because the brand and its models haven’t been able to adapt to the market’s new demands.

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Dark, new ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movie grounded in real world

LOS ANGELES: Albus Dumbeldore is a young professor at Hogwarts School; the charismatic but evil Gellert Grindelwald is determined to manipulate the world for his own ends; and Newt Scamander, with his magical suitcase of strange creatures, is trying to stop him.

The wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling returns to the big screen this week with “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” and its dark themes are grounded firmly in the real world.

Set in 1927, some 70 years before Rowling’s best-selling “Harry Potter” books and movies, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is the second in a spinoff movie series that explores the fight between good and evil, and between tolerance and acceptance.

“The thing that has always been extraordinary about (Rowling’s) work is people relate to aspects of it, whether it is specific character traits or vulnerabilities or a political climate,” said Eddie Redmayne, who plays Scamander.

“Yet she shrouds it in this world that is so magical and sort of wonderful that you don’t feel like you’re being hit by it until you start thinking about it afterwards,” the actor told Reuters Television.

Rowling has said that the rise of populist politics in modern times was on her mind when she began writing the screenplays for the first two movies, but she has not said if she had a specific person or country in mind.

The new film’s 1927 setting sees Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp, address huge rallies that incite his followers to violence.

“One of the things that Grindelwald does so well is that he has an insane goal. But… he makes it sound so reasonable,” said Alison Sudol, who plays mind-reader Queenie Goldstein in the movie.

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Apple partners with Oscar-winning movie studio A24 for feature films

Apple has inked a multi-year deal with A24, the studio behind Oscar-winning projects Moonlight and Amy, a source familiar with the plans told Reuters, as the iPhone maker pushes deeper into original content and movies.

Apple, which had allocated an initial $1 billion for programming, earlier inked deals with Hollywood celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and ordered two seasons of a series starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston to bring in more content for its users.

Other projects Apple had announced include a remake of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s science fiction anthology series Amazing Stories, based on Isaac Asimov’s influential “Foundation” science fiction novels, and a drama from La La Land movie director Damian Chazelle.

New York-based A24’s Academy Award nominations include Lady Bird and Room.

The deal comes at a time when top online streaming service providers including Netflix, Amazon.com’s Prime Video and Time Warner HBO are spending billions to create original content.

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‘Eighth Grade,’ ‘Beale Street’ land Indie Spirit Awards nominations

LOS ANGELES: Coming-of-age movie “Eighth Grade” and family drama “If Beale Street Could Talk” scored best feature nominations on Friday for the Independent Spirit Awards, the annual honours given to Hollywood’s lower-budget movies.

“We the Animals,” a film about three biracial brothers, led all movies with five nods, including one for best first feature from director Jeremiah Zagar.

“Eighth Grade” was in the running for the top prize alongside “First Reformed,” “Beale Street,” “Leave No Trace” and “You Were Never Really Here.”

The best female lead category included nominations for Glenn Close for “The Wife” and Toni Collette for “Hereditary.” Joaquin Phoenix was nominated for best male lead for his performance in “You Were Never Really Here” and was up against “First Reformed” star Ethan Hawke, among others.

The Spirit Awards, to be held on Feb. 23, and hosted by the Film Independent organisation, celebrate artistic films made for under $20 million at an informal lunch on the Santa Monica, California beach the day before Hollywood’s glitzy Academy Awards ceremony.

In four of the past five years, the best feature winner at the Independent Spirit Awards has gone on to win best picture at the Oscars. Those winners were “Moonlight,” “Spotlight,” “Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave.”

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Oh boy – vintage Mickey Mouse posters to fetch thousands at auction

LONDON: Seven rare vintage posters of Mickey Mouse are expected to fetch thousands of dollars at an auction that coincides with the 90th anniversary of the cartoon character’s first film appearance.

The seven posters, dating from the 1930s and 1940s, went on display on Friday at a commemorative exhibition in London organised by Disney.

They are going under the Sotheby’s hammer in an online auction that runs until Nov. 26. A price list in a statement from the auctioneer and Walt Disney Co. UK & Ireland suggests they could fetch more than 130,000 pounds in total.

“We’re expecting a lot of interest… There are collectors who collect animation posters from all over the world and Mickey Mouse historically is the most valuable of all the animation characters,” Bruce Marchant, Sotheby’s film poster consultant, told Reuters.

“They’re particularly rare posters from England, France, Belgium and two of them are the only known surviving examples and for three of the others, there are certainly less than five known.”

Such posters were reused several times at cinemas and, being made of paper, most eventually fell apart and were thrown away. “So they were never meant to be looked at 80-90 years later” or viewed as works of art, Marchant added.

The exhibition, “Mickey’s UK Art Collective Exhibition”, is also showcasing new Mickey-inspired works by established and emerging UK artists including Jimmy C, Michael Bosanko and Pal Kumar.

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Stars gather for Chinese ‘Oscars’ in Taiwan

TAIPEI: Asian cinema’s top stars gather in Taipei on Saturday for Taiwan’s Golden Horse film awards, dubbed the Chinese-language “Oscars”, with acclaimed director Zhang Yimou’s “Shadow” leading the race.

Oscar-winning Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee, Chinese superstar Gong Li and Hong Kong’s “heavenly king” Andy Lau are among the celebrities due to walk down the red carpet in Taipei ahead of the glitzy ceremony.

Chinese director Zhang’s martial arts epic, inspired by traditional ink-brush painting, leads with 12 nominations including for the coveted best film, best director, best leading actor and actress awards.

Taiwanese comedy “Dear EX” about a widow fighting for her husband’s inheritance against his gay lover, follows closely with eight nods in the best film and best acting categories, plus a best new director nod for Taiwanese duo Mag Hsu and Hsu Chih-yen.

Best director contenders are all from China. Zhang, Jiang Wen (“Hidden Man”) and Lou Ye (“The Shadow Play”) will face off against 29-year-old Bi Gan (“Long Day’s Journey Into Night”) and Tibetan Pema Tseden (“Jinpa”).

Zhang has never won Golden Horse best director, while former actor Jiang, who starred in Zhang’s classic “Red Sorghum”, won the title with his directorial debut “In the Heat of the Sun” in 1996.

The best acting awards are also dominated by Chinese talent, with Taiwan’s Roy Chiu and Hsieh Ying-xuan fighting for a home win for their respective roles as the gay lover and widowed mother in “Dear EX”.

China’s Deng Chao, who plays the double of an official trained to protect him in ancient China in “Shadow”, is a frontrunner for best actor against compatriots Xu Zheng (“Dying to Survive”), Duan Yihong (“The Looming Storm”) and Peng Yuchang (“An Elephant Sitting Still”).

Deng’s wife, Chinese television star Sun Li, who also plays his wife in “Shadow”, is vying for best actress against Zhou Xun in Japanese director Shunji Iwai’s romance “Last Letter” as well as Zhao Tao (“Ash is Purest White”) and Zeng Meihuizi (“Three Husbands”).

Three Chinese dramas — “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, “Dying to Survive” and “An Elephant Sitting Still” — are also in the running for best film.

The best documentary category sees “Our Youth in Taiwan” about the island’s 2014 Sunflower Movement pitted against “Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella” about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. Both mass protests were led by young activists and reflected increasing resistance to Beijing’s influence.

The 55th edition of the awards is due to start at 7:00 pm (1100 GMT) in Taipei’s Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

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With ‘my wife,’ Justin Bieber confirms marriage to Hailey Baldwin

LOS ANGELES: Pop singer Justin Bieber has confirmed his marriage to model Hailey Baldwin, posting the ultimate status update on social media two months after it was reported the couple had obtained a marriage license.

“My wife is awesome,” Bieber wrote on his Instagram account, next to a picture of himself and Baldwin walking and holding hands.

The Canadian singer is one of the world’s biggest-selling musical acts. Since releasing his last studio album in 2015, he has been featured on hits by other artists, including Major Lazer’s “Cold Water” and a remix of Luis Fonsi’s global sensation “Despacito,” in which Bieber sang in Spanish.

This summer, it was reported that Bieber was engaged to Baldwin, 21, the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin, and in September media outlets reported they had obtained a marriage license in the United States.

The Arizona-born model has changed her name on Instagram to Hailey Bieber.

Justin Bieber, 24, was the second person after singer Katy Perry to reach 100 million followers on Twitter, and his millions of fans have taken a keen interest in his romantic life. He dated pop singer and actress Selena Gomez off and on for years.

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