Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Man charged in Tupac Shakur’s killing asks again
for house arrest
LAS VEGAS | An ailing and aging former Los Angeles-area gang leader is due to ask a Nevada judge on Tuesday to change her mind and release him from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ attorney, Carl Arnold, said in court filings that since a hearing last month during which the judge denied Davis’ release over questions about the legality of money he wanted to post as bail, he has submitted financial records proving the source is legal.
Arnold also argued that since Davis has not been convicted of a crime, it doesn’t matter if Davis and Cash “Wack 100” Jones, a hip-hop music figure who says he is underwriting Davis’ $750,000 bail, plan to profit from selling Davis’ life story.
Nevada law prohibits convicted killers from profiting from their crime.
Neither Arnold nor his spokesperson, Xochitl Underwood, responded to emails seeking comment.
In court filings, prosecutors accuse Davis, 61, of “scheming … to obfuscate the source” of the $112,500 “gift” that Jones testified he put up as a 15% guarantee to obtain Davis’ bail bond.
Jones, who has managed artists including Johnathan “Blueface” Porter and Jayceon “The Game” Taylor, testified in June that he was willing to put up the money for Davis because Davis was fighting cancer and had “always been a monumental person in our community … especially the urban community.”
Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny ruled that she wasn’t satisfied that Davis and Jones weren’t planning to profit. She also said she couldn’t determine if Jones wasn’t funneling money to a bond guarantee company on behalf of another unnamed person.
Arnold argued in new court filings that Davis hasn’t been convicted, so he cannot be prevented from profiting. Furthermore, he wrote that because Davis and Jones have no contract for a “movie, series or any other form of media production,” concerns about the source of bail money are “not legally relevant.”
Prosecutors responded that a judge can set any condition deemed necessary to ensure that a defendant returns to court for trial. If Davis is allowed to post a “gift” for release, he’d have no incentive to comply with court orders or appear for trial, set to begin Nov. 4, they said.
Davis is originally from Compton, California, but now lives in Henderson, near Las Vegas. He has been seeking his release from jail since shortly after his arrest last September. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted.
Prosecutors say Davis’ own words, including in his tell-all book in 2019 as well as in various police and media interviews, are strong evidence that he’s responsible for Shakur’s killing. They say they have testimony from other people who corroborate Davis’ accounts.
Authorities allege that the killing stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang and West Coast parts of a Crips gang, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”
Shakur had five No. 1 albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards and was inducted in 2017 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He died at age 25.
Venice Film Festival lineup includes ‘Joker 2,’ films with Pitt, Clooney, Jolie
Five years after “Joker” won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, filmmaker Todd Phillips is returning with the sequel. “Joker: Folie à Deux” will play in competition with 20 other titles, festival organizers said Tuesday.
The highly anticipated follow-up to the blockbuster comic book film stars Joaquin Phoenix as the mentally ill Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
The lineup for the 81st edition of the festival, unveiled early Tuesday, also includes new films starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jude Law.
Among the films playing alongside “Joker 2” in competition are Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas film “Maria,” starring Jolie; Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here”; the erotic thriller “Babygirl” starring Kidman and Harris Dickinson from filmmaker Halina Reijn; Luca Guadagnino’s William S. Burrough’s adaptation “Queer,” with Craig and Jason Schwartzman; and Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. Set in New England, the filmmaker has said it’s about an imperfect mother and a resentful daughter.
“The Order,” Justin Kurzel’s 80s-set crime thriller about the white supremacist group starring Law as an FBI agent, Nicholas Hoult and Jurnee Smollett, will also be in competition, as will Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” with Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones and Joe Alwyn. Shot on 70mm, the 215-minute epic is about a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor who goes to the United States.
Pitt and Clooney will reunite in Jon Watts’ “Wolfs,” an adrenaline packed action-comedy about a few fixers that will screen out of competition.
Several interesting films playing in the horizons extra section include “September 5,” about the live television coverage of the Munich Olympics, starring Peter Sarsgaard; John Swab’s “King Ivory,” with Ben Foster and James Badge Dale; and Alex Ross Perry’s film about Stephen Malkmus’ California rock band Pavement.
Venice will also screen Peter Weir’s 2003 epic “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” in conjunction with his lifetime achievement award.
Seven episodes of Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological thriller series “Disclaimer” will also premiere at the festival. The AppleTV+ show is based on a novel about a documentary journalist and a secret she’s been keeping. It stars Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline and will debut on the streamer in October.
Among the nonfiction titles playing out of competition are Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ “One to One: John & Yoko,” which reconstructs the New York years of the Beatle and his wife; Errol Morris’ “Separated,” about the separation of immigrant children from their parents in the U.S; Anastasia Trofimova’s “Russians at War”; Göran Hugo Olsson’s “Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989”; “Riefenstahl,” about the German propagandist; And another Beatles-focused doc, “The Things We Said Today,” a time capsule of their arrival in New York and first concert at Shea Stadium.
Last year’s festival took place amid the actors’ strike. Although some attended under interim agreements, like Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz for “Ferrari” and “Priscilla” stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, the festival was lacking its usual, consistent supply of star power. But its awards season influence remained strong: Seven Venice world premieres went on to get 24 Oscar nominations and five wins: Four for “Poor Things” and one for Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.”
Venice is a significant launching ground for awards hopefuls and the first major stop of a busy fall film festival season, with Toronto, Telluride and the New York Film Festivals close behind.
The 81st edition kicks off on August 28, with the world premiere of Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.” All of the main cast, including Michael Keaton, are expected to grace the red carpet. The Venice Film Festival runs through Sept. 7.
Toronto Film Festival lineup includes movies from Angelina Jolie, Mike Leigh
The Angelina Jolie-directed war film “Without Blood,” a documentary about Bruce Springsteen and Mike Leigh’s contemporary tragicomedy “Hard Truths” will have their world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. The festival announced its gala and special presentation lineup Monday.
Jolie’s film stars Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir and is based on the Alessandro Baricco novel “Without Blood.” The Springsteen film, “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band” charts behind the scenes of his world tour. Leigh’s film, his first in six years, has him reuniting with his “Secrets & Lies” star Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
Also announced were the world premieres of Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl,” starring Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista and Kiernan Shipka, and Rachel Morrison’s directorial debut “The Fire Inside,” about the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. Barry Jenkins wrote the screenplay.
Edward Burns has a new film, “Millers in Marriage” with Minnie Driver and Morena Baccarin, as does David Mackenzie with the thriller “Relay” starring Riz Ahmed and Lily James. Jennifer Lopez co-stars in the Ben Affleck-produced sports drama “Unstoppable” about American wrestler Anthony Robles. And Hugh Grant leads the eerie Scott Beck and Bryan Woods-directed A24 pic “Heretic.”
One year after TIFF went on through the actors strikes, the star power has returned to the prestigious film festival which helps inform the conversation around the season’s awards hopefuls.
Focus Features will play its Edward Berger-directed, and Ralph Fiennes-starring papal thriller “Conclave” at the festival. But it won’t be the world premiere for “Conclave” — that event will likely happen at either Venice or Telluride, which have yet to announce their full lineups. The studio will also bring “Piece by Piece” to TIFF, Morgan Neville’s Pharrell Williams documentary told with LEGOs.
Films previously announced as part of the TIFF slate include the animated “The Wild Robot,” Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch,” starring Amy Adams, John Crowley’s “We Live In Time,” with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, David Gordon Green’s comedy “Nutcrackers,” with Ben Stiller, R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s “Elton John: Never Too Late” and Ron Howard’s survival thriller “Eden” with Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney and Jude Law.
The festival will also play some Cannes favorites including Sean Baker’s “Anora,” Paul Scrader’s “Oh, Canada” and Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” and the Will Ferrell friendship documentary “Will & Harper” which debuted at Sundance.
More TIFF films will be announced in the coming weeks, as will the lineups for other important fall festivals including Venice, Telluride and New York Film Festival.
TIFF kicks off on Sept. 5 and runs through Sept. 15.
—From AP reports
