Eimear McBride Wins Fiction Prize
Irish novelist Eimear McBride won this year’s Bailey’s Women’s Prize For Fiction with her debut novel ‘A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing’. It took McBride nine years to get the finished book published and she took home the £30,000 prize at tonight’s awards ceremony.
McBride beat out stiff competition from the other shortlisted titles, which included Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller The Goldfinch. The judging panel included Cambridge professor Mary Beard, newsreader Sophie Raworth, columnist and author Caitlin Moran and the writer Denise Mina.
Accepting the award McBride said:
“I hope that it will serve as an incentive to publishers everywhere to take a look at difficult books and to think again. There is a contract between publisher and reader that needs to be honoured and a reader must not be underestimated.”
This year’s 19th annual awards took place at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank, with liquer company Bailey’s replacing former sponsor Orange for the first time. VIP guests on the night also included Author Helen Fielding, Sheila Hancock and Hayley Atwell.
An exclusive Video Interview below with winner Eimear McBride:
Maleficent soars to top of US Box Office
Maleficent Disney’s live action re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty has topped the box office in North America on it’s debut, taking $70 million, officially giving star Angelina Jolie her biggest box office opening yet. The film successfully knocked X-Men sequel Days of Future past into second place and overcame mixed reviews from critics.
Seth MacFarlane’s western comedy A Million Ways To Die In The West also opened with $17.1 million. Despite being enough to secure a comfortable entry near the top of the box office charts it actually represents a disappointment in comparison to the impressive $54 million opening numbers for Ted.
Maleficent’s success also did not actually match that of Disney’s other recent re-imagined fairytales, Alice in Wonderland, which opened with $116m in 2010, and Oz the Great and Powerful which took $79m in its debut weekend last year.
Maleficent Interview with Angelina Jolie below:
Josh Brolin To Voice Marvel Villain Thanos
Josh Brolin will apparently be providing the voice of Marvel villain Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy and likely beyond. The character will feature in Guardians and Avengers: Age of Ultron, inevitably setting up prime villain duties for the climatic Avengers 3.
Comic book fans will already be very familiar with the intergalactic super villain who was teasingly introduced during the final moments of Avengers Assemble. Facing off against Mavel’s entire universe of heroes Thanos is a god like nemesis who wields the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. A weapon closely connected with various artifacts that have already featured in the past Marvel films.
Bryan Cranston Hints At Breaking Bad Return
Speaking to CNN Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston has suggested that Walter White could possibly still be alive. When asked whether fans had seen the last of White, he replied:
“Hey, you never saw bags zip up or anything.”
Presenter Ashley Banfield directly asked, “Is he dead?”, to which Cranston replied, “I don’t know.”
When the possibility was raised that the character could appear anywhere else again, Cranston added “Never say never.”
Red Carpet News recently spoke to fellow Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul and Giancarlo Esposito, video interviews below:
Cranston also spoke about the success of the show during his recent Godzilla promotional duties, video clip below:
Brad Pitt ‘Prankster’ Gets Probation.
Infamous Ukrainian TV presenter Vitalii Sediuk has been given a restraining order to keep him away 500 yards away from Brad Pitt following his alleged assault of the star on the red carpet at the Maleficent world premiere in Los Angeles.
25 year old Sediuk was recently fired by Ukrainian TV station 1+1 following a series of high profile stunts which included trying to kiss Will Smith, inappropriately grabbing Bradley Cooper & Leonardo Di Caprio at various award shows. He was also arrested for attempting to run on stage to grab Adele’s best pop solo Grammy Award and most recently crawled under the dress of Ugly Betty Actress America Ferrera during a photocall at the Cannes film festival.
His latest and most violent ‘stunt’ apparently saw Sediuk jump over barriers at the Maleficent premiere to hug Brad Pitt before striking him in the face and knocking off his sunglasses. Though Pitt appeared unharmed during a subsequent photocall, Sediuk was wrestled to the ground by bodyguards and led away in handcuffs.
Sediuk has now been sentenced to 3 years probation and ordered to attend a year’s psychological counselling and 20 hours of community service.
A Gallery of Pictures from the Maleficent World Premiere below:
