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Anna Nicole Smith and Michael J. Fox Films Get Back to the Feature Doc Format

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

New bio-docs chronicling the lives of Michael J. Fox and Anna Nicole Smith highlight contrasting challenges, public perceptions and paths to fame with traditional chronological formats. LA Weekly reviews both.Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Apple TV+)For most of the ‘80s and a good chunk of the ‘90s, Michael J. Fox was a dominating presence in film and television. The Family Ties and Back to the Future star’s boyish charm, insouciant comic timing, and diminutive stature made him one of the most likable actors of the era. That’s one of many reasons why the actor’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease struck such a deep nerve.In the Apple TV+ documentary, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) lets his protagonist tell his own story. By placing a camera in front of the Canadian-born actor and simply asking him questions, Guggenheim unspools a narrative that pulls the audience into Fox’s multilayered story with a pressing intimacy. In addition to th...

Joshua Tree Music Festival Returns

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

Joshua Tree Music Festival Returns: It’s that time of the year again, when a ton of great artists gather in the desert to celebrate great art and chill vibes surrounded by some of the natural beauty that Southern California has to offer. The line up is typically eclectic and stacked with quality. Highlights include the Last Internationale, Garza, MY BABY, Leyla McCalla, Frazey Ford, Rainbow Girls, Sgt. Splendor, Megan Slankard, and Sass N Harmony.Bay Area trio Rainbow Girls toured with Anna DiFranco last year, and released the “Compassion to the Nth Degree” single.Of the song, the group said, “If you don’t like protest songs, you’ll love this. In a last-ditch effort to wrench up compassion for those we don’t see eye-to-eye with, we turn to love. This song names a kind of love previously undefined: love for the bigot, love for the thief, love for the destroyer. Infinite compassion. Only light can illuminate the darkness, so this is a sweet little love song for all t...

‘Let the Right One In’: Vampire love story comes to Berkeley Rep

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

“Let the Right One In” really seems to have tapped into some kind of vein in the popular imagination.Originally a 2004 Swedish vampire novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist about a bullied 12-year-old boy’s budding romance of sorts with the mysterious child next door, it became a hit 2008 Swedish film and a 2010 American remake, and just last year it was very loosely adapted into a short-lived Showtime TV series.In the intervening years it has also become a stage play that will see its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.The team of playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and choreographer Steven Hoggett are probably best known for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning play that set up residence at San Francisco’s Curran Theater for an extended run starting in 2019.But “Let the Right One In” was actually Tiffany and Thorne’s first collaboration, premiering in 2013 at Scotland’s Dundee Rep Theatre and moving on to London’s Royal Court a...

Three dead in Antioch after vehicle slams into tree

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

ANTIOCH — Two men and one woman died Monday night when one vehicle hit another one, ran off the road and hit a tree, police said.Authorities did not identify the three early Tuesday, pending notification of relatives. None of the them were related, authorities said.Officers responded to the 4100 block of Lone Tree Way about 10:25 p.m. and found all three of the car’s occupants with major injuries, according to a statement from Antioch police. All three were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.The driver of the vehicle with the three occupants was speeding east on Lone Tree Way and hit another vehicle and lost control, police said. The driver of the other vehicle was not injured.Police are investigating and urged anyone with information to call Officer Joshua Egan at 925-204-1587 or [email protected]. Anonymous tips can be texted to 274637 using the keyword ANTIOCH.Please check back for updates.Related ArticlesCrashes and Disasters | Murder charge in Si...

Motorcyclist killed on Skyline when he tried to pass car that was making a left turn, CHP says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

A man was killed Saturday morning when his motorcycle hit a car on Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz Mountains.The crash was reported at 9:30 a.m. on Skyline (Highway 35) about 2½ miles south of Page Mill Road, the California Highway Patrol said.The motorcyclist was southbound behind a Toyota 4Runner on the two-lane road. He attempted to pass the SUV just as its driver started to make a left turn into a driveway, the CHP report said. The motorcycle sideswiped the SUV, went off the road and hit a tree.The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene. He was later identified as Eric Hull, 58, of Boulder Creek.The CHP said alcohol or drugs are not suspected to have been a factor in the collision.Related ArticlesCrashes and Disasters | Murder charge in Sierra foothills crash; woman has history including bank robbery, hatchet attack Crashes and Disasters | Authorities ID man killed in Highway 1 cliff crash Crashes and Disasters | San Jose wom...

Christian McCaffrey calls joining 49ers ‘best thing that ever happened to me’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

SANTA CLARA – Christian McCaffrey’s first impression with the 49ers is still reverberating.Look at fantasy football rankings for this coming season and his name is at the top, at least among all running backs, if not all players overall.Look at the 49ers’ offseason program and he’s engraining himself as a leader, just seven months after arriving in a bittersweet trade from Carolina.“In hindsight, I firmly believe it’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” McCaffrey said last week at the annual Dwight Clark Legacy Series event, which benefits the 49ers’ Golden Heart Fund for 49ers alumni.McCaffrey father, Ed, was part of the 49ers’ last Super Bowl-winning team, in 1994. The younger McCaffrey should have a major role in this season’s quest for another Lombardi Trophy, but he’s not making it all about himself.“It takes everybody,” McCaffrey said ahead of his seventh NFL season out of Stanford. “This is the biggest team game in the world that gets so much individual attention.“You’v...

Daly City man sentenced to 24 years in prison for molesting stepdaughter

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

DALY CITY – A 54-year-old Daly City man has been sentenced to 24 years in state prison for molesting his pre-teen stepdaughter over a period of nearly two years, prosecutors said.David Cancel Sr. previously pleaded no contest to one felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child and four felony counts of lewd or lascivious acts against a child under the age of 14, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.As part of the agreement, Cancel must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.Cancel, who was sentenced Friday morning, was given 1,367 days, or more than three and a half years, worth of credit for time served, prosecutors said. In addition to the prison term, Judge Amarra Lee issued a 10-year no harassment order for the victim.An attorney for Cancel could not be immediately reached for comment.Cancel was initially charged with four felony counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child who is 10 years of age or younger and 11 felony counts o...

Palo Alto: Will renowned chef José Andrés bail on Stanford Shopping Center restaurant plan?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

A Mediterranean restaurant from renowned chef José Andrés, founder of the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, has been in the works as the culinary anchor of Stanford Shopping Center’s newest redevelopment project.But, just a month after the public was clued in, the plans are in flux. If his chefs can’t cook with gas, Andrés may not come to Palo Alto after all.At issue is the city’s recent natural gas ban and how that affects a gas line already installed — and previously approved, the center’s owners contend — for use at the planned restaurant, Zaytinya.Attorneys for the Simon Property Group (SPG), which owns the shopping center, have threatened to sue if the city refuses to allow the use of the gas line and insists on an all-electric building, Palo Alto Online first reported. Their April 28 letter was discussed at a May 8 closed session, but the city has not issued an update or statement.Zaytinya relies on “traditional cooking methods that req...

Murder charge in Sierra foothills crash; woman has history including bank robbery, hatchet attack

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

A woman suspected of driving under the influence has been charged with murder after a fatal crash last week in the Sierra Nevada foothills.The 49-year-old Jamestown resident has at least two previous DUI convictions, the Tuolumne County district attorney said — and she served prison time in Oregon for a bank robbery she committed with her husband.The crash happened at 5:08 p.m. Thursday, May 11, on Highway 108 in the Soulsbyville area, between Twain Harte and Sonora, the California Highway Patrol said.The woman, in a Dodge Ram 2500 pickup, was westbound on 108 behind a Kia Optima. When the Kia’s driver slowed to make a left turn into a driveway, the pickup allegedly rear-ended the car and pushed it into the eastbound lane, where it was struck by a Ford F-350 pickup.The Kia’s driver, a 39-year-old man from Angels Camp, had major injuries. He was airlifted to a Modesto hospital, where he died Saturday.The woman in the Dodge pickup was believed to have been under the ...

Piers Morgan knew about phone-hacking for stories, Harry and Meghan’s biographer testifies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:07:10 GMT

In Prince Harry’s showdown with nemesis Piers Morgan in a London court, the Duke of Sussex’s legal team elicited testimony Monday from a controversial royal reporter who said he heard Piers Morgan discussing the use of phone-hacking for a celebrity story while Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror in 2002.During testimony in Harry’s phone-hacking lawsuit against the Daily Mirror, Omid Scobie said he was a journalism student, working as an intern at the tabloid newspaper in the spring of 2002, and observed Morgan being an “extremely hands-on” editor, The Telegraph reported. Scobie, the author of “Finding Freedom,” a sympathetic biography of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, said he heard Morgan being told that information for a story about Kylie Minogue’s troubled relationship with her then-boyfriend had come from intercepted voicemails, The Telegraph said.“Mr. Morgan was asking how confident they were in the reporting and was...