Splash Instablog

  Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, left, and director Charlie Kaufman pose for photographers on the red carpet for the film Anomalisa, at the 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy Critics are singing the praises of "Anomalisa," which was written by Charlie Kaufman — the imaginative wordsmith who scripted "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" — and co-directed by Kaufman and stop-motion animator Duke Johnson Tender, funny and unsettling, it follows motivational speaker Michael Stone on a soul-sapping business trip to Cincinnati as he struggles to understand why he feels disconnected from the world and almost everyone in it. The film was adapted from a play written by Kaufman as Francis Fregoli — a name taken from Fregoli Syndrome, a rare disorder that makes people think everyone else in the world is one person. Kaufman said the syndrome struck him as "a metaphor for some sort of alienation or di...

  he Tony Award-nominated play "Hand to God" — featuring a satanic hand puppet — will close on Broadway in January but will be resurrected a month later — in London. Kevin McCollum attends the 2015 Tony Awards Meet The Nominees Press Junket at The Paramount Hotel in New York. The Tony Award-nominated play "Hand to God" featuring a satanic hand puppet, will end its New York run on Jan. 3, 2016 and begin a new chapter Feb. 5 at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End under original director Moritz von Stuelpnagel. McCollum said Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File) Producer Kevin McCollum said Wednesday the show will end its New York run on Jan. 3 and begin a new chapter Feb. 5 at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End under original director Moritz von Stuelpnagel. The cast will be announced later.

  The Television Academy said today that classical tenor Andrea Bocelli and Emmy-winning singer-songwriter and producer David Foster will headline at the post-Emmys Governors Ball on September 20. The announcement was made during a Sneak Peek Press Preview for the event at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Bocelli and Foster have worked together many times including on a handful of Great Performances programs. Two of those —  Andrea Bocelli & David Foster: My Christmas (2009) and  Andrea Bocelli: Amore Under the Desert Sky (2006) — earned Foster Emmy noms for Outstanding Music Direction. Bocelli scored an Emmy nom for his 2000 Great Performances program “Andrea Bocelli: Sacred Arias,” which was tied to the album of the same name, which remains the all-time biggest seller by a solo classical artis

  As if fear, hunger, thirst, worry and exhaustion were not enough to endure, a new trial emerged Thursday for those on the 1,000 mile-plus trek into Europe: torrential rain. A Macedonian border policeman scuffles with refugees and migrants as they wait to pass in heavy rainfall from the northern Greek village of Idomeni to southern Macedonia, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015. Thousands of people, including many families with young children, braved torrential downpours to cross Greece’s northern border with Macedonia early Thursday, after Greek authorities managed to register about 17,000 people on the island of Lesbos in the space of a few days, allowing them to continue their journey north into Europe. Thousands of people, including many families with young children, braved downpours and muddy fields Thursday to cross Greece's northern border into Macedonia, in what Greek police said was the largest single wave of refugees they had seen so far.

The Islamic State group on Wednesday claimed to be holding a Norwegian man and a Chinese consultant hostage and demanded ransom for their release. This combination of undated photos taken from the Islamic State group's online magazine Dabiq purports to show Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad, 48, from Oslo, Norway, left, and Fan Jinghui, 50, from Beijing, China. The extremist group claimed on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, to be holding the men hostage and demanded ransom for their release. The extremist group posted pictures of the two men wearing yellow prison outfits in the latest issue of its online magazine Dabiq. It identifies the Norwegian man as Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad, 48, from Oslo, and the Chinese man as Fan Jinghui, 50, a freelance consultant from Beijing.

The head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker issued an impassioned plea Wednesday for Europe to face up to its immigration crisis . Amr Zaidah, with the aid of GPS, helped pilot the inflatable boat that brought him and about 30 more migrants to the closest spot to the village of Molivos on Lesbos, one of several Greek islands that have this summer served the tens of thousands of migrants as a first stop on the journey to western Europe. Molivos, he knew, was where buses were taking migrants to the capital of Lesbos, Mytilene, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the south. The alternative would be a punishing trek on narrow dirt tracks hugging the coast and lined by olive trees, a stretch of highway and a narrow road that cuts through rolling hills. At Mytilene, Zaidah also knew, he and the eight friends he came with could seek the official document that allows them to continue their journey. "I have researched our journey for more than two ...