After last year’s televised ceremony yielded the lowest-ever ratings for the awards presentation, Oscars bosses have announced Raj Kapoor as executive producer and showrunner of the 2024 Academy Awards show.

The director of the controversial Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings has addressed the criticism aimed at the film, and given a pretty clear response. Gene Stupnitsky has spoken about the age gap between the two main characters, which has attracted some backlash on social media. The sex comedy movie was released earlier this year and has now found a new audience after landing on Netflix. The film focuses on Lawrence's character Maddie who discovers a lucrative job for the summer; dating an introverted 19-year-old, Percy – played by Andrew Barth Feldman, before he goes to college. Social media users have criticised the age gap between the characters – but Stupnitsky shut down the backlash in a series of interviews. The filmmaker spoke about another of Lawrence’s movies, Silver Linings Playbook, which features a similar age gap between the characters played by Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. Speaking at the film premiere in New York, Stupnitsky said: “It goes the other way too. We took great pains to be careful about the ick factor because it could go that way... We took a humanist approach and I think that's all you can ask for." Feldman also spoke during an interview with Vanity Fair, saying: "Because what is a comedy if it’s not at least a little controversial?" He added: "But Percy is an adult. I am an adult, and this is a cringe comedy. It should make you uncomfortable. I’m disinterested in a movie, and specifically a comedy, about people who are perfect and make the right decisions all the time.” He went on to say: "[We were so thoughtful about it throughout. Constantly, every day talking about what it meant and how it would manifest in a truthful way. "And I think people are going to be surprised with not just how funny it turns out to be, and how uncomfortable it maybe makes them, but also how beautiful this relationship is and how heartfelt it is." It comes after Lawrence has left viewers of her new film No Hard Feelings stunned by a fight scene on a beach in the new film where the Oscar-winning Hollywood A-lister is completely naked. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

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Since it was announced last night that Sinead O'Connor has died aged 56, people have been remembering her life. The Irish singer's family announced the death "with great sadness" on Wednesday evening (July 26). The cause of death was not made public. O'Connor wrote a memoir and lines from it feel heartbreaking now, knowing she has died. The book, written in 2021 is called Rememberings. The closing lines look towards life after the coronavirus pandemic and read: "Then between albums and tours, I'll have an occupation. Not be sitting round for a year at a time with nothing but idle hands. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "Because of the virus, it feels like the end of the world and the beginning of another. "Maybe a better one." The Grammy-winning singer shot to international stardom in 1990 with the hit ballad Nothing Compares 2 U, and released 10 studio albums between 1987 and 2014. A 2022 documentary about O'Connor, called Nothing Compares, was set to be aired on television for the first time by Sky on 29 July. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Laura Ingraham claims that even Biden-friendly media can’t avoid the facts about the failed Bidenomics any longer

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Andrew Tate interacts with media for the first time after coming out of jail