The film has opened with mixed reviews
Actor Casey Affleck has admitted the documentary film he made about Joaquin Phoenix quitting Hollywood to become a rap star was staged.
Affleck told the New York Times that Phoenix gave a “terrific” performance”.
Over the last two years, the actor has behaved strangely in public, leading fans and critics to wonder whether he was documenting a breakdown on film.
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I’m Still Here was shown at the Venice Film Festival this month, where Affleck insisted the events were genuine.
Infamous interview
At a press conference, Affleck said: “I sincerely do not want to influence people’s interpretation.
“I can tell you there’s no hoax, the idea of a hoax makes me think of candid camera and things like [MTV prank show] Punk’d.
“It never entered my conscience, until other people started to talk about the movie.”
But in the interview with the New York Times, Affleck acknowledged that Phoenix gave “the performance of his career”.
He added: “I never intended to trick anybody.”
Speculation about the documentary began when a bearded, bedraggled Phoenix appeared on David Letterman’s chat show in February last year, seeming confused and incoherent.
Affleck told the newspaper that Letterman was not in on the joke.
The, now infamous, interview ended with Letterman saying to the actor: “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight.”
Phoenix, whose sister Summer is married to Affleck, is due to return to Letterman’s show next week, but this time he will not be in character.
I’m Still Here includes footage of the actor apparently taking drugs, surfing the internet for call girls, diving off a stage to attack a heckler and vomiting.
It also features rap mogul Sean Combs, otherwise known as Diddy, who finally agrees to listen to a demo of the actor’s hip-hop music.
Combs recently won praise for his role in Russell Brand comedy Get Him To The Greek.
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Jamie Dolan admitted causing death by dangerous driving
A teenage drink-driver who knocked down and killed a trainee teacher has been sentenced to seven years’ detention.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Jamie Dolan, 17, had never been behind the wheel of a car before the crash in Dundee on 1 January.
He ploughed into Caroline Cumming, 24, and boyfriend Scott Ramsay, 23, as they left a New Year party.
Mr Ramsay was left with serious injuries. Dolan, from Dundee, admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
In sentencing Dolan, judge Lady Smith said: “You had no business to be driving on 1 January 2010.
“You had no licence, no insurance and no driving experience.
“Your driving was dangerous and it caused death and serious injury.
“No sentence that I pronounce can restore Caroline Cumming’s life or reverse the physical and emotional effects on Scott Ramsay of this terrible incident”
Judge Lady Smith
“I am advised that you realise that and that you are now full of guilt and regret and I very much hope that is the case.”
Lady Smith added: “No sentence that I pronounce can restore Caroline Cumming’s life or reverse the physical and emotional effects on Scott Ramsay of this terrible incident.”
Lady Smith also banned Dolan from driving for 15 years.
Dolan’s defence solicitor advocate Chris Fyffe said Dolan was “sorry” and “agonised” over the tragedy his actions had caused.
He added that he struggled to come to terms with the magnitude of the consequences and was unable to speak about it before breaking down.
Mr Fyffe said the teenager had been affected by his mother’s drug abuse and chaotic lifestyle and had also been rejected from the family home.
At an earlier hearing, the court heard that Dolan had lost control of a Ford Mondeo while driving at 60mph in a 30mph zone, and smashed into Miss Cumming, who died at the scene.
He was then seen fleeing the car, which crashed on Arbroath Road, carrying two bottles of vodka.
The court was told that a police dog was able to track Dolan to his home, where he was found with fragments of windscreen glass in his jumper.
It was later calculated that he was two and a half times the drink drive limit at the time of the crash.
Miss Cumming was declared dead at the scene
Outside the High Court in Edinburgh, Caroline’s father, Stephen Cumming, 55, who stood with wife Val, their son Christopher and Mr Ramsay, read a statement.
He said: “Jamie Dolan was today sentenced to seven years for killing our daughter Caroline.
“Caroline was robbed of her hopes, and dreams, and of her life, and no sentence can ever compensate for this.
“Sadly, too many innocent lives are being needlessly taken in similar circumstances by individuals like Jamie Dolan, who have no regard for the lives or property of others.
“He is a callous and remorseless offender with more than 40 juvenile convictions who was more concerned with retrieving two bottles of vodka from the wreckage of the stolen vehicle than in trying to help Caroline or her seriously injured boyfriend Scott.
“There is not a moment in the day that Caroline is not in our thoughts and we all miss her so very very much.”
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McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button hope changes to their cars will help them be competitive at the Singapore Grand Prix.
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About 70,000 people attended Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on the first day of the state visit
Catholic education, relations with the Church of England and the role of faith in the UK are set to be major themes of the second day of the Pope’s UK visit.
He flew into London for the next leg of his state visit late on Thursday.
Later Pope Benedict XVI will meet hundreds of students, make a speech at Westminster Hall and hold joint prayers with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
On Thursday the Pope celebrated open-air Mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, attended by about 70,000 people.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the second day of the Pope’s four-day visit will be heavy with symbolism.
Pope Benedict will lead a gathering of nearly 4,000 young people at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, at an event called The Big Assembly.
Pope Benedict XVI: “Drugs, money, sex, pornography, alcohol … these things are destructive and divisive”
The Church sees it as an opportunity to celebrate the work of more than 2,000 Catholic schools across the UK, in partnership with the state.
However, our correspondent says that for some people it will fuel hostility to faith schools and it could also be a painful reminder of the abuse scandals hanging over the trip.
The Pope will meet representatives of other faiths, before visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.
The meeting is a gesture of reconciliation on both sides, as Catholic archbishops lived at the palace until England, under Henry VIII, broke with Rome.
The Pope will then make the most political speech of his visit at Westminster Hall, our correspondent adds.
He is likely to stress the value of Catholic social teaching and link it with ideas of community-building contained in David Cameron’s concept of the “Big Society”.
The Pope arrived in London at Heathrow airport where he was met by London Mayor Boris Johnson.
The mayor presented him with three books including Mr Johnson’s own historical work, To Dream of Rome.
The Pope is staying the night at the Apostolic Nunciature, in Wimbledon, the residence of his representative in Britain.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church in England and Wales hailed the first day of the Pope’s visit as a success.
“Everybody in the Pope’s entourage was overwhelmed by the people on the streets of Edinburgh and the turn out in Glasgow. It wasn’t just the size of the crowd but their enthusiasm,” he said.
In his homily in Glasgow, Pope Benedict warned against people who seek “to exclude religious belief from public discourse”, saying they even went as far as painting religion “as a threat to equality and liberty”.
He insisted: “Religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect.”
The Pope had travelled to Glasgow from Edinburgh, where he was welcomed to the UK by the Queen at Holyroodhouse.
There were performances by two Scottish singers, Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle and 2003 Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus.
The Popemobile joined the annual St Ninian’s Day parade where police estimated about 125,000 people had turned out to see him.
The trip is the first to the UK by a pontiff since John Paul II in 1982.
It is also the first to be designated as a state visit because the Pope was invited by the Queen rather than the Church.
Dioceses in England and Wales have reported thousands of unfilled places for a vigil in London’s Hyde Park on Saturday and a beatification Mass in Birmingham on Sunday for 19th Century cardinal John Henry Newman.
The Pope’s visit has caused controversy in the UK because of the cost and the scandal surrounding child abuse within the Catholic Church.
Tens of thousands of people cheered and waved flags as Pope Benedict travelled to Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.
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