It was bound to happen sooner or later.

A group of young South Africans have jumped onto the ‘Sh*t Girls Say” viral video bandwagon and created their own local variation with this aptly titled clip, “Sh*t South Africans say”. The video was uploaded onto YouTube on Wednesday and has since amassed over 10 000 views. There are some funny moments, yes, but whether it truly reflects our diverse, cosmopolitan culture remains to be seen.

Is this a true reflection of our local-is-lekker culture? Share your thoughts with us!

It must be the most infuriating addition to any cultural performance for artist and audience alike – the ambience-shattering drone of a ringing cellphone.

But rather than storm off after an audience member’s ringing phone interrupted his intricate solo performance, Slovakian violinist Lukáš Kmit’s delivered this ingenious comeback that has since gone viral on YouTube. Watch it here:

In order to accommodate the least-deserving movie star of all time, makers of the upcoming “R.I.P.D.” have changed the name (and implied ethnicity) of Ryan Reynolds’s character, from Nick Cruz — as it is in the corresponding comic book and graphic novel — to Nick Walker.

The technical term for this little operation is “race-lifting,” and it happens all the time. Sometimes it’s repellent, like when “Spawn” director Todd McFarlane caved into studio concerns and turned a key black character white, and sometimes it’s simply silly to hang on to a character’s original ethnicity at the expense of an actor or actress who truly fits the part. At all times though, something is lost, the idea of a person who’s enthralled us somehow.

Read the full story here (via The Huffington Post)

The duo has become as sure a bet as any actor-director team in Hollywood, but for their next project together, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio may be going gambling.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Scorsese is signing on to direct a remake of the 1974 James Cann-starring drama, “The Gambler,” about a New York English professor who, despite his legendary work in the classroom, suffers from a secret gambling addiction.

Read the full story here (via The Huffington Post)

Retribution opens by panning across an arid, bleached landscape with a dramatic male voice-over saying something about justice and the order of things.

Soon, the camera settles on a patch of blood seeping into the dusty ground outside a rustic cottage, instantly establishing the film’s thriller genre. Within minutes, we determine that a retired judge (Joe Mafela) is on a writing retreat in this isolated cabin, where he is virtually cut off from the outside world.

Read the full review here (via The Mail and Guardian)

Peaches Geldof, the daughter of the rock star and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, says she regrets every one of her many tattoos.

The 22-year-old television presenter says she wishes that she had been dissuaded from covering her body with “art” work. “Fourteen-year-old girls should not be allowed to have tattoos,” she tells Mandrake. “The ones I have from that age are more like prison tattoos.”

Read the full story here (via The Telegraph)

When Ntsiki Biyela won a winemaking scholarship in 1998, she was certainly a curious choice.

She had grown up in the undulating hills of Zululand, living in a small village of huts and shacks. People tended their patches of pumpkins and corn. The only alcohol they drank was homemade beer, a malt-fed brew that bubbled in old pots.

Read the full story here (via The New York Times)

Much has been made of SlutWalk, the march taking place in a number of countries to promote women’s right to be safe.

Some women have taken exception to the name, refusing to be associated with the derogatory meaning of the term “slut”.

Read the full story here (via Times Live)

The producers of the 23rd James Bond movie have threatened to shift the filming from India to South Africa if permission to shoot a show-stopping train stunt is refused.

According to a leading Indian newspaper, the bosses are becoming frustrated at the slowness of the officials in granting permission and are threatening to move the shoot to South Africa instead.

Read the full story here (via The Times of India)

Pop art’s enfant terrible continues to influence modern culture and create memorable images – but from the outside, ignoring London fashions.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Where did the terms retro-nuevo and skronk originate? Or hip-hop?

Michaelangelo Matos runs through an exhaustive catalogue of music’s phrasemakers and trendsetters.

Read the full list here (via The Guardian)

Male heroes, in the big action movies, get to save the world by blowing it up.

The journey of women, especially in indie films, is different: passive saints, they abide and endure and finally, bravely, say no. Their heroism is a defiant step outside the church of patriarchy.

Read the rest of this article here (via Time Magazine)

For a decade, starting in 1963, Jane Fonda embodied the upheavals—artistic, political, and sexual—that rocked America and the world: making shocking breakthrough films, becoming a force in the anti–Vietnam War movement, and personifying women’s liberation.

In an adaptation from her new biography of Fonda, Patricia Bosworth, drawing on years of interviews with the star and those close to her, examines her startling early evolution as an actress, activist, and woman.

Read the rest of this article here (via Vanity Fair)

When President Assad or Colonel Gaddafi watches Star Wars – which surely sometimes happens – whatever do they make of it?

Do they tut and nod about the sad necessity of Darth Vader’s strong leadership, and the difficulty of finding a good henchman nowadays? I ask because, among the many stories told about dictators (usually by men), very few are on the tyrant’s side.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Kurt Cobain loved Abba, wasn’t from Seattle and didn’t invent grunge.

Everett True, the man who pushed the singer’s wheelchair on stage for his last UK show, sets the record straight.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Old Spice pitchman Isaiah Mustafa has snagged a recurring role on ABC series “Charlie’s Angels,” reports TVLine.com.

The hunky actor joins the cast of the upcoming ABC series as athletic Miami detective Ray Goodson. Goodson was engaged to Kate (Annie Ilonzeh), but broke it off after she was exposed as a dirty cop.

Read the rest of this article here (via CNN)

England’s Daily Mail has a stern article up detailing inaccuracies in Meryl Streep’s upcoming Margaret Thatcher biopic, which was screened last night for an audience of Thatcher’s closest friends.

The article claims the movie, called “The Iron Lady,” uses dream and hallucination scenes to paint Thatcher as a woman haunted by regret over her own ambition.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Huffington Post)

At an American Library Association conference in 2007, HarperCollins dressed five of its male young adult authors in blue baseball jerseys with our names on the back and sent us up to bat in a panel entitled “In the Clubhouse.”

We were meant to demystify to the overwhelmingly female audience the testosterone code that would get teenage boys reading. Whereas boys used to lag behind girls in reading in the early grades, statistics show, they soon caught up. Not anymore.

Read the rest of this article here (via the New York Times)

Spoek Mathambo’s thousands of followers on Twitter, the micro- blogging site, were naturally excited that the musician had been featured in London’s Guardian newspaper.

Mathambo wasn’t — he was clearly affronted at being identified as the king of kwaito.

Read the Guardian article here.

A form John Lennon filled out months before he was shot dead in which he described his occupation as “hazardus” (sic) is being sold at auction.

Lennon completed the form — a sample airline embarkation card for Japan that was supposed to be used before filling in the real document — with childish and teasing answers.

Read the rest of this article here (via Mail & Guardian)