“Killing Them Softly,” Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of the George V. Higgins crime novel “Cogan’s Trade,” will have its gala premiere tonight at the Cannes Film Festival. The film screened this morning for the press, who were treated to a gritty, stylized and deeply cynical genre exercise in which Brad Pitt played hardened hit man Jackie Cogan. (Pitt last worked with Dominik on “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”) Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendolsohn co-star in a film that takes its inspiration from Martin Scorsese, murder ballads and America’s recent economic crisis which, as in the movie was brought on by greed and a fatal lack of self-control.   Read full article > >

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Brad Pitt film, ‘Killing Them Softly’ premieres at Cannes

Mitchell Guist, an alligator hunter and cast member from the History Channel reality show “Swamp People,” died Monday in Louisiana, the Associated Press reports . He would have turned 49 Friday. Guist fell while on his boat Monday and was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the AP reports. According to 911 tapes obtained by WBRZ in Baton Rouge , the caller believed Guist had suffered from a seizure and cardiac arrest. Read full article > >

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Mitchell Guist from ‘Swamp People’ dies

In an unusual move by a studio executive, Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson recently introduced his risky $211 million film, “Battleship” to film exhibitors by emblazoning in bold letters on screen some of the negative zingers the press has already slung at the board-game-inspired action movie. Read full article > >

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Press-scorned ‘Battleship’ hopes to avoid death in choppy U.S. waters

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the vice president appeared to go beyond President Obama’s views on the issue.

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The Caucus: Biden ‘Comfortable’ With Gay Marriage

This post has been updated. Vice President Biden on Sunday appeared to go further than he has in the past in expressing support for same-sex marriage. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Biden described himself as “absolutely comfortable” with gay couples having the same rights as straight couples. Read full article > >

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Biden: I’m ‘absolutely comfortable’ with gay couples having same rights as straight couples

Veep says on ”Meet the Press.”

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Biden ‘Comfortable’ With Gay Marriage

There is almost universal scepticism in the press in the Middle East as well as further afield about the fragile UN-Arab League-brokered ceasefire in Syria.

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Press has dim hopes for Syria ceasefire

Long before there was Twitter, there was the Associated Press . For more than 160 years, sometimes in snippets even shorter than 140 characters, AP news bulletins have gone out via couriers and telegraph, wire and teletype, satellites and Internet to thousands of newsrooms, which relay the news to readers, listeners and viewers in all corners of the globe. Read full article > >

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Does The Post rely too much on wire services?

We have once again put together a list of a few of our favorite events happening this weekend . Some of our picks: an awards show and concert featuring some of the area’s best musicians, stand-up from one of the writers behind “Chappelle’s Show” and a new exhibit on how the press covers presidential elections. Read full article > >

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Plan your weekend: The Wammies, Neal Brennan

Iran has stopped oil exports to six European states in retaliation for European Union sanctions imposed on the Islamic state’s key export, the country’s English language Press TV reported on Wednesday.

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Iran Stops Oil Exports to Six E.U. Countries

Any parliamentary move to regulate newspapers would “open a Pandora’s box” which could stifle freedom of speech, the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission says.

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Press body keen for ‘fresh start’

PASADENA, Calif. — Picking up a series starring an apparently reformed hard-living warlock Vatican assassin without having seen a single script, much less a pilot, is not a “cynical publicity stunt” — it’s a “roll of the dice,” FX president John Landgraf insisted Sunday at Winter TV Press Tour 2012. Read full article > >

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The TV Column: FX rolls dice on Sheen’s new sitcom, ‘Anger Management’

Boy, three- and-a- half hours of debates to check this weekend! The candidates were up to their usual tricks and so the list of suspect statements is long and varied. We will go through them quickly, in the order the statements were made, beginning with the ABC News/Yahoo debate on Saturday night. After that, we tackle the Meet the Press/Facebook debate from Sunday morning. As always, we may take a deeper look at some assertions later in the week, such as the strange case of the dump in Nashville. Read full article > >

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Fact checking the ABC News and ‘Meet the Press’ debates

In the past twelve hours the six men running for the Republican presidential nomination have debated not once but twice. We live-blogged both debates — the Saturday night set-to sponsored by ABC/WMUR and the “Meet the Press” debate this morning. Read full article > >

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New Hampshire GOP debate(s): Winners and losers

After the first day of Winter TV Press Tour 2012, PBS released a behind-the-scenes video of the cast of “Downton Abbey,” which returns for its second season in the U.S. on Sunday: Read full article > >

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‘Downton Abbey’ cast talks U.S. reaction to the series (Video)