Quick Takes: Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett duet will fund charity

Amy Winehouse’s final recording, a duet with Tony Bennett, will be released as a charity single for a foundation set up in her name, her family said Thursday.

“Body and Soul” will go on sale in September, with proceeds going to the newly established Amy Winehouse Foundation.

The two singers recorded the pop standard in March at London’s Abbey Road Studios for Bennett’s forthcoming “Duets II” album. The 27-year-old, who had struggled for years with drug and alcohol addiction, was found dead at her London home on July 23.

— Associated Press

From punk to preservation

Punk rockers once wanted to smash the state. Now they’re helping preserve stately homes.

The National Trust charity, which oversees Britain’s castles and historic houses, has released a fundraising album of punk classics.

“Never Mind the Dovecotes” — a play on the title of the Sex Pistols album “Never Mind the Bollocks” — includes tracks by the Pistols and other vintage noise merchants, including GBH, Siouxsie and the Banshees and X-Ray Spex.

The Trust’s brand licensing manager, Phillippa Green, said Thursday that the album makes sense, explaining that people who were teenagers in punk’s late-’70s heyday are now middle aged and enjoy “outings with their children and families at parks, beaches and historic houses.”

— Associated Press

The VMAs send out a message

MTV said Thursday it has added a new category highlighting social activism to its popular Video Music Awards show after seeing an influx of artists exploring self-worth and other issues in their music.

The category best video with a message will honor artists and music videos that featured a positive message or raised awareness of key social issues facing today’s youth. The awards will be given out in L.A. on Aug. 28.

The first batch of nominees for the award include tracks by Pink, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Eminem, Taylor Swift and Rise Against.

— Reuters

Dylan’s Williams tribute in place

Bob Dylan’s long-gestating project to complete a batch of songs left unfinished by Hank Williams will see the light of day Oct. 4 with the release of “The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams,” a collection of a dozen songs for which Dylan, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow and several other musicians created music for the country giant’s unpublished lyrics.

Dylan invited those with an affinity for Williams’ music — also including his own son, Jakob Dylan, Williams’ granddaughter, Holly, as well as Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell, Alan Jackson, Levon Helm and Patty Loveless — to select lyrics from a stockpile that Williams left behind in a leather briefcase when he died in 1953. Some lyrics were finished, others were just fragments or ideas Williams had jotted down.

— Randy Lewis

Iranian film fest back at UCLA

After suspending operations last year because of the political turmoil in Iran, the Noor Iranian Film Festival returns to UCLA this weekend with a selection of films that either deal with Iran or were made with Iranian talent.

FOR THE RECORD:
This item said that “Circumstance” would be screening at the Noor Iranian Film Festival at UCLA at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. It screens at 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The item also described the work as a short film. It is a feature.

Among them is Maryam Keshavarz’s “Circumstance,” a short film about two young women in Tehran that won an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It screens with other shorts at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Other films to be shown include “American Coup,” “Chasing Che,” “Rapping in Tehran” and “Kick in Iran.” They will screen Friday through Sunday at the James Bridges Theater on the UCLA campus.

Information: https://www.noorfilmfestival.com.

— From a Times staff writer

‘Margaret’ heads to theaters at last

Kenneth Lonergan’s follow-up to his well-received 2000 movie “You Can Count on Me,” which has been stuck in film-release purgatory since being shot in 2005, is finally coming to theaters.

Fox Searchlight said it will release “Margaret” on Sept. 30. The opening will be a limited one, a spokeswoman said, beginning in L.A. and New York.

The movie stars a (much younger) Anna Paquin dealing with the aftermath of an accident she’s witnessed. Also in the cast are Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, Allison Janney and Mark Ruffalo.

— Steven Zeitchik

Finally

No concert: The Cuban band Los Van Van postponed Thursday night’s gig at the Conga Room in L.A., citing last-minute problems in obtaining U.S. travel visas. They hope to reschedule in September.