Month: September 2017

Steven Spielberg has directed dozens of award-winning movies in a 40-year career, but when it came to turning the cameras on himself he found the attention pretty uncomfortable.

The double Oscar winner, who has directed films like “Schindler’s List,” “Jaws” and “Saving Private Ryan,” is the subject of a documentary for HBO television based on more than 30 hours of interviews with Spielberg, his family and friends.

“It’s a very interesting experience being the subject of a film when I have spent my entire career seeking subjects for my films. And to be suddenly be in that hot seat – for me it was both intimidating and daunting,” Spielberg told reporters at the documentary’s Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday.

Spielberg, 70, said director Susan Lacy got him to open up about what inspires his films, although it’s not a subject he spends much energy on himself.

“I don’t spend a lot of time in any kind of self-analysis.

In a way, I let the films do that. And I let you figure out me through those films.

“I just spend time looking for good stories and just going out and telling them,” he added.

The documentary also features interviews with many of those who have worked with Spielberg or been influenced by his work, including Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese and Cate Blanchett.

“Spielberg” will be shown on HBO on October 7.
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Clad in a sparkling ball gown and tuxedo, the stars of the latest film to premiere in London’s Leicester Square walked the red carpet in a rather unusual manner – on four legs.

The stars in question were a group of sheep who feature in a new eight-hour, dialogue-free film “Baa Baa Land” – billed by its makers as the dullest movie ever made.

It’s not so much watching the grass grow as watching it be eaten.

The film – whose title plays on Hollywood hit “La La Land” — features no actors, words or narrative and consists entirely of slow-motion shots of sheep in a field in Essex, England.

It was made as a tongue-in-cheek insomnia cure, by Calm.com, one of the companies vying for a piece of the fast-growing mindfulness industry, part of what the Global Wellness Institute estimates is a $3.7 trillion global wellness market.

Mindfulness is essentially meditation of the kind practiced in East Asia for thousands of years. It is recommended by Britain’s National Health Service to help deal with stress and anxiety and has been embraced by companies ranging from Google to Goldman Sachs.

Apps like Calm and Headspace, which claims to have six million users, offer users guided meditation, while others help users ensure they are sleeping well.

There are at least 1,300 mindfulness apps in an increasingly crowded market, according to research firm Sensor Tower.

With many of the leading smartphone apps scoring 4.5 and 5 star reviews from tens of thousands of users in app stores, the technology does appear to be meeting with a positive reception from many users.

Whether taking contemplative breaks at the behest of your smartphone, or using it to assist you in getting a good night’s sleep has tangible benefits has some experts are skeptical.

“The idea of using an app on a digital platform to get to sleep – regardless of whether they work or not – seems to be a complete negation of what you’re meant to be doing, which is avoiding stimulation, interaction and thinking,” sleep expert Dr. Neil Stanley told Reuters. Research suggests that many health apps struggle to deliver on their promised benefits.

A 2015 study of mental health apps by researchers at the University of Liverpool found that many digital mental health products suffered from “a lack of scientific credibility and limited clinical effectiveness,” though noted that some did produce “significant patient benefits.”

Other experts feel that while not a panacea, apps are a positive starting point for many people.

“It’s much more about understanding how to use digital as a tool and not the driver of our lives,” said Orianna Fielding, founder of the Digital Detox company, which runs workshops on wellbeing in people’s digital lives.

“I think any app that gets you to have a look and understand your digital dependence habits, that can identify the psychological and emotional triggers that lead you to get overloaded and dependent is good.”
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Garth Brooks is taking a long look back at his life and career in an autobiography that will span five books, the first of which will be released in November.

The country music superstar announced Wednesday that The Anthology Part 1: The First Five Years goes on sale Nov. 14. It promises “all the secrets, details, origins, true stories an insider would get.”

Some of those stories include background on some of Brooks’ early hits, including The Thunder Rolls, Friends in Low Places and The Dance.

The book comes with five CDs containing 52 total songs, including 19 new, unreleased or demo versions.

This is the first book authored by Brooks.
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Liam Neeson’s latest film takes viewers into the life of a key player in the Watergate scandal, and he says there are clear parallels between presidents then and now.

Neeson plays the high-ranking FBI official who was a key source for Washington Post stories that helped lead to President Richard Nixon’s downfall in Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. Felt was the No. 2 official at the FBI and his identity as the source known as Deep Throat was unknown until 2005.

Neeson told The Associated Press that he sees similarities between Nixon’s distrust of critics and President Donald Trump’s actions.

“Nixon felt: Let’s circle the wagons. Everybody was an enemy that wasn’t on his side. We’re certainly seeing that with President Twitter in Chief. If you’re not with me, you’re against me,” the actor told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Trump’s administration and several of the president’s allies are entangled in investigations into whether the billionaire’s campaign sought help from Russian operatives during last year’s presidential campaign. Among those investigating is former FBI director Robert Mueller, who has been appointed a special counsel to probe several facets of the campaign and Trump’s associates. Mueller was appointed in May to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign and his team has sought a broad batch of records and interviews with current and former White House officials. The exact scope of his investigation is unknown.

Neeson said he expects Mueller’s probe will be successful.

“I do think the truth is going to come out,” Neeson said. “I think it will be Robert Mueller. He’ll just keep chipping away.”

Mark Felt is out in limited release on Friday.
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A decades-old propaganda film has become a lightning rod again in Indonesia. The 1984 film called “The Treachery of the September 30th Movement/ Communist Party of Indonesia,” was sponsored by and became a propaganda tentpole of the Suharto military dictatorship.

 

It presents a revisionist account of an attempted coup on September 30, 1965, when six generals were assassinated. The murders were orchestrated, according to the film, by the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI. The failed coup was the pretext for a military-led massacre of up to one million suspected communists and leftists, which subsequently helped General Suharto ascend to a 31-year authoritarian presidency.

 

More than five decades after the coup attempt and 33 years after the film was made, Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo announced last week that the movie would be shown to all military personnel, drawing criticism from some senior figures, who advised the military not to reopen old wounds.

 

But President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo himself suggested there should be a remake of the film for the “millennial generation.”

The film — often abbreviated to G30S, for “Gerakan 30 September” or the September 30th movement — was required viewing during the Suharto regime, which ended in 1998. According to a 2000 poll, 97 percent of students had seen it, most of them multiple times.

 

Renewed debate

 

The fiery military chief Gatot, who has made waves with his freewheeling statements and actions, such as unilaterally suspending military cooperation with Australia, spoke about the G30S film while visiting founding President Sukarno’s tomb in East Java last week.

 

“We cannot let the younger generation become fragmented again,” said Gatot. “The goal is not to discredit anyone who is wrong, but to give the full picture, so as not to let those bitter and black events happen again.”

 

President Jokowi, somewhat surprisingly, echoed Gatot’s suggestion, saying “millennial children” need movies as an entry point to history.

 

“Let them understand the dangers of communism, let them know about the Indonesian Communist Party,” he said to reporters in Central Java last week.

 

The president’s acquiescence illustrates “the weak reality of Jokowi’s leadership and the long feud between human rights defenders and the military,” according to Arbi Sanit, a political analyst at the University of Indonesia. “Jokowi’s weak assumptions allow him to be stepped over by press statements like those of the Commander,” and essentially be pressured into public agreement, said Sanit.

 

Sidharto Danusubroto, a member of the president’s advisory council, stated that rehashing the events of 1965 would be counterproductive to Jokowi’s economic and social agenda, and he discouraged both the military’s promotion of the film and recent discussions of the killings at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute.

 

“Frankly, don’t hold [either of] them,” said Sidharto. “For us to fight to become the world’s fifth economic power, there needs to be political stability; if there are these movies, that seminar, some other noise here and there, those things don’t support the national interest,” he said at the council’s office.

 

Approaching anniversary

 

The pitch of the debate is only rising as the anniversary of the attempted coup approaches. There will be a number of informal screenings across Indonesia this week, as there have been, on and off, since the fall of Suharto.

 

The late president’s youngest son, Tommy Suharto, chimed in over the weekend to say that the film represents the “true version of history, and nobody could change that.”

 

The film’s narrative has been widely disputed by historians for at least two decades. Its major communist characters are eye-gouging gangsters, and it shows a leftist women’s group literally castrating military generals. Despite a runtime of over four hours, the film is not without artistic value, according to many latter-day Indonesian directors.

 

But the director of the Jakarta Arts Institute, writer Seno Gumira Ajidarma, disagrees, saying recently, “The film sucks.”

 

“Every year it was just a ritual all over Indonesia, and the movie was just terrible,” said Reza Muharam, now an activist with the International People’s Tribunal, which seeks justice for the human rights violations of 1965. “Imagine a bunch of 10-year-olds watching an interminable film with that much violence… it was just horror, you couldn’t sleep after that.”

 

Muharam hopes that a wider revival of G30S film is not in the cards.

 

“I think it was the biggest hoax ever made in Indonesia,” he said. “And everyone believed it.”
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It’s not PT-109, but President John Kennedy is said to have driven his former speedboat as if it were the small warship he famously commanded in World War II.

Now the 17-foot mahogany boat acquired by the late president’s father, Joseph Kennedy, in 1961 leads a list of Kennedy memorabilia, including letters, cigars, a bomber jacket and a couple of his rocking chairs, to be auctioned next month.

“It was won by Joseph Kennedy in a church raffle,” said Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s auction house, which plans to sell the boat and other items on Oct. 6 and 7.

The boat, “Rest of Us,” became part of a flotilla at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, that included a larger vessel, “Ten of Us,” named for the 10 family members who used it at the time, Ettinger said.

“When he won this … the family had expanded,” which explains the boat’s name, he added.

The Kennedys were a well-known seafaring family, and the country’s 35th president was a war hero who commanded PT-109, which was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, leaving Kennedy and his crew shipwrecked on a Pacific island.

After Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, “Rest of Us” remained in the Hyannis Port area, first with Senator Edward Kennedy and later the Bilezikians, a wealthy retailing family, before being sold to its current owner, Peter Eastman.

When Senator Kennedy, known as Ted, was getting ready to sell the boat in the mid-1980s, he knew it needed some work and took it to local shipbuilders Mike and Brad Pease, Eastman said.

“Ted Kennedy told the Pease brothers, ‘Yeah, my brother used to drive this thing like a PT boat, he was a little rough on it,’ meaning it might need some work,” Eastman said.

The boat has been fitted with a 1986 Ford V8 engine and is “totally operational,” he added.

Guernsey’s, which has held two previous Kennedy memorabilia auctions, is also offering two swords that were owned by two naval officers serving in the Kennedy White House and used as part of the catafalque that held Kennedy’s coffin.

A bomber jacket with the presidential patch bought to replace the fraying one Kennedy often wore is also being sold, along with a draft of a letter to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with hand-written notations, offering to name a Polaris submarine after him.

Churchill declined the offer.
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The holiday of Diwali is starting to light up mainstream America.

Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and others in India and other countries, has long been observed in immigrant communities around the U.S.

But now public celebrations of the holiday are starting to pop up in places ranging from Disneyland and Times Square to parks and museums.

The Times Square event is the brainchild of Neeta Bhasin, who says that while many Indian immigrants have found great success in the U.S., “still people don’t know much about India. I felt it’s about time that we should take India to mainstream America and showcase India’s rich culture, heritage, arts and diversity to the world. And I couldn’t find a better place than the center of the universe: Times Square.”

Bhasin, who came to the United States from India 40 years ago, is president of ASB Communications, the marketing firm behind Diwali at Times Square. The event, now in its fourth year, has drawn tens of thousands of people in the past. It’s scheduled for Oct. 7, from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., with dance performances, Bollywood singers, a bazaar of food, saris and other goods, and a lighting ceremony.

While Diwali celebrations are held throughout the fall, the holiday’s actual date is Oct. 19. Also called Deepavali, it’s an autumn harvest festival held just before the Hindu new year. Celebrations include lighting oil lamps or candles called diyas to symbolize “a victory of knowledge over ignorance, light over darkness, good over evil,” said Bhasin.

The Diwali celebration at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California, includes performances of traditional Indian dances and a Bollywood dance party for guests. It’s part of a festival of holidays at the theme park reflecting cultural traditions from around the world. The Disney festival begins Nov. 10 and runs through Jan. 7.

San Antonio, Texas, has one of the nation’s largest city-sponsored celebrations of Diwali, drawing more than 15,000 people each year. The 2017 event, scheduled for Nov. 4 at La Villita, a historic arts village, will be its ninth annual Diwali celebration with Indian dance, entertainment, food, crafts, fireworks and the release of lighted candles into the San Antonio River along the city’s River Walk.

New York City’s Rubin Museum will mark Diwali with an overnight Ragas Live Festival featuring more than 50 Indian classical musicians performing amid the museum’s collection of sacred Himalayan art. The event begins Oct. 21 at 10 a.m. and continues all day and night through Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. Chai and mango lassis will be served, visitors will have access to all the galleries and pop-up events like meditation and sunrise prayer will be offered. Special tickets will be sold for the opportunity to sleep beneath the artwork.

Other places hosting Diwali celebrations include Cary, North Carolina, in Regency Park, Oct. 14; Flushing Town Hall, Queens, New York, Oct. 29; the Seattle Center, Oct. 21; the Dulles Expo center in Chantilly, Virginia, Oct. 7-8; and Memorial Park in Cupertino, California, Sept. 30. In Columbus, Ohio, the Ohio History Center is hosting a photo exhibit about the city’s fast-growing population of immigrants from Nepal, Bhutan and India, with a Diwali event Oct. 8.

Bhasin said Diwali’s message is particularly timely now. “It is extremely important to be together and showcase to the world, not only Indians, but the entire immigrant community, to be together with Americans and to show the world we are one, we are all the same human beings,” she said.
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Puerto Rican rapper Residente’s first solo album post-Calle 13 has received a leading nine nominations for this year’s Latin Grammys, including for record, song and album of the year.

Colombian sensation Maluma follows him with seven, Shakira’s comeback gathered six, and Juanes, Mon Laferte and producer Kevin Jimenez ADG received five nominations each, the Latin Recording Academy announced Tuesday. The announcement was delayed by nearly a week after last year’s devastating earthquake in Mexico and hurricanes Irma and Maria, which have devastated the Caribbean.

This year’s ceremony could provide Juanes with the opportunity to break his record tie with Calle 13: Both acts have won 21 awards each.

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s megahit “Despacito” got four nominations: record and song of the year, as well as best urban fusion/performance for its remix with Justin Bieber and best short form music video for its clip. The video, the most watched on YouTube with over 3.8 billion views since its January release, was produced and directed by Carlos R. Perez and highlights the color and beauty of now devastated Puerto Rico, which was hit by a Category 4 hurricane, Maria, less than a week ago.

Ten acts are vying for album, song and record of the year, unlike the traditional Grammy Awards where five nominees compete. Album of the year nominees also include Ruben Blades with Roberto Delgado & Orquesta, Antonio Carmona, Vicente Garcia, Nicky Jam, Juanes, Mon Laferte, Natalia Lafourcade, Shakira and Danay Suarez.

The record of the year list is comprised by a diverse group of artists, genres and collaborations that include Residente’s “Guerra,” ″Amarrame” by Mon Laferte, featuring Juanes; Shakira and Maluma’s “Chantaje”, “El Ratico” by Juanes with Kali Uchis, Jorge Drexler’s “El Surco,” Maluma’s “Felices Los 4,” Blades’ “La Flor De La Canela,” Alejandro Fernandez’s “Quiero Que Vuelvas” and Ricky Martin’s “Vente Pa’ Ca,” also featuring Maluma.

The Latin Grammys will air live on Univision on Nov. 16 from Las Vegas.
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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy-winning guitarist Joe Walsh has started a new charity to benefit veterans’ organizations. As VOA’s David Byrd tells us, Walsh says he especially wants to help small, grass-roots groups that work with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan
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Robert Plant is going on tour in North America next year to support his upcoming album, “Carry Fire.”

The former Led Zeppelin frontman announced Tuesday that his 2018 tour will begin Feb. 9 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He’ll also visit New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago and Los Angeles, among other cities. More dates will be announced later. Plant will be joined on the tour by his backing band, the Sensational Space Shifters.

Plant has also released another track from “Carry Fire” Tuesday, a cover of Ersel Hickey’s “Bluebirds Over the Mountain.”

The album is set to hit music stores and begin streaming on Oct. 13.
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“Frozen” star Idina Menzel has married actor Aaron Lohr.

 

Menzel posted wedding pictures to her Facebook page on Monday, writing: “Wanted to let you know… married the love of my life Aaron Lohr this weekend at our home. Dad & son walked me down the aisle. It was magical.”

 

The 46-year-old Menzel and Lohr, who’s 41, appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of the musical “Rent.” They also share a Disney background. Menzel provides the voice for Queen Elsa and her “Let It Go” anthem in “Frozen.” Lohr appeared in Disney’s Mighty Ducks movies and the company’s 1992 adaptation of Broadway’s “Newsies.”

 

This is the second marriage for Menzel, who shares a son with ex-husband Taye Diggs.

 

 
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Not a single American athlete has expressed security concerns about next year’s Winter Games in South Korea and it is business as usual for the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as it pushes ahead with preparations, officials said on Monday.

The USOC’s reaction to mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula contrasts with a comment from the French sports minister last week that the country would not send a team to the 2018 Games if security could not be guaranteed.

“We are preparing as if we are going to go,” said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun during a news conference to kick off a Pyeongchang Winter Games media summit.

“We understand individual athletes may have questions and concerns but our job as the national Olympic committee for the United States is to make sure the athletes have an opportunity to go and are well supported by us while they are there.”

Tensions in the region have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3, prompting global condemnation.

North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho said earlier on Monday that President Donald Trump had ‘declared war’ on North Korea and that Pyongyang reserved the right to take countermeasures, including shooting down U.S. bombers even if they were not in its air space.

The Games, scheduled for Feb. 9-25, will take place just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world’s most heavily armed border.

The two countries remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

“These Games are really no different than any other Games in terms of our preparations, we are working closely with the State Department and law enforcement,” said Blackmun, adding that no athlete had come forward with concerns about safety.

“We had an opportunity to be in South Korea a little over a month ago and met with the four-star general who oversees all the U.S. forces there.

“We are in constant communication should the unthinkable happen.

“There are conflicts between nations that’s not an issue for the U.S. Olympic Committee to get involved in, that is an issue for the IOC and foreign nations to make decisions on.

“We talk to the State Department on a regular basis. We are getting the same briefings other Americans are getting who are traveling to South Korea. There are no travel restrictions in place right now and if that should change I’m sure we would be among the first to know.”

French Sports Minister Laura Flessel said last week that the nation’s team could stay at home if the crisis deepened and security could not be guaranteed, although the country’s Olympic committee president Denis Masseglia later said he could not imagine a situation that would lead to France deciding not to attend the Games.

Ticket sales for the Games are slow, with only 30 percent sold, but Kim Jae-youl, executive vice president of the Pyeongchang organizing committee said he did not believe current tensions were the reason.

“We hope not because the Olympics is a special moment that happens once every four years and this is a chance where you get to see the competition between the best of the best so I don’t think the current situation is impacting ticket sales,” Kim told Reuters. “Security and safety are the critical aspects of the success of the Games.”
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Inside the Woodridge Neighborhood Library in the U.S. capital, a wall is plastered with ominous warning signs: “Reading This Book Display Is Banned” and “No Books to See Here.” Below the messages are shelves with books that have been banned, at one time or another, in parts of the United States. They include books in the popular Harry Potter series, banned for “witchcraft,” and the classic futuristic novel Brave New World, which has been banned for sexual content.

Although no books have been removed from libraries or schools in Washington, the display is part of Banned Books Week, which runs through September 30. The annual event points out the perils of censorship and emphasizes the freedom to read.

Among the groups sponsoring Banned Books Week is the American Library Association (ALA), which releases an annual list of the 10 most challenged books — works that have been targeted for removal from a library or school curriculum.

“Some of the themes could be dealing with LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues, race and religion,” said Julius Jefferson Jr. of the ALA’s intellectual freedom committee. Most requests for books to be banned “you see coming from parents, because they feel they are not appropriate for their children,” he added.

Such topics may include “families with two dads or two moms,” said Linnea Hegarty, executive director of Washington’s DC Public Library Foundation. 

“Books about war are often banned, particularly if they talk about political issues,” she added, and also books about mental illness, because “some parents don’t want their children to be exposed to that.”

Transgender issues, profanity, Cosby

The books on this year’s ALA list were mostly written for children or young adults, such as Drama, by Raina Telgemeier, which includes transgender characters, and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer, which some critics have said is offensive due to profane language and instances of drug use.

In a first this year, a book was listed not due to its content or style, but because the author is under fire. Comedian and children’s story-teller Bill Cosby wrote a series of books called Little Bill. The series is being challenged because of sexual assault allegations against Cosby.

As part of Banned Books Week, hundreds of copies of six other books that may be challenged or banned have been placed in museums, restaurants and coffee shops around Washington, for anyone to take home for free. They are wrapped in black paper and hidden among other books on sale.

At the Duende District Bookstore in Washington, customer Lyric Prince discovered Fahrenheit 451, a science-fiction novel that depicts an American society where books are outlawed, and firemen burn any contraband literature. Some people object to the burning of a Bible in the story.

Prince is not surprised that books like this novel published more than 60 years ago are still banned today, because “a lot of places in this country don’t exactly take kindly to progressive ideas.”

Another customer, Katie Schwartz, found The Giver, criticized for its violence in a story about a world of conformity. Schwartz can’t believe books are still banned in the U.S., especially since the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.

“It’s an American right to express yourself however you see fit,” she said. “It’s also an American right to avoid things by choice that you don’t agree with, and books are very easily avoided if you don’t agree with them.”

The American Library Association, which keeps tabs on challenges and bans, is aware of about 250 challenges last year, but it says very few succeed, and books hardly ever wind up truly banned.
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