Month: December 2017

Egypt authorities announced Saturday that archaeologists had discovered two small ancient tombs in Luxor, a southern city. 

The tombs date back about 3,500 years and are located on the west bank of the river Nile.

“It’s truly an exceptional day. … The 18th dynasty private tombs were already known. But it’s the first time to enter inside the two tombs,” Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani said.

Egyptian officials hope the discovery will help the country’s efforts to revive tourism.

The minister said one tomb has five entrances that lead to a rectangular hall where two burial shafts are located on the northern and southern sides of the tomb.

The tomb contains a mummy wrapped in linen, clay vessels, a collection of about 450 statues, and painted wooden funerary masks. 

Al-Anani said a cartouche carved on the ceiling bears the name of King Thutmose I of the early 18th dynasty.

The other tomb has a 6-meter burial shaft “leading to four side chambers,” which contained artifacts including fragments of wooden coffins. The wall inscriptions and paintings are believed to belong to an era between the reigns of King Amenhotep II and King Thutmose IV, both pharaohs of the 18th dynasty.

IN PHOTOS: Discovery of Two Ancient Tombs Announced in Egypt

The tombs are the latest discovery in Luxor, which is known for its temples and tombs from different dynasties of ancient Egyptian history.

Al-Anani also visited a nearby site where the famous Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut is located. For the first time, the temple’s main sanctuary, known as the Holy of Holies, was opened.

The Antiquities Ministry has made a series of discoveries since the beginning of 2017.

In September, Egyptian archaeologists announced they had found the tomb of a royal goldsmith whose work was dedicated to the ancient Egyptian god Amun. The goldsmith lived more than 3,000 years ago. In the tomb, there were mummies, jewelry and statues.
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The tombs are the latest discovery in Luxor, which is known for its temples and tombs from different dynasties of ancient Egyptian history.
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France bid farewell to its biggest rock star Saturday, honoring Johnny Hallyday with an extravagant funeral procession down Paris’ Champs-Elysees Avenue, a presidential speech and a televised church ceremony filled with the country’s most famous faces.

Few figures in French history have earned a send-off with as much pomp as the man dubbed the “French Elvis,” who notched more than 110 million in record sales since rising to fame in the 1960s.

Hallyday died Wednesday at 74 after fighting lung cancer.

In an honor usually reserved for heads of state or literary giants like 19th-century novelist Victor Hugo, Hallyday’s funeral cortege rode past Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe monument and down the Champs-Elysees to the Place de la Concorde plaza on the Seine River.

Adding a rock touch to the event, hundreds of motorcyclists accompanied the procession. It was a nod to the lifelong passion that Hallyday, born Jean-Philippe Smet, had for motorcycles. His biker image included signature leather jackets and myriad tattoos.

French President Emmanuel Macron — a Hallyday fan himself, like three generations of others across the French-speaking world — delivered an eulogy on the steps of Paris’ Madeleine Church for the star known to the public affectionately by only one name.

“Johnny belonged to you. Johnny belonged to his public. Johnny belonged to his country,” said Macron, whose voice was broadcast via speakers to the many thousands of often tearful mourners in central Paris.

“He should have fallen a hundred times, but what held him up and lifted him was your fervor, the love,” said Macron of the star’s health troubles and famously excessive lifestyle.

Hallyday’s death unleashed a wave of emotion across France, where he had been a symbol of national identity and stability for more than half a century — even though his private life had been far from stable.

Aside from the drinking, smoking and partying chronicled in juicy detail by the French press, Hallyday had been linked to a string of glamorous women and had married five times.

Chants of “Johnny! Johnny!” and thunderous applause rose up Saturday as fans broke out singing Hallyday classics including “Que je t’aime” (“How I love you”).

About 1,500 police officers secured the area in Paris, a police helicopter flew overhead and emergency vehicles filled nearby streets as tens of thousands of fans lined the procession route. Many dressed to emulate Hallyday’s flashy, rebellious style. Some climbed on fences or stoplights or even the roof of a luxury hotel to get a better view.

Catherine Frichot-Janin, 61, and her husband traveled from Switzerland to pay their respects — saying that the only thing older than their 39-year marriage was their mutual love for Hallyday.

“He’s the companion who’s always there when you have a worry. There will always be his music playing in a bistro,” she said.

Dubbed by some “the biggest rock star you’ve never heard of” — Hallyday’s position as one of the greatest-selling musical artists of all time is unusual as he remained largely unknown outside the Francophone world. But in France, he influenced styles, music and even children’s names.

Laura Dublot, a 30-year-old Parisian, and her brother David are among many who were named after Hallyday’s older children, Laura and David.

“He’s a national icon. This scale of funeral is not surprising — he’s united three generations of French,” Dublot said.

Laurenne Coral, 25, from Lyon, explained that “for the French, he’s like what Queen Elizabeth is for the English.”

A lineup of speakers paid homage inside the neo-classical Madeleine Church, including actors Marion Cotillard and Jean Reno and singer Patrick Bruel.

Bruel, an old friend, said when Hallyday died “it’s like they took away the Eiffel Tower in the middle of the night.”

Fittingly, the words “Thank you Johnny” are being displayed on the famed Paris monument over the weekend.

Hallyday likely would have approved of this send-off, having told French media he dreaded the idea of an isolated funeral like the one he attended for his father in 1989.

“That day, I was the only one there. Not a woman, not a friend. Absolute solitude in death. I wouldn’t like to end like that,” he said.

Other funeral guests included actor Jean Dujardin as well as former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, who officiated at Hallyday’s last marriage.

The scale of the French adoration for him impressed even those who were not fans.

“I don’t know Johnny. But today is a rare opportunity to walk down the Champs-Elysees with no cars,” said Qiao Pin, a 27-year-old student from Beijing. “Now, I see he’s a very famous star. There’s no one that popular in China.”

Hallyday is expected to be buried in the French Caribbean island of St. Barts where he owned a house. He is survived by his wife Laeticia, two of his former wives, four children and three grandchildren.
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A new exhibition aims to show how the art world has responded to the global changes since the terror attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 at London’s Imperial War Museum brings together 40 artists from across the world whose works reflect on conflict and society since that day. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Washington’s annual Downtown Holiday Market is open for business. For the last 13 years, this unique seasonal market has provided shopping and entertainment from just after Thanksgving until right before Christmas. VOA’s Eunjung Cho reports.
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If you want to experience infinity, you’re going to have to wait a long time.

 

On a recent Saturday, the line to see Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s new Infinity Mirror Rooms stretched all the way around a Manhattan city block, the end of the line even meeting up with the beginning at the entrance to David Zwirner Gallery, and the wait as long as six hours.

 

Some 5,000 people came through that day, the gallery says, the busiest day yet for the exhibit, and yet more proof — if it were needed — of the massive popularity of Kusama, who’s been described as the top-selling living female artist. Among the 5,000 was not, however, Alla Kondrateva. The 27-year-old New Yorker took one look at the line and gave up, returning on a chilly weekday a few days later when the wait was much shorter. She was happy she returned.

 

“She’s really quirky,” Kondrateva said of the 88-year-old artist. Her work, she said, “is interactive, and it just draws people in — her style is just out there, eccentric.”

Like many who have passed through the gallery since the exhibit opened at the beginning of November, Kondrateva had seen Kusama’s work on Instagram, where the artist is a presence. Her famous Infinity Mirror Rooms — two new ones are being debuted at the current exhibit, called “Festival of Life” — are perfect for selfies. Hardly anyone leaves without one, or two, or 26. But Kondrateva said she tried to limit the impulse: “I feel like it kind of takes away from the whole experience because you’re not experiencing the art, you’re spending the whole time on your phone.”

 

And that time isn’t very long. After the lengthy wait outside, visitors get one minute — yes, 60 seconds — in the first Infinity Room, called “Let’s Survive Forever,” a mirror-lined space in which only four to six people can fit amid a slew of shiny mirrored orbs, some hanging from the ceiling, some attached to the floor. In the middle of the room, one peeks into a box that splits images, well, infinitesimally. The room is ideal for selfie-takers; there seems to be no angle from which you cannot see yourself — and your smartphone.

 

In the second room, “Longing for Eternity,” one peers through round holes into a mirrored box, witnessing a light show with constantly changing colors. The view below appears infinite. It’s hard to take a selfie, but if you have that live-photo function, your photos will go through two color changes as you view them. You get 30 seconds in that room. (One couple got engaged early this week in an Infinity Room, the gallery says; presumably, they got a bit more time.)

After the Infinity Rooms, you’re led — white booties on your feet — into “With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever,” an earlier Kusama work appearing for the first time outside Asia. The entire room is white and covered with Kusama’s signature red polka dots, with huge sculptures of tulips (also white with red dots.)

 

Colleen Murphy, 23, stood recently in the center of the very photogenic room, taking selfies. She, too, said the wait — just under two hours that morning — was worth it. “It’s really special to see a lot of her work at once, having the context,” said the former art history major who now works in marketing. “Rather than seeing one or two pieces, as you would in a museum.”

In another room hang some 66 of the artist’s brightly colored paintings from her “My Eternal Soul” series, accompanied by a set of new and shiny floral sculptures. One visitor, Mahera Jeevanjee, a physical therapist from San Antonio, Texas, said she found the paintings fascinating as a onetime science major, because some design patterns “look like the anatomy of a cell.”

The Chelsea show closes December 16; a concurrent show of Kusama’s “Infinity Nets” paintings at the gallery’s Upper East Side location runs until December 22.

In a video message accompanying the show, Kusama — in a bright red wig — says that if her art “can inspire a deep love of humanity and acknowledge the amazingness of who we are, I will be very happy.”

 

“I am determined to continue to grow as an artist who can give hope and power to society,” says the artist, who has a history of neurosis and channels hallucinations into her work. “I want to accomplish work that leads to world peace and the empowerment of our collective future. I will continue to fight this battle and I invite you to fight it with me.”

 

Have some extra cash? All the works are for sale  even the Infinity Mirror Rooms, though the gallery would not give prices on those, nor say how many editions would be available. As for the paintings, they’re listed for under $1 million.
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Carrie Fisher may have been the “madcap Auntie Mame” to Mark Hamill’s “square” homebody, but despite their differences, the Star Wars siblings got along famously right till the end.

While both skyrocketed to celebrity with their Star Wars roles in 1977 and remained inextricably linked through their on-screen family, Hamill says he missed a lot of Fisher’s life — during “the Bryan Lourd years” and when her daughter Billie Lourd was an infant. That’s why, even before Fisher’s untimely death last year, he felt especially grateful to just get to spend time with his friend during the filming of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

 

“I’d see her periodically during charity events or when there were Star Wars celebrations and so forth. But this was the first time where we could really hang and enjoy each other. Even if I wasn’t shooting, I was coming in for stunt training and this or that, hair tests, coming into her trailer and hanging out with her and [her dog] Gary,” Hamill said. “There was a comfort level we’d developed over all these years. She knew me. She knew I hadn’t really changed. She knew I wasn’t out to get something.”

Fisher was apparently beloved by all in the cast, both for who she was and what the character of Leia meant to them. Her death at age 60 came after filming had finished and deep into post-production, but presented a bit of a conundrum for the filmmakers who had anticipated Leia being part of the next film, too.

Closure comes later

The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson said he ultimately didn’t end up changing anything about her role in this installment, which is the eighth in the Star Wars films about the lives and adventures of the Skywalker clan. That’ll be something J.J. Abrams will have to grapple with in Episode IX, in which Fisher was meant to have a much more prominent role.

“We’ll have to find a way to give her closure in IX, but we’ll never be able to replace her,” Hamill said.

Although no one can talk about exactly what Leia’s arc entails in The Last Jedi, out December 15, Johnson expects it will be an emotional experience.

“She is so good in it,” Johnson said. “I always think about the fans who didn’t know her in real life and grew up watching her, and it’s like they’re all going through their own type of loss. It’s really going to be emotional for people whom she means something to see this. I hope it’ll be good. I hope it’ll mean something to them.”

Many in the cast speak almost interchangeably about the feisty princess-turned-general and the unapologetic boldness of Hollywood royalty who embodied her. The women in particular recall being deeply affected by the Leia character when they were young. 

 

“I truly remember thinking ‘She’s different. She’s not like all the rest,’ ” Gwendoline Christie said of seeing Leia for the first time when she was 6 or 7 years old. “I’m thinking, ‘I want to be like her.’ ”

But it was Fisher’s extraordinary persona that was atop call cast members’ minds.

“It’s hard to do it justice, describing the life of someone. She’s so complicated,” said Adam Driver, who plays her estranged son. “It is always exciting to see someone who is not interested in conforming to any way of how you should behave. And I think she embodied that with a really great sense of irony.”

Picture of courage

Fisher made newcomer Kelly Marie Tran realize “how much courage it takes to be yourself when you’re on a public platform.”

“She was so unapologetic and openly herself,” Tran said. “She will always be an icon as Leia but also as Carrie. What an example. I am so fortunate to have met her.”

But Fisher’s famed frankness and spirit was only one part of a complex person, according to Hamill, who, after 40 years of knowing her, got to see the nuance. 

 

“As tough as she was and as venomous as her wit could be, she was really vulnerable in a way. Even though we weren’t really brother and sister, there was sort of a protectiveness I felt. I was defensive when people would criticize her, and I’d get mad at her when she was self-indulgent, which was quite a lot. But I loved her so much,” Hamill said.

“When I get mad and selfish and think, ‘Darn it, Carrie, your timing used to be perfect — why now?,’ you have to say, ‘At least we have that. We should be grateful for the time we had with her.’ And I do know one thing: She would want us to be laughing and happy, not morose and depressed over her not being around anymore.”
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The U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday said it would send a full team to compete at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in February despite mixed messages this week from the White House about whether the U.S. would participate.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had said it was an “open question” as to whether the U.S. would travel to South Korea amid weapons tests by its neighbor North Korea, and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters no official decision had been made before clarifying in a tweet that the “U.S. looks forward to participating.”

“I think there was just some miscommunication there, rather than anything intended to be substantive,” USOC CEO Scott Blackmun told reporters following a board meeting in New York.

“We are going to take a team to Pyeongchang unless it’s physically impossible or legally impossible to do that,” he said. “We are 100 percent committed to our athletes on that.”

Blackmun said no Olympic sponsor or athlete had raised concerns about the safety of traveling to South Korea despite growing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

“We are going to be bringing a team and showing up like 100 other nations,” he said.
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Last month, U.S. Catholic bishops voted unanimously to pursue sainthood for Oglala Lakota healer and visionary Nicholas Black Elk, who is credited with bringing hundreds of Native Americans to the Catholic faith. It is the realization of a dream for Catholic Lakota on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, among them, some of Black Elk’s descendants.

But not everyone one supports the move, mindful of the Church’s role in the historic suppression of indigenous cultures.

Background

Most of what is known about Black Elk is derived from an autobiography dictated to writer John Neihart in 1932, “Black Elk Speaks.”

He was born in present-day Wyoming in December, 1863, according to the Lakota calendar, and given the name of Hehaka Sapa, literally, “Black Elk.”

Black Elk grew up during the period of American settler expansion into the West and the U.S. government’s forced removal of Native Americans onto reservations. During this time, missionaries from various Christian denominations flocked to reservations in order to “save” Native souls. Catholic priests of the Jesuit order — called “black robes” by Lakota — established a mission at Pine Ridge.

Black Elk’s childhood was punctuated by religious visions which led him to later serve as a wichasha wakan, a traditional healer and spiritual leader. Black Elk announced his vocation in 1881, but after the U.S. government banned many Native American religious practices, he was forced to go underground.

“The Jesuits could tolerate Lakota spirituality and practice, but they did not like the healing ceremonies,” said Damian M. Costello, author of Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. “They saw them as calling in spirits in an inappropriate way.”

In 1904, Costello explained, a Jesuit priest angrily interrupted Black Elk while he was performing a healing ceremony.

“In the aftermath of that, Black Elk was invited to Holy Rosary Mission, and he stayed there, learned about the faith and was eventually baptized,” he said.

Black Elk took the Christian name of Nicholas, after the 4th century healer, St. Nicholas. For the next 40 years, he served as a Church catechist, or lay cleric, and is said to have brought more than 400 Native Americans to the Catholic faith.

The road to sainthood

The movement to have him declared a saint began in March 2016, when some of Black Elk’s descendants presented a formal petition to Rapid City, South Dakota, Bishop Robert D. Gruss.

Gruss formally opened the case for sainthood on October 21 during a Mass at Pine Ridge’s Holy Rosary Church.

“Our task now is to continue to gather more information, testimony about his life, and to pray that he is found worthy to have his cause moved forward,” Gruss said.

The canonization process involves three steps: First is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the church declares the person “venerable.” Second is beatification, after which the person is called “blessed.” Third is canonization, sainthood.

Petitioners must show evidence of two miracles occurring before and after beautification.

Bill White, a Lakota Catholic, will serve as the postulator for Black Elk’s cause. His job is to gather evidence to present to Rome.

“I believe God spoke to Black Elk at a very early age, and it isn’t likely that this was a message that just came from his village,” White said. “The message that we must all live in peace and harmony, it was such a Christian concept that it had to have come from God Himself, and it actually informed him and gave him direction for the rest of his life.”

Debating conversion

The nature of Black Elk’s conversion, however, is still debated by some scholars: Did the traditional healer become a Catholic out of true conviction or did he simply give in to pressure?

His great-granddaughter, Lakota activist Charlotte Black Elk, has been critical of the Church.

“There are varying types of genocide,” she told C-Span in a 2001 interview. “There’s the genocide where you outright kill people. There’s the genocide where you deny them identity through religious expression, through theology.”

She believes Black Elk converted because it was politically expedient.

“In those days, we weren’t allowed to travel without permission,” she told VOA. “But as a catechist, Black Elk could go everywhere and conduct traditional ceremonies.”

She said she does not support the idea of the Catholic Church claiming her ancestor as a saint, “but I do respect those who do,” she said. “And I will live well together with all my relatives.”

White is aware that not everyone supports the cause, but rejects their criticism.

“For over four decades, he was a catechist. He brought in hundreds of converts. Is this something you do just for a meal ticket, just to be able to travel freely?”

That said, he issued an invitation to skeptics: “I would invite them to give me some evidence. In my job as postulator, I would want to hear evidence to the contrary of what I feel and what I believe.”

The final decision will lie in the hands of Pope Francis, who has been vocal in his support of indigenous rights.

If confirmed, Black Elk would be the second Native American to receive the Church’s highest honor. The first was Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th century Mohawk, canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
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U.S. Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, is one of the country’s best known living icons of the fight for civil rights in the 1960s.

But Lewis said Thursday he will refuse to attend Saturday’s opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum if President Donald Trump will be there. 

Lewis and Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson issued a joint statement calling it an “insult” that Trump will be on hand to inaugurate the museum.

“President Trump’s disparaging comments about women, the disabled, immigrants and National Football League players” disrespect those who fought for and died for equal rights for African-Americans, their statement said.

A number of other black politicians have also said they will boycott the museum’s opening. The country’s premier civil rights group, the NAACP, called Trump’s record in enforcing civil rights “abysmal.”

Lewis marched alongside the legendary Martin Luther King Jr., was a freedom rider protesting segregation throughout the southern U.S., spent time in a brutal Mississippi prison, and was badly beaten by police during the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama in 1965.

Lewis has been one of the president’s severest critics, questioning his legitimacy, voting for failed impeachment measures and boycotting the presidential inauguration.

Trump has been equally harsh on Lewis, describing the congressman as “all talk, talk, talk — no action or results” and disparaging his district as crime-ridden and falling apart. 

The White House says it is “unfortunate” Lewis and Thompson will not join Trump in honoring “the incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history.”

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will be dedicated Saturday in Jackson. It will feature a stark look at the often bloody struggle for civil rights in the American South from 1945 through 1976.

Exhibits include such weapons of terror and hate as a Ku Klux Klan cross and the gun used to murder activist Medgar Evers.
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The Rolling Stones have released an album of rarely heard radio recordings, but Keith Richards admits with a laugh: “I barely remember some of them.”

“The Rolling Stones — On Air” was released last week. It features 32 songs that originally aired between 1963 and 1965 on BBC shows like “Saturday Club,” “Top Gear” and “The Joe Loss Pop Show.” 

“It was weird time to record in London in 1963, ’64. Both the Beatles and us used to look at each other and say, “What are you doing tomorrow? We’ll, we’re doing the Joss Loss show on BBC Radio’ and we all shivered because no one knew how to record these things,” Richards said. 

“To me, they’re incredible pieces of history.”

Eight of the songs were never recorded or released commercially. Richards said he remembers the hysteria at the time. 

“It was so frantic. Everything was frantic. The schedule was frantic. The fans were particularly frantic. This was the teeny-bopper time,” he recalled. “It was overwhelming … At 19 years old, it’s all a bit of a blur, but a very pleasant one I have to say.”

“On Air” features well-known Stones songs such as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” as well as Chuck Berry covers, including “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Memphis, Tennessee,” “Beautiful Delilah” and “Come On,” the Stones’ debut single.

“That guy had it all. The lyrics, his sense of rhythm, it’s unbelievable. I’m still amazed when I hear the actual records, the Chess Records, today. I just go back to them, just to refill,” Richards said of Berry, who died in March.

“The only thing that Chuck and I used to laugh about before he went, unfortunately his biggest record was ‘My Ding-a-Ling,’” Richards added, laughing. “Unfortunately, the silly little ditty became actually his biggest-selling record.”

In the early ‘60s, the Stones’ lineup also included Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman. Richards said they were “a club band that sort of managed to expand its thing onto the big stage.”

The band returned to its blues roots last year with the release of “Blue & Lonesome,” which earned the Stones a Grammy nomination for best traditional blues album. They are currently working on an album of originals.

“We’re picking up the threads on a new album as we speak. I’m in touch with Don Was,” Richards said.
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South Korea’s winter Olympics organizers have worries other than a ban on Russia competing, poor ticket sales and tensions over North Korea. They fear it may be too cold.

The Pyeongchang Games in February may feel like the coldest Olympics in at least three decades because the main stadium lacks a roof, leaving an estimated 35,000 spectators, including world leaders, exposed to extreme cold for the opening ceremony.

The organizing committee’s concerns are contained in an internal document, seen by Reuters, which expects biting winds to make conditions inside the open-air stadium at the start of the Games seem like minus 14 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

That “feels-like” temperature is lower than the minus 11 degrees recorded at the 1994 Lillehammer Games in Norway, whose stadium also lacked a roof and is so far the coldest Olympics for which such data is available, the internal document shows.

Reuters could not find comparable data for earlier Games.

South Korea, which built Pyeongchang’s $58 million stadium without a roof to save time and money, plans a range of measures at opening and closing ceremonies to prevent people suffering hypothermia — from distributing hot packs and blankets to speeding up security checks, the internal document shows.

Organizers also plan to use audience participation during pre-ceremony entertainment to help keep spectators warm, the document says without giving details.

After the news last month that six people had reported hypothermia during a pop concert at the stadium, organizers are also considering installing more large windshields around the stadium, a sports ministry official said.

“These are stopgap measures,” said Shim Ki-joon, a ruling-party lawmaker, who sits on a parliamentary special committee set up to support the Games.

“This is a very serious issue. This is creating a headache to not only the organizers but the presidential office, which sent officials to the venue to figure out ways to fight the cold,” he told Reuters.

A presidential spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

President Moon Jae-in has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Games, among other VIPs. U.S. President Donald Trump has committed to sending a “high-level” delegation, the White House has said.

Some 160 VIPs will be offered thicker and bigger blankets than those given to other spectators, a committee official said.

Political tensions, ticket sales

The opening and closing ceremonies will both take place in the evening, on Feb. 9 and Feb. 25 respectively. Spectators will stay outdoors for four to five hours on each occasion.

In Lillehammer in 1994, the ceremonies were held outdoors and organizers scrapped the tradition of releasing doves, a symbol of peace, because they worried the birds might suffer.

Instead, the Norwegians released white dove-shaped balloons.

The International Olympics Committee discussed Pyeongchang’s cold weather at its executive board meeting this week, Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi told a news conference.

“It is not something we have not encountered in the past,” Dubi said Wednesday, citing Lillehammer as well as the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

“[Organizers] have installed windscreens and [provided] blankets and there will be plenty of information. In the last K-pop concert people were not well informed of how cold it could get.”

The cold weather is at least a manageable problem for the organizers. Its other headaches are less so.

Political tensions with North Korea and China have chilled foreign interest in the Pyeongchang Games, which open just 80 km (50 miles) from the world’s most heavily fortified border.

As of Dec. 5, ticket sales totaled 578,000, or 54 percent of target, though an organizer said that was similar to sales at a similar point ahead of the Sochi Games in Russia in 2014.

The International Olympic Committee has also banned Russia, which finished top of the medals table at Sochi, from Pyeongchang, citing evidence of state-sponsored, systematic cheating of doping controls.

Organizers had requested a roof

Pyeongchang organizers had urged South Korea to equip the stadium with a roof and heating, but this was rejected due to costs and concerns over whether the structure would support a roof. The temporary arena is to be dismantled after the Games.

The culture and finance ministries, both involved in approving construction costs, did not respond to requests for comment.

“The cold could ruin the entire opening party. The fate of the event is down to the Mother Nature,” said ruling party lawmaker Yeom Dong-yeol at the Pyeongchang parliamentary committee, who was born and raised in the town.
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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling on Thursday defended the decision to cast Johnny Depp in the next Fantastic Beasts movie after a backlash from fans unhappy about the circumstances of the actor’s recent divorce.

In a statement on her personal website, Rowling said filmmakers had considered recasting the role of villain Gellert Grindelwald for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the sequel to 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

But she said the circumstances of Depp’s 2016 divorce from actress Amber Heard were private and should be respected.

The Warner Bros. movie, scheduled to be released in November 2018, is the second of a planned five movie spinoff franchise from the blockbuster Harry Potter films.

Legitimate questions

“Harry Potter fans had legitimate questions and concerns about our choice to continue with Johnny Depp in the role,” Rowling wrote.

“The agreements that have been put in place to protect the privacy of two people, both of whom have expressed a desire to get on with their lives, must be respected.

“The filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies,” Rowling said.

Depp’s marriage to Heard ended in divorce amid bitter allegations of domestic abuse and blackmail.

Private settlement

After reaching a private settlement in August 2016, the couple issued a joint statement saying their relationship was “intensely passionate and at times volatile but always bound by love,” and that there was “never any intent of physical or emotional harm.”

Warner Bros. said in a statement on Thursday that it supported the decision to keep Depp. Director David Yates and producer David Heyman also said in a joint statement that while recognizing “the magnitude of the issues raised” they stood by the decision to cast Depp.

Depp’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
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The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science announced Wednesday that it has adopted its first code of conduct for its 8,427 members.

Film academy chief executive Dawn Hudson introduced the new rules to members in an email. In October, the academy broke with tradition and made Harvey Weinstein just the second person ever expelled from the Oscars’ governing body.

 

The new code of conduct stipulates that the academy is no place for “people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates standards of decency.”

 

The academy’s board may now suspend or expel those who violate the code of conduct or who “compromise the integrity” of the academy.

 

The standards of conduct were drafted by a task force launched by the academy in October. It was formed after Weinstein was accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment and abuse.  Weinstein, who won an Academy Award for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.

 

Hudson told members that more details on the process by which offending members will be judged will be announced later.
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In nearly every major Academy Awards category this year there’s some trace of the sexual misconduct allegations that have swept through the movie industry.

 

Best supporting actor? That’s where Kevin Spacey was once considered a contender. Now he’s been scrubbed from Ridley Scott’s “All the Money in the World,” his performance replaced with one by Christopher Plummer.

Best animated feature? The favorite is “Coco,” the latest from Pixar, the animation studio co-founded by John Lassater. He’s currently on a “sabbatical” following his admission of inappropriate behavior.

 

Best director? With only four women ever nominated, no category better illustrates the industry’s ingrained gender equality issues — the same systematic imbalance that made it easier for Harvey Weinstein and others to act with such impunity for so long.

 

And even best actress, a category where you might expect a moment’s reprieve, is — if tradition holds — to be presented by last year’s best-actor winner, Casey Affleck. He settled two sexual harassment allegations filed against him in 2010.

Weinstein, who for so long craved omnipresence on Oscar night, may finally get his wish. Even though the former Weinstein Co. co-chairman has been kicked out of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and his company’s name has been erased from its best Oscar shot this year (Taylor Sheridan’s “Wind River,”) Weinstein will be ubiquitous in absentia.

 

The ongoing sexual harassment scandals have colored every phase of awards season, but whether they will ultimately shape who wins is another question. The season is just getting into the swing of things, with a number of critics groups announcing their awards in the past week and the Golden Globe nominations coming Monday. But in this year’s Oscar race, the Weinstein effect is already playing an unpredictable role.

 

With so much disgrace to go around, is Hollywood still in the mood for self-congratulation?

 

At last week’s Gotham Awards, the usually bubbly atmosphere was somewhat subdued, or at least Nicole Kidman thought so when she accepted a lifetime achievement award and urged the crowd to loosen up. Joana Vicente, executive director of the Independent Film Project, which puts on the Gothams, was one of the few to directly address the elephant in the room.

“This has been a tough year for our industry and for the world,” said Vincente. “We would like to take a moment to recognize and to honor those women and those men who have stepped forward.”

 

But at the same time, the movies have given plenty to celebrate. From “The Florida Project” to “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” this year’s awards favorites are a formidable bunch, rife with timely social commentary. Many of the most celebrated filmmakers, from Greta Gerwig to Jordan Peele, are young, giving an awards season once dominated by Weinstein what many now long for: new voices.

 

The continuing fallout has made sexual harassment a commonly discussed topic on red carpets, at press junkets and on late-night shows — places that are typically reserved for more frothy banter. Sometimes, it has made for awkward interactions like a recent episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” in which Gerwig was questioned by host Terry Gross about Noah Baumbach, her boyfriend, casting Hoffman. The interview, for which Gerwig was widely praised, exemplified how the conversation around sexual harassment in Hollywood can overtake the spotlight reserved for the year’s best films.

Even the most trusted staple of Oscar season — screening Q&As and panel discussions — are now potentially fraught territory. At an anniversary screening of the film “Wag the Dog” moderator John Oliver grilled Dustin Hoffman over an earlier allegation that the actor groped a 17-year-old on the set of 1985 TV film “Death of a Salesman.” Hoffman, who has denied the allegation, is a possible supporting-actor contender and Gotham Awards honoree for his performance in Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories.”

 

One veteran publicist of the season, who spoke on the condition on anonymity so as not to influence any campaigns, acknowledged that some clients have been coached to be ready to discuss sexual harassment issues. But the publicist said that the impact of the scandals on the Oscar race has been overstated.

The film most perfectly poised for the post-Weinstein moment is Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards,” in which Frances McDormand stars as an outraged mother out to revenge the rape and murder of her daughter. The director has even imagined a face-off between McDormand’s wrathful protagonist, Mildred Hayes, and Weinstein. “We all know who would win,” says McDonagh.

 

Yet, in the early going, two lively and precise coming-of-age tales — Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me By Your Name” and Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” — have been cleaning up the most. Tom O’Neil, the veteran awards analyst of Gold Derby, said the early love for these “little movies with a big heart,” as he called them, has forced him to re-examine his initial prediction of glory for “Three Billboards.”

 

“Three Billboards” won the highly predictive audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. And many have viewed McDormand as the overwhelming best-actress favorite. But early wins have gone to Saoirse Ronan of “Lady Bird, “Meryl Streep of “The Post” and Sally Hawkins of “The Shape of Water.”

 

“It still may do very well. It’s going to do extremely well with the Golden Globe nominations about to come out,” said O’Neil. “But ‘Three Billboards’ may just be too negative for these Oscar voters looking for uplifting messages.”

Other films can legitimately claim the mantel of “the movie of the moment.” “Lady Bird,” Gerwig’s solo directorial debut, stands apart, as one columnist wrote, for “so genuinely reflect(ing) a woman’s experience and viewpoint.” No film captured the zeitgeist like Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” a movie that cleverly rendered the realistic horrors of being black in America. Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Pentagon Papers drama, “The Post,” is both a celebration of a free press meant as a rebuke to President Donald Trump, and a tale of female empowerment led by Streep’s Katharine Graham. Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” is a sunny fable that burrows inside the lives of the hidden homeless.

 

The bigger-budget wildcard, Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” has received few nominations so far, including a best picture Critics’ Choice Awards nomination on Wednesday. It could yet emerge as a heavyweight on the merits of its big-screen craft.

 

But there’s no question that the normal rhythms of Oscar season have been upset. Amazon, which last Oscars steered “Manchester by the Sea” to a best-picture nomination, is this year pushing the Kumail Nanjiani comedy “The Big Sick,” even while Amazon Studios head Roy Price resigned on the heels of sexual harassment allegations.  Angelina Jolie, whose Khmer Rouge family drama “First They Killed My Father” is Cambodia’s Oscar submission, was among the many women who spoke out about her experience with Weinstein.

 

Between now and the March 4 Academy Awards, to be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, there may be more developments, too. Given the pace of revelations thus far, there will be.

As a platform for bringing attention to gender inequality in Hollywood, the Academy Awards is far from perfect. Despite overhauling its membership in recent years, the film academy remains 72 percent male and 87 percent white. The changes have still been enough to make some ponder if the traditional notion of an “Oscar-friendly” movie have shifted, as they seemingly did last year when “Moonlight” upset “La La Land.”

 

Ronan Farrow, who penned the New Yorker’s Weinstein exposes, was among those who in February contemplated whether #OscarsSoMale was the more fitting hashtag after several years of #OscarsSoWhite online protests. As has been noted, Oscar, himself, is male, naked and clutching only his sword. This year may be cause for, at the least, a change of attire.
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