Author: Ohart

Documentaries about Robin Williams, Gloria Allred and Ruth Bader Ginsber and a Lizzie Borden film with Kristen Stewart are among the 110 features set to premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

The Sundance Institute announced the diverse lineup of films Wednesday for the annual festival in Park City, Utah.

Debra Granik’s long-awaited follow up to “Winter’s Bone” will also premiere during the festival, which runs from Jan. 18-28.

Festival programmers say the films this year highlight the stories of alternative voices and points of view, including films by and about women, and the experience of the African-American male in the world right now.

The Festival last year premiered films like “Get Out,” “Call Me By Your Name” and “The Big Sick.”
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Almost 14,000 archeological sites and national monuments in the United States could be lost by the year 2100 as seas rise due to climate change, scientists said on Wednesday.

The findings offer a glimpse into the vast amount of global cultural heritage that could be destroyed, the study said. One in 10 archeological sites that it analysed on nine southeastern coastal states risk inundation.

“The data are sobering: projected sea level rise … will result in the loss of a substantial portion of the record of both pre-Columbian and historic period human habitation,” the authors said in the journal PLoS ONE.

“(There are) serious concerns over the threat of global climate change to the archaeological and historic record.” Scientists predict sea levels are on track to surge by an average of one meter globally by 2100.

‘A tiny fraction’

In the first study on such a scale, researchers combined data on the elevation of archeological and historic sites along in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts with sea-level rise predictions.

“This is only a tiny fraction of what’s out there,” co-author David Anderson, an archeology professor at the University of Tennessee, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by

phone.

“The record of human occupation of coastal regions goes back thousands of years and we stand to lose a lot of that.”

Salvaged history

Florida’s 17th century Castillo de San Marcos fortress and Fort Matanzas, which date back to European colonial struggles for the New World, are among the historic national monuments that could disappear. Other sites are in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The authors called for a debate about which fragments of human history should be salvaged through relocation and documented for posterity.

 
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Bruce Springsteen on Tuesday announced four more months of intimate concerts on Broadway after his initial run triggered massive interest — and wide disappointment among fans who couldn’t get tickets.

The rock legend, who for decades has sold out arenas with his adrenaline-fueled marathon performances, said he would extend his residency at the 960-seat Walter Kerr Theatre from February 28 to June 30.

Springsteen opened the shows on October 3 and already extended once, until February 3, with tickets selling out nearly instantly.

The 68-year-old balladeer of working-class America set prices at $75 to $800 — but tickets immediately reappeared on resale sites at much higher prices.

As of Tuesday, the cheapest ticket on resale site StubHub was $1,449, significantly higher than Broadway’s other coveted theater seats, including those for Hamilton and Bette Midler’s revival of Hello, Dolly!

Springsteen has tried to reduce scalping through a new verification system by Ticketmaster, which asks fans to sign up and uses algorithms to determine the likelihood that they will attend before providing a code to allow purchases.

In light of the number of fans who were unable to buy tickets initially, the ticketing company said it would not start a new verification round, instead sending codes to fans who already signed up.

Springsteen has said he was inspired to create a more intimate concert experience after he played a somber private show at the White House as a gift from departing President Barack Obama to staff.

Instead of Springsteen’s high-octane arena shows with his E Street Band — whose surprise song choices once marveled fans — the Broadway concerts feature the rocker alone on piano and guitar and a standard set list.

The shows, which follow the release of Springsteen’s autobiography, start with his early song Growin’ Up, about his teenage years, and culminate in Born to Run, his classic hit of escape and ambition.
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Steven Spielberg’s new movie The Post may be set in 1971, but its theme about press freedom is all about today.

Spielberg rushed to get the movie filmed and released within a year. It is about the battle by newspapers to publish the leaked Pentagon Papers detailing the U.S. government’s misleading portrayal of the Vietnam War.

“I just felt that there was an urgency to reflect 1971 and 2017 because they were very terrifyingly similar,” the Oscar-winning director told a Hollywood audience after a screening of the film on Monday.

“Our intended audience are the people who have spent the last 13, 14 months thirsting and starving for the truth,” Spielberg said. “They are out there, and they need some good news.”

Spielberg, a prominent Hollywood Democrat, did not mention U.S. President Donald Trump. But The Post arrives in movie theaters in December at a time when media outlets have been under repeated attacks by Trump since his election in November 2016.

Trump has called journalists “the enemy of the American people.” He uses the term “fake news” to cast doubt on news reports critical of his administration, often without providing evidence to support his case.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in August the Trump administration was considering requiring journalists to reveal their sources amid Trump’s push to stop leaks to the press.

Streep, Hanks

Starring Meryl Streep as the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as late editor Ben Bradlee, The Post is seen by awards watchers as a front-runner for next year’s Oscars.

The film dramatizes the decisions by The New York Times and The Washington Post to publish the top-secret Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in the face of injunctions by the Nixon administration in a battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Spielberg said that before making the film he was “really depressed about what was happening in the world and the country.”

After getting the script in February, “suddenly my entire outlook on the future brightened overnight,” he said.

The Post was shot in June and opens in U.S. movie theaters on December 22.
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Meghan Markle became an advocate for women when she was an 11-year-old elementary school student, and achieving gender equality remains a driving force for the fiancée of Britain’s Prince Harry and self-described “feminist.”

Since 2014, the American actress has helped put a global spotlight on the need for equality between women and men as an “Advocate for Political Participation and Leadership” for the women’s agency of the United Nations.

In her role for UN Women, Markle spent time at the World Bank and with the team of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learning more about the issue. She also visited Rwanda, which has the highest percentage of women in parliament and where she also met with female refugees.

UN Women said in a statement after Monday’s announcement of Markle’s engagement to Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson that it “trusts and hopes that in her new and important public role she will continue to use her visibility and voice to support the advancement of gender equality.”

Markle spoke about her accidental road to becoming an advocate at a star-studded celebration in March 2015 for the 20th anniversary of the Beijing women’s conference that adopted a roadmap to achieve equality for women, which is the framework for UN Women’s activities.

Her opening words drew loud applause and cheers: “I am proud to be a woman and a feminist.”

Markle recalled that around the time of the 1995 Beijing conference she was in school in Los Angeles watching television and saw a commercial for a dishwashing liquid with the tagline: “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.”

“Two boys from my class said, ‘Yeah. That’s where women belong – in the kitchen,'” she said.

“I remember feeling shocked and angry and also just feeling so hurt. It just wasn’t right, and something needed to be done,” Markle said.

When she went home, she told her dad, who encouraged her to write letters.

“My 11-year-old self worked out that if I really wanted someone to hear, well then I should write a letter to the first lady. So off I went scribbling away to our first lady at the time, Hillary Clinton,” Markle said.

She also wrote to her main news source, Linda Ellerbee, who hosted a kids news program, as well as to “powerhouse attorney” Gloria Allred and to the manufacturer of the dishwashing soap.

To her surprise, she said, after a few weeks she received letters of encouragement from Clinton, Allred and Ellerbee, who even sent a camera crew to her house to cover the story.

“It was roughly a month later when the soap manufacturer, Proctor and Gamble, changed the commercial for their Ivory Clear Dishwashing Liquid … from ‘Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans’ to “People all over America …’,” Markle said.

“It was at that moment that I realized the magnitude of my actions,” she said. “At the age of 11, I had created my small level of impact by standing up for equality.”

Markle said that for her, equality means that Rwandan President Paul Kagame is equal to the little girl in the refugee camp who dreams of being president and the U.N. secretary-general is equal to the U.N. intern who dreams of shaking his hand.

And “it means that a wife is equal to her husband, a sister to her brother – not better, not worse. They are equal,” she said.

UN Women has set 2030 “as the expiration date for gender inequality,” Markle said, but even though women comprise more than half the world’s population, their voices still go unheard “at the highest levels of decision-making.”

Markle called for programs to mobilize girls and women “to see their value as leaders” and for support to ensure they have seats at the top table. And when those seats aren’t available, “then they need to create their own table,” she said to loud applause.

Markle also said Rwanda’s Kagame, who has championed women in parliament, should be a role model, “just as we need more men like my father, who championed my 11-year-old self to stand up for what is right.”
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When Bruno Mars hit the stage for his first TV special, he could feel the music — in his bones and his veins — and it shows.

 

Mars’ energetic and slick dance moves and smooth vocals are at the forefront of “Bruno Mars: 24K Magic Live at the Apollo,” which debuts Wednesday on CBS at 10 p.m. Eastern. He recorded the special at the Apollo Theater in New York’s Harlem, performing the majority of his third album, “24K Magic.”

 

“You got to perform it a few times to get it in your bones, to get it right, to work out all the kinks … it’s never going to be right the first time to do it,” Mars said in a phone interview from South America, where he is on tour. “By the time we got to film at the Apollo, we were already a well-oiled machine.”

 

“People are going to get the best that I got,” he added.

 

Mars said he chose to film the one-hour special at the Apollo — which he calls “a magical place” — because of the venue’s rich history in music and pop culture.

 

“I remember growing up watching ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ before ‘X Factor’ and ‘American Idol’ — that was the singing competition show. It was pretty cut-throat. Either you got it and they would cheer you on, or you don’t and they’ll boo you off the stage,” he said. “And that’s just Entertainment 101, and you feel that when you get into that theater. This is where it all begins it feels like.”

 

Mars performed the song “24K Magic” on top of the Apollo marquee in the special. He also filmed various scenes throughout New York City, from eating at hot spots to meeting his fans: “The coolest part about that was the locals in Harlem, holding their arms out for you, (saying), ‘Yo Bruno, welcome to Harlem.”’

The last year for the 32-year-old has continued to push him to superstardom: “24K Magic” reached double platinum status, while the song “That’s What I Like” hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It’s the year’s top R&B song.

 

This month he won five Soul Train Awards and seven American Music Awards, including artist of the year. Mars picked up video of the year at the BET Awards, shared with Beyonce, and won his fifth Grammy Award earlier this year.

 

“Awards show — I don’t know where it’s going to swing,” he said. “It’s awesome … I feel like people understand what I’m doing and what I’m trying to do and what I stand for when it comes to everything — the music, the videos, I work hard for this (expletive).”

 

Mars said as he reflects a year after releasing the album that he feels good about the work he put in to create the ’90s R&B-inspired album.

 

“You can go crazy in the studio (and) start second- guessing,” he said. “‘That’s What I Like’ — I’m listening to it for over a year to make sure it’s all right and then we put it out and luckily it did what it did. It just confirms that I’m not crazy, maybe. It’s just nice that the work I put in the studio, it translated and I just got to remember that going into the next project.”
…

Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch looked flushed as he stood at the edge of the Hobby Center’s Sarofim Hall stage during a break in the company’s annual Jubilee of Dance performance.

The Houston Chronicle reports his military-style jacket seemed apt for the warrior’s role he has played in recent months, trying to keep his 59 dancers sharp and happy in their glittering costumes as he shuffles their performances in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

The audience had just seen a video describing how the ballet rebounded from damage to its $45 million studio building but lost its stage venue — the Wortham Theater Center — for what will likely be the entire season, forcing a season-long home town tour. And Welch wanted to convey the gargantuan effort it takes to produce world-class dancing, even as some of his weary staff members continue going home every night to flood-gutted messes.

Tears welled in his eyes.

“It’s still a very raw thing for all of us,” Welch said.

Leaders of Houston’s powerhouse performing arts companies have been more emotional than usual this fall. Worn to a nub from the scramble of relocating, rethinking and rescheduling shows because Houston’s Theater District was so severely damaged, they also need to convince Houstonians that their work is more meaningful and necessary than ever.

On the cusp of the all-important holiday entertainment season, a time when audiences typically flock to their productions, they are constantly comparing notes and watching their numbers. Never before have so many of the city’s cultural jewels looked so precarious at once.

The ballet, symphony, opera and Alley Theater each expect setbacks of millions of dollars as a result of the storm. Insurance will offset some of the losses, but ticket sales for the rest of the season remain a huge and critical unknown. Directors worry that people’s priorities have changed.

“The entire momentum of the city has been disrupted,” said Perryn Leech, Houston Grand Opera’s managing director. “Even if 10 percent of people don’t come back to the theater, when they get out of the habit of going out, that’s a challenge.”

Bobby Tudor, chairman of the Houston Symphony’s board of trustees and former chairman of the Board of the Society for the Performing Arts, said the storm’s effects underscore the fragility of the city’s arts organizations.

“The vast majority of them live from hand to mouth,” Tudor said during a panel discussion at a recent luncheon about the importance of Houston’s arts economy.

Arts organizations of all kinds across Houston’s 10-country region amount to a $1.1 billion industry that employs more than 25,000 people, but most of those companies operate dangerously close to the margins.

“At some point, you worry about making payroll — whether you’re a small contemporary dance company, a presenting organization or a big, multimillion dollar organization,” Tudor said. “Too often in the arts, we spend every single penny-plus of what we can raise in contributed income and philanthropy, and we have no cushion when bad things happen. And this was a bad thing.”

The Alley stands to lose an estimated $18 million — about the equivalent of an entire year’s operating budget. Managing director Dean Gladden said he hopes to recoup most of it through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (the Alley owns its building, which was insured) and fundraising.

On the plus side, tickets are selling well for “A Christmas Carol,” which marked the theater company’s return to its home. Its smaller, basement-level Neuhaus stage, which was flooded to the ceiling, is still under reconstruction but slated to reopen in late January.

The Houston Symphony, which closed for seven weeks and canceled 17 events at Jones Hall, could lose an estimated $3 million this season and up to $6 million during the coming three years, although it is back on track now with performances in Jones Hall. The company hopes to recover some lost revenue with a concert added to its season: A score performance and screening of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” a follow-up to last summer’s wildly successful “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” concert.

                   And returning theater and symphony audiences will be able to park nearby. The Theater District Garage, which took on 270 million gallons of floodwater, was expected to be operating again by late November.

 

But the Sugar Plum Fairy won’t be joining the downtown party this year.

Houston Ballet has had to move Welch’s massive new production of “The Nutcracker” to Sugar Land’s Smart Financial Center and downtown’s Hobby Center for 28 performances — 10 less than it usually presents at the Wortham. As a result, executive director Jim Nelson has lowered his team’s “Nutcracker” sales goal by $1.25 million this year, to $4 million.

On top of that hit, relocating the massive production — twice — will cost the company several hundred thousand dollars. The ballet has a deeper cushion than some of the other organizations, with an endowment that’s currently worth more than $76 million — the third largest among American ballet companies — although Nelson doesn’t want to rob it.

Deep-pocketed patrons have helped. Lynn Wyatt, for example, bought a traveling dance floor for Houston Ballet after the storm because the Hobby Center, where the ballet has staged several performances, wasn’t equipped with one.

“It’s tough,” Nelson said. “Costs are higher, and revenues are compromised. We will get through it, but now more than ever, we need community support.”

Leech said the opera has adjusted its ticket sale targets, too — and still not met them.

HGO spent more than $500,000 to create the makeshift Resilience Theater inside an exhibit hall of the George R. Brown Convention Center, where it has performed “La Traviata” and “Julius Caesar” and will premiere “The House Without a Christmas Tree” on Nov. 30. The acoustics aren’t great, and the orchestra has to sit behind the stage, but at least shows are going on, and artists are excelling in spite of the conditions.

Houston First, which operates the city-owned convention center, Wortham and Jones Hall, has shifted 27 clients to other spaces to accommodate the opera, also supplying some of the lighting and stage equipment, which it extracted from the empty Wortham.

Houston First president and CEO Dawn Ullrich expects the ballet will be performing at the convention center next year, too. Nelson said there were still details to iron out before he announces the remainder of his organization’s season, but the schedule will likely offer different ballets than originally planned, and on different dates.

The ballet has loss of revenue insurance, but the opera does not. Leech expects HGO’s setback could be as high as $15 million, well over half of its normal annual budget.

“I consider us to be part of the hurricane relief ask,” Leech said. “This is definitely a conversation with the people who have supported us: Do you want HGO to take a backward step? We as a city need to have the arts as part of the recovery plan. The arts are more important now than ever.”

Everyone expects it will take the companies three years to fully recover.

Amanda Dinitz, the symphony’s interim executive director and CEO, believes all arts organizations need to anticipate a shift in how people are spending discretionary income and prioritizing their donations now. But she remains optimistic about recovery from the storm.

“We’re confident that this community has a strong interest in not maintaining but continuing to build the quality of the arts,” she said.

The funding environment is challenging for arts organizations everywhere, even without storm issues.

Randy Cohen, vice president of research and policy at the nonprofit advocacy group Americans for the Arts, which produced the economic research, said he’s confident Houston’s theater community can turn lemons into lemonade. In other cities, forced relocations have helped entrenched groups in the long term.

“The arts are all about hope, aspiration and connectedness,” Cohen said. “Sometimes the urgency to do things differently can engage an audience in a community in a whole different way.”

Arts organizations across the country have stepped up to help, too. The Alley has received monetary donations from other theater companies. Major ballet companies in other cities have opened their costume and set coffers to their Houston colleagues.

The ballet’s annual Margaret Alkek Williams Jubilee of Dance (named for its underwriter) had to be staged earlier than normal. Welch instituted the annual showcase of rigorous dancing and season highlights more than a decade ago to give performers and serious ballet fans a break from the “Nutcracker” marathon that typically begins the day after Thanksgiving. This year, “The Nutcracker” opens fairly far into the holiday period, on Dec. 10, in Sugar Land.

Welch lamented, along with the loss of the Wortham, a heartbreaking undoing of ballet history. The 15 feet of floodwater that filled the theater’s basement for several weeks destroyed costumes for 50 one-act ballets. That is a huge chunk of the company’s repertory, including seminal works by George Balanchine, Christopher Bruce, Mark Morris and other leading choreographers.

But Welch is adamant that the ballet will continue to present great art, a sentiment his cohorts at the theater, opera and symphony echo as they plead with Houstonians to buy tickets. Audiences are what they need most right now.

“When this storm hit us, we dusted ourselves off and picked ourselves up and came here to perform beautiful art for you,” Welch said. “We would like to say thank you for being patient with us, and for being here with us tonight. “The curtain behind him parted to reveal a stage full of people in costume and not — dancers, backstage artists, teachers, ticket sellers, accountants. “We are Houston Ballet,” Welch said, “and we are Houston strong.”

The audience stood and cheered.

 
…

Russian election influence, the ever-widening sexual harassment scandal, mass shootings and the opioid epidemic helped elevate the word “complicit” as Dictionary.com’s word of the year for 2017.

 

Look-ups of the word increased nearly 300 percent over last year as “complicit” hit just about every hot button from politics to natural disasters, lexicographer Jane Solomon told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s formal announcement of the site’s pick.

 

“This year a conversation that keeps on surfacing is what exactly it means to be complicit,” she said. “Complicit has sprung up in conversations about those who speak out against powerful figures in institutions, and those who stay silent.”

 

The first of three major spikes for the word struck March 12. That was the day after “Saturday Night Live” aired a sketch starring Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump in a glittery gold dress peddling a fragrance called “Complicit” because: “She’s beautiful, she’s powerful, she’s complicit.”

 

The bump was followed by another April 5, also related to Ivanka, Solomon said. It was the day after she appeared on “CBS This Morning” and told Gayle King, among other things: “I don’t know what it means to be complicit.”

 

It was unclear at the time whether Ivanka was deflecting or whether the summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business — with a degree in economics — didn’t really know.

 

Another major spike occurred Oct. 24, the day Arizona Republican Jeff Flake announced from the Senate floor that he would not seek re-election, harshly criticizing President Donald Trump and urging other members of the party not to stand silently with the president.

 

“I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit,” Flake said.

 

Solomon noted that neither she nor Dictionary.com can know what sends people to dictionaries or dictionary sites to look up “complicit” or any other word. She and other lexicographers who study look-up behavior believe it’s likely a combination of people who may not know a definition, are digging deeper or are seeking inspiration or emotional reinforcement of some sort.

 

As for “complicit,” she said several other major events contributed to interest in the word. They include the rise of the opioid epidemic and how it came to pass, along with the spread of sexual harassment and assault allegations against an ever-growing list of powerful men, including film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

 

The scandal that started in Hollywood and quickly spread across industries has led to a mountain of questions over who knew what, who might have contributed and what it means to stay silent.

 

While Solomon shared percentage increases for “complicit,” the company would not disclose the number of look-ups, calling that data proprietary.

 

The site chooses its word of the year by heading straight for data first, scouring look-ups by day, month and year to date and how they correspond to noteworthy events, Solomon said. This year, a lot of high-volume trends unsurprisingly corresponded to politics. But the site also looks at lower-volume trends to see what other words resonated. Among them:

INTERSEX: It trended on Dictionary.com in January thanks to model Hanne Gaby Odiele speaking up about being intersex to break taboos. As a noun it means “an individual having reproductive organs or external sexual characteristics of both male and female.” Dictionary.com traces its origins back to 1915, as the back formation of “intersexual.”

 
SHRINKAGE: While the word has been around since 1790, a specific definition tied to a famous 1994 episode of “Seinfeld” led to a word look-up revival in February. That’s when a house in The Hamptons where the episode was filmed went on the market. For the record: The Jason Alexander character George Costanza emerges with “shrinkage” from a pool and said “shrinkage” is noted by Jerry’s girlfriend.

 
TARNATION: It had a good ride on Dictionary.com in the first few months of the year due to a round of social media fun with the “What in tarnation” meme that had animals and various objects wearing cowboy hats.

 
HOROLOGIST: As in master clockmaker, like the one featured in the podcast “S-Town,” the highly anticipated “This American Life” follow-up to the popular “Serial” podcast. All seven episodes of murder intrigue were released at once in March. Horologist, used in the radio story, trended around that time.

 
TOTALITY: There were look-up spikes in August. Thank you, solar eclipse and your narrow band of totality, meaning the strip of land where the sun was completely obscured by the moon.
…

The Maryland-based production crew for “House of Cards” will continue to get paid for at least another two weeks. The show has been on hiatus since October, when allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against star Kevin Spacey.

The Baltimore Sun reported that production company Media Rights Capital has updated the cast and crew in an email. It says they’ll be paid for an additional two-week period that begins Monday and continues through Dec. 8.

The email said the company will provide another update by Dec. 8. The show is filmed in the Baltimore area. Between 250 and 300 people work on the production crew.

Spacey played ruthless politician Frank Underwood and served as executive producer. Netflix and Media Rights Capital recently announced that Spacey had been fired.
…

She is an entertainment figure in her own right, and an outspoken woman comfortable talking about her background and her passions. American actress Meghan Markle will be a new type of royal when she weds Prince Harry in the spring.

 

In some ways, Markle – a mixed-race American raised in California, and a divorcee – makes a surprising addition to Britain’s monarchy.

 

But the institution has moved on with the times, and the romance between Markle and Harry has a decidedly unstuffy, modern feel to it.

 

Markle, best known for her role as an ambitious paralegal in the hit U.S. legal drama “Suits,” surprised many when she shared her feelings for Harry in a September cover story for Vanity Fair. Asked about the media frenzy surrounding their courtship, the 36-year-old said: “At the end of the day I think it’s really simple … we’re two people who are really happy and in love.”

 

Describing Harry as her “boyfriend,” Markle said that while she expected that she and Harry would have to “come forward” about their relationship at some point, the two were just a couple enjoying time spent with each other.

 

“Personally, I love a great love story,” she said.

 

It is unusual for a royal love interest to speak so publicly – and candidly – before becoming engaged. Harry’s past reported girlfriends all shied away from the media limelight, and his sister-in-law, formerly known as Kate Middleton, stayed silent until she and Prince William gave a formal televised interview at Buckingham Palace after their engagement became public.

 

But then, unlike some other “commoners” romantically linked to Britain’s royals, Markle is no stranger to media exposure and the world of show business.

 

The actress’s most successful role is the feisty Rachel Zane in the TV legal show “Suits,” now in its seventh season. Her career has also included small parts on TV series including “Fringe,” “CSI: Miami,” “Knight Rider'” and “Castle,” as well as movies including “Horrible Bosses.”

 

Outside of acting, Markle founded a lifestyle blog called TheTig.com (which closed down in April without explanation), and has lent her celebrity status to humanitarian causes.

 

She has campaigned with the United Nations on gender equality, written in Time magazine about girls’ education and the stigma surrounding menstruation, and has traveled to Rwanda as global ambassador for the charity World Vision Canada. She has described how her mother took her to the slums of Jamaica to witness poverty first-hand, saying experiences like that shaped her social consciousness and charity work.

 

Harry and Markle held hands for their first official appearance together in September in Toronto at the Invictus Games, a sporting event for wounded service personnel that Harry spearheaded.

 

Both were dressed casually in jeans, smiling and chatting as they arrived for a tennis match. Several days later, Harry was photographed kissing Markle on the cheek as he joined the actress and her mother in a luxury box to watch the event’s closing ceremony.

 

Markle said she met Harry through friends in London in July 2016, and that they had been dating quietly for several months before the romance hit the headlines.

 

The media attention then became so intense that Harry took the unusual step of officially confirming the romance in order to warn the media off. In a strongly-worded statement issued through the palace, the prince pleaded for reporters to stop intruding on his girlfriend’s privacy. He condemned “outright sexism and racism” in some online comments, and said some articles with “racial undertones” had crossed the line.

 

Some tabloids had alluded to Markle’s mixed-race heritage, pointing out she has an African-American mother and a white father.

 

Markle herself has spoken out about coming to terms with being biracial – both growing up, and in her Hollywood career.

 

In a March interview with Allure magazine, she said studying race at college was “the first time I could put a name to feeling too light in the black community and too mixed in the white community.

 

“For castings, I was labeled ‘ethnically ambiguous’,” she said.

 

Markle was born Aug. 4, 1981, to a clinical therapist mother and television lighting director father. She grew up in Los Angeles, and now lives in Toronto.

 

She studied at a girls’ Roman Catholic high school before attending Northwestern University in Illinois, where she studied theater and international relations.

 

Markle married film producer Trevor Engelson in 2011, but the pair divorced two years later.

 

It wouldn’t be first time that a British royal has married an American – or a divorcee. In 1936, Edward VIII famously abdicated after he was forced to choose between the monarchy and his relationship with twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

 

In her Vanity Fair interview, Markle made clear the world’s attention on her romance did not faze her.

 

“I’m still the same person that I am, and I’ve never defined myself by my relationship,” she said. “The people who are close to me anchor me in knowing who I am. The rest is noise.”

 

 
…

“I know Aussies are not known for leaving the party at the right time but (after) 17 years, it’s time to leave the party,” Hugh Jackman quipped as he talked about his last time playing X-Men superhero Wolverine in this year’s gritty action hit Logan.

The Australian actor made his breakthrough as the gruff, clawed mutant Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men film and has since played the character eight times on screen. But with this year’s “Logan,” Jackman said he and the filmmakers took the biggest risk for his final performance as the mutant hero.

“This was not a given moneymaker,” Jackman said in an interview.

“People considered this to be the biggest risk, the most foolish risk ever taken, and I think people assume you’re just doing a sequel because it’s a moneymaker, but my experience from being within it is that it’s always felt like a risk and I think that’s to be embraced.”

​A darker side

“Logan” was the first time Jackman, 49, played his character in an R-rated film, where he was allowed to embrace the darker, more tormented side of Wolverine.

In the film, an older, wearier Logan struggles with alcoholism as he rescues a young mutant girl and unwillingly aids her in her journey to get to safety, the two forging an unlikely friendship despite both their explosive tempers.

“This is a man whose life is centered on violence,” Jackman said. “It seemed very difficult thematically, not just in terms of graphic violence but the consequences of violence, it seemed impossible to make that as a PG-13 movie and really get into the thematic of that and on a serious level.”

Praise from critics

The film received strong praise from critics when it was released in March, grossing more than $600 million worldwide according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. Film studio 20th Century Fox is hoping Jackman’s new take on the character will give Logan a competitive edge in the upcoming awards season, which does not usually favor big-budget comic book films.

“It’s a great time for us as actors or creators of stories,” Jackman said. “I’m thrilled that the Academy (of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, voters of the Oscars) is seeing that there are less boundaries in a way of what makes a really good film, and the genre shouldn’t dictate that.”
…

A major London bookmaker has suspended betting on whether Prince Harry will marry American actress Meghan Markle in 2018 amid rumors an engagement may be announced soon.

Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes said Friday that it seems an engagement announcement “is to be confirmed imminently.”

The bookmaker has stopped taking bets on a 2018 royal wedding after Markle was seen shopping in London this week.

The British press has reported that Markle has met in private with Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The couple has been dating for more than a year, and Harry has asked the press to grant them a certain amount of privacy.

Markle is believed to be in the process of moving to London.

Palace officials say they will not comment on the rumors.
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We’re feasting on the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending Nov. 25, 2017.

It’s Thanksgiving week, and right on schedule, the chart sends us a tasty new title.

Number 5: Imagine Dragons “Thunder”

Let’s begin in fifth place, where Imagine Dragons continues to hold with “Thunder.”

This Las Vegas band made out well at the American Music Awards on November 20, when they performed with Khalid. They did a great mash-up of “Thunder” and “Young Dumb and Broke.” Imagine Dragons also took home a third trophy, this time for Favorite Pop/Rock Group.

Number 4: Sam Smith “Too Good at Goodbyes”

It’s a banner week for Sam Smith on the charts — he racks up his third Top Five hit in the Hot 100, as “Too Good At Goodbyes” shoots from 10th to fourth place.

Sam is also this week’s album champ, as “The Thrill Of It All” sells 237,000 album-equivalent units here in the States. Sam’s debut album, “In The Lonely Hour,” only hit the runner-up slot in the U.S.

Number 3: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Cardi B treads water in third place with her ex-champ “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).”

Fans are clamoring for an album, but the New York rapper says she’s in no hurry. Posting November 19 on Twitter, she explained that she’s feeling pressured to produce a great album … and she’s taking her time to make good songs.

Number 2: Camila Cabello Featuring Young Thug ‘Havana”

Camila Cabello and Young Thug continue to occupy the runner-up slot with “Havana.”

MTV U.K. reports that Camila has ditched the title of her upcoming debut solo album. It will no longer be titled “The Hurting, The Healing, The Loving” — but Camila’s not yet ready to reveal the new name. She says her new, happier state of mind spurred her to make the change. The new set should drop early next year.

Number 1: Post Malone Featuring 21 Savage “Rockstar”

Post Malone and 21 Savage hold the Hot 100 title for a fifth solid week with “Rockstar.” 

In a recent podcast interview, Post revealed that his second album “Beerbongs & Bentleys” will arrive December 1. The guest list will reportedly include Nicki Minaj, John Mayer, Ty Dolla $ign and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee.

We hope you’ll be our guest next week when we’ll crown a new lineup.
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President Donald Trump is continuing to rail against football players who kneel during the National Anthem to protest racism and police brutality.

Trump asks his followers in a Black Friday tweet: “Can you believe that the disrespect for our Country, our Flag, our Anthem continues without penalty to the players.”

He’s accusing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell of having “lost control” of what he called a “hemorrhaging league” where “Players are the boss!”

Trump’s tweet was in response to one from his social media chief, Dan Scavino.

Scavino had shared a Breitbart News story about New York Giants player Olivier Vernon taking a knee during the anthem on Thanksgiving ahead of a game against the Redskins.

The website is run by Trump’s former chief strategist.
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Oscar Pistorius’ prison sentence was increased to 13 years and five months by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal on Friday, a decision that more than doubled the Olympic runner’s jail term for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. 

In an announcement that took a matter of minutes, Supreme Court Justice Willie Seriti said the Supreme Court upheld an appeal by prosecutors against Pistorius’ original six-year sentence for shooting Steenkamp multiple times in his home in 2013. 

Prosecutors had called that six-year sentence “shockingly” lenient.

Pistorius should have been sentenced to the prescribed minimum of 15 years for murder in South Africa, Seriti said, as he delivered the verdict that was reached by a panel of five judges at the Supreme Court in the central city of Bloemfontein. 

The new sentence of 13 years and five months took into account time Pistorius has served in prison and at home under house arrest, Seriti said.

Pistorius, who turned 31 Wednesday, has served over a year of his initial six-year sentence. 

Pistorius killed Steenkamp in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 after shooting four times through a closed toilet cubicle door in his home. Claiming he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder, he was initially convicted of manslaughter. That conviction was overturned and replaced with a murder conviction by the Supreme Court in 2015. 

Friday’s decision likely brings an end to a near five-year legal saga surrounding the double-amputee athlete, a multiple Paralympic champion and record-breaker who was once one of the most celebrated sportsmen in the world. 

Pistorius’ lawyers have just one avenue open to them if they want to challenge the new sentence handed down by the Supreme Court, and that is to appeal to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. 

Pistorius failed with an appeal to the Constitutional Court last year to challenge his murder conviction.
…

Jon Hendricks, the pioneering jazz singer and lyricist who, with the trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, popularized the “vocalese” singing style in which words were added to instrumental songs, has died. He was 96.

His daughter, Aria Hendricks, confirmed his death to The New York Times. She said he died Wednesday at a New York City hospital.

Hendricks found fame in the 1950s and ’60s teaming with Dave Lambert and Annie Ross. Their interracial trio became one of the most celebrated jazz vocal groups ever, and among the latter-day stars they influenced were Joni Mitchell and Manhattan Transfer.

The trio’s first album, Sing a Song of Basie, won acclaim for its use of vocalese, in which the voices mimic the instrumental parts. Hendricks wrote the lyrics to existing Basie songs, and the three recorded their own voices in layers instead of using backup singers.

Others experimented with vocalese before Hendricks, but he is widely regarded as the father of the spirited singing style for popularizing it. In the 1980s, he collaborated with Manhattan Transfer on an album called Vocalese that won three Grammys, one for Hendricks himself.

He first teamed up with Lambert, a bebop singer he admired, in the mid-1950s; the duo had hits with Four Brothers and Cloudburst. The two became a trio with the addition of Ross in 1957. The English-born Ross was already known for her own vocalese lyrics to Wardell Gray’s music in the classic Twisted.

In a 1997 Associated Press interview, Hendricks recalled that Lambert said, “Let’s do something artistic so that the Earth will at least know we were here. Why don’t you lyricize 10 Count Basie things and we’ll see if we can record an album?”

After trying out by recording a large group of singers, Hendricks recalled, they decided to instead create the harmonies by multitracking as a trio with Ross.

Solo work

After the group broke up in 1962, he pursued a solo career in London, worked as a jazz critic in San Francisco and released several solo albums. Ross also had success in a solo career; Lambert died in 1966.

Hendricks won a Grammy in 1986 for best male jazz vocal performance of 1985 for his work with Bobby McFerrin on Another Night in Tunisia, a cut on Manhattan Transfer’s Vocalese. Hendricks wrote all the lyrics for the album, to music by Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and others. It was nominated for a near-record 12 Grammys and won three.

In 1997, he was one of three featured singers to perform Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields on a CD and on tour in the United States and Europe. That same year, the three-hour work, which tells the history of blacks in America, won the Pulitzer Prize for music.

But the fame of the trio that began recording nearly a half-century ago has not faded. Hendricks and Ross teamed up again in the late 1990s in a series of concerts. And The All-Music Guide to Jazz says Lambert, Hendricks and Ross “has yet to be topped as a jazz vocal group.”

Mitchell, who rarely sings songs other than her own, recorded Twisted on her 1974 album Court and Spark and Centerpiece on her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns. In a 1979 Down Beat magazine interview, she recalled hearing Lambert, Hendricks and Ross: The Hottest New Sound in Jazz as a teenager.

“In a way I’ve always considered that album to be my Beatles, because I learned every song off it. … I don’t think there’s another album that I know every song on, including my own!” she said.

Hendricks got his start in amateur shows and at age 14 sang in Toledo nightclubs for two years with another future jazz great from his hometown, pianist Art Tatum, who gave him music lessons after school.

“I learned what I know from him,” Hendricks told The Associated Press in a 2004 interview.

Yet, he was on his way to becoming a lawyer in 1950, singing in small clubs at night, when his wife asked if Hendricks could sing with bebop pioneer and saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker at a concert in town.

Parker was impressed, telling Hendricks, “You ain’t no lawyer. You’re a jazz singer. You got to come to New York.” Hendricks did, two years later.

Son of a preacher

Hendricks was born September 16, 1921, in Newark, Ohio, and grew up in Toledo, one of 15 children of a preacher who hoped Hendricks would follow him into the ministry.

“I always felt like a traitor,” Hendricks said.

 

As a boy, he took the “h” out of his first name after he went to the movies and saw an actor named Jon. He thought it would make him stand out.

Following years of performing worldwide and living in New York, Hendricks returned to his hometown in 2000 to teach jazz history and vocal jazz at the University of Toledo.

A performer even as a teacher, he was known for his unending enthusiasm. On the first day of class he sang students the story of jazz, backed up by bass, drums and piano. Students gave him ovations by the dozen.

He also directed his own vocalese group in Toledo composed of students and local singers. They performed in France and Italy and with the Toledo Symphony.

Hendricks won awards worldwide. The World War II veteran was given France’s highest honor, the French Legion of Honor, in 2004, at a performance in Normandy to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

He called that day one of his greatest thrills.
…

Racial inequality in post war America and civil rights activism are prevalent themes in Hollywood films this season. Using gritty cinematography and A-list actors, directors such as Kathryn Bigelow, George Clooney and Dan Gilroy shed light on the history of racial injustice in America and open up the conversation about racial tensions in the present. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
…

If you’re a fan of the Mayflower II, here’s something that will float your boat.

A year after craftsmen embarked on an ambitious effort to restore the rotting replica of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, the work “is going really great,” project manager Whit Perry says.

 

Britain built the vessel and sailed it to the U.S. as a gift of friendship in 1957. Usually it’s moored in Plymouth Harbor, where more than 25 million people have boarded it over the past six decades. But over the years, the elements, aquatic organisms and insects took their toll.

 

It’s now in dry dock at the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport, getting a $7.5 million makeover in time for 2020 festivities marking the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing.

 

The Associated Press caught up with Perry, director of maritime preservation and operations at Plimoth Plantation , for a progress report.

 

AP: You’re 12 months into a 2-year project involving major structural repairs to America’s most beloved boat. Any unpleasant surprises?

 

Perry: Not really. I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress we’re making right now. We’ve had some major milestones since we began on Nov. 3, 2016. We have more than 100 new frames and floor timbers inside in the hold. Now we’re actually going to start the planking process on the outside of the ship, which is very exciting.

 

AP: So nothing’s bugging you? This time last year, on top of water damage and dry rot, you had beetles chewing through the bottom of the boat.

 

Perry: Ah, yes, the wharf borer beetle. No, that’s been a minor issue. We did find evidence of (Teredo worms). This is a mollusk that can grow up to three feet long and eats through wood. On the bottom of the keel, there’s something called a “worm shoe” — a 4-inch-thick piece of wood that runs the whole length of the ship. It lets the worms have a field day but not get into the main structure of the boat. That’s where we found evidence of worms. The ship itself is OK.

 

AP: The shipyard’s live webcam is pretty cool, but it’s hard to tell how many people are involved and what they’re doing. Can you tell us what we can’t see?

 

Perry: There are 20 people working on the Mayflower II at any one time. They’re working regular shifts, but we’re paying a little overtime so they don’t feel like they have to put down their tools if they’re in the middle of something. There are small teams working all over the ship. As we take things apart, we’re fixing anything with a question mark now, while we have the chance.

 

AP: Sea water actually preserves a wooden ship like this one. What happens when it’s on dry land for so long? Is that bad for a boat?

 

Perry: It can be. We’re very proactive in spraying the boat with salt water and an antifungal agent. As we put the ship back together, we try to keep the humidity up with misters so it doesn’t dry out too much. We also have to leave a little play on the new planking beneath the waterline so it doesn’t buckle when the ship returns to the water and the wood starts to swell. It’s not an exact science.

 

AP: In 2020, the eyes of the world will be on Plymouth. Sounds like you’re confident the ship will be ready?

 

Perry: It’s all going really great. We’re on budget and we’re on schedule. The ship will leave Mystic Seaport by late spring or early summer of 2019. And I’ve got to say, sailing the Mayflower II back to Plymouth is going to be quite a spectacle. Seeing the ship back under sail is going to be a beautiful sight.
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A leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced that he would pay a reward roughly equivalent to $1.5 million to anyone who would behead an Indian actress and a film director.

Surajpal Singh Amu, a member of the BJP in northern Haryana state, is apparently upset about an upcoming movie, Padmavati, starring actress Deepika Padukone as the 16th-century Hindu queen Padmini.

The movie is directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Amu alleged that the movie is misleading, not based on truth and offends Hindu sentiments in the country.

“We will reward the ones beheading them, with 10 crore rupees, and also take care of their family’s needs,” Amu said in an interview with India’s Asia’s Premier News (ANI) earlier this week.

Threats against movie

Amu also vowed not to allow the release of the movie and warned movie theaters to avoid playing the movie or risk being torched.

The movie was set to be released during the first week of December.

Rights activists have reacted strongly to the threats and urged the government to take action.

“This is pretty outrageous that you announce publicly and no action takes place at a time when people are being arrested for most trivial reasons in this country,” Gotum Naulakha, an Indian-based civil liberties activist, told VOA.

An official complaint has been registered against Amu, but many are criticizing the stance of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — which controls the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — on the matter.

“I’ve not heard any official stance from the central government or the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,” Vinod Sharma, an Indian-based analyst, told VOA.

Anil Jain, a local BJP spokesperson, told ANI that the law applies to everyone in the state of Haryana and no one can threaten others. The central government has yet to react, however.

Bollywood actress Padukone stood her ground and said the movie would be released despite the threats.

“Where have we reached as a nation? We have regressed. The only people we are answerable to is the censor board, and I know and I believe that nothing can stop the release of this film,” Padukone told Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) last week.

 

Controversy

Padmavati was controversial right from the start. Opponents of the movie stormed the filming of one scene and destroyed the film sets. They were upset that the director of the movie was distorting facts by alleging romance between the Hindu queen and the Muslim invader Alauddin Khilji.

Film director Bhansali, however, denies the allegations and maintains the story is based on a Sufi and medieval-era poem written about the Hindu queen. In the poem, the Hindu queen chooses death before the Muslim conqueror could capture her.

Some experts say the poem is centuries old and there is a possibility the Hindu queen might be purely a fictional character found only in folklore.

“There’s a lot of debate in India whether Padmavati was actually a living being many, many years ago or whether she was just an imagined person in a poem,” analyst Sharma said.

Rights activists maintain that if government fails to draw clear lines around the threat made by the politician, and discourage a growing sense of impunity for some, incidents like this will only increase and threaten the freedom of expression in the world’s biggest democracy.

“By letting loose and giving [a] sense of impunity to the goons of the ruling party or people who’re connected or close to the ruling party, we’re paving the ground for much bigger and [worse] things to happen in the near future,” Naulakha told VOA.

The movie is awaiting approval from India’s Central Board of Film Certification.
…

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone known for his velvety voice, dashing looks and shock of flowing white hair, died Wednesday at a hospice near his home in London, a few years after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was 55.

Called “the Elvis of opera” and the “Siberian Express” by some, Hvorostovsky announced in June 2015 that he had been diagnosed with the tumor. He returned to New York’s Metropolitan Opera three months later to sing the Count di Luna in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” and was greeted with a loud and lengthy ovation that caused him to break character. Musicians in the orchestra threw white roses during the curtain calls.

Despite his illness, he sang in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at London’s Royal Opera that December, in Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” and “Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball)” at the Vienna State Opera the following spring and gave his final four staged opera performances as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Vienna, the last on Nov. 29 last year. He announced the following month that balance issues had caused him to cancel future opera appearances.

“Dima was a truly exceptional artist — a great recitalist as well as a great opera singer, which is rare,” said soprano Renee Fleming, who teamed with Hvorostovsky for a memorable run of “Onegin” among their many performances. “His timbre, musicality, musicianship, technique, and especially his capacity for endless phrases, were second to none. I have no doubt that he would have sung beautifully for another 20 years or more, had he not been taken from us. I can’t hear Eugene Onegin, Valentin in Faust or Simon Boccanegra without longing to hear Dmitri. He brought an innate nobility and intense commitment to every role.”

Hvorostovsky made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the Met last May for a gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company’s move to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Walking stiffly, looking thin and with his cheekbones more pronounced, Hvorostovsky received a standing ovation and lit into Rigoletto’s second-act aria “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata (Courtiers, vile cursed kind).” Some in the audience had tears in their eyes, and many pulled cellphones from their glittering handbags to snap photos as he walked through the lobby during intermission.

His last public concerts were on June 22 and June 23 at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria. In September, he was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland by Russia President Vladimir Putin for contributions to the nation’s art and culture.

“Words cannot express my anguish that one of the greatest voices of our time has been silenced,” tenor Placido Domingo said. “Dmitri’s incomparably beautiful voice and peerless artistry touched the souls of millions of music lovers. His passing will be mourned by his countless admirers around the world and by those of us who were fortunate to know him.”

The Met dedicated Friday’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem to Hvorostovsky.

“One of opera’s all-time greats, truly an artist for the ages,” Met General Manager Peter Gelb said. “In addition to his astounding vocal gifts, he had an electrifying stage presence and a charisma that won over both his adoring audiences and his devoted colleagues.”

The Vienna State Opera scheduled a minute of silence before Wednesday’s performance of Strauss’ “Salome.”

“I especially admire the wonderful way in which he carried himself during this terrible illness,” Vienna State Opera Director Dominique Meyer said. “Dima leaves a great void behind. He will stay in our memories as an exceptional artist who always gave a hundred percent.”

Hvorostovsky was born on Oct. 16, 1962, and grew up in Krasnoyarsk, in central Siberia. He started piano lessons when he was 7, only for his first piano teacher to tell him he was untalented. At Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical School and Krasnoyarsk High School of Arts, he thrived in music, boxing and soccer. “Apart from this, I was the worst pupil in school,” he said with a straight face.

He became a soloist at the Krasnoyarsk Opera in 1986, won the Russian Glinka National Competition, then attracted attention by winning vocal contests at Toulouse, France, in 1988 and then Cardiff in 1989 — where he beat out Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel for the top prize.

With long hair that turned prematurely silver before he was 35 and then polar bear white, he was instantly recognizable. Hvorostovky’s public musical persona started with a rock ’n’ roll band, when he was a teen-age rebel under communism.

“Ah! Freedom! So what could I do?” he remembered in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press. “I had a few options — to become a street fighter, or I could become a hero in front of my girlfriends.”

He made his Royal Opera debut in 1992 as Riccardo in Bellini’s “I Puritani” and his Met debut in 1995 as Prince Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky’s “Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades).” He was lauded around the world for definitive performances as Onegin and also celebrated for the title role in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Valentin in Gounod’s “Faust,” Belcore in Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore.”

He is survived by his wife Florence Hvorostovsky, their son, Maxim, and daughter, Nina, and twins Alexandra and Daniel from his first marriage, to Svetlana Hvorostovsky.

 
…

America’s history of racial inequality and civil rights activism are prevalent themes in Hollywood films this season. Using gritty cinematography and A-list actors, directors Kathryn Bigelow, George Clooney and Dan Gilroy highlight America’s history of racial injustice, as well as opening up a conversation about racial tensions in the present.

The film drama Detroit by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bigelow is based on the riots that tore apart the city of Detroit in 1967. “These riots, this was anger that was building and it was on a collision course in 1967,” the filmmaker said.

Major American cities such as Detroit became the battleground for discontented African-Americans facing unemployment and racial discrimination in housing and education. In her film, Bigelow focuses on a chain of events one night during the riots when a group of innocent African-Americans were caught up in the violence and beaten by police. 

Trying to escape the riots, a group of Motown singers seek refuge in the low-budget Algiers hotel downtown, but tensions follow them there. An African-American hotel resident points a toy gun at another, trying to make the point that a white society always points the proverbial gun at African-Americans. Police forces on the ground take the popping sound of the fake gun coming from the hotel as a potential sniper attack. They open fire at the hotel and then raid it.

Will Poulter portrays racist officer Krauss, a composite of police officers, who intimidates and brutalizes the youth in the hotel, to recover what he thought was a real gun. Three young men are killed, and police detectives arrest an African-American security guard in an effort to pin the crime on him. John Boyega plays real-life security guard Melvin Dismukes, who witnessed the events at the hotel and tried to intervene to diffuse the situation.

“He was an unspoken guardian angel to those boys that were there,” Boyega said.

An Oscar-worthy film, Detroit combines a cinéma vérité approach with taut drama. Weaving historic footage into dramatic sequences, the film immerses the audience into the riots as the pivotal moment of racial injustice and repression.

“My hope is that the film could maybe stimulate greater conversation,” Bigelow said.

Suburbicon

Tensions in white American suburbs of the 1950s are explored in Clooney’s dark satire Suburbicon. Like Bigelow, Clooney uses real-life racial tensions as a counterpoint to his murder mystery. He places his story in Suburbicon, a town modeled on the first all-white suburb of Levittown, Pennsylvania. 

A corrupt middle-management executive, played by Matt Damon, commits murder, fraud and adultery while the largely oblivious community turns its attention and indignation against the Myers family, the first African-American family to move there. Clooney said the movie was made before President Donald Trump was elected and racial tensions became a higher profile issue in American political life.

“It was in the middle of the campaign, and it seemed it was fun to talk about it and remind people that these are not new subjects — we continue to have these for the history of this country,” he said.

Though the film carries the satirical stamp of writers Joel and Ethan Cohen, it emerges rather disjointed in its effort to balance the irony of all-white suburbanites fearing for their security by their African-American neighbors, while their so-called respectable white neighbor gets away with murder.

Roman J. Israel Esq.

In Roman J. Israel Esq., filmmaker Gilroy crafts a character drama that targets institutionalized racism through a corrupt judicial system. The story takes place in present day Los Angeles and revolves around Roman, a socially awkward lawyer who takes on the justice system with supreme legal knowledge but no people skills.

When his boss dies, Roman, the firm’s backroom consultant for decades, is forced out of the shadows to actively represent clients in court. He comes face to face with an overburdened justice system which disproportionately affects African-Americans.

Gilroy says his story, like his character, is reminiscent of the political activism of the 1960s and ’70s.

“The story spoke to me on a very contemporary level,” he said. “There are things going on right now legally, constitutionally, nationally and internationally that the story became a focus. One of the elements of the film that I hope people take out is, feel empowered.”

Unfortunately, the film’s message gets buried under the legal jargon and Denzel Washington’s challenging performance as a loner who seems to have stepped out of the ’70s does not connect with the audience. 

Despite their hits and misses, all three films address racial tensions then and now, as well as the potential of racial reconciliation and tolerance.
…

David Cassidy, the teen and pre-teen idol who starred in the 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family” and sold millions of records as the musical group’s lead singer, died Tuesday at age 67.

Cassidy, who announced earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with dementia, died surrounded by his family, a family statement released by publicist JoAnn Geffen said. No further details were immediately available, but Geffen said on Saturday that Cassidy was in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, hospital suffering from organ failure.

“David died surrounded by those he loved, with joy in his heart and free from the pain that had gripped him for so long,” the statement said. Thank you for the abundance and support you have shown him these many years.”

“The Partridge Family” aired from 1970-74 and was a fictional variation of the `60s performers the Cowsills, intended at first as a vehicle for Shirley Jones, the Oscar winning actress and Cassidy’s stepmother. Jones played Shirley Partridge, a widow with five children with whom she forms a popular act that travels on a psychedelic bus. The cast also featured Cassidy as eldest son and family heartthrob Keith Partridge; Susan Dey, later of “L.A. Law” fame, as sibling Laurie Partridge and Danny Bonaduce as sibling Danny Partridge.

It was an era for singing families – the Osmonds, the Jacksons. “The Partridge Family” never cracked the top 10 in TV ratings, but the recordings under their name, mostly featuring Cassidy, Jones and session players, produced real-life musical hits and made Cassidy a real-life musical superstar. The Partridges’ best known song, “I Think I Love You,” spent three weeks on top of the Billboard chart at a time when other hit singles included James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “The Tears of a Clown.” The group also reached the top 10 with “I’ll Meet You Halfway” and “Doesn’t Somebody Want to be Wanted” and Cassidy had a solo hit with “Cherish.”

“In two years, David Cassidy has swept hurricane-like into the pre-pubescent lives of millions of American girls,” Rolling Stone magazine noted in 1972. “Leaving: six and a half million long-playing albums and singles; 44 television programs; David Cassidy lunch boxes; David Cassidy bubble gum; David Cassidy coloring books and David Cassidy pens; not to mention several millions of teen magazines, wall stickers, love beads, posters and photo albums.”

Cassidy’s appeal faded after the show went off the air, although he continued to tour, record and act over the next 40 years, his albums including “Romance” and the awkwardly titled “Didn’t You Used To Be?” He had a hit with “I Write the Songs” before Barry Manilow’s chart-topping version and success overseas with “The Last Kiss,” featuring backing vocals from Cassidy admirer George Michael. He made occasional stage and television appearances, including an Emmy-nominated performance on “Police Story.”

Meanwhile, “The Partridge Family” remained popular in re-runs and Cassidy, who kept his dark bangs and boyish appearance well into middle age, frequently turned up for reunions and spoke often about his early success.

“So many people come up to me and talk to me about the impact it (the show) had,” he told Arsenio Hall in 1990.
…

Olympic champion gymnast Gabby Douglas says she is among the group of athletes sexually abused by a former team doctor.

Douglas, the 2012 Olympic all-around champion and a three-time gold medalist, wrote in an Instagram post Tuesday night that she waited so long to reveal the abuse by Larry Nassar because she was part of a group “conditioned to stay silent.”

The 21-year-old Douglas is the latest high-profile gymnast to come forward against Nassar, who spent nearly two decades as the national team doctor for USA Gymnastics before being fired in 2015. Two-time Olympic teammate Aly Raisman detailed her abuse by Nassar in her autobiography “Fierce” released earlier this month. Two-time Olympic medalist McKayla Maroney disclosed abuse by Nassar in October.

Nassar, 54, is accused of molesting several girls while working for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. He’s facing similar charges in a neighboring county and lawsuits filed by more than 125 women and girls.
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The CBS television network fired veteran newsman Charlie Rose on Tuesday, a day after an explosive Washington Post report recounted stories from eight women who said he had sexually abused them with lewd comments, groping and walking around naked in their presence.

Rose, 75, was co-host of the network’s CBS This Morning news and talk show, and he occasionally appeared on its 60 Minutes investigative news show.

But Rose is perhaps better known for his acclaimed Charlie Rose interview show he has conducted since 1991, in which he has interviewed newsmakers from the worlds of politics, the media and entertainment. PBS and Bloomberg Television, which distributed his self-produced interview show, suspended him Monday after the newspaper account, and they both also ended their contracts with Rose on Tuesday.

Co-hosts critical

Rose’s firing at CBS came hours after his co-hosts on the morning news show sharply condemned him, expressing shock at allegations that he had sexually abused young women who worked with him on the interview show or sought employment from the late 1990s to 2011.

“What do you say when someone that you deeply care about has done something so horrible?” anchor Gayle King said at the opening of CBS This Morning, which she has hosted alongside Rose and Norah O’Donnell. “How do you wrap your brain around that? I’m really grappling with that. That said, Charlie does not get a pass here. He doesn’t get a pass from anyone in this room.”

King said that while the Post’s story did not represent a Rose she knew, “I’m also clearly on the side of the women who have been very hurt and damaged by this.”

O’Donnell said, “This has to end. This is a moment that demands a frank and honest assessment about where we stand and, more generally, the safety of women. Let me be very clear: There is no excuse for this alleged behavior.”

The eight women alleged that Rose had unexpectedly sexually abused them when they were alone with him in work-related settings or on lewd telephone calls. They said he had walked around naked in their presence and had groped their breasts, buttocks or genital areas.

Other allegations

Rose is the latest prominent U.S. man to be the subject of allegations of long-running sexual abuse, a list that includes President Donald Trump, actor Bill Cosby, film producer Harvey Weinstein, journalists, corporate executives and other politicians, including former President Bill Clinton when he was in office in the 1990s.

Rose said in a tweet after the Post published its story, “I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed.” He admitted behaving insensitively, but wrote that he did not “believe that all of these allegations are accurate.”
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A cigarette case, a handwritten musical score, three diaries and two pairs of John Lennon’s signature metal-rimmed glasses were among stolen goods belonging to the Beatles’ star that have been recovered in Germany.

Berlin police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel on Tuesday called the recovery of the trove of about 100 John Lennon items a “great success” for the music world and also for Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono.

The German authorities first became aware of the items, stolen from Ono in 2006, when a bankruptcy administrator for a Berlin auction house contacted them in July.

They confiscated the items from the auctioneers two weeks later, and on Monday they arrested a suspect and raided his Berlin home and cars. They said a second suspect living in Turkey is currently “not available.”
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Rapper Nelly is to perform in Saudi Arabia next month, but his planned concert in the ultraconservative kingdom is not being welcomed by everyone.

Some Saudis on social media are pointing to the American rapper’s 2015 guilty plea for possession of marijuana. Smuggling drugs is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia and possession of drugs is also a crime.

Others say it’s disgraceful that Saudi Arabia’s new Entertainment Authority is officially sponsoring the male-only concert on Dec. 14 in light of a rape accusation against the rapper.

The Grammy-winning rapper was briefly arrested last month after a woman said he raped her on his tour bus. A week later, the woman dropped her pursuit of criminal charges. Nelly was never charged with a crime.
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