українські і світові новини
In a bizarre tale straight from the movie Sharknado, a shark was found on an Australian inland road, apparently washed up by a major storm.
Two days after cyclone Debbie slammed into Australia’s northeast coast as a category 4 storm, a nearly 2-meter long bullshark was found on a formerly flooded road.
Residents of Queensland had been warned to stay out of flood waters, apparently for good reason.
Queensland suffered widespread damage from the strong storm.
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Part of music icon Bob Dylan’s once-secret 6,000-piece archive, including thousands of hours of studio sessions, film reels and caches of unpublished lyrics, has opened in Oklahoma.
More than 1,000 pieces of the collection spanning Dylan’s six-decade career are available to scholars at the Gilcrease Museum’s Helmerich Center for American Research in Tulsa.
The opening comes a year after the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa acquired the collection for an estimated $15 million to $20 million.
The public will get a glimpse of some of the material when the Bob Dylan Center opens in downtown Tulsa’s Brady Arts District in about two years.
The center will occupy the opposite side of a building that houses a center devoted to Woody Guthrie, one of Dylan’s major influences.
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Universal Pictures is going back to its roots — monsters.
The studio Wednesday debuted footage from its upcoming adventure film The Mummy, which opens a monster universe drawing on Universal’s vault of classic properties like Bride of Frankenstein, Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Tom Cruise stars in the Alex Kurtzman-directed The Mummy, which is equal parts action and horror as Cruise’s explorer Nick Morton attempts to combat an ancient evil that has been unlocked and threatens to destroy the world.
Sofia Boutella is the Mummy, once an Egyptian princess who turned to the dark side when denied the throne.
Kurtzman and the cast, including Boutella, Annabelle Wallis and Jake Johnson, discussed Cruise’s famous commitment to eye-popping stunts.
“I think I was brought onto this movie to be afraid to do stunts with Tom Cruise,” Johnson said. “Tom does it all and he makes his co-stars do it, too. And I do mean ‘make.”’
Johnson laughed that when he would complain when he got hurt or bruised, Cruise would quip back: “Yeah, we jumped off a building dummy. It hurts!”
Cruise, who is on location for another filming, delivered a video message to the audience.
“My love for this began with universal classic films,” Cruise said. “To usher in a new age of gods and monsters is something that makes me very proud and excited.”
Audiences can meet “the original monster” June 9.
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A photograph of Harriet Tubman, believed to be the earliest-known image of the anti-slavery crusader and showing her as younger than she is normally depicted, will go up for auction Thursday in New York.
The photograph, previously unseen by scholars, shows Tubman in her late 40s, wearing an intricately decorated blouse and voluminous skirt, and sitting in a chair, leaning one arm on its back.
“It’s quite remarkable: This is what she looked like in her prime Civil War period when she was working as a spy for Lincoln,” Wyatt Day, the specialist organizing the sale at Swann Auction Galleries, said in a telephone interview.
He noted the photograph was taken about three years after the American Civil War ended in 1865. “All of the images show her as an older woman, maybe in her 70s. She looks a bit tired, and here she looks vibrant and strong.”
Kate Clifford Larson, a historian and Tubman biographer, said the photograph, which was brought to Swann last year after being purchased at auction by a collector of vintage photos about 10 years ago, could help the public “reimagine” Tubman.
“There are so many details about it that are thrilling,” she said in a phone interview. “She’s so much younger and she’s dressed so beautifully, so it helps us look at her in a different way.”
Tubman, who escaped from slavery in Maryland when she was in her 20s, later led dozens of black slaves to freedom using the Underground Railroad and became a Union Army spy during the Civil War and women’s suffragist.
The U.S. Treasury Department said last year it planned to put her on the face of the $20 bill, replacing former President Andrew Jackson, making her the first African-American so honored.
The photograph for auction is in the form of a carte de visite, a 19th-century custom in which people would leave photos of themselves as a calling card.
It appears in a carte-de-visite album compiled by the Quaker abolitionist Emily Howland. The album is estimated to sell for $20,000 to $30,000, the gallery said.
Day said research had shown the photographer Benjamin F. Powelson, who made Tubman’s carte de visite, only spent time near Tubman’s home in Auburn in upstate New York from 1868 to 1869, when Tubman was about 48.
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Twitter Inc, trying to boost its sagging advertising revenue, will allow brands to buy commercials on its video streams for Periscope, signaling a major push to make money off the live-streaming platform, the company announced on Tuesday morning.
With sponsors growing more wary of exactly what kind of online videos their ads are being placed against, Twitter is allowing a select group of advertisers to purchase pre-roll videos, meaning those that run prior to the publishers’ content, on Periscope streams.
Twitter acquired Periscope in 2015.
Google’s YouTube, long the dominant force for online video ad dollars, has seen an exodus from brands upset to find their ads running alongside anti-Semitic and other videos that shocked customers. Companies that left included Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc and Johnson & Johnson.
YouTube’s selling process automatically places ads next to videos that meet the criteria for the audience advertisers want to reach, but the Alphabet unit has had difficulty policing the vast array of videos that are uploaded.
Twitter is only offering up a select group of publishers for brands to buy ads against, which will let advertisers know exactly where their ads are showing up. “This is the solution to that problem,” Matthew Derella, Twitter’s vice president of global revenue and operations, told Reuters. “We believe the advertiser should have control.”
The video ads will only be seen when viewed within Twitter’s platform. Twitter allowed for Periscope streams to be integrated within Twitter last year. The advertisers will be able to purchase ads on Periscope videos through Twitter’s Amplify program.
Until now, Twitter has monetized Periscope by relying on brands to purchase Promoted Tweets, which are placed in user feeds, even for those who do not follow the company on Twitter. The goal is to draw more attention whenever the company is live-streaming something on Periscope.
Twitter is looking to turn around its sagging fortunes. Its stock has slumped 8 percent so far this year as investors have worried about slowed user and advertising revenue growth, along with mounting competition from Facebook Inc’s Instagram, and Snap Inc’s Snapchat.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, Twitter posted the slowest revenue growth since it went public four years earlier, and revenue from advertising fell from a year earlier. The company warned that advertising revenue growth would continue to lag user growth during 2017. The company is also considering a paid subscription offering.
Leonardo da Vinci is, simply put, one of the greatest artists of all time. The world still marvels at his genius and some of his most famous works, such as the Mona Lisa. One of his uncompleted works, Adoration of the Magi, had fallen on hard times, but thanks to more than five years of restoration, the painting is back on display. VOA’S Kevin Enochs reports.
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“Migration Blues”, a new album from veteran bluesman Eric Bibb, uses the sounds of the American South to tell the tale of everyone from 1920s farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl for California to refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in the 2010s.
Along the way are Mexicans seeking a future in the United States, families moving from land the government has just seized for corporate expansion, and a Cajun jig reminding listeners of the expulsion of French Canadians south down the Mississippi.
“We are all linked by one migration or another. We are all connected to migrants,” Bibb told Reuters ahead of the album’s release on March 31.
“The hysterical reaction against migrants is really hard to understand. Have we really forgotten our history?”
The album’s most contemporary subject is to be found in “Prayin’ For Shore”, a blues about the plight of millions of Syrians and others who have fled civil wars in the Middle East on sometimes fatal journeys to Europe across the Mediterranean.
“In an old leaky boat, somewhere on the sea/trying to get away from the war/Welcome or not, got to land soon/Oh lord, prayin’ for shore,” run the lyrics.
The song, Bibb writes in an accompanying booklet, is about remembering the drowned.
But the fleeing migrants of today are nothing new.
For Bibb, an African American, another key moment in history was “The Great Migration” of millions of southern blacks away from America’s segregated South.
By some estimates, more than 6 million left the rural areas for industrial places like Detroit, New York and Chicago between 1910 and 1970.
“(They were) not just looking for jobs but fleeing racial terror,” Bibb said.
Such a point is made in his mellifluous rendition of “Delta Getaway” about a man fleeing a lynch mob to Chicago.
“Saw a man hanging from a cypress tree/I seen the ones who done it/now they coming after me”.
The album is being released as anti-immigrant politics is on the rise across much of the world, including the United States where U.S. President Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep out immigrants.
Bibb said it was all laid down and finished before Trump’s election, but that he was nonetheless “astounded by the synchronicity of it”.
Most of the songs on the album are Bibb’s, although he offers covers of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”, originally an angry riposte from the dispossessed, and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”, about the merchants of destruction.
Bibb said that apart from “Prayin’ For Shore”, his favorite composition on “Migration Blues” is “Brotherly Love”.
He said it reflected his personal belief.
It offers more hope for the future, one in which people can live in peace.
Political satire dates back to the ancient Greeks, 2,400 years ago when Aristophanes made fun of the Peloponnesian War. It’s a staple of late-night American television talk shows and the editorial pages of most newspapers. Successful political cartoonists are able to draw biting commentary with the stroke of a crayon. VOA’s Anush Avetisyan profiles an award-winning cartoonist.
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Russia’s nationalist propaganda machine kicked into high gear after the 2014 annexation of Crimea sparked the worst East-West tensions since the Cold War.
State media quickly fell behind the Kremlin line while Russia’s few independent media came under increasing pressure to conform or self-censor.
As Russian authorities shrank the space for independent reporting, one group of Russian journalists escaped the pressure by relocating to the European Union in Latvia’s capital, Riga.
“Because, you know, a lot of white noise propaganda creates some kind of fake agenda. And, we want to provide [a] real agenda to our readers,” says Meduza Project founder Galina Timchenko.
Timchenko was fired in 2014 as chief editor of Russian news website Lenta.ru after publishing an interview with a far-right Ukrainian nationalist that Russia’s state media regulator called “extremist.”
Timchenko says she ran out of time and energy to fight Russian authorities and can work easier in the EU countries.
Baltic countries are willing hosts
In the Baltics, authorities responded to Kremlin propaganda with temporary suspensions for Russian state media that incited unrest. But also by hosting independent Russian media like Meduza.
“Those Russian journalists who left Moscow, who left [Saint] Petersburg, who left Russia and other cities, and who established their own media outlet here and who are also, to some extent, helping to tackle these propagandas,” says Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.
Meduza battles increased cynicism about Russian politics and current events by focusing on online content and humor to attract young Russians.
Use of humor
A big focus is using humor to point out absurd politics and alleged corruption.
During a March visit to their office in Riga, reporters were shown an online game Meduza created, one of many on their website, that has players try to purchase more shoes and shirts than Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The game refers to Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny’s investigation of alleged corruption linked to Medvedev. The investigation started by tracing who paid for a pair of Medvedev’s sneakers and ended asking the same question about a massive villa estate in Tuscany that Navalny claims is Medvedev’s. Russian officials have dismissed Navalny’s previous allegations, though Medvedev has yet to comment himself.
Target young Russian internet users
Meduza aims to reach internet-savvy young Russians who, unlike 80 percent of their compatriots, are not yet hooked on state television.
“These people have more chances to see another Russia. These people have more chances to see Russia without the current government, the current president. So, that’s why we think that we have to invest all our resources exactly into this audience,” says Meduza Chief Editor Ivan Kolpakov.
But he says they are not activists or opposition media; just reporters trying to do independent journalism.
“And the main thing we’re trying to do, we’re trying to, you know, make news interesting again, Make News Great Again, for the people in Russia,” says Kolpakov with a slight grin in sarcastic reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Older Russians are harder target
Timchenko acknowledges reaching most older Russians is quite a challenge.
“They want to see themselves, with their beliefs and desires, in media. They just do not want to see different views. It’s the most difficult, difficult thing.”
While in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, a news-comedy program is using a similar strategy.
Political satire
An online show called Laikykites Ten, or “Hang In There,” recently began a Russian-language version making fun of Russian politics.
“Inspiration comes from the — our beloved — Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Also, Jon Stewart, [Stephen] Colbert,” says host of the show and TV journalist Andrius Tapinas.
The show’s name refers to a comment made by Russian Prime Minister Medvedev to a retied woman in annexed Crimea who confronted him in 2016, telling him pensions were too low to keep up with rising costs. Medvedev responded there was no money left in the budget and hastily left shouting “You hang in there. Best Wishes! Cheers! Take care!”
The comments sparked a social media storm.
The crowd-funded, online program uses satire to reach Russian speakers and poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.
“We’re making fun of Russian politics and Russian government. And, that’s where the market is pretty empty, I would say. Because, inside of Russia, it’s not advisable for your health reasons to be very critical or even a tiny bit critical of your government,” says Tapinas.
Like Meduza, Tapinas seeks the next generation of Russians who mainly get their information online, but are fed up with nationalist politics and could use a good laugh.
“When people laugh there is no place for fear,” says Meduza’s Timchenko. “You know, you can make those tough guys silly and stupid and funny and have some joy and to show that news is not boring.”
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A Houston high school student has lost her battle with terminal cancer days after having a dream come true in a talk with Beyonce over a video chat.
Alief Independent School District spokeswoman Kimberly Smith says senior Ebony Banks died late Saturday night.
The teen’s Hastings High School classmates started an online campaign before her death to give her a chance to meet her favorite singer, Beyonce. Banks received a FaceTime call Wednesday from the star.
The school gave Banks her diploma during a graduation ceremony in the hospital last week.
Students gathered at a candlelight vigil Sunday to remember Banks. Video posted on social media shows students raising candles to Beyonce’s “Halo.”
Hollywood actress Shailene Woodley has reached a plea deal that calls for no jail time over her involvement in protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota.
The “Divergent” star was among 27 activists arrested Oct. 10. She livestreamed her arrest on Facebook.
Woodley initially pleaded not guilty to criminal trespass and engaging in a riot, misdemeanors carrying a maximum punishment of a month in jail and a $1,500 fine.
She signed a court document Friday agreeing to plead guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, serve one year of unsupervised probation and forfeit $500 bond. The agreement is awaiting a judge’s approval. Woodley was scheduled to stand trial this Friday.
Opponents of the $3.8 billion pipeline worry about potential environmental damage. About 750 protesters have been arrested since August.
Driving around the hallowed grounds at Vicksburg National Military Park in the state of Mississippi reminded National Parks traveler Mikah Meyer of another famous battlefield: Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War and where President Abraham Lincoln gave his immortal “Gettysburg Address.”
Gettysburg of the south
“Having lived in Maryland before this trip, which is very close to Gettysburg — one of the most popular battlefields to visit — I heard people often talk about Vicksburg as kind of a similar experience… just in the South,” Mikah said.
Tour Vicksburg National Military Park:
Like Gettysburg, Vicksburg is a large battlefield site, with licensed national park guides who cheerfully help visitors navigate the grounds.
Mikah, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 sites within the National Park Service, says he felt lucky to have had “one of their best guides,” David Maggio, who accompanied Mikah during his drive around the battlefield to explain the significance of the site.
Vicksburg is the key!
As the National Park Service explains it, at the time of the Civil War, the Mississippi River was the single most important economic feature of the continent — the very lifeblood of America. Upon the secession of the southern states, Confederate forces closed the river to navigation, which threatened to strangle northern commercial interests.
President Abraham Lincoln told his civilian and military leaders, “See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket…”
47 day siege
Historians say the battle that took place at Vicksburg between the Union (northern) and Confederate (southern) armies was a turning point in America’s civil war.
“It was actually a 47 day siege,” Mikah explained. “The Union was trying to control access of the entire Mississippi River… so the only thing stopping them from having a complete shipping route was this last Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg.”
Aware that the Union army was planning to take Vicksburg, the Confederates built a perimeter around the entire city, so that when the Union came the defenders would have more of a buffer zone. They were fortified so well, apparently, that despite various attacks, General Ulysses S. Grant and his soldiers were never able to penetrate them.
War tactics
“So rather than beat them, they (Union Army) just laid siege to their fortifications for 47 days until they ran out of food and ran out of clean water,” Mikah explained. “There were examples of everything from General Grant throwing dead animals in the creeks that supplied them water so that it would spoil their water and poison them… to kind of really starve and dehydrate them into giving up, which they eventually did after 47 days.”
The National Park Service states that Vicksburg’s surrender on July 4, 1863, coupled with the fall of Port Hudson, Louisiana a few days later, divided the South, and gave the North undisputed control of the Mississippi River, thus providing President Lincoln with the highly coveted key to victory.
Today, Vicksburg National Cemetery, spread out across 47 hectares (116 acres), holds the remains of 17,000 Union soldiers. The first national cemeteries established by Congress in 1862 were to provide a burial place for “soldiers who shall die in the service of the country,” so that applied only to Union troops.
Confederate dead from the Vicksburg campaign, originally buried behind Confederate lines, were re-interred in the Vicksburg City Cemetery, in an area called “Soldiers’ Rest.” Approximately 5,000 Confederates have been re-interred there, of which 1,600 are identified.
Historic accuracy
Mikah observed that the battlefield is an extremely well laid-out park and very historically accurate “because it was turned into a park in the 1800s, so when they were creating it, they had soldiers from both the Union and the Confederate fill out maps, and basically put markings where their unit was.”
“So as you drive around now, there’s a stone marker in every single place that there was a unit.”
There are also many stone monuments where those units were… and “every state that had people in the battle also built a memorial, so you have these really gorgeous memorials that are set up all around the perimeter of this battle,” Mikah added.
Visiting Vicksburg, “was a very unique experience,” Mikah said, “and thus far, one of the most interesting and most well-told battles of the Civil War” that he’s seen.
Mikah invites you to learn more about his travels across America by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.
These days, the only words most people see are typed. Many young people never learn cursive handwriting, but it is making a comeback. Thousands of school students around the country are learning to write in longhand. At one elementary school in New York City, teachers and students seem excited about the elegance, but also the educational power, of cursive handwriting. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has more. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Hundreds of fans and friends of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher gathered for a public memorial honoring the celebrated mother and daughter.
The two-hour ceremony Saturday was a mix of music and dance spliced with some never-before-seen footage of the mother-daughter duo reflecting on their lives. The poignant event was a laughter-filled memorial for the late actresses.
The ceremony was led by Todd Fisher, who lost his mother and sister one day apart in late December. Fisher said his mother didn’t like memorials, so he was calling it a show that would reveal his loved ones like never before.
Deaths a day apart
Fisher, 60, an actress and writer who starred as Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died December 27 after suffering a medical emergency days earlier aboard a flight from London. Reynolds, 84, an Oscar-nominated actress who shot to fame after starring in “Singin’ in the Rain” at age 19, died the following day after being briefly hospitalized.
“She said, ‘I want to be with Carrie,’” Reynolds’ son, Todd Fisher, told The Associated Press after his mother’s death. “And then she was gone.”
People were granted attendance at the event, which was live-streamed, Saturday on a first-come, first-served basis.
The ceremony featured music by James Blunt and “Star Wars” composer John Williams and displayed Hollywood memorabilia that Reynolds collected throughout her life.
Moments included a dance tribute by performers from the dance studio Reynolds founded to music from “Singin’ in the Rain,” the classic film that made her a star.
The ceremony started with a video montage using “Star Wars” music to show Fisher from infancy, displaying tender moments with her and her mother interspersed with highlights from her career.
‘Star Wars’ remembrance
At the end of the montage, a working R2D2 unit came on stage and mournfully beeped at a picture of Fisher and at an empty director’s chair with Fisher’s name on it.
Actress Ruta Lee delivered a touching eulogy about Reynolds and her philanthropy. As with much of the ceremony, Lee sprinkled humor throughout.
Dan Aykroyd also cracked jokes, describing Fisher as a chatterbox who never let him speak during their relationship.
The ceremony also featured a new song Fisher’s friend James Blunt wrote in memory of her.
The back-to-back deaths of two prominent actresses were stunning, but they were made even more poignant by the women’s complex history. Fisher and Reynolds had a strained relationship that Fisher explored in her writing, but they later reconciled and became trusted confidantes brought closer by painful events in their lives.
Reynolds lost one husband to Elizabeth Taylor, and two other husbands plundered her for millions. Fisher struggled with addiction and mental illness, which she candidly described in books and interviews.
Fisher’s last role
Fisher died after finishing work on “The Last Jedi,” the eighth film in the core “Star Wars” saga. Disney CEO Bob Iger said this week that Fisher appears throughout the film, and her performance will not be changed.
Reynolds earned an Oscar nomination for her starring role in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
The actresses participated in an HBO documentary on their lives called “Bright Lights,” which aired in January.
Todd Fisher organized Saturday’s memorial to give fans an opportunity to honor his mother and sister. Fisher’s daughter, actress Billie Lourd, is expected to attend.
Stars including Meryl Streep, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry mourned the actresses at a private memorial in January.
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Stars and fans will gather Saturday for a public memorial to honor late actresses Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher nearly three months after their deaths.
The ceremony honoring the lives of the mother-daughter duo will be at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills, the storied cemetery that is their final resting place. People will be granted attendance at the event on a first-come, first-served basis, and it will be live-streamed beginning at 1 p.m. PDT.
The ceremony is slated to feature music by James Blunt and “Star Wars” composer John Williams and display Hollywood memorabilia that Reynolds collected throughout her life.
Deaths a day apart
Fisher, 60, an actress and writer who starred as Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died December 27 after suffering a medical emergency days earlier aboard a flight from London. Reynolds, 84, an Oscar-nominated actress who shot to fame after starring in “Singin’ in the Rain” at age 19, died the following day after being briefly hospitalized.
“She said, ‘I want to be with Carrie,’” Reynolds’ son, Todd Fisher, told The Associated Press after his mother’s death. “And then she was gone.”
The back-to-back deaths of two prominent actresses were stunning, but they were made even more poignant by the women’s complex history. Fisher and Reynolds had a strained relationship that Fisher explored in her writing, but they later reconciled and became trusted confidantes brought closer by painful events in their lives.
Reynolds lost one husband to Elizabeth Taylor, and two other husbands plundered her for millions. Fisher struggled with addiction and mental illness, which she candidly described in books and interviews.
Fisher’s last role
Fisher died after finishing work on “The Last Jedi,” the eighth film in the core “Star Wars” saga. Disney CEO Bob Iger said this week that Fisher appears throughout the film, and her performance will not be changed.
Reynolds earned an Oscar nomination for her starring role in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
The actresses participated in an HBO documentary on their lives called “Bright Lights,” which aired in January.
Todd Fisher organized Saturday’s memorial to give fans an opportunity to honor his mother and sister. Fisher’s daughter, actress Billie Lourd, is expected to attend.
Stars including Meryl Streep, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry mourned the actresses at a private memorial in January.
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Fallingwater is a house in rural southwestern Pennsylvania designed in 1935 by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Although it is not easy to get to, Fallingwater is a must-see, and not just for architecture buffs. VOA’s Masha Morton takes us on a tour.
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Academy Award-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle reunites with his original Trainspotting cast twenty years later to make a sequel that deals with aging, accountability, friendship and, once again, betrayal. Trainspotting 2 becomes a worthy companion to the original, as VOA’s Penelope Poulou reports.
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Academy award-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle reunites with his original Trainspotting cast 20 years later to make a sequel that deals with aging, accountability, friendship and once again, betrayal.
Those who saw the original film remember four friends in their twenties. They are up to no good, living on the fringes, immersed in drug culture and pulling a heist. Their exuberant youth and reckless lifestyle captured the popular culture of the 90s.
Trainspotting became a cult movie and few could believe that a sequel could measure up. Yet, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting 2 becomes a worthy companion to the original.
As in all Danny Boyle films, Trainspotting 2 takes us on a wild ride from its first frame. The camera focuses on treadmills at a gym and on a seemingly fit Mark Renton, running on one full speed when suddenly he falls off with a bang. He’s just had a heart attack. With this jolting introduction, Boyle reunites the cast from the original Trainspotting, which became a cult film in the 90s.
In this sequel, 20 years have gone by since Renton betrayed his gang after their heist in London, running away with the money. Now Renton, a broken man with a broken marriage, returns from Amsterdam to Scotland and to his ‘frenemies,’ seeking redemption. “He’s had a heart attack and he’s come back. These are the only people that really know him that he knows. And I suppose it’s a midlife crisis of sorts or a life crisis of sorts,” says Ewan McGregor, who played Mark Renton in 1996 and rose to stardom when the original Trainspotting became such a hit. The movie was a landmark in the lives of each of the cast members, but also for the filmmaker who — despite his wide-ranging success — reserves a special spot in his heart for this film.
In a way, Trainspotting 2 is Danny Boyle’s return to a familial place dealing with his own existential crisis. The filmmaker tells VOA he didn’t want to make just another sequel. He wanted a companion piece reflecting on the life of these aging men, who failed to amount to much in life and stubbornly cling to a youth that is not there.
“I think we were all conscious returning to it. How much a huge part it played in our individual careers. It gave us a life into the world which was surprising! We set the film to resemble the first film, everybody was paid the same, there wasn’t huge amounts of money, we didn’t treat it as a cash cow, we were not cashing in on our successful original, and we also wanted to surprise people with what the film has to say,” says the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
The reunion is dramatic. Simon, played by Jonny Lee Miller, schemes revenge, and Begbie, the most feral of them all, played by Robert Carlyle, recently escaped from prison and has vowed to kill Mark Renton. But the most redeeming character is Spud, played by Ewen Bremner. The hopeless addict, stuck in an endless loop of addiction and rehab, attempts suicide but is saved by Mark Renton.
“There are scenes in it which we benefited from addicts who told us that ‘you can’t really eradicate addiction,’ what they do in modern treatment is replace it with another obsession, an alternative obsession which is often sports. But in Spud’s case, it’s actually this writing and it was certainly true in Irvine Welsh’s case, the original writer. So, the film becomes ironically full of hope by the end,” says Boyle.
Spud goes on to write the original story of Trainspotting. Boyle says he wants to create this loop between the two films, showing that despite our aging process, our outlook to life is not linear. Like any other Danny Boyle film, Trainspotting 2 offers exuberant music, electrifying visuals, brutal scenes and yet its success lies in the honesty and tenderness with which the filmmaker and screenwriter John Hodge treat the aging characters.
“If you’re gonna do a sequel, a 20 years later sequel, the actors are not going to be able to hide from that. You’re gonna feel it in every frame of the film. It’s gonna be the protein of the film. And so, it’s a more confessional film, although there is a lot of the film that enjoys some of the pleasures that you get from the first film,” says Boyle.
Whether it appeals to the nostalgia of the older fans or the fast sensibilities of younger ones, Trainspotting 2 is slated to be another Danny Boyle success.
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Think your home furnishings are a dust magnet? New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine just spent 16 years cleaning and conserving its rare, supersize wall hangings.
Now the historic house of worship is inviting the public to enjoy the fruits of its labor – “The Barberini Tapestries, Scenes from the Life of Christ,” which once graced the Vatican and European palaces. They were designed by baroque master Giovanni Francesco Romanelli; created by weavers for Francesco Barberini, the nephew of Pope Urban VIII, from 1644 to 1656; and donated to the cathedral in 1891, a year before its cornerstone was laid.
Centuries ago, tapestries were appreciated not only for their beauty but also for being a warm buffer against chilly palace walls.
These days, they’re kept well-groomed by experts at the Gothic cathedral’s textile conservation laboratory – a labor-intensive process using dental probes, tweezers and a HEPA vacuum with microsuction attachments.
There’s also a special “bathtub” – measuring 20 by 16 feet (6 by 4.9 meters).
In addition to removing the standard dust and dirt, the massive undertaking included work on tapestries that suffered smoke and water damage during a 2001 fire.
Ten tapestries, their images woven with wool and silk yarn in rich earth tones, deep blue, green and russet, are displayed around the cathedral, with a focal point at the Chapels of the Seven Tongues, which honor immigrant populations. They’re accompanied by fragments from a severely fire-damaged tapestry of “The Last Supper,” as well as before-and-after photos from the blaze.
The works, hung with hand-sewn fabric fastener, are 15 feet (4.7 meters) high and up to 19 feet (5.8 meters) wide.
There’s plenty of room, though. The Episcopal cathedral in upper Manhattan is larger than France’s Chartres and Notre Dame cathedrals combined.
Rare books, period objects and computer kiosks provide context on the “cultural, dynastic, political and religious worlds of the Barberini family,” organizers say.
The exhibit, which also will offer educational activities, runs through June 25. The suggested admission contribution is $10.
The tapestries and artifacts will travel to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum in Eugene, Oregon, in the fall.
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Bob Dylan’s new album “Triplicate” explores American standards from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, but the veteran singer-songwriter says that does not mean he is yearning for the past.
Dylan also is unconcerned whether his fans like the album — the third in as many years that features cover versions of classic songs like “Stormy Weather,” “As Time Goes By” and “Stardust.”
“These songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice. Now that I have lived them and lived through them, I understand them better,” Dylan, 75, told music writer Bill Flanagan in a rare interview.
“It’s not taking a trip down memory lane or longing or yearning for the good old days or fond memories of what’s no more,” he added in the lengthy Q&A, posted on the bobdylan.com website on Wednesday.
The three-disc album “Triplicate” will be released on March 31. It follows 2015’s “Shadows in the Night” album of Frank Sinatra covers and 2016’s similar “Fallen Angels” in marking a strong contrast from the early, socially conscious folk and rock compositions for which Dylan remains most famous.
Songs ‘for man on the street’
Asked what his fans might think of the cover albums, Dylan said: “These songs are meant for the man on the street, the common man, the everyday person. Maybe that is a Bob Dylan fan, maybe not, I don’t know.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Dylan also touched on his admiration for the late Amy Winehouse, calling her “the last real individualist around”; his and George Harrison’s abortive bid years ago to record with Elvis Presley (“he [Elvis] did show up; it was us that didn’t”); and the power of early rock ‘n’ roll music, (“Rock ‘n’ roll was a dangerous weapon, chrome-plated, it exploded like the speed of light, it reflected the times, and especially the presence of the atomic bomb, which had preceded it by several years.”)
Cohen, Russell, Haggard missed
Dylan also spoke of the loss of fellow musicians like Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell and Merle Haggard, all of whom died last year.
“We were like brothers, we lived on the same street and they all left empty spaces where they used to stand. It’s lonesome without them,” he said.
No mention was made of Dylan’s Nobel Prize for literature, and his nonattendance at the annual Nobel award ceremony in Sweden. Dylan is due to perform in Sweden next week as part of a European tour.
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We’re unlocking the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending March 25, 2017.
The hit list continues to be in a generous mood, bestowing upon us another new song. It happens in fifth place where Ri-Ri is a chart-buster all around.
Number 5: Rihanna “Love On The Brain”
Rihanna jumps a slot this week, as “Love On The Brain” becomes her 22nd Top Five hit. Beyond that, it’s her 30th Top 10 single, and her 40th Top 20 hit.
All these achievements put Rihanna among the highest-powered chart artists of all time. In fact, only four acts own more Top Five hits than Rihanna. The Beatles lead the way with 29; Madonna has 28; Mariah Carey has 26; and Janet Jackson has 24.
Number 4: Zayn & Taylor Swift “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”
Zayn and Taylor Swift step back a slot to number four with their Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack hit “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.”
Zayn just did an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine, in which he talks about developing an eating disorder and struggling with anxiety. Both stemmed from that he said was an overly-controlled atmosphere while he was a member of One Direction – and he says he overcame both conditions after leaving the group in 2015.
Number 3: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like ”
Bruno Mars rises a slot to third place with “That’s What I Like” – this is his eighth single to reach the Top Three.
Mars’ real name is Peter Hernandez – he says his father bestowed the nickname “Bruno” upon him because he was a chunky little boy who reminded his dad of the pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino. He says he picked the “Mars” name himself, to add a little pizzazz.
Number 2: Migos Featuring Lil Uzi Vert “Bad And Boujee”
Migos and Lil Uzi Vert stay strong in second place with their former champ “Bad And Boujee,” and these Georgia rappers have been making noise in Texas.
Migos went to Austin for the huge South By Southwest (SXSW) event and packed the house: fans began lining up more than three hours before the show, and the line eventually wrapped around three city blocks.
Number 1: Ed Sheeran “Shape Of You”
Fans also continue flocking to Ed Sheeran, who rules the Hot 100 for a seventh total week with “Shape Of You.” Sheeran’s hitting the road here in North America, and he just announced his support act.
He took to Twitter on March 20 to reveal that James Blunt will be the supporting act when he kicks off his North American tour on June 29.
In case your memory needs refreshing, Blunt topped charts the world over in 2005 with “You’re Beautiful” – including here in the United States.
What happens next week? Let’s meet in seven days and find out.
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Film legend Greta Garbo’s former longtime apartment in New York City is up for sale for nearly $6 million.
The New York Times reports that the Swedish-born star’s seven-room Manhattan co-op overlooking the East River is on the market for $5.95 million, with monthly maintenance of nearly $9,100.
The co-op is located on the fifth floor of the 14-story Campanile building, located on East 52nd Street. Garbo lived there from 1954 until her death in 1990 at age 84.
The apartment is being sold by the family of Gray Reisfield, Garbo’s niece and sole heir to the actress’s estate. Reisfield and her husband occupied the co-op from around 1992 to 2013 before relocating to San Francisco.
Garbo was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1920s and ’30s.
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Worldwide movie ticket sales increased by 1 percent to a record $38.6 billion in 2016 as theaters in the United States and Canada rung up higher sales and overseas returns were flat, according to industry statistics released on Wednesday.
Movie theaters have been competing with an explosion of digital entertainment options such Netflix’s streaming service, Alphabet’s YouTube, and mobile apps and video games.
In 2016, films including Walt Disney’s “Finding Dory” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” helped lift box office revenue at U.S. and Canadian theaters by 2 percent to $11.4 billion, the Motion Picture Association of America said.
In international markets, ticket sales finished the year nearly unchanged from 2015 at $27.2 billion. After years of booming growth in China, box office revenue in that country dropped 1 percent in U.S. dollars.
China is the world’s second-largest film market behind the United States and Canada. In the United States, the average movie ticket price increased by 3 percent in 2016 to $8.65.
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It was 50 years ago today — almost — that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.
The English city of Liverpool is getting set to celebrate the half-centenary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” one of the most influential albums by local heroes The Beatles.
The city announced Wednesday that it has commissioned 13 artists to create works based on the album’s 13 tracks. They include choreographer Mark Morris’ dance tribute to the title song, cabaret artist Meow Meow’s “outlandish procession” based on “Lovely Rita” and a mural by U.S. artist Judy Chicago inspired by “Fixing a Hole.”
There will also be a singalong by 64 choirs of the jaunty “When I’m Sixty-Four.”
The works will have their world premieres at venues across Liverpool between May 25 and June 16. On June 1 — the anniversary of the album’s release — the city will host a fireworks extravaganza by French pyrotechnic artist Christophe Berthonneau.
Tired of touring
By the second half of the 1960s, The Beatles had tired of touring. They played their last live concert in August 1966 and devoted their energies and creativity to the studio. “Sgt. Pepper” was recorded at London’s Abbey Road studios over five month in late 1966 and early 1967, and released on June 1, 1967.
Incorporating technological innovation and diverse musical influences — including Indian classical, English music hall and trippy psychedelia — it topped the charts in Britain and the U.S. and was instantly hailed as a rock ’n’ roll landmark.
‘“Sgt. Pepper’ pushed creative boundaries and we want to do exactly the same,” said Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson. “This is a festival which brings high-end art into the mainstream and gives it a Liverpool twist which is thought-provoking, sometimes cheeky and always entertaining.”
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A travel company is offering a chance for well heeled travelers to dive the wreck of the RMS Titanic.
Beginning in May of next year, Blue Marble Private says it will offer a chance for nine travelers to dive some 4,000 meters below the surface of the ocean to see the famous wreck.
According to the company’s website, customers will dive “in a specially designed titanium and carbon fiber submersible, guided by a crew of experts.”
“You will glide over the ship’s deck and famous grand staircase capturing a view that very few have seen, or ever will,” the company added.
Tourists will also “explore Titanic’s massive debris field, home to numerous artifacts strewn across the ocean floor, nearly undisturbed for over a century,” according to Blue Marble Private founder Elizabeth Ellis.
According to CNN, the first trip is already sold out. The price for the eight-day adventure? $105,129 per person, which is about double the price charged by Deep Ocean Expeditions charged when it brought tourists to the wreck in 2012.
Time to visit the famous wreck may be running out.
CNN reported that a 2016 study said “extremophile bacteria” will likely dissolve what’s left of the ill-fated ship within 15 to 20 years.
In the early hours of April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic while making its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. On board were 2,224 passengers, more than 1,500 of whom died as the ship quickly sunk.
The wreckage was first discovered 32 years ago.
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Chuck Barris, whose game show empire included The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and that infamous factory of cheese, The Gong Show, died at 87.
Barris died of natural causes Tuesday afternoon at his home in Palisades, New York, according to publicist Paul Shefrin, who announced the death on behalf of Barris’ family.
Barris made game show history right off the bat, in 1966, with The Dating Game, hosted by Jim Lange. The gimmick: a young female questions three males, hidden from her view, to determine which would be the best date. Sometimes the process was switched, with a male questioning three females. But in all cases the questions were designed by the show’s writers to elicit sexy answers.
Future celebrities
Celebrities and future celebrities who appeared as contestants included Michael Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Martin and a pre-Charlie’s Angels Farrah Fawcett, introduced as “an accomplished artist and sculptress” with a dream to open her own gallery.
After the show became a hit on both daytime and nighttime TV, the Barris machine accelerated. New products included The Newlywed Game, The Parent Game, The Family Game and even The Game Game.
At one point Barris was supplying the television networks with 27 hours of entertainment a week, mostly in five-days-a-week daytime game shows.
The grinning, curly-haired Barris became a familiar face as creator and host of The Gong Show, which aired from 1976 to 1980.
Patterned after the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show that was a radio hit in the 1930s, the program featured performers who had peculiar talents and, often, no talent at all. When the latter appeared on the show, Barris would strike an oversize gong, the show’s equivalent of vaudeville’s hook. The victims would then be mercilessly berated by the manic Barris, with a hat often yanked down over his eyes and ears, and a crew of second-tier celebrities.
Occasionally, someone would actually launch a successful career through the show. One example was the late country musician BoxCar Willie, who was a 1977 Gong Show winner.
Known as
He called himself “The King of Daytime Television,” but to critics he was “The King of Schlock” or “The Baron of Bad Taste.”
As The Gong Show and Barris’ other series were slipping, he sold his company for a reported $100 million in 1980 and decided to go into films.
He directed and starred in The Gong Show, a thundering failure that stayed in theaters only a week.
Afterward, a distraught Barris checked into a New York hotel and wrote his autobiography, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, in two months. In it, he claimed to have been a CIA assassin.
The book (and the 2002 film based on it, directed by George Clooney) were widely dismissed by disbelievers who said the creator of some of television’s most lowbrow game shows had allowed his imagination to run wild when he claimed to have spent his spare time traveling the world, quietly rubbing out enemies of the United States.
“It sounds like he has been standing too close to the gong all those years,” quipped CIA spokesman Tom Crispell. “Chuck Barris has never been employed by the CIA and the allegation that he was a hired assassin is absurd,” Crispell added.
Barris, who offered no corroboration of his claims, was unmoved.
“Have you ever heard the CIA acknowledge someone was an assassin?” he once asked.
Wrote a book
Seeking escape from the Hollywood rat race, he moved to a villa in the south of France in the 1980s with his girlfriend and future second wife, Robin Altman, and made only infrequent returns to his old haunts over the next two decades.
Back in the news in 2002 to help publicize “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” Barris said his shows were a forerunner to today’s popular reality TV series.
Born in Philadelphia in 1929, Charles Barris was left destitute, along with his sister and their mother, when his dentist father died of a stroke.
After graduating from the Drexel Institute of Technology in 1953, he took a series of jobs, including book salesman and fight promoter.
After being dropped from a low-level job at NBC, he found work at ABC, where he persuaded his bosses to let him open a Hollywood office, from which he launched his game-show empire. He also had success in the music world. He wrote the 1962 hit record Palisades Park, which was recorded by Freddy Cannon.
Barris’ first marriage, to Lynn Levy, ended in divorce. Their daughter, Della, died of a drug overdose in 1998. He married his third wife, Mary, in 2000.
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