news , news paper ,news update ,news pakistan: November 2014

That’s it from me for tonight. Thanks ever so much for your time, your tweets and your emails. It was an entertaining game, bnut Arsenal fans won’t be feeling too upbeat this evening. I’ll be able to gauge the mood on the Tube home, once I leave my Kings Cross bunker and wander into yonder inky black north London night. Enjoy what’s left of your weekend.

Full-time: Arsenal 1-2 Manchester United

Peep! Peep! Peeeeeeeeeeeeeep! It’s all over at the Emirates. Despite conceding a late goal, Louis van Gaal’s side hang on to bag all three points and go ahead of Arsenal in the table and into the top four. Arsenal drop to eighth, having got off to their worst start in 32 years. They’re 11 points worse off than they were at the same time last season.
Manchester United weathered an early storm and held on largely thanks to their goalkeeper. It is to their immense credit that they managed to score two goals at a time when they’d had only one shot on target. “We rode our luck at times,” says Wayne Rooney. “We hit them on the break where we knew they were vulnerable.”

Updated at 7.32pm GMT

90+7 min: There’s a mini-rumpus followed by lots of finger-pointing after a foul by Olivier Giroud on Angel Di Maria. I’m not too sure exactly what happened, which I’m prepared to concede probably isn’t what you want to read in an online commentary, but Ryan Wilson and the Frenchman both get booked.

Updated at 7.38pm GMT

GOAL! Arsenal 1-2 Man Utd (Giroud 90+5)

Olivier Giroud grabs a lifeline, shooting past David De Gea with a surface-to-air screamer from about 15 yards at the near post. The Manchester United goalkeeper got a hand to the ball, but couldn’t prevent it from going in. He probably shouldn’t have been beaten at his near post like that, but it was a great effort.

20h ago19:22

90+4 min: A let-off for Arsenal, who pile their entire team apart from the goalkeeper forward for a corner, only to see the ball played to Angel Di Maria halfway inside the Manchester United half. He sprints off towards the Arsenal goal with the ball at his feet a la Rooney, only to dink the ball over Martinez and .. wide. 90+2 min: The fourth official holds up his board, recommending eight minutes of added time. Eight!

90 min: The cameras cut to a couple of Arsenal fans, who look very disillusioned with life. I’ll be having a couple of pints with a Gooner later and am looking forward to it immensely. He’ll sound so disappointed and angry.

Williams scores career-high 36 as Raptors beat Cavs

Lou Williams scored a career-high 36 points and the Toronto Raptors rallied from a big early deficit to beat Cleveland 110-93 on Saturday night, handing the Cavaliers their fourth straight loss.
The Raptors, who have won four in a row and are off to their best start in franchise history, trailed 26-8 less than 4 minutes into the game before showing why they have the best record in the Eastern Conference.

Toronto led 56-54 at halftime and took control midway in the third quarter. The Raptors up by as many as 19 points in the fourth.
Kevin Love scored 23 points and Kyrie Irving had 21 to lead Cleveland. LeBron James, who spent the final 6:20 on the bench, finished with 15 points with 10 assists.
Following a lacklustre 91-78 loss in Washington on Friday, the talk in Cleveland’s locker room was about the team playing in the dark and the players having bad body language. The Cavaliers have a day off to think about their issues before they host Orlando on Monday.
In the game’s final minutes, the loudest noise at Quicken Loans Arena came from several hundred fans who made the trip from Toronto and chanted, “Let’s Go Raptors.”
Kyle Lowry scored 23 points while DeMar DeRozan added 20 for Toronto, which led by 52 points in Friday’s 124-82 win over Milwaukee.
The Cavaliers scored the game’s first 12 points and raced to a 19-5 lead, forcing the Raptors to call timeout twice in the first 6 minutes. The margin reached 18 before Toronto began to cut into the lead, thanks mostly to Williams scoring 10 points in the quarter.
Williams added six more points and Toronto trailed 39-38 early in the second. Kyle Lowry’s free throw with a minute left tied the game.
Williams’ 3-pointer at the second-quarter buzzer out Toronto up by two. Cleveland led 65-61 with 7 minutes remaining in the third, but DeRozan scored eight points, including a 3, while Lowry and Williams also hit 3s to help Toronto build a commanding lead.

Obama signs order expanding U.S. Afghanistan role: NYT

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about immigration reform during a visit to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada November 21, 2014. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about immigration reform during a visit to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada November 21, 2014.

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing a broader military mission in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The decision ensures a direct role for American troops in fighting in Afghanistan for at least another year, it said, adding Obama’s decision was made during a White House meeting with national security advisers in recent weeks.
In May, Obama said the American military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year. Missions for the remaining 9,800 troops would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the "remnants of al Qaeda", he said.
Obama’s new order lets American forces execute missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening U.S. troops or the Afghan government.
The new authorization also allows U.S. air strikes to support Afghan forces on combat missions and U.S. troops occasionally to accompany Afghan troops on operations against the Taliban.
The Times did not mention if the change would affect the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan.
The change emerged from debate over two imperatives: Obama's promise to end the war in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon demand to let American troops fulfill their remaining missions there, the Times reported.
Some civilian aides have argued against risking American lives next year in operations against the Taliban, saying there should only be a narrow mission against al Qaeda, it said.
But generals urged Obama to define the mission more broadly if intelligence showed extremists threatening American forces.
Two issues shifted the debate, the Times said.
Obama's Afghanistan strategy faces stiffer criticism after the advance of Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, it said, while Afghanistan's new president has been more accepting of a broader American military mission than his predecessor.
Asked about the report, a senior administration official said the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan would be over by year-end, as Obama had announced in May.
"Safety of our personnel is the president’s first priority and our armed forces will continue to engage in operations in self-defense and in support of Afghan security forces," the official said.
"While we will no longer target belligerents solely because they are members of the Taliban, to the extent that Taliban members directly threaten the United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan or provide direct support to al Qaeda, we will take appropriate measures to keep Americans safe."

Mike Nichols, 'The Graduate' Director, Dead at 83

By Daniel Kreps | November 20, 2014
Mike Nichols, the Academy Award-winning director of films like The Graduate and The Birdcage and a nine-time Tony Awards winner, has passed away at the age of 83. Good Morning America reports that the filmmaker died suddenly Wednesday night of cardiac arrest
Nichols was also the husband of longtime ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer. "He was a true visionary, winning the highest honors in the arts for his work as a director, writer, producer and comic and was one of a tiny few to win the EGOT — an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony in his lifetime," ABC News President James Goldston said in the statement. "No one was more passionate about his craft than Mike."
While Nichols' long career in the entertainment industry featured multiple Oscar nominations, nine Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award and a tribute at the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors, the first major trophy Nichols received was a Best Comedy Album Grammy, which he won alongside Elaine May in 1961. Nichols and May were a popular comedy duo throughout the Sixties until Nichols opted to pursue both a theatrical and cinematic directorial career.
Beginning with his debut film feature in 1966, an adaptation of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols quickly established himself as one of the film industry's most adventurous and reliable directors. His next feature was 1967's landmark The Graduate, the top-earning film of that year and a film on the shortlist of greatest comedies of all time. The film, and its Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack, is still beloved among movie fans. The Graduate was nominated for seven Academy Awards, but it won only one, with Nichols claiming the Oscar for Best Director.
Over the next few decades, Nichols would seamlessly switch off between directing a Broadway show and feature films. Among the more notable films, Nichols directed the film adaptation of Catch-22, the Neil Simon-penned Biloxi Blues, Working Girl, Remains of the Day, the Bill Clinton-inspired political satire Primary Colors, the award-winning HBO miniseries Angels in America and the film version of Patrick Marber's play Closer, which Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called "a master class on the art of directing." His final film was 2007's Charlie Wilson's War.
Nichols continued to direct for the stage in recent years. In 2012, at the age of 81, he was awarded the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for his revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Nichols' next project was to reunite him with Meryl Streep – with whom the director worked with on Silkwood, Postcards From the Edge and Heartburn – for an upcoming HBO miniseries called Master Class, an adaptation of Terrence McNally's Tony-winning script.

Saturday 22 November 2014

'A Football Life: Lyle Alzado' shows a tortured soul

Lyle Alzado was a throwback to the days before television, when the gridiron was patrolled by oversized coal miners and West Texas psychopaths.
Featured on Friday's edition of A Football Life, the former Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders defensive end is also a symbol of a bygone football era, before steroids and gratuitous violence became stigmatized.
Alzado's 15-year NFL career has been tucked away in a dark corner of NFL history. It can't be trotted out before polite company in more politically correct times unless the sharp edges are blunted, the nuances emphasized, the contradictions made clear, the redemption realized.

Escaping an abusive father, Alzado came to the sport with an inferiority complex and a natural acceptance of violence. Football was his way out.
Known for his rage and hostility, Alzado was dubbed "Darth Raider" and "Three Mile Lyle" -- the latter a nod to the 1979 nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania.
Alzado went on to earn Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1977 as the beating heart of the "Orange Crush" defense that carried the Broncos to Super Bowl XII.
One of the most ferocious pass rushers of the era, Alzado's strength and intensity overwhelmed offensive linemen. After an enraged Alzado pick up a helmet and flung it at New York Jets offensive tackle Chris Ward, the NFL enacted the "Lyle Alzado Rule," disallowing the use of helmets as a weapon.
"I could sic him on people like a Doberman," boasted former linebacker Tom Jackson, now an analyst with ESPN.

Although Alzado was physically fearless, he was emotionally unstable, harboring a deep-seated need to succeed no matter the cost. He turned to steroids, determined to do whatever it took to play football at the highest possible level.
"I never knew how much of Lyle was Lyle," Jackson added, "and how much of Lyle was steroids."
Disillusioned when the Broncos unloaded him on the Cleveland Browns in 1979, Alzado lamented, "There is nothing worse in this world than having people give up on you and not believe in you."
Alzado found his spirit home in 1982 with the Oakland Raiders, famous for welcoming the league's outcasts and renegades.
Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, Alzado made waves by threatening to rip the head off of Washington quarterback Joe Theismann. The Raiders' defense went on to shut down the highest-scoring offense in NFL history, holding the Redskins to just nine points in a blowout victory.
Finally calling it quits early in 1986, Alzado got out a year before the NFL began testing for steroids. Bolstered by HGH lifted from a cadaver, he went on to attempt an ill-fated comeback at age 41, four years later.
Not long after, Alzado was beset with brain cancer, believing it to be retribution for a profligate lifestyle.

"He made a deal with the devil," childhood friend Marc Lyons reasoned. "He got fame and fortune. And it was time for the devil to collect."
Alzado died in 1992, but not before coming clean as a "phony" who copped to his greatest faults and stood as a cautionary tale for young players tempted by steroids.
At first blush, Alzado's story is a tragedy. Friends and teammates speak of him as a charitable man with a big heart who wanted to do good but couldn't.
Dig deeper, though, and there is evidence of a colorful character and tortured soul who gave to others what he could not give himself.
Absent our colorful characters and tortured souls, sports would not only be cheapened but also unbearably dull.

It's Getting Serious In Panem As 'Mockingjay' Goes Dark

When producers were laying track for the Hunger Games series years ago, they couldn't have foreseen how discomforting author Suzanne Collins' descriptions of a war-torn authoritarian state would look on the big screen in 2014. In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part One, Jennifer Lawrence witnesses and/or learns of: towns reduced to rubble, refugee camps next to mass graves, public executions of innocents with burlap sacks over their heads, law enforcement gunning down protesters in the street, and a military bombing a hospital filled with civilians. All of these images have resonance in real events of this year, generations before Collins predicted civilization would devolve into a regime that maintains control over its citizens with televised death matches.
The series has always evoked real geopolitics, but the earlier films offset those with self-parody: an abundance of purple hair and oily camera-ready suits, an outlandish imperial march composed by Arcade Fire. This playfulness is absent from Mockingjay, which is laser-focused on the land of Panem quashing dissent by any means necessary. It's not that the film is "too dark for kids" — that would drastically underestimate teenagers' capabilities for darkness. It's that this degree of nastiness doesn't square with the empty-calories action scenes of the first two films, where nothing that happened in the Hunger Games arenas (Look out! Wild monkeys!) seemed to impact the overall story.
But maybe it's a good thing to be more serious this time, even if the progression wasn't gradual. "A little on-the-nose, but, of course, so is war," remarks the dearly departed Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing an architect of the Panem resistance movement. He's referring to a tweak he's made to a rally song, but he could also be discussing Mockingjay itself, how a mass appeal sci-fi franchise chooses its war imagery. In a film about the role that visual communication plays in public opinion, the on-the-nose approach is at once intriguing and exhausting. Strange to think this series used to be about archery in the wilderness.
That, anyway, is where fiery revolutionary Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) was at the conclusion of the previous film, 2013's Catching Fire. Rejecting society's pressure to kill her friends for amusement a second time, Katniss instead shot a hole in the sky, through which she has been whisked away to the super-secret underground rebel stronghold District 13. In the first two films, Katniss was a pawn of Panem's dastardly, white-bearded President Snow (Donald Sutherland, forever sneering). Sadly, she's still a pawn, but of a nobler president, the benevolent but still white-haired District 13 leader Alma Coin (Julianne Moore, a hair too robotic). Coin needs Katniss to be her "Mockingjay," a symbol around which to mobilize the citizens of Panem: a warrior who's no-nonsense yet down-to-earth. In short, she needs Katniss to be Jennifer Lawrence.
Until now, the biggest strength of the Hunger Games series has been the careful construction of Panem, a dystopia-lover's utopia. All the details from the first two entries were rich in cinematic absurdity, like the party where the rich gladly vomit up their food, or the gaudy stage sets that accompany Stanley Tucci's gleeful talk show host as he conducts cloying interviews with Games candidates. Having to trade such an expansive setting for a drafty underground bunker (District 13 must be sharing the lease with the Zion rebels from the Matrix sequels) is the weakest part of Mockingjay, along with Katniss' friend-and-maybe-more Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and his mopey "I have feelings, too!" jealousy.
There's also no escaping the fact that this film, co-written by Collins and two others, is a stopgap designed to string audiences along one year more than the source material requires. The artificial division of a narrative for the sole purpose of making money should not normally be cause for a creative success. But somehow, chopping up Mockingjay, a practice that has become the norm with final installments of YA series adaptations, created some happy accidents. With less material than in Catching Fire, director Francis Lawrence is free to be contemplative, edit sequences patiently instead of frantically, and linger over small visual details like a speck of blood on Snow's cheek after his groomer cuts his face shaving. And Jennifer Lawrence has the freedom to interact with each of her allies in more subtle ways: practiced patience with Elizabeth Banks' fallen fashion maven, Effie; steely distrust with Woody Harrelson's rakish mentor, Haymitch; sheer annoyance with her cat.
Josh Hutcherson, a bit wooden in the other films, is also doing something fascinating as Peeta, Katniss' on-camera boyfriend who was captured by Panem's Capitol at the conclusion of Catching Fire. For much of Mockingjay, we see him only via the Capitol's authorized interviews saying questionable things about the revolution. Like Katniss, we can only guess at his current state of mind. Hutcherson's strong, subtle performance lets us read any number of possibilities in his face and minimal line readings. That's until the very end, when he turns chilling.
If any of this felt like Hobbiting — defined as the practice of throwing useless, fan-serving footage onscreen to bloat up a blockbuster franchise — there'd be a problem. But Mockingjay doesn't have that vibe, because it follows one unmistakable theme from beginning to end: an information war. Instead of physically dueling, Katniss and the Capitol fling propaganda films like projectile bombs.
The chess match of public opinion is a colder, more calculated game than the testing of wilderness survival skills. Katniss, reluctant viral video star, hilariously fumbles her lines when she's in front of a green screen leading the CGI army from a Ridley Scott movie. But she draws tears when a tattooed documentarian (Game of Thrones' Natalie Dormer, who could have stepped out of a Copenhagen artist's co-op) films her examining the rubble of her childhood home. It's the latter footage, the on-the-nose war stuff, that drives Panem to rebel rather than change the channel to Where Are My Pants? Collins and the Lawrences have crossed the uncanny valley separating imagined dystopia from actual horrors, but they're also delivering a life lesson in cinema to teens: Things are stronger when they look real. Think about that when the Capitol beams out the next all-CGI superhero movie.

Country singers come out as gay — Ty Herndon and Billy Gilman

There are plenty of country songs about how to be a man. One way is to face the music, and two country crooners did that on Thursday.
Ty Herndon and Billy Gilman came out as being gay.
Herdon went first, in interviews with People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight. His revelation inspired Gilman to do go public as well.
Gilman posted a message to YouTube, thanking Herndon for breaking the ice. He preferred telling his fans directly, from the comfort of home, to sitting down with the press, he said.
But an encounter with a journalist also prodded him to spill the beans before someone else did. The reporter bumped into Gilman in a public place and snapped a photo of him — with his partner.
“It was in that moment that I knew that I’d rather it be from me than you reading it somewhere else,” Gilman told fans. He also feared being ripped over his sexuality in an article.

Country and LGBTQ

In the genre of country, Thursday’s tune was a tough one to sing, Gilman said. “Being a gay, male country artist is not the best thing.”
At age 26, he’s had a long career, having rocketed up the charts at age 11 with his then silky, pre-voice-change alto pipes, according to his biography on AllMusic.com.
But currently, he’s hitting snags.
Rumors about his sexual orientation have been going around, he said, and he thinks major music labels may have thumbed their noses at him over it.
“I knew something was wrong when no major label wanted to sit down and have a meeting and listen to the new stuff,” he said.
In his video, he turned directly to fans with his latest song, giving them a preview on his laptop of the music video to “Say you Will,” which is still in edit.

Facing fans on Monday

“Today, I get to tell the world that I’m an out, proud and happy gay man,” he told “People.” But he’s worried how fans will take the news.
He may find out in just three days, when he performs at the “Mother Church of Country Music,” the Ryman Auditorium.
It’s home to the Grand Ole Opry.
Herndon is playing a Christmas charity bash for children in need along with Charlie Daniels, Phil Vassar, Andy Griggs and Jamie O’Neal.
The Ryman has said the concert would be sold out.
Herndon, 52, is hopeful he won’t face outrage, because he thinks attitudes are changing in the country scene.
Singer Chely Wright came out in 2010 and the open-minded Kacey Musgraves has a song titled “Follow Your Arrow” that was just named the Country Music Association song of the year.
“I felt so proud of my city,” he said. “I hope that trend continues; I pray it does.”

Faith and fear

As a child, Herndon, a devout Christian, was stricken with fear over his sexual feelings.
“I was 10, sitting in church and horrified that I might be a homosexual. Whatever that word meant, I knew that I probably was one,” Herndon told “People.” “And I know there’s a lot of those kids still out there. Telling my story is an opportunity to help just one of them.”
He started coming out to family members in his 20s. But the “What Mattered Most” singer, who had a number of hits in the 1990s, kept the news close to the vest.
It wasn’t until he attended a Tony Robbins seminar in 2009 that he decided to become more public, he told the magazine.
“I realized I had an incredible story that could possibly help someone’s son or daughter or grandchild’s life not be as difficult as mine has been,” he said. “Maybe they wouldn’t have to go through as much pain and suffering. It’s time to tell my truth.”

Dropping hints?

Some of the conflict between Herndon’s sexuality and his faith bled through a song he published last year — “Lies I Told Myself.” A sign with the word “Equality” has the most prominent place in the music video.
“Yeah, praying’s just a waste of time, so why even start,” the last verse begins. “The good Lord ain’t got time for guys like me. Forgiven’s something you won’t ever be.”
A handwritten sign appears in that verse. It reads, “I’m a sinner.”
Herndon has since reconciled who he is with God, he said. He loves God, and God loves him back.
One of the lies he told himself, he said to “Entertainment Tonight,” was that he can’t be gay and be in country music at the same time.
Now, he thinks that’s not true.

Justin Tuck was going to fight Sio Moore if the Raiders lost

Justin Tuck saved the day with a timeout. (CBS/NFL Network)

It's a good thing for Sio Moore that the Raiders didn't lose on Thursday, because if Oakland had lost, there's a good chance teammate Justin Tuck was going to hunt down Moore and fight him.
Why would Tuck almost fight his own teammate? Because of this.
With under a minute left and the Raiders clinging to a 24-20 lead, Sio Moore sacked Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith for a 7-yard loss.
Moore and Khalil Mack then proceeded to celebrate the sack 13 yards behind the line of scrimmage, seemingly not paying attention to the game that was still going on behind them.
The Raiders would have been called for an offsides penalty, but they weren't because Tuck called a timeout. After he called the timeout, Tuck understandably started to scold Moore on the field.
Once the Raiders finally won the game, everyone went to the locker room, where the San Jose Mercury News caught this exchange between Moore and Tuck.

Moore: Don't you ever scream at me like that again.
Tuck: I wanted to fight you. No, I did. I wanted to fight you. You know how your brother starts a fight and comes and gets you and its six guys waiting to fight? And you don't want to fight them, you just want to fight the brother that got you in this mess? That's how I was. I wanted to fight you, not them.

Since the Raiders won, Tuck was probably half-joking, but I'm 80 percent sure there would've been a fight if Oakland would have lost.
Or Tuck wasn't half-joking and there definitely would've been a fight.

Obama signs order expanding U.S. Afghanistan role: NYT

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing a broader military mission in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The decision ensures a direct role for American troops in fighting in Afghanistan for at least another year, it said, adding Obama’s decision was made during a White House meeting with national security advisers in recent weeks.
In May, Obama said the American military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year. Missions for the remaining 9,800 troops would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the "remnants of al Qaeda", he said.
Obama’s new order lets American forces execute missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening U.S. troops or the Afghan government.
The new authorization also allows U.S. air strikes to support Afghan forces on combat missions and U.S. troops occasionally to accompany Afghan troops on operations against the Taliban.
The Times did not mention if the change would affect the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan.
The change emerged from debate over two imperatives: Obama's promise to end the war in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon demand to let American troops fulfill their remaining missions there, the Times reported.
Some civilian aides have argued against risking American lives next year in operations against the Taliban, saying there should only be a narrow mission against al Qaeda, it said.
But generals urged Obama to define the mission more broadly if intelligence showed extremists threatening American forces.
Two issues shifted the debate, the Times said.
Obama's Afghanistan strategy faces stiffer criticism after the advance of Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, it said, while Afghanistan's new president has been more accepting of a broader American military mission than his predecessor.
Asked about the report, a senior administration official said the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan would be over by year-end, as Obama had announced in May.
"Safety of our personnel is the president’s first priority and our armed forces will continue to engage in operations in self-defense and in support of Afghan security forces," the official said.
"While we will no longer target belligerents solely because they are members of the Taliban, to the extent that Taliban members directly threaten the United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan or provide direct support to al Qaeda, we will take appropriate measures to keep Americans safe."

‘Angels in America’ Cinematographer on Working With Mike Nichols

-Stephen Goldblatt, who was the cinematographer on Mike Nichols’ last three screen productions — including HBO’s “Angels in America,” which Nichols considered to be the crowning achievement of his career — spoke to Variety at the Camerimage Film Festival on Friday about his friend, who died Wednesday.
Goldblatt has worked with some of Hollywood’s leading directors, included Francis Ford Coppola, Alan Pakula and Joel Schumacher, and recently lensed Tate Taylor’s “The Help” and “Get on Up.”
Like Goldblatt, the majority of Nichols’ cinematographers were not American-born. German director of photography Michael Ballhaus, who worked on three of Nichols’ movies, said that Nichols — who was born in Germany — valued the outsider’s eye when directing films about American society.
“He liked how I brought a fresher view to these very American stories we were doing, and encouraged that,” Ballhaus told Variety in 2010.
Goldblatt, who was born in South Africa and moved to the U.K. as a boy, says Nichols and he shared an “intellectual and cultural affinity.”
During the production of “Angels,” they filmed in the building of an agency that holds all the historical records of immigrants who came into the U.S. While they were shooting in a corridor, a man came out holding the original record of Nichols at the age of 7, under his original name, Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, with the name of the vessel that he had arrived on, and the record of his arrival in the U.S. from Nazi Germany.
“His great advantage was that he was an outsider,” Goldblatt says.
Some observers have noted that, despite Nichols’ great success, he retained a skeptical view of American society, which Goldblatt considers a fair comment.
Nichols has been lauded for his ability to draw great performances from his actors, which Goldblatt saw for himself on “Angels,” and the two feature films they worked on together, “Closer” and “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which was Nichols’ final film.
“By the time I started working with him, he was the Mike Nichols of legend, so it was less necessary, but I did see him persuade, seduce and, in every way, win over very recalcitrant actors, and actors who were convinced that they could not play a part. I was watching him doing this, and I just took a very quiet photograph – as is my habit – and he noticed and gave me a wink,” Goldblatt says.
He adds: “That was his charm and his power, and he never approached anything directly. So a rehearsal with Mike… the whole cast would be assembled, and the screenplay was read, and he always wanted me there, and I would sit there just watching and listening. But from that point on, he almost never spoke about the screenplay. He would talk, for example, about a moment from his life.”
He continues: “So on ‘Angels,’ which is full of jealousies, passion and betrayal, he begins to talk about how he f—ed up his marriage, or one of them, or it wouldn’t even be that direct, it would be some peculiar story, and an hour or two or three would pass by breathlessly, and almost nobody would speak, but everybody was refreshed and in some way included in his wider circle.”
“And then maybe a month or two would pass before we went into production. He and I spoke about it, and he said, ‘Well that’s when we…’ and I suggested ‘ferment.’ He does this process of assimilation.”
There is one point in “Angels,” Goldblatt says, where Patrick Wilson’s character is making love to his wife, played by Mary-Louise Parker. “It is a story of his feeling of shame at being a homosexual, and his wife’s misery in this marriage without love. What Mike wanted to do was not written. ‘I want to be outside in the corridor. I want the camera to come down the corridor, go through the door, go round the bed, and find them.’ This presents me, out of the blue, with a number of technical problems. So I just ask him: ‘Oh, Mike, why?,’ and he says, ‘I don’t know.’”
Goldblatt adds: “He was so interested in below the surface, the sly approach, and the undercover. As he said, when you go to a party there are people saying one thing, doing another, and wishing they were doing something else. Every encounter, as he saw it, and as we grew to see it through his eyes, becomes tremendously interesting.”
Goldblatt’s question to Nichols was paralleled by a question Nichols had himself for Meryl Streep, who plays Ethel Rosenberg in “Angels.” “She visits Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) on his deathbed and chortles with glee like a carnival clown. Never rehearsed that way. Never written that way. Amazing. Terrifying. And after we cut, after take three (he never did many takes), Mike says to Meryl: ‘Why did you do that? Like that?’ And she says, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
Goldblatt says he couldn’t sleep Thursday night, but “got some comfort” from reading an article that said Nichols considered “Angels” to be the greatest triumph of his career.
“Angels” could be considered to have started the Golden Age of television.
“Nichols started the whole movement whereby television became cinema. It took a leap forward, and now people are prepared to spend up to 16 hours watching in one go,” Goldblatt says. “What they are watching are great plays that are performed with the benefit of cinema – with all its tricks, cameras, make-up and design. Mike started it.”
Nichols’ background as a stage performer and theater director influenced how he approached his screen work.
“He didn’t give line readings. If an actor really wasn’t getting it, Mike would stand up and act it. End of story. ‘That’s how you do it.’ It was superb. And usually very funny with it. He was witty and funny, and deep and loving.”
Nichols often used comedy to tackle difficult subjects and open them up.
“That’s the essence of it, and that’s what he said about acting: That a serious actor who can play comedy is at the height of his profession,” Goldblatt says.
Nichols could be great fun to work with, says Goldblatt. “Not that Mike was easy, far from it, and not that he was always nice. Neither did he try to be. We had a terrible fight early on with ‘Angels’ and I quit three weeks in, and I thought ‘I can’t be treated like this.’”
As Goldblatt was about to jump in a cab to go home, Nichols’ assistant ran after him, and took his arm. “ ‘Mike must speak with you,’ he said, and dragged me backed to Mike’s office. Mike’s standing there and looks at me and said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it.’ What he was saying was that with someone new in his circle, he’s looking for that defiant moment, and we hugged, then and there, and that was it. I was his man but I had to do that to be there with him.”
Nichols would give everyone on his productions the time and space to reach for something fresh and outstanding, says Goldblatt. “The climactic moment of ‘Angels in America’ at the end of the first three hours is when Emma Thompson as the Angel descends on the poor, sad, hapless victim of AIDS — as an angel from heaven but fierce and beautiful, and crazy – this was not visual effects budget time, this was for real, we had money to paint out her wires with the lovely and brilliant Richard Edlund (visual effects supervisor) coping with the smoke I insisted was in the atmosphere,” Goldblatt says.
He adds: “And I swear Mike never got involved with how I was going to do it. I knew it was going to be great because I had so many lights, that had been begged, borrowed and stolen. I had some serious fire power.”
“And at that moment… voomph… the ceiling was off and Emma floated in as the angel, and said ‘Hail to the Prophet, the Messenger has arrived.’ It was something else. And we were all stunned by what we had achieved. He had achieved it, almost by doing nothing. He gave us that freedom. He didn’t second guess, he didn’t look, he didn’t question. He loved us, he trusted us. And at the end of the first take he just hugged me.”

Friday 21 November 2014

Minivans Not as Safe in Crashes as You Think, Tests Show

A new series of crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) revealed troubling results for minivans that are often perceived as some of the safest vehicles on the road.

One crash test in particular was described by a lead executive at IIHS as "one of the worst crash tests we've ever seen."

That comment summarized the small overlap crash test for the Nissan Quest, which wound up getting a poor rating from the IIHS

"A person experiencing this would be lucky to ever walk normally again," said Dave Zuby, Executive Vice President of the Insurance institute. "The corner of the driver's door was pushed in two feet during the crash. As a result, the floor and instrument panel pinned the dummy into its seat. We had to remove the seat to cut the dummy out of the vehicle."

Zuby added that IIHS engineers had to use a crow bar to free the dummy's right foot.

When asked about the crash test results and comments from IIHS, Nissan spokesman Steve Yeager said, "Nissan will continue to review these and other results from IIHS testing as we seek opportunities for improvements."

Yeager points out the Quest has received good ratings from the IIHS for other crash tests including front moderate overlap and side impact tests.

The latest crash tests check how minivans handled small overlap collisions where the front corner of a vehicle hits another vehicle of an object like a tree or street light.

Odyssey shines, Sienna acceptable

Of the five minivans crashed by the Insurance Institute, just two received positive reviews.

The Honda Odyssey did the best, receiving a "good" ratingwhile IIHS rated the Toyota Sienna as acceptable.

"It's not encouraging that just 40 percent of the minivans did acceptable or better in these tests. Especially when you consider how many people drive these vehicles," said Zuby.

The Odyssey and Sienna are both top safety picks by IIHS.

Two other models, the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country were rated as "Poor" by the Insurance Institute, though Zuby said those models did not do as poorly as the Quest.

Chrysler Spokesperson Eric Mayne said, "No single test determines overall vehicle safety. Chrysler Group minivans meet or exceed all government-mandated safety requirements. They are unchanged, structurally, from previous model-year vehicles that received the highestperformance ratings bestowed by the IIHS in tests simulating the four main crash types — side, rollover, rear and moderate-overlap front."

Small overlap tests nearly complete

Minivans are the latest segment of vehicles to go through small overlap crash tests with the Insurance Institute.

Over the last two years, IIHS has put dozens of different vehicles through similar collisions, seeing how different models react when the driver's side front corner hits another vehicle or object at 40 miles.

It is one of the most common and potentially deadly accident scenarios facing drivers.

While Zuby had scathing remarks about the Quest, he would not comment on how passengers elsewhere in the minivan would have handled a similar accident.

"We did not see how children sitting in the second or third row would have been impacted by this crash," he said.

Corita Kent: Artist and nun. What was the message behind the art?

Corita Kent, the nun-turned-internationally-renowned-pop-artist, gained popularity for her vibrant serigraphs during the 1960s and 1970s. Kent drew on popular culture to spread her own spiritually inspired messages.

Google reminded us Thursday to find zeal in the commercial messages that bombard us every day.
Corita Kent, whose life and work inspired Thursday's Google Doodle, drew on popular culture to spread her own spiritually inspired messages in her art.
Also known as Sister Mary Corita, the nun-turned-internationally-renowned-artist, gained popularity for her vibrant serigraphs during the 1960s and 1970s. She ran the art department at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, where she was a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary until 1968 when she left the Order and moved to Boston.

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Her serigraphs are not only famous for striking visual appeal that nods to popular modern symbols and slogans, but for the messages she extracted from them.
"Corita's art reflects her spirituality, her commitment to social justice, her hope for peace, and her delight in the world that takes place all around us," the Corita Art Center website says.
A Los Angeles Times review of her exhibits described the activist nun's work as "visually jarring, conceptually astute and socially engaged."
Kent would find inspiration in advertisements at the supermarket, on the street, or in newspapers

"Attracted to the impossible promises and extraordinary satisfactions put forth by ads, Corita casually borrowed their easy-to-read graphics, leaving behind the specific consumer goods they were designed to sell. Her works transform bold logos and catchy visual jingles into joyous, pointed appeals to common human values.
From General Mills, Corita took the general idea of goodness, which the "Big G" was said to stand for. From Wonder bread, she appropriated an abstract sense of wonder, leaving the bland, mass-produced bread behind. Elsewhere, Esso gasoline ads fuel individual desire, unleashing the untapped power within people."

The Los Angeles Times noted that her work often drew on Christian themes and that her words bespoke an "edgy optimism" during "tumultuous times."
The nun's heyday followed the liberalizing of the Catholic Church with Vatican II, and her work reflects this "radical openness," according to the Times: "Dispensing with dogma in favor of forging grass-roots communities based in earthly needs, her works give vivid shape to a sweeping commitment to human responsibility and dignity."
Kent created more than 400 serigraphs in 18 years, according to the Corita Art Center.
Born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa, she worked primarily in Los Angeles and Boston.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

First look at tonight’s I’m A Celebrity...!

The wait is over. Cheeky chappies Ant and Dec are back with more I’m A Celebrity... jungle japes.
Joining them for trials and tribulations are ten celebrities who have walked away from their comfortable five-star lifestyle in order to test themselves in the outback.
This year’s show starts with a difference, as the Campmates have already been split up into two teams.
They’ve been getting to know each other in rather posh Aussie villas, whereas before they were flung together in the less glamorous surroundings of the jungle.
We hope they haven’t got too comfy because the reality is going to hit them harder when they touch down and find the menu to be, ahem, a tad more basic.
Here’s a sneak peak at how they’ve been shaping up so far. Get a taste of what’s in store on tonight’s show and an insight into who you think has the stomach for the challenge and who might find themselves quickly under pressure.
Team A had gathered in their luxury quarters with newsreader and reporter Michael Buerk being introduced to the wonders of twerking by former Playboy Bunny and reality TV star Kendra Wilkinson.
The man who has covered wars, floods and famine failed to be impressed by the cheeky manoeuvres. However he was more than willing to learn a tricky handshake from rap artist Tynchy Stryder.
Making up their group were former footballer Jimmy Bullard and TV presenter Melanie Sykes who made no secret of their fears going into the jungle.
Meanwhile, Team B were straight into full-on drama mode with TOWIE star Gemma Collins having a fit.
There were tears and tantrums from the girl who had said she might turn into Bear Grylls in the jungle, but whose OMG moment has her teammates less than convinced of her mettle.
Alongside her are Corrie star Craig Charles, ex ‘Allo ‘Allo star Vicki Michele, World Superbike champion Carl Fogarty, and model and singer Nadia Forde.
It’s sure to be an action packed opening full of fun and fear.
To find out which group has been voted into the celebrity slammer, and to see how they are holding up, tune into I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Tonight at 9pm on STV.
If you miss I’m a Celebrity, catch up on the STV Player, where you can also watch the show live, or while you’re on the move.
Catch the latest news, gossip and video interviews on our dedicated I’m A Celebrity website.
We’ll be rounding up each evening’s show on our blog if you want a snapshot of what happened that night in the jungle.
Speaking of daily updates, you can also sign up to our email newsletter for our pick of the best I’m A Celebrity videos straight to your inbox.

In pictures: Ebola orphans

The Ebola outbreak in parts of West Africa has left more than 500 orphans, with parents either dying or abandoning their children, aid agencies say.

In normal circumstances, extended families would take in orphaned children but many are now refusing to do so, they say.
"Children are sent off to extended family outside affected areas, but extended families don't want to take care of orphans of affected parents or other vulnerable children any more out of fear of being contaminated or stigmatised in the community," said Dr Unni Krishnan, head of disaster preparedness and response for Plan InternationaJohn, five, from Lofa County, Liberia lost both his parents to Ebola. When they died, no-one was prepared to look after him and his sisters because their parents had died from Ebola. Their extended family is from Sierra Leone but it has not been possible to trace them.Siah, 16, is the oldest of three siblings and is now facing the challenge of raising her younger brother and sister. "We cry every day and night because of Mama," she says. "I can't imagine how I will take care of the children without any help. I feel very scared right now. I don't want Ebola to catch any other member of my family. I can't afford to lose any of these children to Ebola."n Bomi, Liberia, Miatta, 16, Jenneh, 12, Musa, five, Larmie, one, and Hawa, six months, are the only remaining members of their family. They lost both parents to Ebola. Miatta is now raising her brother and two sisters along with her son Larmie. "When my mother was sick, they came for her," she says. "I was scared and thought they were spirits because of the clothes they were wearing." "When day breaks, I cook dry rice, and [we] eat," says Miatta. She says the health ministry gave them 30 cups of rice when their mother died, but they have not received any more food from the government. "I want to be a president in the future," she adds. "When I become president, I will make sure that things will become accessible like rice and medicine."

Musa and his siblings are sometimes given food by churches or community members. They are trying to keep themselves safe by washing their hands regularly, but they have little money, which they need to buy chlorine for the water. Also in Bomi, Pascaline, 14, (in orange), Noami, 12, (bright green), Yonger, 11, (purple) and Blessing, two, sit on the porch of their home on the first day the quarantine was lifted from their house after they lost their parents to Ebola. Their elder sister Fatu, 28, (pictured here braiding sister Princess's hair) says their father was the first to get sick from Ebola. "He used to work at the Ahmadiya hospital. He was treated but he didn't recover and he died. After a few days, grandma also got sick and died. Our mother also died after 14 days and then the last to die in this roll was my little brother."Fatu says: "I'm feeling bad for several reasons. I have not been able to go to the hospital for my regular check-up as a pregnant woman because of the 21 days quarantine that was placed on their house. Also, people in the community are stigmatising us because they say Ebola is in our house. So nobody wants to have anything to do with us." The only pictures the family has of their parents are their old voter identification cards. Fatu says: "Living like this is hard and I can't imagine what will happen to the country if things should continue like this. The health ministry only gave us food one time and that was all."