| Clooney asks Obama for commitments on Sudan By JULIE PACE 2010-10-13T09:57:13ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama met with activist-actor George Clooney at the White House on Tuesday to discuss U.S. involvement in Sudan ahead of a critical election early next year in Africa's largest nation.... hosted.ap.org |
Touch of Evil: No 2 Orson Welles, 1958In the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson – the source material for this movie – the hero is an American with a Mexican wife (in a marriage that is nine years old). It was Orson Welles who flipped the racial mix, and made the marriage brand new. Welles intended a story of three frontiers: the rancid Mexican-American border; the way a good detective becomes a bad cop; and a provocation on interracial sexuality. To be sure, it's a recognisable Charlton Heston in makeup as Mike Vargas, with Janet Leigh as his Susie – but in 1958, that bond disturbed a lot of viewers. Moreover, the overtone of honeymoon is a wicked set-up for threats of rape. Will the horrendous border scum get to Susie before Mike? If you doubt that suggestiveness, just notice how the car bomb explodes as the honeymooners are ready to enjoy their first kiss on American soil. This is a crime picture in which coitus interruptus has to be listed with all the other charges.Metaphorically and cinematically, it's a picture about crossing over – in one sumptuous camera set-up we track the characters over the border. That shot is famous, but it's no richer than the single set-up in a cramped motel suite that proves how Hank Quinlan (Welles himself) plants dynamite on the man he intends to frame. These scenes were a way for Welles to say, "I'm as good as ever", but they are also crucial to the uneasiness that runs through the picture and the gloating panorama of an unwholesome society. The aura of crime has seeped into every cell of ordinary behaviour: the city officials are corrupt; the night man (Dennis Weaver) needs a rest home; and the gang that come to the motel to get Susie are one of the first warnings of drugs in American movies. Not least, of course, Quinlan – a sheriff gone to hell on candy-bars. So evil is not just a "touch". It is criminality in the blood. Marlene Dietrich's Tanya watches over this doom like a witch or prophet, and a bleak reminder that there is no hope. Fifty years later, that border is still an open wound.CrimeOrson WellesCharlton HestonDavid Thomsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The King's Speech is given a 15 rating Director Tom Hooper angry at classification for swearing sceneThe King's Speech, a funny and moving film that recounts George VI's battle with his stammer, has been given a 15 rating, much to the annoyance of its director.The film has its UK premiere at the London Film Festival tonight and its actors and directors spoke of their bafflement at the rating, given because of a comic scene in which the then Duke of York is encouraged to swear as part of his speech therapy.The film's director, Tom Hooper, best known for Longford on TV and movie The Damned United, said he could not understand the logic. "My head is in my hands about it," he told a press conference after the first British screening yesterday. "I go to see Salt, where a tube is forced down Angelina Jolie's throat and then water is poured down her throat to simulate drowning, that's not a problem. The last Bond film, when Daniel Craig's bollocks are smashed in through a chair with no bottom and then there's another torture scene. These are scenes that are still in my head which I don't want in my head, they're troubling me and I'm my age."Colin Firth, who plays the reluctant king, said the context of the words was everything – that they were not being used in a sexual way or to insult or describe anyone. "It would be very interesting to know who the people are who would complain about that stuff ahead of violence."Firth said he had done a lot of research into stammering for the role. "This the third time I've played somebody with a stammer and what's interesting is you don't just pull your stammer from a drawer and that was an education for me because I thought perhaps you could."What you're really playing is not stammering, because that's what the person is going through."The King's Speech, part funded by the now scrapped UK Film Council, is based on real events that have, necessarily, been imagined. Hooper said: "Everyone knows that the Royal Family's ability to control the flow of information from the palace is formidable." The most valuable source were diaries written by Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush, the speech therapist who treated the king.The film, which won the audience award at the Toronto film festival earlier this year, will be on general release in the UK in January.LanguageColin FirthLondon film festivalFestivalsMark Brownguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Katie answers critics with top-drawer performance Katie Waisell wowed the judges and audience with a fun, flirty performance on the ‘X Factor’ last night. feeds.breakingnews.ie |
Actress Amy Sedaris on Crafts and Her New Book 'Simple Times' The comic actress and author of Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People talks about crafts, the magic of resourcefulness and the joy of working with her brother, writer David Sedaris feedproxy.google.com |