|
| | | Charlie Sheen on making Platoon: 'We screamed for the medic!' | | by Interviews by Simon Bland Jan 3, 2022 | | ‘Forest Whitaker macheted his thumb, Tom Berenger knifed his foot, Willem Dafoe got medivacked – and Oliver Stone jumped up and down with joy’ Charlie Sheen, played Chris Taylor My brother Emilio Estevez and I were huge fans of Scarface and Midnight Express, which were both written by Oliver Stone. Emilio kept talking to me about Oliver’s new Vietnam film, which he was auditioning for. He got the lead part, Chris Taylor, but then couldn’t do it because of scheduling conflicts. When I auditioned, Oliver said I was “too mannered” and needed to do more work. So I did The Boys Next Door and Lucas – and I got the part, but only if Willem Dafoe approved. I didn’t meet Willem until we got to the Philippines. He ran past me in our hotel and gave me a hug. Later, Oliver came up to me and said: “Willem digs ya.” Continue reading... | | | | | Minyan review – passion and paranoia in gay Jewish identity drama | | by Peter Bradshaw Jan 3, 2022 | | David goes to live with his grandfather in an observant Jewish community and finds he is not the only one keeping secrets This is the fiction feature debut from film-maker Eric Steel, previously responsible for the notorious documentary The Bridge, about people who kill themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Minyan is a subdued, withdrawn emotional drama set in the 1980s among the Russian Jewish immigrant community of New York’s “Little Odessa”. David (Samuel H Levine) is a young Jewish gay man who reads a lot of James Baldwin; he is at odds with his overbearing parents and much closer to his recently widowed grandfather Josef (Ron Rifkin) who has now got a modest but comfortable apartment in a much sought-after subsidised residency building for observant Jews. David comes to live there, too, both agreeing to make up the numbers required (the “minyan”) for public worship. David can see that two of the older Jewish men in the building are in fact a couple, their relationship accepted on a don’t ask, don’t tell basis, but whose sexual identity has in formal terms been suppressed, or at any rate tacitly considered by them irrelevant in comparison with the horrors they lived through during the war, and the consequent need for loyalty to traditional Judaism. David’s Jewish identity is also at odds with his own concealed gay identity, and he has a passionate affair with handsome bartender Eric (Chris Perfetti) who is angry at David’s ignorance of the Aids crisis. Continue reading... | | | | | Ukraine's culture minister blasts Emily in Paris over 'unacceptable' stereotype | | by Kate Abbott Jan 3, 2022 | | Oleksandr Tkachenko has complained to Netflix about the insulting ‘caricature’ of the character Petra in the much-derided hit show’s second series Ukraine’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko has issued a complaint to Netflix over its offensive stereotypical image of a Ukrainian character in its show Emily in Paris. In a Telegram post, Tkachenko wrote: “We have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting. Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad?” Continue reading... | | | | | Another Paradise review – shining a light on the Chagos Islands travesty | | by Phương Lê Jan 3, 2022 | | The ripple effects of western imperialism are laid bare in this affecting doc about Creole people ejected from their homeland Fifty years ago, the entire Creole population of the Chagos Islands were forcibly removed from their homes by British forces in order to make way for a US military base. Families were torn apart, scattered between the Seychelles and Mauritius, where they endured enormous economic hardships and discrimination. In Olivier Magis’ documentary, the horrors of those nights are painfully alive. Over atmospheric shots of rippling ocean waves we hear shocking first-person accounts of people throwing themselves overboard and small babies dying during these arduous journeys. Sabrina, a second-generation exile, carries this startlingly recent legacy on her indefatigable shoulders as she fights for the rights of her people to return to their homeland. Perpetually displaced, many of the Chagosian refugees currently living in England face insurmountable financial precariousness and get little state support. Their fervent protests outside the House of Lords also seem to fall on deaf ears: in 2016 the UK government decided against a resettlement of the islanders, citing monetary costs. Continue reading... | | | | | Poem of the week: The Mower's Song by Andrew Marvell | | by Carol Rumens Jan 3, 2022 | | Far from any rustic idyll, this mower is racked by the fallen human world The Mower’s Song My mind was once the true survey
Of all these meadows fresh and gay,
And in the greenness of the grass
Did see its hopes as in a glass;
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. Continue reading... | | | | | |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment