Day: September 16, 2017

For more than 60 years, Harry Dean Stanton played crooks and codgers, eccentrics and losers.

He endowed them with pathos and compassion and animated them with his gaunt, unforgettable presence, making would-be fringe figures feel central to the films appeared in.

The late critic Roger Ebert once said no movie can be altogether bad if it includes Stanton in a supporting role, and the wide cult of fans that included directors and his fellow actors felt the same.

“I think all actors will agree, no one gives a more honest, natural, truer performance than Harry Dean Stanton,” director David Lynch said in presenting Stanton with the Inaugural “Harry Dean Stanton Award” in Los Angeles last year.

Stanton died Friday of natural causes at a Los Angeles hospital at age 91, his agent John S. Kelley said.

Lynch, a frequent collaborator with the actor in projects like “Wild at Heart” and the recent reboot of “Twin Peaks,” said in a statement after Stanton’s death that “Everyone loved him. And with good reason. He was a great actor (actually beyond great) — and a great human being.”

When given a rare turn as a leading man, Stanton more than made the most of it. In Wim Wenders’ 1984 rural drama “Paris, Texas,” Stanton’s near-wordless performance is laced with moments of humor and poignancy. His heartbreakingly stoic delivery of a monologue of repentance to his wife, played by Nastassja Kinski, through a one-way mirror has become the defining moment in his career, in a role he said was his favorite.

“‘Paris, Texas’ gave me a chance to play compassion,” Stanton told an interviewer, “and I’m spelling that with a capital C.”

The film won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival and provided the actor with his first star billing, at age 58.

“Repo Man,” released that same year, became another signature film: Stanton starred as the world-weary boss of an auto repossession firm who instructs Estevez in the tricks of the hazardous trade.

He was widely loved around Hollywood, a drinker and smoker and straight talker with a million stories who palled around with Jack Nicholson and Kris Kristofferson among others and was a hero to such younger stars and brothers-in-partying as Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez.

He appeared in more than 200 movies and TV shows in a career dating to the mid-1950s. A cult-favorite since the ’70s with roles in “Cockfighter,” ″Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Cisco Pike,” his more famous credits ranged from the Oscar-winning epic “The Godfather Part II” to the sci-fi classic “Alien” to the teen flick “Pretty in Pink,” in which he played Molly Ringwald’s father.

While fringe roles and films were a specialty, he also ended up in the work of many of the 20th century’s master auteurs, even Alfred Hitchcock in the director’s serial TV show.

“I worked with the best directors,” Stanton told the AP in a 2013 interview, given while chain-smoking in pajamas and a robe. “Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.”

He said he could have been a director himself but “it was too much work.”

By his mid-80s, the Lexington Film League in his native Kentucky had founded the Harry Dean Stanton Fest and filmmaker Sophie Huber had made the documentary “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction,” which included commentary from Wenders, Sam Shepard and Kristofferson.

More recently he reunited with Lynch on Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” where he reprised his role as the cranky trailer park owner Carl from “Fire Walk With Me.” He also stars with Lynch in the upcoming film “Lucky,” the directorial debut of actor John Carroll Lynch, which has been described as a love letter to Stanton’s life and career.

Stanton, who early in his career used the name Dean Stanton to avoid confusion with another actor, grew up in West Irvine, Kentucky and said he began singing when he was a year old.

Later, he used music as an escape from his parents’ quarreling and the sometimes brutal treatment he was subjected to by his father. As an adult, he fronted his own band for years, playing western, Mexican, rock and pop standards in small venues around Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He also sang and played guitar and harmonica in impromptu sessions with friends, performed a song in “Paris, Texas” and once recorded a duet with Bob Dylan.

Stanton, who never lost his Kentucky accent, said his interest in movies was piqued as a child when he would walk out of every theater “thinking I was Humphrey Bogart.”

After Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he spent three years at the University of Kentucky and appeared in several plays. Determined to make it in Hollywood, he picked tobacco to earn his fare west.

Three years at the Pasadena Playhouse prepared him for television and movies.

For decades Stanton lived in a small, disheveled house overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and was a fixture at the West Hollywood landmark Dan Tana’s.

Stanton never married, although he had a long relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay, 35 years his junior. “She left me for Tom Cruise,” Stanton said often.

In listing Stanton’s survivors, the statement announcing his death said only:

“Harry Dean is survived by family and friends who loved him.”
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An American dentist’s killing of Cecil the lion, a collared 13-year-old lion monitored by the University of Oxford in Zimbabwe, sparked widespread outrage and condemnation of big-game hunting.  But Trophy, a new documentary by filmmakers Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, offers a more complex perspective on trophy hunting as an industry that blurs the lines between big-game hunting and wildlife conservation.

Every year, Safari Club International holds the largest big-game hunt convention in the world in Las Vegas. Conservationist and adventurist Joe Hosmer describes the process: “You can just pick whatever animal you want from the menu that they offer, you see the price and book the kill.”

Watch: Killing to Conserve? ‘Trophy’ Raises Difficult Questions

Prices range from $8,000 for a buffalo to $45,000 for an elephant and $350,000 for a rhino. This big-money industry helps the local communities where the hunts take place and discourages poaching, says Chris Moore, an anti-poaching campaign manager from Zimbabwe.

Moore says while poachers destroy 30,000 African elephants a year just for their tusks, trophy hunters kills 1,100 elephants annually, providing local communities with their meat and revenue. “Half of that trophy fee goes back into building a clinic or school or whatever the community decides. They have committees and a trust, which organizes where that goes.”

An adventure for the rich

Filmmaker Christina Clusiau says big-game hunting caters to the rich, most of them Americans. “I couldn’t believe that it was so vast that you could buy hunts, and you can buy your insurance, and you can buy your clothing and gear, everything for the safari.”

Filmmaker Shaul Schwarz says he made Trophy because he wanted to understand the hunters and why they do what they do.

“The fact that you had to pay so much money is kind of more angering to some degree because you are saying, ‘Oh, look at these rich white people and they are going to go and take from Africa in an almost colonial way.’ You could just get angry about that and I see why, but the funny flipside is that this money hopefully will trickle down to what actually enables conservation. So,” he concludes, “to some degree, if there wasn’t a lot of money in the industry then it wouldn’t make sense.”

Trophy shows how this billion-dollar big-game industry is financing the breeding of endangered species by exploiting a small percentage of these animals for the thrill of the kill, while conserving the rest and restoring their numbers in ranches.

“That’s kind of the idea of utilizing animals in this ‘if it pays, it stays’ way.  Now, is that the answer?” Schwarz asks. “I don’t know. I’m here to raise questions, but I think what we should do in this subject is be less quick to judge and scream.” He knows that he is tackling a polarizing subject, and asks audiences to keep an open mind.

PETA doesn’t agree

But the animal rights organization PETA does not see both sides. The group’s Associate Director of Campaigns, Ashley Byrne, condemns the big-game industry.

“Selling an endangered animal’s life to raise money for conservation is like selling a child on the black market to raise money for an anti-trafficking organization. The logic is absurd! The best way to promote conservation is to protect animals’ natural habitat and to invest in eco-tourism, in non-invasive forms of tourism that do make these animals commodities but alive, not dead!” she insists.

Anti-poaching activist Chris Moore agrees that in an ideal world, the wealthy would pay just as much to go and see the animals, but he adds we don’t live in an ideal world, and the film shows that these hunters who want a trophy want their money’s worth.

Moore suggests that if trophy hunting were banned, the animals would no longer be seen as commodities to preserve, and poaching would increase.

“When you are struggling to feed your child, you look for alternative means. I think if society maintained certain levels of prosperity, I don’t think we would really see poaching.”

Tough to film

The film offers a vivid cinematic experience of wildlife in Africa, but filming was tough, says Clusiau.

“When you look at these majestic creatures from afar they are majestic. They are beautiful. You want to go up and touch them and pet them and what you don’t realize is how dangerous they actually are. So, when you are in that environment, you do feel very vulnerable. So, we were lucky to have guides and trackers to kind of act as a shield to these environments.”
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Imagine having a butler to keep you home in perfect order. Well, you don’t have to be a blueblood anymore to get that kind of service. As VOA’s Olga Loginova shows us, a British butler with royal references is available for hire.
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Fans of the American hip hop group the Insane Clown Posse will march on Washington Saturday in protest of their designation as a street gang by the federal government.

On Saturday, the Insane Clown Posse (ICP), along with thousands of their diehard fans — who refer to themselves as “Juggalos” — will gather near the Lincoln Memorial to make a “collective statement from the Juggalo family to the world about what we are and what we are not.”

“At this point, it’s time for everyone to put up or shut up. You say you’re a recording artist who supports the Juggalo Family’s fight against discrimination? Then be there. Live. In person,” the rap duo said in a message to fans promoting the event.

The march is just the latest step taken by ICP and its fans to fight their designation by U.S. authorities as a “loosely organized hybrid gang.” The issue stems from a 2011 report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in which Juggalos are said to “exhibit ganglike behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.”

​Horror rap

The ICP is known for its unique brand of horror rap that often includes lyrics referencing drug use and violence. It has attracted a fan base made up largely of poor, white people who’ve built an identity around the music produced by the rap duo and their trademark clown makeup.

“We represent people who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth but instead with a rusty fork,” one member of the group, Violent J, said during an interview in 1995.

Some fans of the rap group say the gang designation has had a severe negative impact on their lives, with some reporting they’ve been fired from jobs, lost custody of their children or been denied housing because of their support of ICP.

“Being labeled a gang member can be a permanent stain on an individual’s life, since it will come up in a simple background check every single time,” the group said on their website promoting the event.

The FBI, in a statement provided to NBC News, said its report was based on information provided by states and the report specifically notes “the Juggalos had been recognized as a gang in only four states.”

“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. We investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based on an individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights,” it said.

In 2012, The ICP, with the help of the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued the FBI claiming the designation unfairly profiles their fans and violates their First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit was initially dismissed by a judge in 2014, but the ICP won an appeal in 2015 ordering a Michigan court to take up the case. The case currently remains under appeal.

ICP members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, whose real names are Joseph Bruce and Joseph Ulster, are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with four of their fans.

One of the plaintiffs, Scott Gandy, said he had to cover up an ICP tattoo in order to apply to join the military. Another plaintiff, Brandon Bradley, claims to have been repeatedly stopped, questioned and photographed by police in California for wearing Juggalo clothing and having a Juggalo tattoo.

Label argued

Government lawyers have argued that the FBI report did not label all ICP fans as gang members and did not force the actions taken by any independent police agency, and thus could not be held liable for the actions taken by those police officers.

Unsatisfied with the legal process, the Juggalos are set to march on Washington in the hope of gaining attention for their cause.

“I didn’t have a problem with this country. Then all of a sudden they technically made it illegal to be a Juggalo. It’s like they took that one thing away that made me not have a problem with the government,” Violent J said in a recent interview with Reason.

Jason Webber, a publicist for ICP and an organizer for the event, told NBC he expects about 3,000 people to attend the rally.

The Juggalos won’t be the only group marching Saturday on Washington. Another group, supporters of President Donald Trump, is planning the “Mother of All Rallies” (MOAR) to take place near the Washington Monument, and predicts a crowd of about 5,000 attendees.

The “Mother of All Rallies” moniker appears to be a reference to the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (more commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs), which was dropped earlier this year on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.

According to its website, the rally is meant to “send a message to the world that the voices of mainstream Americans must be heard.” Organizers say they’ll only allow American flags to be flown and the event is meant to be apolitical.

“No Confederate flags, communist flags, or foreign flags allowed. This is not a Democrat or Republican rally. It’s not a left or right rally,” the group’s website says. “We condemn racists of all colors and supremacy of all colors. Our patriots are of all colors and we are uniting under our constitutional rights.”
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