Month: February 2018

A lavish, headline-grabbing premiere. Lightning word-of-mouth stoked by glowing reviews. Packed movie theaters with sold-out shows, long lines and fans decked out as characters from the film.

The phenomenon of “Black Panther” had the look and feel of a classic, bona fide blockbuster in route to its record-setting $201.8 million debut over the weekend, or an estimated $235 million Friday through Monday. Much has been made about the film industry’s struggles to tap into pop culture the way it once more regularly did – that TV and streaming options and a dearth of fresh ideas have diminished the power of the big screen.

But when Hollywood does manufacture a must-see theatrical event, it has increasingly been propelled by the power of inclusivity. Just as Jordan Peele’s Oscar-nominated “Get Out” ($253 million worldwide on a $4.5 million production budget) and Patty Jenkins “Wonder Woman” ($821.1 million) did before it, “Black Panther” captured the zeitgeist by the potent combination of top-notch filmmaking (the film stands at 97 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), studio backing and an audience hungry to see itself represented on the big screen in a way it seldom has before.

At the box office, inclusion is paying – and often, it’s paying off big time.

“Diversity does in fact, sell,” said Darnell Hunt, a professor and director of social science at UCLA whose research has detailed the connection between diversity and bottom lines. “In hindsight, it’s kind of a no-brainer. The American public is about 40 percent people of color now, and we know that people of color over-index in terms of media consumption. The patterns we’ve been seeing are only becoming more pronounced as time goes on.”

“Black Panther” debuted with $361 million in worldwide ticket sales, setting up the $200 million film for a theatrical run that should easily eclipse $1 billion. History is assured. Just months after Jenkins helmed the biggest box-office hit directed by a woman, Ryan Coogler will set a new mark for films directed by an African American. The debut, the best ever for February, is the fifth highest of all time, not accounting for inflation.

At a time where hits are hard to come by for Hollywood, diversity in storytelling is proving to be not only a just cause, but a box-office imperative.

“If you want to succeed on the global stage, certainly in the tent-pole business, you have to have diversity in storytelling, in the characters that you put in front of the camera, in the artisans you put behind the camera – to be able to get that better, richer storytelling and to drive huge results,” said Dave Hollis, distribution chief for Disney. “The results speak for themselves.”

Hollis pointed to the many factors that made “Black Panther” a hit: Coogler’s direction, the stewardship of Kevin Feige’s Marvel, the reliability of the brand. But he also noted a developing pattern for Disney – that inclusive films are both richer for their diversity and, often, richer for the bottom line.

“It feels like the right thing to do. It makes for better, richer storytelling, and we’re a business. It’s something that’s just delivered big, huge box office,” said Hollis. “When we have leaned into and had inclusion and representation as part of the mix, it’s just really worked. When you think about ‘Star Wars” and ‘Rogue One,’ the female protagonist leading those stories. Also ‘Moana’ or ‘Coco.’ ‘Coco’ has been an absolute juggernaut.”

“Coco,” which is expected to win the Oscar for best animated feature next month, has gross more than $730 million worldwide. It’s the biggest budget release starring an all-Latino cast.

Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, did more than any previous “Star Wars” film to elevate its female characters, and featured the widely hailed breakout star Kelly Marie Tran.

By promoting diversity in its films, Disney has faced some backlash from social-media critics who deride films like “The Last Jedi” and Sony’s 2015’s female-led “Ghostbusters” as politically correct overreach. Some fans have even gone to the extraordinary length of trying to drive down audience scores for those films.

But consider the fate of movies that haven’t tried as hard to be culturally authentic. Paramount’s “Ghost in the Shell,” which starred Scarlett Johansson in a role originally written as a cyborg in a Japanese woman’s body, last year bombed at the box office after a backlash over Johansson’s casting.

Meanwhile, the diverse cast of Universal’s “The Fast and the Furious” films helped make it one of the most bankable franchises in movies. Other standout hits have included “Girls Trip” – the biggest comedy of 2017 – and Sony’s unexpectedly lucrative “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” The film, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, reigned over the January box office as the no. 1 film on four weekends.

“Jumanji” has grossed more than $904 million worldwide, including more than a half a billion dollars overseas. The old argument that films starring African-American actors don’t travel well has never had a worse two months. “Black Panther” opened with $160 million abroad, even without several markets (China, Japan, Russia) yet open.

And in Hollywood, nothing talks like money.

“‘Black Panther’ can be an important first step toward really dispelling the myth that has held Hollywood back for generations in terms of telling the stories that we certainly want to see in this country but I think that the rest of the world wants to see, too,” said Hunt.

Studies have also shown that diverse casts attract wider audiences. Last year, talent agency CAA found that of the top 10 grossing films in 2016, 47 percent of the opening-weekend audience was made up of people of color, up 2 percent from the year before. The effect was even more pronounced in the biggest hits. Seven of the 10 highest-grossing films from 2016 had opening weekend audiences more than 50 percent white.

The audience for “Black Panther” was 65 percent non-white, including 37 percent black, according to comScore.

Latinos and African Americans are also more eager moviegoers, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. In the MPAA’s most recent report, it found that though Latinos make up 18 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 23 percent of frequent moviegoers. Though African Americans are 12 percent of the population, they make up 15 percent of frequent moviegoers.

“If you look at some of the bigger blockbusters from the last year, they were representative of what the audience are looking for, how they’re feeling,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “These films reflect society and then society reflects back on the films. That’s when you get to these much bigger than expected debuts. It becomes more than a movie. It becomes a cultural event.”

Communal movie-going may be under siege from other entertainment options. But films like “Black Panther” are making movie theaters more communal than ever.

 
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Uranium glass occupies a little-known niche in the collectables world, whose members appreciate its soft color and distinctive glow, which comes from the uranium added as the glass was created.

The pieces shown here come from the collection of Peter Marti and Markus Berner, who trade in antique glass at a small shop downstairs from their flat in Wangen an der Aare, a town in Switzerland. They discovered the glass about 15 years ago at a Swiss flea market and have been collecting ever since.

Like many uranium glass collectors, they are especially drawn to pearline, which was created by several companies, mostly in Britain, from the end of the 19th century into the 20th.

Yellow pearline is called vaseline, because the shade is similar to the color of petroleum jelly – until it’s exposed to ultraviolet light, when it glows a bright green.

The glass is slightly radioactive, enough to register on Geiger counters. But the levels are about the same as electrical appliances like microwave ovens emit, so they represent no threat to health.
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A movie at the Berlin film festival that looks at how Islamic State fighters recruit young European women online highlights the dangers of using the internet, the actress in the starring role told Reuters.

In the film “Profile”, British journalist Amy Whittaker goes undercover to investigate the workings of the militant group by creating a fake Facebook profile and pretending to be a Muslim convert called Melody Nelson.

She comes up with a cover story, disguises her tattoo, learns a bit of Arabic and dons a hijab. Over the coming days she spends hours chatting online to an Islamic State fighter called Bilel, with whom she makes curry via video link in one scene, and gradually finds herself being attracted to him.

“It’s dangerous for us all to be online because there’s so much access to everything,” said Valene Kane, who plays Amy. “You can basically do anything online and I suppose that’s what the film shines a light on, this new world that we live in.”

“It’s not just Syria – it’s all over. People are being manipulated into different situations with the anonymity of being online and having an avatar or whatever it is that they use to represent themselves,” Kane said.

Bilel, who in the film is originally from London and describes his job in Syria as “killing people”, promises the woman he knows as Melody he will treat her like a queen and get her a cat.

The character, played by Shazad Latif, shows Melody a luxury home where she would live and makes a video call to her while he is having fun playing football with international recruits.

Kane said women often had a fantasy about what romance should be like and Bilel played that role perfectly for her character.

“This man comes on her screen and says everything that she thought as a little girl that she wanted – I‘m going to get you a palace, I‘m going to give you as many children as you want, you’ll never have to work again,” she said.

The camera shows Whittaker’s screen for the duration of the film, with viewers voyeuristically watching as she chats to Bilel and her friends and carries out internet searches on everything from Islamic State to how to freeze her eggs.

“It’s about loneliness, about who we are today, how much of our life is happening on screen and how vulnerable we are when we are attached to the internet and how scary it is,” Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov told Reuters.

“It’s a reality – it’s how we live today,” he said. “If I‘m awake for 15 hours, half of this time I‘m in front of a screen – my iPhone screen or my desktop or laptop and most important events today in my life are happening on screen.”

The film is based on the true story of French journalist Anna Erelle’s undercover work, which was published in December 2014 and resulted in six people being arrested for involvement in jihadist recruitment networks.

Germany’s domestic intelligence chief said last month that Islamic State continued to target vulnerable youths in Germany through the internet and social media.

“Profile” is one of around 400 films being screened at this year’s Berlinale, which runs until Feb. 25.
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U.S. President Donald Trump blasted media mogul Oprah Winfrey on Twitter on Sunday night over a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes program and again said he hoped she would face him as an opponent in the 2020 presidential race.

Actress and television host Winfrey, now a contributor to the CBS program, led a panel of 14 Republican, Democrat and Independent voters from Grand Rapids, Michigan in a wide ranging discussion about Trump’s first year in office.

Trump tweeted: “Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!”

Winfrey has told various media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, that she is not running for president, but has considered it, after there was much recent media speculation.

The panelists ranged from voters who said “I love him more and more every day,” to others questioning Trump’s stability, saying, “All he does is bully people.”

Winfrey made no declarative statements for or against the president in the program. But she did ask questions ranging from whether the country is better off economically to whether respect for the country is eroding around the world.
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Colleagues say prolific filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo has died in his home country of Burkina Faso.

The National Union of Burkina Faso Filmmakers on Sunday announced Ouedraogo’s death at the age of 64 from an undisclosed illness.

During his career Ouedraogo produced more than 40 films including “Tilai,” which won the Grand Prix at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993, his film “Samba Traore” was featured at the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear prize.

In a tweet, Burkina Faso’s president praised Ouedraogo’s “immense talent,” saying he had helped to bring “Burkina and African cinema beyond our borders.”

Ouedraogo also had served on the jury at the Ouagadougou film festival known as FESPACO.

 
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A Russian athlete is suspected of breaching doping rules at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.

Russian curlers said that a coach on their team told them late Sunday (South Korean time) that mixed doubles bronze medalist Alexander Krushelnitsky tested positive for meldonium, a substance banned in 2016.

Russian Curling Federation president Dmitry Svishchev would not confirm the name of the athlete. 

The International Olympics Committee (IOC) said on Monday that a second sample from the athlete had been taken and results would be available in 24 hours.

If confirmed positive by the second test, the incident could keep Russia’s team from being reinstated and marching under the national flag at the closing ceremony.

Svishchev said it was possible that athlete’s food or drink had been tampered with, suggesting that rival Russian athletes or Russia’s political enemies could be responsible.

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova was suspended for 15 months after testing positive for meldonium at the Australian Open in 2016. For ten years she had used meldonium, a drug designed for people with heart problems.

Although the idea of a curler using performance-enhancing drugs may seem strange, the sport demands a high level of physical fitness at the Olympic level.
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Bubba Watson was feeling low about his health and even worse about his golf. It reached a point that he wondered if he would ever win again, and he says he talked with his wife on a dozen occasions about retiring.

Being back at Riviera changed his outlook and made him a winner again.

Watson stayed in the game with three key putts early on the back nine, then fulfilled a playful pledge he forgot he even made on the par-3 14th by holing a bunker shot for birdie that allowed him to seize control Sunday in the Genesis Open. He never gave anyone a chance the rest of the way, closing with a 2-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Tony Finau and Kevin Na.

Watson won for the first time in two years, his longest drought of the decade. He joined Lloyd Mangrum and Ben Hogan as three-time winners at Riviera. And he won for the 10th time in his PGA Tour career, an important milestone to him.

“Nobody thought that Bubba Watson from Bagdad, Florida, would ever get to 10 wins. Let’s be honest,” Watson said. “Without lessons, head case, hooking the ball, slicing the ball, can’t putt, you know?”

He put on a clinic at Riviera, somehow managed to keep his focus, carved shots around, over and through the trees, and he made all the right putts.

Watson talks the way he hits the ball – all over the map – and he was particularly elusive about what caused him to lose so much weight last year. He says he reached close to 160 pounds, which he says affected his game and ultimately his confidence.

“I’m here. I’m healthy,” he said. “There are people that are a lot sicker than me in this world, so the illness is nothing.”

Watson, who finished at 12-under 272, moved from No. 117 to No. 41 in the world, making him eligible for the World Golf Championship in Mexico in two weeks.

Na hit a wedge close to perfection from the worst angle on the reachable par-4 10th hole for a birdie and two-putted for birdie on the 11th to briefly take the lead. He fell back with consecutive bogeys from the trees and shot 69. Finau lurked all day. His last chance was an eagle putt on the 17th that stopped inches short of the hole.

Patrick Cantlay had a one-shot lead going to the back nine until he ran into tree trouble on the 12th and 13th holes. The UCLA alum could do no better than pars the rest of the way for a 71 to tie for fourth with Scott Stallings (68).

Phil Mickelson also was in the hunt. He was within one shot of the lead when he hit a 4-iron from a deep bunker on the 15th hole to just right of the green. But he went after birdie and watched the ball roll 20 feet down the hill, leading to bogey. Mickelson shot 68 and tied for sixth.

Coming off good weeks at Phoenix and Pebble Beach, Mickelson has three straight top 10s for the first time since 2009.

The biggest moment for Watson involved his desperation to find a bathroom after they teed off on the 14th. Cameron Smith, who shot 71 and tied for sixth, told him there was one off the 15th tee and he was only a couple of shots away.

“I said, ‘Nah, I’m just going to hole it and go to the bathroom.’ And then I holed it,” he said.

His caddie, Ted Scott, mentioned before Watson stepped into the bunker that he hadn’t holed out in some time, so after the ball splashed out of the sand and rolled against the pin before dropping, he turned to Scott and said, “You called it.”

Smith came over and told Watson, “You called it.” By then, Watson had forgotten their conversation.

No matter. He never came close to bogey until it didn’t matter, and he holed an 8-foot par putt on the 18th. The tears began flowing moments later.

“You never know if you’re going to play good again,” Watson said as his voice choked. “You never know if you’re going to lift the trophy.”

It was that four-hole stretch that carried him – a 10-foot birdie putt after hitting his approach into the bunker on the par-5 11th; the 8-foot par save after coming up short on No. 12; another 8-foot save on No. 13 when another shot came up short; and the bunker shot on the 14th.

“It went real fast where I went from losing to winning,” he said.

With that, he wrapped up another fun-filled week in L.A. He won Riviera with a 64-64 weekend in 2014. He won Riviera in 2016 while filming a cameo in “Girl Meets World.” This time he made a cameo in the NBA All-Star celebrity game, which included an infamous highlight of Tracy McGrady rejecting his shot .

The distractions helped. The health helped even more.

As for that retirement talk?

“I was close,” he said. “My wife was not close. My wife basically told me to quit whining and play golf. I would rather be healthy than play golf, so that’s what I was focusing on. I was focusing on the wrong things. Pitiful me, not how beautiful my life was.”
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New York’s Fashion Week is known as a showcase for top designers’ clothing. Among those whose clothes were on the runway at the recent Fall Fashion Week, is Vivi Zubedi, who designs modest clothing for Muslim women. Anshuman Apte reports from New York.
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A 100-year-old drawing by one of Austria’s most celebrated artists has come out of hiding.

Gustav Klimt’s drawing, Two Reclining Figures, has resurfaced after being lost from the Lentos Museum in Linz for decades, apparently hidden in the home of a former assistant at the museum who retired in 1977.

The drawing, which shows two female figures in blissful repose among fluffy bedcovers, was found after the assistant, whose name has not been released, left directions in her will that it be returned to the museum after her death. When she died in December 2017, her personal documents included instructions on where to find the drawing. It was stashed in a closet in her home.

“We were very surprised at this discovery,” said Julius Stieber, director of culture and education for the city of Linz. “We’d received a letter, but no one expected the drawing to be returned.”

Other works missing

The drawing will now be included in a 100-year retrospective showcasing the works of Klimt, as well as Austrian painters Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser on the centenary of their deaths. All three died in 1918.

Along with the Klimt drawing, three works by Schiele went missing after the four pieces were loaned to the museum, then known as the New Gallery, in 1951 by the artist and collector Olga Jager. Her family eventually brought a lawsuit and were awarded more than $10 million for the loss of the artworks.

A spokesman for the city of Linz said there were “no serious indications” that the assistant had taken the Schiele pieces along with the Klimt.

While the Klimt drawing will be returned to the family after the exhibition ends in May — in return for a refund of that part of their settlement — the search is still on for the pieces by Schiele. Officials hope the publicity from the exhibition may help unearth the missing artworks.

A police spokesperson told the Austrian news agency APA that anyone who may have possession of a lost artwork “should ask themselves if they are handling stolen goods, and do the reasonable thing and come forward.”

Another Klimt piece

One of Klimt’s best-known works is Adele Bloch-Bauer, a 1907 portrait that became the subject of a high-profile custody battle between Austria and Austrian-American Maria Altmann, a descendant of the family who owned the painting before it was confiscated by authorities during the Nazi era. The fight was chronicled in a book and movie known as Woman in Gold.

Altmann reclaimed the work in 2006 and sold it to a collector later that year for a record $135 million. It is now on display at the Neue Gallerie in New York City.
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“Black Panther” has burst onto the screen in Africa, handing a powerful response to the unfortunate remarks about the continent by President Donald Trump.

As the red carpet in South Africa swirled with stunning outfits and exclamations in the local isiXhosa language used in the film’s Wakanda kingdom, cast member John Kani laughed at the U.S. president’s views, which several African nations have openly scorned. (Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o said simply: “No comment.”)

The South African actor Kani, like many at Friday night’s Johannesburg premiere, expressed pride at seeing an Afrofuturistic society that celebrates traditional cultures and dreams of what the world’s second most populous continent can be.

“This time the sun now is shining on Africa,” he said. “This movie came at the right time. We’re struggling to find leaders that are exemplary and role models … so when you see the Black Panther as a young boy and he takes off that mask you think, `Oh my God, he looks like me. He is African and I am African. Now we can look up to some person who is African.”‘

Added actress Danai Gurira, who grew up mostly in Zimbabwe: “To bring this film home is everything.”

The film has opened in other top economic powers across Africa, where a growing middle class flocked to IMAX showings and shared vibrant opening-night images on social media.

“The African culture highlighted in the movie is so rich that it makes me feel proud of being black. I totally love it,” said Liz Muthoni after a screening in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “I can watch it again and again.”

“Black Panther” screened a few days ago in Kenya’s western city of Kisumu, where Nyong’o’s father, Anyang, is the local governor.

“Sometimes we think that we have two choices to make in Africa,” he wrote this month in The Star newspaper. “Choice one: We maintain our traditions and cultures and stay backward forever. Choice two: We modernize by becoming westernized and forgetting our cultural traditions which, by their very nature so we think, are stuck in the past. The experience of the Wakanda people teaches us otherwise.”

In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, “Black Panther” has been selling out its five-times-a-day screenings at the only theater showing the film. 

“Moviegoers are enjoying the African heritage part of the film. This is also unique for us because Ethiopia is often mentioned alongside the black power and black movements as the only nation not colonized by Western powers,” said Elias Abraha, the cinema’s operations chief. “There are people who changed their flight plans just to watch the movie.”

Some Ethiopian fans quickly changed their Facebook profile pictures and expressed their adoration.

“Tears stream down my face as I write this,” said one Facebook user who goes by LadyRock Maranatha. “Black Panther was basically an enormous . roller coaster of emotions, adventure and most of all the affirmation of what I had felt since I left my country for Cambridge and came back. I cried for my people and felt immense pride in being Ethiopian and most importantly AFRICAN. We are truly resilient and beautiful.”

As the audience poured out of the Johannesburg screening, spirits were high.

“Totally blown away. I got emotional,” said reality TV star Blue Mbombo, who admitted that going into the film she thought the expectations had been “hype.” But she praised its use of cultural touches like Basotho blankets and called the use of the isiXhosa language “very humbling.”

Others considered the American side of the story. “An African-American coming back to Africa, it’s a nice reminder of their heritage as well,” said Ayanda Sidzatane. She called the film awesome. “We knew it would be cool but not like this.”

Some anticipated a flood of interest from African-Americans, even cheekily. “Now I know Black Panther makes Africa look cool … But please don’t come to Lagos … It’s overcrowded,” Nigerian artist Arinze Stanley tweeted of the continent’s most populous city.

As Ghanaian celebrity blogger Ameyaw Debrah put it on social media: “What will #BlackPanther make the world think of Africa now?”
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As the world watches the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea, some American athletes in Washington are lacing up their skates to train for their own, major sporting event. Special in every way, these young people work to overcome their developmental obstacles to compete for gold — just like the world’s top athletes in Pyeongchang. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington.
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