Day: November 14, 2018

Stan Lee was a seminal part of Miya Crummell’s childhood. As a young, black girl and self-professed pop culture geek, she saw Lee was ahead of his time.

“At the time, he wrote `Black Panther’ when segregation was still heavy,” said the 27-year-old New Yorker who credits Lee with influencing her to become a graphic designer and comic book artist. “It was kind of unheard of to have a black lead character, let alone a title character and not just a secondary sidekick kind of thing.”

Lee, the master and creator behind Marvel’s biggest superheroes, died at age 95 on Monday.

As fans celebrate his contributions to the pop culture canon, some have also revisited how the Marvel wizard felt that with great comic books came great responsibility. When black people were risking their lives in the 1960s to protest discrimination where they lived and worked, Lee enacted integration with the first mainstream black superhero. Black Panther, along with the X-Men and Luke Cage, are on-screen heroes today. But back then, they were the soldiers in Lee’s battle against real-world foes of racism and xenophobia.

Under Lee’s leadership, Marvel Comics introduced a generation of comic book readers to the African prince who rules a mythical and technologically advanced kingdom, the black ex-con whose brown skin repels bullets and the X-Men, and a group of heroes whose superpowers were as different as their cultural backgrounds.

The works and ideas of Lee and the artists behind T’Challa, the Black Panther; Luke Cage, Hero for Hire; and Professor Xavier’s band of merry mutants — groundbreaking during the 1960s and 1970s — have become a cultural force breaking down barriers to inclusion.

Lee had his fingers in all that Marvel produced, but some of the characters and plot lines “came from the artists being inspired by what was happening in the ’60s,” said freelance writer Alex Simmons.

Still, there was some pushback by white comics distributors when it came to black heroes and characters. Some bundles of Marvel Comics were sent back because some distributors weren’t prepared for the Black Panther and the kingdom of Wakanda developed by artist and co-creator Jack Kirby.

“Stan had to take those risks,” Simmons said. “There was a liberation movement, and I think Marvel became the voice of the people, tied into that rebellious energy and rode with it.”

Lee also spoke to readers directly about the irrationality of hate. In 1968, a tumultuous year that saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Lee wrote one of his most vocal “Stan’s Soapbox” columns calling bigotry and racism “the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.”

“But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun,” Lee wrote.

Marvel’s characters always were at the forefront of how to deal with racial and other forms of discrimination, according to Mikhail Lyubansky, who teaches psychology of race and ethnicity at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. With the X-Men, many readers saw the mutants, ostracized for their powers, as a commentary on how Americans treated blacks and anyone seen as “the other.”

“The original X-Men were less about race and more about cultural differences,” Lyubansky said. “Black Panther and some of the (Marvel) films took the mantle and ran with the racial issue in ways I think Stan didn’t intend. But they were a great vehicle for it.”

Some of the efforts to break out minority characters haven’t aged well. Marvel characters like the Fu Manchu-esque villain The Mandarin and the Native American athletic hero Wyatt Wingfoot were considered groundbreaking in the ’60s and ’70s, but may seem dated and too stereotypical when viewed through a 21st-century lens.

“It’s interesting. Stan Lee kind of takes the credit and the blame, depending on the character,” said William Foster III, who helped establish the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention and is an English professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Foster, who started reading Marvel Comics in the 1960s, said even doing something as minor as including people of color in the background was monumental.

“Stan Lee had the attitude of `We’re in New York City. How can we possibly not have black people in New York City?”‘ Foster said.

Blacks began taking on the roles of heroes and villains. Foster said some characters may have been seen as “tokenism” but that’s sometimes where progress has to start.

In 10 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have netted more than $17.6 billion in worldwide grosses. The “Black Panther” movie pulled in more than $200 million in its debut weekend earlier this year. Next year, actress Brie Larson will take flight as “Captain Marvel.” An animated movie centered on Miles Morales, a half-black and half-Puerto Rican teen who inherits the Spider-Man suit, will drop next month. And there continues to be interest around Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim superhero.

“I had a lot of white friends growing up,” said freelance writer Simmons, who is black. “We watched Batman' and we also watchedThe Mod Squad.’ My personal belief is that if you put the material out in front of folks and they connect with it, they are going to connect with it.”

For many fans and consumers, it’s about the product not the skin color or sexual orientation of the character, he added.

Crummell, the comic book artist, said she thinks representation for minorities and women in comic books is improving.

“I think now, they’re seeing that everybody reads comics. It’s not a specific group now,” Crummell said. “It’s not just African-American people — it’s women, it’s Asians, Hispanic characters now. I would credit Stan Lee with kind of breaking the barrier for that.”
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Two journalists who helped cover the confirmation process of Brett Kavanaugh are working on a book about the newest Supreme Court justice.

Portfolio says Wednesday that it has a deal with New York Times reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin for “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh.”

The publisher says the book will focus on the “many unanswered questions” about Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual harassment and assault stemming from his years in high school and college. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed in October after he and Christine Blasey Ford, who said that he had attempted to rape her during a party when they were in high school, both spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh denied any wrongdoing.

Pogrebin said in a statement that a “fuller picture” of Kavanaugh was needed.
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Fans are paying tribute to Marvel Comics’ legend Stan Lee at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star in Los Angeles. Lee – the creator of many superheroes – died on Monday at 95. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Three months after her death and 46 years after she first recorded it, Aretha Franklin’s live gospel concert is coming to the big screen.

“Amazing Grace,” filmed in January 1972 when the Queen of Soul was just 29 years old, follows Franklin over two nights giving a concert at the New Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

Belting out gospel songs like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Climbing Higher Mountains” and an 11-minute version of “Amazing Grace,” Franklin brought churchgoers and guests (including Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger) to their feet.

But Franklin herself stands still, saying little in the 90-minute film.

“It’s a church service. It’s basically just our aunt standing there singing,” Sabrina Owens, Franklin’s niece and executor of her estate, told Reuters Television.

“She doesn’t have much conversation with anybody beyond some of the technical crews that’s around her. At some point she asked about a key and other point she asked about water, but she’s just basically standing there singing, giving her all, doing what she does best,” said Owens, who is also a producer on the film.

The service was released as an album in 1972, becoming a best-seller for Franklin. But the film languished for years over problems with synchronizing the visuals and the audio. Advances in technology made it possible to fix that issue and producer Alan Elliott, who took over the project some 10 years ago, got agreement from Franklin’s estate following the singer’s death in August to finally release the film.

Owens said Elliott told her about the film some three years ago. “I had never even heard about it and he sent me the link, and I was like, ‘Oh wow! This is really good.'”

“Amazing Grace” got its world premiere in New York on Monday, winning warm reviews, and will get a limited release in the city and in Los Angeles in late November and early December, making it eligible for Hollywood’s awards season.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper said the film is “a spine-tingling sensation” while the Hollywood Reporter called it “somewhat shapeless as a movie… But it does contain moments of bliss.”
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When Jude Law met with J.K. Rowling about portraying the younger version of Albus Dumbledore, the two discussed how to rebuild the fan-favorite character from the “Harry Potter” films.

Law spent an afternoon jotting down notes from Rowling who talked to him about Dumbledore’s life before becoming the world’s most powerful wizard. The British actor walked away with a vote of confidence from the famed author, alleviating some pressure on him.

“When the boss says ‘I like you,’ it gives you a little bit of comfort,” Law said of Rowling, screenwriter of the “Harry Potter” prequel series that is based on her 2001 book “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” “You can’t help but step into something like this, playing a part like this without feeling a sense of responsibility, a fear of letting someone down. But when the creator gives you the thumbs up, it’s a blessing.”

Dumbledore was a Hogwarts headmaster in the “Potter” franchise commonly known for his silver hair and long beard, sporting a loose robe. He was played by Michael Gambon after inheriting the role from the Richard Harris, who died in 2002.

Law’s youthful version enters in his mid-40s wearing a three-piece suit with short auburn hair in the sequel “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” which will be released Friday. It’s the second part of a five-film franchise that started with 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which grossed $813 million worldwide.

In “Grindelwald,” Law’s character works with his former student Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander to thwart the divisive wizard leader Gellert Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp. The film also stars Katherine Waterston, Zoe Kravitz and Ezra Miller.

For research, Law read several Harry Potter books that referenced Dumbledore, rather than solely watching the previous films featuring the elder character. With the help of Rowling and director David Yates, they wanted to build from the “ground up.”

“I was then given the opportunity to create him without feeling the pressure to mimic or impersonate or indeed hang the character too much on past representations by the other actors,” Law said. “There were certain traits I wanted to include. I loved his humor, the twinkle he had. He sees the good in almost everyone. He has a good heart. But I was able to layer him up a little more.”

Redmayne said the studio perfectly cast Law as Dumbledore, who doesn’t necessarily show his true powers and appears only in about six scenes — most of which are interactions with Scamander.

“Being a formidable, formidable actor with great gravitas and weight and yet at the same time, he has this kind of playful quality,” Redmayne said of Law. “And I’ll never forget our first scene, which was the first time we see each other in the film. I just saw his back, basically. And the way he turned around, it was instant. It was like in one look, he had managed to inhabit that. I hadn’t had any expectations about Dumbledore. But somehow it was solidified in one look.”

The sequel picks up after Grindelwald was captured by the Magical Congress of the United States of America with the aid of Newt at the end of the first film. But the villainous wizard finds a way to escape custody and assembles a group of pureblood wizards who support him to rule over all humans in 1920s Paris.

Law says the film opens the door to many dramatic paths and explores a more troubled time in Dumbledore’s life along with his once-close relationship with Grindelwald.

Rowling announced in 2007 that Dumbledore is gay after the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” the final book in the series. Some on social media criticized the author’s decision to unveil and tinker with the beloved character’s sexuality, but she has defended her actions.

Law assures the story is more focused on his character’s complicated relationship with Grindelwald from decades ago, rather than Dumbledore’s sexuality.

“His sexuality doesn’t define him, but the relationship with Grindelwald does,” Law said. “I believe, and (Rowling) would agree, that Albus had many intimate relationships. And the one he has is the love of his life, which is damaged. It becomes even poisonous and sends the two of them in opposite directions. He’s now in his middle age, around my age 45, and he’s still recovering from a relationship that he’s trying to work out from when he was 20. That’s a long time. I could barely remember what life was like when I was 20.”

The actor applauded Rowling for being fearless in creating “layered” and “diverse” characters such as Dumbledore in a fantasy world with “escapism and magic.”

“Isn’t it wonderful that we’re in a world where finally, finally a franchise like this has a great character and it doesn’t matter. But (Rowling) is brave enough to put it out there and say ‘Let’s do this.’ People should be able to handle this. They can. It’s as we should be.”

Law called his introduction as Dumbledore a good “warmup” as the franchise progresses. The actor has a few big films ahead on his plate including “Captain Marvel” and “Vox Lux,” but is looking forward to filming the third installment of “Fantastic Beasts” next summer.

It’ll give Law time to grow his beard.

“Finding all those pieces of him were fun” he said. “I eased into the part, but the line was drawn at the end of this one. It’s only going to get deeper.”
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When you think of the wives and girlfriends of criminals and mobsters in cinema and television, what or who comes to mind? Kay Adams? Elvira Hancock? Skyler White? They are either victims of a man’s misdeeds or end up becoming part of the problem. They might get fancy jewelry or a big house, but they are the ones who get shut out of the room. They get greedy. They get addicted. They get killed. And, as an unwritten rule, they are secondary.

It’s part of the reason why Steve McQueen’s “Widows ” is such a welcome cocktail: The wives are the ones in the spotlight. Their husbands, the criminals fetishized by so, so many movies, are the ones who die at the beginning.

In his first film since the Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave,” McQueen has gone in a very different direction with this Lynda La Plante adaptation. Widows” is a B-movie thriller with an all-star ensemble and a dusting of art house cred. McQueen co-wrote it with “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn and it is dark, relentlessly intense and crafted for mass audience appeal. And who better to stare down the camera, and every seedy character the city of Chicago has to offer, from corrupt legacy politicians (Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall) to truly terrifying gang muscle (“Get Out’s” Daniel Kaluuya), than the incomparable Viola Davis?

Davis plays Veronica Rawlins, a well-heeled teacher’s union representative who is married to a very powerful and very bad man, Harry Rawlins (Liam Neeson). Harry has done well in a corrupt Chicago – the passionate couple share a sleek high-rise Lake Shore Drive apartment, a driver and all the niceties that sort of real estate implies. But when he and his crew (including Jon Bernthal and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) get gunned down during a robbery gone wrong, Veronica is the one the aggrieved come after to collect.

​Unfortunately for her, the crew her late husband was stealing $2 million from are also a powerful, murderous and, now, angry, rival set of criminals. They’re led by Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) and his brother Jatemme (Kaluuya), and have until this point managed to keep the peace with Rawlins’ crew. Jamal is running for alderman of his South Side neighborhood that is a stronghold of a Chicago political dynasty, the Mulligans (Duvall and Farrell) that maintains property there only as a front – and the Mannings need the money to take them down. One on-the-nose, but startlingly effective, sequence, shows Jack Mulligan’s drive home from the projects to his own gilded, heavily armed part of the neighborhood. This is just context for what’s going on with Veronica and it will all come together eventually, with some good twists and turns in the mix.

Jamal threatens Veronica to collect what was stolen and she decides to step into Harry’s shoes and enlist the widows of his crew to help. There’s Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), a mother of two whose Quinceanera shop has been repossessed because of her late husband’s gambling habits, and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a woman who has been mistreated by everyone in her life, from her husband to her mother, who suggests she become a high-end sex worker. All are basically riffs on the typical film “victim wife,” only here they get to take charge and plan and execute the elaborate heist. Veronica is a tough boss and pushes Alice and Linda, and eventually Belle (Cynthia Erivo), to realize their own power as they amusingly use their skills, whether plain street savvy or just taking advantage of the fact that they are underestimated and overlooked simply by being women (a point that is much better made here than in “Ocean’s 8”).

The ensemble is a blast. Everyone gets their moment and you come away feeling like you really got to know most of them, but it is Davis and her unforgettably searing intensity (and killer wardrobe) who owns “Widows” from start to finish.

McQueen builds tension masterfully throughout, although is so sprawling that at times you’re left wondering whether this might have been better told as a limited television series. Then again, is it worth complaining about relative brevity when done this well?

“Widows,” a 20th Century Fox release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “violence, language throughout, and some sexual content/nudity.” Running time: 129 minutes. Three stars out of four. 
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The ‘Pink Legacy’, a diamond weighing just under 19 carats, fetched a record 50.375 million Swiss francs ($50 million) as it outshone all other auction lots at Christie’s in Geneva on Tuesday.

Graded “vivid”, the highest rating for a pink diamond’s color, the gem is internally pure with a rectangular cut, and mounted on a platinum ring.

Once owned by the Oppenheimer Family, who built De Beers into the world’s biggest diamond trader, the diamond had a pre-sale estimate of $30 to $50 million. The identity of the seller was not disclosed.

Vivid colored diamonds are the most strongly saturated gems, displaying the optimum hue of the stone. Most pink diamonds of this color weigh less than one carat, the auction house – which was holding its semi-annual jewellery sale – said.

Christie’s said the ‘Pink Legacy’ achieved a new per-carat record for a pink diamond, and was the second most expensive one ever sold at auction.

($1 = 1.0073 Swiss francs)
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For the second straight year, President Donald Trump will not be attending the Kennedy Center Honors celebrating cultural achievement.

Neither Trump nor first lady Melania Trump will be at the Dec. 2 event, Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s director of communications, said Tuesday.

Grisham also told The Associated Press it was “not likely” any new winners of the National Medal of Arts, National Humanities Medal or National Medal of Science would be announced before the end of the year. She said the remaining weeks of 2018 are “the busiest time of the year for the East Wing.”

Tuesday’s announcements continue the Trump administration’s unprecedented distance from the arts and science communities. No arts or humanities medals have been announced or handed out since September 2016, when Barack Obama was president — the longest gap by months since the awards were established in the mid-1980s. No science medals have been given since May 2016.

A former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, which oversees the nominating process for the arts medal, said he was dismayed.

“The current administration’s disregard for culture and scholarship, as well as presidential tradition, is an embarrassment,” Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA from 2003 to 2009, told the AP.

Other presidents, including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have missed Kennedy Center ceremonies. Trump is the first to miss them twice.

Grisham cited scheduling conflicts: Trump is scheduled to attend the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of the month. Had he come to the Kennedy Center, it’s unlikely he would have been warmly welcomed by at least some of the honorees, who include Cher and “Hamilton” playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, both sharp critics.

Last year, honoree Norman Lear said he would boycott the event if Trump was there. The White House then announced the president and first lady would not be going “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.”
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