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Home News News The EA boosts fish stocks in West Yorkshire
The EA boosts fish stocks in West Yorkshire
Environment Agency officers will be releasing thousands of fish into the River Aire this week to boost stocks in the region's rivers.
Around 2,000 grayling will be brought from the Environment Agency's fish farm in Nottinghamshire and released into the Aire at Bingley and Silsden Bridge on Wednesday, 28th March.
The grayling, which are around a year old, will be brought to their new homes on a six-wheeled fish transporter.
Over recent years there have been improvements in the number of grayling in the upper River Aire from Skipton to Bingley, and officers hope the restocking will further improve grayling populations and help develop a sustainable population in the river.
Fisheries technical officer Richard Atkinson said:
"Grayling is native to the River Aire and we want to see their numbers continue to increase in that part of the catchment. This river is the ideal place to release the fish and give a further boost to stocks of this important coarse fish."
The exercise is part of a three-year programme which targets rivers that would benefit most from restocking.
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The Week Ahead: Countdown to Prime Day, Latest jobs data
Check out what's happening in ecommerce as July kicks off.
Prime Day is a week away. (Illustration by The Current)
Good morning, we hope you had a great Independence Day. Welcome to a new quarter. Having fully settled into summer, here's what The Current is tracking in ecommerce and the economy over the next four days, and the coming month.
With the short summer week, there's less activity on the ecommerce calendar over the next few days. So here's a quick look at what's coming up in July:
Prime Day: Amazon's annual deals extravaganza is set for July 12-13. There are plenty of deals leading up to the day itself, and keep an eye out for events seeking to benefit from the halo effect, like Target's Deal Days. Check out our full primer for sellers.
Grow NY: Retail brands are gathering at the Knockdown Center in New York on July 19-20 for two days of talks, workshops and networking.
Digital Food and Beverage: On the CPG side, Austin is the destination for this ecommerce and digital marketing conference on July 25-26.
Jobs week
It's the first week of the month, so all eyes are on jobs. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is set to release the results of its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey on Wednesday, July 6. Then, on Friday, the BLS drops the monthly jobs report.
Last month showed a relatively strong jobs report, especially in the face of soothsaying about a recession. But retail was one exception, as stores shed 61,000 jobs amid a shift to consumer spending on experiences over shopping for goods. The data for June will offer a look at whether that shift was temporary, or on the way to being more lasting.
Stories we're following
Jassy's Year One: Protocol's Source Code newsletter notes this morning that today marks one year since Andy Jassy took over as Amazon CEO from Jeff Bezos. That date arrives amid executive shuffling on the company's vaunted S-team, and as a pivotal Prime Day approaches. What verdict will emerge on his first year in the top role?
What's next for Kohl's? After a long courtship, Kohl's announced Friday that it won't be moving ahead with talks for a sale to Vitamin Shoppe owner Franchise Group. So what's the path ahead for the retailer? Real estate sales could be in the near future, CNBC notes.
What's happening with TikTok ecommerce?: When it comes to integrating shopping into short-form videos, change seems to be afoot. A report from the Financial Times on Monday says social media darling TikTok is abandoning plans to expand livestream shopping in the US and UK. However, the ByteDance-owned company may not be abandoning social commerce altogether. Social Media Today reports that the company is testing a shopping feed in Indonesia. At a time when brands are seeing growth on TikTok, will such a feature move West, as well?
Trending in Economy
Consumers send mixed signals as confidence declines in January
US digital commerce topped $1 trillion for the first time in 2022
This Week in Commerce: Amazon and Hershey earnings, Fed decision
Consumer spending, inflation cool in December, as sentiment perks up
Walmart ups bid for marketplace growth with new-seller promotion
This Week in Commerce: NRF Big Show review; Colgate, J&J earnings
Here's a look at the week ahead for Jan. 23-27.
Inside the NRF Big Show. (Photo by The Current)
Welcome to a new week. We've got a quick look back at the NRF Big Show to kick things off. Then, this week brings plenty of opportunities to gain insight into the state of the consumer. Colgate Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Levi Strauss will report earnings. Meanwhile, new economic data will offer a look at GDP and inflation.
NRF Big Show takeaways
Industry events are taking a breather this week after the NRF Big Show and Winter Fancy Foods Show kicked off the tradeshow year with high energy. With this week providing a chance to reflect and catch up following all of the activity, we'll take a moment to share three takeaways from the NRF Big Show:
What does omnichannel mean now? The pandemic brought the spike in ecommerce, and last year featured the return to stores. Technology that connects the two is still called omnichannel, but a lot has changed over the last few years. Think: Googling "In stock near me," Buy Online, Pickup in Store. Building technology for in-person shopping that has digital touchpoints feels more important. Should we still call it omnichannel?
Profitability over growth. With a tougher economic environment expected this year, there's more priority on building loyalty with existing customers, and tightening up operations. We've had three years of swings and adjustment to huge changes. This year, there's an opportunity to pick which of the new approaches stick, and fine-tune to make them work for the long haul.
Composable commerce is everywhere. Retailers used to build custom ecommerce systems. Now, more technology is being built that allows them to choose the best pieces for their needs. Composable commerce is growing not only for customer-facing functions in the shopping experience, but also on the fulfillment and supply chain side. Leaders believe this technology must be built to allow for continuing change as new advances are developed.
The Current will continue to roll out interviews and analysis from the Big Show for the rest of January. Subscribe to The Daily Current newsletter to get the latest in your inbox.
Gross Domestic Product: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis releases the Q4 2022 growth rate of GDP, which is the top measure of economic activity. This includes consumer spending, and any growth or decline is a primary indicator of whether demand for goods is remaining strong. In Q3, GDP grew 3.2%. 8:30 a.m., Jan. 26
Durable Goods Orders: The U.S. Commerce Department releases data for December on manufacturer orders and shipments of goods that are meant to last three years or more. This is an indicator of demand for larger-ticket purchases. 8:30 a.m., Jan. 26
Personal Consumption Expenditures: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis releases data on consumer spending, savings and inflation for December 2022. This is the measure of inflation watched by the Federal Reserve and many economists.
Consumer Sentiment: The University of Michigan releases final data on consumer buying plans and economic expectations in January. In the initial reading, sentiment rose to its highest level since April as more people see inflation beginning to fall.
Tuesday, Jan. 24: 3M, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson
Wednesday, Jan. 25: Kimberly-Clark, Levi Strauss & Co.
Thurs., Jan 26: McCormick, Visa, Mastercard, Tractor Supply
Friday, Jan. 27: Colgate Palmolive
Latest from Economy
NRF: Valentine's Day spend to rise in 2023, online is top destination
Post-it, Sharpie makers announce layoffs
US holiday sales grew 5.3% in 2022, missing forecast: NRF
Is the US in a recession? Here are 15 indicators to watch
P&G acquires Mielle Organics; Forma bankruptcy; L'Oréal invests

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Nine-year-old Danny Lascala enjoys his plate of spaghetti at last year's Tustin Area Senior Center Pasta Fest.
There'll be oodles of noodles at the Tustin Area Senior Center on Saturday. The city of Tustin Parks and Recreation Department, and the Senior Advisory Board, are serving up dinner for Pasta Fest 2013. The event is open to the public.
With the purchase of a dinner ticket, the early bird feast will include choices of pastas, sauces, salads, refreshments and desserts. Guests will receive restaurant-style service.
Volunteers will be taking orders from tables, and the chefs du jour will be representatives from the City Council and the Parks and Recreation Department. Live entertainment will accompany dinner.
This is the second annual Pasta Fest. Last year, more than 230 people attended; this year organizers expect just as big a turnout. Sarah Randall, recreation coordinator for the senior center, said they're planning more activities to complement dinner.
"We're going to be doing more raffle gifts, and we've added a silent auction," she said.
Randall said guests are also welcome to bring wine to the fest.
All proceeds will go toward improving the Tustin Area Senior Center.


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Социальное моделирование — это область исследований, которая применяет вычислительные методы для изучения проблем в социальных науках. Исследуемые вопросы включают в себя проблемы вычислительного права, психологии, организационного поведения, социологии, политологии, экономики, антропологии, географии, инженерии, археологии и лингвистики.

Социальное моделирование направлено на преодоление разрыва между описательным методом, используемым в социальных науках, и формальным методом, используемым в естественных науках, путем смещения акцента на процессы/механизмы/поведение, которые строят социальную реальность. В социальном моделировании компьютеры поддерживают человеческую мыслительную деятельность, используя эти механизмы. Эта область исследует моделирование обществ как сложных нелинейных систем, которые трудно изучать с помощью классических математических моделей, основанных на уравнениях. Роберт Аксельрод рассматривает социальное моделирование как отдельный метод исследования, отличающийся как от дедуктивного, так и от индуктивного метода. Это генерация данных, которые могут быть проанализированы индуктивно, но исходящих из строго определенного набора правил, а не из непосредственных измерений. Таким образом, социальное моделирование подобно созданию искусственных обществ. Подход социального моделирования к социальным наукам продвигается и координируется ассоциациями, такими как ESSA.

История и развитие
История агентного моделирования восходит к теоретической машине фон Неймана, способной воспроизводить саму себя. Устройство, предложенное фон Нейманом, будет следовать точно детальным инструкциям по созданию копии самого себя. Эта концепция была затем усовершенствована математиком Станиславом Уламом. Улам предложил построить машину на бумаге, как набор ячеек на сетке. Эта идея заинтриговала фон Неймана, и он создал первое из устройств, позже названных клеточными автоматами. Еще одно усовершенствование внес математик Джон Конвей. Он сконструировал известную игру «Жизнь». В отличие от машины фон Неймана, игра Конвея действовала по простым правилам в виртуальном мире в пределах шахматной доски.

Рождение агент-ориентированной модели как модели социальных систем было в первую очередь вызвано компьютерным ученым Крейгом Рейнольдсом. Он попытался смоделировать реальность живых биологических агентов, искусственную жизнь — термин, придуманный Кристофером Лэнгтоном. Джошуа Эпштейн и Роберт Экстелл разработали первую крупномасштабную модель агента, Sugarscape, чтобы смоделировать и исследовать роль таких социальных явлений, как сезонные миграции, загрязнение окружающей среды, половое размножение, войны, заражение. Кэтлин Карли, президент-основатель Североамериканской ассоциации вычислительных социальных и организационных систем, основала журнал для социального моделирования применительно к организациям и сложным социально-техническим системам: Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory.

Исследователи Найджел Гилберт и Клаус Троицч создали первый учебник по социальному моделированию: Simulation for the Social Scientist (1999) и основали журнал — приложение к нему: Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. Ещё один исследователь, Рон Сан, разработал методы для обоснования агентного моделирования на моделях человеческого познания, известных как когнитивное социальное моделирование.

Темы исследований
Вот некоторые примеры тем, которые были исследованы с помощью социального моделирования:

 Социальные нормы: Роберт Аксельрод использовал моделирование для исследования основ морали; другие учёные моделировали возникновение норм с помощью мемов, а именно, как социальные нормы и эмоции могут регулировать друг друга.
 Социальные институты: исследование того, при каких условиях агентам удается координировать свои действия, моделирование работ Роберта Патнэма о гражданских традициях.
 Репутация: создание агентов на основе модели репутации Пьера Бурдьё (имидж, социальное уважение и престиж) и наблюдение за их поведением на виртуальном рынке.
 Передача знаний и социальные процессы науки: в журнале «Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation» есть специальный раздел на эту тему

Виды социального моделирования
Социальное моделирование может относиться к общему классу стратегий для понимания социальной динамики с использованием компьютеров для моделирования социальных систем. Оно позволяет более систематически рассматривать возможные результаты. Существует четыре основных типа социального моделирования:

 Моделирование на системном уровне
 Агент-ориентированное социальное моделирование
 Агентное моделирование
Социальное моделирование может подпадать под рубрику вычислительной социологии, которая является недавно разработанной отраслью социологии, использующей вычисления для анализа социальных явлений. Основная предпосылка вычислительной социологии заключается в использовании преимуществ компьютерного моделирования при построении социальных теорий. Она включает в себя понимание социальных агентов, взаимодействие между этими агентами и влияние этих взаимодействий на социальную совокупность. Хотя предмет и методология социальных наук отличаются от естественнонаучных или компьютерных, некоторые из подходов, используемых в современном социальном моделировании, происходят из таких областей, как физика и искусственный интеллект.

Моделирование на системном уровне
Моделирование на системном уровне — это самый старый уровень социального моделирования. Моделирование на системном уровне рассматривает ситуацию в целом. Этот теоретический взгляд на социальные ситуации использует широкий спектр информации для определения того, что должно произойти с обществом и его членами при наличии определенных переменных, какую реакцию они должны иметь на новую ситуацию. Навигация по этому теоретическому моделированию позволит исследователям разработать обоснованные идеи о том, что произойдет при некоторых конкретных переменных. Например, если бы НАСА проводило моделирование на системном уровне, это принесло бы пользу организации, предоставив экономически эффективный метод исследования для навигации по моделированию. Это позволяет исследователю ориентироваться в виртуальных возможностях данного моделирования и разрабатывать процедуры обеспечения безопасности, а также получать проверенные факты о том, как будет развиваться та или иная ситуация. Моделирование на системном уровне направлено на конкретное предсказание и передачу любого количества действий, поведения или возможностей почти любого человека, объекта, конструкции в системе с использованием большого набора уравнений. Модель — это представление конкретной вещи, начиная от объектов и людей до структур и продуктов, созданных с помощью математических уравнений и спроектированных с использованием компьютеров таким образом, что они могут стоять в качестве вышеупомянутых вещей в исследовании. Модели могут быть либо упрощенными, либо сложными, в зависимости от необходимости того или другого; однако модели предназначены  быть проще того, что они представляют, оставаясь реалистически похожими, чтобы их можно было точно использовать. Они построены с использованием набора данных, переведенных на вычислительные языки, которые позволяют им представлять рассматриваемую систему.

Агент-ориентированное социальное моделирование
Агент-ориентированное социальное моделирование состоит из моделирования различных обществ и размещения искусственных агентов в компьютерно-моделируемом обществе для наблюдения за их поведением. Из этих данных можно узнать о реакциях искусственных агентов и перевести их в результаты реальных агентов и симуляций. Три основные области — агентные вычисления, социальные науки и компьютерное моделирование.   Именно здесь разрабатываются и теоретизируются социальные явления. Основной целью агент-ориентированного социального моделирования является предоставление моделей и инструментов для агентного моделирования социальных явлений. С его помощью мы можем исследовать различные исходы для явлений, которые мы, возможно, не сможем увидеть в реальной жизни, и получить ценную информацию о результатах социальных явлений.

Агентное моделирование
Агентное моделирование — это система, в которой агенты взаимодействуют в совокупности независимо друг от друга. Каждый отдельный агент отвечает за различные формы поведения, которые приводят к коллективному поведению. Эти модели поведения в целом помогают определить работу сети. Оно фокусируется на человеческих социальных взаимодействиях и на том, как люди работают вместе и общаются друг с другом, не имея единогогруппового разума. Это по существу означает, что он имеет тенденцию сосредотачиваться на последствиях взаимодействий между людьми (агентами) в популяции. Исследователи могут лучше понять этот тип моделирования, используя динамику на меньшем, более локализованном уровне. Простые индивидуальные правила или действия могут привести к согласованному групповому поведению. Изменения в этих индивидуальных действиях могут повлиять на группу в любой выбранной популяции.

Агентное моделирование — это экспериментальный инструмент для теоретических исследований. Оно позволяет иметь дело с более сложными индивидуальными формами поведения, такими как адаптация. В целом, с помощью этого типа моделирования создатель, или исследователь, стремится моделировать поведение агентов и связь между ними, чтобы лучше понять, как эти индивидуальные взаимодействия влияют на всю популяцию. По сути, это способ моделирования и понимания различных глобальных закономерностей.

Агентное моделирование наиболее полезно для обеспечения моста между микро-и макроуровнями, что является значительной частью того, что изучает социология. Агентные модели наиболее подходят для изучения процессов, в которых отсутствует централизованная координация, включая возникновение институтов, которые, будучи однажды созданы, устанавливают порядок сверху вниз. Модели фокусируются на том, как простые и предсказуемые локальные взаимодействия порождают знакомые, но очень детализированные глобальные модели, такие как возникновение норм и участие в коллективных действиях. Майкл У. Мейси и Роберт Уиллер  обнаружили, что существуют две основные проблемы с агентным моделированием самоорганизации социальной структуры и возникновением социального порядка.

Возникающая структура: в этих моделях агенты меняют местоположение или поведение в ответ на социальные влияния или давление отбора. Агенты могут начать свою деятельность недифференцированно, а затем изменить местоположение или поведение, чтобы не стать другими или изолированными. Однако вместо того, чтобы создавать однородность, эти конформистские решения объединяются для создания глобальных моделей культурной дифференциации, стратификации и кластеризации в локальных сетях. Другие исследования обращают этот процесс вспять, начиная с гетерогенной популяции и заканчивая конвергенцией: координацией, диффузией и внезапным крахом норм, конвенций, инноваций и технологических стандартов.

Возникающий социальный порядок: эти исследования показывают, как эгоистическая адаптация может привести к успешному коллективному действию без альтруизма или глобального (сверху вниз) навязывания контроля. Ключевым выводом многочисленных исследований является то, что жизнеспособность доверия, сотрудничества и коллективных действий в решающей степени зависит от прочности взаимодействия.

Эти примеры просто показывают сложность нашей среды и то, что агентные модели предназначены для изучения минимальных условий, простейшего набора предположений о человеческом поведении, необходимых для возникновения данного социального явления на более высоком уровне организации.

Критика
С момента своего создания компьютеризированное социальное моделирование подвергалось некоторой критике в отношении его практичности и точности. Упрощение социального моделирования для формирования сложных моделей, иногда рассматривается как недостаток, поскольку использование довольно простых моделей для моделирования реальной жизни с помощью компьютеров не всегда является лучшим способом предсказать поведение. Основные тезисы критиков следующие:

 Симуляции, созданные человеком на основе математических интерфейсов, предсказывают человеческое поведение слишком простым способом, поскольку действия человека слишком сложны и непредсказуемы.
 Моделирование не может просветить исследователей относительно того, как люди взаимодействуют или ведут себя способами, не запрограммированными в их моделях. По этой причине область моделирования ограничена тем, что исследователи уже должны знать, что они собираются найти, поскольку они не могут обнаружить ничего, что они сами не поместили в модель.
Из-за сложности того, что измеряется, моделирование должно проводиться непредвзятым образом; однако, когда модель работает на заранее подготовленном наборе инструкций, закодированных в нее моделистом, предубеждения существуют почти повсеместно.
Очень трудно и часто непрактично пытаться связать выводы из абстрактного мира, создаваемого симуляцией, с нашим сложным обществом и всеми его вариациями.
Тем не менее, конкурирующие теории из социальных наук гораздо проще, чем те, которые достигаются с помощью моделирования, и поэтому страдают вышеупомянутыми недостатками гораздо сильнее. Теории в некоторых социальных науках имеют тенденцию быть линейными моделями, а не динамическими, и обычно выводятся из небольших лабораторных экспериментов (которые наиболее распространены в психологии, но редко в социологии, политологии, экономике и географии). Поведение популяций агентов в рамках этих моделей редко проверяется эмпирическими наблюдениями.

Примечания

Моделирование
Социология

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


MapInfo Exponare provides Themes (also called "Skins") at the bottom left corner of view port. It provides three new themes with each theme having different colors and skins. You can change colour of panels and controls with Themes option.
When the map is loaded for the first time, "Default" theme is applied to the Exponare Rest Public. You can select and apply different Themes from drop-down list.
i Theme is not applied to Welcome Admin and Log Out button at the top of the screen.


Valley Energy Specialists provides Commercial Insulation Solutions for South Texas. Give Valley Energy Specialists a call today and we can discuss what type of insulation would work best for your Rio Grande Valley commercial project.
Valley Energy Specialists provides insulation for commercial projects across South Texas. We have insulated apartment complexes, office buildings, warehouses, and restaurants in Hidalgo and Cameron county. We can also provide insulation solutions for malls, banks, grocery stores, schools, and stadiums. We apply Spray Foam Insulation to these types of buildings, and can also use thick fiberglass blankets as well if requested. Many South Texas commercial buildings choose close-cell spray foam insulation. It provides an R-value of 7 per inch, and adds structural support to the framing members of the building, making it 2 to 3 times as strong as the building would be framed by itself. The close-cell spray foam is about 2 pounds per square foot, so you can imagine how much stronger it makes the building. In addition, close-cell spray foam doesn't allow water to pass through it, so it is perfect for buildings that want to avoid water and moisture problems.
Contact us today and we can discuss what type of insulation would work for your Rio Grande Valley commercial project. We are happy to give you a free estimate.


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Q: Write specific class in hash with jQuery My target is to change the hash of my URL with the class name of the pressed element.
The problem is: my element has 3 css classes, but I  only need one and only a part of it.
What I already have:
$(".container > section > header").click(function(){
   $(this).parent().addClass("expand");
   window.location.hash = $(this).parent().attr('class');
});

The classname of the clicked element are: about-c, stand-by & expand. I only need the about of about-c. The stand-by and expand classes are on every element the same, only the whatever-c class is different (I only need to cut the -c part).
So how can I get only the *-c-class?

A: Try
fiddle Demo
window.location.hash =/(\w+)-c/.exec($(this).parent().attr('class'))[1];

RegExp
/(\w+)-c/

Match the character "/" literally «/»
Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «(\w+)»
   Match a single character that is a "word character" (letters, digits, etc.) «\w+»
      Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «+»
Match the characters "-c/" literally «-c/»

A: You can use regex to match the class attribute:
$(".container > section > header").click(function(){
   $(this).parent().addClass("expand");
   window.location.hash = /(\w+)-c/.exec($(this).parent().attr('class'))[1];
});

To explain: This takes the string of your class attribute:
"about-c stand-by expand"

Matches it against the regex: (\w+)-c and selects the first group matched, which in this case will be about.
Here is a jsFiddle which demonstrates the above.

A: $(this).parent().attr('class').match(/\S+(?=-c\s|-c$)/)[0];
// \S+          : non-whitespace one or more times
// (?=-c\s|-c$) : followed by "-c" and a whitespace or the end of the string

This part (?=-c\s|-c$) prevents from matching strings like "about-cab".

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


At Christ Lutheran School you will find an environment that encourages a love for learning and the development of Christian character. We offer a solid, Bible-based, Christian education with high academic standards.
Since 1993, our purpose has been to offer education and training to call students to commit their lives to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and to guide, direct, preserve, and strengthen them as learners, all in keeping with the Word and will of God.
Our primary objective rises from our strong desire to enter into the mission of Christ, so that teachers, children, and parents may know Jesus.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know Christ Lutheran School. We look forward to meeting you.


← Sylvanus Morley: hot or not?
A friend is going to Ireland to do some landscape painting. I'm like, amazing. Plus this is a guy who usually gets it with maps. One day I sit down at my desk which has under its top an Ordnance Survey map of the Dingle Peninsula.
And I'm like oh friend make sure you get the Ordnance Survey map for where you're going!
Look, the Ordnance Survey Ireland website doesn't have the smoothest experience.
Ordnance Survey Ireland is headquartered in the Phoenix Park.
The origins of the Ordnance Survey lie in the aftermath of the last Jacobite rising which was finally defeated by forces loyal to the government at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Prince William, Duke of Cumberland realised the British Army did not have a good map of the Scottish Highlands to find the whereabouts of Jacobite dissenters such as Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat so they could be put on trial.
They just missed him here.
You don't want to have a map that marks every stone row and holy well?
A map that shows the ancient druid stones and the ruined churches like something a wizard would have?


When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, it was clear that people in that state lost their minds. But apparently that was not enough. Now, the governor just signed a bill into law on Tuesday that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools. Really?
The new law prohibits classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Schools that fail to comply will lose their state funding.
A group of six UN human rights experts denounced the law on the grounds that people have the right to learn about their own culture and language. Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Education has also announced that it will no longer allow teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents to teach English. As the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Arizona suffers from a poor track record on tolerance.
Claiming that such programs encourage public school students to hate white people, Horne said "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it." Horne is right that it is just like the old South, but he's getting it twisted. Rather, the anti-ethnic studies bill—along with the anti-immigrant bill—makes Arizona look like those racist Jim Crow states that resisted civil rights for blacks and the desegregation of the public schools in the 1950s and 1960s.
Back then, white Southern segregationists fought against the rights of African-Americans to vote, go where they pleased, and enjoy the same quality education as whites. It was a fear of a black planet, so to speak. Today, racist conservative whites are carrying on the tradition of their Jim Crow predecessors. They are afraid they are losing their "way of life" to darker-skinned people and Spanish-speaking immigrants, even though brown people were here first. With a population that is 40 percent minority, and with more Latino babies born than white babies, Arizona is set to become a majority-minority state by 2015. Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico and California already reached that threshold.
Now, this is where ethnic studies really fits into the equation: A legacy of the civil rights movement, the ethnic studies movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, faculty who were protectors of the status quo predicted the end of Harvard and of civilization. Ethnic studies serves a valuable purpose, which is to challenge the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. When youth know that their people were a part of American history, they will excel in their studies. And we all benefit when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world. This is a matter of pride, not resentment.
As a high school exchange student in Japan, who later became an East Asian Studies major as an undergrad, I benefited from ethnic studies. While in college, I learned about the richness of Asian history and culture, and the Asian immigrant's contribution to the American experience. After graduating from college, I worked for a bank and an advertising agency in Tokyo, and later on did human rights work and studied international human rights law in the U.K. My exposure to the teachings of other cultures and societies allowed me to better appreciate the diversity of the U.S. It also made me an effective world citizen who can operate across cultures.
At a time when we should increase our diversity efforts and teach our children to live together and understand one another, Arizona is sending the wrong message. This is not, as Pat Buchanan once claimed, "a country built basically by white folks." By removing ethnic studies, Arizona spits in the face of the civil rights legacy, and tells people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.


Free Water Deficit is a topic covered in the Calculators.
"Free Water Deficit." Calculators, 2018. Pediatrics Central, peds.unboundmedicine.com/pedscentral/view/calculators/134021/all/Free_Water_Deficit.
Free Water Deficit. Calculators. 2018. https://peds.unboundmedicine.com/pedscentral/view/calculators/134021/all/Free_Water_Deficit. Accessed April 23, 2019.
Free Water Deficit [Internet]. In: Calculators. ; 2018. [cited 2019 April 23]. Available from: https://peds.unboundmedicine.com/pedscentral/view/calculators/134021/all/Free_Water_Deficit.


text:
Q: Google spreadsheet auto highlight In Google Drive, I have a huge Spreadsheet file.
6 people will be working on multiple rows.
There will be one column and in it each person will write their intials, example HJ, MZ etc.
When they write it, I want it to automatically highlight the entire row in a specific color
Example:

*

*MZ - RED

*HJ - BLUE

*FJ - GREEN

and so on.
How do I go about doing it?

A: I have done something similar with my script.
I have some restrictions on what to color, but I think you can easily see how to modify that to your purpose (coloring full row etc)
Just change my "comparison strings" from "Ready" etc to "MZ", and you should be golden
Code:
function colorRow(r){
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();

  //I only want to color the row starting from 2nd column, up to 6th
  var dataRange = sheet.getRange(r, 2, 1, 6);
  var data = dataRange.getValues();
  var row = data[0];

  //If empty, set white
  if(row[0] === ""){
    dataRange.setBackgroundRGB(255, 255, 255);

  //Rows needing checking, blue
  } else if(row[0] === "Check"){
    dataRange.setBackgroundRGB(153, 186, 247);

  //Completed green
  } else if(row[0] === "Ready"){
    dataRange.setBackgroundRGB(192, 255, 192);

  //Others red
  } else{
    dataRange.setBackgroundRGB(255, 192, 192);
  }
  SpreadsheetApp.flush();
}

//Called by system after every edit
function onEdit(event)
{
    colorRow(event.source.getActiveRange().getRowIndex());
}

Hope it helps!
Edit: Corrected a mistake in the onEdit() function.


text:
Afghanistan: Future of media is 'bleak' under Taliban, laments Afghan journalists
Kabul [Afghanistan], October 23 (ANI): The Afghan journalists are lamenting the fact that the future of media is 'bleak' under the Taliban rule.
Earlier also Taliban suicide bombers had killed a graphic designer, video editor, set decorator, three dubbing artists and a driver who worked for TOLO's entertainment wing, reported The Frontier Post.
After that, reporting on the deaths of their colleagues by suicide bombers, unidentified gunmen and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) became a routine as the Taliban, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) and unknown armed groups continued to target journalists.
But all that changed on August 15 after the Taliban took control of the war-ravaged nation. "The first thing we did was send the entire female staff home," Shabir Ahmadi of TOLO TV told Al Jazeera over the phone from Europe.
They immediately stopped broadcasting music and entertainment programmes. The Turkish serials, game shows, singing competitions, talk shows and sketch comedy shows that millions of people tuned into every evening came to a sudden end, said Ahmadi.
Ahmadi said he tried to work as a journalist in the Taliban's Islamic Emirate, but it quickly became clear that would be too difficult. There were reports of the Taliban torturing journalists, confiscating their equipment, beating them on the streets of main cities, jailing them for weeks at a time and instituting new restrictive media laws, reported The Frontier Post.
By September, Ahmadi was among hundreds of other Afghan journalists and media workers, including his TOLO colleagues, who had fled the country.
The exodus of journalists has led to serious questions about the future of the media in Afghanistan, where a free press was one of the few real gains to come out of 20 years of Western occupation, reported The Frontier Post.
Steven Butler, the Asia programme coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), says the current media situation in Afghanistan resembles that of Myanmar.
Like Afghanistan, Myanmar also experienced a recent political upheaval that saw the end of a controversial semi-democratic Western-supported government and led to an immediate flight of the country's media workers.
Butler fears that, like Myanmar, the future of Afghanistan's media is "bleak", but he understands why so many journalists left both the countries, operating in exile, reported The Frontier Post.
For Ahmadi, the flight of journalists is especially difficult to bear because the media was one industry where thousands of young people felt heard and challenged at the same time.
Butler says CPJ is trying to establish contacts with the Taliban to advocate for the rights of the Afghan reporters, but that has proven difficult so far.
He says the Islamic Emirate promises it will investigate matters, but has yet to present any actual findings.
That commitment to free media came under renewed scrutiny when CPJ reported the Taliban beat three journalists covering a small women's protest in one of the busiest areas of Kabul, reported The Frontier Post.
Once again, the organisation said the Taliban did not respond to their requests for comment on the incident, which came just a month after the group detained, beat and flogged journalists covering a similar demonstration.
Likewise, journalists also recalled being stopped by the Taliban from reporting from the northern province of Panjshir where an armed resistance against the group started after it took over Kabul.
In a recent report, the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC) described the killing of a journalist by unknown gunmen and seizures of two media outlets in the east and the north as examples of the Islamic Emirate failing to ensure the safety of the media.
Like CPJ, the AJSC also says the Taliban has failed to provide details of promised investigations into abuses against journalists, reported The Frontier Post. (ANI)


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What are mandatory information(s) regarding jet product uploads?
1) Every product must have least one combination : (Brand + BARCODE) or (Brand + ASIN) or (Brand + MPN).
Barcode: Must be one of the following values: GTIN-14 (14 digits), EAN (13 digits), ISBN-10 (10 digits), ISBN-13 (13 digits), UPC (1 2 digits).
MPN: Manufacturer Part number provided by the original manufacturer of the merchant SKU.
4) Product SKU should not contain slash("/"), for separation merchants can use dash ("-") instead of slash.


According to our Roc Nation sources, JayZ, extremely impressed at Tiwa's catalogue and profile, gave the go-ahead for the deal yesterday, put together by Roc Nation's Briant Biggs and Shawn Pecas. So expect BIG things from Tiwa this year!
Already, Tiwa is scheduled to perform at the Made in America concert this September, whose headliner will be Rihanna. Maybe a collaboration between both artistes is in the offing? We can only wait and see.
Roc Nation has offices in New York, London and Los Angeles, and is home to popular artistes such as Rihanna, Big Sean, DJ Khaled, among others.


text:
Scenes That I Love: The Ending of Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America
Posted on January 3, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman
(SPOILERS BELOW)
The final moments of Sergio Leone's epic 1984 gangster film, Once Upon A Time in America, are filed with questions and mysteries.
In 1968, who did Noodles (played by Robert De Niro) see standing outside of Max's mansion? When the garbage truck pulled up, did the mysterious man get in the truck or was he thrown in by some unseen force?
Why, in 1968, did Noodles see a car from the 1920s, one that was full of people who appeared to be celebrating the end of prohibition? Was the car really there, in 1968, or was it an element of Noodles's past as a gangster suddenly popping into his mind?
When we then see a young Noodles in an opium den, are we flashing back to the 1920s? Is Noodles remembering the past or is it possible that we've been in the 20s the whole time and all of the scenes set in 1968 were actually only a drug-induced dream?
Why, with men looking to kill him and all of his friends apparently dead, does Noodles suddenly smile at the end of the film? Is that sudden smile a result of the drugs or is there something else going on?
Once Upon A Time In America was Sergio Leone's final film. It's one that he spent decades trying to get made and, once it was finally produced, it was butchered and re-edited by a studio hacks who demanded that the film tell its story in a linear style. Leone was reportedly heart-broken by how his film was treated. Some have speculated that his disappointment may have even contributed to the heart attack that eventually killed him. It was only after Leone passed that his version of Once Upon A Time In America became widely available in the U.S. This enigmatic epic continues to spark debate. One thing that can't be denied is that it's a brilliant film.
As today is Leone's birthday, it only seems appropriate to share a scene that I love, the ending of Once Upon A Time In America.
Posted in Editorial, Scenes I Love | Tagged Film, Lisa Marie Bowman, movie, Once Upon A Time in America, review, Robert De Niro, Scene I Love, scene that I love, Scenes I Love, Scenes That I Love, Sergio Leone | Leave a comment
Miniseries Review: The Last Don II (dir by Graeme Clifford)
The Clericuzio saga continues and it's sillier than ever!
The Clericuzios were the Mob family who were first introduced in a Mario Puzo novel called The Last Don. In 1997, CBS turned The Last Don in a three-part miniseries. The ratings were good enough that, in 1999, the network gave the world a two-episode sequel, The Last Don II. The Last Don II was created without the input of Mario Puzo (who died shortly before the miniseries aired) but director Graeme Clifford returned, as did a few members of the cast.
For example, Danny Aiello briefly returns as the honorable but aging Don Domenico Clericuzio, talking about life in the old country and demanding to know why some of his children have yet to marry. Under his leadership, the Clericuzios are almost totally legit and they've even become powerful in Hollywood. Claudia De Lena (Michelle Burke) is in charge of the family's film studio and has recently become engaged to a film star named Dirk Von Schelburg (Andrew Jackson, trying to do an Arnie impersonation but coming across more like Jean-Claude Van Damme). Still, despite the fact that the Clericuzios are (slowly) abandoning organized crime, they haven't completely cut their ties. They still have enemies. And when Don Clericuzio dies after dancing at his final birthday party, those enemies are set to strike.
Who can run the Clericuzio family? Only one of the Don's son was actively involved in the underworld aspect of the organization and he's promptly (and, to be honest, hilariously) crushed when someone drops a shipping crate on him. Another Clericuzio son is gunned down at his legitimate business, proving that someone is trying to take out the entire family, regardless of whether they're a part of the family business or not. Georgio Clericuzio (David Marciano) goes to Paris and tires to convince Claudia's brother, Cross (Jason Gedrick), to return from exile to take things over. Cross refuses because he's happily married to the most famous actress in the world, the improbably named Athena Aquataine (Mo Kelso, replacing Daryl Hannah in the role). However, Athena is subsequently blown up by a bomb that was meant for Cross and that's all it takes to bring Cross back to America.
Now that Cross is in charge, he sets about to discover who, among the other Families, is targeting the Clericuzios. Helping him out with this is Billy D'Angelo (James Wilder), who we are told is the the most important of the Clericuzios capos, despite the fact that he was neither seen nor mentioned in the previous Last Don. It seems pretty obvious from the start that Billy is not to be trusted. Everyone who has ever seen The Godfather will automatically look at Billy and say, "There's your rat." But Cross is a remarkably naïve crime lord. He's apparently the only guy in the Mafia who has never seen a Mafia movie.
Of course, there's more going on than just Cross trying to figure out who is targeting the Clericuzio family. His unstable aunt, Rose Marie (Kirstie Alley), wants revenge for the murder of her son Dante but, fortunately, she's distracted by an affair with the family's priest (Jason Isaacs, of all people). Disgraced former studio exec Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl) is plotting against Claudia. And finally, Cross is falling in love with his stepdaughter's nanny (Patsy Kensit) despite the fact that it's kind of obvious that the nanny is actually an undercover FBI agent. Remember what I said about Cross being impossibly naïve?
The Last Don was a fairly silly miniseries. The Last Don 2 is even sillier but, for that every reason, it's also a bit more entertaining. If the first Last Don was held together by the rivalry between Cross and Dante, the sequel is held together by a nonstop flow of melodrama, overheated dialogue, and thoroughly unsubtle acting. It's as if the director looked at every over-the-top scene and said, "It's okay but can we turn things up just a little bit more?" As such, tt's not enough for Danny Aiello to merely make a cameo before his character dies. Instead, he has to deliver cryptic words of wisdom about family and and honor and he has to do one final, Zorbaesque dance of joy before his heart gives out. Meanwhile, Kirstie Alley really throws herself into playing the insane Rose Marie and whether she's seducing a priest or hoarsely yelling that she doesn't know how to ice skate, her performance is always more than strange enough to be watchable. Jason Isaacs, meanwhile, furrows his brow desperately as he tries to resist temptation. Patsy Kensit is the world's worst FBI agent while Kim Coates shows up as one of her colleagues. Conrad Dunn returns as Lia, the Sicilian assassin with the world's silliest mustache. Even the presence of Robert Wuhl is less of a problem in the sequel. With everyone chewing up every piece of scenery that they can get their hands on, it somehow makes sense that Robert Wuhl would show up and start yelling, "DON'T LAUGH AT ME!" Somehow, it even seems appropriate that Joe Mantegna receives a "special appearance" credit, even though his character pretty much only appears in the archival footage used during the opening credits. The Last Don II is just that type of miniseries.
Jason Gedrick and James Wilder are both good actors and they both do what they can with the roles of Cross and Billy. Unfortunately, both of them were seriously miscast in The Last Don 2. Neither one of them is the least bit Italian and Wilder was a bit too young to be convincing as the most feared capo in the family. Compared to the classic gangster films that inspired them, both The Last Don and its sequel feels more like gangster cosplay than an actual portrait of life as a member of the Cosa Nostra. Like the first Last Don, The Last Don II suffers from a lack of authenticity but it's just ludicrous enough to be fun.
Posted in TV, TV Review, TV Show | Tagged Danny Aiello, Graeme Clifford, James Wilder, Jason Gedrick, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Kirstie Alley, Lisa Marie Bowman, Michelle Burke, miniseries, Patsy Kensit, review, Robert Wuhl, show, television, The Last Don, The Last Don II, tv, TV Show | 1 Comment
Posted on January 3, 2022 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)
I do this once a year, and figured the first week of the year might be a better time for it than some random week in July or August or whatever — essentially the point here being, and I'm not too proud to admit it, to gin up a little interest in my Patreon site by offering everyone a sampling of the wares they'll find if they decide to join up. I update it three times weekly, and seriously, it does help make all this writing (somewhat) financially viable. Plus, we've got a great group of folks on there, the conversation in the comments section is usually pretty lively, and everyone whose a member is, at the risk of sounding corny, more than just a member, they're a friend. And couldn't we all do with more of those in life? Anyway, first up is a review I did a couple months back of editor Greg Sadowski's 2021 Fantagraphics collection SCOOP SCUTTLE AND HIS PALS : THE CRACKPOT COMICS OF BASIL WOVERTON, with a link to my Patreon at the end if you're interested in reading more stuff of this nature..
Most people are well aware that visionary cartoonist Basil Wolverton's legendary contributions to MAD were hardly his first go-'round with humor strips, but leave it to Wolverton scholar par excellence Greg Sadowski to curate a long-overdue collection of some of his most obscure and overlooked comedic creations of the 1940s and 1950s : goofball reporter Scoop Scuttle, magic-nosed swami Mystic Moot, idiot savant cowboy Bingbang Buster and his horse Hedy, and slapstick spacefarer Jumpin' Jupiter. To say that none of these characters made much by way of a lasting impression on the readership of the time is undoubtedly true, sure — but each in their own way presaged much of the madcap shenanigans to come from Wolverton's mind and pen, and their misadventures are sure to delight even the most jaded of modern readers.
Which, admittedly, is a camp that I all-too-frequently find myself numbered amongst, given my frankly robust reading schedule, yet even for those of us who've literally seen it all before, there's something about seeing how it was done earlier that feels like, if you'll forgive the cliche, a breath of fresh air. And talking of cliches —
OF COURSE they're a dime a dozen in these pages, but Wolverton's ability to poke good-natured fun at them remains an unbridled joy, even if the occasional ethnic stereotype rightly gives today's readers some pause. That being said, such offensive caricatures are in far shorter supply in Wolverton's work than they are in that of many of his contemporaries, and the persons, places, and things he draws are so uniformly outlandish that they don't especially stand out from what's more or less ALWAYS a crowded field of visual eccentricities. Simply stated, then, it's safe to say that these stories (and it should be stated for the record that Sadowski presents the printed exploits of all four characters in their entirety) were all constructed as FUN strips fist and foremost, and that they remain precisely that to this day.
Admittedly, there's no escaping the fact that these are "toned down" a notch compared to Wolverton's MAD work, but it's intriguing to see him feeling his way forward, so to speak, and it's also important to remember that he was working under undoubtedly tighter editorial standards. Even for all that, though, there's a tremendous amount of innovation on display in many of these strips, and not just in terms of the far-out sound effects that Sadowski draws particular attention to in his thoroughly absorbing introductory essay — indeed, the page layouts, intuitive flow of the action, outrageous character designs, and even some of the plot twists are all several levels above and beyond the standard humor comics fare of the era.
None of which means this isn't ultimately formulaic stuff, mind you — but a big part of Wolverton's genius always rested in his ability to thoroughly subvert expectation WITHIN a given formula; to give readers a combination of MORE than what they bargained for and EXACTLY what they bargained for simultaneously. In that respect, then, this necessarily "hemmed in" work could potentially be said to represent a MORE INGENIOUS distillation of the "Wolverton ethos," if you will, than later material where he was more free to let it all hang out.
Sure, ultimately I don't think there's any argument that SCOOP SCUTTLE AND HIS PALS will primarily be of interest to hard-core Wolverton aficionados above all (certainly the admirable amount of care that went into the flat-out amazing restoration process makes this an essential purchase even for collectors who might own a fair number of time-yellowed originals), but it's also this critic's considered opinion that Sadowski has managed to put together a collection that damn near ANYONE can take a tremendous amount of enjoyment from, be they crusty veteran or member of comics laity. Given what we've all been through over the past year and change, some extra laughter in our lives is likely to be welcomed by anyone and everyone, and if the source of that laughter is 70-80 years old, then hell, that's reason to be IMPRESSED as well as amused.
Okay, I hope you've enjoyed this first little sample offering. If you're interested in more, my Patreon costs as little as a dollar a month to join and can be found by heading over to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse
Posted in comic book | Tagged Basil Wolverton, Fantagraphics Books, Greg Sadowski, Scoop Scuttle And His Pals : The Crackpot Comics Of Basil Wolverton | 1 Comment
Battles of Chief Pontiac (1952, directed by Felix E. Feist)
Posted on January 3, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland
A decade before the start of the American Revolution, the British have managed to force the French out of the Great Lakes region. Fort Detroit has been established to oversee the area and provide protection from the Odawa tribe. Chief Pontiac (Lon Chaney, Jr.) believes that the Odawa and the White Man can live in peace but his beliefs are challenged when the British bring in a brutal German mercenary, Col. von Weber (Berry Kroeger), to patrol the land. After Col. von Weber and his soldiers massacre a village, Pontiac and the Odawa prepare for war.
Lt. Kent McIntire (Lex Barker, who was best known for playing the role of Tarzan in several movies) is a Colonial officer and a scout who is convinced that he can broker a peace between the Odawa and the British. Odawa respects and trusts McIntire but when von Weber tries to wipe the Odawa out by sending them small pox-infected blankets, Pontiac realizes that there can be no peace and he launches an attack on Fort Detroit.
Though hardly a great film, Battles of Chief Pontiac deserves some credit for its sympathetic portrayal of the Odawa People. From the start, the film makes clear that everything that the Pontiac does, he does out of self-defense. Even the most enthusiastic of his warriors, Hawkbill (Larry Chance), is not fighting because he wants to fight but he's fighting because it is evident that von Weber is not going to leave the Odawa any other choice. Though the small pox-ridden blankets were actually given to a different tribe, just the fact that Battles of Chief Pontiac acknowledges that it happened sets it apart from many other B-movies of the period. Though not a Native American himself, Lon Chaney, Jr. gives a surprisingly dignified performance as Pontiac and he doesn't allow the character to become a caricature. Again, that alone is enough to set Battles of Chief Pontiac apart from a lot of the other films of the period.
Battles of Chief Pontiac still cheats by laying the blame on the Hessians, the German mercenaries who, historically, were not even present in North America until they were hired by the British during the American Revolution, which happened ten years after Pontiac's siege of Fort Detroit. Berry Kroeger plays Von Weber as if he was a high-ranking Gestapo officer who somehow found himself in the 18th Century. By making Von Weber the villain, the film lets the British off the hook. The only mistakes that the British officers make in Battles of Chief Pontiac is that they trust a German and fail to listen to the advice of the all-American Lex Barker.
Battles of Chief Pontiac has a narrator who sounds like he would have been better suited for an educational filmstrip about hygiene and its epic ambitions are thwarted by its low-budget. There's a not very interesting love story between McIntire and a white woman (Helen Westcott) who is being held prisoner by the Odawa. The movie's intentions go a long way towards making up for the flaws but they can't do all the work. At least, Barker, Chaney, and Kroeger manage to keep thing interesting.
Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged Battles of Chief Pontiac, Berry Kroeger, Felix E. Feist, Helen Westcott, Larry Chance, Lex Barker, Lon Chaney Jr. | 1 Comment
What Could Have Been: The Godfather Part III
If only Tom Hagen had returned….
Recently, when asked about The Godfather Part III's somewhat lackluster reputation, director Francis Ford Coppola said that the biggest mistake that Paramount made was refusing to meet Robert Duvall's salary demands. While Duvall wasn't demanding to be paid as much as Al Pacino, he still felt that their salaries should be "comparable." Paramount, who had already gone through a lot of protracted negotiations to get Coppola, Pacino, and Diane Keaton to agree to do the film, disagreed. Originally, Coppola had planned for Duvall's Tom Hagen to be a major part of Godfather Part III. When Duvall refused to return, the film had to be reimagined.
Coppola's right. There's a lot that I do like about The Godfather Part III but it's undoubtedly a flawed film. (It's a good gangster film but it never feels like a worthy follow-up to the films that came before it.) And one of the major problems with the film is that Al Pacino's Michael Corleone doesn't have anyone with whom he can really confide. Kay (Diane Keaton) holds him at arm's length for most of the film. Connie (Talia Shire) is too busy scheming and plotting on her own. The rest of the family — Mary (Sofia Coppola), Vincent (Andy Garcia), and Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio) — are too young to truly understand the sins of the past. If Tom Hagen had been in the film, Michael would have had someone to whom he could relate. He would have had an equal. Hagen's absence is felt far more than Paramount expected it would be. They should have paid Duvall his five million.
(For his part, Duvall has defended his salary demands by saying that the only reason anyone was making Godfather Part III was for the money so why shouldn't he get paid? And again, Duvall has a point….)
Salud, you bastards.
Of course, for a long time, it seemed like The Godfather Part III would never be made. After The Godfather Part II swept the 1974 Academy Awards and proved wrong everyone who felt that it would fail, Paramount wanted a sequel. The only problem was that Coppola and Pacino both said they wouldn't return. And, after Coppola disappeared into the jungle for several years and reportedly went mad directing Apocalypse Now, Paramount wasn't quite sure that they wanted him to return either.
As unthinkable as it may seem now, it was originally quite probable that The Godfather Part III would have featured neither Pacino nor Coppola. Between 1975 and 1988, several different scripts and treatments were written for a possible Part III. Many of them opened with Michael either dying or already dead and his son, Anthony, taking over the family business. Several of the scripts imagined Sonny's son, Santino, waging war against Anthony and Tom Hagen (yep, Tom again) being forced to take a side. In the 70s, many of the scripts featured the Mafia working with the CIA to take out Castro and there were more than few that suggested the Corleones were responsible for the Kennedy assassinations. As the 70s gave way to the 80s, the scripts started to deal with the Corleones getting involved in the drug trade and going to war with the South American drug cartels. Think of it as The Godfather vs. Scarface, which would have actually been an intereting concept if they could have gotten Al Pacino to return as both Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. These scripts all reflected the concerns of the time in which they were written but, reportedly, none of them felt like a Godfather movie. The idea that The Godfather was meant to be the story of a family as much as a story about organized crime was frequently missed by those who tried to stop into the shoes of Coppola and Puzo.
Over the years, with Coppola saying that he wouldn't return under any circumstances, Paramount considered a lot of different directors as a successor. Among those who were considered over the years: Martin Scorsese, Costa-Gavras, James Bridges, Robert Benton, Michael Mann, Philip Kaufman, Alan Pakula, Warren Beatty, Sidney Lumet, Lewis Carlino, and Michael Cimino. (Scorsese seems like the obvious choice out of that list but, personally, I would love to see what Michael Mann would have done with the Corleones.) Sylvester Stallone was also apparently interested in both directing and playing the role of Anthony Corleone. (John Travolta, whom Stallone directed in Staying Alive, was another frequently mentioned Anthony.) It probably came closer to happening than most people are willing to admit.
Still, it wasn't until 1989 that The Godfather Part III finally went into production and, as Duvall said, it was all for the money. Paramount needed money. Pacino needed money. Coppola, after a string of flops and several financial setbacks, definitely needed the money. Coppola wanted to present the film as being an "epilogue" as opposed to a direct sequel. Paramount was probably correct when they argued that people don't pay money to watch epilogues. They pay money for sequels.
The eventual script, by Coppola and Mario Puzo, focused on the forbidden relationship between Sonny's illegitimate son, Vincent, and Michael's daughter, Mary. As written, Mary was supposed to be 23 years old and savvy about the ways of the Corleone family. Vincent, meanwhile, was a 31 year-old, out-of-control street criminal who, under Michael's tutelage, became a refined gangster over the course of the film. We all know that Vincent was eventually played by Andy Garcia while 18 year-old Sofia Coppola was cast, at the last minute, as Mary. For all the criticism that Francis Ford Coppola took for casting his inexperienced daughter in a role that she was too young for, just imagine the critical reaction if Coppola had followed Paramount's wishes and cast Madonna.
Yes, Madonna was Paramount's suggestion for Mary and Coppola was interested enough to film a screen test with her. Acting opposite of Madonna was Robert De Niro, who was interested in playing Vincent! Though De Niro was in his 40s, he argued that he could still pass for 31 and, having played Vito in Part II, De Niro was intrigued with the idea of playing his own grandson. However, the screen tests did not convince anyone. Both Madonna and De Niro were determined to be too old for the roles. De Niro went on to do Goodfellas and The Awakening instead.
The first choice for Vincent was reportedly Alec Baldwin but, for reasons unknown, Baldwin turned down the role. (Baldwin was also an early possibility for Henry Hill in Goodfellas.) Matt Dillon, Vincent Spano, Kevin Anderson, and Luke Perry all tested for the role. Val Kilmer, Nicolas Cage, Charlie Sheen, and Billy Zane were all considered at one point or another. The studio pushed Coppola to pick Tom Cruise. In the end, Coppola went with Andy Garcia. Garcia received his only Oscar nomination for playing Vincent and his performance is one of the highlights of the film. Still, Nicolas Cage as Vincent is a fascinating idea.
With Madonna out of the running, Coppola offered the role of Mary to Julia Roberts but Roberts was committed to Pretty Woman. A television actress named Rebecca Schaeffer was also highly considered but she was shot and killed by an obsessed fan on the same night that she received the script. Bridget Fonda, Linda Fiorentino, Laura San Giacomo, Annabella Sciorra, and Trini Alvarado were all considered but, in the end, Winona Ryder was selected for the role. Ryder flew out to Rome to do the film and there's some debate as to what happened next. Ryder has said that she arrived in Italy exhausted after having done two previous films back-to-back. Other reports have said that Ryder had a nervous breakdown in Rome. Either way, her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp, requested that she leave the film and return to the States and Ryder did just that.
Reportedly, after Ryder left the film, the role was again offered to Julia Roberts and Roberts again turned it down to focus on Pretty Woman. At the time, Sofia Coppola happened to be visiting her father in Rome. Sofia had done a little modeling and had appeared in a few of her father's films, always in small roles. She had also co-written her father's segment of New York Stories. Francis announced that Sofia would be playing Mary and, with the studio desperate for The Godfather Part III to be ready in time for a Christmas release in 1990, Paramount had little choice but to go along. The role was rewritten for Sofia. Mary became a far more innocent and naïve character, sometimes to the point of implausibility. Sofia, who is one of my favorite directors, has taken a lot of criticism for her performance over the years. Personally, I think she was pushed into a no-win situation. She was an inexperienced actress, stuck with a hastily rewritten character and all the worst lines. Plus, making out with Andy Garcia while her Dad watched from a few feet away had to be awkward. On the plus side, Sofia's hair was very pretty in Godfather Part III.
As for the rest of the cast, Joe Spinell was originally meant to return as Willi Cicci but Spinnel died before filming began. Cicci's character was transformed into Joey Zasa, New York's best-dressed gangster. Dennis Farina, Mickey Rourke, and John Turturro were all considered for Zasa. The role went to Joe Mantegna, who had a lot of fun with the part. I've always felt one of Part III's biggest mistakes was killing of Joey Zasa too early in the film. None of the film's other villain quite have Zasa's style.
Virginia Madsen and Diane Lane wee both considered for the role of Grace Hamilton, the photojournalist who has a memorable one night stand with Vincent. After it was decided that she wouldn't play Mary, Madonna was also briefly considered. In the end, the role went to another potential Mary, Bridget Fonda.
For Archbishop Gilday, the corrupt Vatican banker, many international stars were considered. Presumably, Gilday's nationality would have changed depending on who got the role. Vittorio Gassman, Phillipe Noiret, Gian Maria Volonte, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni, and Albert Finney were all possibilities before the role went to Donal Donnelly.
Many of those who were considered for the Archbishop were also considered for the role of Pope John Paul I. Vittorio Gassman, Yves Montand, and Michel Piccoli were all considered. The role went to Raf Vallone, who was also considered for the role of Don Vito in the first Godfather.
Finally, there was Don Altobello. Altobello was the latest former Corleone ally to try to betray Michael. Frank Sinatra, whose offense at being used as the model for Johnny Fontane in Part One was legendary, was reportedly interested in the role. Timothy Carey, who was considered for both Luca Brasi and Hyman Roth in Parts One and Two, was a possibility until he suffered a stroke. In the end, Coppola went with Eli Wallach.
As for Tom Hagen, he was gone. He was written out of the film and described as having died off-screen. However, Coppola brought in a replacement lawyer. B.J. Harrison was played by George Hamilton. Unfortunately, Harrison was never as close to Michael as Hagen had been. It's a shame because Godfather Part III definitely could have used a bit more George Hamilton.
Godfather Part III was released in December of 1990. It did well at the box office. It received a number of Oscar nominations. As a film, The Godfather Part III is heavily flawed but, when it works, it really does work. It may not live up to the standard set by the first two Godfathers but then again, what does? I recently watched Coppola's re-edit of Part Three, the Godfather Coda. It actually is an improvement. There aren't any added scenes but the new version does considerably tighten up the film's pace. The opera at the end no longer drags on forever. Godfather Part III may not be great but it's not terrible, either. It's better than it's reputation.
Still, it's hard not to wonder what could have been. If only Tom Hagen had come back….
Posted in Film, Film Review, Trivia | Tagged Film, Lisa Marie Bowman, movie, review, The Godfather Part III, Trivia | Leave a comment
Book Review: Monster: Living Off The Big Screen by John Gregory Dunne
First published in 1997, Monster is a memoir about working in Hollywood. It follows eight years in the life of John Gregory Dunne (who wrote the book) and his wife, Joan Didion. While Dunne (who passed in 2003) and Didion (who passed away a few weeks ago) were best-known as essayists and novelists, they also had a hand in writing a number of films. As such, it shouldn't be surprising that, along with being a portrait of Hollywood, Monster is also the story of the making of one particular film.
That said, Monster is not the story of the making of a great film.
It's also not the story of the making of a terrible film.
Instead, it's the story of the making of a thoroughly mediocre and forgettable film. The film in question is Up Close and Personal, which still pops up on HBO occasionally. Up Close and Personal tells the story of a self-righteous news producer — a gentleman with the laughable name of of Warren Justice — who finds and grooms an aspiring reporter named Tally (Michelle Pfeiffer). While Warren (played by Robert Redford) teaches her how to work the camera and deliver the news, they fall in love. Then Tally's career skyrockets, Warren's career goes downhill, and eventually Warren ends up dying. Boo hoo.
Monster tells the story of how Dunne and Didion were originally hired to adapt a biography of Jessica Savitch, a real-life anchorwoman who eventually got hooked on cocaine, who was physically abused by her mentor, and who eventually ended up dying in a car crash. Realizing that real life might be too depressing to generate a hit film, the executives at Disney instead decided that they wanted Dunne and Didion to turn Savitch's Hellish life story into a sentimental romance. The drug abuse was dropped. Savitch's death was abandoned. Her abusive boyfriend was transformed into the saintly character of — snicker — Warren Justice.
(Dunne actually devotes a good deal of space to explaining why they named the character Warren Justice. Warren was a good "everyman" name and Dunne was apparently under the belief that Justice was a common surname in the South because he knew someone from Florida whose last name was Justice. The logic is understandable, if flawed. I've lived in the South almost my entire life and I've never met anyone named Justice. Still, writers of Dunne and Didion's caliber should have known better than to try to get away with such an easily mocked name.)
For eight years, Dunne and Didion write and rewrite Up Close and Personal and, along the way, a large number of Hollywood figures are attached to the film. Ultimately, it's directed by a fellow named Jon Avent, who were told has a strong ego. Actually, the entire book is full of people who have strong egos. Scott Rudin, for example, is in the book, demanding that that Dunne and Didion focus on appealing to as wide an audience as possible. "It's about two movie stars," Rudin explains when Dunne worries that the film doesn't actually have anything to say.
While Up Close and Personal is going through the pains of production, Dunne and Didion work on a number of other studio films, few of which come to production and none of which sound like they would have been particularly good had they been produced. Ultimatum is a thriller about a terrorist plot. Dunne and Didion correctly realize that the title needs to be changed to something less generic but their proposed replacement, Ploot, sounds like the title for a film about a flatulent goblin. A bit more intriguing is their attempt to write a serious movie about aliens for the infamous producer Don Simpson. Simpson comes across as being savvy but unfocused, which is actually a pretty good description of just about everyone in the book. The Hollywood of Monster is a town and an industry controlled by former outsiders who are determined to reinvent themselves as tough guys.
And Dunne did a pretty good job of capturing the town. The book is written with a dry wit and, as acidic as many of the passages are, Dunne doesn't let himself off the hook. He's as open about his role in the making of a thoroughly forgettable film as he is about everyone else's role. There's little concern for art or higher truth to be found in Dunne's Hollywood. Instead, the entire town is a monster.
It's a good book and a memorable portrait of the American film industry in the 1990s.
Posted in Book, Book Review | Tagged Book, John Gregory Dunne, Lisa Marie Bowman, monster, review | 2 Comments
Here Are The 2021 Nominees Of The Chicago Indie Critics!
The Chicago Indie Critics have announced their nominees for the best of 2021! The winners will be announced on January 8th.
Personally, I like the fact that they give an award for both Best Independent Film and Best Studio Film. I sometimes think that the Oscars should do the same. Then I remember how the Oscars manage to screw up nearly every cool idea and I change my mind.
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM (budgets under $20 million)
BEST STUDIO FILM (budgets over $20 million)
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
THE SPARKS BROTHERS
Paul Thomas Anderson – LICORICE PIZZA
Kenneth Branagh – BELFAST
Jane Campion – THE POWER OF THE DOG
Pablo Larrain – SPENCER
Edson Oda – NINE DAYS
THE FRENCH DISPATCH – Wes Anderson
A HERO – Asghar Farhadi
LICORICE PIZZA – Wes Anderson
NINE DAYS – Edson Oda
PIG – Michael Sarnoski
CODA – Sian Heder
DRIVE MY CAR – Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
PASSING – Rebecca Hall
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Jane Campion
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH – Joel Coen
Nicolas Cage – PIG
Benedict Cumberbatch – THE POWER OF THE DOG
Andrew Garfield – TICK, TICK… BOOM!
Will Smith – KING RICHARD
Denzel Washington – THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
Jessica Chastain – THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE
Olivia Colman – THE LOST DAUGHTER
Alana Haim – LICORICE PIZZA
Emilia Jones – CODA
Kristen Stewart – SPENCER
Tessa Thompson – PASSING
Ben Affleck – THE LAST DUEL
Colman Domingo – ZOLA
Mike Faist – WEST SIDE STORY
Troy Kotsur – CODA
Kodi Smit-McPhee – THE POWER OF THE DOG
Jeffrey Wright – THE FRENCH DISPATCH
Ariana DeBose – WEST SIDE STORY
Kirsten Dunst – THE POWER OF THE DOG
Aunjanue Ellis – KING RICHARD
Marlee Matlin – CODA
Ruth Negga – PASSING
BEST MAKEUP
BEST MUSICAL SCORE
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Be Alive" – KING RICHARD
"Guns Go Bang" – THE HARDER THEY FALL
"Just Look Up" – DON'T LOOK UP
"No Time to Die" – NO TIME TO DIE
"So May We Start" – ANNETTE
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
BEST STUNTS
TRAILBLAZER AWARD
Honors the work of an artist who truly pushes the boundaries of the medium in terms of form and content
Paul Thomas Anderson, filmmaker
Rebecca Hall, filmmaker
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, filmmaker
Sian Heder, filmmaker
Lin-Manuel Miranda, filmmaker
IMPACT AWARD
Given to a person whose work has had a positive impact on society
Rebecca Fons, Director of Programming – Gene Siskel Film Center
Ryan Oestreich, General Manager – Music Box Theatre
Steven Spielberg, filmmaker
Jill Wheeler, Director of Publicity and Promotions – Allied Global Marketing
Posted in Film | Tagged Academy Award, Academy Awards, award, awards, Chicago Indie Critics, CIC, Film, Films, Lisa Marie Bowman, movie, Movies, Oscar, Oscars | Leave a comment
Film Review: Monster (dir by Patty Jenkins)
Aileen Wurnos was often described as being America's first female serial killer.
Wurnos was born in 1956, in Rochester, Michigan. From the start, her life was a mess. Her father was both a diagnosed schizophernic and a sex offender who was incarcerated when Aileen was born and who hung himself in his jail cell when Aileen was 13. (Aileen reportedly never met him.) Aileeen's mother abandoned her children when Aileen was four, leaving Aileen and her younger brother to be raised by their alcoholic grandparents. Aileen later said that she was regularly beaten by both grandparents and sexually abused by her grandfather. Aileen also said that she spent her youth dreaming of being famous and being loved, like Marilyn Monroe.
By the time she was eleven, Aileen was already having sex in return for food, cigarettes, and drugs. She was pregnant at 14, which she later said was the result of being raped by a friend of her grandfather's. She gave up her son for adoption and dropped out of school when she was 15, the same year that her grandmother died of live failure. Kicked out of the house shortly afterwards, Aileen survived through sex work and lived a semi-nomadic existence. While other people her age were starting high school and looking forward to the future, Aileen was living in the woods and going for days without food.
Aileen Wurnos and her husband
By 1976, she had hitchhiked her way down to Florida and her life briefly seemed to turn around when she met and married a wealthy 69 year-old man named Lewis Fell. Fell was president of a yacht club and prominent enough that his marriage to Aileen was announced in the society pages. That marriage didn't last, however. Aileen was arrested and served with a restraining order for reportedly beating Fell in much the same way that she later said her grandfather beat her. They were divorced within weeks and, for the next 13 years, Aileen's life consisted of one arrest after another. She returned to sex work, hitchhiking on the highways. With her looks fading due to her lifestyle, Aileen resorted to carrying around a picture of her adopted sister's children, showing it to potential customers and telling them that she needed money so that she could go to Miami and be with them, in an attempt to play on her customer's sympathy. Wurnos was repeatedly raped and beaten by the men who picked her up. By the time she came to fame, she was suffering from PTSD and, in her own words, hated the world and men especially.
Wurnos shot and killed at least seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990. At her trial, she claimed that every shooting was self-defense. She said that she had been raped and nearly killed by her first victim, who had previously be arrested for rape. She went on to say that all of her subsequent victims had been planning on raping but sh shot them first. Once she was on death row and waiting to be executed, she changed her story several times and said that only the first of the shootings was in self-defense and that the rest were simple robberies. The men, she explained, picked her up. She took their money and then she shot them because she didn't want them reporting her to the police. Of course, she then later told documentarian Nick Broomfield that all of the killings actually were self-defense but that she changed her story because she hated Death Row and she was eager to die. There were a lot of stories when it came to Wurnos and determining what was true was often difficult.
That said, while Wurnos was undoubtedly a female serial killer, I doubt that she was our first. It depends on what you consider a serial killer to be, with some FBI profilers claiming that Wurnos was unique in that she eventually grew to enjoy killing and that she set out each night looking for someone to kill. That said, throughout history, there have been stories about women who married and murdered multiple men, the infamous black widows. Between 1884 and 1908, Belle Gunness murdered at least 14 people in Illinois and Minnesota. Working with her boyfriend, Martha Beck murdered an estimated 20 people in the late 40s. If so inclined, one could go all the way back to ancient Rome and read about the poisoner Lucasta, whose victims reportedly included at least one emperor.
So, no, Aileen Wurnos was not the first female serial killer but she was the first one to come to prominence after the term was coined. She was the first well-known female serial killer of the post-Ted Bundy era. And because she also committed her crimes at the dawn of the 24-hour media cycle, she achieved a level of fame that was denied to Gunness, Beck, and even Lucasta. Aileen held press conferences as she waited for her execution date. She made the news by alternatively praising and cursing the people who had arrested her and sent her to Death Row. She yelled at judges and threatened reporters. She was, for lack of a better term, good television. She became an icon to some, a sex worker who turned the tables on the potential killers who picked her up. She was also the subject of two documentaries from Nick Broomfield.
That was how I first found out about her. 2003's Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer used to air on HBO frequently. The film followed the final days of Wurnos's life and featured an interview with her in which she went from being surprisingly lucid and articulate to being frighteningly unhinged. While a sympathetic Broomfield tried to get her to discuss the circumstances that led to her committing the murders, Wurnos ranted about how the prison was using "sonic pressure" to control her mind. In 2002, when Wurnos was executed, her last words were to compare herself to the "mother ship" from Independence Day and to promise that she would return. With her wild eyes, rotting teeth, and unpredictable anger, Wurnos was frightening but, at the same time, there were brief moments of clarity where Wurnos seemed to understand the gravity of both what she had done and her current situation.
Charlize Theron as Aileen Wurnos
The same year that Broomfield released his documentary and a year after Wurnos was executed, a film called Monster was released. The feature directorial debut of Petty Jenkins, Monster starred Charlize Theron as Aileen Wurnos. Theron, who also signed on as a co-producer, would win her first Oscar for her performance as Wurnos and, indeed, when the film was first released, the majority of the attention centered on how the glamorous Theron transformed herself into the not-so glamorous Aileen Wurnos. Theron famously gained weight and wore prosthetic teeth in order to resemble Wurnos but, as anyone who has seen Broomfield's documentaries can tell you, she also captured Wurnos's odd speech patterns and her jittery physical movements. Theron perfectly recreated Wurnos's trademark wide smile, which somehow managed to be both vulnerable and menacing at the same time. Theron deserved the praise that she got for her performance and she certainly deserved to win that Oscar. And yet, so much attention was paid to Theron's performance and her physical transformation, that the overall film itself was a bit overshadowed. Along with being one of the saddest films ever made, Monster is a portrait of life on the fringes and of existence in the shadows of conventional American society.
The film opens with Wurnos siting underneath a highway overpass and staring down at a loaded gun, debating whether or not she should just end it all. Occasionally, she provides narration, discussing how she eventually came to find herself homeless and struggling to survive. Her narration frequently switches from being insightful and darkly comedic to being angry and bitter, often in the same sentence. Deciding not to kill herself, she instead goes to a gay bar when she meets another outsider, Selby Wall (Christina Ricci). Selby awkwardly flirts, telling Aileen that she's the most beautiful woman in the bar. Aileen replies that she's "not into women." (Of course, she also lies and claims that she's only in the bar because her truck broke down and she's just waiting for a ride.) Yet, before long, Selby and Aileen are in love.
Selby was a heavily fictionalized version of Aileen's real girlfriend, who didn't want to have anything to do with Monster and who requested that her real name not be used in the film. In the film's reimagining of the story, Selby has been exiled to Florida from Ohio, rejected by her religious father. Selby lives with her homophobic aunt but yearns for escape. That's what Aileen provides for her and, to an extent, Selby provides the same thing to Aileen. There's an unexpected sweetness to the early scenes between Aileen and Selby, albeit a sweetness that it continually undercut by the fact that we know we're watching a movie about a serial killer. We watch as they go roller skating together and as they share their first kiss afterwards. We watch as they run off together and as they get their first place together and yet, at the same time, we also watch as Selby pressures Aileen to continue "hooking" so that Aileen will have enough money to support the two of them. As played by Ricci, Selby is a character about whom many viewers will have mixed feelings. When she first appears, it's hard not to have sympathy for her. She seems to be a naïve outsider. But, as the film continues, she sometimes reveals herself to be just as manipulative as Aileen. Selby may claim to be shocked when she discovers that Aileen has been killing and robbing the men who pick her up but, just like Aileen, we don't quite buy it. Selby knew what was going on, even if she wasn't willing to admit it to herself.
In the film, Aileen's first murder is presented as having been committed in self-defense. The man is a rapist and a sadist and was clearly planning to kill Aileen once he was done with her. Again, as portrayed in both the film and Wurnos's version of events, he unquestionably got what he deserved. With one notable exception, Aileen's subsequent murders are presented a bit more ambiguously. The majority of the men that Aileen meets are threatening, even if she shoots most of them before they get a chance to try anything. One can understand why some felt that the film was a bit too sympathetic to Aileen while, at the same time, also acknowledging that the men who would pick up a hitchhiker and expect sex in return are not exactly going to be the greatest group of guys.
Only Aileen's final victim is presented as being a sympathetic figure. Played by the great Scott Wilson, he picks up Aileen just to get her out of the rain, refuses her offer of sex, and says that he and his wife would be willing to help her get to wherever she needs to go. He picks Aileen up for her own safety but, when Aileen tries to get out of the car, he sees her gun and Aileen kills him to keep him quiet. It's a powerful scene, brilliantly acted by both Theron and Wilson and it's hard to watch. (It's also debatable whether or not it actually happened, which is the danger when it comes to making a movie about someone like Aileen Wurnos.) It's this scene that shows how far Wurnos has gone. "You don't need to do this," he tells her and Wurnos knows that he's right but, by this point, she's beyond going back.
The only other truly and unconditionally kind character in the film is Thomas (Bruce Dern), a former biker who allows Aileen to keep her things in his storage locker and who is perhaps the only character to really care about Aileen as a human being. (Even Selby mostly views Aileen as a way to escape her current life.) Thomas is a Vietnam vet, one who suffers from PTSD and who, as a result, understands Aileen's anger and mood swings. Dern doesn't get a lot of screen time but he's a welcome presence whenever he shows up. In the end, though, Aileen knows that even Thomas's kindness can't save her from what's going to happen.
As I said before, it's a sad film. It's always watchable because Theron, Ricci, and Dern all give such good performances but it's still a film that'll leave you shaken. It's a trip to the fringes, the corners of existence where there are no exits beyond death. Those who have criticized the film for taking Wurnos at her word do have a point but, at the same time, Theron is often as frightening as she is sympathetic. The viewer may understand why Wurnos does what she does but they still would not want Wurnos anywhere near them. I imagine that, for every viewer who sympathizes with Wurnos, an equal number will breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that Wurnos was subsequently executed by the state of Florida. Myself, I've always been against the death penalty, regardless of who is sitting on death row or what their motives may have been. At the same time, I can understand why others support it. It's a frightening world and the death penalty allows people to feel that there are consequences for committing the worst of crimes.
Monster was a critical and, somewhat surprisingly, a commercial hit. Theron won an Oscar and proved herself to be a serious actress. (One doubts Theron would have ever played Furiosa if she hadn't first played Aileen Wurnos.) Though Patty Jenkins were struggle to get several other projects going, it wasn't until 2017 that she would make a second film. That film, of course, would be Wonder Woman, a film that was as joyous as Monster was dark.
Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged Bruce Dern, Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Film, Lisa Marie Bowman, monster, movie, Patty Jenkins, review, Scott Wilson | 3 Comments
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Sergio Leone Edition
Sergio Leone (1929 — 1989)
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
93 years ago today, Sergio Leone was born in Rome, Italy. The son of actor/screenwriter Vincenzo Leone and silent actress Edvige Valcarenghi, Sergio was born into the Italian film industry. He began his career in the post-war rebuilding period, working as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica and, as an assistant director, for American films that were shot in Italy. (Albeit uncredited, he worked on two Oscar-nominated Biblical epics, Quo Vadis and Ben-Hur.)
After making his directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes, Leone went on to direct the films that would change the face of international cinema. Though he was hardly the first director of Spaghetti westerns, he was was the first to achieve far-reaching acclaim. With the Dollars Trilogy, he made Clint Eastwood a star and Eastwood has often said that the majority of what he knows about directing, he learned from working with Leone and later Don Siegel. Leone went on to direct the brilliant Once Upon A Time In The West and Once Upon A Time in America, two epic visions of American history that, sadly, were not initially treated well by their distributors.
Though Leone is only credited with directing eight films, his influence cannot be underestimated. As both a visual artist and a cultural and political commentator, his films continue to influence directors to this day.
For that reason, it's time for….
4 Shots From 4 Sergio Leone Films
For A Few Dollars More (1965, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Massimo Dallamano)
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)
Once Upon A Time In The West (1968, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984, dir by Sergio Leone, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)
Posted in 4 Shots From 4 Films, Film | Tagged 4 Shots From 4 Films, Films, For A Few Dollars More, Lisa Marie Bowman, Massimo Dallamano, Movies, Once Upon A Time in America, Once Upon A Time In the West, Sergio Leone, The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Tonino Delli Colli | Leave a comment
Artwork of the Day: The Girl With The Long Green Heart (Artist Unknown)
Posted on January 3, 2022 by Dazzling Erin
Artist Unknown
This cover is from 1965. The identity of the artist responsible is not known but if your heart is turning green, call a doctor.
Posted in Art, Artwork of the Day | 1 Comment