LOS ANGELES — Jimmy Butler finished with 26 points and eight assists on Wednesday as the Minnesota Timberwolves defeated struggling Oklahoma City, 104-88, handing the Thunder their third consecutive loss.
Center Karl-Anthony Towns tallied 18 points and 12 assists for the Timberwolves who are playing some of their best basketball of the season and have three straight resounding home wins in a row.
“When we start to compete on the defensive end like that we are tough to beat,” said Butler.
Butler, who is in his first season with Minnesota after coming over from the Chicago Bulls, said he is trying to be one of the veteran leaders on a young team.
“Last year this team didn’t understand how important every possession is,” he said.
Andrew Wiggins finished with 19 points in 42 minutes of playing time for the Timberwolves.
Thunder star Russell Westbrook had a game-high 38 points and 10 rebounds but he didn’t get much help from his supporting cast. Carmelo Anthony continues to struggle with his new team as he finished with 15 points and one rebound.
Paul George was the only other Thunder player in double figures with 13 points as Oklahoma City has lost five of their last seven games.
The loss drops the Thunder to 22-20 on the season and into seventh place as they sunk below Portland and Denver in the Western Conference standings.
Minnesota is on the rise having beaten New Orleans, Cleveland and Oklahoma City in recent home games thanks to their improving defense and consistently solid offense.
Minnesota had won seven of eight games before a disappointing East Coast road trip featured losses at Brooklyn and Boston.
Then the Wolves beat New Orleans at home and led by as many as 34 points, a season-high mark to that point.
Hosting LeBron James and Cleveland on Monday, Minnesota dominated play, led by as many as 41 points on its way to a 127-99 victory. — AFP
PIRATE ATTACKS worldwide fell to their lowest level in over two decades last year, the International Maritime Bureau said, but more than doubled in the Philippines while African trouble spots remained dangerous. Twenty-two incidents were recorded in the Philippines, a jump from 10 in 2016, with most of them low-level attacks on vessels anchored at Manila and Batangas, south of the capital, the country’s two busiest ports. There were also kidnappings of crew in the southern Philippines, the bureau said. Islamic militants have been increasingly targeting seafarers in the strife-torn region, abducting them and demanding ransoms for their release. — AFP
MEXICO CITY — Mexico will leave the NAFTA negotiating table if US President Donald J. Trump decides to trigger a 6-month process to withdraw from the trade pact, three Mexican sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Wednesday.
Reuters reported earlier in the day that Canada was increasingly convinced that Mr. Trump would soon announce the United States intends to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), sending the Canadian and Mexican currencies lower and hurting stocks across the continent.
“I think it’s indisputable that if Trump announces a US withdrawal from NAFTA, well at that moment the negotiations stop,” said Raul Urteaga, head of international trade for Mexico’s agriculture ministry.
The two other sources, who are involved in the trade talks and asked not to be named, said that Mexico remains firm on its position to get up and leave from the negotiating table if Mr. Trump goes through with the move.
While a NAFTA termination letter would start the six-month exit clock ticking, the United States would not be legally bound to quit NAFTA once it expires. Washington could use the move as the ultimate sleight of hand as it seeks to gain leverage over Canada and Mexico in talks to update the 24-year-old trade pact.
Mr. Trump has long called the 1994 treaty a bad deal that hurts American workers. His negotiating team has set proposals that have alarmed their Canadian and Mexican counterparts.
Among the most divisive are plans to establish rules of origin for NAFTA goods that would set minimum levels of US content for autos, a sunset clause that would terminate the trade deal if it is not renegotiated every five years, and ending the so-called Chapter 19 dispute mechanism.
Though observers in Canada and Mexico have become increasingly gloomy about the upcoming Jan. 23-28 Montreal round in recent weeks, some took heart from a recent speech made by Mr. Trump to farmers this week in which he held back from provocative comments about the trade deal.
Mr. Urteaga, who was a member of Mexico’s original NAFTA negotiating team in the 1990s, said that Mr. Trump’s speech was an “interesting signal.” “No news, means good news sometimes.” — Reuters
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood is voicing its outrage over reports that Mark Wahlberg was paid 1,500 times more than Michelle Williams to reshoot scenes for kidnap drama All the Money in the World.
Ridley Scott partially re-shot his latest movie after Kevin Spacey was fired due to sexual misconduct allegations, with both Wahlberg and Williams called back to act opposite Spacey’s replacement, Christopher Plummer.
But Williams, according to USA Today, earned a daily allowance of $80 for her work — amounting to under $1,000 in total and less than 0.07% of the $1.5 million that Wahlberg earned.
“Please go see Michelle’s performance in All the Money in the World. She’s a brilliant Oscar-nominated Golden Globe-winning actress,” raged an indignant Jessica Chastain on Twitter.
“She has been in the industry for 20 years. She deserves more than one percent of her male co-star’s salary.”
Actress and activist Amber Tamblyn described the reported pay gap as “totally unacceptable” while veteran producer Judd Apatow said it was “so messed up that it is almost hard to believe.”
Golden Globe-winning actress Mia Farrow said the disparity was “outrageously unfair,” adding that she was “never, ever paid even a quarter of what the male lead received.”
Williams previously told USA Today she appreciated efforts to reshoot the film, which recounts the kidnapping of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty’s grandson, adding that “they could have my salary.”
Scott said the actors, including Williams and Wahlberg, turned up “for nothing” for the 10-day November re-shoot but USA Today reported that Wahlberg’s agency later renegotiated his “hefty fee.”
At Sunday’s Golden Globes — where All the Money in the World came home empty-handed despite three nominations — male and female actors wore black to highlight sexual misconduct and also to promote gender parity.
The protest was organized in part by the newly launched Time’s Up campaign led by female stars including Williams to address gender discrimination in Hollywood and other industries.
As her date, Williams brought civil rights activist Tarana Burke, the creator in 2006 of the “Me Too” movement to raise awareness of the ubiquity of sexual abuse. The phrase was co-opted by actress Alyssa Milano last year for the #MeToo social media campaign against sexual misconduct in Hollywood.
Representatives for Wahlberg and Williams did not immediately respond to requests for comment. — AFP
A plot is afoot to stop the holding of the 2019 midterm elections.
But that already base scheme doesn’t stop there.
Once constitutional amendments are approved, or a new constitution is in place, during the transition period to a federal form of government the masterminds also want the terms of the elected government officials who are currently in office, particularly congressmen, senators, and the president, extended for as long as 10 years.
If the plotters had their way, not only would there be no elections in 2019; there won’t be any in 2022 either, when the six-year term of office of President Rodrigo Duterte is supposed to end. Forget their made-to-order assurances that they won’t stay beyond 2022. Between this year and 2028, or even beyond, the country would very likely still have the same self-aggrandizing sycophants that infest the present Congress as ersatz, or pretend, lawmakers. Mr. Duterte won’t have to abolish that body. Legislative power would in reality be in his hands.
These so-called lawmakers would continue to constitute his rubber-stamp legislature, since he would still have the numbers he has today.
That would hardly be any different from the present situation in which whatever Mr. Duterte wants, he gets from Congress, thanks to the PDP-Laban Party’s “supermajority” in both houses.
However, Mr. Duterte and his fellow plotters, in addition to being in command over this country and its people for ten years or even longer, would also have no opposition and no checks to their power, because they would be exercising it during the transition to the shift from the present unitary form of government to a federal one.
During that period, Mr. Duterte would assume both executive and legislative powers, and, depending on the transitional provisions of the new Constitution his cronies are rushing to put together for rapid citizen approval through a plebiscite within this year, would also have the prerogative to abolish any government office and to fire any official he and his cohorts don’t like, to create new agencies including commissions, and appoint judges and other fired officials’ replacements. He can also suspend the writ of habeas corpus, arrest whomever he likes, and curtail free expression and press freedom. What would be in place in fact if not in name is the very same “revolutionary government” Mr. Duterte has been so obsessed with he can’t stop talking about its intoxicating promise of absolute power.
This isn’t just another conspiracy theory that’s unlikely to be in process and to have any chance of realization.
Mr. Duterte’s flunkies in both houses of Congress have floated and defended the idea of cancelling elections in 2019 and assuring themselves term extensions of as long as 10 years. Mr. Duterte himself has openly declared a number of times that he would abolish existing government agencies, particularly such Constitutional bodies as the Commission on Audit and the Commission on Human Rights, create new ones, and hire and fire whomever he wants should he have the power to do so.
His Congressional band of (power) brokers is more than willing to give him what he’s been wishing for by amending or even doing away with the 1987 People Power Constitution to effect the shift to a federal form of government.
Federalism is an option for which even the leaders of the Revolution of 1896 expressed their preference as a form of government.
During his dictatorship, Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. put in place some of its more innocuous aspects by creating a ministry of this and a ministry of that, and naming a prime minister, while he continued to wield absolute power as president-for-life.
After the 1986 EDSA civilian-military mutiny, some academics and politicians tried to convince the public of the merits of federalism and of the need to amend the 1987 Constitution to effect the shift to it. Those efforts foundered on citizen resistance to Constitutional amendments, but were nevertheless kept alive in Congress through a number of resolutions.
Then Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte expressed support for federalism in 2014, and promised to hold a plebiscite on the shift to a federal form of government within two years as part of his campaign platform in 2016.
As President, Mr. Duterte signed in December 2016 Executive Order Number 10, which created a consultative committee to review the 1987 People Power Constitution.
Effecting the shift is one of the Duterte campaign promises that seems to be following his timeline, unlike his pledge to end the illegal drug problem within six months. No one can blame the more skeptical for suspecting that that’s because everyone in the regime stands to benefit from what its own people would decide should go into the amendments or even into a new constitution, since the plan, as announced by Mr. Duterte’s henchmen in Congress, is to convene that body as a constituent assembly rather than to call a constitutional convention to which delegates would be elected at large. The expense of the latter has been invoked to justify the former. What’s closer to the truth is that the regime is not going to risk the election of non-regime friendly delegates to a convention.
The primary argument for a federal form of government is that it would free from central government interference the “states” that would be created by merging various provinces. It would also enable such regions as the Cordillera and Muslim Mindanao to craft their own paths to development.
While these considerations are formidable arguments for federalism, the downside would be the strengthening of locally based dynasties and warlord families, the weakening of the capacity of the central government to check corruption and the abuse of power at the local level, and the dynasts’ use of it for their personal, familial and class enrichment, and to suppress dissent and protest.
It can of course be argued that all that is happening even now. But it only proves that it is neither the form of government nor the system that’s crucial in the making of effective and honest governance, but the extent to which those in power share the political culture and the interests of their constituents. That reality is an argument for the democratization of political power by enabling those sectors that have been denied the right to govern themselves to break the dynasties’ stranglehold on Philippine governance.
These are the more critical issues in the campaign for a federal form of government. But both the advantages and the downside of that option are being overshadowed by the quite obvious attempt to use the move to federalism as the primary means of savaging what little remains of democratic and citizen rights in this country, restore authoritarian rule, and assure the continuing dominance of the handful of families that for decades have monopolized political power in this country to the exclusion of the majority.
It’s turning into just another conspiracy by this country’s political overlords to prevent the democratization of political power and the realization of those social and economic reforms that have eluded the long-suffering people of these benighted isles.
Frustrating the plot to establish another tinhorn tyranny that would abuse the Filipino people’s hard-won rights is crucial to the lives and future of the 100 million souls in this archipelago, and therefore takes precedence over everything else. The shift to a federal form of government as a citizen option will have to wait for better, less critical and less dangerous times. The reign of Mr. Duterte and his henchmen in Congress is the exact opposite — and far from being one of those rare moments in this nation’s troubled history.
Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro). The views expressed in Vantage Point are his own and do not represent the views of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
MELBOURNE — Dominic Thiem withdrew from a scheduled match at the Kooyong Classic on Thursday as he recovers from a virus, disrupting the world number five’s buildup to the Australian Open.
The Austrian played at the Grand Slam tune-up event on Wednesday, losing in straight sets to Novak Djokovic.
He had arrived late in Melbourne from Doha after pulling out prior to last weekend’s Qatar Open semi-final with Gael Monfils after contracting a virus.
Thiem was bed-ridden before flying to Australia, but said after facing Djokovic that he felt fine and was over his illness.
“I’m free of fever and healthy again,” he insisted then.
He has been replaced at Kooyong by Russian rising star Andrey Rublev, the losing finalist in Doha to Monfils. — AFP
DESPITE CRITICISMS, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he will push through with his plan of freezing the permits of medium and high-rise buildings in the city, pending the establishment of safety standards. This, after City Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia criticized him that withholding of permits of buildings is “anti-development and anti-business.” — The Freeman
Not really. I don’t have an Aston Martin. Wish I did though. The title is from a chapter in an Ian Fleming book, which sees James Bond dashing through Europe in the chase for Auric Goldfinger.
“Bond settled back into second and let the car idle. He reached for the wide gunmetal case of Morland cigarettes on the neighboring bucket seat, fumbled for one and lit it from the dashboard.”
“The car was from the pool. Bond had been offered the Aston Martin or a Jaguar 3.4. He had taken the D.B.III. Either of the cars would have suited his cover — a well-to-do, rather adventurous young man with a taste for the good, the fast things of life. But the D.B.III had the advantage of an up-to-date triptyque, an inconspicuous color — battleship gray — and certain extras which might or might not come in handy. These included switches to alter the type and color of Bond’s front and rear lights if he was following or being followed at night, reinforced steel bumpers, fore and aft, in case he needed to ram, a long-barrelled Colt .45 in a trick compartment under the driver’s seat, a radio pickup tuned to receive an apparatus called the Homer, and plenty of concealed space that would fox most Customs men.”
Those are passages one could read over and over again. Reminds me of this bit from Damon Runyon’s “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown”:
“Now one Sunday evening The Sky is walking along Broadway, and at the corner of Forty-ninth Street he comes upon a little bunch of mission workers who are holding a religious meeting, such as mission workers love to do of a Sunday evening, the idea being that they may round up a few sinners here and there, although personally I always claim the mission workers come out too early to catch any sinners on this part of Broadway. At such an hour the sinners are still in bed resting up from their sinning of the night before, so they will be in good shape for more sinning a little later on.”
Images from that filled my college days (and nights). Of course, for some, the quote may read familiar as it was used in the CD sleeve of Workshy’s “The Golden Mile”.
Perhaps a life’s regret (there are a possible few; but then again too few to mention) is that I never got to do the Golden Mile. There’s supposed to be one in Singapore and another in Belfast. The World’s End is about 12 pubs, starting with The Old Familiar and ends — naturally — with The World’s End.
Frankly, I’m not even sure it’s a place.
The point is to spend the evening going to a string of pubs until one gets blindly “pissed” (i.e., drunk). The moment has passed. There are certain things one can do at 27 that’s just idiotic at 47.
Like Paris.
Amidst the mayhem in The Day of the Jackal, even Frederick Forsyth was moved to write:
“The brilliant afternoon that had warmed the friendly pavements of Paris throughout the day faded to golden dusk, and at nine the street lights came on. Along the banks of the Seine the couples strolled as always on summer nights, hand in hand, slowly as if drinking in the wine of dusk and love and youth that will never, however hard they try, be quite the same again. The open-fronted cafés along the water’s edge were alive with chatter and clink of glasses, greetings and mock protests, raillerie and compliments, apologies and passes, that make up the conversation of the French and the magic of the river Seine on an August evening.”
I wonder if Manila, not Metro Manila but Manila itself, could recover or acquire such character.
For now, the best thing really is to spend much time out of the city. And look upwards, pondering Eliot: “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky.”
And on and on until “Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats, of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels, and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.”
Then finally to “the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo.”
The drive sighs and melds into its final turns, the roads covered by fallen leaves. Verlaine:
“The long sobs of autumn’s violins, wound my heart with a monotonous languor.”
Which is perhaps apt as these lines signaled the start of Operation Overlord — that part regarding the violins meant that the Normandy invasion would happen in two weeks; the one regarding languor meant that D-Day starts in 48 hours. In which case, the French Resistance should start sabotaging stuff.
Speaking of the resistance, when asked what was he rebelling against, a young Marlon Brando gruffly replied (mumbling, of course): “What do you got?”
But the drive is done and the reverie has faded. Back to work.
Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.
ONE Championship unfurls its first Manila offering for 2018 on Jan. 26 with Filipino fighter Geje “The Gravity” Eustaquio taking on former world flyweight champion Kairat Ahkmetov of Kazakhstan at “ONE: Global Superheroes” in a rematch of their tightly fought encounter last year.
Fighting for the interim ONE Flyweight World Championship, Mr. Eustaquio (9-6), training under Team Lakay in Baguio City, looks to avenge his split decision loss to Kazakh Akhmetov last September and at the same time solidify his standing anew in the division currently ruled by Brazilian Adriano Moraes.
In their last fight in Indonesia, Mr. Akhmetov (21-1), fresh from his loss to Mr. Moraes the previous month that saw him lose his title in the process, showcased his overwhelming Greco Roman wrestling skills to consistently bring Mr. Eustaquio to the canvas, controlling the action on the ground.
Mr. Eustaquio would have his moments, landing with crisp and clean combinations but they proved to be not enough to earn him the win as the former champ emerged the victor on two of the three judges’ scorecards to earn him the split decision.
Global Superheroes will be the first of a scheduled four-fight offering in Manila for ONE Championship in 2018, and the organization is angling to use to it to set things to a good start.
“This is the first in four blockbuster events in Manila in 2018, and ONE Championship is looking to kick things off with a spectacular show. Fans of martial arts in the Philippines are among the most passionate in the world, and it is our honor to present the best in local and global martial arts talent,” Chatri Sityodtong, chairman and CEO of ONE, said as he drummed up support for the Manila event.
Apart from Mr. Eustaquio, other Filipino fighters seeing action at Global Superheroes are strawweight Joshua “The Passion” Pacio, featherweight Eric “The Natural” Kelly, and his featherweight brother Edward.
ONE: Global Superheroes happens at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
WHAT I’VE SEEN OF 2017 with maybe three exceptions was good not great — which possibly reflects more on me and my viewing efforts more than on the year — but who can refrain from making year-end lists? I can’t. I didn’t.
32. The Lego Batman Movie
To paraphrase Snowball: First half funny, last half crap.
31. Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh)
Gimmicky, crammed with CGI effects, too eager to please. But Branagh does try create a three-dimensional Poirot, and his investigation captures some of the tragedy of the Lindbergh case.
30. The Foreigner (Martin Campbell)
Mainly a showcase for the physical prowess of an older grimmer Jackie Chan, and the dramatic prowess (in a surprisingly intricate IRA plot) of Pierce Brosnan.
29. Split (M. Night Shyamalan)
Efficient fairly inventive horror thriller. Shyamalan with this and The Visit is commercially (and to a lesser extent artistically) on a roll; question is, will he tumble up a new career pinnacle or off yet another cliff?
28. Historiographika Errata (Richard Somes)
Somes’s historical anthology film touches on Jose Rizal, the Katipunan, Macario Sakay, the Japanese occupation, with satire applied to the first two (stripping away the veneer of unthinking worship that has coated them through the years), straightforward even poignant drama to the latter two — problem is you’re not sure the two halves form a cohesive whole. Still worth a look.
Historiographika Errata
27. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
Well-made. Touching. Occasionally even funny.
26. T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle)
Sequel to Boyle’s most highly regarded movie, I think this is sadder, richer, better.
25. Good Time (Ben and Joshua Safdie)
Didn’t much like the shaky-cam filmmaking, but does give off memorably bad vibes.
24. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin MacDonagh)
The first half is abrasive anger coming out of sorrow; the second half devolves into Tarantino. Not a big fan, but that first half deserves recognition.
23. The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou)
Crawling wall-to-wall with CGI effects; has barely justifiable Jurassic-looking creatures; has Matt Damon. Still! Epic filmmaking not entirely in the Hollywood mold. The mold of the future, perhaps?
22. mother! (Darren Arronofsky)
Not as shocking as it thinks it is but I liked it. Barely.
21. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
Tastefully — perhaps too tastefully — adapted by Guadagnino and James Ivory from the bildungsroman by Andre Aciman, the film is nevertheless fleetfooted and charming, taking a page from Eric Rohmer in its approach to sunlight and the reliably gorgeous Italian countryside.
Call Me By Your Name
20. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)
Visually cheats — especially on the car chase editing — but aurally (physical deafness as a metaphor for moral deafness) one of the more interesting films of the year
19. Blade Runner 2049 (Dennis Villeneuve)
Villeneuve’s best which sorry to say only gets him so far. Fairly successful extension and expansion of the fairly superior Ridley Scott original, though neither come close to Dick’s classic novel.
18. It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults)
Horror at its slyest and most minimalist, with Joel Edgerton delivering a nuanced performance as a father in a plague-stricken world, doing what’s needed to keep his family alive.
17. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul WS Anderson)
Years before Wonder Woman, the definitive kickass woman action franchise, from a filmmaker with real kinetic talent and the occasional lyric image.
16. Kita Kita (I See You, Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo)
A blind girl and a bum fall in love. City Lights, only with a Filipino immigrant subtext, a Filipino indie filmmaking vibe, and a neat if barely plausible twist some three-fourths of the way through. One of the biggest hits in the Philippines, proving that the common audience does on occasion appreciate quality.
15. Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh)
Much prefer genre Soderbergh over arthouse Soderbergh — he may be overqualified but that only means he overcompensates when trying to elevate his genre work, and the results still come across as witty and precise. Plus he goes a long way into proving that bluecollar is more fun than whitecollar, grimy more entertaining than glamorous.
14. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (James Gunn)
Disco lights + wayward humor + Michael Rooker as the ugly-duckling adoptive father, with Kurt Russell as his more glam rival for Star-Lord’s (Chris Pratt) affections. Hard to resist.
13. A Ghost Story (David Lowery)
Aside from the silly eye holes poked through the bedsheet, the film is so much more than a simple haunting, achieving a sense of the vast reaches of time that makes one think of small-scale Olaf Stapledon.
12. Get Out (Jordan Peele)
Wildly overrated nowadays perhaps, but this nevertheless slyly clever play on liberal guilt and subtextual racism is every nonwhite man’s most paranoid nightmares come true — is in effect a Key & Peele comedy sketch expanded to feature length and pushed to nightmare limits.
11. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (Angela Robinson)
A fairy tale about the creator of Wonder Woman — but isn’t the idea of a feminine superhero unlikely enough that you need to concoct another fairy tale to sell its equally unlikely origin story?
10. Okja (Bong Joon-ho)
A girl and her pig. Mouth-watering genetically modified supersized pork meets a great heart, with broadsides aimed at the food industry and generous helpings of Tilda Swinton — what’s not to like?
Okja
9. Respeto (Treb Monteras II)
First Filipino film to take on the Duterte murder regime and a joyous celebration of Filipino rhyme making, both classic and right-this-moment.
8. Three (Johnnie To)
A criminal shot in the head by a cop refuses to allow the doctor to operate (he has plans for revenge, and needs time to execute them); so begins an intricate scenario that grows ever more complicated and morally questionable the deeper you sink into the film — like wading into quicksand, only more thrilling.
7. The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra)
Probably the most minimalist film out of this lot and arguably one of the most eloquent: a king in his bed, his courtiers about him, and his towering hair. Think The White House only with considerably more taste and decorum.
6. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)
What if The Creature From the Black Lagoon had been captured by the Fascist captain in Pan’s Labyrinth? And fell in love with a mute Cinderella? Del Toro takes the ridiculously scatterbrained premise and wraps it in his seductively dank subterranean style, weaving together a fairy tale set in the Cold War ’50s but speaking to the here and now.
5. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
Baker’s more visually accomplished, more emotionally rich follow-up to his Tangerine follows a group of children living under the shadow of The Magic Kingdom, both feeding off the tourism generated and parodying it (one motel-residence is called “The Magic Castle.”) Easily the best Disney film since The Straight Story, and perhaps the most corrosive.
The Florida Project
4. The Lost City of Z (James Gray)
Most beautifully shot adventure film of the year, a fascinating meditation on the allure of civilization and wilderness both.
The Lost City of Z
3. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)
One of cinema’s greatest living filmmakers (Davies) takes on one of America’s greatest poets (Emily Dickinson), the result a dialogue between Dickinson’s text (commenting on and complicating) and Davies’s visuals (contradicting and fulfilling),
A Quiet Passion
2. Silence (Martin Scorsese)
Silence
And the rest is:
1. Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)
Lynch’s magnum opus is the last word on sequels and prequels, reboots, and remakes (it’s all, neither, and a combination of the four) while being the most visually, aurally, intellectually, bizarre work on screen big or small, not to mention a harrowing depiction of the abuses men inflict on women. Easily the most generous work of the year.
LONDON — Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and folk singer Billy Bragg were among artists and politicians campaigning outside Britain’s parliament on Wednesday to save the country’s live music venues.
Around 35% of Britain’s live music venues have shut over the last decade, buffeted by gentrification, high rents and the changing music industry.
“You need that bottom rung of the ladder for any band or artist that wants to work live,” Mason told AFP, as he backed a parliamentary bill to try to arrest the decline.
“The best of the bands actually learned their trade playing small venues. You learn everything, technical things, stagecraft and you learn to interact with the audience.”
Beatles star Paul McCartney has also thrown his weight behind the bill, saying in a statement that “if we don’t support music at this level, then the future of music in general is in danger.”
More than half of London’s 430 live venues have closed since 2007.
The bill, proposed Wednesday by Labor MP John Spellar, would protect music venues from conflicts with local residents in new housing developments, one of the key issues threatening venues.
“It’s really important for the music industry, which is a big industry, and it’s part of Britain’s cultural offer to the world,” Spellar told AFP, adding the bill had cross-party support.
“There’s going to be quite a lot of pressure on government ministers to say ‘let’s do something popular for once,’” he added. “Live music venues make an area attractive, they are part of the vibrancy. I want to maintain that vibrancy.”
Punk singer Feargal Sharkey and 1967 Eurovision winner Sandie Shaw were among the crowd of around 100 who gathered outside parliament, some of whom were waving placards reading “grass roots venues” and “#SaveLiveMusic.”
Britain’s music industry is worth £4 billion ($5.4 billion) per year, but artists fear that the dwindling number of live venues will starve aspiring rockers of vital opportunities and experience.
“If you are a musician these days the chances of making a living and making records is very slim, it’s very difficult,” singer and activist Bragg told AFP. “There’s loads and loads of very good musicians out there who are trying to find some space in a hostile environment.
“I cut my teeth at a place called the Tunnel… in east London,” he added. “I learned how to be Billy Bragg.”
The demonstration was organized by music industry lobby group UK Music, whose chief executive Michael Dugher demanded that the government “get behind the legislation and help save the venues.” — AFP
THE INTER-AGENCY Anti-Arson Task Force (IAATF) is ready to submit its final report on the NCCC Mall fire last December that killed 38 people. But IAATF spokesperson Senior Supt. Jerry D. Candido also said, “I can’t name names because we don’t have yet the complete documents we need.” He added: “I have declared there are at least eight personnel, retired and active, against whom cases could be filed.” Mr. Candido said they tried to retrieve documents from 2003 until the present time when the fire at NCCC Mall occurred to determine the signatories or the permits and certificates, the people who inspected the premises, the persons who recommended and issued the fire safety certificates. “Without those documents it’s unfair to name who are liable because it will not stand court scrutiny,” he said. The task force has requested the National Bureau of Investigation to issue a subpoena duces tecum to get their hands on the documents. — Carmencita A. Carillo
