Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) gets a look into Giant Country thanks to a Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance). Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures hide caption
toggle caption Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) gets a look into Giant Country thanks to a Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance).
Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
1982: a big year for initials. Steven Spielberg releases E.T., and Roald Dahl publishes The BFG. The former stands for Extra-Terrestrial, the latter for Big Friendly Giant characters who are similarly positioned as outsiders in a child"s world where adults are mostly absent.
Spielberg has told interviewers he read The BFG to his children when they were small, knowing that, to them, he was kind of a big friendly giant. Now, with a digitally transformed (spindly neck, elephant ears) and greatly enlarged Mark Rylance in the part, we all get to hear how Spielberg tells the story. Turns out, it"s a little scary, and also pretty charming,
Melissa Mathison, who wrote the screenplay for E.T., penned the screenplay for Spielberg"s The BFG, and there are some parallels. E.T. is about a boy who encounters an outcast an alien in his back yard; The BFG about a girl who encounters an outcast a giant in her back alley. The alien eats Reese"s Pieces and speaks with some difficulty. The giant eats snozzcumbers and speaks with great originality.
"There"d be a great rumple dumpus," he tells Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) when she wonders why he doesn"t show himself to humans. "And all the human beans"d be rummaging and whiffliffning and they"d be lockin" me up to be looked at with all the squiggling hippodumplings and crocadowndillies, and giggyraffs."
Where the girl is kidnapped by The BFG, the boy kind of does the kidnapping of E.T. But in each case, when child and outcast join forces, they triumph over bullies, adversity, and any adult silliness that might otherwise complicate a common-sensical resolution to problems.
This is not to suggest that the two stories offer equivalent levels of enchantment as films. E.T. is a masterpiece, and while The BFG may well be one on the page, on screen it comes across as an attractively produced but overblown fable. Spielberg"s good at harnessing film technology in the service of fantasy, and at finding the visual magic in sequences that might in other hands feel like time-wasters an evening of dream catching that will make adults recall nights spent chasing fireflies, say, or a Buckingham Palace breakfast with the Queen (Penelope Wilton) that feels, in terms of scale, like a child"s tea-party in reverse.
But at close to two hours, the story drags, possibly because it"s more a collection of incidents than a narrative with forward momentum. Rylance brings subtlety to what Dahl called the big guy"s "gigantiousness," and Spielberg makes the rumple dumpus" technical effects pretty...um, fantabulous. Which will doubtless enchant the kids. even if it strikes their folks as it did me....as somewhat strenuous whimsy.
Rachel Platten has proved she is more than all right with one song.
The singer-songwriter seemingly became an overnight success with her breakout hit Fight Song last year. But the 35-year-old has been performing her music independently for more than a dozen years.
The song has been embraced as an empowering anthem across the globe, selling more than 3 million copies and charting in the Billboard Top 10 in the United States and United Kingdom, to Australia and beyond. She has shared the stage with Taylor Swift and is now headlining her own shows. She will open the Stanislaus County Fair on Friday, July 8.
Yet Platten said going through those leaner years playing to small crowds and in smaller clubs gave her time to find out who she was first, and just as importantly what she was willing to fight for.
Every step I had to fight for. I drove around the country in moms car and played to 10, 15, 20 people, watched it grow so slowly. I am incredibly grateful when I am in front of any audience now, she said in a recent phone interview. Im so proud to have done it with a message and song I believe in so much.
She is also pleased that instead of listening to some early advice given to her about making it in the business, she stuck to her convictions and her own style of music. (They) said put out whatever you think is popular, then you can write what you want later, she said. I thought Id better listen to my heart and see for myself, she said. Im grateful that worked, that was a thing I can continue to do now.
Not that it has always been easy. Fight Song took a year and a half to write. She said the process involved writing and rewriting. She said she came up with several different verses and choruses.
It was a really hard process of trying things and then feeling doubts. But by the time it was done, I did feel a sense of relief and pride, she said. Yeah, I had doubts like, Is this it? But I had deep in my heart a feeling it could be big and help people.
The songs powerful message of believing in ones self has turned Platten into a role model for many, particularly young girls and women. She said she feels overwhelmed and grateful for all the people who tell her stories about how her music has touched or helped them.
They include teenage cancer survivor Calysta Bevier, who performed the song on the new season of Americas Got Talent, earning her a surprise duet later with Platten herself on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Theres also 5-year-old Chloe Herrington, an Instagram star with Down Sydrome who is a fan and has been helped by Plattens music.
And last fall, she gave a live concert for Christine Luckenbaugh from Virginia. The 50-year-old suffered from an inoperable brain tumor and Platten arranged a special performance of Fight Song for her with a chorus of her family and friends. Luckenbaugh died in December.
There are so many stories like that where people have used the song to inspire them to keep fighting an illness or to try to overcome odds. It is such an incredible feeling, Platten said. I love what they seem to get from the song, which is the idea that I can do it, too. I can do anything.
Thats a really special thing that maybe we dont have enough of in this world. A lot of stuff on social media is telling everyone they arent good enough. I hope that my message is you are.
Logic Talks BOBBY TARANTINO, Battling Anxiety, Not Smoking Any More Def Jam
Logic comes out of nowhere and releases a surprise mixtape titled Bobby Tarantino. The project, released via Def Jam Recordings/Visionary Music Group, isavailable on all streaming platforms. Just days after the first week of hisThe Endless Summer Tour with G-Eazy, YG and Yo Gotti started, the Maryland native treats fans to more new music.
The 11-song projects only feature is Pusha T on Wrist, which was released last week and easily one of the best songsin recent days. The other single that was droppedwas the boisterous Flexicution that had Logic going off about why hes not the rapper to mess with. The 26-year-old is also currentlyworking on his third LP.
Bobby Tarantinois entirely produced by Logic and his go-to producer 6ix. The title is a play off the name of famous filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, a person who Logic has routinely referenced all throughout his music. You can peep the complete tracklist forBobby Tarantinobelow. The mixtape follows up Logics sophomore album The Incredible True Story, which released November 2015 and debutingat No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart with over 135,000 records sold in its first week.
You can listen toBobby Tarantino mixtape via Apple Music or stream it aboveon Spotify. Check out the Endless Summer tour dates here. The roadtripwillhit 25 cities across North America this July and August.
LiveLeak - Drunk truck driver lose control May 27, 2016 3:11 p.m. ET
A map of North America drawn in the first years of the 19th century offers an illuminating guide to the geopolitics of the time. The young nation, comprising 16 states east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio, is well-charted, crisscrossed by rivers and roads and spotted with hamlets and burgeoning towns. The Northwest Territory, stretching from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes, is more tentatively drawn, with only the main trade routes along the rivers properly marked. To the west of the Mississippi the map is empty. A few rivers are traced hesitantly westward across this blankness, but they all peter out somewhere before the Continental Divide.
This blank space on the map was no void, but a highly contested area where the great European powers of Britain, France and Spain and the new United States of America competed for control. At the center of this strife was the great artery of the Mississippi, the vital trading port of New Orleans and the uncharted Louisiana Territory, so vast that no one knew its boundaries.
This is how Thomas Jefferson, viewed the West and the Deep South in 1803: as a map. And according to Julie M. Fensters riveting Jeffersons America, the nations third presidents main goal was acquisition. His feat in purchasing the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803 was a combination of timing, diplomatic skill and enormous luck. Although the purchase doubled the size of the nation, and the price per acre was a pittance, the new president came under severe criticism from the Federalists in the Senate for his reckless use of government money. Ms. Fensters forceful account, peppered with succinct formulations and wry wit, shows how Jefferson launched expeditions to stake his claim to this wilderness and its people.
Jeffersons explorers were tasked with demarcating the borders of the Louisiana Territory and exploring the regions main waterwaysthe Mississippi and Missouri rivers and the Red River, which today separates the states of Oklahoma and Arkansas from Texas. But the lands to be explored were already another old world. Far from venturing into an empty unknown, Jeffersons explorers, who paddled up the rivers and pushed through the snow, discovered a land that had been inhabited for millennia and defined by established and interconnected trade routes and kinships. Powerful chiefs controlled the access to these territories from great villages, some of which were twice the size of contemporary American towns like St. Louis.
Indian allies were crucial to the European powers competing for the West, and the explorers relied on diplomatic skills and gifts to win their help. By this time, Europeans had traded and hunted in the West for more than half a century. The fur-trading companies in the north were well-established. On reaching the Pacific Coast, one of Jeffersons expeditions would come across a Chinook man wearing a British sailors jacket and found the nations along the Columbia River trading teapots and top hats and using English expressions such as damned rascal.
Who were the explorers who could pass in the field as scientists rather than spies and were recruited personally by Jefferson because their curiosity overcame any sense of complacency? Ms. Fenster calls them Jeffersons other army, whose scientific skills were essential for the expeditions primary purpose of marking borders and claiming new land. Wherever he sent them, the American flag followed.
Dr. George Hunter, born in Edinburgh, was a prominent Philadelphia chemist in his late 40s when Jefferson commissioned him to explore the Ouachita, an alligator-infested, lumber-clogged river in the parched Southwest. He was joined by another Scotsman, William Dunbar, the suave son of a Highland baronet and a self-taught scientist who had reinvented himself as a ruthless slave-owner on a cotton plantation near Natchez in the Mississippi Territory.
Its difficult to say exactly what Hunter and Dunbar contributed to Jeffersons ambitions, since most of the territory they covered (in what is now Arkansas and Oklahoma) had already been explored. Nor was their journey especially successful. Their vessel, a Chinese junk full of brandy, gin and Madeira, got stuck in the mud. Then Hunter, who hadnt handled a military weapon since Washington crossed the Delaware, nearly shot himself in the head while cleaning his gun. Dunbar, exasperated by his partners incompetence, lost himself in naturalist pursuits and the measuring of very small things. (Classification, Ms. Fenster wryly proposes, is the nearly invisible weapon of the British aristocracy.) Still, they made it back to Jefferson alive and in as gentlemanly a manner as could be expected of two middle-aged Scottish explorers on a Chinese junk full of drink.
Meantime, the young, evocatively named Zebulon Pike was commissioned to find the source of the Mississippi. Pike was average or worse in many of the individual facets of exploration, Ms. Fenster writes, but he was second to no one in determination, a half-mad sense of imperative that he deftly inspired in his men. As winter closed in over the upper Mississippi, Pike pushed toward Leech Lake (in present-day Minnesota) through knee-deep snow with one companion and a severe case of trench foot.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, perhaps the best known of Jeffersons explorers, crossed the Rockies with a corps of young recruits to reach the Pacific Ocean. Though they seemed to personify the spirit that had birthed America as a free nation, their expedition was not as glamorous as the myth suggests. In late November 1805, when they finally arrived in sight of the Pacific, they were stuck on the northern bank of the Columbia River for 11 days in pouring rain while a freezing tide swamped their belongings, in a spot that is still called the Dismal Nitch.
While Lewis and Clark made their way back from the Pacific, Jefferson sent the Irishman and veteran surveyor Thomas Freeman to explore the Red River. Freeman may have had humble connections, but Ms. Fenster portrays him as the noblest of Jeffersons explorers, a man who seized this chance to prove himself. When the Spanish army, sent to apprehend the expedition, tried to cross to the American side of the Red River, Freeman stood his ground and stared down the Spanish officer. Thus was the boundary drawn without bloodshed.
But for all the derring-do of the explorers, this is the story of Jefferson and his tireless efforts to stretch the borders of the nation molded out of the British colonies. The Jefferson who emerges from this great narrative is not an enlightened man of science, culture and knowledge but a shrewd politician and a rather distant man. While the scandal of the Burr-Hamilton duel festered in Washington, Jefferson retreated to Monticello to plant 4,000 hedge seedlings. In Ms. Fensters characteristically surgical phrasing, the duel was like a three-way collision at an intersection, in which two vehicles are mangled and one keeps going, untouched.
Her story reads at times like a tall tale, and its certainly a mans tale. (There are few women in this history, and none was particularly fortunate.) The author takes narrative license, at times telling us what the explorers are thinking or feeling, but this strategy allows her to do what the best popular history should do: offer fresh insights into the minds of these 19th-century men, carrying you deeply, irresistibly, into a distant landscape. The explorers met with varying destinies, but for Jefferson the scheme to explore the West paid off. The nation was changed for the efforts of less than a hundred crewmen and their six primary leaders, Ms. Fenster writes. The Louisiana Territory belonged to Americansnot because money had been exchanged, but because those hundred men had gone a long way, so near to their own limits, in order to bring it home.
In the end, this book celebrates these values: single-mindedness, the capacity to proceed, to stick or go through (as Thomas Freeman put it), and above all the stubborn arrogance and wide-eyed curiosity of men determined to regard the world as new.
Ms. Altenbergs most recent novel is Breaking Light.
The Endless Summer TourFeat. G-Eazy, Logic, Yo Gotti & YGCynthia Woods Mitchell PavilionJune 29, 2016
On the surface, the Endless Summer tour looks random and uncohesive. In what universe does it make sense to pair a party rapper from Oakland with an underground lyricist from Maryland, or a trap-game veteran from Memphis with a Blood from Bompton (a.k.a. Compton)? Will G-Eazy"s pop-rap fans appreciate the reality-rap of YG? Will Logic"s fans be willing to slide into the DM"s with Yo Gotti?
The short answer is an astounding "f**k yes!" The truth is that today"s rap fans are living in the Internet age, a.k.a. the Snapchat generation. They are exposed to all genres, dialects, regions and styles, and their Spotify playlists meander between club anthems, trap storytelling, hood politics and nerd rap. Their only requirements are honesty and heart, which the four artists on this bill exude in abundance.
Up first was YG. He didn"t waste any time in delivering his No. 1 hit, "My n***a," twisting his fingers and grabbing his crotch (krotch?) across the stage. The big red letters behind him spelled out "B-R-A-Z-Y," which is appropriate for the young blood who reps for his set at every opportunity. He also unleashed a passionate track called "f**k Donald Trump," just a hundred yards from the hotel that hosted the presidential candidate a couple of Fridays ago. The singles from his new album Still Brazy confirm YG"s spot as one of the last relevant gangsta rappers, more Tupac than Kendrick, and light-years removed from the flashiness of the rest of the rap world. Bool, balm and bollective all day.
Yo Gotti hit the stage next wearing an outfit as white as the powder he raps about. Rapping about yayo and his sexual conquests through a white ski mask, he came off as both intimidating and huggable, his smile as large as the bling around his neck. "I run these streets!" he yelled to nobody in particular. What was impressive was how hard the bass hit the Pavilion during his set. It shook the screens that flank the stage as well as every seat from the front row to the soundboard. Performing with a live drummer was a nice touch, as was the mid-set DJ breakdown that hit everyone from 2 Chainz to Three 6 Mafia ("Slob On My k**b"!). Obviously, his viral hit "Down In the DM" was a perfect bookend to his set.
Logic began his set with a new track, called "Flexicution," from his just-released mixtape,Bobby Tarantino. It displays everything he is notorious for: a humble confidence, flowy and dreamy beats, and his signature rapid-fire tongue. "Everything I do, you know I do it for the squad!" he declared. "It"s been a helluva ride!"
That ride has taken Logic from welfare to rap stardom, from a life of drugs to music festivals. Along the way, he has amassed a large die-hard fan base, many of whom were in attendance, rapping along to every syllable, or at least making the valiant attempt to keep up.
He also enticed the crowd to yell "f**k You!" each time he asked if they were tired and wanted to go home. The first few times he asked, I expected the loud response. When he asked again at the end of the set, I was surprised the crowd remembered to fulfill their duty. "Hey Houston, y"all wanna go home?!"
"f**k YOUUUUU!" came the response. It"s a funny way of showing love, but whatever it was, Logic certainly deserves every morsel of it.
The coolest part of his set was when he pulled out his Akai drum machine and produced a beat live. That truly showcased his genius, both as a musician and as a showman. "I am special!" he told the audience. "We all are!"
The evening"s biggest question mark was the headliner, G-Eazy. I"ve seen this guy perform nearly ten times in the past couple of years, both at several SXSW showcases and onstage at music festivals. The talent, charisma and dashing good looks are all there, but I wasn"t convinced that he was headliner material.
That perception quickly changed during the course of his performance Wednesday night. In only three years, since he got his break serving as an opening act for his idol, Lil Wayne, he has transformed himself from a tall, lanky, white boy with potential to perhaps the genre"s next superstar.
"I"m the coldest white rapper in the game since the guy with the bleached hair" he rapped on "Calm Down." No, he"ll never be the greatest rapper, but what G-Eazy lacks as a lyricist, he makes up for with energy, stage presence and an exceptional ability to connect with his audience. And he does so by just being the kid that he is. When he says things like "It"s lit!" or "Are we gonna party all night, or nah?!" it comes off as genuine. This isn"t some manufactured artist that someone in a boardroom groomed into the next best thing. "I"m just Gerald" he confessed. "Let"s have fun!"
G-Eazy delivered as he transitions to the next level. "Got it all, I"m young, rich and handsome" he declared on Wednesday"s opening track, "Random." He"s ambitious, talented and driven, which is a huge reason why the Endless Summer tour should prove a success.
"I just wanna stay broke forever/ Yeah, that"s the s**t no one ever said" he proclaimed on "I Mean It." Sure, the way he talks about women is less than ideal, and the party lifestyle may not last forever, but for now, Eazy is primed to take over the game.
Personal Bias: I love me a good rap tour.
The Crowd: See "Overheard In the Crowd"
Overheard In the Crowd: "There"s a plethora of white girls in here tonight!" my +1 with the spot-on observation
Random Notebook Dump: Props to the two spotlight operators who swung from high on top of the stage to provide illumination for the night. But what happens if you need to pee while up there?!
When he"s not roaming around the city in search of tacos and graffiti, Marco points his camera lens toward the vibrant Houston music scene and beyond. You can follow his adventures on Instagram: @MarcoFromHouston.
LA LAKERS 2016 NBA FREE AGENCY SIGNINGS HASSAN WHITESIDE, KEVIN DURANT, & BRANDON INGRAM FEAT. LD2K
Former New York Knicks and Charlotte Hornets point guard Jeremy Lin agreed to a three-year, $36 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, the first day of NBA free agency.
Lin had an up and down season for the Hornets, but he was a consistent contributor logging roughly 26 minutes and 11 points per game. While Lin is far from a superstar, he is a solid point guard capable of helping an NBA team.
The Nets are very much in the market for solid players that can help them win immediately they don"t own their picks for the next two years, so losing games does nothing but help the Boston Celtics and hurt the Nets" brand. Lin can score in bunches, and the Netswill be looking to drag themselves out of the absolute cellar of the NBA with reasonable signings that help them in the short term.
The Netswill almost certainly continue pitching free agents as they look to improve in the short term. Acquiring Lin, and showing other free agents that they are serious about doing whatever they can to win immediately, is a decentstart for the Nets. Whether or not signings like this prove to bad news for the Celtics, who are counting on another highly valuable asset in the 2017 NBA draft pick swap, remains to be seen.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Newly released Nets guard Jarrett Jack is salty as a Cheez-It about Lin"s new deal.
July 1 is one of the more embarrassing days of the year for the New York Mets organization. In 2000, the team agreed to pay former player Bobby Bonilla$1.19 million every year on July 1 from 2011 to 2035.
Instead of buying Bonilla out of his $5.9 million contract in 2000, the Mets came up with the brilliant idea to pay him an interest-accruing plan over the span of25 years. Essentially, the team decided to dish out almost $30 million over an extended period of time instead of paying Bonilla $5.9 million upfront.
The craziest part about this deal is that, even though Bonilla has not played a single game since October 2001, he is still the 15th highest paid player on the club"s roster. Bonilla is banking more than double what pitching ace Noah Syndergaard is making. Because that makes sense.
