الثلاثاء، 27 فبراير 2018
Dubai Police close case on death of Bollywood star Sridevi
Tue, 2018-02-27 13:24
ID:
1519727862385234000
DUBAI: An investigation into the death of Bollywood superstar Sridevi Kapoor, who drowned in her bathtub in a Dubai hotel, has been closed, police said Tuesday.
“The Dubai public prosecutor’s officer has decided to release the body of Indian actress Sridevi to her family today (Tuesday) after the investigation into the incident was concluded and the case closed,” read a tweet by the Dubai police.
The Bollywood star lost consciousness and drowned in the bathtub of her hotel apartment in Dubai, a postmortem examination has found.
Sridevi, 54, died on Saturday night. She was visiting Dubai to attend a family wedding with her husband, the film producer and director Boney Kapoor, and their daughter Khushi. The family said initially she had suffered a cardiac arrest.
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Trial begins for Egyptian woman who poisoned her husband after he asked for a virginity test
Tue, 2018-02-27 13:21
ID:
1519716110324667500
DUBAI: An Egyptian woman poisoned and killed her husband after five days of marriage after he demanded she undergo a virginity test a court has heard, according to Egyptian daily Masrawy.
“She refused to let him touch her after their wedding and when five days passed he told her he was taking her to get a virginity test done because he felt she was trying to hide something,” the victim’s father said in court.
“On the morning he was expected to take her to a doctor, we heard his screams and rushed to their apartment. When I got there, I held him and he told me his wife had poisoned him,” he added.
The man then died on his way to the hospital in October, the court heard on the opening day of the trial.
Drifter smashes into Saudi Arabian school, kills student
Tue, 2018-02-27 13:00
ID:
1519714921754622500
DUBAI: A student in Saudi Arabia was killed outside his school after a man drifted his car into the gate, Saudi daily Okaz reported.
The school, located in Bisha, said the driver lost control of his car while drifting and crashed into the building while the young boy was entering.
The boy was instantly killed, the report added.
The incident has provoked reactions on social media in the Kingdom, with people calling for an end to the dangerous stunt driving, which the report said was common.
Drifting, also known as ‘tafheet,’ is common in the Kingdom although considered illegal, and has lead to several crashes on the roads, the report added.
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Hulu asks: ‘Is it time to examine how 9/11 happened?’
Mon, 2018-02-26 03:00
ID:
1519713714614593100
NEW YORK: Not too long ago, Peter Sarsgaard felt he had to have a difficult conversation with his oldest daughter about 9/11.
He and Ramona, then 9, were in a car on the anniversary of the terror attacks and the twin light beams above ground zero were switched on. The girl declared them “pretty.” That’s when her dad realized he needed to explain what they were, right then and there. She’s not alone.
“There is a whole generation of people that are in their late teens — that are 20 even, if they were 3 at the time — who I think need to start learning about this in some way,” he said.
This month, Sarsgaard is doing that, teaching on a massive scale as one of the stars of “The Looming Tower,” Hulu’s powerful look at the events that led up to the Al-Qaeda-led 2001 attacks, a series that is as much a thriller as a geo-political education.
The 10-episode minizeries, adapted from Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same title, sent film crews to eight countries, including Morocco and South Africa. It signals Hulu’s deepening effort to offer complex, interesting offerings following its success with “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
“The Looming Tower” starts in 1988 and charts key figures in the CIA and FBI as they chase down clues — and often jostle each other — to uncover Osama bin Laden’s plot and stop it. The series is brutal about the missed opportunities and rivalries between the agencies and doesn’t flinch at showing violence to innocents, both at home and abroad.
“I wonder if because 17 years have past almost, whether we’re ready for it now,” said Jeff Daniels, who stars as hard-charging FBI agent John O’Neill. “Closer to the actual attack of 9/11, no one wanted to hear if there was someone to blame. We knew who to blame — it was bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.”
Sarsgaard, who plays a reptilian CIA anti-terrorism chief, knows all too well how dangerous wading into the subject of 9/11 blame can be. His wife, Maggie Gyllenhaal, created a firestorm in 2005 when she suggested that US foreign policy might have had some role in the attacks.
“The backlash was so massive — it was on CNN, it was on everywhere — we had to leave the country,” said Sarsgaard. “Presumably enough time has passed now that we can start thinking about what went wrong, right?“
Dan Futterman, the series’ show runner who wrote teleplays for the first two episodes, said the 10-hour show tries to explain without judgment what motivates the three groups — CIA, FBI and Al-Qaeda — even portraying members of the terrorist group as human beings. “That may be the worst pushback we get,” he said.
Wrenn Schmidt, who plays a workaholic and ambitious CIA analyst in a very male-centered organization, said she came out of the experience with enhanced respect for intelligence gatherers working in the shadows. But she appreciates the series’ care for balance.
“The story’s not trying to tip your favor with one person or one group,” she said. “For better or for worse, all of those people think they’re doing something right or doing something that is in service to a greater purpose.”
The filmmakers have taken some dramatic liberties, including making Sarsgaard’s character a composite of several CIA analysts. “We didn’t get a lot of access to the CIA, so in a way it was necessary to do that,” Futterman said. But Daniels’ hot-headed O’Neill is based on a real person, a man the actor calls “an unsung American hero.”
“That was a time when we had the best and brightest in government, and a fully staffed government,” said Daniels. “What’s different? What have we learned?“
Futterman said he thinks intelligence sharing is better now than it was in 2001 but divisions in government may be worse. There are many unanswered questions about the events leading up to 9/11 and he hopes the series can keep up the pressure.
“If we made it for anybody, it’s made for those people who’ve been wanting to get answers as to how this happened for a long time,” he said.
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James Dean’s iconic ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ jacket up for auction
Tue, 2018-02-27 03:00
ID:
1519712358524553400
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: James Dean’s cherry-red jacket from “Rebel Without a Cause” is expected to bring up to $600,000 when it goes up for auction this week in Florida, offering fans a rare chance to own something linked to the actor who died at 24.
The bomber-style jacket still looks cool at Palm Beach Modern Auctions, where it was displayed recently on a mannequin dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, similar to Dean’s signature style in the movie.
The nylon windbreaker is worth an estimated $400,000 to $600,000, auction house co-owner Rico Baca said.
That sounds pricey, but Baca said the jacket is as important to pop culture as a dress worn by actress Marilyn Monroe, one of Elvis Presley’s rhinestone jumpsuits or gloves worn on stage by singer Michael Jackson.
“It just represents a really significant period of our culture in the 1950s,” Baca said.
Dean died in a car crash in September 1955, about a month before the premiere of the film that cemented his status as an icon of teen defiance. Because he died so young and starred in only three movies, collectibles tied to him are scarce, Baca said.
The dress Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy sold at auction for $4.8 million in 2016. One of Jackson’s white gloves was auctioned for nearly half a million dollars in 2009, and one of Presley’s rhinestone suits sold for $250,000 last year.
“There’s a great deal of interest in these types of items, and I expect to have the same sort of interest in this jacket” at the Saturday auction, Baca said.
Michael Scott of Hobe Sound has had the jacket since the 1980s. A friend whose uncle got the windbreaker from men’s wardrobe supervisor Leon Roberts at the end of filming left it to Scott in his will. The actor had been a hero to Scott and his friends, who were in high school when the film premiered.
“We were called greasers,” Scott said. “We were going through some of the same kind of torment that he was living in the script.”
The garment has a Bud Berma tag sewn into its lining, a cigarette burn on the left sleeve and stitching to take in its elasticized waist to fit the trim Dean.
“I think it’s in good condition, considering the age of the jacket,” Baca said.
The jacket seen in the film was bought off the rack, but it’s unclear how many were on set, Baca said.
Scott’s documentation includes a 1962 letter from Roberts asking his friend’s uncle to donate “the red jacket worn by the late actor James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause” to the Hollywood Museum.
“You have a letter from him asking for the jacket back. I don’t know how it can be construed any other way than this is the jacket that came from the set,” Baca said.
Ancient and modern attitudes collide in the work of Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi
Tue, 2018-02-27 12:05
ID:
1519711674754529000
JEDDAH: Ahaad Alamoudi is a rising star in the world of Saudi art. Her latest work, Those Who Do Not Know of Falcons Grill Them, is on show now in Jeddah as part of Refusing to Be Still, the fifth edition of 21,39, an annual exhibition at the forefront of the country’s contemporary art scene.
Jeddah-based Alamoudi was born in 1991 to a family of artists.
“My mother is an artist, so I grew up surrounded by art and I realized very early on that I wanted to create art,” she said. “I did my bachelor’s degree in visual communication at Dar Al-Hekma University, here in Jeddah. Then I got my master’s in fine arts from the Royal College of Art in London.”
During her studies, her art began to evolve as she realized she needed to develop a focus in her work.
“In the beginning I just started by constantly producing work but I didn’t see it having any defined links,” said Alamoudi. “If there was a topic that I wanted to address, I would produce an artwork about it. That made me feel like my work wasn’t representing something specific because I use different mediums and talk about different topics. I felt like I didn’t have a defined position as an artist and I needed to grow.
“What was interesting for me is that I was able to refine my practice during my fine art master’s program. I was able to see more clearly the links within my body of work – and now I see my work as a form of anthropology, studying the ethnography and culture of my country and society. My work also helped me identify with my national identity on a more profound level.”
This evolution led her to the current focus of Alamoudi’s work, exploring the links between the ancient and modern.
“I use ethnographic methodologies to study the outlets of internet integration in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “A new global thought is emerging on the internet and is impacting on a culture that is deeply rooted in traditions and customs.
“My main focus is the manifestation of Saudi pop culture on social media, and the generated images that emerge from that space. Funny or dramatic viral videos and songs are not in any way truths about culture but people today have such strong connections to the symbolism within them – and that’s what my work studies.
“I gather and examine mass-media products generated by the Kingdom. These are personal videos that have been altered and stripped of their own form. Through their continued use as viral videos they become artifacts that define current Saudi culture.”
Alamoudi’s work on show at the 21,39 exhibition is a 7-minute presentation incorporating video, sound, sand and organic material. It explores the progression, evolution and speed of change that are part of the process of realizing a new vision for the country and the changing social landscape. She uses images of falcons as a symbolic reference to the co-existence of traditional and modern attitudes.
“Those Who Do Not Know of Falcons Grill Them is a commentary on the constant progressive changes that are occurring around me,” she said. “It’s about the formation and reformation of my country and society.
“I view change as a positive thing but a part of me wants to slow it down and see how communities are affected.”
While she has clearly put a lot of thought and meaning into her work, Alamoudi is reluctant to spell it all out to viewers, instead preferring that they form individual interpretations and find their own meaning.
“To me, the work is more of an emotional experience, so I let it be,” she said. “I let them experience it guided by their own experiences. Whether they love it or hate it, it triggers an emotion in them and that’s what art is for.”
Alamoudi this year started teaching in the Visual Communication faculty at Dar Al-Hekma, the same university from which she graduated.
“I went from being a student in the Visual Communication department to becoming a part of the faculty and it’s a really strange and amazing experience,” she said. “But I still see them as my teachers.
“The most important thing I teach to my students about art is that they have the space to share their ideas and thoughts and that there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Alamoudi would like to see more investment in art education in Saudi Arabia, but points out that this if not the only way for artists to grow and develop.
“I think there’s a necessity and a responsibility on communities and governments to invest in art education,” she said. “That being said, I don’t think that a formal education in art is a prerequisite to becoming an artist – but it does inform the way we reflect on our cultural identity.”
In another sign of her growing reputation, Alamoudi’s work will be on show at the 12th edition of the highly regarded Art Dubai event next month.
“This year will be the first time I get to participate with my artwork in Art Dubai and I’m really proud of that,” she said.
Ultimately, she believes there should be one priority above all when creating art.
“Having fun with the work,” she says. “If I’m not having fun creating then there’s nothing in it for me. I use a lot of comedy in my work as a form of addressing serious topics.”
* 21,39’s Refusing to Be Still exhibition continues until May 5, 2018. Visit www.21-39.com for venues and more details. Art Dubai takes place from March 21 to 24, 2018. Visit www.artdubai.ae.
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