News Of The World Movie Review
By
Director: Paul Greenglass
Cast: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Michael Angelo Covino, Ray McKinnon, Marc Winnigham
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 12/17/20
Opens: December 25, 2020
When I was a kid, say 9 years old, I couldn’t get enough of Westerns on TV and in the movies, though in a recent interview Tom Hanks said “they don’t make Westerns any more.” My favorite heroes were Gabby Hayes, who played a toothless, bearded gent for comic relief; Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger. Every story of the Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian scout Tonto, ended with “Hi Yo Silver. Away!” Its only classic notion was the theme music from the overture to the opera William Tell, which I always use first to introduce high school kids to classical music.
Yakima Canutt was born and raised in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington. By the age of 20, he was a rodeo star known far beyond the Whitman County Fairgrounds where he busted his first broncos.
The actor John Wayne came to personify the Old West, a guy who slow-talked and fought his way across the frontier, who could ride and tumble with the best of them. He became the archetypal tough-guy cowboy.
But he wasn’t a cowboy, far from it.
So, who taught John Wayne to be John Wayne?
It was a guy from Eastern Washington who most people have forgotten, if they ever heard of him. A guy who changed how we see the West and changed Hollywood itself.
In normal circumstances, cinema-goers would be basking in a glut of high-quality films released to coincide with the awards season. Covid, the tiny spoilsport, has put paid to all that. Among the treats we’re missing through cinema closures is News of the World, a gritty, sprawling western directed by Paul Greengrass and starring the eternally Oscar-friendly Tom Hanks.
Hanks, who has won two Academy Awards and been nominated six times, plays Jefferson Kidd, a former Confederate army captain who now ekes out a living reading newspapers to illiterate passers by. As he is travelling from town to town, he comes across an overturned wagon and an abandoned girl. She was abducted by the Kiowa tribe years before, and Kidd reluctantly becomes involved in the search to find her family.
In Memoriam: Robert F. Liu, ASC (1926-2021)
A two-time Emmy nominee, the Chinese immigrant excelled in a difficult profession, due to diligence and inspiration from mentors, including James Wong Howe, ASC and Robert Wise.
Robert F. Liu, ASC (Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC)
Director of photography Robert F. Liu, ASC forged a cross-cultural career at a time when such international experiences were rare.
He died at the age of 94 on January 11, 2021.
When Liu was a young man, his talent was recognized by Chinese film pioneer Chuang Kuo Chuen, and he found Stateside mentors in director Robert Wise and cinematographer James Wong Howe, ASC. Liu went on to earn Emmy nominations for his work on the hit series
You wouldn t think something as small and mundane as a stamp would be much cause for controversy. But over the years, quite a few stamps have upset more than just collectors. Here are 11 of them.
1. A Mushroom Cloud Stamp
In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service somehow thought it would be a great idea to issue mushroom cloud stamps to honor the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Naturally, the Japanese government wasn t thrilled about the notion. The White House stepped in and basically vetoed the idea (the
New York Timesreported that the then-White House Chief of Staff made it clear that President Clinton preferred an alternative ), so a depiction of Harry Truman was used instead.