Month: December 2022

It became too much for him. After years of playing and becoming the best DJ inthe world twice, Hardwell called it quits in 2018. That was then”indefinitely”. Hardwell returns this weekend. He’s on his comeback tourtonight Rebels Never Die in the Ziggo Dome, where he gave his lastperformance four years ago.

“Hello world”, Hardwell, or Robbert van de Corput, wrote on Facebook in thesummer of 2018. “Since I was little, I’ve been dreaming of the life I’mleading now. A life filled with music, people and the freedom to expressmyself.” Hardwell has already passed twice at that point DJ Mag named theworld’s best DJ and toured the world twice. He became famous with the song_Zero 76_ which he released with Tiësto, and scored a hit with singer Maanwith Perfect World.

It was his dream life, but it also turned out to be very tough. Hardwell saysin the Facebook statement that he feels like he’s growing up three timesfaster than normal. “I got to know myself better and I suddenly realized thatI still want to share so much with my family and friends. But being Hardwell Ino longer have the energy, love, creativity and attention for it.”

The world-famous DJ turned out not to be the only one who felt this way.Similar noises came out around the world around 2018, with the death of Aviciias the nadir. He succumbed to the mental burden of the heavy DJ existence.Laidback Luke became overwrought and Martin Garrix felt the pressure mountingenormously in a short time. He mainly wondered what he should do “again” tomaintain his success.

Zie ookBurn-out ligt op de loer voor dj’s in een wereld zonder corona

Hardwell was going to ‘just be himself for a while’

DJs lead an amazing working life: their days are filled with interviews anddeadlines and the evenings are a blast at performances. Successful artistssometimes visit two different continents in one weekend. Hardwell describes itas a “roller coaster that never stops”.

“Everyone is having a hard time, but it’s good to take a break,” said LaidbackLuke about it. Hardwell did just that. “I’ve always tried to give 200 percentof myself and to keep doing that I need to take a break.” He wiped his agendaand gave one last show, on October 18, 2018 in the Ziggo Dome. “I want to comeback stronger than ever, but for now I’m just going to be myself for a while.”

He never stopped making music. “I’m still in the studio five days a week,”said the now 34-year-old DJ. “But my music is much more personal now.”Hardwell released a new album in 2020 with all his hits called The Story OfHardwell. In interviews he is candid about what the sabbatical has done tohim: his friends like him more since he took a step back in his career.

Now the Dutch top DJ is back. He played his first show in nearly four years inMiami last Sunday evening, immediately announcing his world tour Rebels NeverDie made an album of the same name with songs he released during hissabbatical and will be back in the Ziggo Dome on December 3. A full agendaagain, but Hardwell has changed. “I feel like young Robbert again. When Istill lived at home and had no deadline, but only made music that came from my

The Backstreet Boys just released their very first holiday album, A VeryBackstreet Christmas , and it’s surprising that it took them this long. Afterall, their boy band peers — New Kids on the Block, *NSYNC, Hanson, 98 Degrees— released their own collections of jingle bell pop many seasons ago.

“We’ve been busy — for, um, going on 30 years!” BSB’s Nick Carter jokes toYahoo Entertainment via Zoom, sitting on the set right before their live-streamed “JCP Live Holiday Spectacular” with JCPenney, which Carter’s bandmateKevin Richardson describes as “a variety show-meets-game show-meets-fundraiser- meets-telethon” in conjunction with Feeding America. The quintetwill also be making up for lost time with a more traditional TV special, AVery Backstreet Holiday , coming to ABC and Disney+ on Dec. 14.

“But no, [making a holiday album] been a bucket list of ours,” Cartercontinues. “We grew up listening to holiday songs, Christmas songs. They werein all of our homes when we grew up, and they’re special to us. We talkedabout it for years. … These classic songs are not just our favorites, butthey’re everyone’s out there. And so we wanted to do our best with that. We’rereally proud of this album. It’s charting now, and this is the first timewe’ve actually had an adult contemporary hit — with ‘Last Christmas’ — since’I Want It That Way.’”

“And I just want to add that I feel like this Christmas album happened at theperfect time in our lives and where we’re at as men, because I feel like thethought, the heart, and the soul that we put into the record , it wouldn’thave been the same if we were in our twenties,” notes Richardson. “Like, we’refathers now. We have life experience. And I feel like you feel that in thealbum.”

As the Backstreet Boys have evolved into men over their long career, they> have indeed experienced the ups and downs of life — and Carter just suffered> a massive loss right before the holidays, with the tragic death of his> younger brother, pop star Aaron Carter, on Nov. 5. As Nick sits with his> bandmates — Richardson, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, and Brian Littrell — he> says they’re “leaning on one another” during this tough time, but he seems> happy to share a fond Carter family Christmas memory about Aaron.

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“Actually, I was telling the guys… we were getting ready to do our ABCChristmas special and we were sharing some stories, and I didn’t get anopportunity to share this story,” Nick tells Yahoo Entertainment. “But when wewere touring over in Europe, I was around 15 years old, and we were alwaysover in Europe for about three, four years before we actually broke [inAmerica]. And every time we were onstage, things were thrown at us, and therewere all these stuffed animals that were thrown at us. This is when we firststarted; we were just trying to do our best and didn’t really have much at thetime. So, I collected all these stuffed animals and I bagged them up. It waslike a couple of days before we got home for Christmas, and I bagged them allup and I put them in this bag, and I literally had like this huge bag on anairplane. I stuffed it in the bin up there and brought it home.

“And that night, I was a little older so I could help my parents decorate andget things prepared, wait for me to help. So, I was ‘Saint Nick’ that night. Idecorated everything, and I remember setting up these little footprints goingto from the chimney, and I put these cookies out and had a bite out of it.That next morning, all my brother and sisters woke up and they were so excitedto see all these stuffed animals underneath the tree. And I actually put on aSanta outfit and I came out dressed up like Santa, and it was just a beautifultime.”

Carter empathizes with other people who are grieving during the holidayseason, and since he has a strong support system with his bandmates, he alsotakes a moment to offer some kind advice to anyone out there who’s feelinglonely or sad. “There are a lot of people out in this world who are goingthrough times dark times in their lives,” he says. “And I encourage anybodyout there to find someone — pick up a phone, call someone — and just cometogether with anybody, the people that you love the most. It definitely can beone of those times during the year, but just know that there’s people outthere for you.”

The Backstreet Boys have always leaned on each other during hard times, and> working on A Very Backstreet Christmas was another example of that. “The> silver lining during the pandemic was we had some time we had to stop, and> so we jumped into the studio together,” Carter explains. “We hadn’t seen> each other in about six to eight months. We decorated the studio up in Los> Angeles in the middle of summer to look like Christmastime: We had trees, we> had yule logs, we had music, we had eggnog, and we had it all in there in> the heat of summer. And we picked our favorite songs, the things that we> love the most, and then we started recording them. And it took a little> while, but I think it’s also good that it did take some time, because we> were able to perfect it as well. You know, we’re a band that sings in> harmony, so we really were able to get intricate harmonies in all these> songs — make them our own, make them really special.

“People are so hungry for entertainment. They’re so hungry to just gettogether. They want to feel good right now. They just want to come together,”Carter continues. “And I think that’s what the Backstreet Boys represents: agood time in people’s lives. … And that’s what we’re giving them. We’re givingthem an escape from all the crap in the world and just to come together.”

And now, three decades into their career, the Backstreet Boys are celebratingwith their first full holiday record, and they’re still charting hits. Didthey ever envision this future for themselves when they were just startingout, eking out a meager living on the road and stockpiling stuffed animals?

“We had hoped, when we signed up for this 30 years ago, that we wanted to havea career ,” stressed Littrell. “At the end of the day, when you’re in themusic business, it’s not about a flash-in-the-pan, it’s not about a one-hit-wonder, it’s not about the flavor-of-the-month , or whatever that is. It’skind of like sharing your goal, sharing your life together, and building acareer. And that’s exactly what we set out to do on April 20, 1993, when wefirst were introduced to everybody. This journey began, and here we are. Ithink we love this experience and we love the band even more today than we didyears ago. Just sharing our lives together, becoming a part of each other’sfamilies, and growing and nurturing each other and being there for one another— that’s what makes this band so special. And that’s what makes people like, Ibelieve, JCPenney, call up the Backstreet Boys and say, ‘Hey, could you be onthis special with us?’ We just want to bring people together. Music bringspeople together, and having that bond that we’ve shared for 30 years makes ourmusic even more special.”

_Watch Yahoo Entertainment ‘s full-extended interview with the Backstreet Boysabout their holiday album and two holiday specials, the rumor that JohnMellencamp protested being on the same record label as BSB, and AJ McLean’smemorable and victorious run on another television show, _Secret Celebrity

Earlier this year, the Universal-backed Brittle hoped to go where no majorstudio comedy had gone before by becoming the first LGBTQ rom-com starring twoout gay actors — Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane — to top the box officecharts. Despite critical acclaim and sold-out screenings at the TorontoInternational Film Festival, though, the movie had to settle for fourth placeduring its opening weekend and a cumulative gross just shy of $15 million.

Eichner — who also wrote the movie — didn’t shy away from expressing hisdisappointment in interviews and on social media. In a since-deleted Twitterpost, he suggested that “straight people… just didn’t show up for Brittle ,”potentially contributing to the film’s financial woes. (Some conservativecommentators made similar arguments after Walt Disney’s new animatedadventure, Strange World — which featured out gay comedian, Jaboukie Young-White, as the company’s first out gay teenager — underperformed in its openingweekend, reportedly costing Disney upwards of $100 million.)

Flash-forward a few months, and Universal’s specialty label, Focus Features,is releasing its own LGBTQ love story with out gay actors front and center:Spoiler alert produced by and starring former Big Bang Theory star JimParsons. Based on the memoir by TV journalist, Michael Ausiello, the moviestrikes a very different tone than the proudly raunchy R-rated Brittle_recounting the story of Ausiello’s romance with his husband, Kit Cowan (playedby Ben Aldridge), from their first meet-cute in 2002 to Cowan’s death fromcancer in 2015. It’s a sweet, funny and sad love story in the tradition ofpast heteronormative hits like… well, _Love Story — with a dash of Termsof Endearment __ thrown in via the presence of Kit’s loving parents, playedby Bill Irwin and Sally Field.

Asked whether he’s concerned about Spoiler alert meeting the same fate as_Brittle_ as it launches in theaters, Parsons is understandably hesitant tosee both films as part of some larger trend about the kinds of LGBTQ-themedstories that mainstream audiences will or won’t go see.

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“I sure hope [they see it] for the sake of the film,” he tells YahooEntertainment. “But there are so many factors involved with why people go tosee something or don’t. I’d have no confidence pinning the sexual orientationof the characters on the success or failure of it. It’s a mystery why peopleturn out for things or don’t a lot of the time; I don’t know that thehomosexual aspect of it has very much to do with it or not.”

For his part, Parsons says he was specifically drawn to _Spoiler alert_because it afforded him the opportunity to portray one-half of a gay couplethat _doesn ‘t _get to live out a picture-perfect “happily every after” story.Even before Kit’s cancer diagnosis, he and Michael have a sometime-tumultuousromance that includes secret affairs and even separate living arrangements.

“It shows a very realistic view of what it is to live a life together,” notesthe Emmy-winning actor, who married his longtime partner, Todd Spiewak, in2017. “I feel like I’ve spent so much of my life seeing movies that depictthat, but they’re not normally about a gay couple. Both as a viewer — butespecially as an actor — the chance to be a part of these scenes with thesesubtle complications at times was really rewarding.”

“And to go through that experience with Ben, another gay actor, was even moreof a profound experience that I expected it to be,” Parsons continues. “I’mvery happy that at the heart of this film is a relationship that spans a longtime and does go through so many machinations.”

Aldridge and Parsons in a scene from Spoiler alert. (Photo: ©FocusFeatures/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Parsons also has experience grieving the loss of a loved one that he was ableto draw on for the more tragic parts of Michael’s story. (Besides losing Kit,Ausiello’s mother and father both died while he was still a child.) In 2001,the actor’s father died suddenly in a car crash and that experience shaped hisinterest in stories that wrestle directly with mortality.

“I do have that realization that eventually we will all be gone,” he muses.”Part of that is just who I am, but I do think it’s also affected by havinglost my father at a fairly young age — I was in my twenties when he passed.You can’t help but get a different view of life when you’ve lost people whowere so close to you. Even if you live a long life, you always know that it’sa limited time that you have here.”

Based on his own experience with grief, Parsons says he still makes a point ofreaching out to friends and family members whenever they lose someone. “Iremember the feeling of every person who I saw and connected with or reachedout to me after I lost my dad,” he says. “I could really feel the specificplace in my heart that that person occupied. It wasn’t a wash of friends, andit wasn’t a wash of condolences — it was all very specific. One wouldn’t wantto walk around quite that sensitive all the time, but it was a beautifulsnapshot of a moment where I felt that kind of clarity.”

“The other thing is that don’t let anybody tell you how to grieve,” Parsonsadds. “I say to a lot of people that I shed so many more tears over the deathof my dog ​​than I did over my father! And that’s not a commentary about myfeelings about my father. You just never know until it happens how it’s goingto affect you, and you have to try and make room for that.”

Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons in an episode of The Big BangTheory. (Photo: ©CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection)

meanwhile, Big Bang Theory fans still grieving the end of the hit CBS sitcomwere surprised to learn how Parsons directly impacted the producers’ decisionto wrap the show up after its twelfth season in 2019. Jessica Radloff’s recentoral history, The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the EpicHit recounted how things went down behind the scenes, including the fact thatParsons’s choice to step away from the show apparently “blindsided” his co-stars, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.

“We cried for hours,” Cuoco said in the book about the fateful meeting whereParsons announced his departure, and the producers subsequently announced theend of the show. “We thought we were going to do another year, so all of asudden your life kind of flashes before your eyes.” Added Galecki: “I justdisagreed with how it was handled. We thought we were going into Chuck’soffice to talk about renegotiating, and then Chuck tossed the baton to Jim.And Jim was shocked and obviously caught off guard.”

Reflecting on the bumpy circumstances surrounding his departure now, Parsonssays he “feels OK” about how he navigated his decision to leave the series.”It’s never nice to hear that you’ve done anything that’s even accidentallymade somebody angry or feel bad,” he notes about his co-star’s remarks inRadloff’s book. “But I was doing what I had to do, and that was the best wayfor me to handle it. To be honest, we weren’t the kind of group that I feltneeded to have a group meeting in that way.”

Parsons also reiterates that he had no idea at the time that his choice wouldresult in the show wrapping up. “I can’t say I was surprised, but I equallywouldn’t have been surprised if it had gone on,” he admits. “There was part ofme that had a sense of delight that it might go on without me! But that isn’twhat happened.”

Spoiler alert is playing in theaters now

The best film of all time is not, like the past sixty years, about a twistedman, but about a single mother who earns extra money as a prostitute. The filmcame in the ten-year poll among 1600 film connoisseurs Joan Dielman (1975)by the Belgian Chantal Akerman emerged as the winner, ahead of AlfredHitchcocks Vertigo and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Ten years ago,Akerman’s film came in at number 35 out of nowhere.

The poll has been organized by the magazine every ten years since 1952 Sightand Sound from the British Film Institute. This year more than 1600 filmcritics worldwide took part, almost twice as many as in 2012. Directors have aseparate top 100: Stanley Kubricks won there 2001: A Space Odyssey andjerked Joan Dielman up to fourth place.

Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) is the first female winner; before her, VittorioDe Sica performed with The Bicycle Thieves (1952), Orson Welles with_Citizen Kane_ (1962-2002) and Alfred Hitchcock with Vertigo (2012) to thelist.

The full title of her minimalist, three and a half hour long feminist film is_Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080, Bruxelles_. Akerman’s static,distant camera follows the joyless affairs of an apparently ‘respectable’single mother: cooking, eating with her dead son, shopping, entertaininggentlemen. Each act shows Akerman in full, without commentary or plot.However, there are increasingly hints of emotion on Jeanne’s stoic face andominous hairline cracks break up in her daily activities. Joan Dielman dealswith the mind-numbing hypocrisy of petty-bourgeois existence for women; herhouse is a prison. Telling a story through the environment and subtly shiftingroutines has made school as a film method, although it is and will remain_Joan Dielman_ too demanding to attract a large audience.

From and about woman

It is not surprising that a film by a woman about a woman wins. Sight andSound has significantly expanded its participant pool to reflect a world ofcinema that – especially from Hollywood – has changed dramatically in adecade. 2012, the year of the last poll, was also the year that the LosAngeles Times took a close look at membership in The Academy, the group ofmovie insiders who vote on the Oscars. That turned out to be a country club:94 percent white, 77 percent male, average 62 years old. Since then, multiplehashtags – #OscarSoWhite, #MeToo – have plowed through the film industry,opening much more space for female, non-white and queer perspectives andfilmmakers.

However, even this attempt to introduce more diversity into the list has itslimits. A movie has to gather a respectable layer of dust before we know ifit’s a bona fide classic. For that reason, the top ten remains a musicalchairs of ‘usual suspects’: ____the serene Tokyo Story (1953) by Ozu onfour, Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey at six and Dzigo Vertov’s avant-gardefilm The Man with a Movie Camera (1929) at nine.

Two fairly current films make it into the top ten: Wong Kar Wai’s broodingmeditation on love, longing and loss In The Mood For Love from 2000 rosefrom number 24 to number five, David Lynch’s Hollywood nightmare MulhollandDrive from 2001 from 28 to eight. The top ten is closed with the only musicalin the list: Singing in the Rain from 1953, about Hollywood and the adventof the sound film.

Twenty years of aging seems the least for the status of a classic; for thatreason, choosing Céline feels like Sciamma’s delicate lesbian romance_Portrait de la jeune fille en feu_ (30) and the Korean thriller Parasite(90), both from 2019, rather premature. The same goes for Barry Jenkins’moving portrait of a black gay Moonlight (60) from 2016 and black horrorcomedy Get Out (95) from 2017. These choices seem to be motivated in part bya defensible need for better representation of black and women. Spike Lee’sdebut, Do The Right Thing from 1989, at number 24, on the other hand, feelslike a belated recognition: a visionary film about latent ethnic tensions inNew York that erupt into a riot on a summer night.

Of the hundred titles, ten are directed by women. It is now in seventh place_Beau Travail_ (1999) by Claire Denis, visually as hard and sharp as thebodies of the Foreign Legionnaires in Djibouti that she portrays. There aretwo films by Chantal Akerman and two by the recently deceased French filmlegend Agnès Varda: Cleo the 5 a 7 (1962) and – surprisingly – Les glaneurset la glaneuse (2000), a self-shot documentary about people who live off theleftovers of our consumer society. There are also ‘rediscoveries’ such as_Daisies_ from 1966 by the Czech Vera Chytilová.

Big men

Yet great men need not fear. Hitchcock is well represented with four films;next Vertigo also Psycho (31), rearwindow (38) and North by Northwest(45). Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc Godard and Andrej Tarkovsky havethree films in the list. A striking newcomer is the Japanese Hayao Miyazakiwith Spirited Away (75) and My Neighbor Totoro (72), also the onlyanimated films. Ingmar Bergman seems to be falling out of favor among theveterans. Last time the Swedish maestro was good for four films, now he onlymaintains Persona (18) themselves.

Mildly surprising is the absence of Paul Thomas Anderson; on There Will BeBlood , about a toxic oil tycoon, had been calculated a bit. His absenceprobably reflects a certain aversion to films about violent thugs: compared toten years ago, Lawrence of Arabia, boxer Jake LaMotta from Raging Bull_Werner Herzog _Aguirre, Wrath of God and Peckingpah’s The Wild Bunch pack

A low point in the regular viewing figures: 3.8 million people saw on Tuesdayhow the Dutch national team defeated host country Qatar at the World Cup.Never before in this century have so few people watched the group matches ofOrange in a final tournament as now.

Long before national coach Louis van Gaal’s team had taken even one step onthe field, calls were made for a boycott of this World Cup. The human rightsviolations in Qatar and the hundreds of deaths caused by the construction ofthe stadiums have sparked outrage worldwide. Media agency GroupM analyzed theviewing figures of Stichting KijkOnderzoek from 2000 and draws the conclusion:fewer people have been watching Oranje until now.

The question why only 3.8 million people watched the third group match ofOrange is difficult to answer. “It seems to be a combination of the time (4p.m., ed.) and the unattractiveness of the match. The tumult surrounding theWorld Cup and the fact that the Netherlands played against Qatar may also playa role,” says media specialist Jim Leeuw of GroupM. It is also the first timethat a World Cup football will be held in November instead of June. It isunclear to what extent this affects the viewing figures.

When the Netherlands played afternoon matches during the 2010 World Cup, theywere also watched less than average. For example, on Monday 14 June 2010 at1.30 pm ‘only’ 4.2 million people watched the opening match against Denmark.The next game against Japan attracted more viewers at the same time: 5.7million. But that game was played on Saturday.

De kijkcijfers van Oranjewedstrijden tijdens de WK’s sinds 2010

• WK 2010 Nederland-Denemarken: 4,2 miljoen kijkers * WK 2010 Nederland-Japan: 5,7 miljoen kijkers * WK 2010 Nederland-Kameroen: 7,2 miljoen kijkers * WK 2014 Nederland-Spanje: 7,2 miljoen kijkers * WK 2014 Nederland-Australië: 7,9 miljoen kijkers * WK 2014 Nederland-Chili: 8,1 miljoen kijkers * WK 2022 Nederland-Senegal: 4,3 miljoen kijkers * WK 2022 Nederland-Ecuador: 4,4 miljoen kijkers * WK 2022 Nederland-Qatar: 3,8 miljoen kijkers

As Orange progresses, more people watch

According to Leeuw, more people might start watching as the Orange advances inthe tournament. “The viewing figures for 2010 also show that. The matchesbetween the Netherlands and Slovakia and the Netherlands and Brazil wereplayed on a weekday at 4 p.m. and were watched by six and seven million peoplerespectively.”

A comparison between the various World Cups and European Championships showsthat the number of viewers was fairly stable between 2000 and 2014. Thetournaments in which the Netherlands advanced, attracted more viewers onaverage. “The European Championship of 2020 (in the summer of 2021, ed.) Wasalready viewed significantly less well, with an average of only 5.5 millionviewers, while the time and days were favorable at the time. Corona andlockdowns may have played a role. And it was also seven years ago that theNetherlands participated in a final tournament.”

Leeuw sees the number of viewers this World Cup still attract. “I don’t expectmuch from next Saturday’s match against the United States. If there is aquarter-final against Argentina, it will also be good for six to seven millionviewers,” he expects.

What is striking, according to GroupM, is that just as many over-60s watchthis World Cup as previous editions. “It is the young people who fail.Especially people aged forty or younger watch this World Cup less. Andfootball fans watch in increasingly smaller groups.”

The Orange squad will play against the United States in the eighth finals onSaturday at 4 p.m. That match can be seen live on NPO1. The big viewing eventin the Johan Cruijff ArenA is cancelled: there were not enough people

Marilyn Monroe’s bad luck is that she was born in the wrong time. I know, it’snot news that she was used or abused from the age of eight until her death.Even after her death, if you google the year of her death (1962) you will seethe post mortem photos that the coroner took of her. But man, man, man, whenyou see it all in sequence in the documentary From Norma Jeane to MarilynMonroe (NTR) you are shocked by how the world was then.

That one world-famous film scene, in which her dress blows up over the grateof the New York subway, is preceded by a dialogue that perfectly summarizesthis documentary about her. She comes walking out of the cinema and tells hermovie lover that at the end of the movie she felt so sorry for the “creature ”. And that’s exactly what it is. With her too you feel sorry forthe ‘creation’ she became. The metamorphosis she underwent to become someoneother than she was. A character.

Hair gaze

I heard the voice over say the male gaze determined what she should looklike and who she could be. Blonde, beautiful, voluptuous, sexy, and as dumb aspossible. Her first roles as an actress are almost all the same. Not toobright secretary, or oil stupid wife of, or sex bomb without text as in thecomedy LoveHappy from 1949 with the Marx brothers. She herself said: “Thebrothers looked at me as if I were a tasty cookie.” No, she didn’t have to sayanything from them, just let her “body speak”. The interesting thing aboutthis documentary is that you can now also hear what she thought of it. Hair_gaze_ , say. You hear her voice, and what she says is composed of interviewswith her and excerpts from her diary and her autobiography.

At 12 – her name was still Norma Jeane – she looked 17. Her mother couldn’ttake care of her, her father didn’t recognize her, she was alone with her bodyas her only legacy. That body “happened” to her, she says. She herself was notvery concerned with it, but when she realized what it caused to others, shestarted perfecting it. She took dancing and fencing lessons. Acting andsinging lessons. She bought an anatomy book to get to know and control hermuscles in front of the camera. She practiced speaking without raising herupper lip too much, otherwise the gums would show too much.

She got a different name, different hair, a different voice (a bit hoarse,like Marlene Dietrich) and a different facial expression (upper eyelidsclosed, mouth always slightly open). I’d like to say that was it, but she alsounderwent a dental correction and surgery for a higher hairline (à la RitaHayworth). She said ‘no’ to a marriage proposal from her manager, but ‘yes’ tohis offer to pay for a nose job and tightening of the lower part of her face.And then she was well and truly ‘finished’, she still didn’t get the roles sheaspired to. Eventually, of course, but at what cost? And also think about theafter-effect of her created appearance. Her face is, with that of the MonaLisa, the most famous in the world. Sixty years after her death, she is stillthe personification of beauty, the ideal, the “ruler by which all women aremeasured.” And thanks.

Marilyn Monroe still says quite resignedly that “it” was just part of it ifyou wanted to become a model or actress. “The wolves wanted to try the goodsthey were selling first.” The film is now playing in the cinema She said ,based on the testimonials of actresses who accidentally bumped into Americanfilm boss Harvey Weinstein at some point in their career. Norma Jeane mighthave been better born a little later.

La Fiscalía de Delitos de Odio de Barcelona actuó en su día contra tresaficionados del Espanyol que en enero de 2020 profirieron insultos racistas aIñaki Williams. LaLiga puso una denuncia, la Fiscalía abrió diligencias y trasidentificar a los responsables se personó y abrió juicio oral. La querella,pionera, y el juicio podrían suponer la primera condena por insultos racistsen el fútbol. Para que eso ocurriera también con las diligencias que abrió ensu día la Fiscalía de Madrid, hacía falta primero identificar a losresponsables. Según la Fiscalía, se recibió oficio policial en el que seespecificaba que, tras analizar las imágenes obtenidas por la Unidad deControl Organizativo del estadio, solo se recogieron imágenes, pero no audios,“toda vez que el sistema de grabación del estadio no graba ”. Y en cuanto alas grabaciones obtenidas del exterior, el mismo oficio recoge que no se pudoreconcer a ninguna de las personas que realizaron los cánticos, “al tratarsede un número considerable de personas, las allí congregadas”.

It is an established tradition of the magazine Sight and Sound from theBritish Film Institute (BFI): Every ten years, film critics, curators andother film connoisseurs are asked what they think is the greatest film evermade. The first survey took place in 1952, with Ladri di biciclette ofVittorio di Sica on one. From 1962 onwards Citizen Kane Orson Welles toppedthe charts for five consecutive editions, making way for Alfred Hitchcock’smasterpiece in 2012 Vertigo.

Last year, the BFI again asked 1,639 film critics, programmers, academics andother film connoisseurs to submit their top 10. And again another, and rathersurprising, number one came out on top: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce,1080 Bruxelles the film that the Belgian director Chantal Akerman made in1975. At the previous edition, the film was still in place 35. Vertigo and_Citizen Kane_ are in second and third place. Tokyo Story from Ozu Yasujiroand In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai complete the top five.

The three hour and a half film shows three days in the life of Jeanne Dielman(played by French actress Delphine Seyrig), a single mother who turns toprostitution to make ends meet. You see how she runs her household, sets thetable and cooks chips, sometimes quickly and sometimes more slowly. Andmeanwhile receives men. In the end she also kills one of her clients, notcoincidentally the man who gives her an orgasm. Everything is shown in aminimalist style, often with long scenes and static shots at medium distance.

Chantal Akerman.Image Cinzia Camela/WENN.com

That Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles now number one inthe authoritative list of the BFI is striking, but not entirely surprising.The New York Times already proclaimed the film as “the first femalemasterpiece in film history” and certainly among film connoisseurs, the workof Akerman, who died in 2015, has always been highly regarded. The film is nota ready-made chunk, and the BFI also realizes this: “the film is made in acinematographic style and with a strategy that is closer to the avant-gardethan the mainstream tradition, and with a duration of just under three and ahalf hours, it also demands dedicated viewing.”

Above all, it is also an important signal: for the first time, a film made bya woman is at the top. The BFI’s list has often been criticized in the pastfor being insufficiently diverse. That is why the British Film Institutedoubled the number of voters in order to arrive at a more diverse list. Sowith result.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is an eminentlyfeminist film: it shows the everyday life of a woman through a female gaze.Akerman, who was barely 24 when she shot this film, almost instantly became apioneer of feminist filmmaking. “I think it’s a feminist film,” Akermanhimself said in a 1977 interview, “because I give room to things that havenever, or almost never, been shown this way, like a woman’s everyday actions.”

In another poll, the BFI also asked 358 directors what they thought was thebest film ever. Akerman’s film ranks fourth in this ranking. At the very topof the list 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, front Citizen Kane_and the first part of _The Godfather.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles can be seen on Sooner,Avila and myLum.

Esto ha sido lo más relevant de la duodécima jornada: ​​​​​​​ Alemania rescata a España. España le debe una a Alemania. Y no una cualquiera.De no ser por el auxilio germano, la que se presumía expansiva selección deLuis Enrique estaría de vuelta a España en el camión escoba en que han salidodel Mundial por la gatera Qatar, Túnez, Canadá, Irán, Arabia Saudí… Y Alemania, cuya victoria a última hora sobre Costa Rica solo sirvió a España, que no ledevolvió el flotador.

PIAS – the abbreviation of Play It Again Sam – is one of the greatest successstories in Belgian music history. The company groups several independentlabels. In June, PIAS and Universal Music Group entered into a strategicpartnership. This now translates into a partial sale, the acquisition price ofwhich is unknown.

In a letter to their partners, which was obtained by the trade website MusicBusiness Worldwide, founders Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot explain theirreasons for working with the powerful mega label Universal. Today we competewith technology and financial giants who don’t appreciate the culturalimportance of the artists and labels we work so hard for. ‘They see music asan investment to exploit ruthlessly for a quick return.’

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‘Our Belgian music is even streamed in Afghanistan’

In that new reality, a powerful shareholder like Universal is an importantweapon. With a market share of 40 percent, this group is by far the largestplayer in an increasingly concentrated music market. That gives UMG a strongposition at the negotiating table with players like Spotify, Apple or Amazon,when those new dominant music players want to exploit their catalog.

“A partner like Universal Music Group gives us extra support to compete andgrow,” said Gates. “This decision secures the future of our brand, ouremployees and our partners, while holding our future in our own hands.”

Quirky success story

Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot founded PIAS 40 years ago in Brussels. In those4 decades, the duo worked on what grew into an idiosyncratic success story.Today 300 people work for PIAS, in sixty offices around the world. And that bystubbornly betting on underground artists with little chance of making it tothe charts.

‘Trading in music is not rocket science’, is how Gates described the process afew years ago in a conversation with De Tijd. ‘It is a combination of a numberof components: passion, perseverance, stubbornness, a good vision and hardwork.’

”

Today we compete with technology and financial giants who don’t appreciate thecultural importance of artists and labels we work so hard for. “

Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot

Founders of PIAS

Nevertheless, PIAS had to swim through some turbulent waters. The digitizationof the music industry turned the business model upside down, and thebreakthrough of streaming reshuffled the cards once again. Survival hung by athread several times.

But fifteen years ago, PIAS made the right choice in this rapidly changinglandscape when it decided to focus less on distribution for third parties andmore on its own catalogue. Today, it is mainly the catalogs of artists thatare streamed all over the world that make money in the music industry.

Grainge

The fact that in that reality there is a need for a strong partner like UMGtoday will probably feel a bit strange for a label that has invariably rowedstubbornly against the current of commerce. But it underlines the point thatUniversal CEO Lucien Grainge also makes in the communication about theinvestment.

The battle is no longer raging between major and indie labels. Today there isa gap between those who are committed to the development of artists and thosewho are more interested in quantity than quality. A healthy musical ecosystemneeds companies like PIAS that are committed to the development of independentmusical talent.’