Films
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+ Geostorm review – Gerard Butler's dull disaster movie is a washout
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+ When writer-director Dean Devlin titled his handsomely budgeted new action tentpole
+ Geosstorm, he entered into an unspoken pact with his prospective audience. He chose a
+ goofy, make-believe word, and in doing so, promised a goofy, make-believe movie.
+ Nobody’s walking into the auditorium looking for lofty insights on the complexities of
+ the human condition, or even a commentary on how the timebomb that is climate change
+ continues ticking away due to political gridlock. It ain’t Citizen Kane and it ain’t
+ An Inconvenient Truth, and there’s no sport in expecting it to be. All parties
+ involved should understand the terms of this tacit agreement, an “if you build it,
+ they will come” proposition in which “it” refers to nothing short of a natural
+ apocalypse. All Devlin needed to do was deliver a storm, and no ordinary storm – a
+ storm of geo-proportions. To put it in the parlance of our times, you had one job. Is
+ climate change Hollywood's new supervillain? Read more Imagine, then, a re-edit of
+ Jaws in which Richard Dreyfuss and company get word from authorities at sea that a
+ shark is on the way to savage their precious shores. They then spend most of the film
+ doing everything in their power to prevent the shark’s arrival, and though Spielberg
+ occasionally cuts to reveal a sliver of fin, they successfully ward off the leviathan
+ before the beach turns bloodbath. Devlin lets out minute-long dribs and drabs of
+ Mother Gaia’s terrible might, torching Hong Kong here and drowning Abu Dhabi there,
+ but viewers take heed: there is no full-blown geostorm in Geostorm. We have been sold
+ a false bill of goods. If Devlin had his act together where the storm is concerned,
+ viewers might be willing to overlook such trivial matters as pat characterization, a
+ ludicrous plot and stale dialogue. But he doesn’t earn a tenth of the goodwill it’d
+ take to get away with a creation as absurd as Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler). A
+ hard-living single dad with a taste for booze and a distaste for the pencil-necked
+ bureaucrats’ rules, he’s the usual “cop on the edge” type, except that he’s an
+ astronaut. Step aside, John Glenn, because Jake’s the dudeliest dude Nasa has ever
+ seen; not only does he have perfect five o’clock shadow at all times, he invented a
+ global network of satellites codenamed “Dutch Boy” that artificially controls the
+ planet’s atmosphere and halted global warming in its tracks. This, believe it or not,
+ goes awry.
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+
+ Can Michael Fassbender survive his year of flops?
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+ The Snowman is a turkey. Everyone saw it coming, and now it’s happened. Audiences
+ simply did not want to see Michael Fassbender play a man called Harry Hole in a film
+ that was released before it was finished and marketed by a drawing of a Snowman who
+ calls everyone “Mister Police”, like some sort of cut-price children’s entertainer.
+ Lessons have been learned and everyone will move on. Especially Michael Fassbender.
+ The Snowman has been a rare blip in an otherwise sparkling career for him. That is,
+ unless you count that terrible Assassin’s Creed film he made. Oh, and the compulsively
+ underpowered Alien: Covenant. And Song to Song, a Terrence Malick film so Terrence
+ Malicky that even Terrence Malick promised to stop making films like that now. And The
+ Light Between Oceans and Trespass Against Us, two films that nobody – not even the
+ handful of people who actually paid to see them – have thought about since the instant
+ the credits rolled. The trouble is that all these films have been released within the
+ last 12 months. Michael Fassbender is now churning out a fresh disappointment every
+ eight weeks; a frequency that makes Nicolas Cage look like Daniel Day-Lewis. It’s
+ enough to make you wonder what went wrong.
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+ Do you want some fuel? Then visit our local gas station and buy
+ high-quality fuel with lowers prices!
+
+
+ Director James Toback accused of sexual harassment by 38 women
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+ The Oscar-nominated writer and director James Toback has been accused of sexual
+ harassment by 38 women in a report published by the Los Angeles Times. How Harvey
+ Weinstein’s accusers gave women worldwide a voice Read more Many of the women allege
+ Toback approached them on the streets of New York City and promised stardom.
+ Subsequent meetings would often end with sexual questions and Toback masturbating in
+ front of the women or dry-humping them, according to the accounts. The 72-year-old
+ denied the allegations to LA Times, saying he never met any of the women, or if he had
+ it “was for five minutes and [I] have no recollection”. Thirty-one of the women spoke
+ on the record including Louise Post, who is a guitarist and vocalist for the band
+ Veruca Salt, and the As the World Turns actor Terri Conn. Actor Echo Danon recalled an
+ incident on the set of Toback’s film Black and White where he put his hands on her and
+ said he would ejaculate if she looked at his eyes and pinched his nipples. “Everyone
+ wants to work, so they put up with it,” Danon told the Times. “That’s why I put up
+ with it. Because I was hoping to get another job.” Toback did not respond to a request
+ for comment.
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Everyday heroes
++ + Abbotsford firefighters rush to save dog from burning home + + + It was a close call for a family in Abbotsford Wednesday morning as fire crews rushed + to save a dog trapped inside a house fire. When crews arrived to the home at Laburnum + Avenue and Old Clayburn Road flames were shooting out of the roof. Firefighters burst + into the home to try and find the family dog. Crews got him out just in time and + immediately gave it oxygen. The dog is expected to be OK but the damage to the home is + extensive. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. “They were able to find + the house pet,” said Abbotsford Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Adams. “The dog was brought + out, the dog was unconscious when they brought him out. We were able to give him + oxygen and revive him and he’s doing pretty well.” The dog was also checked out by a + vet. + + + An off-duty firefighter saved a man's life in the gym five days after crews stopped + responding to medical emergencies + + + Five days after firefighters stopped responding to medical emergencies in Greater + Manchester an off-duty officer has saved a life. John Wheeldon, arrived at his local + gym today (Friday) and within 10 minutes was bringing a fellow gym-goer back to life + with CPR. The Bolton North Blue Watch firefighter said: “I arrived at the gym at + around 8.40am and started my warm up on the cross trainer. “I could see another man + five machines down with his headphones on, listening to music. One minute the man was + working out and the next he was lay on the floor.” John rushed to his aid performing + chest compressions. Within one minute, an ambulance had been called and two members of + staff from Total Fitness gym in Bolton were by his side with a defibrillator. John + added: “I ran over to the man and I could tell by the colour of his face that he + wasn’t breathing. I pulled his body away from the machines so I had room to perform + CPR. I continued with chest compressions whilst one staff member gave breaths and the + other operated the defibrillator. “We continued doing CPR for around six minutes + before he started breathing on his own but he was under the recommended breaths per + minute and then stopped breathing again. At this point the AED advised a shock, which + he received just as the ambulance service arrived.” + +
+Breaking News
++ + Parliament will meet on Thursday, a day before Spanish senate is expected to back + measures against regional government + + + The Catalan parliament will meet on Thursday to decide how to respond to the Spanish + government’s unprecedented decision to impose direct rule, as speculation mounts that + the regional president, Carles Puigdemont, could use the occasion to ask MPs to vote + on a unilateral declaration on independence. The plenary session will be held a day + before the Spanish senate is expected to approve measures that would strip + Puigdemont’s administration of its powers and transfer its functions to the relevant + ministries in Madrid. The constitutional measures would require elections for the + Catalan parliament to be held within six months. On Monday the Catalan foreign affairs + minister, Raül Romeva, said the region would not accept the Spanish government’s + attempts to take control, and accused the EU of doing nothing. “How can the European + Union live with that situation [if this happens]?” Romeva told BBC Radio 4’s Today + programme. “How can the EU democracy survive and how can they be credible if they + allow this to happen? Because what I can tell you is that the people and the + institutions in Catalonia will not let this happen.” Spain’s deputy prime minister, + Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, said the Spanish government would appoint its own + representative to replace Puigdemont as soon as direct rule came into effect. “They + are president of the regional government and senior figures in that government because + of the constitution,” she told Spain’s Onda Cero radio station. “They are not + entrusted with that role by any divine authority.” On Saturday Spain’s prime minister, + Mariano Rajoy, said his government was using article 155 of the constitution to + “restore the rule of law, coexistence and the economic recovery and to ensure that + elections could be held in normal circumstances”. Puigdemont’s government has + denounced the move as a “de facto coup d’etat” and insists the results of a recent + referendum – in which 90% of participants voted for independence – mean it has a + mandate to break away from Spain and become a sovereign republic. Although the Catalan + leader signed a declaration of independence on 10 October, he then proposed that its + effects be suspended for two months to allow talks to find a way out of the impasse. + Puigdemont has described Madrid’s invocation of 155 as the worst attack on Catalonia’s + institutions since General Franco’s dictatorship, and accused the Spanish government + of “slamming the door” on his appeals for dialogue. His government has refused calls + to avert the crisis by dropping his independence plans and calling new elections + before the article comes into force. On Sunday a spokesman for the Catalan + administration said fresh polls were “not on the table” and the government would fight + “tooth and nail to defend Catalonia’s democratically elected institutions”. + Puigdemont’s junior coalition partner, the far-left, separatist Cup party, has urged a + campaign of mass civil disobedience against what it called “the greatest aggression + against the civil, individual and collective rights of the Catalan people” since + Franco. According to the Catalan government, about 2.3 million of Catalonia’s 5.3 + million registered voters – 43% – took part in the referendum, and 770,000 votes were + lost after Spanish police stepped in to try to halt the vote. + +
+Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their + work done.+ +
Breaking News
++ + Forget Los Angeles. If you want to get rich and famous fast, in anything from food to + fashion, San Francisco is the place to be. But will handing that kind of power to a + new global elite come at a price? + + + The strangest thing about Bulletproof Coffee isn’t stirring a pellet of grass-fed + butter and a dollop of coconut oil into your morning cup and calling it breakfast, + weird though that is to swallow. No, what makes Bulletproof really unusual is the + trajectory the trend has followed. The craze started with the Silicon Valley + entrepreneur Dave Asprey, who turned the alleged weight-shedding, brainpower-enhancing + benefits of caffeine turbocharged with fat into a mini-empire. He took the idea to + Santa Monica, where he opened a cafe. David Beckham started dropping in. From there, + it spread to fashion. Vogue has called it “the new green juice”; at the recent fashion + shows, it was on the way to replacing espresso and egg-white omelette as the standard + front-row breakfast. Dan Brown, whose novels surely give him zeitgeist bragging + rights, has been telling interviewers how 4am writing sessions for his latest book, + Origin, were fuelled by Bulletproof. Asprey’s ready-made, cold-pressed Bulletproof + products are about to go on sale in Whole Foods Market stores, at which point the + journey from Silicon Valley quirk to bona fide hipster lifestyle trend will be + complete. The direction of travel of trends outwards from Silicon Valley was visible + when Duncan Selbie, the chief executive of Public Health England, warned of the + “perils of sitting at your desk” all day and called for employers to introduce + “walking meetings” to reduce stress and back pain among the workforce. The pioneer of + the walking meeting was Steve Jobs and the habit is so deeply ingrained in Silicon + Valley culture that the Frank Gehry-designed Facebook headquarters features four + hectares of wifi-enabled wildflower meadows, with milkshake stands dotted along paths. + On Prince Street in New York’s Soho, the newest boutique to open alongside Marc Jacobs + and Ralph Lauren is evidence of the first true fashion trend to originate in Silicon + Valley. Allbirds, the woollen sneakers that are already de rigueur at Googleplex, are + spreading to “a creative class of people … architects, interior designers, + entertainers in music and acting”, as the San Francisco-based cofounder Joey + Zwillinger told the New York Observer. + +
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