Tag: Entertainment

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call (Bill Withers, A Whole Person)

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“My father was this coal miner, but he was always interested in reading. Never got a chance to go to school. But he read. And, you know, dignity was very important to him. The first thing that I had to resolve in my life and the one thing that was very important to me, I had to sort this out: ‘Can I go into this thing and avoid the minstrel-ness of it?’ This is a business. And you got some cold pimps that will mail you out until you die in your grave. You got as many thieves in this stuff… There’s a life you have to run. And you do the best you can. And hopefully, as a human being, you improve. I’m 70-years-old. I’m not some kind of mindless troubadour. You know? I have an intellect I have to manage, I have some thoughts I have to manage, I have a life I have to maintain. I want to know where my stuff is. You know? I want to know who I am. I don’t want to be some simple-minded blues boy. You can bleep this out: ‘Kiss my ass with that shit.’ So I’m doing the best I can. To grow and improve my lineage as a species. So I got some responsibilities that require that I be available. I never had the benefit of a formal education, but I’ve always wanted to better myself. I can speak the language. I can write it, make it rhyme for you, if you want to. You know what I mean? Somebody said, “Education is the sum total of what you know.” That’s everything from tying your shoe to whether you can do quadratic equations or not. So, I’m not saying this should be a template for everybody, but that’s just the kind of person that makes sense for me to be. Hopefully the music that I made is useful to somebody. I mean, I get nice letters from people that say, ‘Hey man, my grandmother died, and the song helped me.’ I like that kind of stuff. As a result, it was important to me, as best I could, to try to wind up with a life that had some stability and some dignity in it… I made some choices earlier… that I wanted to be a whole person. Not just this entertainer thing. It doesn’t fill up my plate. I love it — who wouldn’t like it? But it doesn’t fill up my plate.”

– Bill Withers, on why he walked away from the music business in 1985 in an Interview on The Sound of Young America

Notes:

Kate Winslet: “I’m proud of those silences”

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At home, on most days, she is up at 6 a.m., cooking breakfast and getting the kids ready for school—not the stereotypical image of a movie star. “Do you have to use that word?” she asks, wincing. “I’ve always been so uncomfortable with that. I just don’t feel like one, and I don’t live like one either—not the way I imagine a proper movie star living.” […]

I didn’t plan on its being that way,” Winslet says. “And f— me, it hasn’t been easy, you know.” Noting that the tabloids tried and failed to detail how and why her earlier marriages unraveled, she adds, “No one really knows what has happened in my life. No one really knows why my first marriage didn’t last; no one knows why my second didn’t. And I’m proud of those silences.” […]

She admits to a lot of self-criticism when she was younger, but “thank God all that s—’s evaporated,” she says. “We all focus on our bodies in our late teens and our early 20s, in a way that is just not cool or healthy. In your 30s, you become aware of staying fit. Now I view my physical self as an instrument that I have to keep going because I’m a mother, and I have to be as healthy as I can for those three people who need me—more than I need for myself to be in a f—ing nude scene.” […]

Recently, Winslet has found herself in a new phase of her career. “When you get older, you’ve got to become more interesting. That’s why you have to choose the right parts,” says Primorac, mentioning the resolution of today’s digital cameras, which magnify every physical flaw. “I’ve done lots of films where Kate is the amazingly sexy leading lady, but now she’s more interested in the parts where she can frown and she can have wrinkles in her forehead. Instead of worrying, ‘Am I going to look good next to Liam Hemsworth?’—which she still does, by the way—she’s more interested in a great role.” […]

I want to read a script and go, ‘Holy s—, how the hell would I ever play that role?’ And then find myself somehow playing it,” she says, laughing. “I want to always be doing this. I want to grow and I want to change and I want to freak myself out.” Part of that process will be turning 40 this month, a birthday Winslet is sanguine about. “I have not wasted a second,” she says with a smile. “Good God, have I made the most of those 40 years.”

~ Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, Interview with Kate Winslet

Read entire interview here: Director’s Darling: Kate Winslet Stars in the Highly Anticipated Film ‘Steve Jobs’

Binge Watching. No comment as to you Aussies and Kiwis.

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serial-episodes

“Netflix knows the exact episode of a TV show that gets you hooked. A sample:

  • Bloodline — Episode 4
  • Breaking Bad — Episode 2
  • Grace & Frankie — Episode 4
  • House of Cards — Episode 3
  • Mad Men — Episode 6
  • Orange is the New Black — Episode 3
  • Sons of Anarchy — Episode 2
  • Suits — Episode 2
  • The Blacklist — Episode 6
  • The Walking Dead — Episode 2

The episode that Netflix names as the “hooked” episode is the global average, but it found some local variations. “The Dutch, for instance, tend to fall in love with series the fastest, getting hooked one episode ahead of most countries irrespective of the show.” On the other hand, “members in Australia and New Zealand [got] hooked one to two episodes later than the rest of the world on almost every show.”

See full article and list of TV Series at the Verve: Netflix knows the exact episode of a TV show that gets you hooked

Credits: Image – Exactly

His commitment, full, all his molecules

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If you were a fan of comedian Chris Farley, I highly recommend the new documentary on his life titled: I Am Chris Farley. The trailer above gives you a snapshot.  The quotes below are a few of my favorite testimonials from the film.

Mike Myers: “I was very influenced by his commitment, full, all his molecules, and anybody around him’s molecules, pulled into his performance.”

David Spade & Lorne Michaels: “Because everyone can fall down and whatever, but you can’t do it this good. He doesn’t put his hands up, which is what I would do. So he doesn’t block his fall, and you can’t do those forever. I think Chevy Chase warned him not to do that.  Because Chevy’d always had something there just before he fell so he could break the fall, but Chris was just taking it as paid. He wasn’t paying close enough attention to see that there was a way you could do it and not hurt yourself. His commitment was total.”

Bob Saget: “Then at one point there was a little fluffa that happened. There was a line that got skipped, and I just like pushed his glasses up and his eyes crossed. It was this delicate moment that made me very happy.  He came from that background where you pull everybody up – that you are there for everybody. You don’t leave anyone hanging. So when you are working with him, he was right there, helping you.  “Come on buddy”, you know, and that kind of thing.”

For a film review by Variety.com: “Film Review: I Am Chris Farley”

50. And most beautiful.

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la-et-mg-sandra-bullock-people-most-beautiful--002
Christie D’Zurill, LA Times: Sandra Bullock is People’s most beautiful woman; ‘ridiculous,’ she says:

Sandra Bullock, mother of Louis and winner of Oscar, is People magazine’s most beautiful woman for 2015…

At 50, she’s the oldest celebrity to be featured on the magazine’s annual cover celebrating beauty — a factoid that likely wouldn’t register with her 5-year-old son.
“[H]e asked why I have wrinkles, and I said, ‘Well, I hope some of them are from laughing so much.’ And he touched my face and said, ‘You’re not old, you’re just happy…

“Real beauty is quiet,” she said. “Especially in this town, it’s just so hard not to say, ‘Oh, I need to look like that.’

“No, be a good person, be a good mom, do a good job with the lunch, let someone cut in front of you who looks like they’re in a bigger hurry.”…