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A STAR IS BORN
You know a tearjerker is really working when, in its last 15 minutes, the mere sight of a well-done steak is enough to get viewers weepy. But the latest iteration of A Star Is Born – the third American remake of this timeless show-biz melodrama since 1937's original (itself a sort of remake of 1932's What Price Hollywood?) – is a tearjerker that leaves you less wiped out than electrified.
Tears are definitely shed at this directorial debut by Bradley Cooper, who also served as co-producer, co-writer, co-songwriter, and, it should go without saying, co-star to the force of nature that is Lady Gaga. Yet from the opening scene of Cooper's hard-living rocker thrilling a raucous crowd of thousands to the climactic scene of Gaga's chanteuse riveting a hushed crowd of a few hundred, this A Star Is Born is a phenomenally complete entertainment: heartbreaking, yes, but also smart and incisive and funny and nerve-racking and, above all, devastatingly romantic. The film is a true, and truly believable, love story, and it's been so long since we've had one of those at the cineplex that the movie's very existence almost earns it a badge of honor. And if you respond to Cooper's achievement the way I did (and the way others at my screening clearly appeared to), you might agree that the primary love story is profoundly personal. Because in addition to being about Cooper's and Gaga's musicians falling in love, this musical drama is also very much about you falling in love with it – with getting swept up in the whole lush, grand, unbridled emotionalism of the thing. I don't feel blind to the movie's flaws: Its first, transcendent third is almost inarguably stronger than what follows; due to his age, Cooper's character doesn't make much sense given the modern setting; the creaky mechanics of the 1937 plotting, though well-lubed, still appear to have needed extra oiling. I also don't really care. I fell madly, deeply, for A Star Is Born, and feel no need to equivocate. Is it perfect? No. Is it perfect for what it needs to be? Absolutely.
In Hollywood's latest version of this tale as old as time (or at least as old as motion pictures with sound), Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a legendary rock singer/guitarist and chronic alcoholic who's obviously loaded even before he steps on-stage for the most recent stop on his national tour. We witness only a minute or two of Jackson's concert, but a jump cut of screaming fans and flashing cameras post-performance suggests that the show was a hit – albeit one that leaves the musician, in the back of his limo, downing the last of his stashed gin bottle and suggesting to his driver that they stop for more en route to the airport. There are no liquor stores to be found, so Jackson suggests that they pop into a downtown nightclub for a cocktail or several, which is where he first encounters Gaga's Ally. Arriving on drag night, he finds Ally the only cis singer in a room full of female impersonators, and watching her captivate the room with a glorious live rendition of Edith Piaf's “La Vie en Rose,” Jackson, too, is captivated. Wiping away tears, he agrees when her best friend Ramon (the fantastic Anthony Ramos) asks if he'd like to meet her backstage. Ally – a harried restaurant worker unsuccessful in her attempts to launch a singing career – is initially blindsided by Jackson's presence, and agrees to join him for a drink. The rest, as they say, is history.
By which I mean A Star Is Born history, in that the two quickly fall in love, Jackson gives Ally her big break, and for the rest of the film, her star exponentially rises while his irrevocably tumbles. It's a storyline your grandmother, or great-grandmother, could handily recall. Yet the narrative familiarity, here, does nothing to impede the excitement of Jackson's and Ally's initial courtship, which begins when Jackson gingerly peels off one of Ally's false Piaf eyelashes – as if to say to Ally, to Lady Gaga, and to us, “I want to actually see you” – and leads to honest and fiercely connected conversation, a thrown punch in a cop bar, and a bag of frozen peas in the supermarket parking lot. Our familiarity with the material does nothing to diminish the ecstatic, breath-holding moment of Jackson inviting Ally to join him on-stage, in front of screaming thousands, to debut the first song she sang for him, followed by 10 exquisite seconds of a backstage Ally psyching herself up to the task. (Seriously: Actors have won Oscars for less than what Gaga pulls off in those 10 seconds of screen time.) And by the finale, no matter how many Star Is Borns you've seen or how many times you've seen them, Cooper's offering feels recognizable yet astoundingly new. Cooper and co-screenwriters Eric Roth and Will Fetters don't much deviate from the saga's traditional arc, and they add plenty of modern-day signposts: music videos, a rehab facility, a guest spot on Saturday Night Live. Yet the leads' hunger – for the spotlight, for each other – feels completely of-the-moment, and couldn't have transpired without utter fearlessness and truthfulness on the parts of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
No one entering the film could've doubted whether Gaga would pull off her role's vocal demands, and while her head-voice soprano is still a little wobbly, she's blisteringly good in her lower register and when belting, especially on the “Shallow” earworm that had fans (myself included) stoked for the film since its first previews. What I absolutely didn't anticipate from A Star Is Born was how much I'd adore her portrayal even if she didn't sing at all. Cooper wisely gives Gaga several scenes to win us over before Ally ever croons “La Vie en Rose,” and her early humor and seemingly effortless naturalism – combined with the nearly revelatory experience of seeing Lady Gaga sans makeup, wigs, and elaborate costumes – puts you in the fledgling performer's corner from the start. But Gaga is extraordinary throughout her intensely demanding and rewarding role.
I can't remember the last time physical gestures made me teary-eyed. When Ally first sings “Shallow,” though, under blinding lights in front of cheering masses, and with the rock legend Jackson grinning to her side, she instinctively covers her eyes and mouth at critical junctures, as if to say, “I can't believe what I'm doing right now.” Those are gestures unimaginable coming from the actual Lady Gaga. They're absolutely right, though, for the struggling Ally, whose previous existence under the roof of her intensely sweet, well-meaning dad (a priceless Andrew Dice Clay) never hinted at a moment of such fairytale perfection. Throughout the film, Gaga is never less than this level of awesome, as wholly realized in her tactful battles of will with her humanely soulless manager (a very fine Rafi Gavron) as she is in her embraces, fights, and significant sorrows with Jackson.
While Gaga's performance jazzed my soul, Cooper's broke my heart, and in the most laudatory sense of the phrase. I'm still not sure how I feel about his Jackson Maine as a present-day conceit, given that his drawling, hard-drinking, unimpeachable Artist of Integrity – considering that he appears to be in his mid-40s – would've probably debuted on the charts in the mid-to-late-'90s, many years after songs by rock greats such as Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen began landing on “oldies” stations. (It seems unlikely that Jackson would've made such a splash in a post-Nirvana world.) But despite that built-in hindrance, A Star Is Born reminds you that Cooper is a frequently brilliant interpreter of very specifically damaged characters, and his Jackson Maine may be the film performance of his career to date. The externals – gravelly voice, sunburned complexion, six-days-without-a-shower hair – are all there, as is the actor's veracity as a decades-long rock idol who no longer notices how much people still love him. (Cooper's countrified singing voice and guitar-picking skills – or fakery – are also evident, even if no decades-long alcoholic in history has ever appeared quite as physically toned.)
What truly slayed me about Cooper, though, was how convincingly he played inebriated, and not even inebriated – wasted. Jackson isn't an angry drunk; even when he's being hostile, as when confronting Ally while she's bathing or “lovingly” smearing cake on her face in a “playful” act of pride, you can sense the rocker telling, begging, himself to keep his cool. But Cooper's wrenching portrayal never lets you forget the sadness and shame that has led Jackson to this state, and after attempting sobriety, the anguish as he tries to make amends with Ally and his much-older brother Bobby (a tremendous Sam Elliott) is nearly unbearable to watch. That it isn't is testament to Cooper's extraordinary delicacy and honesty in his role. This A Star Is Born fixes a colossal problem from previous versions in that it doesn't turn its male lead into a narcissistic bully by the finale, but rather a figure in every way as deserving of love and empathy as its female lead.
Those who remember the 1954 Star Is Born with Judy Garland and James Mason no doubt remember the film's signature dramatic moment, which occurred when Mason's Norman Maine slapped his wife Vicki Lester at the Oscars. Cooper sets up a similar sequence here at the Grammys. But just as we're wondering how he's going to pull off a similar moment in 2018 – surely no modern pop star would stand for a man who hit her on live TV in front of millions of viewers! – Cooper delivers a jolt similarly stunning and, in its way, equally painful for Ally, and for Jackson. It's one of numerous instances here in which Cooper's storytelling is both inventive and spectacularly confident. For a directing novice, Cooper is remarkably assured in delivering delayed answers to lingering questions, and there are wonderful bits involving the punchlines to the rambling Sinatra stories told by Ally's dad and Jackson's odd purchase of a bag of Cheetos. But aided in no small part by cinematographer Matthew Libatique and editor Jay Cassidy, the movie hums with professionalism and skill for the whole of its 135 speedy minutes. After the performance of “Shallow” that arrives some 40 minutes into the film, there are random merely-competent scenes, but no bad ones.
And God but there are so very many moments to cherish: Ally's wide-eyed amazement as Jackson knocks back the first of many shots he'll end up drinking in front of her; Jackson taking full scale of Ally's talent in that supermarket parking lot; Ramon's silent applause as his friend ascends the stage for her star-making debut; Ally quelling friends' nervous concern when a loaded Jackson falls to the floor and she offers a publicly blasé, secretly upset “He does that a lot”; Jackson's pal George (Dave Chappelle, marvelous) offering a helping hand and a place to stay; Bobby's silent, teary understanding of Jackson's love as he backs out of a driveway; the late-film arrival of that well-done steak, whose purpose is achingly evident the instant it appears. Given all this and much more, and Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in roles that aren't consummate so much as instantly iconic, A Star Is Born is a dream of a moviegoing experience. I can't wait to experience it again and again.
A gelatinous extraterrestrial with self-esteem issues morphs with the world's least convincing investigative reporter – one played by Tom Hardy! – in Venom, and the movie still isn't enjoyable enough to qualify as a guilty pleasure. I promise I'm not one of those Lady Gaga-fueled hate-bots that, as was reported by Variety magazine, spit out fake-news advance dissings of director Ruben Fleisher's Marvel-character origin saga in order to drum up business for A Star Is Born. But I honestly have to ask: Was this astonishingly unfunny and tonally lunatic comic-book adventure somehow conceived by a team of hyperactive third-graders with access to an A-list Rolodex?
I'll admit there's something kind of endearing and kinky about the idea of a loser alien melding with a loser human in order to stamp out encroaching interplanetary takeover and win back the heart of a TV journalist's former fiancée (Michelle Williams, looking like she's rather be anywhere else). And setting the tale in San Francisco has its obvious perks, as those rolling hills are at least good for some appealing vistas amidst all the prototypical chase scenes and action choreography. But don't Marvel fans, to say nothing of other humans, deserve better than the hackneyed plotting that finds twitchy, tic-y Hardy's Eddie Brock losing his job, his girlfriend, and his apartment on the very same day, followed by the requisite “six months later” tag that finds a bar patron asking if our hero is Eddie Brock and the sloshed has-been muttering, “I used to be”? Don't they/we deserve better than Riz Ahmed, as the token soft-spoken über-villain, grimacing through dialogue such as “Get me my symbiote – now!”? Can anyone really think it's funny when a purportedly higher intelligence demands food like it's the man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors and wisecracks in comic-book balloons less sophisticated than the ones the film's flesh-and-flood figures are tucked beneath? Isn't it apparent to everyone that Hardy is doing way too much physical acting and Brando-esque mumbling for the noxious All of Me adventure he's trying, nearly singlehandedly, to pull off? The stunningly embarrassing, in-all-ways-terrible Venom plays like an imagination-deprived Deadpool stuck with a PG-13 rating its parents insisted on, and I was more than happy to bolt the auditorium before, as I understand, Woody Harrelson showed up mid-credits to offer the threat of Venom sequels. Unlike Hardy, Williams, and Ahmed, I'll at least be able to watch Harrelson in his next movie without my first thought being, “What were you thinking?!?”

domain: entertainment


(DETROIT, Mich.) Hello and welcome to this Friday's edition of the Detroit Daily Round-Up. I hope everyone has a great (and warm) weekend!
Today is Friday, December 3, let's check out Detroit's biggest stories of the day.
On Thursday, nine lawyers associated with former President Donald Trump were ordered to pay Detroit and Michigan a total of $175,000 in sanctions for abusing the court system with a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results.
The money must be paid within 30 days, and will cover the legal costs of defending against the suit, which totaled over $153,000 for the city and nearly $22,000 for the state.
On Friday at noon, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald is expected to charge the parents of the 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley after he allegedly shot and killed four teenagers at Oxford high school on Tuesday.
Prosecutor McDonald had previously said a decision would be made quickly on whether to charge the parents after their son allegedly got ahold of a handgun purchased four days before the mass shooting.
The U.S. military is deploying a third 22-member medical team to assist in Michigan hospitals that are dealing with record-high numbers of COVID-19 patients amid the state's fourth surge of infections.
According to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, 76% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients weren't fully vaccinated and 87% of those in intensive care units weren't.
In the aftermath of Tuesday's deadly shooting spree at Oxford High School, schools across Michigan have been receiving copycat threats on social media, encrypted apps or on school walls.
On Friday, more than a dozen districts canceled classes due to the increase of these threats.
This is original content from NewsBreak’s Creator Program. Join today to publish and share your own content.


ZAGREB, 18 February 2020 – Promising Dinamo Zagreb defender and two-cap Croatian international Dino Peric has had his Euro 2020 dream ended by injury.
The 25-year-old defender, who made his debut for Croatia in the crucial final Euro qualifier against Slovakia in October and was a good chance to make Zlatko Dalic’s squad for Euro 2020, will be out of action for at least six months after suffering an anterior cruciate ligament during Dinamo’s clash with Osijek on Sunday.
Peric will undergo surgery, followed by a long recovery period and is not expected to play again for around six months.
Peric, who stands 197cm tall, has also represented Croatia at U-18, U-19, and U-20 level, scoring twice in a total of seven appearances. He has 35 appearances so far for Dinamo Zagreb, scoring once and was impressive during the club’s recent Champions League campaign.


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Living Room Design Doozies: 11 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Your SpacePosted by Jay McDouall on
By Holly Amaya
We know, we know: Coming up with a design scheme from scratch in any room is difficult, let alone your primary living space. You might be tempted to pick out a sofa and a coffee table and call it a day. That's all you really need, right?
Nope! In order to design a truly inviting living room that's also at its most functional, you'll need to do a little extra thinking. Where will your guests sit? Where do the wires go? Where will your kids' 10,000 Lego blocks actually live when they're not scattered all over the floor?
We consulted with design experts across the country to suss out the top things people forget when creating a living room that's not only beautiful but also, well, livable. Take a look.
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Lidia is a renowned international photographer who has captured the love, beauty and passion of the bridal couples she has had the pleasure of working with.
Graduating from the National Institute of Photography of Rome in 1991 she has focused and loved working in the wedding genre has also worked extensively with but not limited to:
- International Magazines
- Sport and Celebrities
- News and Public Awareness
She has a strong connection to her Italian Heritage and the passion of the Italian people but also treasures the art she has created globally.
She is in the preferred vendor list wedding photographers of:
- Fairmount Chateaux Montebello Quebec
- Marriott Ottawa Hotel Ontario
- Hotel Quintessence Mont Tremblant Quebec
- The Gatineaux Golf Club Quebec
“A rush of adrenalin… That’s Lidia when she talks about past photo shoots or ones she is planning on. She doesn’t content herself with simply photographing her subjects, instead, she strives to “live” them deeply with incredible enthusiasm now ever so rare to find in editorial offices. Lidia doesn’t search for beautiful images alone. She looks for a story and people she wishes to uncover and tell about. Naturally, she always ends up with images that are not only beautiful but also exciting.”
Marco Finazzi - Vanity Fair, Photo Editor


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Jan. 28, 2022) – A park ranger is being lauded for coordinating an important project to publicize and feature Center Hill Dam in a National Inventory of Dams video titled “Exploring Our Nation’s Dams.”
In large part by her efforts to lead and organize support for the film crew’s visit to the project, Ashley Webster, natural resources specialist at Center Hill Lake, is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District Employee of the Month for November 2021.
In the weeks leading up to the filming Nov. 1-3, Webster took on a developmental assignment as a team leader overseeing environmental compliance at Cordell Hull Lake on the Cumberland River. In taking on the temporary position, she requested to be allowed to finish the job with the NID video, which her supervisors approved.
Lt. Col. Joseph Sahl, Nashville District commander, announced her selection as employee of the month, recognizing her demonstrated excellence and personal effort to go the extra mile by assuming additional duties, but also for seeing the national video project through to its conclusion.
“The production required Ashley to work with the film crew, fellow district employees, and stakeholders, all while serving on her developmental assignment,” Sahl said. “The level of pride, dedication and commitment Ashley has shown to her team and the mission makes her the perfect candidate for employee of the month.”
The NID staff picked Center Hill Dam for the video to highlight the purposes and benefits of larger Corps of Engineers dams as part of a rollout of an updated NID website. With wide visibility, Center Hill Lake Resource Manager Kevin Salvilla entrusted Webster with handling all the details with USACE Headquarters, Nashville District leadership, personnel at the dam and powerplant, and with stakeholders such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which scheduled a delivery of trout to the tailwater from the Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery during filming.
“I knew she was ready, prepared and looking for an opportunity to get some positive exposure for the project,” Salvilla said. “She convinced the Headquarters Dam Safety Levee Program team that this is where they needed to film. In fact, when the producer showed up on day of filming, he made a statement about how he wished all the other locations were this great to work with.”
Salvilla said it goes without saying that Webster is fully supported by a dynamic and high-performing impact team at Center Hill Lake and Dam, and they encourage and support one another, which makes the project successful and a great place to work. He noted that Webster is a good teammate and very supportive and has an excellent work ethic.
“Whether the task is technical in nature or required that she roll up her sleeves – she gets to work and that is what I think people respect,” Salvilla said.
Center Hill Dam is located on the Caney Fork River in Lancaster, Tennessee. It is a 250-foot-high, 1,382-foot-long concrete dam with a 778-foot earthen embankment. The dam supports flood risk management, hydropower, water quality, water storage and recreation. The Nashville District constructed the dam from 1942 to 1948, although construction halted for two years during World War II. The Corps completed the hydropower plant in 1950, which supplies enough hydroelectricity for an average city of 125,000 people. The 64-mile reservoir with 415 miles of shoreline also provides lots of recreational opportunities for the public.
Webster said the team of employees that work at Center Hill Lake and the dam are incredible people, so she really wanted to support the video to draw attention to their many contributions, in addition to highlighting the dam and its purposes. She said that she certainly didn’t expect to be named employee of the month for her efforts.
“I was caught completely off guard to receive the recognition – what an honor,” Webster said. “The three days of production could not have been done without the support and readiness of coworkers at Center Hill Lake.”
Webster said she had to overcome challenges for a couple of weeks at both lakes to meet her responsibilities, and then had to support the film crew, which put in 10-hour days at Center Hill Dam.
Kenny Claywell, Cordell Hull Lake resource manager, who nominated Webster for recognition, noted that she also excelled in her temporary position as the environmental compliance coordinator at the water resource developmental project with several hundred miles of shoreline and heavy public recreational use.
At Cordell Hull Lake, Webster and team of park rangers worked to prepare plans related to natural resources and environmental compliance requirements They also advised on environmental compliance matters, accomplished natural resources duties and programs, managed real estate matters, conducted utilization inspections, and checked for encroachments and trespasses on public property. She also worked with the resource manager and park maintenance staff to develop new operations and maintenance techniques to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness of the environmental compliance program.
“She was responsible for inspection and replacement of numerous safety items such as first aid and blood borne pathogen kits, fire extinguishers, eye washes and for creating a digital repository for safety data sheets,” Claywell said. “She has a high level of pride and dedication in her job.”
Webster is a 2011 graduate of Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and concentration in Agricultural Engineering. She has served stints with the Nashville District at Dale Hollow Lake, Cordell Hull Lake, Lake Cumberland, and Center Hill Lake since 2010.
She said her husband Travis supports her career with the Corps of Engineers and pursuit of new challenges.
“Sometimes those challenges take away from time outside of work whether I have to commute farther away or stay late to deal with a park issue; he understands my job and how important it is for me,” Webster said.
In her off time, Webster said she loves kayaking, cooking, reading, and board games.
“I love kayaking since it’s a simple way to connect with nature. Nothing is better than sitting a few inches above the water, physically propelling yourself while surrounded by a beautiful backdrop of nature. Also, my West Highland Terrier Maisy rarely misses a trip on the water,” she added.
(The public can obtain news, updates and information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District on the district’s website at www.lrn.usace.army.mil, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nashvillecorps and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nashvillecorps.)


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Original U.S. WWI 498th Aero Squadron Uniform Grouping
Original Items: Only One Set Available. This is a very high quality enlisted man’s uniform set which belonged to a member of the 498th Aero Squadron who was assigned to the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps. The set is comprised of the following pieces:
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Overall a high quality excellent condition Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps uniform set from the 498th Aero Squadron.
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domain: history


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- We strive to provide complete care for our patients. Learn more about all the services we provide.
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If you live in Southeast Nashville, Antioch , or the surrounding area then you have picked the perfect place to find high quality veterinary care for your pets. Dr. McCollum, Pennington and Haggard are all highly experienced and qualified veterinarians who treat cats, dogs, birds, bearded dragons, snakes, rabbits, ferrets, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, chinchillas, guinea pigs and other small pocket pets. Your pet's health and well being is very important to us and we will take every step to provide your pets with the best possible care available in Nashville.
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Alex Kaufman lives and works in New York. He is a writer and his daily blog SAL & AL - Opinions from the Trenches covers any subject of human endeavor that passes us daily - in politics, sports, business, art, nationally and internationally, clearing obfuscations and double-talk and calling it as he sees it. He is happiest when he has more than four balls in the air and it’s got to be interesting. Aside from writing, he keeps collecting experiences in business, in museum design, in travel and research for his next book and best of all, interaction with his grand-daughter, Victoria. He is the recent author of The Precipice Option, of Trawling Twenty Centuries and On the Road to Halicz.
“A charming, often funny series of remembrances.”
– Kirkus Reviews
A collection of autobiographical stories that charts a man’s meandering search for new experiences and ideas.
Author Kaufman is a committed purveyor of ideas, apparently having inherited from his Polish grandfather an insatiable inventiveness. That love of ideas is both born out of and expressed through a peripatetic wandering: the author traversed the globe, visiting Tel Aviv, New York, Italy, Iran, Germany, Ecuador. The book often reads like a travelogue, providing astute commentary on this or that destination. In one memorable analysis, Kaufman notes that the appeal of New Orleans’ French Quarter stems from its unique fusion of revelry and danger. The prose is fairly straightforward, so the narrative hinges on a life very interestingly lived. Kaufman’s life does not disappoint; the book brims with lines like this: “Growing up in the forties in the then Palestine, on the fringes of the Middle East and North African battles in World War II, was exciting if you were a kid.” The tales occur in patchwork fashion, eschewing a full, linear account of the author’s life, but the upside is each chapter can stand alone. Much of the writing is lighthearted and even comical—one story is written from the perspective of a dog—but it still tackles more serious topics like poverty and the pursuit of artistic fulfillment. In one entry, Kaufman’s family repeatedly pawned and rescued a set of silver candlesticks in response to financial distress. Though enamored of their beauty, he came to resent them for what they ultimately symbolized—his family’s precarious circumstances. In another, he won the admiration of a general in Veracruz for recommending that he supply a reception with portable toilets. Later in the collection, he tenderly describes his newborn granddaughter as that “beautiful, sweet, delicately perfect little thing.” The author of several books, Kaufman (The Precipice Option, 2013) is adept at recounting the universality of the idiosyncratic elements of his life; each vignette expresses a general truth about human nature. For example, his obsessive traveling, and the book as a whole, evokes the restless search for meaning that, to some extent, motivates us all.
A charming, often funny series of remembrances.
Pub Date: March 10, 2015
Page count: 266pp
Publisher: Intervale Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
A writer offers a personal perspective on aging.
In relating the stages of life to the quarters of a business year, Kaufman (On the Road to Halicz, 2016, etc.) appropriately labels his own situation the “fourth quarter,” a time that “is full, rich and a regrouping exercise.” With a certain amount of wistfulness combined with wry humor, the 90-year-old author serves a poignant, wide-ranging, first-person narrative that addresses the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of aging. He also discusses and reacts to some of the subjects that can be both fascinating and perplexing to old and young alike, including artificial intelligence, globalization, and medical technology. Kaufman’s informal style is engaging, especially when he reflects on the realities of aging. He observes, for example, that he is always surprised by “everybody trying not to accept this rusted mechanism called age.” His descriptions can be downright funny when he considers “the little whammies” that happen to the elderly, such as having “a brigade catering to my health….Practically every little piece of me has a specialist.” Behind the humor is insight into the harshness of longevity. He notes, for instance, that “it is puzzling to see the tremendously accumulated” and invaluable “knowledge of the aged being disregarded and squandered.” But later, the author exudes optimism: “Age has its sunny spots too. Lots of them. One of them is to talk to toddlers, children and young people.” These somewhat contradictory pearls of wisdom are representative of a time of life that can be simultaneously hopeful and hopeless, which Kaufman fully acknowledges. While his astute observations make for intellectually stimulating content, this long essay is for the most part a broad conversation that abruptly moves from one subject to another in an almost stream-of-consciousness fashion. The writing is a bit sloppy at times, but it doesn’t mar the author’s sincerity. Kaufman speaks directly to others who are living in the “Fourth Quarter,” and it is hard not to embrace his exhortation to “live it up in any shape and manner.…Go out and start some fires. It is invigorating.”
A spirited, perceptive, and honest look at longevity.
Publisher: Intervale Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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domain: artistic


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Faculty: Health & Personal Care
Certification: Diploma of Health and Human Sciences
Entrance Requirements: Please click here
PTAs are trained personnel who assist in the provision of physiotherapy services under the direction and supervision of a registered/licensed physiotherapist. The role of the PTA is to assist the physiotherapist in ensuring that physiotherapy services are delivered in a safe, effective and efficient manner. PTAs help provide physiotherapy services that achieve and maintain optimal client outcomes.
Physiotherapy practice is dynamic, as is the relationship between the physiotherapist and the PTA. The type of supervision and the type of tasks assigned are determined by the supervising physiotherapist in accordance with provincial physiotherapy regulations. Source
Physiotherapy Assistants duties may include clerical responsibilities plus direct or indirect patient care. The PTA program will expose students to physiotherapy fundamentals including human anatomy, physiology, therapeutic exercise including basic patient care regarding functional movement and rehabilitation. In addition, physiotherapy therapeutic techniques will be addressed pertaining to the musculoskeletal system, modalities, physical agents, cardiac, neurological and respiratory systems. Students will enhance their skills during a work term under the guidance of a Physiotherapist.
Academy Canada’s PTA program has been approved by the Newfoundland and Labrador College of Physiotherapists (NLCP).
Please note that due to the nature of this career, employees are required to tolerate regular physical activity during the course of their work day. If you have any medical concerns, please contact your admissions officer to ensure you are aware of the requirements of the occupation and to determine if you are eligible for accommodations in this program.
- Basic Patient Care, Functional Movement and Rehabilitation
- Client Relations
- Communication Skills
- Customer Service Excellence
- Developmental Psychology and Functional Development Across the Lifespan
- Human Anatomy, Physiology, and Diseases/Disorders
- Intro to Physiotherapy, Rehabilitation, and Interpersonal Skills
- Introduction to Computers
- Job Search Skills
- Physiotherapy Terminology
- Professionalism in Healthcare
- PTA Administration and Program Support
- PTA Therapeutic Techniques: Cardiac, Respiratory Management and Specialty Areas
- PTA Therapeutic Techniques: Modalities and Physical Agents
- PTA Therapeutic Techniques: Musculoskeletal
- PTA Therapeutic Techniques: Neurological Management and Speciality Areas
- Seniors: The Older Adult
- Soft Tissue Injury: Back Injury Prevention
- Standard First Aid
- Student Success
- Therapeutic Exercise
- Work Term
Many driving forces have changed the face of health care and the subsequent delivery of health services in the system in both urban and rural settings. To meet the increased demand for physiotherapy services, physiotherapists are utilizing and supervising support workers to ensure access to physiotherapy services, to maintain and enhance the quality of services delivered to the client and to increase the cost effectiveness of physiotherapy care. A PTA will have the opportunity to work in a variety of environments such as acute care, community hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, long-term care facilities, & private practice.
Wall of Fame
Academy Canada are please to announce that our Webmaster, Jack Barrett, will be inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame for the class of 2020-2021. Jack will become the first Special Olympian…Read More

domain: medical


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Fury as MPs blow £10,000 on sketch of Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding to commemorate bungled renovation despite costs soaring by £50MILLION – and about to go even higher
MPs are facing fury today after it emerged they paid £10,000 for a sketch of the Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding.
The outlay on the drawing of the obscured landmark was approved by a cross-party committee to commemorate the project for posterity, saying it represented a ‘significant moment’.
But the news sparked disbelief as the renovation has descended into a shambles, with the costs spiralling from around £29million to £80millions.
MailOnline understands the bill is set to rise even higher as coronavirus restrictions have made working conditions trickier and caused delays for the four-year timetable.
The acquisition of the sketch, titled ‘Ben’ and by artist Luke Adam Hawker, at a £10,000 price tag was slipped out in the latest annual report of the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art.
The acquisition of the sketch, titled ‘Ben’ and by artist Luke Adam Hawker (pictured), at a £10,000 price tag was slipped out in the latest annual report of the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art
The restoration of the near-200 year-old structure at the Palace of Westminster was launched in 2017, with a lift installed, a new electric motor mechanism, and repairs to the face and roof
The document said: ‘The drawing depicts the scaffolded Elizabeth Tower in 2019 and was made in situ.
‘The Elizabeth Tower is an iconic landmark and the drawing records a significant moment in its history.’
The purchase was made in October 2019, according to the report.
It is understood Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, who has been pushing to cut costs of the wider Parliamentary restoration, was not aware of the move to acquire the drawing.
The restoration of the near-200 year-old structure at the Palace of Westminster was launched in 2017, with a lift installed, a new electric motor mechanism, and repairs to the face and roof.
The famous bongs of Big Ben were silenced while the overhaul took place, amid claims that worker’s hearing would be put at risk if the sounds continued.
The costs were initially put at around £29million.
But that bill quickly rose by £32million when detailed surveys were carried out, and then soared by another £18million after bomb damage and asbestos issues were uncovered.
The dramatic rise triggered a major backlash within Parliament over how the figure could have been so badly underestimated, with complaints that MPs and peers were then left with no choice but to approve the extra spending.
Politicians have been told the costs will now inevitably rise again due to the coronavirus situation, potentially by millions of pounds.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Expensive art paints a picture of a parliament that can’t keep costs under control.
‘Commons officials should remember that the Westminster refurbishment programme will be judged by its value for money for taxpayers, not its range commemorative artworks.’
A spokesman for the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art said: ‘The Committee takes its financial responsibilities very seriously and value for money remains a key consideration at all times when acquiring works of art. Since 2009-10 the total annual budget for acquiring works of art for the Collection has been reduced by approximately a third.
‘The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art is committed to reflecting the development of the Parliamentary Estate within the Parliamentary Art Collection.
It is understood Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle (pictured this week), who has been pushing to cut costs of the wider Parliamentary restoration, was not aware of the move to acquire the drawing
‘As the restoration of the Elizabeth Tower represents the largest and most complex conservation in the Tower’s history, the piece falls squarely within the House of Commons Works of Art Acquisitions Policy – meeting several criteria, specifically, an item having a direct link to the heritage and development of the Parliamentary Estate, capturing a significant moment in its history.’
A House of Commons spokesman did not deny that the costs of the project are set to rise again due to the coronavirus situation.
‘We are working with our supply chain to ascertain and limit the impact of COVID-19 on all our projects,’ the spokesman said.
‘Following government guidance to ensure the health and safety of our extended workforce remains our main priority, and work is continuing on site, in line with advice from the government.’
Source: Read Full Article


I purchased a new rifle and have an extra barrel that I will not use.
The barrel is 40-70SBN. The Barrel is half round. pictures can be seen by searching gunsamerica and using "cpa stevens" without the quotes to search. The gun with two barrels is the one. The barrel not on the gun is the one for sale. Forearm not included. barrel only.
I will be selling the scope at a later time if anyone has an interest in it.
Lyman super targetspot 20x has endcaps and is in very good shape.
I am looking to have a 45-70 barrel made for the gun, and I already have a 45-100. That way I will be set for long range and also silhouette.
If anyone is interested in a trade or buying this barrel, let me know. I am asking $350 for the barrel.
If I do not find a 45-70 barrel for the gun, I will be sending to CPA shortly after the first of the year to have one made.
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Eppendorf® Protein DNA LoBind Safe Lock Microcentrifuge Tubes (PCR Clean)
Eppendorf® Protein DNA LoBind™ Microcentrifuge Tubes¬†are specifically designed for use in proteomics or other fields of protein research (antibodies, cell biology, peptide drugs etc.), where samples tend to be very small and sample recovery is vital. LoBind tubes improve recovery by reducing sample-to-tube binding‚Äîwithout the use of any additives or coatings. A combination of specially developed technology and the purest, select polypropylene results in tube binding that ensures minimal loss (<3%). Enzymes remain active, and they are not denatured by any tube-surface interactions. Rated to 18,000 x g.¬†Ideal¬†for preparation and storage of low concentrated protein, peptide, antibody or virus samples.

domain: chemistry


|I am a new gardener.I have really very little experience.
Could you tell me some plants that would be beautiful yet easy enough to keep up for a zone 5 beginner?
|Rather than just give you a long list of plants and no instructions, I think you might want to take a look at some basic gardening books. One I particularly like is "Gardening For Dummies" by Michael MacCaskey, ISBN 1-56884-644-4. In it you will find no-nonsense basics about climate, soil, plant selection and ongoing care for lawns, trees, shrubs, roses, flowers, and enough vegetables to get you started in almost any type of gardening.
You might also want to contact your County Extension (825-0900) for suggestions as to plants and varieties which do particularly well in your local area. Enjoy your garden!


Studio SB 36
Bluetooth Powered Sound Bar - Grey
Enhance Your TV Sound
Elegant, Slim Profile Design
The stunning design of the STUDIO SB 36 measures only 2.6” inches tall, allowing it to fit below your TV regardless of wall mounting or table top use. The Jamo SB 36 sports a handsome tweed grille that adds some "pop" to your TV setup. But it's not all about the looks. Four powerful drivers — including horn tweeters made famous by Klipsch — help deliver an immediate, front-of-the-theater sound for your movies and shows.
True 2-Way Bi-Amplified Sound
The tweeters and woofers are bi-amplified and utilize a DSP-controlled crossover network. Each tweeter receives 10 watts of power, while each woofer receives 18 watts of power (for a total system power of 56 watts continuous.)
Powerful 2.5” oval woofers reproduce impressive bass for their size so you can experience the rumble in a small form factor.
Virtual Surround Mode
The Virtual Surround mode is designed to simulate the effect of a surround sound system. You can choose to turn the Virtual Surround mode off for stereo sound. You can also choose between two EQ profiles (Natural or Dialog Enhanced) in either Virtual Surround or Stereo mode. The Natural EQ profile provides a flat, natural frequency response, while he Dialog Enhanced EQ profile increases dialog volume for enhanced vocal clarity without increasing ambient sounds (only one EQ profile can be active at a time).
Dolby Audio® Decoding
The built-in Dolby Audio® Decoder formats all your Dolby content to provide a detailed, powerful cinema experience.
- Simple setup
- Integrated subwoofer
- Bluetooth® wireless technology
- Dolby Audio® Decoding built-in
- True 2-way bi-amplified sound
- Optical and analog audio inputs
Bluetooth® Wireless Technology
The Jamo SB 36 features built-in Bluetooth® for wireless audio streaming of stored music, music apps, and other audio content on your Bluetooth source device (such as your smartphone, tablet, or laptop) to the Jamo soundbar speaker system. A simple single button press will pair your device with the SB 36 system. Once paired, the SB 36 speaker system will automatically re-connect to your device when within range (up to 33'.)
Easy Plug and Play Set Up
The Jamo STUDIO SB 36 sound bar is designed to quickly connect to your TV. Simply plug in the included optical cable to seriously upgrade your TV sound with no hassle.
The SB 36 comes with a credit-card size IR remote control for wireless operation of the soundbar speaker system. You can also program the Jamo SB 36's Volume Up/Down and Mute functions into your existing TV remote for further ease-of-operation.
Rubber Feet and Keyhole Mounts
The soundbar speaker can simply be positioned on a shelf or stand, below or above your TV. It can also be wall-mounted using its dual keyhole slots and included template (mounting screws not included.)
Audio Output Channels
- High-Frequency / Tweeter: 0.7" diameter
- Low-Frequency / Woofer: 2.5" diameter
- Soundbar: 2.9 kg (6.30 lbs)
- 3.5mm stereo jack
- Height: 6.5 cm (4.0 in)|Length: 10.2 cm (4.0 in)|Width: 91.4 cm (36.0 in)
Manufacturer provided specifications for Jamo p/n JAM1064193
- (1) Active Sound Bar Speaker
- (1) AC Power Adapter (attached 6' DC cord)
- (1) 2-Prong AC Plug Insert (US)
- (1) Remote Control (CR2025 3V battery installed)
- (1) 58" Optical Digital Cable
- (1) Wall-Mount Template
- (1) Owner's Manual
- (1) Important Safety Instructions
- (1) Warranty Sheet
- Klipsch 1 Year Limited Warranty


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An interview with Trevor Jones by Jonathan Broxton and James Southall
Originally published in Soundtrack! Vol 18/ No 70; 1999
Text reproduced by kind permission of the Editor Luc Van de Ven
From his early scores such as EXCALIBER, THE DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH, to recent actioners LAST OF THE MOHICANS, CLIFFHANGER and MERLIN, not to mention a variety of scores in-between like ANGEL HEART, ARACHNOPHOBIA, GULLIVER’S TRAVELS and G. I. JANE, Trevor Jones has portrayed a gift for melody and passion, weaving tapestries of musical emotion across the multilayered canvas of the cinema. Interviewed between scores for THE MIGHTY and NOTTING HILL, Jones described his views towards film music and playing emotion with a symphony orchestra.
MERLIN was very successful for you. With over two hours of music, how long did you have to write it?
I think the MERLIN score was three and a half weeks in total, about 24-25 days or something. The fact of the matter is that, with television you’re meant to write a lot faster than film, mainly because the budgets are smaller and it means that you can’t spend as much time on the project because the schedules are tighter, although it doesn’t cost any more for me to come on a film three or four weeks earlier. It’s only me writing at that point. But even with the shorter post-production period, one finds that people tend to want to make changes right up to the last minute.
Is there any change in the actual approach to the music if it’s television?
For me, not really, no. You can hear that I don’t write any differently for television or film. Basically, I believe the medium is going to become so sophisticated, and these masters will be used for DVD or whatever format that may be invented in the future. Those scores written for television will really show as being not as full-bodied and the ideas not as fully worked-out. I think the shelf life of those projects will suffer.
I get equally excited about doing a project whether it’s for film or for TV. I think it’s because we have a different approach here in Britain – people feel they are “composers,” so they write music and whether it’s for television or film it’s irrelevant. In America the budgets and the time scheduling for TV writers are very constrained and restricted. For film, it’s equally constrained and restricted, but they pretend it’s a notch up! (laughs)
There’s a strange thing that goes on in America with regard to composers. I’m sure there’s justification for it, but they seem to look down on their television music writers. They don’t seem to be regarded in the same light as film composers, the assumption being that the restrictions produce less quality work, I suppose.
The thing that struck me about the MERLIN score is the fact that it doesn’t sound like a television score. It sounds like a theatrical score, because it has that big scale to it.
Well, it’s a big-scale story, you know, and so I think that when you have high definition television with surround sound in your living room in the year 2010 or whenever, those are the projects that we are going to be viewing. You know, I bought MERLIN on DVD a few days ago in America; it sounds spectacular in surround sound stereo! I was extremely impressed. So that is my reason for not treating television with condescension. MERLIN was virtually the entire Arthurian legend from his birth right through to the death of Arthur, which is quite comprehensive. It is on a big scale.
You seem to be the man for Arthurian things.
Well, I don’t know why that is actually! (laughs) Earlier in my career EXCALIBUR was a big project I loved working with John Boorman because he really got me fired up by the myth and legend. Every few years we look at myth, fantasy and legend in a new light. Every generation looks at it and it’s terribly exciting. There’s something about that story that gets to people. I love it, I must say. And then, in THE MIGHTY, it tums up once again. It’s not that I chose to score it because of the Arthurian theme, but I could easily identify with the boys’ interest in the legend because I share the same fascination, I think.
And although they all deal with the same legend, you’ve approached them in three very different ways.
Well, I just feel that I’m creatively bound to do that. It is exciting to take three different approaches to the same theme. If I’d churned out the same score for each picture, or even for the subject matter, I’d be in all sorts of trouble! The legend is just the sort of thing that inspires you every time you read it, and every time I get involved in it I feel that I can do it from a different angle. I’m sure that if I’m asked to do it again I could easily come up with yet another direction. It’s exceptionally inspiring.
Don’t you get directors saying “make it sound like EXCALIBUR”?
Well, believe it or not, I don’t. I’m not even sure that the last two actually knew I did EXCALIBUR. I don’t want to insult my directors, but I doubt they were aware that I had. I think people might be worried if they did know because they’d think “oh dear, he’s going to regurgitate that old score again.” I realize now that there are actually people who listen to the music (laughs). Like you! (laughs).
Were you happy with the way MERLIN turned out overall?
I think so. If you’re doing a job and you write what you feel is the best you can for the film at the time, you can’t ask for more than that. The fact that a month later it was nominated for an Emmy Award, and then I’m sitting in a limousine going to Pasadena with my engineers meant that we must have got something right. The turnover for television is so fast, whereas with some films, you write it in January and you don’t know anything about it until October, and by that time you’ve gone away and written other scores and other films have been released, and it gets confusing. So, with MERLIN I was very happy that, given the time, it came out as well as it did.
The thing that constantly astounds me about people like yourself who do scoring, is that you’ve got all these constraints about what you write having to fit into the scene but that it also sounds so good outside it as well. It just constantly staggers me that you can actually do that.
Well, I know it sounds silly, but it’s a craft which you practice, you keep doing it and the more you do it the better and better you get at it. That’s why I’m in awe of people like Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and Maurice Jarre, and these guys who’ve been around forever – I probably shouldn’t say that! (laughs) – but they’re the doyens of the industry, they’re legends, and they’re a few years older than me and they’ve been around writing and practicing for a very long time. I’m just in awe of their ability to get better and better as time goes on. That’s the whole point of the job, really. I’m Chair of Music at the National Film School and I’m trying to help people realize that it’s a craft, that the more you practice any craft the better you get at it. At the end of the day, it’s trying to enhance the meaning in the film with the music. That’s the main thing.
Some people say that the best film music is the music you don’t actually notice in the cinema, when it has a subliminal effect. Do you find that that’s something you strive for when you’re writing?
It depends on the film – yes and no. I mean, I can’t actually say that when I wrote the theme for THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS I was hoping no one would notice it! (laughs) It just comes at you and it makes a big statement. But when you’re underscoring certain scenes, it’s using music like make-up – it’s there to heighten the effect, to bring out the structure, and hopefully you will not notice it as you would a main theme or an opening title statement. The roles and the uses of music are many and varied. But I think the feeling, the subliminal effect of music, of not being conscious of it, has more to do with music itself, because music is like a direct emotional line to an audience. It bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the heart. It doesn’t go to the brain unless you actually tune in or are made to notice it and are conscious of what it’s doing. It has an emotional effect without you having to think too much about it, and that’s why it’s used so extensively.
Someone asked me the other day “Why is there so much music in film?” and the reason I thought of was that it came about because the Americans tended to have so many commercial breaks in their television that it just broke up the drama on TV. In order to bring you back into a scene and make you feel what you are meant to be feeling after any given commercial break, you slap the appropriate music on – like “this is the Iove theme” and this is the baddie chasing the goodie, and so
What are you actually working on at the moment?
It’s a film with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts called NOTTING HILL. It’s fantastic, it’s wonderful. I saw it last week in Los Angeles at a test screening and it really is a superb piece of entertainment, a treat! I enjoyed doing it very much. We used the LSO, but it’s not a vast symphonic score, that would have been wrong for the film. Instead it’s got nice intimate guitar, piano and string writing, a bit of woodwind occasionally, but not a “big-canvas score” because it’s not that sort of subject matter.
It’s very different from something like MERLIN. You get to write so many different styles – it must be great fun!
It is, but by the same token you have to be careful not to take on similar genre pictures. After I did EXCALIBUR, I could have done sword and sorcery pictures forever and probably my career would have taken off faster if I had stuck to one genre of picture, but I think I’d have gone barmy! It’s just so much more interesting to write the best possible music you can in other genres. There are so many genres left to do.
How did you get the job for NOTTING HILL?
I remember being approached to score FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, but I couldn’t do it because I was working on IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER at the time, but I got NOTTING HILL through Duncan Kenworthy, whom I’d worked with alongside Jim Henson in the early eighties. Duncan and I have done quite a few films together. He produced LAWN DOGS, and then I also worked with him on GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, by now I enjoy quite a history with a number of superb directors and producers.
Is there going to be a CD release of NOTTING HILL?
Well, the thing is about NOTTING HILL is that there are a lot of songs. I’ll prepare a soundtrack album whether it’s going to be released or not, and I’ll put it aside. I’ve got quite a few soundtrack albums that have never been released. But, generally speaking, NOTTING HILL has very big songs that play an integral part in the
Are you also responsible for deciding which songs to use, as well for as writing the score? Is that always the case?
When I score, yes, generally. On IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER for instance, they basically said, “Do what you need to do to make the music a success.” So I felt that U2’s Bono singing the opening titles and Sinead O’Connor in singing the closing credits songs would be wonderful bookends to the film, and they were fantastic. The characters in IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER were in prison over a long period of time, I wanted to denote the time passing with pop music, from The Kinks through Bob Marley and so on. The films I choose tend to range quite extensively from genre to genre, I don’t like being typecast as a specific genre composer so I never tend to do two films in the same genre consecutively.
You haven’t done many romantic comedies, so NOTTING HILL is allowing you to explore yet another genre.
Yes, that’s right. But the thing about music is that it usually fails if it tries to be funny. I haven’t attempted to be tongue in cheek about this score either. I’ve been quite serious. I enjoyed it, but I find that kind of writing quite a challenge, because you can be so easily seduced into thinking you’re funnier than you are.
I read a quote that Randy Newman once said that, when he was doing MAVERICK, he’d written the score and the director, Richard Donner said “ft’s not funny enough,” so Randy said “What’Il make it funnier” and the director said “Well, can’t we put some banjos in it?” He expected this to suddenly transform the film!
I think when you’re doing a film and the director’s saying “Look, you’re not expressing what the guy had for supper last Sunday” then you’re in serious trouble because the director is obviously trying to put an emotion into the scene that he didn’t shoot or the actor didn’t convey. When a director seriously suggests the use of certain instruments because he associates them with humor, then it is our job to examine the idea. Usually one is trying to enhance what is there, like a make-up artist, you’re bringing out the color in the cheeks. If you’ve got to graft cheeks on in the first place like a plastic surgeon, you’re in trouble. When it’s not inherent in the scene, everyone has to face up to it and no amount of banjos will rescue the situation.
All you do is just bring it out and make it more powerful for the audience.
Yes, but even so, sometimes you think: “If it is there, why cake it? Why don’t you contradict the image, why don’t you add another dimension? Why don’t you give it another resonance?”
There’s a very thin line between being appropriate and being manipulative.
And catering for people’s neuroses about what they think they didn’t do. They didn’t shoot it properly, it didn’t accurately convey what they were hoping it would. There are times when you look at a scene and you say, well, why don’t you like this cue? What’s wrong? They say, “Well, it’s not doing what it’s supposed to be doing. It could do this, that and the other” Then you learn at a later date that there’s a whole load of baggage there that you can’t see on the screen. All you see is an actor doing a scene in a particular way, but there’s this baggage, this history, what the director has experienced that you don’t know anything about. That’s very difficult sometimes, because you have to say, “All I can do is score what I see. “The audience will only take in what you present them with. The success of every project is dependent on such a variety of reasons both artistic and commercial. All one can ever do is give it all you have, sometimes it’s highly successful, at other times not.
TITANIC TOWN is a very unusual score. What inspired the decision to just use guitars?
Probably two things. One was the fact that TITANIC TOWN is a very intimate film, the formation of the women’s movement in Northern Ireland is a very serious subject. The other thing is probably the fact that it just suited the subject matter. If it had needed a 100-piece orchestra, I would have gone out and got one, and I’d have probably paid for it myself, but the fact is it didn’t. There’s an intimacy about the guitar sound that, when you see it in the context of the film, I was very concerned to use for the film. The John Martin type of sound, that I was wanting. He’s a fabulous player. His style has changed over the last 25 years – obviously, like all artists, you change and develop and grow – but he tended to have a particular voice in the seventies which was very special. Also, because of the fact that he came from Northern Ireland, I could relate to that as a real sound instead of the diddly-aye things that people jokingly associate with the Irish. There’s a phenomenal sound there that is Ireland. So in order to keep a kind of continuity in the score I tended to use the songs of John Martin along with the guitar sound that he used.
MOLLY is scored for guitars too, but differently, that was multi-track guitars. But there’s not a great deal of music overall in it, really, This year I keep saying that it’s going to be the year for big orchestras. I love writing symphonic orchestral scorns.
What is your relationship with the orchestra when you’re writing symphonically?
What I’m trying to do at that point, in the studio with musicians, is put the emotion onto the screen. So I’m trying to get a performance out of the musicians. If the musician isn’t feeling it, it’s not going to work for an audience. I think the orchestra on THE MIGHTY, for instance, played the scene of the boy running after the ambulance ten times better after they saw the picture. They learnt the notes, then I asked them all to come into the control room and look at what they’d done to the picture, and they saw what the music, the notes I’d written, was trying to do. They went back, and it had so much emotion in it. That’s what moves an audience. You have to be able to feel it in order for other people to feel it. By saying that I don’t mean that I’m a method composer, that if I’m doing a horror picture I have to stab my way through a few pumpkins before I can write a cue, or anything like that. But you do have to create an atmosphere and an environment in which other musicians can work and perform and give you that emotion you need. As I keep saying, we’re blessed with the most fantastic musicians in England. You’re not dealing with sentimentality, you’re dealing with very real sentiment, and you need to express that, and they’re able to do that superbly by just focusing and concentrating. There’s an incredible amount of channeling of energies in order to get the right emotion out of a piece of music. I suppose that’s really the main point about the business of scoring.
I saw THE MIGHTY just after Christmas, actually, and l thought it was wonderful. I thought your score was fantastic. I love the way you’ve got the three different styles of music. I don’t know how exactly you would describe it, but you’ve got the kind of bluegrass American theme, and then the big Arthurian theme, and the Irish one.
As I mentioned, my favorite bit in THE MIGHTY actually doesn’t play the way I wanted it to, but it’s the bit where the boy dies at the end, and the other one comes running up to the ambulance, and Sharon Stone gets out of the back. I just had this one boy chorister with the LSO’s strings. It was the kind of score that I really enjoyed writing because I thought there was something special.
If’s quite a tragic film, with the boy dying at the end.
Actually, I said to the director “We can’t leave people at the end of the film on a low,” so we gently took it right up and up and made Max’s journey, and the fact that he comes out of himself and begins to fly, more uplifting. It’s like the broken ornithopter that has been fixed and can fly; it’s like a metaphor there. That’s why I was so thrilled about the song being nominated for a Golden Globe, because doing the song with Sting was such a fantastic experience we both felt a sense of flying. I really enjoyed working with him.
Was it always the plan for there to be a song, or did that develop later out of the score?
While I was writing the score Sting was sent a cut of the film, because we decided that maybe we ought to get someone to do a song. And Sting, when he saw the film, asked who was scoring it, so they told him I was, and he said “Why doesn’t Trevor write the music and I’ll sing it and write the lyrics.” So I did, and we worked in this very room actually. He’s such a generous artist, a great communicator I had a great time with him. So the score and the song were being worked on at the same time. There’s a lot in common with the two things.
The song is based on the main theme isn’t it?
Yes. Which, really, I felt was a very integrated way of writing a song, because nobody usually does that. It’s normally just a distant idea, musically.
Sometimes songs don’t bear any relation to the score. They’re tacked on so that they can make a song compilation.
I don’t know what the figures are – I suppose THE BODYGUARD sold and made lots of money -. but I think song compilations are slightly boring, frankly. The songs are already out there, usually on CD, and they just get put together in a compilation. Something that anyone can do in the future when we can compile our own CD’s from the Internet.
Sometimes the songs aren’t even featured in the film, or you get twenty seconds of them over the end credits.
Or something on a transistor radio playing in the background and someone’s put a drill over it. We had that on ARACHNOPHOBIA where you can’t hear the song in the film but it turns up on the record.
At the expense of your score.
Well, you know, a lot of the time they don’t put the score on because, commercially, they feel that that’s a better way of doing things.
The sad thing is that the song albums sell more than the scores.
The thing is that there are two separate markets and I think those markets need to be better developed. It’s when people take an interest in the scores that the standard of scoring will go up. That’s why I’m always keen to talk about my work and to speak to people, because it’s people like you who make a difference. In taking an interest and in writing about it, hopefully more and more people will become interested and the standard of writing will go up, and the quality of scoring will improve and we’ll be given bigger budgets and sensible schedules. I’ve always felt that film scoring has been the Cinderella of the industry. The credits for musicians always go after the honeywagon and the caterers – it’s like it’s more important for them to have been fed than there is to be good music! Well, you know, frankly it’s not good enough. It’s pathetic. It’s iniquitous really, considering the contribution the music makes.
Like we were saying before, if the films didn’t have the music they would be diminished to the nth degree.
I think that the way in which people have taken advantage is just overwhelming , because composers have lost the authority they once had. There was this time when they put rubbish on films and anyone with a synthesizer in their front room could whack a tune on a score and it would be put out there.
But when you’re talking about quality work, when you’re talking about a long shelf life of a project, then it matters that the London Symphony Orchestra or a great orchestra, is playing it, and it’s superbly recorded, and it’s going to stand the test of time. And that it’s something that people will want to collect and listen to in the future.
Even though the time constraints have, in the past been excessive, people have been able to pull out of the bag things that are quite amazing. People take musicians for granted. They know that they can do it. There are very few organizations in the world that are as professional as musicians. Ninety people walk into a room, you put dots in front of them that they’ve never seen before in their lives, and they turn them into human emotion instantly. Five minutes later and you are hearing it in all its glory. People like me will manipulate little black dots so that it gives meaning to the film, I find it extraordinary that, with all this obvious formidable professionalism, music is still treated like Cinderella. In every respect. With budgets, people will say ‘oh, this is the only bit we’ve got left, do what you can with that” or “we had two days of rain we weren’t expecting” or “I’m afraid the cast of thousands ate their way through too many sandwiches and cups of tea”
They ate the soundtrack budget! (laughs) Do you feel that directors tend to interfere too much in what you do?
It depends on the quality of his vision and his experience but arrogance. A CD collection can lead to the destruction, sometimes, of a good score. Often someone who has sung in a choir, thinks he knows about music. Everyone “knows“ about music, everyone “loves” music, but the craft of writing to a picture is a totally esoteric craft which, even after four years at the Academy and four years at University and then film school, and even after practicing further for over 20 years, I still feel that I’m learning about it. I don’t know all the answers to everything and I probably won’t until the day I die. I’ll still be discovering new things about it, and that’s part of the fun of scoring. That’s probably why I write so much, because I’m constantly discovering new things.
But there’s nothing more annoying than people who want to get in and feel they’ve contributed to the score. What you need is to find out what the director’s vision is – what is it that he wants to realize on a screen? Then you put your perspective on that vision. You’re putting forward your angle; this is the way you would write something. It’s like someone saying to you “I want you to paint me a view of Covent Garden,” and then saying “but make that bit pink, and I don’t like St Paul’s that big, make it a little smaller..” and you think, well, who’s doing the painting here, me or you? It’s like having a dog and barking yourself. It can get very boring.
But it’s wonderful when you’re working with people who have faith and trust in your abilities. I feel that I want to go on improving from score to score and you can’t take anything for granted, if you respect the work you’re doing.The fact is that we are in a very extraordinary situation where we’re doing something we love doing, something that people love seeing, and we’re getting paid for doing it! Even though sometimes I have bags under my eyes and I say there’s not enough time, the fact of the matter is that I’m doing something I love doing, and that’s a real privilege. Especially when you walk into a room with assistants and engineers like this around you and you know they’re tired but they’re still smiling, because you know they’re actually getting a kick out of what they’re doing. We love and enjoy this business we’re in, and we know how lucky we are to be in it. It is a privilege, and one that we can’t abuse.
I wanted to ask you about LABYRINTH, your thoughts about that film, and your recollections of working with David Bowie and Jim Henson.
It’s probably one of the most romantic projects I’ve ever worked on in terms of memories, because it was with Jim, and Duncan Kenworthy. Duncan produced FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL and he’s also the producer of NO1TING HILL, he’s a special talent. We were about the same age when we started with Jim in the late seventies, early eighties. We worked on THE DARK CRYSTAL, LABYRINTH and THE WORLD OF JIM HENSON and projects like that. LABYRINTH came about because Jim and I were in the airport in Atlantic City promoting THE DARK CRYSTAL and he said “What shall we do next?” so I said “Why don’t we score a rock project next, something totally different from the previous symphonic DARK CRYSTAL?” He said “Hmm. A rock score. So we’d use a rock artist. Who could we use?” We rattled through Mick Jagger, David Bowie, all the rock stars who could also possibly be actors, and settled on pursuing Mr. Bowie, who was incredible in doing these songs for the picture. Jim and I went over to Gstaad in Switzerland to work with him on the songs, and he was amazing to work with and loved the project. It was like a fairyland. We used to stay in and drink mulled wine. I have some really quite special memories mixing the music at Odyssey Studios, working with Jennifer Connelly, as well, when she was just a little girl in LABYRINTH and now she’s in DARK CITY as an adult. Seeing her now, grown up, is quite extraordinary. It makes me feel really old (laughs).
LABYRINTH is a completely synth score isn’t it?
Yes, but it wasn’t going to be. I would have gone on to add an orchestra to it, but we stopped for some reason. I think the producer said something. I’m really easily influenced by things sometimes, and the producer kind of put his oar in and made a suggestion when I was conceiving the score at the outset. Now I don’t have that problem – I need space to do my thing, and then people express their opinions. But this score seemed to stop at a particular point in its development and Jim said he quite liked it like that. At that point the score was on a par with the work Bowie had done on the songs all instrumental and synthetic, and not orchestral. To a certain extent there might have been a slight imbalance in the texture if we’d have had rock music with orchestra.
There were a lot of cues in LABYRINTH, as I recall, a great deal of music. The funny thing about scoring pictures is that an audience sees about five percent of the iceberg – the successful tip of achievement – and ninety-five percent of the iceberg is failure. You try something, and it doesn’t work, then you try something else, and all you ever show the public are the bits that do work, so at the end of the day they expect some genius to come staggering out of a room, and of course what you’re doing is presenting the things you’ve been trying to make work.
Filmmaking is like that. It’s a combination of all the best elements percolated down into one entertaining product.That’s why it’s lovely to work with people like Duncan [Kenworthy] where you feel comfortable about trying to do something different, making a statement, maybe failing and maybe succeeding – what film school is about. You can be comfortable about it because you can trust Duncan to be supportive, and it’s like a conspiracy to entertain. It’s a very precious thing, when you’re working together, to be able to say, “they’ve got to feel like this, how can we do it? How can we bring the tear to the eye and bring out that emotion?”
With thanks to Victoria Seale, EMI Abbey Road Studios and the incredibly tanned Trevor Jones who, despite having a raging cold and a meeting with Ronan Keating, talked passionately and at great length.


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Apr 5, 2011, 6:45 PM EDT
Laker fans can exhale: According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are both expected to play in tonight’s game against the Utah Jazz. Gasol suffered a bone bruise on his right knee after a collision with the Nuggets’ Nene, and Bynum’s right knee collided with Lamar Odom in the same game.
Gasol suffered a bone bruise but says he’s fine to play, and Bynum says that the brace he wears on his knee protected him from injury. The Lakers have recalled Derrick Character from the Bakersfield Jam as an “insurance policy” just in case.
The Lakers’ loss to the Nuggets was only their second loss since the All-Star break. With six games remaining in the season, the Lakers trail the San Antonio Spurs by 2.5 games for the top spot in the Western Conference.
- Report: Veteran point guard Andre Miller reaches one-year deal with Timberwolves 7
- Who is still out there: Top 10 free agents still on the market 10
- Donald Trump says he’s becoming a Mavericks fan after Mark Cuban’s comments 43
- Report: Michael Jordan shot down Boston draft-day effort to get Charlotte No. 9 pick 30
- Wisconsin State Assembly passes Bucks arena deal, clearing the way for Gov. Walker to sign 40
- Phil Jackson says Knicks wanted Goran Dragic at trade deadline. Because he’s such a triangle fit? 16
- Report: Cavaliers sign Matthew Dellavedova 10
- Heat trade Zoran Dragic, second-rounder to Celtics 11

domain: news


text:
As we all know, the New Year is an excellent time for making resolutions. Some of these resolutions are perennial favorites such as eating healthier and going to the gym. Others revolve around scheduling the dreaded annual visits – doctor check-ups, accountant meetings, and financial advisor appointments. None of it is particularly fun, but all of it is necessary.
In keeping with these resolutions to improve your physical and financial health, the New Year is also a good time to review your estate plan.
A common question from those who do not yet have a Last Will and Testament: I’m not a millionaire. I don’t have an estate. Do I really need a plan?
The answer: Yes. If you have bank accounts, personal property, a car, a house, you have an estate. If you want to decide who gets it, most likely you need a Will.
If you already have a Will and are wondering whether you need to make changes; here are some questions to consider:
Even in those rare cases where you do not need a Last Will and Testament, you still should make sure you have Advance Directives, including a health care proxy and a power of attorney. Every adult should have these documents. While estate attorneys regard these documents as the most basic and necessary part of an estate plan, they are really not an estate plan at all but a life plan. Advance Directives are the documents your family members rely on in that worst case scenario where you become so incapacitated that you are unable to make medical or financial decisions for yourself.
I meet with clients everyday who put off making these decisions because they are difficult. No one wants to think about being sick or about dying. It’s natural to avert your eyes from this type of planning. However, by taking care of what you want to have happen in the event of your disability or death, what you are really doing is providing peace of mind for your family so that they know they are protecting and honoring your final wishes.
So, start your New Year off right by reviewing your existing estate plan today; and, if necessary, call Catania, Mahon & Rider PLLC to schedule an appointment with an estate planning attorney.

domain: law