#jim wright

[justrobertdeniro]

Robert De Niro photographed by Jim Wright for AARP The Magazine's February/March 2024.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Love the various pundits, primarily conservative but also liberal, opining today how barring Trump from the ballot is somehow "anti-democracy."

This from people who routinely remind you, usually when they're losing an argument, that we don't live in a democracy, but rather a republic.

Listen: barring someone who attempted sedition from holding office is absolutely democratic, it says so right in the Constitution.

You know what IS anti-democracy? Refusing to accept the results of democracy when you lose and then attempting to overthrow democracy and change the results of an election.

Declaring that you'll be a dictator, that's about as antidemocratic as it gets.

Trump is antidemocratic, he is the antithesis of democracy, he's at BEST a seditionist and at worst a traitor.

You might not like Biden, but if you want to keep your democracy AND your republic, you better show up and vote for him.

You want a better nation, be a better citizen.

[Jim Wright]

[aaliyahunleashed]

** Aaliyah on the cover of HONEY magazine November 2001 / Photography by Jim Wright **

Hey #TeamAaliyah please also sign the petition to get Aaliyah inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!

[departmentq]

[pastdaily]

Ethics, Morals And Scandals - Welcome To Capitol Hill - It's May 28, 1989

Become a member and don’t miss a thing: Become a Patron! https://pastdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/newsmark-may-28-1989.mp3 Seemingly no end to scandal where Capitol Hill is concerned. For this May 28th in 1989 the specter of Ethics reared its inquiring head and its victims were the House Speaker and the House Whip. As always, money was the factor – donations dipped in to, favors being…

[famousdeaths]

James Claude Wright Jr. was an American politician who served as the 48th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1989. He represente...

Link: Jim Wright

[ringthedamnbell]

Grappling With Tragedy: Jim Wright

Grappling With Tragedy: Jim Wright

Brian Damage Grappling with Tragedy is a series of articles that deal with unfortunate, tragic incidents that have occurred throughout the history of professional wrestling. It is unlike the ‘Wrestling with Sin’ series that deals more with the seedier side of wrestling like arrests, murders and suicides. Grappling looks more at particular tragic incidents that have in some instances altered pro…

[lost-miette]

[noratheelk]

Same energy

[arcadebroke]

[ameba-from-space]

Soooo...

I have figured out my type

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In Theaters Now. http://Newsday.com/matt

* * * * *

[Nice piece of writing by Jim Wright]

I have many friends on the picket lines in Hollywood at the moment.

And I am reminded of this one scene in the film The Thirteenth Warrior.

The Vikings believe their fates were written long before their birth and so they face their death in battle with indifference and maybe even glee and, above all, courage. The movie takes a great deal of time describing how these warriors believe they'll go to Valhalla where "the brave may live forever" and so there is no point in fear or any attempt to avoid your fate. And so they don't. They don't fear and they don't try to avoid death.

And, yet, while there are many, many great scenes in this criminally underappreciated reimagining of Beowulf, there's this one moment, less than 3 seconds on film, that makes the movie for me.

The Vikings have met the monster, they've fought with great courage against overwhelming odds, and they are now trapped in the lair of the Wendol. Many of their number have died by this point and they make a fighting withdrawal, becoming spread out down a narrow tunnel deep, deep underground. The scene is dark and chaotic and fraught with danger. One of the warriors, Helfdane (played by the brilliant Clive Russell) is wounded and can't run any further. He orders the Arab, Ahmed (Antonio Banderas), to go on without him and turns to face the Wendol on his own.

Ahmed goes on down the tunnel and after moment you hear distant fighting and know that the Viking has fallen at last.

When Ahmed catches up to the rest of the band, Herger looks over the Arab's shoulder up the dark tunnel and asks "Helfdane?"

Ahmed shakes his head. No.

And there's this moment. This fleeting second. This tiny brief flicker of pain and loss and FATE on Herger's face. The Viking, this warrior who truly believes the brave will live forever in Valhalla, who joked about the loss of comrades in battle and who has faced his own death over and over throughout the narrative with laughter and fatalism and cheerful indifference, there's this moment where his Viking stoicism cracks and you see for just a fraction of a second his sorrow at the loss of his comrade in arms.

It's an absolutely stunning bit of acting on the part of Norwegian actor Dennis Storhoi, who plays Herger, and if you blink, you'll miss it. It makes the movie. It makes these Vikings human, instead of the cardboard cutouts of most films.

That's acting.

That's craft.

That's art.

No AI, no matter how advanced, could duplicate that moment. No bit of software no matter how cleverly coded and animated could duplicate that second of raw humanity and pain. No computer generated character could transcend its programming to achieve that moment of greatness.

And so it is for a thousand other moments in film. In writing. In music. In art.

AI might imitate humanity, but it can never BE human.

If the bean counters get their way and replace human creatives with software then the future of movies and television will be one of bland cartoon imitation without those moments of brilliance that transcend the art.

Pay the writers.

Pay the actors.

Pay the musicians.

Pay the grips and the gaffers and the camera operators and the animal wranglers and the location scouts and all those people whose names appear in the end credits and we never bother to know but without true art could not exist.

If you're worried about profit, well, you could always replace the executives with AI.

[Thanks Jim Wright]

Business Executives always imagine they can do work without workers, make movies about people without people, write books without writers, make music without musicians, and make art without artists.

Strange how they can never imagine profit without themselves.

[Jim Wright]

[oldshowbiz]

January 1981.

[departmentq]

[ilikestuff69]

‘The Batman’ (2022)

Directed by Matt Reeves

[miles-wrightworth]

i would like to encourage everyone to make a 'gender board'. just a collection of images of characters/people who are very gender. this is mine.