West end alterations

Baz Luhrmann dreams big. In a streaming world where, as Norma Desmond predicted, the movies get smaller, the Australian director keeps going bigger. After his 2013 film, “Gatsby,” Mr. Luhrmann is taking on another American icon in “Elvis,” another kaleidoscopic epic with a sizzling soundtrack. Tom Hanks had only met Mr. Luhrmann in passing when the director called to ask him to play Col. Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s infamous manager. Mr. Hanks was game: “I could only think of, ‘Oh my God, Elvis in your hands, well, that would be a nuclear explosion. That would just be bigger than big could be.’” Mr. Luhrmann did not want to make a mere biopic. He wanted to make a wildly ambitious movie about race and sex and class and music in America through three decades, the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. There are three Elvises, the rock ’n’ roll punk, the movie star in the Hollywood bubble, and the drug-addled, divorced Elvis in Vegas who feels “caught in a trap,” as the line from … [Read more...] about Baz Luhrmann Is Ready for Rhinestones, Cadillacs, Dr. Feelgood and a Svengali

0 Sports The No. 3 Buckeyes defeated second-ranked Clemson 49-28 in the Sugar Bowl semifinal Friday night. Associated Press , News Partner Posted Reply NEW ORLEANS, LA — Numbers have fueled Ohio State all year. There was 29-23, the score of last season's painful playoff loss to Clemson. Six, the number of games the Buckeyes played in this pandemic-altered season, which a lot of people thought was too few for them to deserve a return trip to the College Football Playoff. Then there was No. 11, where Clemson coach Dabo Swinney placed Ohio State on his ballot in the final regular-season coaches' poll. In a rematch with Swinney's Tigers in the Sugar Bowl, Justin Fields and the Buckeyes had Clemson's number. Fields threw six touchdown passes to outshine Trevor Lawrence, and No. 3 Ohio State buried the second-ranked Tigers 49-28 in the Sugar Bowl semifinal Friday night. "Everybody doubting us just pushed us a little … [Read more...] about Ohio State To Face Top-Ranked Alabama After Sugar Bowl Win

Russia state media has descended into a seemingly endless moan-fest about the unprecedented Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, all while dishing out distractions and schadenfreude to convince everyday Russians that Americans are even worse off. During Tuesday’s broadcast of state TV show 60 Minutes , referring to the shortage of baby food in the U.S. with a spiteful scowl, host Evgeny Popov said : “American children have nothing to eat.” Journalist Andrei Sidorchik replied with an even uglier diatribe: “Meanwhile, Ukrainian children are getting missiles and bombs delivered to them, which are supposed to somehow secure their future... They’ll have no fathers, no homes, their country will be burned out, they’ll have nothing that American children have.” Popov retorted: “But they’ll have McDonald’s!” When Russia’s own problems are being discussed, the mood in Kremlin-controlled TV studios is far from jolly—in part because state media mouthpieces were so wrong in their … [Read more...] about Putin’s Puppets Can’t Stop Bitching About the Grueling Cost of His War