Showing posts with label Film news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film news. Show all posts

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud

IS it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies? From recent events in Israel, it would certainly seem that it is not.

Last month, an innocent, modestly dressed 8-year-old girl, Naama Margolese, living in Beit Shemesh, described being spat on and vilified by religious extremists — all men — who believed that she did not dress modestly enough while walking past them to the religious school she attends. And more and more, public buses in Israel are enforcing gender segregation imposed by ultra-Orthodox riders in and near their neighborhoods. Woe to the girl or woman who refuses to move to the back of the bus.

This is part of a larger battle being waged in Israel between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israeli society over women’s place in society, over their very right to have a visible presence and to participate in the public sphere.

What is behind these deeply disturbing events? We are told that they arise from a religious concern about modesty, that women must be covered and sequestered so that men do not have improper sexual thoughts. It seems, then, that a religious tenet that begins with men’s sexual thoughts ends with men controlling women’s bodies.

This is not a problem unique to Judaism. But the Talmud, the basis for Jewish law, offers a perhaps surprising answer: It places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men.

Put more plainly, the Talmud says: It’s your problem, sir; not hers.

The ultra-Orthodox men in Israel who are exerting control over women claim that they are honoring women. In effect they are saying: We do not treat women as sex objects as you in Western society do. Our women are about more than their bodies, and that is why their bodies must be fully covered.

In fact, though, their actions objectify and hyper-sexualize women. Think about it: By saying that all women must hide their bodies, they are saying that every woman is an object who can stir a man’s sexual thoughts. Thus, every woman who passes their field of vision is sized up on the basis of how much of her body is covered. She is not seen as a complete person, only as a potential inducement to sin.

Of course, once you judge a female human being only through a man’s sexualized imagination, you can turn even a modest 8-year-old girl into a seductress and a prostitute.

At heart, we are talking about a blame-the-victim mentality. It shifts the responsibility of managing a man’s sexual urges from himself to every woman he may or may not encounter. It is a cousin to the mentality behind the claim, “She was asking for it.”

So the responsibility is now on the women. To protect men from their sexual thoughts, women must remove their femininity from their public presence, ridding themselves of even the smallest evidence of their own sexuality.

All of this is done in the name of the Torah and Jewish law.

But it’s actually a complete perversion. The Talmud, the foundation of Jewish law, acknowledges that men can be sexually aroused by women and is indeed concerned with sexual thoughts and activity outside of marriage. But it does not tell women that men’s sexual urges are their responsibility. Rather, both the Talmud and the later codes of Jewish law make that demand of men.

It is forbidden for a man to gaze sexually at a woman, whether beautiful or ugly, married or unmarried, says the Talmud. Later Talmudic rabbis extended this ban even to “her smallest finger” and “her brightly colored clothing — even if they are drying on the wall.”

To make these the woman’s responsibility is to demand that Jewish women cover their hands, and that they not dry their clothes in public. No one has ever said this. At least not yet.

The Talmud tells the religious man, in effect: If you have a problem, you deal with it. It is the male gaze — the way men look at women — that needs to be desexualized, not women in public. The power to make sure men don’t see women as objects of sexual gratification lies within men’s — and only men’s — control.

Jewish tradition teaches men and women alike that they should be modest in their dress. But modesty is not defined by, or even primarily about, how much of one’s body is covered. It is about comportment and behavior. It is about recognizing that one need not be the center of attention. It is about embodying the prophet Micah’s call for modesty: learning “to walk humbly with your God.”

Eight-year-old Naama could teach her attackers a thing or two about modesty.

Dov Linzer, an Orthodox rabbi, is the dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

New Definition of Autism Will Exclude Many, Study Suggests

Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests.

The definition is now being reassessed by an expert panel appointed by the American Psychiatric Association, which is completing work on the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the first major revision in 17 years. The D.S.M., as the manual is known, is the standard reference for mental disorders, driving research, treatment and insurance decisions. Most experts expect that the new manual will narrow the criteria for autism; the question is how sharply.

The results of the new analysis are preliminary, but they offer the most drastic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis. For years, many experts have privately contended that the vagueness of the current criteria for autism and related disorders like Asperger syndrome was contributing to the increase in the rate of diagnoses — which has ballooned to one child in 100, according to some estimates.

The psychiatrists’ association is wrestling with one of the most agonizing questions in mental health — where to draw the line between unusual and abnormal — and its decisions are sure to be wrenching for some families. At a time when school budgets for special education are stretched, the new diagnosis could herald more pitched battles. Tens of thousands of people receive state-backed services to help offset the disorders’ disabling effects, which include sometimes severe learning and social problems, and the diagnosis is in many ways central to their lives. Close networks of parents have bonded over common experiences with children; and the children, too, may grow to find a sense of their own identity in their struggle with the disorder.

The proposed changes would probably exclude people with a diagnosis who were higher functioning. “I’m very concerned about the change in diagnosis, because I wonder if my daughter would even qualify,” said Mary Meyer of Ramsey, N.J. A diagnosis of Asperger syndrome was crucial to helping her daughter, who is 37, gain access to services that have helped tremendously. “She’s on disability, which is partly based on the Asperger’s; and I’m hoping to get her into supportive housing, which also depends on her diagnosis.”

The new analysis, presented Thursday at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, opens a debate about just how many people the proposed diagnosis would affect.

The changes would narrow the diagnosis so much that it could effectively end the autism surge, said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine and an author of the new analysis of the proposal. “We would nip it in the bud.”

Experts working for the Psychiatric Association on the manual’s new definition — a group from which Dr. Volkmar resigned early on — strongly disagree about the proposed changes’ impact. “I don’t know how they’re getting those numbers,” Catherine Lord, a member of the task force working on the diagnosis, said about Dr. Volkmar’s report.

Previous projections have concluded that far fewer people would be excluded under the change, said Dr. Lord, director of the Institute for Brain Development, a joint project of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Columbia University Medical Center and the New York Center for Autism.

Disagreement about the effect of the new definition will almost certainly increase scrutiny of the finer points of the psychiatric association’s changes to the manual. The revisions are about 90 percent complete and will be final by December, according to Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and chairman of the task force making the revisions.

At least a million children and adults have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder, like Asperger syndrome or “pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified,” also known as P.D.D.-N.O.S. People with Asperger’s or P.D.D.-N.O.S. endure some of the same social struggles as those with autism but do not meet the definition for the full-blown version. The proposed change would consolidate all three diagnoses under one category, autism spectrum disorder, eliminating Asperger syndrome and P.D.D.-N.O.S. from the manual. Under the current criteria, a person can qualify for the diagnosis by exhibiting 6 or more of 12 behaviors; under the proposed definition, the person would have to exhibit 3 deficits in social interaction and communication and at least 2 repetitive behaviors, a much narrower menu.

Dr. Kupfer said the changes were an attempt to clarify these variations and put them under one name. Some advocates have been concerned about the proposed changes.

“Our fear is that we are going to take a big step backward,” said Lori Shery, president of the Asperger Syndrome Education Network. “If clinicians say, ‘These kids don’t fit the criteria for an autism spectrum diagnosis,’ they are not going to get the supports and services they need, and they’re going to experience failure.”

Haywire (2012) review

Someone Done Her Wrong. Horrible Mistake.

When you think about it, the phrase “action movie” is a bit redundant. Really, what else are motion pictures for? In the earliest days of cinema our ancestors were thrilled to behold images of galloping horses, hurtling trains and capering dancers. Though our entertainments are now more elaborate, our appetites are not so different. A large part of what we crave is action: running, jumping, fighting, driving, flying. Sometimes everything else — plot, character, emotion — can seem superfluous.

This appears to be the working hypothesis behind “Haywire,” a cold and kinetic experiment in high-impact, low-concept genre filmmaking directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starting with a brawl in a rural roadside diner, the film, written by Lem Dobbs, proceeds through a series of expertly choreographed, meticulously edited scuffles and chases, set pieces threaded around a plot that seems almost defiantly preposterous and uninteresting.

The main character is Mallory Kane, played by the mixed martial arts fighter and “American Gladiators” cast member Gina Carano, making her acting debut. Mallory is a professional black-ops superwarrior (at least I think that’s what her business card says) whose troubles are a reminder of just how dangerous it can be to mix work and romance. To say too much about the guys she deals with would be to risk inflaming the spoiler-sensitive, but her dealings with them frequently end, and sometimes begin, with punches and kicks, though there are also occasional kisses and job interviews.

Mallory is the victim of an elaborate double-cross, which she explains to one of the few men not implicated in it, a young fellow named Scott (Michael Angarano), whose chivalrous intervention in that diner melee plunges him into a welter of mayhem and high-speed exposition. As Mallory drives Scott’s car toward the next showdown, a flurry of flashbacks explains the significance of certain proper nouns, notably Aaron, Paul, Kenneth and Barcelona.

Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) is Mallory’s ex-boyfriend and also her erstwhile employer at a firm that does nasty contract work for the government, here represented by Michael Douglas. Aaron (Channing Tatum) did a job with Mallory in Barcelona, where things got a little complicated. So that takes care of that. Further complications turn out to involve Antonio Banderas and Michael Fassbender (who is Paul, but that’s enough for now). Apart from Scott, the only man Mallory trusts (there are no other women in the world of “Haywire”) is her father (Bill Paxton), a former Marine (as is his daughter) with a wonderfully cinematic and conveniently isolated house in New Mexico.

Another important stop on Mallory’s itinerary of flight and payback is Dublin, scene of an intricate and suspenseful foot chase that serves as Mr. Soderbergh’s critique of current trends in action filmmaking, in particular those associated with the British director Paul Greengrass. Instead of the splintered, speeded-up cutting favored by Mr. Greengrass and his followers — most memorably deployed in the second and third “Bourne” movies, which turned the cities of the world into Google Earth kaleidoscopes of controlled chaos — Mr. Soderbergh builds momentum and uncertainty through extended tracking shots and tight, restricted perspectives. Like Mallory the audience can’t see everything that’s happening and isn’t sure what will happen next.

In another sense, though, nothing is really in doubt, and very little is at stake. Unlike the “Bourne” films, whose baroque webbing of plot and counterplot suggested an allegory of global paranoia, “Haywire” goes to great lengths to avoid being about anything beyond its immediate situations and effects. It is self-consciously and aggressively trivial, a feast for formalists who sentimentalize the gloriously cheap B-movies of the past.

Nowadays everyone must love (or at least pretend to love) pleasures that were supposedly once disdained or taken for granted: dive bars, street food, trashy films. But knowing, sophisticated attempts to replicate those things often traffic in their own kind of snobbery, confusing condescension with authenticity. Movies like “The American,” “Drive” and now “Haywire” offer strained pulp, neither as dumb as we want them to be nor as smart as they think they are, and not, in the end, all that much fun.

There is no doubting Mr. Soderbergh’s skill or the sincerity of his interest in some of the technical problems of postmodern cinema. And “Haywire” explores interesting questions about the nature of acting. Ms. Carano does, strictly speaking, very little of it. Her expressions run the gamut from glower to pout, and her features give little indication of her character’s inner state.

This is partly consistent with Mallory’s guardedness, but her blankness also contrasts with the nimble, slick pretending of Ms. Carano’s male co-stars. Their professionalism manifests itself in different ways — Mr. McGregor and Mr. Douglas are practiced hams, while Mr. Fassbender prefers to keep kosher — but in each case there is a fascinating awkwardness to their encounters with Ms. Carano, who is a more purely physical screen presence. (She and Mr. Tatum, on the other hand, have the chemistry of shared clumsiness.)

The fighting that Ms. Carano and her co-stars pretend to do in “Haywire” is something she has done more or less for real, which makes her performance, like the porn star Sasha Grey’s in Mr. Soderbergh’s “Girlfriend Experience,” an intriguing curiosity and something of a conceptual puzzle. Once the talking stops and the action begins, her professionalism is very much in evidence and exciting to watch. And yet, somehow, it cannot quite relieve the tedium of a movie that is too cool even to pretend that there is anything worth fighting about.

“Haywire” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Strong action and rough talk.

HAYWIRE

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Lem Dobbs; production design by Howard Cummings; music by David Holmes; costumes by Shoshana Rubin; produced by Gregory Jacobs and Ryan Kavanaugh; released by Relativity Media. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes.

WITH: Gina Carano (Mallory Kane), Ewan McGregor (Kenneth), Michael Fassbender (Paul), Michael Douglas (Coblenz), Channing Tatum (Aaron), Antonio Banderas (Rodrigo), Bill Paxton (Mr. Kane), Michael Angarano (Scott) and Mathieu Kassovitz (Studer).
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 21, 2012


A film review on Friday about “Haywire,” starring Gina Carano, misidentified her role on the television show “American Gladiators.” She was a member of the gladiator cast, not a contestant.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

lindse lohan hot news!!!!!!!

ഹോള്ളിവുഡ്എല്‍ പ്രസിദ്ധി കു പ്രസിദ്ധി ആകാന്‍ അധികാന്‍ നേരം വേണ്ട.യുവനടി  ലിണ്ട്സേ ലോഹന്‍ ഉദാഹരണം.ദിസ്നേയ് ചിത്രങ്ങളിലൂടെ പ്രശസ്തയായ ലോഹന് പണവും പ്രശസ്തിയും കൊണ്ടുവന്ന ജീവിത ശൈലി ചുവടുതെറ്റി.മദ്യപിച്ചു വണ്ടി യോടിച്ച നടിക്ക് കേസിലകപെട്ട ശേഷം കോടതി കയറി ഇരങ്ങനെ നേരം ഉള്ളോ.ഒരു മാസം മുന്പ്  ഒരു കടയില്‍ നിന്നും നെക്ലേസ് അടിച്ചു മാറിയ കേസ് വേറെയും.

                                      കേസ് നടത്താനായി കയ്യിലുണ്ടായിരുന്ന കാശ് മുഴുവന്‍ ചെലവാക്കിയ നദി ഇപ്പോള്‍ വലിയ കടത്തിലാണ്.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Spanish masala malayalam new movie casting :dileep

ദിലീപും ലാല്‍ജോസും  ഒന്നിക്കുന്നു സ്പാനിഷ്‌ മാസലയിലൂടെ !!!!!!!




കമീല വര്ലരെ യദ്ര്ചികംയാണ് ചാര്‍ളിയെ കണ്ടുമുട്ടിയത്‌.ഒരു ഇന്ടിയക്കരനയത്തില്‍ താല്പര്യം കൊണ്ട് ചാര്ളിക്ക് ലഭിച്ചത് ഒരു മേല്വിലാസമാണ്.ഒരു പ്രോഗ്രാമുമായി ബന്ടപെട്ടു സ്പെയിനില്‍ എത്തിയ ചാര്ളിക്ക് തിരിച്ചു നാട്ടിലേക് പോകാന്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞില്ല.പരിചയക്കാരും മറ്റും ഇല്ലാത്ത ഈ നാട്ടില്‍ മലയാളം മാത്രം അറിയാവുന്ന ചാര്‍ളി ഇനി ഈ നാട്ടില്‍ എങ്ങനെ ജീവിക്കും ഈന്നു ആലോചിക്കുമ്പോഴാണ് കമീല മുന്നില്‍ പെടുന്നത്.ചാര്‍ളിയുടെ സത്യാവസ്ഥ തിരിച്ചറിഞ്ഞ കമീല അവിടെ തന്നെ ആരോ ജോലിയും ശരിയാകി കൊടുക്കുന്നു.
കമീല ജനിച്ചതും വളര്നത് ഇന്ത്യയിലാണ്.ഇന്ത്യയിലെ സ്പാനിഷ്‌ അമ്ബസടോര്‍ അയ ഫിലിപ്പ് ആദമിന്റെ മകലനും കംമേള.നന്നായി മലയാളം സംസാരിക്കാന്‍ അറിയുന്ന കമീല ഇന്ത്യന്‍ സംസാരത്തെ കുറിച്ചും ജീവിത രീതികളെ കുറിച്ചും നല്ല മതിപ്പാണ്.


ചരിളിയുടെ വരവ് കമീലയുടെ ജീവിതത്തില്‍ ഉണ്ടാക്കുന്ന മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍ ആണ് ചിത്രത്തില്‍ കാണിക്കുന്നത്.ലാല്‍ ജോസ് ചിത്രികരിക്കുന സ്പാനിഷ്‌ മസാല സ്പെയിനില്‍ ആണ് ചിത്രികരിക്കുന്നത്.

Prithviraj in loyi aaraman

ലൂയി ആറാമന്‍ 
പ്രിത്വി രാജിനെ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രമാക്കി  ജെക്സണ്‍ ആന്റണി,രേജീസ് എസ്ടനി  എന്നിവര്‍ ചേര്‍ന് കഥ തിരകഥ സംഭാഷണം എഴുതി സംവിധാനം ചെയ്യുന്ന തിത്രമാണ് ലൂയി ആറാമന്‍ സിനിമ മൂവിസിന്റെ ബാനറില്‍ ബിജു ജോണ്‍ സതോഷ് മത്തായി   എന്നിവര്‍ ചേര്‍ന്  നിര്‍മിക്കുന്ന ചിത്രത്തില്‍  ലൂയിസ് എന്നാ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രത്തെ യാണ് അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്നത്‌. 
സംഗീതം: മെജോ ജോസഫ്‌
ചായാഗ്രഹണം: മധു നീലകണ്ഠന്‍