Although it’s a movie about boxing and contains any number of neatly staged fight scenes,it is about fathers and daughters, real or ersatz, and about emotional remoteness and proximity, and doing one last good-bad thing before you die.Black boxers took on the world and knocked it flying, but Hollywood is more concerned with white ones, writes John Patterson.
While it’s not a new idea to get pop stars to do Cole Porter’s songs for this movie, <i>De-Lovely</i> has managed to keep the approach traditional, without trying to spruce up Porter’s work for the MTV generation, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
"The way in for me was to ask questions like, when is the birth of conscience? Not just for a character in a novel, but also for the writer writing the novel." Andie Miller spoke to exiled Nigerian novelist Chris Abani.
The Michael Jackson trial descended further into farce on Thursday as the judge ordered the singer’s arrest when he failed to appear at court. Told that he was at a nearby hospital ”with a serious back problem” the judge was unmoved, and gave the singer 60 minutes to appear or face jail and the loss of his -million bail bond.
A suicide bomb tore through a packed funeral ceremony at a Shia mosque in Mosul on Thursday, killing at least 46 people and wounding up to 100 others. The attack appeared to be the latest outrage by Sunni militants intent on fomenting sectarian strife and destabilising attempts to form an elected Iraqi government.
Microsoft on Thursday announced a deal to buy a company run by the creator of IBM’s Lotus Notes, Ray Ozzie, at the same time hiring him to be one of the software firm’s most senior technical executives. Ozzie will join Microsoft in the role of chief technical officer and will report directly to chairperson and chief software architect Bill Gates.
The neon sign outside describes the club as a ”show venue”, but the only people taking to the stage are crooning customers and their scantily-clad escorts. A report last year by the United States State Department placed Japan on a par with Mexico and Laos for its failure to stem the trade in sex workers.
There’s a lot of baggage associated locally with the word "protest". Generally speaking, it has become a word with a whole bunch of hidden meanings, depending on who is using it. When the government uses it, it tends to be talking about the "good old days" of anti-apartheid protest against the <i>previous</i> government. But things have take a different turn these days …
I wrote to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> two weeks ago to respond to numerous articles that Mike van Graan had written against the Department of Arts and Culture. My article appeared as an edited letter to the editor. The self-appointed "god" of the arts, Van Graan, then had the unfair advantage of responding to my whole article. I find this unethical, writes Director General of the Department of Arts and Culture Itumeleng Mosala.
African countries have agreed on the rules by which they would like to play a new United Nations game. Four countries have emerged as candidates for the two permanent seats on the UN Security Council that Africa is requesting. Libya can hardly be regarded as a serious candidat, while the other three — Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa — will not be able to avoid a knock-down, drag-out battle.