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San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
An Australian artist is creating a massive mural in the middle of a small North Dakota town
MINOT, N.D. (AP) — High atop a massive grain elevator in the middle of Minot, North Dakota, artist Guido van Helten swipes a concrete wall with a brush that looks more appropriate for painting a fence than creating a monumental mural. Back and forth van Helten brushes, focused on his work and not bothered by the sheer enormity of his task as he stands in a boom lift, 75 feet (23 meters) off the ground, and focused on a few square feet of a structure that stretches over most of a city block. 'When you use these old structures to kinda share stories and use them as a vehicle to carry an image of identity, it becomes part of the landscape,' he said. 'I've found that people have really adopted them and become really super proud of them.' The work on the former Union Silos is van Helten's latest effort to paint murals on a gigantic scale, with earlier projects on structures ranging from a dam in Australia to part of a former cooling tower at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Although he has created murals throughout the world, grain silos in the U.S. Midwest have been among his most frequent sites. 'I do enjoy the opportunity to uncover stories that are often kinda considered out of the way or flyover communities,' he said. Van Helten has been creating murals for years, working increasingly in the U.S. over the past seven years and around the world. The 38-year-old Brisbane native's interest in regional communities began in earnest after a mural he created years ago on a silo in an Australian town of 100 people. The new idea, he said, drew interest, and he began a series of commissions around Australia and the U.S. He uses a mineral silicate paint formulated to absorb and bond with concrete, and it lasts a long time. He mixes tones specific to the color of the wall and subtly layers the work so it blends in. 'I love the coloring of these buildings, so I don't want to fight with them, I don't want to change it, I don't want it to be bright. I want it to become part of the landscape,' he said. It's not a quick process, as van Helten initially meets with residents to learn about a community and then spends months slowly transforming what is usually the largest structure in a small town. He began painting in Minot in May with plans for a 360-degree mural that combines photography with painting to depict the people and culture of an area. The Minot elevator and silos were built in the 1950s and were an economic center for years before they ceased operations around the early 1990s. Van Helten isn't giving too much away about what his Minot mural will depict, but said he has been inspired by concepts of land and ownership while in North Dakota, from ranching and the oil field to Native American perspectives. Minot is a city of nearly 50,000 people and sits near the Bakken oil field and Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. 'It is really when you boil down to it in many ways about land and how different cultures interpret that and connect with it, and I feel it's really interesting in North Dakota because it is really such a big, open land,' the artist said. Much of the mural is still taking shape, but images of a barn and female figures are visible. Property owner Derek Hackett said the mural is 'a great way to take what is kind of a blighted property and be able to give it a facelift and kind of resurrect its presence in our skyline." Soon the mural will be visible from almost anywhere in town, he said. The mural project is entirely donation-funded, costing about $350,000, about 85% of which is already raised, said Chelsea Gleich, a spokesperson for the project. 'It is uniquely ours, it's uniquely North Dakota and you'll never be able to find a piece just like this anywhere else,' she said.
New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
‘Naked Gun' director Akiva Schaffer ‘threatened to quit' to save this ‘polarizing' scene
Warning: spoilers below for 'The Naked Gun.' Leslie Nielsen would be proud. Director Akiva Schaffer, 47, has revealed that he 'threatened to quit' the 'Naked Gun' reboot to save a scene that the movie's other writers wanted to cut. 8 Akiva Schaffer speaks onstage during the 'Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers' premiere at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on May 18, 2022. Getty Images for Disney 8 Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in the newly released 'The Naked Gun' reboot. ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection 'It was polarizing in script reads,' Schaffer said on Monday's episode of IndieWire's 'Filmmaker Toolkit' podcast. 'People I really respect, like Andy Sandberg, when he read it for me, he was like, 'Snowman's the best. Do not let them cut it,' knowing it would be cuttable.' 'It makes sense once you see the movie, but at one point I did have to threaten to quit,' he added. The 'polarizing' montage in question comes when Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) and Beth (Pamela Anderson) share a short romantic getaway in a snowy cabin. 8 Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. and Pamela Anderson as Beth in 'The Naked Gun' (2025). ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection After using a magical spell book to bring a snowman to life, the pair engage in a threesome with the snowman until he suddenly turns violent. Schaffer, who co-wrote the reboot with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, admitted that he did cut down part of the montage just in case it was completely removed from the film. The Lonely Island alum was ultimately proven right when the sequence became 'the No. 1 scene' in the entire movie. 8 Paul Walter Hauser, Akiva Schaffer and Liam Neeson on the set of 'The Naked Gun' (2025). AP 'After the first test screen, it was the No. 1 scene in the movie,' Schaffer said. 'The people who really fought me on it after ate a lot of crow without me asking. I tried to let them off the hook easy, and go, 'That's fine,' but they were like, 'No, dude, we were wrong.'' Elsewhere during the podcast, Schaffer revealed that they only included the snowman montage as a throwback to the original 1988 'Naked Gun' starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin and Priscilla Presley as Jane Spencer. In the original, Nielsen and Presley's characters appear in an absurd scene that shows them running hand-in-hand on the beach and laughing during a showing of the dark war drama 'Platoon' while Herman's Hermits play in the background. 8 Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. in the new 'The Naked Gun' reboot. AP 8 Pamela Anderson as Beth in the new 'The Naked Gun' reboot. AP 'We got to the point in our script, we were like, 'Wow, this love story deserves a montage,'' Schaffer explained. 'The original 'Naked Gun' has a very famous, very good montage set to 'I'm Into Something Good.'' 'We knew it had to be different than that,' he continued. 'And then also, there's been 30 years of making fun of montages, whether it's 'Team America' doing a montage or whatever, there's not a lot of room left in the montage. We were debating not doing a montage and had a few other ideas.' It wasn't until the 'Hot Rod' director got up to use the bathroom late one night that the snowman idea popped into his head. 8 A poster for 'The Naked Gun' featuring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. Copious Management/Paramount 'When I got back in bed, it had been percolating that day in the writers' room, and I just saw the entire thing and wrote it into bullet point notes, and then texted it to Dan and Doug,' he shared. 'The next morning, I came into the writers' room and they were like, 'Yeah, done.'' But Schaffer was not the only one to 'love' the 'polarizing' montage, because Pamela Anderson has also spoken about how much she enjoyed shooting that particular scene with her rumored new beau, Liam Neeson. 'I remember Liam and other people saying, 'What is this?'' the 'Baywatch' alum, 58, told Entertainment Weekly. 'But I was like, 'It makes perfect sense to me.' It feels like Akiva's signature.' 8 Akiva Schaffer, Erica Huggins and Seth MacFarlane attend a 'The Naked Gun' special screening at Paramount Pictures Studios on July 14, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images for Paramount Pictures 'I know he fought really hard to keep that in because as things grow and then there's budgets and they figure out what they want to use, he was insistent that had to stay in,' she added. 'He's throwing himself on the sword for that one, so he knows something we don't.' Anderson joked that it was even more fun filming the snowman montage than watching it. 'She was in bed with us, so the threesome with the snowman was quite interesting,' Anderson said of the snowman's puppeteer. 'There are very specific rules dealing with people in costumes — you're not supposed to directly talk to the puppeteer. And this was a full-on, Hansen-level costume.' 'Inside, there's a person with these night vision goggles, or whatever you want to call them, in there telling which way to turn,' she added. 'It's very, very complex. It's very robotic.'
New York Post
17 hours ago
- New York Post
Sean ‘Diddy' Combs' latest bid for bail denied as judge rules he can't go home to await sentencing
Sean 'Diddy' Combs can't go home from jail to await sentencing on his prostitution-related conviction, a judge said Monday, denying the rap and style mogul's latest bid for bail. Combs has been behind bars since his September arrest. He faced federal charges of coercing girlfriends into having drug-fueled sex marathons with male sex workers while he watched and filmed them. He was acquitted last month of the top charges — racketeering and sex trafficking — while being convicted of two counts of a prostitution-related offense. Advertisement 4 Combs has been behind bars since his September arrest. REUTERS In denying Combs' $50 million bond proposal, Judge Arun Subramanian said the hip hop impresario had failed to prove that he did not pose a risk of flight or danger, adding that the record did not show an 'exceptional circumstance' that would justify his release after a conviction that otherwise requires detention. Combs' arguments 'might have traction in a case that didn't involve evidence of violence, coercion, or subjugation in connection with the acts of prostitution at issue, but the record here contains evidence of all three,' the judge wrote. Advertisement 4 He was acquitted last month of the top charges — racketeering and sex trafficking — while being convicted of two counts of a prostitution-related offense. REUTERS Messages seeking comment were sent to prosecutors and one of Combs' lawyers. The conviction carries the potential for up to 10 years in prison. But there are complicated federal guidelines for calculating sentences in any given case, and prosecutors and Combs' lawyers disagree substantially on how the guidelines come out for his case. The guidelines aren't mandatory, and Subramanian will have wide latitude in deciding Combs' punishment. Advertisement 4 The conviction carries the potential for up to 10 years in prison. REUTERS The Bad Boy Records founder, now 55, was for decades a protean figure in pop culture. A Grammy-winning hip hop artist and entrepreneur with a flair for finding and launching big talents, he presided over a business empire that ranged from fashion to reality TV. Prosecutors claimed he used his fame, wealth and violence to force and manipulate two now-ex-girlfriends into days-long, drugged-up sexual performances he called 'freak-offs' or 'hotel nights.' His lawyers argued that the government tried to criminalize consensual, if unconventional, sexual tastes that played out in complicated relationships. The defense acknowledged that Combs had violent outbursts but said nothing he did came amounted to the crimes with which he was charged. Advertisement 4 Prosecutors claimed he used his fame, wealth and violence to force and manipulate two now-ex-girlfriends. AP Since the verdict, his lawyers have repeatedly renewed their efforts to get him out on bail until his sentencing, set for October. They have argued that the acquittals undercut the rationale for holding him, and they have pointed to other people who were released before sentencing on similar convictions. Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo suggested in a court filing that Combs was the United States' 'only person in jail for hiring adult male escorts for him and his girlfriend.' The defense's most recent proposal included the $50 million bond, plus travel restrictions, and expressed openness to adding on house arrest at his Miami home, electronic monitoring, private security guards and other requirements. Prosecutors opposed releasing Combs. They wrote that his 'extensive history of violence — and his continued attempt to minimize his recent violent conduct — demonstrates his dangerousness and that he is not amendable to supervision.'
