Latest news with #Emma
Spectator
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Emma Thompson is wrong about sex
I watched most of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande when it was on TV some months back. I wondered whether to write something about it. But I can't write about every representation of sex that offends me. Who am I – Mary Whitehouse? Thankfully Dame Emma Thompson, the star of that film, has now handed me an opportunity. Can I first say something about her? I can't stick her. Is she a good actress? I don't know. I can't tell – it seems to me that she leaks her personality into every role. In Sense and Sensibility it seemed she was merging the character of Elinor Dashwood with the character of Emma Thompson, the famous self-righteous know-it-all celebrity, and I did not want such a merger. Actors are meant to get their own personalities out of the way, aren't they? I can't think of any other roles except for the sad wife in Love Actually, a film I greatly despise. So, in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, an annoyingly named film, Emma merges her personality with that of a retired teacher who, though married, has never been sexually satisfied, and so engages a young male prostitute. She is oh so English, oh so awkward, oh so middle-class, and oh so brave for pursuing her desires despite the cultural weight of repression. Her dialogue is full of sub-Alan Bennett stuff about wondering whether she should be shopping at Waitrose – a distraction from the fact that the prostitute is about to have sex with her. The young man, by the way, is a paragon of modern sensitivity – a male tart with a heart, even a sort of gentle Jesus figure for our day. At one point she calls him a 'sex saint'. Maybe the film is written by Richard Curtis – I can't be bothered to find out. Whether or not is it, Emma has been, in a sense. Meaning that her screen persona is a product of his claim to portray the English soul in a modern way. It is a bogus claim – but I am making enough enemies for one day. It is excruciating to watch this woman being very polite between bouts of sex – but not excruciating in the edgy way the film intends. It is excruciating because one is being preached at by thickos. The message is this: sex is just sex, it's a human need like having a good dentist – but more profound. So we should ditch the moralistic idea that sex belongs in long-term relationships, that casual sex and paid-for sex are somehow wrong. Emma herself has now underlined this message. At a screening of the film – presumably for some 'charity' event – the dame explained that sex is very good for one's health and wellbeing: 'It should really be on the NHS. It should. It's so good for you.' She claimed that some of her older, lonelier friends had started to hire escorts, just like the brave lady in the film. She added: 'We need to learn about our own response to: 'What if when you're unwell, you can't make connections, but you need sex?'' Therefore, she said, sex-workers should not be stigmatised: they are 'just like accountants – sex workers are doing a job'. She is oh so English, oh so awkward, oh so middle-class, and oh so brave for pursuing her desires despite the cultural weight of repression OK, deep breath. And apologies if you have heard this before from me – in relation to Lily Phillips or some smutty reality show on Channel 4. Sex is quite complicated. In fact, it is two things. It is a strong human appetite – one that we notoriously share with lesser creatures, in fact. And it is also the almost-opposite of this: an act of commitment to one person, with whom one enjoys great psychological intimacy – for whom one forgoes the anarchic-appetite side of sex. We could call this sex in the full sense. The duality is difficult and confusing. People like Dame Emma – and whoever wrote the film – who very strongly assume themselves to be very intelligent, are advised to tread a bit more carefully. Am I saying that casual sex and paid-for sex are 'wrong'? Not quite – but I am saying that they are different from sex in the full sense: sex accompanied by long-term psychological intimacy. Casual sex and paid-for sex are ambiguous at best; only sex in the full sense is worthy of celebration. The fault of the film, and of Dame Emma's remarks, is that the boundary is blurred, and its message is muddled. The film implies that it is psychologically healthy and liberating to detach sex from commitment – to treat it as a mere physical need. But on the other hand, it places a lot of emphasis on the therapeutic nature of the encounter – on the young man's sensitivity, on the woman's sense of gaining a sort of enlightenment as she at last tastes carnal pleasure. So it is subtly disingenuous: it implies that an emotional and even spiritual connection is part of 'good sex', even as it preaches liberation from boring old relationships. Our culture needs to think about sex more.
Perth Now
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Emma Stone 'really wanted to work with Ari Aster'
Emma Stone "really wanted to work" with Eddington director Ari Aster. The 36-year-old actress stars alongside the likes of Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, and Austin Butler in the new comedy-drama film - but Emma admits that Ari really attracted her to the project. Asked what drew her to the movie, Emma told Extra: "Honestly, I loved the script, but the biggest draw for me was Ari." Emma is a long-time fan of the filmmaker, who previously helmed movies such as Hereditary and Midsommar. And the award-winning actress jumped at the opportunity to work with Ari. She shared: "I love Ari's other films. "I like him so much as a person and had gotten to know him for years before this, and so when he asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, I just said yes because I really, really wanted to work with Ari." Emma would actually love to work with Ari, 38, on another movie. Asked about the prospect of reuniting with him for another film, the actress replied: "I would love to, if he'll have me." Emma also relished the experience of working with the film's star-studded cast. However, she never actually got to shoot any scenes with Pedro Pascal. She explained: "I didn't get to work with him. You'll see in the movie, we don't get to intersect, but I've gotten to hang out with him outside of it, so it feels like it all evened out." Despite this, Emma can't wait to see her co-star in the new Fantastic Four movie. She said: "Of course I'm gonna see Fantastic Four. That trailer? With the song Fantastic Four where they're singing it? I mean, Pedro's enough for me, but then we got that great song? I'm in." Emma is one of the best-known actresses in Hollywood, but she previously confessed to suffering from crippling anxiety during her younger years. She told Rolling Stone magazine: "My brain [was] naturally zooming 30 steps ahead to the worst-case scenario. "My anxiety was constant. I would ask my mom a hundred times how the day would lay out. What time she was going to drop me off? Where was she going to be? What would happen at lunch? Feeling nauseous. At a certain point, I couldn't go to friends' houses anymore – I could barely get out the door to school." Emma's parents eventually encouraged her to see a therapist, and that proved to be a turning point for the movie star. She said: "I drew a little green monster on my shoulder that speaks to me in my ear and tells me all these things that aren't true. And every time I listen to it, it grows bigger. If I listen to it enough, it crushes me. But if I turn my head and keep doing what I'm doing it shrinks and fades away."
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Sand City' Is a Kaleidoscopic Tale of Sand Thieves and Harsh Life in a Metropolis (Karlovy Vary Trailer)
Watch out, sand thieves are coming to the Proxima Competition of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) next month. Yes, you read that right: sand thieves! Bangladeshi screenwriter and director Mahde Hasan, who has made shorts I Am Time (2013), Death of a Reader (2017), and A Boring Film (2020), is bringing his feature film debut, Sand City, to the picturesque Czech spa town. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Tehran Another View' Features Paintball, Carwalking, and a DJ Dressed up as the Joker (Karlovy Vary Trailer) APOS: Amazon Doubles Down on Dual Streaming Strategy in India with Prime Video and MX Player 'The Shining,' 'A Clockwork Orange,' 'Megalopolis' Costume Designer to Receive Locarno Vision Award The cinematic tale promises daring visuals, which are kaleidoscopic and often make the story, and life, feel like shattered glass. It also promises a thought-provoking dissection of life in a big city, in this case, Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, which has a reputation as one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The movie's logline can be understood in that context. 'Sand, an unstable element, reveals the life in a ruthless metropolis,' it reads. The protagonists of the two parallel stories told in the film are a woman from an ethnic minority, portrayed by Victoria Chakma in her screen debut, and a man who is a member of the majority population, played by Bangladeshi actor Mostafa Monwar. 'Emma and Hasan don't know each other, but they have much in common. Most importantly, they are both sand thieves,' reads a synopsis on the KVIFF website. 'Emma steals it for kitty litter, Hasan for making homemade glass. One day, their lives are disrupted by the discovery of a severed finger, and they learn that the human psyche can shatter as easily as glass.' In case you still expect a classic popcorn movie, the fest highlights the deeper and darker layers of human life that it explores. 'It is an oppressive portrait of a city full of sand, blended with a stylistically refined elegy about the flow of time, personal privacy, destruction, and the tear-filled valleys of our inner worlds,' it emphasizes. The cinematography of the film, for which Diversion is handling sales, comes from Mathieu Giombini, who has worked with such directors as Francois Ozon, Michel Piccoli, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, and Manoel de Oliveira. Director Hasan explains in a director's note that he wanted to 'explore the many facets of urban survival, fantasy, and sexuality,' while also 'exploring my own emotions' about the city and how it 'constantly occupies my thoughts and creations.' And he shares: 'I have been photographing this city and the lives within it for almost a decade now. At first, my gaze was romantic and celebratory till I decided to probe even deeper and look beyond the obvious. Then, I realized the inherent claustrophobia of living in the city; the lives of people as if they were all locked inside their own abyss.' Concludes Hasan: 'I witnessed how the passage of time suffocates our daily lives. We all seemed to be locked within a trap where there is a need to hide ourselves and never had the courage to come out as we are, to speak as we feel. There is almost a crisis of faith, wherein the people have stopped trusting and believing in better days.' He and Giombini opted for a look and feel inspired by some big names. 'Mahde and I have often mentioned the cinema of the Portuguese director Pedro Costa, for his particular treatment of shadows and directions of light, but also of the American director David Lynch, who manages so well to interfere with the irrational, even the fantastic, quite simply, without resorting to expensive special effects, which we couldn't afford anyway,' Giombini explains. The aesthetics fit with the 'fractured structure and form' that the director chose. 'Dhaka, the city where I dwell, is like a collage of broken glass,' filmmaker Hasan concludes. The trailer introduces the two people whose journey the movie follows and gives a first taste of the dreamy qualities of Sand City. 'There's no shortage of sand in this city,' protagonist Hasan is heard saying as he dreams of 'huge profits.' Watch the Sand City trailer below. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts
Telegraph
13 hours ago
- General
- Telegraph
My daughter's school wanted her to learn about trans rights. So I kept her at home
Sarah Jones* has a happy, energetic, sporty daughter named Emma. She has just turned nine and loves nothing more than pulling on her football kit and running to the local park, a ball tucked under her arm. If Emma had been born a decade earlier, Jones would have seen this as little more than a carefree phase in her daughter's childhood. Now, she worries someone might suggest Emma was born in the wrong body. 'Emma isn't girly,' says Jones. 'She plays competitive sports and doesn't wear dresses; she's fantastic. But these conversations around gender identity are very harmful to children who don't conform to stereotypical ideas of it. I don't want her to think that just because she doesn't wear pink, she should be a boy.' So when Jones received a letter on Monday afternoon informing her that her daughter's school would be celebrating Schools Diversity Week for the next three days – and that Wednesday would be dedicated entirely to discussions, workshops and a Pride march – she was alarmed. The letter said parents would be welcome to come to the school at Wednesday lunchtime to discuss the events taking place. 'I work full time and was given hardly any notice to come in,' says Jones. 'And what good is a meeting on the day itself?' Launched in 2015 by the LGBT+ young people's charity Just Like Us, Schools Diversity Week has since become a fixture in thousands of schools across the UK. Primary and secondary schools use this time to celebrate the idea that families come in many forms and encourage young people to embrace differences – with the week often culminating in 'Rainbow Friday', when pupils and teachers are encouraged to wear their brightest clothes. This year, Rainbow Friday falls on Friday 27 June. In many communities, the initiative has been embraced as a moment of celebration and inclusivity. Not age-appropriate But when Jones looked through the websites the school had encouraged parents to visit ahead of Diversity Week, she was dismayed to find certain sections focused heavily on trans rights. This included sites like The Proud Trust, which offers a trans inclusion toolkit for schools on its website. Much of it, she says, was not age-appropriate. Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at the Sex Matters campaign group, thinks parents are right to be worried. 'I believe in open-mindedness up to a point, but not so open-minded that your mind falls out,' she says. 'I have two adult sons and one is straight and one is gay and I absolutely support children learning that families come in all shapes and sizes. But one of the worst things you can do to a child is plant the seed of bodily discomfort just a few years before puberty, a time of huge physical and mental change. To tell them these feelings of distress mean you're in the wrong body is downright wicked, and yet schools are doing so all over the country in the name of diversity and inclusion.' Jones – who has already butted heads with the school over trans issues – knows this all too well. During last year's Pride events, her daughter's class read a picture book about a transgender man that included an illustration of a post-mastectomy body. 'I was horrified,' she says. 'The school told me they weren't showing the images, just reading the text, but for me, that wasn't enough.' Scarred by this, Jones decided to keep Emma* and her younger brother at home on Wednesday. 'It's the first time I've kept them off school for a reason other than illness. If I knew the kids were only learning about gay and lesbian rights, I would happily have sent them in, as I don't have an issue with any of that. But I can't take the risk.' Louisa Martin* found herself in a similar situation this week when she decided to keep her sons, aged six and eight, home during their school's Pride celebrations. It was a decision she found personally upsetting, as her brother – with whom she is very close – is gay. 'I won't risk damaging my sons' 'I couldn't be prouder of my brother,' she says. 'It broke my heart keeping the boys home: they know a lot more about gay rights than most of the kids in their class because of their uncle – but I will not expose them to radical gender ideology. It teaches them that if they feel unsettled in their minds, then their bodies have to change. I dread to think what would have happened to my brother if this had existed in his day, and I won't risk damaging my sons.' The irony, of course, is that most activities during Schools Diversity Week are ones that most parents would support. Both women say they would have welcomed the chance for their children to understand why the word 'gay' should never be used as an insult, and to learn that boys and girls don't have to adhere to narrow stereotypes. But when Jones met the school's head of diversity and inclusion – a former form teacher of Emma's – she became convinced she had made the right decision. 'She had pride flags all around her desk and refused to hear me out. I said, 'I don't think you can change sex,' and she just shook her head and said, ' Trans women are women.' She wouldn't budge an inch.' Martin, meanwhile, had to navigate the more personal pain of telling her brother she had withdrawn her boys for this particular week. 'He understood,' she says. 'He was sad, of course. These events should mark how far we've come since our school days in the 1980s. We would both love it to be a happy milestone.' Instead, it has become a reminder of how complex progress can be.
Dublin Live
17 hours ago
- Health
- Dublin Live
Dublin mum-of-two in critical condition after hitting head during family holiday
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info A fundraiser has been launched to support a mum-of-two from north Dublin who is in a critical condition in hospital after collapsing and hitting her head while on a family holiday. Emma Hickey, from Kilbarrack in Dublin 5, had recently travelled with her husband Stephen and their two children to Tenerife to enjoy "a well-deserved family holiday and break from the day-to-day". However, soon after arriving in the popular holiday hotspot, the dream trip abroad "turned into every family's worst nightmare" when Emma suffered a serious head injury which has left her in a coma in hospital. According to Emma's friends, the mum-of-two was bitten by a mosquito "which lead to a worsening infection" and caused the Dublin native to collapse and hit her head on a tiled pavement on Sunday. Emma sustained a serious head injury in the fall and was rushed to hospital, where she remains in an induced coma. The young mum faces a "long, uncertain, and incredibly challenging" road to recovery and her friends have rallied around her and launched a GoFundMe page to help support the family during this difficult time. The fundraiser was set up by Emma's friend Karen Whelan, who wrote on the GoFundMe page: "Our beautiful Emma is critically ill in Tenerife. What was meant to be a well-deserved family holiday and break from the day-to-day, has turned into every family's worse nightmare. "Mosquito bites lead to a worsening infection, which caused Emma to collapse and hit her head on the tiled pavement. The fall resulted in a serious head injury and she remains in an induced coma. The medical team have confirmed that her recovery will be long, uncertain, and incredibly challenging. "We, Emma's family and friends would ask for your help to support Emma's partner Stephen who is self employed, and their kids Sophie and Bobby, as they stay by Emma's side in Tenerife to provide some relief in the day to day expenses so they can focus on the long road of recovery in front of them. Anything you can contribute will make a difference. Even sharing the page and keeping Emma in your thoughts will help the family at this time." The GoFundMe page has raised over €27,500 less than 24 hours after being launched, with Dublin football club Ayrfield United FC, for whom Emma's husband Stephen serves as first team coach, urging locals to support the fundraiser. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Emma Hickey as she endures a very difficult time after a bad fall in Tenerife on Sunday," they wrote in a message shared on social media. "Emma is the partner of Stephen Brougham, our First Team Coach. Emma's friends have set up a GoFundMe to help with costs for the family during this difficult time. If anyone is in a position to help Emma, Steo, Sophie and Bobby, please donate via the link below. Any help is greatly appreciated." If you are interested in making a donation, you can visit the GoFundMe page here for more information. Join our Dublin Live breaking news service on WhatsApp. Click this link to receive your daily dose of Dublin Live content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice . For all the latest news from Dublin and surrounding areas visit our homepage.
