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Read Now: In Master Gardener, Paul Schrader Delves into White Supremacy – 101 Latest News

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In Master Gardener, Paul Schrader Delves into White Supremacy

#Master #Gardener #Paul #Schrader #Delves #White #Supremacy

The ultimate point of Paul Schrader’s pensive and peculiar new film, Master Gardener, may not be a fabulously coiffed Sigourney Weaver leveling a Luger pistol at a reformed Neo-Nazi in the sitting room of her plantation mansion—but it sure does register potently. Weaver, in a collection of fashionably prim outfits, cuts through this modest film with electric verve. As Norma Haverhill, an heiress to a family estate and its prized flower gardens, Weaver is at her flinty finest; it’s the kind of role she’s had far too little of this century.

She isn’t the main focus of the film, though. While we wonder why Norma’s dear departed daddy had a Third Reich collectible in the first place, the film’s bigger question is that of Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton). He’s the titular horticulturist, who manages the property’s well-kept grounds.

Narvel is calm, confident, knowledgeable, but there’s a haunt in his eyes. Like the hero of Schrader’s last film, the coolly mesmerizing The Card Counter, Narvel has a bitterly regretted past, one he’s trying to atone for by lovingly and conscientiously tending to a little patch of earth. Schrader shows us what’s plaguing Narvel pretty early on in the film. Undressing in his caretaker’s cottage one evening, Narvel reveals his shirtless torso, covered in white supremacist tattoos.

Narvel was a bad guy once, and Master Gardener depicts the slow work of his becoming a better one. Edgerton, with a sonorous, Sean Penn-esque growl, makes a compelling case for his character’s newfound decency. Narvel carries himself with a practiced, world-weary gentility. He’s caring but firm with Norma, who knows about his past and seems to dangle it in front of him as both threat and perverse foreplay. This is all, we are subtly reminded, taking place on what was likely once a slave plantation. Schrader considers these white people as they stand in the wreckage of their history—their own and their country’s—with a dispassionate, analytical gaze.

The value of such a narrative will likely depend on the beholder. Master Gardener does not issue its own proclamations or moral judgments. The film recognizes the horror and cruelty of Narvel’s past, but it is primarily concerned with imagining what might lie after that ideology has been forsaken. Is there redemption for such a man?

Narvel’s tightly held equilibrium is disturbed by the arrival of Maya (Quintessa Swindell), a grand-niece of Norma’s who has been hired as a gardening apprentice in the hopes that it will rescue her from a troubled existence. Her mother, now dead, was a drug addict, a disease passed on to her daughter. Maya is half-Black, which no doubt complicates Norma’s view of her. That’s never said outright in the film, but it’s certainly a part of the tension that hangs over every interaction between the two women—a sense of unspoken difference, of latent mistrust.

Norma confides to Narvel that she hopes Maya might one day take over the gardens; she wants to keep the family legacy alive after she’s gone. Which implies, to some extent anyway, that Norma is trying to transcend old prejudices, but only conditionally. That is the arresting ambiguity of Schrader’s film, this portrait of people existing in uncertain dialogue with the context they were born into. Narvel and Norma are peers on a spectrum, while Maya seems to represent a way out.

Which isn’t exactly fair to Maya, just as it isn’t for any person of color held up as a token of white people’s enlightenment. Schrader seems aware of that undue burden, even if he perhaps too blithely pushes Narvel and Maya together. Violence eventually enters the picture, as it so often does in Schrader’s films, which brings Master Gardener perilously close to admiring Narvel’s lethal skills. Schrader pulls back, though, before things get too Taken. Betterment is not earned with a gun (or with pruning shears), but with the determined choice to walk away from the cycle—to disavow it in both word and, more importantly, deed.

Much of Master Gardener is disarmingly placid. It’s a warmer, more optimistic film than one might expect, even if it does at times creak with the antiquated perspective of a stalwart septuagenarian filmmaker unwilling to shake off some of the past’s bad habits. Maybe Master Gardener is just some old white guy minimizing racism as malleable character flaw. (In the individual and in the body politic.) But I think Schrader is on a sharper, more salient tack than that. He is investigating one microcosm, one little terrarium, in which the system is being questioned and resolutely challenged. If Narvel’s journey out of the rot can be cultivated to full bloom, then maybe many others elsewhere can be, too. Bit by bit, change may happen in true and tangible ways.

All that said, such an assessment of Master Gardener could risk over-thought. This is a spare and aloof little film, crisply performed and quietly staged. Weaver’s crackling grande dame imperiousness—menacing and strangely pitiable—may be enough to carry the viewer away. But Schrader at least wants prickle in us an awareness of where it is, exactly, we’re being carried to.

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Read Now: YouTube Reverses Ban On 2020 Election Denial As 2024 Race Ramps Up – 101 Latest News

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YouTube Reverses Ban On 2020 Election Denial As 2024 Race Ramps Up

#YouTube #Reverses #Ban #Election #Denial #Race #Ramps

YouTube announced Friday that it would no longer remove election lies from its platform as former President Donald Trump and the MAGA-faithful continue to deny the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In a statement released on an official company blog, one of the world’s largest video platforms cited the “ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions,” as the reason for the change. A 2020 Pew Research study found that a quarter of American adults get their news from the platform. 

“Two years, tens of thousands of video removals, and one election cycle later, we recognized it was time to reevaluate the effects of this policy in today’s changed landscape,” Google-owned YouTube said. 

“With that in mind, and with 2024 campaigns well underway, we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections.”

In its statement, the company clarified that it would continue to remove content that misleads voters about the voting process. 

YouTube announced the policy in December 2020, just under a month before the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. A study from the independent research group Transparency.tube found that videos peddling election lies garnered more than 137 million views during the election week. Those videos frequently spread to other social media platforms, comprising about one-third of all election-related videos posted to Twitter in November 2020. But after YouTube introduced the policy, the amount of election fraud videos shared on social media declined, The New York Times reported

In a statement responding to the change, Julie Millican, vice president of liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, noted that Youtube was “one of the last major social media platforms to keep in place a policy attempting to curb 2020 election misinformation.” Twitter stopped suspending, banning, or fact-checking users spreading election lies in March 2021, while Facebook reduced its efforts to quell the spread of misinformation in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms. This March, YouTube reinstated Trump’s account, following Meta and Twitter’s lead. 

YouTube “is now allowing people to say whatever they wish about the 2020 election,” far-right Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweeted on Saturday, responding to the news. “Looks like even YouTube is ready for people to start talking TRUTH again.” 


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Read Now: Oscar Isaac Wants Pedro Pascal To Join The ‘Spider-Verse’ As A “Cranky, Old Spider-Person” – 101 Latest News

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Oscar Isaac Wants Pedro Pascal To Join The ‘Spider-Verse’ As A “Cranky, Old Spider-Person”

#Oscar #Isaac #Pedro #Pascal #Join #SpiderVerse #Cranky #SpiderPerson

Oscar Isaac is already imagining the next Spider-Verse film and has a role for Pedro Pascal.

The Moon Knight star joined the cast of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse voicing the role of Miguel O’Hara, also known as Spider-Man 2099, a Spider-Man from an alternate universe.

When talking to British GQ, Isaac said that production of the film is already “brilliant at finding the right person for the right character” but suggested the Last of Us star voice a character in the next film.

“Let’s find something for him. He should be a Spider-Person, like a cranky, old Spider-Person,” he told the magazine.

In the same interview, Isaac talked about voicing Miguel O’Hara and what he admires about the character.

“He’s got this particular unique quality to him, but there are lots of things about him that I think are very surprising and make him such his own thing,” he said. “The fangs and claws and this violence that’s simmering underneath at all times? He’s just a really interesting character.”

Isaac also talked about his experience voice acting versus regular acting.

“You only have your voice to be able to express a lot of what’s going on. There’s more collaboration involved because it’s your voice, it’s the animators, it’s the design, it’s all these things coming together to create the character,” Isaac explained. “There’s something beautifully communal about putting that together and just adding one element and then seeing it all come together. It’s just such a beautiful work of art.”

He continued, “The art in this thing is so incredible, but specifically with Miguel. The way that he transforms visually and becomes more feral as things fall apart, I just thought, was so, so amazing.”


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Read Now: Jennifer Aniston Glows In Makeup Free Photos As She Snuggles Late Dog Dolly – 101 Latest News

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Jennifer Aniston

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Image Credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency / SplashNews.com

Jennifer Aniston, 54, paid tribute to her beloved late dog Dolly on Saturday. The actress took to Instagram to share two makeup-free photos of herself snuggling the adorable white pooch as well as a touching video of wind chimes hanging and making noise outside. “In memory of Dolly” could be seen on the center triangle section that held the chimes together.

In the two cute snapshots, the beauty wore a blue tank top and had her hair down. She was showing off a slight smile as she held the sweet pet close. She also wore gold dangling earrings. “Dolly forever ❤️,” she lovingly captioned the post. 

Once it was published, it didn’t take long for her fans to share comments of condolences and support. “So sorry for your loss. I love the wind chime idea. Every time you hear it, you’ll think of her,” one fan wrote, while another shared, “I’m so sorry for your loss.. your beautiful dolly has her wings and will always watch over you. Sending hugs❤️.” Others left just heart emojis to signify their love.

Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer at a previous event. (Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency / SplashNews.com)

This isn’t the first time Jennifer has shared an emotional post about pet loss. The dog-lover has had many animals over the years and she also shared a tribute to her dog Dolly, whom she shared with ex Justin Theroux, after her passing in 2019. They both shared photos of the heartbreaking yet beautiful moment they were by Dolly’s side as she passed underneath the sunset.

“Tonight, at sunset, after a heroic struggle… our most loyal family member and protector, Dolly A. laid down her sword and shield,” Justin captioned the sweet post. “🐺💔 She was surrounded by her entire family. ‘The one that never deserts, the one that never proves ungrateful… is the dog— faithful and true, even in death.’ -George Vest — Rest In Peace Dolly #adoptdontshop #rescuedog.”

In addition to Dolly, Jennifer has posted photos of her other precious dogs. One post showed two of them laying on a couch with her as she rocked a blue cozy robe. “Morning,” she captioned it along with an emoji face surrounded by hearts.

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