Latest news with #Babe:PigintheCity
Hindustan Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Australian comic actor Magda Szubanski, star of 'Babe' and 'Kath and Kim,' reveals cancer diagnosis
MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian comedian and actor Magda Szubanski, best known for roles in the television sitcom 'Kath and Kim' and the movie 'Babe,' announced on Thursday she had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer. The 64-year-old Melbourne resident posted on social media that she had started treatment for stage four mantle cell lymphoma, which she described as a 'rare and fast-moving blood cancer.' 'It's serious, but I've started one of the best treatments available , and I'm lucky to be getting absolutely world-class care here in Melbourne,' Szubanski posted. 'I won't sugar-coat it: it's rough. But I'm hopeful. I'm being lovingly cared for by friends and family, my medical team is brilliant, and I've never felt more held by the people around me,' she added. Szubanski said that she had shaved her head before appearing in a video 'in anticipation of it all falling out in a couple of weeks.' That was an apparent reference to undergoing chemotherapy. Szubanski received international acclaim for her role as the farmer's wife Esme Hoggett in the 1995 movie 'Babe.' The movie that tells the story of a pig that wants the job of a sheepdog was nominated for seven Academy Awards. Szubanski reprised the role in the 1998 sequel: 'Babe: Pig in the City.' She played sports-loving Sharon Strzelecki in Australian sitcom 'Kath and Kim.' The series ran from 2002 to 2005 and inspired an American remake with the same name. Szubanski voiced the role of Miss Viola in the animated films 'Happy Feet' in 2006 and 'Happy Feet Two' in 2011. Both were produced and directed by George Miller. Szubanski was born in Liverpool, England, on April 12, 1961, and moved to Melbourne with her family in 1966.
CBC
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Piggy reunion show to steal Haligonians' hearts all over again
You'd be hard-pressed to find a group of local music lovers more enthusiastic and nostalgic than those who will undoubtedly be lining the sidewalk of Gottingen Street in Halifax next week. They also might be a little more grizzled than your average audience for a local gig — though, in fairness, the musicians may be, too. On May 8, a tiny slice of Halifax music history will be revived, as Piggy the Calypso Orchestra of the Maritimes plays a one-night-only reunion show. The beloved Halifax band won the hearts of many Haligonians through the eclectic, energetic shows they played from 1994 to late 2000. Up to 10 musicians would crowd the stage, including the usual guitar, drums, bass and keyboards, but also horns, flute, clarinet, banjo, accordion and the occasional kazoo, and the result was a joyful raucousness driven by ideals of social justice and infused with kindness. "It was kind of like if there was an outlaw hippie Sesame Street," says Maggie Rahr, who attended Piggy shows as an early teenager. "They were just so sweet and open, but also unpacking some human complexity and just kind of showing us a way of being that is peaceful and loving." Piggy songs frequently touched on themes of inequality, poverty, capitalism and other serious subjects, but almost always with a playful sound. The Person Behind the Counter encouraged people to be nice to those in the service industry, The Thin Man examined the issues of hunger and poverty, She's Stepping Out is about coming out as queer, and Emma Goldman is a true banger of a tribute to the famous anarchist. Lead singer Paul Gailiunas says Piggy's political bent was intentional. "That was a main motivating factor for me personally in a band was to try to address, you know, things that were important issues," he says. The other motive, he says, was to make it "as fun and wacky as possible." Musicians often dressed up in costumes and shows frequently featured dance contests — which Rahr once won, and was treated to a special prize of going to see the movie Babe: Pig in the City with the entire band. In an era when Halifax was dubbed the "next Seattle" and bands like Sloan, Thrush Hermit, Jale and The Super Friendz were making it big, Piggy wasn't angling for record deals or fame. "It was more of a labour of love and a fun art project, a communal art project," Gailiunas says. Drummer Graham MacDougall will be performing with the band at the reunion show, and says it's been fun revisiting the songs after a quarter century — even if he can't quite remember some of them because they're only on cassette tapes and he doesn't have a player anymore. With some members of the band — like Gailiunas, who now lives in California — coming from out of town, MacDougall says group rehearsals will be limited, so the reunion show will likely be "pretty scrappy and pretty much in spirit with the original band." Although many of the performers were very accomplished musicians, that "ad hoc, ad libbed" sound is simply "part of the charm" of Piggy, MacDougall says. Stephen Kelly, who played banjo with the band, says the performances were sometimes on the brink of devolving into chaos — especially when Gailiunas would shout "everybody solo!" and all the members would do a solo at the same time. "You just went with it and tried to stay in tune … but grounded by the structure of these awesome songs," Kelly says. Rooted in community At the heart of Piggy's music was always the community — particularly the North End, where many band members lived and where Gailiunas, a doctor, practised medicine at the community health clinic on Gottingen Street. Kelly says he remembers running into Gailiunas one May Day in Halifax when Gailiunas was wandering the streets with his guitar, singing. "One of the ways he wrote songs was to walk around the neighborhood with his acoustic guitar and think about Halifax and think about what was going on as inspiration for the melodies and the lyrics that he came up with," Kelly says. Gailiunas left Halifax in 2001, moving to New Orleans with his wife, Helen Hill, an artist, animator and filmmaker who was part of the creative genius behind Piggy, wrote some of the songs with Gailiunas and directed several music videos for the band. Hill died in 2007 when an intruder entered the couple's New Orleans home and shot them, killing her and injuring Gailiunas. The couple's son Francis, who was a toddler at the time, was uninjured. Although Gailiunas's time in Halifax was steeped in his life with Hill, and those memories are sure to surface when he visits, Gailiunas says he's feeling "really positive and excited" about returning. "I loved being there so much. That was a great time in my life," he says. Gailiunas will be visiting Halifax this time with his son Francis and his wife Lecie, and he plans to make sure they try authentic Nova Scotia oatcakes, see Peggys Cove and walk around the North End. Francis will perform some songs with the band, which will also debut a new Piggy song. Gailiunas says Piggy songs tend to be very simple, so he's not too worried about forgetting the chords or words. "Most of them we just sang them so much that they're always going to be there," he says. One challenge with the show, Gailiunas says, is that the Gottingen Street venue, Radstorm, is small, with a capacity of about 50 people. But for fans who are worried that they won't get in, just remember Piggy's immortal words: "Down on Gottingen Street there's always room for you!"
The Independent
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The 15 most traumatic films to show children, from Watership Down to My Girl
Common sense tells us that the fastest way to break a young person's brain is to show them horror movies and scenes of abject violence. But this is also a bit misleading: screen-based trauma doesn't exclusively stem from an early diet of Freddy Krueger and Hostel. You could plonk your children in front of the most innocuous, PG-rated fluff and still give them long-lasting nightmares. How else to explain the plight of The Independent 's Culture and Lifestyle desks, who've curated a list of the films that traumatised them as youngsters. Is there a Jeepers Creepers in the list? A Saw? No! Instead there are numerous entries from the Disney canon and a cosy childhood romance film that inexplicably ends with one of the young lovers being stung to death by bees. Here are 15 films that, for mostly confusing reasons, penetrated and permanently altered our fragile psyches. Alice in Wonderland (1951) 'You know Dinah, we really shouldn't be doing this!' Alice says while shoving her entire body down a hole in a tree, which reveals itself to be a long pipe into hell. Disney's original Alice in Wonderland is horrible enough to maim even the most psychologically sound of adults. It's a hallucinogenic little fable that warns innocent kids not to follow their curiosity. Nothing in this film is even momentarily pleasant. Characters? Between a rabbit with an anxiety disorder and a cat with schizophrenia, they're all demented. The SFX? Grim and nightmarish. The script? Cryptic and sinister. Only a real freak like Walt Disney would have the impulse to turn a Lewis Carroll story into a kids' movie. Hannah Ewens Babe: Pig in the City (1998) When my mum took me to see Babe: Pig in the City when I was seven, she had no idea that George Miller had snuck nightmare fuel past studio bosses. I was wary immediately: gone was the warm glow of the original film, that I'd worn out on video already. In its place was a grim tale of animal poverty featuring an evil clown played by Mickey Rooney. I may have lasted the course but my popcorn didn't. It was flung in the air as I shielded my eyes from a visual that is to this day seared into my brain: a dog, dangling from a bridge by his leash, struggling to breathe as his head is trapped underwater. Jacob Stolworthy The Black Cauldron (1985) One of Disney's more obscure animated films, The Black Cauldron was also the first to receive a PG rating. Watching it today, an 18 seems more appropriate. Loosely based on author Lloyd Alexander's Welsh mythology-inspired series The Chronicles of Prydain, it follows 'assistant pig-keeper' Taran, who dreams of becoming a famous warrior, as he tries to keep his oracular pig Hen Wen from the clutches of the evil Horned King. The film is bonkers enough, made more so by a litany of oddball characters, a dark colour palette and a sinister soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein. In its worst scene, the adorable character Gurgi sacrifices himself to save Taran by jumping into the cauldron. It gave me and my younger brother nightmares for weeks, and haunts me to this day. Roisin O'Connor Cabaret (1972) and the overall Liza Minnelli oeuvre I'm aware that there's something morally horrible about being lightly traumatised by an entire person – rather than a single movie or cartoon character – but good God, did Liza Minnelli bother me as a child. The spidery eyelashes. That breathless, somewhat uncanny voice of hers. The way she seemed to glide across rooms as if her legs weren't quite real. Liza Minnelli was my Babadook, my Slender Man, my creature at the end of the bed. My parents had a Cabaret poster on our living room wall that I actively avoided looking at whenever I was in there alone, and to this day – and to the continued outrage of numerous people in my life – I have not actually seen Cabaret, so deep is my visceral aversion to it. (Joel Grey's emcee can get in the bin, too, while we're here.) Adam White Chicken Run (2000) The constant threat of death looms over Mrs Tweedy's concentration camp-cum-egg farm in Aardman's Chicken Run. The sombre mood is reflected in the film's muted grey colours – like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers but with more poultry. As a child, it always sent me spiralling into a deep melancholy that only a few episodes of The Wild Thornberrys could remedy. Tom Murray Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) There are few things more terrifying to a young girl than The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Robert Helpmann peering around every nook and cranny of the fictional kingdom of Vulgaria – prosthetic nose first – will forever haunt my brain. Not to mention his sinister skipping and eerie cries of 'ice cream'. It took me a long time to trust a Mr Whippy after that. Lydia Spencer-Elliott The Day After Tomorrow (2004) I've always felt the world was on the verge of ending. Yes, the climate crisis, war, and the general deterioration of society, but also because of The Day After Tomorrow, which left an indelible impression on my 13-year-old mind. Extreme weather events including snowstorms and tornadoes usher in a new ice age, changing the world forever. I have a general outlook of nihilistic optimism ('Why not do x,' I say, 'the world is going to end anyway?'), which may have started with that film. Maira Butt Free Willy (1993) Sure, Free Willy has a happy ending. Free Willy tells the uplifting tale of orphan Jesse (Jason James Richter) who befriends the titular Ocra and releases him into the wild from the clutches of an evil theme park owner. It has a very happy ending. But that triumphant storyline was lost on me as a child – I was completely rattled watching Willy's mistreatment throughout the film, which seemed to be repeated on Film4 every weekend. All I could think about were those bleak scenes of the killer whale trapped in a gigantic tank and/or fishing net, soundtracked by Basil Poledouris's melancholy string quartet score. I found the whole thing distressing. I didn't care if Willy was free or not: my brain couldn't let go of those dark, dark images. Ellie Muir The Last Unicorn (1982) This cult animated classic from 1982 features an all-star cast of voices, including Mia Farrow and Jeff Bridges. It also features a plot so trippy and terrifying that me and my sister remain traumatised 30 years later. The story follows the last unicorn (Farrow) on a quest to find her brethren – but along the way she encounters a horrific freakshow carnival, a flaming, raged-filled entity known only as the Red Bull, and the bitterness of human mortality, thwarted love and bone-crushing grief. In short: it's a lot to unpack for an eight-year-old. Helen Coffey The Lion King (1994) In the first half of The Lion King, evil uncle Scar warns us to 'be prepared', because he's cooking up a truly awful plan. It's safe to say that three-year-old me, watching the musical for the first time on VHS, was not remotely prepared for the emotional trauma I was about to undergo a few minutes later, when Scar chucks his brother, the luxuriantly maned king Mufasa, off a rock to be trampled to death by wildebeests. The words 'long live the King', which Scar hisses into Mufasa's ear before committing lion fratricide, can still activate my fight-or-flight mode (Charles' Coronation weekend was a difficult time). Worst of all, though, is young cub Simba's response to his dad's death, desperately lifting up Mufasa's paw only for it to flop to the ground, heavy and lifeless; his little cartoon face is horribly expressive. I'm pretty sure watching The Lion King was the first time I learned about death. Up to this point, my toddler cultural diet had pretty much consisted of wall-to-wall Rosie and Jim: great for learning about how canals work, less enlightening on, say, the pain of mourning a parent. And the other traumatising part? Those revolting squishy grubs that Timon and Pumbaa procure from under rocks to eat as snacks. I'm a vegetarian now. Katie Rosseinsky Mrs Doubtfire (1993) The last (and final) time I attempted to watch Mrs Doubtfire, the tears were simply too much. I couldn't breathe. Sure, in that moment it might've been down to my hormones. But that film has traumatised me since I was child. Why? Because I come from a broken home and while I can't relate to a father going above and beyond to try and get closer to his children (mine moved to America when I was four), it's something I've never been able to separate from my own experience. Maybe because I wish I had a father who'd done the same. It doesn't help that I'm also a huge fan of Robin Williams, who coincidentally lived in the same area of northern California as my dad before his untimely death by suicide in 2014. Now, on the rare occasions when I visit my dad, we drive over the Golden Gate Bridge before going through a tunnel with a painted rainbow over the top. Since 2014, it has officially been known as the Robin Williams tunnel. Olivia Petter My Girl (1991) As Kevin McCallister, the cherubic, eyebrow-wiggling face of the 1990 smash Home Alone, the young Macaulay Culkin was the toast of fledgling millennial pranksters. Evidently, as a six-year-old, I didn't quite realise that he was acting; to me he truly was Kevin, this wisecracking, parent-defying scamp who could outwit Joe bloody Pesci, a man who had previously scared the hell out of me in Moonwalker (no, I hadn't seen Goodfellas back then). Imagine my horror, then, when Culkin – our adorable little Kevin – reappeared as Anna Chlumsky's heartthrob in My Girl (1991), only to be stung to death by a swarm of bees. Having dragged my parents to see it at the Whiteleys in Bayswater, I left my seat reduced to hot, gulping sobs, my heart indelibly shattered, my head forever reminded that there is nothing as futile as 'happily ever after'. Plus, I've never been able to listen to The Temptations. Patrick Smith The NeverEnding Story (1984) There were a few things about Wolfgang Petersen's The NeverEnding Story that unnerved me as a child. There was Falkur, a dragon who somehow had both pearly scales and ivory fur. There was also the fact that it was my first taste of existentialism as I watched Atreryu try to save the magical realm of Fantasia from a vague disease called The Nothing – which is what happens when 'people lose their hopes and forget their dreams'. But most harrowing of all was the slow, slow death of Artax, the film's gallant white horse, who sinks beneath muddy darkness in the Swamp of Sadness while his little boy companion watches on in horror, grasping on to a rein that eventually connects to nothing. The scene instilled in me both a love of horses and an irrational lifelong fear of quicksand. Annabel Nugent One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) As a relatively sheltered boy of 10 or 11 years old, was I too young to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Probably, but in the scheme of kids being shown age-inappropriate fare, we're hardly talking about Bone Tomahawk here. Nonetheless, the multi-Oscar-winning film left a deep imprint on me – specifically the scene at the end, whereupon the nervous Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) is found in a pool of blood, having taken his own life. I suppose some of the credit, traumatising-a-child-ingly speaking, must go to Dourif, a truly phenomenal and underappreciated character actor whose wiry and brilliant debut performance here made the scene all the more devastating. I still find the scene gruesome and disturbing when watching it as an adult; for a child, the sad, bloody tragedy of it is downright bewildering. I'd have been better off watching Chucky. Louis Chilton Watership Down (1978) It's often said that pets are a good way for children to learn about death. But in the absence of actual, furry, cuddly pets, it turns out animated rabbits will teach these lessons almost as well. I didn't have pets as a kid, but we did have a telly and one day, Watership Down – overflowing with beautiful, heart-wrenching scenes of bunny carnage – appeared upon it. It would be melodramatic to say I was never the same again but, to this day, I can't hear Art Garfunkel's 'Bright Eyes' without my bottom lip wobbling slightly.
The Independent
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
George Miller reveals he has a Mad Max script ready to make if ‘the planets align'
George Miller has revealed that he has a ready script for another Mad Max film he wants to make if 'the planets align'. In a new interview, the 80-year-old filmmaker discussed stunt people and how they were pivotal to the success of the Mad Max franchise, when he mentioned his plans for the series. 'We've got another script,' the Babe: Pig in the City director told Vulture. 'But having been doing this long enough where I'm habituated to storytelling, I find myself with way too many stories – not only in my head, but in the form of screenplays or at least very detailed notes that are within reach of screenplays. 'I'm a professional daydreamer, really. This was seen as my big deficit as a kid: 'George would do better at school if he didn't daydream so much' was on my report card.' Miller went on to explain that even though he has a script ready, he has other things in the pipeline before he gets to a Mad Max sequel. 'So, there's lots of stories. Indeed, one of them is a Mad Max. It is not something I would do next, because there's two things I'm keen to do next. 'But if for whatever reason the planets align, you can never tell. Too often, you're lining up to do a movie and then something happens. Some things fall into place and some don't, so all I can say is we'll see.' Miller, whose first three Mad Max films, starring Mel Gibson, were released from 1979 to 1985, rebooted the franchise in 2015 with Mad Max: Fury Road, starring Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky opposite Charlize Theron 's Imperator Furiosa. In 2024, Miller returned for a prequel focused on Theron's character Furiosa, this time played by Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy, which opened to poor box office sales but good reviews. In his five-star review, The Independent 's Geoffrey Macnab described Furiosa as 'a film made with purposeful savagery, and with considerable wit and lyricism'. In June last year, Hardy told Forbes that he would not be returning for a sequel, which at the time was tentatively titled The Wasteland. 'I don't think that's happening,' he said. Oddly, Miller himself reportedly said in 2016 that he was done with the Mad Max franchise, but then clarified in 2019 that he had two films in mind set within the world. 'I won't make more Mad Max movies,' he reportedly told New York Post's Page Six in 2016. 'I've shot in Australia in a field of wildflowers and flat red earth when it rained heavily forever. We had to wait 18 months and every return to the US was 27 hours. Those Mad Maxes take forever. I won't do those anymore.' In 2019, he told IndieWire: 'There are two stories, both involving Mad Max and also a Furiosa story. We're still solving, we've got to play out the Warners thing [but] it seems to be pretty clear that it's going to happen.'
