Latest news with #NationalBookAward-winning
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why is sex so scary to book banners?
The State Board of Education has required public schools to pull 21 books from library shelves since a regulation on "sexual conduct" took effect last summer. () This week, the State Board of Education voted to ban 10 more books from all South Carolina public schools, including my National Book Award-winning young adult novel 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club.' That means South Carolina has now banned 21 books statewide, making it the national leader in state-sanctioned book bans, a dubious distinction. 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' is a historical coming-of-age novel about a 17-year-old Chinese American girl discovering her identity as a lesbian in 1950s San Francisco. In addition to the National Book Award, it won the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian Pacific American Literature Award, a Printz Honor, a Walter Dean Myers Honor, and dozens more accolades. And yet South Carolina's Board of Education has reduced it to a few paragraphs about sex. This is a fundamental misreading of the novel and a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of fiction. In its decision to ban my novel, the board is following Regulation 43-170, which prohibits any books in schools that include 'descriptions or visual depictions of 'sexual conduct,'' as defined by the state criminal code. This regulation deliberately sidesteps literary merit and the work as a whole in favor of focusing only on 'sexual conduct.' So, let's talk about sex. Why is it so bad — so 'inappropriate,' in the words of the regulation — for a book to include descriptions of 'sexual conduct'? The main character in 'Telegraph Club' is a teen named Lily who is coming to understand her sexual identity during the 1950s, a time in which sexuality was highly repressed. The scenes in the novel that focus on sexuality are about Lily testing her own freedoms — both emotional and physical. They are about Lily claiming the freedom to be who she is. Sexuality is a natural part of being human. As a writer, writing about sex and sexuality enables me to engage with questions about what makes us the people we become. It is an essential tool in a writer's creative toolbox, and it's one of the best ways we can get up and close and personal with a character and their emotions, desires, and fears. Reading about sex and sexuality is just about the safest way possible for a young adult to gain insight into what sex means. It is such a complex and important part of life. We cannot become who we are without the freedom to explore our choices in the privacy of our own minds. That is what reading gives us: the freedom to imagine different possibilities. I believe it's that freedom to imagine that is so frightening to those who seek to ban books. Banning books that include descriptions of 'sexual conduct' is an attempt to curtail individual freedom in our own bodies and minds. The 21 books that have been banned in South Carolina all approach sexuality from different perspectives. Some of them explore sexual freedom and pleasure; others explore more difficult issues such as sexual assault and misogyny. Some, like 'Telegraph Club,' are about identity and its connection with sexuality. None of them are right for every reader, but that doesn't mean they should be banned from all schools, from kindergarten through high school. There are plenty of legal arguments for why this regulation is unconstitutional. There are plenty of reasons South Carolina parents should be angry that one parent has been behind most of these book bans. Why does that one parent get to speak for all of you? But I'm not a South Carolinian, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm a writer. I believe these book bans are wrong because they attempt to limit our freedom to imagine different possibilities. We can't be fully human without that freedom.
Gulf Today
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
‘The Friend' is a gentle exploration of friendship indeed
The star of 'The Friend' has the loping stride of Robert Mitchum and the droopy, melancholy eyes of Peter Lorre. He has those classic Hollywood features — instantly accessible, forever unknowable - and when he walks down the street with his co-stars, Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, people's heads turn. 'People would go, 'Hey, get a load of the blonde,'' Murray says before acting out a double take. 'Get a load of THE DOG!'' Bing, the harlequin Great Dane of 'The Friend,' is the latest in a long line of four-legged big-screen breakout stars. But unlike canine idols before him, Bing is gigantic. Toto would fit in his paw and Asta could comfortably sit on his head. David Siegel, co-director of 'The Friend,' estimates Bing has a good 40 pounds (18 kilograms) on Watts. Gentle as he is, Bing looks more like one of those hulking walkers in 'Star Wars' than Lassie. 'The Friend,' which opens nationwide in theatres, isn't your average dog movie. either. Adapted from Sigrid Nunez's 2018 National Book Award-winning novel, it stars Watts as Iris, a New York author who reluctantly inherits Apollo (Bing), the cherished companion of her late mentor Walter (Murray). Their cramped coexistence is challenged not just by the pet policy of Iris' building but by Apollo's own grief, too. 'How creatures find each other — what we share with other humans but also animals — that's where the solace comes from,' says Siegel. 'We cast Bing to some degree for his countenance, just like we cast actors for their countenance. Does he have a face that can look sad? Does he look happy when he's happy?' On a recent spring day, Bing did indeed look happy, if a little worn out. He had spent the day at photo shoots and other media appearances, with his owner, Beverly Klingensmith, shuttling him around Manhattan in a van. Bing's duties, which included appearances on 'The Tonight Show' and 'The View,' were arguably more demanding of him than his biped co-stars. In between interviews, he warmly nuzzled a reporter while a grateful publicist compared him, given the pressures of a movie marketing, to an emotional support animal. 'At one of the Q&As, every time he'd move, the audience would go, 'Awww,'' said Klingensmith. 'Bill was like: 'I told them not to bring out the dog yet.'' But Murray and Watts have grown accustomed to being upstaged by their co-star. Not only that, as proud 'dog people,' they're delighted by Bing and praise him as not just a good boy but a fine actor. Murray has long maintained he wouldn't trust anyone that a dog didn't like. 'Dogs have a pretty good sense of who's OK,' Murray muses. 'I've met many thousands of people and there's a real high number of people I wouldn't trust. But as far as dogs, there's maybe only been, like, three.' For writer-directors Scott McGehee and Siegel, the filmmaking duo of 'The Deep End' and 'What Maisie Knew,' the prominence of the dog in Nunez's book — a black-and-white Great Dane graces the cover — was both a great hook for the movie and the biggest challenge in making it. When they contacted trainer Bill Berloni, he urged them to consider another breed. 'When you put that dog on the cover of a book that wins the National Book Award, it's got to be that dog,' says Siegel, laughing. 'Bill was like, 'Can't it be another dog?' We were like (holding up imaginary book): 'Look.'' An extensive search ultimately led them to an obedience-training club in Des Moines, Iowa. There, they found Bing and Klingensmith, who runs a kennel on a 10-acre property in Newton, Iowa, with her husband. The directors, having already looked coast-to-coast, stopped their search immediately. 'We kind of knew right away,' McGehee says. 'He was a little too young at the time. We thought we were going to be making the movie that spring. Then the pandemic hit. So he aged beautifully right into the role.' 'If you see George Clooney in person, it's like he attracts light in a special way,' adds McGehee. 'Bing has that.' Associated Press
Los Angeles Times
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Naomi Watts digs deep into the vulnerability of a loner with ‘The Friend'
Better than any virtual character a crack visual effects team could conjure, the long-faced gentle giant of a dog that gives 'The Friend' its abiding soulfulness — a black-splotched Great Dane with the drooping eyes of a silent-era clown, credited as Bing — is also, it turns out, among the best co-stars a superlative onscreen sufferer like Naomi Watts could have in her long, storied career. Together, these beautifully mismatched but generous screen sharers help lift David Siegel and Scott McGehee's mild, casually elegant interpretation of Sigrid Nunez's National Book Award-winning 2018 novel about grief to a rarefied emotional place. Amid a handsomely shot New York of towering skylines, busy thoroughfares and cramped apartments, 'The Friend' strips the pet-movie genre from the easy appeal of mawkishness, bringing it closer to what an ongoing dialogue between lonely species stumbling into connection actually feels like. Watts, a veteran of onscreen interiority, plays Iris, a stagnated writer and professor unable to make sense of the recent suicide of her mentor and best friend Walter, played by Bill Murray in some dryly funny opening scenes that in effect give us a chance to miss him too. A genial misanthrope and serial womanizer who considers it a personal point of pride that after sleeping once with Iris they remained close, Walter nevertheless leaves behind many mourners: admirers, colleagues, a grown daughter (Sarah Pidgeon) from an affair, a couple of exes (Carla Gugino, Constance Wu) and a third and final wife (Noma Dumezweni), who informs Iris that it was Walter's wish that she take care of his pony-size companion, Apollo. The left-field bequest — as if tending to Walter's legacy with an overdue book of his correspondence wasn't enough — is, to Iris, a mystery on top of a conundrum. She suddenly finds her rent-controlled shoebox of an apartment taken over by a bed-hogging, furniture-destroying roommate whose very presence might get her evicted, if the unsmiling reminders from an otherwise friendly building super (Felix Solis) are any indication. But in her nerve-racked attempt to re-home Apollo while seeing to his needs, Iris is forced to reckon with what this 100-plus pounds of solemnity really is: an embodiment of Walter, sure, but also a creature just as grieving, blocked and lost as she is. Does one just push that away? Fans of Nunez's tartly discursive yet flowing novel will likely miss the snap of its critical observations on literary mind-sets and whatnot. Movies struggle to capture what's shaggy and bitter about writers without falling into the trap of one-liners. But while the author-world stuff falls into a kind of bland narrative dressing — even with the sturdy contributions of the supporting cast — Siegel and McGehee know the heart of their movie is in what Iris and Apollo create. They're an odd couple feeling each other out for a way back into life. Which is where the evergreen allure of Watts' mastery with sorrow comes in, her skills just as assured when in solo mode as when against others (including, yes, the gargantuan CGI ape of 'King Kong'). But with Bing, whom the filmmakers treat as a genuine co-star worthy of close-ups, contemplation and authentic dog behavior, Watts finds another rich vein of emotion to dramatize with delicacy, humor and intelligent vulnerability. Her Iris lets us see why, in our darkest times, the poles of forced solitude and togetherness can feel so unsatisfying, yet the right kind of aloneness can be the stuff of real healing.
The Independent
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Bill Murray snaps and threatens fan for getting too close to him in NYC movie theater
Bill Murray was filmed lashing out at a fan who appeared to invade his personal space. In a clip posted to TikTok on Wednesday, the 74-year-old actor confronted the man at a movie theater in New York City. Murray was seen walking through the lobby before a fan appeared to bump into him with a phone in their hand. He then turned around and pointed at the fan, before shouting: 'You attack me like that again, I'll step on your foot.' A security guard intervened and walked behind Murray, who accused the fan of 'physical assault.' 'Don't do it again!' the Ghostbusters star added while walking away from the fan, who could be heard saying they were 'sorry' for the interaction. According to photos posted on Instagram by a fan, Murray was recently at AMC Lincoln Square 13 for a Q&A presentation of his new film The Friend, in which he stars with Naomi Watts. Adapted from Sigrid Nunez's 2018 National Book Award-winning novel, it stars Watts as Iris, a New York author who reluctantly inherits Apollo, the cherished companion of her late mentor Walter (Murray). The actor's viral interaction with the fan comes shortly after he was criticized for kissing Watts in the middle of an interview on Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live. During one point of the conversation, Watts, who is married to Billy Crudup, was asked about the best movie or TV kiss of her career. Before she could answer, Murray quickly grabbed her face and kissed her. Watts appeared visibly shocked, placing her face in her hands while shaking her head. But she took the moment in her stride, telling Murray: 'You've got lipstick on your face.' She then asked: 'Did I go red?' Murray, who previously starred opposite Watts in the 2014 film St Vincent, looked into the camera and put his thumb up. However, Murray received immense backlash for the kiss, with one person calling it 'horrifying' and 'disrespectful' on X/Twitter. 'Bill Murray's appearance on WWHL tonight was... something,' another wrote, while a third agreed: 'How gross and horrifying. Andy saying 'yes' and 'so good', ugh just awful.' Watts eventually revealed her favorite career kiss was with Crudup, whom she married in 2023.
Washington Post
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘The Friend' is a wonderful dog movie. Humans are allowed in.
'The Friend' is a better dog movie than it is a people movie, but it's such a wonderful dog movie that you may not mind that the people are merely fine. The latest from the quixotic writer-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel ('What Maisie Knew,' 'The Deep End') adapts Sigrid Nunez's 2018 National Book Award-winning novel about a Manhattan writer and book editor named Iris (Naomi Watts), a solitary soul who inherits a Great Dane named Apollo from her late mentor. The mentor, Walter, is played in an early scene, a number of flashbacks and one imaginary conversation by Bill Murray, and if that's a bait-and-switch given that the actor is prominently featured in the posters and previews, we'll allow it.
