Victoria Fox's Blog, page 271
March 13, 2023
The White House is avoiding one word when it comes to Silicon Valley Bank: bailout
Enlarge this image People line up outside of a Silicon Valley Bank office on Monday in Santa Clara, Calif. Days after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, customers are lining up to try and retrieve their funds from the failed bank. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
After Silicon Valley Bank careened off a cliff last week, jittery venture capitalists and tech startup leaders pleaded with the Biden administration for help, but they made one point clear: “We are not asking for a bank bailout,” more than 5,000 tech CEOs and founders begged.
On the same day the U.S. government announced extraordinary steps to prop up billions of dollars of the bank’s deposits, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin and President Biden hammered the same talking point: Nobody is being bailed out.
“This was not a bailout,” billionaire hedge-fund mogul Bill Ackman tweeted Sunday, after spending the weekend forecasting economic calamity if the government did not step in.
Yet according to experts who specialize in government bank bailouts, the actions of the federal government this weekend to shore up Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors are nothing if not a bailout.
“If your definition is government intervention to prevent private losses, then this is certainly a bailout,” said Neil Barofsky, who oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the far-reaching bailout that saved the banking industry during the 2008 financial crisis.
Under the plan announced by federal regulators, $175 billion in deposits will be backstopped by the federal government.
Officials are doing this by waiving a federal deposit insurance cap of $250,000 and reaching deeper into the insurance fund that is paid for by banks.
At the same time, federal officials are attempting to auction off some $200 billion in assets Silicon Valley Bank holds. Any deposit support that does not come from the insurance fund, or asset auctions, will rely on special assessments on banks, or essentially a tax that mostly larger banks will bear the brunt of, according to officials with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Which is to say, the lifeline to Silicon Valley depositors will not use public taxpayer money. And stockholders and executives are not being saved. But do those two facts alone mean it is not a bailout?
“What they mean when they say this isn’t a bailout, is it’s not a bailout for management,” said Richard Squire, a professor at Fordham University’s School of Law and an expert on bank bailouts. “The venture capital firms and the startups are being bailed out. There is no doubt about that.”
Avoiding the “tar of the 2008 financial crisis”Squire said that when top White House officials avoid the b-word, they are “trying to not be brushed with the tar of the 2008 financial crisis,” when U.S. officials learned that sweeping bailouts of bankers is politically unpopular. The White House does not want to be associated with “the connotation of rescuing fat cats, rescuing bankers,” he said.
“If we use a different term, we’re serving the interest of those who want to obscure what is really happening here,” Squire said.
Amiyatosh Purnanandam, a corporate economist at the University of Michigan who studies bank bailouts, put it this way: “If it looks like a duck, then probably it is a duck,” he said. “This is absolutely a bailout, plain and simple.”
Purnanandam, who has conducted studies for the FDIC on the insurance fees banks are charged, said when a single bank’s depositors are fully supported by insurance and bank fees, the cost will be eventually shouldered by customers across the whole U.S. banking system.
“When we make all the depositors whole, it’s akin to saying that only one person in the family bought auto insurance and the insurance company is going to pay for everyone’s accident,” he said. “In the long run, that’s a subsidy because we are paying for more than what we had insured.”
Still, many with ties to tech and venture capital are trying to resist saying “bailout” and “Silicon Valley Bank” in the same sentence.
Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University, tweeted that “we need a new word” to describe when shareholders and investors are wiped out but bank depositors are made whole.
Fordham banking expert Squire is not so sure the English language needs to invent new words.
“A bailout just means a rescue,” Squire said.
“Like if you pay a bond for someone to get out of jail, rescuing someone when they’re in trouble,” he said. “If you don’t want to use the b-word, that is fine, but that is what is happening here.”
The family of a ‘Cop City’ protester who was killed releases more autopsy findings
Enlarge this image Belkis Terán, left, Daniel Paez, center, and Pedro Terán, family members of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, right, embrace. Additional autopsy findings in Terán’s death were announecd at a news conference Monday in Decatur, Ga. Alex Slitz/AP
Alex Slitz/AP
DECATUR, Ga. — An environmental activist who was fatally shot in a confrontation with Georgia law enforcement in January was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air at the time, the protester’s family said Monday as they released results of an autopsy they commissioned.
The family of Manuel Paez Terán held a news conference in Decatur to announce the findings and said they are filing an open-records lawsuit seeking to force Atlanta police to release more evidence about the Jan. 18 killing of Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita and used the pronoun they.
The family’s attorneys said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which has been probing the shooting for nearly two months, has prevented Atlanta police from releasing additional evidence to the family. The wooded area where Paez Terán was killed has long been dubbed “Cop City” by opponents who occupied the forest there to protest the 85-acre (34-hectare) tract being developed as a massive police and firefighter training facility.
“Manuel was looking death in the face, hands raised when killed,” civil rights attorney Brian Spears said, citing the autopy’s conclusions. “We do not stand here today telling you that we know what happened. The second autopsy is a snapshot of what happened, but it is not the whole story. What we want is simple: GBI, meet with the family and release the investigative report.”
In a statement, the bureau said it’s preventing “inappropriate release of evidence” to preserve the investigation’s integrity.
Paez Terán’s death and their dedication to opposing the training center has vaulted the “Stop Cop City” movement onto the national and international stage, with leftist activists from across the country holding vigils and prompting some to travel and join the protest movement that began in 2021. A few protests have turned violent, including earlier this month when more than 150 masked activists left a nearby music festival and stormed the proposed site of the training center, setting fire to construction equipment and throwing rocks at retreating law enforcement officers.
Authorities have said officers fired on Paez Terán after the 26-year-old shot and seriously injured a state trooper while officers cleared activists from an Atlanta-area forest where officials plan to build the training center. The investigative bureau says it continues to back its initial assessment of what happened.
Paez Terán had been camping in the forest for months to oppose building “Cop City.” Their family and friends have said the activist practiced non-violence and have accused authorities of state-sanctioned murder.
The investigative bureau has said no body camera or dashcam footage of the shooting exists, and that ballistics evidence shows the injured trooper was shot with a bullet from a gun Paez Terán legally purchased in 2020.
Spears said the family commissioned a second autopsy after the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an initial one. Officials have not released the DeKalb County report, so it’s unclear whether it reached a similar conclusion that Paez Terán had their hands raised, the palms facing inward at the time of the shooting.
“Manuel loved the forest,” their grieving mother, Belkis Terán, said. “It gave them peace. They meditiated there. The forest connected them with God. I never thought that Manuel could die in a meditation position.”
The family’s autopsy report describes Paez Terán’s body as being torn up, shot at least a dozen times and that “many of the wound tracks within his body converge, coalesce and intersect, rendering the ability to accurately determine each and every individual wound track very limited, if even impossible.”
The report also says it is “impossible to determine” whether the activist was holding a firearm at the time they were shot.
The autopsy was conducted by Dr. Kris Sperry, who was the investigation bureau’s longtime chief medical examiner until he abruptly resigned in 2015 after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Sperry “claimed hundreds of work hours at the GBI when he actually was working for clients of his forensic-science consulting firm.”
Atlanta City Council approved building the proposed $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in 2021, saying a state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale, which is beset by hiring and retention struggles in the wake of violent protests against racial injustice that roiled the city after George Floyd’s death in 2020.
In addition to classrooms and administrative buildings, the training center would include a shooting range, a driving course to practice chases and a “burn building” for firefighters to work on putting out fires. A “mock village” featuring a fake home, convenience store and nightclub would also be built for authorities to rehearse raids.
Paez Terán moved from Florida last year to join activists in the woods who were protesting by camping out at the site and building platforms in surrounding trees.
Self-described “forest defenders” say that building the training center would involve cutting down so many trees it would damage the environment. They also oppose investing so much money in a project which they say will be used to practice “urban warfare.”
Since Paez Terán’s death, numerous protests have been held in Atlanta, some of which have turned violent, including when masked activists on Jan. 21 lit a police car on fire and shattered the windows of a downtown skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation and.
On March 5, a group threw flaming bottles and rocks at officers as others torched heavy machinery at the construction site where the training center is expected to be built. Twenty-three people are facing domestic terrorism charges in connection with that attack. Activists maintain that those who were arrested were not violent agitators “but peaceful concert-goers who were nowhere near the demonstration.”
Mitch McConnell discharged from the hospital after suffering a concussion last week
Enlarge this image Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,at the Capitol on Sept. 27, 2021. McConnell was discharged from the hospital Monday after suffered a concussion and minor rib fracture from a fall last Wednesday in Washington, D.C. J. Scott Applewhite/AP
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was discharged from the hospital Monday after five days of observation and treatment. He tripped and fell during a D.C. dinner event last week, resulting in a concussion and minor rib fracture.
McConnell’s communication director, David Popp, said Monday that the 81-year-old Kentucky congressman will complete inpatient physical therapy, at the advice of his physician, before he can return home.
The senator was attending a Senate Leadership Fund event at the Waldorf Astoria last Wednesday when he tripped and fell, landing him in the hospital for observation over the weekend. On top of a concussion, doctors discovered over the weekend that the senator also suffered a minor rib fracture, Popp said in a statement.
A source familiar with McConnell’s situation said it’s common for patients to need inpatient physical therapy to regain strength and that the senator could spend at least a week recovering.
A handful of Republicans reached out to McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history, to wish him a speedy recovery. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana were among the well wishers, NPR previously reported.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, offered McConnell and his family a “prayer of strength and healing” from the Senate floor last week.
Eva Longoria Reveals the Secrets to Getting Her Red Carpet Glam
As she put it, “There’s definitely a process to good skin, good makeup and good hair. And you can’t have good makeup without good skin.”
And she all for, well, eye-catching eyes. “Any time you want to glam up your makeup look, lashes,” she recommended. “If you just throw on a lash, it just makes your entire face pop.”
While getting dolled up for the red carpet has many pros, the Overboard actress opened up about some of the cons.
Not only does she have to “mentally prepare for a very long night,” noting that her feet will most likely hurt and her makeup will eventually fade, but she admitted that she gets imposter syndrome. “I get social anxiety,” she told E!. “I have so many friends in the business, but I still go, ‘There’s going to be big stars there.’ There’s still that anxiety of do I belong?”
‘RRR’s ‘Naatu Naatu’ Wins Best Original Song at Oscars : NPR
In a field full of heavy hitters – including Lady Gaga, Rihanna and perennial contestant Diane Warren – RRR‘Naatu Naatu’ won Best Original Song at Sunday’s Oscars, becoming the first-ever song from an Indian film to win the award.
Songwriters MM Keeravani and Chandrabose received the Oscar statuettes, but the success of “Naatu Naatu” had many authors, stars who danced it in RRR (NT Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan) to the singers who performed it (Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava) to the choreographer who helped make his video a viral sensation (Prem Rakshith). Unlike its fellow Best Original Song nominees, “Naatu Naatu” was central to the film it originated from; the song appears an hour later RRRsoundtrack to a fierce dance battle between the film’s main characters and a group of stifling British colonizers.
“Naatu Naatu” was widely considered the favorite in this year’s field of nominees, which included Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” (from Top Gun: Maverick), “Lift Me Up” by Rihanna (from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), “Applause” by Sofia Carson (from say it like a woman) and “This Is a Life” by Son Lux, David Byrne and Mitski (from Everything everywhere all at once). “Applause” was written by Diane Warren, who missed out on an Oscar win for the 14th time without a win.
Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.
March 12, 2023
The U.S. and South Korea hold drills as North launches missiles from sub
Enlarge this image South Korean army soldiers ride K-5 self-propelled howitzers in Yeoncheon, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Monday, March 13, 2023. Ahn Young-joon/AP
Ahn Young-joon/AP
SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean and U.S. militaries launched their biggest joint military exercises in years Monday, as North Korea said it tested submarine-launched cruise missiles in apparent protest of the drills it views as an invasion rehearsal.
North Korea’s missile tests Sunday signal the country likely will conduct provocative weapons testing activities during the U.S.-South Korean drills that are to run for 11 days. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel its rivals’ “frantic war preparation moves.”
The South Korean-U.S. drills include a computer simulation called the Freedom Shield 23 and several combined field training exercises, collectively known as the Warrior Shield FTX.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries said earlier that the computer simulation is designed to strengthen the allies’ defense and response capabilities amid North Korea’s increasing nuclear threats and other changing security environments. They said the field exercises would also return to the scale of their earlier largest field training called Foal Eagle that was last held in 2018.
A recent U.S. military statement said the field exercises are to further enhance the two militaries’ “cooperation through air, land, sea, space, cyber and special operations, and improve upon tactics, techniques and procedures.”
North Korea said in state media that its launches of two cruise missiles from a submarine off its east coast showed its resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful” force to the intensifying military maneuvers by the “the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces.”
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency called the missiles “strategic” weapons and said their launches verified the operation posture of the country’s “nuclear war deterrence.” This implies that North Korea intends to arm the cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
It said the missiles flew for more than two hours, drawing figure-eight-shaped patterns and demonstrating an ability to hit targets 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away. The missiles were fired from the 8.24 Yongung ship, KCNA said, referencing a submarine that North Korea used to conduct its first submarine-launched ballistic missile test in 2016.
The reported launch details show Japan, including U.S. military bases in Okinawa, is within striking distance of the cruise missiles, if they are fired from the North’s eastern waters, said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. He added the weapons could reach even the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam if a submarine could operate at a greater distance from North Korean waters.
Enlarge this image This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says is a cruise missile the country test-fired from a submarine off the east coast of North Korea early Sunday, March 12, 2023. AP
AP
Sunday’s actions were the North’s first underwater missile launches since it test-fired a weapon from a silo under an inland reservoir last October. Last May, the country test-launched a short-range ballistic missile from the same submarine.
North Korea’s command of submarine-launched missile systems would make it harder for adversaries to detect launches in advance and would provide the North with retaliatory attack capability. Experts say it would take years, extensive resources and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build a fleet of several submarines that could travel quietly in seas and reliably execute strikes.
Sunday’s tests were the North’s first known launches of cruise missiles from a submarine as its previous underwater launches all involved ballistic missiles. It’s also the first time for North Korea to fire multiple missiles from a submarine on a single launch event, observers say.
“At a time when its efforts to build (bigger submarines) have reported little progress due to the sanctions, North Korea wants to show it’s still almost developed the types of missiles that can be fired from a submarine,” said Moon Keun-sik, a submarine expert who teaches at Kyonggi University in South Korea.
Moon said the North’s submarine-launched cruise missiles were likely deigned to strike approaching U.S. aircraft carriers and big ships or other shorter-range targets on the ground, while the North wants to use submarine-launched ballistic missiles to hit targets in the U.S. mainland.
South Korea’s military said the North Korean launches were made in waters near the North’s port city of Sinpo, where the country has a major submarine-building shipyard. Military spokesperson Lee Sung Jun said South Korean assessments didn’t match the launch details North Korean provided but didn’t elaborate.
Lee said South Korea’s military has been upgrading assets required to deal with North Korean submarines. South Korea’s Unification Ministry separately called the North Korean launches “very regrettable,” saying North Korea nothing to gain by raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
After a record number of missile tests last year, North Korea has carried out several additional rounds since Jan. 1. Before Sunday’s launches, the country also test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching the mainland U.S.; short-range, nuclear-capable missiles designed to hit South Korea; and other weapons.
Experts say Kim, who sees his nuclear arsenal as his best security guarantee, is trying to pressure the United States into accepting the North as a legitimate nuclear power and relax international economic sanctions.
North Korea sees regular South Korea-U.S. military exercises as a major security threat, though the allies say their drills are defensive. Some observers say North Korea uses its rivals’ drills as a pretext to test weapons and modernize its nuclear arsenal to secure an upper hand in dealings with the United States.
In past years, the U.S. and South Korea cancelled or scaled back some drills to pursue diplomatic efforts to denuclearize North Korea and out of concern about the COVID-19 pandemic. The two countries once more expanded exercises after North Korea conducted more than 70 missile tests in 2022 and adopted an increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine.
In recent weeks, the U.S. flew powerful, long-range bombers for joint aerial drills with South Korean fighter je ts. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the deployments demonstrated U.S. commitment to use a full range of military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend its Asian ally in the event of outright conflict with North Korea.
Last Thursday, Kim supervised a live-fire artillery drill simulating attacks on a South Korean airfield. He ordered his military to maintain the capability to “overwhelmingly respond ” to enemy actions, which he said included “all sorts of more frantic war preparation moves” according to KCNA.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Monday also accused the United States and its followers of plotting to call a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss what it called its “non-existent ‘human rights’ issue.” It said North Korea will take “the toughest counteraction against the most vicious hostile plots of the U.S. and its followers.”
Stanford University investigates swastikas and Hitler image left on student’s door
Enlarge this image People walk on the Stanford University campus beneath Hoover Tower in Stanford, Calif., on March 14, 2019. Stanford University says it is investigating after multiple swastikas and an image of Adolf Hitler were found on a door Saturday at a Stanford student residence hall. Ben Margot/AP
Ben Margot/AP
Stanford University officials say an investigation is underway after multiple swastikas and an image of Adolf Hitler were found on a student’s door last week.
In a letter sent to students Saturday, school officials said the images were discovered on a whiteboard attached to a student’s door in one of its residence halls. The student residing in the room identifies as Jewish — as the university officials said the symbols may have been meant to intimidate the student, according to the letter.
School officials said its campus safety department is investigating the incident as a hate crime.
“We wish to be clear: Stanford wholeheartedly rejects antisemitism, racism, hatred, and associated symbols, which are reprehensible and will not be tolerated,” university officials said in the letter.
As of Sunday evening, the university has not determined who was responsible for the incident.
News of this instance of antisemitism is one of several hate incidents reported on Stanford’s campus this academic year.
Earlier this month, another student reported a swastika with the words “KKK” surrounding it carved into the wall of a men’s disabled restroom stall. The vandalized damage was reported to the school’s building manager and was eventually painted over, according to officials.
In February, a student discovered hateful language and symbols scratched into a metal panel on a bathroom wall in a men’s bathroom on the campus’ Main Quad. University officials said this vandalism was in the form of multiple swastikas, the n-word, and the letters “KKK”. Both incidents were classified as hate crimes, officials said.
In September, a mezuzah was torn off a door frame of the dorm room door of two Jewish graduate students in a residence hall. The incident, according to the university, occurred on the last day of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.
A campus investigation was unable to identify who was responsible for the incident. However, campus officials determined the incident was a hate crime.
Last year, Stanford issued an extensive apology for its treatment of Jewish students in the 1950s following a report released by a task force formed by the institution.
“This ugly component of Stanford’s history, confirmed by this new report, is saddening and deeply troubling,” wrote President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in a university-wide communication.
While the university had previously denied allegations of anti-Jewish bias for decades, Tessier-Lavigne pledged that Stanford would undertake a comprehensive examination of campus life for current Jewish students and embrace “religious and cultural needs.”
In the end, it was an ‘Everything Everywhere’ night at the Oscars
Directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan speak after winning the Oscar for best picture for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Everything Everywhere All at Once didn’t win every award for which it was nominated — it was nominated for 11 and won seven. But it won big ones, again and again: best picture, best original screenplay, best director, best supporting actor and actress, best actress, and best editing. For a stretch in the middle of the ceremony, it seemed like All Quiet On The Western Front might be coming on very strong, but the pendulum swung back. What’s perhaps most surprising is how many films that once seemed like strong contenders for major awards wound up getting completely shut out: Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans and Elvis all went home empty-handed.
All the first-time acting nominees led to some emotional moments.
Of the 20 acting nominees across lead and supporting categories, 16 were first-time nominees. Unsurprisingly, they swept all four awards. The awards for supporting actor and supporting actress went to two very, very different “newcomers.”
Enlarge this image Ke Huy Quan, winner of the best supporting actor award for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Ke Huy Quan once found himself shut out of Hollywood after a big start as a child actor in movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies. He came roaring back in Everything Everywhere All at Once, and his speech highlighted the remarkable arc of his career. Jamie Lee Curtis also won for Everything Everywhere All At Once, but her story could hardly be more different. Born to Oscar-nominated parents Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, she became a star after Halloween in 1978, when she was just turning 20 years old. In the 45 years since then, she’s made comedies like Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda, family movies like Freaky Friday and My Girl, and — indeed — more horror films. And she expressed her gratitude for all the many, many people she’s worked with over the years.
Michelle Yeoh, a superstar who became the first Asian woman to win best actress, was Everything Everywhere‘s third acting winner. And she also acknowledged her parents, her family, and the history that she and the film were making. Finally, Brendan Fraser, who had a hot film career as a very handsome young man and then saw the industry’s interest in him wane, leaving a long period of relative quiet before his role in The Whale this year, won. He’s another example of the many ways Hollywood can abandon or fail to see performers — and sometimes, even if not often, it can find them again.
They really wanted this to be the Comeback Oscars.
Host Jimmy Kimmel, in his monologue, talked about 2022 as the year people came back to theaters, two years after COVID upended the movie business. Huge movies, particularly Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, were both moneymakers and best picture nominees. This year’s message was plain: we’re back. Perhaps it’s fitting that Avatar won for visual effects and Top Gun: Maverick for sound — the spectacles won awards that relate, in part, to their status as such.
Host Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 95th Annual Academy Awards. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Making this the comeback Oscars was, of course, consistent with the industry’s chosen narrative of rebirth. But it’s also part of the Academy’s effort to revive interest in the ceremony after years of hearing the theory that the ratings were dropping because blockbusters weren’t being nominated. That theory might turn out to be right or it might be wrong, but if this year didn’t do it, then nominating big movies isn’t a solution to the ratings problem as has so often been speculated.
The Academy’s record when it comes to inclusion remains mixed, at best.
The milestones of the night — Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan being the first and second Asian performers to win in their respective categories was the most widely noted — sat alongside much more dispiriting facts.
Ruth E. Carter, winner of the best costume design award for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
For instance, Ruth Carter, who won for the costumes in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, became the first Black woman ever to win two Oscars, in a year in which Black nominees, particularly outside that one film, were limited. There are countless measures of representation, many more than just these two, and most are still painfully out of balance. But these notable firsts and these notable limitations juxtaposed continue to suggest that gains remain slow and uneven when they come at all.
The Oscars still love a war movie — and Netflix is a power.
These things are subjective, of course, but it didn’t necessarily feel like there was a ton of enthusiastic buzz about the Netflix update of All Quiet on the Western Front until it started winning awards. The film perhaps sneaked up on people, but as Oscar night wore on and it started to rake in prizes, including for score, cinematography, production design and international feature, the fondness that Academy voters still have for epic war sequences became perfectly clear. It was perhaps the most utterly traditional choice they could have made in every way except for the fact that it’s a film that’s not in English.
At the same time, it was a reminder that while only a few years ago, Netflix was trying to wedge itself into the Oscars, it’s now established a home there. Both the big haul for All Quiet and the nomination for Ana de Armas in Blonde seemed like testaments to the streamer’s capacity to campaign.
The Oscars remain, as always … the Oscars.
This was a year in which they didn’t try much in terms of change; in fact, the goal seemed to be the most normal Oscars possible. Some montages, a nice In Memoriam segment, an okay monologue, solid musical performances from Lady Gaga and Rihanna among others, and a return to theater seating after last year’s cocktail tables and the train station set the year before. It looked and felt fully, and full-throatedly, traditional. No tricks, no gimmicks, just the Oscars. And, of course, David Byrne performing with hot dog fingers.
You’ll Be a Sucker for Joe Jonas & Sophie Turner’s Oscars Date Night
Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner are burnin’ up the red carpet on Oscars night.
The couple—who share daughter Willa, 2, and a 7-month-old baby girl whose name they’ve not yet revealed—enjoyed a parents’ night out at the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscars Party on March 12. Giving off some major gothic vibes, the Jonas Brothers singer and the Game of Thrones actress perfectly coordinated in head-to-toe black as they posed for photos.
For the occasion, Joe rocked a velvet suit with a satin lapel and floral embroidery. Meanwhile, Sophie turned heads in a sheer Louis Vuitton gown that featured a long cape with crystal detailing.
Their glamorous date night comes two weeks after Sophie celebrated her 27th birthday. On Feb. 21, Joe marked the special milestone with a candid BeReal snap of two at a candlelit dinner, writing on Instagram, “Here’s to more nights being real with you @sophiet. Happy Birthday.”
Emma Watson Makes Rare Red Carpet Appearance at Oscars 2023 Party
Emma Watson basically said “Accio Oscars.”
The Harry Potter alum made her first red carpet appearance in five months, stepping out at the 2023 Oscars viewing party for the Elton John AIDS Foundation on March 12. Emma was a beauty in an off-the-shoulder, semi-sheer black gown, while carrying a sparkling clutch and showing off a glimmering necklace.
The 32-year-old was joined at the charity event by Heidi Klum, Maren Morris and more stars who came out to support Elton John and husband David Furnish for the 31st annual bash, held at West Hollywood Park in Los Angeles.
The party marked a rare red carpet outing for Emma, who last attended Oscars festivities in 2018 at the Vanity Fair after-party (she previously accepted an invite inside the Academy Awards in 2014).
And although her most recent feature film, Little Women, was nearly four years ago, don’t worry: She shut down rumors in 2021 that her career had gone fully “dormant.”
She has since ventured into another area of filmmaking by making her directorial debut with Prada’s beauty campaign for the Prada Paradoxe fragrance last summer. While starring in the short film, Emma even revived her iconic pixie cut, which she again rocked at the fragrance launch party in October, along with a business-chic ensemble.
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