James Dean returns to stardom…65 years after his death(!?)
Talk about a comeback.
Hollywood icon, screen legend and queer actor James Dean will make his return to films in 2020, a full 65 years after his death. Production company Magic City Films has announced that Dean will star in the war drama Finding Jack, courtesy of groundbreaking CGI techniques.
“We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean,” director Anton Ernst tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We feel very honored that his family supports us and will take every precaution to ensure that his legacy as one of the most epic film stars to date is kept firmly intact. The family views this as his fourth movie, a movie he never got to make. We do not intend to let his fans down.”
Ernst will co-direct the film with Tati Golykh. The pair have said that a body double will physically portray Dean’s role during filming before effects artists will graft Dean’s likeness onto the body. A sound-alike actor will also provide Dean’s voice in the role.
The announcement of James Dean’s “resurrection” comes at a sensitive time in Hollywood, when special effects can revive long-dead actors for full performances using a mix of archival footage, body doubles, and sound-alike actors. Recently, the 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One allowed Peter Cushing–who died in 1994–to reprise his role as Grand Moff Tarkin from the original film. Studio Disney/Lucasfilm have also said similar techniques will allow the late Carrie Fisher to complete her role as General Leia in the forthcoming The Rise of Skywalker.
Yet with this new era of technology come moral questions: Should studios have the right to use the likeness of long-dead actors in their films? Is a performance cobbled together through archive footage and sound-alikes a genuine performance? For the moment, these questions remain unanswered, even as Hollywood rushes to give beloved superstars like James Dean a return to the screen.
Cook Islands, Charles Blow, Whitney Houston, Malaysia, Matthew McConaughey, Coldplay, The Queen: HOT LINKS
CHARLES BLOW.Stop blaming black homophobia for Pete Buttigieg’s problems: “Reducing Pete Buttigieg’s struggle to attract black support solely to black homophobia is not only erroneous, it is a disgusting, racist trope, secretly nursed and insidiously whispered by white liberals with contempt for the very black people they court and need.”
MALAYSIA. Five men sentenced to jail, caning, and fines for attempting gay sex: “The Selangor Shariah High Court, on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital, sentenced four men to six months’ jail, six strokes of the cane, and a 4,800 ringgit ($1,163) fine for “attempting intercourse against the order of nature”, the Malay-language daily Harian Metro reported. A fifth man was sentenced to seven months’ jail, six strokes of the cane and a 4,900 ringgit fine for the same offence.”
IMPEACHMENT TRIAL. Lawmakers negotiating deal: “Without a deal, the debate over the rules for the impeachment trial could quickly devolve into partisan fighting, according to the lawmakers, with Republicans only needing a simple majority to force through a resolution setting up the process for the trial.”
COOK ISLANDS. South Pacific island nation says it will retain ban on gay sex: “The self-governing nation of 15 islands with a largely Christian population of about 17,000 people has been debating whether to scrap a law which, despite never having been enforced, would impose a sentence of up to seven years.”
TWITTER. Former employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia: “The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia by accessing the company’s information on dissidents who use the platform, marking the first time federal prosecutors have publicly accused the kingdom of running agents in the United States.”
HRC Urges U.S. Senate to Reject Anti-LGBTQ Extremist Steven Menashi
HRC urges the full U.S. Senate to reject Steven Menashi, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
“Steven Menashi has made a career of promoting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and has used whatever platform he’s handed — from his college newspaper, to legal publications, to a seat at the table at the White House — to undermine our community’s fight for equality,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “As a federal judge, Menashi will have the opportunity to rule on numerous cases addressing some of the most critical questions regarding equality, fundamental rights and access to justice. Such a position must be filled by a neutral arbiter with a demonstrated commitment to fairness, equality and the preservation of human dignity for all people. Steven Menashi falls far short of this basic threshold. Menashi is not neutral, nor fit to be an arbiter and he has no place deciding the fates of people whose very personhood he will not protect.”
Menashi’s troubling writings beginning in college include a piece promoting a gross mischaracterization of advocacy efforts in support of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. In other writings, he has mocked and dismissed efforts at sexual health awareness, abortion rights and reproductive health care, compared affirmative action policies to laws implemented by Nazi Germany, defended campus parties in which white students mocked those of other races and ethnicities and described efforts to promote cultural awareness on college campuses as “leftist multiculturalism.”
He also played a role in Trump’s White House Immigration Strategic Working Group, which has been responsible for developing the administration’s most draconian approaches to immigration, including the family separation policy.