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No one can laugh at Hugh Grant more than Hugh Grant. The actor has long been known for his self-deprecating humor. That humor is shown in his many movies — from Notting Hill to the Bridget Jones movie series, Florence Foster Jenkins and that dance in Love Actually.

However, recently Grant’s been changing his game and acting in more character roles. This month’s Amazon Prime miniseries import, A Very English Scandal is an example. “Scandal” is based on the gossipy true story of a 1970s-era British Member of Parliament (MP), Jeremy Thorpe, a closeted gay man who allegedly tried to kill his former male lover (Ben Whishaw). Grant’s performance has received praise from critics in both the US and the UK.

BGN was on hand recently when Grant gave his take on A Very English Scandal, his movie roles, and more.

Explaining the Real-Life Jeremy Thorpe

“Well the whole fun of him for me was that he was both things. He was in many ways appalling, a terrible narcissist who would do almost anything for his career — ruthless.  To order a murder is a pretty big thing. That’s pretty sociopathic. So, in many ways, he was a monster. But, by researching him, reading books, watching video, talking to a lot of his friends and ex-colleagues, I realized there was deep tragedy there as well.

The tragedy: one of being a gay man at that time and being really unable to express your love in its natural form. And. I also think that his narcissism was so extreme that that’s a kind of tragedy as well. You can’t really engage with other people if you’re so obsessed with yourself. Then, he had put an entire lifetime’s passion into building up his career and building up the liberal party.

And then, just to have this one man be about to bring all that down just because he’s got issues—that’s a sort of Shakespearean tragedy too. So, I definitely had sympathy for Thorpe even though, yes, on paper he is a monster.”

On continuing to work with actor Ben Whishaw (Cloud Atlas and Paddington 2)

I haven’t quite managed to kill him yet, but I will. I will.  It is bizarre that we keep working together and that I always seem to want to kill him or something. But, I’m lucky. He’s incredibly good. He’s the sort of great genius actor of his generation in our country and keeps me up to the mark. I remember when I was preparing for this … And I thought, I wonder if I can do an imitation of him [Thorpe]. I thought it has to be more of an imitation because I’m up against Ben Whishaw and he’s going to do proper acting, with three dimensions and emotion.

On His Romantic Comedies

Well, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth in the sense of [turning] down a romantic comedy because I’m proud of them and they are very popular, and they are popular to this day. If I get home from the pub and switch on the TV, there I am, chatting up some girl and I’m sort of grateful to them. But I’m also very pleased to be through them, I have to say.

On Bridget Jones 3

I don’t know, depends on the story. They had a version of Bridget 3 which had Daniel Cleaver a lot, but I could never make him work in that story. It was such a good set up—Bridget gets pregnant with two men. She’s not sure which it is, that’s brilliant. It was always great for ten pages. But then I just didn’t know how Daniel Cleaver would react to that. I thought he would have run away from the situation.

So, you’re sort of not in the film. And then they invented a version where he sort of stuck around and changed completely and was really into having a baby. I thought that’s just not him. And in the end, we gave up and they wrote a completely different version … which worked rather well I thought.”

But he would do a Romantic Comedy … With Penelope Cruz

(Grant says he sees her at their children’s play dates in London)

“We have a chat while our children kill each other. She’s lovely. Yeah, I’d be absolutely delighted to do anything with her.”

On Love Actually

… I mean there was the horror obviously of having to do that dance scene, which I always suspected could have been the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid. There are lots of people who think it is, to this day…well some people love it. But it’s just not easy for an Englishman in his 40s, to at 7 o’clock in the morning, stone-cold sober [when] someone says, “ok Hugh, if you’d just like to freak out now.”

That’s tricky. It was a very difficult scene to do, but I don’t know why it’s still so popular. I didn’t realize it was here, I knew it was in England. Everyone watches it at Christmas. But, I didn’t know that was the case here. That’s very nice.”

His Personal Favorite Films

“Well there are some that I can look more squarely in the face than others. This one for sure I’m really proud of. In fact, the last three I’m very proud of: Paddington 2. I think it’s kind of weird for a film [to be called] called Paddington 2 but I do think it’s a masterpiece, that film. The film with Meryl, Florence Foster Jenkins and before that I think About a Boy is a film that was good. Yeah.”

On His Kids Following in Dad’s Footsteps

It hasn’t crossed my mind but thankfully I’ve been to see them in their school plays and they’re all utterly talentless. So, I don’t think the problem will arrive, thank God.

You can catch Hugh Grant in A Very English Scandal, streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

The post BGN Interview: Hugh Grant Talks about…Hugh Grant appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

Medications and therapy aren’t the only treatments available for medical conditions. In the near future, Canadian doctors will be able to recommend a new wellness fix for patients: painting exhibits. According to BBC, […]

The post Doctors to Start Prescribing ‘Museum Art’ for Better Health appeared first on Geek.com.

Just two weeks before the hotly contested midterm elections, 14 pipe bombs were sent out to politicians, media personalities, and other vocal opponents of the President. All of the bombing targets have been outspoken about their opposition to Trump. Each one actively uses their platform to ensure that the Republican party is beaten in the midterms. One of the targets stands out, however. Veteran actor, director, producer and founder of Tribeca Enterprises, Robert De Niro became a part of the 14 targets when a bomb was intercepted at the Tribeca offices in New York City. 

De Niro’s position in the group is a bit ambiguous. He has publicly said, “F#$k Trump” on a national stage at the 2018 Tony Awards. However, nighttime television hosts regularly skewer the President in even worse ways. Then, there’s the weekly smearing put on by the Saturday Night Live cast. These actors and commentators were left out of the potential target list.

So why De Niro? Trump, continues to deny a connection to the incidents. He tweeted, and shouted this week about how his vitriolic speech was not the motivating factor behind the bombs. He was adamant that he had no tie to the suspect. A tweet by Ava DuVernay may explain De Niro’s connection to the group. She is the director of A Wrinkle in Time and the writer, producer, and marketer of many other projects. DuVernay is currently working with De Niro on an important new film, and she offered a little more information about the connection between Trump and the bomber. 

fThe aim was murder. To kill Trump opponents. Bob De Niro is a producer of our CENTRAL PARK FIVE film. We prepped in his building. Still casting there. This isn’t about packages. This is about people. Killing people who disagree with Trump. His finger pointing can’t change that. https://t.co/uWsGW5q9U8

— Ava DuVernay (@ava) October 25, 2018

Duvernay is referring to the film in development Central Park 5. The film is about five men convicted of rape and bludgeoning a white woman who was jogging in Central Park. The 1989 case that was overturned later and the men exonerated. Raymond Santana Jr., Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, and Antron McCray were teenagers when they were accused of raping Trisha Ellen Meili. Meili was a white 28 year old executive, wife, and mother–which played heavily against the Black teens in the media. It was probably one of the things that swayed Trump on their guilt. It definitely fueled the harassment campaign that Trump has engaged the men in for the last 20 years. 

Trump used every platform he had at the time to rail against the teens and call out for conviction. He infamously bought a full page ad in the New York Times and other major papers, which condemned the teens  and was not the last time they would encounter his harassment. Santana Jr. recently called Trump out for continuing to call for their punishment after their exoneration.  In fact, the city of New York paid the men $41 million in the face of a wealth of evidence that led to finding the actual rapist.

Despite credible DNA evidence and a confession by another man, Trump still continues the dogging the men. His followers have also taken up this misguided vendetta, leading to the targeting of Tribeca, The Central Park 5 movie, and De Niro.

Trump’s issues with De Niro are thus of a personal nature, one that has nothing to do with politics. So the inclusion of this target in the 14 who received bombs is a clear sign that the bomber was motivated by Trump and his rhetoric and not just by “fake news” as he claims. This connects Trump and the bombing incidents, despite any of the man’s tweets and sputtering protests to the contrary. Had the bomber stuck to political and media opponents, then a connection could be dismissed as coincidental or simply political.

But, the Central Park 5 is “smoking gun” of sorts. Those five men are the thorn in the old billionaire’s side, one that for some reason, he really gets stirred up about. It is personal. And so are the bombs sent out to all 14 of the targets this week.

Today, Florida Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc was arrested for making and sending out  the bombs. The last set that he sent out included packages to California Senator Kamala Harris and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. He was found when DNA from the packages match samples that Sayoc had on file from previous offenses. 

As the story unfolds, and the motivation for these crimes is explained, the President’s vendetta against five Black teenagers in 1989 will be in the news again. As it should.

I can’t wait for the movie, coming from Netflix in 2019.

Can you?

The post Ava DuVernay Tweet Exposes Personal Trump Connection to Bombs appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

The following recap contains spoilers for the Doctor Who episode “Arachnids in the UK.”

Doctor Who has a long history with scary episodes. At their best, they’re famous for driving generations of British children diving behind the couch cushions from Daleks, Weeping Angels, or other less infamous monsters of the week. At their worst, they leave us with wooden mothers in the attic, or whatever those eye gunk monsters were supposed to be in “Sleep No More.” Still, with Halloween around the corner, it’s the perfect time for this new Who crew to do their best attempt to scare us. And what better way than with “Arachnids in the UK,” bringing us a story all about one of the most utterly terrifying things in the world: family.

Okay, yes, also spiders. Giant, killer spiders. They’re around too.

We’re just shy of halfway through series 11, and with the arrival of the TARDIS back in Sheffield on the day our team originally left, we’ve officially come to the close of the “lost in space and time” mini-arc of the first three episodes. We’re introduced to Yaz’s (Mandip Gil’s) family, Ryan (Tosin Cole) gets a letter from his dad, Graham (Bradley Walsh) returns to his Grace-less home, and the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) sadly ponders the prospect of returning to the universe in her empty TARDIS. Sure, there are creepy cobwebs everywhere and something is up with an equally creepy rich guy (Chris Noth), but these are the beats that ground our story.

Despite the rather large supporting cast, including Noth in a comedic turn (as a clear Donald Trump stand-in masquerading as a fictional Trump rival),  this episode felt the most solid so far of the season for giving all of its main cast presence on screen. A huge reason for this is that The Doctor and her friends all are getting used to the ‘mucking about and helping out’ parts of the show. As the mystery elements of the episode unfold, our trio of new companions slides almost seamlessly into their tasks, freeing up time for dialogue that focuses instead on their relationships to each other and their blood family around them.

For the most part, these story threads really work. Graham’s lingering grief issues really landed, as Sharon D. Clarke’s return as the echoes of Grace in his memory is used just enough to tug at the heartstrings without feeling too over the top or distracting from the narrative. Ryan’s mysterious letter from his father only makes a few appearances, but his attempt to express his distaste for the term “proper family” when talking about it with Graham says more about their bonding than any scene between then so far on the show.

I had hoped this episode would be the one to really give Yaz some focus, but I have to say that I again feel like she’s not as well served by the writing as the rest of her team. Yaz pulls her weight when it comes to the adventuring part of things, and Gil’s chemistry with the rest of the team has a lot of charm, but the depth of her character is by far the most lacking, and most of what we do get seems to be more telling than showing. Yaz brings Ryan and the Doctor home to meet her father and sister but leaves before spending much time with either. We get a lot more of her with her mother Najia (Shobna Gulati), but while she asks a lot of questions about who this “Doctor” is and why Yaz knows her (tossing a little bone to the Yaz/Doctor shippers as well), none of them seem all that unreasonable. On a show with a history of mothers like Jackie Tyler, Francine Jones, and Sylvia Noble, the things about Yaz’s family that drive her crazy seem fairly tame. Yaz is dissatisfied and restless, but so far the reasons she’s cited for that — her job and her family — haven’t led us to see why.

As to our eight-legged freaks of the week, the spiders of the episode’s title are legitimately scary, and not just for those with actual arachnophobia. The episode slowly teases them, shots of cobwebs here or there, tense music from new composter Segun Akinola working hard to rachet up the tension until finally we’re introduced to the crawlies in their frighteningly large form. In true Who fashion, though, that’s not where the story ends. Yes, giant spiders are scary; yes, moments like discovering human beings held in cocoons of webbing is very chilling; but on this show, monsters are frequently not truly evil or even malicious. Like our characters, they’re a family. A legion of baby spiders working with a giant, terrified mother. The Doctor, and by extension the audience, genuinely find reasons to feel for them. This revelation of babies following a mother could have felt ham-fisted, but was used with a gentle enough touch that it fit nicely into the episode’s…yes, I’m doing it.. web. 

We’re four episodes into Jodie Whittaker’s era, and it really feels like she has found her footing. It occurred to me after viewing “Rosa,” that there was never a sensation during the episodes of feeling like we’re still waiting for the new actor to feel fully at home in the Doctor’s skin. She’s just here. While we can often point to exact moments in other Doctor’s runs where they became the Doctor, Jodie instead just quietly settled into the role as effortlessly as throwing on her already iconic jacket.

“Arachnids in the UK” might have done something better with that, though. As the episode wraps up, and the Doctor’s friends make the collective decision to continue traveling in the TARDIS despite making it home, we get a Doctor moment. Jodie’s Doctor doesn’t immediately smirk and welcome them aboard, begging them to run away with her. She checks on them, she makes sure they understand the gravity of what it actually means. When she looks at them and tells them she doesn’t know what’ll happen to them if they travel with her, we’re seeing a direct link to the Doctor who sat in his TARDIS afraid to regenerate because he was tired of losing people. Her concern for them at that moment carries the weight of the experiences of the faces that came before hers, and we can see them clearly. Her glee when they agree and her immediate desire to call them her “fam” is palpable.

And when Yaz tells her she’s the greatest person she’s ever met, it feels real for us too, because we’ve known her for over 50 years.

Images: BBC