Movie making waves:
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” is an aquatic “Beauty and the Beast,” a transgressive fairy tale about a young woman’s love for a scaly creature from the Amazonian depths. Like the best fables, it’s also rooted in the real world: the story of a migrant from the south facing a hostile reception in a security-obsessed United States. “I think that fantasy is a very political genre,” del Toro said Thursday at the Venice Film Festival. “It’s a movie set in 1962, but it’s a movie about today . ... When America talks about America being great again, I think they are dreaming of an America that was in gestation in ’62 — an America that was futuristic, full of promise but at the same time there was racism, sexism, classism. I am Mexican, and I know what it is to be looked at as ‘the other’ no matter what circumstances you’re in.”
Benefit concert: Houston rapper Bun B and music manager Scooter Braun are planning a benefit concert to help those affected by Tropical Storm Harvey. A representative for Bun B told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the rapper is working with Braun. The rep said Braun is “organizing logistics for the event.” The rep added that the benefit is tentatively scheduled to air on four national networks Sept. 12.
Sept. 1 birthdays: Actor George Maharis is 89. Comedian-actress Lily Tomlin is 78. Singer Archie Bell is 73. Singer Barry Gibb is 71. Talk-show host Dr. Phil McGraw is 67. Singer Gloria Estefan is 60. Actor Maury Sterling is 46.