Rubber bullets fired by police in Myanmar COPLEY’S BRAVURA ACT AS UNABOMBER MAKES ‘TED K’ STAND OUT
Yangon, March 2: Police in Myanmar repeatedly used tear gas and rubber bullets Tuesday against crowds protesting last month's coup, but the demonstrators regrouped after each volley and tried to defend themselves with barricades as standoffs between protesters and security forces intensified. Myanmar authorities have escalated their crackdown on the protests in recent days, making mass arrests and firing into the crowds. The United Nations said it believed at least 18 people were killed on Sunday by security forces. Foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries were meeting Tuesday to discuss the increasingly volatile crisis. Despite the crackdown, demonstrators have continued to flood the streets — and are beginning to more rigorously resist attempts to disperse them.
Hundreds, many wearing construction helmets and carrying makeshift shields, gathered in Myanmar's largest city of Yangon.
Evil beguiling, evil geniuses more so. They excite us like tantalising puzzles that we want to examine and solve. Writers, film directors, theatre owners and audiences are almost like law enforcement officers in their pursuit to understand psychopaths and that’s why they keep revisiting terrorists, serial killers, rapists — for yet another peek into their minds, their homes, their rage, and their crimes. But, psychopaths are also cliches.
Almost every exploration of a criminal mind that's been mounted on the big screen or split into episodes for OTT platforms is a trek down a familiar road. En route there are absentee or overbearing parents. Some physical or emotional abuse. There’s unease in mundane, social situations. Solace in solitude. And there’s almost, always, sexual frustration.
Given this template, there is nothing exceptional in the story of Theodore Kaczynski, or as he is better known, Ted Kaczynski, America’s Unabomber. And yet, writer-director Tony Stone’s film Ted K, which had its world premiere at the 71st International Film Festival of Berlin on Monday, stands out.
To tell the story of the Unabomber, Stone uses real television clips, Kaczynski’s writings, diary entries — which were copious and in numerical code — and meshes them with an intense, bravura performance by Sharlto Copley. The South African actor, known for his performance as Wikus van der Merwe in the
2009 science fiction film District 9, carries Ted K with a meticulously studied but intense act that is as discomforting as it is impressive. He remains in an unrelenting wired state throughout, whether he is raging against the whirring helicopters overhead, the pillage of the earth around him, building a bomb or complaining to a telephone company official about the $5 and few cents that a public phone owes him.
We watch, in his body and face, as his complexes, sense of superiority, frustration turn into a raging, mad desire to seek revenge on corporates, technology, one parcel bomb at a time.
Great performances, especially in biopics, are marked by that moment when the actor becomes the character, embodying and portraying all the ugliness and physicality while creating an inner cosmos that we can read in their eyes, in the tiniest change of expression.
Copley as Kaczynski, a mathematics prodigy who joined Harvard University at the age of
16 but then checked out to live by himself in Montana mountains in a
10-by-12 wood cabin, is on the screen throughout. Except for a few brief scenes in the 120-minute film, the camera stays on Copley and there is not a single false note in his compelling act.
Among the younger lot in Hollywood, Christian Bale, Leonado de Caprio, Matthew McConaughey, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, James Franco and Bradley Cooper are names taken with reverence in terms of how much they give of themselves to a role. Difficult films with demanding roles can ride on them. To that hall of fame, Ted K adds the name of Sharlto Copley. He creates the sort of scary, uneasy portrait of a man in constant distress and rage that won’t ever leave you.
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Delhi, March 2: Japanese auto majors Honda and Yamaha along with European firms Piaggio & C SpA and KTM AG on Tuesday announced setting up of a 'swappable batteries consortium' for motorcycles and light electric vehicles (EVs).
The aim of the consortium is to define standardised technical specifications of swappable battery systems for vehicles belonging to the Lcategory—mopeds, motorcycles, tricycles and quadricycles.
The founding members of the consortium said in the context of the Paris Climate Agreement and the transition to electromobility, availability of a standardised swappable battery system would both promote the widespread use of light electric vehicles and contribute to a more sustainable life-cycle management of batteries used in the transport sector.
Also, by extending the range, shortening the charging time and lowering vehicle and infrastructure costs, the manufacturers will try to answer customers' main concerns regarding the future of electromobility, the companies said in separate statements.
"By working closely with interested stakeholders and national, European and international standardisation bodies, the founding members of the consortium will be involved in the creation of international technical standards," they said.
Commenting on
the
development, Honda Motor Co Ltd managing officer, motorcycle cperations, Noriaki Abe said, "The worldwide electrification effort to reduce CO2 on a global scale is accelerating, especially in Europe. For the widespread adoption of electric motorcycles, problems such as travel distance and charging times need to be addressed, and swappable batteries are a promising solution."
Considering customer convenience, standardisation of swappable batteries and wide adoption of battery systems is vital, which is why the four member manufacturers agreed to form the consortium, he added.
"Honda views improving the customers' usage environment as an area to explore cooperation with other manufacturers, while bringing better products and services to customers through competition. Honda will work hard on both fronts to be the 'chosen' manufacturer for customer mobility," Abe said.
Expressing similar views, Yamaha Motor Co Ltd chief general manager of motorcycle business operations and executive officer Takuya Kinoshita said,"I believe the creation of this consortium holds great significance not just for Europe but the world as we move towards establishing standards for swappable batteries for light electric vehicles."
Doha, March 2: Sania Mirza made a winning return to the WTA circuit as she and her Slovenian partner Andreja Klepac beat Ukrainians Nadiia Kichenok and Lyudmyla Kichenok to reach the doubles quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open here.
The Indo-Slovenian pair won 6-4, 6-7 (5), 10-5 against the duo of Kichenok and Kichenok in the opening round of the WTA 500 tournament Monday night.
It was Sania’s first match in 12 months and incidentally it was at the Doha Open where she played last in February 2020 before pandemic halted the tennis competitions across the world.
Sania herself had recovered from Covid-19 in January this year.
It was Nadiia with whom Sania had paired when she returned to competitive tennis after maternity leave and won the Hobart Open in January last year.
An early break put Sania and Klepac down 0-3 and struggling at deuce in the fourth game but they managed to hold on, getting on board.
It was Sania’s first match in 12 months and incidentally it was at the Doha Open where she played last in February 2020 before pandemic halted the tennis competitions across the world.
The Indo-Slovenian pair needed just one break to get back on serve and they got that in the seventh game, breaking the Kichenok sisters at love in the seventh.
With an easy hold, they were 4-all and pocketed the set with another break.
The Ukrainians again drew the first blood in the second set for a 3-1 lead but Sania and Klepac fought hard to drag it to the tiebreaker but could not stop the rivals from pushing the contest to super tie-breaker.
The Indo-Slovenia pair raced to a 5-1 lead in a jiffy and closed the match, converting the second match point.