Keith David on his incredible career: ‘I want you to understand Black men as full-scope human beings’

The hard-working character actor has over 400 screen credits, from The Thing to Platoon to Rick and Morty, and he isn’t slowing down any time soon Keith David’s voice precedes him. Deep and resonant, with mellifluous notes that hark back to his boys’ choir days, it has spent decades inhabiting warriors, gods, rogues, fathers and a welter of cartoon oddballs. Before David appears in a Zoom window from his Los Angeles home office, his voice reverberates through my tinny laptop speakers like a foghorn. “Can you see me now?” he booms once our connection is established after fits and starts. “OK. Outside of technology, you know I’m … OK.” He fizzes about the project he just wrapped: a dark buddy comedy called My Friend Jim, in which he stars opposite Rob Lowe. It’s the latest entry in a seemingly unstinting slew of productions that have kept him booked and busy since the late 1970s, from The Thing to Platoon to There’s Something About Mary to Nope. Continue reading... from Film | The Gua...

‘They just make you happy’: the Queensland farmers who took a chance on a million sunflowers

Battling drought, Jenny and Russell Jenner tore out their failing crops. Could fields of sunflowers for selfies save their Queensland farm?

There is the smell of freshly cut hay as you travel the country road towards the yellow that dusts the landscape in the distance. Row upon row of sunflowers run away down the hills. Little bursts of sunshine sway on the top of tall stems. With their bright optimistic faces – their sheer yellowness – they reach towards the sun, bringing the positive.

But in 2021 there was no yellow in this landscape. Everything was brown, dead, desiccated in the heat haze. After seven years of drought the Moogerah Dam in south-east Queensland’s scenic rim was nearly empty. “There was no water left,” says Jenny Jenner, “and they were cutting off our allocation. And you can’t grow anything without water.” The quaint country towns in the area were depressed; no one was buying seed, fertiliser, fuel or food. “It wears people down,” the farmer adds. “You forget what years and years of drought do to people and the stress that it puts them under. I was trying to think, how could we diversify the farm? I was trying to think out of the box.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/DQ4mhUi
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle Club review – Maggie Smith can’t save this rocky road trip to Lourdes

‘I lost a friend of almost 40 years’: Nancy Meyers pays tribute to Diane Keaton

Malaika Arora scolds 16-year-old dancer for inappropriate gestures: “He is winking, giving flying kisses”