I N T E R N A T I O N A L
I N T E R N A T I O N A L
16 Pages Number 34 7th year
Price: Rp 3.000,-
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Iggy Azalea rise tests music industry on race, gender
AP Photo/Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies
This image released by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies shows characters, from left, Mr. Krabs, Patrick Star, Sandy Cheeks, Squidward Tentacles, and SpongeBob SquarePants in a scene from “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.”
SpongeBob’s back, on a zany venture up to our world
Would that all of our brains resembled that of SpongeBob SquarePants — and we’re talking about his actual brain, like, the cerebral matter located somewhere inside that porous yellow body. When, in the thoroughly enjoyable (though somewhat exhausting) “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,” the tiny, scheming Plankton takes a surreptitious trip into one of those sponge-holes, he finds a brain coated with cotton candy, rainbows and all manner of sweets, like a scene from “The Nutcracker.” It’s enough to make a cynical little organism sick, but it makes us love sweet SpongeBob even more. As does director Paul Tibbitt’s new movie, which is zany and clever and fun (and in 3D), as long as you can take 93 minutes of it. That may depend on your age. As I exited the theater I heard a father telling his young son wearily, “That’s about all the SpongeBob I can take.” The son, it seemed, could have taken a few hours more. The movie — the second feature-length outing for the durable Nickelodeon TV character, and the first since 2004 —begins somewhere above the undersea hamlet of Bikini Bottom, where SpongeBob lives. We meet a nefarious pirate character named Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas, in live action and game for anything), tracking down a precious ancient book via his treasure map. The book tells the story of Bikini Bottom — a device to bring newcomers up to speed. (In a clever touch that parents will like, an old library card shows the previous borrowers, who include Davy Jones. “This is way overdue,” the pirate says.) We learn how Bikini Bottom is addicted to Krabby Patties, the succulent burgers made only at Krusty Krab, the fast-food joint where SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny) works for Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), who keeps the secret recipe stowed away in a vault. Back down in Bikini Bottom, rival restaurant owner Plankton is trying to steal the formula, as usual. He fails, but the formula actually disappears. The two rivals join forces to find it, and this quest drives the movie, with many a wacky tangent awaiting — including time travel and even space travel, up to a weird platform somewhere in the universe where a porpoise who sounds delightfully like Christopher Walken makes sure the planets don’t collide. But back to the recipe. It’s an urgent mission, because
without its beloved snack, Bikini Bottom falls immediately into an apocalyptic state, with everyone wearing leather and turning evil. They’re hungry — very hungry. Eventually, SpongeBob and his posse, which includes series regulars Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), Sandy (Carolyn Lawrence) and of course starfish Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), will end up traveling somewhere they’ve never been: Up to the surface, and out of the water. Here, they assume their new, 3D form, the better to run around the beach (peopled by live-action humans) and track down the villainous Burger Beard, who’s up to something nasty. This isn’t a battle to be fought by mere, well, puppets — and so they make another transformation, into glorious superhero versions of themselves, the better to battle that snack-stealing pirate and rescue their desperate hometown. Kids, likely, will be the prime audience for these energetic shenanigans. Adults may prefer the clever wordplay. “Unleash the condiments!” Krabs says at one point in a battle. “With relish!” SpongeBob replies. There’s also a cute visual gag making fun of those of us who would never mix the garbage with the recycling. It’s striking to realize that SpongeBob, the character, is more than 15 years old in sponge years (the TV series’ creator, Stephen Hillenburg, is an executive producer here.) He’s isn’t slowing down. If you like the yellow guy on TV, you should have a good, squishy time here, too. “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,’” a Paramount release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America “for mild action and rude humor.” Running time: 93 minutes. Three stars out of four. (ap)
LOS ANGELES - Iggy Azalea has soared to stardom as a rare white woman in hip-hop, but her meteoric rise has triggered a backlash that reveals much about the music business’s fault-lines on race and gender. The 24-year-old Australian, who released her first full album just nine months ago, is up for four Grammy awards on Sunday, including the prestigious Record of the Year for her smash hit “Fancy.” But even as Azalea wins plaudits from the industry and packs arenas, detractors see her as uncanny or even offensive -- a white, blonde woman who raps in an accent that is identifiably African American. Her most vociferous critic has been fellow rapper Azealia Banks, a black woman who has accused Azalea of mocking African Americans. Banks, who has never been nominated for a Grammy, charged that
Azalea -- whom she taunted as “Igloo Australia” -- shied away from issues important to the black community such as police brutality. “When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is, ‘Oh yeah, you’re great, you’re amazing, you can do whatever you put your mind to.’ “And it says to black kids, ‘You don’t have shit -- you don’t own shit, not even the shit you created for yourself,’” Banks said in a radio interview. Azalea -- who moved to the United States as a teenager to pursue her hiphop dreams and has been romantically linked to African American men -- has denounced Banks as a “bigot.” “There are many black artists succeeding in all genres. The reason you haven’t is because of your piss poor attitude,” Azalea wrote on Twitter. (afp)
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Thursday, February 5, 2015
Man United beats 4th tier Cambridge in FA Cup replay
US to destroy its largest remaining chemical weapons cache Page 6
Page 8
Cuba publishes first photos of Fidel Castro in 5 months Page 13
Taiwan plane crashes, 12 killed
The plane’s wing also hit a taxi, TAIPEI — A Taiwanese flight with 58 people aboard went sideways, clipped an elevated roadway and careened into a river Wednesday shortly after takeoff from the island’s capital of the driver of which was injured, on the freeway just before it crashed Taipei, killing at least 12 people, local media and officials said. The death toll was expected to rise as rescue crews cleared the mostly sunken fuselage in the Keelung River a couple dozen meters (yards) from the shore. Teams of rescuers in rubber rafts clustered around the wreckage. The ATR-72-600 prop-jet aircraft was flying on its side, with one wing scraping past Taiwan’s busy National Freeway No. 1 just seconds before it plunged into the river, local television images showed. It had taken off from Taipei’s downtown Sungshan Airport en route
to the outlying Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands. Civil aviation officials said the flight took off at 10:53 a.m. and lost contact with controllers two minutes later. Thirty-one passengers were from China, Taiwan’s tourism bureau said. Kinmen’s airport is a common link between Taipei and China’s Fujian province. Taiwan’s Central News Agency said 12 people were killed. Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei Fire Department official who was coordinating the rescue, said the victims
were among 27 people pulled from the plane. The remaining people were unaccounted for, and were either were still in the fuselage or had been pulled downriver, he said. “At the moment, things don’t look too optimistic,” Wu told reporters at the scene. “Those in the front of the plane are likely to have lost their lives.” Rescuers were pulling luggage from an open plane door to clear the fuselage, and Wu said they planned to build a pontoon bridge to facilitate those efforts.
into the river, Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS reported. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it had sent 165 people and eight boats to the riverside rescue scene, joining fire department rescue crews. A TransAsia media office declined comment on possible reasons for the crash, deferring to a news conference scheduled for later on Wednesday. Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration also was also unable to discuss possible causes of the crash. A plane operated by the same
Taipei-based airline crashed in the outlying Taiwan-controlled islands of Penghu last July 23, killing 48 at the end of a typhoon for reasons that are still under investigation. Wednesday’s crash is likely to further hurt the reputation of the 64-year-old airline along with that of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. (ap) News can also be heard in “Bali Image” at Global Radio FM 96.5 from 9.30 until 10.00 am. Listen to Global Radio FM at http:// globalfmbali.listen2myradio.com or live video streaming at http://radioglobalfmbali.com and http:// ustream.tv/channel/global-fm-bali.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
AP Photo/Wally Santana
Emergency personnel try to extract passengers from a commercial plane after it crashed in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015. A Taiwanese flight with 58 people aboard went sideways, clipped an elevated roadway and careened into a river Wednesday shortly after takeoff from the island’s capital of Taipei.