Saudi Arabia winds down 15-month anti-corruption campaign

Saudi Arabia has ended a sweeping crackdown on corruption ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that it said had recovered more than $106 billion through settlements with scores of senior princes, ministers and top businessmen.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2HGUaCX

Tug-of-war: U.S. refiner Citgo caught in Venezuela political upheaval

Citgo Petroleum Corp, the eighth largest U.S. refiner and Venezuela's top foreign asset, is in the middle of a tug-of-war as the Trump administration tries to use the company as leverage to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2MGllfJ

Citgo expatriate workers in U.S. ordered to return to Venezuela: sources

Venezuela has told dozens of expatriate staff working for Citgo Petroleum Corp in the United States that they must return to Caracas by the end of February, people familiar with the matter said, following U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing socialist President Nicolas Maduro from power.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2GifBrJ

BHP, Rio call for permanent indigenous voice in Australia's parliament

Australia's two biggest mining firms on Thursday backed calls for an indigenous advisory body in parliament, saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison's opposition to the proposal did not "stand up to scrutiny."

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2FVWJz6

Need for speed: Carts on rails help Manila's commuters dodge gridlock

Thousands of commuters flock to Manila's railway tracks every day, but rather than boarding the trains, they climb on to wooden carts pushed along the tracks, to avoid the Philippine capital's infamous traffic gridlock.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2HQsETg

Venezuela detains Colombian, Spanish, French journalists

Venezuelan authorities detained three foreign journalists and a driver working for the Spanish news agency EFE on Wednesday, the company said, in the latest arrests of reporters covering U.S.-backed efforts to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2BegZrI

Pompeo says Trump-Kim summit to be held somewhere in Asia

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he was dispatching a team to make preparations for the next summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be held somewhere in Asia late in February.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2TnsjsT

Canada to reduce staff at Cuba embassy after another diplomat falls ill

Canada has decided to cut the number of diplomatic staff in Cuba by up to half after another person fell ill, Ottawa said on Wednesday, bringing the total to 14 Canadians suffering mysterious symptoms since 2017.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2RpHuji

Who represents Venezuela? U.N., international lenders stuck in limbo

Three days after proclaiming himself Venezuela's head of state, Juan Guaido wrote to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for help in tackling the country's urgent humanitarian crisis.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2FWd0nX

Venezuela's opposition had clandestine meetings with military: Guaido

Venezuela's opposition has had clandestine meetings with members of the country's military and security forces, Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido, said in an opinion piece published on Wednesday.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2MHDr1d

VP Pence to rally support for Venezuela's Guaido in Miami on Friday

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence plans to head to Miami on Friday, home to the country's largest community of Venezuelan exiles, to rally support for the opposition ahead of Venezuelan protests against President Nicolas Maduro, a White House official said.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2RsQxjp

White House's Bolton says he met with Citgo executives

White House national security adviser John Bolton said he had a "very productive meeting" on Wednesday with Citgo's executive team, two days after Washington slapped sanctions on the company's parent, Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA.

from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2SfhkUL

Promo Trailer for Jenna Bass' All-Female Western Adventure 'Flatland'

"Poppie, you know what we're doing is dangerous?" In the midst of the winter film festival season, take a look at this stylistic drama arriving later this year. The Match Factory has debuted an international / promo trailer for an indie titled Flatland, the latest feature film directed by Jenna Bass (Love the One You Love, High Fantasy). This "contemporary western" is about the journey of self-discovery for three different but equally trapped women. It paints a vivid and unique portrait of femininity against a hostile frontier land and questions what it means to be a woman today in South Africa and the world at large. Faith Baloyi stars as Beauty Cuba, and a cast including Nicole Fortuin, Izel Bezuidenhout, Brendon Daniels, and De Klerk Oelofse. The film features a number of different languages, including English, following these three different women. This looks like something die-hard cinephiles will love, with some crazy footage thrown in.

Here's the official international trailer for Jenna Cato Bass' Flatland, direct from YouTube:

The world of lonely, middle-age policewoman Beauty Cuba changes forever when she receives a call for help from Billy, the lost love of her life who has recently been re-arrested for murder. Beauty returns to her home town of Beaufort West, deep in the heart of the surreal landscape of the Karoo semi-desert and quickly learns that this case is not as simple as she thought. The real culprit of this accidental murder is a painfully shy young woman named Natalie who flees her small, rural town on horseback and teams up with her now pregnant childhood friend Poppie to outrun the law. Flatland is a journey of self-discovery for these three different but equally desperate women, painting a vivid and unique portrait of femininity against a hostile frontier-land and questions what it means to be a women in contemporary South Africa and the world at large. Flatland is both written and directed Jenna Cato Bass, director of the films Love the One You Love and High Fantasy previously, and co-writer on Rafiki. The film doesn't have any release dates or premieres set yet. For more info on the film, visit the official website. First impression? Interested?

from FirstShowing.net http://bit.ly/2FXSnHN

Sundance 2019: Julius Onah's Provocative High School Drama 'Luce'

There's nothing like a great film that challenges your own prejudices and feelings, in an engaging and mind-blowing way. Luce, the third feature directed by Julius Onah (after The Girl Is in Trouble and The Cloverfield Paradox), is hands down the most provocative film of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It's an intelligent, clever, compelling drama that challenges us to rethink what we think we know - and does so with phenomenal performances and one hell of a smart script. The pitch for this film doesn't sound that enticing when you first hear it, but it's an experience that you won't soon forget, proving that cinema still has the ability to provoke and shake up even the most jaded viewers. One of the best films of the festival, a must see for anyone who appreciates challenging, bleeding-edge cinema. And a defining film for Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Luce, with a screenplay co-written by J.C. Lee and Julius Onah, is a high school drama about a teen from a war-torn African country. His parents adopted him when he was a young kid, after being indoctrinated as a child fighter, and have raised him successfully in America to be an intelligent, caring, top-of-the-class model student. Luce is loved by nearly everyone in his school, except for one particular teacher. This is where the story begins, and there's no flashbacks or anything like that, because this taut script is all about letting us in on things as the story plays out. And with each new scene we think we know more, but we really don't know anything, and we're always on edge and unsure of what's going to happen next. The tension builds when the teacher finds things in his locker after he writes a paper about a violent political radical. What is he hiding?

This propellant, energetic film pulls you right in and keeps everyone shockingly aware that they don't know everything. They don't always know the truth. And that includes us, as the audience. There's so many crazy, frustrating, annoying things going on with the characters in this film but as I'm watching it I'm realizing - holy shit that's what makes this so good. You bring your own feelings and interpretations and prejudice into the film, making judgements as your watching it. He's manipulative! They're protecting him! Come on! But then you start to understand that's what is so brilliant about it, the way it is provocative in a sense that it forces viewers to confront these conundrums within themselves while they characters in the film are also dealing with their own dilemmas. It's remarkable how subtly it achieves this while messing with your mind.

Making this script work so well on the screen is the lead performance from Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Luce, a career-defining moment for him. His delivery and tone is so frustrating to watch because you can tell he's being passive aggressive and tricky, yet then you start to wonder if that's really him or not? Maybe he is just a nice guy? And he pulls this off perfectly. He's matched by Octavia Spencer, who gives one of her best performances ever as the teacher who feels like there's something wrong, it's not right. The two battle each other in shocking ways, but they're utterly thrilling to watch. Luce reminds me of First Reformed in many ways, and will shake you up much in the same way that film does. A brilliant, challenging film that provokes the audience as much as it provokes the characters, and represents our troubled times in an ingenious way.

Alex's Sundance 2019 Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter - @firstshowing

from FirstShowing.net http://bit.ly/2HFDgo7

Texas TV Station Cancels Newscast After Director Dies On The Job

KVII-TV said "Daybreak" director Malcolm Montgomery died "doing what he most loved – serving our viewers by putting together the best morning news show he could."

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2HQrvLs

Chicago PD Release Photos Of “Persons Of Interest” In Jussie Smollett Attack – Update

(UPDATED 6:15 PM with photos from Chicago Police) Just more than 24 hours after Empire star Jussie Smollett was attacked in Chicago, police said today they may have found “potential persons of interest” in the racially and homophobic-charged assault that is being investigated as a possible hate crime. Chicago PD spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said on Twitter on Wednesday that detectives had “located a surveillance camera that shows potential persons of interest wanted for…

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2DJjfsG

As We Told You: James Gunn In Talks To Direct ‘Suicide Squad 2’

As we reported back in October, James Gunn was not only aboard Warner Bros.’ The Suicide Squad to write, but he was also in talks to direct. The only new news today regarding the DC sequel is that the studio dated the title for an Aug. 6, 2021 release. Disney let Gunn go over the summer for his controversial Tweets (which upset the alt-right media) that predated his $1.6 billion global grossing work on Marvel’s The Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Disney’s loss is…

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2DJf1l0

‘Locke & ‘Key’: ‘Scandal’ Alumna Darby Stanchfield To Star In Netflix Series

EXCLUSIVE: In her follow-up series to Scandal, Darby Stanchfield is set to star as Nina Locke in Locke & Key, Netflix's adaptation of Joe Hill's comic, from Hill, Carlton Cuse and IDW Entertainment. Locke & Key is a horror-fantasy series that revolves around siblings Kinsey, Tyler and Bode (Emilia Jones, Connor Jessup and Jackson Robert Scott) who, after the gruesome murder of their father, move to their ancestral home in Massachusetts only to find the house has magical…

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2Tmewm7

‘Hot Date’ Renewed For Season 2 By Pop – TCA

Pop has picked up a 10-episode second season of Hot Date, the original sketch comedy series from Electus' Big Breakfast and executive producer Will Arnett's Electric Avenue Productions, inspired by the popular CollegeHumor digital series. The renewal was announced Wednesday by Pop president Brad Schwartz at TCA. Starring husband and wife comedy duo Emily Axford and Brian K. Murphy, Season 2 of Hot Date will be set in a new city, New Orleans, and focus on the many…

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2sXQIcF

Deadline Studio at Sundance 2019 – Day 3 – Jeff Goldblum, Judith Light, Jake Gyllenhaal, Storm Reid & More

Deadline's studio at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival kicked off Day 3 at Hotel Park City by hosting fest-goers including Jeff Goldblum of The Mountain, Judith Light of Before You Know It, Jake Gyllenhaal of Velvet Buzzsaw, Storm Reid of Relive and many more. Click on the photo above to launch the gallery. Stay tuned for more galleries and video interviews from the Deadline Studio at Sundance 2019. The festival continues through February 3. The Deadline Studio is presented …

from Deadline http://bit.ly/2SjVQ9e