Right now many of us just want to escape – escape from the news about Ukraine and escape from the unpleasant reality that is surrounding us if only for an hour or two. Fortunately help is at hand.
As the hype begins for the Oscars and the British Academy Film and Television Awards – or Bafta – there is some good news. The world's filmmakers have come up with something for everyone. As one of the Bafta voting members, I have had the great privilege of escaping into the dozens of movies that may win awards. The good news is that the standard is so high this year that it is almost impossible to decide who should win what.
How can you choose between the latest multi-million-dollar Bond offering No Time To Die and a very lovely low-budget Norwegian film about a woman in search of love, The Worst Person in the World? I enjoyed the Bond movie, but that Norwegian film has stayed with me, especially the big star of the future, Renate Reinsve, who plays the central character. Then there is the majestic The Power of the Dog, which has received many nominations, including for Benedict Cumberbatch as best actor and best director for Jane Campion.
The almost all-male club at the Oscars, especially for directors, has been broken. Women directors and people of colour are, this year, generally better represented in some of the best-funded films, but the judges' job is made more difficult by another type of diversity. There is an astonishing (and welcome) creative diversity in the films on offer.
Movies are a way of escaping from the world, but also a way of making sense of it
Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch is as cheerful and crazy a film as Anderson fans have come to expect; maybe more crazy. Then there is Nicholas Cage in a film called Pig, which is extraordinary in another way. You can sum up the plot in two sentences. A man – played by Cage – lives in the woods of North America with a valuable pig, until the pig is stolen. He tries to find it. That's it. Yet, despite my unpromising plot summary, the film and the performance by Cage are definitely worth a look.
But there are, as always, a few films that make me wonder how on earth someone came up with the idea.
The House of Gucci – about the world-famous fashion house family – is an interesting story with a stunning cast including Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Salma Hayek plus a great director, Ridley Scott. Yet, someone, somewhere, took the decision to make all the actors speak English with laughable Italian accents. When you read reviews that go on about the accents rather than the story or the performances, you know the movie has misfired badly.
But one other escape, for me at least, was to discover so many superb movies directed at children and which touch – with humour – some of the big serious issues of the day. Encanto, Luca, The Mitchells v The Machines, Ron's Gone Wrong, and others, are all stories about people who in one way or another don't quite fit in because they are different. Some of these films also address, in a way any 10-year-old can understand, the dangers of artificial intelligence and Big Tech companies who treat consumers − you and me − as commodities.
The real winners at this year's awards season are, therefore, not just the stars, the directors and the studios. The big winners are us, the audiences, looking for escape for an hour or two. If you can't find something that excites you or touches your heart or makes you think at this year's Oscars and Baftas, then it is not the directors or the studios' fault.
And that brings me to a film that touched me directly because I endured some of the consequences of what that film is about. It's Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh.
It's the story of a family in that city in Northern Ireland at the start of what were known as The Troubles, the sectarian killings and violence between Protestants and Catholics that caught fire in 1969 and continued for 30 or so years. The premise of the film is straightforward. A small boy – Branagh himself, reimagined – is bewildered by the tension and the violence provoked by some of the adults around him. The boy is a Protestant. He lives alongside Catholics. Suddenly the violence begins. The two tribes are forced to separate, or in the case of the boy's family, to decide whether to get out of Northern Ireland. Branagh's own family did so, and settled in England.
I am watching this film about visceral hatred, while on the other side of Europe, families in Ukraine are being split up by violence that is as incomprehensible to me as the violence of the 1970s was to the young Branagh. And that's why I love the movies. They are a way of escaping from the world. But they are also a way of making sense of it.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The biog
Age: 30
Position: Senior lab superintendent at Emirates Global Aluminium
Education: Bachelor of science in chemical engineering, post graduate degree in light metal reduction technology
Favourite part of job: The challenge, because it is challenging
Favourite quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandi
The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
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Tuesday, Oct 1
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Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry
4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
High profile Al Shabab attacks
- 2010: A restaurant attack in Kampala Uganda kills 74 people watching a Fifa World Cup final football match.
- 2013: The Westgate shopping mall attack, 62 civilians, five Kenyan soldiers and four gunmen are killed.
- 2014: A series of bombings and shootings across Kenya sees scores of civilians killed.
- 2015: Four gunmen attack Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya and take over 700 students hostage, killing those who identified as Christian; 148 die and 79 more are injured.
- 2016: An attack on a Kenyan military base in El Adde Somalia kills 180 soldiers.
- 2017: A suicide truck bombing outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu kills 587 people and destroys several city blocks, making it the deadliest attack by the group and the worst in Somalia’s history.
The biog
Name: Shamsa Hassan Safar
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Degree in emergency medical services at Higher Colleges of Technology
Favourite book: Between two hearts- Arabic novels
Favourite music: Mohammed Abdu and modern Arabic songs
Favourite way to spend time off: Family visits and spending time with friends
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
RESULTS
6.30pm: Maiden Dh165,000 (Dirt) 1,200
Winner: Miqyaas, Adrie de Vries (jockey), Rashed Bouresly (trainer).
7.05pm: Handicap Dh165,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Untold Secret, Xavier Ziani, Salem bin Ghadayer.
7.40pm: Maiden Dh165,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Shanty Star, Fabrice Veron, Rashed Bouresly.
8.15pm: Handicap Dh190,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Alkaamel, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi.
8.50pm: Handicap Dh175,000 (D) 1,400m
Winner: Speedy Move, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
9.25pm: Handicap Dh175,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Quartier Francois, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Match statistics
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 36 Bahrain 32
Harlequins
Tries: Penalty 2, Stevenson, Teasdale, Semple
Cons: Stevenson 2
Pens: Stevenson
Bahrain
Tries: Wallace 2, Heath, Evans, Behan
Cons: Radley 2
Pen: Radley
Man of the match: Craig Nutt (Harlequins)
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
