“I lost all those things that you feel are your real identity and your life,” Stone said.
After rupturing a vertebral artery, Stone was facing certain death.
“My father was there for me, but I would say that was about it,” Stone recalled.
“I understand if you want to live with solid citizens, don’t come to Hollywood.”
Stone was divorced a few years after the incident, around which time she stopped receiving calls for work.
In 2000, Stone played a lesbian trying to start a family, opposite Ellen DeGeneres, in the HBO television film If These Walls Could Talk 2 and starred as an exotic dancer, alongside Billy Connolly, in the comedy Beautiful Joe. While she was recognized by Women in Film with her second Lucy Award for her performance in If These Walls Could Talk 2,[39] Beautiful Jo premiered on cable television instead of receiving a theatrical release in North America.[50][51][52][53][54] Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club, who had been critical of Stone's previous films, wrote that "nothing she's done has been quite as shameless or appalling as Beautiful Joe, a toxic piece of whimsy that ranks among the worst films of 2000".[55]
Following her September 2001 hospitalization for a subarachnoid hemorrhage, Stone took a hiatus from screen acting. She faced professional challenges as she was in the process of recovery. She felt that she had "lost [her] place"in Hollywood, and during a 2015 interview with USA Today, she remarked: "[When] you find yourself at the back of the line in your business, as I did, [you] have to figure yourself out all over again."[56] She returned to the screen in 2003, when she took on a three-episode arc as Sheila Carlisle, an attorney who believes she can communicate with God, in the eighth season of The Practice. For her performance, she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.[57]
Stone attempted a return to the mainstream with roles in the films Cold Creek Manor (2003), with Dennis Quaid, and Catwoman (2004), with Halle Berry. In the mystery psychological thriller Cold Creek Manor, she and Quaid played a couple terrorized by the former owner of the rural estate they bought in foreclosure. Variety magazine remarked in its review for the film that both actors "fish in vain to find any angles to play in their dimension-free characters".[58] The superhero film Catwoman saw her play the age-obsessed CEO of a cosmetic company and the story's antagonist. While both films flopped at the box office, Catwoman is considered by many critics to be one of the worst movies of all time.[59][60]
Independent films and ensemble dramas (2005–2017)[edit]
Her next film release was Jim Jarmusch's dramedy Broken Flowers (2005), in which Stone took on the role of a grasping and overly eager closet organizer who re-connects with a former womaniser (played by Bill Murray).[61] Unlike her previous few film outings, Broken Flowers was met with critical acclaim, upon its premiere at Cannes,[62] where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won the Grand Prix.[63] Far Out Magazine ranked Stone's role among one of her "10 best performances",[64] while New York Magazine remarked: "Sharon Stone, playing a widow who's half-hippie, half-working-class-tough, demonstrates that, given the right part, she's still not merely sexy but knockabout funny and sly".[65] In 2005, she was named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.[66]
After years of litigation, Basic Instinct 2 was released on March 31, 2006. A reason for a long delay in releasing the film was reportedly Stone's dispute with the filmmakers over the nudity in the film; she wanted more while they wanted less. Stone told an interviewer, "We are in a time of odd repression and if a popcorn movie allows us to create a platform for discussion, wouldn't that be great?".[67] Despite an estimated budget of US$70 million, Basic Instinct 2 placed only tenth in gross on its opening weekend with a meager US$3.2 million and finished with a total domestic gross of under US$6 million. Stone appeared in Nick Cassavetes's crime drama Alpha Dog (2006), opposite Bruce Willis, playing Olivia Mazursky, the mother of a real-life murder victim; she wore a fatsuit for the role.[68] The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was an arthouse success.[69] She made part of an ensemble cast in Emilio Estevez's drama Bobby (2006), about the hours leading up to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Stone received favorable comments for her performance, particularly a scene alongside Lindsay Lohan.[70][71] As a member of the cast, she was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, but won the Hollywood Film Festival Award for Best Ensemble Cast.[72]
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
"Journalists are allowed to request documents that have been stolen and to publish those documents." So wrote U.S. federal Judge John Koeltl in a 2019 opinion dismissing a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and others. Assange published documents on the Wikileaks website in the very manner the judge described. Despite this, Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in Britain’s maximum security Belmarsh prison for over three years. Before that, he spent seven years living in the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum as he faced mounting persecution from the U.S. government for his role in exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. is seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom to face espionage and conspiracy charges and up to 175 years in prison. Assange’s legal team is appealing the U.K.’s approval of the extradition request. Meanwhile, a new case related to Wikileaks is before Judge Koeltl: journalists and several of Assange’s attorneys have sued the Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, alleging the CIA spied on them when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, recording conversations and secretly copying their phones and laptops.
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
•
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat
The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.
The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.
But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.
Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.
Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.
It’s long past time for the U.S. and U.K. to free Julian Assange. His flagrantly unjust incarceration is a global scandal, and the world is quite upset about it. Indeed, on September 19 at the United Nations, heads of state denounced this phony prosecution for the fraud and subterfuge it is – an assault on a free press, and an attack on Assange personally, for practicing journalism. For over four years, this publisher has been left to rot in a dungeon in Britain’s notorious maximum-security prison, Belmarsh. The reason? Well, they might not admit it, but U.S. sachems want him crushed for embarrassing them, by revealing the murderous criminality of the American military in Iraq and elsewhere.
Periodically, some world leader lets loose a geschrei of protest. “It is essential to preserve freedom of the press. A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way,” railed Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to the assembled UN diplomats. Honduran president Xiomara Castro also denounced the official abuse of Assange. And on September 20, a delegation of Australian politicians brought a letter to Washington officials, demanding the U.S. drop its grotesque prosecution of Assange.
This is not the first time heads of state or other political bigwigs have urged American President Joe Biden to end Assange’s ordeal. Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has twice written Biden, imploring him to release Assange and rightly fulminating over the damage done to a free press by his incarceration. In late 2022, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan leaders called for the publisher’s freedom. Colombian president Gustavo Petro vowed on social media to “ask President Biden…not to charge a journalist just for telling the truth.” Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese also petitioned the U.S. on his Canberra constituent, Assange’s behalf. So far Biden appears unmoved.
Julian Assange’s family is working out of the United States to fight his extradition, beseeching lawmakers there for help ahead of a looming meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Joe Biden.
They live in fear that their phones will light up with news that the WikiLeaks founder is about to be whisked from detention in the United Kingdom to a US prison – where they will lose him forever.
This heightened anxiety is fuelling their efforts to campaign for Assange’s release. They are meeting with key Democrats and Republicans, seeking the support of international leaders and drumming up public support to end the 13-year saga over his fate.
Speaking to The Sunday Age, Assange’s half-brother Gabriel Shipton said there were reasons to believe the long-running battle over his extradition could end without him sitting in a US prison.
Albanese’s US trip this month – during which he will meet with Biden – marks a key moment in their campaign.
Meanwhile, Iraq continues to build it's international presence. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani recently concluded a week-long visit to the US where he met with business leaders and politicians. MEMO notes he's schedule to visit Russia October 11th where he will meet with the president of Russia Vladimir Putin. A violent conflict, meanwhile, is taking place between the government of Israel and the Palestinians. MINT notes:
In a statement, Hamas commander has said that it launched attacks on the Israeli territory ‘in defense of Al-Aqsa’ which was stormed by Israeli settlers a few days ago. Al-Aqsa has been the flashpoint between Palestine and Israel. Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif, who released a recorded message after the attack, said the strikes were in retaliation for Israel’s “desecration of the Al-Aqsa" mosque in Jerusalem.
- Truest statement of the week
- A note to our readers
- Iraq
- Media: What was the plan? (There was none)
- From The TESR Test Kitchen
- The Cracked Face
- Books (Elaine, Ava and C.I.)
- Video of the week Cornel West Green No More!
- Great Grandpa's got advice that no one asked for (...
- Tweet of the week
- Someone's cooking in the Kitchen
- Stan goes to the movies
- Books
- Musician Hussein Rassam plays on after fleeing Iraq
- This edition's playlist
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