Actor Garrett Hedlund, who recently played Harry J. Anslinger in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, was arrested Saturday night in Tennessee in the wake of his separation from Emma Roberts. He was released Sunday on a $2,100 bond and is due back in court in Franklin County, Tennessee in March. This could prove troublesome […]
The post Garrett Hedlund Arrested For Public Intoxication appeared first on uInterview.
The post Garrett Hedlund Arrested For Public Intoxication appeared first on uInterview.
- 1/24/2022
- by Jacob Linden
- Uinterview
From her haunting vocals to her raspy cadence, Golden Globe winner Andra Day is wholly absorbed as the title character of “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” Her visceral performance is the anchor through which Pulitzer award winner Suzan-Lori Parks and filmmaker Lee Daniels’ drama comes to life. The 1940s-set film reshapes Holiday’s legacy as the Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement, centering her activism through her seminal song “Strange Fruit.” It also showcases Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger’s (played in the film by Garrett Hedlund) obsession with dehumanizing and silencing Holiday, and how he weaponized her drug addiction against her.
While the movie has been met with mixed reviews, Day’s performance has been routinely hailed as a major breakthrough for the Grammy-nominated singer, who had never played a leading role before in film or TV. In the wake of a recent Golden Globe...
While the movie has been met with mixed reviews, Day’s performance has been routinely hailed as a major breakthrough for the Grammy-nominated singer, who had never played a leading role before in film or TV. In the wake of a recent Golden Globe...
- 3/9/2021
- by Aramide A Tinubu
- Indiewire
In Lee Daniels’s Billie Holiday biopic “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” the singer’s trials and tribulations during the 1940s are reflected through the film’s clear main villain, Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger.
Anslinger, portrayed in the film by James Hedlund, is depicted as a racist, crusading fanatic who used his office and his proximity to power to ruthlessly harass Holiday throughout her career.
For example, Anslinger calls multiple meetings between the FBI and Fbn about Holiday, and even says at one point he wants to “bring that bitch down.” He loses his mind over Holliday’s “Strange Fruit,” claiming that the song about the epidemic of lynchings against Black Americans would “start riots.” He personally arrests her for possession three times. And he repeatedly attempts to plant evidence on her, either coopting Holiday’s lovers or his agents.
But just who was Anslinger in real life?...
Anslinger, portrayed in the film by James Hedlund, is depicted as a racist, crusading fanatic who used his office and his proximity to power to ruthlessly harass Holiday throughout her career.
For example, Anslinger calls multiple meetings between the FBI and Fbn about Holiday, and even says at one point he wants to “bring that bitch down.” He loses his mind over Holliday’s “Strange Fruit,” claiming that the song about the epidemic of lynchings against Black Americans would “start riots.” He personally arrests her for possession three times. And he repeatedly attempts to plant evidence on her, either coopting Holiday’s lovers or his agents.
But just who was Anslinger in real life?...
- 3/2/2021
- by Samson Amore
- The Wrap
Arriving on Hulu in the wake of “MLK/FBI” and “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” provides yet another angle on J. Edgar Hoover’s war against Black America. And while director Lee Daniels packs in as much righteous anger as those other films, he does so with his trademark love of melodrama and disdain for subtlety.
In her first major acting role, singer Andra Day gives an emphatic and multi-shaded performance as the legendary Lady Day, but she and her talented co-stars are subject to an often-clunky screenplay by the esteemed playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, not to mention Daniels’ signature sensibility of putting too fine a point on anything and everything.
The goal is to correct the conventional take on Holiday, one of the 20th century’s greatest singers, breaking from received ideas about her drug addiction and exploring the facts about her relentless harassment by the FBI,...
In her first major acting role, singer Andra Day gives an emphatic and multi-shaded performance as the legendary Lady Day, but she and her talented co-stars are subject to an often-clunky screenplay by the esteemed playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, not to mention Daniels’ signature sensibility of putting too fine a point on anything and everything.
The goal is to correct the conventional take on Holiday, one of the 20th century’s greatest singers, breaking from received ideas about her drug addiction and exploring the facts about her relentless harassment by the FBI,...
- 2/19/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
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