Maya Akra on the Oscars and making space for Arab voices in Hollywood

LONDON: British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court on Friday to face five charges of rape and other sexual offenses and said.
Brand, 49, who became known internationally as the husband of pop star Katy Perry after forging a career in Britain with his risque comedy routines, was charged last month.
He faces two counts of rape, two of sexual assault and one of indecent assault.
Arriving for the first court hearing in the case, Brand made his way slowly through a crush of media and onlookers gathered outside the court.
The celebrity, dressed casually in a dark colored open-necked shirt and jeans, spoke only to confirm his details before being granted bail and ordered to appear in court again on May 30.
In a video response on X after he was charged, Brand denied all the alleged offenses and said he was “grateful” for the “opportunity” to defend himself.
“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile, but what I never was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity,” he said in the video.
The charges relate to offenses alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2005 involving four women.
Prosecutors charged him after a police investigation into allegations following a broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary in September 2023.
London’s Metropolitan Police have said the investigation remains open and urged “anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information” to contact officers.
Brand is charged with the rape of a woman in 1999 in the Bournemouth area on England’s south coast, as well as the abuse and sexual assault of a woman in 2004 in the Westminster area of central London.
He has also been charged with indecently assaulting a woman in 2001 and sexually assaulting another woman between 2004 and 2005 — both incidents alleged to have taken place in Westminster.
The court confirmed that he lives part of the time in the United States, but Brand also gave an address in the southern English county of Buckinghamshire.
Born in 1975 to working-class parents in Essex, east of London, Brand began his stand-up career as a teenager.
He burst onto the scene as a provocative, often lewd comedian before transforming into a Hollywood star, then an anti-establishment guru and conspiracy theorist who has millions of fans online.
He has almost seven million subscribers on YouTube, 11.3 million on X and 4.8 million on Instagram.
He presented a show on the BBC’s Radio 2 station between 2006 and 2008 but left after an on-air prank when he left a sexually explicit voicemail for “Fawlty Towers” actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter.
He also presented a “Big Brother” spin-off show for several years and wrote columns for the left-wing Guardian newspaper and penned two autobiographies.
Brand was married to US star Perry for 14 months between 2010 and 2012.
He is now married to the author and illustrator Laura Gallacher, with whom he has three children.

LONDON: In an interview ahead of the release of “Havoc”, writer-director Gareth Evans described the film’s star Tom Hardy as being in “beast mode” during shooting.  

That’s actually the perfect logline for this high-octane, hyper-violent action film from the director of “The Raid” and its equally entertaining sequel. Because while there’s definitely some kind of plot nestled underneath the spectacular fight choreography and impressive gunplay — i.e. Hardy is the slightly corrupt grizzled New York homicide detective Pat Walker, who must dodge even more corrupt New York cops as he attempts to track down the son of a mayoral candidate who is a suspect in a triad shooting — “Havoc” is, essentially, Tom Hardy blasting, punching and body slamming anyone who gets in his way. 

And, for the most part, that makes for a pretty entertaining ride. As Walker’s run-ins with gangsters, hired guns and dodgy politicians get increasingly violent, Evans gives him an array of interesting and inventive ways through which to dole out his specific brand of street-level justice. Much like “The Raid,” this gives us an opportunity to marvel at a director who remains at the top of the action-movie game. Few people — if any — do high-concept fight scenes quite as well as Evans. 

Where “Havoc” feels a little light is in the pauses between those breathtaking set pieces. With a cast headed by Hardy and also boasting Forest Whitaker and Timothy Olyphant, there’s some serious dramatic talent on offer, but there’s little character development beyond who’s good, who’s bad, and who’s somewhere in the middle.  

There’s a host of supporting characters — Yeo Yann Yann’s gang matriarch Mother in particular — who all look like they have fascinating backstories, but all we learn about them is that most can fight really, really well, and all have plenty to scowl about. What’s more, a few heavy-handed bouts of CGI undermine the movie’s mostly gritty realism, and leave audiences desperate to skip the calmer moments and get on to the next shootout. 

However, to be fair to this movie, Tom Hardy in beast mode is undeniably great — and in our virtually limitless streaming landscape, anything great deserves to be celebrated.