Latest news with #anarchy
BBC News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Glastonbury Festival in the 1970s was anarchic and no one could drive out of Pilton'
An archivist said she "loved the anarchy" of Glastonbury Festival when it first started and people could just "wander in".Maureen Tofts, who grew up in Pilton, said the event was 'amazingly small' in the 1970s but quickly grew in size. By the 1980s, villagers had to stock up on food at home because no one could drive out of the area during the festival due to cars being parked Tofts is from the Pilton History Group, which showcases photographs and maps from the 70s and 80s, when the site ended "just beyond the Pyramid Stage". "When we first came it was pretty anarchic, there weren't that many rules. I loved it, I loved the anarchy," she added. She said the festival is now very well organised and loved by people across the the 1970s, there was no fence and people "just wandered in" and enjoyed the free milk, she said. "People used to walk to the site in as close as a straight line as they could towards the music. This included through our land," Ms Tofts added."Probably why we found one man fast asleep outside our greenhouse. It was scorching hot and he had one side of his face imprinted with the pattern of concrete paving slabs with sun burn on the other side of his face. "We woke him up, gave him a bottle of water and sent him on in the right direction."She added that by 1984, the festival was "much bigger"."We have that map which is quite amusing, it has a legend on one side which gives you the icon of the telephone and there was only one on the site. "I remember people queuing yards and yards to try and use the phone," Ms Tofts added. She added that those living in the village would have to stock up on food beforehand, as they would not be able to drive out of the village during the festival, which lasted between four or five days."You would have done a very large shop, you'd stock up because you knew the chances were you wouldn't get out of the village for a few days. But that wasn't a problem, just what it was," she "unrest" when organisers were trying to clear the site after one festival, police vans were stationed outside her home."[Police] had mesh over their front van windows lined up near our house. All such a contrast to today's organisation," she added. The event has changed a lot from the days she would have to arrange a meeting point with friends, which used to be by an ice cream van near an oak tree."Nowadays, my grandsons have an app on their mobile phones and they can see where people are on the site. They manage to miraculously meet each other," she is less than a week to go until Worthy Farm's gates are opened for this year's festival. Headliners include The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo.
Fox News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Fetterman issues 'DO' and 'DO NOT' list, doubling down on anti-violence message after calling out LA 'anarchy'
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who recently called out the "anarchy and true chaos" that has occurred in Los Angeles, doubled down on his anti-violence message in a post on Wednesday that featured "DO" and "DO NOT" list. "WIN THE ARGUMENT," Fetterman's post on X reads, before the list, which indicates that people should not "loot," light "s[---] on fire," or "assault law enforcement," but that they should "protest peacefully," "organize to win elections," and "call out destructive behavior like this." The tweet featured a photo of burning vehicles. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-PA., agreed with his Keystone State colleague. "Well said, John," the Republican noted in a post on X. Earlier this week, Fetterman declared in a tweet, "I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement." Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona agreed with Fetterman. "I didn't have agreeing with Senator Fetterman on my bingo card today but he's not wrong," Gosar noted.
New York Times
10-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Fetterman Calls California Protests ‘Anarchy' as He Criticizes Democrats
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania warned fellow Democrats that they could face a political backlash if they were seen as failing to sufficiently condemn acts of violence by protesters in Southern California, which local officials have said were limited. On Monday, he posted a photo on social media of a car engulfed in flames and a masked, shirtless person waving a Mexican flag. He suggested that Democrats — many of whom have in fact criticized acts of destruction or violence — should go further in denouncing unruly demonstrations. 'This is anarchy and true chaos,' he wrote. 'My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.' Local officials in California have described the violence as limited, under control and exacerbated by President Trump's decision to federalize the National Guard and deploy troops over the governor's objection. 'I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration — but this is not that,' Mr. Fetterman wrote. 'This is anarchy and true chaos.' Mr. Fetterman, elected in 2022, has become one of the Democrats whom Republicans love to quote as he has broken with some of his party's orthodoxies. He checked himself into a hospital for depression early in his first year in office, and his mental health has recently been the subject of both concern and scrutiny. Democrats on Capitol Hill tried to shrug off his latest comments on Tuesday. 'Everyone is entitled to their opinion,' said Representative Yvette D. Clarke of New York, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Some praise appeared to arrive, however, from Elon Musk, the owner of the social media site X, where Mr. Fetterman made his comment. Mr. Musk replied to the post with an American flag emoji.
Fox News
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Fetterman calls out 'anarchy' in LA, noting that Dems forfeit 'moral high ground' by failing to decry violence
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., spoke out against the "anarchy and true chaos" in Los Angeles, declaring that Democrats forfeit "moral high ground" if they do not decry the violence. "I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement," Fetterman declared in a post on X. Elon Musk replied to Fetterman's post with an American flag emoji. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy noted, "It's hard to preach hard truths to your own side. I respect this." Deputy White House chief of staff and Cabinet secretary Taylor Budowich responded to Fetterman in a post, writing: "This is a wake up call for many Democrats: there is no room for you in the party of @GavinNewsom and @KamalaHarris. Their self-obsessed pursuits of power are blind to you and your concerns. They defend chaos, reject biology, and are unbothered by the invasion of our nation." President Donald Trump has deployed National Guard troops in response to the unrest in LA. "We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated," the president asserted on Monday in a Truth Social post. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted in a tweet on Monday evening that U.S. Marines were being deployed to the city "to restore order."
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Our Hero, Balthazar' Review: Jaeden Martell Is an Edgelord Obsessed with a Would-Be School Shooter in ‘Good Time' Producer's Angsty Debut
To revel in anarchy without an initial critical perspective about gun culture or social media addiction is the point of director Oscar Boyson's feature debut, 'Our Hero, Balthazar,' co-written with Ricky Camilleri, a movie wrestling with both topics. The 'Good Time' producer and 'Uncut Gems' executive producer's first film as a director stars 'Midnight Special' and 'It' breakout Jaeden Martell as a spoiled New York City private-school edgelord adept at making himself cry on self-cue for his online followers. Balthazar's (Martell) compulsion toward on-iPhone faux tears contributes to a broad satire of an ever-widening genre of curated suffering wrought by social media users. The ones who lather themselves up over causes (see Selena Gomez's tearful direct-to-camera confession about Trump's deportation policies, which went viral earlier this year) to signal their virtues, and often emptily or at least confused. More from IndieWire Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells Want Audiences to See 'I Don't Understand You' in Theaters, Say Film Has 'Feelings in Spades' Apple Drops Teaser for McConaughey Action Flick 'The Lost Bus' - Out This Fall Boyson captures this phenomenon, mostly poking rather than prodding, until the film's dramatic and very bloody finish puts a not moralizing but perhaps prescriptive cap on the endgame of its own expanding satire: 'Our Hero, Balthazar' follows Balthy, as he's known by his absentee mother (a perfectly uptight, power-dressed Jennifer Ehle), into a dark obsession with the also biblically named Solomon (Asa Butterfield), an internet troll with aspirations of shooting up his Texas school and maybe more. Balthy, though, doesn't have many virtues, and here the world of edgelords and online rage-baiters is a scuzzy one that cinematographer Christopher Messina and editors Nate DeYoung and Erin DeWitt plunge us into with all the subtlety of the Safdies' clock-ticking New York crime odyssey 'Good Time.' The synthy, pulsing electro art score by James William Blades further brings to mind those early Safdie movies, now generational touchstones for emerging filmmakers. Boyson doesn't entirely peel away from the Benny-and-Josh-established aesthetic that's now the expected parlance of millennial filmmakers seeking to capture an unvarnished, on-edge New York — Boyson, after all, co-founded the Safdies' Elara Pictures before the brothers split creatively. The stylized filmmaking becomes its own sort of critical point of view here, revving up the audience and probably encouraging even a few in the room to endorse its agonized worldview via the movie's compelling craft. 'Our Hero, Balthazar' is both a cautionary tale and an entertainment, and how Boyson straddles the highwire cutting between those two opposing forces is what makes this promising debut most fascinatingly restless. It's present day, and when 'Our Hero, Balthazar' begins, Balthy is weeping into his iPhone camera. 'This loneliness is killing me,' he says. But it's all fakery, as staged as the active-shooter drills at Balthy's private Manhattan school, crocodile tears welled up to weaponize his narcissism against the bleeding hearts of passive, smash-the-freaking-like-button social media sheep. Balthy is barely attended to by his single mom, Nicole (Ehle), who's so distracted by a romance with a rising politico (David M. Raine) that she goes out of town with the guy on Balthy's birthday weekend. Meanwhile, Balthy's nonexistent father just cuts the checks while remaining upstate in Westchester. Balthy appears to have no social life outside the internet-only interactions inside his high-rise bedroom overlooking the city. He's attracted to an activist classmate (Pippa Knowles), who sounds off on the 'monetization of narcissism' after one of those school-shooting drills, but he alienates her entirely after trying to make out with her while watching dark-web-dispatched closed-circuit footage of an actual Arkansas school massacre. (As in last year's 'Red Rooms,' about a woman perversely drawn to snuff films, Boyson keeps the carnage off-camera, letting the sounds of guns popping and screams overheard ooze into our imagination.) Balthy's preoccupation with school shootings entwines him over Instagram exchanges with Texas-dwelling convenience store worker Solomon, played by an unrecognizable Butterfield in brassy bleach-blond hair in desperate need of a rinse of purple shampoo. Solomon is lonely, too, ignored by his father, a Frank Mackey-type motivational speaker who used to be an amateur porn star and now peddles a powdery testosterone supplement called Thrush. The angsty teen, who's got far too much access to firearms and fantasizes about blowing up his peers, lives with his ailing, Franzia-wine-box-guzzling grandmother (Becky Ann Baker, hilarious and sweatily confined to an easy chair). He's loathed by (and perhaps in love with) his coworker, played by a crassly funny Anna Baryshnikov who again trashily steals the scene as she did in 'Love Lies Bleeding,' there as a lesbian stalker with gingivitis. So Balthy, using all the AI chicanery disturbingly at his disposal, poses as a nympho online female sex bot to lure Solomon's attention via DMs and to eventually meet up with him in a sad pocket of rural Texas. Balthy goads Solomon's forming Oedipal desire to murder his father, while cautioning as Solomon suits up for the kill, 'It's not even a school — nobody's gonna care.' Balthy, meanwhile, hopes that in stopping Solomon's parallel planned school shooting he can somehow win back the affections of Eleanor (Knowles), who begs Balthy to stop reaching out but seemingly hasn't learned how to block a caller. Is Balthy a hero? Is Solomon a murderer? Or are they both just hopeless casualties of an epidemic of over-interneted incel-adjacents who've turned being online at all these days into a pervasive existential risk? Car chases and police standoffs blare and beam from Solomon's grandmother's TV, giving 'Our Hero, Balthazar' an ever-on-the-edge-of-apocalypse vibe that literalizes our society-addling fixation on spectacle violence and if-it-bleeds-it-leads cable news, where the last tragedy is the latest news item. Though hardly transgressive if you've kept up with the recent crop of indies that blend New York-at-night thriller with Gen Z-skewering social messaging (Olmo Schnabel's queer Manhattan caper 'Pet Shop Boys' from last year comes to mind), the contradictions in the thrilling pleasures of this film's craft alongside its darkly comic warning letter about gun culture make for a potent if ultimately ambivalent first venture. But it's ambivalence by design, as Boyson ends his movie on a painfully inevitable, macabrely funny finale that brings the whole thing full circle, Balthy once again crying on his own command for all the world (or at least a handful of followers and news watchers) to see. Martell makes a strong dramatic impression as a seriously fucked-up kid, but is he more fucked-up than any kid — or any of us — is lately? It's Butterfield's pathos and toxic teendom that give 'Our Hero, Balthazar' its emotional anchor, if the film has one at all. Boyson seems more enamored with the pyrotechnics of filmmaking — and as a first-time feature director, why wouldn't he be? — than with sticking to an emotional landing. 'Our Hero, Balthazar' isn't cold by any means, but the result comes off as more ethnographic in tone than the in-your-face bravado of the approach would suggest. 'Our Hero, Balthazar' premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
