The Washigtnon Post - 03.04.2020

friday, april 3 , 2020. the washington post eZ sU C3

— r ectilinear blocks that shift in

placement and prominence, set

amid a solid black background —

evokes the platform’s elegantly

simple layout.

Beecher’s i nspirations were as

varied as the obscure 1980 s DIY

cult film “The Wizard o f Speed

and Time,” a v intage board game

titled “Guess Who?” and the

choreography of martha Graham,

who commissioned “A ppalachian

Spring.” But he admits that he

was instinctively d rawn to the

“Brady Bunch”-era familiarity

and clean lines of Zoom. “out of

isolation comes connection,” he

said in a recent telephone

conversation f rom his home in

To ronto. “How does culture serve

our present q uarantined t ime,

not just in terms of supplying

content for couch b inge-

watching, b ut... how these

adapted skills and p erspectives

will change the live arts

experience once w e move freely

from our homes?”

In i ts own way, B eecher’s

experiment offers an answer to

that question. Going to the

movies has always been an

exercise in collective solitude.

Now that ethos has taken on life-

or-death stakes. With filmgoers

finding new ways of keeping their

distance, whether at Netflix

watch parties or “theatricasts”

hosted by their local arthouses,

Zoom promises to become n ot

just a means o f cinematic

communing but a uniquely

expressive piece of cinematic

grammar — one that gives “ alone

together” a p rophetic, profound

and potentially literal new

meaning.

[email protected]

computer so t hey could hear each

other’s p arts while they played,

asked them t o film themselves on

their phones and send him the

files. Then he spent 4 8 hours (with

pizza breaks) f uriously editing the

performances into a poetic whole.

Although Beecher d idn’t m ake the

piece on Zoom, his visual design

viral over the past two weeks.

Created by principal double

bass Jeffrey Beecher, the 41 / 2 -

minute film features 29 orchestra

members playing the “Simple

Gifts” theme f rom Copland’s

composition. Beecher sent his

colleagues an mP3 of the digital

score he’d c reated on his

than just a gimmick or pop-

metonym, Zoom has t he potential

to add legitimate production

value to the cinematic lexicon.

for an example, look no further

than a video of the To ronto

Symphony orchestra playing a n

excerpt from Aaron C opland’s

“A ppalachian S pring” t hat went

inveterate early a dopter of

innovations with movies such as

“full frontal,” “ Bubble” a nd

“Che”; his prescient 2011

epidemic thriller “Contagion” has

already become the c inematic

mascot for 2020, a year that has

taken on the contours of an eerie

dystopian a llegory. B ut more

leaving it to viewers (nudged by
increasing the volume on certain
pieces of dialogue) to decide
which p art of the d esultory,
maddeningly random plot to
follow. It d idn’t t ake long for
movies such a s “Edge of
To morrow” a nd “Sucker Punch”
to adopt visual and narrative
techniques from the very video
games t hat were striving to look
like movies. over the past few
years, filmmakers h ave
experimented with r e-creating
the online experience in
“desktop” movies such as
“Unfriended” a nd “Searching”;
the conundrum of how best to
show text messages on screen —
beyond boring shots of pinging
cellphones — has been attempted
in everything from “The fault in
our Stars” t o the T V shows
“Sherlock” a nd “House of Cards.”
P hones a re the target exhibitors
for Q uibi, the new venture b eing
launched next w eek b y former
studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg,
who not that l ong ago was insisting
that large-format t heaters and 3 -D
were the future; now he’s b ig on
small-canvas stories designed f or
bite-sized snacking.
But phones have also become
their o wn means of production:
In 2 015, Sean Baker made t he
sun-kissed Los Angeles
picaresque “Tangerine” e ntirely
on an iPhone, with nary a hiccup
— a f eat repeated last year by
Steven Soderbergh with the
basketball drama “High flying
Bird.”
If any filmmaker is already
working on a Zoom movie, it’s
probably Soderbergh, an

hornaday from C1

ann Hornaday

It’s only a matter of time before somebody uses Zoom to make a movie

Peter andrews

andré holland as ray Burke in “high Flying Bird,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, an auteur you could easily imagine turning to Zoom.

is engaged to be married soon to

Courtland Sykes, an also-ran in

the GoP primary for the 2018 U.S.

Senate race in missouri, who

briefly went viral that year with a

social media rant blasting femi-

nists as “she devils” with “snake-

filled heads” and explaining how

he expects rion to prepare for

him “a home cooked dinner at six

every night.”

This, of course, w as before rion

took a job that lately has kept her

at the White House past 6 p.m.

Neither she nor Pellegrino appear

to have had much journalism ex-

perience before covering the

White House for oANN, a net-

work that typically attracts a frac-

tion of the audience watching fox

News, mSNBC and CNN.

Before joining oANN two

months ago, Pellegrino was an

intern for Bill o’reilly, a booker

for the home-shopping network

QVC, and a production assistant

at fox News, interspersed with

sales and business development

jobs, according to her LinkedIn

profile.

on Sunday, Trump called on

Pellegrino twice to ask a question

— one of which seemed to please

him immensely.

“mr. President, your approval

ratings have been the highest

they’ve ever been, as well as the

ratings on your handling of the

virus,” she asked. “Yet there are

some networks that are saying

they’re debating whether to carry

these briefings live. Do you think

there’s a link between the two?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Trump

replied. “I know that — boy, that’s

a nice question. Thank you very

much.”

[email protected]

In her previous pastime as a

political cartoonist, she produced

illustrations suggesting that Hil-

lary Clinton was behind the un-

solved 2016 murder of Democrat-

ic National Committee staffer

Seth rich — an evidence-free con-

spiracy popular in right-wing cir-

cles.

on her website, she calls her-

self “a fierce foe of anything Clin-

ton, of everything obama, and as

a total and unrelenting enemy of

academic left-liberalism and po-

litical correctness anywhere.” She

yer, to produce a documentary

series for oANN about Giuliani’s

claims in support of Trump’s ac-

tions in withholding military aid

to the country.

During a special report that

aired on the network in mid-

march, rion suggested that the

coronavirus came f rom “a biosafe-

ty level-three lab in North Caroli-

na” and that it was then smuggled

into China by lab workers and

released. She cited as her source a

“citizen investigator.” None of the

claims have been confirmed.

he didn’t think it was “racist at

all,” she went on to argue that

“major left-wing media... have

teamed up with Chinese Commu-

nist Party narratives” t o push crit-

icism of the president for using

the term.

In october, she claimed in a

report that former fBI lawyer

Lisa Page and former fBI Deputy

Director Andrew mcCabe had

had an affair — a story later

retracted by oANN. She also trav-

eled to Ukraine with rudolph W.

Giuliani, Trump’s personal law-

press secretary Stephanie Gr-

isham and the White House press

office on Tuesday that rion’s p res-

ence was “a clear violation” of

precautions that have been strict-

ly followed at t he White House for

weeks. only three news outlets —

the widely-used wire services As-

sociated Press, reuters and

Bloomberg — currently have a

permanent seat in the briefing.

“The rules are clear,” s aid Karl,

ABC News’s White House report-

er. “If you don’t have a seat in the

briefing room on your given day,

you cannot be there. The rules are

established to protect the health

of the White House press corps.

We’re abiding by the [Centers for

Disease Control’s] guidelines.”

Trump clearly has been d elight-

ed by oANN’s participation, call-

ing on rion and a colleague, Jenn

Pellegrino, who handles weekend

shifts at the White House, several

times over the past two weeks.

“oAN. Very good,” he said after

calling on rion in one briefing.

“They treat me very nicely.”

rion has attracted attention at

the briefings with heavily loaded

questions. At monday’s session,

she compared the number of cor-

onavirus deaths to the number of

“children killed by their mothers

through elective abortions every

day” and then asked the presi-

dent: “Do you agree with states

who place coronavirus victims

above elective abortions?”

In a previous briefing, rion

brought up Trump’s controversial

use of the term “Chinese virus” by

rhetorically asking whether he

considered the term “Chinese

food” to be racist because “it is

food that originated from C hina?”

After Trump amiably replied that

obscure but Trump-friendly news
outlet.
oANN was founded in 2013 by
robert Herring Sr., a millionaire
republican donor from San Diego
who made his fortune in the cir-
cuit-board business before start-
ing over in media. His son,
Charles Herring, president of one
America’s parent company Her-
ring Broadcasting, told The
Washington Post last week that
the channel “is designed to report
just the news” and that “we would
not describe our news reporting
as right-leaning.”
But for a 2017 s tory, m ore than a
dozen former and current em-
ployees described robert Herring
to The Post as a heavy-handed
unofficial news director who fre-
quently ordered coverage favor-
able to Trump. It was the first
channel to carry Trump’s 2 016
campaign speeches live, and in-
ternal emails showed Herring di-
recting that other candidates’ ral-
lies not get the same treatment.
rion, who did not respond to
repeated requests for comment,
has socialized with the Trumps at
mar-a-Lago, according to photos
she has posted on facebook, and
brags on her personal website
about having “been aboard the
Trump Train from its first week”
at the start of the 2016 campaign.
At this week’s briefings, she
stood at the back of the press
room — and this, too, was a viola-
tion of the guidelines: reporters
are required to occupy a seat, with
no standing in the aisles or be-
hind the seating area.
WHCA President Jonathan
Karl said he alerted White House

oann from C1

OANN reporter’s presence at news briefings violated rules, association say

Matt Mcclain/the washington Post

ann Coulter on a monitor as she is interviewed for one america news network. The news outlet has

come under fire from the correspondents’ association for skirting rotation rules for news briefings.

but, yes — humor always helps.

— Been There

amy’s column appears seven days a

week at washingtonpost.com/advice.

write to [email protected]

or amy dickinson, P. o. Box 194,

Fr eeville, n.Y. 13068.  You can also

follow her @askingamy.

© 2 020 by amy dickinson distributed by

tr ibune content agency

“Justin,” t he young transgender

man who sent you a follow-up

after you published his question

about how to communicate with

his parents over the holidays.

So many of us in the LGBTQ

community are tasked with

extremely challenging and

awkward social or family-related

negotiations. It’s not fair to us,

be possible. I hope you will try.

dear amy: “Queasy in florida”

wanted to put an anonymous

note in the mailbox of a woman

at her retirement community,

criticizing her behavior at the

home’s communal dining table.

Thank you for recommending

a discreet, in-person

conversation. my loving, kind,

86 -year-old parents just

voluntarily moved into an

assisted-living community. my

dad wore a hat in the dining

room because his head is always

cold.

Someone left a copy of the

dress code at their apartment

door with an arrow pointing to

“no hats in the dining room.”

my mother was furious, and I

was heartbroken that someone

would be so catty and cowardly.

— Protective Daughter

Protective daughter:

Nonjudgmental, discreet and in-

person is almost always the best

way to communicate.

dear amy: I was absolutely

blown away by the letter from

assault victims hesitate to

report!)

Yes, you’ve made mistakes.

Admitting this is definitely a

step in the right direction, but

you don’t get to claim

victimhood, here. Until you take

responsibility for your parental

neglect, passivity and terrible

judgment, you cannot hope for a

reconciliation. Even your

facebook-stalking seems to me

more melodrama than the action

of a mother desperate to make

things right. You are not Stella

Dallas standing in the rain,

wistfully watching your

daughter through a window. You

are not the victim of her

blocking you. There are many

ways — other than facebook —

to contact someone, however,

until you can commit to positive

change, it is probably wisest for

your daughter to keep her

distance.

A compassionate and

competent counselor could walk

you through the events in your

life that have culminated in this

moment. With coaching and

positive change, the

reconciliation you desire might

convenience than anything.

When I told her that I was

getting back together with him,

she blew up and told me that her

stepbrother had drugged and

raped her several times. I was in

complete shock! She has not

spoken to me since then.

I think about her every day. I

stalk her on facebook (with an

unrecognizable profile) just so I

can see her life. I can’t be a part

of her life because she has

blocked me.

— Regretful

regretful: If you want your

relationships to change, then you

need to change. It’s really that

simple. Although you admit to

having regrets, you don’t seem to

have taken responsibility for the

role you played in your

daughter’s trauma. Your reaction

to her disclosure that she was

raped while in your household

was to express shock, and then

passively sigh — and continue on

to reunite with your ex.

Are you not aware that the

best thing to do when someone

reports a rape is to call the

police? (And people wonder why

dear readers:
Because of syndi-
cation scheduling,
I write and submit
my columns two
weeks in advance
of publication. Due to this time
lag, the Q&A’s will not reflect the
latest information about the
worldwide covid- 19 pandemic we
are facing.

dear amy: I wish I could undo
some of the terrible mistakes I’ve
made.
my daughter hasn’t spoken to
me in years.
When she was very young, I
divorced her dad and moved
hundreds of miles away. I
married a man with two sons and
a parenting method that I didn’t
agree with, but I felt trapped
with him — the way I’d felt
trapped with her dad. We were
together for 10 years.
I waited until after my
daughter graduated from high
school, and then I separated
from her stepfather. It was very
difficult to live on my own, and
we ended up getting back
together. It was more out of

She shrugged o≠ her daughter’s rape, and then acts as if she’s the victim

Ask Amy

Amy
Dickinson

Benefiting

Make-A-Wish

®

Mid-Atlantic

WheelsForWishes.org Call:(202)6 44 -82 77

* Car DonationFoundationd/b/aWheelsFor Wishes.To learnmoreaboutour programsor financialinformation,

call (213)948-2000or visit http://www.wheelsforwishes.org.

Your Car Donations Matter^

NOW More Than Ever!

Wheels For Wishes

We’re still

accepting

donations and

pick ups

• 100%Tax Deductible


• MinimalTo No HumanContact


• FreeVehiclePick Up ANYWHERE


• We AcceptMostVehiclesRunning or Not