Have We Reached the Stage Where Being Gay Is Not Even an Issue?

Ben Daniels, the hot British star of Roundabout's Les Liaisons Dangereueses, has been profiled in both the New York Post and the New York Times within a week. Both articles make note of his seductive ways in the role of a decidedly heterosexual Parisian rake. However, the Post makes a big deal of Daniels' being openly gay with a somewhat snippy headline about seducing the girl, but it's all an act, and the Times doesn't mention Daniels' sexuality at all. So the question is, if an actor is out, is it even necessary to mention it anymore? Have we reached that stage? Probably not yet. Daniels is British where the public can accept a gay actor playing a role wherein straight sexuality is blantantly conveyed. Even Americans will accept a Brit in a such a part. But we still have trouble with Americans in film and TV playing the roles--Neil Patrick Harris of How I Met Your Mother is the one exception and he's playing a comedy version of the stereotypical straight lady-killer.  On and Off-Broadway, no one seems to care. You'll notice that David Hyde Pierce didn't come out until after Frasier finished its run. There are still no openly gay male American movie stars. (Photo by Joan Marcus)

--David Sheward     

Liff, Olivo, 'Cry-Baby' at Top of Astaires

Cry-Baby, fresh off its four Tony nominations Tuesday, continued to earn praise during awards season today, when it earned two of the Astaire Awards: Spencer Liff earned the honor for best male dancer on Broadway, and Rob Ashford won for best choreography on Broadway. Cry-Bby Tony nominations for best musical, best choreograpy, best score, and best book.

Karen Olivo of In the Heights, which received the most Tony nominations this year (13), was named best female dancer on Broadway. Dave Scott earned the award for best choreography in film, for the movie Step Up 2: The Streets.

apt-get, aptitude, autoremove and orphans

Until some weeks ago I used to use only apt-get, and then I realized that aptitude is better in taking care of orphan packages.

I am no expert here, but this is the way I think they both work, at least on Debian Etch, I have heard that in Lenny both works more or less the same, I use Lenny, and yes they can do the same thing but in different ways.

Well when you install a package with apt-get, and that packages needs other packages due to dependencies, it will install all of them for you, which is great, but then when you want to remove the installed package, apt-get will let the automatically installed packages in your PC, while aptitude will rid them away. Aptitude marks all installed packages as "manual installed" and "automatically installed", the first are those you explicitly ask it to install and the latter are those which it decided to install by you, because they are needed, so when you ask aptitude to remove a package it will remove also the automatically installed ones, since Lenny you can use them both, just be sure to use autoremove with apt-get

Here are some examples with mplayer

 ggarron@debian:~$ sudo apt-get install mplayer Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed:   libamrnb3 libamrwb3 libasyncns0 libfaac0 libggi2 libgii1 libgii1-target-x libpulse0 libx264-57 libxvidcore4 mplayer-skin-blue Suggested packages:   libggi-target-emu libggi-target-monotext libggimisc2 pulseaudio mplayer-doc w32codecs Recommended packages:   libggi-target-x libggi-target The following NEW packages will be installed:   libamrnb3 libamrwb3 libasyncns0 libfaac0 libggi2 libgii1 libgii1-target-x libpulse0 libx264-57 libxvidcore4 mplayer mplayer-skin-blue 0 upgraded, 12 newly installed, 0 to remove and 100 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/6785kB of archives. After unpacking 15.7MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y Selecting previously deselected package libasyncns0. (Reading database ... 116538 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking libasyncns0 (from .../libasyncns0_0.3-1_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libfaac0. Unpacking libfaac0 (from .../libfaac0_1.26-0.1_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libgii1-target-x. Unpacking libgii1-target-x (from .../libgii1-target-x_1%3a1.0.1-3_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libgii1. Unpacking libgii1 (from .../libgii1_1%3a1.0.1-3_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libggi2. Unpacking libggi2 (from .../libggi2_1%3a2.2.1-5_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libpulse0. Unpacking libpulse0 (from .../libpulse0_0.9.9-1_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libx264-57. Unpacking libx264-57 (from .../libx264-57_0.svn20071224-0.0_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libxvidcore4. Unpacking libxvidcore4 (from .../libxvidcore4_2%3a1.1.3-0.3_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package mplayer-skin-blue. Unpacking mplayer-skin-blue (from .../mplayer-skin-blue_1.6-2_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libamrnb3. Unpacking libamrnb3 (from .../libamrnb3_7.0.0.0-0.0_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package libamrwb3. Unpacking libamrwb3 (from .../libamrwb3_7.0.0.2-0.1_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package mplayer. Unpacking mplayer (from .../mplayer_1%3a1.0.rc2svn20071207-0.2_i386.deb) ... Setting up libasyncns0 (0.3-1) ... Setting up libfaac0 (1.26-0.1) ... Setting up libgii1-target-x (1:1.0.1-3) ... Setting up libgii1 (1:1.0.1-3) ... Setting up libggi2 (1:2.2.1-5) ... Setting up libpulse0 (0.9.9-1) ... Setting up libx264-57 (0.svn20071224-0.0) ... Setting up libxvidcore4 (2:1.1.3-0.3) ... Setting up mplayer-skin-blue (1.6-2) ... Setting up libamrnb3 (7.0.0.0-0.0) ... Setting up libamrwb3 (7.0.0.2-0.1) ... Setting up mplayer (1:1.0.rc2svn20071207-0.2) ... 

It is now installed, lets uninstall it, first using apt-get

 ggarron@debian:~$ sudo apt-get remove mplayer [sudo] password for ggarron:  Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:   libxvidcore4 libamrnb3 libx264-57 libamrwb3 libggi2 libgii1 mplayer-skin-blue libgii1-target-x libasyncns0 libpulse0 libfaac0 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following packages will be REMOVED:   mplayer 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 100 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 10.8MB disk space will be freed. 

As you can see not all the dependencies are going to be uninstalled, and apt-get itself recommends you to use autoremove

Let's try with it now:

 ggarron@debian:~$ sudo apt-get autoremove mplayer Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:   libxvidcore4 libamrnb3 libx264-57 libamrwb3 libggi2 libgii1 mplayer-skin-blue libgii1-target-x libasyncns0 libpulse0 libfaac0 The following packages will be REMOVED:   libamrnb3 libamrwb3 libasyncns0 libfaac0 libggi2 libgii1 libgii1-target-x libpulse0 libx264-57 libxvidcore4 mplayer mplayer-skin-blue 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 12 to remove and 100 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 15.7MB disk space will be freed. 

Now it is working better, try now aptitude

 ggarron@debian:~$ sudo aptitude remove mplayer Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done Reading extended state information       Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done   Building tag database... Done     The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:   libamrnb3 libamrwb3 libasyncns0 libfaac0 libggi2 libgii1 libgii1-target-x libpulse0 libx264-57 libxvidcore4 mplayer-skin-blue  The following packages have been automatically kept back:   cpp-4.2 dpkg-dev evolution evolution-common evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common g++-4.2 gcc-4.2 gij gnome-cards-data gnome-games gnome-games-data gnome-mount gtk2-engines-pixbuf    java-gcj-compat kdelibs4c2a libafterimage0 libaprutil1 libcupsimage2 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libcurl3-gnutls libexchange-storage1.2-3 libffi4 libgcj-bc libgconf2-4 libglib2.0-0 libgomp1 libgtk2.0-0    libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common libhsqldb-java libopal-2.2 libpq5 libpt-1.10.10 libqt4-core libqt4-gui libqt4-qt3support libqt4-sql libsane libsmbclient libsoup2.2-8 libstdc++6-4.2-dev libungif4g libxine1    libxine1-console libxine1-ffmpeg libxine1-gnome libxine1-misc-plugins libxine1-plugins libxine1-x liferea-xulrunner nautilus nautilus-cd-burner nautilus-data openoffice.org-base openoffice.org-calc    openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-filter-binfilter openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-math openoffice.org-officebean    openoffice.org-style-andromeda openoffice.org-style-tango openoffice.org-writer python-apt python-uno qt4-qtconfig vim-gnome vim-gui-common vim-runtime  The following packages have been kept back:   apt apt-utils aptitude cupsys epiphany-browser epiphany-extensions evolution-exchange evolution-plugins evolution-webcal gcc-4.2-base gnupg gthumb hardinfo imagemagick libgcc1 libnfsidmap2 libstdc++6    liferea netcat openoffice.org openoffice.org-evolution openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-help-en-us synaptic vim-common vim-tiny  The following packages will be REMOVED:   mplayer  0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 12 to remove and 100 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 15.7MB will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] n 

It works the same, so since Lenny it seems to be the same if you use apt-get or aptitude, but until Etch (I have not tested it) you better use aptitude as apt-get does not take care of the orphans.

If you have comments, or know something else please comment this post.

And you may want to read this

Our View: Action Movies Get Smart

Those who doubted that an action movie headlined by a 43-year-old former drug addict could gross $102.1 million on its opening weekend need look no further than the success of Iron Man for proof they were wrong. Aside from being a box office bonanza, the film, with 1993 Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, broke barriers within casting circles and further solidified a positive trend for actors and the action genre: It's not just for meatheads anymore.

Don't get us wrong. There has been intelligent action fare in the past: Bullitt, The French Connection, and a few of the Bond movies come to mind, as do (believe it or not) the initial installments of the Rambo and Die Hard franchises. In general, though, when it came to the acting, studios and casting directors preferred chiseled features over chops, clichés over complexity. Fortunately, the success of Iron Man might have moved the industry one step closer to cementing the practice of casting smarter, more-mature actors in blockbusters.

Casting directors Lynn Kressel and Francine Maisler took a chance by casting Tobey Maguire, a scrawny indie actor who stood 5-foot-9, in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. The 2002 film grossed a whopping $404 million in the United States the summer it opened. That same summer, Harvard dropout Matt Damon led The Bourne Identity to success and has since proven to be a far stronger action star than Maguire in their respective sequels. When Johnny Depp opened a little pirate movie by Disney that grossed $305 million domestically in 2003, action movies suddenly became fair game for "real" actors and began to attract more-sophisticated audiences.

In 2005 respected thespian Christian Bale saved the ailing Batman franchise, which took a dive in the 1990s trying to find its lead post-Keaton. Though Val Kilmer performed capably, George Clooney didn't seem to fit the suit or the corny material. Now, with edgier content, more talented art-house actors are also being cast in supporting roles: Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow and Oscar nominee Terrence Howard are in Iron Man, and indie darling Maggie Gyllenhaal replaced Katie Holmes for Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight, due out this summer. (The Dark Knight also features, alas, one of the last performances of another Oscar nominee, the late Heath Ledger.)

In the meantime, action films starring inconsistent younger leads have floundered -- often scoring large opening weekends, then dropping off quickly as bad buzz spreads. 2008's Jumper, which featured Star Wars: Episode II and III actor Hayden Christensen in one of the worst performances of his career, is unlikely to spawn a sequel. Likewise, Brandon Routh's portrayal of the Man of Steel in 2006's Superman Returns left critics mostly unimpressed, and sequel plans seem to be stalling.

Perhaps we can gain insight into the future of the genre by noting that comic-book adaptations that previously flopped, such as 2003's Hulk, which starred Eric Bana, have been retooled to star actors with greater gravitas (not that Bana wasn't a standout in Troy). The Incredible Hulk, due out this summer, features Ed Norton, which leads us to wonder whether "deep and brooding" might be the new "brawny."

By smartening up the content and the characters, casting directors and filmmakers have added depth and drama to expensive effects and explosives, widening the films' appeal and undoubtedly leading studios to question whether the dumbing down of Hollywood increases profits. Fortunately for actors and audiences, the trend seems to be just beginning.

-- Back Stage Staff