Gangster Squad
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone
****
Sometimes real-life tragedy can sabotage even the most cartoonish crime thrillers. A heavily fictionalised depiction of the undercover police team who helped bring the notorious Los Angeles mafia boss Mickey Cohen to justice at the end of the 1940s, Gangster Squad was partly reshot last year following the massacre at the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. A movie--theatre gun battle scene was replaced with a fiery showdown in LA's Chinatown, and the film's release was pushed back several months.
All the same, Gangster Squad remains deliriously, extravagantly violent in its machine-gun street fights and explosive car chases. Josh Brolin plays the strait-laced, two-fisted leader of the guerrilla detectives and Ryan Gosling is his suave, silver-tongued, womanising sidekick. Meanwhile, Sean Penn finally gets his Raging Bull moment, donning heavy make-up and shamelessly overacting as the former prizefighter turned megalomaniac mobster Cohen.
Will Beall’s script claims to be inspired by real events but it owes less to the history books than to the overblown melodrama and crudely drawn morality of comic strips, pulp thrillers and old-school Westerns. That said, the director Ruben Fleischer’s flashy, splashy underworld epic looks and sounds fantastic with its jazzy score, sumptuous art deco interiors, gorgeous clothes and meticulously recreated retro Hollywood vistas. Every frame has been digitally tinted in the warm pastel shades of vintage postcards.
The sharply dressed, sleazy glamour of LA's post-war criminal underworld has been seen on screen many times before, most memorably in Curtis Hanson's 1997 Oscar-winning LA Confidential. Indeed, Cohen popped up as a character in Hanson's film and several others, including Warren Beatty's Bugsy. But Gangster Squad harks back to an older and more simplistic Hollywood tradition of square-jawed lawmen heroes, diabolically evil mobsters and sultry femme fatales. It also contains fleeting homages to superior crime classics such as Chinatown and Miller's Crossing. But the movie it borrows most from is Brian De Palma's bubblegum blockbuster The Untouchables, in which a tight gang of specially trained supercops bring down a notorious real-life mafia boss.
Given the heavyweight talents involved, Fleischer's slam-bang crime saga sets the IQ bar disappointingly low with its dumbed-down celebration of macho gun violence and all-American vigilante justice. The male characters are two-dimensional at best, while their skimpily sketched female counterparts are barely allowed one each. Even so, if you can forgive its knucklehead values and predictable genre limitations, Gangster Squad is a highly exciting roller-coaster ride of stylised nostalgia and supercharged action. A very guilty pleasure.
SPECS
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Kill%20
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Tributes from the UAE's personal finance community
• Sebastien Aguilar, who heads SimplyFI.org, a non-profit community where people learn to invest Bogleheads’ style
“It is thanks to Jack Bogle’s work that this community exists and thanks to his work that many investors now get the full benefits of long term, buy and hold stock market investing.
Compared to the industry, investing using the common sense approach of a Boglehead saves a lot in costs and guarantees higher returns than the average actively managed fund over the long term.
From a personal perspective, learning how to invest using Bogle’s approach was a turning point in my life. I quickly realised there was no point chasing returns and paying expensive advisers or platforms. Once money is taken care off, you can work on what truly matters, such as family, relationships or other projects. I owe Jack Bogle for that.”
• Sam Instone, director of financial advisory firm AES International
"Thought to have saved investors over a trillion dollars, Jack Bogle’s ideas truly changed the way the world invests. Shaped by his own personal experiences, his philosophy and basic rules for investors challenged the status quo of a self-interested global industry and eventually prevailed. Loathed by many big companies and commission-driven salespeople, he has transformed the way well-informed investors and professional advisers make decisions."
• Demos Kyprianou, a board member of SimplyFI.org
"Jack Bogle for me was a rebel, a revolutionary who changed the industry and gave the little guy like me, a chance. He was also a mentor who inspired me to take the leap and take control of my own finances."
• Steve Cronin, founder of DeadSimpleSaving.com
"Obsessed with reducing fees, Jack Bogle structured Vanguard to be owned by its clients – that way the priority would be fee minimisation for clients rather than profit maximisation for the company.
His real gift to us has been the ability to invest in the stock market (buy and hold for the long term) rather than be forced to speculate (try to make profits in the shorter term) or even worse have others speculate on our behalf.
Bogle has given countless investors the ability to get on with their life while growing their wealth in the background as fast as possible. The Financial Independence movement would barely exist without this."
• Zach Holz, who blogs about financial independence at The Happiest Teacher
"Jack Bogle was one of the greatest forces for wealth democratisation the world has ever seen. He allowed people a way to be free from the parasitical "financial advisers" whose only real concern are the fat fees they get from selling you over-complicated "products" that have caused millions of people all around the world real harm.”
• Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.org
"In an industry that’s synonymous with greed, Jack Bogle was a lone wolf, swimming against the tide. When others were incentivised to enrich themselves, he stood by the ‘fiduciary’ standard – something that is badly needed in the financial industry of the UAE."
THE SPECS
Engine: 4.4-litre V8
Transmission: Automatic
Power: 530bhp
Torque: 750Nm
Price: Dh535,000
On sale: Now
What is a black hole?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
How Apple's credit card works
The Apple Card looks different from a traditional credit card — there's no number on the front and the users' name is etched in metal. The card expands the company's digital Apple Pay services, marrying the physical card to a virtual one and integrating both with the iPhone. Its attributes include quick sign-up, elimination of most fees, strong security protections and cash back.
What does it cost?
Apple says there are no fees associated with the card. That means no late fee, no annual fee, no international fee and no over-the-limit fees. It also said it aims to have among the lowest interest rates in the industry. Users must have an iPhone to use the card, which comes at a cost. But they will earn cash back on their purchases — 3 per cent on Apple purchases, 2 per cent on those with the virtual card and 1 per cent with the physical card. Apple says it is the only card to provide those rewards in real time, so that cash earned can be used immediately.
What will the interest rate be?
The card doesn't come out until summer but Apple has said that as of March, the variable annual percentage rate on the card could be anywhere from 13.24 per cent to 24.24 per cent based on creditworthiness. That's in line with the rest of the market, according to analysts
What about security?
The physical card has no numbers so purchases are made with the embedded chip and the digital version lives in your Apple Wallet on your phone, where it's protected by fingerprints or facial recognition. That means that even if someone steals your phone, they won't be able to use the card to buy things.
Is it easy to use?
Apple says users will be able to sign up for the card in the Wallet app on their iPhone and begin using it almost immediately. It also tracks spending on the phone in a more user-friendly format, eliminating some of the gibberish that fills a traditional credit card statement. Plus it includes some budgeting tools, such as tracking spending and providing estimates of how much interest could be charged on a purchase to help people make an informed decision.
* Associated Press
if you go
The flights
Emirates offer flights to Buenos Aires from Dubai, via Rio De Janeiro from around Dh6,300. emirates.com
Seeing the games
Tangol sell experiences across South America and generally have good access to tickets for most of the big teams in Buenos Aires: Boca Juniors, River Plate, and Independiente. Prices from Dh550 and include pick up and drop off from your hotel in the city. tangol.com
Staying there
Tangol will pick up tourists from any hotel in Buenos Aires, but after the intensity of the game, the Faena makes for tranquil, upmarket accommodation. Doubles from Dh1,110. faena.com
A general guide to how active you are:
Less than 5,000 steps - sedentary
5,000 - 9,999 steps - lightly active
10,000 - 12,500 steps - active
12,500 - highly active
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
THE BIO
Mr Al Qassimi is 37 and lives in Dubai
He is a keen drummer and loves gardening
His favourite way to unwind is spending time with his two children and cooking
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
Company%20profile
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.