Month: July 2018
July 30, 2018
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Review
The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946)
I hadn’t heard of this film until it popped up unexpectedly on Netflix. Now I know why.
July 29, 2018
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Review
Give Me Your Hand (Megan Abbott, 2018)
Sometimes when I’m reading a murder mystery told from the suspect’s perspective, I like to think about the same book told from the detective’s perspective. In this case, the detectives would have to be the most bumbling cops ever to not figure out what’s happening here. I’m not sure a novel set in 2018 can just ignore modern forensics and the ubiquity of surveillance technology.
July 28, 2018
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We Banned Holocaust Deniers From Our History Subreddit. Here’s Why Facebook Should Do the Same.
Michael Brück during his speech in front of the prison JVA Bielefeld-Brackwede in Munich, Germany, on May 11, 2018. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by David…
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by the Editors Visualization by Celine Nguyen. 1. Ever tried. Ever failed. Fail again. Fail better. Growing old in Paris, the Irish writer Samuel Beckett could…
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Academics explain David Foster Wallace to me
First, the flyers were defaced. Hung in the hallways of Illinois State University’s English department, the message was inked identically on each one: NAH I…
July 27, 2018
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Review
Extinction (Ben Young, 2018)
Pedestrian SF thriller. I’m lame at seeing what the twist will be so I did do a “huh” at the big reveal.
July 26, 2018
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Review
Mercury Rising (Harold Becker, 1998)
Boy of boy, this has not aged well. In particular, the treatment of the kid’s Asperbergers is so hamfisted and plain incorrect it definitely feels like it’s from another age – even though the movie is only twenty years old.
July 25, 2018
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Review
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Jake Kasdan, 2017)
I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. A nice update for a new generation. By the way, I’m totally cool with any movie being remade any old time. “Everything is a remix.”
July 22, 2018
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Review
This is a near-future story about people having babies. It won a bunch of awards, but I can’t say I get it. The people seem very parochial in their opinions about reproduction and what they want from their kids. I hope we progress a LOT more than over the next century.
July 18, 2018
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Dying Alone in Japan: The Industry Devoted to What’s Left Behind
Jeongja Han dumps a drawer of pens and lighters into a plastic garbage bag while her client, a recently widowed woman in her mid-50s who asked not to be named,…
July 17, 2018
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Entertainment architects Stufish reveal the design behind Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s tour stage set
Stufish rendering of the stage design presented to Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s creative team BENEATH THE STAGE WITH BEYONCÉ & JAY-Z How to tell an intimate story to…
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The Secret Facebook Groups for People With Shocking DNA Test Results
Catherine St. Clair / Prokrida / Shutterstock / Jenny Dettrick / Getty / The Atlantic I t was AncestryDNA’s customer service rep who had to break the news to…
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The Earth’s carrying capacity for human life is not fixed – Ted Nordhaus | Aeon Ideas
Paddy fields near Yangon, Myanmar. Photo by Neville Wooton In a recent Nature Sustainability paper , a team of scientists concluded that the Earth can sustain,…
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Plastic Straws Aren’t the Problem
New York’s top cocktail bars are facing something of a crisis. A fashionable global protest movement has nightlife venues scrambling to replace their plastic…
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This sun-chasing robot looks after the plant on its head
The robot-plant hybrid, built by Vincross founder Sun Tianqi. Image: Sun Tianqi Back in school, I remember learning that plants are “heliotropic,” meaning they…
July 14, 2018
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Review
A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018)
Loved it. A slow-burning Cloverfield.
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My Absolute Darling (Gabriel Tallent, 2017)
This was fantastic. Very dark and disturbing, but essentially redemptive in the end.
July 10, 2018
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I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie, 2017)
I have no interest in this as an attempt to rehabilitate Tony Harding’s reputation, but as a film, it managed to rise above the thoroughly unlikeable characters and present something worthwhile. Allison Janney is spectacular as always.
July 8, 2018
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Review
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Still funny watching a decade later.
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Echopraxia (Firefall, #2) (Peter Watts, 2014)
Still full of fascinating ideas, but didn’t work for me the way the first book of the series did. The Vampires and Gods and what have you were a bit too fantastic for me and take the foreground in this installment, leaving me less satisfied.
July 7, 2018
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Review
Northern Soul (Elaine Constantine, 2014)
This was so much fun. Watching the boys get swept up in the passion for sweet soul music got me to reminiscing about my discovery of punk at about the same age.
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July 6, 2018
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Review
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy, 2017)
July 4, 2018
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Review
Ocean’s 8 (Gary Ross, 2018)
A fun fluffy summer distraction. You definitely don’t want to think too hard about movies like this.
July 3, 2018
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Review
The Colonel (Firefall 1.5) (Peter Watts, 2014)
A short story that tells us what’s been happening on Earth while the Firefall saga continues in space. Onward to book two in the series!
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Review
Blindsight (Firefall 1) (Peter Watts, 2010)
Hard SF with… vampires? Okay, sure. I love books that can stretch my understanding of what’s possible – real flights of imagination. Not just “West Wing on a gas giant” or “King Arthur, but robots” stuff. This fit the bill quite nicely. If there are aliens in the story I really want them to be, well alien.