Month: April 2022
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Bruce Willis’s Minimalist Star Power | The New Yorker
Bruce Willis’s Minimalist Star Power Long before aphasia affected his performances, Willis brought a misunderstood effortlessness to his best movie roles. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/bruce-williss-minimalist-star-power Reviewing “Hard Kill,” a 2020 movie starring Willis as a tech C.E.O. whose daughter gets kidnapped, a critic for the Guardian described him as occupying “that grey area between…
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Will Mercenaries and Foreign Fighters Change the Course of Ukraine’s War? | The New Yorker
Will Mercenaries and Foreign Fighters Change the Course of Ukraine’s War? At a critical strategic juncture, non-state actors threaten to complicate the conflict. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/will-mercenaries-and-foreign-fighters-change-the-course-of-ukraines-war The infusion of outsiders and “irregular forces” could further complicate an already messy conflict, according to a report released on Monday by the Soufan Center, a nonprofit,…
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Collecting Bodies in Bucha | The New Yorker
Collecting Bodies in Bucha A team of Ukrainian volunteers say that, since the Russian retreat, they have picked up three hundred corpses. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/collecting-bodies-in-bucha After three weeks, Cherednichenko approached two soldiers outside her house. “I said to them, ‘I’m asking you as a mother,’ ” she told Havryliuk. “ ‘Is my son alive?’ ” One…
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What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern? | The New Yorker
What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern? Whereas Chaplin’s vision was essentially theatrical, Keaton’s was specific to the screen—he moved like the moving pictures. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/what-made-buster-keatons-comedy-so-modern-biography-james-curtis-dana-stevens Keaton is the chamber-music master of comedy, with the counterpoint clear and unmuddied by extraneous emotion. It may be that our new claustrophobia is mirrored in…
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‘This Is True Barbarity’: Life Under Russian Occupation – The New York Times
‘This Is True Barbarity’: Life and Death Under Russian Occupation The town of Trostyanets was occupied by Russian forces for a month before the Ukrainian military liberated it. Residents described weeks of hunger and horror. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-trostyanets.html In the morgue, beside the three dead Russian soldiers, Dr. Volkova pointed to a body bag in the…
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Up-Close Ukraine Atrocity Photographs Touch a Global Nerve – The New York Times
Up-Close Ukraine Atrocity Photographs Touch a Global Nerve (Published 2022) The apparent execution of Ukrainian civilians by retreating Russian forces, their bodies strewn in streets and yards, has focused attention on what constitutes crimes in war. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-atrocities.html An analysis of the satellite images by The New York Times showed dots in the exact coordinates…
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Opinion | Stories From the Siege of Mariupol, Ukraine – The New York Times
Opinion | ‘At Night I Dream of Mariupol’: Nine Accounts of Surviving a Russian Siege Mariupol, Ukraine, has been encircled by Russian forces for about a month. We have collected the statements of people who recently escaped. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/opinion/international-world/mariupol-ukraine-russia.html Dead people: Everywhere. At first, people tried to bury in mass graves, but when the density…
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The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon – The New York Times
The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon A Times investigation reveals how Israel reaped diplomatic gains around the world from NSO’s Pegasus spyware — a tool America itself purchased but is now trying to ban. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/magazine/nso-group-israel-spyware.html The Israelis’ anger was, in part, about U.S. hypocrisy: The American ban came after years of secretly…
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Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All | GQ
Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All GQ’s April cover star details why every extraordinary thing about his wild work and life actually makes perfect sense. via GQ: https://www.gq.com/story/nicolas-cage-april-cover-profile?src=longreads It’s understandable that he doesn’t want to get into it, considering the other misconception top of mind tonight. Such as: “The misconception that I’m crazy, which people…
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The Battle for the Mural — and the Future of Belarus – The New York Times
The Battle for the Mural — and the Future of Belarus It started as an act of graffiti at a playground in Minsk. It turned into a remarkable campaign of defiance against an increasingly totalitarian regime. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/magazine/belarus-mural.html One day in the middle of September, the authorities returned to the mural. This time, Stepan and a few others stood in front of the booth, blocking their access. Stepan asked the…
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Opinion | What Elon Musk’s Putin Challenge Shows About the Meme-ification of War – The New York Times
Opinion | Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin and the Insidious Meme-ification of War The juxtaposition of images of a war with celebrities and pet videos in a social media feed is disturbing. It’s also desensitizing. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/opinion/culture/social-media-war-ukraine.html But it’s important to note that this is not necessarily a natural social phenomenon. Rather it is the direct…
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Investors Are Buying Mobile Home Parks. Residents Are Paying a Price. – The New York Times
Investors Are Buying Mobile Home Parks. Residents Are Paying a Price. Across the country, corporate landlords are expanding manufactured housing portfolios and driving up rents, pushing longtime residents out. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/mobile-home-park-ownership-costs.html Industry leaders are blunt about the business model: According to materials for a “boot camp” for aspiring mobile-home park investors prepared by Mobile Home…