|
| | | Apocalypse nowadays: the new wave of films about the end of the world | | by Alex Hess Jan 3, 2022 | | Armageddon once delivered thrills and megabucks spectacle. Now it’s the unnerving backdrop for satires and family drama Which films kept you entertained over the holidays? Was it Silent Night, the sweary festive Britcom starring Keira Knightley? The courtroom drama Naked Singularity, with John Boyega as a crusading lawyer? Or did you watch Leonardo DiCaprio as a dorky astronomer in Don’t Look Up, a slapstick political satire? Whichever it was, I hope you poured yourself a large one, because none of those films are quite as light as they seem. All take place in the shadow of imminent Armageddon. That’s right: the end of the world is nigh, and it’s no longer the preserve of megabudget disaster movies or bleak survivalist thrillers. These days the looming obliteration of our species can just as readily form the backdrop to some governmental mockery or a boozy country-house drama. Continue reading... | | | | | The big idea: should we eat like our ancestors? | | by Farrah Jarral Jan 3, 2022 | | Are eating plans like the paleo diet really healthier - or more ethical - than the way we eat now? April isn’t the cruellest month – January is. There is no other time of year when we are as prone to navel-gazing, often literally, as this one. In this period of anxiety about the size of our waists and what we consume, simple dietary rules are appealing. “Eat like our ancestors” is a particularly catchy slogan to live by, at least on the surface. But who exactly are these ancestors we are supposed to emulate? Are they our great-great-grandparents, cooking wholesome things from scratch? Or are they that nebulous group of hairy low-browed brutes we imagine “cavemen” to be? The popular “paleo” diet pins modern health woes on the birth of agriculture, claiming that we should stick to eating meat, nuts and berries. Strict paleo dieters are forbidden from eating beans, as well as potatoes and grains. Continue reading... | | | | | Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser review – anger, alarm and satirical glee | | by Anthony Cummins Jan 3, 2022 | | Two compelling first-person narratives take the reader from 80s Paris to a dystopian Melbourne in this funny, intelligent double novel Michelle de Kretser’s slyly intelligent sixth novel pairs two first-person narratives. One takes place in a dystopian near-future Melbourne, where Lyle, an immigrant father of two, is employed by the state to write sinister-sounding “evaluations” nominating fellow migrants for arrest and repatriation; the other half of the book is set in 1981 and follows Lili, a 22-year-old Australian working as a teaching assistant in France, prior to postgraduate literary study in Oxford. It’s typical of De Kretser’s sophistication that she leaves the link between these narratives entirely up to you – even the order in which they are to be read is left to the individual reader, given the book’s reversible, Kindle-defying two-way design. I plunged straight into Lili’s intimately conversational reminiscence of running with a circle of young Europeans attached to her Montpellier lycée, in particular Minna, who takes a year out of art school in London to tag along with her boyfriend Nick. Lili struggles for cash, has problems with her landlord and neighbour, and faces everyday racism (her family emigrated to Australia from Asia, like De Kretser, who was born in Sri Lanka). She can’t help but fall for Minna and Nick’s rackety aura of entitled glamour, not least when she learns that Nick is at work on a novel, something it never occurred to her she could do, even as an aspiring scholar under the spell of Simone de Beauvoir. Continue reading... | | | | | 'I want Mickey by Toni Basil played at my funeral': Sophie Ellis-Bextor's honest playlist | | by Elle Hunt Jan 3, 2022 | | The singer loves a bit of disco on the dancefloor and Prince in the bedroom, but when it comes to karaoke, she keeps faith with George Michael The first single that I ever bought
Our House by Madness. I was four, so the actual purchase was instigated by my father. He was such a big music fan and wanted to make sure that I knew this was the first song I was buying. I still adore it. In 2020’s lockdown, we did Kitchen Discos: I sang on my Instagram with the kids. After 10 weeks, I chose to close the whole thing with Our House. It celebrates the glory and chaos of family life. *** Continue reading... | | | | | |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment