Category Archives: Previews

The New York Times Magazine – Feb 19, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 17, 2024): The new issue features ‘Actors in the Wild’ – The best performers of the year, when they’re not on film….

Actors in the Wild

The best performers of the year — when they’re not on film.

James Nachtwey, an eminent photojournalist known for his intimate depictions of the front lines in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, had never photographed a movie star before. So for this year’s Great Performers issue, we asked him to capture a dozen of the world’s best actors away from the red carpets and awards ceremonies that often define how we see them. “My work has focused almost exclusively on conflicts and critical social issues, the polar opposite of what might be thought of as celebrity photography,” Nachtwey says. But he was intrigued by the challenge: “Art takes talent, but it’s also hard work, and exploring what actors practice in their daily lives to strengthen their art would be fascinating.”

Tubi Is Reviving a Lost Joy: Watching Really, Really Bad Movies

A photo illustration of Tubi scenes.

Their films have gone viral for their awful production values. But their success says fascinating things about what comes after prestige TV.

By Niela Orr

There’s a 2008 movie that offers an odd preview of today’s entertainment. In Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind,” a bizarre accident demagnetizes the entire inventory of a video rental store, so a clerk and his eccentric friend decide to remake all the films themselves, from “The Lion King” to “Driving Miss Daisy” to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Their versions are 20 minutes long (at most), shot on an old hand-held video camera and produced in a delightfully quirky, ad hoc way: handcrafted props and sets, buddies working as extras, costumes from the local dry cleaner.

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – Feb 19, 2024

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

BARRON’S MAGAZINE –FEBRUARY 19, 2024 ISSUE:

Trump vs. Biden: Who Can Handle the Reins of a Hot Economy

Trump vs. Biden: Who Can Handle the Reins of a Hot Economy

The candidates have divergent views on critical matters tied to economic growth. Why investors should pay attention.

How the White House’s New Global Economic Strategist Sees the World

How the White House’s New Global Economic Strategist Sees the World

Daleep Singh, a PGIM economist heading back to the White House, says the world’s challenges are going to require more fiscal spending.

Elections Don’t Usually Drive Markets. Just Wait.

Elections Don’t Usually Drive Markets. Just Wait.

A series of consequential elections around the world, including one in the U.S., could affect investors for years to come.Long read

The New Criterion – March 2024 Preview

The New Criterion – The March 2024 issue features:

Israel’s eternal dilemma  by Victor Davis Hanson
Enrique Gómez Carrillo  by Anthony Daniels
The singularity of speech  by Wilfred M. McClay
A life in ballet  by Peter Martins

New poems  by Amit Majmudar, James Matthew Wilson & Michael Casper

The New York Times Book Review – February 18, 2024

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (February 16, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Philip Gefter’s sizzling, “unapologetically obsessive” new book, “Cocktails With George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’” Our critic Alexandra Jacobs calls it “a shot glass filled with one work that, alongside contemporaneous books like Richard Yates’s novel ‘Revolutionary Road’ and Betty Friedan’s polemic ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ showed how the ‘cartoon versions of marriage’ long served up by American popular culture always came with a secret side of bitters.”

Filming ‘Virginia Woolf,’ the Battles Weren’t Just Onscreen

A black and white photograph of the actors Richard Burton, left, and Elizabeth Taylor, at right, staring at each other with a very bright light occupying the middle distance behind them. The image is cropped and repeated to resemble a strip of film.

With Burton and Taylor as stars and a writer and director feuding, adapting the scabrous play wasn’t easy. “Cocktails With George and Martha” pours out the details.

‘Neighbors’ Opens the Door to a Literary Career Cut Short

An illustration is made up of three panels showing, from left: The red silhouette of a walking woman, who is slowly fading away; a partially open dormitory door with a red pennant on its front and a shadow creeping on the floor from inside; and a close-up of a Black hand on a brown background.

A story collection from Diane Oliver, who died at 22, locates the strength in Black families surviving their separate but equal surroundings.

By Alexandra Jacobs

Writer, Mother, Ex-Wife: Leslie Jamison Is a Self in ‘Splinters’

In her powerful new memoir, the author examines a life composed of conflicting identities — and fierce, contradictory desires.

Previews: New Humanist Magazine – Spring 2024

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NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE – SPRING 2024 ISSUE: The new issue features Emma Park on how the culture wars are damaging the sciences, theoretical physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain on why the imagination is key to decoding the universe, and Alom Shaha on what can be gained by thinking like a scientist

Beyond the two cultures

Amid a polarised debate, science and art seem further apart than ever. Emma Park, editor of The Freethinker, explores what humanism has to teach us about the apparent conflict between these ways of thinking and how to bridge the divide.

“While humanities scholars are often (not without justification) accused of being Luddites, those on the science and technology side could also benefit from the knowledge that the humanities have accumulated over the centuries … [And] no intellectual activity worth the name can flourish in a politically repressive environment: freedom of expression and enquiry should be an issue to unite artists, scholars and scientists.”

The poetry of science

Metaphors are key to unlocking the secrets of the universe – scientists should do more to harness their power, writes acclaimed physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain.

“Metaphors aren’t only a means of description, they can also lead to revelations. Centuries ago, Newton was able to calculate the gravitational attraction between two objects … [but] would ‘feign no hypothesis’ as to why it was so. He had the equation, but he did not understand gravitation … With Einstein, we finally have a metaphor. When we picture space-time as a dynamic ‘fabric’ … we begin to understand what gravity means.”

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Feb 16, 2024

Current Issue Cover

Science Magazine – February 15, 2024: The new issue features ‘A record drought in October 2023 that lowered the Amazon River near the Brazilian city of Tefé, revealing sand dunes and forcing local fishing boats to compete for spots.

Giant solar farms could provoke rainclouds in the desert

Updrafts from dark solar panels could fuel storms

X-ray survey bolsters theory of universe’s expansion

eROSITA telescope shows galaxies’ “clumpiness” matches predicted effect of dark energy, dark matter

The Economist Magazine – February 17, 2024 Preview

The right goes gaga: Meet the Global Anti-Globalist Alliance

The Economist Magazine (February 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Right Goes GAGA’ – Meet the Global Anti-Globalist Alliance’; Goodbye to the racial jobs gap; San Francisco’s comeback; China’s chipmaking plan; The looming hell in Rafah….

The growing peril of national conservatism

It’s dangerous and it’s spreading. Liberals need to find a way to stop it

Europe must hurry to defend itself against Russia—and Donald Trump

The ex-president’s invitation to Vladimir Putin to attack American allies is an assault on NATO. Ultimately, that is bad for America

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Feb 15, 2024

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Nature Magazine – February 14, 2024: The latest issue cover climate and land-use stresses could push the rainforest past a tipping point as early as 2050. The researchers probed five causes of water stress — global warming, annual rainfall, seasonal intensity of rainfall, length of the dry season and deforestation — using palaeorecords,  climate models and observational data.

First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed

Researchers used artificial intelligence to decipher the text of 2,000-year-old charred papyrus scripts, unveiling musings on music and capers.

Deepfakes, trolls and cybertroopers: how social media could sway elections in 2024

Faced with data restrictions and harassment, researchers are mapping out fresh approaches to studying social media’s political reach.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Feb 16, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (February 14, 2024): The latest issue features Thinking AI; London literary consequences, A new play in the great tradition, and Household terrors…

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Feb 14, 2024

Country Life Magazine – February 13, 2024: The latest ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ – Let me count the ways; Rough collies, red roses and royal caviar; Glass acts – the coolest conservatories; Head start – why real gentlemen wear hats….

The romance of the rose

With its velvety, softly scented depths, the red rose has long beguiled lovers. Charles Quest-Ritson falls under its spell

Thoroughly good eggs

Tom Parker Bowles savours the unctuous delights of caviar from the mother-daughter team at King’s Fine Foods, ethically farmed and utterly delicious

Taking the rough with the smooth

Famed for their loyalty, rough collies are happy finding hidden sheep, bounding up Munros or simply curling up with children. Katy Birchall meets Lassie

In the hat of the moment

Time was when every gentleman of every background wore a hat. It’s time to fall back in love with bowler, beret and bonnet, recommends John F. Mueller

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe admires the most stylish conservatories

Sir Karl Jenkins’s favourite painting

The composer chooses an ethereal Italian scene that literally reflects his own music

Behind the scenes at the cathedral

Fiona Reynolds explores the environs of St Albans in Hertfordshire, from the longest nave in Europe to the River Ver

A Georgian reinvention

With imagination and style, late-18th-century Marlwood Grange in Gloucestershire has been transformed into a family home fit for the 21st century, discovers Jeremy Musson

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell gets a handle on the most colourful handbags

Music to our ears

As the famous opera house at Glyndebourne, East Sussex, turns 90, the gardens are more glorious than ever. Tiffany Daneff admires a symphony of planting

More pudding, pease

Tom Parker Bowles tucks into the succulent, comforting suet pudding, an old favourite that deserves to return to our plates

More than a pretty face

Admired for his portrayal of dewy eyes and diaphanous fabrics, John Singer Sargent rose to the top of the portrait-painting world. Mary Miers follows his career from peripatetic childhood to Society favourite