Latest news with #1982
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch review – powerful debut about lesbian mothers in the 80s
For a writer, the 1980s bear rich, dark fruit. The social and political turbulence of the decade provides the perfect landscape for Claire Lynch's dual-timeline debut novel A Family Matter, which alternates between 1982 and the present day. On the surface, it is the story of a father-daughter relationship. Heron – an elderly man deeply fond of rules and routine – has recently received a terminal cancer diagnosis, but rather than share it with his grownup daughter, Maggie, who now has a family of her own, he chooses to bear the burden alone. As we learn that Heron raised Maggie by himself, it's clear this urge to shield his only child from harm is a continuous theme. There is no mention of another parent, just that Heron was divorced many decades ago; it's only when Lynch takes us back to 1982 that we discover the true story. When Maggie was a toddler, her 23-year-old mother, Dawn, met another woman at a jumble sale. It was a chance encounter, and they clicked. Hazel, a newly qualified primary school teacher, had recently moved to the town, and Dawn was flustered by Hazel's obvious life experience, feeling that 'her mouth was full of all the things she would say if she wasn't too embarrassed to put herself into words'. Hazel is equally smitten, and as the intensity between the two women grows, it isn't long before their friendship develops into a romance. A secret romance to begin with, not just because Dawn is married to Heron and her life is dedicated to their beloved Maggie, but because 1980s provincial Britain was far more attached to the idea of a nuclear family than it was to the concept of true love. 'You wanted to collect the set, the wedding, the house, the baby?' Hazel asks. 'I didn't know you were allowed not to,' Dawn replies. Provincial secrets, however, have a habit of escaping, and inevitably Dawn must explain herself to Heron, because her sexuality was 'something she had always known, as deep and bright as bone'. A product of his environment, Heron's reaction is predictable. Tempers flare. Locks are changed. Solicitors are consulted. Both Dawn and Heron are swept along by a system clinging to the archaic belief that a child exposed to same-sex relationships will become damaged. In the custody court, Heron puts his trust in 'the men wearing cufflinks', while Dawn wonders 'what combination of arms and eyes and mouth will keep her from looking ashamed'. Present-day Maggie, now with her own (often less than perfect) nuclear family, has no knowledge of her parents' ancient battle. She just knows that Dawn left, and Heron stayed. However, when terminally ill Heron's attempts at Swedish death cleaning unearth long-forgotten court documents, Maggie must reframe being abandoned by her mother in the face of this newly found truth. From Zadie Smith's White Teeth to Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, literature is peppered with compelling tales of homophobia and prejudice in the 1980s. It is a decade slowly edging closer to being classed as historical fiction, a soothing balm perhaps. However, in this small and powerful story, Lynch forces us to stare bigotry in the eye. She does this not only with smart and often heartbreaking observations of human behaviour, but also by weaving in difficult truths. Her author's note reveals that the brutal and savage words spoken during Maggie's custody hearing are taken from real-life court transcripts. At the time, almost all lesbian mothers involved in divorce cases like Dawn's lost legal custody of their children. One of the most important roles of a writer is to give a platform to those less often noticed. Not only does Lynch's novel lend a voice to the many thousands of people who were forced to remain silent, bound by the prejudice of 'different times', it shouts that injustice from its pages. A Family Matter by Claire Lynch is published by Chatto & Windus (£16.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Netflix fans left chilled to the bone after 'absolutely insane' documentary on one of the most 'haunting' cold cases in US history
Netflix fans have been left chilled to the bone after an 'absolutely insane' documentary on one of the most 'haunting' cold cases in US history. Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders, released on the streamer on May 26, dives into the mysterious deaths of seven people in the Chicago area in 1982. They all lost their lives after ingesting Tylenol pills laced with cyanide - but to this day, no one knows how the painkillers were contaminated or by whom. The chilling case sent ripples across the US at the time, making lasting change to the pharmaceutical industry - including to the way pill bottles are sealed, Metro reports. With an exclusive interview with the man who was the main suspect for more than 40 years, the three-part documentary has gripped Netflix fans, who praised it on X. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. One said: 'I'm always drawn to true stories and this documentary dives deep into one of the most chilling unsolved cases in American history. 'Real events, real victims and haunting questions that still linger. Highly recommended! Do watch!' Another added: 'This Tylenol documentary on Netflix is absolutely insane.' Someone else similarly said: 'The Tylenol documentary on Netflix is absolutely nuts. Well worth a watch.' One user added: 'This event changed everything in our daily lives as much as anything, including Covid. 'Every single package that we buy in a store was forced to be more secure and tamper resistant. The cost over the years is in the billions, if not trillions.' Congress passed the Tylenol Bill the year after the murders happened - which meant it became a federal crime to tamper with consumer products. Tylenol manufacturer Johnson & Johnson introduced, with the Food and Drug Administration, new kinds of packaging, such as foil seals, to make any attempts to tamper with pills more obvious. With an exclusive interview with the man who was the main suspect for more than 40 years, the three-part documentary has gripped Netflix fans, who praised it on X This was soon rolled out across all over-the-counter medications, the Guardian reports. Johnson & Johnson also introduced the film-coated smaller 'caplet', which was more tamper-proof than other kinds of tablets. The series incorporates interviews with journalists and police officers who have worked on the case, as well as people who knew the victims. It tries to offer up an explanation as to why the eighties case is still cold after all this time. One of the most compelling aspects of the series, made by Yotam Guendelman and Ari Pines, is an interview with the man police long believed was behind the deaths. James W Lewis sent a letter to drug company Johnson & Johnson at the time of the killings, demanding $1million - or more people would die. The letter seemed to take responsibility for the deaths - and the New York City resident was convicted of extortion, rather than murder, and jailed for 12 years. This documentary saw him speak out at length for the first time, as he explains how he could not possibly have been behind the deaths. Producer Molly Forster fought for a year to get an interview with Lewis, who has largely avoided the press since he was released from prison 30 years ago, in 1995. Near the end of the series, he says, chuckling: 'I wouldn't hurt anybody. You can keep asking me questions forever and ever. 'If we ever do come up with a technology which allows you to read my mind, then you won't find anything in there that will be incriminating.' At another point in the programme, he jokes, holding a bottle of Tylenol pills, that he wants to avoid getting his fingerprints all over it. Lewis also addressed why he wrote the extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson. He said he was consumed by grief over his daughter's death after a patch in her heart, reportedly made by the pharmaceutical company, malfunctioned. The father explained he blamed Johnson & Johnson for her death. And his interview for the documentary turned out to be one of his last ever - as he died on July 9, 2023. American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden (pictured), released on the streamer on May 14, follows the pursuit and capture of the terrorist leader who planned the 9/11 attacks A follow-up to 2023's American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing, the three-part series (pictured) goes behind the scenes of the US government's counter-terrorism efforts at the time It comes after another high-quality Netflix documentary recently debuted, also to rave reviews. American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden, released on the streamer on May 14, follows the pursuit and capture of the terrorist leader who planned the 9/11 attacks. A follow-up to 2023's American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing, the three-part series goes behind the scenes of the US government's counter-terrorism efforts at the time. Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy use footage from the time and talking head interviews to let viewers in to the perspectives of decision makers - and show the tough calls they had to make. They told Netflix news site Tudum it is not about the war on terror but instead 'tells the story of the people tasked to find the world's most wanted terrorist and bring him to justice'. Some fans have already taken to X, Metro reports, to praise the portrayal of their manhunt that 'changed their lives, America and the world as we know it', as the directors said. One user said: 'American Manhunt Osama Bin Laden was a riveting documentary series. 'Just three episodes, most of which I've seen bits and pieces [of] over several documentaries/movies, but it was put together so well. 'Especially the third episode was nail-biting cinema. Hard-hitting, must-watch.'
Forbes
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Sirens' Dethroned In Netflix's Top 10 List By A New Show
Sirens Sirens has had some time on top of Netflix's top 10 list for a while now, performing well, but as a miniseries, it probably doesn't need to go on past this initial run (plus one of its leads needs to go be the new Supergirl). Now, the show has been unseated by something rather strange. It is not WWE RAW, which is actually in a surprising third place behind both Sirens and the new #1, Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders. Uh, what? Yeah, this happened. Here's the synopsis of what happened there: This happened in 1982, and I'll admit that I never knew this took place. It was a series of poisoning deaths in Chicago where people died from taking cyanide-laced Tylenol, something that was obviously not a factory defect. The most chilling part of all of this is that no one was ever found responsible for what was at least seven deaths from the poisonings. Top 10 The new Cold Case series is the length of a movie split into three parts, about 120 minutes in total. I'm not exactly sure why Netflix does this instead of just making it a movie, but it's been a tradition. Another high-profile entry in the Cold Case series was the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey, as the series focuses on well, Cold Cases that went unsolved, as the name suggests. I just finished Sirens which I thought was okay. It has good performances from its stars, albeit mired in what was not the greatest plotline and I think it's going to be an ultimately forgettable series. Even if it wasn't a miniseries, I would not be in favor of it returning for season 2. Another new entry to the list comes in at #4, She the People, a Tyler Perry show that spans eight 25-minute episodes as a quick watch, and one that seems to be angling for more series past that. It's about a politician, her 'wacky family' and a bodyguard she seems to have a crush on. It's a comedy, in case that wasn't clear. Further down the list, we have the overperforming The Four Seasons which was greenlit for a second season already. Then the 100%-rated murder mystery, Secrets We Keep, which I'm going to say is probably a 60% at best after having watched it. But hey, make your own judgment. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
New York Times
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Our Sympathy Hangover
In 1982, David Mamet shared troubling news. The American dream — our national amble, the short sunstruck highway between birth and success — had come to an end. 'And the people it has sustained,' the dramatist told an interviewer, 'the white males, are going nuts.' But the play he wrote about all this — subject, those going-nuts white males — itself enjoyed a dream career: 'Glengarry Glen Ross' won a Pulitzer in 1984, and then brought its low news to every corner of the globe. The star-studded film adaptation is one of the few absolutely surviving movie items of 1992. And when its third Broadway revival opened earlier this spring, in our own unsustained times, four sizable stars greeted the fans and selfie sticks. That is, Mr. Mamet's drama should cross the stage like a returned prophet, an I-told-you-so with lighting cues and an act break. That it does not — that the sales pitch to our imaginations has wickedly shifted — is the story of a fascinating national cooling. Why does 'Glengarry' feel weirdly wrong for now? Even though you can tick the parallels off on your fingers: Tilt-a-Whirl economy, conservatives (even Mr. Mamet now claims to be a conservative), frantically discouraged males? Part of it's that instead of being horrified — except perhaps by the non-P.C. language — we've become inured, listless: We're now ruled by Mr. Mamet's antiheroes, and lots of us just cheer them on. The news Mr. Mamet had to deliver was always bad. When audience members sit down to 'Glengarry,' what they're really commemorating is a cardiac event. In the early '80s, Mr. Mamet's stepfather-in-law told him the following bad-economy story: Before an office presentation, one older salesman had become so anxious about his job that his heart gave out. And the company president simply 'stepped over his body to leave the room.' The primal office fear: no mercy; loss of the capacity to do our jobs could literally kill us. Mr. Mamet intended a kind of protest — of 'a society,' he said, 'with only one bottom line: how much money you make.' He wasn't the only writer tracking this radar signature: recession, conservatives in ascendence, all the social guardrails being removed. The first sentence of V.S. Naipaul's 'A Bend in the River' extends readers this hearty welcome: 'The world is what it is; and men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.' (It's 'Glengarry' in one line.) That was the feel; of the fat being trimmed, margins so tight you could feel them along your skin. By 1983, Mr. Mamet told The Times he was at work on something new. 'I would describe it,' he admitted, 'as overlong and depressing.' He sent off the pages to his British mentor, Harold Pinter, with a note: 'There's something wrong with this play. What is it?' 'The only thing' the play needed, Pinter wrote back, was a cast and a production. (Writers: Before the next draft, consult a reader.) The last words of the next spring's Times review were best-case. A message transmitted, the message received. Mr. Mamet's play was about 'the abject terror of a life in which all words are finally nothing because it's only money that really talks.' Most of us know 'Glengarry' from the movie. (Which, if you're curious, Mr. Mamet loved. 'I wouldn't have changed anything,' he said in 2004.) The heart attack stand-in is the Jack Lemmon character. Shelley Levene, an older real estate salesman on the howling way down. Al Pacino plays the inflexibly upward-trending Ricky Roma — a Zen salesman. Roma's approach isn't just digital; it's artificial intelligence to Levene's analog. It surrounds you in a kind of sales fog, from which you emerge, somehow, with a purchase. There's nothing Levene can do, happens to the best of us. Your skills age out, the present becomes a language you can't speak, no mercy. That's the story. And for years, nobody I know — most of them fans — has watched a movie called 'Glengarry Glen Ross.' They watch a do-it-yourself edit: 'Glen,' or 'Ross.' Everything but the Levene parts. His capsize is so naked and complete it makes you shudder. Pure frank collapse is terrifying. After a certain point, you identify with the winners, the Romas, in self-defense, for relief. At the same time, there's the accumulated weight of 25 prestige-TV seasons celebrating the hero who survives: Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, the various belligerent claimants to Westeros and Yellowstone. All, in their ways, Romas. Dark-hearted but still on their feet. People even developed a meme soft spot for Patrick Bateman of 'American Psycho,' who buys such great stuff that his murderous competence becomes likable, the homicides a sort of weekend flaw viewers can overlook. It's the same effect as a few hours of the Discovery Channel. The herd scatter, the sudden paw — and out of exhausted sympathy we begin to root for the lion and not the gazelles. To resist this may be to counter some baked-in humanness. 'Tame submission,' the essayist William Hazlitt wrote in 1817, 'has nothing to excite or flatter the imagination.' He was discussing the Shakespeare play 'Coriolanus.' (A key text for our times. Combine 'Coriolanus' — a banished leader brings unhappiness to his former nation — with 'Glengarry,' and the features that begin to come clear are Donald Trump's.) 'The love of power in ourselves,' Hazlitt observed coolly, 'and the admiration of it in others are both natural to man.' It's there in the poll numbers for the Democratic Party — 27 percent approval, an obstructed-view seat, the worst in more than three decades. The awful shame of identifying with the losing side. Asked in April what the party might do to recapture the public's sympathy, veteran strategist James Carville gave the Ricky Roma answer, twice. 'Win elections. Win elections.' Another change is a sort of compassion fatigue — after a decade of an unprecedented national mania for empathy. In her 2021 novel, 'No One Is Talking About This,' Patricia Lockwood defined the overall question of the era's social media: 'Who am I failing to protect?' This feels gone; with, as its replacement, a kind of sympathy hangover. A depleted, fatalistic willingness to let difficult situations — immigration, the environment, homelessness, abortion — take what shape they will. We now seem to find it more natural to identify not with the employee on the floor but with the executive stepping out of the room. These might be the signals Bob Odenkirk — now starring as Shelley Levene on Broadway — was picking up when he told 'Playbill' that he did not intend to portray the capsizing salesman as tragic. Instead, Mr. Odenkirk aimed for a 'hopeful' 'Glengarry.' 'It's an American thing,' the actor explained, 'to find that positivity and try to ride that wave.' Mr. Mamet, with a somewhat different understanding of audience, had written his director a letter one month before the original Broadway premiere. Failure to insist on the play's 'not nice things,' its 'viciousness,' he said, 'is to betray the play and the audience.' The audience when I saw it seemed most excited not by the fates of the characters but by the celebrity of the actors — fellow professionals facing up to a fresh challenge, Broadway, and living a success way bigger than Roma's. There were stage door calls. Each star: a whoop, a push, phones swinging in their direction like bouquets. Fans thrilled to selfie, to photo-bomb, have their programs autographed. I asked one woman what she thought of the play. She explained she'd just come East for treatment — no information what kind — had never heard of the play; had just seen a crowd, picked up the program and understood immediately this was her good fortune, an omen. 'Glengarry' as lucky break. The dream has returned, or, as we watch, is becoming something far stranger.
Geek Tyrant
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Retro Trailer For George A. Romero and Stephen King's 1982 Horror Film CREEPSHOW — GeekTyrant
This week's retro trailer is for the the classic 1982 anthology horror film Creepshow directed by George A. Romero and written by Stephen King, paying tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s. The movie is structured as a comic book come to life, with five distinct and macabre tales, each steeped in dark humor, supernatural justice, and gruesome consequences. The segments range from a vengeful father rising from the grave in 'Father's Day,' to a meteorite turning a lonely man into a moss-covered monstrosity in 'The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill,' played by King himself. Other tales include a cuckolded man seeking revenge with a watery twist, a mysterious crate housing a ravenous creature, and a wealthy recluse battling cockroaches in a sterile penthouse. Framed by a wraparound story about a young boy punished for reading horror comics, Creepshow uses comic panel transitions, animated effects, and exaggerated colors to evoke its pulp roots. With a cast that includes Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Danson, and E.G. Marshall, the film blends camp and dread to deliver a delightfully grotesque viewing experience. Creepshow stands out as a cult classic not only for its creative storytelling and practical effects, but also for capturing the twisted fun of horror in its most playful and gruesome form.
