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Atlantic
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Four Superheroes Who Deserve a Day Off
This was supposed to be the summer superhero movies became fun again. At first, that appeared to be true: Superman, released earlier this month, relaunched DC's previously dour cinematic universe as a brighter and bouncier affair; the film zips from one encounter to the next with sincere aplomb. Now, two weeks later, comes Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps —which, coincidentally or not, seems similarly positioned as an injection of Technicolor fizz into a progressively more leaden franchise. Dispensing with continuity from previous installments, the film is set on a retro-futuristic version of Earth where everything looks as if it were designed by Eero Saarinen. As an effort to breathe new life into a particularly moribund title—there have been four prior takes on these characters, all of them bad — First Steps is essentially successful. What it somehow can't manage to do is have much of a good time in the process. First Steps, directed by Matt Shakman, has several things working in its favor. It's quite handsome to look at, and features an elegant ensemble of actors who are capable of the big, dramatic moments thrown at them. Its action sequences also achieve a true sense of scale, something chintzier Marvel entries often struggle with. But First Steps zooms past the Fantastic Four's origins and, more detrimentally, their odd family dynamic. Instead, it dives headfirst into a portentous, celestial story in which Earth's apocalypse is almost immediately at hand. There's no time for the characters to engage in era-appropriate diversions (such as, perhaps, kicking back with martinis) or match wits with colorfully costumed adversaries. This adventure is all end-of-the-world menace, all the time. The lack of breathing room is striking. After all, these characters come from one of comic books' richest texts: The Fantastic Four are the original Marvel superhero team, created by the legendary writer-illustrator team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The comic kicked off the company's 1960s revival and redefined the medium for an entire generation. Mr. Fantastic, a.k.a. Reed Richards (here played by Pedro Pascal), is the irritable, busy father figure; he's also a genius scientist who can stretch like rubber. (He mostly uses his power in this adaptation to fill many wide chalkboards with math equations.) His wife, Susan Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), is able to vanish and throw force fields around everything; her brother, Johnny (Joseph Quinn), is the Human Torch, who can burst into flame and take to the skies. The trio's best pal is Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a human turned orange, rocky beast known as the Thing. First Steps begins a few years after the foursome's brush with a cosmic radiation storm, which transformed them into superhumans. The crew now keeps New York City safe from costumed villains and subterranean monsters, while enjoying their status as chummy celebrities; they're cheered by teeming audiences holding pennants everywhere they go. Shakman whisks us past all of this information, perhaps assuming that viewers have picked up the gist from past cinematic efforts and wouldn't want to sit through all that backstory again. (Maybe the director was also hell-bent on keeping the run time under two hours—an impulse I do approve of.) But Shakman's endeavor to pick up the pace means the movie loses its grasp of what makes the source material so special: the genuine, sometimes fraught chemistry of this found family. Johnny and Ben are usually depicted as bickering surrogate brothers, the hotheaded youngster and the curmudgeonly elder; Susan is a pragmatic force, with Reed often lost in his own world. In First Steps, however, the characters felt flattened out to me, while all four performances are muted and somewhat excessively grounded. An early scene sees Ben cooking tomato sauce with the group's helper robot, H.E.R.B.I.E., crushing garlic gloves with his gigantic fists 'to add a little bit of zip.' It's a cute moment, but an oddly underplayed one; in scene after scene like this, I kept wondering—where's the extra zip? Instead of playful banter, First Steps serves up deep, emotional conversations about the meaning of parenthood and the heroes' deepest fears. The plot kicks off with the reveal that after years of trying, Susan is pregnant, a joyful realization that, for Reed, quickly turns into worry that their child will also be superpowered. Soon after that, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner)—a shiny interstellar being riding a big surfboard—appears, zooming from the clouds and proclaiming Earth's doom. She heralds Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a skyscraper-size villain from space who cruises around the universe eating planets whole; his arrival immediately plunges the Fantastic Four into a crisis that they spend the rest of the film trying to untangle. The Galactus saga is the most famous in Fantastic Four lore, but it's also a conflict the comic built up to in the 1960s, churning through sillier villains before introducing a more impassive, terrifying force. He's a tough first challenge for this new on-screen team to take on, one that drives Reed into instant misery as he struggles to fathom how to confront an enemy who cannot be bargained with. Pascal is smart casting for the role—he has the right air of sophistication and maturity—but the script engulfs his character in such a dark crisis of confidence that the actor's charisma can't shine through. The same goes for Kirby as the joyless Susan, who impressively handles all the steeliness required of her. Quinn, who charmed me in recent blockbusters such as A Quiet Place: Day One and Gladiator II, feels too tightly wound as Johnny. Moss-Bachrach does quite lovely work as Ben, but the movie is perhaps overly focused on the hardened fella's softer side; it largely ignores the character's more tormented feelings about his physical transformation. First Steps is also shockingly comfortable to go long stretches without big action; the centerpiece is a space mission with shades of Interstellar that is genuinely thrilling, but some members of the team (particularly Mr. Fantastic) get few chances to really show off their superpowers. As surprisingly downbeat as it is, I appreciated the fundamental message of the film, which is set in a more hopeful world. When a crisis arises, Reed and company are actually capable of rallying the world to help save itself. Multiple times in First Steps, Shakman emphasizes the power of a global community, the kind he's clearly longing for in our world. Those are the zippiest ingredients he tosses into the sauce; I just wish he'd allowed the heroes to loosen up.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
20 facts about Walt Disney that even his biggest fans may not know
Disney was born in 1901 on the second floor of a wooden cottage designed and built by his parents in Chicago. He was the fourth child of Elias Disney, a carpenter, and his wife, Flora. It's widely reported that it cost them $800 to build the house, which was not an insignificant sum as Elias Disney was making a dollar a day. The house still stands today and has been restored to how it looked when the Disney family lived there. Disney was a high-school dropout. Before founding his studio, he worked as an artist for a Kansas City advertising agency. When he returned to the US after serving in the Red Cross in Europe, Disney found work as a cartoonist in a Kansas City advertising agency. His first animation studio went bankrupt in less than a year. In 1920, Disney started his first animation studio, Laugh-O-Gram, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he produced animated cartoons based on fairy tales. Shortly after completing the short film "Alice in Cartoonland," in 1923, he filed for bankruptcy and moved to California. Contrary to popular belief, he did not actually design the final version of Mickey Mouse. Even though many think of Walt and Mickey as partners, Walt did not actually create the final design of Mickey Mouse, Disney archivist Dave Smith wrote in "Disney Trivia from the Vault: Secrets Revealed and Questions Answered." Walt provided initial sketches and ideas for the famous rodent, but it was Walt Disney Studios animator Ub Iwerks who animated the Mickey we know and love today. Walt reportedly never even drew Mickey unless a fan specifically requested it for an autograph, Smith wrote. But he did voice the iconic character for nearly two decades. In 1929 through the mid-1940s, Walt Disney was actually the voice of Mickey Mouse. The famous mouse has been voiced by several other individuals since. At one time, Disney was the only person allowed to make a cartoon in full Technicolor. In 1932, Disney produced the first-ever full-color Technicolor cartoon, "Flowers and Trees." He had exclusive rights to use the new three-color animation process from then until the end of 1935, Variety reported. All other color cartoons had to be made using the out-of-date two-color process. Disney was laughed at for wanting to create a feature-length animated film. It's hard to imagine a time when animated films were considered a ridiculous concept, but when Walt Disney set out to create the first feature-length cartoon in 1937 — " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" — he was laughed at. The project became known in the industry as "Disney's Folly," per the Sheboygan County Historical Society Museum. But he surprised everyone when "Snow White" premiered to packed houses, and Disney won an honorary Academy Award (and eight Oscar statuettes: one normal-sized and seven dwarf-sized) for the breakthrough project. The tables soon turned — he still holds the record for most Academy Award wins ever. Disney and his studio worked for the United States government during World War II to create propaganda cartoons. He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Disney the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. The American Presidency Project reported that President Johnson described Disney as an "artist and impresario, in the course of entertaining an age, he has created an American folklore." Disney created a railroad in his own backyard. In the 1950s, after moving into the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, Disney laid tracks around his property to build a railroad. Named Carolwood Pacific Railroad after the street he lived on, he would even dress up sometimes and give visitors rides on it. His passion for trains found its way into his Disney parks, as Disneyland has been home to its own railroad since opening in 1955. Supposedly, he came up with the idea of Disneyland while watching his daughters ride a merry-go-round. Disney often took his daughters to Griffith Park in Los Angeles. As the story goes, during one of these visits, while he was sitting on a park bench watching his daughters ride the merry-go-round, he thought of creating a large-scale park where families could enjoy multiple attractions in one place. Later, this would be Disneyland. The supposed park bench itself is on display at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Disney kept his identity secret when buying the land that would become Disney World. By the mid-1960s, with the success of Disneyland reaching exponential heights, rumors swirled that Disney was looking to create an "East Coast Disneyland." While looking for a location for his next theme-park venture, he stumbled upon the ideal swamplands around Orlando. In order to keep his purchase of 27,000 acres a secret, Disney created fake shell companies like Tomahawk Properties and the appropriately named M.T. Lott Co. to keep his identity hidden, the LA Times reported. He based the design of Main Street, USA, on the main street in his hometown in Missouri. Although Main Street, USA, in Disneyland and Disney World is supposed to represent every-town Americana, Walt drew inspiration from his childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri. He lived there from ages 5 to 9 after the family moved from Chicago. According to the town's official website, Disney was specifically inspired by Kansas Avenue. Disney had a secret apartment above the firehouse on Main Street. One of the worst-kept "secrets" in Disneyland is Walt's apartment, located above the fire department on Main Street. Back then, it was where the Disney family would go to get work done without being disturbed or to entertain high-profile Disneyland guests. Today, guests can pay to tour it. He and his team invented audio-animatronics, and the first was on display at the 1964 World's Fair. If you've ever been to a Disney theme park, you've likely seen many audio-animatronics. These human-like robots can blink, talk, move, and even — as later models demonstrate — interact with guests. The first audio-animatronic was an Abraham Lincoln figurine, created specifically for the 1964 World's Fair, which later became the basis for Disney's Hall of Presidents, The Orange County Register reported. Disney's housekeeper, whom he called the "real-life Mary Poppins," died a multimillionaire thanks to the stocks he gave her every year. Thelma Howard was the Disney family's longtime housekeeper, who became an important part of the family throughout her 30 years of employment, the LA Times reported. Walt often referred to her as the "real-life Mary Poppins." Every year, for the holidays, he would gift her shares of Disney stock. By the time she died in 1994, she had amassed a fortune of millions. At one time, he came close to opening a major ski resort. The success of Disneyland, which opened in 1955, prompted Disney to set his sights on another potential project: a ski resort in Mineral King Valley, near California's Sequoia National Park. The initial plans involved creating a vacation spot centered on a Swiss-style village with six ski areas and the capacity to house 20,000 people, 14 ski lifts, 10 restaurants, two hotels, and more, SF Gate reported. The project almost came to fruition, with Disney even gaining approval from the Forest Service and creating a deal with the then-governor of California, Ronald Reagan. However, after Disney's sudden death in 1966, the company chose to focus on Disney World, which had just opened and cost much more than budgeted. Not all of Mineral King Ski Resort was lost, though. The Country Bear Jamboree, an attraction planned for one of the resort's restaurants, was given a new home in Disney World. Contrary to popular belief, Disney was not cryogenically frozen. Many believe that Disney's body was preserved through cryogenics, frozen in a cryonic chamber containing liquid nitrogen to be later revived. In early 1967, a reporter for a tabloid newspaper, The National Spotlite, claimed he saw the deceased Disney suspended in a cryogenic metal cylinder, PBS reported. From there, the rumor went rampant and eventually became an urban legend. However, there is no truth to it: All available documentation states that Disney was cremated. Also, the first-ever cryogenic freezings actually took place after Disney had passed, according to which produced a point-by-point analysis refuting cryogenics and this legend. This story was originally published in December 2017, and most recently updated on July 23, 2025.
Style Blueprint
14-07-2025
- Style Blueprint
From Paris to Nashville: Meet Anna Watson Carl of The Yellow Table
Share with your friends! Pinterest LinkedIn Email Flipboard Reddit Anna Watson Carl planned her first four-course dinner party at age 10, and never looked back. What started with Valentine's Day steaks for her parents turned into a life spent cooking across continents, from Burgundy chateaus to late-night bakery shifts in Nashville. Along the way, one thing remained constant: the yellow table, a family heirloom turned culinary anchor. Today, Anna owns crêpe-centric The Yellow Table in Nashville and is the author of a cookbook by the same name. Meet the woman who's turning a well-worn table into a way of life. Pin What inspired you to open The Yellow Table? I grew up in Nashville, eating around my family's big, yellow table … The yellow table was the center of our home, a place for conversation and connection, and delicious meals. It taught me what community looks like and inspired me to create a food blog, a cookbook, and a café — all called The Yellow Table. Another big inspiration for the café is my time in France. We had several French exchange students growing up, and I became obsessed with France at a young age … I studied abroad in Paris in college and was amazed by the food — the markets teeming with fresh produce, the bakeries and cheese shops on nearly every street, and the way the French took time to savor mealtimes. This was also when I fell in love with crêpes. I ate at a little family-owned crêperie in the Latin Quarter for lunch several times a week, and a tiny seed of an idea was planted in my head that one day I should open a crêperie in Nashville. Crazy to think that 24 years later, I actually did it! After France, I spent the next 11 years in NYC, working as a private chef, recipe tester, and food and travel writer for a variety of magazines … I moved back to Nashville in 2018 with my husband, Brandon, and our two kids, Evie and Grayson, and began thinking a bit more about the possibility of opening a cafe. Pin Is there a family recipe or culinary memory you return to again and again? It was during my first trip to France, at age 13, that my taste buds came alive. You know how, in The Wizard of Oz, it's black-and-white for the first part of the movie and then turns into brilliant Technicolor once Dorothy gets to Oz? That was how it was for me, culinarily speaking. Suddenly, the simplest things — like fresh strawberries, a crusty piece of bread with salted butter, or a flaky croissant — had so much FLAVOR! I kept a diary of all of our meals. I tried snails, duck, and double crème de Brie for the first time. Little did I know I was a chef/food-writer-in-training. You've worn many hats — personal chef, food writer, teacher … How does all of this experience show up at the Nashville café? I love making food that is both delicious and beautiful. I've learned we eat with our eyes first, so I want everything to be visually appealing. I care deeply about ingredient quality, and like to highlight the seasons in my food. We have specials that change daily, reflecting what's in season and what I'm in the mood to make. I also intentionally created (with the help of my dear friend Jenn Elliot Blake) a warm, cozy setting. I wanted people to walk in and instantly feel a sense of delight. Everything from the furniture to the artwork, the fresh flowers to the choices of plates and mugs, was chosen to spark joy. Pin What have been the most meaningful challenges and rewards of this venture? For me, the greatest rewards have been the people. I LOVE welcoming in people from both the neighborhood, and all over the world. Not only do I enjoy sharing my story, but I love hearing theirs. We have the most amazing neighbors in the building and the neighborhood. People walk to the café pushing strollers and walking dogs, and it's just such a sweet community spot. The biggest challenge for me has been running the business. I'm a creative and a connector, so creating the concept for the café and bringing it to life was the easy part. Now, trying to figure out how to grow the business and make it profitable … that's the challenge. I'm not a spreadsheet gal, but I feel like I'm earning an MBA on the job! If you could invite three dream dinner guests, who would they be and what would you cook? Ina Garten, Oprah, and Ruth Reichl. These women all inspire me SO much, as storytellers, writers, and entrepreneurs. (And in the case of Ina and Ruth, as chefs!) I'd love to meet any of them, much less have them over for dinner. In a nod to Ina, I'd probably make something really simple and delicious. If it were summer, maybe an heirloom tomato, peach, burrata, and basil salad to start, with pickled shallots. For the main course, a homemade pesto spaghetti with roasted cherry tomatoes and lemony grilled shrimp. And for dessert, a brown butter financier cake with whipped cream and fresh peaches. Pin Outside of cooking, what brings you joy? Yoga, hiking, time with my husband and kids, dinner with girlfriends, prayer, journaling, and helping others What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Worry about the things that matter and let the rest go. Pin LIGHTNING ROUND Favorite comfort dish? Really good pizza (in Nashville, that's Roberta's) Favorite self-care product or treatment? A massage! I don't get them often, but wow — it's an amazing splurge. Most memorable recent meal in Nashville? I ate at Noko recently with my brother. We didn't have a reservation and were lucky enough to get a table on the patio. We shared a bunch of small plates that were all amazing, but I especially loved the crispy rice with spicy tuna, the salmon carpaccio, and the Szechuan green beans. Three things you can't live without: Good bread, good coffee, good wine As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ********** For more inspiring stories, visit our FACES archives! About the Author Jenna Bratcher Jenna Bratcher is StyleBlueprint Nashville's Associate Editor and Lead Writer. The East Coast native moved to Nashville 17 years ago, by way of Los Angeles. She is a lover of dogs, strong coffee, traveling, and exploring the local restaurant scene bite by bite.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Academy Museum Brings ‘Wonders of Technicolor' Series to New York with ‘Willy Wonka,' ‘The Red Shoes,' ‘Cabaret,' and More
Since Netflix bought and restored The Paris Theater, one of New York City's last remaining single-screen movie theaters, the streaming service has used the historical venue to give a big-screen showcase to its original films. The streamer has also used The Paris to host increasingly robust retrospectives, and today IndieWire exclusively announces that Netflix has partnered with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to bring 'The Wonders of Technicolor' series to New York this summer. The retrospective series originally played this fall at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles to accompany the museum's 'Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema' exhibition. More from IndieWire 'Prime Minister' Review: An Up-Close-and-Personal Peek Into Jacinda Arden's Six-Year Term Shows What Thoughtful Leadership Can Look Like Danny Boyle and Alex Garland Had Planned a 'Sunshine' Trilogy, Boyle Recalls 'Big Blowout' with Fox Exec Over Sci-Fi Movie Technicolor IV was introduced in the 1930s. The three-strip color technology produced saturated and vibrant colors, often described as 'crisp' due to how the three-strip color negative and printing process kept the colors distinct from one another, avoiding the 'bleeding' that became common after the process faded from the industry. Hollywood used the enormous Technicolor cameras — which required special color consultants to advise on cinematography, costumes, and sets — for its biggest productions, especially musicals, up until the mid-1950s, when the old Studio System started to crumble. The shot in 'Glorious Technicolor' branding on posters and in the opening titles signaled to the audience that they were in for a special big-screen experience. The series at The Paris will kick off the weekend of June 28-29 with 'An American in Paris' and 'The Wizard of Oz,' and run through August 6. Other classic Technicolor films screening as part of the series are 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' 'Fantasia,' 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,' 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Black Pirate,' and 'The Women.' Also included in the series are Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' and Bob Fosse's 'Caberet,' which were shot after Technicolor's heyday on Eastman color film stock, but then printed on Technicolor stock, a combination resulting in a more modern and less studio-stage look for the color technology as it faded from existence. For 'The Wonders of Technicolor' screening and ticket information, visit The Paris Theater's website. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Five Movies Worth a Repeat Watch
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition. Not all movies are meant to be watched twice. Some leave a glancing effect; others emanate so much intensity that the idea of sitting through them again feels unbearable. But then there are those films that draw you back in, even after you've seen it all before. So we asked The Atlantic's writers and editors: What's a movie you can watch over and over again? Raising Arizona (available to rent on Prime Video) I've probably seen Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers' 1987 classic with Holly Hunter and a 22-year-old Nicholas Cage, a half dozen times over the years. But I've watched the opening sequence many, many more times than that. It's a whole movie-within-the-movie, building up to the title shot with Cage's deadpan narration, rapid-cut scenes, and a jaunty musical bed that goes from whistling and humming to weird ululating. The screenwriting has some all-time great lines ('I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House,' says Cage, with wild hair, aviators, and a 12-gauge shotgun, preparing to stick up a convenience store). The other day, I made my 12-year-old watch it for the first time. When Cage says to his chatty prison bunkmate, incredulously, 'You ate sand?!' my son nearly fell on the floor. A true marker of timelessness. — Nick Miroff, staff writer *** White Christmas (streaming on Prime Video) It makes me miserable to contemplate how many people have never once seen the 1954 film White Christmas, let alone given it 10 to 20 percent of their attention while focusing on other activities, which is the ideal way to view it. Then again, the film's surprising obscurity is its hidden ace: From the moment you press 'Play' on White Christmas, no one who glances at the screen will be able to predict or even comprehend any aspect of the Technicolor encephalitic fever dream exploding before them unless they have previously seen White Christmas. In any given frame, a viewer might be confronted with a horde of people cavorting inside a giant purple void, waggling tambourines adorned with women's faces; the bombed-out smoldering remains of 1944 Europe; or the virtuoso dancer Vera-Ellen, in head-to-heel chartreuse, executing pirouettes at faster-than-heartbeat speeds (for no defined reason). Muted, it makes for terrific social lubricant at a party—there's something dazzling to remark upon nearly every second if conversation lags. Don't concern yourself with the plot; the film's writers did not. — Caity Weaver, staff writer *** The Lord of the Rings franchise (streaming on Max) I suppose my answer is less of a love letter to a movie than it is one to my family. My husband is the movie buff in our family—I'll rarely be caught rewatching movies. But his undying loyalty to the Lord of the Rings franchise means we've watched the trilogy together multiple times, more than once in an 11-plus-hour binge. (Yeah … it's the extended editions, every time.) The movies are a genuinely gorgeous feat of storytelling, bested only by the books; fantasy and action sequences aside, they spotlight friendship, loyalty, and the dueling motivations of pride, duty, and greed. And for our family, at least, they'll be a regular feature—I'm pretty sure it was implicit in our wedding vows that we'd indoctrinate our kids into the LOTR lore—which means that the films are about carving out time for one another as well. — Katherine J. Wu, staff writer *** All Your Faces (available to rent on Google Play and Apple TV) I've watched the French film All Your Faces three times in the past eight months. The movie isn't a documentary, but it's based on real restorative-justice programs in France that were introduced about a decade ago. Why did I repeatedly return to a film about an idiosyncratic feature of a foreign country's criminal-justice system? There's something about the encounter between victim and perpetrator, and the instability and unpredictability of these interactions, that surprised me each time I watched it. Equally intense was the tenderness between the instructors and the programs' participants, most evident between the characters played by Adèle Exarchopoulos and Élodie Bouchez. But it's Miou-Miou, playing an elderly victim of petty street crime, who delivers the most haunting line in the movie: 'I don't understand the violence.' A mantra for our time. — Isaac Stanley-Becker, staff writer *** Little Women (streaming on Hulu) Little Women first came to me as a comfort movie. Based on Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, Greta Gerwig's 2019 film adaptation features not so much plot as simply vibes: a familiar tale of four sisters and their childhood friend, scenes of a snowy Christmas morning perfect for the holidays. But with each subsequent encounter during my lonely postgraduate months in a new city, I began to appreciate the little rebellions that make Gerwig's Little Women so special. The story is full of moments of seeing: Professor Bhaer turns around to watch Jo watching a play, Laurie gazes into the Marches' windows, and we, as viewers, feel seen by Jo's boyish brashness. But Gerwig also chooses to focus on Jo's many anxieties. Early in the film, Jo uncharacteristically dismisses her own writing ('Those are just stories,' she says. Just!); later, her monologue reveals a vulnerable desire for companionship (But I'm so lonely!). Gerwig honors the story's essence, but her version is not a granular retelling; rather, it serves as a homage to the art of writing itself—and women's mundane, humble stories, which Jo and Alcott are desperate to tell. — Yvonne Kim, associate editor Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The perilous spread of the wellness craze Bring back communal kid discipline. The conversations Trump's doctors should be having with him The Week Ahead Ballerina, an action movie in the John Wick franchise starring Ana de Armas as an assassin bent on avenging her father's death (in theaters Friday) Season 3 of Ginny & Georgia, a comedy-drama series about a single mom and two kids trying to settle down in a new town (premieres Thursday on Netflix) The Haves and the Have-Yachts, a book by the journalist Evan Osnos featuring dispatches on the ultrarich (out Tuesday) Essay Diddy's Defenders By Xochitl Gonzalez Diddy—whose legal name is Sean Combs—has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. Many Americans have taken to the comment sections to offer their full-throated belief in his innocence. Despite the video evidence of domestic violence, the photos of Combs's guns with serial numbers removed, and the multiple witnesses testifying that Combs threatened to kill them, this group insists that Diddy's biggest sin is nothing more than being a hypermasculine celebrity with 'libertine' sexual tastes. Read the full article. More in Culture What the show of the summer knows about intimacy Five books that will redirect your attention Unraveling the secrets of the Inca empire How a recession might tank American romance A film that captures a 'friend breakup' Catch Up on David Frum: The Trump presidency's world-historical heist Adam Serwer: The new Dark Age The coming Democratic civil war Photo Album Take a look at the beauty of the North. These photographs are by Olivier Morin, who captures remarkable images of the natural world, largely focusing on northern climates. Play our daily crossword. Explore all of our newsletters. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
