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Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Are they panic attacks, or visitations from an ancient Greek God?
All of this makes Clune sound like Jonathan Franzen, a cartographer of Midwestern schools and suburbs. But if 'Pan' is a work of realism — and that's an open and interesting question — then it's interested primarily not in the realities of social existence (what it's like to live in a particular time and place) but in the realities of consciousness (what it's like to think in a particular way). Early in 'Pan,' Nick starts having what he comes to understand are panic attacks. Sitting in geometry class, he realizes that his hand is a thing, just like the textbook and eraser he sees in front of him: 'That's when I forgot how to breathe.' Soon after, he's watching 'The Godfather III' when he forgets 'how to move blood through [his] body.' He begins worrying that, if he stares at something or someone too long, his 'looking,' or his 'thinking,' or his very self (it's hard to tell them apart), will escape from his head and stick to what he's staring at. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up How does subjectivity, the ineffable feeling of being a person, arise from the material brain and its measurable neural firings? How is it that thinking takes place within time and yet seems to remove us from time? (There's Augustine again.) Think too much about thinking and these questions, and you, start falling apart. Nick is 'a pragmatist' (there's William James again), and 'Pan' follows the strategies he develops to deal with his panic and insomnia: note the symptoms that precipitate an attack; breathe into a paper bag; meditate. Advertisement Interwoven with this rather straightforward, if effective, story of mental health and its treatment is a wilder, stronger strand. Nick hooks up with a group of cool — read: trouble-maker — friends. They start hanging out in a family barn they call, with equal parts irony and mythic seriousness, the Barn. There, they do drugs (Nick doesn't; he's read they can trigger panic attacks), listen to music, engage in rituals (dancing, more drugs, sex), and decide that Nick has been inhabited by the Greek god Pan. As Ian, the group's ringleader, declares, 'When you are aware of the panic, you are seeing the truth of ordinary life' with 'absolute clarity.' Panic isn't a condition to be managed; it's a divine possession to be embraced. It shows us the truths — the subject is an object; selves are porous to one another; 'time was part of the body after all' — that we normally refuse to see. Advertisement Nick is regularly described as being 'loose,' ready at any moment to drift from his mind and the world. 'Pan' is, in many ways, a loose novel. It refuses to be one thing or the other; its plot moves — Nick tries out new ways of controlling panic; his friends come up with wilder theories about panic's sacredness — but at its own strange pace. Is the claim that Pan is real and within Nick meant to be taken literally? Or is it a metaphor to describe how we are visited by thoughts that seem beyond us? Yes and yes. Clune doesn't choose between what we might describe as the poetic and the novelistic, the mystic and the naturalistic, explanations of Nick's experience. When it comes to time and consciousness, Clune's perennial topics, visionary perception is perhaps just a deeper form of realism. Advertisement Anthony Domestico is an associate professor of literature at Purchase College, SUNY, and the books columnist for Commonweal. His reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, The Baffler, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. PAN By Michael Clune Penguin Press, 336 pages, $29
USA Today
03-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Rumors connecting the Eagles and T.J. Watt won't fade in Philly
T.J. Watt's defection to the Eagles seems more impossible by the day, but the rumor won't die in Philly. Rarely will good stories about the Philadelphia Eagles include references to Michael Corleone in The Godfather III, but his iconic phrase describes so many offseasons and rumors around these parts. So, here goes... "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." That statement perfectly sums up every transactional rumor that has occurred since Howie Roseman exited the equipment room that Chip Kelly buried him in. At this point, it's hard for any of us to provide reasonable theories about why we still indulge them. These types of conversations precede the rumored 'interest' the Eagles had in Yannick Ngakoue and DeAndre Hopkins long ago, but reading those names should give you an idea about how long this has gone on. Smoke seemingly never leads us to a real fire, yet every time an elite talent becomes available in free agency or mentions he is dissatisfied with his current deal, Philadelphia is named as a likely and realistic destination. Rarely has an acquisition seemed as unlikely as one involving the Birds and all-world edge rusher T.J. Watt, but that hasn't stopped the rumor mill from churning. Wouldn't you know it? This one recently earned another mention. T.J. Watt is again connected to the Philadelphia Eagles Well, the Pittsburgh Steelers are certainly on a rampage, aren't they? Aaron Rodgers was added. Even more recently, they traded Minkah Fitzpatrick along with a 2027 fifth-round pick to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for Jalen Ramsey, Jonnu Smith, and a 2027 seventh-round pick. It's Super Bowl or bust in the Steel City. It's for that reason that most believe a team doing everything it can to hoist a Vince Lombardi Trophy will eventually find a way to extend T.J. Watt. If the Steelers are serious about title contention, Watt must be on their roster. Most believe he will be on their roster, but that hasn't doused the rumor mill's flame. Lines are again drawn connecting the seven-time Pro Bowler and Howie Roseman's Eagles. This time, USA TODAY's Jacob Camenker is the author. "Could Watt stay in Pennsylvania even if he and the Steelers can't reach an agreement? Howie Roseman has never been afraid to make aggressive trades, has $30.8 million in cap space available and could use another playmaker on the edge." Those were Camenker's words in his recent theory about possible landing spots for the six-time All-Pro (four First-Team and two Second-Team mentions). The Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Los Angeles Rams were also named, but, as mentioned, lists like these don't feel complete unless the Eagles are included in the discussion. "The Eagles lost several edge rushers during the offseason, as Josh Sweat signed with the Arizona Cardinals in free agency, Bryce Huff was traded to the San Francisco 49ers and Brandon Graham retired. Philadelphia still has some young talent at the position in Nolan Smith Jr. and Jalyx Hunt, but adding a proven veteran like Watt would help keep its Super Bowl window open." Looking for a more realistic theory? Here's a prediction. The Steelers and T.J. Watt will eventually figure this out. The Birds don't grab the guys we expect them to land. Signings usually surprise us. They seemingly come from nowhere. Hey, if that theory proves to be wrong, so be it. There isn't a Birds fan or Eagles media member walking who doesn't want Watt on the roster, but it would be wise to temper expectations. Philadelphia needs to begin thinking about its own. Reed Blankenship needs an extension done now. Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith will need theirs before you know it.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Thunderbolts*' Is the First Great Marvel Movie in Years (Review)
To quote Al Pacino in The Godfather III, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Only in this case, instead of talking about the Italian mob, I'm referring to the powers that be over at Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's because the MCU has certainly been in its flop era post-Avengers: Endgame and the end of Phase Three. Phase Four brought fans a string of disappointments including Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder before Phase Five proved to be the true nadir with the Jonathan Majors debacle attached to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and the critical and box office disasters that were The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World. Sprinkle in a bunch of Disney+ TV shows that anecdotally no one watched (Agatha All Along being the one recent exception) and the MCU seemed to be as dead as Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. And then, bursting forth from the dregs of the MCU's garbled multiverse arose Thunderbolts*, a expertly crafted superhero film second only to Black Panther when it comes to the importance of its message. In spite of what appear to be numerous potential pitfalls on paper, Thunderbolts* manages to weave together a timely and personal examination of depression from the tattered remnants of previous failed Marvel projects. The movie opens with Florence Pugh's mercenary Yelena Belova sitting atop Malaysia's Merdeka, the second tallest building in the world, contemplating the "emptiness" of her life despite a successful career. While the scene initially reads as a possible suicide attempt with her stepping off the edge, it's actually her mode of entry into the top secret laboratory she's been sent to destroy, but the discussion of the, often inexplicable, darkness we feel moving through life sets the stage for the probing of mental health to come. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Yelena, her mission complete, attempts to quit her job as an assassin, but is tasked by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to kill one more target before retiring. When Yelena arrives at an underground bunker to murder Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) she also finds both Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and John Walker (Wyatt Russell), each there to murder one of the others in Valentina's attempt to tie-up loose ends. After the shocking death of Taskmaster (Kurylenko received fourth billing on the posters only to have her character killed instantly), the other three band together with a mysterious man named Bob (Lewis Pullman) to escape. This rag tag crew is joined by now Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Yelena's adopted father Alexei aka Red Guardian (David Harbour) to create the Thunderbolts, named after Yelena's childhood soccer team. Whereas the Avengers were formed from the top-billed A-listers of their respective films, the Thunderbolts are a real who's who of who cares. While Pugh's Yelena was the breakout star of Black Widow. John Walker arrived in the MCU via the TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ghost was the villain of the second Ant-Man film, and even Bucky Barnes has never helmed a Marvel film alone. The island-of-misfit-toys energy of the Thunderbolts, however, is the perfect backdrop on which to discuss depression and mental health. Whether that be Yelena's purposefully repressed trauma and purposelessness, John Walker's masculine entitlement and feeling that the world has passed him by or Alexei's longing for the successes of his past, every member of the Thunderbolts is suffering in loneliness. These battles of mental health come to the forefront as Valentina reveals that Bob is actually her hand-crafted super-soldier Sentry. However, the bureaucratic baddy seemingly bites off more than she can chew when Bob's childhood traumas, substance abuse battles and depression (not to mention a bad blonde hair dye job), cause him to send New York into a state of oblivion, disappearing humans into shadows one-by-one. Related: The 'Brutal' Filming of 'The Legend of Ochi' Involved Bear Attacks, a 7-Man Puppet and Rescuing a Nearly Dead Dog (Exclusive) In one of Marvel's most inventive set pieces to date, the Thunderbolts, helmed by Yelena who has befriended Bob, chase him into the void, and in a clever metaphor for therapy, the hodge-podge group of anti-heroes help Bob charge his way forward through his most difficult memories rather than run away from them. In a final cathartic scene similar to something from Everything Everywhere All at Once, the Thunderbolts remind viewers of the healing power of chosen family and processing our darkest thoughts and memories with others rather than suffering with them in silence. After a string of Marvel movies clogged by easter eggs, bad CGI and set up for future films, Thunderbolts* is a welcome reminder as to what a good superhero film can look like. It's a completely intact story even if there are certainly references to past MCU films and a post-credits scene pointing to things to come. Much of the credit must be given to the writing team of Eric Pearson (who wrote Black Widow) and newcomer Joanna Calo (who wrote on Hacks and The Bear), who steer the film in a more personal direction. Jake Schreier, the director and another Marvel rookie, also seems to have relieved the film from the drag of past lore and tacky visual effects. It cannot be undersold, however, just how charismatic this cast is as well. While the MCU has certainly managed to nab a who's who of A-list talent over the years, the Thunderbolts* cast does seem unique in both the caliber of its actors and the fact that none of them seem to be signaling in each scene that they're there SOLELY for a paycheck (*cough* Harrison Ford *cough*). Florence Pugh is one of the greatest actors of her generation and commands empathy, while Harbour and Louis-Dreyfus turn in perfectly calibrated comedic performances and Geraldine Viswanathan delights as Valentina's assistant Mel. The breakout star, however, is Pullman who manages to wow as the doofy Bob, the vengeful Sentry and the apathetic Void. Related: Mostly though, Thunderbolts* succeeds because for the first time since Black Panther it is an MCU movie with something to say. In a world of screens and politics where isolation is growing stronger and darkness can be overpowering, a popular superhero movie focusing so unabashedly on mental health is a welcome revelation. It's a reminder that no matter how screw up you think you are, there are still people out there who will love and care for you if you just open up. Rating: B+
