Amazon Prime Videos remake ofUtopia inspired by the Channel 4 series of the same name will likely prove to be strangely timely post-lockdown viewing, given that it centres around a cult comic book that correctly predicts a pandemic.

John Cusack (Being John Malkovich) is starring in his first regular television role, alongside a roster of familiar faces, including Rainn Wilson (best known for his role asDwight in the US Office).

Read on for everything you need to know about the US remake of Utopia.

Amazon Prime Videos eight-part remake of Utopia will be available to watch from Friday 25th September.

Utopia (Amazon Prime Video) Amazon

Penned by Gone GirlsGillian Flynn, the Utopia remake follows a group of comic book readers who all bond over an underground comic book called Utopia before realising that its pages contain a more sinister truth.

According to the official synopsis, the ragtag group unearth hidden meanings cloaked within the pages of Utopia, predicting threats to humanity. They realise these are not just the makings of a conspiracy; they are very real dangers coming alive right now in their world.

The group embarks on a high-stakes adventure, bringing them face-to-face with the comics famed central character, Jessica Hyde who joins them on their mission to save the world while harbouring secrets of her own.

John Cusack plays a famousbio-technician,Dr Kevin Christie, who wants to change the world with science.

American Honey star Sasha Lane has been cast as Jessica Hyde, while The Office actor Rainn Wilson plays an underrated scientist who happens to be a world-leading expert on a deadly flu and who accidentally walks into the midst of a dark web of conspiracy.

The reboot is also set to be notably less violent than the 2013 British original, after Flynn detailed how her remake would differ in an interview with Deadline.

Im more less is more as far as violence goes, she said. Im the person who loves that moment in Rosemarys Baby where were only seeing part of the conversation whereas the whole audience is trying to look around the corner to see whats happening, or obviously Jaws. Im a big believer in that. I dont want it for a cartoon effect or for shock value. I think we as an audience are past most of that as pure shock value. I want to use violence when its effective and appropriate.

You can watch the new trailer for Utopia here.

Amazon Prime Videos remake of Utopia will be available to watch from Friday 25th September. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide

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When is the Utopia remake on Amazon Prime Video ? - RadioTimes

The new feature film Bill & Ted Face The Music was in development for more than a decade. The third movie in a trilogy that started in 1989 with the sleeper hit Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure hits VOD and American theaters on Aug. 28, but its faced a long road to screens, and a series of studio changes and necessary revisions along the way. One of the most significant: director Dean Parisot tells Polygon that the filmmaking team had to scrap a sequence involving a computer-generated re-creation of George Carlin.

In the original Bill & Ted, teenage burnouts Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) and Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are emerging from a Circle K convenience store when theyre confronted by Rufus (Carlin), a time traveler from 2688 who tells them theyre meant to unite the world with their rock music. To help out, he introduces them to their own time-traveling selves, and sends them on a trip through time to help them pass a history class. In Bill & Ted Face The Music, the doofy duo realize theyre middle-aged musical failures who still havent written the song thats supposed to bring about world peace and a magical utopia, so they head out on a new time-traveling trip to solve the problem. Parisot says that journey was supposed to include a jump back to the Circle K, where they would ask Rufus for insight.

George Carlins death in 2008 was a limiting factor on that plan, but as of 2018, original Bill & Ted co-writer Ed Solomon was still talking up plans for a scene that used excised footage from the 1989 movie to let Winter and Reeves interact with their past selves, and with Rufus. But Parisot said the plan had to change because of the films budget and shooting schedule.

We probably could have afforded to build the Circle K set, he says, but we were using footage from the original Bill & Ted. We would have had to create a CG George Carlin, which is incredibly expensive, and very difficult to pull off in a convincing way. We didnt have the time or the money. But we had a great scene where they went back to talk to Carlin.

Parisot says the scene was intended both as a tribute to Carlin and a way to launch the quest that forms most of the movie. From a story point of view, theyre theyre trying to figure out what happens, right? he says. How do we solve this problem? Because nobody really knows the future, and they dont know whats coming. So initially, theyre going back in time to ask questions.

Ultimately, Parisot is philosophical about having to lose the sequence, which ended up being replaced with a plot device Bill and Ted wind up with a keepsake of Rufus that holds the same advice he would have given them in the cut scene. From a story perspective, it didnt change all that much, Parisot says. It was a bittersweet moment between them and Rufus. It was sweet, and I think it would have been fun but, you know, things fall by the wayside.

And he points out that the movie still includes a brief Rufus cameo. They still got to see Carlin! he says. The actor appears as a hologram, created with archival footage, and with a line of dialogue provided by animation voiceover artist Piotr Michael. It isnt exactly the emotional reunion Solomon envisioned, but it does nod to the past without kicking off the kind of uncanny-valley debates that followed other recent CGI actor re-creations, like the appearance of Peter Cushing and young Carrie Fisher in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

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Why Bill & Ted Face the Music scrapped its CGI George Carlin cameo - Polygon

11:00 AM PDT 8/27/2020byHilary Lewis

The New York Film Festival has added the world premiere of Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks, which sees the filmmaker reunite with her Lost in Translation star Bill Murray in a comedy about a father-daughter duo played by Murray and Rashida Jones, to its lineup.

The A24 and Apple Original Films title joins a number of other high-profile titles in the Spotlight section at 58th annual event, presented by Film at Lincoln Center.

The section will also feature screenings of the Spike Lee-directed film version of David Byrne's American Utopia Broadway musical; the Stacey Abrams voter suppression doc All In, directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortes; Pedro Almodvar's first English language film The Human Voice, adapted from a Jean Cocteau play and starring Tilda Swinton; the newly unearthed Hopper/Welles record of a poolside chat between Orson Welles and Dennis Hopper; and David Dufresne's The Monopoly of Violence, about police brutality against France's Yellow Vest movement for economic justice.

Prior to the pandemic, Dennis Lim and I spent time talking with each other and the Film at Lincoln Center staff about how we might reshape and focus the New York Film Festival, NYFF director Eugene Hernandez said in a statement. We agreed that among the annual highlights are those special, one-of-a- kind events that unveil an anticipated new film by a well-known filmmaker, dig deeper into a topic or theme with a substantive conversation, showcase something new or unexpected, and even have some fun! This is what were aiming to do with our new Spotlight section, which this year features cinemas brightest names (Spike! Pedro! Sofia! Tilda! Orson!), but also explores big topics and important ideas that our society is grappling with today: voter suppression and police brutality. Even though well gather digitally and at drive-ins this year, rather than en masse at Lincoln Center, we hope our first Spotlight section will engage, enlighten, and entertain.

The 2020 NY Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 17-Oct. 11.

Excerpt from:

Sofia Coppola's 'On the Rocks' to World Premiere at NY Film Festival - Hollywood Reporter

LG unveiled its new PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier on Thursday, essentially putting one of LGs home air purifiers on your face. The device looks like something George Jetson might wear if he got stuck in the bad timeline with climate change-fuelled wildfires, militarised police tear-gassing peaceful protesters, and a global pandemic of respiratory illness.

LG is hailing the battery-powered device as a new category of wearable air purifier technology because it uses two H13 HEPA filters and provides the user significant protection from hazardous particles in the air. The high-tech mask even adjusts air intake based on the wearers breathing patterns.

With its Dual Fans and patented Respiratory Sensor, LGs wearable air purifier allows users to take in clean, filtered air while the Respiratory Sensor detects the cycle and volume of the wearers breath and adjusts the dual three-speed fans accordingly, LG said in a press release published overnight. The fans automatically speed up to assist air intake and slow down to reduce resistance when exhaling to make breathing effortless.

The only problem, as the Verge notes, is that the mask might not be a good choice during the coronavirus pandemic. One of the reasons that public health experts recommend masks is because it can help stop the spread of the virus by people who might not know they have the disease. Masks can protect the wearer from contracting covid-19, but LGs new mask doesnt protect people around the wearer, defeating the purpose of universal masking, especially when asymptomatic transmission is so common.

The new mask would, however, be theoretically useful during wildfire season, as thousands of acres burn and make it hazardous to breathe in places like California right now. Last summer, the wildfires in Australia were so bad that indoor smoke alarms were being set off in downtown Sydney. LGs new mask would likely be a welcome addition in a scenario like that.

How soon with this new LG mask be available and where can you buy it? That part is unclear. LGs press release says that it will be available in the fourth quarter in select markets. We dont know if that includes the U.S. at this point.

It doesnt even look like LG bothered to put a working prototype on a human being for their latest press release. The company used a stock photo model and simply photoshopped the mask on his face. This particular model appears to be a favourite for the tech crowd. In recent years hes hadin-ear headphones and has hawked private car services in Europe.

There were a lot of possible futures we were promised in the 20th century. There was the jetpack future, the flying car future, the the robot butler future. Versions of utopia were always just around the corner. But we clearly got the dystopian future filled with anti-pollution personal wear, widespread panic, and a scenario where some of Americas largest cities are struggling to survive.

Thankfully, we havent seen nuclear apocalypse and permanent underground bunkers yet, but honestly thats always on the table, given the sheer number of near-misses weve had over the past half-century.

We may as well suit up for the dystopia were living in, with catastrophe around every corner. And we cant help but wonder if the predominant fashion trend of the 2020s will be a rich vein of LG-style dystopian tech. Perhaps we should call it Immortan Jetson chic.

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LG's New Wearable Air Purifier Is What George Jetson Would Wear in the Bad Timeline - Gizmodo UK

Its an all-too-familiar refrain by now: this years festival season is going to look a little different than years past. While autumn at the movies still signals the arrival of a glut of hotly anticipated features, movies seemingly destined for awards glory, and first looks at films that have been chattered about for entire years, 2020 will always come with an asterisk.

And so does IndieWires annual look at some of the most exciting new films of the season, this year rolling out in one singular package, all the better to highlight a curated crop of the best films arriving at Venice, Toronto, and New York. With a reduced lineup this year due to some films having to pause in the middle of production, and other finished features opting to wait until 2021 to get the usual festival bells and whistles many festivals are showing significantly fewer titles, and many of the biggest titles will be screening at all three festivals.

Some festivals are not happening at all (including Telluride, which followed in Cannes footsteps and cancelled its physical edition but named the titles that would have made its ranks), while others are unfolding as carefully crafted live events (like Venice, poised to be the first major film event in months to do just that). Others, including TIFF and NYFF, are attempting to launch festivals that utilize major virtual platforms and safety-minded in-person screenings and events.

So, yes, this years festival season will look very different. One thing, however, remains the same: many thrilling new films to look forward to seeing (whenever, and however, that might be). As possible and safe, we will be covering the fall festivals, thanks to both international contributors and a cadre of U.S.-based staff who have become (perhaps too) comfortable with working from home. Ahead, IndieWire picks through the Venice (September 2 12), TIFF (September 10 20), and NYFF (September 17 October 11) slates to highlight the best of the best.

Co-directed by two China-based journalists (Weixi Chen and someone who remains anonymous for their safety) along with New York filmmaker Hao Wu (whose Peoples Republic of Desire remains one of the best documentaries about the dystopian future of live-streaming), 76 Days offers an uncensored, ground-level portrait of the COVID-19 outbreak from inside the heart of Wuhan.

Less attuned to the Chinese governments response to the virus than it is to the outbreaks devastating impact on the first people found themselves in its path, 76 Days will introduce viewers to a pregnant woman who awaits the birth of her first child, a senile grandfather who cant remember his way home, and so many others as they scramble for life amidst an unprecedented lockdown. There will be many documentaries about this ongoing epidemic, several of which will likely be released before an end to the crisis is even in sight, but few are poised to offer such a lucid and lingering view of the toll the virus has taken. DE

See-Saw Films

That Francis Lees much-hyped romantic drama looks so much like Celine Sciammas lush Portrait of a Lady on Fire all those windswept beaches, all those longing looks, all those almost handholds!! is obvious, but whats less clear is how all those similarities are actually a good thing. If twos a trend, then were already deep into the next wave of aching period-set lesbian romances, and thats a far better state of being than, oh, being deep into the next wave of things-go-boom, robots-yell-a-lot actioners that seem more likely to drive the box office bucks.

Starring Oscar winner Kate Winslet as famed British paleontologist Mary Anning (whose real-life sexuality has already been the subject of much debate, expect that to only heat up as the season winds on), the Gods Own Country filmmaker cast four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan as Marys foil and eventual love interest, Charlotte Murchison. Like Portrait, the film imagines two seemingly different women thrown together by circumstance in a location that handily approximates the end of the world. What they discover goes beyond art or science, transforming into a forbidden obsession that has no place in their society (again: all those almost handholds).

The films first trailer and attendant press have played up its sexy side, while also indicating a true desire by Lee and his leading ladies to bring real intimacy to the big screen. That should always be in style. KE

The indomitable Frederick Wiseman will next apply his singular lens to city bureaucracy Bostons, no less. City Hall follows the inner workings of the Boston government, from climate change action to racial justice to housing policy and homelessness. In his statement about the film, Wiseman takes a characteristically neutral approach to his unwieldy subject, emphasizing the interconnectedness of city life and the services a city government can provide. The Boston city government is designed and strives to offer these services in a manner consistent with the Constitution and democratic norms, he writes.

Its hard to think of a better city to represent a snapshot of American governance than Boston, and Wiseman is the undisputed auteur of American institutions. With the most important election of our lifetime approaching, its the perfect time for art to help illuminate what government can actually do for people. JD

Did somebody say Idris Elba on a horse? The veteran actor will saddle up for a Philadelphia-set Western, where hell play opposite Stranger Things favorite Caleb McLoughlin. The pair star as an estranged father and son who become reunited, connecting over the world of urban horseback riding. The feature debut of Philadelphia native Ricky Staub, Concrete Cowboy is based on the novel Ghetto Cowboy, by G Neri. The story is fictional, but the riding club depicted is not the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club is part of a long tradition of urban horseback riding in Philadelphias Black community. The stacked cast also includes Jharrel Jerome (When They See Us), Lorraine Toussaint (Selma), comedian Byron Bowers, and Method Man. JD

HBO

After the success of Springsteen on Broadway on Netflix and Hamilton on Disney+, it seems like streaming might become a kind of forever home for Broadway productions after their theatrical runs you know, the way its supposed to work for movies. But with the lights turned off on the Great White Way for at least the rest of the year due to a deadly pandemic (you may have heard about it), certain shows might be coming home ahead of schedule. In the case of American Utopia, it cant arrive on HBO Max soon enough.

A euphoric revue of the best songs that David Byrne has ever written during his long career as a solo artist and frontman of Talking Heads (Psycho Killer, Once in a Lifetime, Road to Nowhere, etc.), the Broadway show was a shot in the arm before people realized how badly we could need one. And lucky for us, Spike Lee was there to capture it on camera, and with a visceral immediacy that promises to let all of us share the best seat in the house. Whether Stop Making Sense is burned into your brain or you only know Byrne as the white-haired guy who cut that one album with St. Vincent, American Utopia is sure to be the brightest, warmest, danciest ray of light youll find on a screen this fall. DE

The first Indian film in Venice competition in decades (and among the first in the NYFF main slate), Chaitanya Tamhanes second feature is loaded with potential. The filmmakers sophomore effort follows Court, a gripping and austere look at his countrys broken justice system. Here, he turns to the story of a classical musical vocalist who faces personal hurdles as the modern world threatens the future of his profession.

That concept holds plenty of appeal on its own, but The Disciple is especially promising because its filmmaker has established himself as a rigid formalist whose use of cinematic language can take any number of immersive and surprising directions. Needless to say, its no surprise that avowed Court fan Alfonso Cuaron has signed on to the project as an executive producer. Tamhane is already a world-class director, and The Disciple reportedly has such delicate shot composition and editing that anyone who values the art form is likely to be impressed with the directors ability to juggle its strengths. In a strange year for festival buzz with fewer flashier English-language titles, this cinephile treat has a good shot at standing out. Bring it on. EK

Adapted from Patrick DeWitts absurdist novel of the same name and borrowing its title from an expression for leaving a party announced (a Gallic variation on the Irish goodbye), French Exit has rather fittingly been slated to end the most low-key New York Film Festival this town has ever seen. And its a New York story to the core, as this sharp and unsparing comedy-esque affair follows the misadventures of one Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer), a suddenly penniless widow sells everything she owns and sails to Paris with her son (Lucas Hedges) and their talking cat (Tracy Letts, duh). Friendships, reconciliations, and spiritual possessions ensue, a shrewd jumble of arch familial nonsense that director Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers, Terri) should be able to navigate as well as anyone. DE

Prolific documentarian Heidi Ewing makes her solo directorial narrative debut with a bittersweet gay romance seen through the eyes of one aspiring chefs decision to cross the border from Mexico to the United States. The drama received warm reviews out of its Sundance premiere, where it bowed earlier this year in the genre-bending and forward-looking NEXT section. Ewing wrote the screenplay with Alan Page Arriaga, and the duo tackles this American Dream story through the fertile soil of food ethnography.

The film was shot by rising Mexican cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramrez, who has racked up more than two dozen films to his name since 2010. The film was originally meant to be a vrit portrait of this epic love story, but over years of interviews, Ewing realized she had the makings of a powerful narrative. While the hybrid elements may not make for the smoothest transition, the experimental nature makes this an exciting debut. JD

American Zoetrope

Combining the gauziness of her aunt Sofias films with a nuance and sensitivity all her own, Gia Coppola did the family name proud with her 2014 debut Palo Alto, which holds up as one of this centurys best movies about being young in America. Coppolas long-awaited second feature finds her reteaming with key collaborators (like musician Dev Hynes and cinematographer Autumn Durald) for a major swing for the fences: An original film that marries the snowballing narcissism of Elia Kazans A Face in the Crowd with the ubiquitous self-love of the social media era.

Maya Hawke, in her first leading role, stars as a grieving bartender whose rant against the content-ification of the world goes viral after she meets a man named Link (Andrew Garfield). Alas, the two strangers along with a third character played by Palo Alto alum Nat Wolff can only enjoy their fame for so long before they find themselves in the crosshairs of Jason Schwartzmans corporate villain. We cant wait to see what the Mainstream looks like through Coppolas eyes. DE

Over the course of two decades behind the camera, Italian filmmaker Susanna Nicchiarelli has made complicated women her signature, moving from off-kilter coming-of-age tales like Cosmonaut to her beloved biopic Nico, 1988. Her next project appears to be a culmination of her cinematic obsessions: a fact-based drama about the life of Karl Marxs whipsmart daughter Eleanor Marx that isnt beholden to traditional biopic trappings. When the films rights sold at last year Cannes, Screen reported that Nicchiarelli would rely on the insertion of period photographs and footage, the ironic use of contemporary music, and a minimalist aesthetic for clothing and furnishing to subvert the usual genre trappings.

No matter her method of telling the story, the Romola Garai-starring film has plenty of real-life drama to pull from. Eleanor was a socialist activist with her own big ideas about how the world (and the government) should work. Despite her formidable intellect, her personal life was fraught, and she was often at the mercy of her cruel long-time partner Edward Aveling (played by Patrick Kennedy). Niccharelli has been a longtime favorite of Venice, and seems poised to take the next step in the international arena. KE

Sam Pollard is best known as an editor on some of Spike Lees most treasured films, from Mo Better Blues to Bamboozled, but hes also crafted a substantial filmography of his own with historical documentaries such as Slavery By Another Name and Sammy Davis, Jr.: Ive Gotta Be Me. He adds to that substantial oeuvre with this very timely look back on Martin Luther King, Jr.s civil rights battles and how they lead to relentless surveillance and harassment efforts by J. Edgar Hoovers intelligence agency. Its no secret that Hoovers team did everything in their power to besmirch Kings name, including wiretapping efforts that revealed his extramarital affairs and blackmail attempts that failed to dampen Kings impact.

The movie promises an engaging blend of archival footage and contemporary interviews with some of Kings surviving peers certain to resurrect conversations about ruthless efforts by the U.S. government to diminish the impact of Black progress in America. Released to the world in the wake of George Floyd protests, the subject is certain to find a receptive audience eager to dissect just how much Kings story remains relevant and inspiring to this day. EK

Mexican director Michel Francos unrelenting, tightly bottled dramas have ranged from Haneke-level horrific and effective (the cautionary after-school-special-gone-wrong After Lucia) to stiff and dull even despite a major star (Chronic with Tim Roth as an end-of-life caretaker). Returning to his native roots, Franco takes on the dystopian drama with what Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbara calls Francos most ambitious and darkest film yet, New Order.

An extremely tense first teaser suggests something is very wrong here, as a wedding is interrupted by foreboding-looking, and most certainly unwelcome, gun-toting guests. New Order is told through the eyes of the bride and the servants working for, and evidently also against, her affluent family amid a collapsing political system. RL

Amazon

Somehow, Oscar-winning actress Regina King finds the time. Lauded on screens both big and small, King has also spent the past seven years building up an enviable assortment of directing credits, including episodes of Animal Kingdom, Insecure, and This Is Us, among others, and now makes the jump to feature filmmaking with a banger of debut, which has already been picked up by Amazon in advance of its festival premieres.

One Night in Miami doesnt just have an enviable cast in front of the camera (including Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Lance Reddick, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Michael Imperioli, and Beau Bridges), but shes picked them to lead a story about some of the biggest names to ever grace this Earth. Set on February 25, 1964 in the aftermath of Cassius Clay (Goree) defeating Sonny Liston for the title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion at the Miami Beach Convention Center, the film unspools to follow Clay and his closest friends activist Malcolm X (Ben-Adir), singer Sam Cooke (Odom), and football star Jim Brown (Hodge) as they celebrate the momentous evening. Talk about a meeting of the minds, and with King guiding her cast through a story that sounds too fantastic to believe and too important to forget, it promises to be one of the most thrilling films of the season. KE

Thrice a Cannes Palme dOr contender for his films Jupiters Moon, White God, and Delta, Hungarian filmmaker Kornl Mundrucz returns with the English-language Pieces of a Woman. And oh what a cast! Shia LaBeouf, returning to screens just a few weeks after his miscalculated turn in David Ayers The Tax Collector, and Vanessa Kirby star as lovers who meet across a sharp class divide (shes an executive and hes a construction worker). But they soon find themselves navigating extreme loss after the death of their first child after complications with a midwife, played by Molly Parker. Ellen Burstyn co-stars as Kirbys mother in this intense movie reminiscent of 1970s American dramas. Collaborating once again with screenwriter Kata Wber, Mundrucz worked in North America for the first time with this film. RL

Canadian New Queer Cinema iconoclast Bruce LaBruce has been turning out sexy, unsettling features and photography for three decades, reveling in the underbellies of every sexual subculture under the sun, from amputee fetishism and BDSM, to zombie sexuality and gerontophilia. His latest movie is no differently subversive or more shocking, exploring the twin fetishism thats become an icky staple of gay pornography.

Closing out the Venice Days program, the 1972-set Saint-Narcisse follows a 22-year-old with a fetish forhimself. Upon discovering he has a twin brother, Dominic embarks on a strange odyssey of sexual depravity, revenge, and redemption, especially once he learns his mother didnt actually die in childbirth. Newcomer Felix-Antoine Duval plays the undeniably hunky twins. RL

Luca Guadagnino applies his lush lens to the life of legendary Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo. The filmmakers first documentary was written by the fashion journalist Dana Thomas, and charts Ferragamos life from learning shoemaking as a young child to landing in Hollywood as a shoe designer on films like The Thief of Baghdad and stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. The film is narrated by Call Me by Your Name star Michael Stuhlbarg, and includes interviews with, among other luminaries, no less than Martin Scorsese. This towering figure of Italian fashion gets the star treatment from one of Italys premier filmmakers, and the results are sure to be dripping with style. JD

Call Me by Your what now? Franois Ozons new film Summer of 85 looks to be the gay summer-of-love story to end them all. The queer romance, set in 1985, boasts a killer soundtrack including The Cure and Bananarama, gorgeous cinematography, a coastal setting, striped T-shirts, and, of course, a beautiful cast, led by French cinema favorites Flix Lefebvre, Benjamin Voisin, Philippine Velge, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Melvil Poupaud, and Isabelle Nanty. Set against the glistening backdrop of seaside Normandy, the film tracks the friendship-turned-romance between two teenage boys, whose relationship is complicated by the arrival of another new friend. Its based on the novel by Aidan Chambers. RL

Lauded Mexican filmmaker Yulene Olaizolas latest feature boasts the kind of synopsis that only gets more intriguing and hard to fathom with each subsequent word. And if it sounds unpredictable on paper, we cant wait to see how that looks on film. Per said official synopsis, the film is set in 1920, on the border between Mexico and Belize. Deep in the Mayan jungle, a lawless territory where myths abound, a group of Mexican gum workers cross paths with Agnes, a mysterious young Belizean woman. Her presence incites tension among the men, arousing their fantasies and desires. Filled with new vigor, they face their destiny, without knowing that they have woken up Xtabay, a legendary being that lurks in the heart of the jungle.

We were already sold long before the introduction of Xtabay, but that might be the films best trick (or, at least, a clever way to obscure whats really going on here), as other official materials hint that we already know Xtabay, long before he (or she?) makes himself plain. Early casting calls hinted at a film filled with mysterious fatalities and deep roots in local mythology, a thrilling combination ripe for examination. KE

Searchlight Pictures

In 2017, Chloe Zhaos poetic cowboy drama The Rider become the surprise festival hit that kept hitting, as the industry chased after a filmmaker with a keen eye for rooting complex characters in an authentic milieu. It remains to be seen how well that sensibility will manifest in Marvels Eternals, but in the meantime, shes squeezed in another project that looks very much on brand. Nomadland stars the ever-reliable Frances McDormand as a woman roaming the American West in a frayed RV, drifting through a series of odd encounters and befriending another loner (David Strathairn) who may or may be the answer to her troubles. Zhaos patient, slow-burn ability to capture the complex isolation of the American landscape is well-established, and seems poised to mesh nicely with such dependable acting talent.

An Oscar hopeful from Fox Searchlight, Nomadland is also one of the few fall titles traveling the holy trifecta of Venice, TIFF, and NYFF (it was also poised to play at the now-canceled Telluride, alas). In a normal year, this understated movie might be a hidden gem in the noisy assemblage of red carpet events, but may actually benefit from being one of the hotter tickets this time around, a festival movie that could break out in whatever form the festivals allow it to happen. EK

Gianfranco Rosis Oscar-nominated Fire at Sea was a mesmerizing window into the migrant crisis that captured its tragic ramifications in intimate detail. For his latest, he embedded himself in another perilous environment where lives are on the line on a regular basis the battlegrounds of the Middle East. Rosi apparently spent two years gathering footage on the borders between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon, amplifying the experiences of people just looking to survive another day. His subjects range from lonely fishermen to children, but dont expect some kind of talking-head tribute.

Rosis cinematic approach to the non-fiction form assures that Notturno will deliver a hyper-immersion into a haunting environment all too often understood in terms of narrow-minded Western headlines. Another awards hopeful with real potential to break out, it stands a good shot at rejuvenating conversations about the nature of conflicts across the Middle East and just how often innocent lives are caught in the crosshairs. Its also bound to put the global pandemic in the wider context it deserves: Many people are fearing for lives today, but for the subjects of Notturno, that experience is nothing new. EK

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20 Must-See Films at the 2020 Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals - IndieWire

Marvel's Empyre event sees the mutant island of Krakoa invaded by the Cotati - but the X-Men are finally working as a team against them!

This article contains spoilers forX-Men #11.

TheX-Men are finally working as a team. When Charles Xavier first founded the X-Men, he established a School for Gifted Youngsters. There, he taught his students to use their powers. Oddly enough, he doesn't seem to have done a particularly good job; he was usually more fearful of seeing Omega level mutants develop their powers than he was willing to encourage them to experiment. He even used his own psychic powers to impose telepathic locks that inhibited Jean Grey's own telepathy for years.

Xavier may have had the X-Men train as a team in the Danger Room, but even teamwork doesn't appear to have been high up on his agenda. Each X-Man learned how to use their own individual powers in battle, but Xavier didn't really encourage synergies - attempts to use powers in concept. When Cyclops took over as leader of the X-Men for a time while they lived on Utopia, he immediately demonstrated his strategic genius by getting some of his mutants to work together. Now, with the world's mutants living together on the living island of Krakoa, Cyclops and his fellow Krakoan Captains have decided to get their people cooperating again.

Related:X-Men: Gambit's Secret Power Everyone Forgot About

This week'sX-Men #11 is part of Marvel's "Empyre" event, with the plant-race called the Cotati invading Krakoa. They soon learned the scale of their mistake, because Cyclops and his other Captains had come up with several ways to unite different powersets in both offensive and defensive ways. The X-Men had then used Emma Frost's telepathy to flash knowledge of all these strategies into the relevant mutants' minds, ensuring the Krakoans worked together with maximum efficiency. Apparently these are still early days, and the workshopping mostly focused on Magneto's powerset; after "Empyre," the experiment can certainly be considered successful.

Magma, for example, had located a deep vein of magma on the sea bed near Krakoa. She triggered a volcanic eruption, bringing about 20 tons of liquid iron to the surface. Iceman then intervened, using his cryokinetic powers to cool the molten metal at speed. Naturally, the almost-instantaneous cooling led to the new chunks of metal being particularly brittle, which meant they were perfect for Magneto's purposes; he was able to form them into jagged javelins, scythes, and swords, which he used to tear through the amassed army of Cotati. He then tugged a few satellites down out of space for good measure, including a few secret military ones the humans were using to monitor Krakoa that the X-Men weren't really supposed to know about in the first place.

Jonathan Hickman's X-Men run has revitalized the entire range, and this battle tactic indicates the sheer potential of the new mutant nation. The X-Men may call themselves a team, but they've always tended to operate in isolation; no longer is that the case. Consequently, they are now far greater than the sum of their parts.

More:X-Men: The Brother of COLOSSUS Returns To Marvel Comics

Wonder Woman's Toughest Fight Is Against An Evil Version of Snapchat

Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant's staff writers, and he's frankly amused that his childhood is back - and this time it's cool. Tom's focus tends to be on the various superhero franchises, as well as Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Star Trek; he's also an avid comic book reader. Over the years, Tom has built a strong relationship with aspects of the various fan communities, and is a Moderator on some of Facebook's largest MCU and X-Men groups. Previously, he's written entertainment news and articles for Movie Pilot.A graduate of Edge Hill University in the United Kingdom, Tom is still strongly connected with his alma mater; in fact, in his spare time he's a voluntary chaplain there. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will quickly learn that he's interested in British politics as well.

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Marvel's New X-Men Are FINALLY Working As A Team | Screen Rant - Screen Rant

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My profession, psychology, began demonizing traditional childrearing in the late 1960s. I was in graduate school at the time and on fire for the promise that the proper use of psychological principles could perfect the raising of children and thereby usher in the social utopia we (young boomers whose heads were enveloped in clouds of youthful idealism) thought possible, even imminent.

Children could be reasoned with. Punishment damaged self-esteem (the supposed brass ring of a good life). In the ideal family, parents and children ruled equally. Time-out which takes the all-time Parenting Boondoggle Award would correct all misbehavior. Children should be given lots of choices and allowed to express their feelings freely. Those are but a sample of the new psychological parenting narratives. Unfortunately, American parents fell en masse for this revisionism and child mental health has been in a tailspin ever since.

The propaganda boiled down to if your parents and grandparents did it, dont do it. One of the upshots of this was what I call yada-yada discipline the attempt to discipline by dialogue, through persuasive appeal to a childs inherent irrationality and self-centeredness.

Two grandparents recently shared the story of their 4-year-old male grandchild who was expressing his feelings freely by wetting his pants whenever the urge arose.

He didnt see the point of stopping whatever he was doing to use the toilet, they said.

Indeed, he didnt see the point because the point was a dull attempt on his parents part to talk him out of it. Yes, they occasionally became frustrated enough to send him to his room, which bothered him none because his room was an entertainment complex, a perfectly suitable place in which to spend a few minutes, even hours. To further demonstrate his disregard, he would often wet his pants on the way to his room, leaving tiny puddles of urine in his wake.

After several attempts, a pediatrician was unable to come up with a remedial drug. A therapist also came up empty-handed. Just prior to reaching the end of their wits, said parents read, in their local newspaper, a column written by a certain renegade psychologist that set forth a cure to spontaneous lazy boy bladder leakage disorder (SLBBLD).

From that point on, the lazy boys parents did three simple things: first, when he wet his clothes, he washed them in a bucket of soapy water; second, if he left a puddle on the floor, he wiped up the puddle and then washed the entire floor; third, when his labors were done (to his parents satisfaction) he spent the remainder of the day in the bathroom and was in bed immediately after supper.

What drugs and therapy had not moved was cured in one day. As I write, he is no longer a lazy boy. Far from it, in fact. He is a fully functioning adult who is neither beset with bathroom phobia nor haunted by nightmares of bucket monsters chasing him down labyrinthine corridors.

The moral to the story is the moral to many a parenting story these days: If your parents and grandparents did it, then (with the obvious exceptions) you should follow their example.

Some things never change, among which is common sense.

Visit family psychologist John Rosemonds website; readers may send him email; because of the volume of mail, not every question will be answered.

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Living with Children: Where we all went wrong - TribLIVE

Paul Krugman| The New York Times

Last weeks Democratic National Convention was mainly about decency about portraying Joe Biden and his party as good people who will do their best to heal a nation afflicted by a pandemic and a depression. There were plenty of dire warnings about the threat of Trumpism; there was frank acknowledgment of the toll taken by disease and unemployment; but on the whole the message was surprisingly upbeat.

This weeks Republican National Convention, by contrast, however positive its official theme, is going to be QAnon all the way.

I dont mean that there will be featured speeches claiming that Donald Trump is protecting us from an imaginary cabal of liberal pedophiles, although anything is possible. But its safe to predict that the next few days will be filled with QAnon-type warnings about terrible events that arent actually happening and evil conspiracies that dont actually exist.

That has, after all, been Trumps style since the very first day of his presidency.

New presidents traditionally use their inaugural addresses to deliver a message of hope and unity, even in dark times: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Trump, however, offered a vision of American carnage, in particular of inner cities devastated by violent crime. His rhetoric was ugly and had clear racial overtones, but it also had another problem: it bore no relationship to reality. Trump took office in a nation whose violent crime rate had been falling for decades; our big cities were as safe as they had ever been.

The same pattern of attempts to panic Americans over nonexistent threats recurs throughout this administration. If you get your information from administration officials or Fox News, you probably believe that millions of immigrants in the country illegally cast fraudulent votes, even though actual voter fraud hardly ever happens; that Black Lives Matter protests, which with some exceptions have been remarkably nonviolent, have turned major cities into smoking ruins; and more.

Why this fixation on phantom menaces? There has always been a paranoid style in American politics that sees sinister conspiracies behind social and cultural change a style going all the way back to fear of Catholic immigrants in the 19th century. Those of us who remember the 1990s know that QAnon-type conspiracy theories have been out there for decades; theyve just become more visible thanks to social media and a president who attributes all his failures to the machinations of the deep state.

Beyond that, however, a lot of the focus on imaginary threats represents a defensive response from people who repeatedly demonstrated, even before the coronavirus hit, that they have no idea how to do policy, that is, to cope with real threats.

After all, America on the day Trump took office was no utopia. The overall economy was doing well, with steady job growth and falling unemployment trends that continued, with no visible break, for the next three years. But parts of the country suffered from persistent economic weakness and low employment. Homicides were low, but deaths of despair from drugs, suicide and alcohol were rising sharply.

So a president who really cared about American carnage would have had plenty to work on.

But Trump never even tried. His response, such as it was, to regional decline was a trade war that, on net, reduced manufacturing employment. The rest of his economic policy was standard Republican fare, focused on corporate tax cuts that didnt even boost business investment. His only visible response to the opioid crisis was a push to take away health insurance from millions.

Then came COVID-19 which, by the way, has already killed far more Americans than were murdered in the decade that preceded Trumps inauguration. And the administrations response, aside from the occasional promotion of quack remedies, has consisted of little but denial and insistence that the whole thing will miraculously go away.

Trump, in other words, cant devise policies that respond to the nations actual needs, nor is he willing to listen to those who can. He wont even try. And at some level both he and those around him seem aware of his basic inadequacy for the job of being president.

What he and they can do, however, is conjure up imaginary threats that play into his supporters prejudices, coupled with conspiracy theories that resonate with their fear and envy of know-it-all elites. QAnon is only the most ludicrous example of this genre, all of which portrays Trump as the hero defending us from invisible evil.

If all of this sounds crazy, thats because it is. And its almost certainly not a political tactic that can win over a majority of American voters. It might, however, scare enough people that, combined with vote suppression and the unrepresentative nature of the Electoral College, Trump can manage, barely, to hang on to power.

I dont think this desperate strategy is going to work. But its all Trump has left. The only thing he can hope for is fear itself nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror based on nothing real at all.

Paul Krugman writes for The New York Times.

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Krugman: QAnon is Trump's last, best chance - The Register-Guard

UsBBC OneUs (Photo: Colin Hutton/BBC)

Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves take on the roles of Douglas and Connie in this adaption of David Nicholls beloved 2014 novel. It follows the soon to be separated couple and their distanced son as they take one last trip as a family, inter-railing across Europe.

A spin-off from Doctor Foster, this new series from Mike Bartlett focuses on Anna (Victoria Hamilton) who now goes as Belle as she builds a new life in Manchester. Moving into a house split into four levels, she meets an intriguing cast of characters, played by the likes of Alison Steadman and Adrian Lester.

Another big name comes to the small screen as Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave, Widows) recounts the experience of Londons West Indian community throughout the 70s. Each episode tells a different story, one of which is that of Leroy Logan, a Met police officer who developed anti-racist policies for the force, who will be played by John Boyega (Star Wars).

Hugh Laurie plays a politician who finds his life both professional and personal targeted by his enemies. Timely and sharp, the four-part series written by David Hare (Collateral) explores the grey area between political duty and morality and how far one should go to achieve power.

An unlikely reunion for Fleabag and her Hot Priest, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge joins His Dark Materials as John Parrys daemon. Both are being tracked by aeronaut Lee Scoresby in the second, darker series of the Philip Pullman adaption, while Lyra continues to investigate the meaning of Dust alongside her new companion, Will.

Perhaps a triggering series for any young people vying for a place on a graduate scheme, this series set in Londons world of finance follows a group of wannabe investment bankers hoping to secure a permanent job. Expecting professionalism, they enter a world of sex, drugs and ego and must decide whether the raucous industry is really for them.

Between 1978 and 1973, serial killer Dennis Nilsen murdered at least twelve young men and boys before having sex with their corpses. David Tennant steps into his shoes for this disturbing but brilliant true crime series, focusing on the arrest and subsequent trial of the killer known as the Muswell Hill Murderer.

The so-called honour killing of Iraqi Kurdish woman Banaz Mahmod is the catalyst for this drama, with Keeley Hawes as the detective who was awarded for her investigation into the 20-year-olds disappearance. Mahmod had already told the police of her familys plan to kill her, simply because she had left her abusive husband for another man.

From the creator of Luther, we can expect murder, secrets and maybe even ghosts from this new series. Russell Tovey (Flesh and Blood) plays Nathan, a man desperate to leave a terrible secret in the past. Its all going well until an old friend shows up and sparks a chain of events that will reveal all.

Based on JG Farrells 1978 novel, this World War II drama focuses on the Webbs, a British family living in Singapore at the time of the Japanese invasion. Boasting a cast including Charles Dance and David Morrissey, the series promises to be witty, satirical and entirely watchable.

Pushed back because it was considered too rude to air before 10pm, Adult Material is a no holds barred look behind the cameras of the porn industry. Starring Hayley Squires as veteran actress Jolene Dollar, the series pits her against anti-porn activists and explores the effect of free content on the business.

A reboot of the 80s gentle drama, recounting the lives of vets living and working in the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales. It coincides with the 50th anniversary of the release of the novel the series is based on, written by real life vet James Herriot.

There was originally going to be an accompanying theatre piece to this series, offering viewers a chance to get involved in the drama like never before. That part will now air on Sky Arts as a livestream instead, while the series itself features Jude Law and Naomie Harris whose characters discover a mysterious island inhabited by protective outcasts.

Julia Stiles returns as Georgina Clios (now Ryland), who calls this outing the most ambitious series yet. Leaving the French Riviera behind for Italy and Argentina, Georgina has made a name for herself in the world of art restitution and is determined to leave the her less than savoury past behind. Knowing her, it wont last long.

The final series of Skys thriller follows the Worth family back to their roots in Liverpool, leaving the Canadian town of Little Big Bear forever. Unsurprisingly, theyre less than welcome in their hometown and soon find themselves the target of Merseysides most notorious and violent gang led by bulletproof king pin Michael Ryan (Ian Hart).

Nicole Kidman has once again teamed up with Big Little Lies showrunner David E Kelley for this new psychological drama about a woman whose high-profile life falls apart after the disappearance of her husband (Hugh Grant). Based on Jean Hanff Korelitzs novel You Should Have Known, the series questions whether the perfect life really exists.

Aldous Huxleys novel is modernised into a futuristic series imagining a utopian society free of hunger and violence and where people are connected via Indra, an artificial intelligence system. Those who read the original work will know all is not as it seems, and that utopia doesnt quite stretch as far as the Savage Lands.

Perhaps the most anticipated drama of the season, series four of Netflixs royal series will introduce Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Emma Corrin as Princess Diana. As well as the 1981 Royal Wedding, well also relive the Buckingham Palace break-in, the magnificence of Concord and the birth of Princes William and Harry.

Hilary Swank plays Commander Emma Green, the astronaut in charge an international crew embarking on a dangerous mission to Mars. Less about space and more about human connection, Emma finds herself distracted by the husband and teenage daughter she left on Earth.

The international drama set in just one police interrogation room returns with four more suspects. Guest stars are yet to be announced, but with David Tennant and Hayley Atwell cast in the first series, theyre sure to be impressive.

You may recognise the name Ratched as the cruel nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, intent on making her charges lives as difficult as possible. Sarah Paulson takes over the role from Louise Fletcher in this series led by the dark character, taking place at the very beginning of Ratcheds employment at an Oregon psychiatric hospital.

Netflixs answer to Downton Abbey? Possibly. This period drama is based on Julia Quinns bestselling series of novels, exploring the ruthless world of high society in Regency era London. Produced by Shonda Rhimes, the cast boasts Derry Girls Nicola Coughlan and none other than Dame Julie Andrews as narrator Lady Whistledown.

Henry James 1898 novel The Turning of the Screw serves as inspiration for this long-awaited follow up to horror series The Haunting of Hill House. Set in the English countryside, the story follows a nanny who moves to Bly Manor to look after a pair of orphans. Once there, the house slowly starts to reveal its spooky history and the spooky entities who still roam its halls.

Another sweary superhero show to add to the ever-popular genre, The Boys was Amazon Prime Videos runaway hit of 2019. Imagining the shows heroes as less than perfect celebrities is a welcome spin, and season two promises even more gory, bombastic action.

A remake of Channel 4s excellent 2013 mystery series, Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn tells the story of the secret deadly message hidden in the fictional series of comics known as Utopia. It comes down to a group of misfit nerds to stop the nefarious plans being carried out, finding themselves hunted by ruthless killers who have been ordered to put a stop to their investigations.

Another spin-off, this time from zombie series The Walking Dead. Taking place in Nebraska ten years after the apocalypse, the action focuses on two teenage girls who are part of the first generation to only know life alongside the undead. After a catastrophic event changes their lives forever, the pair set out on a quest which will see them leave the safety of their compound for the first time.

After eight episodes of the Star Wars series, were still no closer to discovering Baby Yodas (real name The Child) backstory. Thats the main hope for the second set of episodes, though theres also the excitement surrounding the confirmed appearance of the franchises most famous Mandalorian, Boba Fett, to look forward to.

2020 is truly shaping up to be the year of the spin-off. This offspring of crime series Power follows Tariq St. Patrick after he killed his own father in the sixth season finale. Attempting to balance university with keeping his family safe and finding a way to get his mum out of jail, Tariq is spinning a lot of plates and you can put money on the chances of him dropping one.

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The best dramas to watch on TV this Autumn, from The Crown to Des - iNews

Editorial cartoonist Bill Roundy by editorial cartoonist Bill Roundy.

Sleepy de Blasio strikes again!

Our editorial cartoonist Bill Roundy couldnt help being infuriated at the mayors ongoing reluctance to create more space for pedestrians and cyclists on the crowded Queensboro Bridge a bizarre public opposition to a project that Streetsblog even lined up the funding for!

You remember your history: First, the conversion of one lane of car traffic into a pedestrian path couldnt happen, the city said, until the completion of a roadway project on the upper level of the span. Then the city said it couldnt do the work because the lane would require a special security fence that would supposedly cost multi millions of dollars.

More recently, officials trotted out a new excuse: the work would require much more than a mere fence, but new designs for pedestrians at the entrance and exit of the bridge (though that appears unlikely).

To our cartoonist, the mayor first was stalling, now hes just being obstinate and for no reason, given that he has consistently said he wants the future of New York to be more about sustainable modes of transportation and less about the private car.

What better way to start that process to Utopia than by taking away a single lane from cars on a bridge that often has more cyclists and pedestrians on it anyway (albeit all crammed into the north outer roadway currently)?

All of Bill Roundys cartoons are archived here.

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A Roundy and a Roundy: Take the Money, Bill! - Streetsblog New York

Since the beginning of the Broadway shutdown on March 12, two questions have been on every theater lovers lips. To the first and most pressing onewhen will theaters reopen?we still have no firm answer, though several productions are optimistically selling tickets for performances in early 2021. To the secondwhat will become of the Tony Awardswe now have the very beginnings of an answer, but one that raises a host of smaller questions in its wake.

Since so many of this year's scheduled Broadway productions never got to open, there had been speculation that the Tonys would be scrapped entirely this year, and that potential nominees would be bundled in with next years crop.But on August 21, the Tonys announced that the 74th annual awards, honoring achievements in the abbreviated 201920 Broadway season, would indeed be presented in a digital ceremony this fall. That seems like the right decision; to do otherwise would have penalized shows that opened earlier this season. But where will this years Tonys take place? And when? And how? Those are things we dont yet know. (Additional information, including a date and platform for the awards ceremony, will be announced soon, the press release promised.)

The Tony Awards Administration Committee, which makes rulings about eligibility and other questions, is set to convene later this week for the third and final time this season. In terms of its normal work, the committee will be considering only three productions that openedsince the last time it met: My Name is Lucy Barton, A Soldiers Play and Grand Horizons. (The new cut-off date has been established as February 19, 2020; Girl from the North Country and the revival of West Side Story, which opened after that but before the March shutdown, have been deemed ineligible because not enough nominators were able to see them.) But this is no normal season. Will the unprecedented nature of the season lead to changes in the rules that ordinarily govern the Tony nominations?

With that in mind, please join us in a deep dive into the weeds. Here arenine of the main questions that remain, as of now, unanswered.

Asnoted above, the Tonys timetable is still amystery:All we know for sure is thatthe ceremony will be in the fall. But the Tony nominations usually follow closely on the heels of the final Administration Committee meeting, sothosemightbe announcedas soon asnext week. Traditionally, there are about five weeks between the nominations and the ceremonya period usually packed with lobbying from the nominated shows' producersbut this year's gapcould easilybe shorter or longer.

One answer to this question is clear:Since all three of the seasons scheduled musical revivals are ineligible (West Side Story, Company and Caroline, or Change), there will be no award this year for Best Revival of a Musical. Five scheduled revivals of plays also didnt open, but that leaves four play revivals: enough, if only barely, to populate a category for Best Revival of a Play. Heres where things get tricky: According to the Tony rules that govern the Best Show categories, if there are only four eligible nominees then the category automatically shrinks to three nomineesunless the difference in votes between the third-highest ranked show and the fourth-highest ranked show is ten percent or less. Will one of the four potential nominees (A Soldiers Play, Betrayal, The Rose Tattoo or Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune) be left in the cold? Or will the committee decide to waive that rule this year?

Of the four new musicals that opened in 2019-2020, only one, the lukewarmly received The Lightning Thief, had an original score. But the Tonys permit nominations in this category for original music in straight plays as well, for which at least six productions this season would be eligible. Will the committee choose to err on the side of generosity and leave the category as is, at the risk of harming the awards reputation? Will it decide to give the award to one of the potential nominees by acclimation, as it did when Sunset Boulevard hadthe sole new book and score in the shockingly thin 1994-1995 season? Or will it eliminate the category entirely, as it did in the 198889 season when faced with the alternative of nominating the scores for the flops Starmites, Chu Chem, Welcome to the Club and Legs Diamond? If we were betting folk, wedput our chipson the last option.

As things stand, only two nominees are eligible: Moulin Rouge!s Aaron Tveit and The Lightning Thiefs Chris McCarrell. As with Best Score, this leaves the nominators with a decision. They could have a category of two, like the Best Actress in a Musical category in 1995. They could just give the award to one of the two (read: Tveit) outright; they could also reverse course on an earlier decision and fill out the category by bumping Tinas Daniel J. Watts and/or Jagged Little Pill's Sean Allan Krillup to the leading actor category. (Both of these options would ordinarily be against the rules, but the rules can be flexible in an emergency if the Administration Committees oversight group, the Management Committee, decides there is good cause to do so.) Or they could drop the category, as they did for both Best Actress and Best Actor in a Musical back in the weak 1984-1985 seasonand perhaps make Tveit and McCarrell eligible for Best Featured Actor (which is what happened to many leads in 1985, and which is the category they would be in anyhow if they hadnt been bumped up to leading status in an earlier rules decision).

Ordinarily, the categories for Costumes, Set, Lighting and Sound of a Musical have at least four or five nominees. This year, however, there are only four eligible musical productions, which would mean automatic nominations for everyonesomewhat defeating the prestige involved. The administration committee could leave that in place, which would be great news for, say, The Lightning Thief. Alternatively, it could thin the lanes to two or three nominees in each race. Another option might be to drop the split, for this season alone, between musicals and playsa split that has only existed since 2005, after alland put all the productions in one category. (The same logic might apply for Best Director, though in that case the split dates back to 1960.)

David Byrnes concert show was not submitted by its producers for Tony contention, though it has been widely expected to receive a Special Tony Award for merit. Given the situation, howeverand if enough of the nominators and voters saw it anyhowmight the Tonys decide its an eligible musical after all? The answer here is: almost certainly not. But it would make several of the categories more interesting if they did.

If the Tonys hew to their ordinary rules, then the race for Best Play will be the most straightforward, since ten new plays are eligible and only four that had been scheduled to open are not. That translates into fine, fat categories of five nominees for Best Play, its attendant acting awards andif the nonperformance categories are not combined (see above)Best Costumes, Set, Lighting and Sound of a Play. Expect big hauls for Slave Play andThe Inheritance.(The categories for featured performances in musicals, which usually have more than enough candidates, may end up with only four nominees apiece this year.)

Now we move into a very tricky area for the Tonys: not the nominators and administrators, but the voters. Two years ago, the Tonys instituted a new system to ensure that the pool of more than 800 Tony voters had actually seen all of the nominated productions; voters had to visit a special portal and provide proof of attendance for each show. That system might prove very exclusive this year, however, since a larger proportion of the voters might not have seen all of the nominees in many of the categories. (They might have been putting off seeing Jagged Little Pill, for instance, on the assumption that they would have plenty of time to do so before voting in May.) Enforcing the existing standards strictly might limit the voting pool significantly; dropping it, on the other hand, would tacitly acknowledge that the voters were judging work they hadnt seen.

For many theater lovers, who rarely get to see Broadway theater except on the annual Tonys telecast on CBS, this is the really important question. Its also, unfortunately, the question we have the least information about. Giving out the awards themselves is easy enough: Other awards showsthe Obies, the New York Drama Critics Circle, the Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Desk Awards, the new Antonyo Awardshave already given out their prizes online, and you can watch those ceremonies here. But the most exciting moments of the Tonys, for many viewers, are the musical numbers from nominated shows. Its hard to know how that part would be accomplished in a satisfying way. First of all, there are only four potential musical nominees this year (plus American Utopia). Yes, the broadcast could easily also include numbers from shows that were supposed to open this year and will instead be part of next seasons crop. But assembling such numbers in a way that would showcase them at their best would be extremely difficult: A number like Moulin Rouge!s Bad Romance simply doesnt fit in Zoom boxes. In theory, casts could be gathered, quarantined, rehearsed and filmed on stagebut the logistics would be a nightmare and the expense would be prohibitive, especially since the numbers would not be fulfilling their usual function of trying to generate ticket sales for the shows in question. Under the circumstances, we lean toward expecting a relatively modest virtual ceremony in October or Novemberjazzed up with numbers that can be performed more or less solo and pre-recorded effectivelywith a larger Broadway special of some kind to follow, months down the road, once the Street is open for business again.

As we await the answers to these questions and others, it is worth remembering what Broadway did manage to offer this season: ten new plays, four new musicals, four play revivals, a memorable theatrical concert and many glimpses of exciting things to come. Theres a lot to celebrate, and we look forward to doing just that with this years Tony Awards, in whatever new forms they assume.

RECOMMENDED:Our day-by-day roundup of the best theater, opera and dance to stream online

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Nine Burning Questions About the 2020 Tony Awards - Time Out New York

One of the very few perks to life in lockdown (and boy, do you really need to look for the silver linings) has been that we've all had a lot more free time to dedicate to that stack of unread books on the nightstand. And as 2020 is officially the year of the staycation, we thought we'd bring you our faves from this year's releases, from gritty thrillers to far-flung fantasy to big idea non-fiction.

1The City We Became: A Novel (The Great Cities Trilogy Book 1)

This innovative modern fantasy epic by the author of The Fifth Season takes place in a version of New York City very much like the one we know except its alive. In Jemisons world, cities have souls, and The City We Became is the story of the human incarnations of the Big Apple as they fight to defend the metropolis they love from an otherworldly, Lovecraftian horror.

2Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays

Playwright and columnist R. Eric Thomas debut collection of personal essays explore big themes of race, sexuality and religion that authors have been grappling with for years and manages to make them funny. With the trademark wit and insight that made his Ellecolumn Eric Reads the News so popular, Thomas recounts some of the most formative, hilarious experiences of his childhood and young adulthood, before turning his wry-yet-hopeful eye to the future.

3The Glass Hotel: A novel

Mandels previous novel, Station Eleven, followed a disparate group of characters through the outbreak of a global plague, then caught up with the remnants of human society decades later. Her latest book may feature fewer apocalypses but is no less sprawling in scope, beginning with one fateful evening at the Hotel Caiette in British Columbia, and tracing the echoes that reverberate through several characters lives over the decades that follow.

4Antkind: A Novel

One of the greatest screenwriting minds of all time takes his shot at the literary with the sprawling, funny, mind-warpingAntkind.Much like he did withBeing John MalkovichandAdaptation,Charlie Kaufman gets very meta in this novel that also invokes the films of Judd Apatow and the surreal, speculative workof Philip K. Dick. With just about every single one ofAntkinds 720 pages, youll be testing your own mind, and getting another rare and exclusive glimpse into Kaufmans (and laughing all along the way).

5The Answer Is . . .: Reflections on My Life

Game show host Alex Trebek has been a beloved part of the American cultural canon for more than 30 years, and when he revealed in 2019 that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the public responded with unanimous messages of love and support. Trebek says this memoir was written as a kind of thank you to those unwavering fans; each chapter takes its title from a Jeopardy!-style question, and includes never-before-shared stories from Trebeks life and his time on the show.

6Blacktop Wasteland: A Novel

Billed as Oceans Eleven meets Drive, this gritty modern noir follows Bug, a former getaway driver who earned a reputation as the best wheelman on the East coast. Hes trying hard to go legit, but as a Black man living on the brink of poverty in the rural South with a family depending on him, the promise of one last job is all too alluring, and so he agrees to take part in a heist which could change his life for good or be his undoing.

7The Vanishing Half: A Novel

The Vignes sisters are identical twins, and were once inseparable. But when they ran away from home at the age of sixteen, their lives diverged. Ten years later, one of the sisters passes for white, with a husband who has no knowledge of where she comes from, and the other sister lives in the same community they once tried to escape. And then their daughters paths cross. The Vanishing Half weaves together elements of family saga and social commentary to ask the question: what makes us who we are?

8Mexican Gothic

Noemi, a society girl living in Mexico City in the 1950s, receives an alarming letter from her cousin, Catalina, claiming her husband is trying to poison her. What follows is a richly imagined take on the Gothic fiction genre, complete with a baroque remote mansion, a complicated and brooding male lead, and a mystery in dire need of solving.

9Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It

Were living in a time of technological marvels, but all too often, the lofty claims and bombastic headlines surrounding new advances tend to obfuscate or oversimplify. How many times over the last few years have we heard that robots are coming to take our jobs?Through chapters on everything from healthcare to energy to artificial intelligence, science writer Gemma Milne makes the argument that hype is a dangerous tool when it comes to shaping human progress, and that we all need to be able to think critically.

10Such a Fun Age

A young woman of color is accused of kidnapping a white child in a supermarket at the outset of this Booker-longlisted novel. Things only get worse for Emira, the babysitter, when the childs mother Alix tries to make things right by taking to the internet, igniting a series of events that feel both gripping and inevitable.

11If It Bleeds

In addition to churning out one doorstopper of a novel per year, preternaturally prolific horror writer Stephen King is also a master of short-form suspense. His latest collection comprises four characteristically original, unnerving novellas, including the titular If It Bleeds, which functions as a standalone sequel to Kings 2018 thriller The Outsider, which wasrecently adapted into a chilling miniseries by HBO.

12The Paper Girl of Paris

The YA debut of Mens Healths own deputy editor Jordyn Taylor, The Paper Girl of Paris unfolds over two timelines. In the present day, 16-year-old Alice inherits an apartment in Montmartre that has been locked ever since the Second World War. And in the 1940s, a young socialite named Adalyn experiences the first spark of resistance during the Occupation. Part mystery, part love story, The Paper Girl of Paris is a timely novel about coming of age and doing the right thing.

13Utopia Avenue: A Novel

This kaleidoscopic tale of sex, drugs and rocknroll focuses on the fictional band Utopia Avenue and their stratospheric rise in the late 1960s. There are very few genuinely greatbooks about music, and it takes a novelist of David Mitchells talents to satisfactorily capture the ineffable thrill of a live gig. Utopia Avenue is a love letter to a specific time, and a specific kind of band and for Mitchell fans, its also full of Easter eggs that place it firmly in the wider, deeply strange shared universe of his other notable works likeCloud Atlas andThe Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

14A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom: A Novel

Ambitious doesnt even begin to describe this novel, which starts out as the story of a family in Biblical times before taking the reader on an epic journey across continents and through centuries, ending in the year 2080. With the introduction of each new character and setting, Boynes thesis becomes increasingly clear: everything (and everyone) is connected, and history will be doomed to repeat itself unless people start to figure shit out.

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The 14 Best New Books of 2020 - Men's Health

A biweekly series, The Ursula K. Le Guin Reread explores anew the transformative writing, exciting worlds, and radical stories that changed countless lives. This week well be covering the first half of the short story collection The Winds Twelve Quarters, from Nine Lives to The Day Before the Revolution, pp. 105 to the end, in the 1975 Harper & Row hardcover edition.

In the last post of the Le Guin Reread we looked at the first half of Le Guins first story collection, The Winds Twelve Quarters, which we continue here. I was pleasantly surprised that no one shamed me (to my knowledge) for my comments about short stories generally (thanks for sparing me, Rich!), and in fact one reader wrote elsewhere in recognition of the feeling of getting lost in a world as opposed to a story.

While the early stories of the collection are something of a retrospective on the first few years of her life as an SFF writer, coming up through the magazine world with increasingly better and more ambitious short storiesseveral of which launched the storyworlds that made her career, quite literallythe second half reflects the difference of a writer finally coming into her own. I (regrettably but, for me, truthfully) called the first half meh, but the nine stories of (my arbitrarily divided) part two are individually and collectively anything but meh. Semleys Necklace and The Good Trip were but a taste of what Le Guin can do with the short story form, and Winds Twelve Quarters culminates with a bevvy of heady, beautiful, and thought-provoking stories composed with a careful, sometimes quiet, power. The stories are as myths or fableslittle bits of truth and reality poured into SFF skins.

Unsurprisingly, a shared set of symbologies unite the stories of the collection, and these meanings are drawn all the more clearly in the later stories. Among these are an abiding interest in and love for the rural and the rustictrees, caves, roads, pathwaysas well as in the myths, mysteries, and psyches of human cultures across time, space, and genres. Indeed, Le Guin labels nearly every story in the second half of Winds Twelve Quarters as a psychomyth, though shes never really clear what she means by it beyond a short description in her foreword to the collection: more or less surrealistic tales, which share with fantasy the quality of taking place outside any history, outside of time, in that region of the living mind whichwithout invoking any consideration of immortalityseems to be without spatial or temporal limits at all.

Whew, a mouthful, but which basically means: a fabilistic or mythological story independent of most temporo-spatial markers that would place it noticeably in, say, medieval Europe or far-future China, and that by virtue of being tempo-spatially (and, to the extent possible, linguistically) unmoored is able to focus on human truths. Of course, the idea of a psychomyth is itself a fantasynot unlike the idea of a shared, universal human experiencebut its a nice fantasy and one allows Le Guin to establish a kind of writing unto herself that helps her carve a literary-intellectual niche for herself. And this isnt a bad thing, since with few other exceptions (at least in this collection!), Le Guins stories that actively aim for being labelled fantasy or science fiction are, well, just OK (a surprising thing, since her SFF novels are fucking fantastic, but every writer is different!). Psychomyth is nonetheless an interesting concept for thinking through these storiesGabrielle Bellot, for example, pinpoints how Omelas uses the psychomyth to defy generic categoriesand at the same time points toward just how much thinkers like Carl Jung (sorry, but blech!) influenced Le Guins writing in the early half of her career.

There are nine stories and psychomyths in this reread, three of which will likely be familiar to Le Guin stans, and the others of which, if unfamiliar, will come as a wonderful surprise. These stories are:

Ill do what I did in the previous reread and cover each story shortly and succinctly, discussing plot and theme, and what the story means for Le Guin as writer-thinker, the idea being to provide a somewhat holistic picture of The Winds Twelve Quarters as a whole. In taking this route, I end up deemphasizing the final two stories, which are no doubt Le Guins most famous, but others have written about those stories at great length and Im not sure I can add much to the din.

Onward, then, to the stories!

To start withno. Nine Lives is not, unfortunately, about cats. Let the disappointment sink in for a moment and remember that Le Guin probably wrote Catwings to correct this immense error, or at least thats my headcanon. So Nine Lives isnt about cats, but the title is probably an immense troll on the storys publication venue: Playboy. Yep, the magazine that built Hugh Heffners empire and made porn mainstream. And its the only story she wrote under a pseudonym (U.K. Le Guin) at the editors insistence. To be sure, theres a lot of sex in Nine Lives, until theres a lot of death. This is the story of a tenclone, a group of five male, five female clones of a brilliant scientist named John Chow.

The clones (theyre actually referred to as a singular) have come to the planet Libra as an elite work-crew for a newly discovered mine; they work better than non-clones because of their intense bond and social cohesion (the nightly sexual pairingsis it sex or masturbation, one non-clone asksbetween male and female clones helps). One accident later, however, and only one of the tenclone is left: Kaph. The nine lives, then, is a reference to the nine lives, the nine selves, Kaph loses when the rest of the tenclone dies; he experiences intense pain and suffering, almost as though a psychic bond is shorn at the others death, and through it all he is aided by two non-clones, who show him the way toward making human connections outside of the clone collective. Its a very sweet story about homosocial (potentially homosexual between the two non-clones, though I dont think thats Le Guins intention) bonding and grief, learning to see other humans as people to share life with.

Things, by turns, is not sweet, but bittersweetand my favorite story in the collection next to Semleys Necklace and The Good Trip. Originally titled The End, altered by Damon Knight from Le Guins preferred title, it is a psychomyth as close to Le Guins definition as possible (or at least as comparable as Omelas); she might have called it a pure psychomyth. The story takes place in a village at the supposed end of all things. The villages are split between the Weepers, those who gather to lament the end, and the Ragers, those who party hard until its all over. The Weepers and the Ragers have left the things that mattered behind, detaching themselves from whatever made meaning in life, what glued together the social order, what made the village a village.

In between these groups are folks like Lif, a former brickmaker, along with the widow of one of Lifs fellow bricklayers. These two havent yet detached from the order of things / Order of Things, and so go on trying to find meaningat first in trying to do what brickmakers and widows do in the normal course of things, and later in one another. Lif turns to a myth of far-off islands to create meaning for life in the end times, but his culture has no boats, so he decides hell chuck all his bricks into the sea in the hopes of making a pathway to islands that may or may not exist. This gives his life meaning and as his relationship with the widow develops, she too becomes interested in his project, and together they build a path. One night, all the villagers are gone, their attachment to the world finally severed. For Lif and the widow, this signals the end, so they decide its time to try the path. Try they do, and soon myths become real.

I love Thingswhich I agree is the better and more thought-provoking titlebecause its beautifully written, short, and simple, evidencing just how well an economy of language and form can create something so amazing. At the same time, its a complex questioning of the relation between lifeways and cultural meaning, between things (as objects, as cultural practices, etc.) and the meaning that has both Buddhist and anti-capitalist overtones (that interact in not-so-easy ways). Its a story that deserves more attention and one Im sure Ill be returning to again and again.

I cant say the same for A Trip to the Head, which demonstrates that an economy of language and form, even in Le Guins hands, dont always produce little works of staggering literary genius. Its another psychomythological story, by her description, in which the object of extrapolation is the question of how powerful an imaginative force is the mind. It pairs well, in this way, with The Good Trip, and also places the mind above psychotropics as a force for creation. In this story a person, Blank, emerges from a forest with no knowledge of their identity (City of Illusions vibes, anyone?). Blank talks to another person, imagines who/what they might have been, and becomes that person, only for it to not feel right, so he (the newly assumed identity) takes off for the forest to forget this iteration of self, starting the cycle all over again. Its a story worth reading once in your life if you have the inclination or if it happens to be in front of you; otherwise, its nothing to go out of your way for. What it has to say about the mind and imagination have already been said, and said better, in the other novels and stories weve covered.

By contrast, Vaster than Empires and More Slow is one of those stories that says what it says well and also resonates powerfully with many of Le Guinsother themes, making it something worth seeking out and wrestling with. Its a novelette in the Hainish cycle that departs from the usual heres how humans evolved on this world fare to instead imagine a world of collectively-sentient arboriforms (tree-like and plant-like organisms). At the same time, its a massively problematicand as a result, critically interestingstory featuring an autistic character (or, really, a character cured of autism).

The set-up of the story is also quite unique among the Hainish stories, since most feature some sort of League representative to a human world, whether before or after their integration into the League. But Vaster is about Terras fundamental dissatisfaction with the fact that all sentient life in the universe was seeded by the Hains; its not a major plot point, nor discussed very often, but Le Guin uses the frame to highlight that Terrans as a group dont deal super well with being told they arent specialreally an allegory for Americans. So Terrans send out Extreme Surveys, crewed by the occasional non-Terran curious about the wider universe, to spend several hundred years traveling in FTL ships to see if anything sentient exists outside of the Hainish sphere of influence. Well, reader, you can guess what happens: they find something. A whole planet of plants that, after many months, the crew discovers has evolved into a collectively sentient lifeform that is terrified of the otherness represented by the humans.

This is all quite interesting, but the real focus of the story is on the cured-autistic crewmember Osden, who has apparently been cured of his inability to parse external emotional stimuli (only one possible manifestation of autism) to such an extent that now he is magnificently empathic, and can feel all sentient beings emotions. As a result, most people are uncomfortable with him and he lives constantly in their disdain, discomfort, and even hate. But its his abilities to sense emotion and feelings that help the crew discover the plant planet is sentient. Its a story that simultaneously does everything wrong you could do when writing about autism, but also demonstrates forcefully and tragically the ways in which neurotypical folks ostracize neuroatypical folks. But Ive never claimed Le Guin is perfect, and the story provides a great deal to think about with regard to disability, ecology, sentience, and emotion. No wonder it has remained one of Le Guins most discussed stories.

The next two stories in the collection are short, intelligent, fun mysteries (of a sort). The Stars Below is a fantasy about an astronomer whose science is considered heretical and who is literally forced underground, to live in the dark of a mine nearing the end of its productivity. The Field of Vision is science fiction about two astronauts who return from an archaeological dig on Mars, one deafened and the other blinded.

Both are, in Le Guins presentation, psychomyths. The Stars Below doesnt have much to recommend it, honestly, except that it is a great example of a person losing their shit because, well, a bunch of priests burned their livelihood and forced them into underground exile as a hereticbuy, hey, at least the astronomer helps the struggling miners find a new vein of silver! Actually, whats great about this story is you can see Le Guin returning with gusto to writing about people learning to live underground and in the dark, as she did so perfectly in The Tombs of Atuan. The Field of Vision is by far the better story, with an Arthur C. Clarke feel to it, what with the giant, unfathomable alien structures and the revelation of Gods reality and immanent presence in the universe. Which isodd?for Le Guin. I wont spoil it; check it out for yourself, since the mystery is worthwhile.

The final story before we get to the Big Two of this collection is The Direction of the Road, a story that like many of her shorter ones grew out of a family moment, a familiar memory, a Le Guinism. In this case, its a tree off Oregon State Highway 18 that Le Guin and her family passed several times a year, a tree that came to define that particular stretch of highway for the family, a part of the Order of Things. And so Le Guin spins a tale of that tree, of its long life among humans, of the coming of cars, the paving and repaving of roads, the explosion of traffic, and, after so many years, the death of a heedless driver at the base of the oak. The story is told in first-person and is at first rather confusing, since the oak speaks of itself as an entity in constant motion, growing and galloping and roaming, but while some of Le Guins language confuses, her intent is purposeful: to bring to life the inner being of an organism that, to many humans, hardly seems to be living but is almost always a backdrop in a world of roads and cars. Le Guins oak is a vibrant being and one who rejects the meanings humans place upon it: when the human dies, he sees in the oak the face of Death, freezing that vision in eternity through his death. But the oak rejects this, refuses to be an eternal symbolof death or elsewiseand instead embraces its ephemerality in the organic sphere, as long and ancient as that may seem to us short-lived humans. Its a great story that leads well into the final two of the collection.

And so we come to Omelas, a story about which I have little to say beyond what has been said by othersand often better (or at least more forcefully). It is not only Le Guins most well-known story, it might also be the most well-known science fiction story of all time, if only because every other philosophy course in college assigns it and (dryly) asks students, So, what would you do? Discuss! I jest, mostly because my partner is a philosopher, but truly Le Guins set up of the moral and ethical dilemma is an important one, and as she notes, its a questionwould you let the child suffer in order to live the dream?at the heart of modernity, whether you understand the modern world as one forged by the industrial revolution, the birth and growth of capitalism, or the expansion of overseas empires through colonial landgrabs. ()Omelas() is a powerful allegory for the ways in which systems of power lift up some at the expense of others.

The particular ways Le Guin tells the story, that utopia exists for all because one person (a child) lives in pain and horror, comes from a critical tradition that frames questions of systemic oppression in individualist tonesin this case the thinking of early psychologist William James. So the utopia of Omelas and the utopian bargain emerge from an intellectual tradition that attempts to understand how people think and why they think, especially with regard to our ethical duties to other people. As a result, walking away seems perhaps radical in this situation, an allegorical disavowal of the system as a whole.

Thats the psychomyth; taken literally, however, as something other than a parable, the decision to walk away looks a lot grimmerand thats exactly what other writers, for example, N.K. Jemisin, who responds in The Ones Who Stay and Fight by suggesting that the more radical thing to do is, well, reread the title; or Egyptian author Mona Namoury, who turns to the agency of the one imprisoned. Omelas is for sure an ambivalent story, one that has no easy solution because there is no solution, because utopia is ambivalent, because utopia doesnt exist, is only ever in the making, just over the horizon, the journey and not the destination, and it always implies the presence of dystopia. For Le Guin: yin and yang, no light without the dark. But, seriously, dont take my word for it; check out one of any several thousand essays on the story.

Though Omelas has become Le Guins most famous story, she ends The Winds Twelve Quarters with a different banger of a tale: the prequel to The Dispossessed, the story of the founder of the anarchist movement that ends up on Anarres. The Day Before the Revolution is the story of Odo, manifester of the Odonian revolution that upset the Urras political world 100 years before The Dispossessed. It isand Im sorry if this sounds repetitive, but its only because its so true of Le Guins shorter fictiona great little piece, particularly for the way it presents this revolutionary icon as a curmudgeonly old woman not all that interested in the final ends of the revolution, in part because the youths have taken it their way. But so it goes, so political movements transform, because a living politics is not defined by an individual, and Odo knows this, too. Through this Le Guin extends her argument in Omelas that utopia is open-ended, ever-changing, not an Eternal force but a Relative one, like the oak by the roadside.

What I particularly love about the placement ofThe Day Before the Revolution in The Winds Twelve Quarters is that Le Guin calls it a story thats actually about the ones who walk away from Omelas, or more precisely that the Anarresti are the ones who made the decision to leave the utopia of a lush, verdant planet for the harsh desert of the moon. Its honestly not a great parallel between Omelas and Urras, butlets go with it?Le Guins forcing of the parallel reveals who got left in the wake of the Odonian movement. After all, when Shevek visits Urras, he finds that there are many anarchists and revolutionaries fighting against the violence of two oppressive statesthe folks who, in Jemisins words, stayed and fought.

In all, The Winds Twelve Quarters is a multifaceted, intellectually rich, and artistically transformative collection of short stories that showcase the vibrancy of an artist becoming an artist. As a collection, its a fascinating microcosm of the same pattern of transformation and growth we see across the novels already covered in the Reread. Some stories are forgettable, many are worth a reread every couple of years, and a few stick tenaciously to the mind like a utopian parasite. Whatever the aesthetic judgmentshey, maybe you found these stories pretty boring, and thats all goodthe historical one is clear: here is a story collection that serves as a foundation for the larger storyworlds, themes, and political concerns that make up our collective cultural memory of Le Guin.

Join me in two weeks on Wednesday, September 9 as we read Le Guins not-very-SFF YA novel Very Far Away from Anywhere Else. Be seeing you!

Sean Guynes is an SFF critic and professional editor. For politics, publishing, and SFF content, follow him on Twitter @saguynes.

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The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Part II: Le Guin's Psychomyths and Those Who Walk Away - tor.com