Fantastic Fungi is a new Louie Schwartzberg-directed documentary about the beauty, intelligence and solutions the fungi kingdom offers us in response to some of the most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges of our planet.
Narrated by Brie Larson; featured scientists include Paul Stamets, best-selling authors Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone and Andrew Weil.
The great time-lapse visuals have me interested, and mushrooms do happen to be one of the foods I eat regularly. I’ll also be watching for the science/magic.
In new historical drama The King, Timothée Chalamet stars as Hal, a.k.a King Henry V of England. Previously a wayward prince, Hal ascends the English throne upon his father’s death, and must navigate the palace snake pit, chaos and inherited war against France.
Directed by David Michôd; key cast includes Ben Mendelsohn, Robert Pattinson, Joel Edgerton and Lily Rose Depp.
Wow!
Hello, brilliant cast. I cannot wait for all the super acting and all the tensions that stem from being surrounded by people who underestimate you.
Sean Harris, Dean-Charles Chapman, Thomasin McKenzie, Ivan Kaye, Tom Glynn-Carney and Edward Ashley also star.
These eight words, as spoken by Brittany Kaiser, the former business development director for Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct data mining political consulting firm, are the reason I watchedThe Great Hack, Netflix’s documentary about the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal.
I don’t really have many complaints about the content of The Great Hack, except maybe my dislike of some moments that seemed too graphics heavy and the rather surprisingly slow narration at the beginning.
Overall, directors Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim’s film is well-structured and does a good job of explaining why the above quote is true, and breaking down the scandal through the roles of several affected persons. One such person is the aforementioned Brittany Kaiser.
As an individual with some background in tech, plus a general understanding of how ‘shady’ many corporations are, before viewing, I suspected that much of what would be revealed in The Great Hack was unlikely to be especially surprising to me, and I wasn’t completely wrong. For this very reason, perhaps more than the revelations about the levels of surveillance already happening and the ways our personal data is used by the likes of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, what I liked most about The Great Hack is actually the ‘character study’ of Kaiser. Specifically, the close look into her journey from Cambridge Analytica executive to whistleblower, plus her life before then. By the end of Kaiser’s story, it wasn’t hard to see how a person could have ended up in her precise predicament.
In addition to informing me in more detail about everything I missed by not closely watching the news when this scandal broke, The Great Hack reminded me of the long-standing need for humanity to re-evaluate its priorities. I’m not sure how possible it is to watch this film without thinking about the broken state of capitalism in it’s current form.
‘The more you know, the more you realise you have no idea.’ is an old adage that may cross your mind as you watch this film. Watch it anyway. Especially if you didn’t closely follow the scandal when it was trending very widely. It may not have a lot of good news for you, but perhaps The Great Hack will help you look into the ways to limit the amount of data that’s readily available about you online.
Also, there is the Brittany Kaiser story. I wonder when the movie of her life will come.
Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Lupita Nyong’o and Adam Driver are the main stars of this promising final chapter of the Star Wars.
I must admit that he start of this trailer had me thinking that maybe this was a non-official, fan-made edit because I didn’t expect the older clips.
The latter half is great, of course, especially thanks to the final revelatory image. My hand definitely went to my mouth in surprise.
What are your thoughts on this new trailer edit?
Co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams, other key cast members include Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Carrie Fisher, Dominic Monaghan and Keri Russell.
In new drama/sci-fi film Auggie, after being forced into early retirement, to the detriment of his relationship with his family, Felix (Richard Kind) finds that he’s fallen in love with an augmented reality companion.
Directed by Matt Kane; additional key cast includes Larisa Oleynik, Christine Donlon, Susan Blackwell…
The futuristic technology that’s very likely already here definitely has my attention. I also just took a moment to imagine my own personal Auggie. Cool and scary are the words. Scary because of how easily one could get used to them.
Can you imagine having more than one Auggie? A whole group of Auggie ‘friends’ even.
Christen Harper, Steven Robertson, James C. Victor, Carrie Gibson, Tallulah Sheffield, Simone Policano and Chris Devlin aslo star.
