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By Radhamely De Leon

This long-running Adult Swim comedy is streaming on Max, and there’s no better time to catch up on it than now. The Venture Bros. follows super-scientist Dr. Rusty Venture, his goofy teenaged sons, and their personal bodyguards. If it sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. Set in a world where superheroes and villains are constantly at each other’s throats, The Venture Bros. is a high-octane comedy driven by an unflagging sense of humor. The series was unceremoniously canceled in 2020 after Season 7. But it was revived for one final farewell in the 2023 feature-length finale, titled The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is The Blood Of The Baboon Heart, that finally started streaming on Max recently.

Photo: Cartoon Network/Adult Swim

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By Radhamely De Leon This long-running Adult Swim comedy

Movies

Bazawule’s first hire was actually the choreographer Fatima Robinson, a veteran who has worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Mary J. Blige, and who choreographed the 2006 movie musical “Dreamgirls.” Bazawule recalled watching her videos for Aaliyah, his friends stopping the tape over and over to copy the moves, when he was a teenager in Accra. “She’s always had such a regal reverence and a curiosity about dance from all over the world,” he said.

Her hip-hop and R&B pedigree is evident in neck swivels and shoulder shimmies that connect TikTok dances to their 20th-century lineage. Some of the songs were sped up to match her moves, Sanders said. Bazawule also had her choreograph narrative scenes and help with the way the camera moves around the actors. “It’s always in a ballet with the narrative,” he said.

Bazawule is a multihyphenate who started as a painter, then became a hip-hop performer; he records as Blitz the Ambassador. (His given name is Samuel; his stage name, he said, had a lot to do with his production style: “very fast and very glitzy.”) But even he had trouble with the basic structure of a movie musical, incorporating songs into the action. “The biggest challenge was to figure out, how do you take this very sprawling music and turn it cinematic?” he said.

He separated the score into its three root genres — gospel, blues and jazz. And he brought in new arrangers for each: Ricky Dillard, Keb’ Mo’ and Christian McBride. (The original Broadway numbers are by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, pop and R&B songwriters.) He also wrote songs for the movie, including a beat-driven work anthem for Harpo, Mister’s son (Corey Hawkins). “The goal was to make sure that the music was always talking to each other,” he said, and to have it be in tune with a contemporary soundtrack.

His ambitions were evident from his first pitch to the producers, when he showed them a full storyboard he had pencil-drawn himself. During Bazawule’s presentation — via video during the height of covid — “I literally texted Oprah,” Sanders recalled. “I went, ‘Oh, my God, this is the guy.’ And she wrote back, ‘Yes, he is!’”

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Bazawule’s first hire was actually the choreographer

MCU

The latest chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) will unfold this November when The Marvels arrives in theaters.

The film will bring together Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau/Photon, and Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel to form the MCU’s newest team — the Marvels.

The Marvels

With just over a month to go until the film’s release, anticipation is really building. Today, Marvel released a new trailer for The Marvels that looked back on each of the three main characters’ journeys and gave a glimpse into where they could be heading.

Carol Danvers

Carol Danvers was originally introduced in 2019’s Captain Marvel. An ex-U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Danvers received superhuman strength, the ability to fire energy, and the ability to fly from exposure to Tesseract energy.

Female-led

Despite her immense powers, Danvers initially remembers little of her life prior to gaining her powers and joining the Kree military until she reunites with her best friend Maria Rambeau and her daughter Monica.

The Marvels Brie Larson

Photo: Entertainment Weekly

In the new trailer, Danvers seems to be coming to grips with her forgotten past and struggling with the lonely life that she lives in space.

Monica Rambeau

Monica Rambeau aka Photon originally appeared in Captain Marvel as a young child who grew up looking up to her “Aunt Carol.”

At the end of the 2019 film, Danvers promised Rambeau that she would return soon, a promise she did not keep.

Monica

Monica, meanwhile, grew up to be a member of S.W.O.R.D. after becoming a captain in the United States Air Force.

While taking her mother to her cancer treatments, Monica became a victim of the Blip. When she returned, she discovered that her mother died during the years that she was gone.

Monica

Eventually, Rambeau is sent to investigate the town of Westview, New Jersey, which Wanda Maximoff had surrounded in a CMBR field nicknamed the Hex. After forcing herself through the field multiple times, Monica obtains the power to detect electromagnetic radiation and absorb energy. The Marvels will see her reunite with Danvers for the first time in years.

Kamala Kahn

The third and final member of The Marvels is Kamala Khan, who starred in the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel. An enthusiastic teenage girl, Kamala idolizes Captain Marvel.

Ms. Marvel

Photo: Marvel

During the events of Ms. Marvel, Kamala obtains a magical bangle that unlocks her mutant ability to harness cosmic energy and create “hard light.” In the upcoming film, Kahn will finally meet her hero — for better or for worse.

Watch The Trailer

In The Marvels, Danvers, Rambeau, and Kahn will have to find a way to work together to stop a cosmic threat after their powers become intertwined. If you haven’t seen the film’s new trailer watch it now!

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The latest chapter of

DCU

A Mandalorian Jedi created the Darksaber, but Mandalorians don’t have to be Force-sensitive to use that iconic weapon. Despite not having Force abilities, both The Clone Wars‘ Pre Vizsla and The Mandalorian‘s Bo-Katan wielded that one-of-a-kind lightsaber with deftness. That’s what Sabine Wren was learning to do on Star Wars Rebels before she gave the Darksaber away. But the first episodes of Ahsoka raised new questions about whether Sabine is actually a Force-user. It seems she did not merely resume her lightsaber training under Ahsoka Tano years ago, she briefly studied to become a Jedi. Does that mean Sabine Wren is Force-sensitive or that a non-Force user can become a Jedi?

Star Wars’ history doesn’t provide a definitive answer to either. What it does provide are intriguing possibilities for Sabine’s story that could change how we think about both the Jedi and the Force forever.

Was Sabine Wren Force-Sensitive on Star Wars Rebels?

Lucasfilm

Nothing on Star Wars Rebels indicated Sabine Wren is Force-sensitive. At least not the way Jedi and those like them are. The series seemed to confirm, in fact, that she is not Force-sensitive.

After she found the Darksaber, Sabine reluctantly agreed to train with it. Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus and his Padawan Ezra Bridger taught Sabine how to use her special lightsaber. It wasn’t easy. Kanan started her training with practice wood swords. That slow approach frustrated Sabine. When Kanan and Hera Syndulla discussed his decision to proceed cautiously, Hera questioned why he would use wooden swords with Sabine when he never did with Ezra. Hera asked if the difference was because Kanan didn’t believe Sabine could learn “because she doesn’t have the Force.”

Kanan’s reply appeared to confirm Sabine is not Force-sensitive and he was merely teaching her how to use a lightsaber, not to become a Jedi. But his response also touched on an intriguing idea George Lucas made part of Star Wars lore from the very beginning.

Can a Non-Force User Still Use the Force?

When Hera questioned whether Kanan’s training methods had to do with Sabine not having Force abilities, he said no. But not for the reason you might expect. Kanan said of Sabine, “The Force resides in all living things, but you have to be open to it.”

That did not mean Sabine was/is Force sensitive. Kanan—who recognized Ezra’s strong Force-sensitivities instantly—was talking about a well-established concept that dates back to the franchise’s first film. In A New Hope Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke the Force is “an energy field created by all living things” that “surrounds us and penetrates us.” The Force “binds the galaxy together.”

Everyone and everything has the Living Force inside of them. Unlike everyone else, Force-users (thanks to high midi-chlorian counts) can access, control, and manipulate the Living Force. That ability is what gives Jedi their powers.

As Kanan’s answer implied, non Force-users like Sabine Wren can still connect with the Force. George Lucas himself has said as much as far back as 1981. He once compared the Force to (of all things) yoga, saying anyone can use it. In 2015 Dave Filoni further explained this idea when he said everyone is Force-intuitive. As an example of what that means practically, he pointed to Han Solo. What Han called “luck” while flying was him “tapping” into the Force unconsciously. Turns out you don’t survive an asteroid field on just chance and skill alone, because everyone can use the Force. They simply can never be as adept or as powerful doing so as a Force-sensitive, high midi-chlorian count individual.

Han Solo looks surprised while pointing at himself
Lucasfilm

Filoni also provided a comparison that explains this concept better than Lucas’ yoga analogy. Filoni likened this idea to someone who trains as a martial artist. They might earn a black belt, but they’ll never be Bruce Lee because they don’t have the natural traits needed to reach those heights. (He said Anakin is Bruce Lee when it comes to the Force.)

Have Any Non-Force Users Used the Force in Star Wars History?

Chirrut wields his staff
Lucasfilm

The sequel trilogy and Rogue One both featured characters who exemplify this idea. Maz Kanata and Chirrut Îmwe seemed capable of low-level connections with the Force despite not being naturally Force-sensitive like Luke Skywalker or Rey. But, as Filoni said in 2015 when discussing Rebels, the franchise has “only scratched the surface” of what this means.

All of this brings us back to the main question raised by Ahsoka about Sabine Wren’s potential Force abilities. Did Ahsoka Tano train Sabine as a Jedi Padawan because she is Force-sensitive? Or because you don’t need to use the Force to become a Jedi? Star Wars Rebels pointed towards the latter, but the live-action series gave us reason to think Sabine is innately imbued with Force capabilities.

Did Ahsoka Prove Sabine Wren Is Force-Sensitive?

Sabine Wren wearing all red looks at a hologram of Ezra Bridger on Ahsoka
Lucasfilm

Just as Kanan once said Sabine wasn’t “open” to the Force, Ahsoka walked away from Sabine’s training for the same reason. She told Hera that Sabine “wasn’t ready” to become a Jedi. Ahsoka made no mention of whether Sabine has innate Force abilities she won’t/can’t access, but training her as a Padawan in the first place would suggest Sabine might truly be Force-sensitive even if Sabine says she “doesn’t feel it.” Training Sabine as a Jedi without her having any chance of using the Force would seem reckless of Ahsoka otherwise. It’s hard to imagine a non-Force using Jedi defeating a Sith Lord, for example. (The not-fully-trained Sabine losing a duel to Shin Hati showed why.)

The centuries-old Jedi lightsaber building droid Huyang also seemed to indicate Sabine has some Force-sensitivity. He told her in Ahsoka episode two that her “aptitude for the Force would fall far short” of every other Jedi Padawan he ever knew. Not what any student wants to hear, but that comment at least means Sabine has some aptitude for the Force. That would explain why Ahsoka took her on as Padawan. (It might also explain why Sabine can slide under a parked E-Wing on her speeder Akira-style at roughly 500 mph.)

Ahsoka in a cloak in front of Sabine Wren seemingly on Lothal
Lucasfilm

That circumstantial evidence is obviously far from definitive proof, though. Not when Star Wars, George Lucas, and Dave Filoni have established anyone can access the Force on some level. ( Without dark science, at least.) And Ahsoka‘s third episode also raised more questions about exactly what Ahsoka Tano hopes to accomplish with Sabine’s training. While she admitted “talent” has a lot to do with using the Force, she didn’t say a lack of talent was an impossible obstacle to overcome for Sabine. Focus and discipline are important, too. Ahsoka even cited Kanan’s comments about the Force living inside all things as a way to encourage her apprentice.

Except, something she told Huyang—who says the Jedi never would have accepted Sabine Wren as an apprentice—indicates she might not even be trying to train Sabine as a Jedi. Ahsoka Tano said she doesn’t need Sabine to become a Jedi; she needs her “to be herself.”

Sabine Wren at a table with her eyes closed trying to move a mug with the Force on Ahsoka
Lucasfilm

What exactly does that mean, and what does it have to do with Sabine’s Force capabilities? While we don’t yet know the level (or absence) of natural Force proclivities in Sabine Wren, whatever the answer to that question, it will be more important than any one character.

Why Does Sabine Wren’s Jedi Training Matter So Much?

Ahsoka wouldn’t train Sabine as a Jedi if she didn’t believe Sabine could join the ranks or at least learn to use the Force. So unless she’s flat-out wrong about what’s possible for a non-Force using Sabine to accomplish, there are two explanations for taking why she’d take her on as a Padawan.

Sabine Wren trains with a wooden sword along with Huyang the droid on Ahsoka
Lucasfilm

If Sabine Wren has small levels of natural Force-sensitivities it lowers the threshold for who might become a Jedi someday. That could prove vital in a galaxy where the Order has only a handful of potential members, both now on Ahsoka and after Luke Skywalker’s death.

If Sabine has none but can still learn how to use the Force and become a Jedi (or something similar), it means anyone in the galaxy far, far away might be able to do the same. And if that’s true, the Force will no longer be the special purview of select individuals lucky enough to be born with high midi-chlorian counts. It will mean the Force will truly belong to everyone. Just as Obi-Wan Kenobi told us it does when we first heard about it.

Originally published on August 22, 2023.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.











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A Mandalorian Jedi created the Darksaber,

Comics

The United States has made continual efforts to limit China’s chip production, but it might not do much good. China plans to launch a fund in hopes of bolstering its semiconductor industry, Reuters reports. The state-backed endeavor is the third from the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and aims to raise 300 billion yuan ($41 billion). The previous two funds raised 138.7 billion yuan ($19 billion) in 2014 and 200 billion yuan ($27 billion) in 2019.

About 60 billion yuan ($8 billion) is expected to come from China’s finance ministry. The other contributors aren’t yet known, though past backers included China Telecom and China National Tobacco Corporation. Much of the fund itself will specifically focus on creating instruments for chip manufacturing.

The news comes only a few days after Huawei, a Chinese electronics company, announced its new smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, complete with homegrown chips. Huawei partnered with chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) to create a new Kirin 9000s chip, according to a report from analysis firm TechInsights. SMIC’s high-level 7nm technology appears to provide the Mate 60 Pro with download speeds beyond those seen in typical 5G phones.

The entire Mate 60 Pro announcement and subsequent proof of its power stands in direct contrast to the efforts made by the US, Japan and the Netherlands to restrict China’s chip access and limit their production abilities. As recently as August, President Biden signed an executive order further limiting investments in Chinese firms working with technology like semiconductors. Previous restrictions have specifically targeted Huawei, including a January ban on licenses for exporting US tech to the Chinese company.

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The United States has made continual efforts

Festivals

The QCinema International Film Festival in the Philippines has beefed up its industry program by introducing a project market strand, QCinema Project Market (QPM). It acts as a networking and funding platform for Filipino and Southeast Asian projects in advanced development. 


With the support of the Quezon City Film Development Commission (QCFDC) and the Quezon City local government, QPM will award over $300,000 in grants to selected projects. 

To be eligible, the director must have at least a draft of the full script of a feature-length fiction film project, and the film must not yet be completed by the time QCinema 2023 commences and must not yet be fully financed. Southeast Asian directors with at least one short feature film may apply. 

“In recent times, this region has showcased remarkable advancements in its cinematic endeavors, boasting production values that rival international benchmarks. This is clearly evident in the diverse collaborative film ventures between the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations, as exemplified by acclaimed works like ‘Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak’ (Indonesia-Singapore-Philippines), ‘In My Mother’s Skin’ (Philippines-Singapore-Taiwan), and ‘Arnold is a Model Student’ (Thailand-Philippines-Singapore),” said Liza Dino-Seguerra, the newly appointed executive director of the QCFDC.

“With QPM, we now have the opportunity to nurture and endorse similar projects from this region, facilitating access to funding avenues and exclusive networking prospects. This, in turn, will amplify the presence of these narratives on the grand cinematic stage.”

Diño-Seguerra previously served as the chairperson and CEO of the Film Development Council of the Philippines. There she was involved in the creation of the country’s first national film incentives through the FilmPhilippines program.

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The QCinema International Film Festival in the

TV

This town is big enough for both Sydney Sweeney and Lili Reinhart, and the two blonde starlets have zero bad blood. In fact, they’re double dating.

Before you argue Reinhart and Sweeney’s Venice hangout is a PR move to cover up their recent red carpet drama, please consider that rumors of their rumored feud are based on literally nothing. I mean it, nothing happened. Very recently, a video circulated on TikTok that showed Reinhart with a serious expression on her face after hugging the Euphoria star at an Armani Beauty event and viewers invented an entire narrative about it. That’s it. You can watch the video here and see the comments for yourself.

Basically, the Riverdale actor rested her face after greeting Sweeney and the internet decided there was beef. And while it might not look like it on the surface, this is misogyny in action! Pitting two women against each other because one of those women didn’t smile enough? My darlings, that’s not reading body language, that’s just the patriarchy playing games with your mind. Okay, off my soap box!

Thankfully, the two actors had zero interest in fueling the fire, instead opting to go out for dinner together…kinda. According to People, Sydney Sweeney and fiancé Jonathan Davino linked up with Lili Reinhart and her boyfriend Jack Martin at the Miu Miu Women’s Tales Committee party at Cipriani during the Venice Film Festival on September 3. The event in question? Oh, just a celebration of Miu Miu’s new women-directed short film series. See!? It’s possible to be a woman and support other women! Crazy but true.

While taking in the sunset over the water, the women also posed for a selfie together, which Reinhart posted to her Instagram Stories with the message, “We’ll be over here if you need us.” Sweeney later posted it to her Stories as well. Consider those feud rumors subtly acknowledged and debunked.

Instagram:@lilireinhart

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This town is big enough for both

What to Watch

Picture: Netflix

First ordered by Netflix in July 2021, we’ve had two seasons of the adult-animated comedy series Chicago Party Aunt, but will we be getting more episodes? It looks like the series has quietly ended, but Chicago Party Aunt still lives on away from Netflix.

Based on a Twitter account run by Chris Witaske, Chicago Party Aunt followed the antics of a usually drunken Chicagoan called Diane, who’s loud, inappropriate, and a big partier.

The series featured the voices of Lauren Ash, Rory O’Malley, Witaske himself, Bob Odenkirk, and Jon Barinholtz.

Chicago Party Aunt Not Expected to Return for Season 3

In case you’re unfamiliar with animation, you usually find that Netflix (and other studios, for that matter) give large upfront orders of episodes because of how production differs from live-action scripted shows.

That was the case here, with 16 episodes ordered upfront that would be split across two parts (or seasons, as we’re referring to them). The first eight episodes dropped in September 2021, and the second season a year later in December 2022. In the press release for season 2, there was no mention of it being the final season.

Will the show return to Netflix for a third season, then? It looks unlikely.

We’ve been digging into the CVs of dozens of people who worked behind the scenes on Chicago Party Aunt either at Titmouse or Netflix Animation, and all have moved on to other projects, suggesting the show has ended after it exhausted those initial episodes.

In fact, most of the work on seasons 1 and 2 looks to have been completed by the middle to end of 2021.

As a result, we suspect that Netflix opted not to renew the show for any additional seasons in 2021/2022. Given the show hasn’t been officially canceled, it’s likely the show is among Netflix’s “ghost-canceled” series that remain in limbo indefinitely.

chicago party aunt canceled

Twitter Account for Chicago Party Aunt Remains Active

Despite all this, the main Twitter account on which the show is based is still very much alive and kicking, occasionally Tweeting out some quippy remarks, talking about Chicago landmarks or public figures, and even often replying to those praising the show:

How well did Chicago Party Aunt perform on Netflix?

Much like Netflix’s other output in the animated sitcom space in recent years, no shows have really become big Netflix hits with the exception of Big Mouth and Bojack Horseman.

The show has only ever featured in the daily top 10 lists in four countries, with it only featuring in the US top 10s for three days across its two seasons.

Reviews weren’t particularly strong either from critics or IMDb, with it sitting at a 5.6/10 at the time of publishing. The Michigan Daily put out a scathing review at the time of publishing, stating:

“The Chicago Party Aunt Twitter account thrives because of its short, comedic tweets that allow followers to form their own picture of the woman behind the handle. Ultimately, Netflix fell short when it came to executing the new animated series: The jokes don’t hit, the storyline is nonexistent and the main character is difficult to relate to.”

Are you disappointed it doesn’t look like Chicago Party Aunt is returning for a third season?

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Picture: Netflix First ordered by Netflix in July

Awards

Zoe Roellin’s VR animation “Perennials” – presented at Venice Immersive and produced by Meta – will hit the VR Animation Player next.

“It makes me very happy, because it will be available to practically everyone with a VR headset,” says the Swiss artist, based in Italy, opening up about her collaboration with Ryan Genji Thomas and Goro Fujita.

“They approached me because they liked my work with [painting and animation software] Quill and asked if I wanted to pitch a project to Meta. They thought ‘Perennials’ would be a great addition to their catalog, with it being this grounded piece directed at an older audience. I just didn’t expect it to happen so early in my career.”

Sarah Malkin and Yelena Rachitsky executive produce, while Dren McDonald is responsible for the soundtrack. Joe Zieja, Natalie Miller and David Olano round up the voice cast.

“I was looking for people who could be really genuine and convey small nuances through dialogues, because a lot of this story is really low-key. It’s more about the things they are not saying,” adds Roellin.

In 17-minutes-long “Perennials,” an uncle and his young niece go to their family’s abandoned vacation home after the death of his father. They are confronted with the state of the house, but also with their own conflicting feelings.

“It’s a story about the things we pass on, generation to generation. This house seems to be crumbling and they have to figure out what to do. When I was writing the script, during the first year of the pandemic, I often felt like the world around me was slowly degrading. So how do you tackle that?”

Zoe Roellin

“This girl, Emi, goes on her own personal journey. Just like her uncle Elias. I thought it was a very interesting dynamic between two people who are trying to seem more grown-up than they are. At first, Elias is trying to replicate the way his father acted with him, but then he manages to break out of that circle. When he finally shows vulnerability and insecurity, that’s when they connect.”

Roellin also went personal when developing the project, inspired by “real events and a real place” and trying to express her “washed-out memories” through its hand-drawn look.

“My grandparents had a vacation home in Italy. My grandpa bought the land and built this place from scratch, and now they are too sick to go there. When I was in college, I went back after a long time and felt such a potent mix of emotions. It was already falling apart, but it was also a symbol of what their generation got to have. I will probably never own a house,” she says.  

“I thought I could use some of VR’s strengths, like the immersion and the sense of really being somewhere. This story is all about this place and the emotions tied to it.”

Roellin, who has been developing VR for four years, is thinking beyond the festival circuit.

“It can be tricky, because in Switzerland, many people are curious about what I do, but they also don’t entirely understand it,” she says, praising the support of Virtual Switzerland director Laetitia Bochud.

“This film is very personal, but I think many people can relate to the story. Still, in the future, I don’t necessarily want to go broader. I want to get more specific, talk to niche communities and explore my identity as a queer person,” she adds.

“What I am really interested in is storytelling.”

“Perennials”

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Zoe Roellin’s VR animation “Perennials” – presented

Music

Everyone knows the Jonas Brothers and the band seems to be everywhere right now. It’s only right as the band embarked on The Tour.

With the release of The Album, a lot of us anticipated a tour and the band even started off with 2 nights back-to-back at Yankee Stadium. That was huge and a great way to start the tour off with a bang.

Since the band is set to perform a lot of songs, some were curious about if JB had someone opening for them or not. I mean 5 albums worth of songs is a lot of songs and frankly, a lot of hours of singing.

Whether you’re headed to a concert soon or just want to know the details, we’ve got the scoop on if the Jonas Brothers have an opening act for the tour.

Who is opening for the Jonas Brothers on The Tour? (2023)

For The Tour, the Jonas Brothers are keeping it in the family. They decided to have Lawrence open for them. Similar to the brothers, the band is made up of two siblings: Clyde and Gracie Lawrence along with their band. Aside from the siblings, the band actually features 6 musicians. Lawrence has also worked with Jon Bellion in the past and even on some songs featured on The Album.

While Lawrence might seem like an unlikely choice, the connection to Jon Bellion and them being siblings had to play a major role. Regardless of why they chose Lawrence, at least we all know who is opening for this massively exciting tour. Plus this is a question I see floating around a lot especially in some of the Jonas Facebook groups I’m apart of.

If you’re headed to see the Jonas Brothers on The Tour, you might want to check out one of Lawrence’s songs which I’m adding below. If you’ve already been to the see The Tour, then I’d love to know what you thought of Lawrence and how they did opening up for the Jo Bros.

The Jonas Brothers and Lawrence are currently on tour together. You can buy tickets here. 

Did you know the Jonas Brothers had an opener for The Tour? Let us know in the comments!

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Everyone knows the Jonas Brothers and

Docs

The screenplay for Founders Day, by director Erik Bloomquist and his brother Carson Bloomquist, feels like a reaction to the ever-growing political divisiveness in the United States. In the town of Fairwood, the mayoral election is heating up. Incumbent Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves) and rival Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok) are in a dead heat. The pressures of the campaign put a strain on their families as well. Lily (Emilia McCarthy) and her governor mother don’t talk much, and the politician often forgets about lunch dates and the like.

Mind you, Harold is not much better, using his wife, Nancy (Arun Storrs), and two kids, Adam (Devin Druid) and Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen), as mere props for the cameras. One night, tensions peak, so Melissa storms off to see her girlfriend, Allison (Naomi Grace). While walking on the bridge, someone violently attacks Melissa, leaving Allison reeling in horror. In the aftermath of the murder, Commissioner Peterson (Catherine Curtin) and Deputy Miller (Adam Weppler) interview everyone and pray the bodies don’t pile up. At school, only Mr. Jackson (Michael Douglas William Russ) offers Allison any genuine sympathy. At home, her dad (Andrew Stewart-Jones) tries to comfort her but doesn’t know what to do. Why was Melissa the victim and not both she and Allison? Was this a random occurrence, or is the killer planning something much bigger?

Erik Bloomquist has been steadily directing shorts and features for roughly a decade. Founders Day is a testament to everything the filmmaker has learned. The sheer scope of the camera movements, editing, and use of music is grander than anything the man has attempted before. After Melissa is slain, Allison runs into the downtown area where citizens parading for their preferred campaign are yelling back and forth. These two factions can’t even agree on who gets to “claim” the traumatized youth as they encircle her. The camera is looking straight down in a medium shot. As the group causes her to panic more and more, the camera pulls back and begins rotating. This is more horrifying than the preceding death via masked killer. And that is precisely the point. Politics gets in the way of everything nowadays, even a tragic and senseless death.

“…Commissioner Peterson and Deputy Miller interview everyone and pray the bodies don’t pile up.”

To say more would be spoiling all the fun. Suffice to say, the themes aren’t subtle but work thanks to strong characterizations and a sense of urgency and fun. Moments of very dark humor land because audiences sympathize with what’s happening to Allison, her dad, and (some of) the others. A scene featuring troublemakers recreating the attack in school is both amusing and shocking.

The cast of Founders Day really helps viewers buy into everything. Grace is charming and sweet as the frustrated and grieving teenage lead. Stewart-Jones is commendable and daring as her father. Hargreaves sells the public persona and private one of the politician believably. Bartok is easy to hate and feel bad for at the same time. Russ does such a fantastic Michael Douglas impression that one could easily mistake him for that cinematic legend. Yes, that does mean he steals every scene he’s in, no matter how briefly. Weppler is as fun as ever as the overworked deputy.

Founders Day does hit a few cliches associated with the slasher genre. But that doesn’t mean the film offers nothing new or enjoyable. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Erik Bloomquist’s direction has never been leaner or meaner. The screenplay has a lot it wants to say and does so in a fun, murderous way lined with wicked humor. All the actors understood the assignment and successfully pull off their roles. Bloomquist definitely has many more productions in him, but as of right now, this is one of his best.

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The screenplay for Founders Day, by director

Trending

Image Credit: TLC

  • Meri Brown is a key figure in TLC’s ‘Sister Wives.’
  • She parted ways with polygamist Kody Brown in December of 2022.
  • Fans now think she may have a new boyfriend.

Meri Brown and Kody Brown, two of the stars of TLC’s Sister Wives, were married in 1990 — and Meri stands out among the Sister Wives in that she was his first wife. They married in 1990 and welcomed one child together, Leon, during their 32-year union. After their split, which rocked the very foundations of the reality hit, Meri has remained quiet — and she appeared to be single.

But an August 20 Instagram post changed all that. In the photo, the TV personality snuggled up to a mystery man for a very cozy selfie. He appeared to pull her close while smiling and flashing a “hang loose” gesture. “One of my favorite moments from the weekend was hanging out with one of my favorite people!” she captioned the pic. “This guy is kind, genuine, and authentic, a true friend. If you don’t have one of these humans in your life, one that has your back, one that no matter what time passes, it’s like no time passed at all, you should get yourself one!
See you on your stomping grounds next @navjd !!”

So who is the buff man standing next to Meri in the recent post? Find out what we know below.

He goes by ‘JD’

Meri’s tag led fans straight to his personal account, which is private. But Meri’s mystery man is in fact Jon-David “JD” Crawford.

JD lives in Hawaii

Eagle-eyed fans looking for info on Meri’s handsome potential boyfriend discovered that he lives in Hawaii! Additionally, he heads up a dance studio called Destination Dance Hawaii, where dancers train in the art and participate in dance competitions.

He’s educated

According to his LinkedIn profile, JD studied humanities and humanistic studies and science management, obtaining Bachelor’s Degrees in both! His profile claims he completed his studies at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu.

While Meri hasn’t confirmed her relationship status in regards to JD, fans seem convinced. “Please tell me you’re more then just friends. He’s hot! You deserve such happiness in your life,” a follower wrote on her IG post with JD. As for her own goals moving forward, Meri was clear in a February 2023 IG story. “Relationship Status: committed to inner peace, growth, self love and gratitude,” a quote read. A second quote read, “If your life just got a little harder, that probably means you just leveled up.”

Here here, Meri.

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Image Credit: TLC Meri Brown is a key

Tech

When lawmakers began investigating the impact of social media on kids in 2021, Zamaan Qureshi was enthralled.

Since middle school he’d watched his friends struggle with eating disorders, anxiety and depression, issues he said were “exacerbated” by platforms like Snapchat and Instagram.

Qureshi’s longtime concerns were thrust into the national spotlight when Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen released documents linking Instagram to teen mental health problems. But as the revelations triggered a wave of bills to expand guardrails for children online, he grew frustrated at who appeared missing from the debate: young people, like himself, who’d experienced the technology from an early age.

“There was little to no conversation about young people and … what they thought should be done,” said Qureshi, 21, a rising senior at American University.

So last year, Qureshi and a coalition of students formed Design It For Us, an advocacy group intended to bring the perspectives of young people to the forefront of the debate about online safety.

They are part of a growing constellation of youth advocacy and activist organizations demanding a say as officials consider new rules to govern kids’ activity online.

The slew of federal and state proposals has served as a rallying cry to a cohort of activists looking to shape laws that may transform how their generation interacts with technology. As policymakers consider substantial shifts to the laws overseeing kids online, including measures at the federal and state level that ban children under 13 from accessing social media and require those younger than 18 to get parental consent to log on, the young advocates — some still in their teens — have been quick to engage.

Now, youth activists have become a formidable lobbying force in capitals across the nation. Youth groups are meeting with top decision-makers, garnering support from the White House and British royalty and affecting legislative proposals, including persuading federal lawmakers to scale back parental control measures in one major bill.

“The tides definitely are turning,” said Sneha Revanur, 18, another member of Design It For Us.

Yet this prominence doesn’t necessarily translate to influence. Many activists said their biggest challenge is ensuring that policymakers take their input seriously.

“We want to be seen as meaningful collaborators, and not just a token seat at the table,” Qureshi said.

In Washington, D.C., Design It For Us has taken part in dozens of meetings with House and Senate leaders, White House officials and other advocates. In February, the group made its debut testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We cannot wait another year, we cannot wait another month, another week or another day to begin to protect the next generation,” Emma Lembke, 20, who co-founded the organization with Qureshi, said in her testimony.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who chairs the panel and met with the group again in July, said that Lembke “provided powerful testimony” and that their meetings were one of “many conversations that I’ve had with young folks demonstrating the next generation’s call for change.”

Revanur said policymakers often put too much stock in technical or political expertise and not enough in digital natives’ lifetime of experience and understanding of technology’s potential for harm.

“There’s so much emphasis on a specific set of credentials: having a PhD in computer science or having spent years working on the Hill,” said Revanur, a rising sophomore at Williams College. “It diminishes the importance of the credentials that youth have, which is the credential of lived experience.”

Revanur, who founded the youth-led group Encode Justice, which focuses on artificial intelligence, has met with officials at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), urging them to factor in concerns about how AI could be used for school surveillance as they drafted a voluntary AI bill of rights.

The office’s former acting director, Alondra Nelson, who led the initiative, said Encode Justice brought policy issues “to life” by describing both real and imagined harms — from “facial recognition cameras in their school hallways [to] the very real anxiety that the prospect of persistent surveillance caused them.”

In July, Vice President Harris invited Revanur to speak at a roundtable on AI with civil rights and advocacy group leaders, a moment the youth activist called “a pretty significant turning point” in “increasing legitimization of youth voices in the space.”

There are already signs that those in power are heeding their calls.

Sam Hiner, 20, started college during the covid-19 pandemic and said that social media hurt his productivity and ability to socialize on-campus.

“It’s easier to scroll on your phone in your dorm than it is to go out because you get that guaranteed dopamine,” said Hiner, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hiner, who in high school co-founded a youth-oriented policy group, worked with lawmakers and children’s safety groups to introduce state legislation prohibiting platforms from using minors’ data to algorithmically target them with content.

He said he held more than 100 meetings with state legislators, advocates and industry leaders as he pushed for a bill to tackle the issue. The state bill, the Social Media Algorithmic Control in Information Technology Act, now has more than 60 sponsors.

Last month, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the duke and duchess of Sussex, awarded Hiner’s group, Design It For Us and others grants ranging from $25,000 to $200,000 for their advocacy as part of the newly launched Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund. Hiner said he received a surprise call from the royals minutes after learning about the grant.

“As a young person who … has a bit of a chip on my shoulder from feeling excluded from the process traditionally, getting that … buy-in from some of the most influential people in the world was really cool,” he said.

Youth activists’ lobbying efforts are also bearing fruit in Washington.

This summer, Design It For Us led a week of action calling on senators to take up a bill to expand existing federal privacy protections for younger users, the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, and another measure to create a legal obligation for tech platforms to prevent harms to kids, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

A Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the advocates played a key role in persuading lawmakers to exclude teens from a provision in KOSA requiring parental consent to access digital platforms. It now only covers those 12 and younger.

Dozens of digital rights groups have expressed concern that the legislation would require tech companies to collect even more data from kids and give parents too much control over their children’s online activity, which could disproportionately harm young LGBT users.

“We were focused on making sure that KOSA did not turn into a parental surveillance bill,” said Qureshi.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the lead sponsor of the bill, said their mobilization “significantly changed my perspective,” calling their advocacy a “linchpin” to building support for the legislation.

Qureshi and other youth advocates attended a White House event in July at which Biden surprised spectators by endorsing KOSA and the children’s privacy bill, his most direct remarks on the efforts to date. Days later, the bills advanced with bipartisan support out of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Hiner and other youth advocates said they have worked closely with prominent children’s online safety groups, including Fairplay. Revanur said her group Encode Justice receives funding from the Omidyar Network, an organization established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar that is a major force in fueling Big Tech antagonists in Washington. Qureshi declined to disclose any funding sources for Design It For Us, beyond its recent grant from the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund.

Some young activists argue against such tough protections for kids online. The digital activist group Fight for the Future said it has been working with hundreds of young grass-roots activists who are rallying support against the bills, arguing that they would expand surveillance and hurt marginalized groups.

Sarah Philips, 25, an organizer for Fight for the Future, said young people’s views on the topic shouldn’t be treated as a “monolith,” and that the group has heard from an “onslaught” of younger users concerned that policymakers’ proposed restrictions could have a chilling effect on speech online.

“The youth that I work with tend to be queer, a lot of them are trans and a lot of them are young people of color, and their experience in all aspects of the world, including online, is different,” she said.

There are also lingering questions about the science underlying the children’s safety legislation.

Studies have documented that prolonged social media use can lead to increased anxiety and depression and that it can exacerbate body image and self-esteem issues among younger users. But the research on social media use is still evolving. Recent reports by the American Psychological Association and the U.S. Surgeon General painted a more complex picture of the dynamic and called for more research, finding that social media can also generate positive social experiences for young people.

“We don’t want to get rid of social media. That’s not a stance that most members of Gen Z, I think, would take,” said Qureshi. “We want to see reforms and policies in place that make our online world safer and allow us to foster those connections that have been positive.”

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Video

EXCLUSIVE: Malaysian Chinese filmmaker Chong Keat Aun has returned to feature filmmaking with the Venice Days title Snow In Midsummer, which Deadline can share a first look clip from above. 

A collaboration between Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore, Snow In Midsummer revolves around a Cantonese street opera troupe during a turbulent period in Malaysia’s political history in the late 1960s.

The full synopsis reads: On 13th May 1969, while Eng and her mother are watching the Chinese opera at a Temple in Kuala Lumpur, her father Kooi and brother Yeow are at the Majestic Theatre. Amid post-election tensions a violent riot takes place, and Eng loses contact with her father and brother, as the Prime Minister declares a national state of emergency. On 13th May 2018, Eng comes across the Chinese opera chief who confronted the local government on that same day 49 years ago. Together they share a moment of powerless remembrance of a more peaceful period in time.

Cast features Wan Fang, Pearlly Chua, Rexen Cheng, Pauline Tan, Peter Yu, and Alvin Wong. Producers are Kew Soon Wong, Gene Yao, Wai Thong Chow, and Jennifer Jao. Exec producers are Jment Lim, Chow Wai Thong, Zoey Teng, and Albert Yao. The film received support from the 2020 Taipei Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, The French National Centre of Cinema, the Singapore Film Commission, the Penang State EXCO Office for Tourism And Creative Economy, and Penang Global Tourism. 

Chong Keat Aun is best known for his debut feature, The Story of Southern Islet, which picked up the Best New Director award at the 57th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei. 

Check out the full clip above. 

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EXCLUSIVE: Malaysian Chinese filmmaker Chong Keat Aun

Entertaintment

Rent or buy it on most major platforms.

From the start, it’s obvious that this is not a regular Kaiju movie. The genre, in which gigantic beasts à la Godzilla lay waste to cities and swaths of countryside, is not known for restraint, but “Shin Ultraman” is completely, unpredictably off the wall.

Captain Tamura (Hidetoshi Nishijima, from the radically different “Drive My Car”) leads a task force dedicated to fighting the big monsters that turn up with clockwork regularity. “For some reason, Kaiju only appear in Japan,” someone quips about the creatures’s absence elsewhere in the world. But even this elite squad is flabbergasted when a mysterious helmeted giant clad in a superhero-like red and silver bodysuit shows up. Called Ultraman (a popular character who has been the subject of many iterations since its introduction in 1966), the newcomer helps the overwhelmed team battle aliens like Mefilas (Koji Yamamoto).

Both a reboot and a riff, “Shin Ultraman,” which was directed by Shinji Higuchi and written by Hideaki Anno (the pair also collaborated on “Shin Godzilla” in 2016), is a surreal trip. It’s hard to oversell the eye-popping invention and droll humor on display here, but it’s Higuchi’s mise en scène that stands out, packed with odd angles and seemingly arbitrary shots, as when a character opens a computer file and the movie cuts to her feet under her desk. Shiro Sagisu’s score is equally bonkers and disruptive, incorporating 1960s pop, thrash riffs, chamber suites and jazzy noodlings. It all amounts to pure joy.

Chances are you haven’t heard of Deborah Install’s “A Robot in the Garden” (2015), unless you live in Japan, where the novel has been adapted into a radio play, a stage musical and now this charming kid-friendly movie.

Ken (Kazunari Ninomiya) has a terminal case of arrested development, whiling away his days playing elaborate virtual-reality games and avoiding any hint of household work. One day, a rusty, taped-up robot turns up in the garden, offering its name as Tang. Shortly thereafter, Ken’s fed-up wife, Emi (Hikari Mitsushima), kicks him out of their house. So he sets out for Atobit Systems, the company that manufactured Tang, to trade that old model for a brand-new one, which he will then give to Emi to get back in her graces.

The latest from the prolific director Takahiro Miki (“The Door Into Summer”) does not revolutionize the cute-robot genre, but it is very effective. Naturally, Ken will change for the best, thanks to Tang — whose mysterious origin and initial purpose are at the heart of the story — but this utter predictability is a feature, not a bug, and is embraced as such by the film. Young viewers are likely to clamor for a toy version of the adorable bot, while their parents are more likely to be interested in the movie’s awfully believable near-future, in which delivery drones crisscross the sky and robots are absolutely everywhere in our daily life.

Rent or buy it on most major platforms.

When the Levan family moves to a quaint Western town, the teenage Itsy (the excellent Emma Tremblay) is not especially pleased: She is now living in the middle of nowhere, plus being singled out as the new kid is never fun. Maybe that’s why she immediately connects with her new classmate Calvin (Jacob Buster, a charmer bound to resurface in bigger-budget projects), who is ostracized as the local weirdo. Calvin is a heartthrob in nerd clothing — more specifically in a spacesuit, which he is prone to wear to school — and is on a quest to find the parents (Will Forte and Elizabeth Mitchell) he hasn’t seen in 10 years. He is convinced they were taken by aliens one fateful night and has been searching the skies ever since. Itsy pretends to befriend him for a journalism project, though it’s clear she’s actually taken by Calvin’s quirky sincerity, and perhaps even by his far-fetched story about extraterrestrial creatures secretly visiting Earth whenever a certain comet gets close.

Jake Van Wagoner’s film is a throwback to 1980s family-friendly fare, and it nicely captures the formula’s basic elements, down to the presence of a smart-aleck little boy (Itsy’s brother, Evan, played by Kenneth Cummins), an unironic embrace of the cutesy and the cheesy in equal proportions and, perhaps most important, a general good nature.

Rent or buy it on most major platforms.

Carl (Adam Weber) lives in his grandparents’ rec-room-like basement, seems to survive on power bars and takeout, and watches old black-and-white movies on an ancient-looking TV set. The only other living presence in that den is Vetro (voiced by Kory Karam), an animatronic head with enormous blue eyes sitting on Carl’s desk. A computer programmer, Carl is ambitious: “You are to become human,” he informs his creation. To that end, Vetro has been endowed with the ability to generate “new expansions.” In other words, he is sentient and can upgrade himself. One of his first moves is to give himself a new “multilayered emotional matrix,” and it doesn’t take long for Vetro to exhibit somewhat cunning traits — he can be both obsequious and creepy.

The writer-director Christopher Morvant’s most distinctive spin on the thriving A.I. genre was to make Vetro a cartoonish animatronic/puppet character that looks goofy yet comes across as unsettling, especially since Morvant often shows him in startling close-ups. The movie is, admittedly, overlong, especially since it’s essentially a talkathon between Carl and Vetro, and the writing is not quite strong enough to sustain the more complex philosophical issues it raises. But “Life Cycle” does have a few surprises in store, and Morvant’s sui generis world nimbly juxtaposes technologies that feel pulled from completely different eras. Pretty good for a movie shot in a garage in a month.

Rent or buy it on Amazon.

Set in an impoverished Sol Nascente, in Brazil, Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós’s film is tough to categorize. “Dry Ground Burning” follows the activities of a women’s gang, led by Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado), that steals oil and resells it as gas to groups of bikers. Add to that mix the re-entry into society of Chitara’s half sister, Léa (Léa Alves da Silva), who is newly released from prison. In conventional hands, these could be an action-packed thriller’s starting point. Pimenta and Queirós go down a completely different road, both in form and in content.

We are in a dystopian pamphlet targeting the far-right policies of Brazil’s authoritarian former president Jair Bolsonaro, which were devastating for the poor, the minorities and the outcasts at the movie’s heart. All of this is put together with a documentarylike matter-of-factness, increased by the fact that the cast is made up of non- or semiprofessional actors. When scenes set during, say, a raucous bus trip or a religious ceremony hypnotically go on and on as if in real time, you might wonder if Frederick Wiseman had suddenly gone to Brazil. Tip: Go with the flow — you can’t rush life, politics or this film.

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‘Shin Ultraman’Rent or buy it on most

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On the Shelf

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

By Naomi Klein
FSG: 416 pages, $30

If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

At first Naomi Klein thought it was kind of funny. More and more people were confusing the prolific capitalism critic with Naomi Wolf, the author of “The Beauty Myth” and erstwhile feminist star who has become a fount of conspiracy theories on everything from Ebola (The U.S. wanted to spread the virus and launch a military takeover!) to COVID-19 (The vaccines can shed! The government is eavesdropping through your vaccine passports!).

“It was a periodic annoyance, no big deal,” Klein said in a recent video interview. “It didn’t happen all that much. I’d stumble across somebody online who was very angry at me for something, and it took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t me they were angry at.”

Then, gradually, the social media echo chamber grew deafening. The pandemic quarantine meant more hours online for just about everyone, including both Naomis. Wolf and her easily agitated cadre, which now included right-wing firebrands Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, were hitting the COVID conspiracies hard, and describing a dark fantasy version of real-world crises. Millions seemed to be buying it. This, Klein realized, was serious. On both a personal and a political level, the Naomi conflation went from periodic annoyance to existential dilemma.

So Klein, the author of liberal calls to action including “No Logo” and “The Shock Doctrine,” did what she does: She wrote a book about it. “Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World” isn’t about Klein’s Naomi Wolf problem per se; as Klein says, “She’s like the white rabbit who I follow down the rabbit hole, and the book is really about the rabbit hole.”

More specifically, it’s about the “mirror world,” a place inhabited not just by the conspiracy-mongers, willfully taking advantage of public confusion and anxiety, but potentially by all of us. We all live in a world of social media, after all; we constantly risk warping ourselves, changing our personae as circumstances shift, infecting our children with fears and dreams that aren’t their own.

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

“The doppelganger provides a lens that lets you look at a bunch of different things that I think are quite interesting,” Klein says, “including the way we create doubles of ourselves in order to perform ourselves online, whether it’s in a video game as an avatar or an idealized beautiful person on Instagram or a mom influencer. We’re partitioning ourselves up and we’re creating this double and we’re polishing it and we’re burnishing it.”

In short, to borrow the title of a doppelganger movie Klein examines in the book, “Doppelganger” is about “Us.”

As Klein writes, we live in “a culture crowded with various forms of doubling, in which all of us who maintain a persona or avatar online create our own doppelgangers — virtual versions of ourselves that represent us to others … a doppelganger we perform ceaselessly in the digital ether as the price of admission in a rapacious attention economy.” In this economy, the one with the most clicks wins, and the one with the most outlandish take gets the most clicks.

That helps explain the supply side of the world we live in, where talk of Maui space lasers, 5G vaccine surveillance and blood-sucking pedophile rings is pounding on the gates of mainstream thought. But the demand side is trickier — and perhaps more troubling. What makes consumers with nothing tangible to gain subscribe to woo-woo theories? The way Klein sees it, when reality is too much to bear, many escape into fantasy. The illusion of control, or at least comprehension, is often more tolerable than the chaos that increasingly surrounds us.

“We are in a moment of multiple and difficult reckonings, and COVID brought a lot of it into focus,” Klein says. “There’s the way we treat our elders, the way the working class is mistreated, and the mirror that was held up to the lockdown class — the people like me who were able to stay home. The only reason we were able to stay home and stay safe was because other people were out there with very, very little protection delivering food, working in slaughterhouses, Amazon warehouses and nursing homes. And suddenly the veil was pulled back on how our world actually works.”

Like Klein’s other books, “Doppelganger” is an in-depth critique of what late-stage capitalism hath wrought. But it’s also much more. Klein wields her polymathic expertise like a sword, slicing through the mirror world via political theory; tech anxiety (she shudders at AI’s potential); literary criticism (she warms up to former nemesis Philip Roth through his doppelganger novel “Operation Shylock”); and films famous (Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”) and obscure (Henrik Galeen’s silent oddity “The Student of Prague”).

The results might put the reader at risk of splitting in two. You can’t help but be invigorated by Klein’s intellectual synthesis and dexterity, even as her gimlet eye makes you want to run screaming into the night.

Much of it comes back to the woman Klein calls “the other Naomi” and the strange bedfellows she has embraced. It pains Klein to see Bannon, Wolf and company co-opt legitimate concerns, like internet privacy and government-mandated COVID school closures, and convert them into science-fiction theories. She places some of the blame on the left’s instinct to dismiss outright anything emanating from the right-wing echo chamber, instead of working harder to find common ground in reality.

“The conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong, but they often get the feelings right,” she says. “The feeling of living in a world with shadow worlds. The feeling of having important truths hidden from you. And then the other thing they offer is a sense of community and belonging. Sometimes they seem to be having a lot of fun.” And that can be vital at a time of growing societal isolation and “deaths of despair.”

There’s a lot going on in “Doppelganger,” yet somehow Klein ties it all together into what we seem to be lacking as individuals: a cohesive whole. “Doppelganger” is both timely and timeless, a work in a grand tradition. “Things fall apart,” W. B. Yeats wrote in his 1920 poem “The Second Coming,” “the centre cannot hold.” Nearly 50 years later, Joan Didion referenced his verse in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” a tour through the existential crisis of the 1960s. Now we have another spirited guide — a source of fact-based understanding, if not always solace.

Vognar is a freelance writer based in Houston.

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MCU

Loki Season 2 received a new trailer ahead of its Disney+ release, and it featured a new look at a billboard of the show’s surprising Thor villain. 

In July 2022, set photos revealed that Season 2 will showcase posters from an in-universe movie called Zaniac. 

In Marvel Comics, Zaniac (a parasitic entity from the Dark Dimension) is actually a Thor villain. 

Loki Season 2 Trailer Features Best Look at Zaniac’s Billboard

Marvel Studios officially released a new trailer for Loki Season 2, showcasing fresh looks at the titular God of Mischief, Sylvie, and Zaniac’s billboard. 

At the 0:16 second mark of the trailer, the best look yet at the villain’s movie billboard was unveiled:

Marvel Studios

The brief look showed glimpses of the character’s design in the MCU series.

Zaniac's billboard in Loki Season 2
Marvel Studios

Part of the billboard was previously seen in Loki Season 2’s first trailer: 

Zaniac's billboard in Loki Season 2 trailer
Marvel Studios

In Marvel Comics, Zaniac made his debut in Thor 319 in May 1982, an entity that possesses a human to act as Dormammu’s agent. 

After leaping from host to host, the parasitic entity eventually possessed an actor named Brad Wolf while working on a film titled “Zaniac!.” 

The movie is about a serial killer who targets women as his path for revenge against his mother who abused him when he was a child. 

Thor 319 featuring Zaniac's first appearance
Marvel Comics

While being infected with the entity during filming, Brad was caught in a nuclear explosion from the Manhattan Project, leading to his transformation as Zaniac. After attacking different women, Thor eventually stopped the villain. 

The trailer also unveiled another look at Rafael Casa’s Brad Wolfe, the actor who was possessed by the entity from the comics. 

Rafael Casa as Brad Wolfe
Marvel Studios

The trailer can be seen below: 

How Thor’s Villain Zaniac Fits in Loki Season 2

More footage from Season 2’s trailer showed Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, alongside Owen Wilson’s Mobius, confronting Rafael Casa’s Brad Wolfe in an alleyway before using his magical powers against the villain. 

It is unknown if Wolfe will transform into Zaniac in Loki Season 2, but the fact that the TVA appears to be chasing him suggests that they are aware that he is a threat to the timeline. 

It’s possible that this will be Loki and Mobius’ first mission back together as TVA agents, and this task could be the reason why the latter will eventually trust the former in his pursuit of He Who Remains and his Variants. 

There’s also a chance that Zaniac is being used as a means to an end by Victor Timely, with the character serving as a distraction from the true villain’s nefarious goals.

Loki Season 2 will begin streaming on Disney+ on October 6. 

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DCU

Summary

  • George Lopez was not the original choice for the role of Rudy Reyes in Blue Beetle, but his performance brought both heart and comedy relief to the character.
  • The bond between Jaime Reyes and his family is a key element of Blue Beetle, setting him apart from other heroes and providing support and motivation.
  • Lopez’s portrayal of Rudy Reyes adds an infectious excitement and love for the legacy of Blue Beetle, making it difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.


Blue Beetle concept artist Phil Boutte reveals that George Lopez was not who the creative team anticipated to play Rudy Reyes. In Blue Beetle, an ancient alien artifact, the Scarab, unexpectedly chooses Jaime Reyes, a recent college graduate, to be its new host. Through this symbiotic relationship, Jaime steps into the role of superhero Blue Beetle, gaining a near-indestructible exoskeleton suit along with a number of other abilities. However, Victoria Kord has much darker intentions for the Scarab, and Jaime must fight to protect his family and the world from her violent ambitions.

In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant for Blue Beetle, Boutte revealed that Lopez’s casting was a surprise. He shared what the team was initially envisioning for the character, but also that Lopez still worked. His creative partner, Mike Uwandi, jumped in to praise Lopez in the role. Check out Boutte’s full quote below: Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the movie covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.

Phil Boutte: Actually one of the things that was a surprise for us was George Lopez. Lopez, they had him in mind, but it wasn’t initially him. It was going to be somebody that was skinnier and wiry.

His look, the mullet and all that? Just imagine an aged Mexican rocker. And then George came in, and then Mayes was doing the fittings with him and everything and going back and forth and they were finding his character. Those elements strangely still worked and it was just hilarious.

Mike Uwandi: Yeah, he killed that role.

Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the movie covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.


How The Family Is The Key To Blue Beetle

Superhero origin stories have become a common staple of the genre. However, the key to any movie or series is figuring out how to make the hero and their story stand out from others. The key to Blue Beetle is the Reyes family. Jaime’s bond with his family and their willingness to help immediately set him apart from other heroes, many of whom either have tumultuous relationships with their families or hide their superhero identities.

Related: The DCU’s First Villains Make The Evil Iron Man Story The MCU Couldn’t

Lopez’s performance as Rudy Reyes brings both heart and comedy relief to Blue Beetle, which helps break the tension in some of the scenes. His intelligence and love for Jaime motivate his actions, and his excitement upon discovering that Ted Kord was the previous Blue Beetle is infectious. While he wasn’t the initial choice, it’s hard to imagine anyone else filling this role.

Although he’s reluctant to step into the role of hero, that choice is taken from him very quickly when he learns his bond with the Scarab will be something he contends with for the rest of his life. The best parts of Jaime, including his heroic heart and desire to do good, clearly stem from his family. Showing how he has been influenced by them and their continued support, along with how they consistently work together, makes Blue Beetle stand out from other superhero origin stories.

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Summary George Lopez was not

Comics

NetEase Games has announced that it will reveal a new game for consoles and PC at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

The publisher will be attending Tokyo Game Show for the first time this year, and will be showing 12 previously announced games at the show.

However, it will also be showing a “completely new game”, which it will be revealing at a presentation at the NetEase booth on the show floor.

While it hasn’t provided any more information on the game, NetEase did share a blurred image from it. Although it’s difficult to make out, the image appears to show a white rabbit standing next to a mech vehicle.

In recent years, NetEase has built a roster of Japanese studios, including Grasshopper Manufacture and the new studio from Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi.

It also opened studios with seasoned Capcom developers Ryosuke Yoshida, Jean-Christophe Moine Maeda and Takeshi Yamazaki. Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a 27-year Capcom veteran who was a programmer on the first two Resident Evil games and went on to produce Resident Evil 4, opened his own NetEase-backed company last year.

And this year, NetEase set up Studio Flare, with former Marvelous board member Toshinori Aoki and Blazblue series producer Toshimichi Mori taking the reins, then in May it launched Pincool, a new studio led by Dragon Quest 8 and 9 producer Ryutaro Ichimura.

As well as the new game, NetEase will also be showing 12 other titles at the Tokyo Game Show, all of which have previously been announced.

These include the first three titles in Quantic Dream‘s indie label Spotlight – Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior, Dustborn and the recently released Under the Waves.

This year’s Tokyo Game Show will be held for four days from Thursday, September 21 to Sunday, September 24, and will be accompanied by a series of online streams and presentations (though none of these will be hosted by NetEase).

The show’s full streaming schedule was released earlier this week.