Today, Disney+ shared a newtrailerfor its upcoming out-of-this-world original movie, Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe, which premieres on Friday, August 28.

Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe is an adventure story that tracksstepbrothers Phineas and Ferb as they set out across the galaxy to rescue theirolder sister Candace, who after being abducted by aliens, finds utopia in a far-off planet, free of pesky littlebrothers.

Voice talent reprising their roles from the original series and movieinclude: Ashley Tisdale as Candace Flynn; Vincent Martella as Phineas Flynn; Caroline Rhea as their mom, Linda; Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platypus; Alyson Stoner as Isabella; Maulik Pancholy as Baljeet; Bobby Gaylor as Buford; Olivia Olson as Vanessa Doofenshmirtz; Tyler Mann as Carl; and Povenmire and Marsh as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, respectively. David Errigo Jr. joins the cast as Ferb Fletcher

Disney+ is the dedicated streaming home for movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and more. As part of Disneys Direct-to-Consumer and International (DTCI) segment, Disney+ is available on most internet-connected devices and offers commercial-free programming with a variety of original feature-length films, documentaries, live-action and animated series, and short-form content. Alongside unprecedented access to Disneys incredible library of film and television entertainment, the service is also the exclusive streaming home for the latest releases from The Walt Disney Studios. Disney+ is available as part of a bundle offer that gives subscribers access to Disney+, Hulu (ad-supported), and ESPN+. Visit DisneyPlus.com to subscribe and/or learn more about the service.

If you cant wait, you can check out the single, Such a Beautiful Day, from the movie. Let us know in the comments if youre excited to see this new movie coming soon to Disney+.

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VIDEO: New Trailer Released for Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe; Premiering This Month on Disney+ - wdwnt.com

Many film festivals are offering a mix of virtual and physical events in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, film festivals have had no choice but to reinvent themselves this year. While Cannes and Telluride have been cancelled, here is a lookat other upcoming events that have made a digital shift this year or chosen to showcase films both physically and online.

(Click here for LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)

Toronto International Film Festival(10 -20 September)

TIFF is one of the largest festivals of North America, but this time it has drastically scaled down its plans and scrapped together 50 films or TV series from around the world, leaning on projects set to debut on streaming services or television this fall.

Spike Lee'sfilmed version of David Byrnes Broadway theatrical concertAmerican Utopia,an HBO release, will open this years festival.

Other films in the lineupinclude the 90-year-old WisemansCity Hall, a portrait of Bostons City Hall; Regina Kings drama about a young Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, titledOne Night in Miami; Herzog and Clive Oppenheimers Apple TV+ meteorite documentaryFireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds; Pieces of a Woman, Kornel Mundruczos family drama with Shia LaBeouf; and Glendyn IvinsPenguin Bloom, with Naomi Watts.

Venice(2 - 12 September)

Venice will be the first film festival to hold a physical event ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will be smaller than usual andwill split into three sections - Venezia 77 (the main competition), Out of Competition, and Horizons. It will drop the Sconfini section (for arthouse and genre films) to give more screening time to main-section films, writes IndieWire.

Venetian director Andrea Segres documentaryMolecole, Daniele Luchettis drama Lacci,Chlo Zhao's Nomadlandand Pieces of a Woman, the English language debut of Hungarian filmmakerKornel Mundruczo, are scheduled to be screened at the festival.

Mumbai Film Festival

The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2020 has been postponed to next year as cinemas remain shut. The festival will soon release its selection of Indian films later this month.

MAMI has already launched virtual initiatives like Knowledge Series Dial M for Films, where Indian industry figures discuss their journey in films and more, as well as MAMI Home Theatre, a curation of films brought to audience directly online.

The academy has also launched Word to Screen Market, Young Critics Lab and the Industry Programme.

Authors, publishers and the literary community engage directly with content creators to option stories for films, TV and the digital medium via Word to Screen. This year, the initiative will take place online and focus on digital workshops with publishers and content creators.

Meanwhile, Young Critics Lab will promote young writing talent, who will be mentored by Baradwaj Rangan and Mike McCahill. The Industry Programme announced last year, but its online version will bring together creators from all over India to talk about the challenges they face and share their learnings.

BMO IFFSA Toronto (6 -16 August)

One of the largest South Asian film festivals of North America, the virtual edition of BMO IFFSA will feature 100 films in 16 languages.Some films part of the lineup are Pearl of the Desert (Maru ro Moti), Gamak Ghar, Moothon, Bebaak, Eeb Allay Ooo!, and Qissa: The Tale of a Lonely Ghost.

On the opening day, a tribute to the late Irrfan Khan will take place with actors filmmakers like Gurinder Chadha, Shoojit Sircar, Hansal Mehta and actors like Vijay Varma will be speaking.

Nandita Das, Gitanjali Rao, Javed Akhtar and journalist Nandini Ramnath, composers Madan Gopal Singh and Naren Chandavarkar will be taking virtual masterclasses.

BFI London Film Festival(7 - 18 October)

This year's edition will mostly be an online fare with limited in-person events over 12 days. 50 films from fiction, documentary, animation genres, artists moving image, and restored classics from the worlds archives have been selected for virtual premieres. Every film will be presented with an introduction or a QnA with the makers. Films will include subtitles and audio descriptors for viewers with special needs.

As UK is also opening its theatres, 12 screenings are scheduled to take place across the region's cinemas. LFF is also dropping a jury and instead letting the audience choose winners for four categories : Best Fiction Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best Short Film, and Best XR.

The full schedule of LFF will be announced on 8 September.

New York Film Festival(25 September - 11 October)

The 17-day long New York Film Festival will also be adapting to the current scenario to ensure the safety of the festival attendees. The event will offer a mix of physical and outdoor virtual screenings this year, but Deadlinereports that the organisers,Film at Lincoln Center, will also look into the prospect of an in-person festival. Films will also be showcased at the city's two drive-in theatres.

NYFF has also announced an updated structure Main Slate, Currents, Spotlight, Revivals, and Talks. The program will have 100 features as well as panel discussions. The virtual screenings will only for US residents, but the talks will be open to a global audience.

Sundance (21 -31 January, 2021)

While Sundance was successfully held prior to the coronavirus lockdown, its 2021 edition will be seeing some changes. According to the festival director Tabitha Jackson, it will take place in Utah and "in at least 20 independent and community cinemas across the U.S. and beyond." Besides having a smaller scale than usual and following social distancing practices, Sundance also plans to be accessible online.Salt Lake Tribunal states that the organisers are looking to cut the festival short by seven days.

Rotterdam(27 January - 7 February, 2021)

Rotterdam also plans to implement changes in its programming structure forthe 50th edition of the festival. According to Deadline the organisers will bring in the amendments in accordance with the shift in circumstances over the next six months.

Screen Daily, in its report, had said that the new director Vanja Kaludjercic hopes to make the festival digital friendly due to the pandemic. Films may be screened in Rotterdam and other cities in Netherlands.

Berlinale (11 - 21 February 2021)

Mariette Rissenbeek, the executive director of Berlinale, and the new artistic director Carlo Chatrian, had told Deadline that the event will be a physical one with all the necessary hygiene and social distancing measures in place.

Locarno Film Festival(5 - 15 August)

The Swiss film festival has foregone in-person attendance and replaced it with a new format, Locarno 2020 For the Future of Films, to support the independent filmmakers.

As part of its Films After Tomorrow initiative, the festival will see 20 titles that were affected by the coronavirus lockdown - 10 international and 10 from Switzerland, writesVariety. The films include Axelle RopertsPetite Solange, Lucrecia Martel'sZama, Lav Diaz'sWhen the Waves are Gone,

The Journey of the Fesitval's History will see features from previous editions of the festival screened online.The program will be free in Switzerland, while it will be available outside of the country on thestreamer MUBI.

*

There is along list of important films that will be presented at these festivals.

Here is a look at some of them.

Nomadland

A still from Nomadland | Image from Twitter

Chloe ZhaosNomadland, starring Frances McDormand, will premiere across the major fall film festivals in an alliance forged by the Venice, Toronto, and New York festivals.

Nomadland, Zhaos follow-up to her acclaimed 2018 filmThe Rider, is the first movie announced in the new partnership that has brought together the falls biggest movie launch pads, which typically compete against each other for world premiere rights.

Spring Blossoms

Image from Twitter

The French language film marks Suzanne Lindon's directorial debut. The official logline states that Spring Blossoms follows a Parisian teenager, who "contemplates the pitfalls of growing up too fast when she falls in love with an older man." Arnaud Valois, Frdric Pierrot, and Florence Viala are also part of the cast.

American Utopia

Spike Lees filmed version of musician David Byrnes Broadway theatrical concertAmerican Utopiawill kick offthis year's TIFF.The show features Byrne and 11 musical artists from around the world performing songs from the 2018 album of the same title, as well as Talking Heads hits. HBO will premiereAmerican Utopiathis fall.

Ammonite

Image from Twitter

Ammonite, the Kate Winslet-Saoirse Ronan romantic drama is set in 1840s England. The narrative charts the intense romance which developed between an infamous fossil hunter, Mary Anning (Winslet) and a young woman Charlotte Murchison (played by Ronan). The first look of the film was revealed at Cannes 2019.

Steve McQueens anthology at NYFF

Three original films by Oscar-winner Steve McQueen will debut at NYFF. The12 Years a Slavedirector will get the opening night slot for the 1980s-set music romanceLovers Rockin addition to two other premieres for films in his anthology series.

McQueensSmall Axeanthology is comprised of five films telling stories about Londons West Indian community from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.

The other two films premiering areMangrove, withBlack Pantheractor Letitia Wright, which tells the true story of a group of Black activists called the Mangrove 9 who clashed with police in the 1970s, andRed, White and Blue, another true story about a man, Leroy Logan, who joins the police to try to inspire change from within. John Boyega stars.

The five films will premiere later this year on Amazon Prime Video in the US and on BBC One.

The Human Voice

Pedro Almodvar will make his English language debut with The Human Voice, a 30-minute adaptation ofof the original stage play by Jean Cocteau. The short is described as "a very free adaptation of the original stage play by Jean Cocteau, with which Pedro Almodvar has been dreaming of for decades. It tells the story of a desperate woman (Tilda Swinton), who waits for the phone call of the lover who has just abandoned her."

Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds

Werner Herzog, whose last project was Family Romance, LLC, along with geoscientist and director Clive Oppenheimer explore how shooting stars and meteorites can tell about the origins of life on the planet. The documentary, the third collaboration between the duo, has been acquired by Apple TV+

One Night In Miami

Image from Twitter

Oscar winner Regina King makes her directorial debut with the film adaptation of Cassius Clay-Malcolm X playOne Night in Miami.The film is a take on Kemp Powers' debut play, which finds young boxer Cassius Clay, activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke and football star Jim Brown hanging out together at a Miami motel.

The Disciple

National award-winning directorChaitanya Tamhanes new Marathi filmThe Disciplewill be showcased at both Venice and TIFF.Tamhane's127-minute long feature stars Aditya Modak, Arun Dravid, Sumitra Bhave, and Kiran Yadnyopavit.

Alfonso Cuaron recently come aboard as an executive producer of the film. The Disciple "examines a lifetime journey devoted to the art of Indian classical music," states the official log line.

Bruised

Image from Twitter

Halle Berry is all set to step into director's shoes with the mixed martial arts film titledBruised.The Oscar-winning actress will also produce the film and will star in it.In the film, Berryportrays a disgraced MMA fighter who has to face one of the rising stars of the MMA world and deal with the return of her 6-year-old son to the mother he deserves.

Pieces of a Woman

Image from Twitter

Pieces of a Women is about a grieving woman (Vanessa Kirby) who is thrust into an emotional inner journey by trying to come to terms with the loss of her baby after a home birth goes wrong, while dealing with herhusband (Shia LaBeouf) and estranged mother.

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How film festivals around the world have adapted to the limitations of the Coronavirus pandemic - Firstpost

Amazon

Your home has likely transformed into an office, gym, and chefs kitchen over the past few months. While businesses around the nation have lifted coronavirus stay-at-home orders, many people are still being cautious and spending time indoors. If you need some help making the most out of your space, Amazon recently curated a storefront with all the essentials you need to make your home as comfy and organized as possible.

The retailers New Home Essentials storefront focuses on the new normal of doing almost everything from home. Whether you need to zhuzh up your makeshift office space, want to expand your workout regime, or keep kids occupied, Amazon conveniently put anything you might be looking for in one place.

The storefront is divided up in several sections depending on your needs. Simply click through what kind of products youd like to see, and youll be taken to an expanded list of items in that category. The best part? Most of the product recommendations are best-sellers or highly rated, so you dont have to worry about scouring for the very best yourself.

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Spending more time indoors means youre probably cleaning up after yourself and household members more often. Amazon has tons of cleaning recommendations that will make tidying up a breeze, like a multifunctional steam mop (with 7,000 positive reviews!) and a powerful stick vacuum that wont break the bank.

Amazon

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Youll also find dozens of organizing tools , from the popular Oxo pantry containers (which have Khloe Kardashians stamp of approval) to a pack of velvet hangers that will change your closet forever.

Amazon

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Amazon also threw in tons of items to help grow any new hobbies you may have picked up while spending time at home, like crafting , coffee-making , and plant collecting (of course). If you happen to be interested in a new exercise routine, theres even an entire section dedicated to home fitness , which includes workout equipment, clothes, and accessories.

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Amazon's New Home Essentials Storefront Has Everything You Need to Keep Your Space Organized, Comfy, and Clean - Yahoo Sport UK

Utopia, a darkly comic conspiracy thriller series from executive producer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects), is coming to Amazon Prime Video this fall, and Flynn and the show's stars John Cusack, Sasha Lane, Ashleigh LaThrop, Desmin Borges, and Dan Byrd gathered for a digital panel to preview the unintentionally timely show, which deals with a devastating new virus spreading across America.

Utopia, an adaptation of a 2013 British series of the same name, centers on a group of comic book fans who bond online over their obsession with a comic calledUtopia, which they believe isn't fictional, but is filled with prophetic hidden meanings about the end of the world. Their theories are proven true, and they find themselves at the center of a dangerous conspiracy and on the run alongside the comic's main character, Jessica Hyde (Lane), a very ruthless, scary person who confirms the clich that you should never meet your heroes. They're just a bunch of nerds, but it's up to them to unravel the conspiracy and save the world. During the panel, Flynn described it as "The Goonies meetsMarathon Man." Cusack takes on his first series regular role as Dr. Kevin Christie, the CEO of a biomedical company whose artificial meat is spreading a virus that may be part of bringing about the end times.

Filming was completed by the time the COVID-19 pandemic happened, but the show's themes of paranoia and lack of faith in institutions have only become more relevant in the pandemic era, Flynn said. The cast agreed that it was very strange to see the similarities in the world and their show. "It was kind of disturbing and surreal to see it come so closely to life with the pandemic," Cusack said. And the cast isn't worried about the series hitting too close to home for viewers who are looking for an escape from life in the pandemic.

The Best Shows and Movies on Amazon Prime Video This Month

"This is by no means, like, a docudrama reality we're living in," Byrd said. "This is very much a sort of comic book frequency that the pandemic is playing out in, so I don't really see people watching it and feeling like, 'this is like watching the news' or something that's hitting too close to home." He said he thinks the series is a perfect blend of escapism and relevance, as the themes are timely and have real-world resonance but their context is totally different, and the show is really about the adventure the characters go on.

The show is at times gruesomely violent, and Flynn was asked to justify the purpose of the violence in the storytelling. She said that she wants the audience to feel as uncomfortable and squeamish as the characters, who are sheltered people being exposed to violence for the first time. "These are people who are really cerebral [and] have lived a lot online," she said. They are juxtaposed with Jessica Hyde, who has lived her whole life in the "real world" and is very comfortable with violence. "There's the contrast between, the kind of geeks of the Comic-Con and the kind of cosplay characters who think of violence in a comic book way, versus the contrast when that story of the comic book comes to life, and then they have to meet the actual characters in the comic," Cusack added. The violence makes the show feel more authentic and realistic, they said. Viewers can decide for themselves when the show comes out whether or not that's true.

Utopia is coming to Amazon Prime Video this fall.

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Amazon's Utopia Wasn't Meant to Be So Timely, Which Makes It Even Better - TV Guide

As we emerge blinking into the sunlight after lockdown, many of us will be daring to dream of a more harmonious, ecological future. Its what the subjects of Spaceship Earth were hoping to create when they locked down voluntarily for two years as part of an experiment around communal, self-sufficient living. The new documentary tells the story of Biosphere 2, an Earth system science research facility located in the Arizona desert. Back in 1991, eight people moved into the huge vivarium as a dress rehearsal in case humans had to repopulate to Mars. Matt Wolfs film is a fascinating watch that vividly recalls classic sci-fi cinema: the biospherians wear designer space suits and their mission references 1972s Silent Running, in which a botanist astronaut tries to save a biosystem orbiting in space.

It begs the question: what other lessons can we learn from sci-fi movies, post lockdown? In the past, many films have depicted a post-apocalyptic world where artificial communities have been created in an attempt to save at least some of the planet. But these are rarely truly happy places. In the family animation WALL-E (2008), lazy humans live on starliners, having trashed the Earth. A seemingly harmonious world conceals hidden horrors in Logans Run, the 1973 film with an upcoming remake.

Utopias that turn dystopian are common in cinema, as noted by the novelist and critic Kim Newman: The first act shows you everyone having a good time, but you notice the cracks. Then you learn how terrible things really are. Many fictional future worlds are divided between rich and poor, such as Metropolis (1927) and Soylent Green (1973). Others can be threatened by one bad egg. Comic-book adaptations are full of these, from Loki in the Thor series to Killmonger in Black Panther. Wonder Womans Themyscira is disrupted by the arrival of men.

More recently, the young adult genre has been dominated by pure dystopias: children were forced to hunt and kill each other in the Hunger Games series (2012-2015). The 2015 Disney film Tomorrowland struck a more optimistic note, depicting a secret world built by all the geniuses, the artists, the scientists, the smartest, most creative people in a place free from politics and bureaucracy, distractions, greed. Brad Birds film directly addressed the subject of how we respond to dystopian images: inventor David Nix (Hugh Laurie) tried to warn humanity by broadcasting images of impending doom. They didnt fear their demise, they repackaged it! he laments. It can be enjoyed as video games, as TV shows, books, movies the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon. But hopeful heroine Casey (Britt Robertson) still went in search of dreamers to build a better future.

Such optimism is reminiscent of Spaceship Earth. Far from being stereotypical hippies, the members of this commune built a huge houseboat to travel the world, forging partnerships with likeminded financiers. They formed a theatre company and performed avant-garde shows. They wanted to see if self-sufficient life was possible on Mars, so they tried it or at least, as close as they could get. Not everything in the garden was rosy, but at least it grew.

The idea of a contained, peaceful community is prevalent in onscreen utopias. Newman describes these as being, collectivist, contemplative with tamed natural spaces. Biospherian Mark Nelson, however, finds few of them are believable. I and other biospherians would laugh, because in almost all science fiction movies, there are hardly any green plants or other lifeforms around yet no one asks: How are they getting their oxygen, water regeneration, clean food?

Silent Running does emphasise the difference between fresh, locally grown food and bland, artificial meals, while Soylent Green takes the idea to a more sinister extreme. Meanwhile veganism on the rise in real life features in several onscreen utopias. Simon Amstells pointed TV mockumentary, Carnage, painted a picture of a harmonious, sustainable future where the only pain was the memory of their elders murdering animals.

A plant-based diet also features in the cult French comedy La Belle Verte (The Green Beautiful, 1996). Writer-director Coline Serreau plays Mila, an alien from a utopian community who comes to 90s Paris and is comically horrified by the pollution, smoking, meat eating and overcrowding. La Belle Vertes farcical humour eases into a strong message about a self-sufficient community with no leaders, where the days consist of strengthening acrobatic play and exercises in telepathy. All inhabitants work the land and agree on population control (After the harvest, we decide how many babies to make). It turns out that their lives used to look much like ours on Earth.

I asked Jennifer Wells, a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and member-at-large of the Society of Utopian Studies, what she thought of La Grande Verte. Serreau evokes a foreign utopian planet with ecological lifestyles, spiritual harmony, zero carbon technologies and equality, she says. This ideal society on a far-off planet may not be realisable unless we are getting close to switching out cell phones for telepathy, and football for group ballet.

She adds: What is realisable is the deeper questioning that comes up when Mila visits Earth. Through Milas hilarious escapades, we get a fresh view on how some of the things we accept as most normal are, in fact, in need of transformation.

This fresh view chimes with the lockdown experience: not only have more people started growing their own vegetables, but they have had the space to take a long look at their lives and the world much like biospherians. Nelson says: Since we experienced the metabolic connection we had to our mini-world so bodily and viscerally, when we came out, we were eager to share that insight every humans very life depends on Earths biosphere! He sees clear parallels with the current crisis. This pandemic lockdown can be a shock point for people to realise how vital a healthy biosphere is for them. Help make your city greener and less polluted; connect with your neighbours, your community, the trees, birds and natural elements around you.

Spaceship Earths director agrees. In light of Covid-19, we have all been living like biospherians, and we are now re-entering a different world, says Wolf. The question is: how will we be transformed, and how might that compel us to reimagine our world?

Perhaps film-makers can inspire us. Jude Law has been cast as an architect building a utopia in Francis Ford Coppolas long-planned Megalopolis, while screenwriter Caitlin Moran (How to Build a Girl) recently revealed she is writing a cheerful utopian sci fi movie. Thats something Id welcome: La Belle Verte is the only sci-fi movie I have watched recently that didnt give me nightmares. In fact, I woke energised and inspired. After the darkness, maybe a positive vision is what tomorrows dreamers need.

Anna Smith is a film critic and host of the Girls on Film podcast. Spaceship Earth is available on demand from Amazon Prime Video. La Belle Verte is available free on Vimeo

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Brave new worlds: what can we learn from film's utopian visions? - The Guardian

(CNN) Nintendo sales are still soaring.

The Japanese company posted another round of blockbuster earnings Thursday, proving that its hot streak from the pandemic is far from over.

The company said it made 145 billion yen ($1.37 billion) in operating profit for the quarter ended June, marking a 428% surge compared to the same time a year ago. That blew away expectations from analysts, who had estimated about 62 billion yen of profit, according to data provided by Refinitiv.

Nintendo also doubled sales from a year ago, taking in about 358 billion yen ($3.4 billion).

The results show that months into the pandemic, people are still turning to the Nintendo Switch game console in droves. Nintendo sold about 5.7 million of the devices from April through June, marking a 167% increase year-over-year.

The runaway success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons continued to be a boon for the company. The game, which is set on a relaxing virtual island utopia and allows users to fish, catch bugs and play with friends on the beach, runs on the Switch and has been in high demand since people worldwide started staying home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nintendo sold 10.6 million copies of the game in the most recent quarter.

Sales of this title continue to be strong, with no loss of momentum, the company said in a statement. It added that the game was its bestseller this quarter, contributing greatly to the overall growth in software sales.

Nintendo has sold 22.4 million copies of Animal Crossing overall, putting it just under Nintendos best-selling game of all time, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. That title has racked up 26.7 million sales.

The Switch, which was first released in 2017, sold out on various websites earlier this year as customers scrambled to find new forms of home entertainment.

This spring, the Kyoto-based company ran into supply issues with the Switch as factories were shut down in China. Those closures triggered some component shortages and slowed output at factories in Vietnam.

Now, the overall production situation has almost recovered, the company said.

Nintendo also took the opportunity to tease its pipeline of games. This fall, it plans to release a new title, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, as well as offer some new content for Pokmon players. The company released another new Switch game, Paper Mario: The Origami King, last month.

We will work to keep the platform active with new titles and by reinforcing sales of popular titles that have already been released, the company said.

Kaori Enjoji contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Nintendo profit jumps more than 400% thanks to the Switch and Animal Crossing - KSL NewsRadio

For centuries mankind has attempted to establish a utopia, defined as an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), a scholar who wrote during the enclosure movement of farm consolidation in England, coined the word utopia, when, in Latin, he wrote his book Utopia a fictional political satire later translated in English.

McMinnville's Elaine Rohse is fascinated by words, books and writing - and spends much time sating that fascination.

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After numerous utopias failed, perhaps an appropriate addition to that definition might have been: an impractical scheme for social improvements, in an imagined and infinitely remote place.

Utopia has numerous synonyms: Camelot, Cockaigne, Eden, Elysium, fantasy land, paradise, promised land, Shangri-La, Zion. Names of utopias include Modern Times, Harmony, Songdo, Palmanova, Arcosanti.

Many books have been written about utopias, including Brave New World, The Giver and Looking Backward. History has recorded numerous theoretical utopias.

In his book, More envisioned utopia as a place of about l00,000 residents made up of 54 cities, laid out in a crescent-shaped island. The cities were sited no more than 14 miles apart no farther than a days walk.

The uniform and contiguous houses each had a garden in the back and proud was the owner of that garden which was most lush.

The utopias capital city, Amaurot, was arranged in a square with each side two miles long.

The family was the basis for political and social structures, and there was neither private property nor money.

Every month, free goods were exchanged. Families brought produce. These goods were taken to storehouses where each familys father picked up his familys needs. If shortages occurred, that need was supplied. The ultimate pleasure apparently was cultivation of the mind. There was a general belief in god and tolerance for all creeds.

Husbands had the power to chastise their wives, and the wives duties included serving meals.

The island of Pala, one of the most famous utopias, was created by Aldous Huxley. I chance to presently be reading Huxleys novel, After Many A Season Dies the Swan, but it concerns itself little with utopias.

As envisioned by Huxley, Pala was a blend of science and religion. The religion was Mahayana Buddhism, which teaches that everything from food to sex can be a road to liberation and enlightenment.

One scientific effort of the utopia was to devise psychological means of reducing aggressive personalities. In Pala, residents provided most of their needs. The population was controlled so that there were not more people than goods.

Competition had been eliminated by a mutual aid system. Artificial insemination was widely practiced. A maximum of three children were permitted. Islanders practiced a yoga of love similar to the male continence practiced in the Oneida Colony in America.

All members of the Pala community work and enjoy the opportunity to work. Workers are permitted to change jobs and indeed are encouraged to do so because of added experience and to avoid boredom. In addition to blood relatives, on the island of Pala, everyone has deputy fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and so on, and this allows children freedom from parents, and parents freedom from children.

An integral part of life in this utopia is Moksha, a mescaline-like drug that produces mystic visions allowing islanders to achieve ultimate consciousness. The drug is part of the education for island children. They take the drug in order to experience transcendental unity with other sentient beings.

But Pala as a utopia collapsed when the island was invaded by a militaristic neighbor eager to acquire Palas rich oil resources.

Another theoretical utopia is the Republic created by Plato, a meritocracy in which leadership is elected on the basis of intellect. Manual work is regarded as narrowing. The family is a community in which no parent knows which child is his; similarly, no child knows his parents.

Only the best of both sexes are brought together, and if the worst have children, those children are put out of sight. Children are raised in a state nursery.

Other theoretical utopias included Commonwealth, Harmony, Icaria, Christianopolis, Shangri-la, which was created by James Hilton, in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon. Shangri-La is a monastery of some 50 lamas who reside in a lamasery that overlooks the valley and a village of about 1,000 Tibetans.

The lamasery and village are ruled by the High Lama. Under direction of the High Lama, lamas spend their time in pursuit of knowledge and arts. The community is built around moderation, observed in everything from love to government.

The monks pursue the aesthetic and the villagers do the work. Good manners, moderation and conservatism are the keys to all.

Other utopias and attempted utopias include Harmony Society, Nashoba, Brook Farm, Fourier Phalanx Movement, Modern Times, Oneida, Ferrer Colony and Spanish Anarchist Collectives.

In the utopia of Commonwealth, law ruled all. The utopia had no money or wages. Personal goods and houses were privately owned. Returns from production were held in common. Parliament gave orders for planting and reaping of Commonwealth land.

The father trained the children and did not spare the rod. Every child was educated in a trade. Common penalties were slavery, whipping, death, and any who espoused religion or sought to privately possess land could anticipate penalty.

Harmony, a theoretical utopia, matched people with work most appropriate to their type. Customarily, every worker in Harmony Utopia had tried 40 or more occupations.

Monogamy was rare. Social instructors were responsible for ensuring no one capable of love was ever frustrated.

Etienne Cabet (1788-1856) brought followers to America and started a new nation, but his attempt failed. His utopia had been built in the shape of a circle. All streets were straight to attain symmetry. Thousands of horse-drawn streetcars provided transportation.

Glass canopies covered sidewalks. Orders for merchandise were received at a control warehouse and the dispatched goods sent by pneumatic tube. Everyone worked a certain number of hours each week. Courtships were six months long. A committee determined the number of meals, mealtimes, the number of courses, daily menus and ingredients. Another committee determined aspects of daily attire.

The utopia, by name of Utopia, provided each citizen an annual income of $4,000. Retirement was at age 33 on half income. A leisurely life after 45 included sports, hobbies, travel, or one could stay home and have sermons and music piped in.

Another utopia with the name of Utopia was envisioned by William Morris, who invented the Morris chair. This utopia had no national government. Care was taken to permit the minority to express itself. In personal matters, everyone did as they pleased. There was no private property or wages. People worked for the pleasure it gave them. There were no schools and no prisons.

A surprising thing about these utopia is the lack of unanimity in what they perceived to be a utopia.

What would you want your utopia to have?

For many here in Yamhill Valley, we may well have reasoned that we already were living in Utopia and then coronavirus came to our door.

Elaine Rohse can be reached at rohse5257@comcast.net.

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Rohse: In search of the elusive utopian community - McMinnville News-Register

Will Candace ever get a break? Today, Disney+ shared the trailer for its upcoming out-of-this-world original movie Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe. The new movie premieres on the streaming service on Fri., Aug. 28.

Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe is an adventure story that tracks stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb as they set out across the galaxy to rescue their older sister Candace, who after being abducted by aliens, finds utopia in a far-off planet, free of pesky little brothers.

Voice talent reprising their roles from the original series and movie include: Ashley Tisdale as Candace Flynn; Vincent Martella as Phineas Flynn; Caroline Rhea as their mom, Linda; Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platypus; Alyson Stoner as Isabella; Maulik Pancholy as Baljeet; Bobby Gaylor as Buford; Olivia Olson as Vanessa Doofenshmirtz; Tyler Mann as Carl; and Povenmire and Marsh as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, respectively. David Errigo Jr. joins the cast as Ferb Fletcher.

Jennifer Swartvagher

Featured photo: Disney+

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Disney+ Releases Official Trailer for New Phineas and Ferb Movie - Red Tricycle

Just remember, wear your masks, and do as the electric road signs all over New England tell you to: STAY WICKED FAH APAHT.

CASTINE COTTAGES

33 Snapps Way, Castine; 207-326-8003

If youre looking for a clean, sweet, and rustic property where you can enjoy the great outdoors, and have easy access to a gorgeous, status town (if youre not quarantining), Castine Cottages is a terrific option. The friendly, family-owned property has six two-bedroom cottages overlooking Penobscot Bay, and with a private dock and beach. Whats nice about the bright and airy setup here is that the cottages are all side by side far enough to socially distance, but close enough that youre not isolated deep in the woods, if thats not your thing. This makes it a great option for vacationing with multiple friends or families, without crossing any safety boundaries. Castine is a classically beautiful New England village, and a summertime utopia, even in these strange times. MarKels Bakehouse continues to serve the best sandwiches and baked goods in the area, with an Evenings at the Watermark pizza pop-up. Starting rate is $725 per week.

ARAGOSTA

300 Goose Cove Road, Deer Isle; 207-348-6900

Speaking of the best food in Maine, Aragosta, in the strikingly beautiful Deer Isle, is a once-in-a-lifetime place for someone looking for a special restorative experience after all this anxiety and stress. Owned and run by Chef Devin Finigan a culinary icon and James Beard award nominee Aragosta, with its minimalist-chic waterfront cabins and delicious, whimsical and hyperlocal tasting menu, is the kind of place you will never forget, and likely dream about forevermore. The location has seven cottages and seven suites, breakfast and dinner available onsite, and beaching and hiking for days which means, you truly do not have to leave, and why would you? While its kid-friendly, the location is also incredibly romantic. (Remember romance?) Starting rate is $280/night, including breakfast.

OCEANFRONT CAMPING AT REACH KNOLLS

670 Reach Road, Brooklin; 207-359-5555

Just down the street from Aragosta, in Brooklin, is a gem of a primitive camping site with an ultra-welcoming owner who will help you check your problems at the check-in desk. Set on the dramatic shores of Eggemoggin Reach, this is a quiet, unpretentious, and dirt cheap hideaway to unplug and recenter. Youll need your own tent or RV (no bigger than 38 feet) , of course, and the simple, nostalgic vibe is the opposite of glamping. Theres a coffee pot in the main office, wild strawberries everywhere, and a dramatic, rocky beach with the most luminescent shells for kids to collect. Tent sites start at $29/RV $39.

TOPSL FARM

365 Bremen Road, Waldoboro; 207-832-1602

Farther South, at the cozy and cool Topsl Farm in Waldoboro, youll find 85 acres of camping, camping-light, A-frame cabins, cottages, and a loose, contact-free way of life complete with premade picnics and homemade marshmallows. Topsl is a popular, increasingly hip, place to visit because of its enchanting coast, farm, and forest trifecta effect. Weekend stays, which are partially inclusive, with some meals and activities, start at around $490 for two nights.

INN BY THE SEA

40 Bowery Beach Road, Cape Elizabeth; 207-799-3134

As for staying at proper hotels, everyone has their own comfort level, and checking in to a real hotel with common areas and cardio gyms, might be outside of that comfort zone. That said, many hotels are taking their own precautions, on top of the state regulations, to make all guests feel as safe as possible. At the paradisal Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth, some of the Inns new protocols include touchless curbside check in, enhanced housekeeping services, and strict social distancing at the pool and restaurants. There is daily yoga on the big seaside lawn, so you can distance, breathe fresh air, and enjoy the ocean view. The spa is now open, and liquid relaxation at the bar is allowed and encouraged. We are living in a global pandemic, after all.

Alas, its not all doom and gloom. Most people are trying really, really hard to keep each other safe, said Commissioner Heather Johnson of the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development. Its certainly been difficult trying to balance public health and economic well-being; but we hope that this shared sense of responsibility toward your neighbor, toward human beings in general, reminds us of the kind of caring and considerate people we are here in Maine.

Alyssa Shelasky can be reached at Shelasky@gmail.com.

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5 beautiful and responsible places to stay in Maine, if you can make it there - The Boston Globe

Washington University in St. Louis (image courtesy Flickr, photo by Daniel X. ONeil)

An important question to ask about any political statement is: Who is it for?

Following weeks of anti-racist statements issued by universities, art museums and foundations, the answer is pretty clear. Power doesnt like to cede, but it can adapt long enough to survive an insurrection. As the old adage goes, power has a way of looking like change long enough to make things stay exactly the same. Art and design students are not fooled, but institutions are continuing to try to hold their ground while proclaiming allyship. They face a crisis of symbolic efficiency, to use the late Mark Fishers phrase.

I am a part-time senior lecturer who teaches architectural history and theory at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art, Washington University in St. Louis. In June, like many peer institutions, my school released a message, proclaiming allegiance to fighting systemic racism, and announcing the formation of a task force devoted to racial justice. In some ways this echoed statements that the university made after Michael Browns murder in nearby Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. This time around, the administrators want to listen to nonwhite students and alums about their experiences of discrimination and exclusion, which is laudable. Across the university, our chancellor wants to increase support for faculty who study race, as well as to hire 12 new tenure-track faculty members to study race in America a potentially powerful move, but mitigated by unsettling institutional language, framed as part of a plan to design a new racial future.

Further, in the name of pandemic preparedness, our design school just laid off many part-time lecturers in architecture and art (though not me), while the broader university has frozen raises, new hires, and promotions. Our fall semester has been postponed, meaning support staff and surviving adjunct faculty wont receive wages for almost three weeks longer than usual. All of this recalls the 2008 recession, which precipitated years of cuts due to lost funding for public schools, a result of neoliberal doctrine favoring private schools.

In this moment, the contradictory positions of architecture schools like Sam Fox reflect a systemic inability of universities to honor the dignity of faculty, staff, and students, even as they issue statements of solidarity. For instance, Cornell University has initiated voluntary salary reductions, while Rice University has frozen hiring and cancelled all pay raises. To the public, the universities front solidarity and increased investigation of societal ills. Internally, they double down on protecting their tax-free hoarded wealth and deny wages and salaries in ways that disproportionately affect, non-white, non-male, and low-income workers.

Architecture schools long have fallen into the fissures of university politics. Practices of the imaginary have to operate within spaces crafted and maintained by wealth and power. The horizon continues to recede. As the architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri wrote in Architecture and Utopia, designers realized that the politics of things (capital, buildings, endowments) limited the patronage of truly visionary work, and thus turned to practices that channeled political radicalism into safe works of art and architecture. Public housing is a great example, and especially in St. Louis, where the destruction of Pruitt-Igoe casts a long shadow. In that case and others, ideals and tenant needs succumbed to the demands of lucrative contracts, and when built works met controversy, many architects eagerly declared public housing and not their own practices unworkable.

The work of reproducing social structures is more comfortable than the work of agitating for new ones, yet every day we demand that our students make work that is original and impactful. Right now, the global pandemic and uprising is urging students to make the work that brings a new, just world into being. These designs require power to be reimagined and redistributed, not simply adding a new chair or two to existing tables.

At Harvard, the African American Student Union and AfricaGSD have launched a campaign to urge the university and its Graduate School of Design to translate their stated values into material actions. As Diana Budds apt Curbed headline summed it up, the students are teaching Harvard how to be anti-racist and thats the problem. Students and faculty at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and alums of Yale Universitys School of Architecture have also demanded real actions from the schools to dissolve their cultures of white supremacy. Likewise, the Design as Protest Collective is coordinating a campaign across art and architecture schools against violence and injustices in the practices taught. The Instagram account Architecture is Too White is presenting data showing why students are speaking up, school by school (and firm by firm).

Yet architecture schools have been far slower to make commitments than they were to offer sweeping public statements. As universities use the pandemic to threaten cuts to pedagogical funding, some faculty feel that silence offers safety. The dearth of unionized schools also makes matters more difficult for those who want to organize. In this void, students are reclaiming the political, visionary legacy of design schools in years past. Contemporary schools like the SCI-Arc and The Conway School in the US hold fast to the ideals that that academic governance should be shared by students and faculty, and that curriculums should address social needs. Defunct institutions including Black Mountain College in the US, the Village School for the Philosophy of Architecture in Yugoslavia, and the legendary Bauhaus in Germany remain inspirational.

Student demands require fundamental reinventions of institutional governance and financial structures. Institutions also have to become accountable to a society that needs material resources for building true equity, which tax-free endowments and real estate do not provide. If we are going to replace police officers with well-trained social workers, we need to tax endowments. If we are going to equalize public education, universities have to start paying property taxes for non-educational real estate into urban school districts. These are modest steps.

For now, university statements aim to make the current uprising relevant to their own sources of power, instead of making universities relevant to the uprisings. Hopefully architecture students and faculty members keep pushing. In the words of WAI Think Tanks Anti-Racist Architecture Manifesto: If they are serious about demolishing their legacies of institutional racism, academic institutions must rethink their recruiting strategies to attract, stimulate, and create safe environments for both educators and students. Simultaneously, architecture schools must embrace the deconstruction of their curriculums to question not only the future of architecture, but to expose the racist past they helped construct.

Design schools and fellow academics, now is the time to answer: Who are we for?

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Design Schools, Now Is the Time to Answer: Who Are We For? - Hyperallergic

H. G. Wells was a tiresome socialist, but an interesting futurist. One of the best books I read in my teen years was his novel The Time Machine. The storyline is simple. A man in Victorian London invents a vehicle that carries him into the distant future. He finds a beautiful world filled with beautiful young people, the Eloi, whose main tasks seem to be eating, playing, and having lots of carefree sex. Alas, paradise has a cost. At night, the Morlocks, the formerly human monsters who run the machines that run the paradise, emerge from their tunnels underground. As the time traveler discovers, the Morlocks raise and tend the infantilized Eloi as cattle. The Morlocks love the Eloifor dinner.

I thought of the Eloi recently as I watched Brave New World, the latest effort to bring the 1932 Aldous Huxley novel to television. Brave New World lends itself poorly to the screen. Its appeal is mainly cerebral: the despair of a human being who suddenly finds himself in a society of immense comfort but without sin, freedom, real danger, poetry, love, or God. Previous TV productions, in 1980 and 1998, have been laughably bad. The good news is that the latest attempt, by NBCUniversals new Peacock channel, has a vastly better production quality. It also has a fine cast: Harry Lloyd (as Bernard Marx), Jessica Brown Findlay (Lenina Crowne), Demi Moore (Linda), and Nina Sosanya (a female version of the novels Mustapha Mond).

The bad news is the plot. John the Savage, played by Alden Ehrenreich, is a nave but compelling character in the Huxley novel. He has some of its most powerful lines. But in the Peacock version, the role is weak and confused. And the story goes off the rails in the first episodes. A very un-Huxleyan feminist-led revolt in the primitive Savage Lands is cheesy and implausible. Or rather, impossible. Huxley envisioned a World State made permanent by compulsory happiness. Instability is unthinkable. Resentments and discomfort are abolished through genetic manipulation, social conditioning, drugs, free sex, erasure of the past, and an ecstasy of consumer appetites teased and fulfilled. In effect, the people of Huxleys World State are Eloi. Theyre managed by shrewd and vigilant therapists, not Morlocks. But as Mustapha Mond, one of the states World Controllers, says in the novel, theyre nonetheless nice, tame, animals.

Luckily for the series writers, just enough explicit sex weaves throughout the storyline to keep viewers from thinking too deeply about anything. Butsomething I never could have imagined at seventeeneven a 4K screenful of amorous naked bodies in their prime can become fatiguing. In the end, Peacock offers a mildly absorbing science fiction tale with lots of glistening flesh and technology. As an adaptation of Huxleys sobering message, though, the Peacock drama fails.

This is bad, especially now, because Huxleys ideas are obviously relevant today. For decades I believed that George Orwell was the better writer, but Huxley the better prophet. Orwells futurist novel 1984, with its Thought Police and shabby, dystopian brutality, seems dated. The technopoly that now envelops us seems much closer to Huxleys sunny, pastel brand of coercion. Thats what Huxley himself believed. He argued in a foreword to his novels 1946 edition that as political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. In a welfare-tyranny of Utopia, Huxley said, distractions and sexual license help to reconcile subjects to the servitude which is their fate. Later, in a 1949 letter to Orwell, whom he had taught at Eton, Huxley added that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

Maybe so. Huxley sounds quite sensible. But Im no longer convinced by his reasoning; its too reasonable. If todays street violence and political extremism serve any good purpose, its this: They remind us that humans have a chronic appetite for destruction. Hate, revenge, the desire to vindicate ourselves by humiliating, or simply annihilating, others: These are poisonous feelings. But theyre also delicious ones, and we each have a dark, inner laboratory where we perfect the flavor of our grievances.

Huxley might argue that his World Controllers would have the power to banish all grievances and shape future generations in peace and plenty. But that assumes his Controllers would be genuinely benign and selfless, and always remain so. Nothing in human experience supports that view. The arc of absolute power bends toward pain, not paradise. Orwell may be wrong on the details. But in the long run, Orwell, not Huxley, reads the human heart more deeply.

OBrien, the Inner Party official so brilliantly played by Richard Burton in the film version of Orwells 1984, captures the real nature of power: Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. (Anyone who thinks that such things cant happen here needs to read and share Rod Drehers bracing new book Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidentsa chronicle of how good people sleepwalk into catastrophe, and the means to survive it.)

Twice in Aldous Huxleys novel, John the Savage quotes from Shakespeares The Tempest: O brave new world that has such people in it. He speaks those words first in dazzled enthusiasm for the utopia that awaits him, and later in ironic disgust for the comfortable, subhuman life he finds. Here and now we have two paths before us. One leads to being Eloi on the menu. The other, much harder one, leads to inner freedom, God-rooted citizenship, and the repudiation of fear. As Huxley wrote in his 1946 foreword, you pays your money, and you takes your choice.

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and senior research associate in Constitutional studies at the University of Notre Dame.

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Brave New World Revisited | Francis X. Maier - First Things

In Utopia Avenue he turns down the high jinks and puts the emphasis on characterisation

Jul 25th 2020

Utopia Avenue. By David Mitchell. Random House; 592 pages; $30. Sceptre; 20.

USING DIVERSE voices and styles, and telling several stories together, David Mitchells finest novels conjure up multiple worlds, both real and fantastical. Each of their chapters transports readers to a different time or place and revolves around a new theme or idea. These sections are discrete enough to resemble stand-alone stories, but recurring motifs or reappearing characters provide unity. For all the singular events and far-reaching chaos they encompass, these are books about interconnected lives and shared fates.

His kaleidoscopic and polyphonic novels showcase their authors capacious imagination. The globe-spanning miniature dramas that make up his debut, Ghostwritten (published in 1999), chart the wayward progress of, among others, a pair of jazz aficionados, a nuclear physicist, a member of a doomsday cult and a disembodied, transmigrating soul. Bigger and bolder, The Bone Clocks (2014) follows a character from 1984 to a post-apocalyptic future, by way of a cosmic conflict between immortal beings. Mr Mitchells most ambitious work, Cloud Atlas (2004), is also his best. Intricately structured and deftly plotted, its contrasting ingredientsthriller, history, farce, dystopia, science fictionmake a potent blend.

His ninth novel is, for the most part, a more conventional affair. Utopia Avenue tells the story of a fictitious British rock band of that name which experiences fame, triumph and tragedy in the late 1960s. The book lacks the formal daring and dizzying inventiveness of its predecessors. This time, though, Mr Mitchell places a stronger emphasis on characterisation. By rotating the narrative between the players perspectives, he ensures that each emerges as a fleshed-out human being as well as a member of the collective.

The group forms in Soho (The saucy twinkle in Mother Londons eye) in 1967. It consists of Dean Moss, a blues bassist, folk singer and keyboardist Elf Holloway, virtuoso guitarist Jasper de Zoet and Peter Griff Griffin, a jazz drummer. They harness their influences and pool their talents to create a winningly eclectic sound. Aided by their enterprising manager, Levon Frankland, they secure a record deal, play gigs, appear on television and gradually make a name for themselves in the autumn of the Summer of Love.

But their journey to the top has downs as well as ups. They encounter shady promoters and snarky critics. They weather erratic sales and dented self-confidence. Jasper goes AWOL in New York; in Rome, Dean faces imprisonment. Eventually the band wins critical acclaim and commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic. Can anything derail this rollercoaster career?

Utopia Avenue itself is not a fast ride. Some scenes go on too long, others take unnecessary tangents. Nevertheless it is a consistently absorbing book, which skilfully conveys the excitement and mayhem of the era, and the hopes and dreams of those swept up in it. Elfs sections sketch a voyage of self-discovery, during which she recognises her abilities, moves on from a sponger boyfriend and embraces her true sexuality. Deans story is a cautionary tale rich with lurid scandals, comic misadventures and family feuds. Jasper develops into the novels most complex character. A former patient of a Dutch psychiatric clinic, he wrestles with emotional dyslexia and a fear of mirrors. But when he is plagued by persistent knocking from the squatter in his skull, both his sanity and the bands future are threatened.

The later sections told from Jaspers perspective are filled with what one figure in The Bone Clocks termed magickery-pokery. Mr Mitchell overdid his mind-bending flights of fancy in that book; in this one there is method in his madness. There are entertaining cameos from famous faces, notably David Bowie, Francis Bacon and Janis Joplin. As ever, characters from the authors earlier stories pop up and pass through this one, often in intriguing new guises. A lot of fun is had along the way, by both Mr Mitchell and the reader.

This article appeared in the Books & arts section of the print edition under the headline "The band played on"

Read more from the original source:

David Mitchells new novel is the story of a rock band - The Economist

NICOSIA, Cyprus Cyprus on Friday made mask-wearing compulsory in all indoor areas where people gather in large numbers, like malls and supermarkets, and is significantly ramping up random coronavirus testing at its two main airports. An upsurge of new confirmed cases in the last week has alarmed authorities.

Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou said that a rollback of COVID-19 restrictions combined with a low infection rate led to excessive complacency by some people, whom he blamed for choosing to recklessly violate health protocols and put public health at risk.

He said the latest spike is exceedingly worrying because people infected with the virus who dont show any symptoms are spreading the disease in a way that is making containment efforts difficult.

Ioannou said its a utopia to believe COVID-19 can be completely eradicated and that the best outcome is to keep infections at a low, controllable level until a vaccine is developed.

Starting midnight Friday, anyone not wearing a mask in busy places like hospitals, banks and churches faces a fine of 300 euros ($366). Random testing at airports will increase from 600 to 1,000 a day, with emphasis on Cypriots returning from vacation.

The maximum number of passengers on public transport is again being cut to half of the vehicles capacity and police will enact a zero tolerance policy on businesses that dont conform to hygiene and social distancing rules.

Ioannou announced additional measures affecting the coastal town of Limassol, where most of the new infections have been registered. The measures, to last for three weeks, include the return of a 10-person limit at all social functions and a 75-person limit for indoor seating at bars and restaurants. That limit is double for outdoor seating.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades warned in a written statement that flouting these new restrictions would lead to even stricter measures that would have grave economic repercussions.

Divided Cyprus, with a population of around 870,000 people in the southern, internationally recognized part has registered 1,084 COVID-19 infections and 26 deaths.

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Cyprus Makes Mask-Wearing Compulsory in Large Indoor Spaces - The New York Times

Bill & Ted Face the Music

Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) arent exactly on track to fulfill their duty of writing the song that will unite the world. For starters, they each have marriages that need fixing, and their idea of joint couples therapy doesnt seem very promising. Plus, their band, Wyld Stallyns, receives more grimaces than applause. With no world-uniting material on their hands, they resort back to time travel to steal the song from their future selves. This time, they arent the only ones traveling by telephone booth; their daughters are making their way through history, too. (September 1st)

His Dark Materials, Season Two

The new season of the HBO fantasy series finds Lyra (portrayed by Dafne Keen) in an unfamiliar city; in an unfamiliar world, for that matter, where she meets an orphan, Will (portrayed by Amir Wilson), who recognizes her as a fellow outsider. In this new realm, Lyra is trailed by many some benevolent, and some who wish to do her harm. With Will by her side, the two teens are immersed in a greater battle and journey closer to their fates. (Fall 2020)

Immigration Nation

The new Netflix documentary gives the public unprecedented access to what goes on behind the scenes of ICE operations, as well as a personal look into the lives of immigrant families who are living with the fear and consequences that come with being targeted by ICE. The film sheds insights on tensions within ICE itself. One ICE agent says, I cant tell you how exhausting it is day in, day out, to be putting cuffs on people doing exactly what I would do in their situation. On the other hand, another ICE agent bluntly says, The government didnt hire me for my moral views. (August 3rd)

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

The new film explores the life of Oliver Sacks, whose compassion and dedication medicine launched his career as the first public intellectual in the field. His writing brought back a central aspect of medicine: Treat the person and not the disease, says one admirer. Elsewhere in the clip, Sacks curiosity and compassion are traced back to his relationship with his brother Micheal, who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Sacks says, much of my life has been spent trying to imagine what its like trying to be another human being.

Utopia

As wildfires rage on the TV news, a voiceover laments that we have no idea what the end of the world is going to bring. However, a few select comic book fans have an idea. Ian (portrayed by Dan Byrd), Becky (portrayed by Ashleigh LaThrop), Samantha (portrayed by Jessica Rothe), Wilson (portrayed by Desmin Borges) and Grant (portrayed by Javon Wanna Walton) are devoutUtopiareaders, and as the world unravels, they begin to realize that within the pages of their favorite comic are secret messages that predict the upheaval going on around them. (Fall 2020)

The Weight of Gold

For Michael Phelps, Shaun White, Sasha Cohen and other celebrated Olympic athletes, their whole lives from childhood to adulthood were building up to the sheer seconds that determined their Olymp accomplishments. However, after the medals and the media attention came an empty feeling. Were just so lost, Phelps says. A good 80%, maybe more, go through some kind of post-Olympic depression. Phelps and his peers open up about their depression in this new documentary, breaking the silence that often surrounds athletes when the topi of weakness arises. (July 29th)

Read more:

Trailers of the Week: Bill & Ted Face the Music, Utopia, The Weight of Gold, and More - Rolling Stone

New London, the main setting of Brave New World, looks perfect, elegant, and, well, empty. For the people responsible for bringing Aldous Huxleys vision of a futuristic society numbed by pleasure to life in the recently released Peacock television series, that was the point.

We quite quickly agreed that its not a sci-fi, Blade Runner, Matrix environment we were trying to convey, production designer David Lee tells SYFY WIRE. Its utopia.

New London, a sleek but high-tech city built over the rotting carcass of the London we know, is full of pure white spaces, long curves, and no clutter. Lee says he and showrunner David Wiener wanted to find a way to convey something that was bold, iconic, and sculptural.

It quickly became apparent that Modernism a clean and minimalistic architectural style which, it so happens, was becoming prominent in the 1930s when Huxleys book first came out would be the main source of inspiration for New London. Lee cites famed architect Oscar Niemeyers planned city of Braslia, perhaps the closest real-life thing we have to New London on an aesthetic level, as their starting point. Lee says they also looked at Soviet monumental architecture, and tried to synthesize that into sculptural, sympathetic utopia.

Modernism, Lee says, has a curvaceous, elegant quality that humans respond to. It feels at once both futuristic and, somehow, timeless. Thats good for Peacocks Brave New World, which is a 2020 imagining of the future based on a vision from the '30s. Lee says the design has nods to the retro nature of the source material, while costume designer Susie Coulthard bridged the gap between these two versions of the future, separated by nearly a century, in the clothing New Londoners wear, too.

Lets not forget the novel was written 90 years ago. I wanted to give a nod to this by looking at the fashion of the '30s when the novel was written, she tells SYFY WIRE via email, calling the decade a super-stylish and fashion-forward era. To that end, she incorporated somewhat dated styles, like pleating, into the New London wardrobe.

New London looks great, but the not-so-secret darkness at the heart of Brave New World is that its all empty. The mood-leveling drugs, orgies, and stability all mask the fact that New Londoners really have no say in their lives or any real semblance of choice. The citys hallways reflect that emptiness, although as Lee notes, there was a practical reason for that in addition to the thematic one.

The citizens have an optic interface that artificial intelligence generates, like a heads-up display, he says of the high-tech contacts New Londoners wear. So we needed quite soft backgrounds so you were able to read and interact with each others heads-up.

For viewers, New London seems cold despite all the natural light that Lee says they deliberately emphasized in the designs, rather than more conventional LED-filled halls. The lack of personality, art, and most tangible objects of any sort is certainly jarring to John the Savage (Alden Ehrenreich) when he comes to New London from the Savage Lands themselves a whole other design challenge which Lee describes as juxtaposing American trash. In New London, we see John attempt to refashion the simple objects around him into speakers and other things that allow him to customize his plush-but-spartan apartment. It was really fun to work out how he would use elements of this world and adapt them to his world, Lee says.

Perhaps no part of New London captures the strange split between utopian and dystopian as much as The Bureau of Stability. Lee says its a contradiction of terms in a utopia where nobody has anything to do.

We built a town hall where people could pretend to go to work, he continues. It had to have a vast, majestic quality. That was a real challenge and very rewarding. I think it has a uniqueness about it and a majesty about it. It has a splendor despite it being an office block.

However much you might miss going to your office, you cant deny that the idea of a splendid office block inspires just a little bit of despair in you.

All episodes of Brave New World are now streaming on Peacock.

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How Brave New World designed its 'curvaceous' and 'American trash' dystopia - SYFY WIRE

I think being a woman is like being Irish, the novelist Iris Murdoch, who was born in Dublin, wrote. Everyone says youre important and nice, but you take second place all the time.

I sometimes think this sentiment reflects my own wariness as an Irish person of taking too many compliments from overseas, and explains why I find congratulations for our Government both the new one and the last a bit unsatisfying.

The Economist recently called Ireland an unlikely diplomatic superpower, while the Guardian praised the enviable beauty of the Irish political climate. After years of alternating between calling Irelands Brexit tactics cynical and naive, even the Telegraph this month praised Ireland for taking over the euro zone and extending their grip on the continents institutions.

Having negotiated its way through the Brexit morass, swerved the worst of Covid-19, secured a seat on the UN Security Council, and won a historic EU judgment that means it has the right to insist the worlds richest company does not pay us any tax hurrah! Ireland appears to be on its way up the global hierarchy, and Britain has continued to marvel at the shrewd cunning of its plucky little neighbour.

Why, then, does this praise seem faint, or unearned? Its not that we hate adulation. Seeking flattery from abroad is one of our most crippling and shameful addictions, right up there with Garth Brooks or pairing coleslaw with lasagne. This is a fact confirmed any time a foreign celebrity appears on Irish telly. So tell me, Ryan Tubridy will dutifully ask Greta Thunberg or Kiri Te Kanawa on The Late Late Show, right after theyve finished talking about their work clearing minefields for Unicef,what is your favourite thing about Athlone?

Its just that Ireland hasnt turned into some 24th-century futurist Utopia so much as installed sensible public policy that should seem unremarkable in a modern democracy and in fact, given most western responses to coronavirus, actually is unremarkable. This Government and the previous one have been praised at home, too, for their response to the crisis, but we should remember that the new Coalition of the boring was instituted to obstruct Sinn Fin after its unprecedented leftward surge in support from people tired of Fine Gael and Fianna Fil.

And although Ireland has received plaudits from the World Health Organisation for its handling of the Covid-19 crisis, we made the same mistakes with care homes as other countries did, and small clusters of infection have re-emerged recently.

The idea of Ireland as a model of competence in social and public health is also one most of us might find surprising, as our country also has issues that rarely attract attention from afar: a mounting housing crisis that currently means 10,000 people are homeless in one of the hemispheres richest states; a rolling series of healthcare scandals surrounding everything from poor bed provision to faulty cervical-cancer tests; and the remarkable saga of the new national childrens hospital, in Dublin, originally budgeted at 400 million but now forecast to be costing about 2.4 billion, making it one of the planets most expensive buildings.

Irelands decision to enter lockdown earlier than Britain was a good one, but only in comparison with the grievous laxity of our easterly neighbour. The early days of Irelands track-and-trace app are showing positive results, but this is a success unduly magnified by the British governments initial resistance to such technologies, and subsequent failure to launch one that doesnt break its own data-protection laws.

Irish people have largely followed the protocols as advised, but we have also enjoyed relatively consistent, sober messaging from government, media and health experts. This is in contrast to Britains bewildering stew of denials, contradictions and outright political chicanery around adherence to their own guidelines none of which has faced any serious consequences from the UKs parliament or largely right-leaning press.

Its on this last point that one might find a meaningful distinction between the two countries. While Englands political culture is notoriously barbed and acerbic, Irelands is rather strait-laced and sedate. Irish newspapers may be dismissive and hectoring when it comes to Sinn Fins surge in support, but they rarely depict them as communists who live in bins. They afford a soft touch to Government Ministers who have to be woken from a nap in the Dil to vote against workers rights, but they stop short of exalting them as celestial objects bestowing sunshine on their grateful subjects.

Despite this, the Irish press has landed more recent hits on our Government than their English counterparts. Earlier in July, Barry Cowens 17-day tenure as minister for agriculture was ended after a slew of coverage of a years-old, and spent, conviction for drink-driving. Compare this with the lack of any consequences for Dominic Cummings, or the fact that both Priti Patel and Gavin Williamson regained senior ministerial posts shortly after being sacked for actions that almost reach the definition of espionage.

Its this sense of political unseriousness that seems the most marked difference between the two places, and it says less about the enviable beauty of Irelands system than about Britains further slide into a fact-averse, consequence-free banana republic of malevolent toffs. This style of politics had ruinous effects on the Brexit referendum and the subsequent EU negotiations, and has now become criminally disastrous in a pandemic thats costing many more lives in Britain than in is here.

For all our other ills, we have not yet disposed of experts, accountability or political memory. We take these things seriously, and a combination of steady, boring diplomacy and common-sense public-health measures are bringing us greater praise than they should, now that those approaches can be so readily contrasted to our American and British counterparts. Its a sort of clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right arrangement, which continues to herald great acclaim for a Government so dysfunctional that Leo Varadkar spent a day last week briefing against Taoiseach Michel Martin, his coalition partner, on whether their green list of accepted travel destinations should even be released.

Praise for us as shrewd and canny operators gets the diplomatic calculus back to front. Ireland is not outflanking a competent, long-standing neighbour. We just have the pleasure of being compared with the gurning claptrapocracy next door. So long as Boris Johnson waffles, prevaricates and sees fit to place the NHS on the table for sale, amid the strongest surge in its appreciation since its founding, Irelands mundane governing coalitions will continue looking important and nice by comparison. Guardian

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Ireland isnt really a Utopia. Its just our neighbour is a gurning claptrapocracy - The Irish Times

Utopia was a short-lived BBC black comedy/thriller series about a few fans of a cult graphic novel, whose search for original manuscript pages brings them into the orbit of a massive conspiracy that involves unleashing a man-made "Russian Flu" pandemic to cull the population and carefully cultivate human eugenics. With just 12 episodes spread across two seasons, it's succinct and consistently exciting, with stunningly gorgeous cinematography.

So naturally, Amazon Prime is making an Americanized adaptation of it, during a pandemic when conspiracism has reached fever heights. Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn is a co-writer and executive producer on the new series, which, judging by this new comic-con trailer, looksfine. I'll watch it. And then I'll probably go back and re-binge the original again.

There's no release date yet, but here's the official synopsis:

Utopia centers on a group of comic fans who meet online and bond over their obsession of a seemingly fictional comic called Utopia. Together, Ian (Dan Byrd), Becky (Ashleigh LaThrop), Samantha (Jessica Rothe), Wilson Wilson (Desmin Borges), and Grant (Javon Wanna Walton) unearth hidden meanings cloaked within the pages of Utopia, predicting threats to humanity. They realize these are not just the makings of a conspiracy; they are very real dangers coming alive right now in their world.

We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension something weve seen more of in recent weeks. Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) July 22, 2020 These actions will be rolled out []

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 36% of US adults believe false conspiracy theories about COVID-19, such as the one claiming Bill Gates wants to inject people with vaccine medication that contains microchips that will be activated by 5G cell towers. MIT Technology Review interviewed various experts and moderators of Reddits r/ChangeMyView to []

COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for conspiracy theorists, said Joseph E. Uscinski and Adam M. Enders in an article for The Atlantic titled The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom. In the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver takes a look at some of these theories, the belief in which, is literally causing people []

Its summer. And this year, Europe and Disney World just arent really all that feasible as part of your travel plans. Yet especially with the last few months weve all endured, the need to get away and experience something new is like a raging fire in many of us. So if you cant be around []

Where would we be without Alexa? Without Amazons virtual assistant, who would we ask to play back our favorite songs or tell us the weather or beatbox? No, seriouslyask Alexa to beatbox. Of course, Alexa does have her limitations. The biggest one being that shes tethered to an electrical outlet. For the vastness of her []

Learning a new language is like stepping up to the base of Mount Everest. You know youve got one heck of a climb ahead of you. But while the sheer magnitude of the task ahead scares away many climbers, the real trick is finding the path up that best fits with your skills and capabilities. []

Excerpt from:

Watch the first trailer for Amazon Prime's adaptation of conspiracy thriller UTOPIA - Boing Boing

I think being a woman is like being Irish, wrote Dublin-born novelist Iris Murdoch, everyone says youre important and nice, but you take second place all the time. I sometimes think this sentiment reflects my own wariness as an Irish person of taking too many compliments from overseas, and explains why I find congratulations for the countrys current government a bit unsatisfying.

The Economist recently called Ireland an unlikely diplomatic superpower, while a leader on these pages praised the enviable beauty of the Irish political climate. After years of alternating between calling Irelands Brexit tactics cynical and naive, even the Telegraph this month praised Ireland for taking over the Eurozone and extending their grip on the continents institutions. Having negotiated its way through the Brexit morass, swerved the worst of Covid-19, secured a seat on the UN security council, and won a historic EU judgment that means they have the right to insist the worlds richest company does not pay us any tax hurrah! Irelands place in the global hierarchy appears on the rise, and the UK has continued marvelling at the shrewd cunning of their plucky little neighbour.

Why, then, does this praise seem faint, or unearned? Its not that we hate adulation. Seeking flattery from abroad is one of Irelands most crippling and shameful addictions, right up there with Garth Brooks or pairing coleslaw with lasagne. This is a fact confirmed any time a foreign celebrity appears on Irish telly. So tell me, RTE talk show host Ryan Tubridy will dutifully ask Greta Thunberg or Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, right after theyve finished talking about their work clearing minefields for Unicef: What is your favourite thing about Athlone?

Its just that Ireland hasnt turned into some 24th-century futurist utopia so much as installed sensible public policy that should seem unremarkable in a modern democracy and in fact, given most western responses to the coronavirus, actually is unremarkable. This government has received praise at home for its response to the crisis, but we should remember that its unheralded Fianna Fil/Fine Gael coalition-of-the-boring was instituted to obstruct Sinn Fin, who just this year saw an unprecedented leftward surge in support from people tired of both main parties.

While Ireland has received plaudits from the World Health Organization for its dealing with the current crisis, the same mistakes with care homes were made in Ireland as elsewhere, and small clusters of infection have re-emerged in recent days. The idea of Ireland as a model of competence in the field of social and public health is also one most Irish people might find surprising, since it has its own issues that rarely attract attention from afar: a mounting housing crisis that currently means 10,000 people are homeless in one of the hemispheres richest states; a rolling series of healthcare scandals surrounding everything from poor bed provision to faulty cervical cancer tests; and the remarkable saga of the new National Childrens hospital in Dublin, originally budgeted at 400m but is now forecast to be costing around 2.4bn, making it one of the planets most expensive buildings.

Irelands decision to enter lockdown earlier than Britain was a good one, but only in comparison with the grievous laxity of our easterly neighbour. The early days of Irelands track and trace app are showing positive results, but this is a success unduly magnified by the British governments initial resistance to such technologies, and subsequent failure to launch one that doesnt break its own data protection laws. Irish people have largely followed the protocols as advised, but theyve also enjoyed relatively consistent, sober messaging from government, media and health experts. This is in contrast to than Britains bewildering stew of denials, contradictions and outright political chicanery around adherence to their own guidelines none of which have faced any serious consequences from the UKs parliament or largely right-leaning press.

Its on this last point that one might find a meaningful distinction between the two countries. While Englands political culture is notoriously barbed and acerbic, Irelands is rather strait-laced and sedate. Irish newspapers may be dismissive and hectoring when it comes to Sinn Fins surge in support, but they rarely depict them as communists who live in bins. They afford a soft touch to government ministers who have to be woken from a nap in the Dil to vote against workers rights, but stop short of exalting them as celestial objects bestowing sunshine on their grateful subjects. Despite this, the Irish press has landed more recent hits on their government than their English counterparts. Earlier in July, Barry Cowens 17-day tenure as a minister for agriculture was ended after a slew of coverage of a years-old, and spent, conviction for drink driving. Compare this with the lack of any consequences for Dominic Cummings, or the fact that both Priti Patel and Gavin Williamson regained senior ministerial posts shortly after being sacked for actions that almost reach the definition of espionage.

Its this sense of political unseriousness that seems the most marked difference between the two places, and it says less about the enviable beauty of Irelands system than about Britains further slide into a fact-averse, consequence-free banana republic of malevolent toffs. This style of politics had ruinous effects on the Brexit referendum and the subsequent EU negotiations, and has now become criminally disastrous in a pandemic thats costing many more lives in Britain than their nearest neighbour.

For all its other ills, Ireland has not yet disposed of experts, accountability or political memory. These things are taken seriously, and a combination of steady, boring diplomacy and common-sense public health measures are granting Ireland greater praise than they should, now that those approaches can be so readily contrasted to our American and British counterparts. Its a sort of clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right arrangement, which continues to herald great acclaim for an Irish government so dysfunctional that Leo Varadkar spent a day last week briefing against his coalition partner, Taoiseach Michel Martin, on whether their green list of accepted travel destinations should even be released.

Praise for Ireland as shrewd and canny operators gets the diplomatic calculus back to front. Ireland is not outflanking a competent, longstanding neighbour. She just has the pleasure of being compared with the gurning claptrapocracy next door. So long as Boris Johnson waffles, prevaricates and sees fit to place the NHS on the table for sale, amid the strongest surge in its appreciation since its founding, Irelands mundane governing coalitions will continue looking important and nice by comparison.

Link:

Ireland isn't really a utopia it's just its neighbour is a gurning claptrapocracy - The Guardian

Ranking up the headlines once again are the two wealthiest nations of the worldthe United States and China. For the past few decades, these two countries have competed on every front. And now, even in space, they have started to chase each other to explore unexplored. In the 21st century, the space race has accelerated again and several countries are eager to showcase their technological prowess.

July 2020 has come as a flag-off and both China and the US are launching lander missions to Mars within a span of one week. Over the next seven months, the orbits of Mars and Earth will be closest to each other and this period is the most optimal time for the journey. In fact, the distance between the two planets will drop to 62 million kilometres in October 2020, which is half the average distance of 104 million km.

Mars is regarded as the most suitable contender to host humans in future. Therefore, nations are leaving no stone unturned to decipher the mysteries of the red planet and enabling future human settlements. Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched its first interplanetary mission to Mars last week. So, as both the US and China race towards the red planet, here is how the two heavyweights stack up to each other.

On Thursday, July 23, Chinas space agency blasted off its maiden mission to Marsa week before NASA's most anticipated Perseverance rover launch on July 30. Its the first independent mission of China to reach the soil of another planet in our solar system, after its first orbiter mission to Mars, Yinghuo-1, but failed to leave Earths orbit in November 2011. Therefore, if the mission is successful, it can put China into the league of elite space nations.

While it is the first lander and rover Mars mission for the National Space Administration of China, its counterpart National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has landed five times on the Red Planet, and is gearing up for a sixth. NASAs last mission to Mars, InSight, is about to celebrate its second year anniversary and is regarded to be one of the most successful missions that continue to study the deep interiors of the planet Mars.

The Chinese space agency has designated several scientific goals for the Tianwen-1 mission. The main objective of the rover is to detect the presence of water, and ice on the planet. Moreover, it will also investigate the soil properties, create a geological map, examine the atmosphere, and collect samples of soil and rocks for further studies.

In February 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover and NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (shown in an artist's concept) will be the agency's two newest explorers on Mars.

The NASA mission, on the other hand, aims to find clues about the possibility of ancient life on Mars. The space agency has set four scientific goals for rover and helicopterstudying Mars' habitability, seeking signs of past microbial life, collecting samples, and preparing for future human missions.

In its second attempt at reaching Mars, China has sent an orbiter, rover, and a lander onboard the powerful rocket Long March 5. Reportedly, Tianwen-1s orbiter is equipped with seven instruments, while the rover contains six instruments including two cameras, radar, and three detectors.

NASAs mission will have a rover and a helicopter for the first time. NASAs rover is also set to carry about seven payloads. In each case, the scientific payloads will acquire information on the Martian atmosphere, geology, environmental conditions, and signatures of life.

The Chinese lander is set to touch down at Utopia Planitia, which is a large plain area within the largest-recognized asteroid impact basin on the Solar System, Utopia. The estimated diameter of this giant crater is a whopping 3,300 km, which is 11 times the largest-known crater on Earth, Vredefort Dome (300 km).

Jezero a 49-km-wide crater near the Mars Equator is the carefully selected landing spot for the US mission, Perseverance. While Utopia Planitia lies 46.7 north to the equator, Jezero is 18.4 North. The Jezero crater was formed billions of years ago and was filled with water for millions of years. As the Martian climate changed, all surface water disappeared from the planet, but an ancient lake proves to be an ideal spot to determine if life ever existed on the red planet, says NASA.

The mission duration for Perseverance and Tianwen-1 is said to be at least one Mars yearequivalent to 687 Earth days. The prime mission duration of NASA's Perseverance is said to be 1.5 Mars yearsequivalent to nearly three Earth years. While the US has spent a whopping $2.1 billion on Perseverance, China has remained tight-lipped about the cost of Tianwen-1 so far.

Both Perseverance and Tianwen-1 will collect samples of rocks and soil which will be sent back to Earth for further analysis. Travel time for both the spacecraft also remains roughly the sameseven months and therefore, could reach Mars somewhere around February. Whichever mission succeeds in revealing more scientific data, the dual missions will be a milestone for humanity in space exploration.

**

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A 'Suitable' Planet: Mars Turns Battlefront for New-Age Space Race Between the US and China - The Weather Channel

I spent last week burning through The Great, Hulus new-ish series that has Elle Fanning playing a very fictionalized version of a young Catherine the Great. The first season is about Catherine (not yet the Great) preparing to overthrow her husband, the emperor, and take power, which is a pretty amazing conflict to center on.

The show is very reminiscent of The Favourite (it shares both a writer and a very identifiable shooting location), infusing this period drama with modern absurdity and some very over-the-top characters. Nicholas Hoult plays the amazingly pompous and bro-y emperor in a way that almost makes him feel like a tech CEO at times at one point, hes even wearing what looks a lot like a hoodie.

I dont know if the show can thrive once Catherine is no longer the underdog and spoiler alert, per Peter IIIs Wikipedia page Hoults levity is gone. But for now, its a wonderful series, and I wish there were three more seasons to speed through.

Check out 11 trailers from this week below.

Bill & Ted are returning at long last, and the pandemic isnt going to put a hold on our already long wait. It was announced this week that rather than being delayed, the film is going to head on-demand the same day it hits theaters (whatever theaters are open, that is). It comes out on September 1st.

After Hamilton, Black is King is the next big reason to sign up for Disney Plus: a new visual album from Beyonc, supposed to be tied back to her work on last years Lion King remake. It looks every bit as visually magnificent as the others in Beyoncs discography. It comes out July 31st.

I didnt hear a ton about His Dark Materials when its first season debuted last year, but the show really looks like its hit a stride in this trailer for season 2. The series returns some time this fall.

Gillian Flynn is behind the adaptation of Utopia, a show about fans of a comic book digging into the surprisingly real events depicted in its stories. The show is based on a British series of the same name. John Cusack, Sasha Lane, and Rainn Wilson star in the remake. It debuts on Amazon this fall.

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has a new sci-fi thriller about a high school student who starts to uncover lost memories that suggest she isnt human. It comes to Quibi on July 27th.

Netflix has a new documentary coming up that looks at Americas immigration system through the eyes of immigrants facing deportation and the federal agents tasked with removing them. It appears to offer a sad, difficult view into a broken and contentious system responsible for tearing families apart. The film comes out August 3rd.

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are back together again in Truth Seekers, a new series that has them playing members of a group of clearly unprepared paranormal investigators who get tied up in some big conspiracy. The show is coming to Amazon, but it doesnt appear to have a premiere date yet.

Quibi already brought back Punkd, and now its adding a Jackass-esque show that has Adam Devine messing with celebrity friends. It comes out on July 27th.

Netflix has picked up a German series about a student who starts diving into an increasingly twisted community of biohackers. I dont know how accurate the series science will be, but the questionable decisions of the biohacking scene dont seem entirely unfair. The show debuts August 20th.

Stranger Things star Joe Keery takes on a very weird role in Spree, which has him playing a twisted, fame-hungry cab driver who live streams himself torturing the riders he picks up. This film is far from the first to offer a twisted critique of social media, but it stands out by filming everything to look more or less like a YouTube video. It comes out August 14th.

Creepy stuff happening to astronauts is a classically winning recipe for a sci-fi film, and the latest to use that formula is Sputnik, which seems to be about a cosmonaut who returns to Earth with an alien parasite inside him. The film seems to start out as a thriller and eventually gets a lot more action packed. It comes out August 14th.

Correction July 25th, 12:30PM ET: Utopia is on Amazon, not HBO, as originally stated.

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New trailers: Bill & Ted Face the Music, Beyoncs Black is King, and more - The Verge