Monthly Archives: September 2019

The Education of Brett Kavanaugh, an investigative book published by the New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly last week, has itself become as much a part of the partisan zeitgeist surrounding the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court as the testimonies from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year.

TheWraps J. Clara Chan sat down with Pogrebin and Kelly on Thursday to discuss the books rollout, the reporting process, and what they see as the larger cultural impact of the Kavanaugh case on history.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TheWrap: Youve spent several months working on this book, and this investigation could have gone on forever. At what point did you feel like, alright, we need to sit down and actually write this?

Robin Pogrebin: We kind of divided up the work where Kate took his high school years as well as Christine Blasey Ford, and I had the college years as well as Deborah Ramirez. We had a clear division of labor early on, and so our work was cut out for us on that front.

I think we both felt like we went as far as we could with those stories and sources. The other areas that we wanted to cover were his career, as well as the confirmation process, which we felt also deserved a closer look. So I think that once we had covered those main areas, we felt that we had a critical mass of material to work with. We couldnt do everything in this book. But those were the things we wanted to accomplish.

TheWrap: The subtitle of the book is an investigation, but for me, its much more than just an investigation the book is also trying to crack into what exactly [the Kavanaugh case] means in this specific piece of history. But as you know from the varied responses to the book, its such a partisan issue. And sexual assault, in many ways, has become a partisan issue. What does this really mean about the cultural climate that were in when there are these two very distinct divides when it comes to evaluating a set of truths and facts?

Pogrebin: This chapter in our history, as well as, frankly, the reception of the book speaks to a moment in our culture where we are intensely divided along partisan lines. Those political allegiances inform peoples perceptions of current events so that, in a way, peoples minds are made up to some extent before they really have given these characters and these events the full benefit of deep inquiry, which we really wanted to bring to this.

We saw that, on the one hand, for example, there are some people who just assumed Brett Kavanaugh was kind of the epitome of the privileged, entitled white man who sort of symbolized everything thats wrong with the idea that men have an easier time in this culture and that theyre guilty before being proven guilty. And on the one on the other hand, I think there are people who looked at Christine Blasey Ford as an example of #MeToo gone too far, that you could dredge up a charge from 36 years ago that could derail a Supreme Court nomination. So I think what you see here is people reading into these events [with] all sorts of agendas.

What we hoped is that by giving people as many of the facts as we could, as well as perspective from kind of a 360-degree view of things, that perhaps we would not necessarily change minds, but certainly open them.

TheWrap: What would you say to the critics who are quick to jump on, Oh, this is just an anti-Kavanaugh book, or This is a pro-Christine [Blasey Ford] book?

Kelly: We always find it disappointing when people have a sort of contempt prior to investigation. We want, ideally, for people to read the book and then make up their minds as to whether we did a good job or not, or whether they feel that we represented the facts wholesomely enough. Everybody comes to this with their own cultural standpoint, everybody has a worldview, and most people have some sort of political sensibility. So youre bringing your own perspective, oftentimes, and projecting it onto the facts that we had last year. Now, Robin, and I would argue we have a lot more facts to share with you.

While we do find, for example, Dr. Ford to be credible after all this research, some of the things in the book, I think, will surprise people. We have a view of Justice Kavanaugh as an adult and as a professional being a pretty upstanding figure who has seriously mentored women. And I think in a lot of cases, in our view, its not clear that he lied. I think a lot of people feel that he lied repeatedly during his hearings, and that may be the case, [but] were not inside his head, so we dont know for sure. But we spent a lot of time parsing his words and looking at what we understood to be true based on the reporting versus how he framed it, and in a lot of cases, he may have been wrong or he may have been putting a spin on something, but its not necessarily obvious that he lied.

Our hope is to come at people in the book gently and say, Heres what we know. Heres what we set out to do. We know that you probably have your own impressions of things already, but go on this journey with us. Let us kind of reconstruct the 1980s for you, Georgetown Prep and Yale and the friendships and the cultural and social dynamics of the time. Let us walk you through Judge Kavanaughs career and then get to the confirmation hearings and the aftermath of it and then see if you still feel the same way.

TheWrap: You both had personal connections, in different ways, to the story the Yale connection [for Pogrebin], the D.C. connection [for Kelly]. Did any point in this entire investigation make you rethink your own experiences of the cultures that youre talking about in this book?

Pogrebin: It did for me, in terms of reporting the Ramirez experience, because I realized that it made me newly sensitive to the idea that not everyone comes to college with the same kind of armor in knowing how to protect themselves against experiences that might be hurtful or damaging or embarrassing, not necessarily knowing how to navigate social situations, and also, frankly, with just a different degree of confidence and sort of sophistication about some of the situations that you can find yourself in college.

For Brett Kavanaugh, coming from an upper-middle-class background in suburban Maryland, and me coming from the New York City and a private school background, it was more of a seamless transition than it is for other people. And its important to be sensitive to the fact that we all dont start out from the same point in life with the same advantages with the same sense of entitlement.

Kelly: It did cause me to rethink growing up in D.C. and the private school scene a little bit. I went to an all-girls school that was in the same network as Georgetown Prep, which was Kavanaughs school, and Holton Arms, which was Blasey Fords school. I do remember the alcohol, I remember stories about Beach Week, I remember yearbook shaming, and I know that kids were sexually active, as kids are all over the place. But I did not hear at the time about sexual assault. And based on the conversations Ive had with people I know since then, Im quite sure that it was happening.

Its just a reminder to me that there was not the awareness that we have today, there was not the openness about these experiences, and, unfortunately, a lot of people facing feelings of shame and guilt didnt report things that happened and they werent addressed.

TheWrap: Its almost like theres a separate story to be said about how this has made elite prep schools rethink how theyre approaching this kind of conversation with their students and fostering that kind of culture.

Kelly: I know that some of those Washington-area schools are actively grappling with that conversation, including my own alma mater, which is nice to see. If theres any silver lining here, hopefully it is the idea of promoting this conversation.

Pogrebin: Ramirez has this quote in our book where she talks about this poem that someone sent to her [that] made her think about the concept of justice. She didnt necessarily set out to derail Kavanaughs nomination; she thought it was important to bring this information to light so that it will inform those who are making a decision about his fitness for the court. Even with him having been confirmed, she said theres so much good thats come out of this, theres so much good thats yet to come I think what she means by that is having contributed to this conversation and taking these experiences out of the shadows and making sure that people feel less shame around them and expose them and talk about them in an honest way.

TheWrap: Have you heard from Kavanaugh since the publication of the book, or are there any plans to pursue follow-up interviews?

Kelly: We havent heard anything from him. We attempted to alert him to all the significant things in the book, approach that with him and his representative in advance, and he hasnt had any comment.

We would certainly welcome a conversation at any point if he wanted to have it. And yes, we have gotten some additional tips and leads since the book came out and Im actively looking into a couple of them, so well see where it goes. I dont think we had any expectation necessarily of continuing on this reporting when the book came out, but were not going to ignore any leads that may come our way. We feel like its our responsibility to continue pursuing things if theyre brought to our attention.

TheWrap: Many current Democratic presidential candidates and other lawmakers on Twitter have also been calling for Kavanaughs impeachment and are using the book as a frame of reference for why Kavanaugh is not fit for the Supreme Court. I know its not in your position to make a judgment on whether that is the case, but whats next after this?

Pogrebin: One of the things that has really struck us in the process of reporting this book is the sense that the judiciary was supposed to be this kind of last branch of government that was non-political, and its clearly become so political, dating back to the Bork hearings, and then Clarence Thomas, and then the Republicans blocking any kind of evaluation of Obamas candidate, Merrick Garland. Perhaps this is a moment where there will be some kind of national reassessment of trying to get back to a [bipartisan] place.

TheWrap: Were you working with New York Times editors when you were doing this book? Or was this a separate editing process entirely?

Pogrebin: This was a separate process entirely. Even though were both New York Times reporters, and this did grow out of our New York Times coverage, it was a separate enterprise. That said, we have colleagues that we have run things by.

I think we also lean on our New York Times principles quite a bit in terms of our standards for reporting and sourcing and just how we go about this. We both are sort of steeped in a certain kind of an ethic in terms of approaching a project like this that our day jobs definitely influenced the execution of the book.

TheWrap: Since there was a bit of controversy with the rollout of the book [and an excerpt featured in the Times]: Is there anything that you wish you would have done differently either through the reporting process or the rollout of this?

Kelly: I think we clearly should have had just better and earlier internal communication about what was happening with the element of the excerpt that became so controversial. We really regret the degree to which people felt like they were missing a critical sentence, which is in our book. We never want our readers to feel like theyre being deprived of information they need.

I think we also just need to have, all of us, a high degree of sensitivity about this subject matter and how painful it is for people, regardless of their perspective. Whether they are a #MeToo activist or whether they are part of the Federalist Society, people feel very strongly about these issues of fairness and due process that were raised by the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and it was just this whirlwind of cross-currents between the #MeToo movement, the atmosphere created by the Trump administration, the recent history of Supreme Court nominations and confirmations, the partisanship in Washington, the toxic dialogue on social media where anything can be said, anything goes, and it just all came together in a pretty ugly way. Its kind of a sad chapter. But I also think the strong, immediate, and in many cases, uninformed by the actual book reactions that we have seen to the content of the book are emblematic of the issues that were writing about more broadly.

See the article here:

Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly On The Education of Brett Kavanaugh and Its Aftermath - TheWrap

If you search for former NFL all-pro running back Larry Johnsons Twitter profile, youll come across the following in his bio.

Broke Records for the Nittany Lions ~ Broke Records for the Chiefs ~ More importantly I Broke the Devils hold on my soul (1Tim. 1:13-16).

First Timothy Chapter One verses 13-16 reads as follows in the King James Bible:

Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

"And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

"Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

Johnson was that blasphemer if you hear him tell it. He says when he stopped playing in the NFL, it left a big void in his life and he tried to fill it with all the wrong things.

The trappings of fame and celebrity were what he identified with. Alcohol, money and chasing women. Secular things. Or things separate from Yah or God.

When those secular things left him feeling empty and void of any feeling of self, when he no longer had fame, money and women he was at his lowest.

He was desperate and needed to find work, but because of his arrests, that was a daunting task.

It was in that dark hour he said he fell to his knees and surrendered his soul to Yah.

During this period he began doing internet research on the occult, found conspiracy groups on YouTube, and studied what he could find about the fabled Illuminati.

Johnson said he was thirsty for knowledge and a spiritual path. He became convinced that the world was about more than whats on the surface and that there is a sinister battle being waged by evil forces. His mission is to be a rebel for God and speak the truth.

Fast forward to today and if you do even a cursory audit of Johnsons timeline, its wild.

He goes in on athletes and entertainers, all people he believes are into pagan worship and sworn blood sacrifice to false idols.

Whats interesting is Johnson finds an opportunity in every news item related to a famous individual to espouse his theories and doctrine. His explanation of the Antonio Brown situation is a perfect example.

If you read between the lines, and thats a dangerous proposition with anything Johnson tweets, he believes nothing serious will happen to Brown as a result of these sexual assault allegations because he has made some kind of sacrafice.

Johnson also used the hashtag #GoatGodplan while calling out the mercurial wide receiver, Antonio Brown.

Its easy to mock this as the musings of a conspiracy theorist, but Johnson believes this stuff wholeheartedly and zealously.

He holds nothing back and attacks the biggest and most popular names in the zeitgeist.

You could make the argument he does it for publicity. But despite his name being referenced seemingly weekly as a nutjob, whats the upside?

When Hot Girl Summer creator and rapper Meg Thee Stallion shared some personal thoughts on Twitter about her late mother and the success shes now experiencing, Johnson saw it as an opportunity to share his views.

Stallion tweeted:

After my mom passed I promised myself I was going to keep going hard [because] not only is music my dream but it was her dream for me too. I have days where I want to go hide and cry because shes not here, but I know that aint what she would want me to do! I know shes proud of me!

Johnson replied tweeting:

A coincidence: her mother, who was her manager died in the month of March 2019, the same month of her break out. [The] Music industry [is] filled with the easily [corruptible], fatherless children looking for Satan to be the 'daddy' they never had.

Just this past Sunday (September 22) Johnson seemed to respond to Megs fans on Twitter.

Johnson seems to think his backlash from Megs fans is a simple misunderstanding over them thinking hes upset she would never date him.

In a not uncommon sexist response, he lists some of the better famous women he says hes dated. And it appears, as far as hes concerned, his message to Meg and her fans comes from a place of spreading the truth, not jealousy.

One of Johnsons latest targets is none other than LeBron James. Johnson believes James is part of this lost generation that has sold their souls for fame and fortune.

In a series of tweets Johnson makes reference to devil horn signs Bron makes before and/or during games.

Johnson took it a step further on Sunday (September 22) drawing reference to a Canaanite deity and the ritual of child sacrifice. His tweet had pictures of LeBron Bronny James Jr. and Drake.

For what its worth, Johnson also believes the NFL and NBA are pushing effeminate agendas for non altruistic reasons.

Whether or not you believe what Johnson is preaching, and I find this extremely dubious on a variety of levels, he is not alone in his beliefs.

For every person that dismisses him as sexist, homophobic or a religious zealot, he has many, including people in the Black community, that believe he is the light in a dark place.

Some questions need to be asked. Why does sexism and homophobia shrouded under the cover of religion still have a place in the Black community?

Religion is very important to the Black community and should not be minimized. Christianity in particular. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly eight in 10 Black people identify as Christian.

By and large the majority of enslaved Africans were not Christian when they arrived. Stripped from their native land, customs and rituals, many Africans and their descendants embraced Christianity, finding comfort in the Biblical message of spiritual equality and deliverance.

The Black church was a key cornerstone of building a community post enslavement and was essential in the civil rights movement.

In adopting Christianity, unfortunately some Black people adopt the belief that homosexuality is an abomination.

Throughout the Bible, women are largely depicted as vessels to bear children and support a man in managing a household. Seldom having their own agency.

Anything secular or of the world is sin (our actual nature if you believe), and souls must be cleansed from such ills. Religion has its place, and if thats what is needed to help an individual get through life and have a sense of purpose, far be it for me to criticize.

I grew up in a Pentecostal house, my father spent time ministering in a church in Brooklyn when I was a kid, and my mother has advanced degrees in theology and religious studies.

On an intellectual level, I understand blind faith and zealotry. But I cant help but question the type of dogmatic doctrine and conflicting messages inherent in Christianity.

God is presented as omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all things. He is also presented as a God of enduring love and everlasting mercy and forgiveness. But God is also presented as jealous and vengeful if you dont do exactly as commanded. See the contradictions.

If Johnson and other believers' ultimate goal is to spread the good news, how is it accomplished by spewing negativity?

If you want people to join or come to know him, wouldnt an atmosphere of inclusivity need to be present? Does anything about Johnsons feed seem welcoming and inclusive?

No, this is more of the same. Religion in its worst form is something created by men (allegedly inspired by God) to control and restrict. If you do your research, those that typically benefit from religion, in the macro, are men.

If Johnson was still bankrolled with millions, would he be on this crusade of exposing truths?

Thats the thing about religion, just like Twitter, it tends to find a lot of people when they are at their most vulnerable. For good or bad.

(Photo: G Fiume/Getty Images)

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Op-Ed: Larry Johnson's Twitter Feed Is Full Of Sexism And Homophobia Masked As The Word Of God - BET

Spoiler.

It's that time again! Time to reflect on a decade gone by in the world of cinema. The technology, the politics, the zeitgeist of the 2010s, we captured it all on screen for generations to come.

And basically they'll see we lived on a staple diet of superhero movies.

But maybe that's what we needed in the 2010s. Multiple viewing treats that immerse us in a familiar, happy place. We also had plenty of love for the smaller-scale indies, the gems that open windows into the lives of others and change us for the better.

So what movies are we talking about exactly? We're talking about the best ones. An assembly of CNET staffers voted on the best movies of the 2010s. You probably won't agree entirely with the results, but at the very least, on this one occasion, Boyhood beats Birdman.

Here are our top 30 movies of the decade, ranked.

Tom Hardy plays Max in Mad Max: Fury Road.

We start at the top with a movie that did not win the Best Picture Oscar like many thought it would in 2016. But listen, George Miller's fourth in the Mad Max series careens on as one of the best action movies of all time. Tom Hardy replaces Mel Gibson as the enigmatic Max, alongside the clear standout and heart of the film: Charlize Theron as the one-armed Imperator Furiosa. In Miller's visionary post-apocalyptic Oz, they attempt to save "the wives," women selected for breeding, from the tyrannical Immortan Joe. The entire movie takes place over one absolutely bonkers chase sequence. Its cinematic stats are jaw-dropping: Miller used 3,500 storyboards and took 480 hours of raw footage. He overcame a decade of roadblocks -- recasting, location changes and creative resets (he explored the possibility of a 3D live-action version) -- before achieving high-octane imaginative insanity.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

There was no question what movie would win the Best Animated Feature category at the 2018 Oscars. Into the Spider-Verse stole our hearts by boldly ignoring the fact we've had three cinematic Peter Parkers and introducing five more. They stem from Marvel's multiverse, wisely made less complicated by producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who focus on the Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) graffiti artist, hip hop-appreciating version of Spidey. Morales teams up with the versions from other universes -- including a bizarre and completely hilarious cartoon pig known as Peter Porker -- to fight supervillain Kingpin. Over 140 animators combined computer animation with a hand-drawn style to mimic a comic book look. Inventive visuals, fresh storytelling and embracing the comic books' wackiness helped make the first non-white Spider-Man one of the best.

Ellar Coltrane over the years in Boyhood.

Boyhood is, logistically speaking, a bit of a miracle. In order to tell a story about growing up, Richard Linklater sporadically filmed a young Ellar Coltrane every year for 12 years, from ages 6 to 18. His character, Mason, lived between his divorced parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) in Texas. The project flirted with potential film-ending pitfalls: For one, what if a teenage Coltrane strayed from acting? But Linklater delivered his best ever film. It won BAFTAs, Golden Globes and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Arquette in 2014. Yet some still feel a little salty about Boyhood's award season. Boyhood lost the Best Picture Oscar to Birdman, a less warm, familiarly wholesome tale, more a technical and existential tour de force. On this occasion, the people have spoken.

Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington in Get Out.

Get Out isthemodern horror movie. It's the perfect coming together of horror, comedy and satire on racism. The setup to the punch line -- or in horror's case, the jump scare -- takes exact timing. As one half of comedy duo Key & Peele, Jordan Peele is extremely well-equipped to achieve both. His directorial debut has a scarily loaded setup: a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) meets his white girlfriend's (Alison Williams) middle-class liberal parents. Their comments about how fine they are with their daughter's boyfriend are comedy gold... with a delayed squirm. Peele's exciting new voice brought horror, laughs and deeply unsettling self-reflection.

Saorise Ronan and Beanie Feldstein in Lady Bird.

On paper, Lady Bird reads like a conventional coming-of-age story. It covers the usual milestones: losing virginity, going to prom, graduation. But in between those lines is a raw, specific relationship between 17-year-old Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), who insists everyone calls her Lady Bird, and her hard working and barely appreciated mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf). First-time solo director Greta Gerwig writes a love letter to her hometown, Sacramento, infusing it with brilliantly layered comedy. "I wish I could live through something," Lady Bird says with the narcissism of a 17-year-old. She's self-titled, as in, she says Lady Bird is the name "given to me by me." The warmth, hilarity and at times confronting revelations of teenagehood flood through Gerwig's singular lens.

Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone in The Favourite.

Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone bring the kind of acting calibre you expect to this Yorgos Lanthimos misadventure. The Greek director well and truly established his distinctive weird, experimental style with The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He loves to cross a line and does so multiple times in The Favourite, a period piece turned cat-and-mouse psychological thriller featuring characters named Wanking Man and Nude Pomegranate Tory. Underneath the politics and the corsets, you'll even find a melancholy love story.

Alfonso Cuaron's Roma.

Watching Alfonso Cuaron's Roma is almost like flipping through a beautifully-shot album of 1970s Mexico. Cuaron tells a semi-autobiographical story about a middle class family through the lens of a young housekeeper. It's a story about people living, brought to life by Cuaron's deft magic.

Okoye (Danai Gurira) from Black Panther.

Marvel movies proved they could keep on evolving with Ryan Coogler's Black Panther. The 2018 film bucked the superhero formula with its Afro-futurist setting, family saga and James Bond gadgetry. The bold claws of an auteur are all over this comic book blockbuster.

Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina.

The walls meticulously close in on the programmer, his boss and the iRobot they interact with in Alex Garland's Ex Machina. The tense, thoughtful sci-fi set in a remote cutting-edge cabin raises big questions and upgraded Alicia Vikander to even greater star status.

Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master.

The Master was not the deep-dive into Scientology's origins many might have expected. Paul Thomas Anderson sews together the fictional life of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), leader of a religious movement known as "The Cause," and his tension with the yin to his yang, Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix). The 2012 character drama, dealing with a world recovering from World War II, is a poetic epic.

Joaquin Phoenix in Her.

Spike Jonze's 2013 romance between a lonely man and his Siri-like AI is even more frighteningly relevant today. Samantha (Scarlet Johansson) is the soothing, intimate voice in Theodore Twombly's (Joaquin Phoenix) ear, but the bounds of her programming soon go beyond sprucely organizing his life. Jonze's future is both vividly-realized and always rooted in the complexities of the human heart.

2016's Moonlight.

Barry Jenkins' three-part story about a physically and emotionally abused black man has been described as genre-defying. From childhood to adulthood, three actors (Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders and Alex Hibbert) play Chiron with soulful naturalness. In covering difficult subject matter, from the drug underworld to sexual identity, Moonlight runs deep. The 2016 Best Picture Oscar winner is gorgeous to look at and accompanied by an exquisite soundtrack.

Andrew Garfield, Joseph Mazzello, Jesse Eisenberg and Patrick Maple in The Social Network.

David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin friended each other to make a powerfully nerdy, talky movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the inception of Facebook. Equally absorbing are its themes of friendship and loyalty in a playground of petty politics. A superb Jesse Eisenberg as the insensitive, conflicted genius was a revelatory match for Fincher's technical talent.

2011's Drive starring Ryan Gosling.

Ryan Gosling's strong, silent Hollywood stunt driver moonlights as a getaway driver. So Drive is basically the coolest movie ever. Its dreamlike, electronic soundtrack -- perfect for travel at night -- layers meaningful messages into a violent fairy tale about an unconventional hero.

Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones in The Shape of Water.

Guillermo del Toro's 2017 Best Picture Oscar winner is a more than unconventional horror-romance between a mute woman and a dead-eyed fish-man. It balances a harsh 1960s setting with fairy tale magic painted into its big, beautifully-detailed sets. Only del Toro could pull this madness off.

Avengers: Infinity War.

The sheer size of this blockbuster, with its sky-high budget, A-listers and ravenous fandom, make Anthony and Joe Russo's film all the more impressive. To culminate 20 Marvel films in a two-part showstopper is experimental madness on its own. But to end (spoiler) the first of those parts with almost all your heroes losing... who says all superhero films are predictable?

2010's Inception.

This is Christopher Nolan's insane, original concept: a professional thief, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, steals information by infiltrating the subconscious. Sorry, Mr. Nolan, how are you going to do this? The answer is incredibly engrossingly. Somehow Nolan made a film about dreams both substantial and visceral, with a thrilling dose of physics-defying action.

2014's Birdman.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) uses one mind-boggling continuous shot to literally follow a deluded movie star in the lead up to his latest role on a Broadway show. As you can imagine, sanity, narcissism and basically everything to do with the human condition bleeds through this showbiz satire. The 2014 Best Picture Oscar winner was a creative tour de force for Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu and some comeback for Michael Keaton.

2015's Spotlight.

Spotlight shines a light on the real-life investigative team of journalists called "Spotlight" from the Boston Globe. In the early 2000s, they helped expose the child abuse committed by Catholic priests in the Boston area. The 2015 Best Picture Oscar winner wound gripping tension into the unglamorous legwork of journalists, played by a perfectly-balanced ensemble including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams.

2010's Toy Story 3.

The third in Pixar's Toy Story series seemingly wrapped up the stories of Woody, Buzz and their owner, Andy, in the most poignant, heartbreaking way possible -- until a fourth film followed 10 years later. Still, Toy Story 3 stands as the example of how to blend family wholesomeness with plaything torture horror. One of the best kids movies for grownups out there.

Toni Collette in 2018's Hereditary.

When your grandma dies, cult-related ordeal after ordeal doesn't tend to ensue. But in Hereditary, it does! That's not to mention the slowly sickening insecurity Annie Graham (a better than ever Toni Collette) feels in her relationship with her children. Ari Aster's directorial debut constructs its shock-horror moments with the delicate hand of someone building a miniature house. He treats his characters with the same attention to detail, and when it all comes crashing, the impact is traumatic. One of the horror genre's greats.

2015's What We Do in the Shadows.

A mockumentary about idiotic vampires who share a flat in Wellington, New Zealand, is the kind of content we came to expect from director-writer-actor Taika Waititi. After delivering the best ever vampire comedy as well as the brilliant Hunt for the Wilderpeople, he was ingeniously snapped up by Marvel to direct Thor: Ragnarok.

2013's 12 Years a Slave.

Steve McQueen doesn't let up in telling the incredible, brutaltrue story of Solomon Northup, a gifted violinist who had the rug pulled out from under him when he was sold into slavery. His 12 years of hardship is detailed here in a story that delves into the darkest recesses of Louisiana in the 1840s. More than just a prestige, period film, it's a difficult but necessary viewing experience.

Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in 2014's Whiplash.

What is essentially a thriller about jazz introduced the world to the rare talents of Damien Chazelle, who would go on to make La La Land and First Man. Whiplash pit Andrew (Miles Teller), an ambitious drumming student, against the abusive Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). This tense, exhaustive journey into the perils of percussion deserves a standing ovation.

2018's Annihilation.

Alex Garland's followup to Ex Machina takes us into a mysterious, body horror-inducing quarantined zone of mutating plants and animals. With five female leads including Natalie Portman, this intelligent story featuring a bear scene as memorable as The Revenant's is unique in more ways than one.

Timothe Chalamet in 2017's Call Me By Your Name.

Based on Andr Aciman's novel, this deeply affecting romance between 17-year-old Elio (Timothe Chalamet) and 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer) is, unsurprisingly, beautiful to look at. From the 1980s idyllic Italian countryside to the slow-burn romance, Luca Guadagnino directs a mesmerizingly dreamy summer experience.

2015's The Witch.

Robert Eggers' directorial debut is an exercise in restraint. That's his most terrifying asset and it pays off when the religious family at the heart of The Witch descends into madness. In 1630s New England, a bleak, far-back world where you deserve an award for understanding the accents, supernatural horrors brew to terrifying ends. You'll never look at the outskirts of a wood in the same way.

2016's Hunt For The Wilderpeople.

The movie before Taika Waititi took on Thor: Ragnarok follows the oddball mismatch of troublesome Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) and the grizzled Uncle Hec (Sam Neill). Through a series of sad, absurd and touching events, they find themselves the subjects of a national manhunt. The balance between humanity and comedy is what Taika Waititi does best.

2015's The Force Awakens.

J.J. Abrams relaunched one of the biggest franchises of all time by affectionately pairing familiar parts with fresh new faces and even cuter helpful droids. Starring Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, this welcome shot of fun space adventure took us back into the operatic war between dark versus light.

Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman.

A turning point in the DC Extended Universe came when Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman climbed out of the trenches. The World War I-set origin story introduced the world to Gal Gadot in a role she was born to play. Her shining beacon of hope fills this earnest, good old-fashioned tale of heroine versus Greek god of war.

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The 30 best films of the decade, ranked - CNET

Are we running out of time to stop climate change? Nearly a year has passed since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that limiting global warming to the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.6 degrees Fahrenheit) mark by the end of the century a goal set to stave off the worst impacts of climate change "would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."

Some politicians and writers have thrown their hands up in the air and argued that it's too late, and that human civilization is simply not up to the task. Others, meanwhile, took the report as a call to arms, reframing one of its points as a political organizing message: We have only 12 years to stop climate change, and the clock is ticking. (A year later, we're down to 11.)

But the full picture is both more and less dire than a slogan can capture. We can't stop climate change because it's already here, and it's already too late to reverse many of its catastrophic effects. What's true is that things are on track to get much worse over the course of this century, and that if we're going to stop those things from happening, society is going to have to start hitting some important deadlines fast. There's a big one coming 12 years after the IPCC report. Blowing through it won't immediately plunge society into a "Mad Max"-style dystopia, as some have suggested perhaps tongue in cheek but it will make sure everything keeps getting steadily worse, and it will make turning things around down the road that much harder.

Related:The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted

Some scientists are nervous that overemphasizing the 2030 deadline might mislead the public about the nuances of climate change. But others pointed out to Live Science that activists have a task that's different from that of researchers one that requires straightforward goals and clear, simple ideas.

The IPCC report, which the U.N. climate science body released Oct. 8, 2018, revealed that the best path to limiting warming to an increase of 1.5 C by 2100 involves cutting net human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 45% by 2030 (12 years after the report was published) and then cutting emissions further to net zero by 2050. It was far from the first dire warning that the agency had issued. But this one seemed to take root in the public discourse around climate change, possibly because of how news stories summarized the report. An Oct. 8, 2018, headline in The Guardian read, "We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN." Vox headlined its article "Report: we have just 12 years to limit devastating global warming." Smithsonian.com wrote, "The World Was Just Issued 12-Year Ultimatum On Climate Change."

In an interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates three months later, on Jan. 21, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.-N.Y., spelled out how the report's conclusions had entered the zeitgeist:

"Millennials and Gen Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up, and we're like, 'The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'"

Here's the thing: Scientists never said the world was going to end in 12 years if we don't stop climate change. Even researchers known for ringing the alarm bells on climate change are far more likely to speak in terms of decimal places and nonlinear effects than to talk about the end of civilization as we know.

Prominent activists rarely bring up doomsday, either. Messages from the Global Climate Strike organizers and the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement focus on long-term climate shifts, not an impending, sudden disaster. Still, the 12-year deadline looms large in the culture.

"It has achieved an absoluteness in its role in societal dialogue that's not in line with scientific fact," said Katharine Mach, a climate scientist at the University of Miami and one of several lead authors of the IPCC report.

"The world will not end if we pass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels," Mach said.

Related: 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World

And failing to hit a 45% reduction target won't lead to 1.5 C of warming by 2030, as Lini Wollenberg, a University of Vermont climate researcher and leader of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, told Live Science. It does, however, increase the chances of hitting 1.5 degrees C by 2100 and experiencing many more climate catastrophes on our way through the 21st century, Wollenberg said.

The issue is that any program set up to mitigate warming will have two basic components: short-term cuts to emissions and longer-term efforts to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. (This doesn't necessarily mean giant, futuristic CO2-sucking machines, but may mean things like growing forests.)

"Some people I'm hazarding industry and those focused on maintaining a growth-focused economy would argue that we don't want to sacrifice things in the short term, and that society will figure out the technology to deal with it later," Wollenberg said.

But every year of delay on cutting greenhouse gas emissions means that carbon-capture efforts down the road will have to be even more fantastical and dramatic (including heavy reliance on carbon-capture technologies that may never work). And each year in which we do nothing, the world will cross more climate tipping points that will be difficult to undo, Wollenberg said.

The year 2030 has been bouncing around climate-policy documents for a while, Wollenberg said. (It also turned up in the Paris Agreement, for example, as did the goal of net zero by 2050.) Researchers saw that target as part of a reasonable time frame for drawing down emissions without it resulting in unbearable economic costs or having humanity rely too heavily on future carbon-capture efforts, she said.

"It could have been 2020, 2012 or 2016," Wollenberg said, adding that 2030 "used to seem a lot further away."

The 1.5 C target was picked for similar reasons an effort to balance what's possible against what's necessary. But, similar to the 12-year time frame, 1.5 degrees is a target set by scientists, not an immutable scientific fact.

"We know that the risks go up [as temperature rises]. We're already experiencing widespread impacts of the changing climate," Mach said, pointing to the ongoing consequences of 2019's 1 C (1.8 F) of warming above preindustrial levels. "It will be greater at 1.5 degrees of warming, and may go up from there in some very substantial ways with severe, irreversible impacts."

Holding warming to 1.5 degrees won't reverse climate change. In fact, the catastrophic impacts in that idealized scenario will be much worse than they are now.

Colin Carlson, an ecologist at Georgetown University who studies how climate change influences infectious diseases, said that one problem with imagining that we have 12 years until a huge disaster hits is that such thinking obscures the ongoing horrors of climate change in 2019.

"Climate change has already killed hundreds or thousands or more of people," Carlson said, "through malaria, through dengue, through a hundred other avenues that we're only now starting to be able to quantify."

Mosquito-borne diseases flourish in a warming world, his research has shown. And the world has already warmed enough that many people have gotten sick and died from those diseases people who otherwise would have been spared.

Related: 5 Deadly Diseases Emerging from Global Warming

"So this is not as simple as 'Can we stop this coming?' It's already here," he said.

Similarly, Wollenbergs work has shown that severe climate impacts are devastating food production worldwide in 2019. Vast regions of North and South America, Asia and Africa are becoming too hot for growing grains. The soil in low-lying, coastal regions of Bangladesh and China is getting saltier as rising seas contaminate groundwater, threatening rice production. (A few places are becoming more hospitable to certain crops. A warming Vermont, for example, is growing more hospitable to peaches, even as a shortened ski season threatens its economy.) The overall impact is to drive up food prices and create global unrest. Long term, these trends will make it impossible for some countries to produce enough food to feed their populations, she said.

To manage all that complexity, researchers tend to break down responses into two broad categories: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation is, in short, the work of preventing climate change from worsening. Reducing emissions and growing forests fall into this category.

Adaptation is learning to deal with the warming that's already here and the additional warming that's coming: building sea walls and flood-abating salt marshes around coastal cities; studying changes in precipitation so farmers know when to plant their crops; and engineering crops to better withstand harsh environments.

But ultimately, all the researchers Live Science contacted said these problems become less catastrophic with less warming. Holding the world to a 1.5-C warming increase by the end of the century creates much more manageable short- and long-term problems than holding it to 2 C of warming, which is much less harmful to Earth than 3 C, which is much more survivable than 4 C, which is still less catastrophic than 6 C and so on. None of those possible futures necessarily leads to a charred, lifeless global desert in our lifetimes. But each increase is almost unimaginably more dire for life on this planet than the one preceding it.

"It's always worth it to prevent more warming," Mach said.

With regard to the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, Carlson said, "We can stop it. Mitigating climate change is truly the silver bullet. Sometimes it is as simple as, 'If we stop climate change, we can stop a lot of the bad health impacts that are coming.'" (Though the devil is in the details, he added. The level of disease reduction will depend on how fast the carbon-mitigation project moves, and its effects won't be felt immediately or equally everywhere.)

The science points relentlessly to one reality: The best way to deal with climate change is to start cutting emissions now. It's easier to stop warming by keeping CO2 in the ground now than it is to pull carbon out of the air later. And mitigation makes adaptation much more effective.

Bringing up the 12-year time frame, then, is a way of drilling down on the first step the world has to take to move down the most effective mitigation path still available even if it doesn't capture the full scope of the issue.

So, is it irresponsible for public figures to employ the 12-years rhetoric?

"I think the role of public figures is to set visions and create the urgency that we need," Wollenberg replied. "The scientific community is sometimes uncomfortable with that, but if you started talking to the general public about, 'Well, you could trade off your long-term emissions and delay the decline by 5%, or we could do a 4% reduction every year, but that would contrast with a 7% reduction where we could wait until 2035,' it would not be an effective message."

I would blame the public figures who aren't taking steps more than I would blame the people who are trying to promote a vision," she said.

We're at a point in time when people are feeling the effects of climate change on their lives, said Jewel Tomasula, a doctoral student ecologist at Georgetown University, who studies the health of salt marshes in New Jersey. As Live Science has previously reported, the world in 2019 is hotter, monster storms are more frequent, diseases are on the move, and fires and floods are happening more often. Talking about 2030, Tomasula said, is about creating a window for activism to take effect a decade of meaningful global movement on the problem.

"Science is great for understanding the problem," she said. "Climate change is a physical problem, and we can work on it with our data and really understand it. But that's not what's really going to fix it. The way that problems like this have been addressed in the past is by having that political will and mobilization."

The notion of a 12-year deadline can be misleading and obscures some of the hedging and nuance scientists like to emphasize. But it also seems to offer climate mobilizers a focal point for their efforts, and people really are getting out into the streets.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Are We Really Running Out of Time to Stop Climate Change? - Livescience.com

In times of turmoil, we turn to books to get a sense of the world around us. Nonfiction provides us a clear-cut, unreserved portrait of our present and where it might lead us to. Here is my selection of the top nonfiction books of 2019 that will not only expand your horizons but are also compulsively readable.

I dare you all to not howl with laughter while reading anything written by Adam Kay. HisThis Is Going to Hurtwas a phenomenal, record-breaking bestseller with its impeccable blend of humor and poignancy. Here he continues to simultaneously crack us up and make us feel sympathy for the hectic life of hospital staff during Christmas time.

One of the most esteemed contemporary name in nonfiction, the writer of The Empathy Exams is back with another blistering book. Biting and honest, this collection of essays revolve around themes of longing and obsession.

Award-winning writer Saini explores the bases of race in science throughout history. A vital and urgent addition to political science.

One of the most hysterically comical books you will read this year, Irby is at her smartest, candid best here. No wonder Roxane Gay loves it. If you are a fan of Fleabag, you will love this collection of self deprecating, outrageous and painfully awkward encounters.

From the NBA-winning author and cultural icon, this is a sharply realized, poetic, and sophisticated memoir of a transformative year in Smiths life.

A legacy of the #MeToo movement, this timely anthology provides daring and honest insights into the factors and patriarchal structures enabling this abuse against women. FeaturingBlack, Latinx, Asian, and queer voices, this book is a galvanizing effort to propagate this much needed movement.

In this powerful book, Evans tears down racial myths which has been fortified by some of our most prolific scholars. The nature vs nurture debate regarding race is deconstructed with pertinent knowledge.

Tracking the cultural pivot of pop culture from the Western world to the East with examples of K-pop, Shah Rukh Khan, and Turkish soap operas. An important zeitgeist of our time. Entertaining and incisive.

A brazen and audacious collection of personal and social essays from a queer icon. By turns sensitive and scathing, Tea leads timely and important conversations about our current culture.

Qandeel Baloch was a controversial social media star in Pakistan who was murdered by her brother in 2016. This timely book attempts to piece together her life journey from the small village in Punjab to her stint in a womans shelter after her troubled marriage and finally to her rise to fame.

Zadie Smith hailed this as a whip-smart, challenging book. Imagine Rebecca Solnit for the millennial. Tolentino gives razor-sharp cultural commentary about our era of hyper individualism and tech obsession with shrewd insight.

A path-breaking peek into the privates lives of three ordinary women. This book portrays a brazenly intimate portrayal of womanhood, love and desire.

A devastating memoir about a mother mourning the tragic death of her 25-year-old son in an accident. A beautifully fragmented and hope filled book about embracing love and death.

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11 Must-Read UK Nonfiction Books of 2019 - Book Riot