Category Archives: New Utopia

Meghan Markle has fled the United Kingdom for the safety of her former home, Canada, with her husband Harry and baby Archie in tow. Hoping to find respite in the Land of Nice, Markle has suggested she expects to be treated better by the press, neighbors and general public than she ever was in England.

And in some ways, that is true. Billionaires and celebrities alike are rushing to loan the Duke and Duchess of Sussex homes and help them get settled.

But is Canada specifically, British Columbia, where the couple has set up camp the utopia Markle thinks it is? Here are five ways it is most definitely not.

The Highway of Tears

Just down the road from the Sussexes safe house is Highway 16 a k a, the Highway of Tears where dozens of women have been murdered or vanished.

According to the New York Times, A special unit formed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officially linked 18 such cases from 1969 to 2006 to this part of the highway and two connecting arteries. More women have vanished since then, and community activists and relatives of the missing say they believe the total is closer to 50. Almost all the cases remain unsolved.

The Pig Farmer

Also nearby is the site of a notorious pig farm owned by Robert Pickton, described as the Worst Serial Killer in History.

Pickton was found guilty of murdering 49 women just shy of his goal of 50 and feeding their bodies to his pigs.

Racial issues

Canada may be the land of nice if youre white.

The country has a long history of treating its indigenous people, especially females, harshly. The government only closed its final residential school, where aboriginal Canadian were taken from their family and assimilated, in 1997. Since then, things havent gotten a lot better.

The majority of women missing along the Highway of Tears, as well as Picktons victims, were indigenous. And ignored. Across the nation, more than 4,000 women have gone missing in what a formal report calls a genocide.

The report, by theNational Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, determined that state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies were the cause and that cases were ignored by the police due to racial factors.

And its not just indigenous people who have had issues. On The Province newspapers site, theres an interactive timeline that goes into depth on British Columbias racist past.

The Press

Meghan and Harry may have thought moving to Canada would solve their sticky issues with the press, but while the British publications may have been harsh with some of their headlines they also followed strict stringent British laws.

According to FreedomHouse.org, Canadas 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press Both print and broadcast media, including the public broadcaster CBC, are free to express diverse views.

Perhaps the couple is relying on goodwill. But threatening to sue the Canadian press for publishing a picture of Markle and Archie frolicking in a public place is not the way to engender it.

The Public

While some Canadians (mostly those with an income of over $1 billion) seem happy to have Harry and Megs as their neighbors, others are cheesed off after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the country would foot their security bills.

Op-eds have already been written about this (Prince Harry and Meghan: Welcome to Canada, but pay your own bills), 73 percent of the country is against paying for the duo, and a petition is circulating to get the former royals to cough up their own dough for security.

On Thursday, the couple announced they will reimburse taxpayers for the cost of security for their private business engagements that are not connected to royal events, sources told the Telegraph.

However they will only do so when (and if) their new, non-royal business plans take off and how much they end up paying will largely depend on how much they make.

Telling people well pay if we make money doesnt usually go down well.

Earthquakes

On Friday a 4.5 magnitude earthquake struck just off Vancouver Island and was felt in the mainland reminding us all that Markles nirvana lies directly over the Cascadia Subduction Zone, one of the most potentially dangerous fault lines in the world which scientists say has the capability of a 9.0 or 10 magnitude earthquake.

So, good luck, Meghan and Harry!

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Canada isn't as great as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle think here's why - Page Six

Hulu is loading up for Valentines Day with a ton of rom-coms, a classic reboot and even some holiday-themed horror for February 2020

Headlining the new additions is High Fidelity (Feb. 14), a series that reboots the 2000 John Cusack romantic comedy about a lovelorn pop-music obsessive, based on the 1995 Nick Hornby novel. In a gender flip, Zo Kravitz is the lead this time around, playing Rob, a broken-hearted record-store owner who tracks down her exes to figure out why shes doomed to be rejected.

For those who like their hearts with a little more blood, Hulus anthology horror series Into the Dark is dropping a holiday-themed episode, My Valentine (Feb. 7), about a pop singer who confronts her ex-boyfriend/manager and his new proteg.

And among a flurry of new movies being added to the Walt Disney Co. DIS, -1.49% -controlled streaming service are romantic classics such as Bridget Joness Diary,Ghost, Say Anything, When Harry Met Sally and Hitch (all Feb. 1).

Feb. 1

300 (2007)

28 Days Later (2003)

Adam (2019)

All About E (2005)

Bridget Joness Diary (2001)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

Bridget Joness Baby (2016)

Buffalo 66 (1998)

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Cheech & Chongs Still Smokin (1983)

Cherry Pop (2017)

Earth Girls are Easy (1988)

For Colored Girls (2010)

The Fugitive (1993)

Getting Go: The Doc Project (2013)

Ghost (1990)

The Girl King (2015)

Hitch (2005)

Henry Gambles Birthday Party (2015)

Hot Guys with Guns (2013)

John Q (2002)

Judgement Day (1999)

The Last Stand (2013)

The Last Warrior (2000)

Liz in September (2014)

Lord of War (2005)

The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)

Margarita with a Straw (2014)

Ms. Purple (2019)

Menace II Society (1993)

Mimic (1997)

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989)

National Lampoons Dirty Movie (2011)

National Lampoons Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea (2006)

National Lampoons European Vacation (1985)

National Lampoons Vacation (1983)

Naz and Maalik (2015)

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Precious (2009)

Robin Hood (1991)

Say Anything (1989)

Southie (1999)

The Spy Next Door (2010)

Those People (2015)

Touched with Fire (2016)

Vegas Vacation (1997)

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Where We Go From Here (2019)

Feb. 2

A Madea Family Funeral (2019)

Feb. 3

The Masked Singer: Season 3 Premiere (Fox)

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Feb. 5

Warrior (2011)

Feb. 6

Lego Masters: Series Premiere (Fox)

Angel of Mine (2019)

David Crosby: Remember My Name (2019)

Disaster Movie (2008)

Wrinkles the Clown (2019)

Feb. 7

Into The Dark: My Valentine: Episode Premiere (Hulu Original)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 7 Mid-Season Premiere (NBC)

Indebted: Season 1 Mid-Season Premiere (NBC)

Feb. 9

Alive (2019)

Feb. 10

The Oscars: Special (ABC)

Feb. 12

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: Complete Season 9 (Bravo)

For Life: Series Premiere (ABC)

Whered You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Feb. 13

Mister America (2019)

Feb. 14

High Fidelity: Complete Season 1 (Hulu Original)

The Other Guy: Complete Season 2 (eOne)

Utopia Falls: Complete Season 1 (Hulu Original)

Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

From Hell (2001)

Racetime (2019)

Radioflash (2019)

Villains (2019)

Feb. 15

28 Hotel Rooms (2012)

American Ultra (2015)

Anchor and Hope (2017)

Monogamy (2010)

Princess Cyd (2017)

Feb. 17

American Idol: Season 3 Premiere (ABC)

Duncanville: Series Premiere (Fox)

Good Girls: Season 3 Mid-Season Premiere (NBC)

Feb. 18

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Heres whats new on Hulu in February 2020, and whats leaving - MarketWatch

7 LGBT-friendly workout spots

As we cruise into the new year, few places await folks hoping to embrace their resolutions as much as gyms do. Whether maintaining last years workout regimen or starting a new one, you need to be at the right place for you. Gyms and fitness centers should be sacred realms where people looking to stay healthy can test their bodies and minds in a safe environment. Most of us like to feel comfortable wherever we workout, a place where few judging eyes stare, so heres a list of queer-friendly area gyms to check out.Club Dallas. This specialized 18-and-over Swiss Avenue sauna and fitness center caters to Dallas gay men always looking to keep fit and stay well. Just steps away from a DART station, Club Dallas provides its members a full gym, cardiovascular-focused area, whirlpool, steam room, outdoor pool and private dressing rooms. But most important, the Club prides itself as a safe and discreet place for its members to rejuvenate and stay healthy with others. Membership costs $32/mo., with one-time visits costing $8 on weekdays and $10 on weekends. The-Clubs.com.

Diesel Fitness. This uptown gym located in City Place off North Central Expressway offers weekly classes to help members work on their body tone. On Mondays and Wednesdays, the Iron Body Bootcamp could whip any newcomer into shape, and the spots Buns & Guns workout suits the more advanced types on Tuesday nights. And along with the usual fitness amenities, such as barbells and various lift machines, Diesel features a designated space for boxing and an indoor turf. DieselFitness214.com.

Equinox Fitness. For those looking for a facility promoting luxury, Equinox provides high-end equipment and machines, with membership usually running about $180/mo. Locations are in Plano, Highland Park and Preston Hollow for Dallasites of all types. And members can utilize the establishments cycling space, personal trainers, Pilates studio and spa, featuring massage and facial stations. Along with purchasing one-on-one training sessions, members can take unlimited group fitness classes for free. Equinox.com.

Golds Gym. One of the definitive health centers nationwide, the Uptown branch of this national chain has remained popular in the community for years. GoldsGym.com.

LA Fitness. The sprawling center in the gayborhood, with its pool area, weights, treadmills and more, is perennially popular with queer fitness folks in Dallas. LAFitness.com.

Planet Fitness. One can find a PF almost anywhere, but the membership rates here offer the convenience at a real bargain. For about $10/mo., members can exercise in a 24/7 facility that prides itself as a Judgment Free Zone. PF even allows its members to use the restrooms and locker rooms they identify with as their preferred gender. But if patrons upgrade to Black Card membership, they get exclusive access to the gyms massage and tanning center.

Utopia Food + Fitness. Utopia offers a unique take on fitness for those always conscientious about their diet before and after workouts. Different from a typical gym, this establishment focuses on pairing personalized workouts, which last about 20 minutes, with healthy meals ordered, prepared and ready to pick up on site. Utopia keeps a chef and dietician on site that aim to create organic cuisines to supplement the short workouts. Membership of $129/mo. comes with a $40 food credit, customized 20-minute workouts, free full body measurements and body composition analysis.

John Carder McClanahan

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Hit the weights - Dallas Voice

A once-radical idea to purge all private cars from Market Street becomes reality on Wednesday.

New turn lanes will stripe the roadway, diverting traffic from a transit spine thats intended to be a grand promenade, rife with bicycles and clattering streetcars. The citys new quick-build procedures allowed transit officials to banish automobiles east of 10th Street within three months of approving the project. Meanwhile, a more substantive redesign is inching forward.

Eventually the old lollipop traffic signals will get a full overhaul, gray pavers will replace the red sidewalk bricks, and officials will swap the green bunker toilets for a more futuristic model.

Already, transit backers and city officials are contemplating what comes next. Shift the 14-Mission over to Market? Ban cars on a nearby alleyway in the South of Market area? Anxious motorists grit their teeth, preparing for an even more circuitous drive downtown.

The long-term effects of this transformation remain unknown. Boosters hope to reduce vehicle collisions and create a more inviting city core. But other goals seem elusive: No one can quite predict the future of Mid-Market, a troubled stretch that draws theatergoers as well as transients and drug dealers.

For now, heres what you need to know:

Municipal Transportation Agency crew member Ron Aquito (right) uses a blowtorch to melt down red paneling on a bus-only lane while Rene Menjivar (left) goes over it with another melting machine along Second Street leading to Market Street.

How many drivers use Market Street, anyway? Not as many as you might think. According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, 200 to 400 cars travel in each direction on Market Street every hour during the peak commute. Thats roughly half the number on Mission Street, which sees 500 to 900 cars per hour in each direction.

People wait for the bus on Market Street. On Wednesday, private cars will be prohibited in favor of public transit and bicyclists.

Traffic wasnt always that sparse. The city gradually steered cars off the thoroughfare by installing forced detours in 2009, adding more turn restrictions over the years to stymie east-west travel. Many of the vehicles that currently use Market are Uber and Lyft cars, and those drivers will face the biggest shock. As of Wednesday, they will be relegated to loading zones on side streets.

Is this going to speed up the buses? With rapid, subway-like service in the center lane, Muni estimates that 464,000 riders who board buses on Market Street every day will save lots of time. Faster service unimpeded by automobiles would shorten each trip by 15% to 25%, according to transportation planners.

Graphics: Changes to SFs Market Street, block by block

From a transit perspective, Market is the beating heart of the city, with 200 buses and streetcars running down the strip per hour at the busiest times, while BART and Muni Metro subway trains rattle underneath. Roughly 500,000 people walk along Market each day, and 650 cyclists roll through each hour during the peak commute.

What about parking? Parking on Market, already limited to six metered spaces east of Spear Street, will disappear entirely with the redesign. The more drastic change will occur on cross streets and side streets, where 227 spaces will be converted to commercial loading.

Once this is done, people will see it was a great idea, said Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA who specializes in the economics of parking. He pointed to studies showing that streets are safer, and more productive, when curb space is used for short-term loading instead of car storage. It saves Uber and Lyft passengers from having to step out in the middle of traffic, and opens space for many more people to arrive and leave.

If you look at Paris, Vienna, or Madrid, all great cities are moving in this direction, Shoup said. San Francisco will be very proud of this once its finished.

Wont pedestrians wander into the bike lanes? Distracted people, absorbed with cell phones or earbuds, pose a risk mostly to themselves on any bustling artery. So do rule-flouting cyclists a wide buffer between the bike lane and the sidewalk will include bike racks, benches, trees and historic lampposts.

If cars are pushed off Market, will they start flooding Mission? Not according to the transportation agencys preliminary traffic analysis, said department chief Jeffrey Tumlin. Yet its hard to predict motorist behavior in the real world, drivers dont always follow traffic analysis models.

Were going to be watching carefully and collecting data, Tumlin said. And were ready to make adjustments.

Commuters ride their bikes down Market at Sixth Street. About 650 cyclists per hour pedal along Market during the peak commute times.

That could include shifting Munis 14-Mission bus to Market Street, which will have more transit capacity once the private cars are gone.

Should cars be banned on side streets, too? Why stop at Market Street when we could turn the whole downtown core into a free-flowing utopia for bikes and buses? The prospect makes some advocates giddy, but Tumlin said it might cause problems.

Market Street itself is not essential for the through-movement of car traffic, because it doesnt actually go anywhere, Tumlin said. But closing the cross streets would have a significant impact on the overall mobility system, and would tend to push traffic from one street to a parallel street. So thats not something were looking at now.

He noted, however, that he would happily entertain proposals from merchants or community groups that want to close their streets to automobile traffic.

What longer-term changes are coming to Market Street? Its too early to say whether Market will become the urban utopia that captivated planners and politicians for years. But changes are afoot: The sidewalks will be widened from 35 to 37 feet and resurfaced with concrete pavers. Crews will repave the street with concrete instead of asphalt. A new loop near United Nations Plaza will allow streetcars to shuttle back and forth, carrying more tourists.

Once complete, the project will revamp a 2.2-mile stretch from the Embarcadero to Octavia Boulevard, at an estimated cost of $604 million.

Separately, BART plans to install glass-and-steel canopies over its station entrances, protecting the escalators from downpours and giving the street a cleaner feel.

Which streets are next? Transit advocates already want to extend the car-free ideal to other San Francisco arteries. The most immediate and desirable target is John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, a road where cars mix uneasily with cyclists, skateboarders and rollerbladers. Its among the citys high-injury roadways the 13% of streets that account for 75% of traffic injuries and fatalities. In 2016, cyclist Heather Miller was killed by a hit-and-run driver on John F. Kennedy Drive near 30th Avenue, a crash that jolted the city.

This is a place that people come for recreation and fresh air, said Olivia Gamboa, a doctor in the Richmond District who helped organize a ride along JFK this Sunday, to press for the removal of automobiles. Its ultimately up to Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, to decide whether to pursue a ban.

Advocates have also eyed the Tenderloin another area known for road mayhem and fatalities as a potential car-free zone. They have the ear of Supervisor Matt Haney, who invited the transportation agency to study that part of his district.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan

Timeline: How the car ban finally happened

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Car-free Market: What happens to the side streets? And where will they ban cars next? - San Francisco Chronicle

Tyler Mitchells first solo exhibition, I Can Make You Feel Good, opened in Amsterdam last spring, at the citys Foam photography museum. Tomorrow, almost a year later, and a second iteration of the exhibition launches in New York pt. 2 the remix as Mitchell called it on Instagram marking the photographers first solo exhibition in his home country.To coincide with the launch, Mitchell-designed merch dubbed Items from the Studio will be available to buy at the ICPs new Lower East Side building in the coming weeks. Whats more, a monograph published by Prestel will be released this spring, looking at Mitchells oeuvreso far and the heights he has reached all before the age of 25.

Mitchells name became widely known throughout the fashion industry and beyond when, in August 2018, his history-making cover of Beyonc was revealed for American Vogues September issue. Then 23 years old, Mitchell was both the youngest photographer to shoot a Vogue cover, and the first person of colour to do so. Both personal work and editorials created for the pages of magazines like Dazed feature in I Can Make You Feel Good, a survey of the rich and compelling black utopia that Mitchell imagines with his camera. People say utopia is never achievable, but I love the possibility that photography brings, he says in a statement released to mark the exhibitions opening in New York. It allows me to dream and make that dream become very real.

The length of one hallway in the International Center of Photography houses a series of washing lines, on which hang large fabric prints of Mitchells photographs. The Atlanta-born image-maker has long taken suburban mundanities and inserted them into his work, visualising idyllic leisure scenes for his ever-expanding utopic world. Though there are nods to quotidian microtraumas and violence experienced against black people in his photographs and films, Mitchell insists on an overarching positivity; the exhibition is gut-punching in its optimism, he says.

Speaking to Dazeds Ashleigh Kane for AnOtherlast year as the Foam exhibition opened, Mitchell explained this feeling of positivity. I already had an idea that was fixated on optimism and a sense of play and freedom, rather than looking at the negative, political side that sometimes people attribute to my work, he said. So it was really focused on a theme, with the title, the work selection, the sizing, the curation, and the videos... Its a feeling of optimism within blackness. Im more interested in showing a certain community, intimacy, optimism, sense of play, and freedom, rather than focusing on any other aspects that sometimes black artists get thrown into the throes of needing to talk about.

In December of last year, Mitchell was announced as a fellow of theGordon Parks Foundation for 2020, alongsideNina Chanel Abney;each will receive $20,000 towards projects that draw inspiration from Parks pioneering creative outlook, in particular his focus on themes of representation and social justice, to be exhibited in New York later this year. Mitchell has explained, in a post on Instagram, that his project willmine Parks archive to explore and respond to his understanding of dress and identity, in a series inspired by the late image-makers 20th-century fashion photography, dating from the 1940s to the 70s. Bookended by two major exhibitions, 2020 is already looking set to be one of Mitchells most exciting years yet.

Tyler Mitchell: I Can Make You Feel Goodis at the International Centre for Photography, New York, from January 25 May 18, 2020.

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Inside Photographer Tyler Mitchell's First Solo Show in the US - AnOther Magazine

AMC Networks Acorn TV North Americas largest streamer devoted to British and international television has announced a stellar 2020 lineup, consisting of five commissioned Acorn TV Originals. As the largest streamer devoted to a specialized audience, Acorn TV is the ultimate destination of high-quality, world class dramas, mysteries and comedies from all sides of the pond.

Coming up in 2020, Acorn TV will feature both brand-new and returning riveting Acorn TV Original series: upcoming debuts include highly-rated UK drama Deadwater Fell (starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo), Irish comedy drama The South Westerlies, New Zealand thriller The Sounds, and Irish period mystery series Dead Still (starring Luthers Michael Smiley). Returning shows include British mystery (and Acorn TVs first sole commission) Agatha Raisin, Irish comedy Finding Joy (series 2), ABC Australia drama Mystery Road (series 2), and Irish thriller Blood (series 2). Also, this spring will feature the premiere of Acorn TVs eagerly anticipated feature-length film Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears starring award-nominated actress Essie Davis (The Babadook, Game of Thrones.)

Among the returning favorite series are the #1 UK drama of 2019 Line of Duty (season 6), British school dramedy Ackley Bridge, New Zealand detective drama The Brokenwood Mysteries, French crime drama Balthazar, new episodes of Canadian hit drama Murdoch Mysteries, and acclaimed Swedish noir Rebecka Martinsson.

2020 PREVIEW VIDEO: https://youtu.be/VkHEBgpdk8o

EXCLUSIVE U.S. PREMIERES - ACORN TV

JANUARY 2020

THE BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES, Series 6 Monday, January 6 through January 27 (Exclusive U.S. Premiere, new episodes to premiere weekly every Monday)

This acclaimed New Zealand detective series filmed amid the beautiful landscape of the countrys North returns with four feature-length, standalone mysteries featuring compelling characters, dry humor, and piquant wit. After transferring from a big city to the quiet, little, murder-ridden town of Brokenwood, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea, Go Girls) and Detective Kristin Simms (Fern Sutherland, The Almighty Johnsons) uncover more macabre goings on and investigate murderous rivalries and lethal grudges. (4 EPS)

MURDOCH MYSTERIES, Season 13 (Episodes 4-18) Monday, January 6 through April 13 (new episodes to premiere weekly every Monday)

Garnering more than two dozen Gemini nominations and the sole 2016 Fans Choice Award at the Canadian Screen Awards for lead actor Yannick Bisson, Murdoch Mysteries has found a huge audience in North America for its period charm, entertaining mysteries, and likeable characters. Set in Toronto in the late 1890s and early 1900s during the age of invention, the mystery series centers on Detective William Murdoch (Bisson), a methodical and dashing detective, who enlists radical new forensic techniques like fingerprinting, ultraviolet light, and trace evidence to solve some of the citys most gruesome murders.

ACKLEY BRIDGE, Series 3 Monday, January 13 (Exclusive U.S. Premiere)

From the creators of Shameless (UK) comes the return of this hit British dramedy set in a multicultural academy school in a small West Yorkshire mill town. Ackley Bridge offers a character-driven, gritty, funny, truthful, and mischievous angle into the daily drama of the teachers, teenagers and families. The series 3 cast includes Jo Joyner (EastEnders), Sunetra Sarker (Broadchurch), Poppy Lee Friar (Mr. Selfridge, In The Club), Amy-Leigh Hickman (EastEnders), Megan Parkinson (Game of Thrones) and new cast addition Robert James-Collier (Downton Abbey). (8 EPS)

FEBRUARY 2020

AGATHA RAISIN, Series 3 (Acorn TV Original Series, Commissioned) Monday, February 10, 17 and 24

Trailer

Emmy-nominated actress Ashley Jensen (Catastrophe, Extras, Ugly Betty) returns in the acclaimed adaptations of MC Beatons best-selling comedic mystery novels. The series follows a London PR whizz turned amateur sleuth, who becomes entangled in mischief, mayhem, and murder when she opts for early retirement in the country. In series 3 of this contemporary mystery, Agatha is now an official private investigator and has just opened her first detective agency, where pressures are high to keep new business flowing. In addition, shes now living with on-and-off-again beau and British history author, James Lacey (Jamie Glover, Waterloo Road). Stay tuned for more of her wild, hilarious adventures in these new movies: The Deadly Dance, The Love From Hell and As The Pig Turns.

MARCH 2020

BLOOD, Series 2 (Acorn TV Original Series, Co-production) Monday, March 9 with first two episodes

Trailer

Compared to Broadchurch and The Killing by critics and called a dark, addictive and unmissable crime drama by The Guardian, this highly-rated Irish psychological mystery stars BAFTA nominee Adrian Dunbar (Line of Duty) as Jim Hogan, a respected doctor in a small Irish town with a family full of secrets. In series 2, Jim Hogan returns home a year later after the suspicious death of his wife, determined to make amends and reconnect with his family. But when eldest daughter Fiona (Grinne Keenan (Victoria, Black Mirror) is in an accident, a disturbing discovery threatens to tear them apart again. (6 EPS)

MISS FISHER AND THE CRYPT OF TEARS (Movie) mid-to-late March in select theatres and on Acorn TV

This highly anticipated and gorgeously-shot feature film continues the story of Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries, which aired for three seasons (2012-2015) and is one of the most popular Australian series worldwide. Essie Davis (The Babadook, Game of Thrones) returns in the five-time Logie-nominated role that made her a worldwide star. Set in the late 1920s, The Crypt of Tears follows the slinky, seductive and risk-taking detective Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher on a Middle Eastern adventure in search of an ancient treasure. The film also features series regular Nathan Page as Detective Inspector Jack Robinson. (Feature-length)

April 2020

DEADWATER FELL (Acorn TV Original Series)

Trailer

Called the new Broadchurchbut more irresistible moving, compelling crime drama by The Guardian, and complex and fascinating mystery by Radio Times, this darkly gripping and highly-rated UK dramas stellar ensemble cast features David Tennant (Broadchurch, Doctor Who, Good Omens), Cush Jumbo (The Good Fight, The Good Wife, Vera), Matthew McNulty (Versailles, Cleaning Up, The Terror) and Anna Madeley (Patrick Melrose, The Crown, Utopia). When a seemingly perfect and happy family is murdered by someone they know and trust, the small Scottish community they call home becomes torn apart with mistrust and suspicion as those closest to the family begin to question everything they thought they knew about their friends. Deadwater Fell examines in unflinching detail the nature of female friendship and the harmful, entrenched gender stereotypes and conformity that can lead to the most devastating consequences. Laying bare the fragility of trust and the corrosive nature of lies, the series demonstrates that even the closest of friends all have their secrets. (4 EPS)

Spring 2020

DEAD STILL (Acorn TV Original Series, Commissioned)

Trailer

Set in 1880s Ireland in the Victorian era of postmortem photography, this period drama follows renowned memorial photographer Brock Blennerhasset (Michael Smiley, Luther, Kill List), as he investigates the murders of his recently deceased subjects. Dublin Detective Frederick Regan (Aidan OHare, Jackie, Pilis) suspects that Ireland may have its first serial murderer at large, and with Blennerhasset as a possible suspect and his family is put in harms way, the police must track down the serial killer before he strikes again. Inspired by a true-life Irish tradition in the 1800s, this series also stars Kerr Logan (Game of Thrones, Alias Grace) and Eileen OHiggins (Brooklyn, Mary Queen of Scots). (6 EPS)

THE SOUNDS (Acorn TV Original Series, Commissioned)

This eight-part New Zealand psychological thriller centers on a happily married couple (Rachelle Lefevre, Proven Innocent, Under the Dome and Matt Whelan, The Luminaries, Narcos) who move into a sleepy town to start a new business venture and set them on a new life path. But when husband Tom disappears, unsettling facts about him soon come to light, and the search brings long-buried wounds to the surface. As wife Maggie struggles to navigate the escalating events, it becomes clear that in this small, seemingly close-knit community, nothing and no one are quite what they seem. THE SOUNDS was created by bestselling author, Sarah-Kate Lynch, also the series lead writer. (8 EPS)

BALTHAZAR, Series 2 (Foreign language)

This acclaimed French crime thriller, one of the top ten highest-rated French dramas of 2018, introduces a forensic pathologist with an unusual talent the brilliant yet unconventional Raphal Balthazar (Tomer Sisley, Philharmonia, The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch), who can make the dead speak like no one else to help solve Paris most baffling crimes. New, tough-as-nails police commander Hlne Bach (Hlne de Fougerolles, Le Secret dElise, The Beach, VA Savoir) must learn to collaborate with Raphal on these investigations. This series also stars Yanig Samot (The French Kissers). (10 EPS)

Summer 2020

FINDING JOY, Series 2 (Acorn TV Original Series, Commissioned)

Created, written and starring Irish Film & TV Academy winner Amy Huberman (Striking Out, The Clinic), this six-part comedy follows a single woman, Joy, after a painful breakup who looks for happiness in all the wrong places.(6 EPS)

REBECKA MARTINSSON, Series 2 (Foreign language)

Characters so vividly created the script, and performances, shine throughout, as does the arctic background, both beautiful and menacing (The Wall Street Journal) and based on sa Larsson's celebrated and popular crime novels, this series set in the bleak Northern Environment revolves around Rebecka Martinsson, a lawyer from Kiruna who has succeeded professionally, but still hasnt found herself. In Series 1, when a dear friend from childhood suddenly passes away, Rebecka reluctantly returns to her hometown, but soon discovers that her death becomes more and more suspicious, and Rebecka cannot tear herself away until she finds answers. Drawn into the gripping pursuit of a killer on the hunt for the next victim, Rebecka is forced to confront the terrible trauma that caused her to abandon her hometown. (8 EPS)

MYSTERY ROAD, Series 2 (Acorn TV Original series)

Voted Most Popular Drama at the 2019 Logie Awards, series one of this beautifully filmed, acclaimed ABC Australia series, featured multiple Emmy, BAFTA, and Golden Globe winner Judy Davis and AFCA winner Aaron Pedersen (Jack Irish, A Place to Call Home) as two detectives investigating the mysterious disappearance of two young men in a remote outback town. Series 2 will feature the return of Jay Swan (Pedersen) as he investigates a gripping new mystery in a small coastal community alongside a detective played by Sofia Helin (Scandi crime drama The Bridge). (6 EPS)

Fall 2020

THE SOUTH WESTERLIES (Acorn TV Original series, Commissioned)

With an impressive ensemble of acclaimed actors including Orla Brady (American Horror Story, Mistresses,) Eileen Walsh (Catastrophe, Women on the Verge, Cant Cope Wont Cope), and Ger Ryan (Little Dog, Rialto, Raw), this sharp Irish comedy-drama focuses on a small coastal town in the southwest of Ireland earmarked for a Norwegian-owned wind farm. Kate (Brady) is a single working mom and environmental consultant who has to go undercover among protesters to quash objections to the wind farm project. Her eco-battle is compounded by the return of a surfer with an unmistakable resemblance to her teenage son, as well as the emergence of old secrets shes keeping under wraps. (6 EPS)

LINE OF DUTY, Season 6 (Acorn TV Exclusive)

Written and created by Jed Mercurio (creator of international sensation Bodyguard), the highly-anticipated season six marks a new case for the police anti-corruption unit AC-12, featuring new guest star Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire), alongside series regulars Adrian Dunbar (Blood, The Crying Game), Vicky McClure (The Secret Agent), and Martin Compston (The Great Train Robbery). Season 5 was the highest rated UK drama of 2019. (6 EPS)

About Acorn TV

AMC Networks Acorn TV is North Americas largest streaming service specializing in British and international television with over 1 million paid subscribers in the U.S and Canada. Acorn TV adds exclusive new programs every week with a deep library of mysteries, dramas, and comedies with no commercials. In 2020, Acorn TV features several commissioned series including the return of Agatha Raisin starring Ashley Jensen, period mystery Dead Still, Irish comedy drama The South Westerlies, New Zealand thriller The Sounds, and Irish comedy Finding Joy; as well as the return of Irish thriller Blood and Essie Davis in Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears; and a growing catalog of popular bingeable dramas A Place to Call Home, Detectorists, Jack Irish and Foyles War; among much more. Facebook: OfficialAcornTV - Twitter @AcornTV

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ACORN TV ANNOUNCES 2020 LINEUP FEATURING A RECORD FIVE COMMISSIONED SERIES PLUS NEW SEASONS OF ACCLAIMED SERIES BLOOD, MYSTERY ROAD, AND LINE OF DUTY...

The Student Lectureship Committee will welcome actor, writer and YouTuber Rainn Wilson to the University on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. Best known for portraying Dwight Schrute on NBCs Emmy Award-winning comedy, The Office, Wilson is expected to cover topics spanning from his nine seasons on The Office to his new Amazon series, Utopia. The lecture will be in the form of a moderated talk and conclude with a Q&A session.

With an MFA from NYUs Graduate Acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts, Rainn Wilson worked largely in theater during his early career as an actor. He starred on Broadway in the Tony-nominated London Assurance and The Tempest, in addition to being in several off-Broadway shows.

Wilson made his on-screen debut in an episode of the soap opera One Life to Live in 1997. His first breakthrough role was his portrayal of assistant mortician Arthur Marin in the HBO series Six Feet Under. The cast won a Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG) for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

In 2005, while Wilson appeared in the comedy film Sahara and the mockumentary film The Life Coach, he was cast as Dwight Schrute in the new comedy series, The Office. For playing the socially awkward, obsessive salesman, Wilson won two SAG awards for best comedy ensemble on the series, in addition to being nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Wilson not only acted in the series but also directed three episodes: The Cover-Up, Classy Christmas and Get the Girl.

Rainn Wilson is an outstanding actor and artist capable of bringing immense joy to those who follow him. His unique ability to captivate an audience makes him one of the most exciting lecturers to come to campus since I have been here at the University, Ryan Bailis 21, a member of the Student Lectureship Committee, said.

More recently, Wilson appeared in several movies including Permanent, Shimmer Lake and The Meg. In 2017, he was cast to play Harvey Mudd in Star Trek: Discovery and he directed an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks. In the upcoming Amazon Original Series, Utopia, Wilson is slated to be a series regular, playing virologist Dr. Michael Sterns.

Wilson is also the co-founder ofSoulPancake, which has grown from a YouTube channel into a media company with over four million fans. SoulPancake has developed shows like Kid President and Tell My Story. The media company has created hundreds of hours of content and has accumulated over 500 million video views.

Rainn Wilson is one of my favorite actors of all time. The Office is one of the only shows I can watch year after year and still find the jokes funny every time, Bailis said.

Tickets to the event are free for all students and will be available at the Campus Box Office.

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Student lectureship series to host Rainn Wilson - The Bucknellian

Dystopian works are simply canaries in the global coal mine we ignore at our peril, says the writer. (Illustration: Adobestock)

The sunll come out Tomorrow

Bet your bottom dollar

That tomorrow

Therell be sun!

Just thinkin about Tomorrow

Clears away the cobwebs

And the sorrow

Til theres none!

When Im stuck with a day

Thats grey

And lonely

I just stick out my chin

And grin

And say

Oh!

The sunll come out

Tomorrow

So ya gotta hang on

Tomorrow from Annie. Music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin

It is common, at the beginning of a new year, for analysts, commentators, and columnists to offer some predictions and possibilities for the future (sometimes paired with dire warnings as well as a jeremiad or two), as the old year becomes history. Given what seem to be the increasingly dire circumstances of our globe both in political and environmental terms the writers thoughts have turned to more dystopic visions of our collective future.

More than 500 years ago, English writer Thomas More came up with the idea of a worldly heaven on Earth. He called his imaginary land a utopia, thus coining the very idea of an imagined future.

As Terry Eagelton wrote in The Guardian on the 500th anniversary of Mores work, Mores book, in some ways a work of early science fiction, gave rise to a whole new genre of writing. Judging from that literature, there are really two kinds of utopia. There are carnivalesque societies in which, instead of working, everyone will drink, feast and copulate from dawn to dusk. In one such 18th-century fantasy, men and women bereft of all body hair leap naked into fountains, while the progressively minded narrator watches on. Whether his pleasure is entirely theoretical remains unclear.

There are also more austere utopias, in which everything is odourless and antiseptic, intolerably streamlined and sensible. In these meticulously planned countries of the mind, the natives tend to jaw on for hours about the efficiency of their sanitary arrangements, or the ingenuity of their electoral system. Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe is in some ways an exercise of this kind, as Crusoe, marooned on a desert island, potters about, chopping wood and staking out his enclosure as if he were in the home counties. It is reassuring to see him practising a very English rationality in such exotically unfamiliar circumstances. Mores fantasy is an odd mixture of both visions, rational and libidinal. On the one hand, his ideal society is a high-minded, fairly puritanical place, one likely to appeal to the stereotypical Hampstead vegetarian; on the other hand, its inhabitants are genial, laid-back and agreeably disinclined to do much work.

While utopian visions (often drawing on socialist ideals and political urges), have inspired many, as with William Bellamys very influential, but naively optimistic tract, Looking Backward, it has become the dystopian vision that has captivated us and terrified us even more. Much more.

In Britain, America and the Soviet Union, a clutch of visionary, but very dark novels beginning with Jack Londons The Iron Heel, and on to Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, Anthony Burgess Clockwork Orange, BF Skinners Walden 2, George Orwells 1984, Yevgeny Zamyatins We, Sinclair Lewis It Cant Happen Here, and Philip Roths The Plot Against America have posited a world where various tendencies already in evidence have shaped a nightmarish landscape, if such trends continue unabated.

Mostly, these novels have relied on insights into human nature and developments in social control, rather than powerful, extraordinary scientific advancements, as might be the case with the usual run of much science fiction. Although Brave New World makes use of a psychotropic drug, Soma, to regulate emotions and control society, in Walden 2, the authors insights into psychological experimentation such as operant conditioning, keeps everyone happily in line. Such projections could easily fit in sync with contemporary headlines.

1984, meanwhile, sets out a totalitarian surveillance state of Big Brother, but one set in a world of food and consumer goods scarcities, worn-out, rundown infrastructure, a world of grittiness and decrepitude, and, of course, permanent warfare. And it all takes place in a world of ominous conspiracy theories, alternative facts and the infamous memory hole. We had deeply influenced Orwell when he first read and reviewed it, most especially in the way We created a world where human individuality had been totally erased, right up to the point where numbers replaced individual names.

Meanwhile, Jack Londons The Iron Heel portrayed an America under a classic dictatorship, relentlessly pursuing the working class. Then, in It Cant Happen Here and The Plot Against America, domestic and global turmoil leads to populist demagogues taking control of the US legally, but with catastrophic consequences. In Lewis 1938 novel, the newly elected, populist president (a man with appetites and little learning), becomes an increasingly authoritarian president (not totally unlike the populist governor of Louisiana, Huey Long, also fictionally portrayed by Robert Penn Warren in All The Kings Men). And Lewis president eventually generates a counter-revolutionary revolt as a result of his repressive policies. Meanwhile, Roths more recent book offers raw ethnic populism in the service of an increasingly dictatorial, erratic president (in the lightly fictionalised version of hero-aviator Charles Lindbergh). This Lindbergh, like the real one, is given to an America First, rhetoric that seems startlingly current, given the times in which we live.

But, naturally, given South Africas volatile racial landscape, this country has had its very own stream of extraordinarily sharp, dystopic visions seized by the always-impending communal violence.

First was Witwatersrand University historian Arthur Keppel-Jones When Smuts Goes, published in 1947. The author, increasingly appalled by the countrys seemingly inevitable future, had written a dark, partially prophetic tale. It told of a National Party electoral victory in 1952, the subsequent imposition of full-scale apartheid, the ensuing violent civil conflicts, a mass migration of Afrikaners to Argentina in extremis, a UN peacekeeping intervention, and finally, the sad circumstances of a devastated nation, ruled by a poorly educated black leader nicknamed Six Pence. Keppel-Jones finally so despaired of the countrys future that he decamped to Canada.

Then, in response to the rising violence and increasingly harsh repression of black hopes, in the late 1970s and early 80s, three of the countrys most important voices, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee and Karel Schoeman, wrote their respective prophecies of a possible doom of the old order. Gordimers book, Julys People, provoked an angry response from many sides, given its apparent expectation of a violent revolution against white rule. JM Coetzee, meanwhile, had written Waiting for the Barbarians in 1980 and The Life and Times of Michael K three years later. Schoemans novel, Promised Land, had come out even earlier, in 1972.

Gordimers book has a good, liberal, white family suddenly fleeing the chaos of the civil war washing over their city. Roles are reversed as they flee the destruction in the care of their black houseman, July, to sanctuary in his presumably more peaceful rural homestead.

In Coetzees two books, meanwhile, one profiles the world of a military man posted in the vastness of the frontier region of an imaginary land, waiting for the inevitable invasion by the barbarians. They are, he knows, coming to invade, pillage and destroy. By contrast, Coetzees second book is a harshly unblinking portrayal of a mentally handicapped young man, cast adrift in a Cape Town already caught up in chaos of civil conflict, with fighting everywhere. Metaphor is everywhere.

Schoemans book, out several years earlier than the other three, follows a young man, the son of exiled diplomats from the old apartheid regime, who has come back to a post-revolution South Africa to sort out the inheritance of a now-ruined homestead. He comes face to face with the presence of the countrys revolutionary black government and army as well as a shadowy white resistance.

South African dystopic literature has focused, not surprisingly, on the apparent intractability of the countrys racial divide, and resistance to its iniquities. In all five of these South African books, the inevitability and destructiveness of a black revolution is either an implied or explicit driver of the tale. And there has also been the description of the parallel societal and economic trajectory of a South Africa that seemed inexorably headed towards its collapse.

This stands in an interesting contrast to those American, British, or even Russian dystopian classics. Those have largely focused on the growing impact of the surveillance state, increasingly pervasive social control mechanisms, the use of international conflict as a tool for concentrating power and the abuse of populism as a way to draw political control into the hands of ruthless leaders.

But in our current circumstances, there is yet another strand of dystopic literature the cataclysm that destroys human society, either by an atomic holocaust, environmental disaster, or catastrophic climate change. Here the traditions of science fiction are important, and now, most often, are seen via film and television screens in original productions or through powerful adaptations of earlier novels.

Obvious examples of the first catastrophe could include the various film versions of Nevil Shutes On the Beach, as well as the near-twins, Failsafe and Dr Strangelove. And JG Ballards novel, Drowned World, and films like The Day After Tomorrow, Interstellar, Deep Impact, or even sillier ones like 2012 and Waterworld that have all focused attention on the ultimate dystopia, either man-made or inflicted from above.

Meanwhile, documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth and a growing tide of newer works are adding to the dystopic visual literature. Their impact now combines with real online and broadcast reportage on vast continental fires, frightening rises in ocean and land temperatures, along with the destruction of major forests, species extermination, and the impact of yet broader climate change.

And so, Annie and Daddy Warbucks, in the show, Annie, can sing The sunll come out Tomorrow, Bet your bottom dollar, That tomorrow, Therell be sun! and in the end, it will always be a better day out there. But what if, as with the messages and prophecies of dystopic novel and film traditions, the equivalents of Miss Hannigan and her evil accomplices in Annie are in charge instead and thus these dystopian works are simply canaries in the global coal mine we ignore at our peril. DM

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The age of utopia or dystopia - Daily Maverick

The photographer's series Flood Zone provides an eerie glimpse into the future of America's sinking southern states.

Madame de Pompadours foreboding epigram, Aprs nous, le dluge (After us, the flood), has become eerily sinister in light of climate change. The excesses of Western modernism rival that of the court of Louis XIVonly this time the vast accumulation of wealth and wastefulness are rapidly decimating not just the peasantry but the planet and the very life it supports.

The United States may desperately need a wallbut the last place it should be located is inland, along the desert keeping asylum seekers out. In a June 2019 report, the Center for Climate Integrity predicted the nation needs to build seawalls along 50,000 coastal miles across 22 states by the year 2040 to stave off the impact of rising sea levels. Estimated to cost $400 billion in total, Florida, the most at-risk state, faces costs of $76 billion alone.

After eight years of climate denial led by former Gov. Rick Scott, who reportedly banned the terms climate change and global warming in state agencies, Florida is in desperate straits. In November 2019, the city of Miami joined Miami Beach in declaring a climate change emergency, asking Washington and Tallahassee to match the $192 million the city has set aside for projects like anti-tidal valves, urban reservoirs, king tide monitoring, and other climate mitigation projects.

Positioning himself as himself as a green Republican, current Gov. DeSantis awarded $685 million (of the $91.1 billion state budget) in 2019 to environmental restoration, removed anti-environmental members of the board of the South Florida Water Management District, appointed the states first Chief Science Officer to address environmental concerns, and renewed a Florida Crystals lease for land slated to become an Everglades restoration reservoir.

All things considered, its a drop in the bucket and Generation Z refuses to wait. On January 9, Florida students age 12 to 21 filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the Florida Cabinet, and two state agencies for violating their constitutional rights and endangering their future by failing to aggressively develop a plan to combat climate change.

They are not alone. According to the first-ever Florida Climate Resilience Survey, published in October 2019, two thirds of Floridians do not feel the government is doing enough to address the impact of climate change. Theres shared anxiety in the communityeverybody knows, even the deniers know, says photographer Anastasia Samoylova. You cant escape it. Its hard to deny when you are standing in water. You can say whatever you want but the evidence is surrounding you.

Hailing from Moscow, Samoylova moved to the United States at the age of 23 to pursue her MFA from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. After being on the academic track, she decided to move to Miami Beach in 2016 to resume her love of making art. Samoylova decided to walk the streets taking photographs as a way to gain a sense of placesomething she could only do in the morning and in the evening during what was the hottest summer on record (though every passing year has claimed the title).

The following year, Hurricane Irma hit. There was a mandatory evacuation but we couldnt evacuate because there was no gas anywhere. People were stranded, Samoylova recalls. We live in an older condo building with lots of concrete so we thought we could wait it out. This was an experience of the real sublime. You feel so small in the face of the elements. The howling winds: that was the scariest part. I photographed during the hurricane while I could and then the aftermath. Miami Beach, usually packed with tourists, was a zombie city. It felt apocalyptic. Thats when I realized I had a project.

In FloodZone, the new book and exhibition opening January 17, Samoylova peels back the layers of fantasy to reveal the impending horror that lies at our doorstep. Lush, beautiful and seductive, Samoylovas photographs are anything but trauma porn. Rather they are subversive images of paradise, glossy and sleek, subtly revealing something hellish lurking just beneath the surface. They are, for all intents and purposes, the moment just after weve passed the tipping pointwhen its too late to go back but we havent quite realized what we have lost.

Just six years old when the Soviet Union collapsed, Samoylova still remembers the impact of propaganda posters from her childhood, drawing a parallel to Floridas image as a tropical paradise and the added devastation of losing ones illusions on top of everything else. Theres this promise of utopia and everything will be amazingbut that didnt happen. When the Soviet Union collapsed it wasnt only the reality that didnt deliver, it was also this imaginary world that everybody believed in; images have a lot to do with that, Samoylova says.

These images that promise a more beautiful life create this false reality, this imagined geography of this place being solid and well-constructed, and we now know it is built on swamp land and porous limestone. Theres no foundation to South Florida and many other southern states. In Miami Beach, a city saturated with images of its own perfection, you start wondering: what is being hidden? Its not going to be the millionaires who will suffer. It will be people who wont be able to relocate quickly. Then you wonder whether those facts are not being disclosed [because] it will cost the government to relocate those people eventually.

In the interim, delusion persists. I live across from the Deauville Hotel where the Beatles recorded The Ed Sullivan show in 1964. The NADA art fair used to take place there. That was the last time I saw the interior. The next year, Hurricane Irma hit. For three years, the hotel has been abandoned. The damages were so severe they couldnt recoup the loss. It had 600 rooms and fed into the neighborhood economy, Samoylova says.

Across from the hotel, there is a parking lot-sized lawn built on concrete. I call it the Beatles Lawn. Its in the same flood zone as the hotel and it was just sold for $40 million. It was the last undeveloped green patch in Miami Beach.

Anastasia Samoylova: Floodzone is on view at the USF Contemporary Art Museum through March 7, 2020.

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In Florida, Anastasia Samoylova captures a tropical utopia on the brink of disaster - Document Journal

Polygons entertainment team is on the ground at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, bringing you first looks at what are sure to be some of the years best blockbuster-alternative offerings. Heres what you need to know before these indie films make their way to theaters, streaming services, and the cinematic zeitgeist.

Logline: Documentarian Matt Wolf (Teenage, Recorder) chronicles how science-fiction dreams begat the $200 million Biosphere 2 architecture project, and tracks where it all went wrong.

Longerline: In the 60s, artist-engineer John Allen was an avant-garde thinker who attracted younger San Franciscans with his anecdotes about world travel and artistic ideology. His close-knit group of hippie pals formed a theater group before eventually hightailing it out of the city to establish Synergia Ranch, a New Mexico commune focused on ecology, architecture, and really, whatever people could dream up. That meant planting and harvesting crops to become fully self-sufficient, but also, with zero expertise, building a science vessel out of Chinese scrap metal and sailing around the world.

Synergias members hungered for knowledge and were always looking to one-up themselves, under the philosophy that life could be playful and meaningful if you were open to all possibilities. So in the late 1980s, Allen and his band of visionaries embarked on their most ambitious project ever: the construction of a biosphere that would sustain the lives of eight crew members for two years without any outside interference.

Most of Spaceship Earth focuses on what happened when Synergia teamed with billionaire oil maven Ed Bass to build Biosphere 2. To the pragmatic futurists, the research facility was a giant science-fair project, a towering work of concept art, and a haven for their of-the-soil lifestyle. If man was going to one day settle on the moon or Mars, this was the way to lay the stepping stones. But the scope of Biosphere 2 provoked the science community and wooed the media, putting Synergias process under the public microscope for the first time. The group was all about experimentation and learning they had been since the theater days. But the world wanted results.

The quote that sums it up: John Allen was a brilliant, charismatic leader because he simply met emotional needs ... part of John Allens genius was helping people realize: its all theater.

Whats it trying to do? In almost a true-crime-documentary mode, Wolf rips a stranger-than-fiction moment from historical headlines, then peels back the surface to get to the bottom of the debacle. Even Spaceship Earths opening, a salvo of talking-head interviews that introduce John through the mesmerized young women and men who followed his lead, has an air of cultiness that could be mistaken for the intro to Wild Wild County season 2. But the twist is that theres nothing nefarious about Synergia: a few wayward souls discovered one another, finding faith in their shared ambition. The artists and the art are inspiring.

Unlike their circumnavigating junk boat, Biosphere 2 had problems. The structure was conceived to support plant, animal, and human life for two years, thanks to a recycling ecosystem, but the team eventually faced life-threatening levels of carbon dioxide and accusations that food was smuggled in through the sealed doors. Wolf probes the issues from the perspectives of those who survived it, juxtaposing the sensible breakdowns again the media reaction.

Does it get there? Talky documentaries often plod through explanation, but the grown-up theater kids of Synergia give the oral history a melodic rhythm. The lives of straight-edge wallflowers who spent their free time mounting geodomes in the middle of the desert look pretty damn fun compared to our current age of saturated media and hyper-kinetic social feeds. How Synergia turned its wild projects into a money-making operation (another example of insular, self-sustaining living) is the kind of detail that would be overlooked in a more indulgent, celebratory documentary. But heres, its Wolfs way into proving the teams innocence. Biosphere 2 was not a malicious fakeout. Everyone wanted it to work.

Instead of outright stating any of this, Wolf lets the subjects radiate on their own. They loved being together, loved creating, and even during the toughest moments of Biosphere 2, they look thrilled to be collecting data and guzzling homemade banana wine. (Biosphere living was not easy.) Scientists frowned upon the amateur science of Biosphere 2 and still might but Wolf buys into John Allens mission, just as many of his followers did in the early days. Watching the film, its hard not to feel the same way.

What does that get us? Earlier this year, Clint Eastwood came out swinging against mainstream media with his divisive Richard Jewell, the story of the Atlanta bomber suspect who was dragged through the mud by local newspapers before being vindicated by the law. Spaceship Earth takes a similar jab at TV news sensationalist tendencies, but instead of demonizing the journalists behind the circus acts, his story always returns to the creators and their dream of utopia. Their story, flaws and all, is a wonder to behold.

The most meme-able moment: Discussions over the failure of Biosphere 2 became fraught enough that, at one point, John Allen reportedly told his cohort: In Dantes Inferno, betrayal is the sin that puts people at the deepest level of Hell. Great potential for a Linkedin meme.

When can we see it? Spaceship Earth is an independent production that premiered at Sundance, and its currently seeking distribution. While we wait for it to hit theaters or a streaming service, check out Wolfs previous film Teenage, released by Oscilloscope Laboratories and currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Sundance: Spaceship Earth is a reverse true-crime doc about Biosphere 2 - Polygon