Production Companies making a stand? Helping to educate through free viewing
Warner Brothers has made the film “Just Mercy” available to rent for free on all major digital platforms for the whole month of June 2020. Shortly after, Paramount made “Selma” free to rent as well. The announcement comes during the wake of mass global protests in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) following the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and in honor of the many other Black men and women targeted by racists and killed at the hands of unjust police.
A movement has been created and from that theres been a light shed that there are many people that hold an open and eager desire to educate and expand their awareness on matters of race, especially those coming from a place of privilege. Books, documentaries and movies can be positive starting point to learn more about the history of discrimination and systemic racism that continues to take place against African Americans and many people of color on a continuous basis.
Click to see “Just Mercy” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
“Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship–and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Click to see book “Just Mercy” also available on Amazon.
Warner Brothers released the following statement on its website
“We believe in the power of story. Our film Just Mercy, based on the life work of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, is one resource we can humbly offer to those who are interested in learning more about the systemic racism that plagues our society. For the month of June, Just Mercy will be available to rent for free across digital platforms in the US. To actively be part of the change our country is so desperately seeking, we encourage you to learn more about our past and the countless injustices that have led us to where we are today. Thank you to the artists, storytellers and advocates who helped make this film happen. Watch with your family, friends and allies. For further information on Bryan Stevenson and his work at the Equal Justice Initiative please visit EJI.org.
“Somebody has to stand when others are sitting. Somebody has to speak when others are quiet.” – Bryan Stevenson
We stand with our Black colleagues, talent, storytellers and fans – and all affected by senseless violence. Your voices matter, your messages matter. #BlackLivesMatter
Click to see “In Peace and Freedom” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
SELMA is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay’s SELMA tells the real story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history.
Paramount released a statement ” “We hope this small gesture will encourage people throughout the country to examine our nation’s history and reflect on the ways that racial injustice has infected our society. The key message of Selma is the importance of equality, dignity and justice for all people. Clearly, that message is as vital today as it was in 1965.”
“Just Mercy” and “Selma” are available to watch for free on the following streaming platforms: Apple TV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Amazon Video, Redbox, PlayStation Store, YouTube and Vudu).
The new film mimics real life (sans 5 years or so) bringing the characters and actors together again after 30 years to reprise their excellent roles and adventures. Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves are back as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan to revisit the plot twists and add a few more 30 years older and still très excellent.
As is to be expected and adored, challenges abound and hilarity ensues, with the trailer already tinged with a sweet comic potency due to the aged dynamic duo faithfully playing their younger selves with no held back pride or shame at exposing themselves in decrepitude of the physical form due simply to the years gone by.
With no hard fast release date due to the uncertainty of the level safety that a theatrical celebration of such excellence would enjoy, summer is at least promised and that would be a righteous chance to party on to the new historical phase of in-theater celebration of celluloid for the next generation.
We hope in all certitude that the original date for release, which was August 23rd, can be help or at least will be in the vicinity of the actual theatrical one. Orion Pictures Release with distribution by Warner Brothers.
Only an illiterate thug with no concept of history would talk about people who are against Fascism in America as “terrorists”. Unfortunately, the media has joined in the hate parade and keeps stating the “fact” that “antifa” is a “far-far left” radical violent organization, and then mentioning various caveats to show they are not agreeing with the wannabe Fascist in the White House.
Many large news outlets have tried to give a “definitive” overview of the real situation regarding the violent elements of the recent unrest vs. the perception that is being pushed by the current administration. The picture news media paints is almost as warped as the government version.
Poster Art by Paramount Pictures
“Antifa” is short for anti-fascist” and, yes, there is a european history behind the resistance to the rise of fascist regimes leading up to World War II. Bizarrely, no mention is made in these “definitive” accounts of the fact that the Axis powers in Europe, Germany and Italy were in control of fascist dictators and that we, the Alliance, were the enemy of fascism and the heroic liberators of the people enslaved and killed by these dictators.
Although many have indirectly pointed to the similarities between the rise of Trump, or at least his attempted power grabs, and the early period of European history when both Hitler and Mussolini were on the rise.
They too outlawed “terrorists”, which was anyone who they believed were against them. They each had bands of thugs who were used to intimidate with illegal violence anyone that they perceived as a threat. Now we have a “private army” amassed by Bill Barr and an armed “militia” being egged on to use automatic rifles to intimidate elected officials in the Michigan state capitol and in other places.
And “antifa” are dangerous terrorists? Is that some kind of a joke?
High profile american patriots have an obligation to speak out – now
Not long ago Rachel Maddow made a speech on her show saying “The dark days are not coming, the dark days are here”. That was over six months ago and, as everyone knows, much darker days have come since.
What are we waiting for? Where are the people who can see the most obvious facts in front of their faces and then decide to stand up and declare: I am an american patriot and therefore, as has been the case throughout our storied history I stand against Fascism in any form at any time, anywhere in the world, especially here in the USA!
Where are the people who see what is happening before our eyes, journalists, celebrities, powerful public figures and politicians who are ready to say: Stop fascism and the attempt to create a fascist dictatorship now!
Do we want to wait for the country to be under marshall law and then watch while concentration camps are built to hold anyone who dares to call themselves against fascism, and therefore against the wannabe fascist in the White House?
Based on viewing social media video evidence such as the one above, along with official assessments, the two largest contingents of looters and criminals during the recent unrest across America were right wing confederates of Trump trying to start a race war and professionals, sometimes driving up in Rolls Royces and brand new Mercedes sedans, who are clearly not anti-fascists (unless they are very rich ones).
That is a point that should not even need to be debated. The point that matters is that being against fascism is the most pro-american and mainstream heroic stance anyone, from any part of society, can take and has been throughout our history.
Nonsense and lies that are dignified with any kind of measured response, rather than outright rejection, encourages dangerous propaganda that we can not afford to repeat, even to denounce
Where are the “good” fascist dictators? Where is the society that was improved by a fascist power structure? What kind of senseless idiocy is it to debate with someone, someone that has obvious designs on becoming some kind of fantasy dictator who has fascist tendencies, as to who the “real terrorist” is?
Perhaps this common sense “clear as the nose on your face” approach will not be taken seriously by the large corporate media outlets. After all, there is a consensus that “antifa is bad, just not as bad as Trump says”: that is the subtext of many articles being written about the insane pronouncement that Trump has “designated” antifa as a terrorist group.
There is no “debate” required in this discussion. Fascists are the enemy of all Americans and therefore being against fascism is being “for” America and the way of Peace and Justice.
Being against people who are against fascism is to be “for” fascism. If you are a politician talking about “rigged” elections and trying almost daily to incite riots in order to escalate state sponsored violence against peaceful protesters, your opinion of who is, or isn’t, a terrorist has been disqualified. Oh, and if you say racists are “very fine people” then you are standing in solidarity with Racism.
It is for the rest of us to decide who the “good guys” are and to stand together as one with them. Speaking out clearly as being against fascism and the wannabe fascist in our midst is the minimum requirement to patriotic citizenship in these chaotic and dangerous times.
Awareness and education on race and racism could be a good starting point towards change
The Coronavirus/COVID-19 is still a concern across the globe, however with the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd; prejudice, police brutality, racism, and injustice has been at the forefront of many people news feed.
It has long been time, but it is never too late to begin to educate ourselves about the injustice and racism that African Americans and many people of color constantly face (especially if coming from a place of privilege).
The unjust murders of African American have created a national outrage as Black Lives Matter protests march all across the globe and demand justice and change to be had. And those that have experienced and witnessed injustice and racism as well as the family members that have lost loved ones – deserve a better version of the world.
We have curated a list of books that will help to educate yourself on how to be anti-racist, as well as provide history of racism and inequality. Along with the book titles we have provided a small summary from the publisher and additional information on where to purchase if interested. For a list of many more titles relating to the subject of anti-racism, justice, race and inequality, see link.
Click to see “How to be Antiracist” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism–and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At it’s core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas–from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites–that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their posionous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. Click to see “How to Be an Antiracist” also available on Amazon.
Click to see “I’m Still Here” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Austin Channing Brown’s first encounter with a racialized America came at age 7, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, Austin writes, “I had to learn what it means to love blackness,” a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America’s racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert who helps organizations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value “diversity” in their mission statements, I’m Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric–from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. Click to See “I’m Still Here” also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy–from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans–has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch her hair–and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend?
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life. Click to see “So You Want to Talk about Race” also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Click to see “White Fragility” and help Lynxotic and Independent Book Stores. Also available on Amazon and Walmart.
In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively. Click to see “White Fragility” also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is “undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.” Click to See “The New Jim Crow” also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Some Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America–it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Heuses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation’s racial inequities. Click to See “Stamped from the Beginning” also available on Amazon and Walmart.
The Strawberry Moon is set to take place Friday night which will bring a penumbral lunar eclipse which is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are imperfectly aligned. The moon will appear slightly darker than usual around some parts of the world as the moon will be passing through parts of the Earth’s outer shadow.
“The news on television has been heavy and sad, and I wrote slower as a result. We are now starting three eclipses, each two weeks apart, June 5, June 21, and July 4-5. Eclipses demand change on a personal and societal level. With an eclipse coming on July 4, I feel my country, the US, will still have something more to go through. Eclipses enlighten us with a floodlight of truth, so that we can see all that we had been too blind to see. The coming two months will have lots more news, so we are only at the beginning.”
susan miller / astrology zone
This will also be the last full moon of the spring season. The moon will appear full for approximately three days from early morning Thursday June 4th to early morning Sunday June 7th.
According to NASA, the Algonquin tribes called the June full moon the “Strawberry Moon” based on the short season for harvesting strawberries in the north-eastern region of the United States. Other old European names for the moon have been referred to as the Mead or Honey Moon when honey was the most ripe and sweet for harvest.
The eclipse will begin 1:45 p.m. ET and last around three hours and 18 minutes until 5:04 p.m. ET and can be most visible in Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia and Australia. Those in New York can see the full moon set around 5:17 a.m. local time and will rise that day at 8:29 p.m. The Strawberry Moon eclipse is just one of the three eclipses to take place in June and July, with the annular solar eclipse (Ring of Fire) on June 21, 2020 and another penumbral lunar eclipse (Thunder Moon) on July 4, 2020.
The Strawberry Moon is only a partial penumbral lunar eclipse as only a portion of the full Moon will drift into Earth’s shadow, the next total lunar eclipse won’t happen again until March 16, 2128.
Thoughtfully selected titles chosen for entertaining page-turners
Reese Witherspoon launched her company named “Hello Sunshine” in November 2016. The actress wanted to share her passion in discovering stories that center around women and her media company provided the virtual space to showcase women storytelling that can be seen through film, TV, and other digital platforms.
Shortly after her company was formed, in 2017, Witherspoon started up a book club, simply called “Reese’s Book Club”. Since June 2017, each month, Reese picks one book to share with her club that centers around an inspiring story about women – with all book selections written by female authors. Her picks have been praised by Publisher’s Weekly and also often hold top spots on the New York Times Bestsellers list.
Reese Witherspoon is one of only a select few celebrities that have established book clubs, other celebs include: Jenna Bush Hager, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kaia Gerber and last but not least the famous Oprah.
“We are about shining a light on female authorship and agency”
reese witherspoon on hello-sunshine website
As of May 2020, Reese has recommended a total of 36 monthly titles with her June pick coming up very soon. Witherspoon’s September 2017 pick “Little Fires Everywhere” was even adapted for video and costarred in by the actress which is now available for streaming on Hulu and also available on Amazon Prime Video.
Check out the following links to see the list of all Reese’s book club picks. Below we have also provided information on all the latest 2020 selections from Reese’s book club complete with a short summary from the publisher and additional information where you can get more information and purchase if interested:
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist–and confidante–to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own.
Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood.
As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow–a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does. Click to see “The Henna Artist“, also available on Amazon and Walmart.
There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent–even from ourselves.
Click to see “Untamed” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.
For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is.
At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice–the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living. Click to see “Untamed“, also Available on Amazon.
Click to see “The Jetsetters” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.
When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the Become a Jetsetter contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can’t seem to find a partner; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday.
Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young, when she was a single mother who meant everything to them. When she wins the contest, the family packs their baggage–both literal and figurative–and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso.
As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened, forcing the Perkins family to confront the forces that drove them apart and the defining choices of their lives. Click to see “The Jetsetters“, also Available on Amazon.
Emmeline lives on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in glass bottles that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them.
As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world–a place of love, betrayal, ambition, and revenge.
To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the limits of her heart and imagination. Captivating and emotional, The Scent Keeper explores the provocative beauty of scent, the way it can reveal hidden truths, lead us to the person we seek, and even help us find our way back home. Click to see “The Scent Keeper“, also available on Amazon and Walmart.
Click to see “Such a Fun Age” and help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same.
So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. Click to see “Such a Fun Age, also Available on Amazon and Walmart
After a Wild Memorial Day of Beach Parties, BBQ and Pools Gone Wild is the 2nd Wave Coming?
Anyone who’s seen the stories or noticed what’s been trending on twitter knows by now that the extended holiday weekend was a scene for the ages. It appears that our patience with lockdowns and quarantines is not just running out, it has literally exploded into its opposite.
The video above, of a pool party sans distancing, in the area made famous by the Netflix series “Ozark” is just one of many examples of a wild weekend that seems to have surpassed even pre-pandemic levels of reveling and rioting.
In Los Angeles, perhaps due to the aversion to flying to out-of-town destinations during a pandemic, the beaches were mobbed like it was 4th of July 2018. Photos of Venice beach circulated twitter on Saturday and the whole weekend appeared to have elevated traffic levels above what is traditionally seen on otherwise sleepy holiday weekends.
This out-come was generally feared by the medical experts, and it appears that other than professionals and medical front-line personnel no-one was considering the 1918 pandemic experience where a too early loosening of quarantine controls resulted in a powerful second wave of the flu epidemic a month or so later.
From Sea to Shining Sea hardly a mask to be seen…
Not only on the West Coast, but all the way on the other side of the country in North Carolina, crowds gathered to celebrate. The video below shows a NASCAR crowd whooping it up to the whining engines, shoulder to shoulder with no mask in sight. There appears to be an “instinct” and a feeling among the US population that there’s no longer any need to pay any attention to the coronavirus or contagious diseases of any kind. Let’s hope that feeling is “magical” cause, if not, June is going to be a blowback party of the wrong sort.
The scary part, if you are among those that actually believe the scientific studies, is that the highest level of contagion is during the asymptomatic phase of a person that has contracted the virus. This would imply that any one of these healthy looking folks could be an asymptomatic carrier and could transmit to dozens, hundreds or even thousands as they come in contact. Can’t help but think of the choir in Washington State that shared the infection at a practice session at a rate of almost 90%. 2 died within 14 days.
So let’s hope that this is the day we all get a “pass” from above and that it is not the beginning of any new wave of cases or, worse. Let’s just enjoy the sunshine, our youth and some burgers and brews. And hope for the best.
Competitive bidding underway for films previously set for worldwide release to theaters
Tom Hanks stars in the new Sony Pictures World War II drama, “Greyhound,” which was due for a theatrical release on June 12th. Like many other films meant to come out this summer, though, “Greyhound” has been derailed by the coronavirus and the worldwide shutdown of movie theaters. Thus, the film has been expedited to the streaming market and will now be available exclusively on Apple TV+.
Launched just last November, Apple TV+ has been an underdog in the streaming war so far. The affordable $4.99/month service met some early awards for its highly praised “The Morning Show” and has created a few shows starring major talent such as “Defending Jacob” with Chris Evans and “See” with Jason Mamoa. The platform has also done a few spinoff shows such as the children’s “Fraggle Rock: Rock On” and a revival of Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories.”
By-and-large, Apple TV+ has been committed to original content, opting to produce in-house series and movies rather than acquire outside titles. However, Apple TV+ does not have the vast libraries of Disney+, HBO Max, or NBCUniversal’s Peacock. It is a tech company that just entered the film and TV entertainment world and it must to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime, both of which have created more original series in recent years, but still rely heavily on mergers and acquisitions for variety.
Apple TV+ appears to have a long road ahead in order to gain significant foothold
While Apple’s closed-system quality-over-quantity approach to streaming is admirable, it’s not giving them any leg-up on their rivals. Hence, they are presently bending their own rules a bit, talking with bigger studios about licensing out additional content. The service allegedly paid Sony $70 million for “Greyhound” and according to Deadline, the site will treat the film as its biggest movie release yet.
The deal also works out for Sony. Unlike Disney, WarnerMedia, or NBCUniversal, Sony does not have its own streaming service, so allocating its property to Apple gives them a presence in the streaming world without selling out to one of their theatrical competitors. Of course, Sony would probably prefer to release “Greyhound” on the big screen, but the global pandemic has all but slaughtered that possibility.
During the coronavirus, all streaming sites have seen increases in activity. Apple TV+, like any of the other platforms, is profiting off of, but also vying for the attention of people stuck at home. Throwing a Sony-produced Tom Hanks war epic in the captive audience’s faces will certainly help the site’s cause.
Aaron Shneider directs “Greyhound,” and its narrative comes from a screenplay by C.S. Forester and Hanks himself. It follows the true story of an American navy ship crossing the Atlantic in the early days of World War II while being pursued by troves of enemy German U-Boats. Apple has not yet scheduled a release date for the film, but it will likely come out sometime this summer.
With movie theaters shut down around the globe and many films either getting delayed releases or siphoned off to streaming services, Warner Brothers has been anomalously adamant about keeping its highly anticipated Christopher Nolan directed “Tenet” on schedule for a July 17th theatrical release. It recently reaffirmed this plan by releasing a new trailer.
“Tenet” is a sci-fi action spy film, but like most Chris Nolan projects, details about the (presumably intricate) plot have been kept under tight wraps. We don’t even know the names of the characters and from the trailers, all we can decipher is that it will have to do with time travel/inversion to prevent World War III and “something worse” than nuclear holocaust. Overall, it looks very twisty and complex… classic Nolan.
Perhaps the reason Warner Brothers has been so steadfast about a theatrical release for “Tenet” is that Chris Nolan is a highly cinematic filmmaker. The director of “Inception,” “Interstellar,” and “The Dark Knight,” Nolan frequently shoots in IMAX and his final products are visual feasts best served on the big screen. He blends practical and visual effects in a manner that few other directors can pull off nowadays and is considered one of the few remaining auteurs in the business, able to rake in blockbuster revenue and hype without relying on franchise or studio labels.
Visual feast could be vicarious travel replacement for fans
For “Tenet,” Nolan shot the film on location across seven countries, working with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and an all-star cast including John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Kane, and other recognizable faces (including Indian stars Dimple Kapadia and Denzil Smith). Behind the camera, Nolan also teamed up with editor Jennifer Lame, VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson, SFX supervisor Ludwig Göransson, and executive producer Thomas Hayslip. Nolan being a Brit himself, “Tenet” is an acutely international production.
Right now, a few theaters are opening back up, so maybe come July, “Tenet” will be able to deliver on its high box office expectations. However, most intended summer blockbusters have been pushed back to November at the earliest. If the pool of open theaters is not large enough by the intended release date, perhaps “Tenet” will follow suit.
Until then, we will have to wait with bated breath, theorizing what the movie could be about, what weight its palindrome of a title carries, and when we will actually get to see it. One thing’s for sure, though, the film will definitely throw us for unexpected loops and keep us on the edge of our seats. After all, this is the director who most recently gave us the Oscar-nominated WWII epic “Dunkirk,” started his career with the chronologically warped “Momento” and came into the spotlight by transforming the superhero genre with his thrilling reimagining of Batman over a decade ago.
We can’t wait to find out what this modern master of suspense has up his sleeve this time around.
Mind altering psychedelics and LSD have been around since the 1950’s / early 1960’s. More recently they have made a resurgence and the cultural references can be seen in the various media platforms including movies, television programs, documentaries, podcasts and beyond. We have curated a list of some of the more popular book titles relating to psychedelics that range from scientific to a more anecdotal explosion of whacked out exploration and experimentation with the beloved and ever-mind-expanding drug.
Ken Kesey and his band of the Merry Pranksters became famous for their use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs in hopes of achieving intersubjectivity. The book chronicles the Acid Tests (parties in which LSD-laced Kool-Aid was used to obtain a communal trip), the group’s encounters with (in)famous figures of the time, including famous authors, Hells Angels, and The Grateful Dead, and it also describes Kesey’s exile to Mexico and his arrests.
Author Tom WolfeThe book is remembered today as an early – and arguably the most popular – example of the growing literary style called New Journalism, “An American classic” (Newsweek) that defined a generation. “An astonishing book” (The New York Times Book Review) and an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, LSD, and the 1960s.
The true story of how a renowned writer’s struggle with mood storms led her to try a remedy as drastic as it is forbidden: microdoses of LSD. Her fascinating journey provides a window into one family and the complex world of a once-infamous drug seen through new eyes.
When a small vial arrives in her mailbox from “Lewis Carroll,” Ayelet Waldman is ready to try anything. Her depression has become intolerable, severe and unmanageable; medication has failed to make a difference. Married with four children and a robust career, she “should” be happy, but instead her family and her work are suffering at the mercy of her mood disorder.
Click to see“A Really Good Day”and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores.
Among the most profound and influential explorations of mind-expanding psychadelic drugs ever written, here are two complete classic books–The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell–in which Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, reveals the mind’s remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness. This new edition also features an additional essay, “Drugs That Shape Men’s Minds,” which is now included for the first time.
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and humanist philosopher. He attended Eton and Oxford and briefly taught at Eton before devoting himself solely to writing. His fifth novel, Brave New World, is one of the most read books in literary history.
Click to see“The Doors of Perception”and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores.
With the F.D.A. agreeing to new trials to test MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) as a treatment for PTSD–which, if approved, could be available as a drug by 2021–Acid Test is leading the charge in an evolving conversation about psychedelic drugs. Despite their current illegality, many Americans are already familiar with their effects.
Yet while LSD and MDMA have proven extraordinarily effective in treating anxiety disorders such as PTSD, they still remain off-limits to the millions who might benefit from them. Through the stories of three very different men, award-winning journalist Tom Shroder covers the drugs’ roller-coaster history from their initial reception in the 1950s to the negative stereotypes that persist today. At a moment when popular opinion is rethinking the potential benefits of some illegal drugs, and with new research coming out every day, Acid Test is a fascinating and informative must-read.
Click to see “Acid Test”and at the same timehelp Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores.
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third.
Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research.
Click to see “How to Change Your Mind”and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores.
The book discusses the various phases of ego death that can occur on psychedelics and gives specific instructions on how one should regard them and act during each of these different phases. In addition to containing more general advice for the readers on how to use psychedelics, the book also includes selections of writing presented with the intent for them to be read aloud during events where groups of people take psychedelic drugs together.
Click to see “The Psychedelic Experience”and at the same timehelp Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores.
This is a tiny snippet from an upcoming exposé of the inner workings of the nightmare produced by Facebook, Google and Amazon
Isn’t it funny that the so called bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 which resulted in a nearly 75% drop in the tech heavy NASDAQ index by March, 2000. Ultimately, among survivors and upstarts, the winner-takes-all saga led to no less than three trillion dollar companies.
If the internet is, or at lest was, a dead end for any company trying to profit, how could these few have profited so obscenely in such a short time?
Most of the answers to that question attempted for the last two decades have been blatant hero worship and “to the victors go the spoils” nonsense with hardly any media attention paid (at least until around 2016) to the deeper, and darker, story that explains this regrettable paradox.
While the truth, particularly when it comes to tech and the internet, is often maddeningly complex, hiding behind a veil of complexity is a standard technique for anyone wants to keep their billion dollar golden geese a secret, shell companies, offshore banking, derivatives and “CDOs” and the like all benefit from being opaque and complex.
And while the absolute details would take mountains of pages to explain, mainly to explain away all the contradictions, the base issues are at the same time, in many ways, insanely simple.
Fraud, Ponzi schemes, illegal monopolistic behavior, all the usual suspects are not only present but rampant and rancid like a planet sized pile of moldy cheese.
And those are the larger threads, the ones that fit into a framework of past anti-trust cases and prior greed fueled crime sprees.
The devil as they say, is always in the details. Here are a few, some general and others much more specific, that point to how we could have gotten to this absurd destination.
Google and the “hiding engine” from hell
Click to see “Goliath” and help Lynxotic and all independent bookstores
While it is lovely that Google “allows” us to find out Lucille Ball’s birthday with a single click – or the capital of Afghanistan just as easily, what if you are looking for something a little less obvious? What if the information you need is worth something? What if you need fair, honest advice or even wisdom?
You’re out of luck. Since the entire basis for this business to to charge you (or somebody, regardless) for information that is, in reality, publicly available (the internet is public after all and the information on it does not belong to google), the primary function of Google’s vaunted trillion dollar algorithm is to hide any information of value from you until they have extracted a price.
Since they are known as a “search engine” this is counterintuitive but it will make more sense as we delve into the other two “winners” of the dot-com era. Each of these three companies share this one thing in common. They are all build to exclude, hide and criminally manipulate essentially public information for the benefit of a private enterprise. k?
Facebook and the lure of “exclusive membership”
As has been well documented, to the extent of having been memorialized in a feature length hollywood film, the fast start in membership that Facebook achieved was based on two “triggers” related to exclusivity and “hiding” of information. The first was, during the initial launch at harvard and for a period of time at various other colleges and universities, a requirement for membership was “proof” that you were a student in the form of an “edu” suffixed email. This added popularity to the site as those joining felt they had not only potential access to others where they went to school, but also would not be associating with non-students, or in the extreme initial example, not socializing with non-harvard people.
Click to see “World Without Mind” and help Lynxotic and all independent bookstores
While this seems innocuous enough and a great marketing ploy, indeed it was heralded as genius by hundreds of sycophantic scribes, the next bit is where the system that exists to this day became an engine for corporate greed at the expense of virtually the entire world population.
Once you join Facebook, you are “allowed” to have contact only with “friends” that authorize you to do so. But the recommendations for “friending” those people, other than from your own laborious manual searching, are controlled by Facebooks algorithms.
This is a familiar tune. The real purpose of this structure was not to give you exclusivity or for you to benefit from the “wisdom” of the algorithm, but to block private and, in particular, business entities from coming in contact with you without first paying Facebook. In other words, using its log-in membership system and proprietary software labyrinth as a private, separate internet sphere, it was able to build the largest network of phantom tool booths the world has ever seen and now collects hundreds of billions simply because “the public” has opted-in and has no idea what an open alternative would look like or the damage that has been done by this harmless seeming “social platform”.
The real potential of networked human communications, a.k.a. the internet, is almost totally lost to history, with the surviving structure entirely based on the systems that these three giants have constructed with a view to nothing more than private, personal enrichment.
While this opinion may seem harsh, looking at the inner workings of the software and who financially benefits vs. who loses (a.k.a. everybody else) will, in time expose one of the greatest swindles ever perpetrated on the public, in this case the entire world population, or at least the population of internet users across the globe.
Amazon and the alleged layers of deceit and corruption beyond all imaginings
It is fairly common these days to hear criticism of Amazon and “worlds richest man” Bezos, which is understandable since the operation is so massive and, like any huge concern, likely to step on a few toes here and there, regardless.
Naturally there is also plenty of hero worship, particularly the insane love of “Bezonomics” and a cult of personality toward the founder and CEO for, well, stepping on the most faces of any human, other than perhaps Genghis Kahn.
Again, the real devil is in the details. It is easy to defend any criticism of the company by pointing out the “good” that it has done or continues to do and to create a “straw man” argument that the company should somehow get “credit” for those things and that they somehow offset any valid critique.
That is like saying someone who succeeded in getting elected president by bribing millions of voters should therefore be allowed to wage war or imprison anyone he likes since he has earned “credit” by doing right by those who were bribed.
There a little story, told to us by an anonymous source, who’s stories have all checked out before, that illustrates the system at work when you step onto the private property of Amazon’s web site.
Click to see “Life After Google“ and help Lynxotic and all independent bookstores
Again search is at the center of the story, as is the requirement to log in and agree to terms and conditions. This is tantamount to agreeing that you are leaving the public sphere and are agreeing to abide by the rules and be subject to the whims of the private entity on whose “sole property” you are now “standing” / shopping.
In that private world Amazon, and by extension Bezos, not only play god, they are god.
To illustrate this fact let’s say you have a 7 year-old child that loves a certain children’s character and you want to buy a book that has “pop-up” cut-outs to entertain and delight. And this exact item can be found via “search”.
Naturally, you type in the name of the book or character and perhaps add “pop-up”. What shows up in the “search” results is exactly what you are looking for. It’s the precise item and it looks exactly as you had hoped. Then you look at the price. $50. Hmmm that’s a little high you think. With a little further research you find out that the “MSRP” for this item, a.k.a. the list price is $30 which seems a bit odd.
You keep trying to search and click any link on the site that will lead you to the same item at a more reasonable price – but that is only available “used” and you will not purchase a used item for your child!
In the end you rationalize, it must be a very rare item to have such a high price, and since the Amazon search results “must be scientific” there are apparently no lower priced copies available. So you buy it.
This scenario was repeated hundreds if not thousands of times for this one product over a period of several months. And likely was repeated millions of times over a period of years across thousand, if not millions of items. So what?
The search is rigged, that’s what. How do I know? The person that related this story was the seller, in 2014, of over 1000 copies of the item at $50. He did not create this fraud, merely piggybacked on what Amazon itself had set up. Only they have control of the search results.
What’s the big deal you say, after all there were no cheaper units available so it is just “surge pricing”; supply and demand, right?
Wrong. There was, after all, another listing of the same item, expertly hidden by Amazon, where only a hacker or software expert could find it. On that listing, for those that Amazon chose not to swindle, was the exact same item for the standard, heavily discounted, price of $16 or nearly 50% off the list or MSRP. You see, the result is, regardless of who is selling the item, Amazon earns triple (triple the fees) when the price is higher, as in this example.
This is not an isolated “mistake”. Many who have experience working inside the Amazon system have seen literally thousands of similar examples all tied to this “malfunctioning” search engine.
What’s more a calculation of the possible financial benefits during the time in question amounted to nearly the entire reported net profit of the entire company. It was common knowledge that the company was reporting little or no net profit during many years, even as it remained a darling of stockholders.
And if any one would bring such a specific case to Amazon’s attention? Naturally they would blame the seller, software issues, the moon and the stars, anything but admit that they use every inch of their private real estate for one purpose and one purpose only, to maximize the amount of money that ends us in their accounts.
And many who are reading this still don’t get it. “Why not?” It’s capitalism after all! To the victor go the spoils! Hail Ceasar! Heil Hitler. It’s your internet. Not theirs.
A long, slow, converging consensus is coming to expose Facebook, Amazon and Google
On Friday, May 15th, Facebook announced that it will be buying Giphy— the world’s most popular GIF site on the internet, social media, and messaging services. Giphy is already an integrated part of iMessage, Tinder, Slack, and Twitter, and Facebook now owns it for a reported $400 million.
Acquiring a GIF-generating site seems inconspicuous enough for Facebook, the social media conglomerate that already owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, and many other subsidiaries. Nevertheless, the purchase raised some red flags in Washington, especially for Democrats like Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Senator Amy Kolchubar (MN) as well as Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and David Cicilline (RI), all of whom have been critical of major corporate mergers throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Because of COVID-19, many small businesses are facing immense hardships. They are in a vulnerable state, desperate for money and far more likely to sell out. By contrast, major corporations not only have the funds to stay afloat, but also the continued stability to take advantage of the smaller, more jeopardized companies. Senator Warren and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez have thus proposed the “Pandemic Anti-Monopoly Act” to halt all big-business mergers until the situation gets better for their small business counterparts.
Hence, Facebook’s purchase of Giphy comes at a dubious time. Giphy is no small time company, but Facebook’s ownership of it could still lead to increased exploitation down the road. Because the site is integrated into so many different apps and services already, it will provide Facebook with covert entrance’s into all of those platforms’ data.
As brought to the foreground in 2016’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook keeps an overabundance of data on each of its users. The site tracks and analogs everything we do, and that information does not remain confidential. Facebook sells it to other services, businesses, or even political assets, usually (but not always) for the sake of marketing.
With WhatsApp and Instagram already in house Giphy appears to be a bridge too far
With Giphy under the site’s control, Facebook’s data-mining efforts will overreach even farther. It will be able to access information from our Tweets, iMessages, Tinder matches, and even business correspondences via Slack. Evidently, the purchase entails a whole lot more than just the newfound ability to insert GIFs directly into our statuses.
click to see “Life After Google” and help Lynxotic and all independent bookstores.
The politicians against business mergers during the pandemic are by-and-large the same people who have been fighting Facebook for the past few years, demanding heightened security and increased regulations for big-tech across the board. Right now, the Department of Justice is planning antitrust charges for Google and many attorney generals are investigating Amazon for their monopolistic control over the market. If these cases prove successful, we might finally see some legislation passed to keep the long-unrestricted tech moguls in check.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not yet commented directly on the Giphy acquisition, nor has he provided a public response to the “Pandemic Anti-Monopoly Act” proposition. In typical Facebook fashion, all the website has really done to help in these trying times is create a new “hug” reaction icon. It’s a nice addition, but hardly makes up for the company’s clear manipulation of the present circumstances.
If there is one shred of good news amidst the purchase so far, it is that Giphy will thankfully not be removing their library of embarrassing Mark Zuckerberg GIFs. Moreover, we can also take solace in the fact that there are many more GIF-worthy Zuck moments to come.
Banks make final approval, official form, with schedule for documentation, lays out detailed requirements
The US treasury department, along with the SBA made the highly anticipated document and details available on Friday. The application, which can be downloaded from this link and printed, or filled out online, contains the requirements needed in order for the so called Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, recipients to apply for forgiveness under the program.
This release also clarifies the process whereby the borrower must fill out the form and provide any additional accompanying documentation. Once completed the borrower must submit the form and accompanying documents to the lending institution where they received the PPP funds. The lending bank will make the final decision to approve any forgiveness.
The 11 pages included in the file consist of the forgiveness application itself and instructions on how to fill it out. The application itself has two important schedules: Schedule A and the worksheet for Schedule A.
Key is the 60-day period which has been designated as the period within which the funds must be used, in order for the expenses to be forgivable. In some cases there can be, apparently, some flexibility regarding the date an expense was incurred, such as hours worked by employees, vs. the date those incurred expenses were paid, such as the scheduled payroll payment date or pay period closing date. The applicable dates, can in some cases, be the date the expenses were incurred, not paid, in case of discrepancies.
While some may find this application and the accompanying instructions more than sufficient, such as ongoing businesses that maintained employment and lease / mortgage payments, and already have a ratio to costs between them at 75% / 25% as prescribed in the original guidelines. Others, however, may have a more difficult time deciphering what exactly they can or can’t expect forgiveness for.
Though the release is a major step toward clarification, confusion still abounds in the details of the program and forgiveness eligibility
Articles are appearing online picking apart the confusion that may be caused by this initial attempt to clarify the process and set it into motion. The SBA has indicated that more guidance will be forthcoming.
One gripe being mentioned is the lack of narrative-based guidance, basically a verbal explanation for the various cases that could potentially arise and how they should be handled.
Many businesses had to furlough or fire employees due to lack of funds and then re-hire or re-activate them to comply with the SBA program, in particular wanting to be sure to qualify for forgiveness. This was an acute need in some situations, such as restaurants or other businesses that were required to close and deemed non-essential. In many of those cases the employees were paid not to work or to do minimal work while receiving a full paycheck.
Companies in that situation, even with full forgiveness granted, face a daunting, uphill battle to regain profitability or viable revenue streams to keep them running after the 60 days of funds has run out. The lingering effects of the pandemic and the lock-down and stay-at-home orders along with the general state of fear (well founded in many cases, it appears) create a situation where former levels of business revenue and activity may take a long time to regain.
This is not taking into account the economic after-effects and general depressed state of consumption being seen in current national published data.
While the SBA has taken a large and positive step forward with the release of this application and achieved some clarification of the process, much more help for struggling businesses will be needed as we emerge, slowly, from the coronavirus / covid-19 crisis.
Summer 2020 will be one that many will have never ever experienced in their lifetime. You can even say, it will be “one for the books” (pun intended). With many stay at home orders set to extend into the summer months, picking up a new book and reading is one of the many things we can do to pass the time and can be both entertaining and ensure you are staying safe. Below is a list compiled of high reviewed and new releases that are currently available or soon to be available to enjoy.
If you want to see more details or purchase the titles have clickable links: Stay safe and happy reading.
Click to buy “All Adults Here” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares.
But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered?
Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time–she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media–so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer,
Daphne is rightfully speechless. Drue was always the one who had everything–except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song: Click to see “Big Summer”.
Click to buy “Untamed” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live.
It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is. Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body…On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed: Click to see “The Guest List”.
Click to buy “The Vanishing Half” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities.
Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, including “The Body” (Stand By Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (Shawshank Redemption). Like Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons, and most recently Full Dark, No Stars, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer: Click to see “If It Bleeds”.
Click to buy “The Dutch House” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together.
Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation–awkward but electrifying–something life changing begins. Also a Hulu original series available to stream now: Click to see “Normal People”.
Inspired by the immediate success of the podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges.
Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them, struggles with identity, lack of understanding of the symptoms, the challenges of work-life, self-medicating, the fallout of the disease in the lives of our loved ones, the tragedy of suicide, and the hereditary aspects of the disease.
Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way: Click to see “The Only Good Indians”.
Click to buy “Parakeet” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
A novel that does justice to the hectic confusion of becoming a woman today, Parakeet asks and begins to answer the essential questions. How do our memories make, cage, and free us? How do we honor our experiences and still become our strongest, truest selves?
Who are we responsible for, what do we owe them, and how do we allow them to change? Urgent, strange, warm-hearted, and sly, Parakeet is ribboned with joy, fear, and an inextricable thread of real love. It is a startling, unforgettable, life-embracing exploration of self and connection.
Davy and Joe were drinking pals back in their Dublin youth. Davy rarely sees Joe for a pint anymore–maybe one or two when Davy comes over from England to check on his elderly father. But tonight Davy’s father is dying in the hospice, and Joe has a secret that will lead the two on a bender back to the haunts of their youth: Click to see “Love”.
Click to buy “A Burning” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan’s fall.
Lovely-an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor–has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear. Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting.
Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.
Groundbreaking and unvarnished look at what really transpired
A new book set for release on May 15th, 2020 comes from one of China’s most acclaimed and decorated writers and is a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the peak of COVID-19 outbreak.
It is unclear if and when a physical book will be available for purchase, but for the moment, it is most It is unclear if and when a physical book will be available for purchase, but for the moment, it is becoming available in audiobook and e-book format
Synopsis from the publisher, HarperCollins :
On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. The writer used a pen name rather than her birth name as she wanted to be a “witness” rather than be cast as a critic for or against the Chinese government and how the pandemic was handled.
In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang’s nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus.
A fascinating eyewitness account of events as they unfold, “Wuhan Diary” captures the challenges of daily life and the changing moods and emotions of being quarantined without reliable information. Fang Fang finds solace in small domestic comforts and is inspired by the courage of friends, health professionals and volunteers, as well as the resilience and perseverance of Wuhan’s nine million residents. But, by claiming the writer´s duty to record she also speaks out against social injustice, abuse of power, and other problems which impeded the response to the epidemic and gets herself embroiled in online controversies because of it.
As Fang Fang documents the beginning of the global health crisis in real time, we are able to identify patterns and mistakes that many of the countries dealing with the novel coronavirus have later repeated. She reminds us that, in the face of the new virus, the plight of the citizens of Wuhan is also that of citizens everywhere. As Fang Fang writes: “The virus is the common enemy of humankind; that is a lesson for all humanity. The only way we can conquer this virus and free ourselves from its grip is for all members of humankind to work together.”
Blending the intimate and the epic, the profound and the quotidian, Wuhan Diary is a remarkable record of an extraordinary time.
Click to buy “Wuhan Diary” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Prizes for Art and Thought Still Matter in a World Afflicted by a Pandemic
In a world marred by pandemic, awards ceremonies linked to artistic or intellectual achievements may seem like a fantasies. Nevertheless, such roadblocks have not stopped the Pulitzer committee from announcing their prestigious prize recipients for 2020.
Pulitzer Prizes are awarded every year in twenty-one categories. They are given for outstanding American achievements in journalism, literature, and music composition. Every year showcases immeasurable talent, and this year is no different. The New York Times and The New Yorker racked up the majority of newspaper and magazine awards. However, The Baltimore Sun won for local reporting and Kentucky’s The Courier-Journal won for best breaking news reporting.
Meanwhile, the general nonfiction category saw a tie between Anne Boyer’s “The Undying” and Greg Grandin’s “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America.” Jericho Brown won the poetry prize for his collection of poems “The Tradition” and W. Caleb McDaniel won in history for “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America.” Simultaneously, Anthony Davis won in music for his opera “The Central Park Five.”
The biggest win of the year, however, went to Colson Whitehead in the fiction category for his bestselling novel “The Nickel Boys.” At just 224 pages, “The Nickel Boys” is short but strong. A piece of historical-fiction, in chronicles the story of two boys attending a reform boarding school in Florida at the height of the Jim Crowe era. The book is a brutally honest portrait of race relations in America, and it brings to the foreground some haunting aspects of our nation’s past that many modern citizens tragically overlook.
Colson Whitehead’s win was even more momentous because the author won the Pulitzer Prize for his last book as well, 2017’s Civil War novel “The Underground Railroad.” Whitehead’s second win puts him in a very elite category of two-time Pulitzer fiction prize winners. The only other authors to have earned the honor more than once were William Faulkner, Booth Tarkington, and John Updike. However, none of these iconic writers ever won the title for two consecutive books, making Whitehead a trendsetter.
Aside from Whitestand’s groundbreaking achievement in fiction, the 2020 Pulitzers also made some noise in the drama category, giving the award to playwright Michael R. Jackson for his musical “A Strange Loop.” The play follows the story of an overweight gay blackman who aspires to greatness despite feeling constantly out of place in the world. An all-black ensemble cast accompanies him, personifying his inner conflicts throughout.
The fact that a musical won in the drama category is noteworthy in and of itself, as the Pulitzer committee rarely considers the genre. Nevertheless, it is the vital, somewhat radical content of “A Strange Loop” that truly makes it a worthy victor.
Lastly (but certainly not least), this year’s biography award went to a new Susan Sontag biography by Benjamin Moser. “Sontag: Her Life And Work” is Moser’s third book, and only his second biography. The book spares no detail in sharing the late writer’s amazing life, dissecting her unparalleled multidisciplinary contributions and her profound intellectual prowess across the twentieth century.
These picks for the Pulitzer Prize, along with all the others, are groundbreaking literary and journalistic achievements. Happily, this year’s winners offered a plethora of diverse content, with stories that celebrate different perspectives and share unsung outlooks. This bodes well for future of American letters.
Click to buy “The Nickel Boys” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Some of the best books written on human behavior and finance
The economy is in a precarious situation right now, as you are no doubt well aware, stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic. Early March the stock market met with some unprecedented hits, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid to consecutive record percentage drops on the 9th, 12th, and 16th. Now, with many businesses remaining closed, or struggling to re-open, most consumers still forced to stay at home, with people living in near-panic, due to a well founded fear of infection, and many Americans are struggling to stay financially afloat.
At the very least throughout all of this, we have found more time to read books, and luckily, there are a few experts who have taken the time to write valuable and approachable texts on issues facing our convoluted global economic system. Here are five books that are worth turning to in these troubling times. While they might not be able to help us magically regain the stock market losses we’ve accumulated over the past few months, they can still give us some solace and understanding, with perspectives that could prevent something like this happening again. Perhaps even reveal ways to prosper in the coming phase II, Depression, Recession or Recovery.
Click to buy “Manias, Panics, and Crashes” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Seventh Edition
By Robert Z Aliber and Charles P Kindleberger
Originally published in 1978, “Manias, Panics, and Crashes” has evolved a lot over the years. This most recent seventh edition has aged well with experience, witnessing and learning from some of the most significant stock market events to take place over the past forty years. Economist Robert Z Aliber, originally working with the late Charles P Kindleberger, takes a wholistic view of financial crashes, seeing them as predictable events in an unstable system. Bookshop calls the edition “an investment classic has been thoroughly revised and expanded following the latest crises to hit international markets”
Click to buy “Connectedness and Contagion” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Connectedness and Contagion: Protecting the Financial System from Panics
By Hal S Scott
In a move that seems almost prophetic given today’s situation, this 2016 book likens the financial system to a contagious disease. Partially a criticism of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, “Connectedness and Contagion” asserts that the government needs more control over Wall Street to limit creditors and prevent them from creating unethical, potentially dangerous situations. Harvard Law Professor Hal S Scott throughly researched this highly intellectual read, which Bookshop sums up as “an argument that contagion is the most significant risk facing the financial system and that Dodd¬Frank has reduced the government’s ability to respond effectively.” Sounds like prescience to us!
Click to buy “The Infinite Game” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
The Infinite Game
By Simon Sinek
A more contemporary title, “The Infinite Game” was published in October 2019, and it likens global economics to an elaborate game with ever-changing players, fluid rules, and no predetermined endpoint or objective. Motivational speaker and writer Simon Sinek offers readers ideas on how to navigate such a game, for doing so certainly breaks from conventional goal-oriented mindsets. According to Sinek, the required cognitive state for “winning” involves remaining focused, but also adaptable, to attain longterm achievements. Bookshop calls it “a bold framework for leadership in today’s ever-changing world,” and a useful text for situations far beyond the stock market.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds
By Charles MacKay
Originally published in 1841 by Scottish poet Charles MacKay, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds” is a bona fide classic and a must on every economics zealot’s bookshelf. Although written at the height of Western modernity, MacKay’s book holds up to this day as a an early analysis of the intersections between economics and culture throughout history. Despite it sounding cliché, we can indeed learn lots about the present by looking to the past. Bookshop, selling a 2016 Createspace Independent Publishing Platform edition of the book, calls it “highly readable and accessible even today.”
Click to buy “Incerto (series)” and at the same time help Lynxotic and all Independent Local Bookstores
Incerto (series)
By Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“Incerto” is not one book, but four— “Fooled By Randomness,” “The Black Swan,” “The Bed Of Procrustes” and “Antifragile.” All penned by statistics essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb and respectively published in 2001, 2007, 2010 and 2012, the “Incerto” series is all about risk, error, and probability in our difficult-to-predict world. Taleb takes both contemporary and past events into account, mulling over abstract human illusion and myths as well as down-to-earth psychological, technological, and economic occurrences. As a whole, the series sheds light on many things that seem to be anomalies in our modern lives. Bookshop— which is selling the series in one, extended-edition collection— calls “Incerto” “a landmark” and a helpful map for “decision-making in a world we don’t understand.”
The photo above, taken from “Deadliest Enemy’s” cover, says it all. The image depicts a “real life” scenario showing how this potentially deadly virus can spread, for example in an airport. Of course, in real life the “droplets”, as they are now known, are not florescent yellow. Too bad. If they were at least we could clearly see how dangerous it is to be in a crowded area while this disease, which currently has no treatment or vaccine, is on the loose.
Mark Olshaker and Michael Osterholm’s bestselling book “Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs” is more relevant today than ever before. Just as in San Francisco, in 2018, we are about to enter a phase where the “all clear” will be announced, setting the stage for a potential second wave.
“Siren wails on November 21, 1918 signaled to San Franciscans that it was safe, and legal, to remove their masks. All signs indicated that the flu had abated. Schools re-opened, and theaters sought to make back the $400,000 they had lost during each of the six weeks they were closed… Barely two weeks after the celebratory removal of masks, new flu cases were reported. Five thousand new flu cases would surface in December 1918 alone.”
Years before COVID-19 was on the map author Mark Olshaker and disease epidemiologist Michael Osterholm collaborated to write a book exploring the (then hypothetical) concept of an infectious disease spreading across the modern world. The final product outlines how easily such a disease could spread in our globalized society, how governments and scientists might react to it, and what a bio-fallout would mean for cultures and individuals across the planet.
Click to buy “Deadliest Enemy” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
Obviously, such a situation is no longer theoretical. Olshaker and Osterholm’s concepts are in fact quite pertinent during the coronavirus pandemic. Their illustration of geo-political and medical scrambling to fight off a never-before-seen threat is eerily astute.
Fourteen chapters make up the book, each one investigating a different infectious disease from the past three decades. It goes into detail about how the world handled (or failed to handle) acute respiratory syndrome, AIDS/HIV, Zika, Ebola, and many other outbreaks. Even while studying the past, though, the authors keep a pulse on the future, constantly thinking about how we can learn from previous situations, and consider what those situations might look like on larger, perhaps planetary scales.
Olshaker and Osterholm conclude that major diseases can fall into four different threat levels—pathogens of pandemic potential, pathogens of critical regional importance, bioterrorism, and endemics. Of course, diseases can evolve along this spectrum, but the authors offer advice on how we can respond to them on each step of the way.
They liken curing or preventing diseases to solving puzzles. There are more pieces than one might expect, and the final product is somewhat of a mystery. The solution will not come solely out of a lab; it will take cooperation on many fronts including politicians, healthcare providers, medical and pharmaceutical professionals, and of course, everyday people who are vulnerable and instrumental in the spread or containment of an illness.
“Deadliest Enemy” is part history, part current events, and part memoir. The authors, offer up their own experiences in the field—most notably Osterholm’s disturbing eye-witness account of La Crosse encephalitis—while tapping into something larger than any single person. The book met high praise upon release, and the CDC recognizes it as a significant contribution to the world of written work on diseases.
You Want It? You Got It! Bringing the Audience what it Needs Now
Despite journalistic objectivity, many news outlets have tendencies to focus on the negative. Crimes, controversies, disasters, and crises simply make more pressing stories than most good news in the world. This is all the more prevalent now as climate change, stock market crashes, and a global pandemic dominate the headlines.
With all of the doom and gloom currently dripping from the wounds of the world, people have become famished for something more up-lifting. Luckily, outlets for such good news exist, and they have been witnessing a thermal (viral?) runaway in popularity during the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Sources emphasizing good news were around long before the coronavirus rendered the world thirsty for positivity. Websites like Good Good Good and The Global Positive News Network have been active for years, but have noticed increases in traffic over the past month.
The same goes for social media accounts such as Instagram’s @TanksGoodNews, @GoodNews_Movement, and @The_Happy_Broadcast. All of these pages have seen spikes in followers since March as they continue to seek out and report optimistic content throughout the pandemic.
Perhaps the most uproarious of good news outlets to come about in the past few weeks, however, is actor John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” YouTube broadcast. From the comfort of his home, Krasinski has produced and hosted four videos where he reports all of the good going on in the world. Riddled with humor, acts of charity, guest appearances via Zoom from Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, David Ortiz, Steve Carrel, Chance The Rapper, and Rain Wilson as well as remote performances from The Jonas Brothers and the entire “Hamilton” cast, “Some Good News” is both hilarious and heartfelt, and the videos have all received millions of views.
Once the “Human Interest” Kitten Beat, Now a Focus on Ways to Offset the Worst of Reality Reporting
Even more established newspapers, networks, and trades have tried to appease readers in search of cheerful stories. The Washington Post pumped up its weekly uplifting newsletter The Optimist into a biweekly occurrence, and started The Daily Break section to emphasize a feel-good story everyday. National Geographic also began Your Weekly Escape, a newsletter that is free of any coronavirus related content.
Clearly, these outlets have noticed the amplified demand for good news and are matching it with an increased supply. Of course, the bulk of the headlines remain somewhat gloomy nowadays, but rather than fixate on them, these good news alternatives offer positive twists. This is not to say that readers ignore world’s struggles, but rather that they want to see how people are reacting to the crises in healthy, wholesome, and genuinely helpful ways.
This embrace of good news, especially for the established publications, is an obvious spin to assuage readers. However, while spins in the media are usually traced back to politics, money, or hostility, this one is currently fueled by a desire to see kindness and generosity. Conventional “spins” are getting replaced by cartwheels or joy running up and down whatever good news stories are out there, laser-focusing on the glass half-full.
To make matters all the more soothing, many of these good news outlets are not-for-profit. While The Washington Post or National Geographic are still advertising alongside their uplifting stories, many of the Instagram accounts as well as John Krasinski’s broadcasts, are done entirely for free, making them in and of themselves, examples of good nature and good news.
Amazon’s has free kindle books available for World book day 2020
With now less than two days left to grab these 9 free e-books, the time is now, if you want to capitalize on these digital delights. They would be a great find for those that would like to get some alternative options for the moment when streaming and binge-watching just doesn’t cut it anymore:
Below we have also added some photo-links to our sister site on Bookshop.org, where you can purchase books and at the same time help Lynxotic to publish more great stories. You will also be helping all independent bookstores across the USA.
With the Coronavirus keeping us all at home many are learning to cook and even bake bread from scratch. This is a grouping of some of the best of the best if you want to learn and bake your own right now!
With small ones also at home and needing not only learning options but also entertainment that doesn’t involve a flat screen, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most popular children’s titles that can’t help solve both challenges.
Finally, for those that are on the verge of a claustrophobic episode, there’s always the possibility to use D.I.Y. therapy. This is well known as a great way to calm nerves and you just might get a spiffy sweater out of it too!
On Friday, April 17, San Diego Comic-Con organizers announced that the annual event for 2020 will be cancelled for the first time in its fifty year run.
The four-day pop-culture convention traditionally takes place every summer. It is a yearly celebration of all things comic books—from the books themselves to movies, television, novels, and other transmedia adaptations.
their payments for Comic-Con 2021. We thank our friends for your continued support, and we are exploring the possibility of an online presence that should give us all an opportunity to share in the community for which Comic-Con is famous.
While San Diego may not be the largest Comic-Con in America, it is the most prestigious and widely observed of its kind. Roughly 135,000 people attend each year including academics, professionals, and fans, many of whom cosplay as their favorite characters.
SDCC 2020 was meant to take place between July 23rd and July 26th of this year. The organization fought hard to keep the event happening throughout the coronavirus shutdowns. However, its leaders finally pulled the plug, realizing that the packed occasion would severely violate the current social distancing precautions.
The event for this year has not been postponed for any later date, but rather terminated altogether. Nevertheless, those who have already bought tickets will have the options of receiving full refunds or transferring their purchases to vouchers for SDCC 2021.
Economic Fallout hitting Across Multiple Industries
Given that COVID-19 has put the entertainment industry on hold for 2020’s foreseeable future, though, perhaps it is fitting that this year’s Comic Con has been cancelled. Comic Con’s paramount draw is the panels of creative professionals who reveal new content and information within their industry. This includes casting decisions, trailers, original ideas, and much, much more.
Because most studios have had their 2020 production and release schedules pulled out form under them in light of the pandemic, it’s unclear how much concrete new information this year’s Comic Con would have to offer. Either way, its cancellation is unprecedented, but if everything is back to normal a year from now, 2021’s convention should have a surplus of exciting news to deliver the culturally famished masses.
Starting in a Crisis but Representing the New Normal?
In the modern digital age of direct-to-streaming films, studios and production companies have long contemplated the idea of releasing movies straight to home video markets at the same time as their theatrical debuts. Over the past few years, the gap between films’ theatrical runs and their home video releases has only shrunk, and the line has further greyed with rising numbers of nontraditional release platforms, or forgone theatrical runs altogether.
By and large, though, theaters have still maintained their relevancy. However, that has changed over the past couple months. Right now, theaters are shutdown across the globe because of the coronavirus and many recent releases have been expedited to Video-On-Demand markets. The most conspicuous of these expedited releases is that of DreamWorks’ “Trolls: World Tour,” which made history as the first film to get a VOD and theatrical release on the same day.
Releasing “Trolls: World Tour” like this was a bit of a gamble. Like many other movies, “World Tour” simply could have postponed its premiere for a more stable time. Nevertheless, the VOD release it seems to have paid off. The film came out on April 10th and has already earned Universal Studios $50 million. For comparison’s sake, the movie’s 2016 predecessor—simply titled “Trolls”—earned $46.6 million for its opening weekend in the theaters and overall had a $346.9 million Box Office run.
“Trolls: World Tour” will not have an enormous Box Office success given all of the theaters closed right now. However, it will arguably make more off of its VOD rentals than it ever would during a traditional theatrical period.
Granted, this is an unusual time. “World Tour” and its home release are probably benefitting from the isolated audiences practicing social distancing. Likewise, the film costs $19.99 On-Demand, a price that emulates that of a movie ticket, but is noticeably more than that of a regular VOD rental. The movie also garnered some extra attention as the first film to execute this unconventional release platform. Lastly, it is a family comedy appropriate for kids and adults alike to watch on a common screen. All of this considered, the VOD success of “World Tour” might be an anomaly tied to beginner’s luck and the current circumstances.
Virtual “Box office” Cume is nothing to Sneeze at
Nevertheless, the entertainment experiment that is “Trolls: World Tour” has still proven fruitful, raising the question of whether or not other movies will follow in its footsteps. If “World Tour” can get $50 million in its first week On-Demand, maybe the persistent gap between theaters and home markets has become futile. Perhaps moviegoers are content to watch a new picture at home for the same price of seeing it on the big screen.
The nullification of theatrical releases would naturally be bad news for the theater companies, but it would give streaming sites and tech companies a leg up in the entertainment market. It would also completely transform the industry release pipeline that has persisted for the past century. This potential change, however, will not manifest overnight. “Trolls: World Tour” simply demonstrates that a corresponding VOD and theatrical release can be financially effective, and it may spark an evolution in the enduring movie distribution model.
“Trolls: World Tour” is a PG-rated animated comedy-musical. Walt Dohrn directs alongside David P Smith, and the voice cast includes Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Rachel Bloom, James Cordon, and many more. It is available on Amazon’s new Prime Cinema hub alongside other VOD expedited titles such as “The Invisible Man,” “Emma,” “The Way Back,” “Bloodshot,” “Birds Of Prey” and others.
