Новости за 01.05.2017

Tom Hanks. Emma Watson. John Boyega. Dave Eggers. Patton Oswalt. Bill Paxton, in his last film. The kid from Boyhood. The guy who directed The End of the Tour and The Spectacular Now. Yes, The Circle is a movie with nearly unparalleled pedigree, based on a well-regarded book by one of America’s most beloved authors. So how in the world did The Circle end up being so jaw-droppingly horrible? We try to dig into what happened.

Today, the organizers behind the International Women’s Strike will march in New York City’s May Day parade. The IWS faction will wear red, in solidarity with both workers and women. The marching bloc is open to any feminist: You do not need to be affiliated with any union or organization to join them. You can find them on the southwest corner of Washington Square Park at 12:30 PM, or on the northwest corner of Union Square at 4 PM. As Sarah Leonard of The Nation says, it’s “the first bloc like... Читать дальше...

The continuing controversy surrounding America’s reliance on lethal injection for capital punishment was vividly on display in the four executions Arkansas carried out last week. Two of those executions were marked by serious problems. Last Monday, it took almost an hour to find a vein and complete the execution of Jack Jones. And a witness to Thursday night’s execution of Kenneth Williams said the condemned man was “coughing, convulsing, lurching, (and) jerking” after the administration of midazolam... Читать дальше...

GOP leaders have reached the cusp of passing a health care bill paradoxically: by making it crueler. To set aside their reservations and line up behind the legislation, conservatives insisted that the American Health Care Act include a politically toxic provision that would allow states to charge people with pre-existing conditions unlimited sums of money for health care coverage. Their leaders obliged.

NO ONE CAN PRONOUNCE MY NAME by Rakesh SatyalPicador, 400 pp., $26.00

Rakesh Satyal has come up with a hell of a title for his second novel: No One Can Pronounce My Name. We’ll come back to that.

He’s a millionaire politician who worked at Goldman Sachs for 23 years, rising to become a senior director of the firm. He’s compared unfavorably to his party’s last governor, another former Goldman executive whose one term was widely considered a failure. He’s poured at least $10 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign. In what The New York Times called “checkbook politics,” he’s contributed more than a million dollars to local Democratic candidates and organizations, paying... Читать дальше...

There is a scene in the second episode of I Love Dick, the new Amazon original series from Jill Soloway, in which two characters debate the aesthetic appeal of straight lines. Dick (Kevin Bacon), an abstract sculptor who swaggers around in weathered cowboy boots, loves them. “A straight line is perfection,” he tells Chris (Kathryn Hahn), a frustrated filmmaker who is new in town and newly besotted with Dick’s pretentious buckaroo machismo. The scene takes place in a gallery in Marfa, Texas, that odd patch of artisan bohemia in the desert... Читать дальше...

President Donald Trump’s critics exulted over an interview he gave Thursday to Reuters, where he expressed surprise at how difficult his job is. “I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump said. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”