DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Opinion: It’s time to change the way we think about sociopaths
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-20 | by ( Opinion Sara Stewart | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —This piece contains mild spoilers for the Netflix series “Ripley” and a scene in the movie “Civil War.”Are we finally ready to take another look at why we love to hate sociopaths so much? But his rendition of Ripley – highly capable, chameleonic, but never what you’d call charming — represents a refreshing take on one of the most famous sociopaths in literature and film. Gagne feels Hollywood’s nearly always gotten it wrong with portrayals of sociopaths, reducing them to a collection of cartoonish, villainous traits. In fact, I found one of film’s most recent sociopaths to be singularly chilling because of his very plausibility. He’s in Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” the polarizing film about a vaguely-sketched conflict set in the modern-day United States.

Persons: Sara Stewart, Ripley ”, Sara Stewart Todd Thompson, Andrew Scott’s, Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith’s, Scott, who’s, Ripley –, Steven Zaillian’s, “ Ripley, Jennifer Rubin, ”, Rubin, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Patrick Bateman, Dexter Morgan, Don Draper, I’ve, Emily Nussbaum, Norman Lear’s “, Archie Bunker, Carroll O’Connor, Penn Badgley, Joe Goldberg, Sociopath, Patric Gagne, Gagne, Hollywood’s, vilify, Jenna Ortega, Alex Garland’s “, Jesse Plemons —, —, Owen Gleiberman’s, “ Garland, ” Gleiberman, Ripley, sociopathy, we’ll Organizations: CNN, Netflix, Washington, Vogue Locations: Pennsylvania, ”, United States, America

☆ What It Would Really Take to Have an American Civil War - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week Donald Trump was put on trial by a liberal prosecutor on what seems like the most nakedly political of the multiple charges that he’s facing. This fairly pitiful scene made an interesting accompaniment to the country’s biggest movie at the moment, Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” which depicts a version of contemporary America riven by civil strife, with various secessionist forces at war against a dictatorial president who’s stayed on for a third term. That president is clearly a Trump-like figure, but the movie is extremely light on politics; it’s mostly interested in juxtaposing scenes of brutality — mass graves, tortured prisoners, firefights and summary executions — with the familiar American landscapes of shopping malls, carwashes and the pillars of the White House. We aren’t supposed to ask for detailed how-we-got-here explanations; we’re just supposed to meditate on how easily It Could Happen Here. Some people who like “Civil War” find the political lacuna admirable, since it cuts the movie free from current ideological preoccupations and lets us take the antiwar message straight.

Persons: Donald Trump, MAGA, Alex Garland’s “, who’s, it’s, we’re, ” Organizations: Trump, White Locations: York, carwashes

☆ Opinion: ‘Civil War’ is more than a reflection on America’s divisions
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Opinion Noah Berlatsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Noah Berlatsky Noah BerlatskyAlex Garland’s “Civil War” has mostly been discussed as a reflection of, and a warning about, America’s current partisan divisions. Unlike the actual US Civil War, this one doesn’t seem to have any particular racial or racist connotations. But it’s the same kind of cop out that powers most of Hollywood’s most iconic Vietnam war movies. Hollywood Vietnam war movies generally aren’t about whether America did the right thing, nor are they about how America’s choices affected people in Vietnam. Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), starring Matthew Modine as Joker, is based on the events of the Vietnam war.

Persons: Noah Berlatsky, CNN —, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Noah Berlatsky Noah Berlatsky Alex Garland’s “, ”, he’s, Garland, Nick Offerman, Lee, Kirsten Dunst, Joel, Wagner Moura, Jessie, Cailee, Sammy, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Lee Wagner, Trump, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Jesse Plemons, that’s, Francis Ford Coppola’s, Stanley Kubrick’s, don’t, —, Dawn ”, Stanley Kubrick's, Matthew Modine, It’s, transfixed Organizations: CNN, Union, Hollywood, America, Central, Warner Bros Locations: Chicago, Vietnam, Viet, American, Washington, California, Texas, Hollywood Vietnam, American Vietnam, Hollywood

Search resuls for: "Alex Garland’s “"

3 mentions found