Emperor

Whenever someone brings up Lana and Lilly Wachowski's body of work, The Matrix is always at the center of the conversation. Maybe Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas get some mentions thanks to their vocal followers, but their spacefaring epic Jupiter Ascending is typically swept under the rug. A critical and financial disaster, most people wouldn't blame you for forgetting about it. And that's a shame because we believe there are enough reasons after 10 years to give it a rewatch with new eyes.

...

Millennia-spanning human dynasties that harvest planets to make their lives longer, a human whose genes were spliced with a space wolf's, reincarnation backed by hokey, half-explained science... Jupiter Ascending isn't an easy sell, but behind the weak story is some excellent world-building, and it's exactly the sort of 'bad movie' that's worth revisiting.

Jupiter Ascending spends far too much time yapping about market disputes and profits while failing to present a compelling narrative built around it. The story orbits around Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), who was named by her astronomer father after the famous gas giant. Her dull, aimless life in Chicago as a cleaner who's stuck with her relatives is the opposite of special though.

Despite the classic Cinderella setup and colorful sci-fi universe, the Wachowskis' script is smothered by half-baked exposition and infighting, centered around the highly profitable business of 'harvesting' developed worlds for 'youth serum' the extraterrestrial elites use to live for thousands of years.

Add overblown family matters that come and go (at least two major villains are entirely dropped and never brought up again) to the mix and you've got a muddled mess of a plot.

...

Despite its shortcomings, you can't deny that Jupiter Ascending continues to be a gorgeous movie. The CGI work has its ups and downs, sure, but the Wachowskis traditionally excel at making fantasy come to life and this is no exception. Many would even argue the 'overly digital' look of their post-Matrix movies is a feature and not a bug. Their works, no matter the setting, could be considered the opposite of grounded, with high saturation and vibrant lighting working well in tandem with the exuberant sets, costumes, and shiny spaceships of their space opera to create an ethereal, dreamlike world. If you're looking for tangible realism in Jupiter Ascending, you're watching it wrong.

...

To the surprise of no one, unmistakable big-name composer Michael Giacchino gave this space odyssey his all. The original soundtrack isn't just a good accompaniment; it almost sells the entire thing on its own. It's playful, classical, and even menacing when it needs to feel weighty. After giving the equally divisive John Carter at Disney a good push in 2012, his expertise yielded similar results here. It's an enchanting score that deserves a much better movie behind it.

...

So, were we wrong about Jupiter Ascending? That's for each casual viewer, cinephile, and critic to decide. It has some remarkable positives and a passionate vision, that's for sure. But getting through its rougher patches and ignoring the misguided decisions remains challenging.

Perhaps time will be kind to Jupiter Ascending as we're bombarded with far duller franchise flicks and uninspiring hogwash, but it's still too soon to start with the 'Jupiter Ascending was great, actually' posts.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/24627458

While there are some “hard number” metrics to cite when it comes to how a movie is received, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB, there’s one that gets circled back to more than others when it comes to audience reception: Cinemascore.

This usually measures what’s a “crowd pleaser,” skewing higher in terms of blockbusters a lot of the time as it tries to measure audience satisfaction. Now, Captain America has the lowest Cinemascore in MCU history, a B-, which may not sound that bad, but in context, it definitely is, especially when you see the overall chart. That would be:

edit: the list is missing some entries and has the ratings wrong for others, so I've redone it.

• A+
  • The Avengers
  • Avengers: Endgame
  • Black Panther
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home
• A
  • Ant-Man
  • The Avengers: Age of Ultron
  • Avengers: Infinity War
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
  • Captain America: Civil War
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  • Captain Marvel
  • Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Doctor Strange
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
  • Iron Man
  • Iron Man 2
  • Iron Man 3
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming
  • Thor: Ragnarok
• A-
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp
  • Black Widow
  • Captain America: The First Avenger
  • The Incredible Hulk
  • Thor: The Dark World
• B+
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
  • Thor
  • Thor: Love and Thunder
• B
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
  • Eternals
  • The Marvels
• B-
  • Captain America: Brave New World

...

Initial box office receipts are pretty good, and better than other low-scored MCU movies, but this still has to be somewhat alarming for Marvel to have a movie received this poorly. As it stands, this is the third lowest scored film on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest scored film on Metacritic and the lowest scored on Cinemascore now.

A 23-year-old Keene woman was arrested Friday, accused of serially urinating on products in local stores.

According to information from the Keene Police Department, Kelli Tedford had posted "disturbing videos" to an internet site, some of them dating back to 2021.

In a recently recorded video, "Tedford recorded herself contaminating items in a local business with her urine," states the information, identifying the business as the Monadnock Food Co-op, which sustained a financial loss in excess of $1,500 in destroyed merchandise and cleaning costs.

...

"It appears likely that similar historic incidents occurred in Keene and surrounding communities where Tedford contaminated items and/or surfaces with urine, as several videos appear to be recorded as early as 2021," states the information, which did not identify the previous locations.

Published in print at the tail end of 2024 but added to online through the year, anthology/website Cartoonists for Palestine was undoubtedly one of the year’s most important comics projects. And yet somehow we failed to give it the attention it was due last year. Edited by Yazan al-Saadi, Tracy Chahwan, Shay Mirk and Andy Warner (some names there may be familiar from our recent review of Lebanon is Burning and Other Dispatches) this 250-page anthology with work from around 60 creators is available in physical format by Crucial Comix but is also available to read or download for free online here.

...

Ultimately this is barely even scratching the surface of what is covered in Cartoonists for Palestine. And, honestly, this is barely even a review. Instead it’s a plea to share this powerfully communicative comic and, though this is an international effort, also to share the stories of any Palestinians who may have created work in any field of the arts bringing the horrors of these last months of genocide to wider audiences. Cartoonists for Palestine is a vital social record which we will be adding to our nascent, upcoming (and very much work-in-progress) Palestine comics resource list in due course.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/24628974

Bryan Talbot’s new graphic novel, The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor, a prequel to his Grandville saga, will be published in September in France and in November in the UK.

With top-hat and cane in hand, Detective Inspector Stamford Hawksmoor shadows the murky backstreets of London on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer.

In the dying days of the French occupation of Britain, through gaslit, cobbled streets and squalid alleyways, stalks the great eagle Detective Stamford Hawksmoor in search of the homicidal manic whose killing spree claims dozens of seemingly unconnected victims, from random murders to targeted political assassinations.

Bryan Talbot’s new graphic novel, The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor, a prequel to his Grandville saga, will be published in September in France and in November in the UK.

With top-hat and cane in hand, Detective Inspector Stamford Hawksmoor shadows the murky backstreets of London on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer.

In the dying days of the French occupation of Britain, through gaslit, cobbled streets and squalid alleyways, stalks the great eagle Detective Stamford Hawksmoor in search of the homicidal manic whose killing spree claims dozens of seemingly unconnected victims, from random murders to targeted political assassinations.

A 14-year-old Brazilian boy died after injecting himself with butterfly remains — with police investigating whether it was part of a twisted online challenge, according to a report.

Davi Nunes Moreira started to vomit and then developed a limp after mixing a dead butterfly in water and injecting the liquid into his leg, according to the DailyMail.

The teen told his dad he hurt himself while playing — but then confessed what really happened when he continued growing sicker and was admitted to a hospital in Planalto, the report said.

His dad also found the syringe his son had used hidden under the boy’s pillow, according to the report.

Davi was rushed to another hospital in Vitoria de Conquista, the state of Bahia’s third-largest city, on Wednesday, but succumbed to his injuries.

The mysterious death — linked to possible toxins in the butterfly mix that caused his body to shut down as he went into septic shock — is making headlines across Brazil.

...

However, authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the boy was participating in an unusual social media craze that proved fatal, the report said.

While there are some “hard number” metrics to cite when it comes to how a movie is received, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB, there’s one that gets circled back to more than others when it comes to audience reception: Cinemascore.

This usually measures what’s a “crowd pleaser,” skewing higher in terms of blockbusters a lot of the time as it tries to measure audience satisfaction. Now, Captain America has the lowest Cinemascore in MCU history, a B-, which may not sound that bad, but in context, it definitely is, especially when you see the overall chart. That would be:

edit: the list is missing some entries and has the ratings wrong for others, so I've redone it.

• A+
  • The Avengers
  • Avengers: Endgame
  • Black Panther
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home
• A
  • Ant-Man
  • The Avengers: Age of Ultron
  • Avengers: Infinity War
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
  • Captain America: Civil War
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  • Captain Marvel
  • Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Doctor Strange
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
  • Iron Man
  • Iron Man 2
  • Iron Man 3
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming
  • Thor: Ragnarok
• A-
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp
  • Black Widow
  • Captain America: The First Avenger
  • The Incredible Hulk
  • Thor: The Dark World
• B+
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
  • Thor
  • Thor: Love and Thunder
• B
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
  • Eternals
  • The Marvels
• B-
  • Captain America: Brave New World

...

Initial box office receipts are pretty good, and better than other low-scored MCU movies, but this still has to be somewhat alarming for Marvel to have a movie received this poorly. As it stands, this is the third lowest scored film on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest scored film on Metacritic and the lowest scored on Cinemascore now.

There’s a dominant narrative in the media about why tech billionaires are sucking up to Donald Trump: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, all of whom have descended on the nation’s capital for the presidential inauguration, either happily support or have largely acquiesced to Trump because they think he’ll offer lower taxes and friendlier regulations. In other words, it’s just about protecting their own selfish business interests.

That narrative is not exactly wrong — Trump has in fact promised massive tax cuts for billionaires — but it leaves out the deeper, darker forces at work here. For the tech bros — or as some say, the broligarchs — this is about much more than just maintaining and growing their riches. It’s about ideology. An ideology inspired by science fiction and fantasy. An ideology that says they are supermen, and supermen should not be subject to rules, because they’re doing something incredibly important: remaking the world in their image.

It’s this ideology that makes MAGA a godsend for the broligarchs, who include Musk, Zuck, and Bezos as well as the venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. That’s because MAGA is all about granting unchecked power to the powerful.

...

The broligarchs are not a monolith — their politics differ somewhat, and they’ve sometimes been at odds with each other. Remember when Zuck and Musk said they were going to fight each other in a cage match? But here’s something the broligarchs have in common: a passionate love for science fiction and fantasy that has shaped their vision for the future of humanity — and their own roles as its would-be saviors.

Zuckerberg’s quest to build the Metaverse, a virtual reality so immersive and compelling that people would want to strap on bulky goggles to interact with each other, is seemingly inspired by the sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. It was actually Stephenson who coined the term “metaverse” in his novel Snow Crash, where characters spend a lot of time interacting in a virtual world of that name. Zuckerberg seems not to have noticed that the book is depicting a dystopia; instead of viewing it as a warning, he’s viewing it as an instruction manual.

Jeff Bezos is inspired by Star Trek, which led him to found a commercial spaceflight venture called Blue Origin, and The High Frontier by physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill, which informs his plan for space colonization (it involves millions of people living in cylindrical tubes). Bezos attended O’Neill’s seminars as an undergraduate at Princeton.

Musk, who wants to colonize Mars to “save” humanity from a dying planet, is inspired by one of the masters of American sci-fi, Isaac Asimov. In his Foundation series, Asimov wrote about a hero who must prevent humanity from being thrown into a long dark age after a massive galactic empire collapses. “The lesson I drew from that is you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one,” Musk said.

And Andreessen, an early web browser developer who now pushes for aggressive progress in AI with very little regulation, is inspired by superhero stories, writing in his 2023 “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that we should become “technological supermen” whose “Hero’s Journey” involves “conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community.”

All of these men see themselves as the heroes or protagonists in their own sci-fi saga. And a key part of being a “technological superman” — or ubermensch, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say — is that you’re above the law. Common-sense morality doesn’t apply to you because you’re a superior being on a superior mission. Thiel, it should be noted, is a big Nietzsche fan, though his is an extremely selective reading of the philosopher’s work.

The ubermensch ideology helps explain the broligarchs’ disturbing gender politics. “The ‘bro’ part of broligarch is not incidental to this — it’s built on this idea that not only are these guys superior, they are superior because they’re guys,” Harrington said.

...

If you don’t like limits and rules, it stands to reason that you’re not going to like democracy. As Thiel wrote in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” And so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the broligarchs are trying to undermine the rule of democratic nation-states.

To escape the control of democratic governments, they are seeking to create their own sovereign colonies. That can come in the form of space colonies, a la Musk and Bezos. But it can also come in the form of “startup cities” or “network states” built by corporations here on Earth — independent mini-nations, carved out of the surrounding territory, where tech billionaires and their acolytes would live according to their own rules rather than the government’s. This is currently Thiel and Andreessen’s favored approach.

With the help of their investments, a startup city called Prospera is already being built off the coast of Honduras (much to the displeasure of Honduras). There are others in the offing, from Praxis (which will supposedly build “the next America” somewhere in the Mediterranean), to California Forever in, you guessed it, California.

The so-called network state is “a fancy name for tech authoritarianism,” journalist Gil Duran, who has spent the past year reporting on these building projects, told me. “The idea is to build power over the long term by controlling money, politics, technology, and land.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25502522

A look into how the tech leaders may be using the new administration to achieve their own agenda. Looking specifically at Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andressen, Ben Horotwitz, Brian Armstrong, and David Sacks as well as their relationship with figures like JD Vance, Balaji Srinivasan, and Curtis Yarvin. There is a focused discussion on how a shaping of the government might take place based on convergences between the ideas of Yarvin, who influences the tech libertarian right, and Project 2025, who have authored a playbook exclusively for President Trump to help with his transition to power.

No, the emails aren’t from a Nigerian prince, but whoever is writing them seems to use the same style, cajoling and repetition. The sad thing is, these aren’t from some poor guy in an internet cafe circa the 2000s, no–these emails have been pummeling the inboxes of federal workers from their own government. These workers have had their email inboxes flooded with bizarre imperatives to basically go away. They’ve been insulted in the emails, being encouraged to leave and find “higher productivity” jobs in the private sector. They’ve had carrots dangled in front of them, saying they can take a second job or go on awesome vacations. They’ve been demoralized, and most are likely very confused, of course, by design. What we have here is the Grover Norquist quote coming to life, the: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it in the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” For those too young to have heard this, the quote is from one of the OG architects of this current bile-filled situation. It’s always been their fervent desire to implement this bathtub murder–they’ve been patient and have all the plans in place. Now they are in the stage where they’ve drawn up the water, telling you they have some nice lavender bath bombs and beckon you through the steam.

Of course, Grover Norquist types still have good versus bad government notions. They will never try to drown the missing dollars of the defense budget. You are only “federal bad” if you are someone like a physical therapist at the VA working with the mangled bodies of veterans–or someone working to keep food safe for consumption. You are incredibly “federal bad” if you were serving in some manner to keep illness counted and mitigated. You are “federal good” if you are a part of the massive military, ICE, or a teenager with a cross married to an old man, spouting nonsense for a federal paycheck. I think you understand. And, of course, it is crazy-making. That’s baked in and a very real part of how this is all designed to work. The few of us still trying to follow the blitzkrieg that is the real-time attempt to remake the entire government are probably in the minority. Mainly, it’s chaos and confusion to the vast populace, and this is often what causes a brain to simply shut down. It’s too much and we aren’t wired for it. It’s the plan, to bring in so much rapid damaging change that it will be near impossible to stop. It seems the goal of the broligarchy is to reshape all of it in some fashion that they seem to believe will become their new utopia (but of course, almost everyone else’s BAD PLACE).

...

One interesting thing I’ve come across in trying to parse out the philosophy of this Business-Plot-Come -to-Fruition is that they seem to consider city-states to be an excellent form of government. These smaller entities can work more in line with their idea of states working as corporations. Everything stems from that idea that top-down, it all needs to be private and what they consider nimble. They love private schools, gated communities, tiny principalities with their own rules……..often with the right to be racist, sexist or any other ist they enjoy. But overall, they want it all to be like a myriad of corporations, slipping into a locality as they see fit to extract resources in the most “efficient” manner. No common good, simply commerce and extraction. Of course, they will need to keep the military to enforce their notions of masculine energy and conquest, but they seem to have a soft spot for fluid locales they can swing in and out of, taking advantage of the best tax breaks etc. I am hoping this leaves an opening for some areas to simply slip out of the noose during this chaos. Places like California who contribute more to the federal economy than they get back might consider simply walking backwards like Homer in the bushes. But seriously, this craziness will not be efficient in the long run, and I don’t think it’s illogical to consider a fracturing of the US might take place, whatever that might end up meaning.

It’s a cliché, but I’m sure that perhaps Sun Tzu might have a book or something about maneuvering in times of chaos. If that guy ever got published, that is. Even smaller areas like left leaning cities might be able to find a modicum of independence if they are annoying enough to try to manage. We have to look for hope– what’s the alternative? I think of places like New Orleans that have so little in common with the rest of their state. The ample money they take in from visitors gets funneled to places that decide the Ten Commandments should be on their school walls……on the walls that is, not actually obeyed by those in power. This is just one notion I think of when I try to consider what might happen in the setting of this truly abhorrent time. Managing a bag of cats might be disruptive to the end goal for them, however. Can a city or state do an Irish Goodbye to the US government when things get more unhinged? They are creating true chaos; I certainly hope individuals of good intent are looking for ways to benefit others in this situation and looking for exit strategies. The current state of affairs is a dead-end.

...

At this point, though, we do have to realize we are stuck on the path with grade-A psychopaths. We need to be furtively darting our eyes in every direction like a character in a bad movie, looking for workarounds, escape paths and allies. In short, we need to fight the Bathtub Stranglers and all the chaos and hate they bring with them.

A document authored by an anonymous group of whistleblowers accuses Elon Musk of attempting to spearhead a private hostile takeover of the US Government on behalf of an extremist anti-democracy philosophy known as the ‘neo-reactionary’ movement, by effectively hijacking the Republican Party.

The group, who are withholding their identity for fears of being targeted, includes former Silicon Valley and US technology leaders. They describe themselves as former followers of the neo-reactionary movement, also known as the ‘Dark Enlightenment’ – a burgeoning Internet philosophy which seeks to abolish the drive for greater equality and the very existence of democracy itself.

...

“Elon Musk’s unchecked consolidation of power over government infrastructure, financial systems, AI governance, and digital media does not serve the interests of the Trump administration or the broader conservative movement”, warns the memorandum. “While some may view Musk as a useful instrument in dismantling the bureaucratic state, in reality, his actions demonstrate that he is not working for Trump or the Republican Party, but rather for his own power and the broader neo-reactionary agenda.”

...

The neo-reactionary movement traces back in particular to the online writings of Curtis Yarvin, a 51-year-old computer engineer who has received investments from billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and set up the data behemoth and Pentagon contractor, Palantir.

Musk, the memo warns, is moving rapidly to take control of the apparatus of US Government power on behalf of a core network of interests who subscribe to Yarvin’s ‘ Dark Enlightenment’ ideology. Other leaders in the US technology oligarchy aligned with Musk who subscribe to Yarvin’s ideas include Marc Andreessen (partner at venture-capital firm A16Z and author of the Techo-Optimist Manifesto), Balaji Srinivasan (former chief technology officer of Coinbase and author of the Network State), David Sacks (who co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel), and of course Thiel himself.

...

According to the memo, “Despite this open disdain for the President, Yarvin recognizes the President’s utility—not as a leader, but as a tool… Yarvin even rejects the revolutionary impulse among the President’s supporters. He derides January 6 as ‘the last lame breath of mobocracy in America’ and scoffs at the idea that Trump’s base—’used-car dealers, general contractors, small-town investment advisors’—could ever rise up and install a new ‘Trumpenreich.’”

The memo reveals that Musk’s actions fit alarmingly well with Yarvin’s prescriptions for how a Trump administration can be exploited by the neo-reactionary movement to install a new faction of elitist Silicon Valley technocrats at the helm of a hollowed-out US Government. It highlights the following paragraphs from Yarvin:

“In a world where voters elect Trump with a mandate to just take over the government—as completely as the Allies took over the government of Germany in 1945—he will probably screw it up, anyway. Yet he doesn’t have to screw it up. (The only way to not screw it up, for Donald Trump, is to be the chairman of the board, and delegate to a single executive ready to be the plenary CEO of America.)”

...

The end goal of this movement is shocking. The memo notes, for instance, that the neo-reactionary movement advocates a form of “techno-monarchism” where the CEO-ruler uses “data systems, artificial intelligence, and advanced algorithms to manage the state, monitor citizens, and implement policies. Yarvin’s vision for society is chillingly explicit; he suggests that unproductive members of society should be dealt with through a ‘humane alternative to genocide’—one that removes ‘undesirable elements’ from the public sphere without ‘any of the moral stigma’ of mass murder. His proposed solution? A VR prison where individuals are ‘waxed like a bee larva into a cell.’”