#Roxana Hadadi

[westeroswisdom]

Alys Rivers is an intriguing character who presents more questions than answers.

An interview with Gayle Rankin (Alys Rivers) by Roxana Hadadi.

[F]or now, she plays Alys like she owns the place with a hard edge and a chin-up defiance inspired by Rankin’s own Scottish and Celtic heritage as well as pagan goddesses, the Greek priestess Cassandra, and Joan of Arc. The fact that Fire & Blood’s narrators and cited sources are mostly men trying to wrap their heads around Alys gave the actress room to play with the character’s dance among fact, faction, and infamy. “I’m really interested in playing with the idea of perception, in women who were identified as being witches and around whom there was a lot of controversy and confusion and questions,” Rankin says. “Even plays like The Crucible — those were quote-unquote normal women who were identified as being witches.” [ ... ] What kind of stuff do you think Alys got up to in Harrenhal before Daemon showed up? I do believe she’s a maester of sorts, and a healer in many senses of the word. Whether or not Alys’s potions are actually potions, she’s kept Harrenhal on its feet for generations, in terms of just like, keeping people alive — or not.

She apparently shoots down a fan theory.

There is a fan theory that Alys and the Red Priestess Melisandre from Game of Thrones are the same characters. Do you have a reaction to that?  I would say that there are no other characters that have been repeated in the House of the Dragon world, so I’m not sure why we would start now.

If we see Melisandre at all in HOTD I have a feeling that it would be in Essos. Perhaps a short scene of her running into Laenor Velaryon who would spark her eventual interest in Westeros?

Read the entire article at Vulture.

[julianlytle]

Here is a video podcast of a conversation between Roxana Hadadi, TV Critic at Vulture & myself about the series I'm A Virgo.

[savagewildnerness]

“Sam Reid’s regular line deliveries are basically the equivalent of a Baroque painting of a hot man glaring at you (think Caravaggio’s David With the Head of Goliath painting, but sexy), so I’m unsurprised that his singing voice is the exact same thing. Big fan of how his ‘ooh ooh ooh, wah aah’ sounds like Jim Morrison doing a Dracula impression. It’s a bop. I’m so sorry to Stuart Townsend for getting replaced as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and now having his rock star Lestat from Queen of the Damned shown up so thoroughly.” —Roxana Hadadi

Oh yeah folks! Hopefully we have YEARS of this still to come!

[bloomhand]

saw Dune 2 today and it's been a while since I read the books but things felt off enough for me to check around. found this article by Roxana Hadadi about some of the differences and why they matter. enjoyed the movie overall but they make some great points

[thishadoscarbuzz]

267 - Heat (with Roxana Hadadi!) (Patreon Selects)

This week, our first film selected by one of our sponsor-tier Patreon subscribers arrives, and we brought back Vulture's Roxana Hadadi to celebrate. In 1995, audiences were hyped to finally see an onscreen showdown between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Michael Mann's Heat. But what promised to be a standard actioner on paper (on top of a battle of titans) was in actuality an existential tone poem on masculinity, with audiences feeling let down by the lack of fireworks in Pacino and DeNiro's brief but mighty scene. The film has since been reassessed, earning a vocal and devoted fanbase that hail the film as Mann's masterpiece.

This week, we talk about Mann's work studying the masculine mind and Pacino and DeNiro's 1990s periods. We also talk about Val Kilmer's Batman year, how the 1995 Oscars largely rejected darker material, and our thoughts on Mann's Ferrari.

Topics also include bisexual eyebrow piercings, our diner orders, and the Nyad towel.

Links:

The 1995 Academy Awards

Roxana on Jacob Elordi's Saltburn Eyebrow Piercing

Vulture Movies Fantasy League

Subscribe:

Patreon

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

[thenerdsofcolor]

The Middle Geeks Episode 63: 'Dune: Part Two' Review

The Middle Geeks are joined once again by Roxana Hadadi to review the latest in the "Dune" franchise, "Dune: Part Two."

The second installment in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune has arrived to theaters, but has it gotten any better in its display of SWANA cultures beyond appropriation? Roxana joins us once again to discuss. Continue reading The Middle Geeks Episode 63: ‘Dune: Part Two’ Review

[scvpubliclib]

New story on NPR: Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been banned from making movies or leaving Iran https://ift.tt/Kfc6Lkp

[denimbex1986]

'...Jen Chaney’s Top 10 Shows

...2. Ripley

Most remakes are rehashes or retellings that change certain details but ultimately leave their audience with the same thoughts and feelings they had the first time they heard this story. The Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted numerous times, most notably as a 1999 Anthony Minghella film, but Ripley is not a remake; it’s more of a reframing. Shot in rich black and white by director and writer Steven Zaillian alongside Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit, Ripley’s eight episodes take their exquisite time, both with character development and, crucially, the moments Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) commits his crimes and goes through the grueling work of attempting to cover them up. In this Ripley, you see and feel the weight of what he’s done — the labor that comes with hiding a body, the blood that has to be scrubbed away — much more intensely, which makes his lack of concern and ability to blithely lie all the more shocking. Scott delivers a phenomenally restrained performance; the look in his eyes is constantly blank, as if he’s inviting others to fill in the emotions and authenticity he’s incapable of producing himself. Much like the cat that lurks in the lobby of Ripley’s apartment building in Rome, you can’t stop staring at this fraud of a man and wondering how long he can go until someone finally figures him out...

Roxana Hadadi’s Top 10 Shows

...2. Ripley

No television show this year looked this good or felt this ugly. With a magnetically dreary allure, Steven Zaillian’s Ripley embraced paranoia, meanness, and bad vibes, chasing all memories of Anthony Minghella’s sun-soaked 1999 film away. With chilly black-and-white cinematography and sparse dialogue, Zaillian magnified the vein of cruelty running through Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, while Andrew Scott used every muscle in his body to render his scamming, murderous Ripley unreadable, the living embodiment of want and coveting clever enough to never let anyone catch on to the depths of his desire. (Except for Dakota Fanning’s Marge, giving a skeptical performance here just as delicious as her work in The Perfect Couple.) Tom dragging his latest victim’s body down the stairs of his beautiful Italian apartment building, then getting increasingly irritated at having to clean up all the blood he has tracked around, all while getting judgmental glares from Lucio the cat? Most grimly hilarious sequence of the year...

Kathryn VanArendonk’s Top 10 Shows

...7. Ripley

Yes, it has an impeccable lead performance from Andrew Scott, and, yes, it has a perfect TV cat, and, yes, Dakota Fanning pulls off a tricky role, and, yes, it has one of the most gruesome boat-based murder sequences filmed in a long while, and, yes, its pretensions may occasionally get the better of it. But beyond all that, was there a more visually astounding series on TV this year? No, and it’s not a close contest. At first glance, Ripley’s black-and-white cinematography might look like a bug rather than a feature, a snooty approach to Patricia Highsmith’s con-man story. But the look of Ripley is not a superficial layer — it’s the foundation that makes the entire thing work, a visual version of the same language of class-based posturing and brutal striving that drives its whole worldview. All that Italian art drained of color, reduced to light and shadows, so much starker, sharper, and crueler than if it were seen in warm, human tones … that’s the good stuff...'

[666tchort666]

The B-Side – Orlando Bloom (with Roxana Hadadi)

http://dlvr.it/SrqxGb

[garudabluffs]

‘Our Fear Empowers Others. No Bears.’ Jan. 11, 2023

By Bilge Ebiri, a film critic for New York and Vulture

"In July, just a couple of months after No Bears wrapped, Panahi was imprisoned, supposedly to serve out that six-year sentence from 2010, and is currently an inmate at Tehran’s Evin Prison, alongside fellow filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, where he has reportedly been subjected to abuse. While No Bears is profoundly powerful in its own right, the knowledge that its maker is incarcerated gives its explorations of exile, truth, and freedom a throat-catching urgency."

"As No Bears proceeds, it becomes increasingly hard to tell what we’re watching: a fiction Panahi has scripted, the documentary reality behind that fiction, or another level of truth that has taken over and now threatens to derail his project. And now, by imprisoning this artist who refused to flee, the Iranian authorities have added one final, monstrous layer of meaning to Panahi’s masterpiece."

READ MORE https://www.vulture.com/article/no-bears-review-jafar-panahis-powerful-new-film.html

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been banned from making movies or leaving Iran February 25, 2023

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi is banned from making movies or leaving Iran. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi about the work he manages to produce despite government restrictions.

7-Minute LISTEN READ MORE Transcript https://www.npr.org/2023/02/25/1159528667/iranian-filmmaker-jafar-panahi-has-been-banned-from-making-movies-or-leaving-ira

[tech-flying]

The Real Zombie Fungus That Inspired HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’

Humans will probably never face a fungal apocalypse, but in the insect world, mind-controlling fungi can pose a serious threat

A virus quickly turns humans into ravenous monsters in classic zombie tales like The Walking Dead, World War Z, and Train to Busan. But The Last of Us, a new HBO series based on the same-named computer game, breaks a few rules.

For one, the human hosts that the pathogen lives in are not "undead"; they are still living. Furthermore, a fungus, not a virus, has infected them.

Additionally, the fungus really does exist. The makers of the game have claimed that a scene from the BBC's "Planet Earth" documentary series, in which a fungus takes control of an ant's mind, served as inspiration.

Of course, the show contains some fantasy elements. According to David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State University who provided advice on the video game, the idea that a mind-controlling fungus could one day annihilate humanity is unrealistic. Kasha Patel of the Washington Post reports this.

However, other portions are motivated by actual science as well as theories concerning climate change and disease that researchers are currently debating.

Mycologist Matthew Kasson of West Virginia University says of the fungi in the programme, "It's not far-fetched for me."

According to Benji Jones of Vox, an Ophiocordyceps fungus infects a bullet ant in the "Planet Earth" clip that served as the game's inspiration. As the fungus develops inside the insect, nearly half of its body is transformed into fungus. However, it doesn't harm the ant's brain, giving it the ability to control how the insect behaves. The ant is directed by Ophiocordyceps to climb a branch, where it perishes. As the fungus develops from the ant's head, it may more easily disperse spores and infect additional victims.

According to Joo Arajo, a mycologist at the New York Botanical Garden, 35 species of Ophiocordyceps are known to affect insect behaviour, and scientists predict hundreds more are still undiscovered.

However, experts are not worried that these fungi may infect people. According to Charissa de Bekker, a researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who specialises on "zombie ants," "they're very species-specific." And compared to these insects, humans have extremely different bodies.

Nevertheless, a couple of the show's themes still apply to scientists today. One is that human fungal infections are poorly understood and challenging to cure. Every time we breathe, we inhale fungal spores, although most of them are safe, according to de Bekker, who spoke to Vox. Few hundred of the 1.5 to 5 million species of fungi that exist, most of which are dangerous to immunocompromised individuals, cause disease in humans.

According to Kasson, fungi are more closely linked to animals than they are to plants. It's challenging to fight them without also fighting ourselves. Therefore, they must develop specialised kinds of substances that can eradicate the fungi without endangering the host.

Microbiologist Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University told Wired that "humanity should be investing more in knowing about what is the largest kingdom on the earth."

The Last of Us also makes the argument that the planet's warming temperatures played a role in setting the stage for the fungal invasion. According to de Bekker, most fungus prefer temperatures that are lower than those experienced by humans. According to the episode, as fungus adjust to a warmer globe, they might be more prepared to infect people. Researchers are

Ilan Schwartz, a researcher at Duke University who focuses on invasive fungal infections, tells Roxana Hadadi of Vulture that the claim that global warming has enhanced a fungus' heat tolerance is not absurd. It hasn't been demonstrated. It's just a theory, and things are moving along at a moderate pace. However, it is feasible.

One example is the theory that the fungus Candida auris, which threatens persons with compromised immune systems and is resistant to several antifungal medications, has adapted to human body temperature, according to the newspaper.

The University of Texas' Dimitrios Kontoyiannis, a mycologist, tells CNN that there is no need to fear because a broad fungus pandemic is unlikely given the way human infections propagate.

Schwartz tells Vulture that despite the show's concept, there are many more important issues in the world.

However, the present worldwide pandemic may make humans more vulnerable to fungi.

According to things like Covid-19 and other viruses, "maybe a larger section of the population will be immunocompromised, predisposing us to eventual invasion by these generally prevalent fungi," Kasson tells the Ringer.

[01sentencereviews]

[...]

[...]

[...]