“It’s hard not to wonder – as a viewer – why the Taliban’s top brass agreed to let Nash’at shoot a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the early days of the regime. … Mansour comments coldly about Nash’at: ‘If his intentions are bad, he will die soon.'” - The Observer (UK)
In April, Dion said, "I have two choices. Either I train like an athlete and work super hard, or I switch off and it’s over.” Narrator voice: It was not over. - Self
The museum “said it was making progress on returning the human remains of nearly 2,200 Native Americans and thousands of tribal funerary objects, which became a top priority earlier this year in the wake of new federal regulations.” - The New York Times
Just before the anniversary of the Irish singer’s death, the museum revealed the figure to a swift and furious reception. O’Connor’s brother John said "that the figure looked ‘between a mannequin and something out of the Thunderbirds.’” - BBC
Apologies to this excellent post on the site formerly known as Twitter. Point is, a lot of great movies are set in Paris, so if you’re not a sportsfan (or your sport isn’t on), here’s how to keep your eyes on the City of Light. - The Guardian (UK)
Sure seems like it. But “the meteoric rise of African publishing is one of the most remarkable stories of the last 25 years. If you want to capture how the 21st century has reinvented what it means to read, write, and publish, go to African literature.” - LitHub
Unless the strike lasts longer than 60 days, “actors and other union members who are already under contract and working on games in development are permitted to continue work during the strike without any sort of union discipline.” - Fast Company
The historic studios hosted The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula’s Bride. And then, "Ridley Scott built and shot the miniatures for his Academy Award winning sci-fi thriller, Alien, at the studios in 1978.” - BBC
“Pull out the checklist: There’s music (and lots of it). There’s a cast of hundreds (or in this case, thousands) of performers. There’s grand spectacle (courtesy of director Thomas Jolly). There are fabulous costumes. There’s a narrative arc de triumph … They take, like, four hours.” - Washington Post
And he wrote nothing about it. He didn’t add it to “the book's 2011 update — even after Munro herself sat down with him, asked him to turn off the tape recorder and spoke to him about what happened. He said he viewed the situation ‘as a private family matter.’” - CBC
Not great: “Short of regulation or relevant union agreements, it has come down to film-makers – directors, producers, writers, visual effects and VFX artists and more – to figure out how to use it, where to draw the line.” (They’re not great line-drawers.) - The Guardian (UK)
Third verse, same as the first (two strikes last year): "'We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members,’ SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement Thursday. ‘Enough is enough.’” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
“Orwell would have been more disturbed by the mendacity of those claiming to have been canceled than he would have been by the decision of some media not to publish them.” - The Smart Set
