Beyoncé: Cowboy Carter review – from hoedown to full-blown genre throwdown
Culture | The Guardian
by Alexis Petridis
6h ago
(Parkwood/Columbia) Straying far beyond its original country concept, the musician’s eighth album straddles the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the blues – and Becky with the Good Hair via Dolly Parton’s Jolene American Requiem, the opening track of Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, is many things. It offers a touch of state-of-the-nation address – “Can we stand for something? Now is the time to face the wind” – and a sprinkling of the kind of vague but apparently personal lyrics that send social media into a frenzy of decoding: what are her “father’s sins” that Beyoncé has apparently “cleansed” herself ..read more
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review – breezy, forgettable monster sequel
Culture | The Guardian
by Benjamin Lee
11h ago
There’s a likable, light-hearted zip to the monster mash follow-up but energy dissipates when we’re stuck with the humans It was a strange old time when the creature feature mash-up Godzilla vs Kong was released, the first major blockbuster in cinemas since Covid shuttered them all a year prior. Expectations were low, thanks to how rotten the last two Godzilla films had been, but thirst for something, anything, truly escapist was high and the big screen equivalent of a kid smashing his toys together became an unlikely saviour, both commercially and critically. Three years later with normality ..read more
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‘You can see it as a revenge fantasy’: The new book arguing that enslaved people co-authored the Bible
Culture | The Guardian
by Donna Ferguson
11h ago
God’s Ghostwriters by Candida Moss aims to shine a light on the contributions to Christianity by imprisoned workers Enslaved people wrote the Bible, carried the messages of the apostles and spread the word of Jesus around the Roman empire, according to a shocking new book by the theology professor Candida Moss. God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible argues that apostles and early Christians used enslaved scribes, secretaries and messengers to write the New Testament and shape the very foundations of Christianity. “The overwhelming literary and archeological evidenc ..read more
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Seth Meyers on Trump selling Bibles: ‘his slimiest cash grab yet’
Culture | The Guardian
by Guardian staff
17h ago
Late-night hosts discuss ex-president hawking $60 Bibles while preparing for trial over paying hush-money to adult film star Late-night hosts spoke about Donald Trump’s ad for a $60 Bible as well as some good news about one of his upcoming trials ..read more
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‘I wasn’t sure it was even possible’: the race to finish 80,000 levels of Super Mario Maker
Culture | The Guardian
by Julian Benson
17h ago
A small team of skilled players set themselves a near-impossible task: to complete every level of Super Mario Maker before Nintendo shut its servers. Did they manage it? On 14 March, Team 0% was close to finishing its seven-year mission to complete every single uncleared level in the 2015 Nintendo game Super Mario Maker – all 80,000 of them. Two hellish maps stood in their way: Trimming the Herbs and The Last Dance. And time was ticking. Nintendo had announced it was shutting down the game’s servers on 8 April, and if the levels weren’t completed by then, they would remain forever unfinished ..read more
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Five of the best books about social media
Culture | The Guardian
by Aneesa Ahmed
17h ago
From online courtroom to information manipulation, social media has radically changed communication. Here are five books to help navigate it From Covid conspiracy theories to recent speculations about Catherine, Princess of Wales, social media is at the heart of how we share information, and misinformation, with one another in the 21st century. For those who want to have a better understanding of social media and how it affects us, here are a selection of titles that explore how we consume, share, and manipulate information on social media platforms ..read more
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Bill Nighy: ‘I have danced naked in my front room, but you need shoes to really spin’
Culture | The Guardian
by As told to Rich Pelley
17h ago
The star of The First Omen takes your questions on working as a chimney sweep, finessing his perfect sandwich – and hoping to die in a hail of bullets There’s an argument that you’re the person James Bond matures into: women still want to sleep with you and men want to be you. What’s your secret? MarcoPoloMint I have no idea. I don’t get out much and I don’t identify with whomever they’re talking about. I did used to quip that I could be James Bond’s grandfather and I’ve always wanted to say: “The name’s Nighy. Bill Nighy.” I’m very happy to hear, but it’s a bit of a stretch for me to grasp. W ..read more
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Liu Cixin: ‘I’m often asked – there’s science fiction in China?’
Culture | The Guardian
by David Barnett
17h ago
Author of sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem – newly serialised by Netflix – on ‘the greatest uncertainty facing humanity’ and how finding a secret copy of a Jules Verne novel inspired his career Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science-fiction novels have sold millions of copies all over the world, and have won him numerous awards, including the global Hugo award for science fiction in 2015. Now, the English translation of the first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is back in the Amazon bestsellers charts, after the release of a TV adaptation by the creator ..read more
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Literary Theory for Robots by Dennis Yi Tenen review – the deep roots of AI
Culture | The Guardian
by Sukhdev Sandhu
17h ago
A secret history of machine intelligence, from 14th-century horoscopes to 1930s ‘plot genies’ for coming up with storylines Hark. The end is nigh. “In the industrial age, automation came for the shoemaker and the factory-line worker,” writes Dennis Yi Tenen near the start of Literary Theory for Robots. “Today, it has come for the writer, the professor, the physician, the programmer and the attorney.” Like the end-of-the-planet movies that pelted the multiplexes at the turn of the millennium, newspapers and – increasingly – bookshops are awash with economists, futurologists and social semi ..read more
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Best podcasts of the week: Guantánamo gets the Serial treatment
Culture | The Guardian
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson and Ammar Kalia
17h ago
In this week’s newsletter: The all-time great podcast returns for a fourth season, investigating the infamous detention camp. Plus: five of the best hip-hop podcasts • Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here SerialWidely available, episodes weekly The OG of podcasting returns for an excellent fourth season, with Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis’s history of Guantánamo. It’s a story they have been wanting to tell for years, but until now haven’t been able to get too far beyond the official line. Today, staff and detainees are ready to talk: while the former report partying their ..read more
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