News (old posts, page 932)

Is Possession about a harrowing divorce or a woman with an octopus kink? Why not both?

Sam Neill barely made it out alive. Isabelle Adjani was left ‘bruised, inside out’. It might be puzzling, it might be brilliant, and it will never leave you

Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession is genuinely unhinged and utterly unforgettable. Żuławski called it “a very true-to-life autobiographical story”, which it is: when he made it in 1981, his own marriage had just collapsed, and as portraits of divorce go, Possession is a pretty spectacular one. But Żuławski also once described Possession as a film about a woman who “fucks with an octopus”, which it is too.

A co-production between France and West Germany that was shot in West Berlin by a Polish director, Possession opens as Mark (Sam Neill), a spy, returns home and finds that his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani), wants a divorce. She’s having an affair, she reveals, ostensibly with Heinrich (Heinz Bennent) – exactly the kind of lofty weirdo you’d hate your wife to dump you for. Mark reluctantly turns over custody of their young son, Bob, but soon discovers Bob is being left unattended for long periods by Anna, who is increasingly erratic and keeps disappearing. Mark hires a private investigator to find out who she is seeing – or what she is seeing.

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Walkouts, feuds and broken friendships: when book clubs go bad

While most book clubs go off without an issue, when they do turn sour the fallout can be significant. So why do some go wrong – and what can be done to prevent it?

“Friendships of over six years were broken overnight,” Rosa* says of the sudden, dramatic dissolution of her book club in Victoria, Australia some months ago. What started as a chance to share notes on the finer points of dramatic literature had become a real-life drama.

The book club had been an important fixture of Rosa’s calendar for several years and, like many others, was hosted on rotation in the homes of different members each month. Although its primary purpose was discussing books, Rosa felt it was equally about socialising, and members were encouraged to dress up in outfits relating to the month’s book, with prizes for the best dressed.

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ProPublica Hires Chris Alcantara as a Graphics Editor

ProPublica announced on Tuesday that Chris Alcantara has joined the graphics team as a graphics editor. In this role, Alcantara will develop, design and build charts, maps, data visualizations and visual stories.

Alcantara comes to ProPublica from The Washington Post, where he was a graphics reporter for almost 10 years and published ambitious data visualizations and interactives that covered a range of national and world news. He also built reporting tools and programs that helped collect and analyze data, as well as led production of data pipelines for the U.S. presidential and midterm elections and the Olympic Games.

Before the Post, Alcantara was an interactive news developer at the Miami Herald, where he created interactive stories and data-driven graphics, as part of a three-person visuals team, and contributed data reporting to the newspaper’s investigations team.

“I couldn’t be more excited to welcome Chris to the graphics team,” said Lena Groeger, graphics director. “Chris brings over a decade of experience creating data visualizations that clarify complex topics and reveal important findings through visual storytelling. We can’t wait to get started.”

“ProPublica does valuable work,” Alcantara said, “and I’m grateful for the opportunity to join the team and eager to contribute visual storytelling to the newsroom’s investigations.”

’I’m crying just remembering it!’: readers on Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s goodbye gig

On Saturday night the Brummie rockers bade farewell to a stunning career, and Guardian readers were united in awe and respect

Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne: Back to the Beginning review – all-star farewell to the gods of metal is epic and emotional

I tried to get tickets when they first went on sale, but there were only £500+ options left, which felt too steep. However, the day before the show, I watched an interview with Tony Iommi and just couldn’t bear the thought of not being there for their final goodbye. I’ve seen them a handful of times before, including their one-off show at the O2 Academy, but as a Brummie and a metal fan, it felt like a pilgrimage I just had to take.

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Chanel and JW Anderson show their resistance to global luxury downturn

Chanel’s Paris show harked back to brand’s first boutique, while JW Anderson pivots to lifestyle and homewares

There was no designer to take a bow after Chanel in Paris, but the creative director, Matthieu Blazy – whose first show will take place in October – had already been at the sketchbook. “It is not his collection – but it is not happening without him either,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, before the show. “You will see his touch.”

Inside the Grand Palais sat fashion’s favourite popstars, Lorde and Gracie Abrams, alongside Anna Wintour, who recently announced she was stepping back from her editor-in-chief role at American Vogue. But instead of Karl Lagerfeld’s elaborate Warholian sets, the show space had been transformed into a salon based on Chanel’s first boutique, with butterscotch carpets and floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

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Spanish police believe Diogo Jota was speeding when he and his brother died

  • Police say it appears Liverpool player was driving

  • Jota and his brother died when Lamborghini crashed

Spanish police suspect Diogo Jota was driving over the speed limit when he and his brother were killed in a car crash last week.

The 28-year-old Liverpool and Portugal forward died with his 25-year-old brother André Silva when the Lamborghini in which they were travelling careered off a road in the province of Zamora last Thursday.

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Everything we know about Texas flooding – with visuals

More than 100 people are believed dead, many of them children, after torrential rain and extreme flash flooding

With more than 100 people dead, many of them children attending a Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, Friday’s extreme flash flooding that overwhelmed a sizeable chunk of central Texas will be recorded as one of the state’s worst ever natural disasters.

The brunt of the tragedy was felt in Kerr county, where at least 27 children and counselors were killed after a deluge of water described by one witness as a “a pitch-black wall of death” swept through the all-girl Camp Mystic on the river’s south fork. About 750 young campers were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday.

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