Latest news with #JurassicPark
ABC News
a day ago
- Science
- ABC News
Extinct Species
MICHELLE WAKIM, REPORTER: What do you think about bringing extinct animals back to life? PERSON: I think it's a bit scary, but I think it's a really cool idea. PERSON: The world has adapted without them, but then if they come back, the right climates and stuff won't be right for them. PERSON: It would be really cool, but it could interrupt the food web or the food chain. PERSON: It could go really wrong. PERSON: It could very wrong. PERSON: Some things would go wrong. PERSON: It just depends on the animal and what it can do to society, like a dinosaur, that would just not be a good thing. PERSON: Well, I watched Jurassic Park. So not the plot of Jurassic Park? PERSON: Yeah, no, not the plot of Jurassic Park. PERSON: I think the plot of Jurassic Park would be cool. When we talk about de-extinction, bringing extinct animals back to life, Jurassic Park, the 1993 sci-fi film, often comes to mind. JURASSIC PARK: Welcome to Jurassic Park. But now, in real life, America Biotech company Colossal Biosciences has announced plans to de-extinct this. Do you know what this animal is? PERSON: An emu? PERSON: Uh, it looks like an emu. PERSON: I don't know. PERSON: An emu? This is the moa, and to be fair, it is in the same family as the emu. Moa were big flightless birds that once inhabited New Zealand and became extinct around 500 years ago due to over-hunting, habitat destruction and introduced predators. And the moa isn't the first animal Colossal Biosciences is keen to de-extinct. They've been working on woolly mammoths, the Tassie tiger, and these guys, which the company says are the first dire wolves to be born in more than 10,000 years. BETH SHAPIRO, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: The process of de-extinction is that we extract DNA from ancient bones, and we sequence that DNA and assemble ancient genomes. DNA, which stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, is like a blueprint that exists inside the cells of all living things. It's made up of chemical bases, adenine, thionine, cytosine, and guanine. They form the building blocks of DNA, which determines how all living things look and act. Sometimes you can also find DNA preserved in dead things. Now might be a good time to bring in Associate Professor Nick Rawlence. Part of his job is to get DNA out of archaeological, and fossil remains. NIC RAWLENCE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO: So, think Jurassic Park, but we don't bring back dinosaurs. De-extinction in the strictest sense is bringing back an animal that has been extinct, bringing it back to life. The only way to do that is through the process of cloning. So, if we think of Dolly the sheep. NEWS REPORTER: When the world first said, 'Hello Dolly' there were hopes this was the beginning of a revolution. Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned and was born back in 1996. But the thing about cloning is you need really high-quality DNA for it to work. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: The problem with extinct animals is that for the most part, their DNA is really badly degraded. It's like you've taken that DNA, and you've put it in a wood-fired pizza oven at 500 degrees overnight, and it comes out fragmented in shards, crumbs, dust, chemically modified. Nic says while we can take these damaged bits of DNA and kind of put them back together like a puzzle, there will be missing pieces and holes in the final product. Sound familiar? JURASSIC PARK: Gaps in the DNA sequence. We use the complete DNA of a frog to fill in the holes and complete the code, and now, we can make a baby dinosaur. So, if ancient DNA is too damaged to clone, what is Colossal Biosciences actually doing when they claim to de-extinct animals? BETH SHAPIRO, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: To de-extinct the moa, we are collecting DNA from all nine species of moa. We'll be comparing the genome sequences to genomes of living birds to identify what it is that made moa unique, and using the tools of genome editing to make those changes in the DNA sequence of the living close relatives. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: So, the only way to get an animal that's similar to one that was extinct is to use genetic engineering. So, bringing back the dire wolf, you've created a genetically engineered grey wolf; you would do the same with emu and moa. A good analogy is if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. What we have is we've got something that looks like a dire wolf, but we're not entirely sure it actually behaves like a dire wolf. PERSON: If you made it look like it and genetically put it together like that, then it might not have the same behaviours as it had a long time ago. PERSON: If they're just taking an emu and sort of like changing it to bring it back, I mean, what are we really going to gain from this? I don't think it's very necessary. PERSON: Why do we need the moa, kind of? It's like, what purpose does it have here? It could maybe endanger emus? PERSON: They might create a new animal, that's nothing like the original one, that went extinct. So, knowing all of this, we're left with the classic dilemma. JURASSIC PARK: Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. ASS. PROF. RAWLENCE: I'm against de-extinction. I would say by all means develop the technology but use it to save what we've got left. You could use this technology to genetically engineer animals to be resistant to a disease, giving them the chance to evolve with climate change in a fast-changing world. Colossal scientists said we have a moral obligation to bring back these species and undo the sins of the past; I'd say we need to learn from them, otherwise we're doomed to repeat them. PERSON: If it's used for commercial purposes, that would cross the line, I reckon. If it's used to kind of help the environment and save endangered species or stuff like that, that could be really good. PERSON: Maybe like polar bears. I know they're, like struggling because of climate change. So maybe, yeah, doing something for the polar bears. PERSON: If it's going to cause more harm than good then there's no need to bring them back and take money out of the science budget as a whole. PERSON: Especially with climate change it's a much better idea to focus on the animals that we have now because, like, we don't know if in a while those animals are going to be extinct as well.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Science
- New York Post
12-foot bird has been gone for 600 years — now scientists want to ‘de-extinct' it
The real big bird returns. A company that claims to have resurrected the dire wolf has unveiled plans to bring back the moa, a long-extinct bird that once towered over people. The company, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had joined forces with acclaimed 'Lord Of The Rings' director Sir Peter Jackson to de-extinct the ancient avian, the largest species of which stood 12-feet tall and weighed more than 500 pounds, Time reported. This flightless bird reportedly inhabited New Zealand until getting hunted to extinction by Māori settlers around 600 years ago, Livescience reported. Coordinating the ambitious de-extinction campaign is the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, between the main Māori tribe (iwi) on NZ's South Island and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. 3 An upland moa skeleton. 'There's a lot of science still to be done – but we can start looking forward to the day when birds like the moa or the huia (an extinct NZ bird with a curved bill) are rescued from the darkness of extinction,' said Sir Peter Jackson. 'Even the journey will bring incredible insights about the history of this land and enrich discussions as to the potential nature of our future here.' Museum of New Zealand 'Some of those iconic species that feature in our tribal mythology, our storytelling, are very near and dear to us,' explained Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, who is collaborating on the moa's second coming. 'Participation in scientific research, species management, and conservation has been a large part of our activities.' Jackson, an investor in Colossal who helped bring the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre into the fold, explained that the proposed de-extinction is part of efforts to ensure that 'some of the most critically endangered species in Aotearoa/New Zealand are protected for future generations.' Unfortunately, resurrecting the moa will be quite a bit more difficult than bringing his fantasy creatures to life on the big screen. Experts analogized the process to that of the dire wolf, a long-dead species of canid that scientists resurrected by harvesting DNA from fossil specimens and then filling in the genetic gap with a gray wolf genome — like how frog DNA was used to engineer dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park.' Bringing back the moa is decidedly more challenging as the moa is far more removed from its closest living relatives, emus and a chicken-like bird called the tinamou, than the dire wolf is from the gray wolf. Whereas dire wolves only split from modern wolf-like canids — the group that includes gray wolves — around 5.7 million years ago, the common ancestor of the moa and tinamou lived 58 million years ago, while the moa and emu predecessor lived 65 million years ago. During their 'time apart,' the moa developed a lot of unique traits that are difficult to duplicate. 3 Colossal Biosciences is currently working to resurrect the woolly mammoth as well. Courtesy of Colossal To achieve this feat of genetic engineering, the team plans to aims to sequence and reconstruct the genomes of all nine extinct moa species, while also sequencing high-quality genomes of their aforementioned relatives. The team will then use precursors to sperm and egg cells to Frankenstein a 'surrogate bird' from living species and then genetically alter it to resemble a moa. They plan to introduce the edited calls into the embryonic tinamou or emu inside an egg, after which the cells will hopefully migrate to the embryo's gonads, changing them so that the females produce eggs and the males produce moa sperm. In theory, that hatchling will then grow up, mate and produce moa chicks. As of yet, the team is still in the process of selecting said surrogate, although the emu's size — they can grow up to 6 feet 2 inches tall — makes it a more suitable surrogate than the comparatively runty tinamou, per the researchers. 3 Colossal Biosciences 'brought back' dire wolves using a primordial stew with gray wolf DNA. Colossal Biosciences / Business Wire Unfortunately, the moa egg is also a lot bigger than an emu egg, so this could present another challenge if they were to use the latter as the incubation chamber in which to hatch the hybrid bird. 'A South Island giant moa egg will not fit inside an emu surrogate, so Colossal will have to develop artificial surrogate egg technology,' said Nic Rawlence, director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Lab at the University of Otago in New Zealand and a critic of the moa plan. Colossal's chief science officer, Beth Shapiro explained that they're exploring 'different strategies for artificial egg incubation, which will have application both for moa de-extinction and bird conservation work.' Of course, there are several criticisms of the project that were directed at prior resurrection campaigns as well. Critics of the dire wolf project claimed that their so-called dire wolf was still genetically a gray wolf with increased size and a white coat. Rawlence even believes that 'genetically engineering specific genes in an emu to match a moa could have dire developmental consequences.' Beth Shapiro told Live Science that animal welfare was a priority, explaining, 'We thoroughly evaluate health risks of any proposed edit before selecting them for our final list of edits.' Jackson believes the project has exciting potential when it comes to reviving lost species. 'There's a lot of science still to be done – but we can start looking forward to the day when birds like the moa or the huia (an extinct NZ bird with a curved bill) are rescued from the darkness of extinction,' he said. 'Even the journey will bring incredible insights about the history of this land and enrich discussions as to the potential nature of our future here.' The moa isn't the only animal Colossal plans to add to its menagerie of long-dead creatures. The biotech firm has also targeted the woolly mammoth for de-extinction — and is a step closer to its goal after engineering a critter called the woolly mouse.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Six Films Better Than the Books They're Based On
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition. Announcements of yet another book-to-film adaptation are usually met with groans by fans of the source material. But sometimes a new movie can be a chance to lift the best elements of a story. We asked The Atlantic's writers and editors: What's a film adaptation that's better than the book? Jurassic Park (streaming on Peacock) I am not saying that the Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park isn't great, because it is. The folly of man, the chaos of progress, the forking around, the finding out, the dinosaurs—God, the dinosaurs. But in 1993, Steven Spielberg took this promising genetic code, selected the fittest elements, spliced them with Hitchcock, and adapted them to the cool dark of the multiplex. The result is not just a great movie. It is a perfect movie. The story is tighter; the characters are given foils, mirrors, and stronger arcs. On the page, Dr. Alan Grant is a widower and the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler his student; Dr. Ian Malcolm, chaos mathematician, is a balding know-it-all. On the screen, our dear Dr. Sattler feasts on Dr. Grant's restrained, tonic masculinity and Dr. Malcolm's camp erotic magnetism (as do we). The dialogue is punchier too. 'You're alive when they start to eat you,' 'Woman inherits the Earth,' 'Clever girl,' 'Hold on to your butts'—none of that poetry appears in the paperback. Spielberg and his crew used CGI techniques to make the inhabitants of Isla Nublar come to life, but the real magic came from practical effects, including a 9,000-pound, bus-size animatronic T. rex. This ferocious predator deserves to live on-screen, chomping on velociraptors and snatching a lawyer off of the toilet. Thirty years later, I am still not sure man deserves to watch. — Annie Lowrey, staff writer *** The Talented Mr. Ripley (streaming on Paramount+ and the Criterion Channel) Patricia Highsmith wrote eminently filmable novels, none more so than her oft-adapted The Talented Mr. Ripley. The 1999 movie is the most famous and successful take, transforming the source material into a faster-paced and more suspenseful version of the story. The novel's crime-to-punishment ratio is Dostoyevskian; for each misdeed Tom Ripley commits, he spends twice as long regretting it or worrying that he'll get caught. Anthony Minghella's adaptation diverges from this claustrophobic narration and limits viewers' access into Ripley's mind, making his deceitful and violent actions all the more unexpected. The final scenes contain the largest plot deviation—a shocking twist that manages to both show Ripley at his worst and invite sympathy for him. The film also clarifies his tortured sexuality, an element of his character that remains more ambiguous in the novel. What Highsmith hints at, Minghella more boldly asks: When someone is already ostracized, even criminalized, by society, what's to stop him from taking the leap into actual depravity? — Dan Goff, copy editor *** Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (available to rent on YouTube and Prime Video) I'm going to make some people mad, but the 2011 adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is even better than the superb novel. It's a rare instance of a spy movie that transcends genre and stands on its own. Gary Oldman's portrayal of the intelligence officer George Smiley is one of the great performances of the 21st century—and it probably paved the way for Oldman to eventually play Jackson Lamb in the addictive Slow Horses series, also an adaptation. The treatment of the field agent Ricki Tarr (played by Tom Hardy) is both more intense and to the point than in the novel. The scenery—the shots of Budapest alone—brings le Carré's writing to life in a way that few adaptations ever do. And the film has easily one of the most gripping, poignant, and creative final scenes I've ever seen. (Julio Iglesias's rendition of 'La Mer' is on my dinner-party playlist. If you know, you know.) — Shane Harris, staff writer *** The Devil Wears Prada (streaming on Disney+) At first glance, the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada seems to make only cosmetic changes to Lauren Weisberger's fizzy novel about a young woman trying to break into New York's publishing industry. In the movie, the protagonist, Andy, is a graduate of Northwestern, instead of Brown. Her boyfriend is a chef, not a teacher. And Miranda Priestly, the imposing editor of a fashion magazine—a thinly veiled version of Anna Wintour—who hires Andy as an assistant, isn't always seen wearing a white Hermès scarf. But the movie's sharp screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna elevated the material past its breezy, chick-lit-y origins. Anchored by a top-notch cast (Anne Hathaway as Andy, Meryl Streep as Miranda, and a breakout Emily Blunt as Andy's workplace rival), the film is the rare rom-com focused more on professional relationships than romantic ones: between mentors and mentees, bosses and employees, colleagues and competitors. Even amid its glossy setting, The Devil Wears Prada captured the reality of work, showing how finding career fulfillment can be a blessing and a curse. For me, the film is a modern classic, endlessly rewatchable for its insights—and, of course, its fashion. I certainly have never looked at the color cerulean the same way again. — Shirley Li, staff writer *** The Social Network (available to rent on Prime Video and YouTube) Did Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend really break up with him by calling him an asshole in the middle of a date? Did he actually spend the moments after a disastrous legal deposition refreshing a Facebook page, again and again, to see if she'd accepted his friend request? Well, probably not—Erica Albright, Rooney Mara's character in David Fincher's film The Social Network, is admittedly fictional. But her opening scene establishes Fincher's version of Mark Zuckerberg as a smug, patronizing jerk who can't imagine other people's feelings being as important as his own, and sets the movie off at a furious, thrilling pace that doesn't slow until the very end, when Mark has alienated everyone who once cared about him. The Social Network is a biopic that doesn't hold itself to facts, to its absolute advantage. Ironically, this approach elevates the nonfiction book it's based on, Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, which was written without even an interview with Zuckerberg and panned as shoddily reported. (In a New York Times review, Janet Maslin wrote that Mezrich's 'working method' seemed to be 'wild guessing.') The truth doesn't matter as much as telling a good story—as long as you keep control of the narrative, which Fincher's Mark struggles to do. — Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor *** Clear and Present Danger (streaming on MGM+) Clear and Present Danger the book is the size, shape, and weight of a brick; Phillip Noyce's bureaucratic thriller slims Tom Clancy's nearly 1,000 pages into a svelte 141 minutes (though movies could always be shorter). The action takes place on the sea, in the jungle, at a drug lord's mansion, and in the streets of Bogotá—the latter setting the scene for an ambush sequence so memorable that the Jack Ryan series restaged it. But the film is most gripping in hallways and offices, culminating in Henry Czerny and Harrison Ford brandishing dueling memos at each other like light sabers. ('You broke the law!') And although the character of Jack Ryan can sometimes blur into a cipher in Clancy's novels, Ford embodies him with a Beltway Dad gravitas—never more so than when he announces to the lawbreaking president of the United States, 'It is my duty to report this matter to the Senate Oversight Committee!' Such a Boy Scout. — Evan McMurry, senior editor Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: What to do with the most dangerous book in America Andrea Gibson refused to 'battle' cancer. How to be more charismatic, but not too much more The Week Ahead The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a Marvel movie about a group of superheroes who face off with Galactus and Silver Surfer (in theaters Friday) Veronica Electronica, a new remix album by Madonna (out Friday) Girl, 1983, a novel by Linn Ullmann about the power of forgetting (out Tuesday) Essay What Pixar Should Learn From Its Elio Disaster By David Sims Early last year, Pixar appeared to be on the brink of an existential crisis. The coronavirus pandemic had thrown the business of kids' movies into particular turmoil: Many theatrical features were pushed to streaming, and their success on those platforms left studios wondering whether the appeal of at-home convenience would be impossible to reverse … Discussing the studio's next film, Inside Out 2, the company's chief creative officer, Pete Docter, acknowledged the concerns: 'If this doesn't do well at the theater, I think it just means we're going to have to think even more radically about how we run our business.' He had nothing to worry about: Inside Out 2 was a financial sensation—by far the biggest hit of 2024. Yet here we are, one year later, and the question is bubbling back up: Is Pixar cooked? Read the full article. More in Culture Romance on-screen has never been colder. Maybe that's just truthful. Sexting with Gemini Dear James: 'My ex and I were horrible to each other.' Let your kid climb that tree. The reality show that captures Gen Z dating Catch Up on The Court's liberals are trying to tell Americans something. The Trump administration is about to incinerate 500 tons of emergency food. Is Colbert's ouster really just a 'financial decision'? Photo Album Take a look at these photos of the week, which show a trust jump in Iraq, a homemade-submarine debut in China, and more. Play our daily crossword. Explore all of our newsletters. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Pink Villa
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Box Office: Jurassic World: Rebirth set to cross Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning in India; Collects Rs 82 crore in 17 days
Jurassic World Rebirth is among the latest releases which are running at the box office. Starring Scarlett Johansson, the film serves as the seventh installment of the Jurassic Park franchise. Directed by Gareth Edwards, the science fiction action film has earned Rs 82.1 crore in India in 17 days. Co-produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, Jurassic World Rebirth collected Rs 50.45 crore in the first week of its release in India. The Scarlett Johansson starrer recorded Rs 22.30 crore in the second week. Jurassic World Rebirth fetched Rs 1.85 crore on the third Friday and Rs 3.50 crore on the third Saturday. It earned Rs 4 crore on the third Sunday, bringing its third weekend collection to Rs 9.35 crore. Now, the cume collection of Gareth Edwards' directorial stands at Rs 82.1 crore in 17 days. Jurassic World Rebirth to cross Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning in India Jurassic World Rebirth will soon surpass the lifetime collection of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning at the Indian box office. The Tom Cruise starrer earned Rs 92 crore in India. The plot shows that most dinasaurs are now confined to isolated equatorial regions in order to survive due to inhospitable climate on the Earth. Led by Zora Bennett, a covert operation expert, the team travels to a former island research facility where the three largest prehistoric animals reside. In the film, Scarlett Johansson plays the role of Zora. Mahersha Ali is cast as her team leader, Duncan Kincaid. Jurassic World Rebirth is a standalone sequel to Jurassic World Dominion, which was released in 2022. Jurassic World: Rebirth In Theatres Jurassic World: Rebirth plays in theatres now. Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates.
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Six Films Better Than the Books They're Based On
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition. Announcements of yet another book-to-film adaptation are usually met with groans by fans of the source material. But sometimes a new movie can be a chance to lift the best elements of a story. We asked The Atlantic 's writers and editors: What's a film adaptation that's better than the book? Jurassic Park (streaming on Peacock) I am not saying that the Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park isn't great, because it is. The folly of man, the chaos of progress, the forking around, the finding out, the dinosaurs—God, the dinosaurs. But in 1993, Steven Spielberg took this promising genetic code, selected the fittest elements, spliced them with Hitchcock, and adapted them to the cool dark of the multiplex. The result is not just a great movie. It is a perfect movie. The story is tighter; the characters are given foils, mirrors, and stronger arcs. On the page, Dr. Alan Grant is a widower and the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler his student; Dr. Ian Malcolm, chaos mathematician, is a balding know-it-all. On the screen, our dear Dr. Sattler feasts on Dr. Grant's restrained, tonic masculinity and Dr. Malcolm's camp erotic magnetism (as do we). The dialogue is punchier too. 'You're alive when they start to eat you,' 'Woman inherits the Earth,' 'Clever girl,' 'Hold on to your butts'—none of that poetry appears in the paperback. Spielberg and his crew used CGI techniques to make the inhabitants of Isla Nublar come to life, but the real magic came from practical effects, including a 9,000-pound, bus-size animatronic T. rex. This ferocious predator deserves to live on-screen, chomping on velociraptors and snatching a lawyer off of the toilet. Thirty years later, I am still not sure man deserves to watch. — Annie Lowrey, staff writer The Talented Mr. Ripley (streaming on Paramount+ and the Criterion Channel) Patricia Highsmith wrote eminently filmable novels, none more so than her oft-adapted The Talented Mr. Ripley. The 1999 movie is the most famous and successful take, transforming the source material into a faster-paced and more suspenseful version of the story. The novel's crime-to-punishment ratio is Dostoyevskian; for each misdeed Tom Ripley commits, he spends twice as long regretting it or worrying that he'll get caught. Anthony Minghella's adaptation diverges from this claustrophobic narration and limits viewers' access into Ripley's mind, making his deceitful and violent actions all the more unexpected. The final scenes contain the largest plot deviation—a shocking twist that manages to both show Ripley at his worst and invite sympathy for him. The film also clarifies his tortured sexuality, an element of his character that remains more ambiguous in the novel. What Highsmith hints at, Minghella more boldly asks: When someone is already ostracized, even criminalized, by society, what's to stop him from taking the leap into actual depravity? — Dan Goff, copy editor Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (available to rent on YouTube and Prime Video) I'm going to make some people mad, but the 2011 adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is even better than the superb novel. It's a rare instance of a spy movie that transcends genre and stands on its own. Gary Oldman's portrayal of the intelligence officer George Smiley is one of the great performances of the 21st century—and it probably paved the way for Oldman to eventually play Jackson Lamb in the addictive Slow Horses series, also an adaptation. The treatment of the field agent Ricki Tarr (played by Tom Hardy) is both more intense and to the point than in the novel. The scenery—the shots of Budapest alone—brings le Carré's writing to life in a way that few adaptations ever do. And the film has easily one of the most gripping, poignant, and creative final scenes I've ever seen. (Julio Iglesias's rendition of 'La Mer' is on my dinner-party playlist. If you know, you know.) — Shane Harris, staff writer The Devil Wears Prada (streaming on Disney+) At first glance, the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada seems to make only cosmetic changes to Lauren Weisberger's fizzy novel about a young woman trying to break into New York's publishing industry. In the movie, the protagonist, Andy, is a graduate of Northwestern, instead of Brown. Her boyfriend is a chef, not a teacher. And Miranda Priestly, the imposing editor of a fashion magazine—a thinly veiled version of Anna Wintour—who hires Andy as an assistant, isn't always seen wearing a white Hermès scarf. But the movie's sharp screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna elevated the material past its breezy, chick-lit-y origins. Anchored by a top-notch cast (Anne Hathaway as Andy, Meryl Streep as Miranda, and a breakout Emily Blunt as Andy's workplace rival), the film is the rare rom-com focused more on professional relationships than romantic ones: between mentors and mentees, bosses and employees, colleagues and competitors. Even amid its glossy setting, The Devil Wears Prada captured the reality of work, showing how finding career fulfillment can be a blessing and a curse. For me, the film is a modern classic, endlessly rewatchable for its insights—and, of course, its fashion. I certainly have never looked at the color cerulean the same way again. — Shirley Li, staff writer The Social Network (available to rent on Prime Video and YouTube) Did Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend really break up with him by calling him an asshole in the middle of a date? Did he actually spend the moments after a disastrous legal deposition refreshing a Facebook page, again and again, to see if she'd accepted his friend request? Well, probably not—Erica Albright, Rooney Mara's character in David Fincher's film The Social Network, is admittedly fictional. But her opening scene establishes Fincher's version of Mark Zuckerberg as a smug, patronizing jerk who can't imagine other people's feelings being as important as his own, and sets the movie off at a furious, thrilling pace that doesn't slow until the very end, when Mark has alienated everyone who once cared about him. The Social Network is a biopic that doesn't hold itself to facts, to its absolute advantage. Ironically, this approach elevates the nonfiction book it's based on, Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, which was written without even an interview with Zuckerberg and panned as shoddily reported. (In a New York Times review, Janet Maslin wrote that Mezrich's 'working method' seemed to be 'wild guessing.') The truth doesn't matter as much as telling a good story—as long as you keep control of the narrative, which Fincher's Mark struggles to do. — Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor Clear and Present Danger (streaming on MGM+) Clear and Present Danger the book is the size, shape, and weight of a brick; Phillip Noyce's bureaucratic thriller slims Tom Clancy's nearly 1,000 pages into a svelte 141 minutes (though movies could always be shorter). The action takes place on the sea, in the jungle, at a drug lord's mansion, and in the streets of Bogotá—the latter setting the scene for an ambush sequence so memorable that the Jack Ryan series restaged it. But the film is most gripping in hallways and offices, culminating in Henry Czerny and Harrison Ford brandishing dueling memos at each other like light sabers. ('You broke the law!') And although the character of Jack Ryan can sometimes blur into a cipher in Clancy's novels, Ford embodies him with a Beltway Dad gravitas—never more so than when he announces to the lawbreaking president of the United States, 'It is my duty to report this matter to the Senate Oversight Committee!' Such a Boy Scout. Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The Week Ahead The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a Marvel movie about a group of superheroes who face off with Galactus and Silver Surfer (in theaters Friday) Veronica Electronica, a new remix album by Madonna (out Friday) Girl, 1983, a novel by Linn Ullmann about the power of forgetting (out Tuesday) Essay What Pixar Should Learn From Its Elio Disaster By David Sims Early last year, Pixar appeared to be on the brink of an existential crisis. The coronavirus pandemic had thrown the business of kids' movies into particular turmoil: Many theatrical features were pushed to streaming, and their success on those platforms left studios wondering whether the appeal of at-home convenience would be impossible to reverse … Discussing the studio's next film, Inside Out 2, the company's chief creative officer, Pete Docter, acknowledged the concerns: 'If this doesn't do well at the theater, I think it just means we're going to have to think even more radically about how we run our business.' He had nothing to worry about: Inside Out 2 was a financial sensation —by far the biggest hit of 2024. Yet here we are, one year later, and the question is bubbling back up: Is Pixar cooked? More in Culture Romance on-screen has never been colder. Maybe that's just truthful. Sexting with Gemini Dear James: 'My ex and I were horrible to each other.' Let your kid climb that tree. The reality show that captures Gen Z dating Catch Up on The Atlantic Photo Album Take a look at these photos of the week, which show a trust jump in Iraq, a homemade-submarine debut in China, and more. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
