Ridley Scott’s biopic Napoleon, in which Joaquin Phoenix plays the French emperor, hits theaters on Nov. 22. The film tracks Napoleon’s rise to fame during the French Revolution, delves deep into his lifelong love for his wife Josephine, and depicts his most famous military battles, culminating in his epic defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
The movie is a work of historical fiction, but Scott’s team worked to ensure that at least some details are historically accurate. Michael Broers, an author of several books on Napoleon who attended script meetings for the film, spoke to TIME about what the movie gets right and wrong about the legendary leader and debunks some of the most common misconceptions about him.
Below, Broers gives the inside scoop on the con…
The idea of cannibalism as a metaphor for gentrification was a lightbulb moment for the writer and director Aaron Mark. Looking around Washington Heights—a historically Dominican area in upper Manhattan—where he lived for 10 years, Mark, a self-described gentrifier, saw such rapid change, it felt like the neighborhood was devouring itself. His next thought was about Sweeney Todd, the play and musical about a barber who slits victims’ throats and a meat pie shop owner who bakes them into pastries.
Along with the actor Daphne Rubin-Vega, Mark took inspiration from the infamous demon barber of Fleet Street to create The Horror of Dolores Roach, a black comedy horror series coming to Prime Video on Friday. Starring Justina Machado in the titular…
Warning: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon.
Which blonde dragon-rider will rule the Seven Kingdoms? That is the question at the heart of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel that tells the story of how a civil war—often called the Dance of the Dragons—pitted Targaryen against Targaryen nearly 200 years before the events of Thrones.
The rules of succession in Westeros are complicated and a bit fungible. One king may decide to pass over a female heir in favor of a man, while another may upend that tradition, just one generation later.
Read More: How House of the Dragon’s First Dragon Fight Differs From the Books
When House of the Dragon…
Bloomberg — Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative agreement with unions, averting what could have been the largest strike yet this year. The averted strike would have involved more than 30,000 workers from nurses and pharmacists to janitors and locksmiths.
The health-care company reached the agreement on a four-year contract covering 50,000 employees in 22 local unions, the Alliance of Health Care Unions said in a joint statement Saturday.
Workers were planning to walk out of hospitals across mostly the U.S. West Coast on Monday morning, a move that could have disrupted a health-care system recovering from the damage of the Covid-19 pandemic and as U.S. hospitals confront a new wave of infections heading into the winter.
“These were challenging negotiations…
Meditation is the art of consciously zoning in on the unconscious. Take breathing as an example. Only when you focus on inhaling and exhaling do you realize that you usually breathe unconsciously. Similarly, the pandemic made us realize that things we do unconsciously each day can no longer be taken for granted.
This is also true in the workplace. Before the pandemic, it was second nature to come into the office and meet people face to face. But that all changed as the safety of our people and clients became our top priority and we had to look for new ways of doing things. Through a process of trial and error, we realized that we could operate remotely. Of course, digital tools and the efforts of our people played a huge part in making this possible. Indeed, changes that would nor…
(Bloomberg) — De La Rue Plc shares fell to a record low as the company that’s reprinting UK money following the accession of King Charles III warned that demand for banknotes is the weakest in 20 years.
The stock fell as much as 34% in early London trading after the firm said adjusted operating profit for the fiscal year just ended would miss analyst estimates by “a mid-single digit percentage.” Trading volume swelled to 3.9 million shares, more than 20 times the three-month daily average.
The plunge is the second in four months for De La Rue, which cited a surge in input costs such as energy for a November profit warning.
Read More: Why There’s No Crown on the New King Charles Stamps
Wednesday’s drop …