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1 week ago | 
ft.com | Daniel Rey
In his first three months in office, Donald Trump has announced an extension to the wall on the Mexican border, returned Cuba to the list...
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2 weeks ago | 
prospectmagazine.co.uk | Daniel Rey
In his Nobel Speech, Mario Vargas Llosa called literature “a protest against the insufficiencies of life”. The late Peruvian writer—who wrote over 50 works of fiction, nonfiction and drama before his death earlier this month—was thus a constant and committed rebel. Vargas Llosa, who grew up under military dictatorship, believed that literature was not only an escape from reality, but a way to change it.
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2 months ago | 
spectator.co.uk | Daniel Rey
If you’ve recently been to the cinema or turned on your streaming platform of choice, no doubt you’ll have been offered ‘new’ stories that are fundamentally familiar. From Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, to Dune: Part Two, and now Bridget Jones 4 – the film industry is being driven by franchises and sequels. Of the top 10 highest-grossing films released in Britain in 2024, franchises and sequels accounted for nine. The exception, Wicked, was a prequel.
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2 months ago | 
spectator.com.au | Daniel Rey
If you’ve recently been to the cinema or turned on your streaming platform of choice, no doubt you’ll have been offered ‘new’ stories that are fundamentally familiar. From Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, to Dune: Part Two, and now Bridget Jones 4 – the film industry is being driven by franchises and sequels.
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2 months ago | 
prospectmagazine.co.uk | Daniel Rey
Emilia Pérez, nominated for 13 Oscars, has been relentlessly incendiary. Netflix’s film, about a Mexican drug lord who transitions into a woman, may become the most consequential film of our era—challenging casting practices, the use of artificial intelligence and even the idea of the auteur. The musical drama, which was probably seen as a safe prospect in Hollywood, has been entangled in a media storm.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Daniel Rey
Ten years ago this week, Barack Obama announced the historic US rapprochement with Cuba. Alongside Obama during years of secret negotiations was Joe Biden — then vice president, and a trusted advisor on foreign affairs. But while Obama’s policies reduced Cubans’ reliance on the communist state, President Biden’s actions have done the opposite: spurring extreme hardship and a huge wave of migration to the US.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
prospectmagazine.co.uk | Daniel Rey
José Arcadio Buendía, the patriarch in One Hundred Years of Solitude, is an inventor whose projects straddle the visionary and the impossible. Although some of the schemes work, most—such as his attempt to extract gold using magnetic ingots—end in noble, quixotic failure. The Buendía familyarrived on our screens last week, in the first eight episodes of Netflix’s 16-part adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Daniel Rey
Keir Starmer’s government has just made itself even more unpopular. This week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, author of One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, specified which junk foods will be banned from online and TV adverts before 9pm. The prohibition, set to begin next October, is so extensive that it includes lentil-based crisps and seasoned chickpeas.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Daniel Rey
Keir Starmer’s government has just made itself even more unpopular. This week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, author of One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, specified which junk foods will be banned from online and TV adverts before 9pm. The prohibition, set to begin next October, is so extensive that it includes lentil-based crisps and seasoned chickpeas. It’s drastic, disciplinarian, and very sensible.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Daniel Rey
When Rafael Nadal triumphed in the 2005 French Open, he was still just a teenager. The Spaniard won 21 more Grand Slam titles, and became the second most decorated man in tennis history. He retired this week after Spain were knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup by the Netherlands.
