USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

David, I agree with you that the ending of “Playtest” fell flat. After so many twists (bullies! spiders! spider bullies! Terminator hookups!), the end didn’t evoke pathos so much as a sense of absurdity. In terms of focusing on the evils of technology, though, it seems to me that  Black Mirror  has always seen technology as something with the potential to enable and encourage human evil, rather than something that’s inherently evil by itself. It takes our worst instincts as people, as societies, and magnifies them. Hence episodes like “Shut Up and Dance,” seemingly set in the present like “The National Anthem” and “White Bear” and “The Waldo Moment,” all of which imagined scenarios so plausible that two of them have apparently come true. It’s that familiarity that makes them so disturbing, and “Shut Up and Dance” upset me more than any other  Black Mirror  episode to date. In  Mirror -land, the most nightmarish situations seem to occur when all the people...

Orlando Bloom in Zulu   R ight now, it’s quite difficult to avoid running into a naked Orlando Bloom. Nude pictures of the actor – standing upright on a paddleboard behind girlfriend Katy Perry –have been splashed across the front page of the Daily Star and the website of the New York Daily News, and our social media feeds are consequently awash with them. Thankfully – does poor Bloom really want us all gawping at his privates? – those publishing the images have at least opted for some form of pixilation or, in the case of the Daily Star, a strategically placed emoji. Despite his apparent enthusiasm for getting an even tan line while enjoying Italian beaches, the actor has been relatively conservative when it comes to stripping off on camera (creepy long-lense paparazzi cameras don’t count). He shot to fame as long-locked elf Legolas in sexless epic The Lord of The Rings, before moving on to the kid-friendly Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. True, ...