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Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Dazed and amused, ‘Elio' is Pixar on a spaced-out psychedelic trip
'Elio' is a breezy Pixar adventure, the studio's pivot back to making original, rip-roaring children's yarns. Launched by 'Coco' co-director Adrian Molina and steered to completion by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi, it's got a setup simpler than whatever credit negotiation happened behind the scenes. An 11-year-old boy, Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), looks at the sky and wonders who's up there. This classic plot hook harkens back to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'A Trip to the Moon,' and if I had to place a bet, it's the oldest story mankind's got. Depending on the era and zeitgeist, the heavenly strangers gazing down upon us in judgment could be anyone from Zeus to 'Dr. Who's' Zygons, and their interest in us capricious or cruel or kind. We've got lightyears' worth of these speculative tales. They're really asking: Does our species have value? In Elio's case, he's a recent orphan living with his aunt Olga (a warm and frazzled Zoe Saldaña), a major in the Space Force who monitors satellite debris (which the film convinces us is more exciting than it sounds). Everyone in the movie is surrounded by technology — radios, computers, monitors — and yet most of them seem disconnected. Olga thinks that alien chatter is for crackpots like her colleague Melmac (Brendan Hunt), so named for Alf's home planet. She's paused her own astronaut dreams to take care of her brooding nephew. In return, the boy wants little to do with her or any other earthling. Preteen Elio is on a misanthropic trajectory that, if not recalibrated, could result in him growing up to marry a pillow. When Olga takes Elio to a space museum, he falls in love with the solitary crusade of the Voyager probe whose golden record of wonders, curated by the astronomer Carl Sagan, is hurtling through the galaxy in search of someone who will listen. (Sagan's own voice is heard throughout the movie, though he goes uncredited.) Enthralled, Elio plops a colander on his head and pleads for aliens to touch down and 'take me with you — but not in a desperate way.' Elio doesn't do too much sulking before he's beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary take on the United Nations. He's not alone in the universe, but now he has to earn his place. From there, his quest vrooms at the pace of a Flash Gordon serial — or, for that matter, the first 'Toy Story.' Kids Elio's age have mostly seen Pixar rehash itself with sequels or hunt for Oscars in a therapist's couch (where lately it's been coming up with lint balls). Here, trauma is merely the framework, not the focus. The highfalutin prestige animation studio is signaling to the 'Minecraft' generation that they can do fun new movies too. The film's earthbound sequences boast staggeringly beautiful shots of the ocean under a night sky. But the galaxy above is a fractalized freak-out: a psychedelic rainbow of delights that makes you think that more than one animator has spent time grooving to Phish in a Berkeley dorm. (No doubt some of the grade-schoolers seeing the movie on opening weekend will, a decade from now, watch it again in their dorms under heightened circumstances.) Multiple extraterrestrials appear inspired by a lava lamp. Others resemble wireless earbuds and stress balls and decks of cards, the type of creature design that might happen when you're in your own alternate dimension grokking at the stuff on your dresser. I'm not casting aspersions on anyone's sobriety, I'm just noting that Pixar was founded on musing, 'What if my lamp could jump?' Elio will befriend Glordon (Remy Edgerly), a larval goofball from the Crab Nebula who has a dozen wiggling limbs with various protuberances. Off-planet, the boy readily drops his defensive shields and opens himself to the excitement that's been promised since the epic opening notes of Rob Simonsen's eclectic score. In a sequence set to a Krautrock-esque banger, Elio and Glordon enjoy a montage that's essentially a teaser for an amusement park experience that's probably already in its drafting stage, with the buddies frolicking in waterslides and chugging a beverage called Glorp, styled so that it can be readily re-created with boba. As ever, everything is tethered to what our earthbound brains can imagine. Even the names Glordon and Glorp might be a nod to the Voyager's known flight plan, which in 40,000 years is expected to have its first-ever close encounter with a star named Gliese 445. Bonding with the miscellaneous beings of the Communiverse does spur Elio to be nicer to Olga, but admirably, the script (credited to Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones) doesn't take the easy escape hatch of sending the earth boy into the beyond only to realize that everywhere else is even worse. Space isn't the enemy. If anything, space is too nice. Most of the aliens Elio meets insist that they believe in tolerance and open-mindedness. You're waiting for that to be a big lie, but it's not. Voiced by Jameela Jamil, Shirley Henderson, Atsuko Okatsuka and Matthias Schweighöfer, they can get a tad snippy, but otherwise these galactic Neville Chamberlains cower when a bruiser named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), who stomps around on thick metal legs, lands on their base spoiling for a fight. The cartoon well calibrates its PG thrills to give kids a mild case of the shivers. More spunky than saccharine, Elio spends most of the film wearing a bandage over a black eye. Back home, he's pursued through the woods by masked bullies (and when he gets an opportunity, he kicks one of them in the head). In space, Elio stumbles across adorable skeletons and shimmies through gacky pipes. Meanwhile, Lord Grigon's dastardly hobby is skeet-shooting fragile, flowerlike critters. When hit, these living daisies don't die — they're just pitifully embarrassed to lose their petals. It's refreshing to see a romp this spry. 'Elio' isn't trying to reinvent the spaceship — it's after the puppyish charm of sticking your head out the window as marvels whiz past. Some of my favorite gags just sparked to life for an instant, like an all-knowing supercomputer who is a bit put out that Elio accesses its wisdom simply to learn how to fight. It's offering to teach our species the meaning of life; we want the art of war. 'Why should an advanced society wish to expend the effort to communicate such information to a backward, emerging, novice civilization like our own?' Carl Sagan wrote in his 1973 book, 'The Cosmic Connection.' Yet more than half of Americans believe that aliens exist. A third think they've already come to visit. Like Elio, we yearn for cosmic validation. The great scientist wouldn't have put 'Elio' on his golden record. It's a trifle, not a cultural touchstone. But while Pixar has anthropomorphized ants and rats and cars and dolls and emotions, this lonely boy feels stirringly human. Yes, the movie says, go ahead and look for connection up in the sky or under your feet. But also seek it out in each other.
New York Post
6 days ago
- Science
- New York Post
‘Spectacular' temple dedicated to Ancient Greek God uncovered by archaeologists: 2,700-year-old treasures found
Archaeologists have unearthed a 'spectacular' ancient temple housing hundreds of statues dedicated to the Greek God Apollo. The site, known as the Sanctuary of Apollo, is located in a remote valley in Cyprus, and the uncovered artifacts are believed to date back 2,700 years. A team of German experts initially began excavating in the area in 2021, with the finds of their four-year dig disclosed in a statement from the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. '[The sanctuary] was furnished with a lavish abundance of votive statues numbering in the hundreds, some of which were of colossal dimensions,' the statement, translated from Greek to English, read. 'In addition, evidence of other previously unknown types of votive objects was also found, such as marbled glass beads or Egyptian amulets made of faience [tin-glazed pottery].' The site, known as the Sanctuary of Apollo, is located in a remote valley in Cyprus, and the uncovered artifacts are believed to date back 2,700 years. Department of Antiquities Cyprus Three ancient statues from the Apollo sanctuary at Frangissa. Department of Antiquities Cyprus Apollo, the Greek god of archery and the son of Zeus, was a prominent deity in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. The Sanctuary of Apollo was first discovered by German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter in 1885, and was 'considered one of the most spectacular finds of its time.' However, following his 'inadequate' excavations, Ohnefalsch-Richter reburied the site, causing its precise whereabouts to be forgotten for over a century. In 2021, the new team of German archaeologists rediscovered the long-lost temple in the remote valley of Frangrissa, near the ancient city-kingdom of Tamassos. After conducting a more extensive examination of the site, they uncovered treasures that were initially overlooked, including fragments of colossal statues, parts of which appeared to be feet. 'Apparently in 1885 [the votive statues] were not recognized as artifacts in the rush,' the new statement from the Cyprus Department of Antiquities declared. Thus, the new finds 'fundamentally expand our knowledge of this sacred place.' 'Μany statues in the Cyprus Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum at Toronto can be completed with newly found fragments and thus restored to their original appearance,' the statement continued. 'Completely new types of statues have also been documented that were previously unknown from Frangissa. The discovery of clearly larger-than-life feet, for example, means that the existence of colossal male limestone figures from archaic times can now be proven.' 'Such larger-than-life figures were previously only known here in Frangissa made from terracotta, including the famous 'Colossus of Tamassos' in the Cyprus Museum exhibition.' Meanwhile, the discovery of two inscriptions on the bases of the figures dates them to the 6th and 7th centuries BC. 'The discovery of two bases with inscriptions is spectacular,' the statement read. 'One is inscribed with several local Cypro-Syllabic characters, while the other refers in Greek letters to the Ptolemies, the Hellenistic rulers of Egypt who also controlled Cyprus at the time.'
New York Times
13-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
When Myth Is the Message
This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page. We in the modern world tend to understand the word 'myth' as a synonym for 'falsehood.' But that is not how our ancestors understood it. Indeed, the ancient mind did not draw the same line between myth and fact that we do. Whether we are speaking of Zeus forcing his father to vomit up his siblings or Jesus being born in a manger, these tales were never meant to be read as factual reports. They were meant to fire the imagination, to illuminate hidden truths and, most of all, to bring about transformation. The power of myth lies in its capacity to move a listener from one state of being to another — from confusion to clarity, from despair to hope, from disorientation to meaning. Myths are the packaging for truth. They are the language of religion. Scripture deals in what might be called 'sacred history,' a narrative realm that blends fact and fiction to convey timeless truths. The authors and transmitters of these sacred texts were not seeking facts; they were seeking meaning. Our modern conception of history — the critical analysis of observable and verifiable past events — is only a handful of centuries old. It arose alongside the Enlightenment and the scientific method in the 1600s, and while immensely valuable, it is not the lens through which sacred texts were written. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
STV News
12-06-2025
- STV News
Hero police dog stabbed on duty to be honoured by painting
A police dog that was injured while responding to a knife incident in Aberdeen is to be honoured in the form of a painting. PD Zeus, a six-year-old Belgian Malinois, became a local hero earlier this year after sustaining multiple stab wounds while on duty with Police Scotland during a serious incident. The dog suffered injuries during the incident and was taken to the vets for treatment. Zeus has since recovered from his injuries and returned to policing duties. His courage, along with the leadership of his handler, sergeant Paul Wigley, was recognised in April with the inaugural National Foundation of Retired Service Animals (NFRSA) Bravery Award. To mark Zeus's heroism, North East Scotland College's (NESCol) art and design department invited students to create a portrait or full-body painting of the courageous canine. Students were commissioned to submit an initial A3 painting as a proposal for a finalised piece. Following an initial visit to the campus, during which Zeus posed 'patiently' for photographs, he returned along with his handler, PC Steve Warden and chief inspector Cath Thorburn to select the winning submission. 'We are immensely proud to honour police dog Zeus with a portrait in recognition of his bravery,' said chief inspector Cath Thorburn of Police Scotland's dog unit. 'The character and professionalism shown by Zeus highlight how highly trained our police dogs are and the hours of work and care to develop that bond with their handler. 'Our dogs serve the public alongside officers every day, and they are a part of the police family. 'This tribute reflects the deep appreciation held by students, staff and the wider public, and we are extremely grateful for this kind gesture.' The panel chose a portrait painted by Agata Sood, an art and design portfolio building student, who will recreate her work into a larger piece that will go on permanent display at Nelson Street Police Station in Aberdeen. 'It's amazing – I was surprised also because there were so many other talented painters who made really great work,' explained Agata. 'This was actually my first painting of the dog; I paint quite a lot of paintings, but mainly landscapes. 'But it was quite a nice challenge; I quite enjoyed this.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
KTOS Q1 Earnings Call: Product Expansion and Margin Investments Shape Outlook
Aerospace and defense company Kratos (NASDAQ:KTOS) reported Q1 CY2025 results exceeding the market's revenue expectations , with sales up 9.2% year on year to $302.6 million. On the other hand, next quarter's revenue guidance of $305 million was less impressive, coming in 3.3% below analysts' estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.12 per share was 32.8% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy KTOS? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Revenue: $302.6 million vs analyst estimates of $291.2 million (9.2% year-on-year growth, 3.9% beat) Adjusted EPS: $0.12 vs analyst estimates of $0.09 (32.8% beat) The company reconfirmed its revenue guidance for the full year of $1.27 billion at the midpoint EBITDA guidance for the full year is $115 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $117.8 million Organic Revenue rose 7.4% year on year (19.4% in the same quarter last year) Market Capitalization: $6.03 billion Kratos' first quarter results reflected ongoing momentum in its core defense and aerospace markets, as management credited growth to strong order activity and continued execution across hypersonic systems, microwave electronics, and unmanned systems. CEO Eric DeMarco highlighted that 'Kratos is currently bidding on a number of large multi-hundred million dollar single award opportunities,' and noted that a record $12.6 billion opportunity pipeline underscores the breadth of market demand. The quarter saw meaningful organic revenue growth in microwave products and C5ISR (command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), driven by new contracts and elevated demand for military-grade systems. Looking ahead, Kratos' full-year outlook is supported by recent U.S. defense appropriations and a strong backlog, but management acknowledged operational headwinds, including cost pressures on certain fixed-price contracts and a planned facility move in Israel. CFO Deanna Lund explained, 'Our second quarter forecasted financial performance takes into consideration the expected several week downtime related to our Microwave Products facility move in Israel.' Management expects the hypersonics franchise, jet engines, and microwave electronics to be primary growth drivers, while tactical drone programs remain a potential upside. DeMarco cautioned that some revenue timing could shift due to government contracting delays but expressed confidence in the company's ability to manage supply chain and labor sourcing challenges throughout the year. Management attributed first quarter performance to robust demand for national security programs, expansion in hypersonics, and strategic investments in production capacity. Hypersonic systems ramp: Kratos is expanding its hypersonic franchise, with CEO Eric DeMarco citing successful initial flights of the Dark Fury vehicle and strong customer interest in operational hypersonic systems like Zeus and Erinyes. These programs are positioned as key future contributors given their lower production costs and readiness for deployment. Microwave electronics growth: International and domestic demand for microwave products, especially from Israeli and U.S. defense customers, drove record backlog and prompted investments in expanded manufacturing. Management noted that these components are increasingly critical for air defense and missile systems globally. C5ISR segment performance: The C5ISR business, which provides vital electronics for missile, radar, and defense systems, experienced notable contract wins and is supporting a wide range of U.S. and allied programs. Management emphasized this segment's unique position as a merchant supplier to multiple defense primes, enabling broader market access. Unmanned and tactical drones: While target drone demand remains strong due to global air defense needs, tactical drone programs (such as Valkyrie and Thanatos) continue to develop, with management opting not to count on these as near-term revenue drivers until contracts are secured. The company is producing Valkyrie aircraft ahead of potential awards to speed up customer delivery. Facility and supply chain investments: Kratos made substantial investments in expanding production capacity, particularly in microwave electronics and hypersonics. The planned move of its Israeli microwave facility is expected to temporarily impact margins next quarter, but management believes the action positions the company for long-term growth and higher-margin opportunities. Kratos' outlook is shaped by the scaling of hypersonics, engine production, and ongoing investments in manufacturing expansion, balanced against supply chain and contract cost headwinds. Hypersonics and jet engines lead: Management expects the hypersonic franchise to be the largest growth driver for the foreseeable future, with new operational rocket motors and flight vehicles in production and customer-funded programs ramping up. Jet engines and propulsion systems are also set to expand, as Kratos is designed into new missile and drone platforms. Margin and supply chain management: The company faces headwinds from elevated material and subcontractor costs, particularly in legacy fixed-price contracts for target drones. Management is actively working to qualify alternative suppliers and expects some cost relief, but significant margin improvement is projected for 2026 when new contracts reflect current cost structures. Production facility transitions: The move and expansion of the Israeli microwave electronics facility will cause temporary operational disruption in the next quarter. However, management anticipates regaining momentum as production ramps back up, with microwave products expected to deliver high-margin growth as global air defense demand persists. In the coming quarters, the StockStory team will be watching (1) the ramp of hypersonic and jet engine programs as new customer-funded contracts move into production, (2) margin recovery and cost management efforts in legacy fixed-price contracts as supply chain strategies unfold, and (3) the operational impact and post-move performance of the Israeli microwave electronics facility. Progress on tactical drone contract awards and commercial technology repurposing will also be important markers. Kratos currently trades at a forward P/E ratio of 72.4×. Is the company at an inflection point that warrants a buy or sell? See for yourself in our full research report (it's free). The market surged in 2024 and reached record highs after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November, but questions about new economic policies are adding much uncertainty for 2025. While the crowd speculates what might happen next, we're homing in on the companies that can succeed regardless of the political or macroeconomic environment. Put yourself in the driver's seat and build a durable portfolio by checking out our Top 9 Market-Beating Stocks. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025). Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
