Skip to footer

Top Picks: Amazon Studios' 'Vanity Fair,' Ingrid Michaelson’s 'Songs for the Season,' and more top picks

See how the robot InSight's successful landing happened with a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory video, the movie 'Eighth Grade' stars Elsie Fisher as Kayla, a teenager navigating middle school, and more top picks.

|
Shervin Lainez
  • By Staff

Middle school story

The movie Eighth Grade stars Elsie Fisher as Kayla, a teenager navigating middle school. Monitor film critic Peter Rainer writes that Fisher is “marvelous” and that the film is a “modest charmer.” The movie is available on DVD and Blu-ray and is rated R for language and some sexual material.

'Vanity’ adaptation

William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic novel is adapted for TV with Amazon Studios and ITV’s new take on Vanity Fair, which debuts on Dec. 21. Olivia Cooke stars as scheming protagonist Becky Sharp. 

A24/AP

NASA view

The robot InSight has successfully landed on Mars. See how it happened with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory video, which shows what occurred at Mission Control as signals began to come back. You can find it at http://bit.ly/NASAmarsvideo.

Donate meals

Coverage of recent conflicts has highlighted the food insecurity faced by many global citizens. Some estimates say more than 84,000 children have starved to death in Yemen since the country’s civil war began in 2015. ShareTheMeal, an app from the United Nations World Food Program, provides a place to donate money toward hunger relief. The app allows donation tracking and provides notifications to keep you in the loop. The app is free for iOS and Android.

Retro holiday

Here’s the open secret about Christmas albums: They’re seldom recorded during the yuletide season. The marvel of Ingrid Michaelson’s Songs for the Season is that it convincingly sounds as if she really had convened a 35-piece orchestra for a December-night party ... in 1948. Her elaborate yet unfussy big-band arrangements of “Looks Like A Cold, Cold Winter” and “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” evoke an era when the hottest name in pop music was Bing Crosby. Meanwhile, Michaelson’s composition “Happy, Happy Christmas” boasts a chorus as memorable as any of the album’s beloved traditionals.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Top Picks: Amazon Studios' 'Vanity Fair,' Ingrid Michaelson’s 'Songs for the Season,' and more top picks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2018/1214/Top-Picks-Amazon-Studios-Vanity-Fair-Ingrid-Michaelson-s-Songs-for-the-Season-and-more-top-picks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe