Author: News Polite

‘Black Crab’

Stream it on Netflix.

For many fans, the girl with the dragon tattoo will always be Noomi Rapace. In the decade since she portrayed the Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in a Swedish film trilogy, Rapace has built a thriving international career that leans heavily on thrillers and science fiction. Now, she is back in her native land with this war movie set in a dystopian future to which the conflict in Ukraine suddenly lends a tragic contemporary echo. Rapace’s Caroline Edh is a soldier so badass that she is asked to join a small unit tasked with ferrying supersecret, super important canisters — on ice skates. She agrees, but not because she is patriotic: Caroline has been told that a camp on the other side of the vast frozen expanse holds her daughter, who was abducted years earlier.

The plot is fairly basic, but the film benefits from two formidable assets. The first, of course, is Rapace, who can suggest steely determination like few others. The other is Adam Berg’s assured direction. All the scenes on the ice are absolutely superb — sometimes eerily beautiful and sometimes, well, chilling — and the sound design is so richly evocative that you might want to watch with headphones. Let’s hope Berg and Rapace team up again.

‘American Refugee’

Rent or buy on most major platforms.

This futuristic, or futuristic-ish, thriller has a pedigree singular enough to draw attention: The film is co-produced by Blumhouse, best known for its horror fare, and directed by Ali LeRoi, who created the sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris” with Chris Rock. Maybe that’s why “American Refugee” cannot quite make up its mind as to what story it wants to tell, or how.

But there is a big reason to watch anyway, and it’s Erika Alexander.

Still most famous as the star of the 1990s series “Living Single,” Alexander is an authoritative presence as Helen Taylor, an obstetrician. (Her job plays a key part in the plot.) Her marriage with Derek Luke’s Greg is going through a rocky patch, which is not helped by the United States crashing into catastrophic economic failure that in turn spirals into civil unrest.

As the country collapses (cue the obligatory montage of alarming news reports), the Taylors and their children must run away from home invaders. They find shelter of sorts in the compound of their prepper neighbor, Winter (Sam Trammell, not nearly menacing enough). From then on the movie pretty much abandons the whole financial-apocalypse setup to focus on single-location suspense.

As an action film, “American Refugee” comes up short. Where it is a lot more interesting is as a look at masculinity in a time of social meltdown, with a pair of men desperately trying to prove their worth as they feel threatened by the strength and autonomy of the women in their lives. Science fiction? Hardly.

‘Captain Nova’

Stream it on Netflix.

With a future Earth a nearly uninhabitable wasteland, Nova (Anniek Pheifer) is sent back in time to stop the chain of events that will destroy the world. There is a glitch, though: Nova ends up 25 years younger after her trip so for most of the movie she is an intense, Greta Thunberg-like 12-year-old girl (Kika van de Vijver). With the help of her new friend Nas (Marouane Meftah), Nova sets up to change the course of history. While this Dutch family film about a pint-size eco-warrior does feature a cute little robot, its overall approach is fairly serious; this is not “Spy Kids vs. Climate Change.” (It figures that the Dutch version of the “Terminator” premise would be about an ecological apocalypse rather than a robot uprising.) It’s rather nice to have a children-appropriate story that does not sugarcoat its message, though parents might have to be ready for some heavy-duty post-viewing conversations. And that’s not a bad thing in our current circumstances.

‘The Blazing World’

Rent or buy on most major platforms.

Carlson Young’s debut feature is that rare film: the product of what feels like a personal, obsessive vision. You can see traces of Peter Strickland (“The Duke of Burgundy”) and Dario Argento in the bizarre world she conjures. Young herself plays Margaret Winter, a troubled young woman who never quite recovered from the death of her twin sister when they were little girls. Margaret feels as she doesn’t belong anywhere, least of all with her feuding parents (Dermot Mulroney and Vinessa Shaw). Eventually, she finds a purpose in a series of fantastical trials orchestrated by Lained (the singular German actor Udo Kier doing strangeness very, very well), who is the film’s answer to the Goblin King of “Labyrinth.”

Mixing up sci-fi, horror and fantasy, the film deals with overcoming trauma and growing up. It’s a fairly familiar subject, but “The Blazing World” has an idiosyncratic touch all its own, bolstered by ambitious production design and an evocative score by the Foster the People keyboardist Isom Innis.

‘Madelines’

Rent or buy on most major platforms.

The director Jason Richard Miller has a lot of fun with this low-budget, high-concept time-travel film, which is as gory as it is wacky. Funded by an avuncular patron (Richard Riehle), Madeline (Brea Grant) and Owen (Parry Shen) are building a time machine in their garage. Madeline decides to test their invention in person because she does not want to sacrifice another animal after a test mouse met a bloody end. (The film is barely past the 10-minute mark by then, because Miller has no interest in exposition or back story; this is refreshing.) Madeline inadvertently creates a loop that generates dozens and dozens of versions of herself, with one materializing in the garden every day at the same time. Because two versions of one person can’t coexist, Owen, using an array of inventive devices, must kill each new Madeline as soon as she pops up. The 1980s-style synth score has announced the comic tone from the start, and much of the film’s humor derives from the completely nonchalant way Madeline and Owen handle their predicament: Of course time travel is possible! Of course a guy has to kill his wife over and over! Of course the Madelines become murderous! Like a rambunctious lo-fi band, the film gets by on a devil-may-care energy that defies the viewer from taking anything too seriously.

Twitter unveiled its counterattack against Elon Musk on Friday, using a strategy invented to repel corporate raiders in an attempt to block a takeover bid by the world’s richest man.

The strategy, known as a poison pill, would flood the market with new shares if Mr. Musk, or any other individual or group working together, bought 15 percent or more of Twitter’s shares. That would immediately reduce Mr. Musk’s stake and make it significantly more difficult to buy up a sizable potion of the company. Mr. Musk currently owns more than 9 percent of the company’s stock.

The goal is to force anyone trying to acquire the company to negotiate directly with the board. Investors rarely try to break through a poison pill threshold, securities experts say, with the caveat that Mr. Musk rarely abides by precedent.

Companies are often wary of using poison pills because they do not want to be seen as unfriendly to shareholders. Still, some critics, like Institutional Shareholder Services, an influential advisory group, have indicated that they are open to the tactic in certain circumstances.

Twitter said the mechanism would not stop the company from holding talks about a sale with any potential buyer and would give it more time to negotiate a deal that offers a sufficient premium.

The pill “does not mean that the company is going to be independent forever,” said Drew Pascarella, a senior lecturer of finance at Cornell University. “It just means that they can effectively fend off Elon.”

Mr. Musk announced his intention to acquire the social media service on Thursday, making public an unsolicited bid worth more than $40 billion. In an interview later that day, he took issue with Twitter’s moderation policies, calling Twitter the “de facto town square” and saying that “it’s really important that people have the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”

He also said he had a Plan B if the board rejected his offer, though he did not share it.

Analysts have said that Mr. Musk’s bid — which offers significantly more per share than the current stock price but is well below its peak last year — may undervalue the company. They have also raised concerns about Mr. Musk’s ability to cobble together financing. If the board negotiated a deal with Mr. Musk, it could include a sizable breakup fee that might assuage concerns about his volatile nature conflicting with the ability of the deal to close, some securities lawyers said.

Twitter attempted to wrangle the world’s wealthiest man in recent weeks as he snapped up its shares. Last week, Twitter offered Mr. Musk a board seat, but he soured on the arrangement when it became clear that he would no longer be able to freely criticize the company. He rejected the role on Saturday and informed Twitter on Wednesday evening of his acquisition plans.

Twitter said in a statement that its poison pill plan, which will remain in effect until April of next year, “is similar to other plans adopted by publicly held companies in comparable circumstances.”

Twitter’s other top shareholders, according to FactSet, include the investment giant Vanguard Group, the largest, with a 10.3 percent stake; Morgan Stanley Investment Management, with an 8 percent stake; and BlackRock Fund Advisors, with a 4.6 percent stake.

Ark Investment Management, led by Cathie Wood, a star of the Reddit investing community who has previously bet on Mr. Musk, has a 2.15 percent stake. One of Twitter’s founders, Jack Dorsey, who is friendly with Mr. Musk, has a 2.2 percent stake. Twitter’s board, which includes Mr. Dorsey, voted unanimously to approve the poison pill.

Mr. Musk seemed to be girding for a protracted fight on Thursday. “Taking Twitter private at $54.20 should be up to shareholders, not the board,” he tweeted, alongside a Yes/No poll.

Mr. Musk’s initial, bare-bones offer left open significant questions. Mr. Musk has hired Morgan Stanley to advise on the bid, although the investment bank is not known for financing large-scale deals on its own. And Twitter shareholders seemed wary: Twitter’s stock fell almost 2 percent on Thursday, closing at $45.08 — significantly below Mr. Musk’s offer. Stock markets in the U.S. were closed Friday for the Good Friday holiday.

Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who described himself as one of Twitter’s largest and most long-term shareholders, said on Thursday that Twitter should reject Mr. Musk’s offer because its was not high enough to reflect the company’s “intrinsic value.” Analysts also suggested that Mr. Musk’s price was too low and did not reflect Twitter’s recent performance.

Mr. Musk argued that taking Twitter private would allow more free speech to flow on the platform. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” he said in an interview at the TED conference on Thursday.

He also insisted that the algorithm Twitter uses to rank its content, deciding what hundreds of millions of users see on the service every day, should be public for users to audit.

Mr. Musk’s concerns are shared by many executives at Twitter, who have also pressed for more transparency about its algorithms. The company has published internal research about bias in its algorithms and funded an effort to create an open, transparent standard for social media services.

But Twitter balked at Mr. Musk’s hardball tactics. After a Thursday morning board meeting, the company began exploring options to block Mr. Musk, including the poison pill and the possibility of courting another buyer.

During an all-hands meeting on Thursday, Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, sought to reassure employees about the potential shake-up. Although he declined to share details about the board’s plans, he encouraged employees to stay focused and not allow themselves to be distracted by Mr. Musk.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Is the U.S. dollar about to lose its special dominant role in the world financial system? People have been asking that question for my entire professional career. Seriously: I published my first paper on the subject in 1980.

A lot has changed in the world since I wrote that paper, notably the creation of the euro and the rise of China. Yet the answer remains the same: probably not. For different reasons — political fragmentation in Europe, autocratic caprice in China — neither the euro nor the yuan is a plausible alternative to the dollar.

Also, even if the dollar’s dominance erodes, it won’t matter very much.

What do we mean when we talk about dollar dominance? Economists traditionally assign three roles to money. It’s a medium of exchange: I don’t give economics lectures in payment for groceries; I get paid in dollars to lecture and use those dollars to buy food. It’s a store of value: I keep dollars in my wallet and my bank account. And it’s a “unit of account”: salaries are set in dollars, prices are listed in dollars, mortgage payments are specified in dollars.

Many currencies play these roles in domestic business. The dollar is special because it plays a disproportionate role in international business. It’s the medium of exchange among currencies: Someone who wants to convert Bolivian bolivianos to Malaysian ringgit normally sells the bolivianos for dollars, then uses the dollars to buy ringgit. It’s a global store of value: Many people around the world hold dollar bank accounts. And it’s an international unit of account: Many goods made outside the United States are priced in dollars; many international bonds promise repayment in dollars.

Where does this continuing dominance come from, given that the U.S. economy no longer has the commanding position it held for a couple of decades after World War II? The answer is that there are self-reinforcing feedback loops, in which people use dollars because other people use dollars.

In that old 1980 paper I focused on the size and thickness of markets. There are a lot more people wanting to exchange bolivianos and ringgit for dollars than there are people wanting to exchange bolivianos for ringgit, so it’s much easier and cheaper to make boliviano-ringgit transactions indirectly, using the dollar as a “vehicle,” than to try to do those transactions directly. But all those indirect transactions make dollar markets even bigger, reinforcing the currency’s advantage.

Gita Gopinath, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and Jeremy Stein, a professor of economics at Harvard, have described another feedback loop involving pricing. Because many goods are priced in dollars, dollar assets have relatively predictable purchasing power; this reinforces demand for these assets, which in turn makes it somewhat cheaper to borrow in dollars than in other currencies. And cheap dollar borrowing in turn gives businesses an incentive to limit their risks by pricing in dollars, again reinforcing the dollar’s advantage.

So what might dislodge the dollar from its special position? Not that long ago the euro seemed like a plausible alternative: Europe’s economy is huge, as are its financial markets. As a result, many people outside Europe hold euro assets and, when selling to Europe, set prices in euros. But one remaining U.S. advantage is the size of our bond market and the liquidity — the ease of buying or selling — that market provides.

Until its sovereign debt crisis in 2009, Europe seemed to have a comparably large bond market, since euro bonds issued by different governments seemed interchangeable and all paid about the same interest rate. Since then, however, fears of default have caused yields to diverge:

This means that there is no longer a euro bond market: There’s a German market, an Italian market and so on, none of them comparable in scale with America’s market.

What about China? China is a huge player in world trade, which you might think would make people want to hold a lot of yuan assets. But it is also an autocracy with a propensity for erratic policies — as evidenced by its current rejection of Western Covid vaccines and continuing adherence to an unsustainable strategy of disastrous lockdowns. Who wants to expose their wealth to a dictator’s whims?

And yes, the United States has to some extent weaponized the dollar against Vladimir Putin. But that’s not the kind of action that we can expect to become commonplace.

All in all, then, the dollar’s dominance still looks pretty secure — that is, unless America also ends up being run by an erratic autocrat, which I’m afraid looks like a real possibility in the not-too-distant future.

But here’s the thing: Even if I’m wrong, and the dollar does lose its dominance, it wouldn’t make that much difference. What, after all, does the United States gain from the dollar’s special role? I often read assertions that America’s ability to foist newly printed dollars on the rest of the world allows it to run persistent trade deficits. Folks, let me tell you about Australia:

The United States may be able to borrow slightly more cheaply, thanks to the dollar’s special role, and we get what amounts to a zero-interest loan from all the people holding dollar currency — mostly $100 bills — outside the country. But these are trivial advantages for a $24 trillion economy.

So is the dollar’s world dominance at risk? Probably not. And the truth is, it really doesn’t matter.