Why Jeff Bridges is Really ‘The Dude’
As one of the millions of people affected by the ABC-Cablevision pow-wow on Sunday night, yes it is actually true…
The Dude Abides.
Here is evidence why Jeff Bridges is actually “The Dude”… as The Big Lebowski showed us — the viewing audience — in this Dude’s heart, the man behind the character, said in his own words raising his statuette to the heavens he said:
I want to thank my mum and dad for turning me on to such a groovy profession. My mum and dad loved showbiz so much. This is honoring them as much as it is me.
Mega Shark Attack on Airplane Explained by Physics
Now this is entertainment. But here’s the real life physics behind it (click here). Stephen Tauban writes on his blog:
Last year, I discovered the wonderfully cheezy and sharky movie: Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. While it certainly appealed to a more straight-to-DVD niche market of creature-feature enthusiasts, it wasn’t half bad. Pretty laughable in parts … well actually, in most parts when you consider the wooden acting and crap computer animation. However the most ridiculous scene has to be when Mega Shark takes down a commercial jetliner that is cruising over the middle of the ocean. It was this moment that took the movie from being a little ho-hum to “holy shit, did that shark just eat a plane!?” Check out the clip:
It’s pretty incredible when you think about it. I mean, how the hell did it do that? What would it require for a shark the size of a plane to launch itself out of the water and take down a moving aircraft? After reviewing some of my basic physics calculations I came up with some pretty startling figures. However, it didn’t feel like I would be doing such an epic event justice with just a basic blog post, which meant it was time to do what I love most: an infographic! I had been itching to do one for a while now, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. So with all that said, check out the resulting design below. Oh, and just click on the image to download the full size PDF version for the smaller details.
Bill Maher: Conservatives Need To Lighten Up – And Get Glitzier Stars
Bill Maher. Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
Bill Maher rants in Variety:
New Rule: Conservatives have to stop complaining about Hollywood values.
It’s the Oscars this weekend, which means two things, one, I’ve got to get waxed, and two, talkradio hosts and conservative columnists will trot out their annual complaints about Hollywood: We’re too liberal, we’re out of touch with the heartland, the theater floors are always sticky, our facial muscles have been deadened with chicken botulism, there aren’t as many Goobers in a box as there used to be, and we make them feel fat.
To these people, I say — shut up and eat your popcorn. And stop bitching about one of the few industries in America that still makes something people all over the world want to buy. Not to rub it in,…
The Jersey Shore Presents: Inglourious Basterds (Video)
Vinny from ”Jersey Shore” stars in the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s best picture nominee.
‘Jew Süss’: The Most Notoriously Anti-Semitic Movie Ever Made
Living in downtown Manhattan, I regularly go by the peerless Film Forum cinema, which is currently playing Harlan: In The Shadow Of The Jew Suss. I was curious to know what it was about and conveniently Larry Rohter obliges in the New York Times (I’ve also included a clip from Harlan’s film, Jud Süss):
In the history of the cinema, the German director Veit Harlan occupies an especially ignominious position. It is his name that is attached to “Jew Süss,” perhaps the most notoriously anti-Semitic movie ever made, a box office success in Nazi Germany in 1940 that was so effective that it was made required viewing for all members of the SS.
But what motivated Harlan to write and direct such a film? Was he a Nazi true believer, an opportunistic careerist or just a filmmaker too fearful of retribution to say no to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief…
Illuminati Symbolism and 9/11 In Hollywood Movies
Nice little montage of Illuminati/Masonic/911/Conspiracy symbolism culled from popular films. Quite a bit of a stretch in places, but still rather amusing. Possibly even….”illuminating”!
$10,000 Reward If You Can Watch This Horror Movie
From Reuters:
A Bollywood filmmaker has issued a lucrative challenge to horror movie fans: a $10,000 reward for anyone who can watch his latest supernatural thriller, alone, in a cinema until the closing credits. Ram Gopal Varma’s “Phoonk 2,” a sequel to his 2008 film of the same name, is about an evil spirit that traumatizes a family.
“Anyone who says the movie cannot scare him is going to be put in a theater by himself,” Varma told reporters in Mumbai at an event to promote the movie. Varma said the film fan who steps up to the challenge will be wired up to a heart monitoring machine as well as a camera that ensures they keep their eyes open during the whole movie. Readings from the machines will be shown live…
Real-Time Movie-Quality CGI for Games?
Evan Newton writes on h+ magazine:
There aren’t very many games today that, graphically, give one goose bumps. While movies like James Cameron’s Avatar or Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings have graphical effects that appear absolutely real, many wonder if games will ever achieve that level of detail.
Now get ready for Project Offset. This little-known development team, owned by Intel, is building a game engine that may make you believe that the richness of reality in the virtual world is not so far away.
Videos posted on their website show a variety of graphics engine experiments. You will find video footage that ranges from the detailed facial expressions of an ogre to a meteor shower blasting through ancient stone pillars.
Director Kevin Smith Thrown Off Oakland Flight Over Weight
Reports CBS13:
OAKLAND, Calif. ― A cult-favorite movie director has claimed that he was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight out of Oakland due to a dispute over his weight.
Kevin Smith, the creator of movies like Clerks, Dogma, and the upcoming Cop Out, posted a series of angry, sarcastic messages on his Twitter feed (@ThatKevinSmith) blasting Southwest Airlines for allegedly throwing him off a flight at Oakland International Airport after he had already been seated and buckled in.
According to Smith, a flight attendant told him the flight captain had deemed him a safety risk and requested that he leave the flight.
“I broke no regulation, offered no ’safety risk,’ (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?),” he wrote. “I’m way fat … But I’m not THERE just yet.”
Smith’s followers (numbering more…
If Joe Biden Saw ‘Avatar’ in 2D, That’s Fine With Me…
You know, if Joe Biden has so much on his mind that he didn’t notice the movie, that’s a good sign for a public official. Via New York magazine’s website:
Vice-President Joe Biden stopped by MSNBC this afternoon to chat about important domestic and foreign-policy issues with Andrea Mitchell, but he was disappointingly less gaffe-tastic than we’d hoped. Nevertheless, we were delighted by Biden’s answer about his pick for Best Picture Oscar, Avatar. “I think one of the odds on favorites … is um, is uh, this uh, this, this, this new program that I looked at and wished I was seeing it in 3-D, and you sit there and you watch this science-fiction thing unfold in front of you,” he said, with adorable wonder and excitement. “The magic of it is kind of overwhelming.”
A Sneak Peek at Upcoming Philip K. Dick Movie ‘Radio Free Albemuth’
Scott Timberg writes on io9.com:
A new film based on Philip K. Dick’s posthumous, roughly autobiographical novel, Radio Free Albemuth, has begun some informal screenings around Los Angeles. We saw the film, and spoke to writer/director John Alan Simon about representing the author’s ambivalent life.
Radio Free is very independent in spirit as well as in style; it’s hard to recall a feature film made with so few frills and so apparently small a budget. This may suit the material: The novel is one of Philip Dick’s most personal but least well known, and offers not one but two characters who stand in for Dick himself. One, skeptical and hard-bitten, is played by an actor (Shea Whigham) who resembles the author almost uncannily — a working-class autodidact with a touch of Kerouac. The…
Truly Scary TV Graphics That Make Kids Freak Out
What do you think disinfo community, should we take this report in Fast Company at face value?
Immediately following a 1965 episode of Bewitched, Design Crimes HQ’s switchboard was overloaded with mysterious distress calls. Many consisted only of whimpering. In the background of some, faint yet hypnotic chimes could be heard. Responding officers found children cowering behind the La-Z-Boy, or hiding in the broom closet, inconsolable. No record of assailant(s) reported. Televisions showed only Peyton Place. Over the next decade, similar distress calls were received, but without hard evidence of design assault, case was closed in 1974.
Now, independent paranormal graphics researcher Rodney Ascher has re-opened case with conclusive proof, unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival, of the graphic’s existence, and recently declassified eye-witness reports of its demonic effect on children in the late 1960s…
Why ‘Avatar’ is Actually the 26th Biggest Movie of All Time
I’m not saying it’s rank won’t increase, but here’s an interesting point from The Live Feed:
Boxoffice is arguably more straightforward to report than TV ratings. You have this weekly Top 10 list of returns, you compare each movie to the other movies. TV ratings are a murky swamp where one network’s hit is another network’s flop and context is not just a factor, but often the entire story.
Han fucking soloYet one respect in which boxoffice reporting is pretty odd — emphasizing ticket grosses yet rarely mentioning ticket sales. That would be like always reporting how many ad dollars sold off Lost and not mentioning the number of viewers that actually watched the show. With everybody reporting how Avatar is The Biggest Movie of All Time based on grosses ($1.859 billion and counting), it’s important to remember how rising ticket prices skew the returns.
Here’s the Top 10 movies of all time … by number of tickets sold:
1. “Gone With the Wind” (1939) 202,044,600
2. “Star Wars” (1977) 178,119,600
3. “The Sound of Music” (1965) 142,415,400
4. “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) 141,854,300
5. “The Ten Commandments” (1956) 131,000,000
6. “Titanic” (1997) 128,345,900
7. “Jaws” (1975) 128,078,800
8. “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) 124,135,500
9. “The Exorcist” (1973) 110,568,700
10. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) 109,000,000
Why Biologists Should Run From Their Labs Directly to the Movie Theaters, Put On 3-D Glasses and Watch “Avatar”
Biologist Carol Kaesuk Yoon has written one of the best essays I’ve come across regarding James Cameron’s masterpiece (yes, I really think so), Avatar, for the New York Times:
When watching a Hollywood movie that has robed itself in the themes and paraphernalia of science, a scientist expects to feel anything from annoyance to infuriation at facts misconstrued or processes misrepresented. What a scientist does not expect is to enter into a state of ecstatic wonderment, to have the urge to leap up and shout: “Yes! That’s exactly what it’s like!”
So it is time for all the biologists who have not yet done so to shut their laptops and run from their laboratories directly to the movie theaters, put on 3-D glasses and watch the film “Avatar.” In fact, anyone who…
New Turkish Film On Israeli War Crimes
From PRESSTV:
A damning Turkish motion picture, aimed at depicting the “Israeli crimes against humanity,” is set to further alienate Ankara from Tel Aviv.
The movie would “depict Israel as it is – with bloody hands, merciless… flouting all human values,” against a backdrop of the Palestinian suffering in the blockaded Gaza Strip, the national daily Vatan quoted Turkish scriptwriter Bahadir Ozdener as saying, according to an AFP report.
“What we do is fiction,” said Ozdener. “But what about what they do, their crimes against humanity? They are real.”
Tel Aviv took issue with Ankara over the “Valley of the Wolves” – the TV series boasting Ozdener’s contribution which, besides other patriotic depictions, featured the emancipation of a Turkish boy captured by the Israeli intelligence apparatus, Mossad.
Reacting to the series, Israel called Turkish ambassador…
Steven Spielberg Producing WTC Ground Zero Documentary
No prizes for guessing why they didn’t ask Dylan Avery (Loose Change or Ray Nowosielski (9/11: Press For Truth) to produce this film. From Variety:
Steven Spielberg is teaming with Science Channel on a documentary about the reconstruction of the former World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.
“Rebuilding Ground Zero” will air as a six-part doc to air on the Discovery net in 2011. Spielberg will act as exec producer and advisor for the project that was originated by architect Danny Foster and director Jonathan Hock.
Doc, shot in 3D and high def, will examine the partnership of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, politicians and various construction crews and engineers in putting the pieces together for a project of such a large magnitude.
In addition to the new 1,776-foot tower,…
Post-’Avatar’ Depression Hits Thousands of Fans
Brenna Ehrlich writes on Mashable:
Avatar may be one of the biggest grossing movies of all time, but it’s got a lot of fans feeling super blue (pun wholly intended).
CNN just came out with an extremely detailed report on the intense depression that Avatar is causing among a certain segment of fans, fans who psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser describes as “lonely to begin with. They’re seeing Avatar, they’re lonely people, a lot of them don’t have a lot going on in their lives right now… The movie opened up a portal for them to express their depression.”
These fans are turning to online forums — some of which have thousands of posts on how to deal with the cinema-induced sadness — to express their distress. Here’s a few excerpts from the CNN report:
Catholic Church Feels Threatened By “Avatar”
Alessandra Rizzo reports on yet another example of the Catholic Church’s lack of insight as to what people are looking for today, at ABC News/AP:
Unlike much of the world, the Vatican is not awed by the film “Avatar.”
James Cameron’s big-grossing, 3-D spectacle has earned lukewarm reviews by both the Vatican newspaper and its radio station, which say the movie is simplistic in its plot is superficial in its eco-message, despite groundbreaking visual effects.
Perhaps more significantly, the Vatican takes the movie to task for flirting with what it says is the worship of nature as a substitute for religion.
“So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions,” said Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, which devoted three articles to “Avatar” in its Sunday editions…
What?!? Sex Doesn’t Sell
Not when it comes to movies, anyway, according to this report at CNN:
When it comes to movies, it may be that sex doesn’t sell.
A recent study concluded that nudity and explicit sex scenes don’t translate to success for major motion pictures.
“Sex Doesn’t Sell — nor Impress! Content, Box Office, Critics, and Awards in Mainstream Cinema” examined more than 900 films released between 2001 and 2005.
The study found that, contrary to popular belief, sex and nudity failed to positively affect a film’s popularity among viewers or critics and did not guarantee big box office receipts.
One of the study’s co-authors, Dean Keith Simonton, said theirs was the largest sample of its kind used for film research. The results surprised him, he said.
“Sex did not sell, whether in the domestic or international box…
