Posts Tagged ‘Pop Culture’
In ‘Prisoner,’ Twisted Whimsy Flirts With New Fears
From NPR:
At the height of the Cold War, British actor Patrick McGoohan conceived a television series that was so subversive and enigmatic, it lasted just 17 episodes.
The program was called The Prisoner.
For decades, filmmakers and actors including Mel Gibson have wanted to remake the series. AMC has finally done it, but if you’re expecting a faithful re-creation of the British series, actor Jim Caviezel says you’ll be disappointed.
In the original series, McGoohan played a British intelligence officer who mysteriously resigned on principle — we never find out why…
Turn Off Your Brain and Watch the World End in ‘2012′
Lauren Davis writes on io9.com:
Roland Emmerich’s 2012 is jammed with every cliche and trope ever found in a Hollywood disaster movie, while giving the Earth an over-the-top pummeling. It’s a reasonably fun flick at times, if you don’t think about it … at all.
It seems that once Roland Emmerich was done assembling all the CG components for destroying the world and gathering a full complement of “Hey, it’s that guy!” actors, he realized 2012 had no script, and decided to cull characters and situations from every other disaster movie ever made. Despite its massive scale of destruction, 2012 will be familiar to anyone whose seen any movie about an earthquake, volcano, aquatic disaster, or celestial body striking the Earth.
2012 follows the parallel stories of several characters at the end of the world. John Cusack…
Everything You Wanted to Know About 2012 But Were Afraid to Ask
December 21, 2012 is the end date of the sophisticated Long Count Calendar created by the ancient Maya in Central America. But is it a doomsday that is foretold in the Mayan calendar, the Chinese oracle of the I Ching or in an Internet-based prophetic software program? Is there any truth to these doomsday prophecies? Some theorists believe that on that date, the Earth will experience unprecedented, cataclysmic disasters ranging from massive earthquakes and tsunamis to nuclear reactor meltdowns, while yet others see a coming renewal, a rebirth of consciousness.
To help sort out the information, Gary Baddeley, the writer/producer of 2012: Science or Superstition and president of The Disinformation Company will present the current schools of thought and answer questions from a public not certain if they should prepare for survival or something…
Sometimes Twittering Sh*t Your Dad Says Gets You A TV Deal
MG Siegler writes on TechCrunch:
Back in August, we wrote about Shit My Dad Says, the Twitter account of a 28-year-old guy named Justin who literally just tweeted out things his dad said. At the time, he already had over 100,000 followers on Twitter, now he has over 700,000. And now he just landed a TV deal.
Yes, you read that right. A 20-something just landed a TV deal thanks to his Twitter account. Again, not a website, not a book (though there is a book in the works too), just a Twitter account.
The TV industry blog The Live Feed reports that CBS is working with Justin (whose last name is Halpern) to create the show along with Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. Halpern will write it along with…
The Ten Most Amazing Things From the New Lady Gaga Music Video
A fun list inspired by the best music video for years, by James Brady Ryan in Nerve.com:
Guys, I don’t even know. Can you really “list” something that clearly comes from beyond the borders of our dimension, and may not even adhere to the concepts of mathematics as we know them? YES!
So, the video for Lady Gaga’s new single, “Bad Romance,” is out. (Working title: “Bad Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”) You can watch it here, and then, once the screaming is done, you can join me for a list of the best/scariest moments from the video itself.
10. Hello Gaga:
Fun fact: this is how Lady Gaga actually sees other people.
Remell’s Subculture Sculptures
From Nick P. at Black Sun Gazette:
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like Remell’s subculture sculptures a lot. Remell has molded some of the most uncannily life-like sculptures I have ever seen. Life like not so much in that they look like real people. But life like in that you wouldn’t be surprised if one of his figures looked up at you and started talking.
Scientology Employees Forced To Watch Tom Cruise Videos
Just when you think Scientology can’t get more bat-shit crazy, it does … the gift that keeps on giving. It would be more fun to be a Scientologist if the Tom Cruise videos were like this:
On RadarOnline:
Having left Scientology after more than 15-years Marc Headley is lifting the lid on the bizarre religion in his explosive new book Blown for Good. And in an exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com, the author is speaking out about his experiences at the, much talked about, compound.
“Everyone there thought Tom Cruise was just brilliant,” said Headley, who left nearly five years ago. “Absolutely all the employees looked up to him.
“They think he is an exhilaration, which is very high up on what they call the ‘tone scale’…
Alternate-Universe Sci-Fi Channel Show Asks What Would Happen If Germany Lost War
Via The Onion:
NEW MUNICH—The new Sci-Fi Channel series Fallen Axis, which eerily depicts a world in which Germany actually lost the Second World War, premiered Tuesday evening to high ratings in an alternate universe to our own.
The much-anticipated television event is said to be the most ambitious ever produced by the science-fiction-themed network, which is a subsidiary of the Aryan Broadcasting Company. According to the early response, audiences in the alternate realm have been riveted by the show’s vision of an inverted existence wherein a defeated Germany has been completely neutered by the Allied powers.
“Imagine, if you will, a world in which Hitler’s glorious master plan had instead ended in ignominious failure, and the Allies had somehow emerged the victors,” the show’s creator, Leonhardt Riefenstahl, said during an appearance on…
Is This The End Of The Line For The Impartial Documentary?
It’s amazing that at least six years into the golden era of advocacy documentary filmmaking, a major newspaper with a thriving arts and culture section should feel the need to ask this question, but apparently there are some journalists and filmmakers who think any documentary film that does not try to be ‘objective’ somehow fails to deserve to even be categorized as ‘documentary.’
As the distributor of over fifty documentary films (can you believe that?!? Disinformation has been busy since our first DVD release in 2004…), here at The Disinformation Company we feel that the advocacy films we release are disseminating information and opinion to counter the mainstream and establishment views on the issues at hand (usually our filmmakers are reacting against a government or corporate whitewash). The advent of cheap…
The Top 5 Plans to Ensure the Continuity of our Species
If you’re really interested in what needs to be done to “ensure” our survival, forget the naysayers and check out a 2012 Evolver Spore this week. If you’re near NYC, some of us from the Disinformation Home Base will be there. The hosts of the Disinformation Podcasts, Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall, will be at the Atlanta Spore.
This is pretty funny, in the 2012 movie the “U.S.-run Institute for Human Continuity” saves the day. Hooray for USA! Robert Lamb writes on Discovery News:
If you’ve seen the trailer for the fall blockbuster-bound 2012, then you pretty much know the entire plot: Earth’s crust collapses like a failed souffle, deadly meteor showers chase John Cusack’s van and ancient Mayans scoff that they totally called it.
In just 157 minutes of screen time, civilization collapses and…
Did David Hasselhoff End the Cold War?
With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today, I found this story from the BBC in 2004 kinda funny. This headline also seemed to inspire the title of a book from a great publisher in the UK, Icon Books. If you don’t take Icon’s or the BBC’s word for it, watch the Hoff in action at the wall below (or better yet, the music video for “Looking for Freedom”):
Barely a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the city that had been divided by politics for more than 40 years was united in song. And leading the chorus of several hundred thousand voices was a man hitherto known to the rest of the world for driving a talking car.
David Hasselhoff, star of the hit 80s TV series Knight Rider, is renowned in celebrity-obsessed circles for being Big In Germany; not only as an actor, but as a purveyor of soft rock anthems. For that seminal concert, on New Year’s Eve 1989, Hasselhoff stood atop of the partly-demolished wall and belted out a tune called “Looking for Freedom.” (Continued on BBC News)
FBI File Links Kennedy to Monroe’s Death
From The Sydney Morning Herald:
BOBBY KENNEDY’S affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of – and perhaps even a participant in – a plan “to induce” her suicide.
The detailed three-page report implicates the Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, Monroe’s psychiatrist, staff and her publicist in the plot.
The allegations suggest the 36-year-old actress, who had a history of staging attention-seeking suicide attempts, was deliberately given the means to fake another suicide on August 4, 1962. But this time, it is suggested, she was allowed to die as she sought help.
The document, hidden among thousands of pages released under freedom-of-information laws last October, was received by the FBI on October 19, 1964 – two years after her death…
The Real Psychic Soldier Behind The Men Who Stare at Goats
Lauren Davis writes on io9.com:
When Jim Channon authored the First Earth Battalion manual, he was hoping to bring warfare into a more humane, modern age. In a new series of columns, he talks about the film and why harnessing the paranormal is so important.
Jon Ronson, who wrote the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, has taken over the Guardian’s film section this week, and asked former Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon, one of the inspirations behind The Men Who Stare at Goats, write a few columns about the film and his ideas. Channon authored the First Earth Battalion manual, which proposed that the US Army modernize warfare by looking toward the human potential movement. Channon suggested engaging the enemy with positive vibrations and offerings of peace, but also suggested that…
