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12 July 2018
[movies] My Incredible, Agonising Quest to Find the Worst Movie on Netflix‘But my quest hit a snag. Though there were many truly awful sounding movies listed, every single thing I looked up seemed to have been removed from Netflix. InAPPropriate Comedy, a sketch comedy show directed by the Shamwow Guy that was widely accused of being racist? Gone. Avalanche Sharks, a horror film about, well, what it sounds like it’s about? Also gone. I was beginning to worry that, due to the constant reduction in the number of movies on Netflix, all the real garbage had been purged.’
10 July 2018
[movies] Doctors Diagnose The Injuries In Home Alone … Doctors give their opinions on the injuries the criminals in Home Alone would have received if the movie was set in the real world.

29 June 2018
[people] Inside Trials of Johnny Depp: Lawsuits, Drinking, Marriage Gone Wrong … Unputdownable profile of Johnny Depp. ‘We move to the dining room for a three-course meal of pad thai, duck and gingerbread with berries. Depp sits at the head of the table and motions toward some rolling papers and two equal piles of tobacco and hash, and asks if I mind. I don’t. He pauses for a second. “Well, let’s drink some wine first.” This goes on for 72 hours.’
25 June 2018
[movies] David Lynch: ‘You gotta be selfish. It’s a terrible thing’ … A Profile of David Lynch. ‘There is another striking scene from childhood. One night, Lynch writes, he encountered a beautiful naked woman walking down the street, bruised and traumatised. “It was so incredible. It seemed to me that her skin was the colour of milk, and she had a bloodied mouth.” He was too young or too transfixed to find out who she was before she vanished. After art school, Lynch hustled for years to make Eraserhead, widely believed to be a response to the birth of his first child, Jennifer, who had club feet. Cineasts still debate what the onscreen infant was made of: skinned rabbit, lamb foetus? But when I ask Lynch he bats it away. “I don’t talk about the baby.”’
11 June 2018
[movies] The 25 Best Heist Movies Of All Time … Great list but can’t agree with Heat not being in the top five. ‘Dog Day Afternoon (1975): Director Sidney Lumet bathes the film in New York atmosphere, but it’s equally dazzling in its depiction of the troubles that can occur when ill-prepared men undertake a foolish, dangerous endeavor. But what makes Dog Day Afternoon resonate is Lumet and his cast’s ability to erase the line between these fools and us — Pacino’s one-terrible-day desperation humanizes his character’s neediness and growing panic, putting the audience in the bank with him as he tries to tap-dance his way out of disaster.’ [via MetaFilter]
31 May 2018
[movies] Toy Shining… A Mashup between Toy Story and The Shining by Kyle Lambert.

Toy Shining Mashup

9 May 2018
[books] Roger Moore’s 1973 Book About The Making Of Live And Let Die Is Straight-Up Bonkers … An amusing look at Roger Moore’s warts-and-all account of filming Live and Let Die … ‘B-Day Twenty-two started off on a very black note when in the middle of my knees-bend morning work-out Mike Jones, my hairdresser, telephoned from London to tell me he would not be joining me in Jamaica as a unit hairdresser after all. Mike, who chopped off my locks for Bond, has been with me for several years but out of two hairdressers on the unit list it was decided to bring only one to Jamaica. Harry chose to axe my man which displeased me no end. I finished my work-out in a furious mood and flung my breakfast toast across the room in rage.’
1 May 2018
[movies] Ghostbusters’ Slimer was created in a cocaine frenzy, artist who made him says … The surprising creation story of Ghostbusters’ Slimer. ‘He found out that Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd had always wanted Slimer in John Belushi’s likeness as a tribute to their deceased friend—something no one had bothered to tell Johnson throughout the six-month process of creating the ghost. (“I said, What the fuck are you talking about?” he adds.) So that night, Johnson took an eight ball of coke, cut up a gram of cocaine on top of a stack of headshots of Belushi, and that’s when things started to get creative…’
25 April 2018
[movies] The Five Types Of Nicolas Cage Movies … Nicely done taxonomy of Nic Cage movies. ‘That get at the heart of what Cage is: a worker. He enjoys being an actor. If given the opportunity to work, he’s gonna do it. Cage is on record as rejecting the idea that selectivity is the hallmark of a successful actor. “Film acting is one of the only industries where you’re criticized for working hard,” he said in 2013. “In any other industry it’s considered a quality and something to behold.” I don’t really see the lie there.’
12 April 2018
[shining] What if The Shining was an 8-bit Video Game?

9 April 2018
[space] Exploring the Secrets of Soothing Spaceship Sound … a look at the soothing white noise of fictional spaceships … ‘In the intervening years, Snell has taken it upon himself to sample and loop the ambient hums of dozens of science fiction ships, building an unlikely but sizeable YouTube presence of over nine million views and over a hundred videos. Whether it’s the calming tone created by the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation, or the throbbing pulse of Dr. Who’s Tardis, Snell aims to shine a light on an important element of science fiction that most people don’t often think about—what the spaceships sound like.’ [via MetaFilter]
5 April 2018
[2001] 2001: The aliens that almost were … A look at the work Kubrick and his team put into creating alien special effects for 2001 that were eventually never used. ‘From the very outset of work on the film we all discussed means of photographically depicting extraterrestrial creatures in a manner that would be as mind-boggling as the being itself. And it soon became apparent that you can not imagine the unimaginable. All you can do is try to represent it in an artistic manner that will convey something of its quality. That’s why we settled on the black monolith – which is, of course, in itself something of a Jungian archetype, and also a pretty fair example of “minimal art.”‘
20 March 2018
[movies] 47 Things We Learned from Nicolas Cage’s Vampire’s Kiss Commentary … Nic Cage looks back at Vampire’s Kiss. ‘The scene where Cage runs down the street after assaulting Alva in the basement had to be re-shot because he was running too fast for Bierman’s camera. Cage told the director “Well if you want me to run slow I’m going to run like this!” and that’s the run that made the cut. He caught a lot of criticism from people saying it was over the top, but Cage gives that no weight. “’Over the top’ is one of those things that doesn’t work with me because I don’t believe in such a thing. It’s just stylistic choices.” He says that Bierman caught him during his more experimental phase, something he hasn’t really explored since.’
15 March 2018
[movies] Dr. Strangelove in Color‘Do I look all rancid and clotted? You look at me, Jack. Eh? Look, eh? And I drink a lot of water, you know. I’m what you might call a water man, Jack – that’s what I am. And I can swear to you, my boy, swear to you, that there’s nothing wrong with my bodily fluids. Not a thing, Jackie.’

9 March 2018
[movies] Watching a film with mum on Mother’s Day? Don’t see these‘Remember when you were 14, and you were watching TV with your mum, and a sex scene unexpectedly came on, and the shame and embarrassment you both felt ended up causing all manner of long-lasting psychological scars? This film is pretty much one long sex scene, and it’s about a mother and her son, and watching it with your own mother absolutely isn’t worth the decades of therapy bills. Again, this one was actually released to coincide with Mother’s Day in the UK.’
28 February 2018
[books] Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read … and what we watch and listen to. ‘The lesson from his binge-watching study is that if you want to remember the things you watch and read, space them out. I used to get irritated in school when an English-class syllabus would have us read only three chapters a week, but there was a good reason for that. Memories get reinforced the more you recall them, [Jared] Horvath says. If you read a book all in one stretch—on an airplane, say—you’re just holding the story in your working memory that whole time. “You’re never actually reaccessing it,” he says.’
22 February 2018
[tech] Go look at some Anime Floppy Disks

24 November 2017
[movies] John Wick solidified Keanu Reeves as one of the greatest action stars of all time … Hard to argue with any of this article from the A.V. Club on John Wick.

My favorite scene in the movie isn’t a fight. It’s the part where Viggo, the movie’s lead Russian gangster, has to tell his son just how badly he’d fucked up. Viggo’s boy, Iosef, has broken into the home of a “fucking nobody.” He’s killed the man’s dog, stolen his car, and left him unconscious. Viggo, played by the late Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, doesn’t mind any of this. He just minds that Iosef did all this to the wrong guy.

Carefully and patiently, Viggo tells Iosef that he and his associates used to call John Wick, that nobody, baba yaga—the bogeyman. And then he continues, “John wasn’t exactly the bogeyman.” Dramatic pause. “He was the one you send to kill the fucking bogeyman.” A moment later, as that sinks in: “I once saw him kill three men in a bar with a pencil. A fucking. Pencil.”

23 November 2017
[movies] Coppola’s ‘Conversation’ – prophetic snapshot of ’70s S.F. … a look back at the movie The Conversation. ‘For all the other actors’ abundant talent, the movie lived or died on Hackman’s performance. Hackman, a sharp dresser and an extrovert, did not easily sink into the role of Harry. “It was a hard part for Gene to play because it demanded such containment,” Murch recalled. “The character is such a tightly wound person, and that is not at all who Gene is. He was operating outside his comfort zone. But now he says it is one of his favorite performances.” Coppola was immediately impressed by [Harrison] Ford, whose role as a henchman for Duvall was initially quite small. “It was clear Harrison was super bright and able to make much more of the character than was there. He knew how to use clothing and props. He was always thinking,” Coppola says in his DVD commentary.’
3 November 2017
[movies] 42 Facts Every “Ghost World” Fan Should Know’18. The studio wanted someone like Russell Crowe or Harrison Ford to play Seymour. 19. They also considered Nathan Lane for the role. 20. But Zwigoff always knew he wanted to cast Steve Buscemi in that role. “I had to call him and threaten to hang myself if he wouldn’t take the part,” he said.’
2 November 2017
[kubrick] Danny Lloyd – the kid in The Shining: ‘I was promised that tricycle after filming but it never came’ … Whatever happened to the child who played Danny Torrance in the The Shining?

Kubrick and his team protected him from the scary stuff, Lloyd says. In one scene, where Wendy runs screaming through the hotel with Danny in her arms, Duvall carried a lifesize doll. “I specifically remember I was banned from the set for the entire time Scatman Crothers was being axed,” he says laughing. There is something nice and Tom Hanks-y about his measured tone and efforts not to say anything mean or controversial.

I read that he accidentally walked in on Jack Nicholson filming “Here’s Johnny!” (voted the scariest scene movie history a few years ago). Is that true? “Yes, but not the actual ‘Here’s Johnny’ bit. Jack was out in the hallway with the axe. He was having fun and goofing off. I think it was a plastic axe he had. Both my parents were there and we were laughing. That wasn’t scary.”

11 October 2017
[tv] Your New TV Ruins Movies‘Filmmakers were not content to make movies with video cameras until those cameras could shoot 24p, because video, with its many-frames-per-second, looks like reality, like the evening news, like a live broadcast or a daytime soap opera; whereas 24p film, by showing us less, looks somehow larger than life, like a dream, like a story being told rather than an event being documented. This seemingly technical issue turns out to have an enormous emotional effect on the viewer. These days, any TV you are likely to buy, will, by default, have technology enabled that completely changes the emotional quality of the movies you watch. This is a cinematic disaster.’ [via Feeling Listless]
10 October 2017
[docu] Louis Theroux Explains the Staged Realities of ‘My Scientology Movie’ … interesting Q&A interview … ‘You get that feeling—which is some of my favorite material in documentaries in general—that the wheels have come off. Someone says, “Fuck you,” the set wobbles, and the mic drops down. You hear them on the mic: “I’m fucking done with this shit. Go join the cult of Louis Theroux if you want to.” There’s an electricity to that kind of material, where it’s slightly going awry. When [Rathbun] is like, “Your questions are fucking insipid and repetitive. Ask me a real question,” he’s basically saying, “You’re a bullshit journalist, and I’m sick of you.” That crackles with the quality of real life.’
9 October 2017
[alien] 32 Things We Learned From the ‘Alien’ Commentary … some notes from an audio commentary on Alien

“He’s a Replicant, basically,” says Scott about Ash. Yes, we get it, Ridley. Decker is a Replicant. Ash is a Replicant. We’re all Replicants. You happy? He does point out Ash’s quick, little jog in place might be a clue to him being a robot, that maybe all robots get stiff and need to keep their joints active. Someone go see if Harrison Ford ever does that in Blade Runner.

5 October 2017
[movies] Risky Business Dance with “Realistic” Audio … What might Tom Cruise dancing in Risky Business sound like with no music? …

4 October 2017
[movies] This Future Looks Familiar: Watching Blade Runner in 2017 … a nicely written fresh view on Blade Runner

There are cops, and there are little people.

There is a whole class of slaves. It is illegal for them to escape slavery. The cops are supposed to murder the slaves if they escape, because there is a risk that they will start to think they’re people. But the cops know that the slaves are not people, so it’s okay to murder them. The greatest danger, the thing the cops are supposed to prevent, is that the slaves will try to assimilate into the society that relies on their labor.

Assimilation is designed to be impossible. There are tests. Impossible tests with impossible questions and impossible answers. The tests measure empathy. It is not about having enough empathy, but about having empathy for the correct things…

29 September 2017
[movies] Don’t Fuck Up The Sequel To Blade Runner … from Mitch Benn

27 September 2017
[movies] Hayley Campbell on Brian De Palma’s Blow Out‘It’s about about a tortured man torturing himself in only the way an obsessive creative whose art lies in the miniscule can: over and over, not until it has no meaning, but until it grows and has so much meaning that it consumes him.’
15 September 2017
[tv] Love On A Real Train … A look at the similarities between Mr Robot and Risky Business … ‘[Jonathan Bernstein] described De Mornay as a “frosty Hitchcockian blonde” whose chilliness is mirrored by the icy blasts of TD synth there and elsewhere on the soundtrack. In its way, Risky Business is a quintessential ’80s movie — it’s a twist on a mismatched-buddy caper, it prizes ruthless capitalistic innovation, absent parents fuel its plot engine, and it contains Curtis Armstrong — and if you swap in J.D. for Booger, you could say all of those things about Mr. Robot. There is a system to be gamed, so to speak, in both: Princeton admissions (and pimp vig); data storage. There is a battle against monopolistic power and influence that aspires to those things even as it turns them against themselves.’
14 September 2017
[books] Longtime Stephen King fans criticize new IT adaptation for not being bad‘While audiences and critics alike have praised 2017’s IT for its smart casting and big budget scares, the response from classic King fans has been scathingly negative. “Couldn’t it have been a cheap, PG rated primetime miniseries?” tweeted @AnnieWilkes45. Others criticized the popular new film for not including any demonic laundry machines, giant rubber bats, possessed big rig trucks, man ponytails, or Gary Busey.’
12 September 2017
[movies] Kevin Church: 69 things I love about RoboCop, presented in no order … It’s hard to argue with any of these… ‘Ray Fucking Wise. How does he not have five retroactive Oscars for this movie alone?’
7 September 2017
[Herzog] Celebrate Werner Herzog’s 75th Birthday with These Peak Herzog Moments‘I don’t see [the jungle] so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It’s just – Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course, there’s a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing. They just screech in pain.’
4 September 2017
[king] ‘It was wonderfully scary’: Tim Curry, Rob Reiner and Kathy Bates on the joy of adapting Stephen King

TIM CURRY: I read It when I got the role and I thought it was wonderfully scary, because clowns are scary. It’s the exaggeration. Pennywise always understood what each character was scared of, and provided it. And I could see what fun it would be to be that scary. They came up with such a great makeup. There’s the classic scene where little Georgie floats his paper boat down the gutter and puts his hand down to try and get it back, and is grabbed by Pennywise, who says: “Down here we float …” The boy playing Georgie [Tony Dakota] yanked his hand away and said, “You’re scaring me!” I said, “I’m sorry, I’m supposed to.”

29 August 2017
[movies] Photos from the Blade Runner Model Shop … go look at this amazing gallery of photos taken during the production of Blade Runner

23 August 2017
[movies] Defending Indiana Jones, Archaeologist … a spirited attempt to save the reputation of the great archaeologist and adventurer … ‘Jones is the last great monster of the treasure-hunting age of archaeology. To judge him by modern standards is to indulge the same comforting temporal parochialism that leads us to dismiss post-Roman Europe as a “Dark Age.” Jones may be a lousy archaeologist as we understand the field today. But is he a lousy archaeologist in context?’
17 August 2017
[movies] A Guide to Properly Hating Old Movies … A useful essay template for hating old Movies … ‘There are films you read about your entire life, and then there are films like [CLASSIC MOVIE TITLE]. I’m not quite sure how I avoided seeing [CLASSIC MOVIE TITLE] for so long. Maybe I had always been subconsciously turned off by the film’s negative approach to [SOCIAL ISSUE]; why waste your time on a half-baked attempt at representation when modern movies like [MODERN MOVIE] are better worth our consideration?’
12 July 2017
[movies] To the Wonder: The Lyrical Appeal and Influence of Richard Donner’s ‘Superman’ … a look at the lasting appeal of the original Superman movie‘On Superman, Donner had a clear vision, almost of three movies in one, with distinct styles, linked by the thread of the Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman journey—a “lasso of truth” to use the parlance of uber-fan Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman. Krypton would be avant-garde, strange, heightened; Smallville, Norman Rockwell by way of Terrence Malick—high school touchdowns, wide open vistas, a yearning for home and honesty; and Metropolis–bustling, wise-cracking, a cartoon New York, alive to possibility. All grounded by what Donner termed “verisimilitude”: absolute truth and belief in the scenario and character on screen—no mugging to camera.’
5 July 2017
[alien] A Profane Abomination … a list of designs H.R. Giger was hired to produce for the movie Alien … ‘THE ALIEN, THIRD (MATURE) PHASE. Having left its victim, the Alien promptly grows to man-size, whereupon it is terrifically dangerous. It is very mobile, strong, and capable of tearing a man to pieces. It feeds on human flesh. This creature should be a profane abomination. Our producers have suggested that something resembling an over-sized, deformed baby might be sufficiently loathsome…’
16 June 2017
[food] David Lynch cooks Quinoa‘Quinoa is something that I like to have for dinner every chance I get. Start with a pan. And this pan is unbelievable – it’s super heavy and lined with copper. It’s such a good pan. I’m going to go over now and fill this pan at the sink with some fresh water…’
17 May 2017
[movies] Crime in Counterpoint: Michael Mann on his Restored Masterpiece Heat‘I’ve got a theory, which probably holds no water whatsoever, about why there’s so much genre content in media — meaning police stories, crime stories, so much of that. It’s because of the nature of the medium. Detectives detecting do what writers and directors do in the inverse: We have an idea for a character, and our character has origins that we invent. Those origins become an engine that causes him to do certain activities and express himself and have different attitudes based on who the character is. And then those activities have consequences and leave behind certain effects. But a detective works all the way at the other end. He sees the remains of a crime — the leavings. He starts to work backwards to what happened. What was the activity? And if this was the activity, what could I discover about the motivations of the person whose identity I do not know? And how can those motivations allow me to predict his future activity, so that I can intercept him and find out who he is?’
10 May 2017
[life] Britain’s ‘moral values’ based on Star Wars, Breakfast Club and The Godfather‘Tom Logan, from Hatfield, said: “Star Wars taught me about the importance of freedom, democracy and courage in the face of tyranny. And about the importance of using your miraculous gifts to benefit the entire galaxy.” Jane Thompson, from Stevenage, added: “Breakfast Club taught me that we are all insecure but that through dialogue we can find our common humanity. It also taught me that teachers are the worst people in the world.”’
2 May 2017
[kubrick] Forever and Ever and Ever: Uncanny Doubles in ‘The Shining’ … A look at how Kubrick heightened a sense of the Uncanny in the Shining … ‘Robert Kolker writes that the film also features many instances of symmetrical framing. He notes that each side of the frame is doubled and perfectly composed, and therefore any horrific event happening within the frame seems even more out of place and strange. The symmetrical shots are almost too perfect, which can be uncanny and off-putting in itself. Kolker cites the red bathroom as an example of a symmetrically framed scene, with its rows of white urinals and sinks lining either side of the wall and the long mirrors running along the wall. The bathroom is symmetrical, yet Jack and Grady discuss violent, murderous plans in the middle of the room, throwing the symmetry off balance and into uncanny space.’
22 March 2017
[movies] The Purity of John Wick … a look at what make John Wick so good … ‘John Wick is the purest and most joyful action movie I’ve ever seen. And given its full embrace of the genre, it may very well be one of the purest movies, full stop.’
14 February 2017
[valentines] Robocop Valentines

9 February 2017
[movies] Gene Hackman: 10 essential films‘Less well known than The Conversation, but just as impressive, Night Moves is one of the great thrillers of the 1970s. It’s a detective story in which Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a football player turned private eye who gets caught in the middle of dubious activities in the Florida Keys. He’s on his very best form, the tough humour hiding a deep sensitivity about his decaying marriage and his own personal failures, and he relishes the literate, witty dialogue provided by Alan Sharp and the chance to play opposite the splendid Jennifer Warren, an actor with whom he has great chemistry.’
7 February 2017
[movies] The Other Kane … the fascinating story of the other actor who (briefly) played Kane in Alien before John Hurt … ‘In the beginning, the actor portraying Kane was Shakespearean stage veteran, Jon Finch. The story of Finch’s departure is somewhat muddled. Most sources agree that Finch left the film due to a diabetic attack, which is denied by Finch himself. Some say that Finch’s illness revealed itself before the cameras, another says it took place in a plasterer’s chair. Some say he filmed for weeks, some say he filmed for days, and some say he filmed for merely one shot.’
3 February 2017
[kubrick] The Shining: Who is the Man in the Bear Costume?

30 January 2017
[comics] Steranko’s Outland … go and look at scans from Jim Steranko’s stunning comic adaptation of the 1981 Sci-fi movie Outland …

9 January 2017
[weird] The movie that doesn’t exist and the Redditors who think it does … Do you remember a movie from early Nineties called Shazaam? …

It wasn’t until last year that things took a dramatic turn.

On 11 August 2015, the popular gonzo news site VICE published a story about a conspiracy theory surrounding the children’s storybook characters the Berenstain Bears. The theory went like this: many people remember that the bears’ name was spelt “Berenstein” – with an “e” – but pictures and old copies proved it was always spelt with an “a”. The fact that so many people had the same false memory was seen as concrete proof of the supernatural.

“Berenstein” truthers believe in something called the “Mandela Effect”: a theory that a large group of people with the same false memory used to live in a parallel universe (the name comes from those who fervently believe that Nelson Mandela died while in prison). VICE’s article about the theory was shared widely, leading thousands of people to r/MandelaEffect, a subreddit for those with false memories to share their experiences.

31 December 2016
[movies] The Poseidon Adventure Is Still One of the Most Insane Disaster Movies Ever Made … Gizmodo remembers The Poseidon Adventure‘Then there’s Gene Hackman, who had won his first Oscar a year prior, for 1971’s The French Connection. Here, he channels some of that Popeye Doyle snarl into his portrayal of Rev. Frank Scott, a take-action man of God who favors turtlenecks rather than clerical collars.Why would a newly minted Best Actor sign on for a ridiculous action movie? What other movie would let him use a giant fake Christmas tree as an escape ladder, engage in multiple screaming matches with Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine), dramatically curse God, and ultimately sacrifice himself to save a group of passengers who otherwise would’ve been literally dead in the water?’