Special thanks to Lucas Sena, from The Walking Dead Madison Square Garden premiere!
20 years ago today (Oct. 10, 1995), No Doubt released their third studio album Tragic Kingdom. I love everything about No Doubt. Their story is interesting and quite special, you can read a good article about it here >billboard.com/no-doubt<
Here is what guitarist Thomas Dumont had to say about the band’s not so tragic journey:
“At the time we were just a bunch of college friends doing what we loved, being in a band together, making songs, recording them, playing shows. Looking back, I remember the fun and the camaraderie, the energy and the friendship. For sure there were struggles as well, everything was not perfect. But what strikes me is that some magic, in the form of music, came out of the tragic. Adrian, Tony, Gwen, and I each put all of ourselves into that album. We crafted the sound of it together, we infused the music with our spirit, and Gwen discovered her own voice as a lyricist. Gwen’s brother Eric left the band before TK was released, but his contributions to both the band and album were significant as well. Our group effort manifested itself in the songs, which really connected with people & resonated around the world, and because of that our lives were forever changed. The whirlwind of world-touring and extensive promoting of Tragic Kingdom went on for two and a half years, and at the end of it we emerged, not only rock stars, but as men and women.” ~ Tom Dumont
I present two distinct interviews dedicated to Edward Snowden and the controversy surrounding his actions, and we will see the difference between an intelligent interview situation and that of an opinion based time-filler/trivia television — both good.
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson has his own podcast >startalkradio< and as one would expect, his show is quite thought-provoking.
In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with whistleblower Edward Snowden via robotic telepresence from Moscow. The two card-carrying members of the geek community discuss Isaac Newton, the difference between education and learning, and even how knowledge is created. They also dive into the Periodic Table and chemistry, before moving on to the more expected subjects of data compression, encryption and privacy. You’ll learn about the relationship between private contractors, the CIA, and the NSA, for whom Edward began working at only 16 years old. Edward explains why metadata tells the government much more about individuals than they claim, and why there’s a distinction between the voluntary disclosure of information and the involuntary subversion of individual intent:
When people are not properly vetted, it can lead to awkward exchanges between the hapless host and their guests. Such was the case with Twitter jokester Jon Hendren who goes by the handle @fart, who was invited via email on to HLN’s ‘The Daily Share’ show to Skype in and comment during a live broadcast interview. Standard enough, only Hendren switched gears halfway through a conversation with Yasmin Vossoughian about Edward Snowden and began talking about Edward Scissorhands instead:
What makes this great is that for whatever reason the host doesn’t acknowledge that Hendren is acting odd at all, even though he’s saying stuff like, “To cast him out, making him invalid to society, simply because he had scissors for hands… people didn’t get scared until he started sculpting shrubs into dinosaur shapes and whatnot,” and “Edward Scissorhands is a complete hero to me.” Surprised Hendren’s Twitter handle didn’t even raise anyone’s eyebrows enough to do some simple background check either lolz.
For anyone interested in the what, who, how and why surrounding whistleblower Edward Snowden and that of the NSA spying scandal, I suggest you take the time to watch the documentary CITIZENFOUR (2014) directed by Laura Poitras.
THE DREAMERS is set against the background of the ’68 Paris student riots, and tells the story of a young American studying in Paris in 1968 who strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister, Theo and Isabelle, who each share a love of film, and together become sexually entwined.
Bernardo Bertolucci‘s THE DREAMERS is an ode to French New Wave Cinema (La Nouvelle Vague), a term coined by critics describing a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s and their approach to the film form, taking it in more natural and experimental directions and telling stories with more narrative ambiguity; a general break from the conservative paradigm. THE DREAMERS makes reference and homage to many films, and like the novel the screenplay was adapted from (by the actual author), it is like a cinephile’s wet dream.
The film is based on the novel “The Holy Innocents” (1988) by Gilbert Adair (1944~2011), and is about incestuous siblings and the stranger who enters their world. Its themes were inspired by Jean Cocteau’s novel Les Enfants Terribles (The Holy Terrors) and by the film of the same name directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I have a feeling I may end up reading it some day (both editions).
I used to stay up late during my teen years and watch television well into the early hours of the morning until it lullabied me to sleep, and for some reason, really interesting movies used to play during those silent hours of the night. The story I tell myself is, whoever was working at the television station at the time must have had good taste. THE DREAMERS was one of those films I saw when I was too young to understand much nuance, but resonated with me on a mature level I appreciated. I still think it is one of the most effortlessly cool films I have ever seen, and I say that in a very personal type of way, like, to watch THE DREAMERS with someone else in the room would have ruined its aesthetic emotion somehow. The film is very sexy, and I get a peculiar sense of isolation and longing whenever I watch it.
Ah the reciprocal torment of wanting to be loved — This guy has got it bad:
Footage is from the 1959 French New Wave film “Les Cousins,” directed by Claude Chabrol. / Quarter Past The Hour by “Jack + Eliza” from the album “Gentle Warnings.” / Video edited by David Dean Burkhart.
System Of A Down, oh man they bring back memories. As a bonus for the crowd, SOAD brought to the stage Chino Moreno from the Deftones to accompany them on Toxicity:
These guys got me and my friend young, as you will see from the bonus home-movie I have shamelessly embedded at the end of the post, but for now, enjoy SOAD’s full live performance in Rio de Janeiro in all its high definition glory:
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Needles 42:57 |
Hilarious. Jake Johnson tries to duplicate the amazing parkour stunts he sees on TV, with mixed results. There are two morals in this short and I can’t decide which one I prefer more; ‘denim changes your entire perspective’, or, ‘Jake it ‘til you make it!’ …Hmmm:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ceee00e434/american-eagle
Expectation vs reality can come as a harsh lesson to some, but especially to parkour enthusiasts who insist that free running is nothing but mind over matter…
…Because it really isn’t; Lolz.
YouTuber ILika Da combined Shia Labeouf’s Just Do It motivational rage speech with Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, and made a music video in the garish style of Web 1.0 optimism — It’s a definite front-runner for the last motivational song you’ll ever need 😂
“Don’t let your dreams be dreams… DO IT!”
Following from the last post about Live-Action First Person Shooter Controlled By People On Chatroulette; there was a movie made in 2009 that took that very concept to the extreme — In the distant future when technology has been fully integrated into the human nervous-system, men and women on death-row become commodities to be controlled like pawns in a popular blood-sport. For competing, the inmates can hope to receive a reduced sentence, the major risk being, they’re in a literal high-stakes game of life or death, where the controlling gamers walk away without a scratch but the controlled players never get out alive:
I knew nothing about this movie when my aunt showed it to me, and I enjoyed it. Didn’t think much of Gerard Butler before watching it, and the only other film where I thought he was amazing in was CORIOLANUS (2011) directed by Ralph Fiennes, which is a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s 17th-century play of the same name. I really can’t see Butler as the romantic-comedy guy, at all.
Another reason I dug GAMER was because I was an UNREAL TOURNAMENT junkie, which in my opinion was and still is the epitome of all futuristic blood-sport games imaginable. Think THE RUNNING MAN with respawns and crazy weaponry, only there is nowhere to run but forward into battle:
I don’t think GAMER is original as it incorporates a lot of staple elements from video games and science-fiction troupes, but it does repackage those elements into a coherent narrative that is entertaining and not as preachy as one would expect from any movie dealing with themes to do with freedom and choice and the dangers of technology and those who control it. GAMER is one of those movies where watching it once is enough; it isn’t amazing, but it is OK. UT on the other hand, shieeet, it was so good that what was considered a dying franchise has been completely remade from the code up by devoted developers, Epic Games and the gaming community, featuring new content and returning classics, and was released to be played for free as a pre-alpha only recently; it looks so damn “WICKED SICK” — I’m so excited!!
YouTubers Realm Pictures created a semi-immersive chat-based game, which is like the 21st century equivalent of a text-based pick-a-path adventure. The studio set up a live action zombie roleplaying game around their office at a church location and then invited people on Chatroulette, Omegle and Skype to interact with them in real-time, taking control of the situation as if they were the central hero of a live-action video game:
There’s even a boss battle! From the protagonist’s comical fourth-wall commentary and his DOOM-style face icon, to how weapons and objects look and are interacted with; the makers really thought of everything. Watch the behind-the-scenes video for an insight into their creative process:
Kia ora! Hola! Bonjour! سلام! こんにちは! नमस्ते Namastē! مرحبا! 您好！Hallå! Hallo! Selamat Datang! Welcome! ⭐(★´♡‿♡`+)⭐ You have found ditb
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