CAPTCHA’s are an irritating but necessary evil. The system that is used to verify whether or not a user is human has been around a while and it had to evolve because machines were getting better at reading the text than humans. With its latest iteration, Google says you’ll no longer have to input anything at all.
Invisible CAPTCHA’s are the latest development in the “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” Google acquired reCaptcha back in 2009. It updated the system in 2013 to allow for the ubiquitous “I’m not a robot” checkbox that’s all over the internet. That version worked by determining the user’s humanity through their clicking style. If the click seemed fishy, a more elaborate test would be offered. But the Invisible CAPTCHA is able to recognize that a user is not a bot simply by analyzing their browsing behavior.
In a video, the company explained “Powering these advances is a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis that adapt to new and emerging threats.” But what’s in it for Google?
When the search giant initially bought reCaptcha it was actually for the purpose of integrating it into its giant book scanning project. The technology was great for digitizing books that were illegible to Google’s transcription system. But its unclear what Google gains by continuing to improve the software.
Shuman Ghosemajumder, a former Google employee tells Popular Science, “Google in general—and this is certainly a philosophy that we adhered to when I was there—believed that anything that is good for the internet, is good for Google.” In this case, a “more frictionless” internet is good for everybody.
But don’t count out the possibility that Google is improving its machine learning capabilities through your behaviors. And Ghosemajumder points out that Google knows about the past behavior of users when they’re logged in, which would make the system more accurate. That could be a small incentive for some people to ensure they log in.
Lent is already well underway. The pleasure-filled bacchanal that is Fat Tuesday has come and gone. But it’s never too late to celebrate Chewbacchus, the coolest Star Wars-themed Mardi Gras festival in the Galaxy.
YouTuber Riain Rising recently shared a video detailing his February adventures at this year’s Mardi Gras Chewbacchus, including building a landspeeder float. Chewbacchus is an annual Carnival parade where fans of Star Wars and other scifi franchises come together to drink the sweet blue milk nectar of life. It’s full of floats, dance routines, and elaborate costumes... although you’re not allowed to dress as a unicorn or elf (sorry, those are the rules). They also crown a nerdy king or queen every year, and 2017’s was Ross Marquand of The Walking Dead.
New Orleans hosts several smaller parades in the weeks before Fat Tuesday, and they’re considered more local fare since it’s before the tourists start poring in. Chewbacchus is hosted every year by the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus, or IKOC, which basically sounds like the coolest team name ever. It gets an average of at least 20,000 attendees per year, largely thanks to word of mouth (and IKOC’s clever guerrilla marketing tactics). Check out this year’s festivities, and start making travel plans for 2018.
Alien: Covenant wasn’t the only supernatural sequel Ridley Scott discussed at this year’s SXSW. He’s also eager to make another Gladiator film. Only problem is... the main character is dead. But Scott said he knows how to bring him back, and I’m hoping it’s because a bunch of Roman gods want him to kill Jesus. Seriously, that’s a real script, people.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Scott confirmed that he still wants to make a sequel to the 2000 Academy Award-winning film Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe. If the ever-delayed Avatar sequels have shown us anything, it’s that it can be hard to continue a series after many years without making it a reboot. That’s especially true when the lead character is dead and buried. However, it doesn’t look like Scott’s going to let that stop him.
“I know how to bring him back,” Scott said. “I was having this talk with the studio — ‘but he’s dead.’ But there is a way of bringing him back. Whether it will happen I don’t know. Gladiator was 2000, so Russell’s changed a little bit. He’s doing something right now but I’m trying to get him back down here.”
It’s unclear what exactly Scott means by “bring him back,” since that’s very open to interpretation. It could be Maximus’ son sees him through a series of flashbacks or dream sequences, or the sequel could actually be a prequel (like Prometheus). However, I’m secretly hoping Scott actually takes up Nick Cave’s script, originally commissioned by Crowe and Scott and later rejected by the studio. Here’s an actual sample of the script, courtesy of Birth Movies Death.
MAXIMUS enters the dim confines of the temple. Rain leaks through the broken stonework and runs down the walls. A large torch-wheel hangs from the ceiling on a chain and it swings and creaks. SEVEN DISSOLUTE OLD MEN (JUPITER, APOLLO, PLUTO, NEPTUNE, MARS, MERCURY, BACCHUS) cluster around a makeshift table, their heads craned towards each other as they mumble amongst themselves. MAXIMUS stands before them. The OLD MEN grow silent. They look ill and diseased. The torch-wheel creaks. JUPITER, fat, eyes boiled and blood-shot, sits in the center.
In this God of War-style supernatural epic, Maximus is chilling in the underworld when he gets a “holy mission” from the Roman gods to kill Jesus and stop the spread of Christianity. The so-called “Christ killer” eventually decides to help the Christians instead, who are being tortured and killed for their faith... including in the Coliseum, which was transformed into a naval battle on a manmade lakefilled with alligators (yes, that is a sentence I just wrote).
After switching sides and helping the Christians push back the Romans, Maximus is punished to repeat the cycle of war for all eternity. He fights in the Crusades, in World War I, in freaking Vietnam. Then we see him in the Pentagon’s war room, much like in Dr. Strangelove, presumably getting ready to launch a nuclear missile. You heard that right... Maximus, the gladiator dude, controls nuclear weapons.
“He becomes this eternal warrior, and it ends with this 20 minute war scene which follows all the wars in history, right up to Vietnam and all that sort of stuff and it was wild. It was a stone cold masterpiece. I enjoyed writing it very much because I knew on every level that it was never going to get made. Let’s call it a popcorn dropper,” Cave said in 2013 on WTF with Mark Maron.
If anyone could make a Gladiator sequel with Roman gods, alligator lakes, and Twilight Zone-esque twists work, it’d be Ridley Scott. Sadly, I doubt Cave’s script would ever be used, but it’s still delightful to know that it exists. And every time Scott teases the future of Gladiator, I will take that script in my arms, give it a giant hug, and sigh as I wonder what could’ve been.
Sandman artist Dave McKean has once again lent his talents to Neil Gaiman’s iconic works, illustrating a new edition of Gaiman’s supernatural novel American Gods, and it simply has to be seen to be believed.
The Folio Society is releasing a new collector’s edition of American Gods to conjunction with the upcoming show on Starz, which includes illustrations from Gaiman’s frequent collaborator. For this latest edition, McKean has created 12 illustrations, including three double-page spreads. According to the press release, the pieces on the binding and slipcase are designed to mirror each other, capturing the “uneasy relationship between the real and the unreal.” It’s no surprise McKean would choose this as a theme, since duality is often expressed in his work... including in his and Gaiman’s 2005 film MirrorMask. Here are a few samples from the book. They’re so pretty.
The illustrated edition of American Gods is available to order and costs $120, so it’s definitely something for the more serious book collector. However, for those who might be pulling their collars at the moment, the Folio Society is giving away five copies signed by McKean himself. American Gods premieres on Starz April 30.
Thundercat on stage rocking feathers and scale armor gauntlets. Image credit: Eli Watson
Thundercat is a bassist who blends video games into everything he does, and whose latest album situates references to Mobile Suit Gundum and Sonic at the heart of new electronic soul music.
Drive around Grand Theft Auto V’s Los Santos for long enough and you might hear Thundercat’s falsetto blurt out “I’m on ecstasy.” Possibly wedged between Aphex Twin’s “Window Licker” and Outkast’s “Elevators” on the game’s FLYLO FM radio station, the rhythmic mania of Thundercat’s “Oh Sheit It’s X” will pour out into the polished matrices and dazzling skyboxes of Rockstar’s open world parody of life imitating games imitating art. A song about drugs and dancing at 3:00AM in the morning, it’s well suited to a game unrivaled in its ability to offer up interesting destinations just so you can drive right past them.
Born Stephen Bruner, the virtuoso bassist who’s toured with Snoop Dogg and collaborated with Kendrick Lamar for 2015's seminal rap album, To Pimp a Butterfly, is as comfortable ranking the best anime as he is discussing the finer points of mid-century Jazz. People have been calling Bruner Thundercat ever since his middle-school days when wearing a T-Shirt of his favorite cartoon for several days in a row earned him the nickname. If there are two constants in Thundercat’s life, it’s video games and bass playing, two pursuits that are as natural to him as breathing air and which compliment one another rather than detract.
His latest album, Drunk, is a perfect case in point. Twenty three tracks crammed into less than an hour, the music goes from riffing on anxiety about social media in one track early on to sharing Thundercat’s love of Johnny Cage by the time “Friend Zone” hits. Even outside of any track’s lyrics, the rhythms and and playful layering of funk beats with synth melodies speaks to a deeper fusion of the two worlds. “From the minute I wake up I’m staring at the screen,” Thundercat sings in “Bus In These Streets,” a song that doubles as public service announcement inspired by 80s kid shows which could have easily been cribbed from a late 90s JRPG.
“I’m a video gamer dude, ya’ know?” he says over the phone. “I’ve played video games throughout my whole life.”
Despite just releasing his third album, a mammoth collection featuring the likes of Lamar and Pharrell Williams, as well as Kenny Loggins, Thundercat is more eager to unload on the current state of video games than wax poetic about his creative accomplishments. So what’s he got lodged in his PS4 these days?
“I’ve been playing a lot of Resident Evil 7,” he says. “That is fantastic. Just bad-ass.” Plus there’s his love of fighting games “Somebody could be coming in crying about someone who died and I’ll be definitely playing Mortal Kombat.” What’s he excited for? “I’m ready for the new Tekken 7. Akuma and everything, I’m excited dude—I’m ecstatic.” But when it comes to Street Fighter V, Thundercat doesn’t pull his punches. Ranking the games, he goes “Mortal Kombat number one, Tekken number 2, and Street Fighter would be number...20.” The wound feels both fresh almost personal. “Throw out the game like a disk you’re supposed to shoot,” he says, comparing the latest Street Fighter to the clay plates used for Skeet shooting.
Thundercat doesn’t pre-order anymore either. “I learned my lesson with Metal Gear Solid. I think these game developers think we’re stupid. I’m not giving you $100 a year in advance for a game you’ve already finished that took you thirty minutes to make.”
And he’s also a big defender of the Nintendo Switch’s predecessor. “Only a true gamer knows the importance of always keeping up with Nintendo,” he says. “The Nintendo Wii U was,” he corrects himself, “is a fantastic gaming unit. I don’t care what anybody says.” He continues, “If you wana keep your girlfriend, you get a Wii. If you don’t want her to think you’re a psychopath, you play Mario Kart.”
Finally, there’s the state of the console wars, which you’d think a star bassist helping give classic jazz and 70s funk a new life in the current decade wouldn’t give much thought to, but he does. “In my opinion Sony won this last round between the gaming consoles,” says Thundercat. “That fucking HoloLens? Come on, fuck off. It’s nice that they made the Xbox smaller but, so what?”
Instead, he’s been embracing PC gaming and the revolution in virtual reality with an MSI gaming rig and HTC Vive. That means switching between Shaolin vs. Wutang and Dead by Daylight. And of course, Overwatch. “I kind of dance between Junkrat and Genji,” says Thundercat, the former because he loves trying to blow people up after he’s already dead and the latter most likely because he gets to wield a katana.
Listening to Thundercat sing about, say, Diablo III (“I definitely lost weight playing that game”) it would be easy to think of him as a musical artist who likes to game on the side, but the relationship runs much deeper. “It feels so much like I would rather be playing video games most of the time anyway,” he says. He explains that as he gets older he’s had to fight to keep the rest of life from edging out that part of his identity. “You force it. You make it part of your daily routine.”
“It freaks people out too,” he says. “They get all pissed cause you don’t seem like you’re paying attention to anything.” You can tell its something he’s thought a lot about the longer he meditates on the question of where gaming fits into his life. “Some people look at it like it’s an addiction, or ‘oh you’re crazy.’ But you fill the holes in your life in different ways. Some people prefer to mountain climb or some people prefer to do yoga, but fuck all that just give me Mortal Kombat.”
“I could be playing a video game right now,” he says while I’m on the phone with him. When he tells me “The truth is either you’re a gamer or you’re not,” it sounds almost like another way of saying “If you’re really a gamer, you’ll always stay a gamer.”
For Thundercat, there’s never been a time when that wasn’t the case. He traded his first bass, a busted-up Black Harmony, for his friend’s SNES. “I got the okay from my mom and so I traded my friend the bass for a Super Nintendo that was completely altered to play Super Famicom games,” he says. “And I thought it was something big at the time, not realizing you could take a hot coat hanger and seer off the pieces of plastic keeping the game out.” He still remembers putting a Dragon Ball Z cartridge in and playing through to get to Goku fighting Vegeta. “I couldn’t read shit about it but I tried my hardest to get through it,” says the man who sings “Goku fucking ruined me” on Drunk’s “Tokyo,” a track that mixes Japanophilia with much darker musings on unwanted pregnancies and taking your shame to Aokigahara, the country’s infamous “suicide forest,” nestled in along the side of Mount Fuji.
Thundercat didn’t used to sing. In fact, unleashing his falsetto on his debut album The Golden Age of Apocalypse was a first. “At one point I wasn’t singing, I was just playing bass,” he says. “You can get hung up on the fear of what will people think or you can just jump headfirst.” Which, thanks to some encouragement by his friends, he ultimately did. For other musicians it might not have worked, but Thundercat’s bass lines anchor his lyrical stream of consciousness, yielding a combination that’s equal parts sinister and playfully chill; futuristic and otherworldly but also incredibly intimate and present. Somehow his music takes the artifice of all his influences—the anime and video games; Evangalion and Final Fantasy—and strips it away until all that’s left are the beautiful, earnest vibes underlying them.
If this truth can be heard in the music it can also be seen in how Thundercat presents himself. The Thundercats T-Shirt that earned him his stage name has morphed into a fashion sense that takes cosplay and makes it earthly and almost practical.
“I love being able to dress up,” he says. “I wouldn’t be your typical model for the clothing of course. Gucci doesn’t look at fat, black dudes as a sexy commodity I’m guessing.” Assembled by himself with the help of friends in the fashion industry, the styles aren’t about constructing a persona, just conveying how he feels. “One day you feel like Johnny Cage, the next day you feel like Predator, the next day you feel like Jay or Silent Bob, the next day you feel like Shinji from Evangalion. One day you feel like a Gundam or a Sayian.”
Up on stage at a concert though, it just looks like Thundercat: natural and unassuming. “A lot of the time it’s not about how other people feel about you it’s how you feel about yourself,” he says. Who exactly that is, for Thundercat at least, happens to be a product of video games, an interactive art form that’s not much older than he is. “It’s played a major role throughout my creative development and I’m always very thankful for the composers who took time to make music for guys like me growing up,” he says. Whether it’s Masato Nakamura’s “Spring Yard Zone” from Sonic, which Thundercat ranks in his top bass guitar anthems of all time, or the soundtrack of the The Last of Us, the distinction between video game tracks and music proper doesn’t exist for him. Gaming, like the jazz of Miles Davis or the art of Fist of the North Star, is just another part of the background noise informing his music. “[Video games] were kind of like subliminal messages to stay inspired and stay creative,” he says.
“DUI,” the last track on Drunk, like the album as a whole, blends this sentiment into a hazy farewell. “One more glass to go, where this ends we’ll never know,” sings Thundercat as the song fizzles out. For all the albums particulars and its creator’s penchant for being honest and explicit, Drunk is as much about blurring senses as dulling them, and in doing so creating a home in which playing Mortal Kombat fits as naturally as Michael McDonald crooning “Wake up and dream, tear down the wall.”
Over the past couple of years, there’s a phrase that’s accompanied several poorly reviewed comic book films or TV shows: “It’s not for the critics, it’s for the fans.” Iron Fist’s Finn Jones is the latest star to use this as a defense of his Marvel show. This group of words has become a crutch to deflect attention from a bad Rotten Tomatoes score, and fans deserve better.
In an interview with Metro, Jones dismissed the largely negative reviews of Netflix’s new show Iron Fist— including io9's, which called the show Marvel’s first real failure. He said that critics don’t get the show the way fans will, possibly because they don’t understand the comic books or community that surround the Iron Fist franchise. This follows Jones temporarily leaving Twitter after getting into a heated discussion on race and representation in Hollywood, while defending Iron Fist as “one of the most diverse shows” in Marvel’s Netflix canon.
“These shows are not made for critics, they are first and foremost made for the fans,” Jones said. “When the fans of the Marvel Netflix world and fans of the comic books view the show through the lens of just wanting to enjoy a superhero show, then they will really enjoy what they see.”
Image: DC Films
Jones joins a growing list of actors, directors, and the like who’ve come out saying different versions of this exact same idea. Several have been for recent DC films, which largely bombed critically. Ben Affleck gave the fan defense for Batman v Superman, as did Saw producer Mark Burg, and Kevin Smith for Yoga Hosers. For Suicide Squad, both David Ayer and Cara Delevingne dismissed critics in favor of “the fans,” with Delevingne adding that she doesn’t think critics even like superhero movies.
Granted, some of these films managed to make a good amount of money, particularly in the DC department. That speaks to how much fans love the DC universe, and want it to be good. The record-breaking drop in weekly sales for both Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad suggest that not everyone who saw them liked them, but the final totals might be enough motivation to keep things as they are. Though, quite a few people have told me Wonder Woman might be their “last straw” for the DCEU. If that one sucks (hoping not), they may stop watching altogether.
Barring the fact that many critics of comic book franchises are, in fact, comic book fans themselves, saying “It’s for the fans” assumes that fans hold themselves to different (i.e. lower) standards than other viewers. This might be true in some cases— for example, I tried so hard to like The Golden Compass, even though deep down I knew it was a terrible adaptation. But as a whole, this is a piss-poor excuse to fend off criticism in one of the world’s biggest movie and TV show genres. Plus, as someone pointed out in the comments, it panders to fans to try and convince them they should like the show or movie, for the sake of their fandom. Why should fans be told they should settle for less, just because it’s part of something they love?
Image: Fox
Comic book shows and movies aren’t just something you put on for your kids to shut them up for a few hours. It’s an important and lucrative genre that has started offering up some incredibly bold stories, largely thanks to how wide and complex the comic book industry is as a whole. Logan has proven that a movie about a mutant with claws can be humanistic and heartbreaking. Captain America: Winter Soldier is a near-perfect superhero spy thriller. The DC/CW block is full of catchy dialogue, amazing action, and great crossovers. And in Iron Fist’s own family, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are challenging race and gender norms in comic book franchises while also turning out excellent stories and characters.
Given the growth in quality shows and films based on comic books, it’s okay for audiences and critics alike to reject products that don’t hold up to basic story-telling standards. It’s even more okay for fans to suggest creators and stars hold themselves accountable when something doesn’t work, instead of blaming it on people who “just don’t get it.” That doesn’t make them bad fans, that makes them great ones.
Look, it’s absolutely cool to like something that’s hated by critics, or to flat-out think the consensus is wrong. In the end, they’re all opinions, and sometimes you know that something you love is better than others give it credit for. I genuinely enjoy watching Jupiter Ascending, even though I know it’s not a legitimately good film. There will be people who like Iron Fist, criticisms and all. But the show isn’t just for them. It’s for everybody who’s interested in enjoying a comic book story... from the most diehard Iron Fist fan to the kid who’s never even heard of Danny Rand before. Jones and others demean their audiences when they create benchmarks of fandom in order to soothe their own egos, and it’s time they gave it a rest.
Like a cross between the opening credits of Contact and the Simpson’s Universe couch gag, this video gives us an ever expanding look at how the smallest objects in existence compare in size to the largest.
Starting with the fabric of space-time, we zoom out to the singularity of a black hole, then we zoom out to quarks, protons, atoms, DNA, sperm, grains of sand, lions, tigers, bears, whales, jets, zeppelins, skyscrapers, mountains, moons, planets, stars, black holes, galaxies and so much in between. We’re somewhere in there too, forgetting to put the toilet seat down and trying to decide what to eat for dinner.
Be warned, the narrator of this clip isn’t exactly Neil deGrasse Tyson. The voiceover script is alright and has a few funny bits. But as conversations on this subject tend to do, it veers into too-many-bong-hits territory.
Still, this is the kind of sobering demonstration of our place in the universe that we all need from time-to-time.
Yesterday at SXSW in Austin, Texas, a packed house gathered to worship gods that will beat you up, get you drunk and sex you into oblivion. If the first episode of the TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s beloved novel American Gods is any indication, the masses will be showing up to give their love again and again.
The screening of American Gods began with a video message from Gaiman, who wasn’t in attendance. The award-winning author expressed his excitement at producers how Bryan Fuller and Michael Green translated the 16-year-old novel for series television. The pilot began with a quick look at Mr. Ibis writing into a notebook, transitioning to the scene from the past that he was writing about: an ancient Viking expedition that landed in America 100 years before Leif Ericsson. The would-be conquerors were shown being quickly rebuffed by a rain of arrows launched by unseen assailants. Unable to plunder as intended, the Vikings decided to go home but couldn’t set sail due to a lack of wind. Desperate to leave, they carved an idol of Odin to pray to. But the air remained still. They were then shown putting their own eyes out as a tribute to the Norse god-king but that too was to no avail.
It wasn’t until the Vikings burned one of their own alive on a funeral pyre that they realized the depth of sacrifice needed to speed them home. They drew swords and started warring against each other—the most effective show of fealty to an entity described as a war god—and the wind kicked up fiercely in response. Blood exploded all over the screen as bodies were split in half and heads went flying. The bloodied and disillusioned Norsemen boarded their ship and headed home, and the camera lingered on the idol of Odin they left behind.
From there, the show headed to prison where we met main character Shadow Moon (played by Ricky Whittle), a con man five days away from release and a longed-for reunion with his wife Laura. Some of the dialogue in these scenes was pulled verbatim from the book, like when Shadow’s cellmate talks about how America started to go astray when folks stopped hanging people. Shadow’s release from prison came earlier than expected, for tragic reasons, prompting him to get back to the small town of Eagle Rock, Indiana as quickly as possible.
His journey brought him into contact with Mr. Wednesday, who readers of the novel know is really Odin incarnate. The show gave a funny walk-on moment to this pivotal character, as he pretended to be a befuddled old man so he could scam his way into first class status on an airplane flight. Ian McShane is clearly having fun playing the diminished deity, reveling in the salty language and I-know-something-that-you-don’t mind game that he plays with Shadow after their first meeting. In one memorable line, he groused to Shadow, “I offer you the worm from my beak and you act like I fucked your woman.”
The pilot covered the first few chapters of the book, changing scene to Los Angeles to introduce goddess Bilquis, out on an date with someone she met on the internet. As in the book, the night progressed way beyond an awkward round of drinks. Bilquis led the middle-aged man back to her blood-red room decorated with crimson candles and fertility idols, saying “I’m not what I once was… you don’t think I’m spent?” After he complimented her beauty, they stripped down and start sliding their naked bodies around each other. She pled with him to worship her and he gladly complied, hypnotically exalting her in the language of old as they continued to fuck. The camera pulled out to show Bilquis having grown in size and her hapless suitor becoming enveloped into her body. She consumed him completely and leaned back sated and fearsome.
The last part of the pilot showed Shadow’s bitter return home, where he walked into the funeral of his dead wife. A reunion with Laura’s best friend Audrey ensued, made uncomfortably awkward by her revelation that their spouses were sleeping with each other. After rejecting Audrey’s attempt at revenge sex in the cemetery hours later, Shadow came upon an odd tech artifact. It transformed into a VR headset that leapt onto his face and transported Shadow into the realm of Technical Boy, one of the New Gods of the modern era.
Faceless goons generated in this scene and assaulted Shadow as, puffing on a giant vape pen, Technical Boy tried to get information on Wednesday’s mysterious plans. “We are the future,” the younger deity explained to Shadow. “Prayers are just so much fucking spam.” The pilot ended with Shadow catapulted back in the real world where Technical’s goons swarmed over him and pummeled him into submission. A noose materialized and Shadow was strung up on a tree branch, kicking and choking in gruesome detail as he slid into an ugly death.
Whittle does a good job of communicating the quiet, roiling unease inside of Shadow as his life falls apart around him and surreal dream sequences generate a sense of foreboding that teases potent. He plays well of McShane, recreating the wary odd-couple dynamic between the two characters. Yetide Bataki imbues Bilquis with a weary sexiness that seemed appropriately ancient and dangerous. The sonic backdrop for the shows leaned heavy on blues and jazz, intertwining the two American musical forms around scenes of tragedy, fisticuffs and trickery.
As to be expected for a premium cable ongoing series, this version of American Gods has been slathered in blood and sex-sweat. But the original iteration of this story had bodily fluids aplenty, too, and the pilot still harbored the literary mythological underpinnings that generate the symbolism and meaning crucial to Gaiman’s successful endeavors. In a Q&A session that followed the screening—snippets of which can be found below— Fuller remarked on the changed political landscape, saying “we are now telling massive immigration stories in a climate that vilifies immigrants.”
Orlando Jones, late of Sleepy Hollow, will be playing African trickster god Mr. Nancy and talked about the excitement and responsibility he felt at playing a character that invoked the cunning that the African slaves needed to survive after being bought to America into slavery. He also freaked out hilariously after seeing the Bilquis scene. “I just saw a woman suck a whole man into her vagina. I’m not ready.” He and the rest of the world will have some time to prepare their sacrifices and burnt offerings. American Gods premieres on Starz on April 30th.
And there are hints of another major Star Wars character who could appear. More Inhumans set pictures give us another glimpse at a key hero. Plus, new clips from Guardians of the Galaxy and Transformers: The Last Knight, and another look at Peter Serafinowicz in his new costume for The Tick. Spoilers get!
Han Solo Anthology
La Provincia reports that production has headed to Fuerteventura to begin filming scenes for a key location in the movie: Corellia, Han’s often-mentioned but never-seen-on-screen homeworld. Intriguingly, the publication describes Corellia as “where [Han] became the best smuggler in the galaxy under the order of Jabba the Hutt,” which could seemingly imply that Jabba will play a substantial role in the film.
Then again, the same report also describes Corellia as where Han completed the Kessel Run... but that was, obviously, a run from Kessel rather than Corellia. So take the plot details mentioned here with a pinch of salt, as there seems like there’s some confusion going on. [Comicbook.com]
Escape Plan 2
Dave Bautista will play Sylvester Stallone’s new partner in a sequel to the high-tech prison escape thriller. Bautista takes over for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will not be returning. [THR]
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
According to Indiewire, a source close to the production has confirmed that Terry Gilliam’s long-gestating passion project is finally in production once again.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
In a brand new clip, Star-Lord and Rocket quibble over who’s the better pilot... and threaten each other with poop?
Transformers: The Last Knight
Izabella introduces some kids to Canopy in a new clip from the film.
Here’s a new Izabella-focused TV spot too, with footage from the above clip and a few new moments, too.
The Belko Experiment
Coming Soon has five blood-spattered character posters:
Coco
Here’s a teaser poster for Disney and Pixar’s latest, set in the Land of the Dead.
Black Lightning
Christina Adams has joined the cast as Jefferson’s ex-wife Lynn—who “exudes confidence and intelligence” but has “a mischievous side.” [KSiteTV]
American Gods
During the show’s SXSW panel, Bryan Fuller revealed Emily Browning will be playing a second character in addition to Laura Moon—Essie Tregowan.
Emily also plays Essie Tregowan, and those who have read the book, Essie was one of Michael and I’s favorite stories in the book. It’s essentially the tale of how Mad Sweeney made it to America. And we were talking about casting that role, and as we were in that conversation, Michael said, ‘Oh, we should just cast Emily in this role.’ And then we went to talk to Emily, and it was like, ‘So, the Essie episode’- she was like, ‘Have you cast that actor yet? Because I think I should play her.’ And we were like, ‘Well, that just worked out well.’
Ed Sheeran will be the latest musician to have a cameo role in the show, and will appear in an episode of the next season. [TV Line]
During an SXSW panel, the question came up as to why Sophie Turner’s hair was blonde instead of red. Perhaps in jest, Maisie Williams answered:
So if anything bad happens to Sansa, well... you heard it here first?
Wynonna Earp
Tamara Duarte has been cast in an undisclosed role. According to showrunner Emily Andras, “we really like her and you probably will too,” which is helpfully vague. [TV Junkies]
The 100
Good news! The CW has officially renewed The 100 for a fifth season. [TV Line]
Mr. Robot
Bobby Cannavale has been cast as Irving, “a laconic, no-nonsense used car salesman” who will play a major role the next season, which is due to premiere sometime in October. [TV Line]
Arrow
Wrestler Cody Rhodes is slated to return as the villainous drug dealer Derek Sampson in episode 21 of the season, according to IGN.
Hanna
Deadline reports that David Farr is developing a TV series based on the 2011 assassin movie Hanna. In an interview with CineVu, Farr discusses his “very different” take on the property compared to what director Joe Wright ended up filming:
Film is a director’s medium so it can be frustrating that, increasingly, the screenplay is there to act as bait for great talent; it is really the beginning of the creative journey. Then the director arrives, bringing the actors. Hanna was very different to how I imagined it when I wrote the draft but in an enormously exciting way. Joe Wright was fascinated in the fairytale and he pushed that to quite an extreme level, stylized the film in a hugely successful way.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Joss Whedon spoke to THR about the possibility of reviving the series in light of its 20th anniversary.
I see a little bit of what I call monkey’s paw in these reboots. You bring something back, and even if it’s exactly as good as it was, the experience can’t be. You’ve already experienced it, and part of what was great was going through it for the first time. You have to meet expectations and adjust it for the climate, which is not easily. Luckily most of my actors still look wonderful, but I’m not worried about them being creaky. I’m more worried about me being creaky as a storyteller. You don’t want that feeling that you should have left before the encore. I don’t rule it out, but I fear that.
Inhumans
New pictures from the set seemingly capture Isabelle Cornish in costume as Crystal, the elemental-controlling sister of Medusa.
Doctor Who
Here’s a new image from season 10, released ahead of a new trailer coming later today.
The Tick
Finally, Amazon has revealed Peter Serafinowicz’s new, somewhat sleeker Tick costume on Twitter.
Additional reporting by Gordon Jackson. Banner art by Jim Cooke.
Filming on director Ava DuVernay’s new movie adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, based on Madeleine L’Engle’s book, wrapped last night. This is something you would be very aware of if you follow DuVernay on Twitter, because she tweeted out a huge amount of images and behind-the-scenes photos to celebrate it.
This is the kind of Tweetstorm I can get behind:
We’ve still got more than a year until this movie comes out on April 6, and it’s too long. Why can’t we have good things now?
The world of The Walking Dead is full of dangers. There are zombies, of course, who desperately want to eat your flesh. There are bad humans like the Saviors and the Wolves, who kill the living with even more relish than the undead. But there’s only one thing that, if you ever chance to see it, you need to start running and never stop: Cantaloupes.
“Bury Me Here” is mainly about doing the necessary plot work of finally getting Ezekiel and the Kingdom on board with the idea of fighting the Saviors. It certainly achieves this, and it’s not without its powerful moments. But it also has some of the clunkiest, least subtle storytelling I’ve ever seen The Walking Dead try to pull off, and this isn’t exactly a show known for its subtlety.
For a mild example: A DVR snafu made me miss the first 22 minutes of the episode [I watched the rest later, so don’t freak out]. I picked up right when the Kingdom met the Saviors for their first cantaloupe delivery. Suffice it to say, I was able to immediately determine that Richard had secretly removed one of the dozen cantaloupes that the Kingdom brought in tribute/payment/whatever from context clues, by which I mainly mean Richard looking shady as hell.
Gavin, the leader of this group of Saviors, tired of the Kingdom’s recent passive-aggressive (and aggressive-aggressive) shenanigans, has the long-haired asshole who stole Morgan’s stick a couple of episodes ago—who I shall call Jackass McGee, because I do not want to look up his name—shoot one of the Kingdom’s men. It is, of course, young Benjamin who is the victim; Ezekiel, Morgan and the rest rush him to Carol’s place in hopes of saving him, but he bleeds out while Richard looks so monumentally guilty he might as well have a sign reading “MY BAD” around his neck. Benjamin’s needless but narratively obvious death completely freaks Morgan out, and he has flashbacks to his crazy days of season three in the still legitimately phenomenal episode “Clear” until he kicks a crate that happens to have the cantaloupe Richard stole in it.
When Morgan confronts Richard—completely silently, an excellently unnerving choice—the knight confesses it was another attempt to finally provoke the Kingdom into going to war with the Saviors, although he had assumed he’d be the victim killed. Richard then gets a lengthy speech about how he failed to stop a criminal who later killed his Uncle Ben er, was at a post-apocalyptic camp where he ignored the brewing troubles there, but then those troubles got his wife and daughter killed, which is why he’s been so determined to do something now. But then Richard goes into a much less sympathetic rant about how they should use Benjamin’s murder, pretend to obey the Saviors again, kill them when they aren’t expecting it, and then he’s going to lead the glorious armies of the Kingdom to war or something.
Morgan is… not convinced, and I say that with some confidence because when everyone goes to give that Saviors that missing cantaloupe the next day, he bashes Richard over the head and strangles him to death in front of Ezekiel, the other knights of he Kingdom, and the Saviors alike. I literally have no idea why none of the Kingdom people didn’t feel the need to prevent Morgan from murdering one of their own, because Morgan doesn’t explain that everything is Richard’s fault until after Richard is dead. And then Morgan tells to the Saviors’ how they’re going to obey them perfectly now, using Richard’s words verbatim—clearly indicating he’s continuing Richard’s plan.
Morgan isn’t done. After burying Richard, going on a zombie kill frenzy, and basically continuing to freak out, he heads over to Carol’s to tell her truth about Alexandria and everything the Saviors did and everyone they killed. Just as Morgan and Daryl knew would happen, the information makes Carol abandon her quiet, undisturbed life to go to war with the Kingdom, and—as she said herself—once she starts killing again, she probably won’t be able to stop. Clearly, Morgan’s life of pacifism is also over, and he looks like he’ll be killing Saviors right alongside Carol. The upshot, if the episode can be said to have one, is that at the end Ezekiel does agree its time to go to war.
I’m sorry for the recap dump, but this is all necessary to realize that literally four people’s lives have effectively been ruined because of a cantaloupe.
Richard steals a single cantaloupe. The Saviors murder Benjamin as a direct result. Morgan kills Richard in consequence for his actions. Morgan and Carol are not dead, but their inner peace has been shattered. Even if they survive the coming war—and that’s a big if—they’ve still lost themselves.
And all, essentially, over a cantaloupe. As silly as it sounds, the cantaloupe as an absurd trigger for all this tragedy is handled pretty deftly, all things considered; the episode’s cold open shows the Ezekiel and the others very forlornly loading that single cantaloupe in their truck, and the actors’ bleak performances keep it from being (too) comedic. Besides, it’s clearly supposed to be insane that all of this madness stems from a breakfast fruit—it shines a spotlight on the dubious morality of Richard’s plan, a microcosm of the dubious morality of pretty much all of the show’s non-villains. Fighting the Saviors is a just cause, and Richard knows that if the Kingdom doesn’t join forces with Alexandria and Hilltop now, they may lose their chance to defeat them at all. He has to start the war if the Kingdom is going to be free, if they want to avoid the inevitable, continual deaths kowtowing to the Saviors would bring.
At the same time, Richard’s two plans to start this war have 1) involved him trying to get Carol murdered to anger Ezekiel, and 2) getting Benjamin killed. It’s the classic “doing the wrong thing for the right reason” that TWD so often trades in, and the cantaloupe aspect makes Richard’s actions—no matter how noble his goal—even more awful. Meanwhile, killing is arguably necessary in the world of The Walking Dead in general and to fight the Saviors in particular, but hopefully no one can watch a crazed Morgan murder Richard with his bare hands and feel it’s a good thing he’s doing. Now Morgan and Carol both are ready to fight the Saviors—ostensibly a good thing—but at what cost to them and those around them? As much as a moral quagmire this is, it still feels like a more interesting dilemma than the show usually manages—probably because Rick isn’t involved.
All this is pretty good, interesting stuff, which makes the fact that “Bury Me Here” felt the need to bludgeon viewers over the head with its storytelling more of a shame. It began with Benjamin, who not only has several scenes being a paragon of virtue in front of his little brother, who not only talks about a girl he’s interested in, but even asks to go hang with Carol for a while but she says no and to go to the cantaloupe drop instead. His death wasn’t telegraphed as much as it was screamed through a bullhorn. You could practically see a countdown clock over his head.
When Morgan, Ezekiel and the others bring the dying Benjamin to Carol’s house, they literally pull up in front of an oncoming storm that Carol is already staring at. To be fair, that’s admittedly less egregious than the news Ezekiel receives at the beginning of the episode, which is that the royal garden is full of weevils so all the plants need to be dug up and burned, and all new crops grown. But even after Ezekiel agrees, the show still feels the need to have Ezekiel’s royal gardener(?) Nabila announce, “Here’s the beautiful thing, your majesty. You can tear it out and cut it down. You can burn it and throw it all away. But if you want, it can all grow back” as if this was something an adult human being did not understand about gardens.
And at the end, Ezekiel is in that garden, planting the first new seeds… along with Benjamin’s little brother. Gee, do you think this is a chance for the Kingdom to begin a new chapter of its existence without the parasites known as the Saviors infecting their lives? Bleh.
Still, something happened in this episode, even if it was something we all knew had to happen and had to happen soon; after two episodes where the plot arguably didn’t progress at all, I’ll count that as a win. You know who else should count the episode as a win? The California Cantaloupe Advisory Board. Not only was that a ton of free advertising, they have a new, ready-made slogan: “Cantaloupes! So good they’re not only worth dying over—they’re worth killing over, too!”
Assorted Musings:
• So despite my overall approval at the cantaloupe storyline, it is really goddamn stupid that the Saviors demanded a specific drop for a dozen goddamn cantaloupe. This is the post-apocalypse. Gas is precious. Why not wait to drive until you need to pick up more than a grocery bag worth of food?
• Also, the fact that they loaded up a truck with a crate containing 12 (well, 11) cantaloupe is also ridiculous. Guys, put the crate on your lap.
• These idiots don’t even put a lid on the crate, so there’s no way the cantaloupes didn’t go flying out of the box and roll around the bed of the truck while they were driving.
• The fact that they did it again later with a single cantaloupe is so dumb it honestly made me lose sleep last night. Guys. Someone hold the cantaloupe in your goddamned hand.
• Gavin, the leader of the Kingdom-interacting branch of the Saviors, is an interesting dude. He really seems to regret having to have someone shot—not morally, but because it’s just going to make things even more of a hassle. When Gavin learns Ben died, he seems genuinely angry, presumably that a kid was killed instead of an adult, and forces Jackass McGee to walk home lest he kill Jackass. He’s not a good person, but he doesn’t seem sadistic like most of the other Saviors—he’s like a middle manager. He’ll enforce Negan’s rules if he has to, but he’d much prefer to have no trouble at all.
• Credit where credit’s due—the episode ended with a nice and reasonably subtle scene with the camera pointed at Morgan’s back; you can’t see what he’s doing, but he’s holding his stick and there are sounds of wood being sharpened. Hearing him turn his beloved bo staff into a spear pretty much sums up everything that needs to be said.
I’m not saying Frank Oz is definitely playing Yoda in Star Wars: Episode VIII, but I am saying it’s telling that he apparently can’t just say “no” when asked about it
Variety has an interview with Oz about the legacy of Jim Henson, which is worth a read, if only for his brutally honest assessment of the recent ABC Muppet show. But at the end, Oz was asked a few Star Wars questions and, well:
There are reports that you might reprise Yoda in the new “Star Wars.”
I feel like I’m a prisoner at war here, and I can only give you my name, rank and serial number. To be true to the people who asked me, and they are kind of my family, I have to say I’ve been asked not to talk about it. I love Yoda. I would be happy to talk to you about it at the time they let me.
This is interesting because if he wasn’t involved, presumably Disney and Lucasfilm would have no control over what he said—unless they managed to get everyone who’s ever been in any Star Wars anything to agree to answer this way no matter what. And while I am a big believer in the idea that Disney controls the whole universe, that seems a little impractical.
On the other hand, his wording could imply that after the rumors started, he was asked to just preserve the mystery even though he was not in it. And he agreed out of love for the “family” he had there. But then why would he say he’d talk about it when they “let” him? What difference would a “no” make in a few months, or after the film came out?
Either way, these are the kind of mysteries we can look forward to from everyone within sneezing distance of The Last Jedi. It’s going to be a delightful six months or so.
Being surrounded by stacks of rulebooks and reams of character sheets while you play has been part and parcel of the Dungeons & Dragons experience from the very beginning. And while many players have begun using phones and tablets to make their tabletop lives easier, Wizards of the Coast is finally offering their own solution.
Over the weekend the company officially announced D&D Beyond, a new app made in partnership with Curse media that will let players look up rules, check inventories or manage their character’s stats all from the convenience of a unified interface from their phone or tablet. Designed to work with the current fifth edition of D&D, Beyond is meant to give you more space and time to actually play games,instead of leafing through pages of adventure guides because you forgot the bonus to persuasion roles an Ancient Brass Dragon has. Here’s a hilariously over-dramatic teaser trailer for the app that shows a little bit more of how it works:
There’s been plenty of virtual tabletop and third party tools like Beyond for quite some time at this point—to the point Wizards has even sold official D&D content through them—so it remains to be seen what Beyond will bring to the table outside of the official branding. And there are questions about just how much it will all cost, too: is there going to be a future where buying the physical copy of a D&D adventure or rulebook comes with codes to access it on Beyond? Or will fans who still want physical editions and the convenience of an app like this have to fork out twice?
For now, we have to wait and see. If you’re interested in trying Beyond, you can sign up for a beta ahead of its rollout this summer at the link below.
We’ve known for awhile that the upcoming seventh season of Game of Thrones will be a shorter run of episodes than usual—as will its follow-up, the (presumably) final season of the series. But now, after some umming and ahhing from HBO, we finally know that season eight will be six episodes long.
The confirmation came from Game of Thrones SXSW panel this weekend, where producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss confirmed the writing lineup for the next season:
The news isn’t really that surprising—Benioff and Weiss have frequently discussed that the show is heading into its final batch of episodes, but there was some hope that the final season of the show could end up being slightly longer. HBO even held out renewing the show for its final season on the off chance more episodes could be produced, but it seems like after season seven’s seven-part run this summer, we’ll be left with just six more episodes in Westeros.
We’re well and truly in the show’s endgame now. Game of Thrones is set to return to HBO for its penultimate season July 16.
Until fairly recently, external hard drives over 2TB required an extra power cord, but not so with this ultra-portable 4TB WD My Passport, now marked down to an all-time low $110.
That makes it easy to toss in a bag to take anywhere, and it would also be great for storing all of your PS4 and Xbox One games.
Your favorite USB car charger just happens to be the smallest one you can buy, and you can grab it on Amazon for $7 today with code AUKEYCAR. We’ve seen it go as low as $6 on a few occasions, but this is the best deal we’ve seen in a long time, if it’s been on your wish list.
If you spend any significant amount of time on a bike, this $14 gadget from KMASHI is an LED headlight, Bluetooth speaker, and USB battery pack all rolled into one. Use code WPKK2CAY to get the discount, but just don’t be obnoxious with the speaker, please.
You spend all day at a desk, so when you’re at home, you should make the most of your couch time. This adjustable vented lap desk can get your computer up off your lap, and even includes a mouse board hanging off the side. I almost want to catch a cold so I can use this in bed all day.
Mpow basically invented the ~$20 Bluetooth earbud market, but it turns out they also make wireless on-ears, and you can try out a pair for just $21 today. Even at that low price, they’re foldable, include a microphone for calls, and even work as wired headphones if your battery dies.
The Surface Pro 3 is a few years old at this point, but it’s still a complete Windows PC in tablet form, which is kind of amazing. If you’ve been on the fence about trying one out, you can get one for just $430, while supplies last.
The SoundBuds Slim are, as you might have gleaned from the name, far smaller than the originals. Heck, they look like a small set of wired earbuds; you might never guess there were batteries and Bluetooth radios in there. Despite the size, these buds are still rated for seven hours of battery life, and recharge fully in just 90 minutes.
There was a $6 launch day discount on these a few weeks ago that dropped them to $24, but if you missed out on that sale, they’re slashed to $22 today, no code required.
Anker, producer of a lot of your favorite charging gear, has its own line of flashlights now, and all three are on sale today for the best prices we’ve ever seen.
The cheapest model is IP65 dust and water resistant, but actually doesn’t include a rechargeable battery. However, you can run it on three AAAs or a single rechargeable 18650 battery, which are cheap and easy to find.
The next step up is far brighter (900 lumens vs. 400), and includes a rechargeable battery and a microUSB port, while the most expensive model is brighter still at 1300 lumens, and is IP67 rated, meaning you could even use it underwater. Whichever model you choose, just be sure to note the promo codes below.
If your mattress doesn’t leave you feeling as well-rested as you’d like, it’s a whole lot cheaper to upgrade it with a mattress pad than to buy a new one, especially today.
Amazon is offering highly-rated eLuxury plush pads for $75-$97 as part of a one-day Gold Box deal. The standard full, queen, and king pads come in at $82, $90, and $95 respectively, which is seriously cheap for a product like this. They promise to soften up old mattresses, and cool down hot ones, which isn’t particularly appealing right now, but sounds awesome for the summer.
If you’re still using that $20 metal bed frame you got when you moved into your first apartment, today’s a great opportunity to upgrade to something more...adult.
This platform bed features a faux leather headboard, a wood slat base (read: no box spring), and a clean, simple design. For a limited time, Amazon’s offering all-time low prices on three sizes today. Get a king for $179, a queen for $149, and a full for just $139.
When it comes to smartphone dash mounts, magnetic solutions have dominated the sales charts over the last couple of years. But if you don’t want to obstruct a vent, or use a case with your phone, a these iOttie deals might bring you back into the cradle camp.
First up, iOttie’s One Touch 2 universal dash mount is marked down to $13, an all-time low. The original One Touch won a Kinja Co-op a few years back, and the sequel added a longer telescoping arm, as well as a bigger cradle for today’s skateboard-sized phones.
If you’d prefer something with a lower profile, this deal includes a CD slot and vent mount discounts as well, if that’s more your style.
All this 4.5 star-rated luggage scale has to do is save you from an overweight baggage fee once, and it will have paid for itself several times over.
You might have a bathroom scale at home that works just fine when you’re leaving town, but this one is small enough to take with you, so you can make sure you won’t get dinged for all of those heavy souvenirs on your return trip.
Toaster ovens are great, especially the smart ones, but even the best toaster oven can’t hold a candle to the cheapest slot toaster when it comes to, you know, toasting things.
Hamilton Beach’s top-selling four-slot chrome toaster includes two control panels so you can operate the slots independently, and also features a bagel mode that toasts the inside of a bagel, while only warming the outside. $21 is within a few cents of an all-time low, and it’s actually cheaper than the two-slot model.
iClever’s USB battery pack/car jump starter is more powerful than most at 600A, enough to get the engine turning over in almost any car. And as an added bonus, it supports Quick Charge 2.0 input and output, allowing you to recharge your phone faster, and then refill the battery pack in half the time it would usually take.
These jump starters are the kinds of things that you never feel an urgent need to purchase, but that you’re really glad you bought when the time comes to use them.
Just like the Philips light, Vansky’s Sunrise Alarm Clock fades in a sunrise-simulating light for 30 minutes prior to your designated wake-up time, and then finishes the job with your choice of six natural alarms, or an FM radio station. That means by the time your alarm goes off, your body will already have begun the process of waking up, eliminating that awful feeling of being jolted out of a deep REM cycle. You can even choose from seven different light colors, a feature that doesn’t exist on any of Philips’ models.
I’ve had a Philips Wake-Up light for years, and absolutely love it, but $29 is an insanely great price for a feature-packed alternative.
Those crossed out MSRPs you see? Those are the prices H&R Block actually charges, and this $10 promo on physical discs (with code 10HRBLOCK) is in addition to Amazon’s standard discounts, so we’re talking about some serious savings here. If you need help deciding which tier to buy, H&R Block has a handy comparison chart here.
Note: I realize this makes no sense at all, but the code only seems to work on discs, not downloads.
The best part? When you file through this software, you can opt to receive all or a portion of your refund in the form of an Amazon gift card, which will net you a 10% bonus. So a $1,000 refund could become $1,100 in your Amazon account, which would more than make up for the cost of the software.
The Bonavita BV1800 is your favorite coffee maker, and you can snag one with a stainless steel carafe for $110 today, which is just $3 shy of the best price we’ve seen.
Our readers praised the Bonavita’s shower head system for saturating the beans to extract the most flavor, and added that its carafe can keep keep the finished product hot for hours on end. Sounds like a winner to me.
The well-reviewed Hoover Sprint bagless upright vacuum is only $43 today, and includes more features than you might expect, including an accessory hose, adjustable brush height, and a true HEPA filter, not to mention the fact that it’s an Amazon top seller. It’s not the smallest or most maneuverable vacuum around, but it’s probably the best sub-$50 vacuum you can buy.
Lysol wipes are one of the easiest ways to wipe down cabinets, and they’re a gift sent from the heavens whenever someone in your house has a cold. Assuming you’ve got some extra cabinet space, you should definitely pick up 320 wipes for $9 up with this clippable Amazon coupon.
Thankfully, it seems like after this week (and the impending Nor’easter), spring weather will be here to stay. That means if you’ve been using the crappy weather as an excuse not to go for a run, you’re SOL. Amazon is right there with you, marking down gear from Mission Apparel so you can get outside, even if it’s just for a nice, brisk walk to the deli for a sandwich.
L.L.Bean is ready for you to get outside. Right now, use the coed TRAIL, and take 20% off all hiking clothes, footwear, and gear. Get ready to spend your days winding through trees and climbing mountains. They even has some great rainwear to help stave off the impending spring showers.
I have painful, yet fond memories of my college’s Athletic Trainer using one of these on my thigh after I suffered a strained quad. They are hell while using it, but heaven afterwards. And for $10 when you use the code KINJA604, this muscle roller can help further your love-hate relationship with working out.
I feel pretty confident in stating that the Oral-B Genius Pro 8000 has the most features of any electric toothbrush on the market. Just look at this:
The Triple Pressure Sensor helps protect your gums from over-brushing. The SmartRing illuminates and pulsations slow, then stop when you brush too hard.
Alright that seems nice.
Elevate your custom cleaning experience with the multifunctional 360º SmartRing. Visible from every angle while brushing, the SmartRing allows you to see feedback from the pressure sensor, brushing timer and Bluetooth connection with ease.
I guess that’s useful. Go on...
The Oral-B Genius 8000 toothbrush features a Lithium Ion battery and smart travel case that’s designed to charge both your toothbrush and smartphone using only one outlet.
Not sure I ever needed that, but okay.
The NEW Genius 8000 pairs with your smartphone to enable Position Detection which uses facial recognition to help you know where you’ve brushed.
Facial what now?
This feature helps to ensure you never miss a zone. Using the Genius 8000’s innovative technology and your device’s camera, our brush helps you maintain healthy brushing habits.
Okay, I’m no luddite, but this is insane. Anyway, just clip the coupon on the page to save $20, and use promo code 25ORALB8000 at checkout to save an extra $25.
Bralettes are a lazy girl’s best friend when it comes to being comfy and covered. Aerie is marking down all of their bralettes, in basically every style you could think of, to just $14. That’s almost half of what you’d normally pay (and the price of like, one pair of underwear from Victoria’s Secret).
If you’re trying to keep an eye on your blood pressure, Amazon will sell you this Omron 10 Series electronic monitor today for $52, within a few bucks of the best price we’ve seen. This monitor has a 4.3 star review average on over 5,000 reviews, and includes both a wireless monitor that can store your last 100 readings, and Bluetooth connectivity so you can store unlimited readings on your smartphone (including Apple HealthKit).
Not to stress you out, but this is a Gold Box deal, meaning it’s only available today, or until sold out.
Joe’s New Balance is the premiere online outlet for...New Balance shoes, obviously, and they’re offering a rare 30% sitewide discount, plus free shipping on orders over $65 today. That excludes 990 and 993 styles, but everything else should be fair game. Run, don’t walk, before the best styles sell out.
Ready to give your mane the attention it deserves? Remington’s The Crafter comes with 10 trimming length settings, a 3 hour lithium-ion battery, and multiple detachable trimming heads for managing your stubble, and Amazon’s taking $8 off with a clippable coupon, for a limited time.
Mass Effect Andromeda’s Pathfinder edition game guide might be the most impressive limited edition guide I’ve ever seen. Here’s what you get:
Mass Effect™: Andromeda Initiative Backpack: A two-pocket Andromeda Initiative backpack that holds a 15-inch laptop.
Alternate Premium Hardcover Guide: An exclusive hardcover version of the complete guide. A must-have for every Mass Effect fan! Only available in the Pathfinder Edition.
DLC Code Inside: Get a head start on Day 1 co-op play with the MultiPlayer Booster Pack, which includes weapons and equipment to kick-start your progress (entitled instantly, limit one per match).
Welcome Letter: An introduction letter, written by the mission’s founder, Jien Garson, welcomes you to the Andromeda Initiative.
Galaxy Chart: A full-color 11”x17” map of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Field Journal: A 32-page journal with field notes and sketches about the Initiative with space for your own note-taking needs while on your adventure.
Branded Envelope: The Galaxy Chart and Welcome Letter come packaged in an Andromeda Initiative branded envelope.
Mobile-Friendly eGuide: Unlock the enhanced eGuide for strategy on the go, all optimized for a second-screen experience.
This was listed for over $120 at launch, and was in the $90s for the last several days, so $78 represents a substantial price drop. Plus, if you preorder now and the price goes any lower, you’ll automatically get the best price Amazon listed once it ships.
Apropos of nothing, Prime members can still preorder the game for 20% off. Just note that you won’t see the discount until checkout.
Pandemic Legacy is a co-op board game that raises the stakes by adding permanent (like, actually permanent) changes to the board as you play, and it’s amazing. It also happens to be marked down to $39 on Amazon today, matching the best price we’ve ever seen.
An image from the trailer for Your Name, in theaters April 7. Image: Funimation
Last year, the highest-grossing anime of all time opened, but you may have missed it. That’s because it only played for a single week in the U.S. to qualify for the Oscars. It wasn’t even nominated—but hopefully come April 7, history will realize that was a mistake.
The movie is called Your Name. It’s a Japanese animated film by director Makoto Shinkai and it’s absolutely incredible. The only reason I didn’t fight for it to be on our best of 2016 list is that I hadn’t had a chance to see it yet. But then I was on a random cross-country flight, and United Airlines had the film available for viewing as part of its international section. So I watched it, and found myself fighting tears of joy and sadness. I was stunned, wondering, how does this movie exist and I’m seeing it for the first time on a plane?
At last, Your Name will finally get a U.S. release on April 7 thanks to Funimation Films, which just released an English dubbed trailer. It’s pretty similar to the original Japanese trailer, except in English, but I’m guessing most people haven’t seen it anyway.
Don’t let the PG rating and upbeat pop song fool you. Your Name is not some simple movie. I think the trailer actually undercuts the movie a little, focusing on only one aspect of the film and bombarding you with the song. Yes, some of that is in there, but it’s used sparingly, and only at the perfect moment.
This is a film that’s kind of impossible to grasp until you see it in its entirety. Not only are the story, characters, and animation truly wonderful, it’s got some very unique blending of genre and themes. The trailer shows that it’s a body-swapping movie and that’s how it starts. But it’s also a teen comedy, a drama, a disaster movie, a wondrous fantasy, a hero’s journey, and more. And it’s all wholly cohesive, surprising, and level-headed. The complex film is handled with a grace that’s rare in cinema. Watching it, even on a tiny plane monitor, is an experience I won’t soon forget.
Funimation is opening Your Name both with an English dub and with English subtitles on April 7 and you can find more information here. Do that. See this one. You won’t be let down.
It’s not a huge surprise that Netflix is making a second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events—the first one ended with a clear promise of making the next book—but the way they made the announcement took a few steps.
The official Twitter account and the Netflix YouTube page both released a video of “Lemony Snicket” (Patrick Warburton, always pleasant to listen to) reading out a statement. Certain letters and words were highlighted:
It leads to the website www.vastlyfrighteningdecision.com, which was really hard to load immediately after the announcement went out. On the page was this letter from Snicket, which berates viewers for enjoying the show enough for another season to be made:
Image: Screencap from Vastly Frightening Decision.com (Netflix)
There are no details here, but in January, Daniel Handler (the writer pseudonymously known as Lemony Snicket, rather than the character of Snicket played by Warburton in the show... yes, this is confusing) revealed that there would be 10 episodes covering five books:
I am deep in season 2. I’ve been working in my own dining room with a team of writers I’m really loving on the next season, and we hope to get the go-ahead to do season 3, which… given how quickly young actors age and change, we’re trying to film everything as quickly as possible. The second season is laid out to be 10 episodes for the next five books, so it ends on The Carnivorous Carnival, and the third season would be the rest of it.
That means we should expect to see The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, and The Carnivorous Carnival whenever the next season gets revealed.
Going through all this just to find out that production was officially starting on the show’s second season, something we’d basically known about since January, felt a bit like Netflix was in a competition with HBO to reveal mundane TV release info in the most unnecessarily complicated manner possible. At least the website wasn’t a video of Neil Patrick Harris encased in ice.
“They used to bark at me when I walked into the courtroom,” lawyer Steven Wise said in the Sundance documentary Unlocking the Cage, which debuted on HBO last month. His use of the word “bark” is literal.
Wise, founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, has spent his entire legal career preparing to represent the first chimpanzee plaintiffs in the U.S. court system. While he’s no stranger to having his life’s work—of attempting to get certain animals recognized as persons—poked fun at, he’s found that the courts have taken him seriously.
The distinction of “persons,” not “people,” is important. Part of the apparent absurdity is that on the surface, arguing for personhood might sound like saying a chimpanzee should have the same rights as an adult human, like the right to own property and vote in elections. Instead, the category of “person” is a legal one referring to a being entitled to certain fundamental rights. The case of the chimpanzees, Wise said, is about their right to bodily liberty—recognizing the animals as legal beings instead of “things.”
On March 16th, Wise will be presenting oral arguments in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in Manhattan on behalf of Tommy and Kiko, two chimpanzees who appeared in movies in the 1980s and are now living in New York State in questionable conditions—Tommy, in a concrete cell at the back of a trailer lot in upstate New York, and Kiko, in a concrete storefront operated out of a private home in Niagara Falls. According to NhRP, Tommy has frequently been left with a small TV set as his only stimulation; Kiko has been photographed with a makeshift leash made of a padlock and chain around his neck. Both animals, kept in cages, are being deprived the natural habitats and socialization that chimps, known to thrive in large and organized societies, require.
Steven Wise of the Nonhuman Rights Project arguing on behalf of the chimpanzee Tomm before the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division on Oct. 8, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. (Image: Mike Groll/AP)
Rather than attempt to sue or criminalize the chimps’ owners for cruelty, Wise is using a writ of habeus corpus to argue that these animals are being held against their rights as autonomous beings—autonomy being a “supreme common law value” recognized by the courts, as Wise explained.
“Scientifically speaking, autonomous beings have the capacity to freely choose how to live their lives. They are not cabined by instinct,” Wise told Gizmodo. He believes Tommy and Kiko should be released to true sanctuaries, with living conditions more akin to the jungles chimpanzees are native to, and importantly, other chimpanzees to socialize with. While nonhuman entities like corporations have, in the past, been named persons in the eyes of the law, Wise is the first to seek personhood status for nonhuman animals in a U.S. court. And if it can happen once, the door will be open to recognizing personhood in other cases of animal cruelty. Wise could set a precedent that changes the way nonhuman animals are seen in the eyes of the law forever.
Animal cruelty is usually fought piecemeal: Reports come out of an inhumane practice, an advocacy organization leads a reactionary campaign, and maybe a new law gets passed, or an offender is pressured to change their practices. David Coman-Hidy, executive director of The Humane League, says corporate boycotts are an effective tool. But it’s an imperfect system, because many forms of animal cruelty (like keeping chimps in isolation in concrete cages) are perfectly legal. Some laws are in place to protect nonhuman animals, but not nearly as many as you might think. Farm animals, the focus of THL’s work, “are afforded essentially no meaningful protections, legally,” Coman-Hidy said.
“Some of the most inhumane practices, like extreme confinement, are outlawed, but there’s very little [that is against the law to practice] in terms of slaughter.”
Farm animals, though not (yet) the subject of NhRP’s work, make a strong case in point. Specific forms of cruelty remain legal until—maybe—they’re not anymore. Meanwhile, other forms of cruelty remain the status quo. Wise’s approach, of arguing that animals are being not just mistreated, but being held against their rights as autonomous beings, is meant to upend this usual order.
“If we didn’t have rights, all we had was some statute that said you can’t be cruel to me, or that I’m entitled to some kind of welfare, the person who gave it to me can also take it away,” he said. Wise cited the example of environmental protections set forth by the Obama administration, which are now being rolled back by Trump. Essentially, if legislation can be passed, it can also be erased. Rights are more difficult to erode. As Wise put it, there’s a big difference “between having rights that you can enforce, and just being the object of protections that someone wants to give you.”
Kanzi the chimpanzee as seen in Unlocking the Cage. (Image: Pennebaker Hegedus Films/HBO)
It’s been a few years since Wise first made headlines for filing on behalf of Tommy in 2013, and initially being rejected by a ruling and an appeals court by the end of 2014. Since then, his firm has also filed cases on behalf of the chimps Hercules and Leo, who were being held at Stony Brook University as biological subjects for study. Wise didn’t win that case either, but a public campaign (led by none other than Jane Goodall, primate expert and NhRP board member) is now pressuring Hercules and Leo’s owner, the New Iberia Research Center, to surrender the animals to a sanctuary in Florida.
Despite its losses, the NhRP is anything but discouraged.
According to Wise, Justice Barbara Jaffe, the judge in the First Department’s ruling on the Hercules and Leo case in 2015, agreed with “virtually everything” the NhRP presented. Jaffe wrote in her decision that “‘Legal personhood’ is not necessarily synonymous with being human,” and that the concept of legal personhood has “evolved significantly since the inception of the United States. Not very long ago, only caucasian male, property-owning citizens were entitled to the full panoply of legal rights.” But ultimately, Jaffe felt bound by a prior ruling against the NhRP—Tommy’s 2013 case in Albany—where the court said that to be a person you had to “assume duties and responsibilities.”
“The problem is,” Wise said, “millions of New Yorkers cannot assume duties and responsibilities.”
Wise is referring to what animal ethicists often call the “arguments from marginal cases”: if we define humanity, or personhood, as possessing a certain ability—in this case, the ability to assume responsibilities—what does that mean for the human beings who don’t? Are young children and those with disabilities less entitled to rights?
Few would say so. And this is where it gets messy when scholars and judges try to make logical distinctions between humans and other animals. The particular distinction the Albany court went with in the case of Tommy was that collectively, humans are able to assume duties, and chimps are not.
Wise is now armed to attack that assertion. The team has collected 60 pages of expert affidavits attesting to how chimpanzees in fact do assume responsibilities, both in chimpanzee-only and human-chimpanzee communities. At this stage, NhRP’s hope is the Manhattan court sets them up to appeal the Albany ruling. Considering it took almost 30 years between Wise getting the idea to argue for legal nonhuman personhood at all, and filing the first case, the process feels like a slow one. But Wise and his firm are in it for the long haul, and it’s entirely possible that one of their clients could be recognized as a person before the end of 2017. What’s more, NhRP is already looking outside of the Empire State.
Wise sees the bigger picture as a movement. He says the firm is in talks with lawyers in 11 different countries.
“We may be arguing in this courthouse way out in rural New York, but...people all over the world are paying attention to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” he said.
As of now, NhRP is gearing up to file a personhood case on behalf of circus elephants, and it’s looking into building a case for the orcas at SeaWorld in San Diego. Though the nature of the abuse and mistreatment is secondary to Wise’s legal argument, these cases are likely dire ones—abuses against circus elephants and SeaWorld orcas are well-documented. Large animals in captivity often suffer illness and developmental issues as a result of cramped and unnatural living spaces and breeding practices. Even worse, reports of violent abuse (beatings, confinement, use of ropes and shocks) in performing animal conditions are tragically common.
Steve Wise with the chimpanzee Teko, as seen in Unlocking the Cage. (Image: Pennebaker Hegedus Films/HBO)
It would be no small victory for Wise to rescue even one of his clients from an unhappy life. But the greater value is the chance to set a precedent for the future. Future cases for nonhuman personhood in New York would be able to refer directly to the NhRP ruling, and a model would be provided for other states, even other nations.
“We’ve known from the beginning that ours will be a long-term fight continuous with and similar to other struggles for recognition of personhood and fundamental rights,” Wise said. That they’ve even made it this far, he says, is “a turn away from speciesist thinking.”
Kiko and Tommy, in other words, are only the beginning.
Ariana DiValentino is a writer and filmmaker based in New York
Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that the New Iberia Research Center had been pressured to send the chimpanzees Hercules and Leo to a sanctuary in Florida. While the center is still being pressured, the chimpanzees have not yet been released. Gizmodo regrets the error.
It’s been two years since Marvel regained the rights to make Star Wars comics, and since then the publisher has released a ton of comics, both ongoing and miniseries. Want some recommendations on what’s out there? We’ve ranked them all, from the must-reads to the ones you should avoid like they were old Jar Jar Binks.
[A note going in: There’s a brand new Darth Maul comic but since only a single issue has been released, I’m not including it. The first issue is pretty intriguing, though, so if you like Maul, check it out! Also excluded are two one-shot comics: Vader Down, a solo tie-in to an event in the Darth Vader and Star Wars series (although it was very good), and C-3PO, which told the story of how the droid got his red arm in The Force Awakens (it was weirdly okay!).
1) Darth Vader
This comic is without a doubt one of the best Star Wars sagas out there, full stop, and not just from the long history of Star Wars comics. Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larocca’s examination of one of pop culture’s most legendary villains didn’t just give us a long tale of Imperial intrigue and shadowy machinations, but helped revitalize Vader from his pop culture position as the butt of a joke and into a truly fearsome, intimidating villain.
It also gave him an amount of sass so powerful I’m pretty sure he could’ve topped the entire Empire with a quip if he wanted. The newly announced follow-up run, following the earliest days after Anakin donned Vader’s armor, has some huge black leather boots to fill.
2) Lando
This miniseries gave us a side of Lando not really seen yet in the revitalized canon—his days as a smuggler and scoundrel, during which he discovers the haul of a lifetime. And yet, the comics also managed to touch on some interesting aspects of the wider galaxy when it’s revealed that Lando’s haul is a spaceship owned by none other than the Emperor himself, and which contain actually one of Palpatine’s private collections of incredibly dangerous items. It’s short, sweet, and has a lot of fun banter between Lando and Lobot that makes you almost long for a buddy cop anthology film for the two of them.
3) Poe Dameron
The only ongoing series set in the post-Return of the Jedi world, Poe Dameron delivers exactly what it says on the tin: more of The Force Awakens’ ridiculously charming X-Wing pilot. Although it’s not got as much spaceship action as you might want from a series about Poe, writer Charles Soule totally nails Oscar Isaac’s performance from TheForce Awakens and brings it to a fun, action-packed spy-vs,-spy story, as Poe crosses paths again and again with the sinister First Order’s Agent Terax. Plus, with Phil Noto as the ongoing artist for the series, it’s the most gorgeous Star Wars comic around.
4) Star Wars
Set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, the main Star Wars book follows Luke, Han, and Leia on their adventures, and benefits greatly from the fact that it gets to play with the chemistry between all of them. But aside from great character work, it’s told the biggest variety of stories across the Star Wars comics so far, from a tale of Han Solo’s mysterious ‘wife’, to a squad of deathly efficient Stormtroopers and even flashback one-off tales covering Obi-Wan Kenobi’s exile on Tatooine. The current arc revolving around Yoda is a bit boring, but it’s still a series worth following in general.
5) Kanan
If you like Rebels, this series is a must. Examining Kanan’s past as a Jedi padawan during Order 66 and the events immediately after, it provides some crucial backstory on the character, and a lot of insight into the way Kanan is the way he is on the show—and so far, it’s one of the few official stories set in those early days of the rise of the Empire.
6) Doctor Aphra
A spinoff of the Darth Vader book, Doctor Aphra follows the further adventures of the titular archaeologist first introduced in Vader as she goes off exploring the galaxy and having adventures away from the watchful eyes of the Empire. It doesn’t quite hit the highs of its progenitor, but some of the best aspects of the Vader comic were its supporting characters like Aphra and her amazingly fun killer droids BT and Triple-0. Getting to see more of them beyond the Vader series is well worth the price of admission.
7) Han Solo
Although it suffers from a bit of a slow start and a distinct lack of characters like Luke and Leia for Han to bounce off of, this miniseries—about Han being part of a deadly ship race across the galaxy while also conducting a secret Rebel mission—kicks into gear around the half-way mark. When it does, it’s full of great action moments showing why Han Solo may boast a lot, he’s got the skills to back it up. Plus, series writer Marjorie Liu really gets to dig deep into what makes Han such a fun character.
8) Chewbacca
Likewise, Chewbacca suffers a little for isolating the wookiee from Han, Luke, Leia and the rest of the Rebellion, forcing him into a new environment with new characters that take a little time to get used to. You can only really get away with a five-issue miniseries when your lead character only communicates in growls and yelps, but Chewbacca still manages to tell a very sweet little story about Chewie helping a small town fight back against Imperial occupation and controlling mobsters. Once again, the art is a Phil Noto joint, so it’s a damn good-looking series.
9) Princess Leia
Once again, some of these miniseries primarily focusing on just one of the main Star Wars heroes feel like they’re missing something for not being able to rely on the chemistry between Leia, Luke, and Han. Leia’s miniseries gave some insight into how she feels in the wake of the loss of her homeworld, and sets up the idea of Alderaanian society rebuilding and surviving after the planet’s destruction, but doesn’t give us much else, unfortunately.
10) Shattered Empire
Although it’s one of the few canon sources about the state of the galaxy after Return of the Jedi, this miniseries released as part of the “Journey to The Force Awakens” is little more than a canonical curiosity at this point. While it introduced us to fun characters like Poe Dameron’s parents, the brief story it told wasn’t all that exciting. Interesting for seeing what happens pretty much directly after Return of the Jedi, but otherwise brings little else to the table.
11) Obi-Wan & Anakin
Disney’s reshaping of Star Wars canon has sadly left a lot of the period around the prequel movies left out, with stories largely focusing on the era of the original trilogy and beyond. So when this miniseries about Obi-Wan and Anakin’s adventures set between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones was announced, there was a lot of intrigue surrounding it. Unfortunately, the series was a slog to get through—slowly paced, and revolving around a strange steampunky-world that felt very out of place in the Star Wars universe. Hopefully we’ll get more comics in the future that tell great stories in this currently under-served era of the Star Wars timeline.
12) The Force Awakens
This comic adaptation of the movie was unessential when it came out—many months after the film, and even after it was out on Blu-ray and DVD—and it’s even less essential now when there’s so many more interesting comics in Marvel’s roster. It’s like watching the movie on fast-forward, as much of the dialogue is ripped straight from it, with nothing tweaked or added to make it feel fresher. If you want to read a Star Wars comic, there’s much better ones out there—and if you want to watch the film, well, it’s right there.
