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Entry by Chan Teik Onn
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Entry by Chan Teik Onn
Posted on August 14, 2018
With MoviePass About To Implode, Twitter Tears It A New One
MoviePass announced they’d be raising their monthly prices, and not allowing customers to access new Blockbuster movies. The internet lashed out with hilariously fiery jabs at the service.
Read more: https://cheezburger.com/6395653/with-moviepass-about-to-implode-twitter-tears-it-a-new-one
Updated on August 7, 2018
Tab Hunter, iconic 1950s actor, dead at 86
(CNN)Tab Hunter, who rose to fame as a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1950s, died Sunday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, Allan Glaser, his partner of 35 years, confirmed to CNN.
He was 86.
Glaser said the cause of death was a blood clot that caused cardiac arrest.
“We were walking home and he collapsed in my arms in our front yard,” Glaser said. “He said he couldn’t breathe, so I called 911, and we went to the hospital.”
“This was sudden and unexpected,” Glaser added. “He was athletic, more like a 60-year-old not an 86-year-old.”
With his blond hair, blue eyes and magnetic smile, Hunter set fans’ hearts aflutter in films like “Battle Cry” and “Damn Yankees.”
He also was the subject of speculation that he was gay, a fact he would confirm later in his 2005 autobiography “Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star.”
Role in ‘Battle Cry’ brought stardom
Born Arthur Andrew Kelm in New York City, Hunter was raised in California.
His parents split when he was young and he, his mother and his brother began using her maiden name of “Gelien.”
At the age of 15 Hunter ran off to join the Coast Guard, but was dismissed from service after it was discovered he had lied about his age.
He was working at horse stables near Los Angeles when actor Dick Clayton spotted him while there to do a photoshoot.
Clayton encouraged a young Hunter to consider acting and set him up with agent Henry Willson.
It was Willson who gave him his stage name of “Tab Hunter” and he soon signed with Warner Bros., which is now owned by CNN’s parent company AT&T.
By 1950 the new actor had nabbed a small role in the film “The Lawless.” His only line in the movie was cut.
Playing a WWII soldier in 1955’s “Battle Cry,” adapted from the Leon Uris novel of the same name, made Hunter a star and he followed with roles in films including “The Burning” and “The Girl He Left Behind,” both opposite a young Natalie Wood.
Hunter also launched a career in music and had his first hit single “Young Love” in 1957.
The following year he enjoyed another star turn as Joe Hardy in the film adaptation of the musical “Damn Yankees!”
Shifted focus to TV
Hunter paid to get out of his contract with Warner Bros. and starting in 1960 he shifted his focus ton television with the sitcom “The Tab Hunter Show,” which lasted a season.
The switch carried him through to roles on several shows during the 1970s, including “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Love Boat,” and “The Six Million Dollar Man.”
The 1980s brought a new kind of fame as avant garde director John Waters cast him in several movies opposite transvestite performer Divine.
Years later Hunter would speak about how the entire time he was being hailed as a sex symbol, he was keeping his sexuality a secret.
“I never mentioned my sexuality to Warner Bros. at all and they never mentioned it to me, thank God,” Hunter told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015.
He had been at the height of his career when “Confidential” magazine published a story about him attending a “pajama party,” which was meant to out him to fans.
Forthcoming on sexuality in autobiography
The actor came fully out in his autobiography and confessed to a relationship with “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins.
In June it was announced that JJ Abrams and Zachary Quinto are producing the movie “Tab & Tony” about the secret love affair.
Hunter and Glaser collaborated on the 2015 documentary “Tab Hunter: Confidential” about the actor’s career and closeted life in Hollywood.
The actor told Slant Magazine at the time that he still wasn’t entirely comfortable discussing being gay.
“I just have never been comfortable talking about my sexuality,” Hunter said. “I think it was easier with the movie because it was quite a few years later after the book. But it’s still not my comfort zone. I was just brought up that way. I’m very old-fashioned.”
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/09/entertainment/tab-hunter-dead/index.html
Updated on July 31, 2018
Elon Musk has deployed Boring Co., SpaceX team to help save Thai kids
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Image: Joshua Lott/Getty Images
What is that saying about life and art again?
Elon Musk has sent engineers from his SpaceX and Boring Company teams to assist with the rescue efforts of the boys’ soccer team stuck in a cave system in Thailand.
Twelve boys and their soccer coach have been trapped in the cave system since June 23, when a Monsoon turned what was meant to be a short hike into a crisis that has gripped the world.
SpaceX & Boring Co engineers headed to Thailand tomorrow to see if we can be helpful to govt. There are probably many complexities that are hard to appreciate without being there in person.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
Engineers and rescue teams from around the world have reportedly poured into Thailand to assist the Thai government. Time is of the essence since more flooding rains are expected over the weekend, and oxygen in the caves may be running low. But the extremely narrow, flooded sections of the cave have already proved treacherous and even deadly for rescuers.
Now, Musk has offered to lend his expertise in drilling holes, and general engineering smarts and resources, to the effort.
Boring Co has advanced ground penetrating radar & is pretty good at digging holes. Don’t know if pump rate is limited by electric power or pumps are too smal. If so, could dropship fully charged Powerpacks and pumps.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2018
Musk first floated plans for how he would help rescue the team on Twitter in response to a plea for help from Twitter user @MabzMagz. He initially deferred to the Thai government, but nonetheless offered to help.
I suspect that the Thai govt has this under control, but I’m happy to help if there is a way to do so
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2018
Then he posited several ideas including offering Boring Co. resources for “ground penetrating radar” and by providing fully charged Powerpacks and pumps. Musk engaged in a back and forth with the founder of a Thai engineering company about various strategies including an inflatable tube. The Thai engineer wrote that he had helped connect Musk’s companies with the Thai government. Then, Musk confirmed that his team was on the way.
Maybe worth trying: insert a 1m diameter nylon tube (or shorter set of tubes for most difficult sections) through cave network & inflate with air like a bouncy castle. Should create an air tunnel underwater against cave roof & auto-conform to odd shapes like the 70cm hole.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
It’s hard not to draw comparisons between our real-world eccentric inventor polymath Musk, and the fictitious character Tony Stark/Iron Man. With Musk springing into action to literally help trapped children on the other side of the world, the Marvel Universe and the real world seem to be merging.
But it’s also good to know that when the lives of children are in danger, our own universe is capable of deploying super-human efforts. Good luck, to Musk and all the other rescuers on the scene.
Read more: https://mashable.com/2018/07/06/elon-musk-thai-kids-trapped-in-cave/
Updated on July 24, 2018
American Horror Story Season 8 Title Revealed See How It Connects To Murder House!
The next season of American Horror Story is paying off a promise seven years in the making!
The official Twitter account of the FX hit shared the title of season 8, which is…
Apocalypse!
Photos: 13 Horror Movies You Can Stream On Netflix Today
We already know this is the long-awaited crossover between season 1’s Murder House and season 3’s Coven, but the first promotional images give a BIG little clue as to how it ties in.
pic.twitter.com/4BJy5GpVC3
— AmericanHorrorStory (@AHSFX) July 20, 2018
A post shared by American Horror Story (@ahsfx) on Jul 20, 2018 at 12:18am PDT
Yep! It looks like we’re finally going to see the baby spawned of the unholy union between Evan Peters‘ ghostly Tate, aka The Rubber Man, and Connie Britton‘s Vivien.
Presumably this answers the question of which Jessica Lange we’ll see in this one, as the adorable widdle antichrist was last seen being sat by Constance.
The season will also include regulars Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Cheyenne Jackson, and Billy Eichner.
[Image via Instagram.]
Posted on July 17, 2018
Hundreds More US Cold War Nuclear Test Videos Have Been Declassified And Released
For the last five years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been working tirelessly to preserve footage of the nuclear tests conducted by the United States between 1945 and 1962. The effort is led by nuclear physicists Dr Greg Spriggs and all the films are scanned, reanalyzed, and then made available to the wider public on the laboratory’s Youtube channel.
Last week, the lab released its largest batch of movies yet, with around 250 videos from eight different series of tests that cover a period of roughly a decade. The earliest of which was Operation Upshot-Knothole in 1953 and the last one was Operation Dominic, which took place in late 1962.
Operation Dominic is particularly significant as it happened during one of the tensest periods of the Cold War, after the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion. It was the single biggest testing program conducted by the United States and the last of its atmospheric testing, only a few months before the US and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
This wasn’t the first time a ban on testing had been broached, though. In 1958, representatives of the US, the UK, the Soviet Union, Canada, and France among others agreed on a test ban; all countries were willing to suspend testing on a year-by-year basis and it would hold as long as no one resumed testing. Before this was finalized, however, most continued testing under various guises. In the US they were able to perform over 70 tests with Operation Hardtack 1 and Operation Hardtack 2. The footage of several tests from these operations is available to view in this new batch.
Testing was officially resumed by the USSR in 1961, including the Tsar Bomba the most powerful nuclear device ever designed. The US followed two weeks later with another operation featured in this release of footage: Operation Nougat that ran between 1961 and 1962.
In the same year, the US conducted another series of tests for smaller devices. This was known as Operation Sunbeam. The series of tests included a “portable” atom bomb, Davy Crocket, one of the smallest nuclear devices ever created.
Among the new footage, the team has included new videos from Operation Castle, which featured the most powerful device ever donated by the United States, as well as Operations Teapot from 1955, and Plumbbob – one of the longest and most controversial test series held in the US – from 1957.
Spriggs has stated in the past that this footage is deteriorating quickly so this work is very important. It keeps a record of a pivotal historical period in recent history and the footage also contains valuable scientific information about the explosions. It is also a stark reminder of just how powerful and destructive these weapons really are.
Updated on July 10, 2018
19 Childhood Movies You Should Show to Your Kids
Every generation is nostalgic for the movies of their childhood.
But the movies of our childhood, and by our childhood I mean the ’80s and ’90s, are objectively the best. It’s just a fact.
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We millennials are all grown up now with families of our own.
And our families will know every word to The Princess Bride if we have anything to say about it.
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First up, obviously, is the greatest movie of all time.
It’s a tale of adventure and true love and also a brilliant parody of those things.
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Here’s the thing: Ghostbusters is a total classic. And I might say something a little controversial here, but so is Ghostbusters 2.
It’s also good!!!!
These are a great baseline from which to watch the new Ghostbusters featuring four badass ghostbusting women.
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Goonies never say die! And this movie won’t die either.
It’s a surprisingly dark tale for a kids’ movie, but it’s about friendship and adventure.
And it has a baby Josh Brolin in it, and that’s all you really need in a movie.
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This movie will live on in our hearts for-eh-VER. The Sandlot is the quintessential sports/dog/nostalgia movie.
It has something for everyone, and by that I mean it has a giant slobbery dog.
The next one is oft forgotten, but it shouldn’t be.
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This movie doesn’t make a lot of lists, probably because it’s about female friendship, but it should.
Its cast is insane (Christina Ricci, Rosie O’Donnell, Thora Birch, Melanie Griffith, Gaby Hoffmann, Demi Moore, Rita Wilson, and more).
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He’s a legend. He’s a badass. He’s Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago.
Ferris Bueller is a character everyone needs to know and a movie for the ages.
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“It’s not a tumor!” Kindergarten Cop takes the action and drama of a typical Arnold Schwarzenegger film and sticks it in a classroom full of five-year-old kids.
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Sure, there is an original. But the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap is a perfect movie.
It deserves to be in the history books and the memories of your children and your children’s children for generations to come.
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Home Alone may be a Christmas movie, but it’s really just an all-time classic.
It’s every kid’s dream, and nightmare rolled into one Macauley Culkin-led vehicle.
The next one is perfect for anyone who has ever felt small.
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This movie will forever make you want to be tiny, so you can slide down giant blades of grass and ride ants like horses.
And again, this is a case where the sequels might be even better than the original.
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves FTW!
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Sure, Chris Pratt is a dreamboat. But nothing compares to Jeff Goldblum and the rest of the cast of the original Jurassic Park.
It’s still the best one, hands down.
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Marty McFly and Doc Brown. The Delorian. You basically have to watch this movie to be a person.
It’s a total classic.
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There are more jokes per minute in this film than most of the other movies on this list combined.
Sure, some of them are a little bit racist and haven’t quite aged gracefully. But Airplane! remains a classic to this day.
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Speaking of Leslie Nielsen being hilarious and over-the-top, The Naked Gun.
This one gets a little racy, so maybe keep it out of reach of super small children. It also stars a young, hot O.J. Simpson, you know, before the murdering.
The next one gave us Drew Barrymore and Reese’s Pieces.
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“E.T. phone home!” Even though this little alien is maybe the ugliest creature in the galaxy, E.T. is a classic.
Every kid wanted to ride their bicycle into the sky after watching this movie.
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Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and one day played over and over and over again.
This is one of the most clever scripts ever written and a totally hilarious movie.
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There are so many versions of this classic orphan story, but if you’re a millennial like me, you most likely grew up with Carol Burnett as Ms. Hannigan.
It’s a hard knock life, that’s for sure.
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There are countless Roald Dahl adaptations that deserve a place in your memory (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches), but book-loving, telekinetic Matilda is the best.
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Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen gave us some of the greatest movies of the ’90s, but It Takes Two was obviously the peak, mostly because it also starred Kirstie Alley and Steve Guttenberg.
It does not get any more ’90s than that.
Share this with someone you love and add your own favorites in the comments!
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Updated on July 3, 2018
22 Insignificant Personal Events That Shaped Pop Culture
We’re making memes smarter. So can you. Visit the Photoplasty and Pictofacts Workshop to get started.
Writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists create amazing worlds that are straight out of their imaginations. As it turns out, though, sometimes they build imaginary worlds based on their own realities. As a result, iconic works of art are just filled with subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to their creators’ own lives.
This contest was suggested by Burritomouth, and was probably inspired by some fascinating aspect of his own life.
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Entry by Giovenna
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Entry by Giovenna
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Entry by E. J. Daz
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Entry by E. J. Daz
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Entry by burritomouth
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Entry by burritomouth
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Entry by william_butcher
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Entry by william_butcher
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Entry by Kevin King
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Entry by Kevin King
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-966-surprising-ways-creators-lives-shaped-fictional-universes
Posted on June 26, 2018
47 Famous Movie Scenes Before-And-After Special Effects
We are not always privy to certain facts about our favorite films. All we see is the finished product. That’s why it is important to take the time to learn more about how they come together. The CGI that was used for these scenes is a sight to behold….
1. Look what she was petting!
2. Just try to look at this before and after from the Twilight saga without laughing.
3. You won’t ever see Guardians of the Galaxy the same way after this.
4. Lord of the Rings aficionados will be impressed by the transformation that the CGI crew was able to pull off here.
5. How actors are able to forget that they are standing in front of a green screen for shots like these is beyond us.
6. We often wondered how they achieved the realistic universe that Gravity was able to pull off. Kudos to Sandra Bullock and the CGI team.
7. This is an iconic shot and this is before the big green guy even comes into the picture.
8. Creating an ancient universe that looks this real is certainly no mean feat.
9. Mad Max: Fury Road fans won’t be able to believe their eyes when they see this green screen transformation.
10. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of our favorites and this shot only makes us love it even more.
11. Creating a television universe that resembles the Roaring Twenties is not easy and the creators of Boardwalk Empire needed an assist from their CGI team.
12. We’re not sure how they create these types of explosions with the use of CGI but they sure are entertaining to watch.
13. Give it up to James Franco for being able to sell this scene to audiences everywhere.
14. We’ll never watch The Hobbit the same way again.
15. Turning a back lot into a whole cinematic universe is no mean feat.
16. Creating an entire screaming crowd out of thin air is just one of the many reasons why CGI teams make the big bucks.
17. Ryan Reynolds never breaks character….even in front of a green screen.
18. The amount of concentration it takes to pull off a scene like this one is incredible.
19. Even Grey’s Anatomy relies on these types of neat tricks.
20. The CGI enhancement for this scene is just otherworldly.
21. Life of Pi stuck out in our minds long after watching and scenes like this are the reason why.
Life of Pi stuck out in our minds long after watching and scenes like this are the reason why.
22. This really takes some of the glamour out of some of our favorite superhero movies.
23. Even Wolf of Wall Street relied on CGI for certain scenes…
24. Just look at the concentration on Sandra Bullock’s face.
25. Creating the New York City of old is not easy but this CGI team pulled it off.
26. The iron suit isn’t real? Color us stunned!
27. These comparison shots really put Wizard of Oz into perspective.
28. Michael Bay and the CGI crew are true wizards and we won’t be told otherwise.
29. Alice In Wonderland will never look the same to us.
30. So THAT’s how they created Lieutenant Dan’s signature look.
31. District 9 viewers are going to be stunned by this shot.
32. Hunger Games lovers will be taken aback by the transformation this CGI team created.
33. Shout out to Industrial Light and Magic for this one.
34. How filmmakers can create these scenes out of thin air is beyond what we can comprehend.
35. So this is what The Hulk looks like pre CGI?
36. This is a nice reversal of the other CGI shots.
37. Cap to the rescue!
38. Black Widow taking a piggyback ride is just too much for us to bear.
39. This Thor/Hulk “fight” is just too funny.
40. The Matrix Reloaded required some complex shooting to pull off their legendary gun battles.
41. 300 lovers will appreciate this shot.
42. Andy Serkins is one hell of an actor.
43. To be a fly on the wall for this one….
44. The work that is done on the set of the Pirates of the Caribbean films is flawless.
45. Daniel Radcliffe deserves a great deal of the credit here as well.
46. So they didn’t paint themselves blue for Avatar? You learn something new every day.
47. And this is how it used to be done back in the day!
Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/47-famous-movie-scenes-before-and-after/
Updated on June 19, 2018
Antony Beevor: the greatest war movie ever and the ones I can’t bear
He groaned at Valkyrie and despaired at Saving Private Ryan. The award-winning historian takes aim at the war films that make him furious and reveals his own favourite
For a long time now, my wife has refused to watch a war movie with me. This is because I cannot stop grinding my teeth with annoyance at major historical mistakes, or harrumphing over errors of period detail. She only made an exception when Valkyrie came out, with Tom Cruise playing Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. Such a folly of miscasting was bound to be a hoot, and we were not disappointed, especially when Cruise saluted in that downward cutaway style as if he were still in Top Gun. But I was soon grinding away again when the director and screenwriter felt compelled to improve on history, by making it look as if the 20 July plot to blow up Hitler had still very nearly succeeded.
I despair at the way American and British movie-makers feel they have every right to play fast and loose with the facts, yet have the arrogance to imply that their version is as good as the truth. Continental film-makers are on the whole far more scrupulous. The German film Downfall, about Hitlers last days in the bunker, respected historical events and recreated them accurately.
In my view, the greatest war movie ever made is The 317th Platoon, a French film from 1965 set during the countrys first Indochina war. This was the original platoon movie, whose format later directors followed but failed to match in its portrayal of characters and their interaction, to say nothing of the moral choices and the corruption of combat. It is followed closely by 1966s The Battle of Algiers, set during the Algerian war of independence. This was one of the first war films to adopt a quasi-documentary approach, and tackle the moral quagmire of torture justified by the need to save lives.
More recent imitators lack all intellectual honesty. They throw dates and place names on to the screen as if what you are about to see is a faithful reproduction of events, when they are simply trying to pass off their fiction as authentic. This is basically a marketing ploy that has developed over the last 20 years or so. Unfortunately, fake authenticity sells. People are more likely to want to see something they think is very close to the truth, so they can feel they are learning as well as being entertained. In a post-literate society, the moving image is king, and most peoples knowledge of history is regrettably based more on cinematic fiction than archival fact.
There are many examples of shameless deception, such as the notorious U-571, in which a US warship is shown to capture a German submarine and seize its Enigma decoding machine, thus enabling the Allies to win the battle of the Atlantic. Right at the end, in the credits, a brief text admitted that in fact it had been the crew of a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Bulldog, that performed the feat seven months before the US entered the war.
When promoting Enemy at the Gates, a fictitious sniper duel set in Stalingrad, Paramount Pictures even had the gall to claim: One bullet can change the course of history. I hasten to add that, even though Jean-Jacques Annaud invited me to come out to Germany to watch the filming, the movie had nothing to do with my book Stalingrad and I was not an adviser in any form.
The director was trying to woo me and persuade me not to be too severe on the question of truth, because we had found in the Russian ministry of defence archives that the whole story of the sniper duel portrayed by Jude Law and Ed Harris had been a clever figment of Soviet propaganda. I liked Annaud, but in the end I was not popular, of course, because Paramount had bought the movie as a true story. His great line was: But Antony, who can tell where myth begins and truth ends?
The real problem is that the needs of history and the needs of the movie industry are fundamentally incompatible. Hollywood has to simplify everything according to set formulae. Its films have to have heroes and, of course, baddies moral equivocation is too complex. Feature films also have to have a whole range of staple ingredients if they are to make it through the financing, production and studio system to the box office. One element is the arc of character, in which the leading actors have to go through a form of moral metamorphosis as a result of the experiences they undergo. Endings have to be upbeat, even for the Holocaust. Look at Schindlers List and the sentimentality of its finale, revealing that in movies only the survivors count.
I was asked by a large-circulation American weekly magazine to review Saving Private Ryan. My piece was spiked since it did not share the widespread adulation, and I still shake my head in disbelief when it is regularly voted the best war movie ever. It is nevertheless a work of intriguing paradoxes some intended, others not. Steven Spielbergs storyline rightly dramatises the clash between patriotic and therefore collective loyalty, and the struggle of the individual for survival. Those mutually contradictory values are, in many ways, the essence of war.
Spielberg said at the time that he sees the second world war as the defining moment in history. One also suspects that he wanted this film to be seen as the defining movie of the war. If so, it is a uniquely American definition of history, with no reference to the British let alone the Soviet role.
Eight US rangers under the command of a captain, having survived the initial D-day bloodbath, are detailed to seek out and save a single man, Private Ryan. The Hollywood notion of creativity often takes the form of cinematic ancestor worship but in this case, it is images and effects that are recycled. Spielberg may not even have included them consciously but, during the landing, the blood in the water in the first machine-gunning prompts memories of Jaws, another Spielberg film. And German Tiger tanks can indeed appear like prehistoric monsters, but when the sound effects of their approach later in the film resemble that of the Tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park, it all seems too much.
After a truly extraordinary opening probably the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed everything changes and becomes formulaic. The climax combines just about every cliche in the book, with a very mixed handful of men (almost a la Dirty Dozen) improvising weapons to defend a vital bridge against an SS Panzer counterattack. The redeemed coward and the cynic reduced to tears both ticking the arc of character box are straight out of central screenwriting. The US air force arrives in the nick of time, just like the cavalry in 1950s cowboy films. And to cap it all, the final frames are of Private Ryan, standing in old age amid the rows of white crosses in a military cemetery, saluting his fallen comrades as tears run down his cheeks.
So what, apart from milking our tear ducts with both hands, was Spielberg really trying to do? Was his revolutionary approach to realism the special effects and stunt teams make up the largest blocks in the credits simply an attempt to conceal a deeply conservative message, as some commentators claimed?
It was not quite as simple as that. Amid the horror of war, Spielberg seems to be trying to rediscover American innocence, that Holy Grail that existed only in the Rousseau-esque imagination yet was virtually incorporated into the constitution. Spielberg, like other Hollywood directors of the time, came from a generation scarred by the moral quagmire of Vietnam. He understood the national need, in the post-cold war chaos, to reach back to more certain times, seeking reassurance from that moment in history the second world war when the fight seemed unequivocally right. Tell me Ive led a good life, says the weeping veteran in the cemetery to his wife. Tell me Im a good man.
You are, she replies, and the music begins to swell, with drum beats and trumpets. This representative of American motherhood appears to be reassuring the US as a whole. She seems to be speaking to a nation unable at that time to come to terms with its role in a disordered world, to a nation that, for all its power, can be bewilderingly naive abroad because it so badly needs to feel good about itself at home.
Even movies ostensibly showing corruption and criminality in the heart of the CIA and the Pentagon have to end on a nationalistic note, with a tiny group of clean, upstanding American liberals saving democracy. And it is, of course, hard to forget The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, that fearless symbol of Brit-bashing films, whether at Gallipoli or all woaded up in the Scottish Highlands as Braveheart.
Andrew Marr rightly called The Patriot, set in the American war of independence, a stinker. As he pointed out: Black Americans, in fact destined to stay slaves thanks to the war, very many of whom enlisted with the British, are shown fighting shoulder to shoulder with their white rebel brothers. The British are portrayed as effete sadists and serial war criminals, just as in other American films. The huge support of the Bourbon French, who helped win the war, is airbrushed out. And the fact that most colonists actually sided with King George is airily forgotten.
Patriotism also permeated those British war movies of the 1950s and 60s The Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky, The Cruel Sea, The Heroes of Telemark, The Battle of the River Plate, Cockleshell Heroes. It camouflaged itself in self-deprecation, but the rousing march music in the finale always braced our belief in the rightness of our cause. We have long made fun of all the period cliches, unable to believe that anyone talked like that. But when researching my new book Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, I found that German officers really did say to the British paratroopers taken prisoner: For you the war is over.
One of my favourite remarks, recorded at the time by a junior doctor, is the reaction of Colonel Marrable, the head of an improvised hospital in the Netherlands, when Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers seized the building. Still puffing gently on his pipe, he says to his medical staff: Good show, chaps. Dont take any notice of the Jerries. Carry on as if nothing has happened. I have always been doubtful about the notion of a national character, but a national self-image certainly existed during the war and for some time afterwards. Perhaps that is partly why I do not react so angrily when watching films of that era. Also, they never used that weasel claim based on a true story.
Recent productions are a very different matter. Last years Dunkirk and Darkest Hour were strong Oscar contenders. Yet watching Dunkirk, you would have thought that CGI had not been invented. Where were all those 400,000 men and their discarded equipment on all those miles of empty, pristine beaches? The film also gave the impression that the air battles took place at low level over the sea when, in fact, Fighter Command was counterattacking at altitude and well inland. It also implied that the little ships, as Churchill called them, rescued more soldiers than the Royal Navy warships. Wrong again.
Darkest Hour had even more historical inaccuracies. Gary Oldman fully deserved the best actor Oscar for his brilliant performance as Churchill, but those responsible for the script get nul points. I fear that anyone who agrees to be a historical adviser for a movie is putting their reputation on the line. The ludicrous scene of Churchill in the underground (where he had never set foot in his life) was not the only howler.
On becoming prime minister in 1940, Churchill remained in the Admiralty, but he generously allowed Chamberlain to carry on in Downing Street. His respectful treatment of his former leader is important because when it came to the crunch with Lord Halifax, over the question of asking the Italians to discover Hitlers peace terms Chamberlain supported Churchill and did not plot against him as the film suggests.
Also, why were so many scenes shot in the bunker war rooms when the Luftwaffe had not yet bombed London? I was so irritated, it was a good thing I saw it on my own. Another visit to the dentist, I fear.
- Antony Beevors Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944 is published by Viking.
Posted on June 12, 2018
“Deep Fake” Videos Created By AI Just Got Even More Terrifying
Fake videos created by AI-assisted algorithms are already causing a stir. So-called “DeepFakes” have put other people’s words into the mouths of politicians and even superimposed celebrity faces onto the bodies of porn actresses.
Now, researchers have developed a new approach that can make the videos even more convincing, which makes them all the more terrifying.
Previously, this technique could only manipulate facial expressions. The results were pretty impressive, although not totally convincing. This new approach is the first successful attempt to transfer the full three-dimensional head position, head rotation, face expression, eye gaze, and eye blinking from a video of one face onto a video of another.
Building on their previous deep-learning algorithms, the new technique offers more realism and subtlety, picking up on fine details such as the slight flick of a head or the wiggle of a shoulder. The new results also show way less glitchy distortions, also known as artifacts, which can make most forgeries easy to spot. The videos are so seamless that their experiments showed that people were unable to detect any video manipulation at all. As far as they could tell, the videos were real.
You can see the results for yourself in the video below. The new research from Stanford will be presented at the VR filmmaking conference SIGGRAPH later this summer.
The researchers believe that the technology could have some useful applications, such as post-production editing. For example, it could be used to superimpose the face of deceased actors into a new or unfinished film. It could also be used for dubbing, either in movies or for teleconferences.
Nevertheless, the technology has raised its fair share of eyebrows. Politicians and computer scientists alike have also flagged up concerns that the tech could be abused to create the ultimate “fake news”, with some even warning that the technology has the power to shape global politics.
“Unfortunately, besides the many positive use cases, such technology can also be misused. Currently, the modified videos still exhibit many artifacts, which makes most forgeries easy to spot,” the researchers write. “It is hard to predict at what point in time such ‘fake’ videos will be indistinguishable from real content for our human eyes.”
But before our civilization falls into a confusing mess of inauthenticity, check out these DeepFake videos of Nicolas Cage superimposed into numerous Hollywood movies:
Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/technology/deep-fake-videos-created-by-ai-just-got-even-more-terrifying/