Saturday, November 19, 2011

Crushable

Crushable


Five Things I Watched in High School Less Educational Than The Daily Show

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 09:50 AM PST

This week a teacher in Illinois was suspended for showing her government class some clips of The Daily Show. There are a lot of reasons that showing a bunch of high school kids clips of the show in class could be problematic. They’ll get an opinionated slant on the news instead of unbiased facts, they might feel uncomfortable with the humor, and they’ll have less time to memorize things the Preamble to the Constitution. But suspending her seems a little extreme.

Even if most of the students disagreed with Stewart’s slant on the day’s events, it could have been a good way to spark an impassioned class debate, and as anyone who’s gone to high school can attest to, there’s a lot worse being shown to students today.

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The Expendables 2 Movie Poster Lives Up To Its Promise Of Being Off-The-Wall Crazy

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 02:59 PM PST

TGIF, right? I can only imagine that’s the message that the PR people behind The Expendables 2 are going for in releasing the sequel’s star-packed movie poster on a Friday evening. You might have thought that you were allowed to crawl home and sleep, but Sylvester Stallone and his merry band of thieves want you to go out and slam down shots in the nearest bar.

Excuse me—Chuck Norris kindly requests that you go show the world what balls you have. That, or he’ll roundhouse kick you.

Noticeably absent from this poster? The Hunger Games‘ Liam Hemsworth. Guess the young pup has to earn his stars before he can stand up there (or be Photoshopped in) with such greats as Jet Li and Terry Crews.

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What’s Next For The Cast Of Harry Potter

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 02:49 PM PST

With last weekend’s celebration at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter being all about saying goodbye to the Potter series, there was understandably a lot of nostalgia. Cast members and producers reflected happily on souvenirs they’d stolen from the set, prank wars, and what it was like when the three protagonists were itty-bitty ten-year-olds.

But talk also turned to the future, and what everyone’s up to now that their decade-long adventures in J.K. Rowling‘s world have come to a close. Here’s your guide to what the stars are up to, be it filming TV pilots, exploring the indie-film world, or still hanging on to a bit of Potter lore.

Rupert Grint: On the red carpet, we asked Rupert if he felt pressure to keep up with Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in terms of non-Potter projects, since both were doing perfume ads and Broadway shows and other movies while wrapping Deathly Hallows, Part 2. He assured us that no, he didn’t feel like had to compete with them. However, it should be noted that he has been going back to indie films, some of which he did during the earlier Potter movies, in order “to explore the film industry in a different way,” he explained.

One in particular is Comrade (now possibly retitled Into the White), a WWII drama where he plays a British pilot who shoots down a German soldier and gets knocked out of the sky himself. Trapped in a cabin together, they must survive the Norwegian wilderness.

Oliver and James Phelps: The Phelps twins seem pretty content with continuing to work as a package deal; the Potter movies were their first role, a rite of passage they experienced together. But their next projects are vastly different from one another. They’re currently shooting a pilot for a TV show in the States but wouldn’t offer up any other information.

However, they don’t do everything joined at the hip: Oliver is costarring in the biopic Latin Quarter, about Pablo Picasso‘s youth in 1900s Paris.

Nick Moran: If you thought that Deathly Hallows was too little time to spend with Nick (who played the Death Eater Scabior), then don’t despair! He’s got another project lined up, and it’s a topical one: A zombie movie that he wouldn’t name at the junket because he didn’t want to overshadow the Harry Potter celebration. But thanks to some IMDb sleuthing, we’ve discovered that the project is called Eerie 13, and it’s about six forensic undergrads stuck on an island with criminals-turned-zombies. Nick seems to play one of the mentors to the six kids.

Jason Isaacs: The man we’ll all remember fondly as Lucius Malfoy will play a more caring but equally tormented husband and father in the upcoming NBC series Awake. Whereas you’ve seen plenty of dramas about “living a double life,” Jason’s character does so literally: After getting into a car accident, his policeman protagonist slides back and forth between two realities, one where his wife died and one where his son died.

Evanna Lynch: “I’m just chilling out,” the actress admitted. “I have this joke that I’ll probably just spend my life touring about Harry Potter.”

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Scarlett Johansson To Direct A Truman Capote Adaptation

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 02:34 PM PST

But what Scarlett Johansson really wants to do is direct! The 27-year-old actress has just landed backing for her directorial debut, an adaptation of Truman Capote‘s novella Summer Crossing.

Summer’s Crossing is the first book ever penned by Truman, and it was thought to be lost for more than 50 years before finally being published in 2005. The story’s about a wealthy teenage girl who goes on an adventure of sexual discovery while spending a summer alone in New York City. The lead character is named Grady and her sister is Apple — perhaps she’s Apple Martin‘s namesake!

Scarlett announced in September that she planned to direct the film, and it looks like she’s on track to do so. And hey, maybe she’ll do the soundtrack as well — that is, if there are any Tom Waits songs left to cover.

(via Variety)

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A Discussion Of Third Eye Blind’s Occupy Wall Street Anthem

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 02:10 PM PST

The Occupy Wall Street movement may not have a leader, but thanks to Third Eye Blind it now has an anthem. The song written by the aging Cali rock group is called “If There Ever Was a Time,” and it’s a pretty depressing offering. As I often do when I’m overwhelmed by a music thing, I enlisted the esteemed Kasey Anderson to chat. And I think we ended up creating a movement of our own!

Kasey: “Guys, the world needs our voice right now.”

Liana: “You know who would really be really great spokespeople for the movement? Those California dudes who wrote that ode to meth in the 90s.”

Kasey: See, if the movement had leaders, they probably could have at least locked up The Offspring.

Liana: An Offspring/Silverchair super group.

Kasey: Offerchair.

Liana: No, Buffalo Wings Springfield.

Kasey: Silverspring! Stevie Nicks could guest.

Liana: me: You could be my Silver Springs/Red blue colors flashin’/I would be your only dream/In your shitty tent in Zuccotti Park something something hashin’ shut up.

Liana: Nailed it.

Liana: Do you hear that they’ve apparently sampled the sounds of actual protesters?

Kasey: How Alan Lomax.

Kasey: I feel about this song the way I feel about most “Message Music,” be it Christian Rock or any other music that relies heavily on rhetoric: the only audience who will listen to this song is already in agreement with the content.

Liana: Absolutely true. There’s something utterly depressing about a guy who’s nearly 50-years-old calling on “the youth” to come join him in Zuccotti Park. It’s like: they’re there already? Or they’re apathetic and napping?

Kasey: Nobody’s going to hear this song and think, “Holy shit, Stephan Jenkins has a point!” I gotta get down to Zuccotti Park! Luckily, everywhere I go right now is Zuccotti park so, I guess Subway is fine.

Liana: If his intention is to convince people to join up, dude’s going to need a better argument than, “You’re the one that’s getting played right now by the game they’re playing.”

Liana: That’s some ‘Matrix’ shit.

Liana: This just in: Zuccotti Park has officially been renamed Stephan Jenkins’ Magnificent Hairline Park!

Kasey: Occupy Mall Rock.

Kasey: I suppose it’s never a bad thing when anyone voices dissent but the song, much like the entire movement, is so vague. But I guess there’s not a lot of specificity to be had here.

Liana: The song and the movement both share the sentiment, “Young people are supposed to be protesting shit!” in a totally generic way.

Kasey: Is there any indication that this song has “caught on” with the Occupy folks? Seems like a movement without a spokesperson should also be a movement without an anthem.

Liana: Don’t you kind of feel like “Imagine” was already the anthem.

Liana: “Imagine there’s no banks!”

Kasey: Also why did Third Eye Blind not sample some of the drum circles happening at the protests? Am I becoming a Republican?

Liana: 3EB (look at me!) will do that to a person.

Liana: Agree/disagree: Every movement gets the protest song it deserves?

Kasey: Tough to go either way there. Every movement seems to spawn both great art and art that is maybe not-so-great. September 11 and the ensuing decade of war and economic crisis have been responsible for some pretty terrible songs, but also stuff like “The Rising” and Steve Earle’s Jerusalem record.

Liana: Maybe it’s that this song was written in response to the protest itself, rather than the opposition.

Kasey: Yeah, Jenkins seems to be addressing the protestors and would-be protestors exclusively.

Liana: Screeching to the choir.

Kasey: Exactly. Which is what songs of this ilk do. Even Dylan’s best topical songs are still largely rhetorical and kind of self-congratulatory.

Liana: Conclusion by Kasey and Liana: Down with protest songs, up with naps.

Kasey: If not now, later. If not us, some other tired people.

Liana: REVOL…ving chairs. Zzzzz.

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Gallery: The Best Signs From The Ryan Gosling Protest

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 01:55 PM PST

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Some Genius Has Put Bill Murray On The $5 Bill

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 01:32 PM PST

Some say he’s our greatest American hero. I mean, he didn’t, like, free any slaves or anything, but Bill Murray was in Ghostbusters! And now the second-greatest American hero has gone and drawn Bill’s face on the five-dollar bill.

It’s pretty impressive how easily Abraham Lincoln can transform into Bill, which is good news for all you kids out there who have been dreaming for a Bill Murray Civil War comedy. It’ll be like Groundhog Day, plus death and racism. Yeah!

(via Vulture)

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Art Crush: Box Brown’s Un-Self-Conscious Tumblr ‘Rejected By The New Yorker’

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 01:21 PM PST

So the New Yorker—you’ve heard of it, right? Don’t be ashamed to say you’ve only read the pithy, single-panel comics that accompany the articles. You’re actually the exact person we’re looking for. See, we stumbled across this great Tumblr called Rejected by the New Yorker, webcomic artist Box Brown‘s humble collection of comics that didn’t make it into the esteemed publication.

With a sort of “make lemons out of lemonade” attitude, Box has managed publication in a different way: He posts each cartoon as it gets rejected — even joking about a lax update, “Sorry dudes… waiting on another rejection slip!” — ensuring perhaps an even more widespread readership than if he had gotten into the actual magazine.

Being less than two weeks old, the Tumblr already has several drawings; this is both a sad commentary on artists’ struggles to break into the mainstream, but also it means that we actually get to see his work. Because to be honest, we’re not really New Yorker kind of readers.

[via]

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