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'Grand Theft Auto V' Could Shatter Previous Video Game Sales Records
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Rotten Tomatoes Will Now Review TV Shows In Addition To Movies
Rotten Tomatoes‘ film recommendations are often hit and miss, so the question is how much stock will be put in the much more nebulous world of TV series reviews?
The aggregator site, acquired by Warner Bros in 2011 and run through the social movie site Flixster, will launch TV Zone beginning tomorrow (parts of the service will go live this evening) offering reviews of full seasons of primetime scripted TV series.
The parameters for a good score will be similar to the site’s movie rules: to be “Certified Fresh” a series must have 60% positive reviews, and the same cutoffs apply.
But film and TV are different and there will be growing pains on how to apply the site’s processes to the TV side.
“We’re doing reviews at the season level the way most critics do”, editor-in-chief Matt Atchity tells Deadline. “We’re still discussing how to handle [individual show] recaps and how that will impact the Tomatometers”.
At launch, the site will provide coverage of “all the reviews we can find” for the previous four years of a show.
In cases of longer-running shows like The Office, the site will go back to the beginning of the series and work forward.
Initially there won’t be coverage of reality TV — “we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew”, Atchity says. He says plans are to staff up on the TV side but much of that depends on the expansion’s success.
SEE ALSO: The Top Ten Films That Scored A Perfect Rating On Rotten Tomatoes
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Jaden Smith: 'If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society'
Jaden Smith is on a crusade. The 15-year-old son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith wants everyone to drop out of school!
“School Is The Tool To Brainwash The Youth,” was the young actor’s opening salvo.
He’s followed up with “If Newborn Babies Could Speak They’d Be The Most Intelligent Beings On The Planet” and topped it off with:
“If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society.”
Jaden, who counts Justin Bieber and Kylie Jenner among his close pals, didn’t reveal the source of his wisdom.
He attended the New Village Leadership Academy , which his parents founded in 2008 with a curriculum heavily influenced by Scientology, a controversy first revealed by Radar.
The school shut down earlier this year, and Jaden and his sister, Willow, have reportedly been home schooled since then.
PHOTOS: 10 Celebrity Sons Who Look Just Like Their Famous Fathers
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Horror Films' Low-Cost Model Has Made It The Most Durable Genre In The Industry
Horror fans got the memo long ago, and have no reason to waver now: Don’t watch alone.
While an onslaught of home-based entertainments erode moviegoing in general, there’s something about the communal experience of being scared that still attracts a crowd to multiplexes, experts say. The astounding success of “Insidious: Chapter 2″ once again proves that horror has become the movie business’ most durable genre.
“Horror movies play much better in packed theaters than they do in a living room by yourself — that’s the way people prefer to digest a horror movie,” Phil Contrino, senior analyst with BoxOffice.com, toldTheWrap.
Horror movies are also extraordinarily cost-efficient; they rarely require extensive and pricey special effects or major stars. “Insidious: Chapter 2″ dominated the weekend box office, racking up $41 million and making back its $5 million production budget in its first full day of release. Financiers quickly announced plans for a third installment.
Also read: Third ‘Insidious’ Film in the Works
But it’s simply the latest in a steady stream of horror hits that have been scaring up big returns this year. “The Conjuring,” “The Purge,” Mama” and several other titles have all carved out a niche for themselves, despite being produced for a fraction of what most films cost to make.
“The Purge,” for example, cost a mere $3 million to produce, while “The Conjuring” required just $20 million. They made $64.5 million and $135.4 million respectively in North America, giving their studios the kind of capacious profit margins that are becoming an endangered species.
“It’s a genre that is less dependent on big budgets than other genres and that doesn’t need lavish marketing or explosions,” Bruce Nash, founder of the box office website The Numbers, said. “These kind of movies thrive on social media guerilla marketing and word-of-mouth support.”
The innovative compensation structure allows filmmakers to keep the costs down. For instance, Blumhouse Productions, which produced “The Purge” and “Paranormal Activity” in addition to “Insidious: Chapter 2,” pays its directors and top talent with profit participation in place of a big salary.
Also read: What’s the Deal? Horror Movies Don’t Scare Top-Tier Actors Anymore (Video)
“You bet on yourself and if you deliver everyone gets rewarded,” Blumhouse Productions founder Jason Blum told TheWrap last summer shortly after the success of “The Purge.” “When you have people who are only getting paid if the movie makes money, it means everyone’s interests are aligned.”
It’s a structure that is lifted from Silicon Valley, where executives like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs traditionally preferred to take their compensation in the form of stock. It turned out rather well for them, too.
With the cost of major movies routinely topping out at between $150 million to $250 million, finding new compensation structures for Hollywood’s top stars could be critical. The makers of costly duds like “R.I.P.D.” and “White House Down,” which featured expensive stars like Jeff Bridges and Channing Tatum and still face an uphill climb to profitability, should take a note.
But there are other lessons as well.
While comedies also offer the shared experience of laughing in a theater, heavy dialogue and cultural differences make them a tougher sell overseas. Not so for horror, which translates easily. “The Conjuring” added $135 million to its overall haul from foreign territories and recent releases like the remake of “Evil Dead” and “Mama” essentially matched or even surpassed their domestic totals in overseas markets.
Also read: ‘Insidious: Chapter 2′ Jolts Expectations With $41M Haul at Box Office
“The primal urge to be scared is just something that resonates worldwide,” Jeff Bock, a senior analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said. “Given that they play so well in other countries, it’s surprising there aren’t more horror movies made. They’re such a shot in the arm to the box office.”
The low-cost model employed by Blum is one that he and his disciples swear by. The cost constraints actually force the filmmakers to be more creative, and that shows in everything from how scary scenes are staged to the way studios use social media sites like Twitter to draw crowds.
And don’t look for the filmmakers to turn their backs on their low-budget past. Blum insisted to TheWrap that he did not equate the size of a film’s budget with success. Asked what he would do if offered $100 million to make any film, Blum replied, “I’d use it to make 35 movies.”
He’s not just a penny-pincher. After a summer that relied on bombast to lure the fickle teenage crowd, the breakdown of “Insidious: Chapter 2″s’ audience is instructive.
Also read: J.K. Rowling on Why She Decided to Return to Wizarding World of Harry Potter
This was an R-rated film that appealed to and attracted a younger set on a wide scale. Sixty two percent of the audience were 25 years or younger, according to polling data released by the studio.
Of course, members of that particular demographic have many demands on their time and attention — one thing that the horror genre has done well is to make sure that audiences don’t have to wait long for new installments in their favorite franchises.
After all, a year separated the two “Insidious” movies and a new “Paranormal Activity” movie has arrived like clockwork nearly every year out of the past five (except 2013, though two are coming next year). It’s no accident that FilmDistrict and Blumhouse unveiled plans for an “Insidious” sequel before many theaters had finished tallying the ticket sales from last weekend.
“We live in an ADD culture,” Contrino said, “so if something is on a hot streak you have to strike fast.”
Watch The Wrap editor Josh Dickey discuss why people like to see horror films in groups at the theater:
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‘Big Bang Theory’ Cast Bands Together To Demand Huge Salary Increases
The three biggest stars of The Big Bang Theory, the CBS series that is primetime’s No. 1 sitcom and the highest rated syndicated show in America, are planning to band together and hold out for HUGE salary increases from their production studio, Warner Bros. Television, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.
On the eve of the Sept. 26 season seven premiere, the cast have privately pledged to do a Friends-like deal in a bid to bring back the entire ensemble for an eighth season.
The stars — Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco – will demand salary increases to as much as half-a-million dollars per episode each across the 24 episode season, plus a percentage of the series’ profits in syndication, a benefit they gained in the show’s last renegotiation, according to a television insider with knowledge of the situation.
The trio all currently earn $350,000 per episode.
In a move reminiscent of David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc, who used solidarity as leverage to secure a salary of $1 million an episode, each, for the last season of Friends in 2002, the stars believe their posturing is simple: CBS and Warner Bros. have to have the show back.
“The cast is already talking about it the next round of negotiations,” the source told Radar.
“They know the critical position Big Bang holds on CBS’ prime-time schedule and the only thing preventing them getting what they want would be a spectacular ratings demise this season. That isn’t about to happen anytime soon. They’ll put on a united-front during negotiations.”
Indeed, the CBS comedy – nominated for eight Emmys – closed out its sixth season with 18.6 million viewers and a 6.2 rating in the key adult 18-to-49 demographic, making it the No. 1 comedy in both measures.
“What they’ve been able to achieve is a feat unheard of for a show in recent history and they all deserve to get compensated for it,” the source added.
The Big Bang Theory returns with a one-hour premiere on Thursday, Sept. 26 at 8/7c on CBS.
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Police Officer Allegedly Made 'Inappropriate' Remarks About Whitney Houston's Dead Body
A policeman lifted a sheet covering the just-dead body of singing legend Whitney Houston and made "inappropriate" comments including saying "Damn, she's still looking good, huh?" another officer claims.
Beverly Hills Detective Sergeant Terry Nutall had "no legitimate" reason for the action or remarks, made at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 11 last year, after she had been found dead in a bath, said a legal document filed by the fellow cop, published Tuesday.
A coroner subsequently ruled that the 48-year-old singing legend died of accidental drowning, with cocaine and heart disease listed as contributing factors, on the eve of last year's Grammys show.
In the legal claim, published by the Los Angeles Times, fellow officer Sergeant Brian Weir alleges that he was stripped of various privileges when he raised the alleged misconduct with superiors.
"Nutall, for no legitimate (reason) knelt beside and leaned over the decedent (and) removed the sheet and/or other covering from the body of the decedent to an area below the pubic region of the decedent's body," it said.
He then "came in close proximity to touching the body .. while making inappropriate comments to the effect .. that the decedent 'looked attractive for a woman of her age and current state' and 'Damn, she's still looking good, huh?'"
"Nutall... treated the dead body of the decedent in a way that Nutall knew would outrage ordinary family sensibilities," he alleged in the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles on September 11.
Weir said he responded to the Beverly Hilton Hotel -- where Houston was due to attend a traditional pre-Grammys party that Saturday evening -- as the senior patrol sergeant on duty at the time.
Afterwards, he raised the alleged misconduct with superiors, but claims that the city of Beverly Hills and its Police Department "retaliated" by removing him from duty with SWAT and K-9 units, cutting overtime pay, withdrawing certain privileges and harassing him.
Weir "has sustained and will continue to sustain economic and non-economic damages. including emotional distress and damage to claimant's reputation, and other injury, damage, loss, or harm," said the lawsuit.
Beverly Hills Police spokesman Lincoln Hoshino said there was no "retaliation" against Weir over the claim, which he said the department knew about.
He added that Nutall had been entitled to look at the body.
"The responding detective sergeant in question was working in the city of Beverly Hills on another assignment, and he did properly and appropriately respond to the scene," he told the LA Times.
"It is appropriate for a responding detective sergeant to briefly examine the body upon arriving to a scene like that."
And he added: "At this time we're not aware of any inappropriate behavior or inappropriate comments."
A 42-page coroner's report issued in April last year said Houston drowned face down in her bathtub at the famous Beverly Hills hotel, possibly after overdosing on drugs and alcohol.
Various bottles were found in the hotel room -- in all some 12 medications prescribed by five different doctors, including anxiety treatment Xanax and the potent corticosteroid Prednisone, the report said.
The singer of hits such as "I Will Always Love You" sold more than 170 million records during a nearly three-decade career, but also fought a long battle against substance abuse.
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‘Big Bang Theory’ Co-Stars Mayim Bialik And Melissa Rauch Get Major Salary Bumps
The newest additions to the cast of CBS‘ hit comedy The Big Bang Theory have scored nice salary bumps.
I’ve learned that Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch — regulars on Big Bang since fall 2010 having started off as guest starring-turned-recurring players on the popular comedy — have both renegotiated their current salaries, which have been in the $20,000-$30,000 range per episode.
No one is commenting but I hear the duo will be making about double that, in the neighborhood of $60,000, this coming season, with their pay steadily increasing every year to reach close to $100,000 an episode by the end of their contracts.
As a result of the renegotiation, I hear Bialik and Rauch also have added a year to their current deals.
It is going to be a big season behind-the-scenes at Big Bang, which, six years into its run, is firing on all cylinders.
Over the next eight months, Big Bang faces license fee negotiations as the series is currently renewed by CBS through this season, as well as contract negotiations with the entire original cast, whose deals also are all up at the end of this season.
With the series doing so well and eying a potential strong showing at the Emmys this weekend, none of these is going to be easy.
Like the salary renegotiations in 2010, leads Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons and Kaley Cuoco are expected to negotiate in one group and Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar in another.
Observers expect Galecki, Parsons and Cuoco, currently at $350,000 an episode, to land north of $500,000 when it’s all said and done.
Big Bang is coming off its highest-rated season ever with a string of series highs. It is a mega hit for two networks, CBS and TBS, which airs it in off-network syndication, and a golden goose for producer Warner Bros TV.
SEE ALSO: ‘Big Bang Theory’ Cast Bands Together To Demand Huge Salary Increases
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2014 Is The First Time In 9 Years There Won't Be A New Pixar Movie
NEW YORK (AP) — Walt Disney Pictures has pushed the release date of the Pixar film "The Good Dinosaur" to November 2015, leaving the Pixar cupboard bare for next year.
The 3-D film had been planned to hit theaters in May before Disney's announcement Wednesday.
It means that 2014 will be the first year since 2005 to go without a new Pixar movie.
"The Good Dinosaur" imagines a world if dinosaurs never became extinct. The production has been rocky, with director Bob Peterson exiting the film last month. A replacement hasn't been named.
Pixar's "Finding Nemo" sequel, "Finding Dory," has been pushed from November 2015 to June 2016. Planned for summer 2015 is "Inside Out," a film set inside a young girl's brain.
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21 Video Games That Revolutionized The Industry
A nationwide crime spree is coming: starting at midnight Tuesday, millions of cars will be stolen as part of a more audacious plot that also involves other mayhem.
The source of the mayhem is the latest incarnation of the “Grand Theft Auto” video game series – either a cathartic work of interactive art or a brutal, Satanic murder simulator, depending on who you ask – which hits the shelves on Tuesday, Sept.17.
Check out the games we'll never forget »
The game, which puts the player in control of three ne'er-do-wells as they fight, steal, shoot, fly and drive their way through "one last job," has been a big investment for development company Rockstar, owned by Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO). Rockstar reportedly sank as much as $265 million into the project. This is $100 million more than the blockbuster crime/car-carnage movie “Fast & Furious 6,” and if true, would make “GTA V” the most expensive video game ever made. Other analysts have estimated that the game cost about as much as that film. Either way, it’s clear that the game is setting a new bar for blockbuster entertainment.
“GTA V” also looks likely to become the most profitable game ever. It is slated to sell 24 million copies and rake in over a billion dollars, a figure that rivals successful films like “Skyfall” and “Iron Man 3.” In anticipation of its launch, shares of Take-Two Interactive have surged 60 percent since the start of the year.
There's no question that the face of gaming has changed. Back in the heady days of acid-wash jeans and gaudy tracksuits, most games were created by small production houses, with programmers filling multiple roles. Even as late as 2002, cult classic videogame “Max Payne” had its titular character modeled and voiced by its writer, Sam Lake. Fast forward to 2013, and the upcoming Quantic Dream title “Beyond: Two Souls” bills Hollywood stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, with a score composed by the renowned Hans Zimmer.
Far from the pubescent, acne-studded nerd world of gaming in the '90s as portrayed in multiple cringe-worthy movies, most surveys now peg the average gamer as a thirtysomething year-old person (of either sex) who games to relax after juggling work, kids, and other responsibilities. The skateboarding, Mountain Dew drinking gamers of the '90s have grown up, and gaming has grown up with them.
It's hard to imagine anyone lining up at midnight for a cartridge of “Missile Command” or “Breakout.” Like it or not, games have evolved into a nuanced, artistically valid and profitable entertainment sector. Check out some of the steps in this evolution in our slideshow of 21 Video Games That Rocked The Industry.
See Also: Why Microsoft’s Xbox One Has Already Lost to Sony’s PS4
Pong (1975)
Though it’s always tricky to determine exactly where the line between pinball machines and electronic games begins, most people agree that the first real arcade game of note was this simple game of electronic ping-pong. Not only was it the first video game fad, it also brought video games into the home (three years after its 1972 arcade release), created the sports game subgenre and established Atari as a player in the market.
Zork (1980)
As it became more common for the average home to have a personal computer, video games were an obvious addition to the software library. Originally created by MIT developers, the text-based game used the PC’s then lack of graphic interface as a virtue, creating an interactive adventure that was entirely visualized in the players’ minds. Without it, there would be no “Venture,” “Zelda,” “Final Fantasy,” “Dragon Age” or “Skyrim.”
Pac-Man (1980)
Though Pong and Zork will always live on in the hearts of early adopters, it was “Pac-Man” that moved the video game completely into the pop cultural landscape. “Asteroids” and “Space Invaders” certainly helped, but in addition to making the arcade the social center of every American mall for the better part of 20 years, it also spawned sequels, spin-offs, Saturday morning cartoons and a breakfast cereal. Some of Pac-Man’s success can be attributed to the bubbly, colorful design that made it appealing to more than just genre nerds, while its gentle approach to violence made it safe in parents’ eyes. It’s not that we haven’t seen many games better than “Pac-Man”… but we’ll never see anything like it again. Both the Smithsonian and NYC’s MoMA have included it as part of their permanent collection.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Porn Actress Sues Daily Mail For $3 Million After Her Picture Appeared On Article About Another Star With HIV
A softcore porn actress is suing Daily Mail’s parent company Associated Newspapers Ltd. for $3 million, accusing one of the most-read news sites in the world of putting her photo on an article about an HIV positive adult actress without her permission.
Danni Ashe sued the British paper on Tuesday. According to court documents, an Aug. 22 article about a porn actress who had tested positive for HIV used a photo of Ashe for illustrative purposes.
Also read: YouTube Network Fullscreen Slapped With Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Problem is, the article wasn’t about Ashe and the newspaper didn’t have her permission to use the photo. Ashe, the suit says, “has never tested positive for the HIV virus, nor has she ever had the HIV virus, nor has she ever been performer [sic] in the hardcore pornographic film industry.”
Ashe’s lawyer told TheWrap that “The Daily Mail could have easily avoided injuring Ms. Ashe by telling its readers up front that she was not the ‘female performer’ who had tested positive for HIV, but it chose not to in order to sensationalize the story at Ms. Ashe’s expense. Ms. Ashe was extremely saddened to learn that an actress had contracted the disease but also dismayed the Daily Mail would act recklessly in telling the story.”
Also read: Alec Baldwin Tweets Threats at Reporter, Calls Him ‘Toxic Little Queen’
Though the Mail removed Ashe’s image after she sent a cease and desist letter, it replaced it with a new photo (picture above) of another model that was blurred to obscure her identity and a disclaimer was placed on it to clarify that it was a stock image. The Mail never printed the retraction Ashe requested.
Ashe is accusing the Mail of causing “substantial damage” and “irreparably damage to her reputation together with shame and embarrassment.” She’s asking for at least $3 million, plus punitive damages and court costs.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
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The Simplified, Amazing Theory For How All Pixar Movies Fit Into One Universe
Back in July, Jon Negroni went down an animated wormhole with his Grand Unified Theory of Pixar, an absurdly close reading of the studio’s canon that weaves together each of its 14 feature films to create a world that stretches several thousand years into the future only to eventually loop back upon itself. Negroni has condensed his original theory for Slate. (A longer version of this article originally appeared on Negroni's personal blog.)
The Grand Unified Theory of Pixar is a long tale, spanning centuries, of a struggle for the domination of Earth among humans, animals with humanlike consciousness, and sentient inanimate objects—AI machines. The theory begins and ends with Brave, the studio’s 13th feature film and one that falls at the very beginning of the animated universe’s chronology as we know it. It’s in Brave, set in the Middle Ages, where moviegoers find a character that they first met more than a decade before in a seemingly unrelated film set several millennia in the future, at the far end of the Pixar timeline. But we’re getting several thousand animated years ahead of ourselves. Before we can get there (and back) we first need to go over the two major things we need to take from Brave to tell the larger Pixar story:
1. This is a world with magic. The witches have the power to cast spells that can turn humans into animals. Their powers can also be used to manipulate inanimate objects.
2. The witch, as witches tend to do, behaves oddly, disappearing behind doors and obsessing over wood.
So, what happens to the animals that the witch experiments on? They repopulate and, thanks to evolution, slowly but surely become increasingly more human over the centuries that follow.
The next movie in the universe’s timeline is The Incredibles, which is set in the 1950s and ’60s and falls nine or so centuries after Brave on the Pixar timeline. Here we meet a super breed of humans who are systematically wiped out over the course of two decades. What’s significant as far as the theory is concerned is the manner of their demise. Buddy (aka Syndrome), who lacks super powers himself, relies on super advanced technology in order to seek his revenge against Mr. Incredible and his family.
Buddy invents the Omnidroid, an artificially intelligent henchman that gradually grows and adapts to the point that it’s able to destroy the remote that controls it, allowing it to betray Syndrome and ultimately be defeated by the Incredibles. (Buddy also harnesses zero point energy, which is way ahead of its time, but we’ll get to that later.)
This marks the beginning of the rise of the AI machines. The Omnidroid and Syndrome’s other advanced technologies have learned that force doesn’t work when trying to control humans. Instead, over the next few decades, the machines launch an industrial revolution, building a faceless corporation called Buy-N-Large that they use to dominate the consumer-obsessed humans.
Next comes Toy Story, where we discover that toys have somehow become sentient and operate by rules to please humans. (We also learn that BNL builds the batteries that power Buzz Lightyear.) In Toy Story 2 we find out that Woody comes from a popular show in the ’50s, and that his toy line is discontinued—something Jessie and Stinky Pete were aware of but that Woody was not. Why? Because the AI machines used zero point energy to gradually induce life in all inanimate objects, including toys. Since BNL came into being after Woody’s Roundup, Woody would have no recollection of this.
The next movie in the timeline is Ratatouille, taking place in 2007 Paris. Animals are beginning to experiment with human activities, such as cooking. This rebellion against their instincts shows us that the descendants of the humans-turned-animals from Brave have made it from Scotland to France, and likely beyond. The plot also highlights the growing animosity between animals and humans.
This brings us to the next movie in the timeline, Finding Nemo, which takes place roughly around the same time as Toy Story 3. We know this because Molly (Andy’s sister) is reading a magazine with Darla on the cover. This is the same Darla from Finding Nemo, and she hasn’t aged.
Finding Nemo continues to explore the animosity between animals and humans, but also shows us the result of growing intelligence among animals. Sharks are trying to be vegetarians, fish are helping each other across an entire ocean network, and animals are trying to get out of their tanks and cages.
Before this all comes to a head, we have to acknowledge Toy Story 3, which takes place in 2010. This movie really delivers the point that toys will do anything for their owners, even if that means losing their purpose and happiness. This bond between objects and humans sets the tone for what’s about to happen next.
The next movie in the timeline is Up, which takes place years after Toy Story 3. We know this because there’s a postcard from Carl and Ellie in Andy’s room. This means that Ellie is still alive and the events of Up have not yet happened.
Up is extremely important because we finally see BNL taking over. Carl is forced out of his house by a corporation that is trying to expand the city. Even more importantly, we find Charles Muntz has invented collars that allow him to hear the thoughts of his dogs. It’s likely that the events of Ratatouille happened in plenty of other places, giving Muntz the idea that his ambitions could be accomplished more efficiently by animals, since he’s tracking a bird.
The implication of this technology is that humans are beginning to overstep their bounds with animals, causing an imbalance of nature. We don’t know exactly what happens between humans and animals, but we do know that machines take over completely. In Wall-E, which takes place centuries later, we learn that BNL takes over all of the world governments and exiles humans to space so that they can “clean up” the mess they’ve made from pollution. We don’t see what the planet looks like before humans leave, which means BNL could have exiled humans in an effort to curb the intelligence and growing dominance of animals.
The next movie in the timeline is Cars, which explores a familiar Earth being populated by machines with human qualities. Strangely, very few animals exist because of this. The problem with machines running Earth, however, is that the planet is drained of resources, a problem addressed in Cars 2. BNL realizes that Earth is useless because of this and abandons the planet entirely.
The result is a barren wasteland, 700 years later. In Wall-E, we find a robot that BNL left behind that is still trying to fulfill his programming. Wall-E likely survived because of his ingenuity. He scavenges parts to stay running, befriends a cockroach, and watches old movies. For the same reason that toys seem to stay “alive” because of the love of humans, so does Wall-E. He discovers the last shred of life on Earth and travels to Axiom to be with Eve. The problem is that Axiom is run by the AutoPilot (an A.I. of course) and tries to stop Wall-E from freeing humans from their dependence on machines.
Wall-E liberates the humans and they rebuild society on Earth. In the credits, we see the last plant-life has grown into a mighty tree. We next see that tree on the island in A Bug’s Life, where we find that animals are living separately from humans—something we never see in the other Pixar films—incorporating human activities such as cities and a circus in their lifestyle.
Because the Earth was terribly polluted, animals have begin mutating as a result of adaptation. They have progressed past humans and overshadow their limited population. As a result, humans die out and animals become the dominant species.
After thousands of years, animals become “monsters,” the super-species we see in Monsters University and Monsters Inc. The only problem is that humans are the source of energy for machines, so the monsters have an energy crisis without them. So the monsters invent time-traveling doors that allow them to harvest energy from humans in the past. To prevent monsters from changing time, they are taught to believe humans are toxic and they can’t alter that world. Only a few monsters at the top know that this is time travel.
As a result, Sully becomes attached to a human child named Mary (Boo) who grows to love him. When Sully eventually disappears, Boo becomes obsessed with trying to find him. Because of her time in the monster world, she knows that doors are the key. So Boo finds a way to use wood as a means of time travel, using doors. She becomes a witch, traveling across time to find Sully, not realizing that he was millennia ahead of her.
So Boo goes backward, believing that finding the source of this magic will make her powerful enough to find him. She is the witch from Brave. Her love for Sully is actually the crux of the Pixar universe. The proof: This carving, just glimpsed in the witch’s cabin.
Note: Pixar’s Jay Ward has responded to Jon Negroni’s theory: “I think somebody had a lot of time on their hands.”
SEE ALSO: 22 Storytelling Tips From A Pixar Artist
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New Biography Alleges Jack Nicholson Was 'A Chronic User,' Details How Drugs Affected His Early Career
Hollywood legend Jack Nicholson was one of the most prolific actors of his time before recently deciding to retire.
But his rise to the top wasn’t just fueled by ambition and talent: A new memoir, “Nicholson,” by Marc Eliot, reveals how Jack’s drug use was intimately tied with his career successes — and failures — for many years.
It all started, Eliot claims, with LSD, which Jack first tried in the early ’60s.
“Jack’s experiences with the drug were life-changing,” Eliot says. “He believed after taking it the first time that he had seen the face of God. He also had castration fantasies, homoerotic fantasies, and revelations about not being wanted as an infant.”
LSD became such a big part of their lives, according to the book, that when their marriage began to crumble and they consulted a therapist, [he and wife Sandra Knight] each took acid before the first session!
And as Jack began to get into screenwriting, acid was coursing through his veins, Eliot writes, claiming he wrote the screenplay for 1967′s “The Trip” while, appropriately, on a trip of his own.
He also “regularly got stoned and dropped acid” during the writing of the Monkees feature “Head” the next year, Eliot claims.
And in a big meeting to secure funding for the movie that would become “Easy Riders,” Jack allegedly greeted the potential investors with a joint.
During the filming of the movie, cast member Karen Black would later reveal, cocaine and alcohol were constant presences on set.
Jack would later admit, “Being stoned has helped me creatively [with] writing … it’s easier to entertain yourself mentally.”
Allegedly, it helped him with his acting as well.
His ex-girlfriend Susan Anspach once claimed that he used cocaine to get through the infamous crying scene in 1970′s “Five Easy Pieces.”
“Jack took one toot for every six takes,” she said, and it took 39 takes for him to get it right. “He frequently left the set to snort.”
Marijuana was allegedly the drug of choice on the set of “The Last Detail” in Toronto in 1973. “To keep warm and stay high, which he was most of the time,” Eliot writes in the book — which was first excerpted by the National ENQUIRER— Jack and a friend “chain-smoked joints during the entire shoot as if they were Camels.”
Soon, however, he began to realize that his drug use was taking a toll on his career. When Jack said drugs “ain’t no big thing” in an interview with People magazine, he subsequently lost out on the role of Rooster Hannigan in “Annie” because Carol Burnett, who had been cast as Mrs. Hannigan, was a stringent anti-drug crusader. She later wrote an open letter to him in the same magazine explicitly addressing his comment.
By the late ’80s and ’90s, Eliot writes, Jack’s drug use came to a halt due to physical problems and grief over the deaths of several close friends. But the truth remains that much of his early success was intertwined with drug use, as he himself has admitted.
Does Jack owe his career to illegal drugs? Or would he have seen the same success if he started out sober? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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5 Bands You Should Be Listening To This Weekend
With so many great tracks and albums coming out every week, it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all the news.
Lucky for you, we at FILTER love looking through everything to find some great new music amongst everything.
SAN FERMIN
San Fermin, the project by Brooklyn composer and songwriter, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, blends chamber pop music with classical influences. While his incredibly strong voice does well on its own, Ludwig-Leone’s impeccable ability to blend the harmonies of multiple vocalists, creating a different variety in his songs, is what makes San Fermin such a treat to listen to.
ISLANDS
In their latest album, Ski Mask, Islands Nick Thorburn’s musical brainchild continues to showcase his talent as a vivid lyricist. The Canadian-turned-Los-Angeles-based band’s latest LP focuses on the universal struggle, anger and dejection that comes with the uncertainty of life. A little dark? Yes. A whole lot of truth? Bingo.
MATT POND
All good things come in threes, which is the concept behind New York based singer-songwriter MattPond’s 7” singles compilation: The Threeep. The new release is made up of previously unreleased singles that showcase the unbelievably creative and excited side of Pond’s musicality.
DIEGO GARCIA
Diego Garcia is a singer-songwriter who blatantly wears his heart on his sleeve. The former Elefant frontman brings us some beautiful melodies full of honest emotions. He blends raw lyrics with a seductive voice and music full immersed in Latin influences perfect for any love song.
BILL CALLAHAN
Over the course of his over-twenty-year career, Bill Callahan has created some memorable records. With the legendary singer-songwriter’s latest LP, Dream River, his talent and brilliance continues to shine through. Callahan’s rich baritone voice searches for something within his lyrics. The lo-fi pioneer keeps things simple just allowing his musical voice to shine through, and that is more than enough.
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How NBC’s ‘Million Second Quiz’ Grabbed Personal Info From 300,000 People
CBS’s “Big Brother” has easily topped “Million Second Quiz” in the ratings. But George Orwell’s Big Brother might look admiringly at how much personal information NBC was able to gather through the show’s app.
More than 300,000 people played online and answered a series of questions about their habits and foibles in hopes of getting on the show.
NBC says it is not sharing the information with advertisers, who want to tailor their messages as specifically as possible, but may use it to help decide what kinds of shows and ads to offer.
Read the ‘Million Second Quiz’ Application
To get on the show, hopefuls who might have hung up on pollsters or telemarketers fielded such questions as, “Tell us about the most important relationships in your life,” and “What would your friends say are your worst qualities?”
They were asked about their highest level of education, their cell phone providers, whether they owned a lucky charm and what it was, and what clubs they belonged to. They were asked if they had experienced any setbacks in life, and whether they considered themselves street smart or book smart.
Don’t worry, the network says: It doesn’t plan to do anything nefarious with the answers to all those questions.
“We don’t need to do anything with it because it’s obviously sensitive data, but we got a really good insight into the kinds of people who would use these kinds of goods and services,” Paul Telegdy, NBC’s president of alternative and late night programming, told TheWrap.
Also read: Can ‘Million Second Quiz’ Contestants Use Drugs? And 4 Other Questions
NBC didn’t trick anyone into sharing their private thoughts: The applicants were trying to get on television, where they likely would have shared their stories with millions of viewers anyway.
But they probably didn’t realize NBC might also mine the data for insights into their backgrounds and viewing habits, said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“I would imagine that most who applied to be on the show thought this would be used for that purpose and that would be the end of it. They may be surprised that not only does the company hold onto the information, but they’re using it for other purposes,” he told TheWrap. “That’s a privacy issue even for people willing to disclose a lot of personal information.”
The application form, which consists of two pages of questions and four pages of legal language, doesn’t mention that answers might be used for internal research. But the privacy policy within the show’s app, which leads to the application form, says NBC may “use anonymous data in aggregate form for purposes of research or analysis.”
Also read: Ratings: ‘X Factor’ Slightly Up, ‘Million Second Quiz,’ Not So Much
“’The Million Second Quiz’ app contains a privacy policy that all users must opt into,” an NBC spokeswoman told TheWrap. “All data that is acquired, including any information that is used for research or other purposes, is utilized in accordance with the terms of that policy.”
Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the consumer group the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said NBC was probably on firm legal ground.
“The question is how transparent are they being about this use? If they have it buried in a long privacy policy, the majority of users are not going to realize that they are making this unexpected of their information,” he told TheWrap.
He said many apps make similar use of user information, so users shouldn’t download anything without understanding how their private information might be used.
NBC has already used the “Million Second Quiz” data to get a sense of who watched the show and played along at home. It may start seeking similar information for other shows.
Also read: NBC’s ‘Million Second Quiz’ Is Underway, Kind of
“We really, really like the quality of audience associated with the online world as it blends with broadcast television,” Telegdy said. “It’s eye-opening. It really is. … It gave us a very, very detailed look at what our future holds. And that’s extremely valuable to a company [whose] prime revenue source is advertising.”
NBC could use the data to help it decide what kinds of shows it airs in the future, and how to integrate advertising into those shows, Telegdy said. It could also help decide how to add to the online second- and third-screen experience.
NBC has used the data to stay in touch with the show’s fans, and may also use it to promote other shows. More than half of the 300,000 applicants for “Million Second Quiz” agreed to receive other communications from NBC.
Here’s how NBC gathered the data: The app, released weeks before the show began, let viewers play each other to rack up points and qualify to be “line jumpers” – people eligible to win a spot on the live competition. Of the 430,000 who qualified, 300,000 filled out the entry form.
NBC hasn’t yet made a decision about whether to renew “Million Second Quiz” for a second season. The show has averaged a meager 1.1 rating in the key 18-49 demographic, and 4.7 million total viewers.
“We don’t know yet,” Telegdy told TheWrap. “We haven’t done a postmortem as a company across all areas … So much positive has come out of it that of course we have to be very, very considerate of how we move forward.”
You can read the application here:
SEE ALSO: "Big Brother" contestants finally speak out about losing their jobs after racist remarks
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Movie Studios Are Using Instagram To Cleverly Promote Films
From gradient sunsets, to antique-filtered airplane wings, gourmet food dishes, and pets being cute – Instagram has fast become the preferred platform for sharing important and trivial moments alike with followers near and far.
The social image-sharing platform now boasts 130 million active monthly users, which means there’s a lot more to behold than ‘hot dog legs’ and ‘eyebombing.’
Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has become a veritable channel for staying engaged with and informed by influencers. And for movie lovers, that means keeping up-to-date with studios about new releases and exclusive movie news.
Whether it’s studio premieres, stills from classic films, behind-the-scenes shots, or movie-themed memes, Hollywood’s top studios are making it easier than ever to connect with the films we love and the talented people who make them. Here are eight great accounts to follow for the ultimate cinematic Instagram experience:
Warner Bros.’ Instagram feed features stills and memes from their new and upcoming releases. Among the many great photos, you’ll find reminders about highly-anticipated hits like The Hangover III’s Blu-Ray release, to beautiful scenes from movies like The Great Gatsby, and quotable dialogue from memorable films like Jack and the Giant Slayer.
Universal’s Instagram feed showcases the studio’s fantastic films, in addition to images from new release premieres, film stills, and trivia. At present, followers will find photos from the film The Place Beyond the Pines, Oblivion, and Despicable Me 2.
Disney’s Instagram feed is as magical a reprieve as its flagship amusement park. Followers will find plenty of great photos in the company’s feed, from shots of Disneyland rollercoasters to film stills, shots from classic Disney movies, and plenty of Mickey Mouse ‘#selfies.’
What do Brad Pitt, Will Ferrell, and the Paramount Studios lot entrance all have in common? You can find shots of all of them over on the Paramount Pictures Instagram. The studio’s feed is a hotbed of fun film stills, homages to the Paramount lot, and memes from some of the film house’s most meme-worthy movies, like Anchorman 2 and World War Z.
The Sony Pictures Instagram feed is a great place to keep up with new Sony releases, check out studio memes and countdown to upcoming flicks. Visitors will find stills from the One Direction: This is Us premiere, quotes from Elysium, images fromThe Mortal Instruments, and much more.
From Wolverine to The Croods, 20th Century Fox has a fun and engaging Instagram feed. Followers will glimpse quotes from movies like Parental Guidance and Life of Pi, in addition to reminders about anticipated upcoming releases.
For fans of film fests, Fox Searchlight boasts a ton of in-the-moment stills from this year’s Toronto Film Festival, as well as promo photos from upcoming films like Baggage Claim, 12 Years A Slave, and Enough Said.
Film buffs and comic book aficionados alike will appreciate the dynamic Instagram feed from Marvel. Premieres, celebrity snapshots, and your favorite Marvel comic book heroes from Thor to Iron Man all convene in one colorful feed that adds up to a stimulating – and seriously entertaining – Instagram follow.
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China's Third Richest Man Plans To Build A $8.1 Billion Film Studio
China's third richest man, Wang Jianlin, announced yesterday that his company, Dalian Wanda Group, was to embark on the construction of a giant film studio in Quingdao, on the country's eastern coast.
Representing an investment of 50bn yuan (£5.1bn, $8.18 billion), Wang claimed it as the most expensive studio project ever.
Named the Oriental Movie Metropolis, the facility will contain 20 sound stages, including the world's first underwater studio, a convention and exhibition complex, a shopping mall and amusement park, and seven hotels.
It will not, apparently, be a contender for the title of world's largest: that appears to still reside with the 47-stage Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India, as certified by Guinness World Records.
At a ceremony to announce the project, Wang said: "The Oriental Movie Metropolis is a major step in China's strategy to become a global cultural powerhouse." Hollywood stars such as John Travolta and Catherine Zeta Jones were in attendance.
The project marks the latest step in China's increasingly influential role in the global film business at it seeks to take on Hollywood's financial and artistic dominance. The road has not always been smooth, however: work on the recently announced co-production complex Chinawood appears to have stalled.
Wang's $8.6bn fortune has been accrued largely through real estate development, and has acquired considerable interests in entertainment and leisure industries. He made international headlines last year after purchasing US cinema chain AMC for $2.6bn (£1.6bn).
Wang has also moved into film production, most notably with Keanu Reeves' directorial debut Man of Tai Chi, and historical costume drama The Palace.
• First look review: Man of Tai Chi
This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk
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The 'Dexter' Series Finale Was Disappointing
The storm we were promised arrived in time for Dexter's series finale ("Remember the Monsters") in an episode that proved to be about on par with this season, which is to say, unfortunately, somewhat disappointing, especially when we consider some of the high points of the series. I guess when it comes down to it, I wish the season had taken a different direction earlier on so that tonight's finale could have felt like the event it should have been, instead of the conclusion of another weak season.
To summarize the episode in a sentence, Saxon cut out a sweet vet's tongue, Dexter later killed Saxon with a pen, Deb died after having a stroke due to a blood clot from surgery after getting shot, Hannah and Harrison made it to Argentina and Dexter sailed the Slice of Life into a hurricane and lived, and instead of going to Argentina, went north to live out his life alone with a beard.
The episode included a flashback of Deb and Dexter sharing a moment with Harrison not long after he was born. Deb recalled Dexter being able to make her feel safe when she was afraid of shadows she thought were monsters. That memory tied to Dexter's decision to pull the plug on Deb, who was mostly brain dead due to the stroke and living on life support. As her big brother, he was looking out for her one last time. And Deb turned out to be the last life he ended and the last body he dropped over the side of his boat. It's that second part that has me scratching my head, considering that's been Dexter's means of body disposal for years. As poetic as it looked, watching him carry her body to his boat and then drop her into the water, it sort of puts her in the same, um, boat as Dexter's kills, which I'm not sure I like.
Deb and Dexter's relationship has been all over the map this season, which is unfortunate, as it used to be one of the best things about the show. That flashback and Dexter's choice to end his sister's life, which may have been an inevitability but was still a huge gesture nonetheless, didn't resonate as well as I wished it had. In short, two or three seasons ago, watching Dexter pull the plug on his sister would've had me in tears, but the emotional connection just wasn't there for me tonight and I think a lot of that has to do with how rushed and undercooked Deb and Dexter's reconciliation was this season, which ties to the Vogel arc, also rushed and undercooked.
Leading up to Deb's death, there were some awkwardly paced moments, as Saxon managed to sneak into the hospital and was on his way to finish the job with Deb only to have Dexter come upon him, leaving us to think, for a second, that the two might throw down right there in the hospital, and then Batista and the other cops appeared out of nowhere and arrested him. Ok, they were keeping an eye on Deb for that very reason, but it was still a strange turn to take. Talk about deflated suspense. Moments later, we learn that Deb had a stroke and has very little chance of pulling through, so it didn't matter anyway.
Dexter finally decided to finish the job by killing Saxon at the precinct. He essentially gave Saxon a weapon -- a pen -- told him he was going to kill him with it and then let Saxon make the first move, allowing Dexter to attack back, using the same pen to stab him in the neck and let him bleed out all over the floor, all while the security camera was watching. Batista and Quinn had to know they were watching a murder happen when they watched that footage. Dexter's fast and determined neck-stab didn't look like it was coming from a desperate man just trying to protect himself, and Dexter wasn't even supposed to be in there to begin with. So either Batista and Quinn decided to accept Dexter's excuse even though they know better, or they were just so blinded by grief that they weren't thinking clearly, even after they questioned him about it. I'm going to choose to believe the former.
And then there's Elway, who was last seen asleep on the bus after Hannah stabbed him in the knee with a sedative. Her choice not to poison him to death indicates that she's changed a bit, which I suppose is good, considering she's now raising Dexter's child. I don't get Hannah. I wasn't a fan of her relationship with Dexter, mainly because it seemed to move much deeper emotionally than I could understand. I get the attraction, of course, and on paper, Dexter and Hannah are a perfect match. I just never got why she was the woman to turn him around and make him want to abandon the life he's taken such care to protect all these years. And a more immediate complaint is Dexter thinking it was a good idea to let Hannah take off with his son, considering they hadn't left the country yet and she's still a wanted criminal. What would he have done if she'd gotten caught? Of course, it all worked out in the end, as Hannah was able to escape. And that gave Dexter the opportunity to walk away from his life, knowing Harrison was being cared for.
That brings us to the end. Was Dexter essentially trying to commit suicide when he pointed the Slice of Life straight at the hurricane? Or was it always his plan to fake his own death? Either way, it worked out so Dexter lived, as the final moments revealed Dexter working as a truck driver somewhere that looked a lot less sunny and warm than Miami. So, in an effort to protect the people he loves from himself, he's abandoning everyone and living out his life alone. Is he still killing or is his dark passenger finally at peace? I guess we're left to wonder that, though I would've preferred a clearer answer there. Maybe it doesn't matter. A big focus of the show was always about Dexter trying to balance his serial killer life with his family life. He's given up his family life, so that story has ended, regardless of whether or not he's still out there killing. I guess we'll always wonder.
In the end, I didn't love the finale, but I'm reserving full judgment on how the series ended until I have some time to think about it, factoring in the full story. The two biggest aspects I'll be pondering for a while are Deb dying and Dexter leaving his family behind. I guess if I were to write the series' conclusion, I might've made Deb live so she could be the one to take care of Harrison, while Dexter went off alone. But that might've been too happy an ending for a series like this.
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Why The New 'Grand Theft Auto' Is A Total Bore
There is something existentially dreadful about watching a parody of American Idol where the contestants have to not only out-sing but out-fight one another—when you’re supposed to be playing a video game.
I speak, of course, of Grand Theft Auto V. What other game would even have a bunch of joke TV channels? And that's part of the problem. Like a faded beauty decking herself out in baubles, bangles, and beads, Grand Theft Auto has been on a decadelong spree of piling on "features," hoping you won't notice how much it's aged.
Looking back, it’s amazing how little evolution the series has experienced. Kidnap someone playing Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, bring him in a time machine to the present day to playGTA V, and the only actual gameplay differences he'll notice are that now you can fly helicopters and ride motorcycles, and you won't die when you touch a body of water. That’s pretty much it. And those changes were made in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the very next game after III.
The rest of the changes, and there are a lot of them, are all peripheral. In V, for instance, you can play fetch with your dog, get in shape by playing tennis, get mauled by a mountain lion, pilot a submarine, screw with apps on your phone (like you don't have enough apps to keep track of in your real life), and even get an R-rated lap dance at the strip club, pressing buttons to get your hands off the girl when the bouncer's looking. These are all good for a laugh with your buddies, but if Los Santos (the Grand Theft Auto series' second stab at making a video game version Greater Los Angeles) has so much to see and do, why does every play session devolve into seeing how many bystanders and cops you can kill before you're arrested or killed, just like it did 10 years ago? If this is such an incredible sandbox, why do we build the same castle over and over again?
Like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books—the ones on which HBO's Game of Thrones is based—Grand Theft Auto is great at world-building, but not so great at making you care about what goes on in that world. Just as Martin makes sure we know the color and material of even the most minor characters' doublets, as though we know what doublets are anyway, the folks who spent five years on GTA Vwant us to see how they've laid every brick, wardrobed every pedestrian, and rendered every fender-bender tenderly. Martin's continent of Westeros, and the worlds theGrand Theft Auto developers assemble, are wonderful in the way snow globes are wonderful—as intricate, self-contained spectacles. But also like snow globes, they're totally inconsequential and get boring fast. And the ironic culprit behind the lack of consequence has taken up residence in Westeros and Los Santos alike: too much consequence, too fast.
Amid his many narrative quirks, Martin is known for killing off major characters—that is, characters the reader thought were major—early in his books, because, hey, people die randomly in real life, don't they? As he explains, “when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, [so] you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps." His belief that fiction should play by the same rules as reality is admirable, but as anyone who's read the books or seen the show knows, he's turned it into something of a fetish. The character turnover is so high that you hardly get to know anybody, and as the Teddy Bears sang, you can't love, love, love people without knowing, knowing, knowing them.
But at least Martin has a philosophy behind his bloodbaths. GTA V ups the body count whenever it doesn't know what else to do, which is all the time. Compare the game with last year's first-person shooter Far Cry 3, which attempted to show how circumstances could turn a spoiled rich kid into a cold-blooded killer. Your character’s transformation wasn’t earned as completely as it should have been, but Far Cry 3 was a rare game that reminded you that killing people is no joke. GTA V, like a horror movie that shows the monster in the first scene, wastes no time in getting to the murder. The game has barely told you how to move your character when you're killing your first cops and laughing when your nervous wheelman is shot in the head. It’s not all killing sprees, of course; it’s also mundane tasks like towing cars and using a crane to rearrange shipping containers. The banality of the missions that serve as the game’s narrative tent poles are the closest thing to undeniable proof that the folks behind GTA V spent 90 percent of the last five years laying out Los Santos, and 10 percent thinking about what the player would do there. As in past games, the missions are essentially radio plays, as you listen to your co-workers—I mean, fellow street thugs—deliver exposition as y’all do your chores. After which you’ll save your game, shoot some strangers, and kill as many cops as possible, because, as I said, that’s how every session of GTA ends anyway.
For a path to consequence, Grand Theft Auto should look at some of its copycats. GTA III, the groundbreaking game that switched the series switched from a top-down, Sim City-style view to full 3-D, singlehandedly invented the genre of open-world sandbox games, but two other franchises have taken what GTA III started in more interesting directions. The Saints Row series, which started out as a joyless act of grand theft game design, has blossomed into a cult favorite by taking Grand Theft Auto to its logical conclusion, with everything turned up to 11. In the latest installment, for instance, your street-thug character has been elected president of the United States and must use his superpowers to fight off an alien invasion by escaping from a Matrix-esque computer simulation of his old gangland stomping ground.
Taking the opposite tack, the Hong Kong-set Sleeping Dogs sings to those of us who think Grand Theft Auto is fundamentally broken by the fact that you can drive on the sidewalk and knock over a light pole in plain view of a cop, and the cop won't react. Sleeping Dogs subscribes to broken windows theory: If the small things matter, the big things feel like they really matter. The game charges you for every fire hydrant you run over, every storefront you ram, every bumper you knock in, and presto, the whole enterprise is more engaging. As my mom always says, what's given too freely is valued too lightly. Sadly, Sleeping Dogs was a commercial failure. That is, it’s safe to say it wasn't the fastest entertainment property to ever hit $1 billion in sales, like a certain other game mentioned in this article.
While Grand Theft Auto occupies an unhappy medium between Saints Row andSleeping Dogs, the game that threads the needle of consequence most cleverly is the Wii U's Lego City: Undercover, an honest-to-God "Grand Theft Auto for kids" that's fun enough for adults, too. In Lego City, it doesn't matter if you plow through crowds and crash cars—everything and everyone are made of Legos and are magically put back together again.
It's not like GTA V doesn't make any improvements on its predecessors. The multiple characters you control throughout the game are more interesting than any single protagonist of a previous GTA. The dialogue feels less fake, possibly because they had gang members do the voice acting. Animation is much improved, even though people’s faces still look like they're made out of moist clay. Most mercifully, they fixed the save system, so you don't have to go on a journey every time you want to record your progress.
And, of course, things like skydiving from a plane you stole and commandeering a cop car to chase bad guys are as fun as you remember. The sound track is great. And it's still a blast to get together with some homies and pass the controller around, seeing who can cause the most ridiculous mayhem.
But these are the same pleasures we took from Grand Theft Auto 10 years, and four main-series games, ago. That GTA V is essentially a high-definition remake of 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas means the folks behind the franchise have some thinking to do about exactly what kind of games they’re trying to make. Are they content to design a brilliantly realized city every few years, then sit back and count their money? In the words of one of GTA V’s characters, Michael, a jaded millionaire who sits out by his gorgeous pool every day, “Good palm trees are just a substitute for not knowing what the fuck you’re doing on this Earth.”
As for George R.R. Martin, well, there's a new print run of his best work, Tuf Voyaging, so that's something.
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Here Are 3 Reasons Why New Home Prices Will Slow By More Than Existing Home Prices (ITB, XHB)
Economists have warned for some time now that home prices are set to slow in second half of 2013.
Paul Diggle at Capital Economics points out that the pace of new home price growth is set to slow by more than existing home prices. Diggle expects this to happen for three key reasons.
First, younger buyers are more likely to purchase new homes, as compared with cash- investors that are looking at existing home sales. Younger buyers are more reliant on mortgages and "this is a disadvantage when credit is tight and mortgage rates are rising."
Second, the inventory of new homes climbed 13.1% over the past year, compared with the inventory of existing homes, which is 6.3% below its level a year ago.
Third, demand continues to remain strong among investors for the current stock of existing homes for sale and this is expected to "sustain the strong upward pressure on lower- tier existing house prices."
While there is some volatility in the Census Bureau's measure of single-family home prices and NAR's existing single-family house price, Diggle reminds us that new home prices fell less than existing home prices during the crash, and have rallied more since the onset of the recovery.
SEE ALSO: BEFORE THE CRASH: Here's What It Was Like When 'Everyone' In America Was Rich
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5 New Mind Blowing Technologies That Show The Future Of TV And Film
There are so many scintillating technologies in the works one imagines looking back on James Cameron’s Avatar as almost quaint. As absurd as that sounds, looking around the technology space is like looking into a future that would have seemed nearly impossibly only a decade ago. With the truly mind blowing speed with which the internet, smart phones and digital cameras have increased in functionality and ubiquity, so to has the ways in which you can shoot, and distribute. New camera technologies and new tools to watch their work on just about any screen you have are popping up all the time.
Here’s a quick look around the world at some emerging technologies:
Dynamic Target Tracking Camera
Well this is just wild. The University of Tokyo has created a camera that can capture high-speed flying objects and center them on the screen at all times. Imagine what a director like, say, Danny Boyle or Kathryn Bigelow (arguably the greatest action director working) could do with a camera like this? As Hiromasa Oku, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo explains, typically to change the direction a camera faces you have to manually or mechanically move the camera itself, but with this prototype, it’s not the camera that moves but the mirrors. In the demonstration above, the camera is able to track, and center, the tennis ball despite it moving extremely fast. The mirrors that allow the camera to track the tennis ball can move at high speeds on the order of milliseconds.
This proof-of-concept system from Microsoft Research will blur the lines between what’s happening on your TV screen and the rest of your living room, immersing you in a gaming experience like no other. Using a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector, the IllumiRoom will combine the virtual and physical world by changing the appearance of your room, inducing apparent motion, extending the field of view, or enabling new gaming experiences. If you’ve ever played a video game and wished your entire room was the gaming environment, well, you’re in luck.
This joint venture between DreamWorks Animation and Technicolor has deals with major studios to allow them to stream films on the same day and date that they become available on Blu-ray and DVD. Now M-Go is going to be available on 2012 and 2013 LG Smart TVs, which will allow people to stream new video releases right on their TVs, in addition to its app, which works on Samsung and Vizio TVs, tablets, and Blu-ray players. This is just another solid addition in a market that has plenty of great streaming opportunities, as Hollywood continues to make high-quality streaming possible, and legal, protecting the hard work of artists while freeing film lovers to see the latest releases where they want, when they want.
More Realistic Simulated Cloth
Of the many challenges that animators for films and video games are faced with, creating clothes that look right is every bit as hard as getting their facial expressions or movements down. Rendering cloth has long been a problem for filmmakers. Henrik Wann Jensen, a Ph.D. advisor to Iman Sadeghi, the developer of a new model for rendering realistic cloth, said that cloth in movies often looks wrong. “This model is the first practical way of controlling the appearance of most types of cloth in a realistic way,” he said in a press release. That new model is the work of computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, who have developed it with ‘unprecedented accuracy’ on the way cloth and light interact. Developed by Sadeghi, the model is based on a new approach that simulates the interaction of cloth and light by simulating how each thread scatters light. ”It essentially treats the fabric as a mesh of interwoven microcylinders, which scatter light the same way as hair, but are oriented at 90 degrees from each other,” Sadeghi said in press release. Sadeghi is not new to the film world—he is an expert on the subject of simulating lighting interacting with hair. While he was a Ph.D. student he developed a model that was later used in Disney’s Tangled, in which Rapunzel had 70-feet of simulated blonde hair. This new model for cloth simulation can not only be used for existing fabrics, but can also “act as a framework to visualize what new fabrics would look like,” Oleg Bisker, a co-author on the paper, said in a press release. “We can simulate any combination of weaving pattern and thread types.”
Creating 3D Images Through a Single Lens (Without Moving the Camera)
Leave it to the brains at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to devise a way for photographers and microscopists to create 3D images through a single, stationary lens. The technology these researchers have created relies on computation and mathematics for the counter-intuitive ability of seeing a stereo image with, essentially, one eye-closed. It is nearly impossible for a single eye to get a sense of depth perception, but the Harvard team, utilizing new hardware-microlens arrays and absorbing masks that record the direction of light, use the angle of light on each pixel to approximate that angle on every pixel, focusing the camera at different depths and using the information from the slight differences between these shots to create brand-new images as if the camera had been moved to one side. The Harvard team’s research is aimed at creating a way to create a stereo image without the need for expensive hardware, and this technology could also create an accessible way to create 3D images of translucent materials, such as biological tissues.
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