So, Disney has spent large, *vast* sums on movies that have tanked. They’ve lost more money in the last year than many corporations will see in their lifetimes (“Lightyear,” “Elemental,” “Indiana Jones,” “Little Mermaid,” etc. contributed to historic losses). So how do they respond to this business apocalypse? Disney Discontinues Physical Media Releases for an…
Starships first not-exactly-successful launch was filmed not only from the ground, but from the NASA WB-57 flying at altitude. Apparently at least five cameras were trained on the launcher; video from two have been released, while three remain classified. i would *assume* that the classified three display some combination of: 1) better tracking 2) Better…
A description of the phenomenon, the physics and history. Includes a discussion of the politics of it, how it’s supposedly misogynistic. But included in the video are a number of old movie clips showing how vocal fry (at least used to) feature a lot in depictions of High Upper Class British Dudes… who are every…
The driving motivation behind everything in the movie “Avatar” was humanity’s need of the mineral “Unobtanium.” It was special since it was a room temperature superconductor, allowing for a lot of advanced technologies. In the movie, humanity would travel light years and wipe out primitive alien civilizations to get it. But recent news suggests that…
“The 13th Warrior” was, shockingly to me, one of history’s great box office bombs… budget was about $100 million in 1999, but it only made about $33 million domestically, less than that foreign. Counting marketing, it lost well over a hundred million dollars. I’ve never understood why this was so; it was a substantially badass…
Color me not just skeptical, but damn near dismissive: Reviving The PBY Catalina For Modern Warfare Is This Company’s Goal I fully support the manufacture of newly designed, modernized PBY “Catalina” flying boats. Damned things were awesome 80 years ago; had I buckets of money, I’d fund the program myself. But *this* program does not…
Study results: unsurprising. Higher Cognitive Ability, Less Concern for Political Correctness – Study Finds As you can see, there was a moderate positive correlation between cognitive ability and support for freedom of speech, and a moderate negative correlation between cognitive ability and concern for political correctness. (The asterisks tell us these results are statistically significant.)…
An “Automat” was a style of restaurant that was basically a great big vending machine. A wall, or part of one, was covered in little cubbyholes with locked doors; behind each door was a piece of food that the customer could see and pay for. Feed in your coins, the door would pop open and…
The forthcoming “The Creator,” due to hit theaters in September, *looks* awesome. Long have I and many others bitched that Hollywood seems incapable of doing something that’s not a sequel, prequel, reboot, remake or based on an existing IP of some kind. But here’s one that seems to be entirely original, and it *looks* fantastic……
