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‘Only You And Your Darkness Know Who You Are’ Read Amber Tamblyn’s Open Letter To James Woods!

Now we know what she meant when she said this wasn’t over.

In case you missed how this feud got started, former movie star and current day conservative crank James Woods blasted the upcoming LGBT movie adaptation of Call Me By Your Name for its depiction of a romance between a 24-year-old and a 17-year-old.

After star Armie Hammer called out Woods’ hypocrisy — as he dated a 19-year-old when he was 60 — Amber Tamblyn revealed the actor had actually hit on her when she was just 16! Even after she told him!

Video: See The Call Me By Your Name Trailer

After he responded that her story was a lie, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star decided to come guns blazing at the Diggstown actor with an open letter in the pages of Teen Vogue.

In the letter she recalls the entire story of Woods’ gross approach of her and her friend, and man he does NOT look good.

Read the entire letter (below):

Dear Mr. Woods,

What you are experiencing is called a teachable moment. It is called a gift. It is called a humbling. It is called Jesus, I come to thee. It is called an awakening. It is called a growth edge. It is called hope.

The hope being that through this experience, you can change. You can redefine the man who will come after this moment and this man who came before.

Since you’ve now called me a liar, I will now call you a silencer. I see your gaslight and now will raise you a scorched earth.

My friend Billy and I were at the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard seeing a band we loved. We decided to go to Mel’s diner on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to get burgers after. I had just gotten my driver’s license and very specifically remember my nervousness trying to park in the diner parking lot. Upon leaving the restaurant we were stopped by you and your friend, who both seemed very nice. At one point you suggested we should all go to Las Vegas together. “It’s such a great place, have you ever been?” You tried to make it sound innocent. This is something predatory men like to do, I’ve noticed. Make it sound innocent. Just a dollop of insinuation. Just a hair of persuasion. Just a pinch of suggestion. “It will be so much fun, I promise you. Nothing has to happen, we will just have a good time together.” I told you my age, kindly and with no judgment or aggression. I told you my age because I thought you would be immediately horrified and take back your offer. You laughed and said, “Even better. We’ll have so much fun, I promise.”

Here’s the thing, Mr. Woods. At that time I was not a public persona. I had done a couple years on a soap opera as an actress, but you wouldn’t know me from Adam. I’m sure you’ve racked your brain trying to remember how you could’ve possibly hit on the actress Amber Tamblyn at a diner almost two decades ago. You think, it’s not possible, there’s no way I would’ve been so stupid as to hit on a 16-year-old known actress. But I wasn’t known then, James. I was just a girl. And I’m going to wager that there have been many girls who were just girls or women who were just women who you’ve done this to because you can get away with it.

The saddest part of this story doesn’t even concern me but concerns the universal woman’s story. The nation’s harmful narrative of disbelieving women first, above all else. Asking them to first corroborate or first give proof or first make sure we’re not misremembering or first consider the consequences of speaking out or first let men give their side or first just let your sanity come last.

So it is with hope, Mr. Woods, that I ask you to go inward now and ask yourself the hard stuff. The ominous unconscious stuff. The archetypal masculinity stuff. The power-play stuff. The perversion persuasion stuff. The secretive stuff. The id’s most cherished stuff.

Only you and your darkness know who you are. Only you and your actions know what you’ve done. That means you and only you have the power to change your behavior.

Are you and your history with women and girls a part of the problem, Mr. Woods?

Go now and look in the mirror and ask yourself if this is true. Go on, I’ll wait. But I won’t hold my breath.

[Image via Joseph Marzullo/FayesVision/WENN.]

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Read more: http://perezhilton.com/2017-09-13-amber-tamblyn-james-woods-feud-open-letter

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This Week In Pop Culture (8/04/17)

8/04/2017: ESPN And NBC Are Fulfilling Our Dreams (Minus The Good Parts)

By Daniel Dockery

Despite how great the finale of a TV show may be, we inevitably want more. Deep down, we dream of a new season of Breaking Bad in which Cyborg Bryan Cranston returns to make mecha meth and get even more revenge on those kids that made fun of his son in the clothing store in Season 1. We long to see what happened to the cast of Friends, as they inevitably kicked Phoebe out of the group when her interest in a multilevel marketing scheme became too intense. And another season of Frasier that mostly deals with Kelsey Grammer enduring hilariously timely Tinder mishaps? We yearn for this.

“What’s wrong?” our spouses ask, seeing us awake in bed.

“KELSEY GRAMMER TINDER MISHAPS” we reply.

There is a note on the dresser the next day. They’re gone.

Luckily, NBC and ESPN have heard our cries, and have begun their own deliberation on how to appease us. Their consensus so far? Terribly misguided and/or outdated attempts to feed the nostalgia beast before it consumes us all. There have been talks of reviving The Office, because remember how great that was? Well, before James Spader made shit weird? They might bring it back! Except probably without any of the original cast, and while probably dealing with a different company in a different location. So not so much The Office as An Office.

The deal here is that audiences are supposedly so hungry to relive the glory days of 2009 and so unwilling to be absorbed by modern content that they’ll fight to the death over the scraps of anything that you label The Office. NBC is also mulling over 30 Rock, which also might involve a totally different 30 Rock. Except 30 Rock is not just the name of a show, but also a location. Maybe it’ll take place on different floors of the building? And it’ll most certainly involve a scene wherein Kenneth makes a guest appearance and winks at the camera to remind us that no matter how much we cling to the cliffs of our delightful past, death will always have its hands firmly gripped around our ankles.

Meanwhile, like the dad who wants to remind you that “IS NIIIIICE!!!! MY WAIIIIFFFFFEEEE!” because he just caught Borat on DVD, ESPN is launching a special day of “ESPN8: The Ocho.” Remember The Ocho, from that one joke in a Vince Vaughn comedy that was made 13 years ago? ESPN really hopes you do, and they also hope that you don’t mind that lovably doltish commentator Pepper Brooks, as played by Jason Bateman, isn’t going to make an appearance to take part in festivities that are over a decade too late. So it’s just a lot of weird sports. But it’s The Ocho, which you’ve always wanted, right? You left Dodgeball desiring it, regardless of how little it was related to the film Dodgeball, and you held that desire in your heart all the way to 2017. And now we’re getting it! We’re finally getting it, guys. We can let go.

We can be free.

8/03/2017: How ‘Death Wish’ Could Avoid All Controversy With One Change

By Ian Fortey

The new Death Wish trailer is out, and everyone loves it! Just kidding. The enthusiasm of “Yay Bruce Willis!” has been heavily tempered by “Wait, is this a movie about a guy just shooting whoever he wants in Chicago?” Needless to say, people are wrinkling their noses at the turd that this is. But the turd may have smelled more like roses if Eli Roth and crew had just changed a single element: the costume.

Midway through the trailer, AC/DC’s badass party anthem “Back In Black” starts blasting, as we’re treated to a montage of Willis’ super smooth scalp being lit up by muzzle flare. “You get a bullet, you get a bullet, every damn person in Illinois gets a bullet!” POW! BANG! ZWOK! And then it hits you: Why the hell isn’t he wearing a mask?

If you put a fun costume on Bruce Willis, this immediately goes from unsavory act of racially tinged public terror to kickass superhero movie. Isn’t this essentially The Punisher? Or Batman? Bringing right to the wrongs the police won’t (or legally can’t) address. We eat this shit up with a spoon; it’s justice unfettered by things like the justice system! To demonstrate my point, take the part of the trailer in which Bruce Willis makes a terrible dad joke right before brutally murdering some dude. Now imagine him wearing a cool skull costume, and his name is Deathwish. Now, just before he removes the carjack keeping 1,000 tons of murder steel off this hapless mechanic, the quippy joke “I’m not going to kill you, Jack is” becomes witty banter and not the ravings of a terrifying murderous lunatic! Then with a flip of his cape he could joke, “Too bad you didn’t work at a feather pillow shop,” and we’d lap that crap right up!

The question you’re forced to ask when you realize Bruce Wayne … I mean, Bruce Willis … isn’t a superhero here is “How cool is it to let any random old man start shooting whoever he thinks needs to be shot?” In real life, this is why we don’t tolerate vigilantes. That shit is scary as hell. Imagine Bruce Wayne going away to Ninja Academy and coming home and then, instead of dressing up as a bat, he just has Alfred drive him to the poor part of town where, in a very posh $6,000 suit, he beats the ever-loving shit out of a couple of meth heads. Not a superhero; just a rich man beating up the downtrodden because he feels like there isn’t enough justice in the world.

You need that cartoony element. You need a dude in spandex dancing to “Back In Black,” or the Batmobile, or Bruce Willis giggling like your bloodthirsty uncle to his therapist about how he’s getting out and meeting new people, because the reality of letting hyped-up old dudes with god complexes shoot whoever the hell they want is objectively terrible.

8/02/2017: When JAY-Z And Beyonce Play Fantasy Sports, It’s For Real

By Luis Prada

If the rumors are true, Beyonce wants to buy the Houston Rockets basketball team, which makes sense for a couple of reasons. One, she’s from Houston, and two, buying NBA teams is a cheat code rich people use to get richer — something she already knows, since her husband, JAY-Z, already did exactly that when he bought a stake in his hometown team, the Brooklyn Nets. They were then (and still are) the worst team in the NBA, but he later sold them for the second-highest price of any team sale in the history of the sport after a conflict of interest arose with his ownership of a sports talent agency.

This sets up a fascinating opportunity for Beyonce and JAY-Z. Where some best friends or couples can play NBA 2K17 to build and manage a team, create players, and generally have a ball pretending they have any kind of sway over the fate of an entire professional sports franchise and its league at large, these two are so rich that they can do it in real life. Like, that’s an option that’s not only open to them, but also something they’re actively looking into doing.

This can only mean one thing: With their vast financial resources and cultural influence, Beyonce and JAY-Z will soon launch an NBA eugenics lab so they can make a real-life version of the “Create A Player” feature in the NBA2k series. By defying God and all that is sacred, Beyonce and JAY-Z will grow an army of visually horrifying freaks made to look like pro wrestlers, the Monstars from Space Jam, and themselves, with stats that no womb-incubated human will ever match.

May God have mercy on basketball.

8/01/2017: Suicide Squad Or Jungle Cruise? How About Just Giving Up?

By Lydia Bugg

Suicide Squad has lost what was reportedly its top choice for director, Jaume Collet-Serra. Yes, that Jaume Collet-Serra, the auteur who brought us such cinematic classics as Orphan and The Shallows. This must have been such a difficult decision for him.

On one hand, Suicide Squad was widely hated, but on the other hand, the concept of Disney movies based on a ride has produced such classics as The Haunted Mansion and The Country Bears. How is an in-demand director to choose? Flipping a coin made out of pure asbestos? Did someone have his family locked away, refusing to return them unless he picked between directing Suicide Squad 2 or a Jungle Cruise movie? Was he given two glasses of wine, one full of poison, the other also full of poison but paired with the opportunity to work with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (who is expected to star in Jungle Cruise)?

If I were Jaume Collet-Serra, I would look at the writers who are currently working on the scripts for each film. I may be biased, but I think writers are important. Suicide Squad 2 is being penned by the genius who wrote Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Jungle Cruise “went through several drafts by several writers,” which is always a good sign.

Suicide Squad 2 will be pulling from some solid source material in the first film, which people called “bad.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Squad 2 is currently a void in need of filling; it has characters, but no direction or plot.” I know how alarmingly existential “a void in need of filling” may sound, but hey, maybe they’ll fill it with Jared Leto being wacky.

The Jungle Cruise ride itself is filled with conflict. For those of you who’ve never been to Disney World to experience this whirlwind, SPOILER ALERT, the plot of the ride is that you’re on a boat cruising through the jungle. Will you see exotic animals or won’t you? That’s the main conflict. Of course, you always do see the animals, because if you didn’t, it wouldn’t be much of a ride. It would be more like a nautical version of waiting in line for a ride. The movie will surely bring all that tension to the table PLUS The Rock in form-fitting khaki shorts.

I know it may seem like I’m ragging on Jaume Collet-Serra, but honestly, I feel a little bit sorry for him. How depressing do you think that coin toss was for him? It’s sad that this is what Hollywood has come to. Welcome to 2017, where the choice isn’t between making a small indie script critic’s love or a big-budget summer blockbuster that audiences adore; it’s Suicide Squad 2 or Jungle Cruise. Turd soup or turd salad, it doesn’t matter what you choose — you’re leaving with a turd in your belly.

7/31/2017: Niantic Sucks Butt

By Ian Fortey

Hey kids, have you played Pokemon Go? Chances are you have because, according to statistics, Pokemon Go has 65 million active monthly users, which is insane and somehow probably half as many as the number of people who can’t play it properly because Niantic, the company behind the game, is committed on every conceivable level, to buttfucking this game mercilessly.

Niantic is being sued for putting on a failed Pokemon Go Jamboree in Chicago that people flew in from as far away as Japan to attend. Turns out if no one can actually access the game thanks to failed networks, or get the in-game swag they were promised, or do anything other than stand around with a Pokefinger in their Pokeass, it’s not a huge load of fun for most. Imagine travelling to Disneyworld and when you get there, a dude in a Mickey suit stands in an empty lot explaining that all the attractions had to be sent out for repairs.

Niantic tried to blame Verizon for the connectivity issues, but not a lot of people are buying it thanks to Niantic’s proud, year-long tradition of stumbling ass backward through the management of this game. Despite making a literal billion dollars off of Pokemon Go, everything that could go wrong with it has gone wrong and continues to go wrong because it’s entirely possible Niantic developed this game thanks to making a wish on a cursed monkey’s paw and the ensuing clusterfuck is their ironic punishment.

From its very launch, Pokemon Go has been a shit show. Slow or completely stalled downloads, failed logins, server overload, the total inability to even download the game and, in some case, a lack of Pokemon. How the fuck do you make a Pokemon game and not include the Pokemon? You know what Pokemon Go without Pokemon is? It’s walking through town with your head down, running into shit for no reason.

Every patch and every update Niantic has rolled out has continued to drill the cruel fist of bumblefuckery deep into Pikachu’s bowels. Server problems are par for the course when it’s not just crashing your phone or sucking your battery dry like it was a milkshake on a balmy day. Four out of five players have stopped playing Pokemon Go yet it’s still a gigantic success.

Imagine what this game would be like with a competent company at the helm. If the Pokemon company had the wherewithal to let someone else take over who could provide support and bug fixes that work, a company that could roll out one thing, just any damn thing, without it failing miserably after even a tiny bit of planning to make sure it worked right the first time. It’d be a license to print money. People want to play this game – they love the idea of it and it’s clearly proven itself to be brilliant. Like a bar offering $1 shots served from glasses that had a hobo tap each one with the tip of his penis, Niantic has a great product wrapped in terrible service and no clue why it’s not working out.

Niantic needs to Pokemon Go fuck themselves and the powers that be can either outsource game management or straight up sell the product to someone with the skills and ability to make the game work. This is already the biggest game ever, why not see what could happen if you knew what the hell you were doing with it?

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/this-week-in-pop-culture-80417/

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Black Widow and Elektra’s stunt doubles filmed the ultimate Marvel fight scene

BTW

Marvel stunt performers are the unsung heroes of the franchise, filming and often choreographing the fighting styles for your favorite superheroes. Marvel’s Netflix shows are especially highly praised for their hand-to-hand combat scenes, which invites an obvious question: How would an Avengers A-lister fare against one of the street-level Defenders characters?

Stunt performers Lauren Mary Kim and Amy Johnston are here to answer that question. Kim doubled for Elektra in Daredevil while Johnston performed as Black Widow‘s stunt double in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so they know exactly how each character fights. They got together for an awesome Black Widow/Elektra showdown, filmed and posted on Kim’s Instagram.

You can catch Kim in action during The Defenders, which arrives on Netflix this Friday. It’s not exactly a spoiler to say that Elektra returns from the dead, and her fight scenes are among the best in the show.

H/T io9

Read more: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/black-widow-elektra-stunt-fight/

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16 Things We Forget To Thank Our Moms For

1. All the times she had to double as best friend/counselor/therapist/costume designer/hair stylist/coach/all-around-solver-of-every-problem-ever. I remain unconvinced that moms aren’t actually superheroes in disguise.

2. Forgiving us when we forget to call.

3. Listening to all our pointless dramas when we do remember.

4. Being the kind of person that we actually do want to become because as we all know, it’s inevitable.

5. Having the incredible prowess only a mother whose babes have been scorned could mama bear protects her cubs, sometimes excessively, but we love it, let’s be honest.

6. All those times we yelled “MOOOOMMM!!” through the house to find out where our white shirt was or what time so-and-so was getting home and all the other questions we just couldn’t go to Dad for.

7. All the things she reluctantly bought us at the cash register of any given store, all the clothes and things we didn’t really need (but insisted we did). Growing up and understanding the value of a dollar really makes you reconsider just how much moms sacrifice.

8. For all the home cooked meals or pizzas we didn’t have to pay for ourselves. Equally phenomenal. Equally missed.

9. Putting up with our middle school phase.

10. For giving us our siblings, whom we simultaneously once wished to sell and now are best friends with.

11. And oh yeah, for that whole “giving birth to us” thing.

12. For being our first, and at some points, only cheerleaders, who were and are proud of every little thing we do.

13. All the time she spent picking us up from practices; bending over backwards to make sure we had new cleats and costumes; and were at every game, rehearsal, and play date we planned.

14. Doing her best, even when things were most difficult in the family. Moms have this incredible magic sparkle glue that keeps it all together when it would otherwise fall apart.

15. Dealing with Dad.

16. Being the boss woman of the house (and of our lives). And for being living proof that there truly are people who can honestly just do it all.

Read more: http://thoughtcatalog.com/kate-bailey/2014/02/16-things-we-forget-to-thank-our-moms-for/

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‘Wonder Woman’ is taking aim at one more box office prize


Aim true, Diana.
Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

In a matter of weeks we’ll know exactly where Wonder Woman stands among all superhero movies at the domestic box office, all-time.

How does Top 5 sound?

While cracking the top 4 is too tall an order, Wonder Woman currently at No. 8 has a shot at that No. 5 spot, overtaking Iron Man 3 and settling in behind The Dark Knight Rises.

But Diana is going to have to sustain the fight, and will need one more rally to win it.

SEE ALSO: Warner Bros.’ finally, formally, officially, 100%-for-sure announces the ‘Wonder Woman’ sequel

Here’s where things currently stand, per our friends at comScore:

  1. Marvel’s The Avengers: $623.4 million

  2. The Dark Knight: $544.3 million

  3. Avengers: Age of Ultron: $459 million

  4. The Dark Knight Rises: $448 million

  5. Iron Man 3: $409 million

  6. Captain America: Civil War: $408 million

  7. Spider-Man (2002): $403.7 million

  8. Wonder Woman: $399.5 million

Wonder Woman has now played in North American theaters for nine full weeks (plus this weekend), making $7.5 million in its eighth week and another $5.5 million in Week 9. To put that in perspective, only one other superhero film indisputable superhero box office champ Marvel’s The Avengers had better weeks 8-9, with $10.8 million and $6.9 million.

Most other cape-and-cowl capers lost all their powers that late into their runs, and were soon out of theaters. DCEU counterparts Batman v Superman made $737,776 in weeks 8 and 9, while Man of Steel made $716,840. Just a few weeks later, they were gone.

It’s going to be close, and it’s going to take a rally

The numbers Wonder Woman is generating at this stage are a monument to its quality, staying power, and the absolute cultural necessity of female superheroes. Wonder Woman opened to $103 million on May 2 solid, though considerably less than any of the films that now stand in front of it but has since burned far hotter and longer than all but Avengers. Not even The Dark Knight, which played for a staggering 33 weeks in theaters, had better 8 and 9 frames ($7.18 million and $5.3 million).

But back to our question: Will that long-term and repeat business be enough to catapult Wonder Woman into the Top 5?

As long as Warner Bros. keeps Wonder Woman in theaters for as long as similarly strong-performing DC films like The Dark Knight Rises (21 weeks), maybe. It’s going to be close.

The average week-over-week drop for Wonder Woman has been almost exactly 33% this past week only 30% and shows no signs of slowing from that pace. I predict it will play that way for 12 more weeks giving it 21 total, exactly as many as The Dark Knight Rises, one less than The Avengers and closing down for good just before Thanksgiving holiday titles hit.

Assuming a 1/3 drop for each week until then, here’s how that plays out, starting with the estimated $5,242,373 from Week 9:

  • Week 10: $3,494,915

  • Week 11: $2,329,943

  • Week 12: $1,553,295

  • Week 13: $1,035,530

  • Week 14: $690,353

  • Week 15: $460,235

  • Week 16: $306,823

  • Week 17: $204,549

  • Week 18: $136,366

  • Week 19: $90,910

  • Week 20: $60,607

  • Week 21: $40,404

  • Total: $10,403,930

Add that to Wonder Woman‘s $397,146,079 gross (before this weekend’s estimated $2.3 million, which will be included in the Week 10 total), and you’ve got …

[Drumroll]

… $407.5 million.

Good enough for No. 7, just behind Captain America: Civil War.

[Needle scratch]

Wait, didn’t you say it could crack the Top 5?

I did, and that means somewhere down the line, Wonder Woman will need a little help to take out Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War (which sits at $408 million).

Never fear these superhero studios always stage one last big theater bump-up at the end of long-running hits, which The Dark Knight did in weeks 18 and 28 (for an extra $1.56 million) and The Avengers did too, going large in its 18th week (a $2.7 million bonus).

Wonder Woman is a phenomenon that could benefit from a lack of massive August competition

No doubt Warner Bros. will boost up a similar last-chance-to-see-it effort in the coming weeks, especially with Justice League right on Wonder Woman‘s heels on Nov. 17. And the response should be juuuuuust enough let’s say $1.6 million, for $409.1 million domestic ultimate to get Wonder Woman across enemy lines and into that hallowed Top 5.

ComScore box-office whisperer Paul Dergarabedian is more bullish than I am; he’s thinking Wonder Woman can clean up in the late-summer movie wasteland.

“Now Wonder Woman is a phenomenon that could benefit from a lack of massive August competition and who knows, maybe she could rustle up another $15 million, putting her at $411 million-plus,” he told me. “But anything could happen!”

That’s true. Anything could happen. Like, someone could start a #Top5forWonderWoman campaign to get people out to support it one more time.

Because Top 5 superhero movie of all time has a nice ring to it, right?

WATCH: Mark your calendars, the ‘Wonder Woman’ sequel finally has a release date

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/08/06/wonder-woman-box-office-record-top-5-superhero-movie/

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4 Modern Movies That Were So Good … Until These Scenes

The world is garbage right now, but at least movies are still great. Right? It Comes At Night was heartbreaking and dark, and Power Rangers was cheerful and juvenile. There’s something for everyone! There’s something for both types of people.

Even me, the proverbial third type of person: a guy who likes to ruin things by pointing out how stupid they are. Which is what I’m going to do right now: Ruin a thing you probably enjoyed recently. I’m sorry to do this to you but I have to. It’s the only way I know how to be.

4

Beauty and the Beast’s Stupid Faces

I hadn’t watched the original Beauty And The Beast since I was a small child but I watched it again recently and, hey, it’s pretty great. I know this isn’t a surprise to our nostalgia-fetishizing culture where everything that we considered good as children is not only great but worth fist-fighting about. But I actually never cared about this particular Disney movie as a kid. I’m not even sure I had ever seen it until I watched it a couple months ago at whatever-age-I-am. But no, seriously, I really enjoyed it: tight script, funny jokes, and great character design. And I’m not referring to how badly I want to fuck that feather duster, I mean the characters are iconic and memorable. I know exactly who Lumiere is just by the way he cocks his eyebrow.

Walt Disney Pictures

In the cartoon, that is. In the live-action remake all those amazing and whimsical characters look more like this:

Walt Disney Pictures

Soulless eyes. Twitching, insectoid mouthparts. Tiny Ewan McGregor face. A photo-realistic talking candelabra is, it turns out, just a bad idea, and not just because of the ensuing nightmares: They just functionally didn’t work. Most of the time I couldn’t tell what expressions they were making, or what they were feeling, or what I was supposed to be feeling about it. At one point, Mrs. Potts gets thrown right up in the screen and winks and I haven’t been able to get the image out of my head for five months. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, convinced Mrs. Potts is hiding somewhere in my apartment, silently twitching her horrific eye at me in the dark, and I can’t sleep until I search my entire home top to bottom. That’s not true, I made it up for dramatic purposes, but I hope it communicates my issue with this character’s horrible face.

Alright. Fine. I admit that this might just be the ravages of old age catching up with me. Maybe when Snow White was released in 1627, grumpy hipsters in their late 20s/early 30s were complaining that animation was a stupid medium that no one would ever enjoy. Maybe the next generation will be fine with these horrifying, uncanny valley-dwelling abortions. Maybe I’ll hate the next generation as much as every generation has ever hated every subsequent generation.

3

Kurt Russell Did Not Need To Recite The Lyrics Of “Brandy”

After the double-dose of mediocrity that was Dr. Strange and Ant-Man, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming single-handedly restored my faith in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes, two things can single-handedly do something. That’s a fine thing for me to say because language is always evolving and nothing means anything.

But the scene where Kurt Russell recites the lyrics to “Brandy” on screen was garbage.

The role the scene plays in the movie is pretty straight forward. Russell plays Ego, a living planet and “god with a lower-case ‘g'” that is also Peter Quill’s father, okay, maybe it’s not super straightforward. He’s explaining that he thinks of Quill’s mother as being like the Brandy in the song. This is foreshadowing that he (spoiler!) is an evil character, because “Brandy” is a sad story about a bartender who gets neglected by a sailor who leaves her a gift but never returns. If Ego sees Quill’s mother as Brandy, then he must be the sailor, and therefore he’s kind of a jerk without realizing it. That’s a neat bit of foreshadowing… until Ego just says the lyrics of the song to the camera. In case anyone missed it.

This drives me crazy because cleverly hidden foreshadowing is one of my favorite things movies do. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are the masters of this stuff because you can watch Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, not pick up on a single case of the foreshadowing, and still really enjoy the movie. It’s extra. It’s subtle. Having RJ MaCready deadpan the thesis of the scene isn’t either of those things.

Is it dumb of me to expect subtlety from a movie with a talking raccoon and sentient kill-tree? Maybe, but fuck you, I like my dumb things smart. Guardians is perfect in every other way and this would’ve been a fantastic easter egg instead of the hardest I’ve cringed in a movie theater all year. Even my mom didn’t like the scene, and my mom likes everything. My mom thinks I’m a snob for not wanting to watch Lost In Space (I am a snob, but not because of my Lost In Space opinions).

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John Wick: Chapter 2 Makes John Wick Pretty Dumb

Oh my, what to say about the John Wick series? It’s one of the rare action movies that remembers to show us the action. It’s one of the rare movies with an outrageous premise that is still confident enough to not wink at the audience about how silly it is. And it’s the only movie where, like, I keep submitting it to Cracked editorial as my monthly column, and in response John Cheese is just like “No, Sarge, this is not a column, this is just a pirated MP4 of John Wick 2. Stop doing that. Please just write your column and also if you love this movie so much buy it for real.” And then I say “I did buy it for real, 15 times, but I can’t email you my Blu-ray” and he says “Well why not buy it on iTunes or something and send me that” and then I say “Because you wouldn’t be able to watch it because of DRM” and then he says “How do you always manage to suck me into these conversations?” I like these movies a lot.

Aside from that part in John Wick: Chapter 2 where we reveal that Wick has been a huge dumbass this entire time. I can’t find it on YouTube anywhere so I’ll just transcribe the scene:

Winston: What are you doing, Jonathan?

Wick (dumbly): He burned my house down.

Winston: You rejected his marker. You’re lucky he stopped there. What the hell were you thinking, giving a marker to a man like Santino D’Antonio?

Wick (incredulously): It’s the only way I could get out.

Winston: Oh, you call this out? What did you think would happen? What did you expect? Did you really think this day would never come? What does he want you to do?

Wick (stupidly): I didn’t ask. I just said “no.”

Winston (shaking head): Two rules that cannot be broken, Jonathan. No blood can be spilled at the Continental, and every marker must be honored.

Wick (confused): I have no choice?

That’s mostly secret-assassin gibberish but it still should be pretty clear what’s going on here: There are only two rules in this society, and John Wick broke one. The idea that there are only two rules in this society (along with the fact that apparently everything costs exactly one gold coin) stretches my disbelief, but I can accept it. I can even accept that professional assassin work comes to you in an app like Uber (another plot point). But the idea that these two rules are too much for Wick to remember? The guy who’s an expert in every gun, every form of hand-to-hand combat, who can speak Italian and Russian and remembers the favorite drink of an old colleague (Common, we learn, drinks gin) can’t remember that you have to honor blood contracts?

Summit Entertainment
“Which one of these drinks is mine again?”

In fact, he seems to be struggling with basic cognitive function the entire movie. Like 90 percent of his lines are incredulous questions asking more articulate characters to explain the situation he’s found himself in. I’ve actually come up with a fan theory that John Wick is just a really really stupid man who scrapes through life purely based on his ability to murder. But that makes the movie less interesting so I don’t think about it very often.

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Wonder Woman Has The Worst Sailing Scene Of Any Movie

Apparently DC movies can be good, which was absolutely shocking to me even though it happened as recently as 2008 (I have a very short memory). And though much ado has been made about the fact that it’s the first female-led superhero movie, it was also just a good adventure movie where a woman kills people with her whip. I haven’t seen someone get killed with a whip since, oh, before you were born.

Which is a shame because that sailing scene, man — it was pretty bad.

I’m quickly developing a reputation for being the Cracked Sailing guy, which is fine because it’s good for my career to have a brand. So go ahead and call me that. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk about sailing because most movies don’t include any sailing and when they do there’s not that much to say. “The boat would be moving more than that,” I might mutter to my date, but only if I want to make sure I don’t get another date. “That’s not really how the water would look from the shore of a Caribbean island” are some words that have actually come out of my mouth. I can be picky about anything, but listen: Wonder Woman got things exceptionally wrong. The scene where Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman sail from Themyscira to London is, bar none, the worst sailing I’ve ever seen in a movie. They literally don’t get a single detail right.

First, there’s no indication of how the sails are trimmed. They’re just hanging there, like Chris Pine and Gal Gadot’s hair, indicating that there is no wind. Sailboats need wind to move, and you adjust the sail depending on what direction the wind is coming from. The wind’s pressure on the sail, as well as the daggerboard, centerboard or keel’s pressure against the water, guides the boat in the direction it needs to go. If the sail is limp, the boat can’t be moving.

Let’s pretend this is forgivable (even though it’s fucking not). I get that most people won’t notice, and if we had simulated rough seas and high winds they probably wouldn’t have been able to improvise the funniest scene in the movie. Maybe Amazonian boats are made out of bullshit fucking magic or whatever. I wouldn’t have even mentioned this if things hadn’t gotten ten times crazier the next second when both characters go to sleep.

Who’s making sure they stay on course? What if they get run down by some steam ship? They don’t even have running lights, for Christ’s sake. Not even a candle stuck in the spreaders. Normally, on overnight passages, you want at least one person awake at all times “on watch.” And since this is a one-night journey, there’s zero reason for both characters to be asleep at the same time. I can’t stress enough how little sense this makes. It’s more implausible than anything else in the movie, including the lasso of truth or the idea that anyone could find David Thewlis intimidating.

To me, anyway. I totally understand why nobody else cares.

JF Sargent is a Senior Editor and columnist for Cracked and needlessly iconoclastic about all kinds of stuff. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-infuriatingly-bad-scenes-in-recent-great-movies/

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Thats probably Superman at the end of that Justice League Comic-Con trailer, right?

The Justice League Comic-Con trailer makes a big deal out of uniting the DC superheroes. But it doesn’t take a Batman-level intellect to figure out that one’s still missing.

Superman’s nowhere to be seen in the latest Justice League footage reel and since Henry Cavill was also MIA at the Warner Bros. Hall H panel, no one got a chance to ask him about it. But that latest trailer may have given us a little clue as to how the Man of Steel will figure into all of this.

SEE ALSO: Watch Gal Gadot’s thunderous Hall H return at Comic-Con

At the very end of the video, Jeremy Irons’ Alfred addresses an unseen figure. “He said you’d come. Now let’s hope you’re not too late.” That line is prefaced by Alfred noticing that his whiskey glass is starting to shake, Jurassic Park-style. Whoever or whatever it is, it’s creating a lot of commotion.

Kind of like what happened to the dirt over Clark Kent’s grave.

In theory, this unseen figure could be just about anyone. But in context … it’s gotta be Superman, right?

During the panel, Jason Momoa played dumb when a young fan asked about Superman’s whereabouts. “I’m not sure if you’re parents showed you the last movie, but Superman’s dead,” he responded.

However, the cast and crew have generally been very clear that Superman will return in some form or fashion, despite his untimely demise at the end of Batman v Superman. Heck, Momoa’s comment was followed by Gal Gadot reassuring the kid that Superman fans would be “very happy” to see how he factors in.

So now we know that Alfred, somehow, becomes the one to greet him when he returns. Which raises more questions than it really answers how did “he” (presumably Batman) know Supes would return? Is Superman too late? Does Martha know about all of this? What about the other Martha?

But it feels like a promise for fans of the Man of Steel. Just be patient, guys. The red cape is coming.

Justice League is in theaters November 17.

WATCH: Superman loses his steel on a bad day

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/07/22/justice-league-comic-con-trailer-superman/

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Marvel is bringing its superheroes to VR with a new Oculus-exclusive game

The Incredible Hulk and some of his other box office money-grabbing super pals will be coming to the world of virtual reality.

Marvel Powers United VR, announced at Disneys D23 event on Saturday, will allow players a chance to step into the shoes of some familiar heroes as they destroy lots of stuff in VR.

Powers United VR, an Oculus-exclusive,looks pretty similar to existing VR wave shooters like Robo Recall, though its multiplayer could spice things up a bit. The main highlight will obviously be having IP from Marvel; players will be able to choose from 12 different Marvel characters as they exact righteous mayhem.

The title is being developed by Sanzaru Games, which has already done a couple VR titles for the Rift, including VR Sports Challenge and Ripcoil.

Facebook and Oculus have devoted $500 million to funding made-for-VR content. Oculus has been doing so largely with the hopes of attracting exclusives and interest from top AAA game publishers who have been reticent to invest significant cash into a space with so few users relative to console and PC audiences.

With Marvel, Oculus has found a partnership that allows it another big name exclusive to show off its highest-end Rift and Touch controller hardware, which it has heavily discounted in recent months as Facebook looks to sell units and keep up with competition in the niche VR space.

Building a hefty library of exclusives is even more important to the company following E3, where Oculus was largely overlooked as the highly influential ZeniMax-owned Bethesda announced a number of titles from blockbuster series, including DOOM, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, that it will be porting to competing virtual reality systems like HTCs Vive and Sonys Playstation VR. This comes as Facebook fights an injunction from the Oculus/ZeniMax lawsuit, for which it has already been ordered to pay up a half-billion dollars.

Marvel Powers United VR is bring slated for a 2018 release.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/16/marvel-is-bringing-its-superheroes-to-vr-with-a-new-oculus-exclusive-game/