[VIDEO] Larry David Surprises Crowd As Bernie Sanders in SNL Democratic Debate
Posted: October 17, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Darrell Hammond, Donald Trump, Ernie Hudson, Hillary Clinton, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, Matthew McConaughey, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Taran Killam Leave a commentSince the surprise surge in Senator Bernie Sanders’ poll numbers this year, many people have long attempted to figure out an apt comparison for the self-described Democratic-Socialist. One of those celebrities has undoubtedly been Larry David, and apparently Lorne Michaels and the NBC powers-at-be have been listening.
The crowd-favorite David was revealed on Saturday night’s SNL cold open playing Sanders, moments after frequent SNL host Alec Baldwin appeared to play Democratic candidate Jim Webb.
As expected, Kate McKinnon played Secretary Hillary Clinton as the opening sketch predictably poked fun at Tuesday night’s CNN Democratic debate hosted by Anderson Cooper. McKinnon’s Clinton angrily declares, “…But this year I thought I got to be the cool black guy,” when discussing her 2008 collapse while trying to earn the party nomination for President.
Christopher Nolan’s First Feature: ‘Following’
Posted: April 19, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Academy Award, Batman, Batman Begins (Widescreen Edition), Batman in film, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Coen brothers, DVD, Interstellar travel, Josh Hartnett, Matthew McConaughey, Memento (film), YouTube Leave a comment
I saw this film about a year ago, and was impressed in a way I didn’t expect. Christopher Nolan‘s mega-budget films are legendary for their unlikely balance of collaborative Hollywood grandeur and singular creative vision — “Inception“, the Dark Knight Trilogy, to name a few — I was curious what his first feature, a modest, low-budget production, would look like. Because his movies are such precise, analytical, clockwork inventions, I admit, I hoped to see a rough, sketchy, incomplete hint of Nolan’s potential. I was wrong. Even on a shoestring budget, with a tiny cast, on his first outing, Nolan created a work that’s as complex and realized as anything that followed. It’s as though he emerged as a fully developed storyteller, focused, economical, and confident. It’s not a spectacular movie, but it’s original, well-crafted, and successfully maximizes its modest resources, to produce a film several steps ahead of the work of most first-time feature directors. Enjoy this review from FilmMunch.
FilmMunch writes: So I finally got the chance to watch Christopher Nolan’s first feature length film, and it’s undeniably fresh and what I would consider a must see!
It’s amazing that he’s able to generate such an intriguing story in only 70mins, which is by far, his shortest film, considering some of his films are just shy of 3 hours. Short and sweet, but what on earth is going on!?
[Read the full text here, at FilmMunch]
Films that rattle your brain and chose to only show you the necessary bits are fascinating, because you want to keep watching and find out more. This story is no less fascinating than Memento, and if you’ve seen Memento, then you know what I’m talking about! Memento and Following, must be seen, at least once! The innovative story telling technique used in Following is something I want to see more, it’s basically a triple layered telling of events, very fascinating!
This film was extremely low budget, with film stock being the most expensive expense for the film, there wasn’t much room for error. Nolan would rehearse with his cast on the weekends, since all the cast had other full-time jobs. Only one or two takes were possible, considering Nolan was paying for the film himself! He also had to use natural light, since he didn’t have access to professional lighting equipment. Inspiration indeed, and what drive and motivation from this modern thinker!
The result is something akin to a Hitchcockian noir thriller, nothing short of slick and sophisticated. Read the rest of this entry »
Inside the Black Hole: This Is How Jonathan Nolan Originally Wanted ‘Interstellar’ to End
Posted: March 20, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Mediasphere, Space & Aviation | Tags: Academy Award, Blu-ray Disc, California Institute of Technology, Christopher Nolan, Interstellar travel, Jonathan Nolan, Kip Thorne, Matthew McConaughey, Steven Spielberg, Wormhole Leave a comment
Nolan’s early take on the ending, however, essentially cuts Cooper off inside the black hole…
Entertainment Weekly‘s Jonathon Dornbush writes: If Interstellar’s ending didn’t quite sit right with you, co-writer Jonathan Nolan may be able to help. As he recently revealed, the film’s original conclusion would have been much simpler—albeit way more depressing as well.
Nolan detailed the screenplay’s first ending at an event ahead of the film’s Blu-ray release in Pasadena, California, alongside scientist Kip Thorne, who served as a producer and science adviser for the film. As Nerdist reports, Nolan told a crowd at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Lab that he originally planned a much different conclusion for Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper.
“Instead of this bleak finish, Interstellar ends on a much more hopeful note—even if many have taken issue with how Nolan sacrifices scientific accuracy for a more emotional conclusion.”
In the final film, Cooper travels through the black hole Gargantua, surviving the trip and ending up in a “tesseract” space where he’s able to see—and in some bizarre ways, interact with—his past. This revelation allows him to send a Morse code message to his daughter Murph, which sets the film’s final events into motion.
Nolan’s early take on the ending, however, essentially cuts Cooper off inside the black hole. His script “had the Einstien-Rosen bridge [wormhole] collapse when Cooper tries to send the data back.”
The wormhole falling apart would have prevented Cooper from returning home or interacting with the tesseract, which, according to Nerdist, was director Christopher Nolan’s idea. Instead, his journey would have ended there, with Cooper sacrificing himself in the name of his cause. This also would have prevented much of the finished film’s concluding events—Cooper’s return trip, rediscovering his daughter, and stealing a ship to search for Anne Hathaway’s Amelia Brand would never have happened. Nolan does not mention, however, whether in that original ending, the data Cooper is collecting to send back to Earth would have made it out before the collapse. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Films Based on Real Life Are Flooding the Oscar Race
Posted: October 16, 2013 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Argo, Ashton Kutcher, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Robbie Brenner, Steve Jobs, WikiLeaks, YouTube 1 Comment
VARIETY‘s Tim Gray reports: So it’s little surprise that there are twice as many reality-based films currently vying for awards attention as last year, when one of those, “Argo,” took home the best picture Oscar.
Even though such movies are tough to pull off, filmmakers agree that the jump in numbers (from 8 to 17) is due to several factors, including audience tastes, studio responsiveness, filmmakers’ determination and the social-media world we now inhabit.
“The boundary between public and private is starting to merge,” says Bill Condon, who directed “The Fifth Estate,” about Julian Assange and the creation of WikiLeaks.
Condon suggests that thanks to public platforms like YouTube and Twitter, “People are starring in the movies of their own lives and sharing those things with everybody else.”
pundit from another planet 