In a research lab at Penn State, "four pigs — Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory — were trained to use an arcade-style joystick to steer an on-screen cursor into walls. … And the pigs even continued playing when the food reward dispenser broke — apparently for the social contact." - BBC
When the idea and the office of the president was regarded with a sort of reverence, presidential representations were more heroic, historian Dean J. Kotlowski writes, pointing to the “schmaltzy, character-themed biographies” of the 1930s through early ’60s. And in a sort of reversal, where a fictional representation led to a very nonfictional one, researchers Michael P. Rogin and...
"The new Netflix series Amend: The Fight for America, produced by Will Smith and Larry Wilmore, seeks to not through song, but extended, sleek, bingeable verve. … Amend, which focuses solely on the importance and liberties granted by the 14th Amendment, stretches across six hour-long episodes, each devoted to a different area of interest: citizenship, love, women's rights,...
The initiative combines entertainment metadata with Nielsen’s audience measurement data. It’s designed to equip content creators, owners, distributors and advertisers with data around onscreen diversity and representation to enable more inclusive content. - Los Angeles Times
"Zhang and his co-authors reported high levels of statistical significance for their finding, but the reported differences in the effects of violent games versus nonviolent games were too small for that high statistical significance to be possible." - Science
"Despite being indoors (a red flag), the sort of behavior engaged in at the movies is, relatively speaking, benign. Patrons who can and should wear a mask for the duration of their visit face the same direction and don't chatter much. … movie theaters in the age of the coronavirus have placed an almost disconcerting emphasis on safety."...
YouTube is planning an official rollout for “Applause,” a feature—already in testing—that lets viewers make cash payments to their favorite creators by initiating an on-screen clapping effect. Like existing features such as Super Chat, “it’s a token of my appreciation of some monetary value.” - Fast Company
Scorsese acknowledges streamers benefit his career (without Netflix there would be no “The Irishman,” and without Apple there would be no “Killers of the Flower Moon” on the way), but writes “the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator” by conceptualization of films as “content.” - Harper's
Chloé Zhao came to L.A. from Beijing to finish high school and go to college, got a poli-sci degree from Mount Holyoke, went to NYU film school, and ended up making three feature films at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. One of those caught the eye of Frances McDormand — and now Nomadland is a major Oscar contender, Zhao...
It wasn't just because she likened being a conservative in America today to being a Jew in 1930s Germany on Instagram. "Carano had become a lightning rod among Star Wars fans and a headache for Lucasfilm, … had repeatedly been warned by those around her about her social media behavior." - The Hollywood Reporter
Ross fell under the director's spell upon seeing Andrei Rublev in college. "The long pandemic months seemed a good time to burrow back into Tarkovsky's world. Life was moving at a neo-medieval pace, and the aesthetic of slowness was all the more welcome in an age of frantic digital scissoring. I watched the films again … I emerged...
“The entire structure of the traditional book-to-film deal has changed. Our authors are now at the cutting edge of those deals, in the selling of their work and as producers.” - Los Angeles Times
Stanfield says it's not only therapy that has made the last year bearable. "The one good thing about this pandemic is being able to sit at home by yourself and deal with yourself and just your inner voice. And even though that’s annoying as hell, beautiful clarity comes out of it." - Level
The new show demonstrates just how drastically far food shows have come - but reminds us of how far that had to be, especially when we can always rewatch Nadiya Hussain's GBBO flavors making Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry squirm. "It’s hard to imagine that a show like Nadiya Bakes could have existed in the same way even just...
Director Iram Parveen Bilal (I'll Meet You There) explains: "I'm the daughter of a physicist mother and a chemistry professor father. ... We were told from the get-go that education is your passport. And when I came to Caltech, I realized that even though I was good at science, it came naturally to me, it wasn't ticking the passion...
