Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 1852
January 28, 2018
Carrie Fisher Wins Posthumous Grammy for Spoken Word Album
Carrie Fisher has won her first Grammy posthumously. At the premiere ceremony at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, she received the award for best spoken word album for The Princess Diarist. This is her second nomination, the first was in the same category for Wishful Drinking. A talented wordsmith, Fisher has often written about her role as Leia Organa in the Star Wars universe and how it’s affected her life. The Princess Diarist, published in 2016 before Fisher’s death, is a memoir that includes entries from the diary she kept while filming Star Wars: A New Hope.
The book, which I highly recommend reading or listening to to Fisher read, is intimate, bold, and gives no shits. It was in this book that Fisher revealed she had an affair with Harrison Ford. She also talks about being a backup singer in her mother Debbie Reynolds‘ variety show, detailing what it was like to be on a film set at the age of 19, and her mental health struggles. Fisher’s honest, conversational, and blunt in the text.
Other nominees in the best spoken word album category include Neil Degrasse Tyson, Bruce Springsteen, Shelly Peiken, and Bernie Sanders and Mark Ruffalo.
Have you read or listened to The Princess Diarist? Let us know in the comments.
Images: Lucasfilm, Blue Rider Press
Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. She likes Star Wars a little. Follow her on Twitter.
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INVENTING TOMORROW Is a Documentary About Badass Teenagers Who Will Save All Of Us (Sundance Review)
It was depressing walking out of An Inconvenient Sequel at Sundance last year. Al Gore’s documentary felt like the alarm going off 10 years after hitting the snooze button. No attempt at tying things up with optimism could gloss over the profound pessimism that pervaded every minute that preceded. Inventing Tomorrow is the antidote. The documentary by Laura Nix follows seven teenagers from around the world as they prepare and present projects for the gold standard of science fairs, Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).
The word you’re going to see most associated with this film is “inspiring,” and while it’s definitely that in a jump-out-of-your-seat kind of way, the overwhelming sense it instilled in me was one of relief. It felt like this is the cavalry that’s come to save us from ourselves. These extraordinary, driven, eco-compassionate children are cancelling the apocalypse.
In Bangka, Indonesia, Intan Putri and Nuha Anfaresi explored ways to create a soil-based filter for tin-mining ships to use so they can stop destroying coastal waters. In Hilo, Hawaii, Jared Goodwin exhaustively sampled the soil around a neighboring lake to match arsenic levels to the water dispersed during two major tsunamis. In Bangalore, India, Sahithi Pingali collected data on the disappearing lakes of her town in order to develop an app to crowdsource saving them. And in Monterrey, Mexico, Jesus Martinez, Jose Elizalde, and Fernando Sanchez developed a paint that absorbs and neutralizes air pollution.
The doc lets us into these teenagers’ lives in a non-invasive way, letting us perch on their shoulders to give us a sense of their daily existence–which is pretty much exactly as you remember your own high school life. The boys from Mexico worry about how they’ll talk to girls from other countries when they attend ISEF, and the girls from Indonesia sing Taylor Swift together when they find out Putri can’t go to the competition. ISEF itself also feels like a field trip, lecture series, and prom all rolled into one, with a pin-exchanging mixer that’s as adorable and awkward as you’re imagining.
Yet Inventing Tomorrow also has the kind of stirring imagery necessary to remind us of what these children are working to protect. The most dramatic are shots of Pingali and fellow ISEF hopeful Prashaant Ranganathan walking along a lake covered in a layer of toxic foam formed by chemical runoff from nearby apartments and houses. In May 2017, the lake caught fire, but the sight of the foam spewing over the concrete embankment and flying into a busy street is just as harrowing because it represents a daily reality that many people have simply learned to accept. The problem seems too large to solve, but Pingali doesn’t let that stop her from trying.
Inventing Tomorrow is told in two acts. The first allows us a window into the teenagers’ lives as they prep their presentations and get guidance from parents and mentors. The second half of the doc drops everyone into the Los Angeles Convention Center for the thrills and nerves of ISEF, mirroring other competition documentaries like Spellbound. However, the stakes for the competition seem secondary to the work they’re all doing.
If it’s impressive to see what these kids can do on their own, it’s astonishing to see what happens when they get together. That they are all a part of a larger community is the full promise of the film’s story. When Anfaresi meets Pingali, it’s like atoms smashing together. When you see the team from Mexico talking about their process to a group of touring children, you’re seeing the future teaching and inspiring the near future.
Inventing Tomorrow is a wonderfully hopeful profile of scientists who are old enough to grasp the gargantuan problems facing their global community, and young enough to still believe they can solve them. That belief, that drive is exactly what the world needs.
4 out of 5 world-saving burritos
Images: Fishbowl Films
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These HARRY POTTER Cakes Are Magical Works Of Art
Who doesn’t love cake? It’s the quintessential celebratory dessert. Add in a dash of fandom and you have the ultimate in nerdy deliciousness. By the looks of the elaborate designs from the Night Kitchen Bakery in Pennsylvania, they seem to have the combination nailed. Their tiered cakes are masterpieces of architecture that feature fandoms such as Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and more. But their talents really shine in their Harry Potter themed cakes. The sophisticated sculpting and design work captures the wizardry of the characters and stories. Check out a few of our favorite cakes from this magical bakery:
Dobby Cake
As if a stack of edible Hogwarts class books wasn’t enough, this exquisite cake is enhanced by a miniature house-elf. Dobby sits on the edge of a tier, holding another Harry Potter oeuvre—the lopsided cake that Hagrid baked for Harry’s birthday.
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Oct 21, 2016 at 4:24pm PDT
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Oct 21, 2016 at 4:08pm PDT
Golden Snitch Cake
If you’re going to catch the Golden Snitch in your mouth, it might as well be tasty. This edible Snitch is hand sculpted and sits atop a scarlet and gold cake. Ten points to Gryffindor!
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Jul 31, 2017 at 10:12am PDT
Elaborate Harry Potter Cake
The baker must have dabbled in the Dark Arts to create such a masterpiece. Potions, Wizard’s Chess pieces, winged keys–the details on this cake go above and beyond.
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Oct 19, 2017 at 5:59am PDT
Harry Potter Book Cake
Made as an entry for a Harry Potter Cake Show, this dessert actually seems to be levitating. The book pages, candles, and wand are all made of sugar. This beauty of this cake is more potent than the Stunning Spell.
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Oct 19, 2017 at 4:00pm PDT
Sorting Hat Cake
Not only does this charming cake have a dazzling mirror glaze, but it’s topped with a hand-sculpted Sorting Hat for good measure. If you don’t get the house you desire, just eat him.
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Mar 11, 2017 at 5:07am PST
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Mar 11, 2017 at 6:42am PST
Harry Potter Baby Shower Cake
I can’t imagine a better cake to bring a new wizard into this world than a sweet Harry Potter baby shower cake. Topped with a loyal Hedwig and rounded out with Hogwarts letters and Quidditch hoops, this baby is set for his future as the Chosen One.
A post shared by Night Kitchen Bakery (@nightkitchenbakery) on Dec 10, 2016 at 11:26am PST
For a look at more magical treats, check out the Night Kitchen Bakery on Instagram.
Accio cake! Which Harry Potter themed treat would you choose? Let us know in the comments!
Images: Night Kitchen Bakery
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THE SILENCER Is DC Comics’ Newest and Deadliest Hero (Exclusive Preview)
Ever since DC Comics began their Rebirth initiative back in 2016, the DC Universe has been on a roll, with a sense of classic storytelling once again applied to some of the most famous cultural icons ever known. But although iconic titles like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are once again at a creative peak, DC Comics cannot rest on tried and true heroes alone. That’s why this year they are rolling out The New Age of Heroes, introducing a new line of books featuring top creators working on all-new characters in the DCU.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome The Silencer to the DC Universe!
Writer Dan Abnett, best known for his work on Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel, and currently Aquaman and Titans at DC, has teamed up with artists John Romita Jr. and Sandra Hope to create a whole new character that is joining the ranks of Deathstroke, Deadshot and Cheshire as one of the universe’s deadliest assassins. But unlike those notorious characters, the Silencer just wants a life of peace and quiet now, one without violence and gun play. Unfortunately for her, the universe has other ideas.
You can check out our exclusive preview of five pages from The Silencer #1 below in our gallery.
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: John Romita, Jr., Sandra Hope
Cover Artists: John Romita, Jr., Sandra Hope
Here’s the official synopsis for issue #1:
“CODE OF HONOR” part one! She’s one of the DC Universe’s deadliest assassins…and you’ve never heard of her. Super-strong, highly trained, armed with devastating and stealthy meta-human abilities, the Silencer is virtually invincible. Or at least she was. After decades as Leviathan’s chief assassin, Honor Guest put in her time and managed to get out with her skin intact. Now she lives a normal life with a normal family in a normal house on a normal street. But the past has come back to haunt her in the form of her old employer and a deadly new mission…and Talia Al Ghul won’t take no for an answer. ”
The Silencer #1 is due to hit stores on Wednesday, January 31.
Are you as excited as we are for the latest addition to the DC Universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Images: DC Comics
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New OH MY DISNEY Collection Remixes Classic Disney Style with Sass
For fans who live and breath Disney, the love goes beyond a few visits to the theme parks, it becomes a way of life. Be it Disneybounding or cosplay, Disney tends to find its way into your outfits—and even your mindset—with Disney quotes powering your spirit all day long. Now Disney store has teamed up with Oh My Disney to combine all those daily Disney dreams into a lifestyle collection inspired by what fans love. Oh My Disney is the digital destination for a daily dose of Disney, remixing classic Disney stories in a voice that Gen Z and Millennial fans can identify with. This exclusive collection features Disney quotes and phrases on everything from clothing to stationery.
A tongue-in-cheek take on Sleeping Beauty is featured on a travel tumbler that you can fill with all the coffee in kingdom. Who can’t relate to Aurora? She wants just five more minutes of beauty rest. For villain fans, the line of Evil Queen attire and desk accessories features the phrase “Mondays are evil,” a truth that even the Magic Mirror can’t deny.
Merida, Cinderella, The Lion King, and more are all highlighted with their signature attitude and expressions on tees and jackets, and accessories. Enameled pins and embellished pencils make it easy for more demure fans to subtly show off their fandom.
Check out some of our favorites from the Oh My Disney collection in the gallery below and see the whole collection on shopdisney.com and in brick and mortar Disney stores.
Which Disney phrase speaks to you? Share it in the comments and tag @nerdist and @justjenn on Twitter!
Images: Disney store
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This Homemade LEGO Millennium Falcon Is the Stuff of Legend
It’s 2018, and we are lucky enough that we don’t have to wait an entire year to get some Star Wars movie love, as Solo: A Star Wars Story opens on May 25. Mike Marrocco of Bethesda, Maryland has professed his love of the scoundrel by building a LEGO Millennium Falcon completely from scratch.
This creation is based on the 2007 Ultimate Collectors Series LEGO Millennium Falcon. Yes, we know there is a new version with even more pieces, but it’s pretty hard to look at the work put into this and not be awestruck. Marrocco built this back in 2015, but it went viral recently, which works out well because the hype for Solo is right around the corner.
In an interview with io9, Marrocco stated how he found the parts list online, and went to Bricklink and bought the necessary pieces in the brightest colors he could find and afford. He then used the set’s official instructions to complete it. It still cost around $500.
The only drawback he had was that some parts were specifically made for the 2007 edition of the Falcon, so they are missing from the final product. Looking at how amazing it turned out, we can give him a pass on it. LEGO, at its core, is about imagination and ingenuity. Marrocco is the epitome of that.
So what do you think? Did Mike put his time and effort towards a worthy cause? What iconic vehicles would you like to try building from scratch? Let me know on Twitter @donnielederer or sound off in the comments below.
Featured Image: Mike Marrocco
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World’s Smallest Fidget Spinner Is Just a Little Fun
Admit it: at some point in your life, you’ve quoted Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm in order to proclaim that just because science could do something, it doesn’t mean that science should. And when it comes to atomic bombs, reanimated dinosaurs, or whatever a Geostorm is, that’s a decent, fair-minded sentiment.
Sometimes, however, science does something that appears on the surface not to be something anyone should do…but it’s cool. Was there a need for a fidget spinner tinier than your fingernail, besides breaking a world record that never existed before? Bear with us (that’s a pun; you’ll see).
Via Geyser of Awesome and Geekologie, the product of eight people working together over two months is a 0.2 inch fidget spinner. Amazingly, it actually works with a human finger still, although it appears to help if you have a bit of a fingernail.
So what’s the point? Well, it helps parent company MinebeaMitsumi justify yet another product they already make: the world’s smallest ball bearing, at 1.499 millimeters. It’s not just the size that is justified, though, but also, as Yoda might say, the notion that “judge me by my size, do you?” is outmoded thinking. It’s not just about small, but about having “the smallest, the longest rotation and the smoothest,” per project leader Shigeru None.
We have to wonder if the joy and bragging rights of such a tiny spinner cancels out the anxiety a user may feel that they’ve lost it, only to see it hiding behind a nearby speck of dust three hours later. But what do you think? Let us know in comments below.
Image: Guinness World Records
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Grandma Gamer’s Homemade ZELDA Map Pwns Your Strategy Guide
Grandmothers throughout the ages have had a reputation for homemade goodness. Pies, casseroles, hand-knitted sweaters, garden-grown veggies, and…video game maps? Yes. Thanks to a Reddit user who guys by the extremely Reddit-ish username of “Plausible__Bullshit,” we have a look at a map drawn by his gramma, a seriously old-school gamer who played into her late eighties. Now, given the individual’s username, we should probably take any plausible story told by them as potentially suspect, but we can say this: whether the map in question was drawn by an 80-something year-old, or an 18-something year-old, it is an impressive piece of work on graph paper that shows the way through Ganon’s Castle in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The fact that it is all hand-designed and written in block capitals does make it more likely that it’s someone older with ingrained habits rather than a child or teen–contrary to the implication of the original post, strategy guides did exist when Ocarina of Time was released, so this is not a map that someone had to draw, but one they wanted to. And a senior-citizen gamer, trained on first-gen adventure games that were entirely text-based and required you to draw a map if you had any hope of survival, would be more likely to prefer it this way. Old habits are always better, you whippersnappers die hard.
What’s the coolest thing your grandmother ever did? Let us know in comments!
Featured Image: Flickr/Christopher Holden
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How One Library Is Digitizing Their Ancient Occult Collection
Remember that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy’s watcher Giles has Willow spend the whole summer scanning his vast library of ancient occult books into the computer for the Scooby gang? Well, something like that is happening in real life, although it’s doubtful any of these books could help summon a lame demon at your local high school…as far as we know.
We’ve learned via Open Culture that The DaVinci Code author Dan Brown shares Giles’ passion for ancient occult manuscripts. In the summer of 2016, he made a €300,000 donation to Amsterdam’s Ritman Library. That Brown’s quite a fan of these ancient occult texts shouldn’t come as a surprise to most of his fans. He visited the library when he was writing his novels The Lost Symbol and Inferno.
The huge gift along with a donation from Dutch Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds has meant that the Ritman Library can digitize thousands of texts. Quartz Media detailed that Ritman’s collection includes “pre-1900 texts on alchemy, astrology, magic, and theosophy,” including the Corpus Hermeticum (1472), Giordano Bruno’s Spaccio de la bestia trionfante (1584), and the first printed version of the tree of life (1516). So, in short, probably not anything that you have available at your local library or that you can obtain using Amazon Prime.
The plan is for all 3,500 ancient books to come online soon as part of Ritman’s “Hermetically Open” project. Once the digitization process is complete, you’ll be able to read them all yourself–assuming you know the necessary languages, that is. You can subscribe to The Ritman Library’s newsletter to be notified when the texts become available. In the meantime, you can check the above video detailing how these books are being digitized for the modern era.
Are you ready to pore over these ancient writings? Let us know below in the comments.
Images: The Ritman Library
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January 27, 2018
THE LITTLE GAME MASTER Introduces Kids to Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Anytime you can give someone, a child or an adult, the opportunity to stretch their imagination, you should. That’s what Randall Hampton is hoping to do with The Little Game Master. The book was crafted with the purpose of introducing kids to the wonder and fun of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). Hampton’s been playing RPGs for over 20 years, and he thinks it’s important for children to understand the possibilities that RPGs present: they can create their own adventures and figure out how to solve problems while having fun. Those aspects of RPGs are highlighted in The Little Game Master.
Hampton, a father of three, just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book, which he calls “Dr. Seuss meets Dungeons & Dragons.” The story follows five bored friends who end up being drawn into the world of RPGs. They soon discover how to start an adventure and how to shape their journey by making decisions about how to be heroic. The illustrations are colorful and inviting, and while it’s definitely geared towards kids, I’d wager adults would enjoy the book, too.
If you’d like to support The Little Game Master, you can pledge your cash at Kickstarter and get rewards from digital wallpapers, to a copy of the book, to custom illustrations of you as a character from the book. Estimated delivery for everything is June of this year, so you won’t have to wait too long to start teaching the next generation about RPGs.
Have you introduced a kid in your life to tabletop RPGs? How did you go about it? Share your experience in the comments.
Images: Randall Hampton/The Little Game Master
Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. Follow her on Twitter and keep up with her Disney food adventures on Instagram.
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