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Evil Morty Sings in RICK AND MORTY Auto-Tuned Remix

The latest episode of Rick and Morty, “The Ricklantis Mixup,” turned out to be “Tales From the Citadel,” as the Rick and Morty of dimension C-137 took most of the week off while fans were treated to a look at the infinite Rick and Mortys living at the Citadel of Ricks. It’s a hard life, especially for the Mortys. By the end of the episode, one Morty rose to power as the new President of the Citadel, and he happens to be one of the most dangerous villains in the series. That’s right, Evil Morty is back, and he’s singing in the new auto-tuned remix from Chetreo.

Evil Morty hadn’t been seen on the series since his Keyser Soze moment at the end of the ninth episode in season one. He was the secret villain of that story, and he pulled off an impressive coup in this episode by successfully portraying himself as a champion for all of the Ricks and Mortys who were left behind on the Citadel and forced to become second-class citizens.

“Outnumbered” is sampled from Evil Morty’s rousing speech and his monologue at the end of the episode. It’s a cheerfully disturbing glimpse at the boy who may be the big bad of Rick and Morty‘s third season.

What did you think about the latest Rick and Morty remix? Head over to Mortytown and share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Images: Adult Swim

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STAR WARS EPISODE IX Gets Later Release Date

The date a movie is released, for your big tentpole franchises, is almost more important than if that movie is any good. For the past two Christmases, Lucasfilm and Disney have cemented the holiday season as a time for Star Wars, with Rogue One making over $1 billion on its December 2016 release, and–oh yeah–over $2 billion for The Force Awakens the year before. And try as they might to shift to May releases, it seems like December is when we’ll visit a galaxy far, far away, at least in the main saga, with the announcement coming on Tuesday that Episode IX is moving to December 2019.

Star Wars: Episode IX is scheduled for release on December 20, 2019. pic.twitter.com/rDBqmuHX89

— Star Wars (@starwars) September 12, 2017

It’s not the world’s biggest surprise, to be honest; the success of the first two Star Wars movies at Christmas-time has been proof enough of viability outside the crucial (and lengthy) Summer Movie Season. And following last week’s news of Colin Trevorrow stepping down as director and Tuesday’s announcement that J.J. Abrams will be stepping in, with a brand new writer, basically scripting from the ground up, an extra seven months will be necessary.

The Last Jedi is set for release this December, and it will likely clean up, with closest competition for the month being the new Jumanji movie and Pitch Perfect 3. As of this writing, only the shifted-directors Han Solo movie is actually getting the May release it initially had, still scheduled to hit cinemas in May 2018. That means there’ll be about 19 months between Star Wars movies unless Lucasfilm shimmies in another one in the interim.

What do you think about another December Star Wars release? Let us know in the comments below!

Image: Lucasfilm

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

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Apple Reveals the iPhone X, Their Most Ambitious Phone Yet

We thought the big news from Apple‘s event was going to be the upcoming iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, and while those were unveiled today, the leading story is the iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone Ten”), which marks the tenth anniversary of the first iPhone and is the most technologically adventurous and impressive mobile device the company has ever created.

All those rumors about a $1,000 iPhone were true: It will cost you $999 for the iPhone X model with 64GB of storage or $1,149 for the 256GB version. That said, there’s plenty about this phone to get excited over, or at least curious about, depending on your perspective. This is the first iPhone without a home button, the functionality of which has been replaced by swiping up from the bottom of the screen (as The Verge notes).

That means that the Touch ID fingerprint sensor is gone, but Apple is moving away from that anyway with its new Face ID, which uses a scan of your face to unlock the phone. Apple says the new technology is a lot more secure than Touch ID, but they also had a hard time getting it to even work during the presentation. Actually, they didn’t get it to work, which you can see in the above video.

The water-resistant iPhone X also has dual 12-megapixel rear cameras, a 5.8 inch edge-to-edge screen with 458ppi pixel density (compared to 401ppi in the iPhone 7 Plus) and a resolution of 2436 x 1125 pixels. Its body has glass on the front and back and stainless steel on the side. That glass back, by the way, allows for wireless charging via what Apple calls the AirPower charging pad, which will be available later this year.

As for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the changes are more subtle. Aside from the glass backs, new processors, and better cameras, these models are less game-changers and more incremental updates. That said, the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X all have some pretty impressive augmented reality features capable of overlaying high quality graphics on top of whatever your camera can see. The iPhone 8 starts at $699, and the 8 Plus at $799.

Apple shows off a game developed with AR Kit at the #AppleEvent.

Follow our liveblog: https://t.co/vpJm79i84W pic.twitter.com/GhzvQ6h3vq

— WIRED (@WIRED) September 12, 2017

The other significant pieces of news were the new Apple Watch and Apple TV. The third-generation Apple Watch has LTE connectivity, meaning it can work as a standalone cellular device without the need to pair it with a phone. That version costs $399, and it’ll cost $329 for a model without LTE.

Apple Watch Series 3 will have cellular. Same phone # as your iPhone. Can stream music directly to it. pic.twitter.com/UcYdXIudrU

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) September 12, 2017

The fourth-generation Apple TV will be the first model to support 4K video, and it starts at $179, while a non-4K model sells for $149.

Apple TV 4K starts at $179, less than I expected. pic.twitter.com/cHSPKPYOi9

— Michael Kukielka (@DetroitBORG) September 12, 2017

The latter two devices, the iPhone 8, and the iPhone 8 Plus ship on September 22, while the iPhone X ships on November 3, with pre-orders opening on October 27. That’s everything, so take a minute to breathe it all in, and head to the comments to let us know what model iPhone you want the most.

Images: Apple

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Breaking Down the Good, Bad, and Scary from IT

You loved IT, you really, really loved IT. But after a record-setting opening weekend, was IT really that good? We answered THAT…err, that…on today’s Nerdist News Talks Back, along with what to make of The Last Jedi‘s Rian Johnson‘s latest comments about directing Episode IX, and Nintendo’s SNES Classic update.

Today’s Loser Club of Nerdist editor-in-chief Rachel Heine, Mothership producer Derek Johnson, Bizarre States‘ Andrew Bowser, and producer Jason Nguyen joined host Jessica Chobot to debate whether IT was as good as its monster ticket sales suggest. The group was split, and they had lots of hot clown takes, including whether or not it should be considered a horror movie (uh, yes), and how good the kid actors were.

(SPOILERS!)

Of course, the galaxy far, far away is still dealing with the “departure” of Colin Trevorrow from Episode IX, which reportedly were for reasons that had nothing to do with his flop The Book of Henry (but which sound much uglier). But The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson threw cold blue milk on rumors he’ll be tapped to lead the next film too. But should we put much–if any-stock in what he said? And does the reported appearance of Joseph Gordon Levitt in Episode IX, who Johnson has worked with before, mean he is already the person for the job?

Finally, Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Aime has warned consumers not to pay more than 80 dollars for the SNES Classic on sites like eBay, because a ramped up production schedule means there will be plenty available at retail stores. Is thissa good news for us-uh Mario-lovers, or should we all be a little weary after the nightmare that was the initial pre-ordering disaster?

We want you to tell us what you think of today’s topics in the comments below, but even better would be if you got in on the conversation with us live, every weekday, when Nerdist News Talks Back airs at 1:00p.m. PST on our YouTube and Alpha channels.

We promise you’ll love IT…err, we mean it.

Want to float down to more on IT!

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Images: New Line, Lucasfilm

SUBURBICON Proves George Clooney is Not the Coen Brothers (TIFF Review)

George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, Suburbicon, is a politically-charged thriller that juxtaposes two stories happening in the same fictional, Pleasantville-esque town. In one, the first black family to move into the neighborhood is shunned, abused, and terrorized by the ostensibly liberal community. It starts with whispers and stares and ends with broken windows and arson. In another, a cute, innocent white kid whose mother was recently killed by burglars begins to suspect that his father was somehow complicit in the crime.

So what exactly do these two seemingly unrelated storylines have to do with each other?

No, really, I’m asking.

Intellectually, you may get what Clooney (and the script by Joel and Ethan Coen, with revisions by Clooney and Grant Heslov) is going for: the townsfolk are focused on the wrong house, blinded by their prejudices, and missing the real evil that is hiding among them. But in every other way — dramatically, narratively, and visually — there is nothing to connect them. There are some fun moments in the film’s back half, but Suburbicon is only the latest in an increasingly long list of flops that demonstrate that the unflappable movie star is better suited in front of the camera.

The film picks up steam as it goes, but it also shows how much harder it is to set up character and plot than to knock down the pins. The scene in which Clooney pal Matt Damon is introduced as Gardner Lodge, the husband-turned-murder-suspect is among the most crucial — and poorly-directed — in the film. Gardner rouses his son Nicky (Noah Jupe) out of bed in the middle of the night and brings him to the kitchen table, where his wife (Julianne Moore) and her twin sister (also Moore) are being tied up by a pair of goons (Glenn Fleshler and Michael D. Cohen). The criminals incapacitate each family member with an ether-soaked rag, but they purposely give a bit extra to the mother, and she dies.

What’s difficult about this scene, quite simply, is that we have no idea what’s going on. Gardner seems relatively calm about the entire incident, which makes sense in retrospect, but at the time is plain confusing. A great director can keep the audience in the dark about a scene even while it is happening, but they have to convince us first that they are worthy of their trust. There is no simple way to do this; rather, you can just feel when you’re in good hands. That’s not the feeling you get with Clooney at the helm, and when he tries to sell us on a mystery, we end up baffled and irritated.

The script, an early junior varsity effort from the Coens (they reportedly wrote it just after 1984’s Blood Simple), does not do him any favors, functioning more as a genre exercise than the richly-textured work for which the Coens are known. Nicky suspects his father as the murder conspirator after he fails to identity the actual killers during a police line-up, but the boy has little to do after that but watch as the plot unravels. He is a hero without agency, just as Gardner is, we think, a villain without characterization. Damon has occasionally been called on to give a bland performance (in the recent, superior Downsizing, he’s the stable center in a bizarre, twisty plot), but here he is a spring that never bothered to coil.

Only one actor truly emerges from this mess unscathed. Halfway through, just when you may be thinking about walking out, Oscar Isaac shows up as an insurance agent with a nose for nonsense. As he interrogates the remaining twin sister, plying her with greasy charm and running logic traps to tease out the truth, Suburbicon comes fully alive. But just as quickly as he arrived, Isaac departs the film, leaving a gaping hole in his wake. I guess the secret to making the most out of Suburbicon is to only stay for a few minutes.

Rating: 2 Disappointingly Bland Burritos out of 5.

Images: Paramount Pictures

Artist is Turning Your Photos Into Incredible Custom Pixar-like Portraits

There’s much to love about everything Disney/Pixar creates for the big screen, and their now iconic character designs probably have a lot to do with that. While animation technology continues to advance — engrossing environments, millions of simulated hairs, the yellowness of minions — the facial proportions and features of their characters remain more or less constant and are immediately recognizable.

One artist has recently been capitalizing on the iconic look by creating these custom Pixar–ish portraits. You can see why he’s gone viral:

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Feb 5, 2017 at 7:19am PST

These CGI’d glamour shots by artist Lance Phan and we honestly can’t get enough of then. Each portrait makes us think we’ve somehow missed out on some new Pixar film or animated short.

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Jun 18, 2017 at 5:47am PDT

Now, we’re not saying each creation’s inspiration (shown in thumbnail on most of Phan’s posts) aren’t already great photos. However, once they’re Pixar-ified they take on a whole new life. Really. One of the reasons we become so enamored with so many Disney cartoons is straight-up science. Larger eyes and foreheads coupled with smaller noses and chins give the appearance of baby-like features. We’re biologically predisposed to take care of baby-like things, if for nothing other than the survival of human genes. Also, we want to squish them faces.

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Apr 2, 2017 at 10:45am PDT

If you’re as obsessed with these images as we are, Phan does do commissions for $225 each. Unfortunately, his site says he’s fully booked at the time of writing. Keep an eye on Lancephan.com should you need that perfect gift for that Pixar fan in your life or….say… as a random example, the writer of this article who would totally be your best friend forever if you commissioned a picture of him and his nephew because they bond over Pixar films. [Editor’s note: Blake, stop asking readers to buy you things.]

Take a look at some more of Phan’s Pixar-like images below and let us know your favorite in the comments!

 

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Feb 14, 2017 at 5:10am PST

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Dec 9, 2016 at 7:50am PST

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on Oct 6, 2016 at 8:35am PDT

A post shared by Lance Phan (@lance_phan) on May 20, 2017 at 7:29am PDT

Featured Image: Pixar

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RICK AND MORTY’s Claymation Adventures are Non-Canonical Movie Parody Fun

It feels fair to say that no other network puts more effort into its promotional videos than Adult Swim. The channel’s “bumps,” as they’re known, are sometimes just clever, quippy text slideshows that are good for a quick laugh, but on plenty of other occasions, they go all out.

For example, their recent series of bumps, Rick and Morty: The Non-Canonical Adventures, is a slew of claymation shorts that parody popular sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies from the history of film. They’re pretty darn good, and now Lee Hardcastle, the claymation animator who created them, has compiled all of the episodes and shared them as a singular four-minute video, which he dubbed “Rick and Morty go to the movies.”

The shorts were created with cooperation from Adult Swim and Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, so they have a level of polish that makes each episode an authentic-feeling 15-seconds. They also picked a good bunch of films to pay homage to as well, a list of classic movies that to some degree fit into the Rick and Morty universe. In the order of the video, they are:

The Thing

2001: A Space Odyssey

Aliens

Blade Runner

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

A Clockwork Orange

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Ex Machina

Ghostbusters

Gremlins

Halloween

Poltergeist

Re-Animator

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

The Fly

The Matrix

Which of the non-canonical adventures is your favorite? If there were to be more, what other movies would you like to see parodied? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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Images: Cartoon Network/Adult Swim

6 Easter Eggs You May Have Missed in IT

After last weekend, there’s a new King at the box office! The cinematic remake of Stephen King‘s It trounced all box office projections on its way towards a record-breaking opening…and it’s not done yet. Thirty plus years after his debut, Pennywise the Clown is an icon again. And before you go back to It for a second dose of terror, today’s Nerdist News is peeling back the curtain on the six Easter eggs you may have missed in It.

There are some spoilers ahead for It, but if you haven’t seen the movie yet, then you’ll know what to look for onscreen.

Join host and the only woman to look into the deadlights without going mad, Jessica Chobot, as she breaks down some surprising details. For example, those turtles you kept seeing in the film were not a coincidence. Those turtles are actually a visual reference to Maturin, a guardian of the beams that holds up The Dark Tower. Sure, he’s a turtle. What about it? Maturin had a key role in the story.

Pennywise also gave us a glimpse of his deadlights without really explaining what they are. Fortunately, the box office performance of It means it’s likely both Pennywise and Maturin will have an opportunity to expand on their otherworldly ties. Before we get too far into the future, let’s discuss how the movie looked back. One of the biggest shocks for us was the callback to Tim Curry‘s incarnation of It from the 1990 TV miniseries.

Some of the references were more subtle, like Eddie’s evil car t-shirt, which seemed to be a direct reference to Christine. The last two references to the novel may show up in the sequel that takes place in the present day. First is the statue of Paul Bunyan, which appeared in the movie and later became one of It’s forms in the book. Similarly, the “I Heart Derry” balloon doesn’t mean much now, but a murder at that event 27 years in the future will bring the grown-up Losers’ Club back to town for a rematch with Pennywise. 

Which Easter egg was your favorite in this film? Scare up some thoughts in the comment section.

Images: Warner Bros.

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DOWNSIZING is a Crazy Sci-Fi Fable for Our Time (TIFF Review)

There is a moment in a certain type of great film when you realize you have no idea what is going to happen next, and you cannot wait to find out. Most films written by Charlie Kaufman have a moment like this. So does Downsizing, the wise and wondrous new film from director Alexander Payne, a somewhat unlikely suspect for such unpredictability. His movies (Election, Nebraska) do often have surprising flights of creative fancy in their third act (think the wallet-stealing sequence in Sideways), but none is as persistently inventive and creatively liberated as Downsizing, which starts out as sci-fi comedy, ends as a heartwarming social fable, and squarely hits a handful of different genres in between.

Downsizing is set in a near-future in which miniaturization technology has become cost-effective and popular. There are myriad reasons to “get small,” we are told. Some people are doing it to improve their lives, others see it as a way to help the environment by reducing their carbon footprint, and some people are just trying to save money. It’s the latter reason that inspires Paul (Matt Damon, effective here in “everyman” mode) and Audrey Safranek (Kristen Wiig) to give up their small life in Omaha for an even tinier one. The painfully average couple are an embodiment of the shrinking middle class. Paul wanted to be a doctor, but he quit medical school when his mother fell ill. Now, he’s an occupational therapist at Omaha Steaks, where he earns a meager income, and he and his wife live in the modest home he grew up in.

Their money will go farther in Leisure Land, one of many “micro-communities” popping up all over the world. In fact, their modest $150,000 in assets will make them multi-millionaires, and the loneliness of life without their old friends and family seems like a small price to pay for living in a utopia. After a quick tour, Paul and Audrey decide to take the tiny plunge before they can talk themselves out of it.

From this set-up, there is a clear and obvious path forward – their perfect life turns dystopian, and Leisure Land reveals a dark underbelly – but Payne and his co-writer refuse the easy way out. It’s almost as if it never occurred to them. Downsizing is a film of many surprises, from celebrity cameos and abrupt departures for seemingly important characters to the probing, philosophical soul that informs each of the film’s radical plot developments  True, the film’s heroes find their new life to be not all that was promised, but where it goes from there will surprise even the most accomplished twist-guesser.

The film’s stream-of-consciousness plotting would be bad medicine if Downsizing weren’t also hilariously funny. There are plenty of sight gags, involving large (that is, normal-sized) items that have made their way into Paul and Audrey’s miniature world, including enormous flowers, giant jewelry, and a pack of Saltines that could feed a family for a week. Payne also packs his film full of extraordinarily funny people, from Christoph Waltz and Udo Kier as Eurotrash neighbors to Hong Chau, a former Vietnamese freedom fighter who, in one gut-busting scene, enumerates the eight different ways Americans have sex. If there is any justice, the phrase “love f**k” will enter our lexicon.

So if you want to simply laugh at Downsizing, you can. In fact, the film changes lanes so many times that just sitting back and enjoying the wild ride is a perfectly reasonable strategy. Eventually, however, it will ask more of you. The through line that runs beneath the gags and wild plot is a soul-searching character hyper-attuned to our apocalyptic times. The miniaturization process is originally discovered in the search for a solution to the world’s unsustainable population growth, and Downsizing follows this idea down its natural path, shifting into a journey of exploration of how best to live in an age when of human self-destruction and spiritual indifference. There are echoes of I Heart Huckabees and the recent Beatriz at Dinner in its ethical questions and earnest probings. At its simplest, Downsizing is simply an exploration of what it means to be good in trying times, a worthy endeavor even if the final product is not your tiny cup of tea.

Rating:

4 Sustainably-Sourced Burritos out of 5

 

 

 

Image: Paramount Pictures

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Conan O’Brien Listens to Producer Talk STAR WARS for 7 Minutes

Not every moment filmed for a late night comedy series is guaranteed to make it into the show. Luckily, the internet is the perfect home for those moments. Conan O’Brien shared an extended dialogue he had with his long-time Conan associate producer, Jordan Schlansky. According to O’Brien, he ordered Schlansky to dress as Spock and congratulate Star Trek fans on the anniversary of the franchise. As part of the joke, Schlansky went on a long spiel about why Star Wars was superior to Star Trek. However, O’Brien didn’t realize that he was supposed to stop Schlansky, which meant that Schlansky had to keep going for as long as he could.

Schlansky had a lot to say about Star Wars–seven minutes worth of improvising, in fact. In the early part of the video, Schlansky argues Star Wars‘ connections to mythological storytelling and universal themes make it easier to connect to than Star Trek. O’Brien almost looked like he was about to fall asleep as Schlansky shifted gears to talk about the music of Star Wars, which he described as “grounded in 19th century romantic music.”

From there, Schlansky transitioned to a talk about broader issues of art, painting, and photographs before bringing it back to Star Wars by comparing the film to Rocky. When Schlansky finally finished, O’Brien jokingly fired him before telling him that it was “an incredible performance.”

What did you think about Jordan Schlansky’s “Masterpiece”? Share your comments below. They don’t have to be seven minutes long.

Images: TBS

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