Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2101

This Paper Blade is Powerful Enough to (Almost) Cut Through a Phone

If you get just about anything moving quickly enough, it has the potential to cause some damage. Case in point: Paper. I can imagine few worse pains in life than getting a papercut between my fingers. The guys from the Mr. Hacker channel on YouTube decided to see how destructive paper can really be as a cutting implement, and the results are more powerful than you’d probably think.

The circular blade is made pretty simply; As they explained in a previous video, it’s just a few pieces of paper held together by a common glue stuck and cut to size. From there, it’s fitted onto a power saw, and it turns out that it can cause some real damage. It seems to have no problem cutting through raw meat, ice, a coconut, and other things that would surprise you. The real question is how well the paper blade holds up to the ultimate measure of durability: The Nokia 3310 cell phone, commonly regarded as one of the most indestructible objects even made by man.

It turns out that while the blade doesn’t seem able to make a clean cut through the entirety of the phone, it’s still perfectly capable of dismantling the thing down to its core components. This should be seen as a demonstration of the toughness of both the phone and the blade, though. Let’s remember that this blade is just a few pieces of printer paper glued together, but even though it has surprising cutting power, the 3310 is just too tough to handle.

What other objects would you like to see this paper blade take a crack at cutting? Head down to the comments and share your thoughts!

Featured Image: Mr. Hacker/YouTube

Bill Murray is Working on a Classical Music Tour

We know you’ve heard it a thousand thousand times right now, but at this point, there’s pretty much nothing Bill Murray could do that would surprise us and that we wouldn’t be endlessly entertained by. He’ll pop up at a random bar in New York one day and sing “The Star Spangled Banner” at a Chicago Cubs game the next. It turns out that now, in a move that is both unexpected and totally not, Murray is working on New Worlds, a program of classical music that he plans to take on the road (via Vulture).

The New York Times reports that Murray is currently in a Manhattan studio working on the program, which pairs chamber music led by the cellist Jan Vogler, who has played with New York Philharmonic, with songs and literary readings by Murray. The program supposedly includes Murray singing songs from West Side Story, and reading the works of Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

If this sounds up your alley (and it’s Bill Murray so of course it does), the show will premiere at Festival Napa Valley in California in July before being taken around North America. The aforementioned rehearsals have also been recording sessions, since a recording of the show will also be released in August.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of Murray’s musical endeavors in recent days, since he also just appeared in a Paul Shaffer song. If New Worlds has a performance in your area, you’ll be there right? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Featured image: Netflix

X-FILES Returning for Another 10 Episode Event Season

After the cliffhanger ending of the last season, it should come as little surprise that Fox has ordered a new “event series” season of The X-Files for the 2017-2018 season, probably airing in the first half of 2018. According to Deadline, Fox made it official that a new 10-episode run of the show — technically season 11 — featuring original stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, is set to start production this summer. Series creator Chris Carter is also expected to return. The previous return season consisted of only six episodes, and was a pretty big ratings success for the network.

In a statement, Fox Broadcasting Company president David Madden said “Iconic characters, rich storytelling, bold creators – these are the hallmarks of great TV shows. And they are some of the reasons why The X-Files has had such a profound impact on millions of fans worldwide. Chris’ creativity, along with the brilliant work of David and Gillian, continue to propel this pop culture phenomenon, and we can’t wait to see what fresh mysteries Mulder and Scully uncover in this next chapter of The X-Files.” The network released new teaser art for the upcoming season, which you can see down below.

The previous six episode run of The X-Files was met with something of a mixed response from the fans. Coming back to television after fourteen years, expectations were high for the big return of Mulder and Scully, especially after so many fans felt let down by the second big screen X-Files outing from 2008. Also, season 10 featured quite a significant retcon to the overall mythology of the series in the six part event series that didn’t sit well with a lot of the fanbase.

Having said that, a couple of the stand alone “monster of the week” episodes were actually pretty great, and showed that under the right circumstances, the cast and crew of the series still could produce great television. The last episode of the season 10 definitely suggested more was on the way, and hopefully Chris Carter and company can course correct with more episodes to play with this season.

Are you excited about another return for the series after the last outing? Or would you rather they have left it alone once and for all? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Fox

Bill Nye Clears Up Scientific Misconceptions By Answering Twitter Questions

There’s no reason for science not to be interesting. It tells us about how the world we live in works, but if there’s one main reason why people don’t “get” science, maybe it’s because they don’t understand it. There are a lot of basic answers that people don’t have and a bevy of misconceptions that could use some explanation, so leave it to Bill Nye—scientist of the people—to clear things up. That’s what he did in a recent video for WIRED, in which he sat down and fielded eight minutes worth of questions from Twitter users wanting to pump some science into their brains.

In the video, he offers his views on some important but relatively simply topics. For example, he says the reason some people deny global warming could be cognitive dissonance, which happens when people reject new information because it challenges and conflicts with long-held beliefs. He also tackles the myth that humans evolved from monkeys by explaining that while that’s not entirely true, both us and monkeys do share a common ancestor but branched off from it differently over the years.

A lot of the information in this video is stuff you astute readers might already be aware of, but regardless, it’s a fun refresher course on some of the basic mechanisms that govern how our planet operates. It’s also a good piece of promotion for Bill Nye Saves The World, his new Netflix series that premieres tomorrow.

What science questions do you have that weren’t answered in this clip? Let us know on Twitter!

Featured image: WIRED/YouTube

James Gunn Teases Adam Warlock’s Future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

After the reveal of Thanos at the end of The Avengers, Marvel fans have anticipated Adam Warlock‘s arrival in the MCU. And while many expected Warlock to make his debut in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has revealed that Warlock almost had a role in the new sequel, and he will have a major part to play in the future.

Via Slashfilm, Gunn told reporters that he originally wanted to introduce Warlock in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but he ultimately decided to remove him from the story. “I love Adam Warlock,” said Gunn. “He’s one of my favorite characters. In all truth, I wrote an early treatment where I had Adam Warlock as a part…this is your big scoop, because I don’t think I’ve told anybody this… It was Adam Warlock. He was a big part of the screenplay and I realized it was one character too many. And I adored the character. I adored what we had done with him. I think we did something really creative and unique with Adam Warlock. But it was one character too many and I didn’t want to lose Mantis and Mantis was more organically part of the movie anyway. So I decided to save him for later.”

Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige went on to clarify that Warlock will not be appearing in Avengers: Infinity War, “but he will be a part of the future Marvel cosmic universe and a pretty important part of that.”

Given Warlock’s importance to the Infinity Guantlet storyline and his role as Thanos’ primary foil, it is very surprising that he’ll be be left out of the Infinity War movie. Slashfilm noted that neither Gunn nor Feige said outright that Warlock would appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it seems to be his most likely destination. Earlier this week, Gunn announced that he will return to write and direct the third Guardians of the Galaxy film, so we’d be shocked if Warlock didn’t make his debut in that movie. Warlock does have a history as a member of the Guardians in the Marvel Universe, and his alter ego, the Magus, has also been one of the team’s primary foes.

Adam Warlock was created in the ’60s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during their epic Fantastic Four run, but he was fleshed out and further developed by Roy Thomas and Jim Starlin. During Starlin’s original Warlock storyline, he laid the foundation for Warlock’s emergence as one of Marvel’s most prominent cosmic heroes. Within the Marvel Universe, Warlock was artificially created to be the perfect human being. After rebelling against his creators, Warlock traveled the cosmos and encountered Gamora, Pip the Troll, and Thanos himself while opposing the malevolent Universal Church of Truth.

Warlock died at the end of Starlin’s first Thanos storyline, but both characters were revived by Starlin himself in the run up to the Infinity Guantlet crossover event. Since then, both Thanos and Warlock have continued to be major players in the Marvel Universe.

Are you excited to hear that Adam Warlock is coming to the MCU? Who would you cast as Warlock? Share your picks in the comment section below!

Images: Marvel

Could This Be DOCTOR WHO’s Next Doctor?

Peter Capaldi may be out, but the Doctor is always in! This past weekend, we witnessed the first stop in the farewell voyage of Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. And that means it’s almost time for a new Doctor to take over the TARDIS. While previous Doctor Who rumors have indicated that BBC was eager to get back to the dynamic of a young male Doctor and a female companion, we’ve heard that there’s a surprising new player in the mix. Today’s Nerdist News is all about everyone’s favorite Time Lord and his potential transformation into a Time Lady!

Join host, and former President of Gallifrey, Jessica Chobot, as she shares the latest word on who the new Doctor may be. A source is fairly firm that actress Michaela Coel will be the Thirteenth Doctor, though other sources say otherwise, and the BBC themselves have said officially that no casting for Series 11 has taken place. If that’s true, however, then Coel would not only be the first female Doctor, she would be the first black Doctor as well. Coel has recently had a breakout role as the star, writer, and producer of the British TV series, Chewing Gum; which you can now catch on Netflix.

Is Coel’s potential turn as the Doctor outside of the realm of possibility? Not at all! The last few seasons of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who run have firmly established that Time Lords and Time Ladies can swap genders and races. Back in the sixth season, we witnessed a Melody Pond’s “Mels” incarnation transform into River Song, and just last season we saw a Time Lord general go from a white male to a black female. Of course, there’s also the Master, who became Missy. Considering that John Simm is coming back as the Master later this season, we may actually witness that regeneration this time.

Like any major change to the franchise, this is bound to run into some resistance. There’s already a report in The Sun that someone at the BBC told a supposedly enraged father that the new Doctor would not be a woman. We’re not sure that we believe that story, and as for the father who said that the Doctor switching genders would “confuse” his kids, we’re thinking he’s the one that’s confused.

What do you think about Coel’s potential role as the next Doctor? Regenerate and let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Gorillaz Gave Their First Ever Live Interview and It is Hilarious

For most bands promoting an album, a big part of that cycle is going to various media outlets and giving interviews, answering questions about the new record, the upcoming work’s place in the band’s catalog, what it was like making the album, and things like that. Gorillaz have a new album, Humanz, on the way, but since they’re, well, cartoons and not real people, it’s hard for them to do things like that that come so easy for us fleshy folks. Leave it to them to find a way though, since they did in fact give their first ever live interview yesterday (via Pitchfork).

For a half hour, a three-dimensional 2D and Murdoc sat on the couch opposite interviewer Mistajam and answered questions, which was as entertaining as it was seemingly impossible. If we had to guess, we’d say the technology is similar to what was used when Homer answered viewer questions on that live episode of The Simpsons last year.

Novelty aside, the answers 2D and Murdoc provided were illuminating and totally in character. When asked if the band ever expected to be where they are today, Murdoc responded, “It’s been an incredible journey. These people have been in my… well, in my wake for so many years, I seem to have them as permanent companions in producing such beautiful music.” Then 2D chimed in, “Yeah, we didn’t really have a choice at first. I mean, I was kidnapped by Murdoc.”

If anything, this super fun interview shows that the Gorillaz TV show that’s currently being worked on could be a real hoot. Are you convinced? Give us a shout on Twitter and let us know what you think!

Featured image: Telekom Electronic Beats/YouTube

Puck Soup #47: Amanda Stein

Greg and Dave welcome Amanda Stein, Montreal Canadiens reporter and radio host, for a wide-ranging talk about the Habs’ language challenges, P.K. Subban controversies, USA vs. Canada, her career path, Dave’s lack of love for ‘Parks and Rec’ and Amanda’s lifelong fear of mascots. Plus, the media protects its own on Calgary Flames controversy; the Stanley Cup Playoffs; the ‘Dart Guy’ for other NHL teams; Jack Eichel might get Bylsma fired; sex disrupts a tennis match, and what sporting events are best for sex; Dave didn’t totally hate SUICIDE SQUAD; and listener mail on everything from steak dinners to rom-coms.

Follow @wyshynski, @davelozo and @PuckSoupPodcast on Twitter!

FARGO’s Fairy Tale Like Premiere Asks “What is the Truth?”

This article contains spoilers for the premiere of Fargo ‘s third season on FX, so if ya don’t wanna hear any of ’em before seeing the episode, best you watch it first before reading. Okay then?

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“What is the truth?”

We heard from multiple members of the cast and crew of Fargo how that universal question is a major theme of this third season, and it was on full display in the opening scene of the premiere, set during an interrogation in East Berlin in 1988. However, it won’t be any answer to that question that proves most meaningful on the fairy tale-like series, it will be the lessons learned about the real, subjective nature of “truth,” and how it drives our outlook on life.

The married man in his 40s that calls himself Jacob Ungerleider is accused of being 20-year-old suspected murdered Yuri Gurka. Jacob lives at Yuri’s listed address, yes, and his wife has the same first name as the victim, but it seems obvious Jacob is not Yuri, and this is a combination of out-of-date paperwork and a lack of common sense.

But the state’s file says one thing is true, so without question or exception, the state takes that to mean what Jacob is saying must be wrong. Out of fear, Jacob won’t openly admit the file is incorrect, but to the cold and calculating officer questioning him that’s as good as an admission. To the officer, two opposing statements can’t coexist, as simple as it seems here. In the final moments, the officer sums up the whole problem, and cuts to the message of this season’s theme.

“What you are giving me is words. This ‘wife’ who is ‘alive,’ a ‘different last name.’ That is called a ‘story.’ And we are not here to tell stories. We are here to tell the truth. Understand?”

What’s scariest isn’t that an innocent man can so easily be railroaded; what’s scariest is that by scene’s end we are no longer sure Jacob is innocent. An composed military man speaking with certainty and a few circumstantial (and likely coincidental) pieces of “evidence” makes Jacob’s innocence seem less certain. Suddenly the truth that seemed so obvious at the onset is nebulous. It’s a terrifying prospect, that reality can so easily be dismissed by a story. The officer attempts to differentiate truth from a story, but what he does is blur them into the same thing. The truth is a story we tell, and the story we tell becomes the truth.

We don’t get a resolution to this interrogation–and might not–but the frailty of an impossible-to-know, absolute truth is on full display later in the episode when Ray and Emmit disagree over who was responsible for the “car/stamp” swap they made years earlier, the one that has caused animosity between them. They each have their own version of the real story, and therefore their own truths, and it shapes their actions going forward.

If Emmit accepted his brother’s version of events he might very well have repaid his brother the money he owed him; if Ray accepted his brother’s version he would never have sent someone to rob him, avoiding the two murders that might possibly ruin his life.

The reality of what happened between them no longer matters, all that matters is what they believe, and what happens as a result of what they think they know. It’s a powerful and painful lesson on life, the kind we’ve come to expect from the show.

Part of what makes Noah Hawley‘s Fargo series so good is that each season has rich and meaningful themes on the nature of life. They operate like dark, modern fairy tales in that way. Which is why it’s no surprise he said this season was inspired by the Russian kid’s story “Peter and the Wolf.” In that tale, the question of who is really the wolf–a.k.a. who is really the dangerous creature–is the heart of the matter, and it’s a matter of perception, just like the truth.

Somewhere the objective facts about Jacob/Yuri exist, just like there is a real version of what happened between Ray and Emmit, but in both cases that no longer matters. They’ve been replaced by stories, stories that determine what we do and what happens to us. And sometimes those “stories lead us to very dark places.

And that is as scary today as it was in East Berlin in 1988.

But what did you think of the opening scene and how it relates to the theme of the season? Tell us the truth in the comments below.

Images: FX

Schlock & Awe: TALES FROM THE HOOD

The anthology horror film dates all the way back to the 1940s, with the British film Dead of Night and since then there’ve been countless dozens of films with multiple shorts focused on the singular theme of scaring the pants off of people. I’ve covered some of these films in this column before (like Tales from the Crypt), and spoke about the anthology format recently with Mick Garris, and the important thing is whether the stories within are engaging and scary. But, none of these films has ever been as socially and politically minded as 1995’s still-relevant Tales from the Hood.

For those of you who remember video stores, Tales from the Hood was a box I’d seen many, many times. It’s hard to forget a grinning skull wearing sunglasses and sporting a gold tooth. That image gave me a very specific idea of what kind of movie this was going to be; more a parody of anthology horror geared toward the African American community. But it’s not at all. Director Rusty Cundieff and producer Darin Scott, who both co-wrote the script, were clearly huge fans and students of horror and anthology horror specifically, but also wanted to throw in satire and issues on top of some gnarly effects and horrific images. And Spike Lee executive produced, so this wasn’t by mistake.

Like all good anthology horrors, this one has a compelling wraparound gimmick: three gang bangers drive to a funeral parlor late one night in order to buy a huge shipment of drugs (or “the shit”) from the proprietor. When they arrive, they find Mr. Simms (Clarence Williams III) who looks and acts, you know, like a creepy evil guy. As he walks the trio (one brave, one scared, one dopey and funny) toward where the drugs are kept, he tells them stories about the various dead people he has in the home. “Unless you’re scared.”

The first story concerns a black rookie cop (Anthony Griffin) whose white partner (Michael Massee) and a couple of other white cops (Wings Hauser, Duane Whitaker) beat a black community leader (Tom Wright) to death for his hardline stance on ending the police precinct’s corruption and drug dealing. Not only do they kill him, they shoot him up with drugs to make him seem like a hypocrite. The partner convinces the rookie to tow the line and protect the fraternity of cops over anything else. He does, but soon quits and becomes a drunk because of guilt. He is visited by visions of the community leader who asks the rookie to bring the other three cops to his grave…and maybe you can guess what’s next…ZOMBIE REVENGE.

The second story finds a teacher (director Cundieff) worrying about a student who constantly comes in with bruises and cuts. The boy says he’s visited by a monster every night and he draws pictures of it (and some bullies) because a girl tells him if he destroys pictures of scary things, they’ll go away. The teacher visits the student’s home and finds the boy’s mom (Paula Jai Parker) is clearly not the perpetrator (but is real flirty with the teacher). However, it’s soon apparent that her boyfriend (David Alan Grier, in a chillingly violent performance) is the actual–very human–monster…and maybe destroying a drawing works better than we thought.

Story three takes place in the South, where a racist former KKK member (Corbin Bernsen) is running for office, is living in a former supposedly accursed plantation house, and has hired a black PR guy to help clean up his image. Naturally, the black and Jewish community are supremely against this man. The home, we’re told, is famous for being where an elderly slave woman made wooden dolls for all of the slaves who died on the plantation…do you think maybe they’d come to life and want to kill the racist white guy?

And the final story sees a gang banger (Lamont Bentley) gunned down in the street after gunning down a rival, only to have the police arrive and save him. He’s sent to prison–because he’s killed a TON of people–but he’s selected for a rehabilitation program by Dr. Cushing (Rosalind Cash) who puts the young thug through sensory overload–mixing violent gangsta rap music with images of gangland violence and photos of lynchings and murders of black men. The idea is to make him see that he’s doing as much damage, killing as many black lives, as the Klan or Neo-Nazis. (Very Clockwork Orange, yes?) He’s then put in a deprivation chamber where he has hallucinations of all the people he’s killed. Surely, if this doesn’t change him, nothing will.

At first blush, it probably feels like these stories are heavy handed in their politics, and they are. But that’s a good thing, and largely refreshing. If horror has a message, it’s usually very subtle, but this movie feels like it’s shoving your face in the message, and the message continues to be relevant. Black people getting murdered by white cops; domestic violence running rampant and often going unreported; young black men murdering each other in the streets; and–help us all–deplorable, unrepentant racists gaining political power. It’s a cautionary tale that seems way too prescient for being 22 years old.

But what makes Tales from the Hood work much better than just a piece of didactic caution is that the filmmakers treat it like a horror movie first and a message movie second. The scary elements in it are truly horrific, and attention is paid to the effects–the puppets and other effects were done by Chiodo Brothers, of Killer Klowns from Outer Space fame–so that everything looks as gruesome and gnarly as possible. Cundieff and Scott also clearly have reverence for horror films past; the zombie community leader is played by Tom Wright, who played the zombie hitchhiker in Creepshow 2 and Rosalind Cash as the homage-named Dr. Cushing is best known for ’70s horror and blaxsploitation flicks like The Omega Man and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde. Hell, Clarence Williams III was Linc Hayes in The Mod Squad.

Tales from the Hood was not particularly well received at the time and my guess is that it hasn’t remained in the public consciousness. Thankfully, Scream Factory’s new Blu-ray offers the best way to watch this movie that’s just as much troublingly real as it is deliciously macabre. It wears its message on its sleeve, but there are far worse things for a horror movie to do, especially if they’re making you jump or cringe in the process.

Images: Focus Features/Scream Factory

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He writes the weekly look at weird or obscure films in Schlock & Awe. Follow him on Twitter!