Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2117

IZOMBIE Season 3 Premiere: How the World Has Changed

Warning: This post contains spoilers, undead and otherwise, for the iZombie season three premiere. Go find some brains to eat elsewhere if you haven’t watched the episode yet!

The season two finale of iZombie was, as they say, a game-changer. The Max Rager rager ended in a supremely bloody horror movie fashion and brought to light information that alters the landscape. We met Vivian Stoll, the leader of a company/friendly neighborhood zombie horde planning on making Seattle the capital of the zombie homeland. (Yeah, sounds a teensy bit ominous.) The season three premiere, “Heaven Just Got a Little Bit Smoother,” delves into Vivian’s grandiose plans. Here’s how iZombie’s world and mythology expanded:

Fillmore Graves

Liv and Clive tried to ask Vivian directly what making Seattle the capital of the zombie homeland meant, and they didn’t get a direct answer. As the CEO of Fillmore Graves (oh, how I love iZombie’s puns for business names) and now Max Rager, Vivian employs pretty much all zombies. They’re preparing for the inevitable day when humans find out their neighbors and co-workers have a brain-filled diet—and said day might be closer than anyone thinks. They don’t anticipate the coming out going well, and though I admire Liv’s optimism about how the human race will react, I side with Vivian. Humans tend to freak out about what they don’t understand or relate to.

That said, Vivian wants to go extreme. Her company is hard at work making a private island they’ve purchased into Zombie Island. Seriously. It might sound like an amusement park geared towards scares, but the idea is for all the zombies to move there and keep to themselves. I don’t know how they’d get brains for everyone, but I have no doubt Vivian has a solution. She’s formidable and savvy.

So, to summarize: the zombie population is much larger than we realized, they’re nervous about human awareness, and they’re preparing to self-segregate. It’s a lot for viewers to process and even more for Liv to wrap her head around. Luckily, she ate a soldier brain; it kept her focused and from falling apart. Maybe her next brain will help her practice avoidance, but how does she go back to her day-to-day existence knowing what she knows?

And by the by, Major ended up joining Fillmore Grave’s ranks—because of course he did.

Undead Children

This is tied into the Fillmore Graves business, but I wanted to call out the presence of zombie children. They have a safe haven at Fillmore Graves; they can attend school and not have to worry about raging out and infecting classmates. They also learn tips on staying incognito, like tanning and dyeing. It was a surprise to learn undead kids exist and it was jarring as hell to see so many of them. How did they contract the zombie virus?

Their presence makes protecting the zombie secret that much more important.

Cure Possibilities

Ravi has had mixed luck with figuring out the cure to the zombie virus. Obviously, he can’t make a fully functional cure because it would mean the end of the series. So, they’ve come up with some creative and detrimental side effects to Ravi’s work so far—as we’ve seen with Blaine, the latest version of the cure causes a bit of amnesia.

However, there is hope. Ravi’s cooking up something to address the memory issues. I wonder if Fillmore will begin to view Ravi as a threat. I also wonder what his former boss from the CDC is going to think when she pieces together the truth about the undead.

Zombie Targets

Liv already has a lot of change on her plate, but why not add another threat to the mix? Someone is targeting zombies. The killer is, well, killing—not taking Major’s gentler, non-lethal approach. Thank goodness Clive is now in the loop because his detective skills are going to be necessary to figure this out. (Side note: how sweet was he to Liv? He took the zombie news much better than I thought he would!)

And finally: this doesn’t have to do with how the iZombie status quo is transforming, but I laughed out loud so damn hard at the Rob Thomas nod. The “in memory of” tweet from Carlos Santana was basically the best.

What do you think the consequences of the zombie world expanding will be? Tell me your opinions and theories in the comments.

Images: The CW

Everything We Know About THE DEFENDERS

After the incredible success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the folks at Marvel Television decided to take a cue from their big screen brethren and try the same tactic on TV. In October of 2013, Marvel and Disney announced that together with ABC Studios, they would provide Netflix with four live action series centered around their characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, all leading up to a miniseries based on the classic Marvel Comics team, The Defenders. This would reflect the approach that Marvel Studios took to introducing audiences to the Avengers, by giving all the main heroes their own movies first before the big team-up, making that team-up an unprecedented event.

Daredevil season one premiered in April, 2015, with the second season premiering in March, 2016. Jessica Jones season one premiered in November 2016, with Luke Cage following in September 2016. Finally, Iron Fist’s first season premiered in March, 2017, allowing all the main players to be introduced, meaning: The Defenders can finally assemble. Slated to debut as an 8-part mini-series in August 2017, our first glimpse of the Defenders all together came on the cover for Entertainment Weekly in January.

FIRST LOOK at ‘THE DEFENDERS’ on the cover of Entertainment Weekly! RT pic.twitter.com/r3kC2VTv0D

— The Defenders TV (@TheDefenders_TV) January 12, 2017

Then in April of 2017, we got our first teaser, featuring the four Defenders in an elevator, looking pretty pissed off and tired—like they just spent the whole day kicking ass. You can see the new teaser down below:

Since the big announcement, we’ve learned quite a lot about this developing project. Here’s everything we know so far.

 
Who Are The Defenders?

As it turns out, the comic book Defenders and the television Defenders are the same in name only. This is in pretty stark contrast to the big screen Avengers, who reflect the most popular members of the team from the original comics. The Defenders comic debuted in 1971, and originally consisted of the trio of the Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. They would later be joined by the Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Hellcat, and Nighthawk, as well as several others.

They were meant to be a less public, less formally organized version of the Avengers that would mostly fight mystical threats. The team had a loose membership, with many characters—mostly loner types—coming and going. The series ran for over 150 issues, from 1972-1985, and would return sporadically after that over the next few decades.

The Defenders on the new Netflix series, however, are a totally different line-up from any previous comic book series, consisting of Marvel’s “street level” heroes. This iteration will see Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, with only Luke Cage having ever been a Defender in the comics. A new comic book series based on the Netflix line-up will be debuting this summer from Marvel (see the cover below). At least the logo is the same!

Interestingly, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Valkyrie will all be together on the big screen (minus Namor) in Thor:Ragnarok, so Marvel fans are almost getting the classic Defenders line-up together in 2017 as well.

Who’s Starring in The Defenders?

All of the leads of the four Marvel Netflix shows take center stage for The Defenders—Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, and Finn Jones as Danny Rand/Iron Fist. Joining the mini-series in a crucial role is Élodie Yung as Elektra Natchios, reprising her Daredevil role.

Also returning from their respective shows are Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Jessica Jones’ neighbor and assistant at Alias Investigations; Simone Missick as Harlem police detective Misty Knight; Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Matt Murdock’s former assistant; Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock’s BFF and former partner; Carrie-Anne Moss as lawyer Jeri Hogarth; Scott Glenn as Stick, Daredevil’s mentor; Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Jessica Jones’ best friend who hosts her own radio talk show (in the comics, Trish Walker is the Defender known as Hellcat); Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, a former nurse who has appeared on all four Netflix Marvel shows; and finally Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing, a kickass fighter and Danny Rand’s love interest.

Who Will The Main Villain Be?

If just having all these characters together wasn’t cool enough, the main villain for the series will be none other than screen legend Sigourney Weaver. Her character is being called “Alexandra,” but we don’t know if that’s her real name, an alias, or if she’s even playing a character from the comics at all. Rumors suggest she is somehow related to the ninja cabal from Daredevil season 2 known as The Hand.

Showrunner Marco Ramirez described her as “a very powerful force in New York City. She’s everything Sigourney is: sophisticated, intellectual, dangerous.” Ramirez also said that her character had to be, “something massive to pull these four [hero] characters from their individual worlds to work together, but also small enough that it felt like it existed in our world.”

Who Are The Creatives Behind The Show?

The Defenders was developed for Netflix by producers Douglas Petrie (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Marco Ramirez (Daredevil), both of whom worked on the second season of Daredevil, which saw the introduction of the Punisher and Elektra into the Marvel/Netflix mythos. The miniseries is produced by Jeph Loeb of Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios, with Ramirez serving as showrunner.

What’s The Show Going To Be About?

The story of the miniseries was based on a “very bare-bones structure” from comics writer and Marvel Television exec Jeph Loeb. The intention is for the miniseries to feel like it’s “Daredevil season 2.5, a Luke Cage season 1.5, a Jessica Jones 1.5, and Iron Fist 1.5,” telling “the story that came after their immediate seasons and before their next ones” according to Loeb. The four leads will come together to fight Sigourney Weaver’s baddie.

How Many Episodes Will There Be?

There will be eight episodes of the show, which makes this a miniseries as opposed to the standard 13 episode order for most of the Marvel Netflix shows. And though technically a one-off, depending on the show’s reception, all parties have been very open to the possibility of making more episodes down the line. Although probably after a third Daredevil season, and second seasons for Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.

When Will The Defenders Premiere?

The show will drop on August 18, 2017, so mark your calendars for what is sure to be a huge binge-watching weekend.

Are you as excited for The Defenders as we are? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Netflix / Marvel Television / Marvel Comics / Twentieth Century Fox

New 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY T-Shirt Line is Out of This World

The year 2001 might have already come and gone but 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick‘s science fiction masterpiece, will forever be timeless. Even though we don’t have civilian space stations and fully functioning AI just yet,  you can’t deny that the film’s distinct style still looks pretty damn gorgeous today — and now you can wear it right on your body!

As part of their year-long homage to 2001, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas and Mondo have partnered up to make a stunning new collection of screen-printed shirts inspired by some of the most iconic imagery from the film. Each piece in the collection will be available in sizes from XS to 4XL and will ship sometime in the next 2-3 weeks, so you’ll be able to make it a regular part of your wardrobe long before the films’ 50th anniversary hits next year in 2018.

 

First up, the Dawn Of Man t-shirt, which definitely makes me want to listen to “Thus Spake Zarathrusta” on repeat:

After that comes the Computer Malfunction shirt, which is probably the worst error message you could ever hope to see in your life:

Next up, The Daisy Bell shirt, which recreates the famous sequence where Dave shuts off Hal 9000 for good:

 

Then we have the Transcendence t-shirt, which is just as trippy as the movie’s psychedelic ending sequence:

Finally, space is cold, so you’re also going to want this zip-up hoodie with the 2001: A Space Odyssey logo printed on it:

The full collection is on sale now, and you can check it out, as well as other Kubrick-inspired fashion, on Mondo’s website. Do any of them catch your eye? Let us know which is your favorite in the comments!

Images: MGM/Mondo/Drafthouse

Speaking of the future, how right was Futurama?

I AM HEATH LEDGER Trailer Reveals the Actor’s Directing Ambitions

The late Heath Ledger is best known for unforgettable roles like the Joker in The Dark Knight, Ennis Del Mal in Brokeback Mountain, Patrick Verona in Ten Things I Hate About You, and William Thatcher in A Knight’s Tale (that movie is cheesy goodness and I will fight you on that). But as it turns out, his true desire wasn’t to be in front of the camera — it was to be behind it.

At least, that’s what Heath Ledger’s friends and family all say in the latest trailer for I Am Heath Ledger. Directed by Derik Murray, the Spike TV documentary will explore the life of Ledger, who died unexpectedly in 2008, via the lens of his own camera. Check it out below, and we’re sorry in advance for all the tears.

Ledger’s directorial work consisted primarily of music videos, although in 2007 he disclosed a desire to work on a documentary about British songwriter Nick Drake, who died young due to an apparent overdose. He’d also been planning to direct a feature length adaptation of the book The Queens’ Gambit, about a troubled chess prodigy (who would have been played by Ellen Page), who becomes famous overnight and finds herself addicted to painkillers as a method of coping with her reality. In light of how Ledger himself died, the similar subject matter of both projects is a little eerie, but more distressing is the fact that he never got to work on any of them.

I Am Heath Ledger premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23; it will also see a limited film release on May 3 and will finally be aired on Spike May 17. Are you planning to see it for yourself? Tell us in the comments!

Images: Spike TV

Fan Recreates RICK AND MORTY Szechuan Sauce 3 Ways

Adult Swim blew everyone’s minds with their Rick and Morty April Fool’s Day episode, which wasn’t so much a prank as it was a gift from the gods. For all the things we could say about the episode, perhaps its greatest moment was how it shone a light on the lack of McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce in this day and age. A good lesson for us all: if you go back in time, your first priority should always be food related.

While fans are now clamoring for this dipping sauce to rise from the dead, Andrew Rea of Binging with Babish took on the task of recreating his own version. Never having tasted the real thing, Rea uses his own instincts (and a little help from Reddit) to show us not one, but three different ways to achieve sauce nirvana:

For sauce number one, he starts off with dried chiles, which he dry roasts and steeps in boiling water to bring out the flavor. The chiles are then pureed with ginger to create a homemade chili paste which is then sautéed with a little acid, a little sweet, and a whole bunch of ground up Szechuan peppercorns. Sauce number one is what I’d refer to as the artisanal one of the bunch, definitely something you’d find served alongside hipster McNuggets.

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Rea then recreates Reddit user xeropoint’s recipe for sauce number two. This sauce has more of a home-cooked feel to it, starting off with a base of plum sake, vinegar, and Sriracha—more commonly known among foodie circles as cock sauce. This version looks pretty close to the real thing, and the healthy amount of sugar makes it a contender for authenticity.

Finally, the third option is to simply combine McDonald’s prepackaged sauces to create some sorta saucy Cronenberg monster. Rea blends two parts Sweet ‘n Sour sauce to one part Tangy BarBeQue (Yes, that’s the unfortunate spelling) to stir together nothing short of a McMasterpiece. I think we all know this is the most likely scenario of all the versions, as it almost immediately looks remarkably similar to the 1998 McDonald’s commercial.

In a final taste test—the three sauces are pitted against one another—is no doubt a showdown for the ages. Which sauce was the winner? You’ll have to watch the video to find out.

Which sauce looks the most accurate to you? Let us know in the comments and tag @nerdist and @justjenn on twitter to share your Szechuan Sauce memories.

Images: Adult Swim; Binging with Babish

Björk’s New Virtual Reality Music Video is as Trippy as You’d Expect

Björk has been melting our brains since the ’80s, but the Icelandic artist is still finding new ways to create innovative art that shocks us, even after all these years. The singer is 51 now, but her experience hasn’t worn her out. In fact, she seems to have the advantage. She’s seen new technologies emerge and how art has reacted to them, so she has a greater context to draw from when things like virtual reality start to become more mainstream. She certainly showed that with her VR music video for “Notget VR,” which she shared today. It is an absolute trip (via Vulture).

Although we imagine the experience would be a lot more immersive with a VR headset, you don’t need one to watch the video on YouTube. Even in that format, it’s a visual marvel. The clip, directed by Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones, features a digitally rendered Björk as what looks like some sort of dark angel. As the song progresses, she slowly becomes more and more illuminated in bright yellow light until she becomes so bright that the clip fades out to white. We can only imagine how stunning this looks in actual VR, because even in two dimensions, it’s a trip.

Björk’s fascination with technology seems to have always been as strong as it is today. This clip reminds us that classic video of Björk taking apart her big boxy TV to explore what it looks like and how it works on the inside. If you haven’t seen that clip, check it out below, and if you’re able to watch “Notget VR” with a VR headset, hit us up on Twitter and let us know how marvelous the experience was.

Featured image: Björk/YouTube

FIVE CAME BACK Shines a Fascinating Light on Five Heroic Filmmakers (REVIEW)

Can you imagine five of Hollywood’s most successful directors putting their careers on hold so they can go overseas to document the deadliest war ever waged? It sounds like the premise of a particularly rousing Hollywood film, to be sure, but it’s also all true — and the wonderful new documentary Five Came Back does a remarkable job of bringing these filmmakers’ bravery, talent, and patriotism to light. Consider this three-hour Netflix exclusive a must-see for anyone who with even a passing interest in WWII history and the importance that filmmakers can sometimes play on the world stage.

If there are two things that Steven Spielberg clearly has a lot of respect for, it’s A) those who fought in WWII, and B) the power of cinema, so this project fits the celebrated filmmaker like a glove. Here we have five very passionate contemporary filmmakers discussing five legendary filmmakers who had the courage to take their cameras overseas and document the war for the folks back home. And it’s nothing short of fascinating.

The Subjects

Frank Capra (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, It’s a Wonderful Life)

John Ford (The Long Voyage Home, How Green Was My Valley, The Searchers)

William Wyler (Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur)

John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen)

George Stevens (Gunga Din, Shane, The Diary of Anne Frank)

The very short version of the story is that these five filmmakers were tasked with recording the war effort in various parts of the world.

For the longer (and much more interesting) version of the story, we need some helpful experts.

The Teachers

Steven Spielberg (E.T the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan)

Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth)

Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Big Chill)

Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now)

Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Identity, United 93)

So already you know you’re in good hands, film history-wise. Director Laurent Bouzereau (who is more or less an undisputed genius when it comes to documentaries about movies) is careful to keep the “talking head” segments to a minimum while focusing mainly on the accomplishments of Capra, Ford, Wyler, Huston, and Stevens. And impressive accomplishments they were; these guys were not merely war photographers. Their goal was to bring the war home in a way that would inspire Americans to keep up hope, support the troops, and buy some darn war bonds. And, as you’ll see throughout Five Came Back, these filmmakers delivered an eclectic mixture of films; some were failures, some were successes, and some proved to be absolutely indispensable.

Based on the book by the astute film guru Mark Harris, Five Came Back is stocked with fascinating archival material and interviews, not to mention tons of rarely-seen WWII footage and (of course) a wealth of great information from all five co-hosts. One is tempted to say that Five Came Back is tailor-made exclusively for aspiring film historians and history professors, but that’s simply not the case. Like the finest historical documentaries, Five Came Back exists as a well-earned memorial to five brave, gifted filmmakers who deserve to be remembered — and it will probably strike a chord with everyone from the most erudite film expert to the open-minded 15-year-old movie fan who is down for one fascinating history lesson.

5 cinematically patriotic burritos out of 5

Five Came Back is now available on Netflix, as are several of the films covered therein, including Prelude to War (1942), The Battle of Midway (1942), Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia (1943), The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944), The Negro Soldier (1944), Tunisian Victory (1944), Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), San Pietro (1945), Let There Be Light (1946), and Thunderbolt (1947). Try watching some of these documentary shorts after getting the context on how they were made! Truly fascinating film history brought back to life, and it’s long overdue.

Images: Netflix

The Writers Panel #326: Krista Vernoff, Stefanie Leder, Wendy Molyneux & Lizzie Molyneux

Krista Vernoff (Grey’s Anatomy; Private Practice; Shameless); Stefanie Leder (Faking It; Melissa & Joey); Wendy Molyneux & Lizzie Molyneux (Bob’s Burgers).

Follow @BenBlacker and Like the show on Facebook!

Reddit’s April Fools’ Joke Spawned a Surprisingly Awesome Social Experiment

This year, it seems that the best April Fools’ jokes were the ones that weren’t jokes at all. Rick and Morty aired the first episode of its much-anticipated third season, and Reddit started a social experiment, known as r/place. The new subreddit was very simple in its function: At the top of the page was a blank canvas. Any user could color in any pixel they wanted, but they could only do it once every ten minutes. This meant that collaboration (or as many Reddit users claimed, bots) was necessary in order to produce a recognizable image.

As one Reddit user pointed out, r/place ended up looking like a “scam site from the early 2000s where you can download free smileys and mouse cursors.” What’s more interesting, though, is the process of how it got to that state. First, here’s a time lapse video of the entire 72 hours the project was active:

And here’s what it looked like at the very end:

r/place didn’t always look so clean, though. For example, here’s a snapshot of what it was like earlier on in the project, when cohesive images of things like national flags, Pokéballs, and Link from The Legend of Zelda were just beginning to form:

Time-lapse of Reddit place so far

As Reddit became more invested in the art project/social experiment/April Fools’ “joke,” a ton of subplots began to crop up in various areas of r/place. For example, there was the attack and defense of the American flag:

Skeletor enjoying some recreational drug use:

…and a ton of other developments. The r/place community also recorded meticulous stats and bits of trivia: Over 3500 pixels were never updated, while some pixels were updated a lot. The subreddit is fascinating to explore, even after the fact, and it’s too deep an experience to really explore here, so check it out for yourself.

Did any of you participate in this short-lived phenomenon? Give us a shout on Twitter and show off any invaluable contributions you made to this bizarre and breathtaking project.

Images: r/place

Is it Better to Run or Walk in The Cold, Scientifically Speaking?

It’s a classic problem each and everyone of us has had to deal with: you find yourself completely naked in the cold wilderness — if we had a nickel… But after having a quick conversation with ourselves about making better life decisions, what’s the best course of action to stay warm: remain still, walk, or run for help? Turns out it depends on how fast you can can run.

In the latest video from one of our favorite YouTube science channels, MinutePhysics, the thermodynamic answer to this frigid problem is a matter of generating enough heat to overcome the windchill factor and loss of body heat that comes with running in the cold.

Your body warms the surrounding air when you’re standing still in the cold — a protective little heat bubble you lose when you start running. Also working against your warmth is the cold air you come in contact with as you go forward. The trade off is that when you run, you also generate more body heat, so it becomes a matter of reaching a level of speed where you are creating more warmth from running than you lose in moving.

If you can’t go fast enough, you’re better off not moving at all and avoiding the “forbidden range of speeds” where you are at a net heat loss.

So how fast is fast enough? If you’re completely naked, and it is freezing outside, it’s a brisk five-minute-mile pace, which for most of us isn’t happening. The good news is that if you have enough clothing to mitigate just a 50% loss of surface area body warmth, that running number jumps up to a 15-minute-mile pace — a lot more manageable, especially when you’re trying to get to toasty safety.

And once you are there, take another moment or two to figure out why you keep ending up alone, naked in the cold.

What would you do in this situation? Stay still or try to make a run for it? Hurry up and find the warmth of our comments section below to tell us your answer.

Featured Image: Warner Bros.

Body Images: MinutePhysics

What about that Iceman though?