Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2121

Scarlett Johansson Talks Bringing GHOST IN THE SHELL to Life

Making a successful live action anime adaptation is by no means an easy feat. Films like Dragonball Evolution hang like a millstone around the genre’s neck, often serving to dissuade filmmakers from attempting what seems like the impossible. Yet with Rupert Sanders’ Ghost in the Shell, the impossible has seemingly been achieved: a compelling, visually stunning, and deeply weird anime adaptation that brings the sci-fi cyberpunk strangeness of the original to the big screen for a new generation of viewers.

At the heart of this new iteration of the iconic anime story is Scarlett Johansson, who stars as the Major, a highly advanced, cybernetically enhanced counterterrorist agent trying to prevent a cybercriminal from wreaking havoc on Tokyo and uncover dark secrets about her own past, too. Not only does the Major wrestle with issues of personhood and identity—struggling with what it means to be a human brain inside a cybernetic body—but also issues of consent and agency. After all when you don’t technically own your body, what say do you have in what happens to it?

While in New York City at a recent press day, I sat down with Scarlett Johansson to speak with her about the Major’s internal struggle. In addition, I spoke with co-stars Juliette Binoche (“Dr. Ouelet”), Pilou Asbæk (“Batou”), and Chin Han (“Togusa”) about what drew them to the project, wearing intense eye prosthetics, mullets, and more.

Ghost in the Shell is in theaters now.

Will you be seeing Ghost in the Shell? Let me know in the comments below.

Image: Paramount Pictures

Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).

Surround Yourself with Falling Dominoes Thanks to This 360-Degree Video

On this site, we’ve written about domino displays featuring 15,000, 78,000, and even 80,000 dominoes, so you’d think we’d just bat our eyes at a setup featuring only 4,200 bricks. With all displays, though, it’s about presentation, and this 360-degree video from FlippyCat puts you in the middle of a circle of dominoes, and it’s an interesting watch (via Sploid).

As with all 360-degree YouTube videos, you can explore your virtual environment by moving your phone around, or if you’re on a desktop setup, by clicking and dragging or using AWSD. Once you acclimate yourself, you can watch the wall gradually fall down around you, pillars of pink, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and blue collapsing before your eyes. Just when you think it’s over, the video is reversed and it looks like the arrangement is quickly being put back together by a duper dexterous ghost.

What’s too bad is initially, this video was slated to be even more impressive. “I had a larger wall originally, but it fell down when I was starting to fill the center with bridges/dominoes to follow along looking down,” the video’s description reads. For aspiring 360-degree video filmographers, it turns out that the price of entry for making clips like this isn’t terribly out of reach. This video was filmed with a 360Fly 4K camera, which currently retail for about $400.

Check out the clip above, and let us know of any other cool 360-degree videos you’ve seen. Personally, I think Foals’ music video for “Mountain At My Gates” is pretty neat.

Featured Image: FlippyCat/YouTube

FROZEN’s Darker Ending Details Finally Revealed

Back in 2014, the response to Frozen even caught Disney off-guard on its way to becoming the most successful animated movie of all time. Who knew that modernizing the Disney princesses and giving us incredibly catchy tunes could be so profitable? But there was a time when Disney struggled to make Frozen work, and now we’ve finally learned the details of a much darker take on the story. Today’s Nerdist News is never gonna let it go as we break down the details!

Join host and honorary Disney princess, Jessica Chobot, as she examines a recent interview with Frozen producer Peter Vel Decho where he revealed an earlier version of the film in which Anna and Elsa weren’t even sisters. As Vel Decho explained, the studio had major problems while trying to adapt The Snow Queen because the title character was just too evil. That was true even in this proto-Frozen, when Elsa went crazy evil after being jilted at the altar.

Considering that the best part of the final movie is the relationship between the two sisters, this incarnation of the tale just didn’t click. Nor did Elsa have any redemptive moments throughout the script. Instead, she was pure evil…at least until the very end when she had a sudden change of heart and saved everyone from a destructive avalanche that was set off by Hans. Because even the screenwriters didn’t believe that twist, it led Disney to reevaluate the characters’ relationships and that led to the film we know and love. It also led to the millions and millions of dollars that we know Disney loves. So, it was a win-win!

What do you think about Disney’s earlier take on Frozen? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Wanna Have Breakfast with 7 Doctors Who?

We’ve had “The Two Doctors.” We’ve had “The Three Doctors.” We’ve even had “The Five Doctors.” But only you can say you were around for “The Seven Doctors”—That is if you win the grand prize of Omaze‘s latest campaign. For the lucky winner and their companion, they’ll head to London and have some crumpets and scones and whatever with no fewer (and also no more) than seven of the nine living actors who’ve played Doctor Who‘s illustrious time-traveling hero. A pretty cool way to start your day, we’d say.

It’s the most complete grouping of Doctors you’re ever likely to see in one place at one time. Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, David Tennant, Matt Smith, and Peter Capaldi will all be your meal mates. What on Earth (or Gallifrey) would you talk about with them? Ask them questions about their time aboard the TARDIS, or get them to debate the finer points of Dalekmania? You’ll have roughly 35 years of time and space travel experience sitting around you; the universe would be your oyster. And maybe you could even eat oysters.

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The campaign, which can be found here, will benefit Red Nose Day, the children’s charity raising awareness and money for kids who need it most. The winner and a friend will get flown over to the UK to stay at five-star hotel The Ned in Soho and have breakfast with all them Doctors Who in the private dining room of the Wolseley Restaurant in London. Not. Too. Shab.

We’re assuming you’ll want to do this, and you’d be helping a good cause in the process. Win/Win.

What question would you ask Doctors Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve if given the chance? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: BBC America

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor and the resident Whovian for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!

We break down the Doctor Who series 10 trailer!

Shaw Brothers Kung Fu Theatre Presents FIVE DEADLY VENOMS

If you’ve seen Quentin Tarantino‘s Kill Bill movies (and, come on, you have) you probably remember the logo at the beginning of an old-timey-looking film company, with an “SB” in a similar shield to the Warner Bros. famous “WB.” This wasn’t just some random thing; Tarantino was paying specific homage to Shaw Bros. Studio, the Hong Kong production house responsible for some of the world’s greatest kung fu and wuxia films. Remember when Uma Thurman’s Bride gets trained by the old guy with the long, white hair and beard? That’s straight out of Shaw Bros. And we’re celebrating all things Shaw in a brand new Project Alpha watchalong series, Shaw Bros. Kung Fu Theatre!

Every Friday for the next eight weeks, at 7:30pm PST, we’ll be live streaming a different classic film from the Shaw Bros. library, and to kick things off, we’re looking at arguably their greatest film ever: 1978’s Five Deadly Venoms.

Directed by Hong Kong film legend Chang Cheh, Five Deadly Venoms became the gold standard for Kung fu movies, and its cast of Peking Opera School-trained acrobatic fighters and choreographers would come to be known as the Venom Mob. (How cool is that?!) The movie tells the story of a dying master of the powerful Poison Clan who tells his student (Chiang Sheng) that he needs to find out which of his previous five pupils had turned to evil. One problem is that the identities of the five students are unknown because they always wore masks. The other problem is that each of them has learned a specific fighting style based on different animals (Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, Toad) and the final student has only learned tiny bits of each style. He’s going to have to team up with one of the Five Venoms to take down the evil ones.

It’s a terrific set-up, and there’s enough intrigue surrounding who of the various people the student meets might be one of the Venoms. It’s sort of a whodunit mixed with a whichisem (a term I’ve just made up) featuring some of the best superheroic, wire work fighting scenes of all time.

During the live stream, you’ll hear myself and Dan Casey giving you insight into the movie and its impact on Kung fu cinema. And we’ll be there each and every week for a different movie, often joined by luminaries in fight choreography and Kung fu cinema. Believe me when I say, all of the films on the docket are well worth your kick-punch time. For further reading (hint hint) here’s my Schlock & Awe about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

Join the fun, Friday night at 7:30pm PST only on Project Alpha!

Images: Shaw Bros

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!

MS. PAC-MAN is Roaming The Streets in Google Maps Right Now

So today (Friday) is April Fools Day—APRIL FOOLS! It’s actually Saturday, but some companies are already rolling out their pranks a bit early. This year, Google‘s thing (assuming this is their only April Fools endeavor) is less of a prank and more of a fun easter egg for the fans: If you have the Google Maps app on your phone, you can drop Ms. Pac-Man into the world and play a round of her eponymous game in the streets that surround you (via Kotaku).

The game works as you’d expect: Find a desirable location in the app and press the Ms. Pac-Man button that should be on the main screen by now. Then, the roads around you are converted into a Pac-Man level filled with pills and ghosts. Check it out:

She’s a map-eater. And today, you can be one too.

Chomp the competition and share your high score with #MsPacMaps @officialpacman pic.twitter.com/lSWvmj39DN

— Google Maps (@googlemaps) March 31, 2017

Like in real estate, the key here is location, location, location. There are some places in the world, like areas with really long and lonely roads with few intersections, that aren’t cut out to be a Pac-Man map. So, it makes sense that locations like New York City, with its grid-based road system, would be among the best places to munch on some pills. If you want to give the game a really pessimistic twist, try playing in some of the locations highlighted on the Sad Topographies Instagram account.

What are some good (or awful) places to try this out? Let us know!

Featured image: Google

Mastodon’s New Album EMPEROR OF SAND Riffs on Time and Death (Review)

With their new album Emperor of Sand, heavy metal gods Mastodon ponder time and morality through the lens of a dark, desert landscape. The band is known for high concept albums, like 2004’s Moby Dick-themed Leviathan and the wormhole journey of 2009’s Crack the Skye, but Emperor of Sand is different. While the lyrics and songs may lean towards the big and absurd (in “Sultan’s Curse” or “Ancient Kingdom,” for example), there is something deeply personal about this album. There’s a immediacy to it, something intimate in the way it approaches death and life.

Much like their previous two efforts, Emperor of Sand sees Mastodon laying their rock roots on the table. This was evident from the first single, the radio-ready “Show Yourself,” a pop-infused rock number that clocks in at a comfortable three minutes and three seconds. It’s not exactly pushing the boundaries on Mastodon’s sound and, in a lot of ways, it’s not playing to their strengths as a band. But that doesn’t mean it’s not any good. It’s a great song that’ll get stuck in your head for days after just one listen.

The entire album is filled with numbers like this. Brann Dailor’s ability to sing a catchy chorus is on full display throughout the 11 tracks. Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders do plenty of melodic singing, as well, but it’s Dailor’s voice that really pushes through and stands out. Vocally, this record falls into the same category as the previous two albums, The Hunter and Once More ‘Round the Sun. There’s less of an edge to it and a bigger focus on melody and harmony.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Hubbard

That said, Emperor of Sand is more of a spiritual successor to the beloved Mastodon album’s Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye. It’s a multi-layered, deep album that is overflowing with riffs and heavy grooves. Tracks like “Clandestiny” and “Andromeda” are hard and heavy numbers that move fast and weave a tangled web of sludgy guitar solos and thunderous drum rolls. The songwriting throughout is complex; the band never lets you get comfortable. there’s never a rut or a moment when it feels like a song has gone on a second too long. Mastodon rocks just as hard as ever and this album proves it.

A big part of the connection to Crack the Skye is the return producer Brendan O’Brien. There’s no doubt that O’Brien was able to bring out something special in the band on the recording of Crack the Skye and he does it once again on Emperor of Sand. Most noticeably, O’Brien’s toucgh can be heard on Dailor’s drums. The chaos and frantic rhythms that Dailor often lays down are captured perfectly, never too high or low, always seeming to in a perfect sonic mid range that suits Dailor’s style. Mastodon’s strength is in their ability to harness musical madness into a cohesive vision and O’Brien brings this out in them better than any other producer.

It’s worth noting that the cover of the Emperor of Sand is something special, too. Mastodon’s album art is always exciting and unique, something that really helps shape the tone of the record. This time around, the band used artist Alan Brown / Medusawolf to produce a glorious cover painting. It certainly invokes the lyrical imagery of the album while looking thoroughly badass. Seriously, we want to tattoo this monster on our body, it’s just too cool.

If you love Mastodon, you’ll surely love Emperor of Sand. Is it their best album? Probably not, but it’s a kickass rock record that shows off everything these guys do so well. It’ll make you ponder mortality and the unstoppable march of your own death, which is all we can really ask for in a great heavy metal album. Plus, it feature’s appearance from Neurosis’ Scott Kelly and Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp, which are like the cherry on top of the delicious fudge sundae Mastodon has scooped up here.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Image: Warner Bros. Records

Six Hayao Miyazaki Movies Returning to Theaters This Year

It’s been an emotional roller coast ride these past few years when it comes to Japan’s undisputed king of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. First we had to come to terms with the fact that he was retiring after his 2013 film The Wind Rises, then it was announced he wasn’t retiring but would only make short films instead, then that his short film was done but would only be shown at the Studio Ghibli Museum in Japan, and THEN we got the news that he’s actually coming back to feature films. Whew! We can’t keep up. What we CAN keep up with, though, is six of his classics returning to theaters this year.

GKIDS and Fathom Events is launching Ghibli Fest, in which a different movie by Miyazaki will be showcased in cinemas one two days, one a month, beginning in June. We would imagine, much like the Princess Mononoke screening recently, that one of the days will be the English language track and the other will be in Japanese. The films span a 20 year span in the director’s career and feature some of his finest heroines.

On Sunday, June 25 and Monday, June 26, you can see Miyazaki’s 1988 masterpiece, My Neighbor Totoro, the coming-of-age story about a little girl, her younger sister, and their friendly woodland beast pillow creature friend and his ability to summon a giant cat that’s also a bus.

Sunday, July 23 and Monday, July 24 sees Kiki’s Delivery Service from 1989 head back to screens. Another of Miyazaki’s excellent slice-of-life movies, this one finds a young witch moving to the big city to make her way in the world. One of the most pleasant movies of all time.

The next two months are the ones I’m most excited about as it represents two of Miyazaki’s oldest films. On Sunday, August 27 and Monday, August 28, you can watch the 1986 film Castle in the Sky, which was actually the very first film made under the Studio Ghibli banner. It’s the gorgeous, sumptuous steampunky tale of a princess from a lost airship city being pursued by a greedy royal and some ridiculous air pirates.

The following movie isn’t technically a Studio Ghibli movie because Studio Ghibli didn’t exist yet, but Sunday, September 24 and Monday, September 25 will have Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the post-apocalyptic adventure of a heroic young woman trying to save her small community from a neighboring warlike kingdom, and try to come to terms with the behemoth, poison-spewing insect things that live in the wasteland. A personal favorite of mine.

And finally, we end with arguably Miyazaki’s most commercially successful in the world. Just in time for Halloween, on Sunday, October 29 and Monday, October 30, we can see the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, the movie that seems like Miyazaki’s answer to Alice in Wonderland as well as being a comment on the mistreatment and exploitation of children throughout the world. Rough.

It all ends with Miyazaki’s 2004 fantasy epic Howl’s Moving Castle on Sunday, November 26 and Monday, November 27. It’s one of his more complex movies, but all you need to know is a girl gets turned into an old lady because a narcissistic wizard guy helps her and a witch gets jealous. Then the young old lady becomes a servant of the castle on legs. It’s crazy, but so great.

Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but you can sign up to get email notifications on the Ghibli Fest website. Which movie are you most excited to see in theaters? Let me know in the comments below!

Images: Studio Ghibli

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s the writer of Studio Ghibli retrospectives Miyazaki Masterclass, Takahata Textbook, and Ghibli Bits. Follow him on Twitter!

Totoro’s the god of death!

BATMAN Reanimated – It’s Pennies from Heaven in ‘Joker’s Millions’

Well, it’s now been six episodes since the premiere of The New Batman Adventures, and that means we’ve had a month and a half since “Holiday Knights,” the first appearance of the Joker in his new, goofier-looking animated guise. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time in ’97 when this series premiered, but there really seemed to be an effort to soften the Joker, who was often terrifying as well as hilarious in Batman: The Animated Series, in the Kids WB years. That trend definitely continued in his second outing, the intensely silly “Joker’s Millions.”

This episode had the luxury of being written by the great Paul Dini and directed by the equally fantastic Dan Riba. And, if Dini does anything well (who am I kidding, he does MANY things well) it’s deconstruct the villains in the Batman rogues gallery. This episode puts the Joker in a somewhat sympathetic position, which is certainly new and different for the character, even in the animated version. He’s still definitely a villain, but now instead of being a homicidal maniac…he’s just kind of an asshole.

Joker starts the episode very down and almost out, running away from Batman and the cops with Harley following a robbery. Too bad they’re so broke they can’t even afford to fill up the tank on their getaway car, or buy more bullets. Joker even only had enough for one ejector seat in the car, which he uses, getting away while Harley gets arrested. Later at Joker’s hideout, his pet hyenas are starving but he can’t afford to feed them. All of this changes when he gets a letter proclaiming that the recently crime boss King Barlowe had left Joker all of his hundreds of millions of dollars, even though the two men hated each other. Joker’s in the big time!

After paying a team of high-priced lawyers to get his criminal record expunged, he pays shady psychiatrists to get him declared sane, so he’s free and clear! He spends money hand over fist; hell, he’s got $250 million, right? He even auditions a new Harley, picking a girl who’s got the right figure but immeasurably dumber and with a more annoying voice. Naturally, Batman, Batgirl, and Nightwing aren’t ready to accept Joker’s gotten away with something and spend most of the episode trying to catch him doing something illegal. Joker hangs out at the Penguin’s ritzy club, and Nightwing and Batgirl even unintentionally save his life when one of Barlowe’s underlings comes wanting the money that’s rightfully his.

But it can’t last forever. He learns all too late that Barlowe’s finally screw-you to him was only giving him $10 million real dollars, and the rest all had pictures of Barlowe on them. Barlowe knew the Joker wouldn’t check and would blow it all before paying his inheritance tax, meaning Joker needs to get some real money quick, or risk running afoul of the IRS. He’ll fight Batman, but never the IRS. As you might expect, he doesn’t know how to do anything other than steal things, and the Bat family is already on his trail… Plus, Harley’s not gonna be happy when she gets her hands on Mr. G J.

So, this is a pretty cute episode, but I feel like it almost does a disservice to the character as created in the animated series up to this point. The idea of Joker having a ton of money and a clean record are great, because Batman’s enraged reaction to him throughout his living largeness is wonderful. Batman’s usually so cool, even when he’s angry, that the idea of the Joker finally getting to him—because of using the system to his advantage—is delightful to me. What I object to, however, is the idea that the only thing keeping the Joker a criminal is his need for money. He’s a the psychopath to end all psychopaths; I feel like he’d be totally unmotivated by money. He’d light it on fire as a joke and shove it down a homeless guy’s throat until he asphyxiated. Obviously they’d never do stuff like that in a cartoon, but his M.O. was always about chaos and making Batman look stupid. But, hey, as I said, it was a softer time for the Clown Prince of Crime.

Next week, we get a weird episode about Robin attempting to help a mysterious lost little girl. The surprising “Growing Pains” is next time. Until then, share your opinion of “Joker’s Millions” in the comments below!

Images: WB Animation

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s written the animation retrospectives Batman: Reanimated, X-Men: Reanimated, Cowboy Rebop, and Samurai reJacked. Follow him on Twitter!

Joss Whedon might direct a Batgirl movie!

Pouring Phosphorescent Ink into Water is a Sight Right Out of SKYFALL

Even when Daniel Craig’s Bond is on the brink of death in Skyfall, he still has plenty of time to sink coolly through what appears to be an abstract ocean of his regrets, romantic entanglements (so many entanglements!), and some stunningly realistic drops of blood. But while the drops of blood in the film were 3D fluid simulations—something akin to these—it turns out that real-life phosphorescent ink being dropped into water puts on an equally impressive show.

Image: Skyfall; MGM/Sony

The glimpse of these dollops of phosphorescent ink being dropped into a glass jar and yielding this Bond-ish visual effect isn’t even the crux of the above video by YouTuber Peter Draws. In fact, the video is more like an Alan Watts soliloquy combined with a Bob Ross painting lesson: It’s something you’d watch on your freshman dorm TV after having some of that “medication” your friend bought at the “pharmacy.”

In the video, Peter discusses how the “brain-jar” of water is like a mind, and each drop of ink that’s poured into it is inspiration from the outside world. Those drops of inspiration that have been “drippily-dropped into [your] brain-jars,” Peter notes, can then be used for creation—in this case, drawing. To be fair, that metaphor kind of makes sense. The relation to how that’s like getting milk from almonds is a bit less clear.

As for the ink itself, it’s called “Noodler’s Blue Ghost,” and according to its maker, it’s an invisible ink that glows underneath UV light. This means that the ink (made from phosphors) is photoluminscent—if you shine photons (in this case UV light), on the ink, its atoms’ electrons become excited, and as they “relax,” they re-radiate the photons. But while this ink is photoluminscent, it’s also specifically phosphorescent, meaning it “does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs.” Instead, this ink absorbs UV radiation, and then (thanks to quantum effects!) slowly re-emits the light at a lower intensity for several minutes or even hours. This is why you can “charge up” this ink with not-visible, higher-frequency UV light, and then watch it glow with a lower-frequency, visible light in total darkness.

After you’ve watched the video and had your mind blown like Peter’s, let us know if you think this effect is cool enough to be considered Skyfall-level in the comments below.

Images: Peter Draws/YouTube

Could an anime-style nosebleed turn you into a rocket?