Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2263

David Bowie Art and Furniture Auction Raised $30 Million on First Day

Everything David Bowie did was cool, including buying furniture. The musician’s belongings sold for over $30 million this past Thursday at an auction. That’s not the only thing to shock the music world this week, too. Leonard Cohen passed away at age 82, A Tribe Called Quest released their final LP, Sia teamed up with Miguel and Queen Latifah for a Hamilton mixtape cut, and The xx shared their first new single in four years.

Not only was he cool and his music cool, but David Bowie‘s art collection was cool. Heck, even his furniture was cool. His personal belongings went on sale this past Thursday and continue to be auctioned off today, Friday the 11th. The Sotheby auction has dozens of items by the iconic musician on sale, from record players to funky couches to weird telephones. Together, the art and furniture pieces comprise about 65% of Bowie’s collection. Turns out people really want to live like him. On the first day alone, they raised £24.3 million ($30.3 million), tripling estimates. A good chunk of that came from Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Air Power” which sold for a whopping £7.1 million ($8.8 million). Who wants to pool money together to buy one of the few items left today? [Pitchfork]

At the age of 82, Leonard Cohen passed away. The influential singer-songwriter has been churning out work for over 50 years, getting a start in music after he couldn’t live off the pay of his poems alone. This Thursday evening, his label confirmed his passing via Facebook. The visionary gave us so much to reflect on, listen to, and recite. If that wasn’t enough, though, Cohen, much like Bowie, gave himself a dark farewell. The month before passing, he dropped You Want It Darker and said he was ready to die. It seems he was and he went in peace. Revisit his biggest hit, “Hallelujah,” above. [Nerdist]

 

At last, the last-minute surprise is here. Q-Tip took to Facebook two weeks ago to announce a brand new (and final) A Tribe Called Quest album would come out on November 11. Alas, that day is today and their LP, We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service is a 16-track monster with crazy contributions from Kanye West, Jack White, André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Elton John, Busta Rhymes, Consequence, Anderson .Paak, and Talib Kweli. The whole thing can be heard in full above or you can buy a copy at iTunes. [Nerdist]

As we’ve previously reported, Lin-Manuel Miranda will drop a mixtape inspired by Hamilton this December. The Tony Award-winning musical and talk of the town gets a revamped sound on the release, starring everyone from Chance the Rapper to Regina Spektor. Now, a new cut from the release can be heard. Sia teams up to twist Miranda’s original compositions, turning track “Satisfied” into a moving song with help from Miguel and Queen Latifah. The crew alone is enough to warrant a listen. Thankfully you can hear it above via Spotify. [Consequence of Sound]

It’s been four years since The xx last released an album, but now, finally, they have a follow-up to their sophomore LP Coexist. The trio, which stars famous solo electronic musician Jamie xx, announced their third LP will come out on January 13th via Young Turks. The album, titled I See You, features lead single “On Hold.” It’s a slow doozy, showcasing Romy Madley Croft’s vocals in the front, while a Hall and Oates sample from 1981 is warped underneath her, a bright house hook that finds space to become sultry. It’s a masterful work that masks itself as being subdued, once again showing the genius of the group. Give it a listen above. [Rolling Stone]

See you back here on Monday for another Music Dispatch!

Image: RCA Records

Shia LaBeouf Just Nailed a Freestyle on a Rap Radio Station

You may remember that during summer 2015, a video featuring Shia LaBeouf made the rounds, in which the shirtless actor/artist/whathaveyou spat off a freestyle rap a capella to a small group of people in what looked like a park. It was a bizarre clip that seemed to come completely out of nowhere, but now, it provides context for the latest viral clip starring LeBeouf.

He was a guest on the popular Shade 45/Sirius XM radio show Sway In The Morning today, and one of the program’s recurring segments is called 5 Fingers of Death, in which a rapper is given five different instrumental hip-hop tracks without break and tested to see how capable a freestyler they are. LaBeouf took the challenge, and although his flow isn’t always the smoothest, his freestyle had some solid lines and was pretty impressive considering he’s not a rapper by trade, and this is a challenge usually reserved for the professionals.

After discussing some of his favorite rappers, including Tupac, Biggie Smalls, and Missy Elliott, he got into it, displaying some self-awareness about his status as an unusual and attention-grabbing figure: “Get ready, get set, this a meme. This is wild, this a childhood dream.” He also seemingly took a shot a Drake and more broadly, at rappers who don’t write all their own lyrics: “It’s dumb now, it’s trash rapping in October / who wrote what for who, it’s all below par / Substandard, used to be a litmus / If you didn’t write your own shit, you got dismissed.”

Meanwhile, we’re trying to imagine what it’d be like if a fan of Even Stevens somehow managed to not hear about LeBeouf since that show went off the air in 2003, and this is what they came back to.

Featured image: SwaysUniverse

6 New STAR WARS ROGUE ONE Reveals From the International Trailers

Four brand new international trailers for Rogue One just dropped and if you thought your excitement levels for this Star Wars spinoff had reached maximum capacity, think again! These trailers are packed with new scenes, new characters and new dialogue that make December 16 seem like it can’t get here soon enough. To tide ourselves over for the film’s release, still a month away, we’ve gone through and pulled out six of our favorite things from the new trailers.

In the first TV spot we get a brief but awesome glimpse of our soon-to-be new favorite Star Wars character of all time: Bistan, a badass space monkey who joins the rebellion and ends up fighting alongside Jyn Erso‘s Rogue One crew. We also get a cool shot of enforcer droid K-S20 laying the smack down on some Stormtroopers. Until now we thought K-S would be following in C-3PO’s fastidious footsteps, so it’s nice to know that this droid was programmed to kick some ass too.

In the Japanese trailer, we see a young Jyn Erso receive a very special necklace from her mom, one with a kyber crystal in the middle. As we all know, kyber crystals are embedded in every lightsaber and are the source of their power. This begs the question, could Jyn and her mom actually be Force sensitive? Also in the Japanese trailer we get a nice new shot of Vader making a claw with his hand, like he just Force-choked someone out. Sure we’ve known Vader was gonna be in this one all along, but it’s still cool to see him in action.

Finally in the Korean trailer we get a shot of the Death Star firing on what appears to be Jeddah, which has us worried about the fate of the Jedi-worshipers home world. We also get one more glimpse of the mysterious Space-Ring base hovering above the beach planet of Scariff. Could be the entry way through a force field surrounding the planet? Possibly! Which would force our rebel heroes to “thread the needle” through it if they want to reach the planet’s surface. A new take on the classic Star wars trench run that we think sounds pretty cool!

But what do you think about these new trailers? Is there anything we missed? And how excited are you for Rogue One? Let us know in the comments!

The Intimate Lyricism of Leonard Cohen

This past July, Leonard Cohen’s first long-time partner (whom he dated throughout much of the ’60s), Marianne C. Stang Jensen Ihlen, died of leukemia. When she passed, Cohen, one of the best songwriters to ever grace us, wrote a haunting goodbye:

“Well, Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.”

It appears Marianne could indeed reach his hand, the one that penned so many beloved lyrics over this past half-century. Last night, Leonard Cohen made it darker, and followed her forever into the night.

The eerie reminiscence of Cohen’s death with that of David Bowie at the beginning of this baneful 2016 is also inescapable. Each released their final albums—both dark examinations of life and its imminent end—around their birthdays, and each appeared to know that their deaths were nigh. “If you are the dealer / Let me out of the game,” Cohen sings in the title track. “If you are the healer / I’m broken and lame.”

Unlike Bowie, however, Cohen never achieved pop stardom. He began his career in literature and slowly transitioned his literary savvy into the framework of music (he didn’t release his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, until 1967, when he was already 33 years old). Eventually, Cohen would build a career of eloquence, a persona of words that made lyricist a more appropriate label than musician.

Even so, he was decorated for his contributions to music all the same. Cohen is in the American Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he’s been appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada—the nation’s highest civilian honor. In 2011, he also received the prestigious Princess of Asturia Award for literature, which came four years after Bob Dylan’s acceptance of the same award for “the arts.”

Yesterday a friend of mine and I, in what feels now like an ominous coindidence, spent much of the early afternoon exchanging Cohen songs, like “Avalanche” and “Joan of Arc.” Cohen bookends the latter piece with colorful, diametric phrases: “Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc / As she came riding through the dark,” and then it ends: “Myself I long for love and light / But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?” Like many of Cohen’s lyrics, there exists a beautiful symmetry in these words, a succinct yet artful narrative that wends through thoughts with a natural grace, like water spilling down a mountain.

Ultimately, we decided that Cohen is as deserving of a Nobel as any lyricist. That idea, of course, comes in the wake of Nobel’s bestowal of the Literature prize to Bob Dylan. The two are often compared and the similarities are manifest: both are Jewish, literary, and have a “penchant for Biblical imagery,” as New Yorker Editor-in-Chief, David Remnick, wrote in his his recent reflection on Cohen’s life. Remnick contributes a significant portion of the piece to Dylan’s reverence for Cohen as a songwriter (for those familiar with Dylan, he rarely reveres anything or anyone). “I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all,” Dylan told Remnick. “There’s always a direct sentiment, as if he’s holding a conversation and telling you something, him doing all the talking, but the listener keeps listening.”

The feature will undoubtedly persist as our finest lens into Cohen’s last days. It details a gentle, shrewd man who is still determined to make art and music, but simultaneously has come to terms with the fact that he won’t be able to finish everything. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs,” he said to Remmick. “Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

These attitudes, presented by both Cohen and Dylan, are indicative of Cohen’s lyrical style at large. Conversational. Deep and yet matter-of-fact. Unafraid of exploring the profound. One of our favorite Cohen passages reflects all of these things:

“The birds they sang at the break of day

Start again I heard them say

Don’t dwell on what has passed away

or what is yet to be.”

These words come from “Anthem,” a piece also highlighted in the New Yorker article. Remnick contextualizes the song around Cohen’s travels in India, when the wordsmith was searching for meaning and guidance in his life. After a year living in Mumbai, the depression that had always tormented him inexplicably lifted. He returned home much lighter, and the chorus of “Anthem,” a song that took Cohen ten years to write, portrays that lightness:

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.”

Listening to this song just hours before the announcement of his death, I felt these sentiments might be my favorite lines of poetry. They, too, reflect Cohen’s singular genius: intimate, profound, and accepting of both the infinite beauty and confounding limitations of life. Let’s let Cohen shine as a light through the cracks. A bird that sang beautifully for so long and then left, like his words, with a natural grace. And then let’s move on to the other bells that can still ring; that’s what Leonard Cohen would have wanted.

Image: Rama via Wikimedia Commons

TRON Light Cycles Uploaded Into Reality with Dazzling Mountain Bike Display

The original Tron film from 1982 is seminal in part for its story about digitizing and downloading the Dude-err Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from reality into the world of the Grid, where people are programs and the MCP does not mess around. But sometimes ideas flow the other way—from out of the digital frontier into reality (which may or may not be a simulation anyway). Mike Gamble and Thomas Wood’s “Light Cycles” for example, takes the iconic light cycles from the film and brings them to life with the below video of mountain bikers putting on a wickedly cool light show.

The video of the real-life light cycles comes via Laughing Squid, and really kicks into gear visually at around 1:41. According to Gamble, “[Light Cycles] began as a dream, developed into a problem and spawned into a burning desire to create something that had never been done before.”

The aim was to mimic the “jetwalls” of Tron’s light cycles using mountain bikes, although it’s unclear from Gamble’s video description if the inspiration comes more from the original Tron or from 2010’s Tron: Legacy. The result definitely looks more like the latter, although regardless it’s a stunning visual effect. Plus, if those riders were listening to a Tron-related soundtrack, it was probably from Legacy, ’cause no matter how you felt about that film, you have to admit that Daft Punk knocked that score out of the mainframe.

What do you think about this real-life Tron light cycle race? Does it look just about as dangerous as the “real” fictional thing or do you want Gamble to figure out a way to make those jetwalls solid? Take us into the maze of your thoughts in the comments below!

Images: Mike Gamble Media

We gush on the visually dazzling Valerian trailer!

WESTWORLD Is JURASSIC PARK in Hilarious Side-by-Side Comparison

When you think about Jurassic Park, you probably first think of Steven Spielberg. And when you think about Westworld, you probably first think about HBO’s new hit show (or about deep philosophical musings on consciousness…). But the two major media properties have one critical thing in common: they’re both originally stories created by legendary author/director Michael Crichton. Maybe that’s why both of them have so many parallel story elements. Or as CollegeHumor puts it, “Westworld is Just Jurassic Park.”

In a recently released video, CollegeHumor, the YouTube channel you’ve already heard of and are probably subscribed to, lined up both Westworld and Jurassic Park in order to “Imagine a theme park populated with things from the past that eight-year-olds love…” And while this is most definitely true, maybe eight-year-olds should have designed the parks’ security systems too.

The video highlights a ton of similarities between the iconic film and the new HBO series, including both theme parks being possible thanks to “advanced but theoretically possible science,” both parks being led by “an old white-haired British guy,” and “foolproof security systems that can withstand anything… except greed.”

Sure, it’s easy to spot the similarities between Westworld and Jurassic Park, but why fix it if it’s not broken? This is clearly a winning formula. For good movies and television, not for anybody who would actually ever go to these parks if they were real…

What do you think about this side-by-side look at Westworld and Jurassic Park? Would you go to either of these parks if they existed in real life? Are you as psyched for Mutant Soldier Laser Tag as we are? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: Universal Pictures / HBO

What are all the Westworld timelines?

Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt Show Off Their Hidden Musical Talents

Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, who are obviously two of the most talented and lovable people in America given their status as stars of film and television, are both appearing in the film Passengers, and during a joint appearance on Ellen this week, they revealed that their talent extends beyond what you see on screen, in ways that you may not expect.

For instance, Lawrence revealed that there was a lot of singing on the set of the movie before busting out a truly sublime impression of Cher singing “Believe.” The throaty, deep tone and cadence was totally on point, and she came to realize on air that it was actually sort of a compulsive tick she did without realizing it, because the power of believing in life after love is that moving. And hey, perhaps it’ll lead to something greater: “I don’t know, maybe I’ll do something with it, one day,” she said.

As for Pratt, his talent is a bit more… biological, as he said he has the tremendous ability to generate a lot of “moob sweat,” or sweat under his “man boobs,” due to the antiperspirant he uses. Still, he said that’s only brought on when he is nervous to rap, which he’s actually quite good at. He didn’t do it on Ellen, but he nailed Eminem’s verse in Dr. Dre’s “Forgot About Dre” during a radio appearance a couple years ago.

And now we sit and wait for Lawrence and Pratt to drop their first collaborative mixtape.

Image: Ellen

Iron Man Experience Set to Open at Hong Kong Disneyland

Say you wanted to battle Hydra but also do a little sightseeing, now you can do both in the Iron Man Experience at Hong Kong Disneyland, the first-ever Marvel-themed ride to open at a Disney Park. Tony Stark is your ultimate tour guide as he flies you through the streets of West Kowloon in an immersive motion ride set to open in January 2017.

To begin the experience you first have to don a pair of StarkVision glasses, then board an Iron Wing flight vehicle. Your journey begins flying through the city as you eventually end up at the new Hong Kong Stark Tower to visit the world’s largest Arc Reactor. Don’t get too comfortable, there’s definitely Hydra-themed trouble ahead.

As with all Disney rides, the queue is where it’s at. Disney Imagineers have the unique ability to bring comics and movies to life and the ride queue takes you through a mini Stark Expo showcasing all of his latest and greatest designs. Oh Disney, please make the Stark Expo an annual reality. Imagine all the cool things we could marvel at, pun intended.

Flying side-by-side with Iron Man is every fan’s dream and this interactive experince allows you to feel like it’s a reality. As Stan Lee himself says, “Anybody who goes to a Disney theme park loves color and spectacle and excitement and adventure, and that’s all that Iron Man is. It embodies all of those things.”

The Iron Man Experience is set to open in Hong Kong Disneyland’s Tomorrowland on January 11, 2017

Would you like Iron Man as your personal tour guide? Let us know what you think in the comments about the opening of first Marvel ride in a Disney Park!

Images: Marvel

Now wouldn’t you like this Valerian trailer to be a ride?

BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN HBO Documentary Trailer is Pure Horror

Art imitates life and life imitates art, as the saying goes, but unfortunately, absolute horror finds a way to inject itself into that obligatory cycle. One of the most tragic recent examples of the dark side of this aphorism is the case of the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl by two other 12-year-old girls who were inspired by the internet creation known as the Slenderman. Now, roughly three years after that incident, we have our first glimpse at the HBO documentary surrounding the attempted murder in this new chilling trailer.

The documentary, which is titled Beware the Slenderman and is directed by filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky (Hear and Now, The Final Inch), focuses on the trial of the two Wisconsin girls responsible for the attempted murder, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. The two young girls reportedly stabbed the victim 19 times because they believed that if they didn’t, there would be repercussions from the Slenderman.

Brodsky told Buzzfeed that the documentary will “not revolve around guilt or innocence… but instead the court’s deliberation whether the girls should be tried as adults or children.” Brodsky added that “Above all, it is the anguish and astonishing honesty of the girls’ parents that anchors the film’s narrative to its tragic core.”

For those unfamiliar with the Slenderman, he is a fictional character that was created by Eric Knudsen, and began as an internet meme on the comedy site Something Awful. Slenderman, who is usually depicted as a very tall, thin man in a suit, without a face, has supernatural abilities that change depending upon the storyteller, although his motives are always sinister. He inspired many works of related fiction, video games, and of course, some real-life acts of violence including the attempted murder involving Geyser and Weier.

The documentary, which first debuted at this year’s South by Southwest, is set to premiere on HBO on January 23, 2017.

What do you think about HBO’s documentary based on the Slenderman-inspired attempted murder? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images: HBODocs

We get to the bottom of why The Blair Witch Project is so scary.

Snapchat ‘Spectacles’ Will Now Be Available Through Pop-Up ‘Snapbots’

Back in September, Snap Inc.—which is “a camera company” that also makes that Snapchat app you probably have on your phone—revealed their Snap Spectacles. Now, in classic viral marketing form, the tech company based out of Venice, CA is showing consumers how they’ll be able to buy their quirky camera glasses: via even more quirky “Snapbot” vending machines.

The news of the invasion of the Snapbots comes via Engadget, and it sounds like the rollout for the Minion-esque machines is going to be very slow. As of today, there is only a single Snapbot out on the streets, near the company’s headquarters in Venice, and it has reportedly already run out of the $129.00 Spectacles—although there is also word of the machine being restocked. Either way, if you’re in the area and want to purchase some Spectacles, prepare for either disappointment or a very long line. On the bright side, the machine does vomit out a rainbow-colored receipt:

This is how the @Spectacles bot works! It’s like magic and rainbows and cats and unicorns in a box that spits out spectacles! Neat! pic.twitter.com/jkha5qlB73

— Stevo Jacobs (@stevodotorg) November 10, 2016

According to Engadget, the Snapbots will only appear at certain locations for an unspecified period of time, so don’t count on any one of them staying in their place for long. There is, however, a Snapbot tracker that allows you to track down Snapbots; keeping up with the Spectacles Twitter account will probably help too (although it’s still a bit confusing why they’re not simply available online).

The Spectacles themselves are sunglasses with cameras in them that record 10-second *circular* videos that can be uploaded to Snapchat via WiFi or Bluetooth. The glasses are click-to-record, and according to Snap Inc. they come with enough battery power for a full day’s worth of video. Perhaps your first videos will be of you waiting for a full day in line near a Snapbot for your friend to get a pair.

What do you think about Snap Inc.’s method of rolling out their Snap Spectacles? Are their quirky vending machines the perfect way to roll out an equally quirky product, or are you also confused as to why the buying process isn’t easier? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Images: Snap Inc.