Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2382

This Bird Can Sing THE ADDAMS FAMILY Theme Song Perfectly

The Addams Family theme song is one of those melodies that transcends age and era. The last episode of the original TV series aired in 1966, more than two decades before I was born, and yet it’s always been immediately recognizable, floating residually along the airwaves of my life. To be fair, the show and the cartoons it was based off of have been adapted several times since the ’60s TV show, but it speaks to the enduring nature of the eerie, quirky theme that so nicely captures the ethos of the story. Now even birds are catching on.

Twitter user HANGİ UMUT ? is more than just his catchy name; he’s also the owner of a talented bird that knows The Addams Family theme song by heart, snaps and all. He recently posted a video of (presumably his) bird whistling the tune and bashing his beak against the table to recreate the snapping sounds—all in perfect rhythm! His tweet speaks volumes:

Gerizekalıdkskzkskzkakxf pic.twitter.com/ZklqCJm8uS

— HANGİ UMUT ? (@oumutdeyil) May 7, 2016

Gerizekalıdkskzkskzkakxf indeed. Below the tweet, in a practical joke worthy of The Addams Family, HANGİ UMUT ? also posted a video of a bird sabotaging its friend’s dinner. Somewhere, Thing is clapping its hand.

Vic Mizzy wrote the original Addams Family theme song, as Entertainment Weekly reports, and it’s been used in various iterations since its debut, namely in a 1977 reunion special, the cartoon adaptation of the ‘90s, and this M&Ms commercial.

Have any special Addams Family memories? Let us know in the comments below.

Image: ABC

This Legally Blind Astronomer Has Superhero Night Vision

It never ceases to amaze me what people can do, even in the face of debilitating limitations. Beethoven, for instance, composed his Ninth Symphony while almost completely deaf, relying on the vibrations of his strings to guide his composition. It’s truly amazing to think about. But there could never be a blind astronomer, right? Right?!

Tim Doucette was born with congenital cataracts and, after surgery, he was left with just 10% of his eyesight. His pupils, unlike most of ours, don’t automatically adjust depending on the amount of light around them—his are always open. When it comes to seeing in the dark, though, that’s actually beneficial.

“I can actually see the night sky better than most people,” he says in a Great Big Story feature, as Laughing Squid reports. After having additional surgeries as a teenager, Doucette recalls looking up at the night sky and, in his awe of the expansive Milky Way, thinking he had a detached retina. It wasn’t actually detached; rather, Doucette’s perpetually open pupils were allowing him to see the stars in exceptional vividness.

Doucette now studies the stars from his own observatory, which he built with his own savings near his Nova Scotia home. The observatory, named Deep Sky Eye, has become a sanctuary where he can celebrate his victory over adversity and remember the insignificance of our terrestrial problems. “When I look up at the night sky, it makes you realize that all your problems—the fact that you’re legally blind or whatever—really just doesn’t matter, and you realize that you’re a part of this universe.”

Anyone out there have a similar story? Let us know in the comments.

Image: Great Big Story

CARNIVAL OF SOULS is Haunting and Weird on Blu-ray (Review)

A few years ago, I was buying VOD movies from RiffTrax and one of the ones that caught my eye was Carnival of Souls, a movie that I’d seen in several of those 100 movies for $20 bundles full of garbage and public domain stuff. (Night of the Living Dead and White Zombie always appear there as well.) I thought the commentary was sufficiently funny and the movie was weird and crappy enough to make it enjoyable. But I knew it had a high reputation; hell, it’s on Criterion even, an early release. After watching the new Blu-ray edition, I’m convinced it’s a masterpiece, despite what the RiffTrax guys say.

Directed by Herk Harvey and written by John Clifford, both veterans of the Lawrence, KS-based industrial film production company Centron Corporation, Carnival of Souls is a nightmarish, stark, near-experimental film that has been named as influences on the likes of David Lynch and George A. Romero. Made and released in 1962, it’s an oddity of a horror film, and not all the performances are very good, but it’s hugely effective if you allow the visuals and the constant organ music to overtake you.

The film opens with a car of young ladies having a street race against a couple of dudes in cars, with the girls’ car careening off a bridge in the process. While the authorities are unable to retrieve the car, one of the women–Mary (Candace Hilligoss)–emerges from the river, seemingly unharmed. She works as a church organist bust keeps mentioning that she’s a non-believer. Mary decides to move to a new town to get away from the memories of all her dead friends. On her way, she passes a large, abandoned carnival and suddenly sees the terrifying pale face of a ghostly man in a suit (director Herk Harvey himself), but she shakes it off and goes on her way.

After getting a room at a local boarding house, she gets a job at another church as an organist, and the pastor and her psychiatrist both try to make her deal with her losses. The boarding house only has one other tenant, and he’s a real skeevy dude (Sidney Berger) who consistently hits on her, disgustingly, eventually wearing her down enough that she does agree to go out with him. The problem is, she’s preternaturally drawn to the carnival, both in dreams and in hallucinations throughout the day, and slowly the world begins to close in around her. She constantly sees the ghostly man and several times, people in stores and on the street actively don’t acknowledge her. The climax comes with dozens of other ghostly people chasing her through the carnival, attempting to punish her for escaping death’s clutches.

This movie is bonkers, but it’s really very good. Hilligoss and Berger are strange but undeniably watchable screen presences and every time Harvey’s ghost man makes an appearance, it’s a frightening delight. The music is unsettling and constant organ music, to go along with the main character’s profession, and it apes everything from slinky saxophone music to calliope waltzes. It truly feels from another planet, and perfectly accompanies the dreamy way Mary floats through the world, or runs for her life, or simply can’t escape her past.

One really feels the movie is a precursor to Eraserhead and Night of the Living Dead, and it’s only 78 minutes so you don’t even have to spend all evening watching it. But the haunting images might just stay with you into your own nightmares.

The Blu-ray edition from Criterion looks really terrific, clean enough to make you forget its low-budget, public domain-video roots, and the sound especially has been cleaned up, allowing it to plunge right into your head (in a good way). The extras on the disc are very informative. There’s a 22-minute interview with comedian/writer/actor Dana Gould, a massive horror movie fan and a very knowledgeable sort about such things. Fascinating and enjoyable. Gould also reads an essay about the history of Centron Corporation and its industrial film work, many of which are included on the disc as well. There’s also a half-hour video essay by film critic David Cairns, much more sprightly and playful than most video essays.

On top of these, you also get a 1989 scene-specific commentary by Harvey and Clifford, a 1989 documentary about the cast and crew reunion, a 2000 update about the filming locations, deleted scenes and trailers. All in all, a packed release of a truly one of a kind and special horror gem. Pick this up immediately.

4.5 out of 5 ghastly, grinning burritos

Images: Criterion Collection

This POKÉMON-Themed Jewelry is Absolutely Everything

With Pokémon GO finally out in the wild, the adorable pocket monsters have been dominating the internet as one of the most talked about topics. Trainers are walking around town (sometimes wandering where they shouldn’t), catching rare creatures in hilarious places, and having a ton of fun. With fans both old and new flocking to the beloved franchise (which just so happens to be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), it’s the perfect time to talk about—or pop the question with?—the beyond-amazing Pokémon bridal jewelry currently available in Japan. Check it out in the gallery below!

For starters, who wouldn’t say yes if their sweetheart proposed with this twin Pikachu ring below?

Our hearts would be captured in an instant.

Speaking of Pikachu, what about this darling necklace? We 100% need this in our lives RIGHT NOW.

Also, was anyone else reminded of Miley Cyrus’ infamous “Wrecking Ball” video? Coincidence? We think not! Gifting of this gem would best be accompanied by a Pokémon-themed spoof of the song.

If ghost-types are more your cup of tea, this Gengar ring would be perfect.

Just be careful not to poke your eye out. Those ears look sharp.

From what we can tell (it was hard navigating the website because it was in Japanese), each piece comes packaged in a white box with a Poké Ball image on top. As an added bonus, the first 400 customers who grab something from the store will receive the sweet Poké Ball gift case (pictured in the featured image at the top of the page). *Note: At the time of writing, it is unclear whether these are still available.

Check out a few more pieces in the gallery below!

What did you think of the jewelry? Could you see yourself wearing any of it? Let us know in the comments below, join the conversation on Facebook, or reach out to me on Twitter: @Samantha_Sofka!

Images: Poketmonsters.u-treasure.jp

New X-MEN Universe TV Series Coming to Fox

Unlike the Marvel Cinematic universe, or several of the DC Comics properties, Fox hasn’t really pushed their X-Men characters into the television realm. Well, that’s about to change big time, as not only is FX getting a series built around Charles Xavier’s son called Legion, but now the Fox network has announced, via the Hollywood Reporter, that they are producing an all-new pilot set in the X-Men world.

Fox just revealed that it has handed out a pilot commitment to an untitled Marvel action-adventure series. According to the original report, the untitled Marvel project will focus on “two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive”. The series will be a co-production between 20th Century Fox Television and Marvel Television.

The new series is being handled by Burn Notice‘s Matt Nix, who will write the pilot script and executive produce alongside X-Men franchise veterans Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg as well as Marvel’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. Another Marvel/Fox TV project was planned last year centered around the Hellfire Club, but it never got off the ground.

So…what possible X-Men universe comic could this be based on?? There isn’t really an ongoing or well known Marvel comic about human parents trying to save their mutant children that instantly springs to mind, but the idea of an “underground network of mutants” seems to suggest the Morlocks, who are literally a group of mutants who look so un-human like, they are forced to live in the sewers beneath the city. Of course, they probably don’t mean underground in the literal way — they probably just mean off the radar from the eyes of the public, which could suggest X-Force. But that particular property is getting a movie, probably with Deadpool and Cable in it. So let’s scratch that option.

There are lots of mutant teams in the comics however, many of which take a cool sounding name and then reuse them for very different concepts. X-Factor for example has been a team featuring the original X-Men saving young mutants, then changed into a government mutant task force, and was finally a detective agency. The only thing these comics had in common was a name, because it was a title they could mold into anything. Same with currently unused names from the comics like the X-Terminators, and several others. The name Exiles was about runaway mutants from other realities living in the mainstream Marvel Universe, but would make a ton of sense on a show about runaway mutants hiding from the government.

With literally hundreds of mutants to draw from in the comics, this is a blank slate for Fox to take advantage of. Many characters who would never see the light of day in the movie franchise, or just be relegated to cameos, could flourish on TV. If you are a fan of lesser known mutant characters, this show will likely be the best place for them to ever turn up in live-action.

What would you like to see in an X-Men universe TV series? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.

7 of the most WTF comic moments ever!

Image: Twentieth Century Fox

Catch an Uber Made for Your POKÉMON GO-Playing Needs

We know what you’ve been doing with your free time. Heck, we know what you’ve been doing during your lunch break, on those late night walks, at the grocery store, in line at Starbucks, skulking about in the backyard of people’s houses, and pretty much all day in between: You’re playing Pokémon Go. Don’t lie to us! We know that if you’re not hunting for Pokéstops with lure modules already in them, or creeping on places of worship and people’s homes to have gym battles, you’re probably online looking up tips and tricks. The game has taken the world by storm, and has hordes of us wandering the streets of our towns and cities with our heads in our phones. For those of you without a car hoping to get those elusive Pikachus across town, never fear: Uber Go is here for you!

In a new video from Julien Solomita, the not-at-all-real (sorry!) app’s myriad benefits are made evident (mainly: allowing you to hunt Pokémon while someone else drives you around). Sidenote: is it wrong that we want this to be a real thing? (Also: you know someone has already used Uber for this!) Thankfully, Uber Go drivers are totally game, asking how the hunt is going and asking if the player is, “putting ’em in your balls?” (Note: I have made more “balls” jokes in the past few days than any teenager has in an entire lifetime.) They also seem totally OK with all your crazy, impulsive demands. After all, when you see a Pikachu, you have to drop everything and catch him! This is non-negotiable.

Check out the video and laugh along with us. Now, as a player myself (my local park has a Paras infestation that someone has to take care of), I’m going to need to hear your stories! Tweet me/us @JennaBusch/@Nerdist and tell us the rarest Pokémon you’ve found so far, how you’ve freaked non-players out (I ended up on a playground taking pictures) and the craziest thing you’ve seen so far. Have you been called out by little kids yet? We want to know!

Image credit:  The Pokémon Company

Watch John C. Reilly Play Folk with Andrew Bird at His House

More than a master violinist or elocutionist, Andrew Bird has always seemed like an absurdly friendly human being. His latest video series—Live From The Great Room—trades on his talents and hospitable vibes as he invites established musicians and beloved folks to his home to perform a low-key, but always beautifully done live concerts. Normally he is joined by fellow musicians, but this week he duetted with Dewey Cox himself, the multi-talented and ever-mirthful John C. Reilly.

For those only familiar with his impressive film and TV resume, and maybe also his skills as a roller skater, Reilly is also a very capable musician with a golden voice made for pre-war style Americana. Just listen to him yodel along to Glen Campbell’s “Weary Lonesome Blues.” He is legitimately great, adding an aged, but shiny croak to Bird’s skillful violin noodling. Throughout the rest of the above video, Bird talks to Reilly about his affinity for bluegrass and country music, and why his “too optimistic for the blues.”

It is a really wonderful half hour that shines a light on Reilly’s life philosophies as they are informed by music. Before leading into a spate of several great performances, the group poignantly waxes poetic about the significance of eternal mediums as the transience of digital ephemera becomes more pronounced every hour of existence. Essentially, this performance should solidify Bird and Reilly as some of the realest dudes out there, really reveling in things that they love so much, that they make it enjoyable for the rest of us too.

Image: Columbia Pictures

Matt Grosinger is the music editor of Nerdist  and recommends you also watch John C. Reilly’s folk performance for NPR.

Scientists Recreated Van Gogh’s STARRY NIGHT Using DNA “Origami”

Who says science and art need to be opposites? There’s plenty of room for overlap in the two fields, and why shouldn’t they be — they’re both creative pursuits. And, when it comes to this latest science/art merger, there’s really no better word than “creative.” The only other phrase that comes to mind is “this is amazing but humans are getting too goddamn smart for their own good.”

Scientists at Caltech have just recreated a tiny version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night by folding DNA molecules. The creation marks the first time this technique, known as “DNA origami,” has successfully scaled up to build large number of DNA-based devices on computer chips. The Caltech team published their findings in Nature.

The “origami” name may make this work sound artsy, but there are real scientific implications for DNA origami, and it’s part of broader conversation that believes molecules to be “the devices of the future”—as Caltech’s Paul Rothemund told Gizmodo. “But how do you connect them? How do you wire them up into larger circuits? How do you do anything with them? You need an interface between the molecular and the macroscopic world, and that’s what this is.”

Rothemund co-authored the Nature article and is regarded as a DNA origami pioneer. He’s been folding DNA into interesting shapes for a decade now, and his minuscule artwork—which has included smiley faces (see above), snowflakes, and a map of the Western hemisphere—was displayed at New York’s MoMA in 2008.

The methodology behind DNA origami is, of course, incredibly complex. But, in short, Rothemund and Caltech postdoc Ashwin Gopinath developed a way of folding DNA and then tuned injected fluorescent molecules to specific wavelengths, leading to patterns of “hot” and “cold” spots that can be fashioned into images. Gopinath had just watched the “Vincent and the Doctor” episode of Dr. Who and was inspired to design the test around an image of Starry Night—knowing that successfully capturing the painting’s complexity would assuredly demonstrate DNA origami’s power and potential. And voila! Here we have it.

DNA origami may have resulted in the most impressive recreation of Van Gogh’s masterpiece thus far, but it is one of several similar recent pursuits, like this rendering of Starry Night in a bowl of water, and this one that uses a handful of bacteria-infested petri dishes. Which one do you like most? Let us know in the comments.

Images: P. Rothemund et al./Caltech

Chuck Wendig On Writing STAR WARS AFTERMATH: LIFE DEBT

The first book of Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy forged a new path in the Star Wars universe. Set in the tumultuous period after the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, Aftermath showed what had become of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance–now the New Republic. It introduced new characters such as Norra Wexley and her son Temmin (a.k.a. Snap in The Force Awakens) and revisited old friends like Wedge Antilles and Han Solo. And now, the next installment of the trilogy, Aftermath: Life Debt, is here and it’s doing the same. We’re spending more time with Norra, Temmin, Sinjir, and co. as they go on a clandestine mission for Princess Leia Organa: Han Solo and Chewbacca attempted to free Kashyyyk from the Empire, but Chewie was captured and Han went missing. Norra and her team are tasked with finding them.

Chewbacca swore a life debt to Han because the smuggler saved the Wookiee from slavery. Kashyyyk wasn’t freed the instant Emperor Palpatine died, and the tale of how the Wookiees escaped the Imperial grasp is sort of a legend in the Star Wars universe. Wendig said bringing it to the page was tricky. “The challenge is, it’s a big thing. It’s epic. It’s something people have expected and also seen or imagined in a variety of ways. Plus, it’s also just one part of the story–it isn’t the entirety of the novel, and so the goal is to make it awesome while also not allowing it to dominate the book,” he said. “Plus, we told a ‘planet liberation’ story with the first Aftermath (re: Akiva), and I had to ensure that we weren’t telling the same beats reiteratively, just for Kashyyyk.”

Another part of drafting Life Debt was more straightforward than Wendig expected. He had the chance to explore a new era for Han and Leia. Their marriage is still relatively new, and Leia’s pregnant (as we know from this excerpt). Wendig was able to find their voices; he said, “It was a lot easier than I thought? In part because these movies and these characters have lived in my head for decades. It was like, ‘Okay, just turn my skull upside down and let them spill out.'”

Besides writing for characters we know and love, Wendig got to continue developing the people brought into the galaxy in Aftermath–like Norra, Temmin, Sinjir, and Rae Sloane, just to name a few. Aftermath saw Norra wrestle with the notion that even though she thought she was ready to give up fighting after Endor, she’s drawn to action. She likes being a pilot and being in the thick of things. Since she has reunited with Temmin, she also has to deal with guilt over bringing him into a war. Their relationship has changed a bit. “Norra and Temmin are closer. Temmin’s a little older and he’s out in the field with Norra—which leads her to become more protective of him. He has no father in his life anymore, and I think her idea is to shelter him a little. And as she watches him become what she was, in part, I think that scares her,” Wendig said.

Since Temmin/Snap appeared in The Force Awakens, part of Life Debt is devoted to setting up his pilot status. Wendig pointed out that Snap’s appearance in Episode VII is a couple decades away so he didn’t need to be married to the man he becomes, but… “We do know that Snap becomes a pilot, and part of this book and the follow-up is helping him get there.” And about Temmin’s nickname, Wendig said, “I just ran with it. Snapping my fingers nervously the whole way!”

Looking away from the heroes of the New Republic to the remnants of the Empire, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is never going to give up. Her ambition was apparent in the first book, and it’s not going anywhere. But she was being reined in to some degree by a mysterious adviser. Wendig teased how their relationship will evolve: “I don’t want to say too much, because that dynamic plays out across the entire breadth of Life Debt. She is a dangerous figure, and so is the mysterious character. Are they enemies? Are they allies? Is it both, or is it something else entirely? The evolution of that relationship, and what it means for the entirety of the Empire, is honestly pretty huge. Everything hinges on these two characters. Everything.”

Star Wars Aftermath: Life Debt is available July 12. Jump to the comments and let us know if you’ll be picking it up.

Images: Del Rey

Hydraulic Press Proves We Are Wasting a Ton of Toothpaste and Ketchup

You know it’s in there. You know that bottle isn’t really, truly empty. It’s just that you can’t get what remains out, no matter how much you squeeze, cajole, twist, or shake. It would seem some things are just never meant to be. That is, unless you have the awesome power of a hydraulic press to force it all out, and “it” is way more than just a little drop.

This latest video from the Hydraulic Press Channel is one of the funniest they have ever done, because they decided to use their machine to see just how much toothpaste and ketchup remains in the bottle when it is already “empty.”  It turns out those supposedly exhausted bottles aren’t close to having been used up, but rather that our puny human muscles don’t have the strength to squeeze out the rest.

Just think about all of those teeth that needlessly went unclean because dad forget to pick up toothpaste, even though, secretly–and tragically–there was enough for the whole family in that tube that had been discarded. Or all of those hot dogs and french fries that went without that sweet, red, salty condiment, since mom thought there wasn’t any left in the bottle, only there was.

What kind of money could every day, hard-working citizens have saved on these small tubes and bottles of household goods, if only they had access to their own hydraulic press to avoid needless waste? What would the impact be on our economy and environment if we weren’t throwing away perfectly good toothpaste and ketchup, and using more plastic on bottles that we didn’t actually need?

I don’t know whether to celebrate this new and incredible revelation, or to weep for all of the perfectly good globs of stuff thrown away over the years, toothpaste and ketchup that could have done a lot of good.

Either way, I think what we do now is clear: a chicken in every pot, and a hydraulic press in every bathroom and kitchen! Hydraulic Press 2016!

Just because we can’t squeeze out the erst of the toothpaste doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.

What else would you like to see the hydraulic press try to squeeze out? Tell us in the comments below.

Images: Hydraulic Press Channel