Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2398

Ewan McGregor Negotiates a Sticky Situation in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR Trailer (Exclusive)

There’s something about a John Le Carré adaptation. The master of espionage has a history of creating some of the most intriguing, clever, and brilliantly entertaining spy novels out there—from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to the recent miniseries The Night Manager (and we’re obsessed with them both). In the latest adaptation of his work, from director Susanna White (Parade’s End) and Hossein Amini (a.k.a. the guy who wrote Drive), a teacher (Ewan McGregor) and his girlfriend (Naomie Harris) are forced into a bit of political maneuvering between the Russia mafia and the British secret service …not exactly the most comforting place to be if you literally have no idea how to survive two clandestine forces going at each other’s necks that definitely don’t have your best interest at heart.

Also starring Damian Lewis (a.k.a. Brody from Homeland) and Stellan Skarsgård (a.k.a. that guy that’s in everything ever), Our Kind of Traitor studies the human condition when an ordinary man is put in extraordinary circumstances, and must navigate his own moral compass, and the deception at play, in order to stay alive. After all, what else is there to do but try and survive when you’ve found yourself lured into a Russian oligarch’s plot to defect from his mother country? Perry Makepeace (McGregor) and Gail Perkins (Harris) will no doubt be hunted, chased, and scared; their moral limits tested. And in that way that only Le Carré can manage with such cutting originality, it will surely keep us all on the edge of our seats. And you can see all of that on display in the exclusive clip up above, and in the trailer below:

Our Kind of Traitor hits theaters on July 1st, 2016. Are you going to check it out? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Image: Roadside Attractions

The Jackie and Laurie Show #26: Can’t Make Them Sit Thru This, Must Make Them Sit Thru This

This week Jackie and Laurie talk about performing in front of a pile of flip flops. They also talk about Jackie getting blocked by Roseanne on Twitter and Laurie’s son sitting next to Don Friesen’s son at a comedy club while they wait for the parents to do sets.

Comic of the Week: Janelle James @janellejcomic

Follow @jackiekashian and @anylaurie16 on Twitter!

Follow the show! @JackieandLaurie

Google May Launch Its Own Smartphone by the End of 2016

In a sense, Google is already deeply involved in the cell phone game. Its Android operating system is the most used mobile operating system in most countries in the world, for instance. But it still lags behind in major markets including the United States, Canada, and Australia. Part of the reason for this is because Google has never had its own hardware before. However, it looks like that’s about to change, as it is being reported (via The Telegraph) that Google is working on its own device, and hopes to make it available by the end of the year.

Having its own phone would allow Google to control every aspect of how it operates, which it just can’t do when its software is installed on hardware created by various manufacturers: A mid-2015 report stated that Android was installed on over 24,000 unique devices. An analyst told The Telegraph, “They are concerned that Android is fragmenting, that it needs to become a more controlled platform. I think they’ll seek to control it more, more like Apple.”

Still, it seems like Google’s goal of having their own phone released by the end of 2016 is ambitious: Project Ara, the long-delayed modular smartphone Google has been working on, is only shipping units to developers this fall, while consumer versions will only be available in 2017.

When Google actually enters the smartphone market, they’ll at least have the advantage of a preexisting user base. Apple’s iOS isn’t right for everybody, and if Android can find its way onto a high-end and more stable device, it’s possible that Google can both keep the users it has and steal some away from Apple.

Featured Image: Niharb

The Roots, Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder and More Honor Prince at 2016 BET Awards

It’s been two months now since Prince passed away at 57 years old, and still, the tributes continue to pour in. The 2016 BET Awards took place last night, and some of the artists in attendance took the opportunity to honor one of the most celebrated and prolific black entertainers of all time.

Stevie Wonder and Tori Kelly teamed up to kick off the festivities with a cover of “Take Me With U.” Then, donning a short white dress that looked very similar to the white blazer that Prince wore at the 2005 People’s Choice Awards, Jennifer Hudson belted out an emotional and vocally dexterous performance of “Purple Rain.

Janelle Monáe also made an appearance and performed a medley of Prince classics that included “Delirious,” “Kiss,” “Pop Life,” and “I Would Die for You” in her signature enthusiastic and high-energy style. Erykah Badu, Bilal, and The Roots capped the tribute with soulful performances of “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” and “The Beautiful Ones.”

Speaking of The Roots, drummer Questlove had previously paid tribute to Prince at an awards show over the past couple months, saying of his musical idol at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards, “All of us live in the land of music, and his departure from it was an earthquake. But we can follow the trails he blazed and his example. We can be fierce, uncompromising, experimental, and we can also listen to all the songs he left for us. He was very generous in that regard.”

Check out some clips from last night’s BET tribute below, and let us know which performance best honored the legend.

 

Featured Image: ABC

The Rock Is Launching His Own YouTube Channel

Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson’s short clips rack up millions of views on Instagram, but now it appears he’s looking to get into a more substantial form of internet video production. In the description of a recent Instagram video teasing a new YouTube channel from The Rock, he wrote, “There are powerful secrets behind The People’s Eyebrow. So powerful that I’m bringing together the brightest, most entertaining minds on the internet to share them with the world.”

Now the YouTube channel is starting to get off the ground: With just a trailer that takes the form of a fantasy movie teaser, The Rock’s channel already has over 130,000 subscribers.

“I should start a YouTube channel,” he says in the video, looking directly at the camera. Then he turns and says, “Hey Ray: Go ahead and, uh, call the president of the internet, tell him Rock’s got a hell of an idea.” Looking back at us, he continues, “Yeah, it’s time to change the game. Yeah, but first Rock’s gotta clear his, um, his browsing history.”

It appears the channel’s content will be produced by Seven Bucks Productions, a “a multi-platform production company pioneering original content for television, film, emerging technologies, and digital networks” co-founded by The Rock.

Watch the channel trailer above, and let’s speculate about what types of videos The Rock’s going to make for YouTube. Unboxing videos? Short films? Let’s Play videos? Whatever this creative space ends up being, we have no doubt it’ll be worth subscribing to.

Featured Image: The Rock

Bonus BLOODWORKS GAME OF THRONES, Featuring Stone Men and Many Faces

“One way or another, a face will be added to the hall…but we’re actually going to need way, way more than just one to make this scene look good, and we aren’t going to do it with computers, so….”

When your television show calls for a giant, underground collection of real human visages for use by a band of nameless assassins, somebody has to make them (with prosthetics, we mean—not with a scalpel). In this bonus Bloodworks edition of Scott Ian‘s visit to Belfast to meet with Game of Thrones‘ makeup designer Barrie Gower to learn the tricks of the Westeros trade, we get to see just how many faces were physically created for the House of Black and White.

Using about 50 life casts of various crew members (and at least one family member), Gower and his team made a whopping 570 faces for the hall, far more than the handful they expected to make as they had figured most of them would be CGI’ed. At the very least, he got a cool story out of it, as Gower’s own mom was used as a mold and ended up making it into a scene with Arya.

In this video Gower also explains how he and his staff do about 90% of the painting necessary for the characters directly on the molds themselves, to cut down on the time in the makeup chair for the actor or stuntman. That is different than how most American designers do it, he said, because they do most of the painting only after the prosthetics are applied. That seems helpful when you are bringing to life a world that has such distinct and difficult to create characters, like ice zombies, and men with a disease that turns them into living rocks.

Speaking of the stone men, Ian also got to learn what goes into a full-fledged Greyscale costume, and how it can help to base your fictional ailments on real life ones, but why you should avoid trying to copy them (real afflictions look fake, whereas fake ones have an authenticity to them because they aren’t trying to recreate something people already know and have seen).

There’s lots of other great nuggets in this bonus video, including watching Ian do what any of us would if we were given free reign to to play around in the show’s massive armory (sorry, they shoot this in the UK—armoury), and that’s start picking up each and every sword (Needle!) and seeing what it is like to wield it like a small child with an empty cardboard tube.

Make sure to check out the first two parts of Ian’s visit to the makeup realm responsible for bringing the Seven Kingdoms of George R.R. Martin to the screen, where he first got to learn how giants and the children of the forest come to life, and the second video where he went into the makeup chair himself to be turned into the first ever American White Walker.

What was the coolest thing you learned from Scott Ian’s visit to Game of Thrones? Swear your thoughts to the old gods and the new in our comments section below.

New STAR TREK BEYOND Trailer Looks Way Serious, But Maybe It’s Just the Rihanna Talking

When we heard that Simon Pegg would be handling the script for the third—and, as seems increasingly likely to be, final—film in the present generation of Star Trek films, I think we unanimously assumed one thing: Well, this one’ll be funnier. Pegg, who has played Enterprise engineer, proverbial sidekick, and comic relief Montgomery Scott in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, is known and loved best for his work in the realm of humor. But the newest look at the forthcoming Star Trek Beyond, which will hit theaters on July 22, is not exactly one of laughs. In fact, the movie looks downright dire and intense.

To be fair, this isn’t exactly out of character for Pegg. Though foremost associated with comedy, even his wackiest scripts have showcased some element of human drama. Zombie movie parody Shaun of the Dead had more than its share of darker, even sadder moments; you can say the same of its spiritual follow-ups Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, also penned by Pegg. Still, it’s somewhat jarring to see an entire trailer for his next venture brush by without so much as a wisecrack. This latest promo for Star Trek Beyond instead opts to focus on James Kirk’s internal turmoil and identity crises, harrowing episodes of spaceflight danger, and—perhaps the most serious business of all—a new song by Rihanna.

Rihanna’s new number, “Sledgehammer,” drives home the drama in the Star Trek Beyond trailer with apt kinetic force. Though we can still expect a good deal of the upcoming entry to turn out as zippy and fun as earlier looks suggested it might be, Rihanna seems bent on reminding us of the drama that too lies in waiting. Authored by Pegg or not, no Star Trek film can get away without some plowing, existentialistic tragedy.

What do you think of the latest trailer, and of Rihanna’s new song? Let us know!

Featured Image: Paramount Pictures