Google Senior VP Sundar Pichai announced Thursday that HBO Now would be available for download in the Google Play store this summer.
HBO Now is a standalone streaming service for $14.99 a month. This service gives customers access to live streams of current HBO shows and their vast catalogs of past shows.
“We’re looking forward to expanding our relationship with Google through HBO Now,” said Bernadette Aulestia, HBO Executive VP, Domestic Network Distribution. “We have seen through social media that there is great demand for the service among Android and Chromecast users and we’re excited to deliver HBO NOW to them.”
.@Android users rejoice. We're launching HBO NOW on Android devices this summer, plus Chromecast support. Stay tuned: http://t.co/B4Y2Ojl0Qr
Comedy Central announced Thursday, Trevor Noah will officially take over as Daily Show host on September 28, Comedy Central said on Thursday. Jon Stewart‘s final day will be August 6.
If we can’t find reasons to laugh then we will only ever cry. Happy and sad are two sides of the same coin.
According to The Telegraph, two programs commissioned by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are trying to create killer robots
The robots, called LAWS – lethal autonomous weapons systems – are likely to be armed quadcopters of mini-tanks that can decided without human intervention who should live or die.
DARPA is currently working on two projects which could lead to killer bots. One is Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) which is designing a tiny rotorcraft to manoeuvre unaided at high speed in urban areas and inside buildings. The other and Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE), is aiming to develop teams of autonomous aerial vehicles carrying out “all steps of a strike mission — find, fix, track, target, engage, assess” in situations in which enemy signal-jamming makes communication with a human commander impossible.
Stuart Russell, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkley, voiced his concern over the killer robots.
“In my view, the overriding concern should be the probable endpoint of this technological trajectory,” Russell said.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tracy Morgan is set to make his first appearance since his car accident last June in which Morgan suffered head trauma, a broken leg and broken ribs. Comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed when the Walmart truck slammed into the back of their limo bus.
Morgan will appear on Monday’s Today show with his his lawyer Benedict Morelli, Matt Lauer will conduct the interview live in Today’s Rockefeller Center studios.
Wednesday Morgan reached a confidential settlement in a lawsuit he filed against Walmart over the crash.
A few days ago it was announced, disappointingly, that True Detective director Cary Fukunaga would be leaving the upcoming remake of Stephen King’s It. The news was a big blow to the remake, and many speculated if the movie would ever even happen. Well, the latest news is that It is moving away from New Line and back to Warner Bros.
The original move to New Line was rumored to be one of the reasons Fukunaga was disgruntled with the project. Other rumors cited “creative differences,” which typically means studios want to dictate a story against the director’s will. Now that the news has broken that the film will head back to Warner Bros. and the story is switching back to New York City, the studio will be on the search for a new director.
The news of Fukunaga leaving the project was a major disappointment for anyone looking forward to this remake. The teaming of the True Detective auteur and Stephen King’s seminal material seemed like a match made in heaven. When the project fell apart, even King himself weighed in on Twitter:
The remake of IT may be dead–or undead–but we'll always have Tim Curry. He's still floating down in the sewers of Derry.
The original It was a network miniseries, which would never happen today. Tim Curry chilled me to the bone as Pennywise, but the second half of the film and the climax was clunky and cheesy, with the giant spider in the cave. A modern remake would serve the source material well.
What director do you think should helm the It remake?
Comedian Nate Bargatze spoke with Matthew Sardo about the end on an era with the retirement of David Letterman, the art of storytelling, the return of sitcoms, and the Dave Chappelle / Nate Bargatze imaginary buddy cop film.
“Another Look” is a segment at Monkeys Fighting Robots where we reconsider a film from the past. Sometimes, films are derided and dismissed immediately when they may actually have something to offer. Other times, they are lauded and celebrated and the blind momentum of praise allows the film to grab the “great” label when, in fact, they may be something much less. “On Second Thought” defends those poorly-received films, and it looks at those “great” films with a little more critical thought.
Let’s take Another Look at Michael Mann’s 2006 film adaptation of his 80s TV hit, Miami Vice…
Preconception can doom a film, regardless of the film’s ultimate merits. Occasionally, critics and audiences go into a picture with ideas and notions about what they should see, so when they see something that doesn’t match up with what they had already imprinted in their memory, negativity creeps into their opinions. Backlash builds, and a film can be crippled no matter how good it may be in the face of what was expected.
Michael Mann’s 2006 film, Miami Vice, exists in the realm of his 80s police drama in name – and names – alone. Prior to the film’s release, in the months leading up, the very mention of Mann returning to his wildly successful hyper-colored cop show filled audiences and critics with images of alligators and pastels. Colin Farrell and Jaime Foxx were set to take over the roles of Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, and with the brilliant crime-drama mind of Mann at the helm, anticipation built in the summer of ’06. And then, when the film hit theaters, fans of the show left scratching their heads, wondering what they had just seen.
There were no alligators, no pastel colors, no bright colors at all really. The Miami Vice film didn’t resemble the successful show in just about any way, outside of the fact that Crockett and Tubbs were involved, and they were cops. Critical and audience response was lukewarm at best. While some critics praised the film, many left the theater feeling hollow, and some missed the point entirely. Claudia Puig of USA Today said “All this movie has in common with its ancestor are speedboats, shotguns, and drug-dealing Colombians.” Puig, along with the majority of critics and audiences, were so consumed with what they expected, that they forgot to acknowledge what they were seeing. What they were seeing was one of Michael Mann’s very best films, and one of the most direct and visually stunning crime dramas of all time.
Farrell and Foxx are Crockett and Tubbs, and much of the criticism towards this film over the years has been their lack of chemistry on screen. They barely seem to talk to each other when they go undercover in some of the most threatening situations on the planet. This is the very point. These are two undercover officers who have lived and breathed almost every second with each other in some compromising situations, seemingly for years. They are more than partners, more than brothers, they must function as one mind sometimes to stay ahead of the criminals they are infiltrating. Their lack of dialogue with each other is the most realistic aspect of the story, and it fits where these characters are in their lives. The absence of exposition doesn’t keep Crockett and Tubbs from being fleshed out, in my mind it only enhances their history with each other.
Consider the way they’re filmed when they’re involved in the same scenes: almost always in the same shot, rarely are they separated unless the scene calls for it. If it is Crockett thinking about or interacting with Isabella (Gong Li), or Tubbs worrying about the fate of his girlfriend and coworker, Trudy (Naomi Harris), they are shot separately. But in the moments where the job is top of mind, they are exclusively framed together:
Another knock on the film is that the plot is convoluted and left too blurry. Not the case. And on top of that, the criticism that a film is not explained enough is a lazy critique. If everything is laid out on the table in a paint-by-numbers screenplay, everything becomes watered down, lacking any tension. While the audience is trying to keep up with loyalties and the dealings of Crockett and Tubbs, the tension of the scenes and situations stays palpable because of the lack of absolute clarity.
And, much like the intended silence between the two cops, the scarcity of plot description is purely intentional in my eyes. Mann’s idea with Miami Vice is to drop the audience right in the middle of the lives of these officers, as evidenced by the superior theatrical cut (not the director’s cut, which loses some steam in the opening boat race) that opens abruptly, with Crockett, Tubbs, and their undercover team working to nab some sex traders in a club. The jarring entry immediately puts the audience on their toes, and forces them to work through what is happening as it is happening.
Working from that, Mann’s intention to drop the viewer right into the action is his way of making the viewer feel like a participant, not simply an observer. In the secret conversations and back room dealings, what is left unsaid would most certainly be the case in the real world, so any lack of that member of the cast who is put there just to bring us in (a la Ellen Page in Inception) creates an immediacy, and an intimacy with these characters and their current situations. The audience is sitting in the room with Crocket and Tubbs as they work their deals, not observing from a safe, well-informed distance.
Not enough action. Another poor criticism. Saying Miami Vice is dull or lacking of any real action is a personal opinion I suppose, but I found plenty of action here. There was not action for the sake of action, sure, and there were really no explosions aside from the trailer park in the film’s third act. If you need more action and car chases, fine, but don’t ignore the action that is here. Speaking of that trailer park scene, the assault on the trailer is rife with tension. Even in the action scenes, the moves of characters are quick, concise, and lean. The final shootout is procedural in nature, and the leanness of the action keeps this picture firmly in reality.
Aside from the internal structure of Miami Vice, the look of the film is stunning. Mann uses deep-focus composition and his digital mastery to create a rich world of deep, dark colors. The majority of the film takes place at night, but the day scenes are rich with detail, especially the scenes in Cuba. The scene pictured above, with Crockett and Tubbs standing in front of a purple night sky, is one of the most captivating and beautiful shots in any of his films.
Michael Mann is most comfortable in crime drama, and his best films outside of The Insider(Thief and Heat), deal with both sides of the criminal element. But Miami Vice is easily his most overlooked picture, and maybe his last great film. It never got the love it deserved on its initial release, and is too often ignored these days. It’s time for everyone who cares to take another look at this film with a new perspective. Don’t go into this film with Don Johnson in your mind, go into this film expecting a lean, brilliant thriller. You won’t be disappointed.
Jenny Lewis has been acting since 1985 and has appeared on screen 43 times from film to television. The 39-year-old actress is most famous for her role as Haley, starring alongside Fred Savage in the Wizard.
Lewis revisited The Wizard in her new video “She’s Not Me,” the single from her album The Voyager.
Zosia Mamet, Vanessa Bayer, Leo Fitzpatrick, and Fred Armisen help out to recreate Lewis’ childhood acting moments.
Bobby Fischer is the most famous chess player of all time, a child prodigy who turned into a grandmaster and, eventually, unraveled in his own mind. The new trailer for Pawn Sacrifice shows us Fischer’s rise to popularity and his showdown with Boris Spassky (Live Schreiber), complete with the geopolitical implications ad crumbling paranoia that was ultimately Fischer’s undoing.
Here is the Pawn Sacrifice trailer:
It’s been a while since Maguire has sunk his teeth into a role, and he looks promising in Pawn Sacrifice. The film has a Beautiful Mind vibe to it, the story of a mad genius. Edward Zwick, whose career has had its ups and downs, from the highs of Glory and Blood Diamond, to the lows of Love and Other Drugs, directs Pawn Sacrifice.
Aside from Maguire and Schreiber in the lead roles, Pawn Sacrifice stars Peter Sarsgaard and Lily Rabe. It will hit theaters in limited released on September 18.
