Countless films produced in the United States feature use of rather expensive military equipment, and often also real world military personnel. Given the extreme expense of all of this using things paid for by the U.S. taxpayer to benefit for profit companies, how is this allowed? Further, how are projects that the military will support selected? Can just any U.S. […]
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The ins and outs of the music business are notoriously complex, with many details hidden behind closed doors, and rates subject to wide variation. In part this is understandable – both artists, streaming services and labels, strive to keep their individual contracts opaque, in part to secure for themselves the most favourable deals possible. The music business is also a […]
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In modern boxing, unless your name happens to be Rocky Balboa, it is generally advised that you not try to block punches with your face and chin. Back in the early days of the sport in the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the idea of slipping or dodging a punch was so alien that most pugilists didn’t even consider it […]
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These days, it seems that movie theatres will try just about everything to lure viewers away from the comfort and convenience of television and streaming, from 3D releases to giant IMAX screens to “4D” seats that shake and rock along with the onscreen action. And as theatres struggle to recover from the massive hit in attendance caused by the COVID […]
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On September 17, 1964, a cinematic juggernaut exploded onto film screens: Goldfinger, the third outing by Sean Connery as suave gentleman spy James Bond. While the two previous entries in the series, 1962’s Dr. No and 1963’s From Russia With Love had been successful, Goldfinger was an entirely different beast. The first true blockbuster of the franchise, it made back […]
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In June 2021, Southern District of California Judge Roger Benitez made headlines when he struck down the state’s 30-year ban on assault weapons, concluding that: “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.” Benitez’s landmark decision was but one episode in the long-running political debate over gun […]
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is one of the most important and celebrated American writers and wits in history. His keen observations and biting satires of 19th Century America remain beloved classics to this day, while his pithy quips will likely continue to infest our social media feeds for decades more to come. Yet despite Twain’s legendary intelligence and […]
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On November 28, 1787, His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty set sail from England with 46 men aboard, bound for the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific. Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh, her mission was to collect and deliver breadfruit plants to the West Indies, where they would serve as cheap food for slaves on British plantations. After a long […]
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The line between serial killer and, say, a prolific executioner such as 17th century German executioner, Frantz Schmidt, who killed 394 people and disfigured and otherwise tortured about the same number elsewise (more on him in the Bonus Facts at the end of this video), is that one murdered and mutilated people deemed by local society to have deserved it, […]
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On September 13th, 2004 media powerhouse Oprah, who by the way’s real name was originally Orpah after the sister of the biblical character of Ruth, made television history when she announced that she was flexing the fact that she is, by definition, “Oprah Rich”, via giving every single member of her audience that day a rather expensive free car. Considered […]
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These days, it seems that movie theatres will try just about everything to lure viewers away from the comfort and convenience of television and streaming, from 3D releases to giant IMAX screens to “4D” seats that shake and rock along with the onscreen action. And as theatres struggle to recover from the massive hit in attendance caused by the COVID […]
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The “Roaring 20s” were a time of liberation and experimentation in America. In the wake of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, which collectively killed more than 100 million people worldwide, Americans were eager to break free of the moral and social constraints of the past and experience every pleasure and thrill life had to offer. Women […]
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It’s a scenario we’ve all seen a hundred times: our hero discovers a bomb planted by the villains, the countdown flashing in bright red numbers on the timer. Armed with only a pair of wire cutters, he opens the bomb and roots through the tangle of multi-coloured wires within, frantically searching for the right one to cut. Is it the […]
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It is a classic action-movie scenario. At the climax of the story, our hero must infiltrate the villain’s lair, which is guarded by a small army of gun-wielding henchmen. But despite being gifted with the obligatory perfect aim and bottomless magazines, for one reason or another our hero can’t simply charge in guns blazing. Perhaps this is a stealth mission, […]
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“Well, I’m back.” Not including the six appendices, these are the last words of the final chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. They’re spoken by Sam Gamgee to his wife Rosie as he returns from seeing Frodo and the rest of the Ring-bearers depart from the Grey Havens into the True West. Implied, but not overtly stated, […]
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According to an anecdote told by Stan Lee in virtually every interview he’s ever given about Spider-Man, the genesis of the hero began when he saw an insect crawling up a wall while brainstorming ideas and figured that a hero who could stick to walls would be kind of cool. In reality though, the origins of everyone’s favourite friendly neighbourhood […]
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In Hollywood, miscasting is a fact of life. The reasons why an actor might be cast in a role for which they are ill-suited are many and varied. Sometimes the actor just happens to be incompatible with the director or their co-stars, or a rushed schedule or personal problems interfere with the delivery of an effective performance. In other cases […]
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“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” Well, of course Superman could hurdle skyscrapers. He can fly after all. Compared to the kind of aerial self-propulsion that Daedalus couldn’t have conceived of, jumping over even the Burj Khalifa seems hardly worth mentioning. Super-vaulting seems more along the lines […]
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