Anime fans around the world were in a state of panic on Sunday night. Studio Ghibli, creator of beloved films such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, was apparently closing up shop.

This news was shared on Tumblr in the form of a translated interview with Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, titled “Studio Ghibli Announces Closure.” This was quickly picked up by various news organizations, including the Telegraph and the Guardian, reporting that the world-renowned studio would stop making films and continue to exist only to manage its old trademarks.

The truth, however, is that something may have been lost in translation. The original Tumblr post only contained screengrabs of Suzuki’s TV interview, with Japanese subtitles, whereas Anime News Network and Kotaku both re-translated the interview quotes. It looks like what Suzuki actually said was that the studio would take a “brief pause” following the retirement of visionary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, and that the company would go through some “restructuring” for the new generation.

According to Anime News Network, a more accurate translation would be, "On what to do with Studio Ghibli's future, it is by no means impossible to keep producing [movies] forever. However, we will take a brief pause to consider where to go from here."

It’s likely that concerns about Ghibli’s closure were exacerbated by the fact that Miyazaki’s name, philosophy and artistic style are so intrinsically linked with the public image of the studio as a whole. Without him, Ghibli will clearly be different, so it may actually be good news that the studio is being thoughtful about his departure rather than simply carrying on as normal.

So for now, while Ghibli’s future may remain uncertain, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no more Ghibli movies coming our way.

H/T Coming Soon | Screengrab via teenangelanthems/Tumblr

Does anyone remember the aniquated idea of church and state? The dubious blurring of lines between advertising and editorial was the focus of John Oliver’s Sunday night monologue, and it was depressing. 

“News is like porn,” Oliver says. “People don’t want to play for it on the Internet, even though somewhere in a dimly lit room, Paul Krugman worked very hard to make it.” New media organizations have subtly integrated native advertising into their business model, and Oliver cites BuzzFeed in particular for camouflaging ads as lists. Last year, The Atlantic famously ran an ad for Scientology, packaged as an editorial.

Old media organizations like Time have picked up on the scent, too. Oliver showed a clip of Time CEO Joseph Ripp, who explains his editors are very happy working for the business side now: 

“No longer are we asking ourselves the question, ‘Are we violating church and state,’ whatever that was.”

Cue old white man rage face. Oliver states that he knows he’s lucky he’s on HBO, where he can freely say, “Cadbury Creme Eggs are filled with dolphin sperm.”

“Ads are baked into content like chocolate chips into a cookie,” Oliver explains in conclusion. “Except, it’s actually more like raisins into a cookie because no one fucking wants them there.”

Screengrab via Last Week Tonight With John Oliver/YouTube 

Outdoing even Marvel’s own internal projections, Guardians of the Galaxy has smashed box office records on its opening weekend.

Marvel Studios was already banking on GotG being a success, with a sequel announced before the first movie even came out. Still, a $94 million debut in America is a good $30 million more than they were expecting. It’s also the new record for an August opening weekend, beating out The Bourne Ultimatum’s mere $69.3 million from back in 2007.

This gives GotG the third most successful opening weekend of the year, after Transformers: Age of Extinction and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, both of which come from established franchises. GotG isn’t exactly the little indie movie that could, but it still comes from a far more obscure source than Captain America or Transformers.

A year ago, virtually nobody knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were, but now everyone wants a dancing Groot toy and a copy of Peter Quill’s Awesome Mix Vol. 1. Marvel took a gamble with one of its more offbeat properties, and it paid off. And honestly, this looks like the final nail in the coffin for the filmmaking side of the DC/Marvel rivalry. While Marvel has achieved this kind of success with a film starring a sitcom actor, a tree, and a raccoon, DC/Warner Bros. is about to roll out its second and third live-action Batman reboots in the past decade, with the only innovation being the eventual appearance of Wonder Woman.

GotG’s success can partly be attributed to the fact that it’s a fun, well-reviewed summer movie, but there’s also a certain element of brand loyalty at play. With 10 movies under its belt, Marvel Studios now commands a lot of audience respect and genuine fandom in its own right, which isn’t something you can say of most major studios.

Marvel Studios is now far more comparable to something like the media brand of Disney animation than to big Hollywood franchises like Transformers, which are tied to their directors and stars. Guardians of the Galaxy proves that Marvel now has the power to launch an obscure title, directed by a relatively unknown filmmaker, and starring a relatively weird cast, and still have it be a massive success. 

Photo via Marvel

Sunday afternoon during Bleachers’ ambitious but uneven Lollapalooza set, singer Jack Antonoff—decorated in wide-lens frames, cutoff black denim shorts, and a Salvation Army green jacket—quizzed his audience: “Who grew up in the ’90s?” Response was tepid, and Antonoff’s face turned disheartened. “Well, this is a song from the ’90s.” A bright, nostalgic cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams” ensued.

The three-day festival squatted in Chicago’s Grant Park over the weekend, and the final day was rainy, mucky, and headlined by a goodie bag of for-the-kids parting gifts: Skrillex, Flosstradamus, Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino, Kings of Leon’s entry-level troubadour grazing, the aforementioned Bleachers. Most of us old ’90s kids were home already.

Over 300,000 patrons hit the downtown festival to see 130-plus acts positioned across eight stages. I wasn’t one of them. Instead, my laptop streamed the comprehensive livefeed while I prepared lunch and ran through the in-house cleaning duties that my wife passed down. 

•••

Lolla is great because it’s the biggest American festival that is accessible by subway. With the Lake Michigan breeze, it’s consistently one of the most pleasant ways to take in a set by Phantogram. Sure, downtown Dunkin Donuts outlets turn into New Delhi train stations after a big headliner, but Lolla doesn’t leave a mark the way, say, 100-degree nights of required camping do. But as for most music fans, making the trip wasn’t a viable possibility for me this year.

Sour dads would rather build a gaudy entertainment system and watch the Cowboys at home. Reluctantly, you eventually agree that the NFL is a medium best experienced from a recliner. The modern, corporate, American festival has a similarly strong case. In May, a buddy coordinated an impromptu gathering for the OutKast Coachella reunion: speakers, a wide screen, an HDMI cable, chips, dip, and Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. The sound popped, you watched for nuance, chemistry, and individual brilliance like a scout. Attendees enjoyed a decidedly cheaper buzz.

Live music stabilizes the soul, but ultimately, you need to be honest with yourself about what, exactly, you’re doing at a Lollapalooza. If you’re young and it’s cool, by all means enjoy before your 20s turn into your late 20s and “who all is going?” loses purpose as a condition because the answer is “maybe your one friend that writes about music semi-professionally.” If it’s a deeply personal reunion, there is no bad way to watch the Replacements. But even at festivals—even if you enjoy crowds and chalk a $7 Heineken up to the cost of business—it’s just a bunch of Jumbotrons.

The Red Bull livestream featured a scrolling sidebar overrun with earnest tweets about set times. “Who is excited for Foster the People?” was a question posed often and always with bonus topping question marks. There were three simultaneous channels, so commenters made it a running game of exclusion and self-identifying with pithy static like “Channel 2 is for REAL music fans.”

There were lots of seemingly young, bored fans in San Jose, Mexico City, and South America in the social media feed, eager to be blown away by something real.

The stream was an excuse to evaluate recurring names that you’ve heard of but never even bothered to pull up on Spotify. Trombone Shorty is 28-year-old Troy Andrews, a New Orleans-bred jazz musician that sings top-shelf soul, centerstage, between blasts of glistening trombone solos. It’s not trendy or original, but his mid-afternoon stream moved the needle because it was such a strong, unimpeachable performance—from a festival fodder brand, to boot.

“You get nothing if you don’t tour,” Perry Farrell said during one of the weekend stream’s recurring, canned interviews, “It’s the gravy. It’s the meat. It’s the potatoes.” 

•••

Titans of rap Eminem and OutKast called roll; Spoon rocked like cigarette-cool record store clerks; Lorde reigned. J Roddy Walston and the Business patched “JLR” in green electrical tape across its backline. Fitz and The Tantrums did this embarrassing and useless Eurythmics cover. Glen Hansard performed The Band’s version of Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t Do It,” and it was vain and fussy. The Avett Brothers rocked like Black Crowes (talented, boring, familial). Phosphorescent singer and central composer Matthew Houck nailed an arresting arrangement of 2013’s “Song for Zula” while wearing the T-shirt of the band he’s in.

Live music is the musician’s economic foundation more than ever, and if there’s a positive to this, it’s that even snooty Pitchfork has a state-sanctioned festival. Forget AutoTune and flashing lights; bands can’t hide behind a Tumblr account and Soundcloud embed codes anymore.

We’ll find you. We found Gemini Club, a four-piece electronic pop outfit from Chicago with presence, espresso pace, and a following happy to represent in the rain (when it could instead be catching touring talent). It didn’t take long for @creepyspaghetti to ask, “What song is this?”

We found Rudimental, a band I’ve still yet to hear in any capacity but that cited Lauryn Hill and London’s rave culture as a major influence during a Red Bull interview. BBC named it the "festival band of the summer." Put a pin in that shit. We found that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Fitz and the Tantrums is the least interesting band working today—white-guy soul designed to keep you indifferent for three minutes. We found Warpaint’s lingeringly delicate rendering of “Love Is to Die” from its muscular studio counterpart.

GTA’s Miami sound-machine EDM saw nerdy white kids losing it while donut innertubes floated by and a guy in a hard hat expressed himself through dance. The 1975’s teen idol ’80s synthpop was made whole by post-smooth jazz sax solos. Singer Matt Healy ran late (“You can’t put the light on; these are the two best fucking songs that we have”). After he got his closing notes from the house, Healy jumped into the crowd and took selfies.

Lollapalooza has to lead festivals in “artists going into the crowd.” It’s always a strong photo opportunity and everyone loves it—win-win antics. “Today, thanks to you, we’re on the main stage,” Chromeo singer David Macklovitch toasted before returning to belting out disco lyrics about socialites and socializing. Turns out Chromeo is not my bag; ditto Airborne Toxic Event and its skinny-jean telephone rock about being a terrible boyfriend. Cut Copy had red lights and mad strobes, but its bland doppelganger is the 30-year-old synth pop once perfected by bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

We found Cage the Elephant, a popular modern rock band that packed them in like McDonald’s cattle. They get the best-in-show ribbon. The Bowling Green, Ky., five-piece channeled the spirit of Jane’s Addiction and Perry Farrell best: catwalk struts, wails and flails, rowdy and rudely loud guitars, a song called “Aberdeen” that the livestream users went nuts for, and just a lot of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other liquored-up rock.

But we also found an ocean of buffering. We found that when artists flub high notes, they just abort the phrase that they are singing and yell, “Lollapalooza!” But that I missed reacting by reciprocating the yell.

“There’s a very beautiful red-headed man over there dancing his face off,” Glen Hansard said late Sunday, “I’d put $100 on you being Irish.”

Lollapalooza’s home edition is impressive in scope and result, but we found that it’s difficult to love anything as much as that red-headed patron does from a desk upstairs. 

Photo via Derek Bridges/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Did you know that some of the best movies ever made are right at your fingertips if you are a Netflix user?

Redditor clayton_frisbie cross-referenced the streaming service's current movie offerings with IMDb's top 250 movies to present a complete list of the best in cinema—in terms of both quality and accessibility.

Granted, the list is relatively small. Of the Top 250 movies, only 49 titles are available on Netflix. The rest of its streaming slots are reserved for utter crud like Corky Romano and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Why enjoy a timeless classic like The Godfather or Casablanca when you could instead while away the hours watching a disjointed, slow-paced feature about a renegade Vulcan hunting down a wannabe deity?

Here is the current list as compiled by clayton_frisbie. Since Netflix changes its movie library on a monthly basis, keep in mind that some titles may disappear in the coming months.

1. Pulp Fiction

2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

3. 12 Angry Men

4. Forrest Gump

5. City of God

6. The Usual Suspects

7. The Silence of the Lambs

8. Once Upon a Time in the West

9. Life is Beautiful

10. The Untouchables

11. Memento

12. Terminator 2: Judgement Day

13. The Pianist

14. Apocalypse Now

15. Gladiator

16. Cinema Paradiso

17. Amelie

18. Oldboy (2003)

19. Double Indemnity

20. Reservoir Dogs

21. Braveheart

22. Witness for the Prosecution

23. All About Eve

24. The Apartment

25. For A Few Dollars More

26. Downfall

27. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

28. The Hunt

29. The General (1926)

30. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

31. Fargo

32. Trainspotting

33. Hotel Rwanda

34. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

35. Kill Bill: Volume 1

36. Mary and Max

37. Annie Hall

38. Amores Perros

39. The Avengers

40. The Grapes of Wrath

41. Hachi: A Dog's Tale

42. Donnie Darko

43. Gandhi

44. The King’s Speech

45. Ip Man

46. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

47. The Graduate

48. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

49. Swades

Photo by ginnerobot/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

BY SAM GUTELLE

In one day, Collective Digital Studio (CDS) has added more than 100 million monthly views to its multi-channel network. The self-described “next generation media company” has signed seven new creative partners: Sam Pepper, Mamrie Hart, Superwoman, FPS Russia, Explosm Entertainment, Madilyn Bailey, and Lauren Curtis.

These seven creators are all huge on YouTube (five of them have more than two million subscribers), but in spite of their shared platform, they are actually a very diverse group. Pepper is a well-coiffed prankster, Hart is a mixologist known for her collaborations with Grace Helbig and (fellow CDS partner) Hannah Hart, Superwoman (real name Lilly Singh) makes comedy videos, FPS Russia serves as YouTube’s foremost firearms expert, Explosm Entertainment runs a website best known for hosting the webcomic Cyanide & Happiness, Bailey is a musician with a big voice, and Curtis is a beauty guru. Taken together, CDS’ new partners have 17.9 million YouTube subscribers.

The new additions represent a big expansion for Collective DS, which claims a smaller, more focused roster, especially when compared MCNs like Fullscreen, Maker Studios, and Machinima. “These creators represent a wide array of verticals, some of which are the fastest growing on YouTube and reflect our commitment to attracting the best talent,” said CDS President Dan Weinstein. “Each of these channels has a unique style and brand that embraces youth culture and aligns perfectly with our MCN. We look forward to nurturing and growing these creators both online and across platforms.”

In joining CDS, the seven creators gain access to a network that has excelled at bringing its talent to TV. The latest CDS partner channel to arrive on the small screen is Epic Meal Time, which recently debuted Epic Meal Empire on FYI. The new CDS partners are all well-established on YouTube, and by joining their new network, they have, at least in theory, a better chance of bringing their talents to new platforms.

Screengrab via Mamrie Hart/YouTube

President Barack Obama can’t even go out for a burger without a hundred aides, Secret Service, and journalists following his every move. But that doesn’t mean his daughters can’t hit up a show once in a while. Such was the case on Sunday night, when 15-year-old Malia Obama attended the final night of Lollapalooza 2014 and took in Chance the Rapper’s closing performance.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the first First Daughter, who attended the music festival with three friends, “was flanked by two huge guards, apparently Secret Service agents in plains clothes [sic], who made sure she and her friends—two girls and a boy—had plenty of space to make their exit.”

An investigation of tweets by the Daily Dot found that Malia appeared to be screening her selfie encounters.

I asked Malia Obama for a picture and she said she wasn't allowed to take pictures with people 😩😩

— JD (@SlumDog_) August 4, 2014

J chillin with Malia Obama✌️ pic.twitter.com/IuM0A88g9B

— Sarah (@cleaaaaver) August 4, 2014

The eldest Obama daughter was also spotted dancing at Lorde’s Friday night Lollapalooza performance, where she took selfies in a crowd that looked far too packed for the Secret Service’s comfort.

Emily got a selfie with Malia Obama 🙌🙌 pic.twitter.com/r0iMEPXL7n

— Correa (@papicorrea1) August 2, 2014

Photo via @cleaaaaver/Twitter

Warning: The videos in this article contain explicit content that may be NSFW.

Dayne Rathbone is the funniest comedian you’ve never heard of, and Dayne’s World—his bonkers, fly-on-the-wall webseries—is the perfect introduction to this comedic Rain Man’s bewilderingly unique talent. 

To understand the comedy of Dayne Rathbone, you have to first try and understand Dayne. He is a computer programmer. He is a man of two countries. He is, according to Australia’s oldest and foremost newspaper, an “awkward freak.” Rathbone himself  holds a more simplistic and flattering view. “I am a comedian and a South African or Australian,” he told the Daily Dot email, which we've left unedited. “But I dont care which country anyone is from because we are all the same and are all equal.”

Having been raised in South Africa, he moved to Canberra, Australia, with the rest of his family to follow older brother and rugby union star Clyde. The family had received death threats after Clyde played a pivotal role for the Australian national team in a win over his country of birth.

Canberra’s dullness makes it the perfect environment to develop idiosyncratic comedy such as Rathbone’s. Created as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s capital often feels artificial and oddly empty—especially on weekends when civil servants leave in droves for neighboring cities. In the past this has inspired ill-conceived attempts to stoke city pride like the cringe-worthy "Feel the Power of Canberra" license plates that embarrassed motorists used to cover up with white tape. 

Rathbone doesn’t remember the plates, because he only moved to Canberra in 2006, but “you are not lying because maybe they did have it before,” he said. “Canberra has montains everywhere and everyong is really nice and looks up to me so I do like it a lot except the goverment is here and I hate them for ruining everything because I like Ron Paul.”

Just like Chris (Simpsons artist), the brilliant internet caricaturist and writer, it was inevitable that as Rathbone achieved recognition through his stand-up shows, some people would question his authenticity as a performer; he's faced accusations that his naivety and awkwardness are manufactured, merely an Andy Kaufmanesque prank. But setting aside the moot nature of this cynicism (what art isn’t performative?), Dayne’s World provides enough awkward set pieces—from Tinder dates to strange short films involving his parents and a bizarre interview with the local paper which ends in him gleefully letting off a flare—to convince viewers that if Rathbone isn’t really like this then we would kind of wish that he were. 

Asked whether Dayne’s World is an accurate account of his life, Rathbone remains elusive: “YES or NO because I also do a lot of other things what arent even in the show. My favorite is reading Sam Harris and playing DotA. Plus Mike said 'I dont know if i believe him' but I sead why would I waist my own Aurora red hand flare!”

The series is directed and narrated by fellow comedian Mike Nayna. The two met at a comedy show and Rathbone mentioned his play Its Me Mandela, the development and production of which is central to the narrative of the webseries. According to Rathbone, he agreed to Nayna’s series proposal as “he did a famous acting course in America and plus he was already black plus the show would be really good to sell tickets so I just said ok.” 

Nayna’s presence within the series—the slick, enthusiastic brashness of the professional comedian—acts as the counterpoint to Dayne’s ill-judged attempts at negotiating social cues and traditional joke-telling. 

But tellingly it is Nayna who comes across as creepier, especially in his opening comments that he is taking part in a family dinner in order to meet Rathbone’s parents, his brothers, and “their hot girlfriends.”

It is an irony (sort of) not lost on Rathbone, who answers these charges with enthusiasm: “YES!!!!! lol but I didnt care because they are all my brothers girlfriends so he cant have sex in them anyway. Mike likes Anna but Clyde is reallystrong and will bash him.”

Clyde features heavily in the series, and the tolerance he shows for his brother’s behavior is touching. You can imagine that throughout most of his life, Rathbone has lived in the shadow of his older brother, but that's no doubt changing. Clyde recently retired, while Rathbone’s career trajectory is firmly in its ascendency. 

“At school everyone called me 'Rathbones brother' because Clyde was the School Captian and Rugby Captain which is stupid because everyong is 'Rathbones brother' then someone at Coles [supermarket] saw Clyde and they sead are you 'Daynes brother' so I sead now you know what it feels s like! But my family doesnt care becausethey love everyone the same.”

Photo via Dayne's World

The fact that "virtual celebrities" can draw real-world crowds was illustrated in London this weekend, as YouTube star Adam Saleh was mobbed by hundreds of fans—eventually forcing the police to intervene. 

Saleh is one half of popular YouTube prank channel TrueStoryASA, along with Sheikh Akbar. The duo had organised a "meet and greet" at Marble Arch in London, but became overwhelmed by the crowd and were unable to leave. 

Surrounded by over-excited fans, the police stepped in to escort them to safety, prompting Saleh to take a tongue-in-cheek selfie from the back of the police car:

London police arrested me! You guys are crazy! Please be safe ! :( pic.twitter.com/gSxPwM5fMn

— Adam Saleh (@omgAdamSaleh) August 3, 2014

London newspaper The Evening Standard quotes a police spokesperson as saying: "Police were called at approximately 3.15pm on Sunday to Marble Arch following reports of a large gathering after an event was advertised on social media."

"Officers attended and found a 21-year-old man unable to leavee the Palazzo area," the statement continues. "He was escorted away by police and taken to a central London police station where he was offered advice regarding organising large-scale events. He was not arrested."

The drama didn't stop there, however: Further meet-ups were organised in since-deleted tweets. "Police were called at 5.45pm on Sunday to a hotel on Harrington Gardens after a large crowd attended and tried to gain entrance," the police spokesperson adds. "Officers remained on scene and assisted hotel security. The crowds dispersed at about 7.40pm. There were no arrests."

It appears that the hotel failed to see the funny side of the Internet joker's poor organisational skills: He subsequently revealed on Twitter that he'd been summarily ejected from the premises.

We've been kicked out our hotel :( ! We're gonna do one last meet n greet in Battersea park at The peace pagoda ! See u there ! <3 :(

— Adam Saleh (@omgAdamSaleh) August 3, 2014

Apparently none the worse for wear, Saleh is revelling in his momentary notoriety, posting a photo of the Evening Standard article on Instagram.

"[They police] didn't save me," the caption reads. "I wanted to stay! love you London!"

H/T The Evening Standard | Photo via Matt Brown / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Another YouTuber is stepping out of the digital space and onto the small screen. Joe Penna, otherwise known as MysteryGuitarMan, will make the leap as part of Fox’s new show, Xploration Earth 2050, this Fall.

Penna’s show, which will focus on the future of technology, is part of a new two-hour Saturday morning block of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programming that begins in September, and features content from the likes of Philippe Cousteau, Jr., grandson of legendary Jacques Cousteau. Penna, a Brazilian filmmaker, rose to fame as MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube, commanding an audience of more than 2.8 million. He has also produced national television spots for Coca Cola and McDonalds.

“Joe is curious, smart and tremendously likable,” said Xploration Earth 2050 executive producer Steve Rotfeld in a statement. “One of the things that attracted us to him was his popular YouTube channel. He’ll bring in the younger viewers.”

Rotfeld’s sentiment about luring young folks with YouTube talent puts Penna’s hire in line with other networks already taking gambles on other digital-first talent. For example, the Epic Meal Time crew recently launched their food show on the FYI network, and Shane Dawson will star in an  upcoming Starz series about filmmaking. However, it remains to be seen how effectively these network plays will drive eyeballs from computers to TV sets.

Screengrab via Exploration Station/YouTube

As taut thrillers go, Crackle’s new original webseries Sequestered has a lot going for it. The 12-episode mystery where nothing appears as it seems (or seems as it appears) launches today and will be served up in two, six-episode packages with time in-between for catch-up, social buzz, and (one would expect) a heaping helping of PR.

The plot, which focuses on the kidnapping and murder of a prominent governor's son, lands somewhere between your average James Patterson middle-of-the road beach read and a classic Stephen J. Cannell mystery. A slight hat tip must also be given to John Grisham’s The Runaway Jury for providing the concept of high-priced jury tampering. Directors Shawn Ku (Beautiful Boy) and Kevin Tancharoen (Fame,Mortal Kombat: Legacy) do an admirable job of keeping the multiple plot threads flowing in suspenseful synch, adding bits and pieces in micro doses in each installment. The level of acting, writing, and production is generally far above the norm for studio-backed (Sony owns Crackle) Web dramas.

Taking a page from the more successful TV mystery/dramas, Sequestered sets up quickly, revealing the primary story and a few of the key tangential plotlines. There’s the prime suspect—the kidnapped boy's nanny—and the incontrovertible evidence that says he should fry. Then you have the young defense attorney (Jesse Bradford) who smells something fishy when one of the jurors is removed from the panel after being beaten up at local bar; shortly after, a prime witness being “permanently silenced” after wanting to recant. Let’s not forget the suspicious billionaire governor (Patrick Warburton), who appears to be involved in an illegal arms deal, and the defense attorney (Chris Ellis), who is involved in every shady part of the story and is not above setting his colleagues up to get his way. 

And then you get to Sequestered’s jury of one’s peers, and that’s where the show veers a bit off the rails, offering us a comic book version of a typical jury (as seen on TV): the egghead professor (Ryan McPartlin), the June Cleaver mom, a T-shirt wearing slacker, the obnoxious foreman, the rough-around-the edges alpha female (Heather Dubrow), and the vulnerable one (Summer Glau) who believes she is being blackmailed via messages that come through her TV set. If these are my peers, I am likely to seek a plea bargain.

On the other hand, the rock-solid performance by the great character actor Bruce Davison—as the father of defense attorney Bradford and a former L.A. cop injured on the job—is as good as it gets. Davison, who has played everything from rat-loving Willard to Wyck, trust manager for George’s dead fiancée on Seinfeld, has the rare acting gift of being able to blend into nearly any acting ensemble. In Sequestered, Davison’s character takes a page from Cannell with a slight homage to Shane Scully, the antihero L.A. cop in a dozen of his mysteries. 

Accustomed to working in a wide range of projects from Hot in Cleveland to The Real Housewives of Orange County, Heather Dubrow admits she was initially skeptical about delving into the world of made-for-Web programming. But one readthrough of the script from writer/creator Aaron Tracy changed her mind. “While it was not normally something I would do," she says of her role as the nasty juror in the series, “the landscape of TV has changed so much, you can’t discount anything.”

The attention to detail and authenticity is something that sets Sequestered apart from other Web dramas, Dubrow adds. “In creating the jury scenes, they made us feel like we are part of a real jury. We were put in a small, hot, crowded room, sitting for hours. It felt like the real deal.”

Also a bit out the ordinary for Dubrow’s TV career (but apparently handled with great care by the crew) was her involvement in a rather steamy scene with a fellow juror in episode four. “I was concerned after the first read,” she says, “but it made sense for the character. I will have to blindfold my husband when that scene comes on.” Dubrow’s hard-edged character, which she says is an amalgam of a number of people she knows, is one of the more complex and mysterious members of Sequestered ensemble, and the actress/reality TV star says her measure of success will be somewhat based on how the audience reacts to the show. 

Crackle has been teetering on the edge of becoming a major player in the original programming business, with one of the Web’s best and most-viewed shows, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee as an anchor but little else to compete with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. At the end of April, Crackle announced a new lineup of shows featuring Sports Jeopardy, hosted by Dan Patrick; Tightrope, starring Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad); and the Robert Downey, Jr.-produced Playing It Forward, a series that focused on promising street musicians. 

Photo via Sony Pictures Entertainment

What can’tChris Pratt do at this point?

He can French braid hair, is an expressive mimer, and managed to charm an audience after talking about that time he flashed Amy Poehler. Now, evidently, he can also rap.

The reveal of his spitting skills came out during an interview with DJ Whoo Kid on The Whoolywood Shuffle, where he revealed that he listened to Eminem and Dr. Dre on repeat while smoking weed in the back of a van in Maui in the early 2000s. DJ Whoo Kid was doubtful, so he made Pratt prove it—and we're all the better for it.

He also manages to diss Orlando Bloom and say little to nothing about Jurassic World, but once again we can’t stop watching.

Screengrab via Whoo Kid/YouTube

What if you tried to live your life according to classic literature you’ve never read before? Just how long until you find yourself at a tragic impasse? That’s the question the YouTubetransmedia series Classic Alice tackles as it returns with a second season today.

The project is the brainchild of Kate Hackett, who plays the titular character in the series. It follows in the footsteps of other successful literary-minded YouTube series like The New Adventures of Peter and Wendyor Pemberley Digital’s The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Emma Approved. However, instead of embodying classic characters with a modern twist, Alice is just a normal girl taking her life lessons from classic books she’s yet to read, with somewhat disastrous results.

The series chronicles college student Alice Rackham, who, having just received a bad grade on an essay, is enlisted by her best friend, Andrew Prichard to be the subject of his vlog-style documentary for school. Alice’s “bad grade” is actually a B-, and her professor's main critique is that Alice doesn’t connect with classic literature beyond analysis. To prove her professor wrong, she decides to live her life according to classic novels she hasn’t read yet.

Her first choice is Crime and Punishment, but overachiever Alice’s low-grade scheme of stealing nail polish gets elevated by Andrew, who prods her from behind the camera to do something more daring: steal an upcoming exam for the good of all the students in their class. The first season documents Alice’s preparation and execution of the theft, as well as the eventual tension that choice creates between her and the people in her life.

The first season of the series wrapped up in April and left viewers on a bit of a cliffhanger about how Alice and Andrew will reconcile their issues over the first book and move on with the project. In the new, Kickstarter-funded season, the series will tackle George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The title is ripe for Andrew and Alice’s dynamic, but also leaves us wondering if Alice will shape her own pet project in the new season.

Screengrab via Classic Alice/YouTube

Last week, Miley Cyrus posted two photos of Kathleen Hanna, former singer of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, currently of the Julie Ruin. The photos are both from the early ‘90s, when Bikini Kill was the face of the Riot Grrrl movement.

Yesterday, Hanna reached out to Cyrus about collaborating on an album, and the Internet essentially shut down.

Hey @MileyCyrus so sweet you posted pics of me...have an idea for an album that only you are daring enough to make .

— Kathleen Hanna (@kathleenhanna) August 4, 2014

Cyrus was born in 1992, and around this time, the Riot Grrrl movement was starting to circulate outside of hubs like Olympia, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; and Washington, D.C. Bikini Kill, Hole, and Sleater-Kinney were a few of the more high-profile names to emerge from the movement, which was deeply tied into feminism and zines and which pushed back against a culture of harassment, rape, and domestic abuse. Bikini Kill, and Hanna in particular, became the face of the movement. Songs like “Suck My Left One” are still timeless.

Last year, The Punk Singer, a documentary on Hanna’s Riot Grrrl days, her transition into making music with Le Tigre and the Julie Ruin, and her struggle with Lyme disease, was released. This put her story, and Riot Grrrl’s history, in front of younger eyes that might not have known the movement existed. Pussy Riot’s done the same. 

Is Cyrus finally discovering Riot Grrrl’s past and figuring it in to her own aesthetic? She’s certainly made an effort to shed her Hannah Montana persona and found a variety of ways to keep the Miley brand in the news. And, as Pitchfork points out, this collaboration could easily be called Kathleen Hannah Montana.

In an interview with Tiny Mix Tapes last year, Hanna was asked about Cyrus’s admission of feminism in interviews:

Well, I’m glad the word ‘feminist’ is being talked about and that influential pop stars are bringing up this conversation. If she says she’s a feminist, then who I am to stop her? I’m not the feminist police. I don’t get to determine that. I’m happy that young women are embracing that term, for whatever reason it means to them.

More on this collaboration as we hear it. Meanwhile, The Punk Singer is currently on Netflix, so go watch it.

H/T Pitchfork | Photo via Melissa Rose/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The Orange Is the New Black victory lap continues: Last night, members of the cast appeared on Conan for an OITNB-themed episode. The cold open even offered an alternate take on the show’s opening credits:

Uzo Aduba, Lea DeLaria, Natasha Lyonne, Taylor Schilling, Laverne Cox, Kate Mulgrew, and, unfortunately, Jason Biggs all appeared on the couch, and each actor got their own segment.

Aduba talked about telling her Nigerian parents she was going to be playing “Crazy Eyes,” and how her mother’s favorite scene is when Piper beats up Pennsytucky. Also, she taught Conan how to make “crazy eyes”:

Cox explained she has a twin brother, who played her in the show’s pre-transition episodes:

Jason Biggs talked about live-tweeting his son’s birth, which is hilarious considering his recent Twitter meltdowns. I think most people just wanted to hear that Biggs would be off the show next season, because watching him play Larry is like watching a bowl of cold oatmeal. So watch Kate Mulgrew air her Irish jig grievances against Conan instead:

This episode makes me think there should be an OITNB variety show, like an update of The Carol Burnett Show. 

Screengrab via Team Coco/YouTube 

Evil exes? Meet evil hexes.

In the Harry Potter vs. the World mashup trailer, Edgar Wright’s cartoonish aesthetic combines with those epic wizarding duels, courtesy of YouTube mashup artist The Unusual Suspect (who previous made thisStar Wars/Guardians of the Galaxy video).

A Scott Pilgrim/Harry Potter mashup trailer isn’t the most obvious idea, but the result is pretty awesome. 

The trailer takes on the comedy/music-video style of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, complete with on-screen annotations and what must be a complete compendium of every teen romcom-style joke in the entire Potter franchise. Imagine if all of Harry and Voldemort’s showdowns had included this kind of split-screen technique! Although admittedly they would’ve ended up looking kind of like Pokémon.

Despite being set in a high school, the Harry Potter series never really felt like teen movies. Adding a touch of Scott Pilgrim really brings out the adolescent awkwardness though, and the indie rock soundtrack feels weirdly fitting. 

Screengrab via The Usual Suspect/YouTube

To quote Mr. West himself, "Sandals with socks. Keep it gangster." 

Kanye West is the lavish designer that keeps on giving. The man who invented the leather jogging pant and put $120 price tag on a white "Hip Hop t-shirt" you could find in a Hanes three-pack at Target, has now gifted us with the most opulent sandals on the planet. With the gold leaf straps, they look like they could have descended down from the ceilings of Versailles, where KimYe celebrated their wedding rehearsal dinner. (And if you ask me, it's a missed opportunity that she didn't wear them for the occasion.) Ye's barber and creative consultant, Ibn Jasper, Instagrammed the one-percent shoes over the weekend, fittingly placed on a pedestal, and tagged the photo "YEEZi x Giuseppe Cruel Summer flats."

Kanye and Giuseppe Zanotti have teamed up before–first on a pair of $5,900 beaded white sandals that provided the footwear for his debut fashion show, then on a "Cruel Summer" collection that played off the album's artwork–however this collaboration is entirely new. The gold leaf sandals might have been leftover from the "Cruel Summer" collection and are just seeing their release now but, last week in an interview with Diario de IBIZA, Zanotti said that "other creations like Kanye West are on the market next season" via Google translate. 

If you're in the market for some new gold sandals, you can cop the shoes for a cool $1,695 at Giuseppe Zanotti's website.  

All Marissa wants is dopeness. She's on Twitter @marissagmuller. 

Photo via david_shankbone/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Do you remember the 1992 movie The Mighty Ducks, about a rag-tag hockey team coached by a down-on-his-luck Emilio Estevez? Now, one of the movie’s stars has started a Kickstarter to help in get back in the national consciousness.

Shaun Weiss played goalie Greg Goldberg in all three Mighty Ducks movies, and also appeared on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Boy Meets World, and Freaks and Geeks. He now wants to give fans “an unabashed, 100% transparent look at what it takes for a stand-up comedian to make a name for himself, starting from the bottom rung.”

Weiss reveals he has no experience in stand-up comedy, so yes, this proposed national tour could be very awkward and painful to watch. No word if Weiss’s recent “peeing charges” will be part of his act.

Can someone crowdfund a stand-up career? Is this a slap in the face to comedians who have spent decades traveling the circuit and building a fanbase? Well, Weiss says this is also about attempting to meet fans along the way, who might have been inspired by his performance in The Mighty Ducks, or the Ben Stiller movie Heavyweights: 

I'll participate in whatever activities the fans choose. Some of them are a little weird, so it’ll be funny to see us try to get along for the day. Whatever happens, my crew will be there to document every genuine moment for you.

At the end of the day, I will perform my comedy routine at a venue in their respective city. Several of the fans I plan to visit are located over seas (where I'm way more famous than I am in the states) so it should be fun watching me flail away like a fish out of water.

The goal is to eventually develop a Netflix series about his journey into comedy. If this sounds like a good idea to you, the deadline to donate is Aug. 19.

Image via Kickstarter 

YouTube is going brick-and-mortar in Seoul, South Korea, as the You Are Here Cafe opens up this week in a joint venture between the owners of two prominent Korean YouTube channels, Eatyourkimchi and Talk to Me in Korean.

Eatyourkimchi is a project by two Canadian transplants who document their lives in South Korea and explore places to visit and cultural differences they encounter, while Talk to Me in Korean is an education channel focused on langauge skills. The minds behind the respective channels were looking for a way to bring their YouTube communities to life and continue their missions, and a cafe setting was their ideal result. The cafe incorporates features inspired by both channels, with a classroom for in-person learning and travel tips for visitors new to the area (the cafe is located right off the trian line from the airport).

The cafe officially opens this weekend with a special event in the store for fans of the channels to congregate and kick off their adventures. So far the first video on their new coffee shop channel that provides walking directions to the cafe location has more than 32,000 views, so we don't expect them to be lacking in customers.

If the Korean version of this YouTube IRL space is a hit, we wouldn't be surprised if the bigger YouTube names in the U.S. follow the trend. If superstars like Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake found success with restaurant projects, who would say no to a Hannah Hart diner or a Michelle Phan beauty shop?

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via Eatyourkimchi/YouTube

There’s going to be a movie about shock-video hub WorldStarHipHop—or inspired by WorldStarHipHop, or involving WorldStarHipHop in some street-fightin’ form or fashion.

Paramount Pictures’ microbudget production imprint Paramount Insurge has picked up a pitch from How to Make It in America creator Edelman for a movie theme around the immensely popular WorldStarHipHop. The site, famous for its raw footage of street fights and uncanny ability to make stars out of otherwise unrecognizable Americans like Sharkeshia and that kid who went HAM on a Chuck E. Cheese skee-ball section, was founded in 2005. In its eight years, WorldStarHiphop has grown its audience to more than 30 million unique visitors every month.

Deadline reports that Def Jam Records founder and hip-hop money mint Russell Simmons has signed up to help produce the film, as well as BroBible founder Doug Banker, Meghan Markle’s ex-husband Trevor Engelson, and WorldStarHipHop founder Lee “Q” O’Denat himself. Edelman is reportedly working on the manuscript right now, and may also direct the film, which he’s referring to as “asking to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in tone. 

No telling what that means, but if it doesn’t involve 15 chances for movie-goers to jump out of their seats and shout “WorldStar!” at a film screen, we don’t want to see it. 

Photo via WorldStarHipHop