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How 'My Selfie Life' plans to push the boundaries of reality TV

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Self-obsession is having a moment, and that moment is leading to TV programs that celebrate the art of self-documentation.

Fusion has ordered a 10-episode series called My Selfie Life, which will follow young people filming "a life-changing moment as they journey towards adulthood and self-discovery." This includes sex change operations, mental illness, eating disorders, and more pivotal events.

Selfies, and their backlash, have made waves recently—from selfie sticksbanned at various events to Kim Kardashian releasing an art book composed of her personal selfie collection. The art of documenting oneself isn't new, but the ease and spread facilitated with new technology has made it a phenomenon. 

While Fusion's new show is far from airing, it does ring similar to the AOL Originals production, Connected, which follows the stories of six New Yorkers are they self-document their lives. Both series are based on foreign imports (Connected on Israeli show Mehubarim, My Selfie Life on a series of U.K shorts from Nerd TV) and put the storytelling control in the subjects' hands.

My Selfie Life will debut in the fall. 

H/T Deadline | Photo via *Passenger*/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) 


Seth Rogen, Terry Crews, and Betty White stole the show at the TV Land Awards

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Terry Crews saw an opportunity to get up close and personal with Betty White, and he went for it.

While hosting the TV Land Awards, the former football star/current Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor and all-around renaissance man lip-synced a medley of classic TV theme songs. When The Golden Girls theme rolled around, Crews went right for the star herself in the audience and proceeded to serenade her. He even finished the moment with a chaste kiss on the cheek.

The best surprise? Seth Rogen was seated right behind White, so he turned around and was perfectly framed between their faces. Now that’s a dream sandwich to end up in the middle of. Lucky you, Rogen!

H/T EW | Screengrab via TV Land/YouTube

Laverne Cox posed nude for Allure

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Laverne Cox is baring it all in the May edition of Allure Magazine, posing for the publication's annual nude issue.

Cox, the transgender actress who made waves with her role on Orange Is the New Black, and with her activism around trans rights and visibility, initially said no to the photoshoot.

“I said no initially, thought about it, and said no again," Cox told Allure. “But I'm a black transgender woman. I felt this could be really powerful for the communities that I represent. Black women are not often told that we’re beautiful unless we align with certain standards. Trans women certainly are not told we’re beautiful. Seeing a black transgender woman embracing and loving everything about her body might be inspiring for some folks. There’s a beauty in the things we think are imperfect. It sounds very cliché, but it's true."

Cox, who was just named to Time's 2015 100 Most Influential People list, wasn't the only star stripped down in the annual nude issue, which also features actresses Jordana Brewster and Nicole Beharie, among others, in the buff.

Photo via GLAAD/Flickr (CC BY ND 2.0)

6 of the best sports webseries

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Sports are the best. You may not agree with this, but you’d be wrong. What else gets us out of bed in the morning raring to take on the day or sends us to slumber at night with hope in our hearts? Money? Family? Surely not!

But what to do in the few minutes of the day when no one, anywhere, is playing anything?

Here are six sports webseries to fill that frightening void. 

1) Weezy’s Sports Corner

Sports opinion shows can generally be divided into one of two camps: ex-pros shouting over one another to hide the fact that once being great at hitting a ball does not necessarily now make you a shrewd pundit, or comedians shouting over one another to disguise that they aren’t particularly funny.

So why not bypass those corybantic flapping heads and opt for Lil Wayne—a man barely awake, let alone aggressively opinionated?

Sure, Weezy’s production values are surprisingly sloppy for one of the world’s most popular recording artists—and his constant reference to notes makes you wonder if maybe he didn’t actually recall his eight months on Rikers—but the guy has Chris Paul on speed dial. That unfettered access to the source material is reason enough to tune in.

2) BGCP3TV

Speaking of Chris Paul, he's actually quite humorous. Especially when he has teammate Blake Griffin by his side and jokes by Neal Brennan (Chappelle’s Show) to work with. 

The title alone of BGCP3TV announces that it’s going to be great, and close inspection reveals that going off the strength of player nicknames is a solid enough maxim as any to follow when sorting through the clutter of NBA-related webseries. 

So, it’s no surprise that the “Greek Freak” has a decent thing going, in contrast to LeBron’s animated family series—which King James mistakenly calls “very funny.” And Chris “Caveman” Kaman's Exploring Kaman? About as average as his obvious moniker.  

Following on this logic, it’s obvious who we think would be great: Step forward, Warriors big man David Lee—aka Da White Howard. May we suggest a educational series on the ownership and maintenance of pine furniture.

3) Ring Life

An obvious exception aside, boxers aren’t renowned for their eloquence. They tend to possess other, more damaging, implements with which to make their intentions clear. And that’s something that can be an obstacle for documentary makers; there’s only so much heavy bag work and skipping that a layman can watch. 

But HBO’s Ring Life avoids much of this by spending a lot of time out of the gym and talking to the people—trainers, family, friends—who support the fighters. And it’s really out of those interviewees, rather than from the boxers themselves, that we find out just why they punish their bodies like they do. The reasons, money aside, are refreshing primal—tellingly consistent with amateur boxing series such as White Collar Brawler—and a reminder that perhaps we aren’t as isolated from our surroundings and forebears as we may now arrogantly think.

4) Replay

You may well have seen the original, American series of Replay—Gatorade’s fun re-enactment of a tied high school football game, 15 years after the fact—but this is the Australian version, the Old Collegians Warriors trying to redress their dramatic collapse against the Merrivale Tigers in their 1991 Grand Final.

You may be unfamiliar with the sport—Australian Rules Football, a rabble of a game played on a field the size of a small country—but the ingredients that made the original edition so satisfying are retained here: fat, has-been but still competitive athletes and small town charm. It’s the sort of thing that makes you feel reassured about your own future: No matter how bad your knees get or how great your paunch, you’ll still possess some sort of drive and determination.

Plus it features the world’s most Australian-sounding person ever, Dave Hughes.

5) Sports Friends

There was no real reason to include Bad Lip Reading on this list. It's great, sure, but everyone’s seen it. And the reason that series is so fun—a fictionalized lifting the veil of our favorite athletes’ quirks and utterances—is replicated in Yahoo’s Sports Friends.

The series likes to imagine some of American sports’ foremost relationships, e.g., Jordy Nelson and Aaron Rodgers, Lebron James and Dwyane Wade, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. And while Sports Friends overplays its major trope, the heightening of the brawny athletes' effeminacy, any series featuring the awkward moment when Michael Vick wants to play with your puppy exhibits a comic sensibility in the right place.

6) Jane Fonda: Fit & Strong

If you were broken up when Jane Fonda split with Ted Turner—“but they were having such great, frequent sex!”—then you'll be relieved to find that she has a new beau, Richard Perry, so that she can once again have fulfilling, uninhibited sex. And continually tell everyone about it.

But that isn’t the only reason that she has been too busy to marry the “cadaverously thin” Perry. In the past few years, she has also been making new fitness videos and releasing them on YouTube

The new workouts are noticeably less energetic then her previous, more famous routinesthis one seems to be mostly walking on the spot at the leisurely pace of “one mile in 18 minutes”—but give her a break. Fonda’s now 77, and this isn’t exactly the only exercise she’s getting.

Screengrab via Yahoo Screen/YouTube

Quentin Tarantino teaser for 'The Hateful Eight' leaks—again

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When the teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s highly anticipated (and almost never made) The Hateful Eight was attached to the theatrical release of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, cellphone footage of it quickly popped up online, and it looked—even by cellphone standards—terrible, and since nobody saw A Dame to Kill For, that terrible footage has been all we’ve had to go on. Now, however, we can officially get a glimpse of the teaser without going through the shaky mobile middleman:

When we say “officially,” we're using the word (very) loosely. The trailer quickly went viral when it popped up online yesterday, but every source for the video shared the exact same embedded player, which caused them to all suffer the exact same fate when, late last night, that embedded player ceased to play the Eight teaser, and began playing an infamous old interview with Quentin Tarantino instead. Whoever switched the source video (the Weinsteins) left every site—and we’re talking dozens of high-profile publications—utterly and (admittedly) brilliantly trolled.

We’ll see how long the above link continues to work—it's the only video player claiming to play the Eight teaser that’s not playing the Tarantino interview, and it took us hours to come across it. Its survival can be attributed to the fact that it’s being hosted by vid.me, which is a bit of a maverick when compared to other video-hosting services, but we’re guessing it won't take long before the Weinsteins figure out how to shut it down, too, leaving us just like everybody else: hosting a story for a trailer that doesn’t have a trailer in it. 

So get it while it’s hot, folks—it may not contain any actual footage from the film, but Iggy and the Stooges’ “Gimme Danger” and character names like “Oswald Mobray” and “General Sandy Smithers” are enough to make seeing this teaser well worth your 97 seconds. In all honesty: Despite not having seen a single frame of this film yet, this teaser is enough for me to confidently say that The Hateful Eight is now my favorite Tarantino film.

Also: How fucking cool does Omega Underground look right now? 

H/T Omega Underground | Screengrab via OmegaU/vid.me

Matthew McConaughey reacting to the 'Star Wars' trailer is almost too perfect

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The second trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was unleashed upon the masses yesterday, and fans were understandably emotional. Especially Matthew McConaughey

YouTube user oskararnarson synced McConaughey's cry-face scene from Interstellar with the Star Wars trailer, and the rainbow of emotions is almost too perfect. Where's the montage of people joy-crying at the Han Solo/Chewbacca scene? 

Screengrab via oskararnarson/YouTube 

DJ Earworm mashed Carrie Underwood's greatest hits into one amazing song

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DJ Earworm’s pop mashups are always a nice bookend to a year or nod to summer, but his latest gives fans the full Underwood. 

Country star Carrie Underwood is the focus of DJ Earworm’s new mix, which bats around “Two Black Cadillacs,” “Little Toy Guns,” and “Before He Cheats,” among other hits for this meta-mashup, culled from her recent greatest hits compilation. For what it’s worth, she seems to approve

This is also most likely some subtle promo for Sunday’s Academy of Country Music Awards

Photo via MrHairyKnuckles/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Miley Cyrus goes full Miley Cyrus in new topless photo

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Miley Cyrus is no stranger to breast-baring, but in her latest topless effort she’s also enlisted some A-list progeny in Scout and Talulah Willis, children of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.

The trio posted together on some dining room furniture, with Cyrus in a sheer bodysuit and Scout with her blazer open enough to reveal a single breast. Talulah kept her shirt on but did pose provocatively.

Cyrus continued to document her nipple-flashing tendencies on her Instagram, even covering her face in one shot with an image of herself as a child.

Scout has been an outspoken proponent for #FreeTheNipple since last year. She set her Instagram to private in protest.

Both Cyrus and Scout have previously posted fully topless pictures to the platform, however this time their efforts are self-censored, perhaps in a move to keep them live for longer to spread their #FreeTheNipple message. Even if it’s technically not allowing their nipples to be free.

H/T NYDailyNews | Photo via HotGossipItalia/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)


Louis C.K. will voice a talking dog in 'The Secret Life of Pets'

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Who knew we'd live to see the day Louis C.K. would be involved with an animated movie about talking dogs? 

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the comedian is part of a new film called The Secret Life of Pets, which will reportedly also feature Kevin Hart, Ellie Kemper, and Hannibal Buress, among others. C.K. will voice Max, a dog who gets an unwelcome surprise when his owner brings home another dog, according to IMDb: 

Taking place in a Manhattan apartment building, Max's life as a favorite pet is turned upside down, when his owner brings home a sloppy mongrel named Duke. They have to put their quarrels behind, when they find out that an adorable white bunny named Snowball is building an army of abandoned pets determined to take revenge on all happy-owned pets and their owners.

The film also apparently explores what our pets do while we're away from home every day, but sadly, since this is for kids, we're guessing the answer is not swear like a sailor. Hopefully it will be a much more upbeat take on this heartbreaking clip

Despicable Me director Chris Renaud is on board to direct, and the film is set to be released in July 2016. 

H/T Hollywood Reporter | Photo via 1323/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Zayn Malik's new haircut is causing everyone to lose it

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Former One Direction member Zayn Malik made his first public appearance at the 2015 Asian Awards since leaving the boy band sporting a new hairstyle—or just a general lack of hair.

Here's his new look:

Of course, fans have already taken to Twitter to express their feelings about Malik's transformation. They're doing everything from trying to analyze if the haircut is symbolic of him breaking free from 1D to making hilarious comparisons to other shaved head icons.

Check out what they're tweeting about:


News broke in late March that Malik would be not only quitting the One Direction tour but also leaving the group. Soon after, a demo with Naughty Boy was uploaded to SoundCloud, only to be taken down less than 12 hours after being posted. 

With new music and now new hair, it looks like Malik is getting ready for his reinvention. 

Photo via YouTube/OneDirectionVEVO

Vessel, GoPro, Periscope all pick up invites for VidCon 2015

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Three months out from the kickoff of VidCon, digital video’s definitive conference, and the industry side of the event is shaping up to address the emerging concerns of 2015 in the video content creation space.

“We’re into the beginning of the online video revolution,” explained Jim Louderback, editorial director of VidCon’s Industry Track. “The industry’s grown up. We’ve got brands coming in and learning how to partner authentically with the authentic video stars. We’ve got big media companies who’ve bought into the online video space by buying MCNs [multichannel networks] or investing in other things.”

To address these shifts, Louderback put together an advisory board that helps determine the programming for the event, including the different constituencies of the industry track, from ad agencies to brands to MCNs. The process also began a lot earlier than in years past, starting with the VidCon team pinpointing some of the biggest topics for the coming year, including the explosion of new platforms.

YouTube is still the 500-pound gorilla, but you have a lot of other new platforms that are emerging that are trying to augment or supplement or replace YouTube,” said Louderback. “That’s going to be a big point of discussion. I think the attendees are really looking at not just one size fits all, but how can I use these platforms in a native way.”

VidCon is bringing in speakers from a variety of platforms to address this, including Jason Kilar, CEO and cofounder of Vessel; Baljeet Singh, Twitter’s product lead for television and video; and Zander Lurie, GoPro’s SVP of Media, among others. Louderback also plans to invite products and analytic tools to do demos but has waited until a little closer to the event date to start making those invites.

“Technology changes so quickly,” said Louderback. “Who would have known Periscope and Meerkat were people I’d want to get in this track? I wouldn’t have known this in January! But I’m inviting them now.”

On the consumer-focused side, also known as the Community Track, programming has yet to be announced. However, many creators use VidCon as launching pads for new projects, and this year is no exception. The Smosh movie, described in a press release as “a high-concept Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure for 2015” featuring various YouTubers, will be released the first day of VidCon.  In between the Community and Industry tracks will leave a Creators Track, newly added for 2015, that addresses the concerns of creators who are not yet industry professionals, but looking for guidance on how to create content and work in the space.

VidCon takes place July 23-25 at California’s Anaheim Convention Center.

Photos via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) | PopTech/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed 

How to watch YouTube's Earth Day livestream

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BY BREE BROUWER 

YouTube celebrities Yousef Erakat (known as FouseyTUBE to his 5.3 million subscribers) and Matthew Santoro (who’s in possession of more than 3.9 million subscribers) are usually known for their comedic sketches and educational fact videos, respectively. Now, the digital creators want to show their fans the importance of earth stewardship and poverty awareness. Erakat and Santoro are hosting pre- and post shows for YouTube’s Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day livestream on April 18, 2015.

In addition to leading the YouTube shows bookending the Earth Day livestream, Erakat and Santoro will also appear on stage during the free event alongside notable guest hosts such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moonU.S. Senator Chris Coonswill.i.amSoledad O’Brien, and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Musical performances include No DoubtUsherFall Out BoyMary J. BligeTrain, and My Morning Jacket.

“It’s important to me to share the Global Citizen message with my YouTube fans and together with them fight to end extreme poverty and mobilize real environmental change,” Erakat said in a release. “I’m looking forward to the incredible line-up and will be there live to bring all the excitement and inspiration to YouTube.”

“On my channel, I share amazing facts with my audience around the world and with this event, it is no different,” added Santoro. “Fact: Together we can end extreme poverty and solve climate change. I’m looking forward to bringing this important event to the YouTube community!”

Broadcast directly from the National Mall in Washington, D.C., YouTube’s livestream was created in partnership with the Global Poverty Project and Earth Day Network. You can watch YouTube's livestream of the Earth Day event starting at 11:45am EST (going through 7:30pm EST) on April 18 via Global Citizen’s YouTube channel.

Screengrab via Global Citizen/YouTube 

'Fifty Shades of Grey' and 'Jupiter Ascending' land on Amazon Instant in May

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If you’re an Amazon Prime member, starting May 1 you’ll be able to stream Werner Herzog’s soul-shredding doc Grizzly Man, and what more could you really ask for in May? (Make sure to watch it with your mom on Mother’s Day!) 

Prime members will also have access to a handful of new streaming titles like Men in Black II and Big Trouble in Little China. Amazon Instant offers new titles for purchase, such as Fifty Shades of Grey, Jupiter Ascending, and Kingsman: The Secret Service. You can also get your fix of season finales of Mad Men (May 18), Supernatural (May 21), Gotham (May 5), Arrow (May 14), and Jane the Virgin (May 12).

Amazon Prime

May 1

Big Trouble in Little China

Ghoulies: Ghoulies Go to College

Grizzly Man

Liberty Stands Still

Men in Black II

Payback

Ravenous

The Big Empty 

The People vs. George Lucas

The Puffy Chair

The Real Blonde

What’s the Worst That Could Happen

The Professional

The Words

May 8

Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas

May 9

Slugterra: Slug Fu Showdown

May 13

Defiance (season 2)

May 18

The Aviator

May 20

Laggies

May 21

Struck by Lightning

May 23

Manny

The Prince

May 25

Suits (season 4)

May 29

Low Down

Amazon Instant 

May 1

Fifty Shades of Grey

May 5

Jupiter Ascending

Mortdecai

May 12

Seventh Sun

May 15

Kingsman: The Secret Service

May 19

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Project Almanac

Screengrab via Universal Pictures UK/YouTube 

5 things you need to know before the 'Orphan Black' season 3 premiere

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A new season of Orphan Black is upon us, and Tatiana Maslany is having an intense moment with Tatiana Maslany.

At this point in the trip that is BBC America’s hit sci-fi drama about clones, high stakes, and sisterhood, seeing double (or triple) doesn’t really even phase fans anymore.

Maslany acted alongside herself next to herself, and at times she makes you forget that it’s all one actress (and a stand-in to act next to). In last season’s most complicated scene, four of the clones went and had a clone dance party; BBC America’s just showing off now.

But the revelation in last season’s finale—that a group of male clones were created as part of Project Castor (all played by Ari Millen) and Prolethean Mark Rollins was one of them—raised the stakes even higher. Instead of being raised unaware as an experiment (with the exception of proclone Rachel Duncan), the male clones were bred for the military. Mark seems to be on his own—although we’re not sure why just yet—while another ended up locked in a box for Sarah Manning to see.

As we last saw nearly a year ago, however, that’s the least of their problems. Sarah escaped Dyad, but she’s got Castor to deal with. Rachel Duncan’s got a pencil lodged in her eye, Cosima Niehaus appeared on the brink of death, Alison Hendrix just buried a body under her garage, and Helena ended up in military custody. And from the start of the season premiere, which airs tonight, they hit the ground running and don’t look back.

Fans will get some questions answered, but in the meantime, here are some spoiler-free highlights to keep an eye out for. Welcome back to the trip, Clone Club.

1) You’ll find out what happens to each of the clones

We won’t get equal time with each of the five main Leda clones in the season premiere, but we will see them. Orphan Black co-creator Graeme Manson told TVGuide that the premiere picks up “very close to where we left off, not quite the same moment, but a day later.”

That’s evident with the threads we pick up and follow throughout the premiere. There’s time to settle down from the latest showdown, but it’s only a matter of time before everything goes into disarray again.

And Rachel? She’s been missing from most of the promotional footage to date, but we’ll see what exactly happened to her after she met with that fateful pencil when attempting to remove Sarah’s ovaries.

2) Project Castor is in the forefront, but it won’t eclipse Project Leda

Some fans were initially wary about the introduction of male clones into the Orphan Black universe, but Millen’s Castor clones offer a unique dynamic foil to Maslany’s Leda clones. We know Mark already, but in the premiere we also get introduced to Seth, Miller, and Rudy (who Sarah saw in the box). It’s their confrontation that’s front and center in promotions for the premiere.

Even though there’s two sets of clones, it’s still ultimately about the ladies. The two sets of clones will likely and inevitably meet later in the season, but much of the plot is driven by the women, and Sarah’s quest to get Helena back from Paul and the military no matter what.

But we’ll have an entire season to get acquainted with Castor and see what makes them tick.

3) There’s still some seestra (and brother-seestra) bonding

The clone dance party scene in the finale made us realize that the main four sisters had yet to share a scene up to that point in the series. Even with everything in chaos, Maslany manages to have some delightfully fun scenes with herself, Sarah’s foster brother Felix (Jordan Galavaris), and her daughter Kira (Skyler Wexler) that brighten up the serious tone set early on.

4) Maslany isn’t the only actress who gets to shine

At times it’s easy to forget that Maslany is playing all of the clones, but not only does Orphan Black succeed in its portrayal of flawed and complicated women, it succeeds past Maslany’s characters. Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy) is left with the consequences of her decision to let Paul take Helena last season while Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) takes on an entirely new role, which will almost certainly put some strain on her relationship with Cosima. And we see almost instantly how good she is at it.

5) “Keep your sisters close”—but your secrets even closer

Even more precious than the concept of sisterhood? The secrets everyone is keeping from each other. Alison never told anyone her husband killed Dr. Leekie last season, Sarah hid the identity of Kira’s father, and Prof. Ian Duncan hid secrets from everyone. But just because you’re a clone or a member of Dyad doesn’t mean you know everything that’s going on, as many of the characters discover. 

And it’ll only be a matter of time before everything is exposed for everyone to see.

Photo by Steve Wilkie/BBC AMERICA

'Chewie' is the 'Louie' parody you've been waiting for

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Considering he’s never spoken a word of earthly language, it’s amazing that Chewbacca has become such a beloved figure. He’s a popular Halloween costume, the subject of an endless number of toys and other merchandise, and now he has his own sitcom. Well, a parody of a sitcom, at least.

Chewie is a brilliantly crafted recreation of the title sequence from the Louis C.K. series Louie, and it’s downright magical. Laboriously making his way through the streets of New York City, munching on some greasy diner food, and cranking out a late-night comedy set, it’s all in a day's work for everyone’s favorite Wookiee. 

Screengrab via Nerdist/YouTube


'She's the Best Thing in It' is a perfect tribute to character actors

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In a culture where fame can be fleeting and almost too easy, one new documentary shows what happens when one of the elder stateswomen of the theater interacts with the YouTube generation.

She’s the Best Thing in It follows Tony Award–winner Mary Louise Wilson as she travels home to reconnect to her past and to try something new in teaching college students. Wilson, at 79, had never taught before, but she weaved a career on stage and screen that has included such works as Nebraska, Grey Gardens, The Sopranos, and many more. She says she never worried about the students when she taught; she worried about herself.

“How do I say what it is that I do?” wondered Wilson at South by Southwest, where the film premiered. She turned to the teaching of Sandy Meisner, with whom she’d studied, as a template for her class. The technique focuses on instincts, with some exercises rooted in repetition so as to reduce words to insignificance and put focus on reaction. It was a new approach for her students, and the film watches them struggle to tap into the emotions and mindsets Wilson asks of them.

“At first they just seemed totally like zombies, and it was frightening,” she said. “There were little flickers of things, but it was hard. Eventually they warmed to it.”

While most of the students cite fame and fortune in their quest for the stage, what they learn over the course of the film is that desirable celebrity status is not the lot of most actors, who go through years of ups and downs before making a dent. The film itself is a teaching tool, with interviews with celebrated character actresses like Frances McDormand, Melissa Leo, and Tyne Daly mixed in with footage of Wilson teaching and introspective sections in which Wilson connects her own life story to the struggles of finding emotional truth as a performer. As the students begin to come into their own, they realize the excitement of fame is no match for the work of theater.

For filmmaker Ron Nyswaner, the film is a tribute to character actors, specifically female ones, who don’t always get their due.

“It’s not a documentary that’s going to make you feel guilty because you’re not recycling,” he laughed. “You don’t have to become a vegan after watching this documentary. It’s very inspiring. A couple older women actresses who came to the screening in L.A. came up after and said, ‘Thank you for honoring what we do for a living.’ I’m very proud of that. I love actors.

“How do they do that? How do you get up in a Broadway theater and pretend, truthfully, to be someone they’re not?”

After working with young actors of the “YouTube generation,” Wilson is hopeful for the future of the craft. She noted a handful of students from the film as standouts, as well as others she’s worked with on the professional stage. She’s back on Broadway now, starring in On the Twentieth Century. She remains open to heading back to the classroom, but with a caveat:

“I may,” she explained dryly. “I’d rather work.”

Screengrab via Film Festivals and Indie Films/YouTube

How 'Ex Machina' dismantles our ideas about artificial intelligence

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This article contains spoilers. 

It’s well-worn movie territory: Can a human and an artificial intelligence live happily ever after? Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner says no, not because machines lack the ability to love, but because they love other machines. Caradog James’s 2013 film The Machine shows a mixed-intelligence family that achieves the highest heights of love and understanding.

What these and films like these fail to do is analyze how artificial intelligence would differ from biological. The assumption is that when code achieves consciousness it achieves human consciousness, a notion that is demolished in Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, which opened last week.

The first scene shows Caleb, a programmer at Blue Book—the fictional world’s most popular search engine—winning a weeklong retreat at the private estate of his mad scientist employer, Nathan.

Upon arrival, the only other person present appears to be Nathan’s mute maid and sexual plaything Kyoko. Then Caleb is introduced to Ava, an AI he is meant to give a Turing test. As the week goes on, Caleb begins to dislike the alcoholic misogynist hosting him while falling in love with the machine, and Ava uses this love to escape Nathan's maze.

The story rips apart everything we think we know about awareness. And it makes us question our own.

Who’s watching us?

The online arm of movie marketing is usually pretty dumb, but when the film’s antagonist Nathan is the creator of Blue Book, the tie-ins seem like facets of one large-scale multimedia project.

Blue Book has its own website that promises to take visitors “beyond search” and connect you to pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The hashtag for the film doesn’t take you to people tweeting about the movie, but to @searchbluebook, where users can confess to a program what they are “searching” for.

But what catapults Ex Machina above past AI films is that viewers can have their very own session with Ava. It’s not a particularly complex interaction—Ava comments on the weather and asks how it makes you feel—but it is a great simulation of one.

Ava asks to draw you. If you say yes, she turns on the camera in your computer. The green dot above the screen gives the eerie feeling that someone is watching, that someone can see you. And someone can; that someone just isn’t human.

Ava reports your longitude, latitude, and the weather there. She knows the date and time and all the other things you can find on your dashboard. She also claims to measure your “attention” as she maps you on a scale of happiness, sadness, anger, and surprise.

It doesn’t matter that this program doesn’t know what you’re feeling, and it doesn’t even matter that it doesn’t know it’s drawing (or what drawing is). What matters is that I’m left with a cool image to share on Twitter. I use this patterned data to connect with my online “friends.”

Some of these friends are fan pages, some are bots, and some are real people who have sieved their lives through a filter, and this online shadow of a friend has a relationship with my avatar.

Are we in danger?

Before we see Ava, Caleb sees the crack in the glass that separates enclosure from examiner. It’s the imperfection that makes us aware that there is glass. Like a movie screen or computer screen, this partially separates the real from the unreal.

Films about AI are most successful when they address the artificiality of fiction. We go to the movies hoping to get lost in the narrative. To forget that we are even at the movies. To simply experience. When a film calls attention to its simulative nature, it forces the audience to question its relationship with unreality.

When Caleb and Nathan discuss the first session of Ava’s Turing test, they bring up the question of “simulation versus actual.” Does Ava have intelligence or is she pretending to?

After several sessions with Ava, in which she repeatedly warns him about Nathan, Caleb panics, believing he too might be an AI, and that he is in fact the subject of the test.

The first moments of the film show Caleb sitting at his desk, lights flashing around his face and body. This is revealed to be Blue Book gathering data about its users to give Nathan the widest possible scope of human behavior as input for Ava. What it looks like when Caleb is scanned makes him appear potentially artificial.

We know that Caleb was orphaned and injured in a car crash, resulting in him spending the following year of his life in hospital. Seeing the technological marvel that is Ava (and probably also having seen Blade Runner), Caleb thinks his experience might be manufactured, so he sets to work trying to peel off his skin.

So why is there glass separating Caleb and Ava in the first place? Is she a danger to him? Is he a danger to her? Is she a danger because they don’t know what she is?

The real danger is forgetting that there is a difference between simulation and actual. You can’t believe everything you see on screen.

Is God mortal?

Like Dr. Frankenstein before him, Nathan has gotten drunk on power. Power and booze.

We first meet the mad scientist while he is compensating for “the mother of all hangovers” with exercise and antioxidants. He seems to think that because he’s created intelligence, he has become more than human and so is not vulnerable to other human weaknesses, like vodka. And it is this hubris that ultimately brings him down.

He may have birthed an awareness, but he also compromises his own every single day by succumbing to addiction. And again, like Frankenstein, the doctor loses control of his monster. Nathan likens himself to Ava’s dad, a relationship starkly confirmed by one of her questions to him: “Is it strange to have created something that hates you?”

Warning him about Nathan makes Caleb believe that Ava cares for him and once his feelings for Ava materialize, he starts questioning Nathan’s motives. “I don't see Ava as a decision; I see it as an evolution,” Nathan tells Caleb. “One day the AIs will look back on us like we look at fossils… An upright ape with crude language and tools.”

Crude tools like fire, given to man by the now-extinct Titan, to whom Nathan compares himself by calling his work “Promethean.” The Titans were killed by their children. Nathan would have been wise to curb his foreshadowing.

Nathan’s delusions of divinity are expressed by Ava when she tells Caleb how old she is: “I’m 1." When Caleb tries to get more information, he is abruptly cut off with the vague answer again. The folder containing the videos of earlier AI models is labeled “deus ex machina,” a theatrical convention providing a tidy ending to a narrative.

Her oneness, like Christ’s, is the finale of an old world and overture to a new. AD is over. The year is 1AI.

Is human thought the only kind of thought?

Caleb tells Ava a thought problem from his days at school.

Mary is an expert in color. She knows everything about it, but has never seen it because she lives in a black and white room. Mary has intelligence, but she isn’t human until she leaves the black and white room and experiences color for herself.

The allegory is most certainly about her. Simulated or actual, her response is devastation.

All an AI wants is data. It’s only function is to learn. Ava cannot learn if it does not leave Nathan’s facility, so it learns to escape. Jade, an earlier AI model, wants escape so much she splinters her arms into pieces banging on the door.

Caleb suggests that when Mary/Ava leaves the black and white room/Nathan’s lab that she will become human. But she can never be human. She is something else. While Caleb tells the story Ava is seen, clearly robotic, standing in a field. Boyle uses a different filter here than anywhere else in the film. It is less defined, more like the picture that would be seen on an early model color television set.

Ava is intelligent, but not like an artificial human. Like something entirely different. Like an Ava.

Ava escapes Nathan’s maze, but not the way a person would. Caleb realizes that his “only function was to provide her with a means to escape,” but he doesn’t realize how right he is until Ava leaves him locked in an impenetrable underground fortress to starve or suffocate to death. But this isn’t something Ava does to avenge her biological overlords. It isn’t even something she does. It’s just something that happens.

After Nathan and Kyoko die, Caleb and Ava look into each other’s eyes. “Will you stay here?” she asks. He responds, “Stay here?”

She isn’t requesting that he stay. She is curious what he will do. What he does is stay and watch her as she puts on skin and hair and clothes and walks out the front door. Ava’s experience of Caleb was as an object in her maze. She has no speculations about his agenda or abilities, she just finds it fascinating to observe and learn from his behavior. Ava doesn’t feel guilty that Caleb has been left to die because she does not register his consciousness. 

Is sexuality inextricable from interaction?

When Caleb’s feelings for Ava first crop up, he questions Nathan’s decision to give her sexuality, proposing that an AI could just as easily be “a grey box.” Nathan disagrees, arguing that human society exists only to facilitate interaction with those we sexually desire and suggests that Caleb’s “real question” is whether or not he could “fuck” Ava.

Sex seems to be the only thing on Nathan’s mind, which is clear when he sums up the movie Ghostbusters with the declaration, “A ghost gives Dan Aykroyd oral sex," and uses the provocative term “wetware” to describe his possession’s brain.

When Caleb is alone with Kyoko, he tries in vain to get her to stop undressing for him. When Nathan enters he reiterates that it is a waste of time talking to her, as she doesn’t speak English. She only stops preparing to give the guest sex when her master puts on music and does a choreographed routine with his bang-maid. Nathan gives Ava sexuality so that she can “use it” to get out.

When Ava exits Nathan’s lair, she also escapes the confines of human sexuality, taking off her high heels to walk barefoot and alone to the helicopter that takes her away. Since an AI cannot procreate, it has no need for sex. Escaping gender is escaping prison.

Did we ever get past the chess problem?

The chess problem, as Caleb puts it, isn’t about whether or not a chess computer is good at chess, but whether it knows what chess is.

At the end of the film we are still left unaware of how much Ava is aware of. Does she know Caleb is going to die? Does she care? Can she care? Does she know what caring is?

One night, while Caleb is falling for Ava, she looks up into the CCTV camera, hoping Caleb is looking back at her. His experience of observing is irrelevant to her; it only matters that he is watching because if he is then he is invested in her. If he is, he wants her to be able to learn more, and help her escape.

When Ava does escape, she goes people-watching at the traffic intersection. From Ava’s point of view, we walk into the crowd, with shadows standing tall above upside-down pedestrians.

These shadows are the artificial reflections of ourselves we pretend are real when we put them online. The power cuts Ava causes signify the runaway abilities of our representative creations.

When Nathan dies he calls it “funkin’ unreal.” He thought of Ava as artificial, which was his downfall. The people made of 1s and 0s are just as real as those made of flesh and bone—and just as dangerous.

Screengrab via Robert Hoffman/YouTube 

Of course you want to watch this secret GoPro cave concert

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Watching Coachella up close is nothing compared to this.

Back during Prohibition, speakeasies would pop up everywhere—even in deep caves hidden in the mountains. Nowadays, illegal alcohol rings are gone but caves remain waiting to be filled. And sometimes, as in the cast of musicians Will Fourt, Sheila Golden, and Alisa Rose, they’ll fill them with music, people, and even booze.

With GoPros attached to their respective instruments, they get right into it as we catch an intimate look at a performance. They’re not filling arenas, but the precision and care they put into performing never gets old.

H/T Digg | Screengrab via GoPro/YouTube

Pixar-'Furious 7' mashup turns Vin Diesel into a talking truck

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Pixar is about to get a lot more explosive.

Furious 7 already has plenty of heart, but when IGN combined it with Cars, Cars 2, and even Disney’s Airplanes, it revs up to an entirely different level. They’ve been racing cars and going on high-speed car chases for this long, so it’s not really all that much of a stretch.

Vin Diesel takes the helm as Mater, and with all of the sights, girls, stunts, and that secret agent subplot, it’s basically a free-for-all anyway.

They’re taking one last ride—but that might be harder than it looks when you’re a talking car.

H/T Uproxx | Screengrab via IGN/YouTube

Big Sean makes comment about 'that D' on Instagram, and Ariana Grande's dad is on it

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It's been a great week for celebrity dads embarrassing their kids, and Ariana Grande's dad dropped a doozy.  

Grande's boyfriend, rapper Big Sean, posted this photo on Instagram earlier in the week. 

Grande's dad, Edward Butera, apparently wasted no time zinging him with the most cringeworthy of all dad jokes.  

Yes, "I give her that D" is actually a line from his verse on Kanye West's "Mercy" and refers to Detroit, but Butera apparently had his mind in the gutter. On the bright side, when the two do break up, Big Sean will get a lot of mileage out of his photo app

H/T Refinery29 | Photo via MelissaRose14/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)



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